The Year Ends, the Primary Begins, the Wall Remains Imaginary...Happy 2019! (Ferret/Shower Cap)

As we embark on the New Year, I confess I am considering a partial blog shutdown unless the United States Treasury agrees to finance a new beer fridge for my living room, and also maybe some badass flame decals for my mask. Anyhow, let's round up the madness one last time before we drive a stake through 2018's wretched heart!

(As always, this post originates on Cap's humble blog site, which has all sorts of nifty news links: http://showercapblog.com/the-year-ends-the-primary-begins-the-wall-remains-imaginary-happy-2019/)

Outgoing Maine Governor/Ambulatory Pimple Paul LePage spitefully scribbled “stolen election” on the certificate that officially ended Bruce Poliquin's sore-loser legal challenge, and made Democrat Jared Golden the new Congressman representing Maine's second district, because pettiness is one of the last remaining “conservative values,” alongside hatred and ignorance. Anyway, fuck LePage.

Speaking of sneering idiots who thankfully won't be in government anymore, our ol’ chum Gowdy Doody quietly shut down his long, bullshit investigation into Hillary Clinton for the high crimes of Whatever We Can Get Fox News to Scream About It Doesn't Really Matter Does It, satisfied that while he never quite turned up any wrongdoing, at least he kicked up enough baseless innuendo to keep her out of the White House. And hey, if it led to the greatest assault on America's institutions and values since the Civil War, well...”whoopsie!”

And now Shiny New Ex-Senator Jeff Flake is making feeble little squeaky noises about mounting a primary challenge to the Marmalade Shartcannon in 2020. Sigh. I can think of no more fitting punctuation on the desperate delusion that the GOP is anything other than a white supremacist hate cult anymore than to have an Eeyore-faced milksop, a Human Tsk Noise like Jeff Flake whine about “real conservatism” for a few months before losing the Iowa caucuses by 94 points.

“Jeff Flake for President.” Say it out loud without giggling. See? Can't be done.

Meanwhile, on the good guy side of the fence, the Race for the Historic Privilege of Cleansing the White House of the Stink of Treason and Well-Done Steak Farts is ON, motherfuckers! Elizabeth Warren announced she's running for President, so somebody tell Lil’ Donnie Two-Scoops that Pocahontas is ready to paint his ass with all the colors of the wind.

As the Democratic primary heats up, I for one am looking forward to losing a substantial amount of the audience I've worked so hard to build as we all divide up into tribes and pelt each other with sticks and rocks. Remember, everyone who refuses to support your chosen candidate is a heretic, and you're allowed to burn down their home and claim their children and pets as trophies.

Hairpiece Himmler's ever-growing collection of criminal investigations is surely the envy of every boy and girl down at Marm-a-Lago, and NO FAIR, he just got ANOTHER ONE! Federal and state investigators are now looking into allegations that Shartboy's tacky golf clubs are in the habit of distributing fake green cards and social security numbers to their undocumented employees, which is probably the America Firstest thing ever.

I can only picture the tears welling up in Stephen Miller's eyes as he read this news...“S-s-say it isn't so, Dad!”

“I told you not to call me that at work! And what happened to your hair?”

We focus so much on what stumbling, incompetent, buffoon our President is, we occasionally lose sight of the pulsating fistula of hatred and evil at the core of his being. His monstrous tweets over the weekend about the migrant children who have died in U.S. custody served as a sobering reminder that while he is a doddering clown who can barely dress himself, he's also one of the very worst people in the world.

But Pete King's got his back! “‘Only’ two dead kids? Shit, that's practically praiseworthy! Let's send cake and put up a plaque!” says the Long Island Congressjag. And hey, thanks to the voters of the Iowa 4th, Pete-o here isn't even the worst Representative King in the House.

Sometimes I think this presidency is an ongoing exercise in testing just how much raw, unapologetic, depravity the so-called “evangelical Christians” of America will unquestioningly endorse in the name of President Golden Calf. I hope we end the experiment before the gulags open, frankly I think we have enough data to extrapolate the conclusion that there is absolutely no bottom with these folks. As a wiser man than I wrote, the cruelty is the point.

