Der Postmeister Postmaster General
Donald Trump had a problem. A problem called “democracy.” See, he LIKED being President, (well, not the work part, but definitely charging the Secret Service to pee) but those rat-bastard Founding Fathers built all these dumb ol’ “elections” into their dumb ol’ “Constitution,” and smack dab in the middle of an economy you personally wrecked and a pandemic you disastrously mismanaged is nobody’s idea of a great time for a performance review.
Pigfucker Multipurpose Trump Tool
Devin “Pigfucker” Nunes was an early adopter of Donald Trump’s unique blend of authoritarianism and kakistocracy, and it’s not hard to understand why; it takes a whole lotta institutional white supremacy to keep men so maliciously mediocre in positions of power.
Wrinkly Gamera Breaker of Senates
There is no greater proof that the Republican base has no goddamn sense than Mitch McConnell’s consistently dismal approval rating from voters of his own party; the man is absolute ghoul, yes, and certainly he projects little folksy warmth, but he puts Ws on the board. Big ones. More than anybody I’ve ever seen.
Reichskommissar Floridaman Death Cult Reality Show Competitor/Actual Fucking Governor
One of Trump’s earliest congressional taint remoras, Ron DeSantis rode a wave of I’m With Stupid first to the Florida GOP’s 2018 gubernatorial nomination, and then, because learning from mistakes is apparently for cucks, to a narrow general election victory.
Liar Tuck Middling Telefascist
To level with y’all up front, I think Tucker Carlson is the most dangerous man in America. He’s the mouth of American fascism, and Donald Trump’s unofficial Chief Disinformation Dispenser, and, ultimately, a manufacturer of brownshirts.
The Vainglorious MTG Actual Fucking Congresswoman, Heaven Help Us
Take an unusually weak mind, surgically remove evolution’s hard-won capacity to tell fact from fiction, fill the empty spaces with hate, and you’ve got Marjorie Taylor Greene. Drop that mind in the middle of the I-know-we’re-not-supposed-to-dismiss-MAGA-whites-as-racist-hillbillies-but-COME-ON shithole known as the Georgia 14th, and you’ve got the dumbest, most malicious member of the United States Congress, and ascendant American fascism’s loudest, vilest mouth.
Incesto, the Treasonous Clown Freelance Legal Idiot
When Rudy Giuliani, having just chugged a bottle of methamphetamine-laced NyQuil, stumbled onstage to deliver his apocalyptic sermon of fear at the 2016 Republican Nation Convention, you knew something was deeply fucked in this country.
NUMBER TWO
Vice-President
Mike Pence is the Patron Saint of Mediocre White Dudes, and the Roman God of Failing Upwards.
A Democrat in his youth, Pence, like many men of limited intelligence, turned to religious conservatism for the convenience of being able to end arguments by claiming God shares his every fear and prejudice, while forgiving his every shortcoming, how convenient.
POMPEY THE NOT GREAT
Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo is one of those performatively pious fake Christians who loves using his loudly-claimed-but-seldom-followed faith like a cudgel while ignoring every single word of the actual Bible, including “and” and “the.”
UNSEXY REXY
Secretary of State
Over the course of three decades, Rex Tillerson fucked, bribed, and murdered his way to the top of Exxon Mobil, like some sort of jowlsy Eva Peron.
BILIOUS BILL
Attorney General
William Barr actually taught me a valuable lesson. See, I didn’t look too closely at Bill when he was nominated to be Attorney General. After Jeff “Too Racist for the 80’s” Sessions and the masculine toilet guy, honestly, he looked like a nice, refreshing, safe, traditional Republican. An institutionalist who could bring a little much-needed stability.
And then he turned out to be a fascist, and one of the most dangerous enemies of democracy in American history. Whoops. My bad.
MNUCHBAG
Secretary of the Treasury
Steve Mnuchin, like his namesake, the Noise You Make When You’re Dry Heaving After Getting Food Poisoning From Eating Truck Stop Gas Station Roller Hot Pockets on a Road Trip, is deeply unpleasant, and may result in the involuntary voiding of foul-smelling bodily fluids.
THE GENERALS
Secretary of Defense
Chief of Staff
National Security Advisor
Holy shit, there are Generals all over the place these days, aren’t there?
Retired General James Mattis serves as Secretary of Defense. Retired General John Kelly ran Homeland Security for a bit, before becoming the Lead Executive Branch Babysitter, excuse me, Chief of Staff. H.R. McMaster’s the National Security Advisor, and hell, he’s still on active duty.
