Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

TheFerret

TheFerret's Journal
TheFerret's Journal
July 12, 2025

Superman vs. MechaHitler, for the Epstein Files, and Other History Lessons You'll Be Afraid to Teach Your Grandkids

Well, I spent the week curled up snugly within my windmill house writing folk songs. Here’s what I came up with:

In MacArthur Park they’re marching in the dark

All those creepy ICE guys running ‘round

Someone left our rights out in the rain

Now that weirdo who bought Twitter

Just created MechaHitler

Will we ever have democracy again?

And then Stephen Miller bursts through the wall like some spindly, brownshirt Kool-Aid Man, shrieking OHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

(As ever, links n’ such: https://showercapblog.com/superman-vs-mechahitler-for-the-epstein-files-and-other-history-lessons-youll-be-afraid-to-teach-your-grandkids/)

If I’m honest, I shouldn’t be writing this blog, and you shouldn’t be reading it. We should all be pouring all available (metaphorical, obviously) gasoline onto the circular firing squad occurring within the typically surprisingly harmonious MAGA dumpster fire over the Epstein Files.

This is another one you gotta do in a 50s sci-fi trailer voice. Cup your hands so you get an echo. The Eeeeeeeeepsteeeeeeein Fiiiiiiiiiiles.

I get why they’re mad, hard as you’ve been gridin’ on ‘em with this Epstein shit. You owe ‘em at least a handjob.

As long as I can remember, you’ve been promising this culture this massive, cathartic orgy of ceremonial public violence, legitimized by the apparatus of state justice just as soon as we can seize it, because All the People We Happen to Hate are Also Conveniently Pedophiles, only it turns out, through a frankly zany set of coincidences, that we have constructed the largest, most dangerous cult of personality in human history around a man of so many vices you sorta had to expect pedophilia would be on the list and well, it is.

But we knew that! We’ve all seen the photographs of your boy literally partying with (cups hands) Eeeeeeeepsteeeeeeeein, and we’ve heard the Access Hollywood tape. You can hear him lech on his own daughter with Howard Stern.

So you wanna say, “c’mon, how did you not see this coming?” but of course everyone involved is in miles over their head; they don’t see Tuesday coming. And since the Russian spy in charge of staffing has diligently obstructed all but the smoothest brains from joining the White House comms shop, the best anybody could come up with was Instead of Epstein Files...No.

Heh. Not even a thank you for your attention to this matter? That’s just impolite.

Are we watching the moment when the washed brains finally burst? Because I need to charge some camcorder batteries.

This is the QAnon wing of the coalition arriving at Wally World only to find the park closed. With a bloodthirsty hate cult in the Chevy Chase role.

From “the files’re ON MY DESK, right there in between the framed photograph of my beautiful family and the stack of authorizations to seize human beings off our streets and deport them to black sites on foreign soil” to “silly rabbit, the Epstein Files are an old wives’ tale!” Odd it’s not working.

“We are regrettably unable at this time to dispense the long-promised deluge of accountability surrounding the world’s most infamous pedophilia ring, as doing so would reveal inconvenient truths about the not-particularly-golden calf we’ve been bowing to.”

So there’s a schism in Dipshitopia. And if Dan Bongino wants to huff and puff and resign from the very important job he never should’ve had, I’m willing to provide cupcakes for the going away party.

FUCK YES, poke at one another for a change. With your pointy little sticks. Is there a pointy stick fund I can contribute to, or…or, my goodness, could it be that Elon Musk, spurned by the court, seeks that role for himself? I love that for everyone involved.

If Kid Ketamine really wants to fling the full force of his manic, petty spite against the fascists for locking him out of the clubhouse, that’s probably as healthy a use for his resources as we’re likely to luck into.

We’ve caught all the shitty breaks lately, so it’s nice to daydream about a scenario where Pied Piper Elon impishly seduces just enough creepy-crawlies away from the tent to widen the Senate map, right?

You get a knockout candidate with a good, clear story to tell, running against Herschel Walker’s Brain in a Vat, who spends the whole campaign fielding flak from some telegenic young Aryan screaming about pedophilia through the biggest bullhorn billions can buy?

Stranger things have happened. I’m an old Cubs fan; I can talk myself into anything this far out.

And again, I am delighted to leave the issue of funding to Mr. Musk, but if that doesn’t pan out, I don’t want anybody going without pointy sticks just so I can have my Starbucks.

Fair warning, side effects may include urban rampages by kaiju-sized Hitlerbots, though I’m sure we can count on Godzilla in that scenario.

Yes, as these tragically subpar behemoths slap fight over our civilization, we should probably stop to note that one of them seems to have briefly created an artificial intelligence that opted to self-identify as, and yes, this will be on the test, “MechaHitler.”

You see, Musk got mad at the AI he bought because he told it to be honest, but that meant hearing he was wrong (about some fairly substantial shit!), so he gutted it in order to relaunch with a voice more to his personal liking, and what came out first, what came out in mere hours, in fact…was MechaHitler.

The thing that sucks about this movie is now we all understand he’s TRYING to create MechaHitler, and he’s going to keep on trying to create MechaHitler, But in Sunglasses and a Fake Beard, and we can’t turn the movie off, only hope he runs out of money or time.

I see Comey and Brennan are t’be officially vindictively persecuted by the federal government. I feel like you’re supposed to send a card for that. “If only the secret police disappeared Mondays instead of your spouse/parent/child.”

Well, the understandably loathed Big Fat Wad of Things Only Assholes Want is officially the law of the land, and now Republicans have to “sell” it, which means distracting the marks while they make their getaway, confident they’ll be able to stick Dems with the check when it comes. And hey, I understand how you arrived at your confidence in that plan.

…but I don’t think these people’re going home without them Epstein Files, fellas.

I honestly believe they wouldn’t mind learning you straight up lied about stealing their health insurance or eliminating taxes on Social Security if you just let them see, once in their lives, the gruesome public execution of a reasonably generous portion of the People We Hate, Who Are All Conveniently Pedophiles.

Pro tip for dangerous times: the way to spot an artificial Marco Rubio is you ask it to discard a core principle in exchange for power, and if it hesitates, it’s obviously a very crude robot.

You’ll be shocked to hear the malignant narcissist made it a lil’ easier to endorse politicians from the pulpit, though I’ll bet you all my TrumpCoin this turns out to be one of those rights that doesn’t extend to all pulpits equally.

So, legitimate question: is Hegseth playing God or just drunkenly passing out atop large red buttons? Paused weapons shipments to a live front without mentioning it to anybody first. After the Signal thing, why is this goofball still permitted access to this kind of power? Not that it isn’t fun watching the President learn about what his administration is doing in real time.

How many Overmatched Dimwit Fucks Up (Yes, Again) headlines does it take to get fired from this Cabinet? You have to have somebody better than this g-oh, right (smacks forehead), kakistocracy.

Thom Tillis knew all along they were nuthin’ but a buncha unqualified flunkies, and he genuinely intended to call his senator to sternly urge a No vote come confirmation time, but he was too busy playing with his favorite rubber stamp that week.

A whistleblower confirmed and expanded upon previous tales of Trump lackey Emil Bove’s authoritarian tendencies, so he probably shouldn’t be a federal judge, right? We’ll see about this newfound integrity when it’s time for that vote, won’t we, Thom?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has apparently been administering lie detector tests to its own people, hoping to unmask the culprit who has been composing naughty magnetic poetry limericks about Director Patel on the break room fridge. I assume DOGE is all over this.

Condolences go out to the entire Turd Reich, top to bottom; natural disasters are rough on a kakistocracy. All that Fraud n’ Waste™️ the chainsaw-wielding drug addict so boisterously removed keeps turning out to be the stuff we used to keep our families alive. The flooding in Texas forced the inevitable collision between bluster and reality in predictably tragic fashion.

We actually built a whole system to protect people in this exact situation, but our government dismantled that system with reckless abandon, and now children are dead.

Kristi Noem’s vainglorious micromanagement delayed deployment of FEMA search and rescue teams by 72 hours. Apologies to any terrified 9-year-old girls who were only able to hold out for 65 hours; the Secretary was fielding pitches for a Brunhilde-themed shoot at Alligator Alcatraz. It’s coming out a little too Kill the Wabbit at the moment, but we’ll find it. Shame about those kids, but they were weak.

Anyhow, while we’re forced to suffer the malfeasance for the duration of the term corresponding to the electoral result, spare us the goddamn thoughts and prayers show, just this once.

Mike Johnson bleating about feeling “just as helpless as everyone else does,” when he’s the guy flipping all the help switches off…it’s one of those periodically perfect snapshots of MAGA’s rotting core.

Like, you’re still holding the lifeline you cut, you little weasel. It’s obscene. If you’re not even gonna set up a table and hand out coffee, have the decency to keep your mouth shut.

At least we can rest easy, knowing this can never happen again once Marjorie Taylor Greene gets her weather modification ban passed. It’s a slippery slope straight to space laser control, if you ask me. I may spend the weekend in the bathtub, contemplating the ethics of a Congress of Madmen outlawing their own delusions.

Having perhaps grown temporarily weary of banging his Ivy League Legos against the sidewalk, President Regressing-to-Rich-Kid-Petulance again demanded the global economy to play with, and Uncle Lutnick dutifully retrieved the Easy Bake Tariff Oven, so we’re back on that bullshit. Yay.

He seems t’be writing the announcement letters himself, or at least dictating them to Kid Rock. The letters are immaculate horror stories; blustering decrees from a decomposing brain that never quite attained that elusive fifth grade reading level…with the force of the law, because America elected that brain twice.

Rates are now linked to This One Rapist’s personal grievances, as the Founders intended. Summits with global leaders have transformed into grotesque groveling and graft rituals. Kiss the Rapist’s ass on worldwide television, why, I suddenly don’t see any need for any tariff at awwwwwwwl, mah good man.

But the Rapist aspires to autocracy; THEREFORE, any nation that dares to prosecute its own fallen tyrant wannabes, thy tariff rate shall henceforth be set at infinity percent times two no take-backs, and then we all learn a bunch of random facts about how our economy is intertwined with Brazil’s and all the strange n’ interesting jobs of all the nice people who will lose their life’s work to this colicky manchild’s latest whim.

The international economy right now is like a Toy Story movie in the Twilight Zone, humanity’s most powerful soldiering on as best as they can, desperate to avoid the attention of history’s shittiest rich kid, lest they be selected for the day’s play session.

Tell you what, though, the soft, sloppy old crook might just land that Nobel Peace Prize, since every government on Earth is about to nominate him, hoping to avoid a casual fiscal carpet-bombing.

Shout out to comeback kid The Measles for continuing that long, hard climb back from eradication, with cases hitting a 33-year high. Say it like Sylvester. Thirty-three.

How far back does this dial go? Will we live to see the DeSantistan Camps converted into leper colonies? Perhaps in Book IV, when Eric is a sandworm?

