I tell ya folks, as more and more of my life gets packed up into boxes (moving soon), I have fewer and fewer distractions from the daily news horrorshow. My life is down to me, some spoons, and Donald Trump right now, and I kinda hate it.

Wilbur Ross woke up just long enough to announce that the 2020 census will reinstate questions on immigration status, just another bit of intimidation fuckery from this team of shitty white nationalist goons. Shit, if Stephen Miller gets his way, they’ll have follow-ups like “If you answered ‘yes,’ please list your favorite hiding places in and around you home.”

Wee Don is flustered he can’t get his wall built. He can’t get Mexico to pay for it. He can’t get Congress to pay for it. He knows his whole builder/dealmaker image is on line with the wall, and he just can’t get it done. He probably orders satellites to photograph the long, wall-less border, forever mocking him for his inadequacy, his tiny-fisted impotent rage.

So now he wants the military to pay for it. Just, y’know, rummage through the couch cushions at the Pentagon, find that spare 25 billion bucks, okay? Maybe if we ask the troops in Afghanistan to go without toilet paper for a year or so. Or boots. BABY WANTS HIS BIG DUMB WALL.

On this week’s episode of The Best People, the Shart House added Caroline Sunshine to the press office. Caroline was in the Marmaduke movie and first off I had no idea there was a fucking Marmaduke movie whose fucking idea was THAT we can’t cure cancer but somebody looks at a newspaper cartoon that was never funny once in 60 years and says YOU GET A WHOLE FUCKING MOVIE, BORING DOG fucking hell maybe we deserve Trump.

Anyway. Caroline Sunshine OF COURSE has no relevant training or experience and somehow she’s not even the first staffer who couldn’t find any better resume-filler than “Model U.N.”* but I don’t suppose the “we lie all the time and don’t care who knows it” shop really requires elite communications talent.

We expected Mitt Romney to run as an anti-Drumpf candidate, and so far he isn’t disappointing. Mittens wants the good people of Utah know that he’s a different kind of Republican; he’s MUCH racister. Mittens wants to be known as the racistest racist in the whole dang GOP, and if he has to mud-wrestle Mike Pence to do it, then LOCK THE DOOR AND TELL MOTHER YOU’RE ON A MISSION TRIP, PUNK!

OH, and the racist fuckheads that run our government decided to deport a bunch of Liberian refugees who’ve been living peacefully among us for years, so if you live in a swing state and you know that smug college boy who still likes to brag about voting for Jill Stein because there’s no difference between the two parties, you have my permission to kick him till he dies.

New polling shows most Americans aren’t seeing much, if any extra money in their paychecks after the GOP’s Please Enjoy These Scraps From Our Billionaire Donors’ Tables bill, but in fairness, very few of those polled were corporations or hedge funds.

The Kansas state legislature has responded to the public’s overwhelming call for commonsense gun control laws by doing all the cocaine in the Midwest, drinking a bunch of cough syrup, slathering their bodies in Crisco, climbing to the top of the Capitol building in Topeka, and screaming “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT INSANITY IS, PEONS!”

Fucking maniacs want to arm teachers, sure, but any twitchy motherfucker can arm a teacher. Kansas wants you to know that in the Sunflower State, shit gets genuinely FREAKY. They want to make districts that refuse to transform their schools into armories legally liable if a shooting takes place! And to make sure everybody knows they’re maybe-I-should-cross-to-the-other-side-of-the-street-just-to-be-safe crazy, they wanna make it illegal for insurance companies to charge districts that choose to play Westworld with children’s lives even a penny more.

Now, our old friend KKKris KKKobach thinks this gibbering madness doesn’t go far enough. Like, maybe replace the ol’ wall-mounted pencil sharpener with a wee Gatling gun? Grenades for the lunch lady? Maybe shoot the first kid who lands in detention, so everybody gets used to the sight of a classmate bleeding out?

