Tag: the daily recounting (Page 3 of 4)

“Forget about the little shit,” Trump said, according to multiple sources in the room. “Let’s focus on the big picture here.” Politico, 3/24/17

Yes, I know the Recounting is for today’s events, and yes I know that I linked to this incredible article yesterday, and yes yes yes. I don’t care about the rules: I cannot get the above quote out of my head. If you don’t want to read the article–and you must–then let me set the scene.

Donald Trump, who is getting noticeably fatter every day, was meeting with the Freedom Caucus on Thursday afternoon in the Cabinet Room of the White House. It’s him and his crew–Bannon and Miller and Salacious Crumb–and about 30 Republicans around an enormous table.

This is what it looks like:

(You didn’t think I was going to use a picture of Turnip, did you? Come on, man. We can talk about him, but we don’t have to look at him.)

So, that’s what we’re dealing with. Look how serious that room is. Washington’s in a fucking toga; if this were a restaurant, it would not serve chicken fingers. The Cabinet Room does not giggle when someone says the number 69 or talks about the planet Uranus.

It looks just like this-except, obviously, every single person in the room was a white man–and you are a serious person discussing serious matters in a serious room: you are, in fact, discussing healthcare. It is one-fifth of America’s economy, and the President of the United States leans forward on his elbows, squinches up his eyes and splays his fingers out in boredom.

“Forget about the little shit.”

Here’s the question I need answered: could you hear the assholes pucker? When I read that article, my sphincter slammed shut with an audible crack like an iceberg calving off, so I have to figure that if you were in the Cabinet Room you could hear those men’s involuntary anal response to that statement.

DONALD TRUMP: ON THE JOB

Surgeon

“Arteries, shmarteries. I’m gonna get in there and see what happens.”

Plumber

“The individual pipes will take care of themselves. The sewer is just wonderful. Better than Sweden’s.”

Flight controller

“The planes get here when they get here. The real problem is that they’re carrying terrorists.”

Second violinist for the Cleveland Pops

“Don’t worry about the notes. I know the tune, great tune.”

This has been the 65th day of our national nightmare; may we wake soon.

WINNER People who enjoy medical care.

LOSER Paul Ryan, holy shit, Paul Ryan. The last time I saw an L this big, it was in the Hollywood sign. Trust your old pal TotD: there are at least five men in D.C. right now planning a run on the Speaker’s job. I didn’t read that anywhere; it’s not a fact. But you know it’s true, right?

WINNER Not the Democrats, and they ought to knock off the gloating and public preening. They won the fight because the other guy knocked himself out. (Actually, if we go with the boxing analogy, the Republicans didn’t even make it to the ring. Maybe they slipped during the walk in from the dressing room and, like, cracked their head on a chair.) This is a victory for the Democrats, but only because it’s a two-party system

LOSER I simply cannot believe that the Mandarin Moron hasn’t EXPLODED with rage on Twitter yet. Frankly, I’m disappointed. He did cold-call Robert Costa at the Washington Post to break the news that the vote had been called off before the official announcement had been made, though. It’s the little incompetencies that are the sweetest.

(I don’t usually link to anything so as to make it perfectly clear that this is not a reputable place to get your news, but you must read this behind-the-scenes piece by Tim Alberta. Enthusiasts, we may be saved by their stupidity. This presidential administration means us harm, do not doubt that, and they will shit in rivers and pull food from children’s hands, but it is turning out that they might not be able to because they’re just too fucking dumb.)

WINNER Bannon. Paul Ryan is humiliated, chaos is increased, Black Label is on sale at the liquor store. Good times for Stevie.

LOSER Devin Nunes. Nooner used today’s whooptydeedoo to cancel a scheduled hearing, plus he apparently disappeared off the grid for an hour right before he made his unannounced announcement the other day. Remember? He came out with “classified information” that showed Trump Tower had, indeed, been the subject of something called incidental collection. Trump was right, and he said so (as he so often does). The problem is that “incidental collection” isn’t just some random phrase; it means something specific. Incidental collection is when an American citizen calls a foreign national who is under surveillance. Which means Devin just confirmed that, at the very least, the Trump Campaign was calling suspicious motherfuckers.

Oh, also: he got the classified information from the White House, because that’s where he went when he disappeared. The head of the House committee investigating the president is getting sent out to cover for him. This ends well, usually. (Ten bucks says Devin ends up in jail. Any takers?)

WINNER John motherfucking Boehner. Drinking his wine, smoking his butts, and laughing his orange ass off.

