Reports in the Lügenpresse of Dear Leader’s mental decline are false, slanderous, and some third bad thing, especially the dozens of videos of him falling asleep, and we’ll prove it by administering yet another of his increasingly regular dementia screenings. Normally he can’t take enough cognitive tests, but right now he’s busy explaining to the Teddy Roosevelt hologram that he wants to have a threesome with his sons.

Yeah, he’s fine. Any other wars you feel like starting, sir? Before you collapse into a pile of slugs?

On the bright side, the Slapstick, On-the-Nose Metaphors for American Decline Fair couldn’t be going better. In fact—hang on, I’m being handed a correction…Great American what, now? Ah. I see. Well, that is a horse of a different color, isn’t it?

Fewer Confederate flags than I expected, honestly.

Boy, Fox just loves that empty field, huh? I bet they could broadcast the news (“news”) from just about anywhere in the world, but I agree, the conspicuously under-attended party makes a spectacular frame.

There’s still plenty of available booth space if you’ve ever wanted to see your child martyred to American greatness on the altar of graft. I can’t wait to meet the face at the end of that no-bid contract, y’know? The bar’s pretty high, but I’ve learned not to underestimate MAGA’s ability to dig up One More Freak.

Well, we’re kicking the Fall of Rome’s ass in memes, anyway.

Pollsters tell us proud-to-be-Americanness has hit some lows, which I get. Between the authoritarian idolatry and the blown-up schoolchildren and the universal designated hitter rule, maybe the apple pie doesn’t hit the way it used to.

I say quit yer bitchin’. Do you know how many dudes got bayoneted so you could enjoy the freedom to guzzle fried slurry in your car while you feed your kids’ college money into Candy Crush? Which you’ll notice is a bayonet-free experience, ingrate! Shit, you could get curly fries at Arby’s and then drive to Sonic for a 2,000-calorie malt before the fries get cold I bet plus I’ve heard that if you pay in TrumpCoin at Taco Bell they’ll let you stick that sour cream gun into an orifice of your choosing ALL WITHOUT ENCOUNTERING A SINGLE BAYONET.

This is the greatest country in the world. You can start with nothing but tens of millions of your daddy’s dollars and a talent for deceiving idiots and wind up with billions in annual income. All it takes is a little elbow grease. That’s what the hand splotches are. Elbow grease. You wouldn’t know because you’re such a filthy taker.

He’s earned every bit of it. The crypto, the Kazakh tungsten mines, the Qatari jet. Why, it’s the “best plane ever built,” way better than the weak-ass planes they make in that shithole America place with the rapist president.

Troy Nehls works harder than you, so he shall dine this holiday weekend upon lobster doused in the fanciest Dijon catsups, and frankly, you’re lucky he doesn’t eat them off your worthless serf back. The abovementioned “work” is limited to badass trolling, so of course there’s no time for cuck shit like reversing the Republican policies that’ve cost us all so much fucking money.

Don’t get the Roberts Court wrong; enshrining institutional white supremacy is still important, but the plain text of the actual Constitution is a wicket of substantial stickiness, and while it’s certainly equal parts terrifying and adorable watching the extremists pretend there’s ambiguity in “all persons born,” birthright citizenship is here to stay.

I admit I was surprised by the ferocity of the ensuing wingnut meltdown, because “all” is one of those words you figure more or less everyone understands, though I suppose he’s not selling all that cryptocurrency to geniuses.

Still, I’m sure there were a great many letters to White Nationalist Santa (Megyn Kelly’s Santa) pledging to contentedly forgo all other gifts this year if they could please just this once have “all” mean something different for the duration of one itty-bitty SCOTUS decision. Having failed to prepare emotionally for an obvious outcome, the Stephen Miller wing emitted hissing sounds and noxious fluids, which Wikipedia assures me is normal.

Do make time for The Federalist’s Sean Davis’ normal, human response to the ruling, containing all sorts of sane, healthy thoughts about wombs. Unless, of course, you’d like to ever sleep at night again.

Sure, Obama got Bin Laden, and that was okay if you’re into that sort of thing, but I think every American will forever remember where they were when Jeanine Pirro finally got the bastard who carved an admittedly 348-feet-shorter-than-reported gash in the Reflecting Pool for which so many brave men got bayoneted, probably right in the face.

Basically, every single news story this week is from a hypothetical Jeff Foxworthy special called You Might Be in a Banana Republic If…

I see Elon has been navigating the transition to trillionairehood with the expected increase in megalomania. I wonder how Nicholas Kristof sleeps at night, knowing that elaborate death traps are being constructed in an undersea lair with him in mind.

Mike Johnson’s extra faceplant-y week has Republicans grumbling about the general shittiness of his leadership, which is certainly a reasonable response to Mike Johnson, but, like…what’re you dorks gonna do about it? Get somebody better? Where? Denny’s? If you wanted people who’re good at things, you wouldn’t have chosen kakistocracy.

While Donald Trump has wielded the dragging-shit-out-in-court tactic with great effectiveness, to the detriment of all life on Earth, it has also provided regular jolts of schadenfreude, as his more desperate arguments got laughed out of court after court after court.

Now that we’re at the end of the road, I realize I’ll miss the E. Jean Carroll updates most of all. Every one of those push notifications made you smile, right? FUCK yes. GIT him, E. Jean! I suppose we still have the formal transferring of the judgment to look forward to.

Ironically enough, though, we’re going to get to watch him lose Georgia one last time, because Kid Kash is on the case, baby! He’s got boxes of docs, and he will track down every last bamboo fiber, even if he has to pay overtime, but don’t worry, that comes from a different pile of taxpayer money than the one that pays for his girlfriend’s security detail.

Elsewhere in the intelligence community, Bill Pulte has begun purging agents of what he imagines to be th’Deep State, utilizing only the most sophisticated decoder rings obtained from Cracker Jack boxes that had only recently expired.

Well, the president who thinks professional wrestling is real appointed a Health and Human Services Secretary who thinks professional wrestling is real, so I don’t know why anybody’s surprised about the measles outbreaks. That said, from now on, whenever he does something nutty, I’m gonna say, like, “Looks like we’re still keepin’ it RFKayfabe!” which is a wrestling joke, and it is my deepest hope that I’m introducing at least one or two readers to the word “kayfabe,” which is a delightful little word.

For all the gags about the parade of flawless metaphors coming out of the birthday “party,” I’d like to suggest it’s a tragically ironic story about Venezuelans deported directly to their death that best captures the spirit of Trumpism. They’re doing so much evil they periodically stumble into extra evil by chance.

In spite of all this, I remain proud to be an American, because an American, y’see, is all the things these dorks aren’t. Patriotism is the very last thing I’d cede to them. Pry it off the floor of my cold, algae-swamped Reflecting Pool, asshole! (But please don’t tell Jeanine Pirro.)

Shit, I’m so proud to be American, I wrote a whole-ass comic book about…y’know what? Why don’t I just show you? It’s Independence Day weekend; here’s a link to issue #1 of GENERAL WASHINGTON AND THE LIBERTY TREE, if you haven’t already read it. Dive in, and know that the Kickstarter for issue #2 is coming just as soon as I get my shit together, which…HEY LOOK, HE INVADED GREENLAND!

As ever, if you dug this diatribe, you can buy me a beer via Venmo, or PayPal, or even Cash App if ya nasty. I’ve got an email list and a Xwitter account and an Instagram, actually, though I’m still figuring out how to use that one. Hey, you should stay safe out there, that’s what I think…