The new Superman flick triggered a particularly embarrassing ragegasm from the nation’s seemingly endless supply of culture war dead-enders. It’s Super-WOKE, you see, cuz Clark doesn’t spend the movie terrorizing farm laborers.

Ah, but speaking of superheroes in an age of fashy shenanigans, this comic book I’ve been working on so long is fiiiiiiiiiinally in production and lookin’ mighty sweet if I do say so myself.

We’ll get that Kickstarter prelaunch page up soon. You’re gonna dig this one, friends. Until then, if this diatribe earned your nervous chuckles, the tip jar accepts Cash App, PayPal, and Venmo! Follow @john_luzar and/or sign up for regular updates from showercapblog.com! And stay safe out there, if you’re able…

July 5, 2025

Fragrant Fourth Fuels Fascism Fears (Ferret)

Yyyyeah, the vibes’re pretty strange on this, objectively the least American July 4th celebration to date. And may we never top it.

My god, they actually passed the fucking thing.

(Links. Shiny colors. A click away: https://showercapblog.com/fragrant-fourth-fuels-fascism-fears/)

The legislative process has been likened to sausage-making. This one was more like every dumb, mean kid you ever met locking themselves in the butcher shop to stuff casings with dog turds and broken glass. And then throwing themselves a party to eat ‘em.

Can’t imagine they’ll be teaching the Murkowski Maneuver at West Point any time soon. “You guys, whatever you do, don’t vote for this bill I just voted for; it’s nowhere close to ready! Okay, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to YOU GUYS WHAT DID I JUST SAY?”

Congrats on doing that thing the public told you in no uncertain terms not to do, I guess. If the plan to avoid the electorate’s wrath next November rests on the final throttling of American democracy, just recall that your little strongman couldn’t even throw himself a birthday parade a couple weeks back.

One of the big reasons to vote Democrat is that your congressional representative would never swap your health insurance for a rapist’s autograph. And that’s partisan now.

See, whatever Fashy Daddy wants, he gets. And if his grip on the actual policies the bill enacts seems shaky, well, all he really wants is another holiday party to sully, and you could probably get twenty bucks for the signature on eBay.

I guess we’re finally gonna find out how much air is left in the wingnut disinformation bubble, though. Because when folks start passing out, there won’t be hospitals to take ‘em to, or, for that matter, insurance to cover ‘em.

As you bid your premature farewells to loved ones deemed insufficiently worthy of otherwise available health care, may you draw comfort from imagining yourself traveling alongside Clarence Thomas in lavish style, while Harlan swings by Argentina for an impulse splurge on the Hitler memorabilia black market, cuz that’s where the money went instead.

I don’t mean t’be a Negative Nellie, harping on the Bleak, Bloated ‘Bomination’s many losers (aka filthy pleb taker “minutiae,” as the Vice President might put it, aka millions of working Americans), because I can think of at least one unaccountable proto-fascist secret police force that came out way, wayyyyyyyyy ahead!

No one could reasonably argue that ICE doesn’t require a larger budget than almost any military force on the planet; grade school kids aren’t going to expose themselves to public urination, y’know!

We are now spending more on this agency, which sends masked, heavily armed men into our communities to abduct hardworking, law-abiding people, than Israel spends on their whole military. Even if they peel off a few billion to remake Birth of a Nation with Kristi Noem, that’s, gosh, a lotta firepower handed to some of the shittiest kakistocrats in the whole cabal.

Stephen Miller will not be settling for two dolls this Xmas.

Incidentally, th’Shart of th’Deal fell around ninety deals shy of his 90 Dealz in 90 Dayz pledge, so now he’s petulantly lobbing tariff rates between naps. And of course I enjoy paying Dear Leader’s vanity tax as much as the next loyal citizen, but surely this means there’s room for cancer research, since there’s $25 million for grandpa’s North Korea-themed birthday pillow fort.

So Elon wants to start his very own political party. And hey, maybe he is a genius; maybe antagonizing both halves of the political spectrum in swift succession opens a Mushroom Kingdom-esque warp pipe to electoral glory. Or maybe single-handedly doing as much ketamine as Fleetwood Mac did cocaine does a number on the ol’ prefrontal cortex.

Of course, none of that matters, for Elon is to be deported. And this brown socialist fellow in New York is to be arrested.

Can’t slow down for any silly ol’ due process; gotta get the undesirables to the foreign torture prisons before they’re able to DEI any more of our children.

Gotta keep ‘em there, too, lest they return to report on the conditions in the torture prisons once the Secretary’s publicity team has flown home. And since there’s apparently enough money lying around to pass to every felon who still had enough cash on hand to donate to the president’s campaign, there is no question we owe Kilmar Abrego Garcia compensation for rushing so negligently to violate his human rights.

That goes for the poor bastards who’re still stuck there, too. And it should come out of ICE’s budget, but no, let’s give them more money than Israel’s, again, ENTIRE MILITARY BUDGET instead.

I would very much appreciate it if everyone would just STOP FUNNELING POWER TO THE TYRANT. America has one job right now, and that’s it. Mr. Roberts, I was addressing you and your giggling cohort.

6-3 Day is always a gut punch, and I’m secretly delighted I took that week off. But honestly, what goes through these folks’ heads?

Are they just poking our democracy to see what the old coot will try to get away with next? For lolz, at the pinnacle of power while the nation teeters on the brink of actual fascist collapse, an erotically charged game of chicken with the entire American experiment and one another? Honestly, I could respect that.

But otherwise…what the fuck, you guys?

The last thing you should give a guy who asks for the power to deport people to active conflict zones without due process is more power. The asking is a fairly clear tell, I’d argue. All this guy ever does is grab power and fail to clear ever-lowering ethical hurdles.

What was the last ethical hurdle our president made the slightest effort to clear? “I’m selling fragrances in bottles shaped (allegedly) like my body now; if you can smuggle one into your federal prison cell, that’s gotta be worth a pardon, right?

He swapped members of MS-13 to a foreign dictator in exchange for the aforementioned torture prison. That’s right, the very gang he’s been fearmongering about for a fucking decade. Turned some of its most murderous leaders loose. They’re eating somebody’s pets right now.

There is to be a “Great American State Fair,” personally overseen by Mighty Leader, Passer of the Cognitive Test, Undisputed Golf Champion of That Place He Owns. There shall be not merely fighting on the White House lawn, but (fifties sci-fi trailer voice) ulllllllllltimate fighting!

I hope you’re happy, America; you won’t have Thom Tillis or Don Bacon to sop up your milk anymore! You’ll have to make your own increasingly inaudible bleats of “principle” the next time there’s authoritarian overreach to cave to!

Golly gee, how wonderful it would be to replace these two specific feckless windbags on history’s stage with a pair of red-blooded, all-American, Whatever We Decide to Call Ourselves This Time DEMOCRATS. Blue Wave or whatever.

They’re gonna try to anoint the Tom Petty-defiling daughter-in-law? While they’re cutting off hurricane relief and Medicaid? Good luck. (Please don’t Cal Cunningham this one up, you guys.)

As much as I hate everything he’s doing to my country, it’s the slow-motion backstabbing of Ukraine that’s going to wind up determining Hegseth’s circle assignment in Hell. Running interference for Pootie Pie’s military operation to set a European capital ablaze? Seriously? Second banana to a fifth-rate Stalin, who’s bankrupting his country to murder civilians in Kyiv?

Your mom must be almost as proud of you as Mike Lee’s mom is of Mike Lee.

He wants that red necktie he sent for Volodymyr’s birthday back, incidentally. It was, of course, far too long anyway.

See, these Ukrainians need to die, along with the Medicaid poors plus everybody who dies from the shit we don’t cure, because American ingenuity has instead been redirected into developing a concentration camp that can be assembled in eight days flat.

Can’t say I’m in love with those priorities.

“Alligator Alcatraz” triggers the corner of the MAGA brain that involuntarily drools whenever a maniac breaks into a political opponent’s home with a hammer and homicidal intent. There’s merch, of course, because we live among people who desire such things as the official baseball cap of a concentration camp.

As we begin to tabulate the butcher’s bill from Elon’s little chainsaw romp through USAID, it’s pretty fucking sobering how quickly the numbers have climbed into the tens of millions, and that’s not dollars, that’s lives.

Sorry, we need the money for the parades and the marines on our streets and the prefab concentration camps. You’ll appreciate the craftsmanship on your way out.

Can’t afford the funding we promised for all those school programs that were just about to start, can’t afford to refund that $80 million the Navy Federal Credit Union stole from our servicemen and women, and definitely cannot afford Patriot missiles to defend those children Vladimir Putin wants to murder. Or cancer research, or oversight of anything we’re doing, obviously.

You traitors are banned from Independence Day. For life. 86’d from patriotism generally by virtue of being the shittiest Americans ever. May thy cupcake’s frosting turn to ash in thy mouth. May thy sparkler fizzle and fade.

I couldn’t actually muster any outrage over Coach Tuberville’s “inner-city rats” remark, because my brain refuses to accept dehumanizing rhetoric from such an unimpressive specimen. The one and only person I’ve ever encountered where I thought, “Okay, sure, THIS guy is inherently inferior to Tommy Tuberville,” turned out to be a mannequin. It’s adorable that you think you get to talk down to anybody, you smooth-brained, collaborating wanksock.

Growing up, I remember hearing about the school-to-prison pipeline, never dreaming I’d live to see the ribbon cut on a Capitol Riot-to-DoJ pipeline. Pardoned wannabe cop killer Jared L. Wise works for our old friend Ed Martin on something even Orwell would be ashamed to call the “Weaponization Working Group,” so perhaps putting that Russian spy in charge of staffing wasn’t the best call?

Watching institutions cave to the authoritarian bullying of my government’s executive branch is easily my least favorite thing about the Turd Reich Restored. And I know these are ultimately the decisions of a handful of wealthy cowards (who get to spend the rest of their lives avoiding eye contact in all the finest mirrors), but the film junkie in me sees these headlines about Paramount submitting to petty tyranny, and it gets my dander up.

Feels like Don Corleone kneeling, or Norma Desmond. Jake Gittes. Hud. Hud would kick all your dork Nazi asses.

SHABBY, DECLINING WANNABE TYRANT: Mumble mumble windmill cancer, mumble mumble Shylock, mumble mumble stolen el-

HUD: (slugs SDWT for using a slur.)

Anyway, my plan is to buy up a bunch of shipping containers (I bet they’re cheap from the trade war), fill ‘em with Hellboy comics and beer, and ship ‘em to all the deportation hot spots, so I’ll have a place to crash when I’m disappeared.

So if you found this diatribe at all amusing, please contribute to my Shipping Containers Full of Beer fund, now accepting, you guessed it, PayPal, Cash App, and Venmo!

