October 30, 2021

Fox, Facebook, and Other Monsters Under America's Bed (Th'Ferret!)

Hey, before we get started tonight, a quick pro tip for the savvy news consumer: laminate the daily paper before reading it; that way, when one of the many stories of ascendant American fascism inevitably causes you to projectile vomit, you don’t render unread portions illegible with puke; simply wipe clean and proceed to the next article, which is about Ivanka opening a nationwide puppy mill chain, probably.

(The link to the links and the bright shiny colors is, as ever, here: http://showercapblog.com/fox-facebook-and-other-monsters-under-americas-bed/)

Call it the Great Resignation, call it a serendipitously decentralized unofficial nationwide labor strike, shit, call it the McRib if you want; a year and a half of isolation and introspection led the American workforce to collectively conclude there’s likely more to life than pissing our best years away in shit jobs for shit wages just to enable the DeVoses of the world to while away sunny afternoons, daydreaming about innovative yacht storage solutions.

So yeah, the labor market is fairly wonky at the moment, but the solution remains as simple as it is obvious: just raise wages, you greedy fucks. ‘Course, if that happens, maybe all us serfs’ll start getting uppity ideas, like that we’re human beings, worthy of dignified lives, rather than farm animals to be exploited or lab rats to be fiddled with for amusement. Anyhow, Wisconsin Republicans’ opposition to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work has become so fervent, they’re actually trying to roll back child labor laws rather than pay folks what their work is worth, which is surely the most populist thing this side of a golden toilet bowl full of billionaire turds.

Well, it’s home stretch time in Virginia’s gubernatorial election, and Republican Glenn Youngkin can apparently muster no greater closing argument than trotting out a known book-burning advocate masquerading as a mathematically-average American mom who is Just Concerned™️ about the dangers of exposing pure, young, white minds to the works of Toni Morrison, because government isn’t supposed to solve problems, you dummy, just perpetuate the outrage cycle feeding/distracting an easily-misled electoral base with culture war horsepoo while the wealthy quietly rob us all blind. Vote McAuliffe, if you’re able.

I see it is once again time for America’s wingnut death cult to ceremonially fete Ron DeSantis for “successfully” murdering his way through the pandemic. Having repeated this ritual so many times already, they’ve gotten really quite good at it; the congregation has grown perfectly comfortable ignoring all the newly-empty pews and fresh graves beneath the revival tent; the virus has eaten its fill and moved on, and no freedumb was sacrificed…only lives.

And now, Mad Emperor Ron-Ron proposes paying $5,000 bonuses (likely drawn from funds he’s stolen from school districts that insisted on prioritizing student health over his personal lust for cultist clout) to lure to Florida cops who quit their jobs in other states rather than comply with vaccine mandates, which, okay, is a little bit like posting a call for brownshirts on LinkedIn, but I’m sure nothing but cupcakes and bunny butts will come of deliberately fostering a culture of petulant, lawless opposition to the public good in our increasingly-militarized law enforcement communities.

Blockbuster new reporting from Rolling Stone reveals organizers of the Capitol Riot actually planned that seditious shit with STILL-SITTING MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, which, my God, somehow failed to land like what it is: earth-shaking news about one of the two or three most important events in American history. Because flooding the zone with shit works.

Why isn’t this the only thing anyone anywhere is talking about? I mean, Real-Life Christian Szell Paul Gosar apparently went so far as to promise the rioters a “blanket pardon” in the restored Reich to come. And it’s the We Can Haz Fascism? crew from this article, Gosar, Brooks, Boebert, Gohmert, Cawthorn, and Taylor-Greene, who’re taking over the GOP, while increasingly rare dissenters like Cheney and Kinzinger are made to walk the plank, to the jeers of the bloodthirsty.

Cool caucus you got there, Kev…no wonder you’ve got faceless backbenchers like…hang on, what’s this little jagoff’s name again? Blanks? Banks? Whatever, just another craven dirtbag angling for his 15 minutes of MAGA stardom by maliciously misgendering Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine. The cruelty, as you may’ve heard, is the whole dang point.

Meanwhile, no haunted house, not even those screwy religious ones, can hold a candle to the horrors glimpsed behind the curtain at Facebook, that nightmarish, predatory, alternate reality where ethics simply are not a thing.

It’s staggering to contemplate the amount of harm these sociopathic nerds have caused, and yet, the full extent of their self-reflection truly seems limited to:

“Hey, our ultra-contagious brain parasite just developed yet another brand-new way to inflict human suffering on a scale that puts Stalin to shame; should we maybe, I dunno…stop doing that thing?”

“Will we make less money if we stop doing the thing?”

“We will.”

“PROCEED WITH THE THING."

Zuck is pretty much the polar opposite of Peter Parker, y’know? Anyway, a quick, clumsy rebrand, as Diet Cherry Disinformation or some shit, made all his problems disappear in a vanilla-scented puff of gaslight; why, I’ve almost forgotten the name of the country where his hellsite actively facilitated acts of genocide nope that’s a lie it’s still Myanmar.

Like, everybody’s mad at Jeff Bezos for going to space; I’m more concerned with those who invest their billions in gasoline for the world’s many fires. Like Zuckerberg. And Rupert Murdoch, who decided to legitimize the Deposed Dotard’s latest mewling, Big-Lie-spreading tantrum with placement on the op-ed page of the prestigious Wall Street Journal, one of those fancypants “newspaper” thingies you see spinning around all over the place in those fancypants old movies.