LOSER The concept of dignity.

One hopes for the best. One perseveres. One re-evaluates constantly. One is an asshole if one doesn’t. – E.B. Farnum, Deadwood

So let us re-evaluate: Why the fuck am I a Democrat, anyway? They’ve got balls like beebee pellets, and spaghetti arms, and Christ do they fucking simper. Not a saboteur or showman in the bunch; devoid of charisma and saddled with Chuck Schumer’s sing-song hectoring; terrified of appearing rude. THROW SOME FUCKING ELBOWS, ASSHOLES.

First of all, you’re not a Democrat.

I vote Democrat.

Can we discuss the horrors of First Past The Post voting?

I’ll strangle you with my headphone cord. Next liberal that explains FPTP to me is getting strangled. You want a Parliament, move to Funkytown.

It would make sense that the governing body of Funkytown would be a Parliament.

Can I get back to the day, please? Stuff happened.

Stuff’s always happening with these fuckers.

The current American government fucks up more before breakfast than most governments do all day.

It’s like everyone is trying to set personal records. Okay, get back to it.

Right, so: the Senate Democrats are trying to strike some deal with the GOP. They could filibuster Gorsuch, but the Republicans could change the rules and kill the filibuster; to be fair, that’s precisely the bullshit the Dems did last time they were in power in the Senate. Enthusiasts, you know how I despise the easy and unthinking false equivalency of “both sides are equally evil and corrupt.” There is no comparison between the two parties on either evilness or corruptness, but neither side has a monopoly on short-sighted lust for temporary power.

Gorsuch is probably getting in, but he won’t change the makeup of the Court; he’s the exact same kind of asshole that Scalia was, and decisions will go back to being four against four with Kennedy making up the swing vote. (I think Justice Kennedy gets sexual thrills from being the swing vote.)

And the President’s a Russian stooge, and the Secretary of State doesn’t want his job, and the House is full of complete numbskulls, and Jesus I can’t do this tonight.

Fuck it: here’s a little girl stealing the Pope’s hat:

Girl meets Pope. Girl steals Pope's hat. https://t.co/tPPQIddCOk pic.twitter.com/RUvQO1CIa8

— CNN (@CNN) March 22, 2017

As I mentioned, my phone was unreadable for a good chunk of the day. Sunscreen is greasy and adheres to glass in a film that cannot be wiped off by just a cloth; you need some shpritzy bullshit to get it off, so that plus the sun’s glare made the device unusable. So I just watched a ballgame, went YAY and BOO and the ball went TOCK when hit properly by a young man with bulging forearm muscles. The grass was a parody of green, absurdly green and soft; not the sharp, mean sawgrass that most of civilized Florida is covered with.

(Grass isn’t supposed to grow in Florida. Because it’s a fucking swamp. But, when the white people moved down they demanded grass; the only species hardy enough to take the relentless sun and semi-incompatible soil is called sawgrass, and it is properly named. Walking on it barefoot leaves your feet looking like John MacLean’s at the end of Die Hard. Also, since it is Florida, you will most likely also be wearing a tank top with blood stains on it.)

I was, Enthusiasts, blissfully unaware. (Not as unaware as the fat guy snoring three seats away FOR SIX FUCKING INNINGS, but you get the point.) What president? Russia? No, I don’t smell anything on fire; those are the hot dogs. Then I got home and opened up my laptop: the screen shrieked at me in a language that never existed, and a black, foul emesis spewed out, covering my face. I got a little bit in my mouth, and now I crave human flesh.

The Supreme Court is a big, imposing building where justice lives. Also, a  Justice lives there. (Alito moved into his office a few years ago, and hasn’t left.) Congress makes laws, and then these laws are presented to the Court for review. Sometimes, the laws are deemed not lawish enough. Other times, attorneys will argue that a law is not lawish, and the Justices will say, “Take your weak sauce home. That law is lawish as shit, youngblood.” Then, the bailiffs will attack. (Does the Supreme Court have bailiffs? I’m picturing the black guy from Judge Judy standing right under Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and nodding his head when she makes a good point. Maybe bringing her a yogurt bar when her blood sugar drops.)

Anyway, there’s an opening. It is a sweet gig: lifetime appointment, plus heavily-discounted robe cleaning. And there’s only nine slots. There’s 535 seats in Congress, and 360 NBA roster spots, but only nine Justices. If they offer you the job, take it. (Statistically, readers of this site will not be offered a Supreme Court seat. Sorry, but it’s true. Most of you aren’t even lawyers.)