Nick Fury nemesis Alex van der Zwaan popped back up in the news this week, as Bashful Bob Mueller used his sentencing as an opportunity to say, “What has two thumbs and was in contact with with a Kremlin-linked Russian intelligence dude during the 2016 election? RICK GATES, THAT’S WHAT.”

The Failing New York Times reports the Marmalade Shartcannon’s recently-departed lawyer, John Dowd dressed up as a department store Santa, invited Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort to sit in his lap, and said “You look like a couple of lads who might like a Presidential Pardon, HO HO HO!” So hooray for ethics.

Good news everyone, the emoluments suit against Fat Q*Bert can proceed! All things being equal, I still liked life better before I knew what “emoluments” meant. Now my fucking autocorrect is all “Oh, Cap’s talking about emoluments again. What if I’m sharing this charming video of the mating dance of the majestic emu, autocorrect? What then?

So yeah, now SHARTUS is facing lawsuits for accepting bribes and defaming women he sexually assaulted and unfair competition in the restaurant industry, and if I ever get my suit on his lifetime’s worth of criminal destruction of Perfectly Good Steaks together, he’s REALLY gonna be in trouble.

Julian Assange’s parents are so MEAN, you guys! He lost his internet privileges, he’s not allowed to have anybody come over and play even though he just got the new MarioKart, and I bet they make him eat a whole bunch of broccoli all the time.  Anyway, fuck him.

Hey, remember when Wisconsin courts ordered Scott Walker to hold special elections because it turns out “I’m pretty sure we’ll lose” isn’t a permissible reason to deny American citizens representation in government? Well, Scotty said “Screw you, The Rule of Law! I’ll call a special sessions of the Wisco legislature just to pass a fancy new law that says Democracy is whatever Scott Walker Fucking Says It Is,” because he is a goony little fascist.

Anyhow, the courts said, “Little man, we will grab you by the scrotum and drag you up and down the streets of Madison until you call these elections,” and then Walker whined about Eric Holder for a bit, because he is a bad loser, and relented.

Let’s check in real quick with thinkers n’ pundits of the 21st century American right, see what ideas might be percolatin’ in the elite heights of conservative thought. Oh. Um, they seem to be celebrating the fact that Parkland shooting survivor/gun control activist David Hogg got turned down on some of his college applications.

This, finally, is what the conservative moment has come to…gloating that a teenager whose classmates were shot to death didn’t get into the college he wanted. Laura Ingraham in particular couldn’t restrain herself from tap-dancing with malicious glee.

Ah, but Laura fucked with the wrong teen. These Parkland kids are pretty goddamn savvy, and Hogg wasted no time in digging up a list of Ingraham’s advertisers. “Why no, we don’t want our product associated with a soulless ghoul who attacks children who survived a massacre, thanks for asking,” was the swift, common, response.

And wouldn’t you know it, after years and years and years of being a professional hate-monger, suddenly Laura Ingraham found something to apologize for! Not any of the other vulgar garbage she’s vomited up in her garbage career, just the one thing that finally sent the sponsors running. Got it. Alas, advertisers keep leaving anyway, HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.

Nice job, Hogg & Co. Do Hannity next.

I was raised on the idea that hard work would lead to success, but of course the real world is more complicated. Turns out, if you’re willing to lie about an insecure narcissist’s height and weight, you could wind up in the line of succession!

Yes, David Shulkin got his grifty ass fired, which is just and fair and right. Of course, Carson and Zinke and Pruitt and Mnuchin, each griftier than the last, get to keep their jobs, so we’re not exactly applying consistent ethical standards here, SURPRISE SURPRISE.

And his replacement is to be…Dr. Ronny Jackson, the presidential physician who told America “this obviously obese man is not obese and is also a little bit taller than he actually is but on the bright side he can correctly identify an elephant.”

