Well folks, I keep on pinching myself, and I can’t seem to wake up, so I am resigned to the conclusion that all this shit is indeed happening in real life. And people wonder why I drink. Well, let’s dive in…

Just to get the boring shit out of the way up front, Forbes says Dorito Mussolini sold $35 million in real estate last year, often to buyers using limited liability companies to remain anonymous. That would’ve been the single biggest scandal of the entire Obama administration, Sean Hannity would’ve popped every vein in his forehead in glee that he got to cover it, it’s corrupt as fuck, and you’ll have forgotten it by the end of this post.

If your New Year’s resolution involved giving up schadenfreude, Alex Jones sure is making things hard on you. He just keeps on losing in court, this time a judge granted the discovery request of the Sandy Hook families who’re suing his punk ass for, you know, terrorizing them in the wake of the unspeakable tragedy they suffered. Word of advice though: if you’re poking around in that nutjob’s drawers and closets…wear gloves.

Visibly Deteriorating Cousin Fucker Rudy Giuliani thinks Shart Garfunkel’s legal team should get the chance to “correct” any report produced by Bodacious Bob Mueller and his team, which is frankly fucking adorable. Like a suspect telling the D.A. she can show the jury the murder weapon, but only so long as he’s allowed to remove all evidence of his DNA from it first.

So, you probably remember a few weeks back when the Senate passed a bill making lynching a federal crime. And I bet it surprised you, to learn that lynching wasn’t already a federal crime. Y’know what won’t surprise you? Learning that a group of evangelical “Christians” wants to strike language from the bill referencing LGBTQ people. While these folks aren’t so good at “following the teachings of the actual Bible” or “basic human decency,” you have to admit they’re remarkably consistent.

Every so often, I come across a headline I couldn’t possibly hope to improve upon. “Social Security official: Married working mothers hurt society, condoms rob women of “remarkable chemicals” in semen” is one such headline. Moving on.

Speaking of The’Best People, seems Richard Grenell isn’t winning friends or influencing people over in Germany. Who could have predicted that making a right-wing troll your ambassador, and letting him meddle in domestic politics would backfire so spectacularly, except for literally everyone?

Tragedy in Griftopia as the plot to crowdfund the Big Stupid Wall was revealed for the cheap con it so obviously always was, with the shady character behind it attempting to divert the proceeds to a “nonprofit” of his own founding. Now, GoFundMe is refunding every idiot, racist, dollar. Disappointed backers can console themselves that at least there’ll be a little more spare change in the meth budget this month.

The Shart Administration’s deep commitment to populism was on display when economic adviser Kevin Hassett congratulated all the furloughed federal workers on their unexpected bonanza of vacation time! Yes, it’s just like a vacation, Kev, except instead of dropping acid and going on It’s a Small World or puking your way through a Napa Valley wine tour, you’re making fun decisions about whether to pay your rent or pick up your child’s lifesaving prescription from the pharmacy! More of a staycation, really.

We’re generally at a lull in the Shartdown; everybody’s seen the stuff on the National Parks closing and the TSA screener furloughs, so those little bits of senseless suffering are old hat by now. To spice things up, why not sample some of the articles on the needless damage yet to come should Tangerine Idi Amin continue holding the nation and its economy hostage to his fragile ego?

Still he spent the weekend roaming the halls of an empty White House, exactly like the Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, only none of the furniture could talk and instead of being a basically likable tragic figure, he’s a massive asshole loathed all over the world.

Anyway, the House keeps passing bills to open the government, and Mitch McConnell keeps locking ‘em up in his desk, next to his decency and his respect for the Constitution. The good news is, Strawberry Shartcake says he doesn’t care what we call the wall! Call it “Peaches,” call it “Herb,” it’s all the same to him. But I bet that even if you appropriated 20 billion dollars for the wall on the condition that he had to call it “Donald Trump isn’t as wealthy as he claims to be” and paint that phrase on every inch, he’d turn it down.

Hey, didja see that story where the Tangelo-Tinged Treasonweasel keeps doing everything he can to conceal the contents of his private meetings with Vladimir Putin from even his own advisors, up to and including confiscating his interpreter’s notes? Wow, that’s kinda weird, don’tcha think? Thank God there’s no evidence that the Russians worked to install him in power or that he maybe colluded with them to attack American democracy or that he seems to be doing Putin’s bidding at every turn, because if any of that happened, I’d have some serious concerns, friends. I might even write my Congressman a sternly-worded letter, under those circumstances.

It’s not surprising, but still utterly insane, to see the GOP continue shrugging off every new revelation, however damning. Ted Cruz was seen in an Austin tattoo parlor, getting a tramp stamp that reads “Property of the Guy Who Insulted My Wife and My Dad.” Meanwhile Lindsey Graham gets more and more treasonous by the hour. I half expect him to hijack a nuclear submarine and defect.