Although, you don’t have to be a lawyer.

You can’t start a paragraph referring to something in a parenthetical from the last one.

YOU’RE NOT MY FATHER.

But I have his voice in your head, don’t I?

I’ve been meaning to speak to you about that.

Just continue demonstrating how little of U.S. Government class you remember.

Thank you. Like I said: you don’t have to be a lawyer. It’s not in the Constitution. (Please remember the phrase “not in the Constitution.”) In reality, every Justice has been a lawyer, or at least studied law. There are eight Justices right now; the Court started out with six, went up to ten, and then settled back down to nine, where it was capped by Congress in 1869. FDR tried to put 15 guys (I am confident all 15 would have been men) on the Court, but everyone saw what he was doing and told him to stop. The fluctuations are caused by the fact that the Constitution does not specify how many Justices there should be.

The first thing everyone learns about the Supreme Court in high school is Marbury v. Madison. Long case short: Adams gave a guy named Marbury a job, but Marbury didn’t get the paperwork before Adams left office; Jefferson (the incoming President) didn’t like Marbury, and told his Secretary of State (James Madison) to lose the forms. Marbury sued Madison, and the Court used the case to assert the power of Judicial Review, the ability to judge a law, order, or treaty legal or not. It could tell the other two branches to go fuck themselves, basically. (The Congress could amend the Constitution to get back at them, but that’s a big process.) The Court used Marbury v. Madison to grant itself this awesome power because–once again–it was not mentioned in the Constitution.

There’s a seat open. It is Antonin Scalia’s old seat; he died. Antonin Scalia was an Originalist, which means he believed that the original intent of the Constitution was the most important–if not the only–consideration when looking at a case. The man worked for an institution whose precise makeup and role was not specified in the document he believed should be read as literal.

I put that sentence in italics so that you’ll remember it the next time someone tells you what a tremendous intellect Antonin Scalia was.

Anyway, his seat’s open. The Republicans tried propping his corpse up in it for a few days, but Justice Thomas could tell something was wrong; he wouldn’t stop baying in grief; the stenographer did not know how to transcribe his keening. The problem, you see, was that this was 2016 and Barack Obama was the president of the United States, but if you squinted, then he wasn’t really the president. He won the popular and electoral votes in ’08, and then got reelected handily, but if you rounded up a whole year, then he wasn’t the president any more. (If you keep squinting at Barack Obama, you might see another reason he wasn’t considered the president by a lot of people.) Obama nominated a respected, bland, centrist white man named Merrick Garland. (Until the bitter end, Obama was trying to compromise with his enemies, and they never gave one shit; they hated him.) No matter that Justices have historically been confirmed or rejected in an average of 71 days: with 11 months to go until the election, the Republican Senate, led Mitch McConnell, decided that they couldn’t even discuss the matter until after the new president was in office.

And whaddya know?

President Trump, after carefully reviewing several candidates legal writings and judicial decisions, met with each prospective Justice and discussed–at both length and depth–their philosophies, walking through several hypothetical cases to suss out the potential nominee’s mind. Oh, no, wait: that’s what Obama did. Someone told Donny Genius that Neil Gorsuch was the pick, and then Gorsuch complimented Trump in the interview, and that was that. Schedule the hearing!

Neil Gorsuch, which is the noise an old man makes after eating a too-hot spoonful of soup, is a respected, bland, centrist white man. He co-owns a cabin in Wyoming with a guy named Philip Anschutz.

Anschutz had multiple other business ventures, including Forest Oil, Pacific Energy Group, Union Pacific Railroad (Anschutz is the company’s largest shareholder, with a 6% stake), the Regal Entertainment Group, which is the largest movie theater chain in the world, with approximately 7,000 screens – Anschutz owns more than half of the company, and multiple newspapers and media groups. Anschutz has invested in, for example, the Clarity Media Group, a Denver-based publishing group that includes^[37] newspapers like The Oklahoman, the largest newspaper in Oklahoma, the San Francisco Daily (purchased in 2004, sold in November 2011), the Washington Daily, which was spun off from a number of D.C. area suburban dailies, the Baltimore Daily, which launched in April 2006 and was shut down in early 2009, .com, a hyper-local web portal where citizen journalists write on local topics from news to blog-like stories, the Weekly Standard (purchased in 2009),^[38] and The Gazette, the second-largest newspaper in Colorado with a daily circulation of 74,172 (purchased on November 30, 2012)^[39] (Anschutz has trademarked the name “Examiner” in more than sixty cities.) Anschutz invested in both the Oil & Gas Asset Clearinghouse, which is an auction company designed for the Oil & Gas Business, and NRC Broadcasting, which owns a string of radio stations in Colorado.