And if that’s what Rupert’s doing with his classy, “respectable” brand, it really shouldn’t surprise us that no advertiser boycott can shake his devotion to broadcasting Tucker Carlson’s White Power Hour, which functions, on a practical level, as night school for aspiring white nationalist radicals.

Incidentally, for anyone feeling worn out after all the homework during the recent Why Viktor Orbán is the Sexxxiest of All Possible Autocrats unit, rest easy, cuz it’s MOVIE WEEK! Yes, Fish Stix Hitler announced a three-part television event dedicated to further embiggening the Big Lie by claiming the Capitol Riot was a “false flag” operation designed to make Trumpism look like a movement of crazed, thuggish proto-Nazis, as though any aid is required on that front.

…I’m just saying, we’d probably be better off if more rich guys just wanted to fulfill childhood astronaut fantasies. Honestly, if Murdoch and his ilk could only content themselves with hunting us for sport, one at a time, on private estates where the rule of law is a polite joke…like, I dunno, that seems like a fair compromise, maybe. We could have, like, a lottery or something.

Because this strategy of trickle-down hatred…it fucking WORKS, folks.  Look no further than the event for Charlie Kirk’s grotesque little Trumpler Youth organization, where a reasonably normal, clean-cut-looking young white fellow calmly asked, “when do we get to use the guns” on…whoever this one had been trained to hate; Democrats, BLM, Soros, Stacys, black-helicopter-piloting globalist Colin Kaepernick clones, who can say, really? The point is, he’s been a good, patient boy, and he’d very much like to start to committing murders now.

Isn’t that neat? Just a dude asking, in front of God and the whole ever-lovin’ world, “say, isn’t it about time to start passing out armbands and long knives?” as casually as if he were wondering aloud whether or not those really soft throw blankets would get their customary Black Friday discount at Target this year.

Out in Idaho, a racist, open-carry-obsessed felon named Jacob Bergquist didn’t wait for permission, he just wandered over to the local shopping mall to take his best stab at mass murder. See, that’s the thing about these rabbit holes; while they’re designed with no bottom, there’s always an off-ramp for anybody who feels ready to take the plunge into violence. (That off-ramp is America’s deeply insane gun policy, for the curious.)

And think of the message being sent to every starry-eyed, wannabe white boy mass-shooter by the obscene Calvinball rules set by the judge in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. From permission structure to institutionalized exoneration, (remember Gosar’s promised pardons?) we’re seeing a real vertical integration approach to white nationalist terrorism from the GOP; imagine if they’d redirect all that effort into ending the pandemic, or fighting climate change, or…fuck it, stamp collecting.

What else, what ellllllllse…oh yeah, we learned a little more about Richard Burr’s clever little pandemic profiteering scheme; no reason an enterprising young U.S. Senator shouldn’t line his pockets while lying thousands of his constituents into early graves, right? So long as he dutifully acquiesces to the steady chipping-away of American democracy’s pillars, of course.

On a brighter note, we just wrapped up work on the latest comic, ODD YARNS, and sent it to the printer! The Kickstarter launches on November 9th! I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but the truth is, a big ol’ chunk of the foundation of my political and ethical beliefs came from Lee/Kirby-style superhero comics, and ODD YARNS is something of a love letter to those Silver Age values.

…seriously, it’s a hoot, you’ll have a great time reading it! And we’re offering a special rewards tier for fans of the blog; custom letters from Shower Cap! I’ll write a letter to an American politician of your choosing, on an issue of your choosing! Basically, if you’ve ever wanted someone to tell your Congressthing what a turd-munching crotchfungus they are, now’s your chance! Anyway, get more information here, and sign up on our pre-launch page!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/worthcost/odd-yarns

And for Pete’s sake, stay safe out there, my friends…

October 23, 2021

Cocaine Hippos and Other News Which is Significantly Less Amusing (Y'know, Death Cult Shit) (Ferret)

Lotta fun little stories this week about cocaine hippo personhood and zebra honeypots and such, and I bet having a funny animal news blog would be goddamn delightful. Alas, I’ve made…different choices. Well, let’s wade into this shit, shit ain’t gonna wade into itself…we’ve added little windshield wipers to the visors on your hazmat suits, should help.

(The usual bonanza of links and shiny colors can be found by clicking here: http://showercapblog.com/cocaine-hippos-and-other-news-which-is-significantly-less-amusing-yknow-death-cult-shit/)

Just to drop you right in the deep end of the pool, looks like Ron Watkins, the skeevy little shit who put the Q in QAnon, is running for Congress, to join the Gosars and the Taylor Greenes in all their fashy reindeer games. Creatures like Watkins really should be frightened of the bright light of day, and they no longer are, have you noticed that?

Watkins would surely be greeted with open arms by the burgeoning Kooky Kakistocrat Kaucus. Anyway, Kevin McCarthy escalated his campaign of vengeance against the apostate Liz Cheney, threatening the GOP consultant class with excommunication-by-association should they refuse to participate in her ritual shunning. Cheney’s sin, for those who’ve forgotten, is her belief that democracy is preferable to eternal servitude to a family of perverts and grifters.

Meanwhile, still yet to receive so much as a “naughty boy” from ol’ Keville Chamberlain is Matthew Louis Gaetz II, who faces a federal investigation that keeps on attractin’ new prosecutors, including an expert in child exploitation crimes. I would urge the American public to accept the Minority Leader’s demonstration of his party’s ethical priorities at face value.

Gaetz’s long-term career plans rely almost exclusively on securing a pardon from a future regime of lawless thugs immoral enough to accept a known pedophile into their inner circle; to that end, he uses his platform as a United States Congressman to normalize the thugs’ fascist ideals, seeking their attention and approval, which is, WOW, really unhelpful right now, but in the creepy little bastard’s defense…I mean, yeah, that’s looking like his best shot.

