Just Another Totally Normal Week of Totally Normal News, Here in Normaltown, USA! (Ferret/ShowerCap) [View all]

[TheFerret]

So, I was thinking of opening the blog tonight with a little joke like “slow news week, right?” which would be amusing because there was, in fact, a great deal of news this week. Get it? What I'm saying is, take a bathroom break now, and come back with snacks, because this motherfucker is gonna take some time.

(And yes, as usual, you can find this beast, with all those news links you know and love, at: http://showercapblog.com/just-another-totally-normal-week-of-totally-normal-news-here-in-normaltown-usa/)

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan report concluding that when the Russians ratfucked the 2016 election, they ratfucked for thee, Donnie Dotard. Anyway, the Attorney General of the whole dang United States has been traveling the world, trying to get foreign governments to undercut these findings, which reflect those of our own intelligence community, based on a mind-bogglingly insane conspiracy theory, because cabinet secretaries waging war on law enforcement is just one of the many Extremely Normal and Cool things going on in the waking hell we call 2019.

Like all his businesses, the Trump Campaign is famous for not paying its bills. The latest grift is to stiff local governments on security costs for his hate rallies, and it looks as though they successfully bullied the Target Center in Minneapolis into eating those expenses, with a side order of Brad Parscale's shit. “Vote for the deadbeat who stiffs first responders” seems like a shaky reelection pitch, but I suppose Trumpism is 97% about being unapologetically shitty anyway, so why the fuck not?

Betsy DeVos has been living by the rules her whole life, (“You can't bulldoze that working class neighborhood just because you want a better view from your third yacht when it's moored, Betsy!” “Stop hunting the help for sport, Betsy!”) but now she's breakin’ out, like some sort of oligarch Thelma and/or Louise! Sure, she's violating a court order by continuing to collect student debt payments for the defunct n’ fraudulent Corinthian Colleges, but she's not gonna do what the MAN tells her to!

Facebook says it's super mega awesome for politicians to spread any lies they can dream up in their campaign ads, so long as they keep the money flowin', which is good for the Committee to Re-Elect the 200 Pound Sack of Hippo Shit, but not really ideal for democracy in our nation of two increasingly-divergent realities. Anyway, that means it's up to you to fact check Aunt Mertle back home when she shares that ad where they claim Diamond Joe drives a custom-built Prius that runs on puppy blood.

I suppose it was inevitable, given his fervor for information security, that Trey Gowdy would join the impeachment fight...on the side of the goons frantically concealing evidence of wrongdoing from the public on, you guessed it, a private server. Yeah, it seems Trey joined Team Treasonweasel's legal division, perhaps out of an eagerness to have his every public statement thrown back in his face as proof of the boundless partisan hackery he posses in lieu of a personal code of ethics. Ah, but Gowdy Doody can't start until January, on account of lobbying rules (something something drain the swamp), and the Candycorn Skidmark could be scrambling eggs in a prison kitchen by then.

When shit gets super-serious, when you're drowning in scandal, there's a little red box all Republican presidents install in the Oval Office that says “in case of impeachment, break glass” and inside the box is a secret proposal to make rich people even richer. Not because it'll help anything, but because the plutocrat donor class wants to make sure you do ‘em one last favor on the way out the door. Anyway, Team Kochpuppet wants to make it easier for corporations to hide profits overseas to avoid taxes, because populism.

Seems more and more like everyone, down to the mice in the White House ceiling, knew the Tangelo-Tinted Taint Tumor was up to no good in his “hey congrats on the new gig, let's skip straight to the extortion” interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, including “at least four national security officials,” as well as career employees at OMB, whose concerns were rewarded by having their authority over military aide transferred to a loyal political hack. Don't worry, Shart-Shart, I'm sure all these witnesses will go to jail for you before they talk to Congress.

Hey speaking of impeachment, recent Monmouth polling finds that 100% of current U.S. Presidents are pissing themselves so hard in fear of losing the desperately-needed legal protection of their office that their shoes are like little urine-filled water balloons. Indeed, Kid Kompromat ordered his lawyers to toddle down to the nearest zoo, scrape the shit off the walls of the monkey cage, spread it on official White House stationary, sign it, and send it to Nancy Pelosi, ideally hand-delivered by Lindsey Graham, just to remind him of his place. That explains the gonzo authoritarianism of the letter White House Counsel Pat Cipollone sent to House Democrats, suggesting the Founding Fathers were totally kidding about all that shit about “separation of powers” and “congressional oversight of the executive,” and yes, you can just copy and past this directly into an article of impeachment.