Oh, and THE NEW COMIC IS FINALLY COMING, so now more than ever, follow @john_luzarand sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com! I’ll be raffling off spots in the shipping containers, but until then, stay safe out there, campers…

July 5, 2025

Fragrant Fourth Fuels Fascism Fears (Ferret/Shower Cap)

Yyyyeah, the vibes’re pretty strange on this, objectively the least American July 4th celebration to date. And may we never top it.

My god, they actually passed the fucking thing.

(Links. Shiny colors. A click away: https://showercapblog.com/fragrant-fourth-fuels-fascism-fears/)

The legislative process has been likened to sausage-making. This one was more like every dumb, mean kid you ever met locking themselves in the butcher shop to stuff casings with dog turds and broken glass. And then throwing themselves a party to eat ‘em.

Can’t imagine they’ll be teaching the Murkowski Maneuver at West Point any time soon. “You guys, whatever you do, don’t vote for this bill I just voted for; it’s nowhere close to ready! Okay, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to YOU GUYS WHAT DID I JUST SAY?”

Congrats on doing that thing the public told you in no uncertain terms not to do, I guess. If the plan to avoid the electorate’s wrath next November rests on the final throttling of American democracy, just recall that your little strongman couldn’t even throw himself a birthday parade a couple weeks back.

One of the big reasons to vote Democrat is that your congressional representative would never swap your health insurance for a rapist’s autograph. And that’s partisan now.

See, whatever Fashy Daddy wants, he gets. And if his grip on the actual policies the bill enacts seems shaky, well, all he really wants is another holiday party to sully, and you could probably get twenty bucks for the signature on eBay.

I guess we’re finally gonna find out how much air is left in the wingnut disinformation bubble, though. Because when folks start passing out, there won’t be hospitals to take ‘em to, or, for that matter, insurance to cover ‘em.

As you bid your premature farewells to loved ones deemed insufficiently worthy of otherwise available health care, may you draw comfort from imagining yourself traveling alongside Clarence Thomas in lavish style, while Harlan swings by Argentina for an impulse splurge on the Hitler memorabilia black market, cuz that’s where the money went instead.

I don’t mean t’be a Negative Nellie, harping on the Bleak, Bloated ‘Bomination’s many losers (aka filthy pleb taker “minutiae,” as the Vice President might put it, aka millions of working Americans), because I can think of at least one unaccountable proto-fascist secret police force that came out way, wayyyyyyyyy ahead!

No one could reasonably argue that ICE doesn’t require a larger budget than almost any military force on the planet; grade school kids aren’t going to expose themselves to public urination, y’know!

We are now spending more on this agency, which sends masked, heavily armed men into our communities to abduct hardworking, law-abiding people, than Israel spends on their whole military. Even if they peel off a few billion to remake Birth of a Nation with Kristi Noem, that’s, gosh, a lotta firepower handed to some of the shittiest kakistocrats in the whole cabal.

Stephen Miller will not be settling for two dolls this Xmas.

Incidentally, th’Shart of th’Deal fell around ninety deals shy of his 90 Dealz in 90 Dayz pledge, so now he’s petulantly lobbing tariff rates between naps. And of course I enjoy paying Dear Leader’s vanity tax as much as the next loyal citizen, but surely this means there’s room for cancer research, since there’s $25 million for grandpa’s North Korea-themed birthday pillow fort.

So Elon wants to start his very own political party. And hey, maybe he is a genius; maybe antagonizing both halves of the political spectrum in swift succession opens a Mushroom Kingdom-esque warp pipe to electoral glory. Or maybe single-handedly doing as much ketamine as Fleetwood Mac did cocaine does a number on the ol’ prefrontal cortex.

Of course, none of that matters, for Elon is to be deported. And this brown socialist fellow in New York is to be arrested.

Can’t slow down for any silly ol’ due process; gotta get the undesirables to the foreign torture prisons before they’re able to DEI any more of our children.

Gotta keep ‘em there, too, lest they return to report on the conditions in the torture prisons once the Secretary’s publicity team has flown home. And since there’s apparently enough money lying around to pass to every felon who still had enough cash on hand to donate to the president’s campaign, there is no question we owe Kilmar Abrego Garcia compensation for rushing so negligently to violate his human rights.

That goes for the poor bastards who’re still stuck there, too. And it should come out of ICE’s budget, but no, let’s give them more money than Israel’s, again, ENTIRE MILITARY BUDGET instead.

I would very much appreciate it if everyone would just STOP FUNNELING POWER TO THE TYRANT. America has one job right now, and that’s it. Mr. Roberts, I was addressing you and your giggling cohort.

6-3 Day is always a gut punch, and I’m secretly delighted I took that week off. But honestly, what goes through these folks’ heads?

Are they just poking our democracy to see what the old coot will try to get away with next? For lolz, at the pinnacle of power while the nation teeters on the brink of actual fascist collapse, an erotically charged game of chicken with the entire American experiment and one another? Honestly, I could respect that.

But otherwise…what the fuck, you guys?

The last thing you should give a guy who asks for the power to deport people to active conflict zones without due process is more power. The asking is a fairly clear tell, I’d argue. All this guy ever does is grab power and fail to clear ever-lowering ethical hurdles.

What was the last ethical hurdle our president made the slightest effort to clear? “I’m selling fragrances in bottles shaped (allegedly) like my body now; if you can smuggle one into your federal prison cell, that’s gotta be worth a pardon, right?

He swapped members of MS-13 to a foreign dictator in exchange for the aforementioned torture prison. That’s right, the very gang he’s been fearmongering about for a fucking decade. Turned some of its most murderous leaders loose. They’re eating somebody’s pets right now.

There is to be a “Great American State Fair,” personally overseen by Mighty Leader, Passer of the Cognitive Test, Undisputed Golf Champion of That Place He Owns. There shall be not merely fighting on the White House lawn, but (fifties sci-fi trailer voice) ulllllllllltimate fighting!

I hope you’re happy, America; you won’t have Thom Tillis or Don Bacon to sop up your milk anymore! You’ll have to make your own increasingly inaudible bleats of “principle” the next time there’s authoritarian overreach to cave to!

Golly gee, how wonderful it would be to replace these two specific feckless windbags on history’s stage with a pair of red-blooded, all-American, Whatever We Decide to Call Ourselves This Time DEMOCRATS. Blue Wave or whatever.

They’re gonna try to anoint the Tom Petty-defiling daughter-in-law? While they’re cutting off hurricane relief and Medicaid? Good luck. (Please don’t Cal Cunningham this one up, you guys.)

As much as I hate everything he’s doing to my country, it’s the slow-motion backstabbing of Ukraine that’s going to wind up determining Hegseth’s circle assignment in Hell. Running interference for Pootie Pie’s military operation to set a European capital ablaze? Seriously? Second banana to a fifth-rate Stalin, who’s bankrupting his country to murder civilians in Kyiv?

Your mom must be almost as proud of you as Mike Lee’s mom is of Mike Lee.

He wants that red necktie he sent for Volodymyr’s birthday back, incidentally. It was, of course, far too long anyway.

See, these Ukrainians need to die, along with the Medicaid poors plus everybody who dies from the shit we don’t cure, because American ingenuity has instead been redirected into developing a concentration camp that can be assembled in eight days flat.

Can’t say I’m in love with those priorities.

“Alligator Alcatraz” triggers the corner of the MAGA brain that involuntarily drools whenever a maniac breaks into a political opponent’s home with a hammer and homicidal intent. There’s merch, of course, because we live among people who desire such things as the official baseball cap of a concentration camp.

As we begin to tabulate the butcher’s bill from Elon’s little chainsaw romp through USAID, it’s pretty fucking sobering how quickly the numbers have climbed into the tens of millions, and that’s not dollars, that’s lives.

Sorry, we need the money for the parades and the marines on our streets and the prefab concentration camps. You’ll appreciate the craftsmanship on your way out.

Can’t afford the funding we promised for all those school programs that were just about to start, can’t afford to refund that $80 million the Navy Federal Credit Union stole from our servicemen and women, and definitely cannot afford Patriot missiles to defend those children Vladimir Putin wants to murder. Or cancer research, or oversight of anything we’re doing, obviously.

You traitors are banned from Independence Day. For life. 86’d from patriotism generally by virtue of being the shittiest Americans ever. May thy cupcake’s frosting turn to ash in thy mouth. May thy sparkler fizzle and fade.

I couldn’t actually muster any outrage over Coach Tuberville’s “inner-city rats” remark, because my brain refuses to accept dehumanizing rhetoric from such an unimpressive specimen. The one and only person I’ve ever encountered where I thought, “Okay, sure, THIS guy is inherently inferior to Tommy Tuberville,” turned out to be a mannequin. It’s adorable that you think you get to talk down to anybody, you smooth-brained, collaborating wanksock.

Growing up, I remember hearing about the school-to-prison pipeline, never dreaming I’d live to see the ribbon cut on a Capitol Riot-to-DoJ pipeline. Pardoned wannabe cop killer Jared L. Wise works for our old friend Ed Martin on something even Orwell would be ashamed to call the “Weaponization Working Group,” so perhaps putting that Russian spy in charge of staffing wasn’t the best call?

Watching institutions cave to the authoritarian bullying of my government’s executive branch is easily my least favorite thing about the Turd Reich Restored. And I know these are ultimately the decisions of a handful of wealthy cowards (who get to spend the rest of their lives avoiding eye contact in all the finest mirrors), but the film junkie in me sees these headlines about Paramount submitting to petty tyranny, and it gets my dander up.

Feels like Don Corleone kneeling, or Norma Desmond. Jake Gittes. Hud. Hud would kick all your dork Nazi asses.

SHABBY, DECLINING WANNABE TYRANT: Mumble mumble windmill cancer, mumble mumble Shylock, mumble mumble stolen el-

HUD: (slugs SDWT for using a slur.)

Anyway, my plan is to buy up a bunch of shipping containers (I bet they’re cheap from the trade war), fill ‘em with Hellboy comics and beer, and ship ‘em to all the deportation hot spots, so I’ll have a place to crash when I’m disappeared.

So if you found this diatribe at all amusing, please contribute to my Shipping Containers Full of Beer fund, now accepting, you guessed it, PayPal, Cash App, and Venmo!

Oh, and THE NEW COMIC IS FINALLY COMING, so now more than ever, follow @john_luzarand sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com! I’ll be raffling off spots in the shipping containers, but until then, stay safe out there, campers…

June 21, 2025

How Hard Can War Be, Really? (Ferret/Shower Cap)

I could almost enjoy the news if the bumbling Christopher Guest hucksters weren’t also playing the leads in the Tom Clancy thriller. Pie to the face, steps on a rake, stumbles around blind…it’s all very amusing till he feels his way to the big red launch button.

(With links: https://showercapblog.com/how-hard-can-war-be-really/)

I bet Mike Lee’s mom is proud of him tonight. Aced the WWJD standard. Aced that shit.

I don’t think I could handle disappointing Tina Smith that badly. It’s nice to see Mike Lee slink away in shame, because Mike Lee is a fellow who should slink away in shame a lot more often. This was not Mike Lee’s first shameful act.