Guess whose side Neil chooses when people sue corporations?

(Gorsuch is also an Originalist just like Scalia. Dipshittery at the highest level.)

So, Gorgon has his hearings; the Democrats are perhaps kinda beginning to start thinnking about discussing the possibility of opening an investigation into the chance that maaaaaaaaaaybe they grow a fucking spine. Note, Enthusiasts, that I did not say spines. I know as well as you that it’s too much to ask the individual Democratic party legislators to grow individual spines; I just want them to grow a singular spine, and share it communally. Let’s start small. And for Christ’s sake, is there anyone in the party with any charisma at all?

I digress: the Dems are now, finally, at long last, bringing up the fact that this a lifetime appointment to the most powerful institution in domestic life, and if we didn’t confirm the last guy because the President who picked him was black, then maybe we shouldn’t confirm this one because the President’s RussianOH RIGHT I DIDN’T TELL YOU because I skipped yesterday, but the head of the FBI confirmed that there’s an investigation into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign during the election.

(Them’s the breaks with the rules of the Recounting: sometimes you miss important stuff. Rules are rules, though.)

President Angry Loaf Of Bread is now threatening Congress, which always turns out well and we all had to see coming; they’re literally the only ones besides Ivanka and Putin he hasn’t threatened yet. He had the Freedom Caucus over for a meeting (the Liberty Chautauqua will be by tomorrow) and flat-out warned them that he would come for them if they didn’t vote for Trynottogetsickcare. These folks represent districts that all went heavily for Trump; they are his base, and–I now go back to italics to stress the awesome incompetence of this act–he is threatening them if they don’t vote for a plan that directly fucks their districts.

The problem is that Mike Pence is a capable executive; he is both loathsome AND understands not to demand people shiv themselves. On the other hand, he’s a creep and would not naturally take Trump’s supporters if Donny Bosco was impeached, or thrown out a window by Putin. (Seriously: Putin’s just straight-up tossing fools out of windows now. That man gives no fuckskis whatsoever.)

We end on something lovely to think about: Gorsuch, in his hearing today, made two statements: Roe v. Wade was established law that he been affirmed a number of times, and that he would have no trouble ruling against Trump. One of The Liar’s campaign promises was appointing a Justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade and we all know how he feels about disloyalty. Wouldn’t it be nice if a Democrat prodded and poked at Gorsuch to get him to talk more shit about Donny? Enough so that he reached for the phone, and fired up his Twitter?

A man can dream.

This has been the 61st day of our national nightmare; may we wake soon.

In Which The Eternal Question “Who Did The Festering Fascist Piss off Today?” Is Examined Thoroughly, And, If Allowed By The Fullness Of Time, Jokes About Dicks Are Told.

Ireland Let’s start small. Dummy did this yesterday, but it’s too funny not to tell you about: the Irish President (Prime Minister? Head Leprechaun?) comes over to America every year around St. Patrick’s Day to do a little ceremony with the U.S. President, Ireland and America being inextricably linked through lineage and history and whatnot. The Irish guy (or gal) gives the American guy (or guy) a bucket full of shamrocks; it’s all very choreographed, one of those political kabuki things like pardoning the turkey on Thanksgiving, and no one really pays attention to it.

TotD, for example. I had no idea that this ceremony took place every year, mostly because no one ever fucked it up this badly before. First, Paul Ryan–who must be assumed to be auditioning for the role of Wile E. Coyote in the upcoming live-action Loony Toons reboot–tried prop comedy, and he ain’t no Carrottop: he pulled this shitty, sad pint of Guinness from under the podium; it looked like a glass of motor oil that had lost the will to live.

Also, you know:

“Hey, here’s what I think your culture is. You’re all drunks, right? Look! It’s a drink, ya drunks. C’mon, let’s drink and fight!”

And then Turnip gets up and does his “asshole child being forced to recite at church” routine with his prepared remarks; within them is an Irish proverb, which he…well, I don’t want to say “reads.” Closer to “sounds out the words.”

Can you guess?

C’mon, you can guess.

