Buckle up, folks...this one'll take awhile...
What the SHIT, y'all? The news this week is like they took the guy from the Munch Scream painting and crucified him to a live yak with a staple gun. And then they turned the yak loose in a china shop.
You got floating gangs of fire ants rampaging through Houston, Wells Fargo's setting 'em up with fake accounts, Alex Jones says they're Phony Crisis Ants Paid by George Soros, and Erik Prince wants to hire them to take over the Afghanistan War.
FUCK.
Fine. Let's start muckin' through this shit.
The EPA inspector general will be looking into Scott Pruitt's extensive taxpayer-funded travel between D.C. and his home state of Oklahoma. Don't tell Mrs. Pruitt, but I hear Scotty 2 Haughty's got himself a little oil well on the side.
That's not a metaphor, by the way, it's a literal oil well. That he fucks.
The Marmalade Shartcannon touched down in Houston to survey the damage from Hurricane Harvey, and -
Wait, that's not right. Houston voted for Hillary. Drumpf went to Corpus Christi, he won there. And it was miles from all those soggy, desperate, suffering folks. This way was better. He wouldn't get any mud on his too-long necktie, and he wouldn't run the risk of instinctively ordering his Secret Service protection detail to instantaneously deport any shelter-seeking brown-skinned he happened upon. (John Kelly had warned him that would look bad for the cameras, and had made him write it 25 times IN CURSIVE before he was allowed his second scoop of ice cream.)
Anyway, the outing turned out to be more fun than Lil' Shart-Shart imagined! He got to throw himself a little rally, and talk about how big his crowd was, and he didn't have to meet any victims at all! As an added bonus, he even found an opportunity to advertise his crappy hats! BUSINESSMAN MAGIC!
Somehow he managed to lie about something the entire fucking world watched him do, claiming he saw the the devastation first-hand when...I mean, how else can I end this sentence?...when he...just...didn't. At all.
Of course, he also told the press that Finland bought billions of dollars worth of fighter jets from Boeing, and, again...that was not a thing that actually occurred in real life.
From the depressingly-necessary So-Evil-You'd-Think-It's-Made-Up Files, ICE has requested permission to destroy documents relating to silly little trifles like solitary confinement, sexual assault, or the death of human beings in their custody.
Maybe we can work out some sort of compromise, where ICE agrees to keep digital records, but they're allowed to shred any docs stained with actual human blood. FOR FUCK'S SAKE, WHY DOES ANYONE FEEL COMFORTABLE EVEN ASKING THIS QUESTION IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA?
Anyhow, the Hip New Trend in Republican politics is VIOLENT THREATS! A Georgia GOP doughboy suggested that a black democrat could "go missing" in the swamp if she kept advocating for the removal of Confederate monuments! Haw haw haw!
Not to be outdone, an older, crustier Missouri fellah, ironically named "Warren Love," suggested a statue vandal be strung up from the nearest tree, cuz disrespecting his Shitty White Guy Supremacy culture is a CAPITAL OFFENSE, got it? TRAITOR STATUE > HUMAN LIFE.
Speaking of jagoffs, two of America's Most Punchable Turdweasels are fighting! Chris Christie sez Ted Cruz is an asshole for his disaster-funding-for-me-not-thee hypocrisy and Cruz sez Christie is an asshole for...pointing out how full of shit Ted Cruz is?
Boys, you're both complete and total rectal boils. You're two of the worst men in the whole fucking country. You should meet in the middle, shake hands, and leave the United States forever, you pathetic, dishonest, cheap, goons.
Princess Ivanka managed to disappoint the handful of rubes who somehow haven't seen through her bullshit yet, backing her dad's reversal of an Obama-era equal pay rule. Though she does support allowing women to spend an equal amount of Daddy's money as her two idiot brothers. Word is, she's seeking congressional sponsors for her Roll Back Eric's Allowance Act.
And Eric's trying to gin up (not THAT gin, don't get excited, Steve) sympathy for his Scumfuck Dad, whinging that all the criticism might make him "suicidal."
Hey Eric. Considering your Pa's shitty policies have led to real people committing real suicide under ICE detention, you can just sit in the corner and fuck yourself. Forever.
Hey, didja see Jim Bakker threatening to start a Civil War if his God Emperor gets impeached for his many crimes? Look, Jimbo...you can start your war if you really wanna, but the Drumpf coalition is down to just the most gullible rubes, so good luck marshaling your Dumfuck Army.
Shit, all we'd need to beat y'all is a fake Craig's List ad, saying John Podesta hired a bunch of fake revolutionaries to infiltrate your base and Jade Helm ya when you're not looking. You'd take care of yourselves in twenty minutes.
Speaking of our country's seemingly limitless supply of fake Christians, I see a bunch of Evangelicals decided a massive humanitarian crisis was the appropriate backdrop for a big "In case you forgot, we sure do hate LGBT folks" announcement.