Well, the federal vaccine mandates are finally kicking in, as part of the Biden Administration’s Operation: Keep the Cultists Away From the Kool-Aid. Outside of a few feeble resignation pageants, and a particularly grating rendition of “On My Own” from Dan Bongino, tantrums have been kept to a minimum, even as our police departments benefit from the sort of addition-by-subtraction workforce realignment that’d normally cost billions in consulting fees.

More importantly, vaccination numbers are up and infection rates are down, so maybe it’s finally possible to save enough of the brainwashed from themselves to inch our way back to sweet, sweet normalcy. We’ll appreciate you more this time, normalcy. We will buy you exotic cheeses and chocolates and rub your weary limbs each night, normalcy; just never leave us again.

Of course there are still holdouts, vowing unyielding resistance to the forces of sanity and life. Yet another talk radio jag rode the HydroxyHorsepaste Express to Covidsville, which was really his super-secret geenyus plan all along, wink wink, and like, if, after 734,000 deaths, you still trust these fanatic howler monkeys more than doctors and scientists, at a certain point, I stop wondering why you keep hitting yourself in the face with a brick; I just get tired of prying it out of your hands.

Down in Texas, that laboratory of American apartheid, white supremacy is getting institutionalized with frankly impressive speed and efficiency from a political party that cannot seem to accomplish literally anything else. You’d think ramming through a racial gerrymander obscene enough to make John Roberts blush would be enough, but no, Governor Greg Abbott decided to put a lawyer who WORKED ON AN ATTEMPTED OVERTHROW OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT in charge of his state’s elections, which isn’t the sort of behavior one engages in when one sees oneself in a long-term relationship with democracy.

The Republican rank-and-file seems all too willing to accommodate Abbott’s authoritarian ambition, growing more comfortable with violence and threats of violence all the time. Mask mandates got your bee-filled skull all a-tizzy? No need to coexist peacefully in a shared society, just RAISE A MILITIA! Uppity state Democratic Party Chairman blaspheming against the Turd Emperor on the op-ed page? Time to fire off your best LYNCHING THREAT!

Oh, and the violent insurrectionist block in the D.C. penitentiary has a fan club now, sleep tight. Ashli Babbitt, Kyle Rittenhouse…I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that it’s so frequently violent criminals this movement chooses to canonize. Such a wacky death cult.

Nebraska Republican Congresscrook Jeff Fortenberry resigned from his committee assignments following federal indictments for campaign finance law violations and lying to the FBI, which is almost charming, really; in a party increasingly devoted to justifying mob violence, such old-fashioned corruption practically makes you a Cub Scout.

Well, Oleg Deripaska’s D.C. home got raided by the feds, and Lev Parnas got convicted, and dagnabbit, I know my Sleazy Slav scorecard is here someplace, but it’s buried beneath beer cans and articles about Madison Cawthorn smuggling knives into schools. Fuck it, I’ll find it later.

Condoleezza Rice is SO bored with democracy, you guys, and insists we all “move on” from the whole “seditious acts of terrorist violence” thing, and honestly, I totally agree, it’s just that your side has to go first, Condi. Not out of politics or pettiness, but because y’all are the ones being violent. Don’t say “move on” when you mean “unilaterally disarm,” okay?

Incidentally, Secretary Rice, I actually think we should keep picking through the wreckage of the Turd Reich, on account o’ the whole unpunished coup/dress rehearsal thing, yes, but also because gems like “Stephen Miller tried to deploy half the U.S. Army to the southern border” keep turning up. When your party stands for Shitty White Guy Supremacy at Any Cost and very little else, people are gonna talk about it, we’re just gossipy, I guess.

It was like getting hit in the throat by a t-shirt cannon filled with sports clichés when the Boy Who Failed At Everything From Casinos to Being President finally, after seven decades of punching himself in the dick, earned massive, late-in-life success JUST KIDDING Freddy Fuckup’s latest endeavor, a wingnut social media platform with crazy dreams of someday arm-wrestling Zuck himself, endured a public rollout so perfectly, gobsmackingly humiliating, I have to assume it was an op staged by a vengeful deep state. The fall from “we’re gonna drive CNN out of business” to “an account on the former President’s platform purporting to be the former President himself posted a photograph of a pig shitting on its own testicles” turns out to be a short, sharp shock.

As expected, Senate Republicans blocked Democrats’ voting rights bill, believing as they do that there’s far too much of this silly “voting” stuff going on already, particularly amongst the insufficiently alabaster.

If we’re honest, on a day-to-day level, the Republican Party serves no function whatsoever beyond pouring used kitty litter into the gears of justice. Run out the clock till the shitbags get away with everything, including the future, that’s the plan. Little “Ron Johnson holds up a U.S. Attorney nomination” here, little “Donnie Dotard’s strip mall legal team sues to block release of Shart House docs” there, the hourglass starts fillin’ up.

So yeah, watching the Bannon in Cuffs Please Oh Please marble work its way slowly through the Rube Goldberg federal Justice bureaucracy has been…a touch on the frustrating side. Still, the January 6th commission means business, they’re doing their job; your ball, Mr. Garland. (Understanding there was some clown-jousting that required your attention first, of course.)

Anyway, I’ll let you get back to screaming in horror at every step of the sausage-making process, though I’d recommend setting the Manchin/Sinema voodoo dolls down for now, and joining me in a beer and a comic book out back while the weather still permits.