Bingo: not an Irish proverb at all. Actually written by–wait for it–a Nigerian–wait for it again–woman named Albashir Adam Alhassan and mislabeled on Pinterest as “Irish Wisdom.” Someone from the White House, while writing a speech for the president to give in front of a world leader, used Pinterest as a source. Also: go look at the lady’s name again and recall what religion they practice in Nigeria and have yourself a good chuckle.

England You know how tough it is to get England and Ireland on the same page? Those fuckers have hated each other since before America was a gleam in Ronald Reagan’s eye, but Trump–who is the exact shape and color of a traffic cone–managed it. Congratulations, Don. Thank you for all the winning you’re doing on our behalf.

The UK Government Communications Headquarters is the NSA with a monocle and a derby; it’s called the GCHQ. (Which is a dreadful initialism without any rhythm or panache. MI5: there’s a good name for a spy organization. GCHQ looks like the cat jumped on the keyboard.) The GCHQ, as you might imagine, is not given to public statements. Moreover, they are not given to public statements calling foreign leaders liars.

But they’ll make an exception for The Donnybrook, who has apparently chosen “Obama tapped Trump Tower” as the hill he’s going to die on, and now he’s shifted arguments: President Obama had the British do it, which is why there’s no evidence chain here in America. I could go on for a thousand words detailing all the reasons why that’s unlikely to the point of being impossible, but really: it just sounds so fucking stupid, and the GCHQ said so today in a statement.

They felt the need to release the statement because of what Turnip said while was pissing off…

Germany Angela Merkel is not fun. She’s not, as the cliché goes, someone you want to have a beer with. (Even though if you were having a beer with Angela Merkel, you would most likely be in Germany and therefore the beer would be very good and it might be brought to you by a busty fräulein in a dirndl.) The woman is a chemist who grew up in East Germany: she has never said “Whoopee” in her life, mostly because she can’t pronounce the W. Also: no fun.

What she is, though, is a politician. Merkel’s been in charge for 12 years, and not like Putin’s been in charge: she’s the leader of a free democracy with a parliamentary system. 12 years is forever to be in charge in a parliament, and she has overseen the end of multiple rivals’ careers. (Through politics and voting and shit, not Putin’s way. Oh, speaking of Putin: he absolutely detests Angela Merkel, and that makes her all right by me.) She’s such a politician, in fact, that she studied up for today’s meeting with Donald J.* Trump. Reviewed tapes of his speeches and press conferences, etc., and I hope you she read the transcripts, too. Trust me: the transcripts reveal so much more than listening to him about the depths of his shallowness.

Which is why Angela Merkel was most likely not surprised at the Petulant Effluent’s behavior today; he gave her The Full Donny: pathetic power plays, shit-eating grins, wild accusations, misunderstanding of international law, awkward attempts at humor. Really, all that was left to do was grab her by the katze.

North Korea Guess what: we’re the unreasonable ones now. I didn’t think it was possible, either, but our current Secretary of State–who appears so infrequently in public that he may well be a ninja–just told China and South Korea to fuck themselves with their “peace talk” hippie bullshit, and demanded Kim Jong-Un disarm unilaterally before any negotiations would begin. That sounds like a plan.

This has been the 57th day of our national nightmare; may we all wake soon.

*The “J” stands for “Jesus Christ, He’s Going To Get Us All Killed.”

Fun fact: Wednesday, February Eighth is the toughest possible date to spell correctly.

Also a fun fact: Donald Trump looks like a Halloween doughnut left in a sex club locker for six months, and that rotten stooge took some dicks today. There was so much dick flying at Donny that the mainland ran out of dick, and China and Hawaii had to send backup dick. The House, the Senate, the Judiciary; shit, I think the Coast Guard might have taken a shot at the shit-eyed ghoul.

The House: Ryan all but conceded today, saying that the bill to replace Obamacare (Watchyoudieandlaughcare) would need a lot of revision, which is the exact opposite of what he said last week. Not that he cares, of course: Paul Ryan has two faces, and both of them are smirking at a poor person. But, he’s now in a bind. Ryan’s 40 votes or so away from being able to pass his plan, and those votes–the guys he now wants to make concessions to–are from the “Fuck ’em” section of the GOP. Giving them what they want makes passage in the Senate impossible, as several Republican Senators have said in public.

Devin Nunes. You know this fucking guy? Look at this fucking guy.

This fucking guy, right?

