Puerto Rico, we have learned this week, is a hundred miles long by thirty miles wide, which makes it roughly equivalent to the Willamette Valley, in Oregon, where we grew up. Its population numbers some 3.4 million American citizens, or a half-million more than our home turf. The distance to Miami is around a thousand miles, which will also get you from Eugene to Los Angeles. By air, that’s about two-and-half hours.

Of course, that’s via civilian flight. You can cut that time and distance in half from Guantanamo, in Cuba. We happen to have a naval base there. You may have heard of it.

Among the things our nation asks of its military is to lend a hand during natural disasters. A dozen years ago, Joint Task Force Katrina was created to coordinate efforts between soldiers and FEMA civilians. It was only formed after FEMA was shown to be tragically inadequate to the task, three days after the New Orleans levees failed.

Puerto Rico has been without power and water for nine days. There has been no all-hands relief effort.

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God bless the Freedom Caucus.

No, really.

Well, okay, sorta. Thanks to the House Deplorables, who resisted Ryancare because it didn’t drown enough puppies, the whole bill came crashing down, and we’re enjoying a bout of tantric schadenfreude that even Sting would envy.

Heck, we may yet escape this Administration alive.

We’ve seen from the start that Donald Trump sucks at running the government. We didn’t see until this week that Paul Ryan sucks at running the House. All those fire-breathers, free at last to turn These United States into scorched earth, and all they can do is immolate themselves, bless their shriveled hearts.

Which leads us to wonder whether this was ironically inevitable: Is extreme gerrymandering, the source of Republican power in the House, also the source of its weakness?

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How can the Democrats live with themselves and call themselves AMERICA!ns after refusing to hunt down the sick, the infirm, the aged and stuff Gatling guns in their guts, firing and shouting praises to FREE!dom as their intestines fly out their backs in the name of shareholder value, exactly as the Founding Fathers intended?

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Our guest colloquists are ABC news leprechaun George Stephanopoulos and Indiana Governor Mike Pence.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I think one of the problems that people have pointed out is that in Indiana, your civil rights laws don’t include sexual orientation as a protected class. And even some of the supporters of the bill who were — who appeared with you when you signed the bill, Eric Miller of Advanced America wrote that, “It will protect those who oppose gay marriage.”

He put up this example. He said, “Christian bakers, florists and photographers should not be punished for refusing to participate in a homosexual marriage.”

So this is a yes or no question.

Is Advance America right when they say a florist in Indiana can now refuse to serve a gay couple without fear of punishment?

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What the fuck to say other than a gutteral scream while clutching the nearest furry dog/cat/rabbit while searching for the nearest bong or bottle of vodka or Jane Austen novel?

So many things to say or think. Hard to prioritize the outrage. Where to start?  The ongoing open season on black and brown people, the hypocrisy of law enforcement who chuckle at a bunch of white wing-nuts making up for their small penises with big guns at the the Starbucks but have their sniper guns pointed at the heads of protesters with their hands in the air, the horrifying militarization of Barney Fifes of rural ‘Merikah with surplus weapons-grade body armor/machine guns/tanks, or the beatings and arrests of citizens just trying to get home or reporters trying to document the siege of the civilians.

Pay attention to what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri. The media has been banned, there is a no fly zone over the city. The police killed an unarmed black teenager and the protesters are surrounded by military grade police force with armored vehicles, assault weapons and tear gas.

Two members of the local government have been arrested for joining the protesters. The press has been arrested and assaulted. Your civil rights are being tossed to the wind by this police force.

Brought to you by the Patriot Act and post-9/11 hysteria.

Something truly terrifying is happening right here in the land of the free and the home of the brave where ostensibly race is no longer an issue because we have a black President.

I’m waiting for the NRA to get in there and tell these people they have the right to arm themselves against aggressive government action.

Oh. Wait.

We have an informal rule of thumb: Given a nation of 315,698,590 souls (and counting), even an insignificant percentage amounts to millions — or, for easy reference, the Fox News viewership. So rather than waste our time finding SOMEBODY WRONG ON THE INTERNET, we set a high squelch level: Stupid must be interesting. And, if possible, consequential.

However, in the interest of getting out of this week’s horrorshow/catvideo rut, we bring you Oklahoma House Co-Majority Leader Dennis Johnson — (R), of course — who said something you might expect of an (R) Oklahoma House Co-Majority Leader, and which we would otherwise ignore.

In debating in favor of a bill that would repeal a 70-year-old ban on “loss-leader” selling, Johnson, a small business owner, said service and not price are the key to success.

He then said some customers “try to Jew me down.”

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