Speaking of smooth transitions into comic book promotion, YES, the Kickstarter for the next comic, ODD YARNS, indeed draws ever nearer! Launching November 9th, in fact. I know I’ve been asking for your support a lot this year, but this one’ll be the last one for a bit, and besides, I think it’s cool as heck. One way or another, stay safe out there, chums. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/worthcost/odd-yarns

October 16, 2021

Must've Been Some Sort of Sale on Nazi Shit This Week. Yikes. (Ferret)

I never thought I’d wax nostalgic over the days when the sole purpose of the Republican Party was to make rich people richer, but now that they’re bringing equal guile and fervor to efforts to feed and grow their shiny new fascist death cult base, I confess I reminisce almost fondly about mere Gordon Gekko greed.

(Tonight like every night, news links and shiny colors are only a click away: http://showercapblog.com/mustve-been-some-sort-of-sale-on-nazi-shit-this-week-yikes/)

Because we’re lookin’ at Nazi shit tonight, friends. Sorry. There’s just a whole lotta Nazi shit goin’ down in the land of the free lately, and I guess we gotta chronicle it, cuz that’s what we put on the header. I’ll try to throw in a few poop jokes here and there…spoonful of sugar and all that.

When names like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kyle Rittenhouse collide in a shared headline, you KNOW you’re getting pure, uncut, Nazi shit. Anyway, a sitting U.S. Congresswoman fundraised for the child terrorist who has become a folk hero to the increasingly-violent alt-right, and no one in her party could be bothered to offer up the mildest “well, she really oughtn’t” in condemnation.

Because in the scramble for power in the All-New, Not-Sure-Whose-Side-We’re-Gonna-Be-On-In-World-Wars-From-Here-On-Out GOP, the maniacs are definitely taking their shot. Turns out, when you set out to construct a coalition of, by, and for the shittiest and craziest people alive, you attract some…well, you’d call them “characters” were their intentions a little less vile.

You watch perpetual candidate Josh Mandel stumbling around, rubbing his own shit into his own hair while screaming GEORGE SOROS CAUSED COVID, and you can’t help but wonder if th’Base™️isn’t just rage-crazed enough to finally actually send that d-list Arkham Asylum inmate to the United States Senate; J.D. Vance’s debasing mimicry of Joshie’s act tells us a fair amount about the conventional wisdom on the subject in “moderate” conservative circles.

See, you can’t really be moderate in a party where the Mandels and the Taylor Greenes call the shots. The moderate position at that table is We Should Have Little Libraries in the Concentration Camps Full of Terrified Children We Stole From Migrant Families.

Meanwhile Allen West’s quest for the Texas governorship rode a wave of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to a little detour in the Covid ward, while Mike “the Turkish Delight” Flynn begged the disinformation-warped cult of Q to believe his earnest denials of Satan-worship, an event with absolutely no parallels to any known Arthur Miller play.

Remember, it’s their very best they’re sending.

I guess somebody put up the eighty bucks, and so the Deposed Dotard recorded a creepy little Cameo vid for MAGA martyr Ashli Babbitt’s birthday party, and while lionizing treasonous terrorists isn’t what one might typically think of as even post-presidential behavior, Van Jones assures me that big ol’ pivot’s coming any day now. Two weeks.

Trump-endorsed Georgia Senate candidate/serial domestic abuser Herschel Walker cancelled a scheduled fundraiser with some wingnut rando who apparently enjoys filling Twitter with swastikas. If only scaring them off the behavior were as easy as getting them to back away from the most overt symbols, right?

“Holy balls, Cap, Swastikas?!? There really IS a lot of Nazi shit this week!” Yes, Virginia, there is indeed. And we’re not done with the week’s Nazi shit, either. We’re not close to done. But there’s a little bit of non-Nazi shit, too, shit that’s just ordinarily shitty shit, so why don’t we sort through some of that shit for a while? Lil’ palate cleanser. Sorbet.

A New York Times exposé revealed the entirely predictable trashfire of corruption and incompetence surrounding the Turd Reich’s handling of gifts from foreign governments. Also that the Saudis, recognizing a mark when they saw one, dazzled Donnie Dipshit with fake furs, because fucking of course they did. There must’ve been a line out the goddamn door to renegotiate everything from treaties to trade deals before the grown-ups came back to drag history’s most perfect rube away from the table.

Between that and the latest setback in just one of his many legal battles, we’re reminded that perhaps the biggest reason Off-Brand Orbán (yeah, I’m keeping that one) seeks a return to the Oval Office so rapaciously is it’s the only place he’s truly safe from the legal consequences of a decades-long career in crime of all flavors, from sexual assault to theft to terrorism.

No wonder he’s taken time out of his busy schedule monitoring the feed from the hidden cameras he had installed in Jared and Ivanka’s bedroom to reassert his tiny-fisted grasp around the GOP’s collective gullet, threatening to withhold his hordes from party causes until they figure out some way to get Joe Biden to un-kick his historic loser ass. Now, following 2020’s “platforms are for cucks” doctrine, perhaps we should congratulate this amorphous mass of gutless buttholes for finally choosing to stand for anything at all, though admittedly, blind fealty to the fascist Big Lie isn’t the greatest starting point.

The Manchurian Manchild’s petulant displays of force are hardly necessary; these whipped dogs are surely domesticated for life; were you to remove Lindsey Graham’s collar, open the gate, and announce, “You’re free, boy!” he’d only stand there, confused and afraid, until you let him back into the house.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott actually issued an executive order attempting to ban vaccine mandates statewide, an act of abject madness and fathomless malice…and it made news for, oh, six hours or so? Because deploying the power of the state to intentionally exacerbate a public health crisis, at the cost of thousands of senseless, preventable deaths, is simply standard operating procedure for the 21st century Republican Party, during this, their steadily-accelerating downward spiral towards the darkest places the human animal has yet uncovered within itself. (Jesus, Cap, keep it light.)