Devin Nunes is the Reprentative from California’s 22nd, which is Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley. A quick glance at his Wikipedia page shows that he doesn’t believe in Climate Change, is still accusing fellow lawmakers of being Communist sympathizers in the 21st century, and–I admit to skimming this part–is some sort of water vampire. And he loves him some Trump. TrumpytrumpTRUMP, he gotta have his Donald in the morning, Donald in the evening, Donald at suppertime. (Supper is meatloaf or a burnt steak with ketchup.) Devin was on Don’s transition team, even.

Devin is also the Co-Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and looked to be a capable blocking back for the White House against investigations; as the majority chair, he’s close to a dictator about what gets on the schedule and what doesn’t. (The minority chair is a guy named Adam Schiff, who is a rabid Democrat who enjoys trolling the president on Twitter just as much as the rest of us. Adam is also from California: the 28th, which includes Burbank and West Hollywood. Really, all you need to know is that one guy’s from Fresno and the other’s from Weho. It explains a lot.)

So: the two of them (and others on the Intelligence Committee) were briefed today by the FBI re: Dum-dum’s wiretapping claim, and my boy Devin came out of that meeting looking like he’d seen a ghost cop. He made it crystal clear that, while he couldn’t reveal exactly what he did or didn’t see, there was no evidence that Obama had snuck into Trump Tower–heist movie-style, one would presume– and bugged the offices.

(SCREENPLAY IDEA: Obama’s 11. Biden plays the Brad Pitt character, and Michelle is Julia Roberts. TWIST: George W. Bush is on the team as the explosives expert, and he’s a good guy now and we all forget about all the bullshit he did and concentrate on how friendly-seeming he is.)

The Senate: How appropriate to be talking about the Senate today. Lindsey Graham is so mad that he may get the vapors. He and Chuck Grassley–both Republicans and Trump supporters, though Grassley is more enthusiastic about it–announced their holding up the White House’s judicial appointments until the wiretapping allegations are investigated, and then Lindsey said the “S” word. It hasn’t been two months, and subpoenas are being issued.

The Judiciary Committee was briefed by James Comey today, and holy shit I just realized James Comey is Keyser Soze. HE’S BEEN BEHIND EVERYTHING.

Simmer down, champ.

It’s all so obvious, man The clues were there all along.

Just get on with it.

China Have you heard of China? It’s big, and far away. Perhaps you’ve had a bastardized form of their cuisine, or watched a movie in which men and women kick one another. You might have heard of the song “China Cat Sunflower,” which references the country. (And also cats and sunflowers.) Or you might use products. Do you use products? Actually, “products” might be too specific. Let’s go with “things.” Do you use things? I use things. What about stuff? Do you enjoy stuff? I love stuff.

All the things come from China, and China produces all the stuff.

There’s a city in China that makes socks. 60,000 people there and they make 8 billion pairs of socks a year: statistically, you are wearing socks from Sock City right now. China makes everything now, and today they not-gently reminded the runny lump of hobo shit in the Oval Office that picking a trade war would be the dumbest idea since invading Russia in the winter

(Hey! There’s something stupid Donny definitely won’t do! Good to know: we will not be invading Russia in the winter. Everything else is still on the table including global thermonuclear war, but our cavalry won’t be getting bogged down by the snow in Petrograd. That’s good news, huh?)

Hawaii I know we annexed you for a reason, Hawaii. Derrick Watson, a District Judge in the warmer and smaller of the freak states, issued a worldwide ban on the president’s new travel ban hours before it would have gone into effect. In essence, it is the same story as the first little bit of the Recounting: someone holding the president to his word. Obama wiretapped you? Let’s see the evidence. The travel ban is a Muslim ban? Okay, fine, but that’s illegal.

The Department of Justice’s argument that this was a substantially different Executive Order was belied by WH aide Steven Miller (who is the mirror-universe version of George Stephanopoulos) going on teevee and saying that the second order would be the exact same thing. The court was also not impressed by the DOJ’s admonition to “not pay any attention to anything the president said.”

President Trump took the court’s decision with the dignity and equanimity that he’s famous  fornojustkidding he held a rally and basically made the judge’s argument for him. Remember: the judge said that the EO was so similar to the first one that original decisions should still hold up. The White House and the DOJ argued that it was an entirely new creation.

The wetbrained toad said this at his rally tonight:

THAT’S THE JUDGE’S OPINION, MORON. I can’t believe we’re losing to this guy.

This has been the 55th day of our national nightmare; may we wake up soon.