OL’ BEAUREGARD The President's Loyal Huntin' Dawg
Attorney General
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, third generation of his family to carry the name of a Confedarate piece of trash and also a second Confederate piece of trash, is living his dream. As Velveeta Goebbels’ Attorney General, he’s turning back the clock to a time when women and minorities knew their place, and mediocre white dudes like himself got to run everything, even if they weren’t especially bright.
ZINKE BOOTZ
Ryan Zinke is like if the crappiest robot in Westworld escaped and jumped into conservative politics. He’s such a cartoon cowboy, I bet his right boot says “Andy” on the bottom.
WIL-BUR, THE GNOME KING
Secretary of Commerce
When a witch’s curse transformed his master into a Beast and his fellow servants into household objects, Wilbur Ross became a decorative garden gnome. Unlike the rest of his compatriots, he ventured out into the world to make his fortune in the realm of shady international finance and money laundering, and when True Love’s Kiss lifted the curse, Wilbur was too far away for the enchantment to reverse, and thus he remains trapped in gnome form forever.
PLAGUEMASTER T
Secretary of Health and Human Services
If the Hippocratic Oath is binding in any sort of spiritual sense, Tom Price is royally fucked, y’all. There is some straight Dante shit awaitin’ him in the afterlife.
DOCTOR NAPTIME
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Dr. Ben Carson is only in politics because he was rude President Obama to his face. At the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, a traditionally non-political event, Dr. Ben, having been invited as the keynote speaker, decided to use his time to shit on the President and his policies.
THE DEVOSTATOR
Secretary of Education
Betsy DeVos is what happens when bored white ladies have enough money to really fuck shit up. Turns out, if you’re born rich and marry richer, you don’t have to settle for a book club, you can buy yourself a whole cabinet department!
SCOTTY 2 HAUGHTY
Administrator of the EPA
Scott Pruitt, like a lot of boys his age, grew up watching Captain Planet cartoons. Unlike most boys his age, he decided that the various sludge-smog-and-toxic-waste-slinging villains were the role models for him.
Ok, fine. Pruitt is ten years too old to have grown up on Captain Planet, but fuck you, that’s a good opening paragraph. Make your own fucking website, you don’t like it.
PUBIS
Chief of Staff
Nobody wants to be Reince Priebus when they grow up. He’s just so immediately recognizable as a weaselly little tapeworm of a man, y’know?
Reince Priebus is the sort of person who would be played by Brad Dourif in a film.
DARTH WINO
Chief Strategist
Steve Bannon played Bob Ewell in a high school production of To Kill a Mockingbird, and liked it so much he decided to stay in the character for the rest of his life.
A self-described Leninist, and an outspoken populist*, Bannon wants to kidney-punch the administrative state, give it a wedgie, and steal its lunch money.
JAR-JAR
Senior Advisor/Son-in-Law
Jared Kushner was born on third base and thinks he invented baseball.
Jared’s dad, Charles Kushner, went to jail for tax evasion, illegal campaign donations, and, ahem, “witness tampering,” by which I mean he set his brother-in-law up with a hooker (not, I’m sad to report, of the Pissing Russian variety) and recorded their genital-smushing in order to blackmail him.
PRINCESS IVANKA
Daddy’s Little Girl
Ivanka Trump is what happens when you cross Gwyneth Paltrow with Mussolini’s dumbest, laziest aide-de-camp. Watching her try to sell her father’s fascism as some sort of pro-woman lifestyle brand, marketed in the sickliest imaginable shade of pink, has been one of the most bizarre subplots of this nightmare we can’t seem to pinch ourselves out of.
THE EMPRESS MALARIA
First Lady
So, while Melania Trump is perhaps not as shitty as many of the crooks, Nazis, and Nazi crooks who inhabit her dirtbag husband’s world, she manages to impressively shitty in her own right.
HEY, KELLYANNE!
Senior Counsel
Hey, Kellyaaaaaaaaaaaanne!
Hey, Kellyaaaaaaaaaaaanne!
When you worked for Akin, things weren’t simple
Cuz he got caught on tape
With legitimate rape
4-HEDD THE SHITTY WHITE GUY FROM BEYOND THE STARS
Senior Advisor for Policy
Why is it always the shittiest imaginable white dudes who turn out to be white supremacists?
Stephen Miller, who started balding eleven seconds after his conception, has by all accounts been a sack of monkey shit pretty much every single minute of his life.
THE MOOCH
Director of Communications
Oh wow, this new Communications Director looks like a real character, huh?
Where to begin? Ok, Anthony Scaramucci first came to –
Wait, what? Really?