Does Jackson have any experience managing sprawling bureaucracies? What with the Department of Veterans Affairs being the second-largest federal agency? What a dumb fucking question that is, and I’m a dumb fuck for even asking it.

OF COURSE NOT. Il Douche liked the way he lied on the teevee, so he gets his very own cabinet department to play with. I’m sure he’ll orient himself quickly; word is he’s chosen Betsy DeVos to his “Cabinet Buddy” mentor!

(Shulkin wrote an angry op-ed on his way out, and I bet he rubbed his bare ass on all the furniture, too. Just to be safe, Dr. Ronny, I’d throw out all the pens.)

Scott Pruitt sent out a set of talking points to EPA staffers demanding they cast doubt on the role of human activity in climate change, which is a bit like Rick Perry telling Americans to pray to the Electricity Gods for their favor before flipping the light switch in the bathroom. Science is, after all…for cucks.

Oh, and he lived in lobbyist’s condo for a year, because of course he did.

Elsewhere in the Cabinet, Ben Carson and Mick Mulvaney are scaling back oversight and enforcement at their respective departments, because laws that protect poor people from rich people are just SILLY, aren’t they? And Ryan Zinke’s probably stealing the cartridges out of the office printers.

Now, Dorito Mussolini can’t pull off a simple condolence call, and he won’t say jack shit about any American murdered by a white supremacist terrorist. But if a sitcom that mentions him a bunch does well? Well THAT shit merits a congratulatory phone call. You gotta have priorities, right?

So, um…Michael Cohen does not seem to have hired a very good lawyer. He did a little media tour that made Sam Nunberg seem like Dan Rather. But hey, at least he helpfully built a very strong case against his shitbag client.

President Gas Station Urinal Cake must’ve had another Mueller nightmare, because he woke up screaming bloody murder all over the tweets because…wait, this can’t be right…because Amazon uses the U.S Postal Service?

I…bu…wha? Paying USPS to deliver things is…bad? I miss having a President who understood things.

The mustache-twirlers over at ICE apparently decided that they weren’t detaining enough pregnant women, so they’re changing their official policy, seeking new growth on the Detaining Pregnant Women front, because they are fucking monsters. Family-wrecking thug monsters. When we get past all this shit, we need to burn ICE down and salt the motherfucking earth beneath it.

The President’s Loyal Huntin’ Dawg, Ol’ Beauregard, has declined at this time to appoint a second Special Counsel to investigate the FBI for…oh, for whatever Devin “Pigfucker” Nunes is blathering about this week. SHARTUS won’t be happy to hear that.

Jefferson might be a little on edge these days, what with the news about how the Mueller investigation is asking witnesses about the 2016 Republican National Convention, that Putin-friendly change in the GOP platform regarding arming Ukraine, and those meetings Ol’ Beau had with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that oh-so-conveniently slipped his mind during his confirmation hearing.

Now, speaking of Mueller…it looks like we’re gettin’ to the good stuff.

Following up on the Gates/Van der Zwaan story, CNN says Rugged Robert wasn’t interested in Gates to build his case against Manafort, Manafort’s already skinned, breaded, and fried. He wanted Gates to go after that chewy Russian collusion core at the center of this Tootsie Pop. How many licks, Donnie? YOU’RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT.

NBC reports that Trump, who I’ll (sadly) remind everyone is the President of the Whole Dang United States, tells his aides “Hey, anytime we have to do something bad to Russia, let’s keep it on the down-low, ‘kay?” BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WANT PUTIN TO GET MAD.

That smirking bald bastard attacks our country, and our Commander in Chief doesn’t want to hurt his feelings! It must be nice having the head of your major geopolitical rival as your own personal gimp.

This is just fucking embarrassing at this point. I don’t think I could look a bald eagle in the eye right now.

Alright, gang. Thanks for reading, I gotta dive back into packing. Again, I ask your patience over the next few weeks, I may miss some shit here and there.

*We haven’t forgotten you, Papaderpaderp.