Incidentally, I imagine Republicans will return to the holy mission of reducing the size of government in anticipation of imminent bathtub immersion just as soon as they’re done with the competitive serf-slaughtering phase of their 2024 primary. Until then, they need to retain powers juuuuuust intrusive enough to prevent private companies from reducing their workforce’s exposure to a lethal virus; it’s an exceptionally consistent belief system, conservatism.

Glenn Youngkin (the Republican candidate for Virginia Governor, making his overdue debut in this silly, silly blog) wants you to think he’s one of the good ones. The moderate ones. No Nazi shit for Glenn Youngkin. Okay, well, maybe he went on ONE actual, known neo-Nazi’s radio program, but in fairness, that was only to pander to the dude’s (Nazi) audience for votes.

Oh, and maybe the Virginia GOP threw a little antebellum Nuremberg rally with Steve Bannon and even a call-in from the Burst Hemorrhoid Emperor himself, and maybe they kinda sorta idol-worshipped a flag some toe-fucking gobshite brought back from the Capitol Riot, but outside of the Nazi shit mentioned here, which one must grudgingly admit constitutes an unusually large amount of Nazi shit for an American political campaign, Nazi shit has been kept to a minimum. Mostly.

The truth is, you can’t really get involved with Republican politics on any level these days without rolling around in a pigpen full of pipin’ hot Nazi shit, until it penetrates every orifice and stains your eternal soul, but of course Glenn understands all that, it’s just that he wants to be Governor more than he wants to oppose the rise of fascism on American soil. So I guess I’m endorsing Terry McAuliffe, who certainly has a great deal more to recommend himself than “hey, he’s not a Nazi,” but I’m a single-issue voter now.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson publicly threatened legal retaliation against a newspaper that notified his government of a security flaw that exposed 100,000 of his constituents’ Social Security numbers to theft, even though of course it was the government itself that left this data lying around on the side of the street next to a Help Yourself sign. Parson came off like a petty clown, of course, but that instinctive authoritarian lashing-out at the free press…I’m getting pretty sick of that shit.

I’ll be honest with you, even amidst all this fashy fuckery, nothing set the ol’ tummy to churning quite like the news that Joe Rogan was steering his audience towards the official spokescreep of shitsack supremacy: Tucker Carlson. Rogan’s laughably dishonest endorsement of Fish Stix Hitler amounted to praising Grand Moff Tarkin for preserving Alderaan’s picturesque forests and thriving theatre scene, providing the customary casual gaslighting sprinkles that grant so much of our news that familiar, tangy, Orwellian crunch. Still, a Rogan-Carlson pipeline would produce an awful lot of white boy terrorists, so let’s hope this particular supervillain team-up disintegrates sooner rather than later.

Carlson, whose laugh sounds like six hamsters in a food processor and whose chin was recently voted Most Likely to Be Fourteen Ounces of Cottage Cheese in a Sausage Casing, impugned Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s manhood for taking paternity leave. When these thugs get done burning books* they’ll actually put Liar Tuck’s sad, soft portrait in the dictionary next to “masculinity,” y’know. I mean, if you’re gonna lie about elections and pandemics, why not make Tucker Carlson the male ideal while you’re at it, just for laffs?   

Now, you’re probably sick to fucking death of Nazi shit by now; lord knows I am. But if we don’t deal with the Nazi shit that’s already in front of us, we’re just gonna get served an even bigger plate of Nazi shit for breakfast tomorrow, and not to come off argumentative or anything, but my feeling is, there’s been too much Nazi shit already.

Because under Texas’ new anti-CRT law, (“CRT” stands for “Implying Racism Ever Existed in America for Even Ten Minutes AKA Spitting Directly Into the Eye of God” in Texas) we’ve got school boards telling their teachers that if you’re gonna stock books that suggest the Holocaust was bad in any way, you better Chuck Todd that shit and give equal representation to the “opposing” point of view, which is, objectively, Hitler’s.

See, I saved the Naziest shit for last.

Can I just ask…if you’re writing laws that transform public schools into environments where children are taught to bothsides the Holocaust, what conclusion do you expect people to draw? Because there aren’t non-Nazi reasons to do that.

Not sure what y’all hope to accomplish anyway, do you imagine doctoring a few history textbooks will somehow conceal the existence of the hatred you twisted fucks belch up all goddamn day long? Are you like…wait. Are…are they trying to claim credit for inventing racism? “As you learned in school, son, the human race lived in perfect harmony until scumbags like your dad came along and fucked everything up! Aren’tcha proud?”

Hopefully, by the next time we meet, Steve Bannon will be behind bars for defying a congressional subpoena. I’m told the chief obstacle confronting the Jan. 6th commission involves the necessity of constructing a unique holding facility for Bannon, whose body emits numerous secretions capable of burning through traditional restraints.

Hey, those of you who backed MARGUERITE VS. THE OCCUPATION on Kickstarter: digital copies have been sent! Check your junk folders if you didn’t see our update! And if you still haven’t filled out your reward survey, shame on you, get on that!

Which reminds me, we’re gearing up for yet another comic book Kickstarter come November! This one’s a little more fun in the traditional super-hero sense, but still contains all the Nazi-stomping goodness you’ve come to expect from Resistance Comics. Our pre-launch page for ODD YARNS is LIVE, and you can sign up for updates there!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/worthcost/odd-yarns

Anyhoo, I’m gonna go try to wash all this Nazi shit out of my eyeballs, or at least drown it in beer. Stay safe out there, Resisters…we need ya.

