For those of us who cuddle with our computers every night, trolling the internet looking for some small measure of reassurance and comfort in the news of the day, this last week has been harrowing.

The attacks that the GOP has launched against the intelligence community have been escalating beyond all previous levels of viciousness and insanity. This thing with Nunes, that scary albino senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson (a/k/a The Second Coming of Joseph McCarthy) and the little bit of Fox News that trickles down to me have made me want to curl up in the fetal position under my covers.

There is no longer any innuendo or pretense. There are flat-out assaults against our institutions, designed to erode confidence in them, so that when the Mueller report comes down, the base has been primed to disbelieve it all. I've been unnerved by this.

As I said yesterday, this is an unbelievably precarious time. Our most fundamental institutions are under attack and the GOP's complicity in protecting trump, along with the overt willingness of some of them to actually go out there and spread conspiracy theories for him, have left me gasping for breath, trying to contain my panic.

What does it take for a dictatorship to flourish anyway? You need a dictator, of course, and we've got one waiting in the wings and chomping at the bit. But no self-respecting dictator can hold power unless he's got a powerful cadre of people under him who are either greedy, compromised, cowed, or all three.

Well, look what's happening.

To my untrained eyes, and in my most despairing moments, I think that conditions are ripe for (brace yourselves) a complete takeover by the trump apparatus to control this country for the next seven years and then (are you sitting down) a President Ivanka and even a President Junior. Yes, in my blackest moments of heartache and despair, this is where my feverish thoughts take me. Perhaps, in your darkest moments, you all fall prey to these worst-case- scenario type musings, too. You are not alone.

Of course, though there is still much work to be done, things look good for November, but right now, November seems light years away to me.

Of course, marching with several million of my new best friends over the weekend was reinvigorating, but when Monday rolled around, that piece of putrefying slime was still in the White House.

So....(and I told you if you read long enough you'd get to this point) I reached out to a friend this morning who is in a position to "know things" and that person was kind enough to talk me off the ledge.

Here is the gist of what I was told:

--- The military hates trump.

--- The Intelligence Community hates trump.

--- 99% of the GOP hate trump and know he's a crazy motherf**er.

--- The individuals in the Intelligence Community who have all the evidence they need to bring trump down are patriots who believe passionately in the system and are doing what they have to do, by the book, to see to it that he is ousted.

--- The GOP would like nothing better than to rid themselves of trump and crown Mike Pence for 2020. They are giving themselves political cover by remaining publicly silent about trump until the Mueller report is issued.

--- Mueller may be timing his most damaging revelations to be made public in the summer months, so as to disrupt the GOP's efforts to recover prior to mid-terms.

--- Most importantly, there are very strong systems in place by people within the White House to protect against trump ordering a nuclear attack because everybody knows he is reckless and unfit.

That was about it.

That and a little bit of hand-holding and listening to me whine and whimper relentlessly, for which I thank that person.

I am asked to convey to all of you that everything you feel and observe about this situation is not lost on those in the intelligence community and other branches of government, but we are going to follow procedure here, people -- that's the message.

That, and the fact that while we wait for the system to work, safeguards have been put in place to protect against the unthinkable. So...don't think about it.

And, don't push that panic button either yet, folks. That's what I was told and that's what I have been requested to convey to you.

Stuff is happening and, actually, with this week's revelations about Mueller's desire to interview trump, it's happening faster than we had previously thought possible.

So, please forgive this long and winded way of trying to reassure you, as I, myself, have been reassured -- that the panic buttons must remain untouched for the time being.

We are probably looking at this summer in terms of a time frame for the complete repository of waste matter which has been built up to totally hit the nuclear-powered turbo fans. Seems like a long time off, but we have work to do in the meantime, anyway.

I am asked to tell you to hang tough, do your civic duty, keep resisting and have faith that, behind the scenes, there are people in positions of power who fall asleep every night with the same dreams of strangling and vivisecting The Lunatic that you and I have. Isn't that reassuring?

And, now, my friends, I'm uncurling my newly unpanicked body from the fetal position and getting up and going to the gym because I want to be alive, well, and in excellent health when the summer months roll around and all of our collective dreams come true.

Something to look forward to, no?

I hope this has helped you to put the lid back on that panic button as well.