Hey hey, Shower Captives! Hope you enjoyed the holiday break. The down time was certainly appreciated, but now we’re getting ready to seat a brand-spankin’-new Congress, we’ve got Ruth Bader Ginsburg back, and it’s time to fuck some fascists’ shit up again, don’tcha think?

After the helpful idiots on the magical talking teevee box explained to him that General Mattis was in fact shitting all over him in his resignation letter, Tangerine Idi Amin decided the momentary thrill of an ego-driven tantrum was more important than the readiness of the United States Armed Forces, forcing Mattis out immediately rather than allowing him to stay on through an orderly transition. Don’t worry though, the new Acting Defense Secretary doesn’t have any military or diplomatic experience, so he’ll fit right in!

Similarly stung by Brett McGurk’s resignation, President Gas Station Urinal Cake attempted to diminish the respected, long-serving, diplomat by saying he didn’t even know the guy. What he accomplished, however, was informing the world that the commander in chief isn’t paying attention to his own ISIS envoy, cuz he’s too busy watching cable news all goddamn day. You have to hand it to him, he really delivered an all-time great Xmas…to America’s enemies. Between this and the Syria pullout, well, if there’s a 34th Street in Moscow, they’re celebrating a miracle on it this week.

A few outgoing Republican lawmakers miraculously found the courage to stand up to Hairpiece Himmler that they’d somehow been unable to locate while they actually held the power to check him. Drumpfy and Bob Corker got into one last slap fight, for old times’ sake. Carlos Curbelo just now noticed that “Things are not well in the USA,” bless his little heart. And Mark Sanford, on his way out the door back to the Appalachian Trail, warned of the potential for a “Hitler-like character” to rise in the future, ignoring the inconvenient detail that his own political party is currently led by wannabe dictator who opened concentration camps for children on American soil.

…I miss these guys already, don’t you?

Steve Mnuchin tried to play Treasury Secretary, and it was almost kinda cute, like watching a small child toddle into an operating theater, dressed up in scrubs like doctor, but at a certain point you realize the kid is washing up and the nurse is handing him a scalpel and holy shit he’s about to make an incision in your dad’s torso, and suddenly it’s not so cute anymore.

Yeah, ol’ Mnuchbag tried to calm markets right before Xmas, apparently by stumbling around, drenched with sweat, teeth audibly chattering, as he insisted there was no reason for anyone to panic, only nobody had been panicking, at least they weren’t before the goddamn Treasury Secretary popped up out of nowhere to tell everybody to stop panicking. You know what I miss? COMPETENCE.

Shart Garfunkel is also making some grunty noises about wanting to fire the Fed Chair, because he thinks that will make the stock market go up, and yes, that sounds ridiculous until you remember this is a man who cannot figure out how an umbrella closes.

Hell, the doddering old bastard somehow managed to bungle something as simple as an Xmas call to a child, jabbering on about how only cucks believe in Santa or something. It’s truly amazing how he botches the simplest tasks. He’s like a machine that fucks things up. If you gave him a jar of mayonnaise to open, he’d just smash it on his own groin till it shattered.

Another migrant child died in US custody, because we’re currently governed by hateful monsters who don’t value human life. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, of course, never passes up an opportunity to reveal the jagged, pus-oozing, depths of her malevolent soul, issued a vile statement dripping with so much unapologetic evil, you’d think it was over the top if you encountered it as, say, dialogue from a Disney villain.

The Failing New York Times tracked down the children of the doctor who gave President Valor Thief his bullshit “bone spurs” draft-dodging diagnosis back in the day, saying it was done as a favor to Orange Julius Caesar’s dad, who was the doctor’s landlord. There’s always a Ronny Jackson around someplace, if you just know where to look for one*.

Seems Hot Tub SpokesGoon Matt Whitaker fabricated some academic accomplishments on government forms to make it seem like he’s actually qualified to be Acting Attorney General of the Whole Dang United States instead of what he is, a cud-brained grifter who got his job by kissing the Velveeta Vulgarian’s ass on television. Me, I think we need to test the whole fuckin’ résumé. I doubt he can really do a French accent like it says. And the bit about juggling on a unicycle? Let’s just say I’m skeptical. Oh, and of course he should be fired for this, immediately, but everyone knows there are no rules here in Shitty Wonderland.