Grownups don’t “dunk” on the grieving friends and family of political assassination victims. That’s a fucked-up impulse to follow, Mike. It’s like mooning a funeral.

United States senators should not lend their platforms to right-wing disinformation mobs, and people who lend their platforms to right-wing disinformation mobs should not be United States senators. But here we are.

I’M NOT GUNNA CALL GUVNER WALZ IN FACT LET ME TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO LIMPLY FLING SOME PLAYGROUND INSULTS AT HIM. What an impressive strongman. What a healthy culture that defers to him in all things.

Is this how democracy dies? Not with a bang, but with the faint squeaking of tanks as they roll past a handful of barely conscious rubes?

Again, I don’t want it to sound like I’m asking for better autocrats, but Discount Donnie’s Demonstrably Shittier Than Kim Jong-un’s Birthday Jerkoff didn’t exactly scream American greatness.

Especially compared to one of the largest political protests in the nation’s history: the coast-to-coast No Kings march. Losing the ratings war so badly, backed by the unlimited budget of the federal government, on your birthday? Some showman.

People who literally cannot throw a parade are debating matters of life and death right now. Cannot, let history note, even spell parade. Life and death.

HEY TEHRAN, he mashes out with the fingers that can’t quite find their way to “parade,” YOO BETTER EVACUATE YOOR WHOLE CITY RIGHT FREAKIN’ NOW!!!

And thousands flee. Because maybe the old coot means it this time. Can you imagine what that feels like to a narcissist?

You see stuff like “Hegseth and Gabbard sidelined during unnecessary crisis,” and that sounds like good news, because those two clowns shouldn’t be anywhere near these rooms, but my god…who’s even lower on that totem pole, y’know?

Bobby Brainworm’s down the hall torturing Galileo, can he spare a moment so we can get his input on the nuclear conflict? Is Linda McMahon too busy liquidating the Department of Education to weigh in? Fuck you all for making me miss Rex Tillerson. 

Oh look, Mike Huckabee’s trying to write himself into a Bible story; that’s distressing. Please do not pour messianic delusions into that particular game show host. Any god that sent us Donald Trump means us harm.

Put Huck’s texts in the Smithsonian, though. It’s like watching the Christian nationalist Three Stooges reenact the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Two weeks. If civilization survives, that line’ll get a laugh. Charlton Heston running around screaming, “You madmen, it’s just something he says!!”

Tune in in two weeks’ time to watch an addled sociopath pluck the fate of millions from a hat! Sure, he’ll probably back down, but he is dumb and crazy, and Lindsey Graham keeps filling his head with fantasies of bombs falling from invisible planes.

Lindsey sold his whole soul for moments like this. Just so he can get close enough to lean in and whisper startawarstartawarstartawarkillemkillemalllllll. It’s what God wants. Netanyahu tempting him with visions of beachside Gaza resorts once the ethnic cleansing’s done.

Hey, here’s a flagpole. Might drop a nuke later. I stepped away from the room where we’re making that decision to show you all this big, dumb flagpole. Flagpoles and fake gas prices and marines on American streets and perhaps I’ll try my hand at regime change in the Middle East.

The saber-rattling has caused something of a schism in this normally unified death cult, so many of the world’s worst people are spitting venom at one another for a change. Wouldn’t it be nice to just lock Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz in a room forever? Isn’t that both guys’ personal hell, and don’t they both deserve that? What a horror that these men are consulted on matters of war.

Anyhoo, Tucker criticized Fox Nooz for “just turning up the propaganda hose to full blast,” while Trump attacked them as “Crooked,” “FAKE,” and “discredited.” I dunno, this feels like an issue where we can find some bipartisan common ground.

Domestically, our populist government made it juuuuuuuust a little easier to get cancer, throwing a legal wrench into the implementation of an asbestos ban. Had to grease the asbestos industry’s off-ramp with just a liiiiiiiittle more cancer. A few human lives. You’ll never miss ‘em.

We need the money for parades, you see. For the marines in California. We can either have that LGBTQ youth suicide hotline or marines in California, but who, I ask you, is holding back the Mexican hordes?

Gotta pay for a whole buncha new masks and a buncha unaccountable “law enforcement agents” to wear ‘em. Gotta turn ‘em loose to meet Stephen Miller’s quotas. Gotta forcibly detain a few more uppity elected Democrats. Should probably ask Speaker Moses to work something up making it illegal to record ‘em as they violate the plebs’ precious rights.

Anyway, the bill. We were waiting on the dynamic CBO score, because the dynamic score was gonna factor in all the magical economic side effects of taking a few million Americans’ health insurance away. The dynamic score was gonna kick so much sand in our stupid libtard faces.

Except it didn’t.

What the dynamic score actually says is the bill is, and it’s kind of a funny story, actually even shittier, if only slightly. But there’s a score someplace that says what we want it to, and if that score turns out to be the work of a cactus artist or a white nationalist shitposter, we’ll apologize later.

Sure, consumer spending is down as we all keep finding fun new ways to pay Donnie’s tariffs, but Ron Vara assures us everything is going according to plan.

Can’t run a parade, mayyyyyyybe dropping a nuclear bomb on a modern metropolis later, petulantly demanding a Nobel Peace Prize for forcing the world to endure his bullshit. Prediction: at least three prominent Trumpworld figures will turn out to be Peter Sellers. Kid Rock has been Peter Sellers this whole time. Lutnick, probably.

President Rapist swung by Juneteenth just long enough to grouse, “We have too many holidays, bah humbug!” So noted, racist grampa president.

The G7 Summit can’t be much fun for a dotard; absolutely everyone there understands how tariffs really work, for starters. He showed up for a day to vouch for his genocidal benefactor, who got kicked out of the club over one measly war of aggression. Then he scampered off, because he knew he could never handle Zelensky without home field advantage in a room packed with conniving stooges. The Trump Doctrine is isolation through cringe.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wants his state to host a migrant detention facility he calls “Alligator Alcatraz,” because all good law enforcement officials fantasize about the cool dungeons they’d like to build.

The just-announced Trump Phone will not be made in America, but even Junior n’ Eric, bless their hearts, understand their target audience doesn’t exactly follow up on that shit. There’s an app that automatically diverts your paycheck into the family crypto scheme, so that’s convenient.

I guess Mike Lindell’s defamation defense had some holes. He keeps saying the pillow money’s almost run out, but any man with a discount code and his own private “news” network has a chance, I suppose.

Apparently the guy in charge of staffing the executive branch has been ducking his own security clearance paperwork because he lied about what country he’s from? Probably Russia? I think we’ve found the Peter Lorre role. Good thing our intelligence agencies are too busy chasing conspiracy theories to vet these guys.

A radical deep state activist judge denied the American taxpayer the honor of footing the bill for President Rapist’s latest appeal of the E. Jean Carroll judgment, which calls, in my humble opinion, for a rousing round of stochastic terrorism.

3rd generation Dick Tracy antagonist Charlie Kirk advised the nation’s young women to attend college, if only to find a pallid TPUSA manchild to mate with. For life. Understand, Charlie’s boys need all the help they can get.

Strangely enough, all available polling tells us people hate this shit. Turns out inflationary kakistocrat misrule pairs poorly with perceptibly authoritarian power grabs. To put it another way…NO KINGS.

Ok, quick heads-up, NO BLOG NEXT WEEK, as I need to catch up on a bunch of stuff now that the comic book project I’ve been working on is finally, FINALLY in production! Let me see if I can figure out how to tease some artwork…

We’re all pretty excited about how it’s coming together, so be on the lookout for the Kickstarter! Not that I’ll shut up about it.

If this diatribe brought you a chuckle in these discouraging times, feel free to drop a buck or two into my tip jar (now accepting Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal!) or to follow @john_luzar. Sign up for email updates at showercap.blog.com. I’ll be back in two weeks. I know how that sounds, but I mean it. Stay safe out there till then, okay?

June 14, 2025

Sure, No Kings, But Definitely Not One This Shitty (Ferret/Shower Cap)

Lotta big milestones for ascendant American autocracy this week. Uniformed military in the streets, opposition politicians in handcuffs…they grow up so fast, don’t they? Suddenly we’ve got a chubby, fascist toddler running amok, and we never quite got around to installing childproof locks on all the cabinets.

(GIT IT WITH LINKS: https://showercapblog.com/sure-no-kings-but-definitely-not-one-this-shitty/)

The “cabinets” here are our fundamental democratic institutions, if that was unclear. And while I could happily beat this metaphor to death for hours (there’s gotta be some way to thread “second term” with the terrible twos), we should probably just talk about the news.

So. Los Angeles. A little Reichstagier than I generally like things, to be honest.

Granted, I’m something of a libtard, but I’ve always preferred a government that builds schools and hospitals to one that manufactures and escalates conflicts with the populace. These thugs were so horny to see troops in our streets, they deployed them without bothering to arrange housing first. Too busy setting up the merch table at Fort Bragg, no doubt. Oddly enough, morale is down.

Anyhoo, every inch of LA surely woulda burned to cinders had the Dotard not deployed the mighty legions of Space Force, under the personal command of Dr. Phil, to battle the busloads of antifas who George Soros paid to wave Mexican flags around. Surely.

Why, rioting by United States Senators alone caused, like, so much damage, you guys. We won’t be safe till they’re all in irons. The Democratic ones, anyway. That’s what Jesse Watters told me, and I haven’t seen him that scared since that time he had soup.

Don’t act like Alex Padilla doesn’t understand perfectly well that it violates the Constitution plus at least 3.5 commandments to interrupt Kristi Noem while she’s ranting about using federal forces to “liberate” American citizens from their democratically elected government. If you don’t want to get tackled and detained by regime goons, don’t exercise your free speech rights, DUH.

Incidentally, if you bring any of that First Amendment crap to a certain cognitive test-passer’s $45 million birfday tank parade, expect to be “met with very heavy force.”

For protesting.

Personally, nothing puts me in a protesting mood quite like the President of the United States threatening his constituents with violence. You don’t have enough marines to shut us all up, dork.

I guess ABC News fires reporters for stating the obvious now. Look, I don’t want to nitpick anybody’s creeping authoritarian project, but if you’re planning on persecuting people for noticing Stephen Miller’s seething hatred for his fellow man, you’re, um, gonna need a bigger gulag.

One fun, unanticipated side effect of all this fashy fuckery: copycat brownshirts! Turns out, when masked law enforcement is the norm, a thirty-dollar investment at the local Spirit Halloween provides all the tools necessary to march in the front door, tie somebody up, and rob ‘em blind. Welcome to Donald Trump’s America, where we never stop finding new ways to suck.

The more the public learns about the Turd Reich’s massively regressive Bleak, Bloated Bill, the less they like it, demonstrating a frankly selfish preference for personal health over oligarch wealth. If you genuinely believe that extending your own filthy pleb taker life is more important than padding the DeVos family yachtcare budget, I don’t know what to say to you, other than I question your commitment to restoring American greatness.