*LOL they’re never “done.” That’s not how this works. Stop them or they don’t stop. 

October 9, 2021

Creeping Fascism SUXX, and Other Hot Takes (Ferret)

This week has been…an unusually specific We Didn’t Start the Fire verse, and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter. You may want to put on something splatter-proof before proceeding. I mean, what the fuck.

(As ever, git this nonsense with links n’ in color here: http://showercapblog.com/creeping-fascism-suxx-and-other-hot-takes/)

A whistleblower granted the world a terrifying peek behind the curtain at the human -misery-manufacturing plant called Facebook, and dear lord, the scope of the damage wrought by one nerd’s unrestrained greed, it’s…it’s fuckin’ widescreen, friends. From genocide in Myanmar to inflicting lifelong trauma on an entire generation of young women, look on Mark Zuckerberg’s works, ye mighty, and despair.

There’re certainly some big issues to be grappled with here, and of course it doesn’t help that so many of our elected leaders are just too damn old to understand these newfangled “apps” and “platforms,” with their tight pants and their rock n’ roll music, but if folks could get their shit together in time to regulate these assholes before some random cow on their hellsite knocks over the lantern that sets the whole world on fire, that’d be swell.

Meanwhile, the brain poison peddlers at Fux Nooz took a break from excusing/normalizing violent insurrection and spreading vaccine lies to attack Senator Tammy Duckworth for taking a tax break for wounded veterans which she most definitely earned. But hate her anyway, and don’t forget to tithe to your draft-dodging dirtbag divinity.

“Make America Great Again Again” is the latest asinine bit of branding which, let’s be honest, will totally fucking work on the legion of pliant rubes who are, after all, still (STILL) ineffectively ingesting livestock dewormer in the face of a highly contagious, potentially lethal virus, out of spite.

I see Off-Brand Orbán somehow managed to flounder his way off the Forbes 400, a testament to his one true talent: losing. Not only did this sloppy fop recently hold the most prestigious political post on the planet, but he’s legit the head of an enormous cult, millions who demonstrate daily that they are literally willing to die for him…and STILL the dumb shit figures out a way to crash his brand and decrease his net worth. Like, if Lee and Kirby had pit the Fantastic Four against some sort of cosmic embodiment of the very concept of failure, Donald Trump would still be the bigger loser. He’s amazing.

Tacking back to Cult45 for a second, Sultan Spraytan claimed, with hubris light years beyond parody, “nobody has done more for Christianity or for evangelicals or for religion itself than I have,” which will surely strike the sincerely devout as a touch on the sacrilegious side. Lucky for him, the modern Republican Party contains precisely zero actual Christians, only seething zealots whose only creed is hate, madly demanding religious exemptions from the responsibility to peacefully coexist with others.

Speaking of which…by now you’ve surely noticed the surge in threats of violence against public school employees and officials by once-normal Americans driven insane with rage by the right-wing propaganda machine’s relentless stream of lies.

Well, Merrick Garland announced he’s allocating Justice Department resources to battle this trashfire terror epidemic, because that’s what the Justice Department is fucking for: fighting crime. Threatening to physically harm another human is against the law, and I thought, equally against the agreed-upon rules of civilization. Still, Rand Paul sure seems mad.

Indeed, the Libertarian Lummox waggled his fashy finger flamboyantly at all who would dare impede the sacred right of any frenzied psychopath (provided they’re White, naturally) to terrorize perceived infidels into submission. Rand and co. sure do have some wacky notions about freedom; one almost wants to ask ‘em to work up an official Wingnut Bill of Rights, which’d surely make for quite the obscene little manifesto, smeared, in feces, on Tucker Carlson’s garage door.

And there’s an element of “wow, what a weird hill to die on,” to Paul’s tantrum, of course, but then you remember the hill in question is really “violence and threats of violence should be permissible tactics in the public sphere, admittedly only for our side,” and the reason they’re so desperate to defend that hill is, facing a slide into minority status, the Right is contemplating a hard turn towards fascism. And it is not currently the Kinzinger/Cheney wing of the party dominating that debate. And our little metaphorical hill no longer seems “weird,” only frightening.

Senator Paul, some dude just MURDERED HIS OWN FUCKING BROTHER, a pharmacist, in the name of the snakes fuckwads like you shoved into his head. Like, while we grudgingly understand that your party fucked up so fucking badly that lying to people until their brains break is your only viable electoral strategy at the moment, we really must insist upon drawing the line at submitting to your slaughter.

God picked up his iPhone and went, “Siri, have Chuck Grassley demonstrate the casual racism of old, white, paternalistic, conservative dudes, during a Senate hearing if possible,” and, well, that’s what happened…he’s God. (I would REALLY love it if people picked fights about the gender of god in the comments, by the way.) You don’t get Trump or Trumpism without the sleepy acquiescence of a whole lotta Chuck Grassleys, y’know.

Congratulate Ron Johnson for graduating from using his platform as a United States Senator to parrot dangerous coronavirus disinformation, to using his platform as a United States Senator to elevate dangerous and previously obscure coronavirus disinformation; growth in the wrong direction is still growth, I suppose.

If anybody’s worried they’re sleeping too soundly, let it be known RoJo, for all his shitbaggery, is nowhere near the fringe of the GOP’s elected official class. Certainly not when compared to New Hampshire State Representative Ken Weyler, who claims coronavirus vaccines are a plot by the Pope to inject “octopus-like creatures” into the bodies of unsuspecting patriots. No, really. That happened. In real life.

