I’d like to congratulate Kharg Island, the new odds-on favorite heading into the final round of Who Wants to be the 51st State, the hit reality show none of us can ever ever EVER FUCKING TURN OFF, where a somnolent megalomaniac races Vladimir Putin and his own rapidly decomposing brain to carve out something passably legacy-shaped on a real-life Risk board.

Ope! Never mind! Ground invasion’s off! Don’t put those contingency plans for decades of bloody quagmire away just yet, though; we might still need them next time Grandpa decides the pundits aren’t showing proper deference.

This is the Don-roe Doctrine, where a wounded narcissist lashes out with the most terrifying military machinery money can buy, desperate for dopamine between public humiliations as he dodders and wobbles and naps his way through the looooooong overdue And Fall part.

He’s always extra bloodthirsty after peeking outside the wingnut media bubble for a chat, however brief, with an actual journalist, so you knew somebody somewhere was in trouble the minute you saw him scamper away from that Kristen Welker interview. While it’s perhaps a bit early to speak definitively, many historians are calling him the most callously murderous FIFA Peace Prize laureate of all time.

I JUST DROPPED A QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS’ WORTH OF BOMBS ON PEOPLE! IMPRESSED YET, DAD? I BET SALMA HAYEK WILL GO OUT WITH ME NOW! HEY, LET’S GO WAKE UP JEROME POWELL AND TELL HIM HOW MUCH THE BOMBS I JUST DROPPED COST but of course by the time you get his shoes on and get him in the car, he’s all tuckered out.

Two hundred and fifty million. Good thing we didn’t spend that on any woke shit, like monitoring and/or containing screwworm outbreaks. No, Fashy Daddy needs to commit genuine war crimes nowadays, because the Diet Coke button doesn’t hit the way it used to, back before he needed to see 22 different doctors at once.

Twenty-TWO, you say? My, my, my. Sounds like an awful lot of doctors.

Perhaps they came from every corner of the globe to bask in your cognitive radiance. NO! To CHALLENGE it! “I shall expose this charlatan by administering the cognitive test of my people, a far more rigorous dementia screening than those in fashion in the decadent West!”

Only to fall, one after another, until fully two-and-twenty lay strewn haphazardly about the examination room, exhausted, ecstatic…and converted.

Yeah, that’s probably what happened.

Jokes aside, if somebody at Walter Reed could work up some method of, like, stealthily sneaking a few Econ 101 pointers into these apparently regular exams…maybe if he can’t get that “perfect score” without acknowledging the fundamental realities of how tariffs work, we can trick him into assaulting our economy with slightly less vigor?

Not that I’m not enjoying the inflation. I might even go as far as to say, “I love the inflation,” but I’m told that phrase has been trademarked, no doubt by some branding genius who is about to experience the sort of electoral mega-success that only comes from being unusually in touch with voters’ concerns.

Somebody who can cut through the bullshit to understand that while the plebs say they’re worried about gas and groceries, it’s the insufficiently gilded horse statues by the president’s office that really keep ‘em up at night.

Incidentally, the new algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is way Americaner than the algae that was there before the multi-million-dollar renovation. It’s almost hard to believe that before populism, we spent taxpayer money on dumb ol’ health care.

I see some enterprising patriot, swept up in party prep fervor, took it upon themselves to beautify the National Mall ahead of the festivities. Why, that must be the largest 86 47 to date. Won’t be long till they’re visible from space.

Alas, the Arc de Senilité won’t be completed in time for the weekend’s stunted masculinity convention, though we could see it soon enough, thanks to a proposed round-the-clock construction schedule that definitely wasn’t written by someone who’s worried about dying.

He’s also trying to get his impeachments “expunged”, whatever he imagines that means. Then we amend the Constitution to say he won the 2020 election, and shoot, there’s gotta be SOME way to un-conceive Eric.

No shortage of thinkpiecery on the super subtle symbolism of the gladiator pit on the people’s whatever. For my taste, I think the desecration of the Situation Room with panicked Epstein cover-up spitballing captures the rot a little more neatly, but the bit about carelessly blinding incoming pilots was a fantastic detail, I’ll admit.

Pete Hegseth figured what this year’s D-Day commemoration needed was a little both-sidesing of the core ideological conflict. He was so pleased with the results, he accidentally excommunicated the entire Mormon faith from MAGA Christendom ahead of schedule, forgetting they’ll need Mike Lee’s vote during the coming impeachment trial/s.

Don’t forget to leave an offering of curdled mayonnaise on the counter overnight to thank Stephen Miller for protecting the homeland from the ever-looming threat of Somali soccer referees. People don’t remember how things used to be in this country. Roving bands, officiating at will. Why, there were entire neighborhoods where you couldn’t get away with unsporting behavior of any kind.

The various busloads of Antifas really earned their Soros funding this week, shuttling between paid riots at the Delaney Hall ICE facility in New Jersey and election-stealing operations in Los Angeles, where they tricked tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Spencer Pratt voters by making grabbing gestures near their faces, proclaiming “got your nose,” and refusing to return them until after polls had closed.

For years, scientists have lamented the lack of resources to investigate one of the human condition’s great unanswered questions: what would happen if the dorkiest white supremacist alive did a trillion dollars’ worth of ketamine? Well, lament no more! But do we possess instrumentation fine enough to document the new depths of cringe we’re about to unearth?

You know, if I get enough donations, I could be history’s second trillionaire. I promise to spend any money you send (via Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App!) on beer instead of space tourism or stealing food and medicine from hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable among us.

Okay. As always, stay safe out there, and maybe follow @john_luzar and sign up on my email list while you’re staying safe out there. If you achieve a state of relatively reliable safety, why not ANSWER YOUR KICKSTARTER SURVEY so I can mail you the comic books you bought?

…because I’m about to sell you another comic book, y’know…