Bad news for anyone holding out hope for Sharty McFly to ever receive his comeuppance, as he called into Jeanine Pirro’s show to suggest that somebody really oughtta look into Michael Cohen’s father-in-law rather than all this collusion and what have you. Bob Mueller, who watches Judge Jeanine religiously, immediately shouted “Pack it in, boys! I want everybody on this Michael Cohen’s Father-in-Law guy right this minute! He’s clearly the real threat here!” Anyway, you’d think witness tampering would get boring after awhile, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Speaking of the Bobadook, word on the street* is, he’s looking into a meeting attended by Devin “Pigfucker” Nunes, Mike “The Turkish Delight” Flynn, and a whole bunch of foreign officials. When Devin got this news, he was so distraught, he couldn’t even finish fucking the pig he’d procured for the evening, but he paid her in full because though he is a traitor, he is a gentleman, if only to the pigs he fucks.

The American court system has surely grown tired of winning in their multi-front conflict with the Shart Administration. The attempt to give your employer power to decide whether or not you’re allowed to have birth control? Blocked. The malicious plan to turn the census into a tool of fear and oppression via the needless inclusion of a citizenship question? Smacked down. The case seeking to force the President to tie his tie at an appropriate length like a goddamn grown-up is still pending, however.

And President Gas Station Urinal Cake is already lashing out at his shiny new (acting) Chief of Staff, but at least that gave me an excuse to google “You fucked it all up, Mick.” As is customary for advisors who displease the Turd Emperor, Mulvaney was ordered to spend the night in the Rose Garden doghouse, the walls of which contain the fading remnants of an ongoing tic tac toe game between Jeff Sessions and Rex Tillerson.

Suddenly, utterly without precedent and completely out of nowhere, Steve King magically transformed into a racist person, much to the dismay of his political party. The House GOP took action at lightning speed, condemning this never-before-seen-no-not-even-once behavior, stripping King of his committee assignments, and passing a resolution condemning white supremacy (which a desperately floundering King himself hilariously voted for), before getting back to work demanding funds for the mega-racist border wall that he’s been fighting for his whole political life.

Fortunately King is an outlier in an otherwise totally racism-free party. Except for this lady, who is, we must admit, a touch on the hateful side. Oh, and that one guy who thought it was a good idea to invoke the Wounded Knee massacre for a “joke” about Elizabeth Warren, who was that again? Oh right, the President.

The Very Fine and Much Less Racist Than Steve King Wink Wink President also attacked the Congressional Hispanic Congress for leading a trip to Puerto Rico for a fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Maria, still suffering after his Criminally Insufficient Not at All Driven by Racism response. To exacerbate the tension, I’m told no paper towels were thrown at the CHC’s event.

Folks, someday I’ll be on my death bed, and my mind will have deteriorated to the point where it’s all but leaking out my ears, and the very last thing I will remember on this earth will be this thing with Fat Q*Bert, the Clemson Tigers, and the fast food. You know the story by now of course, but a chronicler’s gotta chronicle, so here goes:

Hosting the college football champs in the White House during the shutdown, the Velveeta Vulgarian was faced with a dilemma; how do you feed your guests when your kitchen staff is furloughed? Well, if you’re cheap, and you’re tacky, and you’re also a great big fucking idiot, you just order a bunch of fast food. And then, and this is the true genius stroke, you let it sit out till it gets cold, while you invite reporters to photograph this monument to your titanic stinginess, before feeding everybody nasty-ass room temperature burgers. It’s the DonaldTrumpest thing that’s ever happened.

Of course he made sure to tell everyone he paid for it his own self with his own money. (Which of course is almost certainly not true. And you know the cheap bastard didn’t tip the delivery driver.) What I’ll never forget is the sight of him, gazing out with pride upon the bounty he’d provided, like a little kid who’s just made a castle on the lawn out of the dog’s shit.

How old were you when you figured out McDonald’s was 100% revolting if you let it sit out? Like, five? You tried it once, and never did it again for the rest of your life. It was probably your very first adult decision.

The Failing New York Times reports that Hairplug Himmler keeps pestering his advisors, “Can we pull out of NATO yet? How about now? How about now?” until John Bolton threatens to turn this car around and go home. Look, just because the President is actively working to undermine the post-WWII international order that’s kept the peace for decades and just because that’s exactly what Vlad Putin has asked Santa Clause for every year since he was 3 doesn’t mean that the President is a Russian asset, but I have to admit that there aren’t a lot of other options that make sense.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held Attorney General nominee William Barr’s confirmation hearing today. It doesn’t seem to have been very funny, but I thought you should know about it anyway. Barr seems like a really dangerous partisan hack who won’t make a very good AG, but after Sessions and Whitaker, I feel better about him, because my standards have been stomped to jelly. Sources say potential Democratic presidential candidates on the committee were a little bummed this hearing would offer fewer opportunities for righteous pontification than that time they all got to yell at Brett Kavanaugh.

Across the pond, Theresa May’s Brexit deal fell apart after being rejected by Parliament, which is kind of like Congress, only with sillier hats and monocles probably. I’m not super-familiar with British politics, but my understanding is, she will now be pinned to the cricket pitch using wickets while the batsman does some other English, cricket-y things…I’m tired, you fuckin’ finish the joke.

It’s very probable I missed some shit tonight, as I am once again all fucked up on allergy meds. Did we invade Venezuela yet? Feel free to point out my shortcomings in the comments.

*And by “the street” I mean “the Daily Beast.”