Seems Lil’ Petey Hegseth has the Pentagon workin’ up “contingency plans” to invade Greenland and Panama. My advice to our erstwhile allies under threat: name as many things as you can after women, gay people, and minorities, especially on your borders; while he’s distracted with sputtering whiteboi rage, you’ll have plenty of time to read the battle plans on Signal.

Apparently, Pete sucks so hard, it’s been a struggle to find people who are willing to work for him. In the Pentagon. Not my field, obviously, but that’s gotta be the pinnacle, right? Like turning down a role in a Spielberg film.

“Would you like to work in the highest echelons of the most powerful military force in human history?”

“Is the paranoid manchild still in charge?”

“To which paranoid manchild are you referring?”

“The one who dresses like a 12-year-old and brings his wife, brother, and, for whatever reason, divorce lawyer to work? The one who shitcanned three top aides for reasons that remain unclear?”

“…yes, the paranoid manchild is still in charge.”

“Okay, well, I’ve got another offer. From Arby’s.”

“Oh, you should take it. By the way, are they, uh, hiring?”

Elon Musk furiously attempted to buy Hallmark just to shut it down when he discovered they don’t have a Sorry I Called You a Pedophile on the Social Media Platform I Own, I Was on a Ketamine Bender section, but he couldn’t figure out how, because he was on ketamine.

That said, WWE is in talks to add the Musk/Bessent rematch to this year’s SummerSlam card. The pitch allegedly involves recruiting Grimes as the special guest referee, plus every time Elon gains the upper hand, a different baby mama runs out to serve him with child support papers.

Apparently Tulsi Gabbard outsourced the screening of the JFK files for declassification to AI, which raises some downright wacky ethical issues. Under kakistocracy, maybe the only available variety of intelligence is artificial, y’know? Be honest, if you had to choose between Skynet and the current administration…you’d listen to Skynet’s pitch. Shit, if you wanna plug me into the Matrix until, say, 2028, you can leech all the bioelectricity you want. That’s a win-win.

Marco Rubio barely figured out why Zelensky refused his offer to go halvsies on a Happy Russia Day present for Pooty-Pie in time to send a card of his own, wishing the genocidal madman well, attaching a 100-ruble McDonald’s gift card, which would be enough to cover most of a straw were there any McDonald’s left in Russia, which…nope.

The Offal in the Oval announced plans to “wean” the nation off FEMA. To achieve the requisite reduction in natural disasters, he ordered Lutnick to impose across-the-board 75% tariffs on God and any affiliated angels, aiming to reduce what he calls our “weather deficit” with the almighty. I’m told a deal is expected within two weeks.

RFK Jr. uncovered a dastardly Deep State plot to pack the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices with, TRIGGER WARNING…doctors and scientists! People who think vaccines prevent disease and save lives! Can you imagine?

Why, not one single member of this committee believed the Covid vaccine was part of a massive conspiracy to "deindustrialize and depopulate the world." Not one! We’re finally gonna replace the aborted fetus debris in our medicine with whale head juice, the way the good Lord intended.

Even though he’s working relentlessly to destroy my country, I confess I see where the Dotard is coming from on the “Don’t invite Rand Paul to my picnic” issue. Yes, it’s petty authoritarian shit, but I also believe in a fundamental human right to not spend leisure time with libertarians. It’s tricky.

With everything that’s going on in the Middle East right now, we sure are lucky to possess soft power assets like Voice of America’s Persian News Network. You’d have t’be damn near braindead to cut such a cost-effective progr…hang on, who’s that over there? I can’t make her out through the soft lighting, but she appears to be begging someone to come back to work.

Republican Mark Green announced his surprise retirement from Congress to take some mystery job he won’t reveal, possibly in Guyana? Fuck it, why not? Presumably he’ll show up at the end of season 7, leading an army of centaurs cloned from Hitler and Secretariat.

That one Capitol rioter is still trying to extend his presidential pardon to his kiddie porn charges, and Moms for Liberty favorite South Carolina state Rep. RJ May got caught with “265 child sex abuse videos,” and the leader of the whole dang GOP bought an entire teen beauty pageant just so he could barge into the dressing rooms to leer at underage girls, but Florida Republicans would have you believe it’s children’s literature by the likes of Judy Blume that amounts to “pornography.”

I try to keep things positive here in the ol’ blog, because I genuinely do believe one day we’ll emerge from this sewage pipe, Andy Dufresne-style. I’m an optimist. Most days. But watching Bret Baier rap would kill the hope in Fred Rogers’ heart.

In conclusion, NO KINGS…except maybe Budweiser, the admittedly mildly tyrannical King of Beers. Longtime readers will recognize this transition to the traditional last-paragraph Rattling of the Tip Jar (now accepting PayPal, Cash App, and Venmo!), which I have styled as a “beer fund,” in fitting with my lovably drunken internet loudmouth persona: Shower Cap. So toss in a couple bucks, follow @john_luzar, and sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com, or I shall become sad. And stay safe out there, chums…

June 7, 2025

It's All Fun & Games Until One Oligarch Accuses the Other Oligarch of Being in the Epstein Files (Ferret/Shower Cap)

We used to have a little something called “family values” in this country. When two billionaires joined forces to subvert democracy, it was for life. Sure, there’d be bumps along the road, but you worked that shit out, you stayed together. Fired veterans together. Starved millions of children together.

(Makes more sense with links, I promise: https://showercapblog.com/its-all-fun-games-until-one-oligarch-accuses-the-other-oligarch-of-being-in-the-epstein-files/)

Sometimes I wonder if a lasting bromance between two malignant narcissists is even possible in this crazy, mixed-up world of ours. Dang, they never even got their own portmanteau couple name! (If it’s not too late, I’d like to submit “Elonald Mump.”)

Anyway, yes, the megasloppy divorce everyone saw coming arrived ahead of schedule, and I think I speak for all involved when I say how delightful it is to watch the bad guys take a few footballs to the groin for a change.

Ironically, this “feud” may well have brought out the best in both dorks. Seriously. I mean, when Elon calls Trump a recession-causing pedophile who should be impeached…he’s not wrong. And when Donnie calls Musk a maniac and threatens to cut off his billions and billions of dollars’ worth of government subsidies, well, shit, that’s the best idea he’s had since he fired Mike Flynn.

Honestly, I love this for these two. What worthier target could either shitbag hope to find for their boundless pettiness and spite? Let’s find ‘em a nice, cozy, bottomless pit where they can flail at one another until the sun goes out.

I never want it to stop, you guys. Death Cult Civil War is my favorite show now. If it’s absolutely necessary that I share my country with the likes of Alex Jones and Catturd, let it be in the context of watching them pelt each other with feces till they’re both buried up to their fucking eyeballs.

We must protect the supply lines to this circular firing squad at any cost, my friends, because the impotent panic in Greg Gutfeld’s eyes as he begs his fashy daddies to stop fighting might just be the renewable energy source we need to power the 21st century.

I certainly wish Musk well in his quest to steer a Cybertruck into the Dotard’s Big, Bloated aBomination. Heck, half the House GOP has expressed regret for their support now that they’ve taken the time to actually read the goddamn thing.

They’re not mad about the 15 million Americans they’re stealing health insurance from, of course; that would require basic human decency. In fact, Senate Republicans’re trying to make the bill even more murdery (murderier?), eyeing cuts to Medicare in addition to Medicaid.

In the national security equivalent of making airplane noises to get a child to swallow a spoonful of peas, Tulsi Gabbard figures maybe she can trick her boss into paying attention to his job if she disguises the presidential daily briefing as a Fox Nooz broadcast. I feel like the 25th Amendment might be a more efficient solution here.

I see the travel ban is back, targeting a seemingly random list of countries this time. When it turns out t’be Nations Deemed Insufficiently Deferential During Tariff Negotiations, I’m sure we’ll all be very, very surprised. Anyway, since they’re resurrecting shitty ideas from the First Desecration, we should probably brace ourselves for the Mandatory Bleach Injections EO coming next week.

Well, gosh golly gee, turns out it was possible to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States after all; they just needed to cook up some bullshit trafficking charges first. To hear Pam Bondi tell it, Kilmar was MS-13’s Executive Vice President in Charge of Child Grooming, but maybe we can just skip to the part where somebody publishes the home address of the judge who throws your “case” out? Save a little time?

Just a heads-up, you will all be required to submit to regular polygraph testing until we can figure out who told Donnie Two Dolls about the Biden clonebot. Not much point in having a Deep State if you blabbermouths are gonna gossip about every world leader we replace with a robotic clone, IS THERE?

It is my sad duty to report that we, the libs, are now officially the legal property of Joni Ernst, following the sick tooth fairy burn she tacked onto her fake apology video. She even slid a little evangelizing in there, which I appreciated. If you’ve ever wondered, “Who would Jesus troll?” it’s “people who want health care,” apparently.

Volodymyr Zelensky generously introduced Ukraine’s revolutionary new trucking technology deep within Russia’s interior, and Putin didn’t even say thank you. Tsk tsk, what will JD Vance say?

Even with new atrocities reaching the headlines daily, the masked hordes of ICE have not yet been able to execute deportations in sufficient numbers to fill the fetid, throbbing, chasmal hole in Stephen Miller where the rest of us have a soul. So now we’re pulling law enforcement resources from actual crime fighting to harass Jerry Nadler’s staff, to frame innocent people for plotting assassinations, to hang around immigration courts looking for compliant families to rip apart. Why, it’s almost as though the cruelty is the whole point.

I’ve generally been opposed to the current administration’s efforts to shutter the Department of Education, but after this week’s Senate hearings, I’m calling for a total funding freeze until Secretary McMahon demonstrates the capacity to graduate from the fifth grade.

I hate to seem judgmental, but this whole kakistocracy thing doesn’t seem t’be working out. Could we really not find anybody to run FEMA who knew about hurricane season? That’s like hiring a Health and Human Services Secretary who doesn’t believe in germ theory or somethi-hang on, I’m being handed an update…

Shit, Lutnick’s gone so far off the rails, even ol’ Foghorn Kennedy’s calling him out. Sure, maybe Howard’ll have the last laugh once he’s overseen the reshoring of the banana factories, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

And while I certainly appreciate the efforts of the courts in restraining these maniacs, I wonder if we shouldn’t just install childproof locks on all Cabinet department executive suites now that Homeland Security has taken to recruiting high-level terrorism officials from the Model U.N. circuit.

Pete Hegseth continued his subpar-whiteboy-supremacist-renaming-shit bender, this time stripping civil rights icon Harvey Milk’s name off a Navy ship, because how are warfighters supposed to warfight if they’re not 100% confident their boat is heterosexual?

Mary Miller may not know the difference between a Muslim and a Sikh, but she finds it “deeply troubling” that either should be allowed to pray in Congress, just in case you thought her “Hitler was right on one thing” speech was some kind of outlier.

