
had put Sleepy Joe over the top, the sun came out.

So I’m standing in the kitchen after a morning of bad dreams, idly thumbing through the news on my phone as the toaster mutters to itself, when I stumble across these two items back to back on The Washington Post app:
• Stealing to survive: More Americans are shoplifting food as aid runs out during the pandemic. One manager interviewed said he usually doesn’t call the John Laws, but instead tells the offenders not to come back.
“It’s become much harder during the pandemic,” he said. “People will say, ‘I was just hungry.’ And then what do you do?”
• Dismissing health concerns, State Department treats 200 guests to holiday drinks, tours and leftover “Be Best” swag. The hoopla included a tour of the White House holiday decorations, beverages at Blair House, and “Be Best” merch’ from the phenomenally unremarkable anti-bullying initiative by the First Plagiarist, Countess Malaria Dracula.
“It’s time to get rid of the leftovers,” said one official.
Indeed it is. There’s never a guillotine around when you need one. Jan. 20 can’t come soon enough.

Welp, the gub’nah made it official on Friday the 13th: New Mexico is shit out of luck.
Starting Monday we’re back to where we were in April, more or less: non-essential businesses and nonprofits must cease “in-person activities;” essential businesses (including bicycle repair shops) may operate with restrictions and a reduced workforce; and all New Mexicans “are instructed to shelter in place” save for “the most essential trips for health, safety, and welfare.”
I’d like to give a shoutout to all the fuckwits who have been insisting on strutting around with their faces hanging out, throwing parties, hootenannies, and jamborees, and otherwise acting the fool.
A second shoutout goes to all the poor sods at USPS, UPS, and FedEx who are going to get hernias, sciatica, and flat feet delivering Internet purchases throughout the Land of Enchantment as local retailers suck the bleachy end of a wet mop for the next couple of weeks.
Finally, lo siento mucho to everyone who has to try to enforce this edict, badged or unbadged. I anticipate a few tense moments along the way and a fella can’t find ammo anywhere at any price.
Look for a strong uptick in the online sale of items that do not require a background check or waiting period, such as baseball bats, ax handles, and tire irons.
Between now and whenever — or if — some less unhinged person takes charge of the Oval Office, we’ll take note of an occasional viewing-with-alarm story to be lumped into the category, “Hey, he can’t DO THAT … can he?”
Our inaugural entry raises the question of whether Adolf Twitler’s tiny little asshole of a mouth might excrete some of the nation’s deepest, darkest secrets once its operator has been forcibly returned to private life.
“All presidents exit the office with valuable national secrets in their heads, including the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, intelligence-gathering capabilities — including assets deep inside foreign governments — and the development of new and advanced weapon systems,” writes Shane Harris of The Washington Post.
“Not only does Trump have a history of disclosures, he checks the boxes of a classic counterintelligence risk: He is deeply in debt and angry at the U.S. government, particularly what he describes as the ‘deep state’ conspiracy that he believes tried to stop him from winning the White House in 2016 and what he falsely claims is an illegal effort to rob him of reelection.”
The good news, according to the article, is that (a) he hasn’t been paying attention during briefings, and (2) the Espionage Act might close his barn door … if only after all Four Horses of the Apocalypse have already galloped through it.
So we got that going for us, which is nice.
Continuing with our food theme, we consider the tale of three hungry fellas who got busted for boiling a pair of chickens in one of the geothermal features at Yellowstone National Park.
What, there wasn’t a Chik-fil-A in that neck of the peckerwoods? The National Park Service must be too busy kowtowing to the e-bike lobby to take care of important business. When Bubba has to boil his own birds at a campout, goddamnit all to hell anyway, the terrorists win.
Anyway, it proved a pricey meal. According to The Guardian, the three were banned from the park and received fines ranging from $540 to $1,250, plus probation.
And two did a short stretch in the stony lonesome, where the dining is anything but al fresco and the menu less inventive.