KKKRIS KKKOBACH
White Supremacist Multi-Tool
Kris Kobach is like the protagonist of the white supremacist version of one of those Disney movies where a kid learns to chase his dreams, no matter how big. The kid gets tired of the monotonous grind of burning crosses on just one lawn at a time, and dreams of burning a cross big enough for the whole dang country!
Maybe he has a talking/singing Confederate flag for a sidekick. Named “Bedford.”
“DOC” GORKA
Roving Freelance Fascist
As seen in the famed documentary RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, when the Ark of the Covenant was opened on an uncharted island north of Crete, the burning light that issued thereof reduced the Nazi soldiers present to piles of ash and molten flesh. In time, the rains washed the fascist bio-goo into the island’s sewage system, where it mixed with the shit and piss and used tampons and such, and in time it congealed, took the shape of a man (albeit an unattractive one), slapped on a pair of glasses, and Sebastian Gorka was formed.
Marj in Charge, and Other Freaky Shit That’s Actually Happening
With memories of the divisive presidential primary fading faster than the idea of Ron DeSantis as a viable national political figure, MAGA Nation has turned peacefully inward, to contemplate the really big questions in life, like “is the rapist game show host we worship more like Jesus, or Nelson Mandela?”
And of course historians will grapple with that issue until the sun goes out.
I come down on the Jesus side myself, for do the gospels not teach us that He did beg and plead and pitch a holy fit three times on the eve of His porn star hush money trial, hoping to avoid said trial altogether? And were His pleas not thrice rejected, by the Roman Deep State and their unfairly nonwhite legal professionals?
But look, if your position happens t’be more along the lines of, say, “while certainly Christlike in many regards, he resembles Mandela MORE, because of his threats to vindictively prosecute his political opponents,” I can totally respect that. I think we can find a way to disagree without being disagreeable. But no, see, I can tell you’re upset by the way you’re waving that nail gun around.
Sigh. I hate the Culture Wars.
Point is, it’s an especially golden calf y’all have elected to lewdly undulate before, and I assure you, the rest of us are super impressed. Why, watching him order Chick-fil-A this week, one could not help but gush “DAMN, he very nearly navigated that brief social interaction like a cognitively unimpaired adult human!”
…but not quite.
And now we get to watch him grumble and fidget through an honest-to-goodness criminal trial. He’ll spend the whole thing sneaking sweaty glances at the doorway, anticipating the emergence of any number of potential nightmares, ranging from bail bondsmen to process servers to the bogeyman that keeps all Republicans awake at night: the post-Dobbs electorate!
They’re right to be scared. Arizona’s all-Republican Supreme Court decided to rewrite women’s bodily autonomy rights using outtakes from Braveheart, and the Republican-controlled House, given the chance to respond, bleated THE MEDIEVALER THE BETTER, which I suppose might maybe somehow come back to bite these theocrat fucks in the ass come Election Day.
It’s actually pretty unsettling, watching Kari Lake backpedal. You’re so used to that fervent certainty glistening through the Joan Crawford filter while she rants about the bamboo fiber-eating gremlins who live in Maricopa County’s voting machines, and suddenly it’s “p-pay no attention to my extensively documented history of batshit statements on this issue, I’m really quite m-m-moderate!”
The Dotard’s strategy to counter his vulnerability with the critical Women Who Want Legal Control of Their Own Bodies demographic appears to once again rely heavily on making a bunch of shit up, and hoping a mob takes care of the rest. Unless I missed the meeting where the Democratic Party adopted a new platform advocating to keep abortion legal through the second slow song of the child’s first homecoming dance, in which case I retract this paragraph.
The way Off-Brand Orbán casually abuses his power over the institutional GOP generally frightens me, but I’ll admit I enjoyed a dark chuckle at the unceremonious squishing of Lindsey Graham. In a party overflowing with proto-fascist taint remoras, nobody, absolutely nobody guzzled more taint juice than Lindsey, and when he finally got flicked away into that grey, hazy space where the Spicers and McDaniels shamble through their sad, brittle half-existence, it barely merited mention. Enjoy yer wages, Senator!
If you stand outside the House Republican Cloakroom, you can distinctly hear the ghost of James Doohan bellowing SHE CANNAE GOVERN, CAP’N while Mike Johnson sobs and sucks Marjorie Taylor Greene’s toes in supplication. In other words, Easter recess is over.
Moscow Marjorie, in her most magnanimous beneficenceness, permitted Mike to spend another week juggling turds atop the flaming unicycle that is the Speakership under the MAGA micro-majority. Kind of her.
Still, you can lead a messianically delusional fuckwit to the House floor, but you can’t teach him how to count votes. Honestly, every week we get through without these dolts kicking over a lantern and burning the whole fucking town down should be looked upon as a miracle.