Everything is ripping itself apart, asunder; all is undone. The flash-eyed and vicious have won the day, and they did their work during business hours. We watched it happen; we’re watching it happen; events will continue apace for a while.

(Does it seem like things have been coming to a head for too long? Like we should have gotten to the head by now?)

There is bad news, horrid news, and several items so frightening that not only will you shit your pants, but your pants will shit you.

THE BAD

You will most likely be sentenced to death by one of Obamacare’s Death Panels, as the House’s replacement plan took many dicks today. (More dicks than group sex: this was a gangbang-type deal. Maybe the replacement plan placed an ad online looking for dicks. I don’t know the replacement plan’s kinks.) The homesteaders, doomsday preppers, and general mean fucks of the extreme right already hated the bill, but today the so-called “moderate” Republicans in the house turned on it after the Congressional Budget Office report came out.

Now, the CBO came out yesterday, and The Daily Recounting only covers the past 24 hours; I’ll just recap it:

The Republican plan includes kittens?

The kitten is a metaphor.

For what?

Death.

Then who is Death?

Death is also death. The plan is nothing but death.

Okay.

Here’s the fun thing that happened today: the White House leaked an analysis of Donnycare that it had prepared, and…wait for it…their internal report BEAT the CBO estimate by two million people. The governing administration of the country you live in calculated that their national heath scheme would cover 26 million fewer people than are currently on the rolls, and they still went forward with it.

(At this point, I would like to rise from the still-burning wreckage of my beloved America to give the finger to Canada. You know I love you, but right now you can go fuck yourselves and take your president or whatever Prince Valiant with you. Your reasoned stability is a stick in my eye, Canada, and I hope Steve Bannon notices you exist.)

That wasn’t the fun part, I know: there was nothing fun about that. Here’s the fun: the report, like I said, leaked and then the White House was asked about it, and they said that the report was not an actual estimate; instead, it was an attempt to guess what the CBO would say. I am unaware if the obvious follow-up question was asked.

“How does that make it better?”

BUUUUT the reason for the bill’s nastiness might be more deeply buried. Today, Breitbart published leaked audio of Paul Ryan badmouthing Trump; this happened during the campaign, and they sat on the tape until they needed it. As we know, Breitbart was run by Steve Bannon for years. As we also know, Steve Bannon hates Paul Ryan with all of his pickled, goblin heart.

• Bannon produces plan he knows will be almost impossible to pass even with full White House support.
• Promises Ryan the complete backing of the president.
• Ryan sticks his dick out for the plan.
• Breitbart posts audio–not a transcript–of Ryan talking shit about Trump.
• (At this point, we should all remember that the treasonous slug is both insanely sensitive to slights, and an audio-visual learner.)
• Fox & Friends plays the audio of Ryan talking shit.
• Hey, who’s gonna be the new Speaker?

That’s what I’d do. Take the morality out of it and it sounds like a solid plan, doesn’t it?

THE HORRID

Did you know we had a Secretary of State? Honest to God we do: tall white guy. (Shocker, I know.) His name is Rex Tillerson, and I will not lie to you, Enthusiasts: I cannot picture him. I keep up with the damn news, and I cannot picture the face of our current Secretary of State. That’s on them, not me. (In my head, Rex Tillerson is played by James Brolin.)

Sexy Rexy used to be the CEO of Sexxy Exxon, and while he was CEO he used a pseudonymous e-mail account to discuss Climate Change-related issues. Almost as if he didn’t want a recorded trail of how much he knew about how badly his company was poisoning the planet. Almost. The name he used was Wayne Tracker, which is not as good as Ron Mexico or Carlos Danger, but it’s close.

Wayne is Rex’s middle name, and you know he sat around brainstorming super-cool last names.

“Wayne Hunter. Nah, too obvious. Wayne Sniper. I like that. Wayne Pussy-Sniper. Yeeeeeeah. Wayne fuckin’ Pussy-Sniper, M.D.”

The reason I bring this up instead of the dozen other miserable details of today is, as always, to educate the Younger Enthusiasts and remind them of the Days Before. In a normal political atmosphere, this would be a massive deal.  Zoe Baird. You don’t remember Zoe Baird. She was Clinton’s choice to be his first Attorney General, and it came out that she had employed an illegal immigrant as a nanny or maid or something. Bye-bye, Zoe.

But it turns out e-mails don’t matter.

THE SO VERY FRIGHTENING

Good job, Rachel Maddow.

This had been the 54th day of our national nightmare; may we all wake soon.