Former NSA H.R. McMaster responded to a reporter's question about whether or not it's appropriate for the President to conscript foreign governments into his reelection campaign with the “Fucking of course not, are you fucking stupid? Why would you even ask such a stupid fucking question?” that you'd expect from any second-grader who didn't pass out from paste poisoning during their American history class. Y'know, I bet ol’ H.R. has a story or two that Adam Schiff n’ friends would just looooooove to hear...

Entirely lost in the shitstorm of high crimes and misdemeanors, a new book alleges 43 previously unknown instances of Shart Garfunkel’s inappropriate behavior towards women, including 26 new charges of sexual assault, and yes, that's in addition to the dozens of accusations already out there. I think future presidential debates should address this; maybe the moderators could ask something like, “if someone were to document your lifelong record of sexual misconduct, would they need an ENTIRE MOTHERFUCKING BOOK for that? Cuz we're ideally looking for someone in the Post-it-note-or-less category.”

Surprise, surprise, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took Pumpkin Spice Pol Pot up on his offer to kick off his ethnic cleansing campaign without fear of consequences, by invading Syria, killing a bunch of civilians in air strikes, and utterly annihilating any chance of the USA ever being trusted again.

The "reasoning” Hairplug Himmler offered to justify our faithless abandonment of loyal allies had something to do with the absence of Kurds at Normandy. Sure. Whatever. Then he briefly instituted a new draft, solely for purpose of dodging it. As an additional Fuck You to the Kurds, the world, and the very concept of basic decency, the Yeah America is Evil Now Administration literally teamed with Russia to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at condemning Turkey's invasion.

Now, Littlefinger believes there will be no consequences for his treachery, claiming “alliances are very easy.” Old man, UMBRELLAS are too hard for you. Anyway, after shrugging off the potential release of the 12,000 ISIS militants the Kurds had been detaining because who cares, they'd just go to Europe, you couldn't assemble an international coalition to go halvsies on a Domino's Pizza and a two-liter of Grape Crush right now.

Since getting washed out of the Governor's mansion courtesy of the 2018 Blue Wave, the Wisconsin GOP has narrowed the scope of its ambitions substantially; these days the state party's platform consists mainly of “let's be a dick to this one guy,” a disabled Democratic Representative named Jimmy Anderson. Now, Anderson just wants to be able to call into meetings he can't make in person, which is a pretty damn reasonable request, but Wisco Republijags have decided to fuck with him instead, because they're terrible human beings. Lawyers got involved, pointing out that the jagoffs in question were violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, so they relented, but now they're trying to tack additional power grabs onto the rule changes, because, again, they are Lollapalooza outhouses.

So, Orange Julius Caesar has a reputation as a sociopathic monster with a fossilized buffalo turd for a soul, who cares only about himself, but maybe that's a little unfair. Turns out, not only was he doing everything in his power (and quite a few things that weren't, legally speaking) to squash investigations into his own criminal wrongdoing, but he also leaned on ol’ Rex Tillerson to shut down an investigation into one of Rudy Giuliani's clients, who had committed a small, harmless crime, merely (checks notes) violating American sanctions on Iran. See? He wasn't corrupting the entire American legal system just for his own benefit! He tried to give his crooked pals a (tiny, inadequate) hand, too! A friend indicted is a friend indeed!

More bad news in Rudytown, as he has now officially been sexually rejected by every living relative. Worse than that, a couple of his foreign-born “clients” got good n’ righteously arrested for various acts of election law fuckery, and for everyone at home, if there's any room left on your all-but-disintegrated Trump Crimez scorecard, President Crotchrot's personal lawyer has apparently been in business with some mobsters who've been illegally laundering Russian money into Republican politicians’ campaigns n’ PACs n’ fantasy football leagues.

As you've no doubt heard by now, the derpnamic duo's international web of shady endeavors included businesses named “Mafia Rave” and yes, “Fraud Guarantee.” Since those jokes write themselves, and we still have a fuckton of insanity to get through, I'm just gonna move on.

Did I mention Igor and Lev got arrested while attempting to flee the country on one-way tickets to Vienna? And I bet that looks suspicious to you paranoid liberals, but maybe they were just following their truth, impulsively indulging in a last minute trip to grab a little topfengolatsche in that charming cafe in the Währing district where they used to plot felonies together? Where's your sense of romance? Of adventure? You're so joyless, I honestly feel sorry for you.