For now, they’re stumbling over one another to make sure their personal favorite brands gain protected status under a proposed Endangered Appliances Act, before Marj blows her whistle, setting off the latest round of musical chairs.
Because these things are up to MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE now. Marjorie “the wrong side won on January 6th” Taylor Greene. The Speaker serves at the pleasure of the hate-mongering dewormer shill who made the decision to INVEST REAL MONEY IN TRUMP MEDIA; that’s right there in the Constitution, plain as the nose on your face, frankly I can’t believe you forgot the Schoolhouse Rock! video.
This “who shot Tim Sheehy” subplot may be a tad derivative, but I’m sure it’s just the opening act of the always fruitful Vetting of the Republican Senate Candidates, a ritual destined to provide future anthropologists with endless hours of befuddled delight. “Wait, why is she telling us she’s not a witch? No fucking way that’s a real campaign ad, that’s SNL!” And the other guy just smugly pulls up some Herschel Walker clips he’s been saving, the ones about trees and such.
(My working Sheehy theory: while I cannot yet conclusively determine whether the shooting occurred in the national park or Afghanistan, I’m confident it was Professor Plum.)
The first thought I had when read “Donald Trump’s New Hampshire campaign chair threatened to kill his colleagues in a shooting spree, murder the department chief and rape the chief’s wife” was that somebody must’ve plagiarized a gag I wrote six years ago, but no, it’s real reporting from real life. And, honestly, the sort of thing that happens all the time now. Ho hum.
The Gerald Ford Foundation was rocked to its very, um, foundation, amidst recriminations, resignations, and more than one old man slap fight over the decision to not give Liz Cheney the prestigious Gerry Woulda Liked You, Probably award, which is like an Oscar to America’s thriving People Who Like to Argue About What Gerald Ford Would Think subculture. Their basket art is…breathtaking.
Been tinkering with a pitch targeting the audiences of those “dangerous jobs” shows, where it’s not crab fishing or logging, it’s working in a state elections office, or a rural library. Or maybe a Planet Fitness, in this age of power-drunk internet bigot Chaya Raichik, who’s having way too much fun mashing that Incite Bomb Threats button to stop any time soon.
I certainly appreciate the bluntness of that RFK Jr. staffer who confessed the campaign’s true goal is to ratfuck America back into kakistocracy, though of course she was promptly exiled from Crackpot Narnia for such profane honesty.
I’d like to offer my full-throated support for Kevin McCarthy’s apparent decision to transform himself into a creature of pure, incandescent spite, aimed at Matt Gaetz. I LOVE this for you, Kev. Become Matt’s personal Max Cady. Get some tattoos and work up some labyrinthine revenge plots. Your life was always meant to be a cautionary tale; let’s give it a banger of a last act.
Jacob Wohl received a visit from the Comeuppance Fairy this week, that was fun. Man, remember Jacob Wohl? He seems so charmingly harmless now. Remember when right-wing creeps staged Waiting for Guffman-quality fake Elizabeth Warren sex scandals instead of hunting BLM protesters, or erecting gallows on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol? Those were the fucking wonder years, and we should’ve appreciated them more.
Actually, I think I’m gonna go drink some beer and write a mournful country song about the good ol’ days, before the weirdos turned violent. I should warn you, I don’t know how to write songs, so it’s gonna take a fair amount of beer. And this may seem like a wild coincidence, but I’ve framed this very blog’s tip jar (accepting PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App!) as a “beer fund,” as part of my hugely successful “drunken, bathrobe-clad internet loudmouth” branding.
And of course I can always use more email addresses on the ol’ mailing list, and more followers @john_luzar on Elon’s Broken Plaything, annnnnnnnd I’ll stop askin’ for stuff now. You stay safe out there, see you next week!
(Incidentally, looks like there may still be a few copies of Cover A available for preorder for the imminent new print run of my one-shot WWII comic book, Marguerite vs. the Occupation! Hoping to have additional comics news to report soon, but I gotta grind out a lil’ more work first. Couldn’t do it without y’all’s kind support, of course, and I remain deeply grateful.)
‘ without these dolts kicking over a lantern and burning the whole fucking town down’. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow?
Good rant this evening!
I thought of Mrs O’Leary’s cow too. Goodby Chicago … 😹
Oh, this is a sizzling edition!!
I’m still laughing out loud thinking about Marjorie trying to place a Biden in the barn before the flames came shooting out!!