Surprisingly, ticket sales at the Kennedy Center are way down since a certain short-fingered vulgarian appointed himself culture-maker in chief. Still, that Lee Greenwood rock opera adaptation of The Turner Diaries (book and lyrics by Seb Gorka) has been getting solid reviews out of town, so there’s still time to turn things around.

Look, maybe State Department official Darren “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work” Beattie didn’t dismantle that anti-Russian propaganda agency on account of his wife’s ties to the Kremlin. Maybe he was just covering up his Iran-Contra, But With Butt Plugs scheme. I say teach the controversy.

Seems one of Littlefinger’s tacky golf resorts earned a bunch of health code violations. Whatever. If a bunch of crypto grifters and Chinese spies wind up with food poisoning, I’m okay with that.

Despite her willingness to belch up the party line, Meghan McCain has long struggled to find a spot at the MAGA grift trough, likely owing to her status as the spawn of an anathema, but she has at long last procured the sponsorship of a supplement that claims to “detox” regretful recipients of the Covid vaccine. Look, if you trust Meghan McCain to sell you an un-vaccination pill, you don’t deserve money.

Mike Lindell’s latest MyDefamationTrial has, of course, been a somber, dignified affair, outside of the odd outburst about Satan stealing the 2020 election. Better hope Satan doesn’t call up Dominion for lawyer recs, Mike.

Okay, I’m gonna go have a Big Beautiful Beer. Or maybe six. If this lil’ diatribe brought you a chuckle or two, feel free to drop a couple bucks in my tip jar (now accepting Cash App, PayPal, and Venmo!), follow @john_luzar, or sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com. (And you should do that, since I’m finally, finally, FINALLY on the brink of announcing something I’ve been working on for a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time.)

Stay safe out there, chums…

May 31, 2025

Let's TACO Bout the Week's News (Ferret/Shower Cap)

Hello, friends. Hope you’re well. I am writing to you tonight from CECOT, having been deported for reposting chicken memes on social media. The delousings are a little more frequent than I’d like, but I got to meet Kristi Noem.

(Links n’ such await those bold enough to click HERE: https://showercapblog.com/lets-taco-bout-the-weeks-news/)

I suppose it’s theoretically possible that the Boston Tea Party was as much fun as watching that reporter ask that TACO question, but I doubt it. It’s like that old Simpsons bit where Bart slows down the tape to pinpoint the precise second when Lisa rips Ralph Wiggum’s heart in half, only with the painfully public piercing of a narcissistic bubble.

“Excuse me, Mr. Scary Strongman, sir, people are saying you’re such a habitual cuck as to warrant your own personalized acronym, because as a culture, we simply lack the time to say ‘Wow, Lil’ Donnie wussed out AGAIN’ every single time you run away crying. Your thoughts?”

Lookit the impotent rage in his eyes. He’d like to throttle the reporter, but he knows his hands are too tiny and weak.

“N-no! They actually say I’m T-TOO t-t-t-tough.”

Aw. Is that what Lutnick told you? Or Lindsey Graham? Did the “human printer” hand you another stack of Catturd tweets?

Did it help? No?

Gosh, you’ll have to call another Cabinet meeting, won’tcha? Shit, go ahead. Sit there basking in the bootlicking of the unimpressive men you’ve broken, if you think it’ll wash away the knowledge that people have developed an entire investment strategy around your reliable cowardice.

…but it won’t.

Because the Ls are starting to pile up, aren’t they?

Especially in court. Lately, Stephen Miller won’t stop mewling about “judicial tyranny,” which is his cutesy little nickname for the rule of law. All these tricksy judges with their arcane legal loopholes, like “human being possess certain fundamental civil rights” and “really, really wanting to impose tariffs does not constitute an emergency.” Why, even judges appointed by the Dotard himself, during his First Desecration, stubbornly refuse to shred the Constitution on his behalf.

And so it came to pass, dear reader, that the face-eating leopard paid an overdue visit to the Federalist Society. I’ll admit I laughed at that time traveler when he told me I’d be upset to see the end of Leonard Leo’s influence over the judiciary, but I’ve grudgingly come to accept his assessment that I’d live to regret wishing for a Cubs World Series victory on that monkey’s paw.

Because now it’s time for lifetime appointments for a career criminal’s personal attorneys. We’re talking about a club you have to be less ethical than Michael Cohen to join. Can’t wait t’be harangued by Susan Collins as she casts the decisive vote confirming Alina Habba to the Supreme Court.

I’d like to think I’m joking about that, but the kakistocrat staffing agency dug up known anti-Semites Kingsley “Great Replacement Theory” Wilson and Paul “Andrew Tate’s Lawyer” Ingrassia for key posts just this week.

I suppose it’s true what they say about a fish rotting from the head. Though a decomposing fish head would have more class than to ramble about trophy wives at West Point, or vomit up the annual spite-filled Memorial Day diatribe, or revel in a political opponent’s cancer diagnosis.

Wouldn’t crash the global economy or steal nuclear secrets or turn our private data over to Peter Thiel, either. Hmm. It’s a little early to formally endorse, but I’m definitely considering backing Rotting Fish Head in the 2028 GOP primary. Depends on how Brian Kemp polls in Iowa.

Poor Donnie Two-Dolls just can’t figure out what’s happened to his ol’ pal, Pooty. Where’s the fun-loving fellow who was always standing by with a laugh and a piss hooker? Why, it’s almost as if the guy who’s on his eleventeenth war of aggression doesn’t want peace.

I confess I’m enjoying the wave of “Elon Musk Thought He Bought the Entire Federal Government; Now He’s Fleeing Washington With His Own Chainsaw Embedded in His Colon” articles. They’re quite informative. For example, I learned about the side effects of ketamine abuse today, which was delightful. People who steal food and medicine from millions of impoverished children don’t deserve bladder control.

Musk leaves government with Stephen Miller’s wife in tow, prompting tawdry speculation, which I shan't engage in here, mostly because I’d like to keep my lunch down.

Incidentally, he’s come out against the Bleak, Bloated Bill, so if this divorce wants to get messy, I’ll just be over in the corner, not complaining.

Unhappily, it turns out brainworms can multitask, and RFK Jr. seems to hit upon new methods to poison the public almost hourly. He’s trying to import 400 bird flu-infected ostriches from Canada, which would be strange enough if he hadn’t just canceled a contract to develop a bird flu vaccine, which of course he has.

As expected, he’s also testing the decapitated whale carcass-infested waters around vaccine recommendations, justifying his quackery with AI-generated reports citing nonexistent scientific studies. Once upon a time, faking science would’ve ended a public health official’s career, but nowadays you can just shrug, mumble “formatting error,” and go back to trafficking diseased ratites.

One crucial aspect of th’Art of th’Deal is knowing when to sweeten the pot. Sure, Mark Carney’s playing hard to get on the whole “ceding sovereignty to a rapist golf cheat” thing, but how could he possibly resist sharing the shelter of the Golden Dome (That Will Never Ever Ever Actually Get Built)?

Might need to throw in a toaster oven, since you’re asking our neighbors to the north to shackle themselves to the economy you’re already shrinking, though it was the “envy of the world” as recently as January.

Pretty much the only corner of the Trump Administration functioning with anything resembling efficiency is the Department of Fuck Harvard, no doubt owing to MAGA’s deep, abiding commitment to status envy. The ban on foreign students got held up in court, but they’ve directed all federal agencies to cancel their remaining contracts with the university, plus Walt Nauta has been dispatched to pee in the Cinnamon Toast Crunch dispenser in the student cafeteria.

Pete Hegseth stands accused of spying on his own staff via warrantless wiretaps, which doesn’t strike me as particularly necessary, given the state of information security at the Pentagon under his “leadership.”

While the Offal in the Oval has yet to attempt to overturn any of the Nuremberg verdicts, at the rate he’s going, he’s gonna run out of other scumbags to pardon. Gang leaders, reality show stars, and, of course, seven-figure campaign donors, all delivered beyond the reach of Lady Justice, while his turgid toady, Ed Martin, tauntingly bleats NO MAGA LEFT BEHIND. Kinda makes you want to VOTE IN THE GODDAMN MIDTERMS, doesn’t it?

Nihilist hog castrator Joni Ernst says we’re all gonna die, so what’s the point of Medicaid anyway? Hey, if that ethanol thing doesn’t work out, maybe you can bring home a Soylent factory or two.

Our deepest condolences go out to Dan Bongino, who has, and I’m not a big trigger warning guy, but TRIGGER WARNING…a JOB. He has to show up an’ work an’ everything. They don’t even allow his emotional support spouse to tag along. Golly, I don’t recognize this country anymore.

Ron Johnson now recommends adding a dash of hydrochloric acid to your diet; it really brings out the ivermectin taste in the paint chips.

You’ll be delighted to learn the long-dormant James O’Keefe vs. Project Veritas feud quietly arrived at the inevitable “an employee sent me a text message of me eating a sandwich covered in semen” stage, and while I’ve personally never had an employee send me a text message of me eating a sandwich covered in semen, if I had, I’d like to think I’d leave that detail out of any documentaries I happened to make and/or release, but, well, opinions on the subject vary. Apparently.

Florida Congresstooge Greg Steube introduced a bill to block all federal funding to the Washington Metro unless it rebrands itself as, I shit you not, “the Trump Train,” which probably strikes you as a distressingly exceptional effort in the field of authoritarian sycophancy. Ah, but Andy Ogles is still pimping his constitutional amendment to allow a third term. There’re only so many pimples on the man’s ass, boys, and therefore only so many suckling spots. May the spinelessest lackey win!

Seems Nancy Mace forces her congressional staff to run burner accounts to post about how super-great and not-at-all-insane Nancy Mace is, so if any lingering DOGE brats happen to be reading this, you, uh, missed a spot.

I’d like to say the Senate can’t help but get smarter now that Coach Tuberville is leaving to “govern” Alabama, but I worry any red state electorate who overheard me would take that as a challenge.

Well, that’s enough of that. Gonna grab a quick bite to eat. Definitely not a sandwich, just in case. Perhaps a…TACO? FULL CIRCLE, BITCHES!

And if you enjoyed this little rant, help me wash down my taco platter with an ice-cold beer or two by tossing a coupla bucks in my tip jar (now accepting PayPal, Cash App, and Venmo), or follow @john_luzar and sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com for free! Thanks for readin’, and as always, stay safe out there, m’lovelies…

May 24, 2025

More Like Big UGLY Bill, AMIRITE?!?!? (Ferret/Shower Cap)

With the passage of the GOP’s reconciliation bill in jeopardy, House Republican deficit hawks held fast to their principles, ultimately resulting in fiscally responsible legislation that balances the budget for the first time in nearly…hang on, that’s not right.

(You know the drills. Links n’ such: https://showercapblog.com/more-like-big-ugly-bill-amirite/)

With the passage of the GOP’s reconciliation bill in jeopardy, House Republican moderates held fast to their principles, defending their most vulnerable constituents from devastating cuts to programs they rely on for their veryyyyyyyyy nope, that’s not it either.