O, Sisyphus; O, Atlas; O, Bill Murray’s character from Groundhog Day. (Phil something, right?) O, Prometheus bound and reborn to be pecked at; O, Benjy murdered by a drummer and resurrected: I understand you now, your punishment eternal and infernal, even though it’s only been a week since I started doing this. I roll the rock up the hill, and then the rock falls back down, except the rock is made of shit and the hill is made of shit and everything’s just shit.

You okay?

These fuckers are in my head.

That’s what they want.

I KNOW. WE’RE LOSING.

Ooh, talk about losers.

Sure. Since the election, the Democratic Party has been flailing around like an epileptic at a strobe light factory. Who’s in charge over there? New putz, right? Or have they fired him, too, because the Republicans said something mean and every pussy one of them scattered again? “When they go low, we go high.” Remember that happy horseshit?

If you stay high while they go low, you get tackled; these mawkish centrists will compromise us straight into chaos.

I can’t bear to think about this any more tonight; I want to see what’s going on in Little Aleppo. But first look at this answer from Spicer’s presser today:

Did you see it? Did you catch the word choice? “Burrowed.” We all know what he means, right?  These are men with bad intentions, and they mean your family harm.

This has been the 50th day of our national nightmare; may we all wake soon.

The term “chaos theory” gets thrown around and half-understood, but it’s a revelation of an idea; it’s the best kind of idea: one that seems obvious after you’ve heard it. In a system of great enough complexity, any change in initial condition will cause massive variation of result. And not just massive variation: unpredictable. A scientist named Edward Lorenz was running a weather simulation of his computer, and the machine was making almost unnoticeably small changes to the variables in the algorithm. He’d run it one time, get a lovely day; another time, and a hurricane hits Indianapolis.

A weather simulation–especially one from 1961–is not as big a system as the actual weather, and one of the variables in the weather is the average temperature. It is going up.

Why?

Excellent question. There are two positions:

Anthropogenic warming This is the argument that industrial emissions (and cow farts) are infusing the atmosphere with too much carbon dioxide; the chief culprit is consumption of fossil fuels.

Who believes this? Literally all the smart people who haven’t been bought by the energy companies.

What Global Warming? This argument is self-explanatory.

Who believes this? Dumb people actually believe it, but most of the people you see on teevee defending this position don’t give a shit either way because they’re greedy and figure they’ll be dead before anything too terrible happens.

Oh, wait. There’s one more:

Chinese hoax. It’s a Chinese hoax.

Who believes this? That fleshy fuck all the yokels elected.

Okay, so: why are we talking about Global Warming? Because the new chief of the Environmental Protection Agency was talking about it today. Guy named Scott Pruitt, who was very familiar with the EPA during his stint as Oklahoma’s AG: he sued it 14 times, once because he thought that department didn’t have the authority to regulate mercury. All of his lawsuits failed, and a judge once issued a ruling that Pruitt was attempting to overburden the agency with so many lawsuits that it couldn’t do its job.

He’s in charge of the EPA now, and at a press conference today he said he doesn’t think CO2 has anything to do with Global Warming. Then he led the reporters outside to watch him shit in a stream.

This is their stated purpose, Enthusiasts: the Trump Administration is trying to topple the American government. The White House has two factions right now: one side is Reince Priebus and the other is Steve Bannon. Priebus is a party hack, Bannon is a revolutionary. Bannon’s winning.

Up on the Hill were some busy beavers today, chomping away at freedom and damming up democracy.

Really?

I stand by my metaphor.

You shouldn’t.

Shush. The House is desperate to pass Trumpcare or Republicare, whatever they’re calling that piece of poison. (I vote for Wedon’tcare.) The Ways & Means Committee stayed up all night to jam the sucker through. Enthusiasts with working brain cells left may remember that Obamacare took a year or so to throw together, and the Republicans still accused Obama of “shoving this bill down America’s throat.”

(Republicans love that phrase. Makes you wonder.)

There’s still quite a bit of political wrangling to do, mostly within the GOP. Basketball Head has been trying to help, but he’s been telling everyone what they want to hear and both the moderate and conservative sides of the party think he’s on their side. Trump, of course, is on Trump’s side; he is now threatening to hold rallies in objecting representatives’ districts shaming them into unity, and I’m sure that won’t lead to anyone getting shot.

And, finally: Arnold Schwarzenegger might run for Senate, restoring some dignity to government and bringing along his years of political experience.

This has been the 49th day of our national nightmare; may we all wake soon.