Great snark and stress relief as always tonight CAP! This is a particularly good one:
they’re stumbling over one another to make sure their personal favorite brands gain protected status under a proposed Endangered Appliances Act, before Marj blows her whistle, setting off the latest round of musical chairs
*snicker* I’m looking for endangered appliances in my apartment right now… maybe that 15 year old quesadilla maker?
Put your feet up and have a beer!
I was.particularly amused at the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, or HOOHAA. And yes, I’ll be wanting them to keep their filthy mitts off my hoohaa, thank you very much.
I thought l was done laughing until l got to Elon’s Broken Plaything. Ah, the catharsis of an especially good rant. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Cap.
I wish for 75% less paywalls.
All hail consequences porn, comeuppance fairies, and the bringers of the FO for the perpetrators of the FA. Get comfy. Pop the corn. Justice is a comin’ round the bend and they best be ready when she does.
Thanks, Cap. I could hardly get past the first paragraph I was laughing too hard. This rest? Awesome as usual. I truly appreciate your time and effort into writing each week and helping the rest of us get through these very, very trying times.
Cap, you have no idea how calming your rants are to me…after reading your acid wit, I no longer have the urge to throw a hammer at the face of the Orange Butt Pustule when it appears on TV. As much as I look forward each week to your tomes, I do dream of the day when they would no longer be necessary, but then we’d need some sort of pied-piper to lead all the MAGA rats into the sea before that occurs.
In the meantime, you rest up, quaff a couple extra beers, ‘cuz starting Monday this week will be a doozy.
Thank you for a magnificent one, Cap! My household appliances are so happy that they now have representation in Congress.
And the vetting of MAGA candidates for US Senate gets an F for free fall. California Carpetbagger who is running in (checks his notes) Wisconsin has been airing TV ads as vacuous and plastic as he is. Rich banker who can self-fund campaign, check. Lives and “works” in California, check. Trying to buy a Senate seat, check. Qualifications for job, zero.
We have a truly great Senator, who quietly, steadily works for all of us in Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin. We’re keeping her, thanks.
We are keeping our Oregon Senators, too, thank you very much. Wyden and Merkley work hard, play nice with others and work hard with other2 to make life better for folks in our state and in all our states. We know how blessed we are and we are keeping them.
Welcome back-ish, Cap!!
Thanks for the analysis, the linked stories and your overall niceness about the sheer madness that has descended upon America. We all remember when things were less strident, less blatantly insane, and much, much less likely some stranger would shoot you and fourteen other random individuals because he was mad about his last haircut. . .
As for that song, well, here’s some doggerel to help you get those creative juices flowing. . .
America the Confused
“Well this used to be a country that made most citizens sigh,
When they saw a field of flowers or the morning/evening sky–
But now the wackos run the show, and laugh when shoppers die,
Because some incel weirdo would rather kill than cry. . .
Yes the days of (sort of) safety are sadly in our past,
Since the GOP decided that our country wouldn’t last,
They promised they’d do all they could to make the country fail,
Including back a Prezudunk who needs to be in jail!
They turned a blind eye to his crimes, too numerous to say,
Promoted him and bowed to him, now he won’t go away!
He lies and lies and lies some more, but his followers agree,
He’s probably the most honest thief that they will ever see!
Our ‘lawmakers’ would rather vote to save a deadly stove,
Than fund Ukraine, who needs our help, or give Palestine some love.
They’d rather keep the pirate’s code, than help those folks in need,
Because, it seems, they really like to watch the ‘other’ bleed. . .
With skill and love and faith and care we could turn this all around–
Or sit and watch the GOP fly our land into the ground.
I’d rather come together even if the fight’s long lost,
And do all that this nation can to NOT give up the ghost!
America could do it, could make the whole world see,
what 300 million caring souls could help this nation be.
If only we would take the time to hang the GOP,
And kick the bullies the fuck out from sea to shining sea!
Without the ‘people’ working hard to see the US fall,
The rest of us could get on with the jobs that help us all.
And if you want to watch a drag show, either kind I say,
Who really cares?”
Yeah, terrible, I know, but I really liked the ‘hang the GOP’ line.
Anyway, glad to see another episode, wish you’d done it for April Fools, but I know what going over and over and over news from both America and the world would do to my equilibrium, or something like that.
We love you, Cap, and if you ever descend far enough into utter madness to want to try for President, I’m sure you’d get at least a few thousand votes. . .
Stay safe, and as sane as you can.
Henry Rinehart
What if they held an election and nobody gave a flying fuck because politics is broken, society is cracking and goddamn it, the weather is more interesting. What the fuck if, huh? I really like it when the politics is running smooth and quiet in the background instead of eating our brains daily. Lock him up, now. America can’t possibly be stupid enough to … Oh crap