Carter Page ate a bath salts sandwich and filed a crazed, spittle-drenched, motion in his defamation lawsuit against the DNC, in which he is representing himself, because of course he is. Y’know, I really hope when the films of this shitshow get made, Carter’s antics don’t wind up on the cutting room floor; it would be a really nice role for some showy, self-indulgent, stage actor. Imagine a young Gary Oldman type, ranting like a maniac, wearing a series of increasingly comical hats.

And now McClatchy says Michael Cohen, or one of his phones anyway, appears to have been near Prague at the time the Steel Dossier claims he was meeting with th’Russians there. Says who? Says phone and surveillance data, that’s who. Apparently. Cohen still denies ever being anywhere near Prague, and he seems like a nice, honest, boy, doesn’t he?

Well, it only took two years of near-constant shaming, but the Bonespur Buttplug finally visited the troops overseas! MAGA nation, desperate for the slightest whiff of an accomplishment from their Turd Emperor, celebrated the temporary quieting of a single criticism as though Lil’ Donnie Two-Scoops had won the Super Bowl and colonized Mars, all in the same weekend.

Now, did Fat Q*Bert still find a way to fuck up a brief ceremonial visit? No, of course not. Come on, you know better than that. He found NUMEROUS ways to fuck up a brief ceremonial visit. He whinged about the dangerous flight into Iraq, on a plane without one single gold toilet. He unethically and possibly illegally used the troops as campaign props, passing around his shitty, made-in-China ballcaps. Naturally, he lied a whole fucking bunch, bragging about a massive raise he didn’t give the troops, and also claiming he invented bullets and shore leave. He was so anxious to get back home for TV and golf that he didn’t meet with any Iraqi leaders, prompting calls to kick our troops out of the whole country. Oh, and he revealed the location and identities of U.S. Navy Seal Team 5, on fucking Twitter, just CUZ.

HOW DID HE FUCK SO MANY THINGS UP?!?!? HE WAS ONLY THERE FOR THREE HOURS!

Back home, we’re all enjoying Baron Golfin von Fatfuk’s petulant government shutdown, of course. No votes are expected this week. Paul Ryan’s all, “What the fuck do you want from me? I couldn’t solve problems before the lame-duck senioritis set in, I just want to get back to Wisconsin and hunt the homeless for sport.”

But while hundreds of thousands of government employees are working without getting paid this holiday season, you’ll be pleased to learn that Princess Ivanka and her pet Jar-Jar aren’t letting the peasants’ distress interfere with their holiday travel plans! Even better, there’s still money for tents to shove the Secret Service under while they protect President Crotchvoid and his mega-rich friends down at Marm-a-Lago during the winter party season. Surely this news will warm many a furloughed heart.

Don’t worry though, the Treasonweasel Administration has helpfully suggested that all of the workers they’re fucking over for the Big Dumb Wall Nobody Wants can just do odd jobs for their landlords in exchange for rent.  That’s a real thing that happened in the real world.  

Anyway, the Shart of the Deal’s grand strategy seems to mostly involve waiting for Democrats to take over the House while peevishly demanding a policy overwhelmingly opposed by a clear majority of his constituents. Starting to think maybe rather than being some sort of master negotiator, this guy is a blithering clod who only has fantastically wealthy parents to thank for the fact that he even survived childhood.

He understands Mueller’s still gonna keep on working, right? Maybe he doesn’t, since he’s using the shutdown to postpone the day of reckoning in the emoluments lawsuit, which has now been postponed since he’s using DoJ attorneys, paid for with your tax dollars and mine, to fight for his right to keep giant garbage bags labeled “BRIBES GO HERE” in the lobby of his D.C. hotel.

Anyway, kudos go out to Nancy Pelosi, who has opened a new satellite office directly under Wee Don’s skin by pointing out that he’s negotiated himself down from a concrete wall Mexico pays for to a “beaded curtain,” which he will still not get financed by Congress. We’re in good hands ‘till the next party leader emerges from the primaries.

So many new phrases have entered our day-to-day vocabulary during this shitshow. “Emoluments clause.” “Unindicted co-conspirator.” “Marmalade Shartcannon.” Court filings today introduced a disturbing new phrase sure to be bandied about in hushed whispers the world over…”NUDE SELFIE.” My god, there are so many people in this story who I desperately hope are not in that photograph. None of them would be ok, unless it was Mike Pence, and he was still in tighty-whities and a hairshirt, but he considers that “nudity.”

Anyway, that’s all I got, folks. I hate to leave you with such a potentially unsettling image. Have yourself a Toblerone, you’ll feel better.

*Dumpsters, mainly.