Republican Governor Chris Sununu called for Weyler’s removal from House leadership, a reasonable enough request, but look, if the GOP kicks everybody who believes the pandemic is a conspiracy to infect children with microsquid out of their steadily-shrinking tent, how’re they supposed to win elections?

Palace intrigue at the Idaho Governor’s Mansion (which, I just learned, does not exist), when Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin took advantage of Gov. Brad Little’s trip to an out-of-state meeting to USURP POWER and repeal vaccine and testing mandates, because death cult coups are just something that happens in America now. (If nobody’s claimed “Potato Republic” yet, I’d like to plant my flag.)

And a new report from Senate Judiciary recounts all the zany ways Hairplug Himmler and his accommodating stooge, Jeffrey Clark, schemed to hollow American democracy out from within, like cartoon termites, only scarier and much less likely to understand how umbrellas work. Republican response to the report has been…let’s say, “predictably disloyal.”

The Deposed Dotard formally ordered his old Turd Reich underlings to defy the January 6th commission’s congressional subpoenas, a key procedural milestone on the slow-motion legal front of the nation’s great Nazi or Nah? struggle. While I normally wouldn’t wish Steve Bannon’s presence on anyone, (it takes multiple boilings to remove the viscous residue he leaves in his wake) let’s get to work enforcing those subpoenas, kids.

Oh, and it turns out prominent hate group attorney Michael P. Farris worked behind the scenes to shape the Assclown Autogolpe’s legal strategy, and you know, I’m starting to think the religious right skipped over a few parts of that Bible. I mean, just the stuff between the front and back covers, though should Ben Garrison recover, I’m sure we’ll someday get to see his approving portrayal of Jesus-as-MAGA-capped-brownshirt, clubbing little caricatures of CNN anchors to death in the street.

Speaking of bigotry wearing faith like a cheap plastic Halloween mask, North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson won’t resign over his appallingly dehumanizing comments about LGBTQ people; why would he, when viral hate speech so frequently rockets one into the highest echelons of Republican politics?

Every other random conservative shitfit continues apace, incidentally. Ron DeSantis keeps on inflicting petty punishments on school districts who refuse to obediently sacrifice their charges to his carrot-colored death god. All the vaccine crap and the CRT crap and the abortion rights crap is still pilin’ up. All frogs are still a-boilin’.

And despite the Cirque du Soleil-quality public failure of the sham Arizona recount, auditmania runs wild, from Wisconsin to North Carolina, because what could possibly go wrong, perpetually reinforcing the Big Lie that the Biden/Fauci/Soros/Big Tech/Snuffleupagus/Big Candy Cigarette/Harvey the Pooka/Big Common Sense Cabal has stolen the nation away from real (coughcoughwhite) Americans?

Oh right. The surge in violence. The one Rand Paul luvs so very, very much.

Debt Ceiling Theatre must be the shittiest show on C-SPAN, right? It’s certainly the most irritating. Mitch McConnell pulled his customary game of chicken (a monstrous, withered, turtle/chicken hybrid, lurching towards catastrophe, somehow leaking horse manure from every orifice) with the global economy, at least until he started getting phone calls from his plutocrat employers; Mitchell is ultimately a servant, albeit a well-compensated one, a sort of “head butler,” but even he isn’t trusted with the combination to the master’s safe.

‘Course, Yertle failed to account for Newton’s Second Law of Ted Cruz: certain assholes are incapable of catching the merest whiff of the spotlight without succumbing to the compulsion to pucker and preen. Lindsey Graham felt like yipping for a bit, too…what cheer. And then one final mini-crisis, because though all agreed the United States must not be permitted to default on its obligations, few were brave enough to cast the necessary vote and thus face the wrath of soft fashy boi Sean Hannity. Real Profiles in the Bottom of my Sneakers After a Trip to the Dog Park stuff here, folks.

Whatever. In the end, Mitch folded, and human civilization lived to fight another day. Honestly, any day this careening gaggle of buttholes fails to blow us all to atoms counts as a good day in my book.

…as does any day when the fridge holds at least a few stray cans of local craft brew. Today, thank all the gods in all the heavens, is such a day. And if you need any more good news, well, howzabout I finally begin teasing the next offering from Resistance Comics…

October 2, 2021

A Light Smattering of Buttholes, Featuring the Defenestration of Corey Lewandowski (Ferret!)

Kind of a slow news week, meaning American fascism creeped a little more quietly than usual, I suppose. Which is welcome enough, as is the subsiding of the Delta surge, certainly…I guess I just wish we’d managed to build a better world for John Hinckley to come back to, y’know?

(You want shiny colors? You want nifty nooz links? CLICK HERE: http://showercapblog.com/a-light-smattering-of-buttholes-featuring-the-defenestration-of-corey-lewandowski/)

A Turd Reich-era DHS whistleblower reminded us that a return to power by the Deposed Dotard “would be a disaster” for U.S. intelligence, a warning sure to resonate with the third of the electorate that reviles our national security apparatus as a fiendish, disloyal “deep state,” to say nothing of their instinctive antipathy for the word “intelligence.”

An enterprising election clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, Tina Peters, decided she wasn’t going to let an insignificant detail like “the will of the people” loosen her loser death cult’s grip on power, especially with seditious bedding peddlers offering so much soothing, crime-justifying disinformation, so she took it upon herself to smuggle some random jagoff into her office to COPY THE COUNTY VOTING MACHINES’ HARD DRIVES for…who the fuck even knows? For whatever dipshit scheme this clown brigade cooked up with the half-dozen-or-so misfiring brain cells they share amongst themselves.