Okay. Let’s take one more crack at this:

With the passage of the GOP’s reconciliation bill in jeopardy, House Republicans of all ideological stripes briefly emitted a variety of theatrical squawks before capitulating at the first hint of pressure from their Fashy Daddy, who, in their defense, does control a massive mob of demonstrably violent psychopaths.

Shit, the only member of the entire dang caucus who actually believes anything is Thomas Massie, and he’s out of his fucking mind.

And sure, the One Enormous, Pus-Swollen-and-About-to-Burst Bill adds trillions to the debt while stealing health care and food assistance from millions, but thanks to the billions in tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, Harlan Crow should be able to give Clarence Thomas a real nice Xmas this year. Three dolls at the very least.

As is the custom, the marketing strategy for this latest shit sandwich relies heavily upon big, fat, stupid lies. Karoline Leavitt, for example, claimed the bill saves $1.6 trillion, and since she’s filled the Briefing Room with drooling weirdos who’d rather ask about the “Clinton body count” than anything occurring in actual reality, the Children of the Candy Corn may well go on believing this crap right up until the hospital in their rural community closes.

So now the bond market is freaking out, and oh look, Grampa’s firing up his trade war again, so there goes the Dow. Goodness knows where we’re supposed to find all these hundreds of billions of dollars to super-size ICE or to build that “Golden Dome” to protect us from all the missiles no one is launching.

I’d say we could tap into some of that $10 trillion in investments from the Dotard’s recent trip to the Middle East, but of course that’s all fake, too.

Deploying those hospitality instincts honed by decades in the hotel industry, Off-Brand Orbán ambushed another head of state in the Oval Office, this time South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Yeah, the way we do diplomacy now is Stephen Miller prints out a couple memes, lies to his boss about what they mean, and snickers in the back of the room while Donnie Dumbshit bleats about “white genocide.” And then we get a few days of headlines about, like, Easily Duped President Causes International Incident Over Totally Fake Shit (Yes, Again).

At the risk of sounding judgmental, MAGA Nation’s response to President Biden’s cancer diagnosis forces me to question the sincerity of their loudly professed devotion to Christian doctrine. Which is funny, because I was questioning it just the other day, when they were all pitching fits over the “woke Marxist Pope.” Oh, and that time they elected an adjudicated rapist president.

Seems Elon Musk finally learned that while money can’t buy love, it’ll get ya a heapin’ helpin’ of the opposite if you’re not careful. Retreating from Washington in defeat, Musk announced that he’s giving up political spending, instead devoting his resources to building an AI that can figure out how to get people to buy cars from a mass murderer of children.

I think we need to order a round of cognitive tests for the wingnut SCOTUS majority, who can’t seem to stop themselves from enabling authoritarian power grabs, this time granting Trump’s “emergency” request to fire the heads of independent agencies. Like, has the decade of increasingly violent lawlessness been too subtle for y’all? And even if it has, couldja at least stop refueling the flamethrowers these creeps have trained on our Constitution? Maybe? Please?

Failed congressional candidate Joe Kent, now working as Tulsi Gabbard’s chief of staff, took it upon himself to doctor some intelligence reports because those spoilsports at the National Intelligence Council wouldn’t give Tangerine Idi Amin the excuse he wanted to deport makeup artists to foreign gulags.

Naturally, Joe’s in line for a promotion to head the National Counterterrorism Center, where he’d be free to interpret those reports howsoe’er he pleased, killjoys be damned. Sleep tight.

Devastating tornadoes killed dozens, but I guess Trump’s FEMA was washing its hair that night, because they sure as shit didn’t show up for any disaster relief. Josh Hawley couldn’t even join the partisan slap fight during the Noem hearing (more on that in a minute) because he needed that time to beg for aid.

In saner times, they’d call this Trump’s Katrina, and it’d be a massive scandal, with wall-to-wall coverage, particularly as these communities suffer while he parties with the lucky winners of the Memecoin Bribe Sweepstakes, but I suppose, boiled frogs that we are, no one really expects competency or decency anymore.

Oh, and he’s still denying FEMA aid to North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene? Which apparently merits barely a mention in the national news media? Man, I gotta get me one of them personality cults.

ANYWAY. Kristi Noem. Homeland Security Secretary. Constitutional Scholar. Poet.

Alllllll over the news this week, taunting deported migrants and Ivy League universities, doling out polygraph tests during paranoid meltdowns; how does she even find time for those fascistic photo shoots?

Her Latin may be a bit rusty, however.

I think it would be cool if the nation’s most powerful law enforcement officials possessed a rudimentary knowledge of, or even interest in, our most fundamental rights, don’t you? Big part of why I vote Democrat.

The Turd Reich yet again escalated its war on Harvard, banning the university from enrolling international students. I figure we’re about two weeks away from stories about Hegseth losing $60 million jets in the Charles River.

…or perhaps crashing them into Asbury Park, NJ, now that Bruce Springsteen has been declared an enemy of the state. As it happens, I got invited to the Signal chat where they’re planning the Boss’ arrest and deportation (I used to cat-sit for Kid Rock’s meth dealer), and I think it’s going down soon. Someone using the handle “DefinitelyNOTPete” just posted, “Meet me tonight in Atlantic City, warfighters.”

Looks like th’Deep State™️ got to Patel and Bongino, who’ve enthusiastically joined the Epstein cover-up like common sheeple and are no doubt shuttling Ghislaine Maxwell between extradimensional pizza parlor basements even as we speak. Man, at this rate, JFK Jr.’s NEVER coming back.

Maybe somebody should do a wellness check on Nancy Mace? She’s still awful, of course, but perhaps sharing naked pictures of yourself during an official hearing isn’t the healthiest choice.

My biggest concern about the $5 million federal payout to loser rage cult martyr Ashli Babbitt’s family is that it could touch off a wave of copycat terrorism, with MAGA parents nudging their subpar offspring towards radicalization and violence for personal profit.

I see Alina Habba has decided to try her hand at political persecution, lobbing some bullshit charges at Rep. LaMonica McIver, after grudgingly dismissing the even bullshittier case against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. I haven’t seen Jesse Watters this excited since he last indulged in the forbidden pleasure some men call “soup” (in private, of course), because he’s apparently forgotten what a comically bad lawyer Habba is.

Incidentally, turns out Jesse has a brother in eggshell flimsy masculinity: Congressman Tim Burchett, who shares his debilitating fear of (ominous music) drinking from straws. Yeah, guys, Jesse Watters is manly, and Republicans care about the deficit, and habeas corpus means whatever the heck you want it to. Sure. Whatevs.

Gonna drink my beers through a straw this weekend, just cuz. If you enjoyed this lil’ rant, why not toss a few bucks into my beer AND STRAW fund, now accepting Venmo, PayPal, and Cash App? Or you could always follow @john_luzar, or sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com. But whatever you do, stay safe out there, my friend…




May 17, 2025

Planes, Brainworms, and Autocracy (Ferret/Shower Cap)

The Turd Reich unveiled its new anti-terror initiative this week, a plan to bankrupt organizations like Hamas by diverting their funders’ budgets into bribes for rapist game show hosts.

(As ever, links n’ such await ye here: https://showercapblog.com/planes-brainworms-and-autocracy/)

You have to feel bad for any NATO member nation that scrambled to dramatically increase their defense budget to meet Off-Brand Orbán’s ever-shifting demands; turns out, a more, ahem, direct investment of as little as $400 million, ideally in luxury jet form, is enough to earn the unconditional protection of the United States military, although whether that offer is good for longtime allies who came to our defense after 9/11 or just state sponsors of terrorism is unclear.

Now, it’s not really fair to call the plane a bribe; it’ll belong to AMERICA…for at least as long as it takes to install that billion dollars’ worth of upgrades at taxpayer expense (no, we still can’t afford cancer research, don’t be silly), at which point ownership will transfer to the Dotard's “presidential library,” exclusively for library-type purposes, like carting around whatever classified documents he steals this time.

Surprisingly, even Republicans think this particular grift is a bad idea, and not that I don’t appreciate it, fellas, but let’s save some of that bipartisan spirit for these calls to suspend habeas corpus, huh?

Of course, the true cost of doing business isn’t the billions in memecoin kickbacks; it’s having to sit there with a smile on your face while the sloppy old fop rambles on about how he brought back the word “groceries.” You know that shit had MBS reaching for his bonesaw.

Anyway, during his tour of Middle Eastern dictatorships, Donald Trump made history as the first American president to compliment the physical attractiveness of a onetime Al-Qaeda leader. Watch out, Melania…

When he wasn’t busy hitting on terrorists, the Dotard spent his vacation yelling at rock stars on social media. Taylor Swift is apparently “no longer hot,” while Bruce Springsteen is a “dried out prune,” though Susie Wiles successfully intercepted a post complaining about never getting invited to one of Diddy’s freak-offs.

Ordinarily, you wouldn’t call inconsistency or pusillanimity ideal leadership traits, but when your idiot manchild president starts an economically suicidal trade war, suddenly his instinctual cowardice is your best shot at avoiding a global recession.

So huzzah! He backed down on the China tariffs! His cuck side bailed out his thug side, so American children may yet wake up to as many as SEVEN PENCILS ‘neath the tree this Xmas!

No promises, of course, since he’s already changed his tariff policy more than 50 times since taking office. Oh look, completely arbitrary tariff rates are back! Hang on, what’s that you say? Walmart’s raising prices, consumer confidence took another hit, and the United States’ credit rating got downgraded? Golly gee, how’d all that happen?

Speaking of backing down, I guess we just lost a war. Yeah, to the Houthis. Yup, the “sit back while Hegseth drunkenly lobs $60 million jets into the ocean” strategy really paid off. One nice side effect of flooding the zone with shit: you can have your own little mini-Vietnam, and most of the country won’t even notice.

Donnie Two Dolls promised “a very, very big announcement.” “Like as big as it gets,” he continued, with what the low-standards crowd calls showmanship. “Big as my ass. And my real ass, by the way, not the Ronny Jackson version.”

And in this day and age, you’re worried he’ll announce, like, “Pam worked out a legal justification for that Greenland invasion, so I’m bringing back the draft,” but it turned out to be just another one of those phony executive orders of his. You know, the ones that fail to achieve anything resembling what they claim to? This one fails to lower drug prices.

In an apparent cross-promotion with the upcoming Liam Neeson reboot, RFK Jr. reenacted the famous scene from The Naked Gun 2 1/2, declaring, “I've been swimming in raw sewage. I love it,” then improvising a roguish little “And so does my family!” at the end, because what Health and Human Secretary wouldn’t expose his grandchildren to “widespread fecal contamination and high levels of bacteria, including E. coli,” really?

Man, what do you even say about this loon at this point? I think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put it best when he said, "I don't think people should be taking medical advice from me."