Anyhow, Time Magazine has a fun little story about Precocious Paul Manafort and the Russian spy who livened up his life with “Bitch, where's my money” calls while he was otherwise occupied with leading the Velveeta Vulgarian's presidential campaign. Surely only a fool would think this had anything to do with the sudden change in the GOP platform regarding Ukraine.

Reading this article about House Democrats stocking up on staff and lawyers for the coming Oversight Renaissance is like watching a trailer for the next Avengers movie. I'm delighted and excited, but goddammit why do I have to wait so long to see the good shit? I hope there's a post-credits sequence where Samuel L. Jackson kicks Wilbur Ross square in the taint.

The Shart Administration is working to roll back Obama-era standards on pollution, because if the American people didn't want mercury poisoning, they shouldn't have laughed so hard when Barack told those jokes at the 2011 White House correspondents’ dinner.

But a quick shout out to Chuck Todd, who took a break from lowering the standards of our political discourse to dedicate a show to climate change without giving equal time to some frothy, Koch-funded, denier wearing a jacket made from oil-stained otter pelts out of misguided devotion to the Church of Bothsidesism. If y’all would've applied this standard earlier, and to all issues, the world would look a lot different today. Paul Ryan would be selling cheap suits at a JCPenney in Milwaukee, for starters.

And the Trump Shutdown rolls on, like a comically out-of-shape President following a marching group of world leaders in a golf cart. The Shart of the Deal is demonstrating the full depth of his negotiating prowess, by whining on Twitter all day and all night. Oh, and by pretending to be at work when he's not.

In fairness, there has been one amusing, half-assed “tactic,” a silly little attempt to drive a wedge between Pelosi and Schumer, by taunting Chuck as weakling who's letting a WOMAN of all people set the agenda. Just another bit of cartoonishly obvious projection from the Most Insecure Man in the World, the President of the United States.

Away from all the dumbass brinkmanship, the shutdown continues to hurt real people, from the hundreds of thousands of government workers worrying how they'll pay their bills, to the farmers who've already been crotch-stomped by Il Douche’s Big Dumb Trade war, only to find their taxpayer-funded subsidies endangered by his latest petulant ego trip.

And don't forget, though we've accepted and normalized this, that the suffering of so many Americans doesn't matter to President Trump. At all. And it won't be even the tiniest factor in his behavior going forward in this entirely self-manufactured crisis. Because he doesn't care about any of us. We should talk about that more.

The Once and Future Golf Buddy, Lindsey Graham, waddled out on teevee to suggest that the wall is just a metaphor, maaaaaaaan, for like, life and stuff, y'know, before retreating to his office to order a pizza and listen to Donovan. Shit, Lindsey, metaphors are free, I bet you could get Mexico to pay for a metaphor.

And Walter Jones just became my favorite House Republican, for suggesting that since Mexico ain't payin', maybe Weehands McNodick should pony up some of that sweet emoluments bribe money and pay for the fuckin’ thing himself. Walter, I'm not gonna google you to learn about out all the abominable shit you no doubt support, it's a holiday and I don't wanna ruin these warm feelings just yet.

Of course, Nancy Pelosi has House Dems prepared to immediately pass a bill reopening the government when they take power in just a few short days. Though she seems to have stripped my proposed amendment, mandating that Mike Pants officiate all same-sex weddings in Washington, D.C. for the remainder of his term, the bill includes not a penny of wall money, so I generally dig it.

In late-breaking news, Shart Garfunkel has nominated Louis CK as the next White House Press Secretary, because he's so impressed with his communication skills. Seriously though, since Louis seems to be having some trouble separating humor from mere nastiness these days, allow me to helpfully point him in the direction of John Kelly's recent stab at rehabbing his reputation, which is absolutely fuckin’ HILARIOUS.

And the stock market capped off its worst year in a decade, because it turns out the economic stewardship of a 70-year-old manchild who can't even figure out how umbrellas work isn't as desirable as we were once led to believe.

Well, that's all I got tonight, folks. We've survived two years of this shitstorm, made substantial changes to the cast, and allowed the Mueller subplot to percolate in the background...I think 2019 looks awfully promising. Now go drink 'till you pass out on the lawn!