Great. I bet Kim Davis bought a cupcake to celebrate. In the future, when you call something a "Nashville Statement," you fucking well best have unearthed some unreleased Waylon Jennings tapes, you fucks.
Julian Assange, having grown sick of the stale Andes mints in the Ecuadorian Embassy (GET IT?) recruited Putin's favorite Congressstooge, Dana Rohrabacher, to swap one of them sweet sweet Presidential pardons in exchange from Dorito Mussolini's favorite thing: Being Told What He Wants to Hear. And now Dana's maybe getting hauled before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the poor goon.
Dumbass gave a speech about "tax reform." Like every other Republican in the country, it was all hot air and horseshit the comes down to "Giving our donor class a fat sack of money, and maybe the rest of you can go out to Red Lobster once, so long as you don't order drinks or dessert."
Betsy DeVos hired another fox to guard another henhouse? Yeah, yeah, that's what the government does now, I guess. Rex Tillerson's deconstructing WAY more of the the administrative state than YOU are, Betsy, bet you're jealous!
In what is either the pinnacle of human cluelessness or perhaps just gerrymandering-born hubris, some within the GOP apparently want to repurpose a billion bucks worth of disaster funding to build Shart Garfunkel's Big Stupid Useless Wall.
I say go for it, just be sure to hold your rollout press conference in Houston.
On the Russian investigation front, things are going...ridiculously bad for Team Shart. Like, supporter-character-in-a-slash-flick bad.
We found out Bashful Bob Mueller's done a little teaming up with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, pooling info and resources in digging through Paul Manafort's long career full of shady dealings. Since the President can neither pardon state-level crimes, nor fire a state's AG, this had to set a few sets of knees a-knockin'.
Good.
And somebody's leaking random words now, from Manafort's smartphone notes from the famous Don Jr Fuck YEAH I Wanna Collaborate with Russia meeting. Words like "Donor" and "RNC" allegedly in (lightning strike, ominous piano chords) CLOSE PROXIMITY!!!!
I dunno. Words? Is that all? What next? Adam Schiff and Devin Nunes on a Ouija Board?
On the other hand, the Russian-American lobbyist from the meeting has testified before Mueller's grand jury, according to reports, so we're finally getting these fuckers on the record under oath. Shart, Jr's big interview's just around the corner. Let the perjury changes, and accompanying witness-flipping, begin at last!
Speaking of Jr, I guess President Gout called up Chuck Grassley, chair of the committee that's about to interview his idiot son, just to shoot the breeze about how much he fucking loves ethanol. "Oh yeah, Chaz, I'm rubbing it all over my body even as we speak. Can't get enough of the stuff." I only hope Robert Caro sticks around long enough to document the life of this Zen Master of the Art of Politics.
Not everyone's happy with Rugged Robert's progress, of course. The folks over at Fux Nooz are all "Unnnnnh. It's been SIX WHOLE MONTHS, haven't you gone through the decades worth of financial crimes yet? Get this shit over with, it's not like anyone's a Democrat or anything."
...in an alternate reality (which am I fighting like hell to get to), Gowdy Doody spent the day bellowing on cable that Democrats are using hurricane relief efforts to distract from BENGHAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIIIII.
Also, the Wall Street Journal tells us the Velveeta Urinal Cake's legal team has been passing Mueller notes during class saying stuff like "Did SCROTUS obstruct justice yes or no," but they've already checked the no box, or "Who're you gonna believe, the career law enforcement officer everyone trusts, or the guy who gets caught in fresh lies every other week?"
I bet that works, guys. Keep it up.
Ooooooo...what's this now? Late from the Daily Beast? Mueller has joined up with the IRS' Criminal Investigations Unit? And they're walking in slow-motion down some hallway together, looking all badass, like maybe Mueller's taking his tie off and tying it around his head like a bandana?
This likely means the investigation has access to those mysterious, elusive tax returns. SEXXXXY.
And Sheriff David Clarke resigned today, to spend more time opening Cracker Jack boxes in search of new shiny baubles to pin to his shirt.
Wait, look out. Politico reports Sheriff Dave will join the Drumpf administration soon, because Donnie Darko doesn't need to see the rest of your resume when you've got "We killed a man by denying him water" and "A baby died in my jail. A FUCKING BABY" on top.
Bloomberg gave us a deep dive into the Kushner family's massive debt problem, and BOY HOWDY are those idiots good n' righteously fucked.
Anyway, it's totally normal, and totally safe, to entrust a massive chunk of our nation's foreign policy, and also to grant high-level security clearance, to a dude with no diplomatic experience and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that he seems completely incapable of paying off? I mean, there's no WAY the scion of a notoriously corrupt family would barter away the national interest to get out from under HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF DEBT, RIGHT? RIGHT?
Well, America, you wanted the government run like a business.