(Naturally, with his partners arrested for various crimez, Rudy G is under criminal investigation himself, by the very office he once led, TEE FUCKIN' HEE. I don't want to get my hopes up, folks, but there's a package under the Xmas tree that looks suspiciously like Rudy Guiliani Getting Arrested and maybe Dad just put six pairs of socks in a box shaped like Rudy Giuliani Getting Arrested, but the waiting is fucking killing me.)

You're probably equally suspicious of the mysterious meeting between between Redactor General Billy Barr and Rupert Murdoch in Murdoch's New York lair, er, “home.” What if I told you it was merely two old friends, who can never find time to get together on account of how they're both super-busy fucking up the whole world all the time, but at long last they found a mutually free evening to finally finish the backgammon game they started back in 1991, which Rupert had faithfully preserved in his study lo these many years? I mean, I'd be lying my ass off, but what if I told you that anyway?

Barr's a regular ninja these days, whether he's sneaking around Europe looking to bully world leaders into providing “evidence” to back ridiculous conspiracy theories, using the maid's entrance to avoid reporters at the Chateau de Fauxnewz, or sneaking into Notre Dame to give a speech without any crowds of young patriots showing up to protest his treasonous ass, he's like Jowlsy, Shitty, Batman.

After his long-overdue eviction from the halls of Congress courtesy of Colin Allred and the Big Blue Wave, I'd hoped to never hear Pete Sessions’ name again, but since he's swept up in this sting of the Giualini Crime Syndicate, I'll allow it. Good luck on your comeback bit, you crooked fuck! Does the vote count for you if somebody writes in “Congressman 1?”

Oh, and Kevin “What if You Left a Jar of Mayonnaise on the Porch Overnight During a Heat Wave and then Made it House Minority Leader” McCarthy got caught accepting a fat stack of freshly laundered, snuggly soft Russian money, too? Jeeves! Bring me my fainting couch, quickly!

Well, he overlooked nearly three years of unceasing racism and law-breaking, a disastrous trade war, concentration camps full of children, dozens of sexual assault allegations, and repeated acts of open treason, but retiring GOP Congressthing John Shimkus has officially renounced the Emperor of Turds, with the Syria treachery as the apparent breaking point. Between him and Justin Amash, the Principled Congressional (Ex-) Republicans club is now large enough to hold (brief) thumb wrestling tournaments. Maryland's Republican Governor, Larry Hogan came out in support of the impeachment inquiry as well, and George Will of all people is one bad day away from leading a torches-and-pitchforks mob to Devin Nunes’ house.

Ain't no party like a Trump Trade War party cuz a Trump Trade War party crotch-punts the manufacturing sector into recession! Yes, and the incisive minds over at Politico have gone so far as to suggest this festering, self-inflicted, wound on the American economy might just hurt Donnie Two-Scoops’ electoral prospects in 2020. I could totally be a pundit if it weren't for the lamestream media's inherent bias against the masked-and-bathrobed.

Lindsey Graham is so good at making a treasonous ass of himself, it seems almost cruel to help, so let's help. Yes, it seems Baron Golfin von Fatfuk’s Prize Poodle was the victim of a little prank call, in which he sympathetically discussed the “Kurdish problem” with a man he believed to be Turkey's minister of defense. Turkey's “Kurdish problem” differs from Hitler's “Jewish question” in that "Kurdish” and “Jewish” are spelled differently.

Other Senators are contorting themselves into increasingly cubist shapes to avoid answering the simple question, “should the President bully the entire global community into working on his campaign, or do laws still matter here?” basically “what would you do for a Klondike Bar,” only with ducking accountability to the public as the goal rather than ice cream nummies. Personally, I'll take tortured non-answers and awkward silence over obsequious water-carrying; and it sure is fun to watch craven stooges like Joni Ernst and Cory Gardner squirm. Even Jim Risch joined the party, reminding the world that yes, Idaho has a Senator, and he sucks a great deal.

Understandably needing to blow off some steam (treachery is hard work), Strawberry Shartcake took the night off to engage in the only hobby that still brings him any joy: getting a roomful of shitty white people together and belching up hate speech for an hour or so. Watching the doddering old shitbag rage against Somali refugees in a city containing one of the largest Somali communities in the country, you thought, “my God, we've been so focused on his corruption and incompetence lately, we'd almost forgotten about the seething white supremacy.” Oh, and he did a little bit where he simulated Peter Strzok, who lives rent-free in one of his nine remaining brain cells, coming to orgasm, because that's the sort of thing the President spends his day thinking about, instead of, say, international trade, which he still fails to understand.

