Americans, I am angry. Russia is being accused of using propaganda to influence our election and maybe even more. It appears that the Russian government is simply making up news in the hopes of influencing popular opinion on a variety of topics including this year’s presidential race. The Russians purportedly planted these fake stories on Facebook until the country collectively shit the bed and elected Donald Trump as its next leader. Great work guys!

This whole fake news thing has turned our world upside down, but that’s not why I am angry. I am angry because they are beating us at our own game. The way I see it, this is our country and if anyone is going to be making up fake news about this great nation, it better damn well be one of us! Americans love making shit up on Facebook, so it’s really a perfect fit. Besides, Russia, you are doing it wrong!

Saying Hillary Clinton isn’t healthy is no great feat of fake journalism. The woman is almost 70 years old and had to work with people like Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi for most of her adult life. On top of that, her husband has had multiple affairs aired out in the public forum. How would you feel after putting up with all that mess? Probably not healthy!

A better fake news health story would say something like, “Donald Trump has two urethras, but only one of them actually exits his body. The Associated Press confirmed Trump’s medical condition, also known as Peebody disease, with Trump’s personal physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, on Thursday morning while he was leaving an underground opium den in Queens, New York. ‘The man is full of piss, alright!’ Bornstein is quoted as saying. It is believed that this internal urine contamination is what gives Trump his orange-ish hue and salty demeanor.”

These other fake news stories aren’t even funny. In fact they are hurting us normal folk and more importantly, they are hurting our celebrities. Kanye West recently cancelled his Saint Pablo tour after a string of outbursts in support of Donald Trump at both the San Jose and Sacramento shows. Fake news had overheated his brain causing a meltdown. ‘Ye was admitted to a psychiatric facility shortly thereafter and treated for a mental breakdown.

But that isn’t the whole fake story. It is now being reported that West’s mind was infected by a Russian botnet in 2008 during the recording of his hit album 808s & Heartbreak. The Russian hackers were apparently able to enter West’s mind through a zero-day exploit on the Antares Auto-Tune software used by the rapper to excess during the recording of the album.

The botnet laid dormant for eight years, waiting for the perfect time to strike, until it was finally activated at the concerts in San Jose and Sacramento. The plan was to use the voice of Kanye to change the minds of young minorities about Trump. Unfortunately, like Kanye himself, the Russians overestimated West’s value as an influencer and the attack failed miserably leaving Kanye to suffer the consequences in the nicest psych ward money can buy.

Do you see what I did there? That is how you do fake news, Russia! In fact, I think we are so good at this fake news business that we can handle Russia’s fake news, too. The people of Russia need to know about their political and cultural leaders as much as we do.

Since we have so much catching up to do, we might as well start with the big man himself, Vladimir Putin. The Russian president is often depicted with his shirt off in a show of strength, but a former KGB agent and defector, Igor Stravinsky, recently told the CIA that Putin is shirtless out of necessity. Thanks to several body waxing mishaps, Putin now has difficulty wearing clothing. Apparently, Putin’s nipples crack and bleed after wearing a shirt for less than five minutes.

It has also been reported that Putin has a tiny third leg attached to the base of his spine. This third leg is used only in times of dire consequence like when he needs to kick himself in the ass for helping Trump get elected. Surely that’s what will happen once Putin finds out how a real psychopath acts. Unfortunately for us, there is no amount of fake news to fix that.

I’d lie and say writing this column is difficult. I probably should, because it’s always late. I should say that it takes me days to figure out what to write about, but really, it just takes me days to actually sit down and do it. I’m a procrastinator. And a damn good one at that.

When I do finally force myself to sit down and do what I’m supposed to, it’s actually kind of easy. I just point my browser toward news.google.com, find whatever sparks my interest, and prattle on about it for about 650 words and hope some of you find my take on it interesting. This week was a little more difficult than most, though. After being awe-struck at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, I’ve been obsessed—watching whatever coverage I could. But as I was marveling at the ability people have to put their differences aside and come together in the form of healthy competition, a far more similar contest was taking place just a thousand or so miles from Beijing. Russia, not content with the U.S. being the only country to flop their gigantic military cocks on the tables of smaller countries, thought it would be a good idea to say a hearty “Fuck you!” to the hope and unity the Olympic games inspire and send tanks, troops and missiles into Georgia.

Of course, there are two sides to every story. The Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are breakaway republics, and Russia claimed that their Aug. 7 invasion was enacted to protect the people of those regions from the Georgian government. Large militarized nation moves in on smaller country to protect its people from their own government: We’ve heard that type of rhetoric before. Oh, and Georgia is vital in the oil trade, too. Bet you couldn’t have guessed that. Its Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline transports 1 million barrels of oil per day from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean Sea—roughly 1 percent of the world’s oil needs.
What looms more ominous about the situation is the reaction of the west. Strong words have ping-ponged back and forth between Washington D.C. and Moscow. Remember those days? When Rocky fought Drago and pop songs like “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” and “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” tried to put a happy face on the impending nuclear holocaust? They’re back! Unlike Iraq, Iran or North Korea, Russia actually does have “the bomb” and the capability of using it. I don’t think that’ll happen, mind you. There’s no money in wiping out the human race. Who’ll need to gas up their cars or go to Wal-Mart if we’re all gone?
Still, any time I hear two countries with nukes getting uppity at one another, I think back to that dream sequence from Terminator 2—when Linda Hamilton turns to bones—and I get spooked. When I hit up Google News today to find out if there were any new developments in the Georgia conflict (there was a cease fire), recent developments in the ongoing Bigfoot saga were a lot more abundant.

While camping in the U.S. state of Georgia (talk about synchronicity), Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer allegedly discovered the corpse of a humanoid creature that they claim is the elusive Sasquatch. Delighted by their discovery, they tossed the body in a cooler (with a few living Bigfoots watching on) and kept it in a freezer for two months before alerting the world of their discovery on Aug. 15 at a Palo Alto press conference. Both men were wearing tan hats advertising their Bigfoot-themed Web site, and as you’d expect, the evidence is weak. DNA tests on the body have yielded inconclusive, human and possum results; and photos of the corpse and the creatures surrounding the site are blurry or overexposed. They didn’t produce the body as of this writing, but Whitton and Dyer said that a reporter from Fox News would be the first to see it. Apparently, they don’t have anything better to report on.