A Fox poll sez that 40% of Americans and a horrifying-if-unsurprising 75% of Shart voters believe the media is a bigger threat to America than white supremacists. Right after a white supremacist terrorist drove a car into a crowd of Americans, and fucking MURDERED ONE.
Roger Ailes, wherever he's burning right now, created history's most effective brainwashing apparatus, the evil fuck. We've known for awhile now the indoctrination runs so deep as to be logic-proof, but holy shit...it's TERRORISM-PROOF? No wonder we can't get that approval under 30%, these drones remain unmoved in the face of terrorist murder. Fucking hell.
Speaking of the Rube Army, the Twitters blew up with a bot-led kerfuffle about people gettin' all pissy about Obama golfing during Katrina, which of course happened before he was president. Meanwhile, some far-right site used a years-old photo in an attempt to make people think Black Lives Matter protesters obstructed rescue efforts in Houston.
Again, a lot of this is trolls and bots, so don't waste your time yelling at a Russian tweet-computer. On the other, this stuff trickles down to the kind of cheddar-brained moron who shoots up a pizza joint because he thinks Hillary Clinton runs a child sex slavery ring out of the basement, so...heaven help us.
Our dirtbag Treasury Secretary's making some noises about walking back the commitment to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman, because Money is for White Folks in this administration. That guy's such a Mnuchbag.
Having utterly failed to improve any Americans' lives* during his time in office, The Man With Phalangeal Stunting seems to have decided to go in the other direction, hard. So now he's simply using every mechanism at his disposal to hurt the people his base hates, in the hopes that nobody in the Rust Belt notices the factories and mines aren't reopening so long as there are no transgender soldiers navigating mine fields outside Kandahar.
In addition to the transgender military service ban, Fox tells us Baron Poostain Harkonnen plans to end DACA, as soon as this week. Even warned of the economic consequences, Shartboy is absolutely desperate to throw a "win" to his base, the Shittiest White People the 21st Century Has to Offer.
Speaking of hurting people, Tom Price's HHS department announced massive cuts to Obamacare outreach programs, because the United States government doesn't want its citizens to know about the health care they're legally entitled to.
Had to read that sentence over a few times...nope, it's true.
Is this, finally, what conservatism has come to? "No, we can't solve your problems, but we can fuck with other people's lives so much that your situation looks better by comparison?"
Perhaps fearing he had too much support, the same President who makes the Secret Service pay to piss at his golf courses on the weekends announced he's cutting the federal workforce's coming raises. Just taking a little money out of thousands of families' pockets, no biggie. All while calling for a massive transfer of wealth upwards via a tax cut which will benefit himself and his shitty, shitty, kids.
And a late-breaking WaPo report, sourced by the usual bajillion anonymous staffers and friends, says Smallhands Magoo is getting all mad at his shiny new Chief of Staff, John Kelly, who makes him behave like a big boy, and doesn't let him see his Klan buddies, even though he can still sneak around and call Steve Bannon when the mean old "Church Lady**" isn't watching.
There's more. Always. People are quitting at State, quitting the RNC, quitting the President's cyber security panel. Chemical explosions rock Houston. If fully expect a number of Kaiju to emerge from the seas any day now, to do battle in our greatest cities.
...maybe I shoulda paid more attention that that scruffy fellah who used to come to my campus and yell that the End was Near.
This is the part where I'd normally say I need a drink, but that would not be true tonight. I need eight drinks.
*Ok. Joe Arpaio. I'll grant that ONE.
**Yes, there are members of the team governing our nation who refer to General Kelly as "The Church Lady," because he wants run President to act like a goddamn grown-up, it is a fucking MIRACLE we're not all wandering around an apocalyptic wasteland right now.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Bailey's
I kind of want a cigarette, and I don't even smoke. 
Yes, that was long, and well worth the careful reading I just gave it.
You are so damn fucking good!
Keep 'em coming, OK???
And tomorrow's Friday News bombshell dump day.
I better get some rest.
GREAT READ. And thank you for carrying our thoughts into words.
A Fox poll sez that 40% of Americans and a horrifying-if-unsurprising 75% of Shart voters believe the media is a bigger threat to America than white supremacists. Right after a white supremacist terrorist drove a car into a crowd of Americans, and fucking MURDERED ONE.
Roger Ailes, wherever he's burning right now, created history's most effective brainwashing apparatus, the evil fuck. We've known for awhile now the indoctrination runs so deep as to be logic-proof, but holy shit...it's TERRORISM-PROOF? No wonder we can't get that approval under 30%, these drones remain unmoved in the face of terrorist murder. Fucking hell.
Cult45 must be resisted.
A most entertaining and disturbing read.
And, there you have it.
The Anal-corn-muffin's entire strategy summed up in one short sentence fragment by TheFerret.
Sleep tight.
Thanks, TF.
Knocked it out of the park, Ferret/ShowerCap. Love you!
I'm thanking our lucky stars you're on OUR side. Awesome!!! 
(Though that apocalyptic wasteland will probably be here by Tuesday)