That Klan rally high would prove to be short-lived, however, as a new day brought with it the news that he had lost his appeal to forever hide his tax returns in the deepest dungeon in all the land until a hero who is pure of heart should come forth to answer the dragon guardian's three riddles and release his real (and surely humiliating) net worth to the world via true love's kiss, because his “legal” arguments were always nothing but the purest grass-fed horseshit, anyway, TURN OVER THEM DOCS, scumbag.

But that legal nutpunch was just the warm-up for what would prove to be a daylong judicial jackhammer to the Trumpal scrotum. A federal judge ruled that the Sunny D-Bag could shove his pathetic Mitch-McConnell-rolled-me-on-wall-money-so-I'll-just-declare-a-state-of-emergency power grab straight up his ass, and his lawyers protested that there are already so many court defeats up said ass that he has to shit out of his ears, but the court was unmoved. Then he lost again, this time on his attempt to implement a rule designed to keep low-income immigrants out. Losers gonna lose, y'know?

Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie L. Yovanovitch testified behind closed doors today, about how she was fired for being on the wrong side of the fight against corruption in Ukraine: she wanted less of it while President Gas Station Urinal Cake and his thuggish “lawyer” wanted more, so as to smear the Biden family for political gain and personal profit. Yeah, I don't think whining about the whistleblower not having first-hand knowledge is gonna get you out of this one, champ.

Chief Thuglomat Mike Pompeo's State Department tried to block Yovanovitch's testimony, and you can understand why, but she said unto them “Nah.” Similarly, former Russia advisor Fiona Hill, and E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who had earlier been blocked from testifying, have scheduled their own depositions. My sources tell me the Shart House is drafting a controversial executive order which would mandate all executive branch employees who testify before the impeachment inquiry to first Kiss Stephen Miller, Yes on the Mouth, for at Least a Count of Five, which I expect will deter all but the bravest and most patriotic.

The Bonespur Buttplug, consistent with his stated goal to decrease America's military footprint in the Middle East, is now deploying hundreds of new troops to Saudi Arabia, on the assumption that we're all so exhausted we'll go “fuck it, let the old bastard have this one." So, if you fought and died beside our soldiers to dismantle the ISIS caliphate, your reward is a bright red target on your back, but when it comes to the financial interests of the House of Saud, let the American blood flow!

Today in entirely predictable consequences, ISIS militants are already taking advantage of the chaos in the wake of the Turkish invasion to escape from their Kurdish prisons, so I guess Tangerine Idi Amin has the pro-terrorism vote locked up now. Can I just say, when the actions of the President of the United States lead, in just a few short days, to the release of MOTHERFUCKING ISIS FIGHTERS, I don't understand how anyone anywhere argues against impeachment. I know “hey, don't put terrorists back on the streets, dumbass” isn't explicitly in the Constitution, because Madison never thought America would be dumb enough to elect a tar-souled sociopath, but it's weird to me that anyone is still on this reckless idiot's side.

The Turkish military thanked the United States for their genocidal green light by...shooting at American soldiers. It happens. You know. Fog o’ war, whaddya gonna do, look, we really really really wanna slaughter these women and children, and if your troops got in the way, what can we say but “whoopsies” anyway back to killing women and children.

To the dismay of traitors everywhere, it seems that a wave of copycat whistleblowers is beginning to reach out to congressional Democrats with their own tales of treason, extortion, and probably Mick Mulvaney's habit of strangling girl scouts in the bathroom to relieve stress. Anyway, we request that all patriots seeking to save their country from a lawless tyrant please form an orderly line outside Adam Schiff's office.

Shepard Smith unexpectedly stepped down as Chief News Anchor and Managing Editor at Fux Nooz, either because he got tired of providing the veneer of credibility for the propaganda machine tearing this country apart, or because the Farthuffing Fascist can't tolerate even an hour or two of relative honesty on State Teevee, and pressured Fux to can him, what a fun scenario to ponder over the weekend. Anyway, Rupert, if you're looking for a replacement, have your people call my people*!

Once again, Comeupwithyourownfuckingnicknameatthispoint demanded to be hailed as Prince Among Presidents in declaring premature victory in trade talks with China, because apparently negotiators have maybe nearly arrived at a partial agreement, though nothing is written down yet, anyway, mint those challenge coins, boys, and tell the Nobel people to recall the awards!

Late Friday evening, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan resigned, but I had long since passed out by then. I've been unconscious for hours, actually. I have no idea how I'm even typing this, I think I'm fucking broken.

I can't believe you're still reading. This can't have been fun for you. Go. I release you. You're free. Spend time with your loved ones. Or drink alone. It's up to you. See you next week, Resisters, stay safe out there.

*cat