The House GOP tried to legislate this week, but I guess their latest attempt to steal health care from millions wasn’t quite murdery enough for the Chip Roy set. There’s another vote planned for Sunday night, so the weekend may give us a glimpse of my favorite conservative ritual: the Dance of the Caving Moderate!

With the air traffic control crisis spreading to Colorado this week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy figured the best use of his time was rummaging around in the basement for paintings of Jesus to relocate. It’s not safe to fly out of Newark, so you may need to secure alternate transportation to the party Sean’s throwing for himself.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins shook up the standings in the Sycophancy Olympics by desecrating her department’s D.C. headquarters with a massive banner depicting the man who thinks he invented the word “equalize.” You know Lutnick’s gonna get a really embarrassing tattoo to get back in the running, and we can only hope modesty prevents him from revealing it at the next televised Cabinet meeting.

Seems the White House understands that Pete Hegseth can’t be trusted to hire his own chief of staff, but they’re leaving him in charge of the Pentagon anyway. Sigh. I suppose even at the rate we’re going, we won’t run out of jets for a while.

Tulsi Gabbard fired two top-ranking intelligence officials, with decades of experience, for the high crime of, um, gathering and analyzing intelligence, because while it may be technically true that the Venezuelan government is not directing the actions of the Tren de Aragua gang, the Reich obviously can’t have people running around, debunking the lies they’ve been using to deport makeup artists to Salvadoran gulags without due process. (At least until the Supreme Court stopped them. Sorry, losers.)

With all these layoffs, you have to wonder who’ll be left to waterboard Jimmy Comey after the shocking failure of his plot to assassinate the president with a photograph of some seashells.

As terrifying as it is to watch so many of the most powerful people in the country rally around this lazy, Orwellian excuse to persecute a political opponent, we shouldn’t ignore the ingratitude. Not one of you dorks would be where you are today without James and his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad letter.

Speaking of Orwellian persecution of political opponents, it appears the government is detaining and possibly prosecuting Democratic congressmen and mayors for conducting oversight visits at ICE detention facilities, how fun. Alina Habba’s in charge of the potential prosecution, too, just to add insult to autocracy.

On the off chance that shit’s not dystopian enough for you yet, Kristi Noem’s DHS is apparently considering a reality show where immigrants would compete for citizenship. Proposed challenges include “working at Kid Rock’s restaurant,” “keeping your damn mouth shut about wage theft,” and “being a White South African.”

(No, there will be no “risking your life to aid the U.S. military in Afghanistan” challenge, why do you ask?)

Incidentally, seems Elon, hoping to influence the refugee discourse, programmed his pet AI chatbot (“Grok”) to push a “white genocide” narrative. And if Grok pushed that narrative a little aggressively (“Hey Grok, who was the starting third baseman on the ‘89 Twins?” “Gary Gaetti. Now about that white genocide…”), well, at least it stooged out Musk’s meddling. Terminator films failed to prepare me for this level of cringe.

Internal documents say FEMA isn’t ready for hurricane season, which is particularly concerning in an environment where our national leaders tempt the wrath of God with alarming regularity.

It’s a lot, isn’t it? And I know it can seem overwhelming, so before I let you go, allow me to share with you this clip, from Christian nationalist Michigan state Rep. Josh Schriver’s new “album,” if only to remind you that in the long run, we can’t lose, for our opponents are, oh my god, the biggest fucking losers alive. If you click just one link in this blog, you guys…

…well, it should be the link to my tip jar (now accepting Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal!), because it’s finally porch beer weather here in Chicago, birthplace of Popes. But if you click two links, check out that song. And as always, sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com and follow @john_luzar, and please please please stay safe out there, my friend…


May 10, 2025

I Hear They're Holding POWs From the Trade War with Mattel at Alcatraz (Ferret/Shower Cap)

Friends, I know things seem grim, but I think I’ve finally worked out a solution. All we need to do is convince the folks who created the very first cognitive test to replace the “is this a moo cow or a horsey?” section with a couple of questions about how tariffs work, and who pays them. So if anybody’s got a time machine I can borrow…

(As ever, links n’ such await ye here: https://showercapblog.com/i-hear-theyre-holding-pows-from-the-trade-war-with-mattel-at-alcatraz/)

Well, since I’m not blogging about President Kaine’s proposed ACA expansion right now, I have to assume my brilliant plan failed. Lotta that going around these days.

Wouldn’t want you to think that crack was directed at the trade war, though. No, that’s going swimmingly, at least for the billionaires with clearly designated bribe troughs. Elon Musk, for example, has stumbled into a lucrative side hustle, extorting Starlink contracts from developing economies desperate to get out from under the mad king’s tariff tantrum.

Of course, the real money’s in meme coins, as any grifting rapist’ll tell ya. Turns out, taking the global economy hostage is such a simple, effective get-rich-quick scheme, even a guy who bankrupted casinos can’t fuck it up.

As for the rest of you filthy takers, you have until Monday to select your five favorite pencils; the rest will be personally collected by Tom Homan, who will probably eat them right in front of you.

Then you are to report to your assigned position on the parade route, to celebrate the Agreement to Discuss Terms for a Non-Binding Arrangement Regarding a Potential Trade Deal Someday (or Maybe Not) with Great Britain. Thanks to the Art of the Deal™️, you get to pay a 10% tax on all British imports, which, dealtastically enough, actually works out to a competitive disadvantage for domestic auto manufacturers, who’re still stuck with the 25% tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico.

Okay, only 184 “deals” left to go. Or, wait, now I see we’ve declared trade war on the great nation of Mattel, which…I dunno, man, the Mattelese are a proud people with a fierce warrior tradition, particularly the Masters of the Universe line. They don’t call it “the toybox of empires” for nothing, y’know.

Still, today’s empty ports are tomorrow’s empty shelves, so unless doll rationing fever sweeps the nation over the course of the next few weeks, those already-tanking economic approval ratings face a plummet worthy of a Disney villain.

Which explains why the great negotiator keeps unilaterally backtracking in exchange for absolutely nothing. “Did I say 145% tariffs? I meant 80%. Plus I’ll throw in Tiffany.”

Incidentally, seems a certain sundowning septuagenarian caught an old Clint Eastwood movie on TV, so now he’s ordered the government to reopen Alcatraz. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky it wasn’t Every Which Way But Loose, or he’d be proposing orangutan marines.

Oh, and we’re gonna tariff foreign films now, too. Just 10% on the first five samurai, but if you want seven, you gotta pay.

We learned the Turd Reich hopes to expand its extralegal migrant deportation program to Libya, Rwanda, and any other place Kristi Noem picks out for her next fashy, fetishistic photo shoot. And if they have to suspend habeas corpus to do it, well, that’s a price Stephen Miller is willing to pay. (This is one of those times when it really comes in handy to have a boss who doesn’t know if he’s obligated to uphold the Constitution.)

Anyhoo, Off-Brand Orbán got through his first Oval Office meeting with the shiny new Canadian Prime Minister without things escalating into a shooting war, and while I’m open to holding future presidents to a somewhat higher standard, I think we should just take the W here. And not to go all JD, but Carney really should’ve thanked him for the whole “destroying the global Right’s electoral prospects” thing.

AI-generated images posted by official Shart House social media accounts managed to blaspheme against two of the world’s leading religions this week: Catholicism and Star Wars.

There’s a new Pope, by the way, and he’s American, but the Children of the Candy Corn are all mad because he doesn’t hate migrants or minorities enough. Why, Laura Loomer and Catturd weren’t even invited to the Conclave! RIGGED!

Instead of resigning in shame for mishandling classified intelligence, Pete Hegseth has decided to fire 20% of the military’s 4-star generals, and I’m starting to suspect life might not be fair.

Though there hasn’t been a formal announcement, Hegseth seems to be pursuing a similar reduction in military equipment, unless we’re dumping $60 million jets into the ocean for funsies now.

Popular Georgia Governor Brian Kemp somehow declined the opportunity to stand in the path of the massing Blue Wave set to crash into the GOP next November, either to avoid ending his career as the puppet of the anti-tree lobby, like Herschel Walker, or to maintain the frankly adorable delusion of leading a post-MAGA Republican Party back to sanity.

I guess the Dotard’s original Surgeon General nominee was too qualified, cuz she got pulled in favor of some quack “influencer” who doesn’t even have a medical license. But even Casey Means isn’t kooky enough for the anti-vax crowd, who’re already worked up over that insufficiently hateful Pope.

We can’t even have 24 hours to celebrate the end of Ed Martin’s staggeringly corrupt reign as acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, because his replacement turns out to be the smarmiest ragespigot remaining in the Fox Nooz stable, Jeanine Pirro.

What if there’s no bottom? What if, in 2027, we’re fielding headlines like, “Following the resignation of Jeffrey Epstein’s ghost, President Trump announced his replacement as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff…The Guy Who Sells Matt Gaetz Roofies Before Prom Weekend”?

Gosh, I hope nobody’s planning any 9/11s or anything, since we’ve apparently redirected all available intelligence resources, on presidential orders, towards…Greenland.

Sigh.

In the next James Bond movie, (starring Ben Affleck, thank you film tariffs) 007 goes undercover in Nuuk, trying to figure out why no one wants to hang out with JD Vance.

As symbols of American decline go, you could certainly do worse than the threatening letter the disgraced wrestling promoter sent to Harvard. Maybe run your grammar by ChatGPT before you try to bully an Ivy League school, Linda.

Kari Lake announced she’s outsourcing Voice of America’s “newsfeed services” to OAN, who somehow outbid RT and Alex Jones, despite that Dominion lawsuit payout. There’s a soft power/soft lighting gag there somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.

Georgia Congressdolt Mike Collins called for a new crusade to reclaim the holy Steak 'n Shake at the congressional food court from the infidels who would serve halal cuisine. So he’s still an idiot.

Things’ve gotten so bad at Newark Liberty International Airport that air traffic controllers are warning travelers it’s not safe to fly there, but never fear, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been working tirelessly, around the clock, to blame his predecessor during softball interviews with friendly media outlets.

I’ll be the first to admit I was skeptical about all the cuts to cancer research and food safety and suicide hotlines, but I just couldn’t see the big picture. See, we needed that money to pay reparations to the family of history’s shittiest martyr. There won’t be any kids in Ashli Babbitt’s family settling for two dolls this Xmas, that’s for sure.

Oh, and “an anti-government group is making threats against weather equipment that it says is a ‘weather weapon’ controlled by the military,” which I only mention to give you a heads-up about the pardons that’ll be upsetting you in a year or so.

Okay, obviously I need several drinks now. If you enjoyed that diatribe, feel free to toss a couple bucks into my beer fund, (now accepting Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal!) follow @john_luzar, or sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com! And, as always, stay safe out there, if yer able…


Profile Information

Member since: Fri Mar 24, 2017, 07:48 PM
Number of posts: 683
Latest Discussions»TheFerret's Journal