Uncomfortably Numbers

There are plenty of newsworthy things to talk about today, including radical Islamic terror, the impending (or not) House vote on Obamacare repeal, Trump's surveillance accusations, mainstream media burying the story of illegal aliens raping a 14 year-old girl in a school bathroom, and Chuck Schumer declaring that the Democrats will filibuster Neil Gorsuch's nomination for Supreme Court Justice in hopes of being rewarded with 72 virgins in the afterlife.

And why aren't we talking about these juicy topics? Because instead of keeping up with the news, we've spent the entire day working on our freaking taxes.

And we aren't even up to working on the actual, impenetrably baffling tax forms yet - a task which must be postponed until we've made a run to the liquor store. Rather, we're still at the beginning of the process, doing our once-a-year data entry of receipts into an ancient accounting program that we don't clearly remember how to use anymore.

As Life's grand parade passes us by, we're sitting scrunched at a desk squinting at every credit card charge, cancelled check, and crumpled receipt which passed through our underpaid hands in 2016...then peck-peck-pecking the numbers on a keyboard, hands cramping, until we want to scream.

The whole process is a white hot pain in the rear, but it's very important to make sure that everything in our tax return is completely accurate and above board. Because 12 years from now it's entirely possible that an older but no wiser Rachel Maddow may be waving our returns at a TV camera.

BONUS: Since we didn't have time to be particularly witty today, enjoy this clip from the wonderful TV series "Black Books," in which Bernard Black visits his accountant at tax time...

Comeytose

We're not at all sure that "ignorance is bliss," but we've decided to at least give it a try when it comes to anything whatsoever that FBI Director James Comey has to say, now or in the future.

As we understand it (and trust us, we're not trying very hard) Comey just testified that there's no evidence whatsoever that Russia hacked the election, hacked election results, or attempted to influence the election any more than they've been attempting for decades.

However, the man who downgraded treasonous security breaches to "extreme carelessness" when Hillary snapped her fingers was perfectly willing to announce, with great seriousness and theatrically cocked eyebrow, that his agency (at the insistence of Democrats) is actively investigating any ties between Russia and Trump's campaign...even though there may not be any.

Are there salient details that we're missing here? It's entirely possible - and we just don't care. Comey is a self-interested political hack who has destroyed the credibility of the FBI, and his meaningless pronouncements only serve as fresh fodder for the fake news mills (yes, we're talking about you, New York Times).

For the good of the country, we'd like to see Trump appoint a new director to the FBI as soon as possible. And to prove there are no hard feelings, we suggest he also appoint Comey to be director of the STFU.

Atomic Ache

"Hey Bill, is that a missile in your pocket or are you glad to see me?"

Nothing says "Monday" quite like the threat of imminent nuclear destruction from a diminutive, family-murdering psychopath. In this case, we're referring to North Korea's Kim Jong-un (also known as the "Pillsbury Dough Boy of Death") who has declared that if a "single bullet is fired" by U.S. forces in Korea, they will nuke us into oblivion.

Even with a famously calm, cautious, and cool-headed President like Donald Trump delicately handling the crisis, it is at least a little bit worrisome to contemplate North Korea's desire to wreak havoc on our nation and the world. Especially since they could quite possibly pull it off, thanks to our old friends Bill and Hillary Clinton.

As you may recall if you don't get all your news from mainstream media, Hillary "That Glass Ceiling Is Thicker Than It Looks" Clinton and her husband raised tens of millions of dollars for their (ahem) "charitable foundation" by peddling State Department access and favors, as well as signing off on highly questionable deals like selling 20% of America's uranium reserves to Russia.

But this was hardly new behavior for the gruesome twosome. Way back in 1996, when the Clintons were actually renting out the Lincoln bedroom for sleazy celebrity romps in return for campaign contributions, Bill struck a controversial deal (again for hefty campaign donations) to let the Loral Corporation sell advanced missile guidance technology to China.

After which, in a spontaneous burst of unbridled capitalism, China sold the technology to the lunatics running North Korea - a terrifying and entirely predictable outcome which the Clintons didn't give a flying damn about as long as their illicit checks cleared. Some things never change.

And are Hillary's supporters outraged over this? They are not - and probably wouldn't be even if they'd heard of this existential nuclear threat and the attendant scandals (which they haven't). Instead, they spent the weekend in breathless distress over reports that climate change could cause mammals to shrink by as much as 15%.

In this nightmarish scenario, horses would become the size of slightly smaller horses, Great Danes would become the size of regular Danes, and the average sociopathic asshole would be exactly the size of Kim Jong-un.