And that’s how it happens here! Yeah, IT. A few more Tina Peters, and one or two fewer Brad Raffenspergers*, in just the right posts, and the GOP can finally send the consent of the governed to live on a farm upstate.

I wouldn’t worry about it, we’re obviously living in sane, healthy, almost drearily normal times, it’s not like local school boards have banded together to beg the federal government for assistance with the legions of anti-mask maniacs threatening them with violence. It’s not like any hospitals are handing out personal panic buttons to staff in response to a threefold surge in assaults from crazed patients demanding to be medicated like worm-infested cattle. OH WAIT, IT’S ACTUALLY EXACTLY LIKE THAT! CAP, YOU WILY SCOUNDREL!

Well, deranged MAGA cartoonist Ben Garrison went and got himself a heapin’ helpin’ of Covid-19, and, with his characteristic grip on objective reality, chose to self-medicate, washing down the now-obligatory ivermectin cocktail with a tall, frosty glass of beet juice, probably with a Lysol chaser. Get well never, fuckhead.

Brett Kavanaugh has it, too. Bet he got it from boofing with Squee.

You wouldn’t think the governorship of a state as small as South Dakota offered enough power to go especially mad with, but bless her unscrupulous little heart, Kristi Noem is doing her level best. Seems that when she’s not busy sacrificing her constituents’ lives on the altar of her national ambitions, Noem likes to unwind by purging state agencies of officials who insist upon holding their governor’s subpar spawn to the same standards as the commoners.

Remember when an abuse-of-power scandal like that was enough to drive these scumbags out of office? Underappreciated times, those.

Stephanie Grisham obsequiously enabled the shittiest people alive as they assaulted American democracy, plundered the Treasury, and spread disease and death from sea to shining sea, but now she’s looking to cash in with yet another trashy tell-all about life behind the scenes in Ruptured Hemorrhoid Camelot. Anyway, while it’s certainly a humiliating enough anecdote for the Marmalade Shartcannon, fuck Grisham sideways with a rake for making us think about Donald Trump’s (allegedly) toadstool-esque wang again.

Speaking of Th’Best People™️, hey Corey Lewandowski, looks like you overestimated the sturdiness of your lil’ flight harness, didn’tcha, you shitty Icarus, you? One can certainly understand how this walking bathtub drain hair clog came to believe he was invincible; neither serial incompetence nor video evidence of physical assault could dislodge him from Pumpkin Spice Pol Pot’s orbit, such has been the potency of his ass-kissing. Still, groping a high-rolling donor? In the GOP? Kid must have a dang death wish.

Congressional hearings on Afghanistan offered an informative glimpse into the kakistocracy to come should the increasingly authoritarian, decreasingly rational Republican Party ever retake power. Watching a thuggish pedophile like Matt Gaetz and a shabby drug dealer like Ronny Jackson furiously regurgitate batshit right wing talking points at Chairman Milley, dreams of Newsmax stardom twinkling in their otherwise-dead eyes, makes me realize we need a whole new word, to describe that unique combination of disdain and dread and disgust and despair one feels when staring directly into modern conservatism’s dark heart. (Especially on election nights, right?) Perhaps a simple, primal yowl will do.

Wisconsin Republicans, contending the real victims of racism are white folks’ feelings, are pursuing a bill that would mandate white supremacist gaslighting in their state’s public schools, with lead author Chuck Wichgers helpfully providing a list of words and phrases he’d like to see burned out of every textbook in the land, including “patriarchy,” “systemic racism,” and “Chuck Wichgers is a clownish bigot with the brain of an unusually inadequate gerbil.” Glad Scott Walker’s no longer around to sign this monstrosity into law.

Well, some timorous taintfungus firebombed the Travis County Democratic Party headquarters in Austin, Texas. Nobody got hurt, thank God, but maybe the national media could’ve spared a moment or two from their ‘round-the-clock investigation of the trash cans outside Joe Manchin’s house to mention this act of domestic right-wing terrorism? Anyway, here’s Chris Cillizza with five winners and three losers from the Reichstag fire.

I see Sammy Alito became the latest member of the stolen wingnut SCOTUS majority to sullenly whinge about all the uppity peasants criticizing the way he and his fellows have been imposing their illegitimate will on the public. Harumph! If the serfs can’t accept their diminished slate of rights in respectful silence, maybe something needs to be done about that pesky First Amendment…

I guess Santa finally opened all those letters I’ve been sending, because once again, comeuppance time has arrived for the grimy bucket of toenail clippings and marmot diarrhea known as Alex Jones. Seems the judge got fed up with Alex’s deadbeat stall tactics, and issued default judgments against him and his trashfire website, in lawsuits filed by two of the Sandy Hook families he terrorized for years. To the jury tasked with determining the precise amount to be awarded, remember, Jones is a tick who has engorged himself for years on the suffering of innocent strangers, and richly deserves a Dickensian denouement. Do your duty.

And I see Pat Robertson retired from public hate-mongering, to spend more time trembling in fear in anticipation of the eternal damnation that’ll kick off any minute now. Say hi to Rush for us, Pat!

…yeah, bit quiet this week, though I’m certainly open to the possibility that I overlooked some shit, as real life (boo) and comic book publishing (yay) made some heavy demands on my time. Feel free to berate me in the comments for any shortcomings; I always figured I’d have more trolls by now.

* Brads Raffensperger?**

** Will I ever get tired of this gag?***

*** Doubt it.