MONDAY, JUNE 25

EMPRESS SURI Dia Dipasupil / getty images

What’s up, dearest darlings? Before we launch into a week that will surely be shat upon by the buffoonish DJT (who lost the popular vote by 2,864,974 votes), let’s peek at the hottest goss—starring Suri Cruise! As we recall, Suri is the daughter of Scientology’s fave cultist, Tom Cruise, and his ex-wife/escapee, Katie Holmes! So what’s she been up to? Promoting capitalism at NYC’s Pride parade! According to Us Weekly, Suri spent Pride Sunday selling lemonade to LGBTQ well-wishers along the parade route. “[Suri and her friends] had rainbow Rice Krispie treats and lemonade with signs all around their table for Pride,” said a snoopy spy. “She was very sweet and kind, telling everyone to enjoy their day.” “Great Thetan’s ghosts!” bellowed Emperor Klaaktu of Rigel VII via intergalactic holotubes! “How many Earth monetary units did Suri make with this quaint ‘lemonade stand,’ Ann?” Umm... we dunno, Klaaktu! Considering she’s a celebrity and the massive crowd... maybe a few hundred bucks? “Blarthagnimum!” Klaaktu squealed, his 13 fleshy tentacles waving as acidic saliva frothed from his mouths. “Those units should have gone to SCIENTOLOGY! How can we afford to extinguish the human race if Suri—the rightful leader of our galactic murder armies—spends all her money on kid pilates?? BAH! Fine! I’ll show her! I’ll set up a sautĂ©ed plasma eel stand during the coming Thanagarian Self-Esteem Procession, and we’ll just SEE who’s more adept at obtaining the greatest sum of gold-pressed latinum! Have a nice moon-cycle, human fools! FOR IT SHALL BE YOUR LAST.”

TUESDAY, JUNE 26

SCHEMING SHADOW LORD Win McNamee / GETTY IMAGES

Remember 2016? When Senate Majority Turtle Mitch McConnell blocked Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, allowing Trump to successfully install conservative toady Neil Gorsuch? That craven move paid off big time for Republicans today when the Supremes handed down four regressive decisions: upholding the president’s racist anti-Muslim travel ban; striking down a California law that required Christian “crisis pregnancy centers” to provide women with abortion information; allowing American Express to keep customers in the dark about credit cards with lower fees; and restricting public unions from collecting money that financed workplace negotiations. All were 5-to-4 decisions, straight down partisan lines. Oh, and a little salt for that wound: McConnell celebrated today’s GOP victories by emerging from his shell long enough to tweet a photo of himself shaking Gorsuch’s hand. AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING... Hours later, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he’s retiring from the Supreme Court, handing Trump another opportunity to stack the court with right-wingers. This is really not good. The Party of Trump now controls all three branches of government—which makes it more important than ever that, in November, we throw these immoral swamp monsters out on their asses. We can cry about it, or we can take our country back. You know what to do.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27

Oh boy! More hot Scientology goss! In an interview on Today, former Scientology security guard Brendan Tighe spilled some tea about the cult’s most beloved celeb, Tom Cruise, and... wait. Scarlett Johansson?? According to Tighe, in the mid-2000s he “accidentally” stumbled upon a list of women who were “auditioning” to date Cruise after his split with Nicole Kidman—one of whom was allegedly Johansson. Needless to say, she was not having a single ounce of that nonsense! “The very idea of any person auditioning to be in a relationship is so demeaning,” Johansson rightly said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter. “I refuse for anyone to spread the idea that I lack the integrity to choose my own relationships. Only a man aka Brendan Tighe would come up with a crazy story like—” “OHHHHH, so that’s what happened to my list!” interrupted Emperor Klaaktu of Rigel VII for the second time in a single column! “Of course ScarJo didn’t audition to date Tom Cruise! But I really wanted her to! At the time, I also suggested Amanda Bynes, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, and Cydrorfa Vreixx’arb (yes, she’s my cousin, but she has a great personality).”

THURSDAY, JUNE 28

Today in Annapolis, Maryland, a gunman with a longstanding grudge against the Capital Gazette newspaper barricaded the paper’s back door before shooting his way into the newsroom, using a shotgun to murder five of the Capital Gazette’s staff: assistant editor and columnist Robert Hiaasen, age 59; staff writer John McNamara, age 56; special publications editor Wendi Winters, age 65; sales assistant Rebecca Smith, age 34; and editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, age 61. Remarkably, surviving staffers carried on after the massacre—including photojournalist Joshua McKerrow and reporters Chase Cook and Pat Fergurson, who, from a nearby parking garage, used the back of Ferguson’s pickup truck as a desk to help report on the shooting, profile those who were killed, and publish an issue of the paper the next day. “Today we are speechless,” read the text on that morning’s opinion page—which was largely blank, where the paper’s editorials would normally be. “Tomorrow this page will return to its steady purpose of offering our readers informed opinion about the world around them, that they might be better citizens.” NEEDLESS TO SAY... The Mercury, along with countless other media organizations, was shaken by the shooting, which, probably not coincidentally, followed years of Trump calling the news media “the enemy of the American people,” urging his followers to harass reporters, and insisting actual news is “fake news.” It also came just a couple of days after right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulous told the Observer, “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.” SO... Perhaps you’ve noticed it’s been a rough couple of years for the news media. Perhaps you’ve also noticed that reporters, editors, and publishers are still at it anyway. The Mercury’s deepest condolences go out to everyone at the Capital Gazette—and our thanks, too, for their reminder of the passion and purpose that power America’s free press.

FRIDAY, JUNE 29

Behind the scenes in Washington, the New York Times reports, “The White House waged a quiet campaign to ensure that Mr. Trump had a second opportunity” to pick a Supreme Court justice. While some members of the Trump administration worked to “assure Justice Anthony M. Kennedy that his judicial legacy would be in good hands should he step down,” other Trump lickspittles more or less bullied Kennedy into retiring, “warning the 81-year-old justice that time was of the essence.” We only mention this, dears, because clearly, this week wasn’t bad enough. We swear to Christ, if things don’t turn around... hey! Maybe Suri can bring us some rainbow Rice Krispie treats to cheer us up? We could all use a few of those right about now, right?

SATURDAY, JUNE 30

Well, Suri didn’t come by with Rice Krispie treats, which made us sad... but then we remembered martinis exist, so now we’re (*hic*) doing great! Oh, and we also remembered that Marco Rubio fucking sucks. “Sign of our times...” tweeted Rubio. “The F word is now routinely used in news stories, tweets etc It’s not even F*** anymore. Who made that decision???” Rubio—who somehow lost the Republican primaries to Donald Fucking Trump—is exactly the kind of smug, sanctimonious dipshit who’d tattle on someone for using “the F word”... but rather than dwell on that, let’s look at the best response his stupid tweet got. “There are nearly 2000 fucking kids who were taken from their fucking parents by the fucking government that you fucking work for, most of whom haven’t been fucking returned,” tweeted @slpng_giants. “And you’re going to make a fucking word the fucking thing you make noise about? Are you fucking serious?” Sometimes, dears, the English language is a beautiful thing.

SUNDAY, JUNE 31

FIRST-TIME CALLER Kristian Dowling / getty images

And after a week like this, we end on just a glimmer of happiness: Donald Trump got prank called, leading to “an impromptu six-minute conversation on immigration and the Supreme Court between the president and the radio host and comedian John Melendez, known to his listeners as ‘Stuttering John,’” reports the New York Times. Melendez somehow got connected to Trump on Air Force One despite the fact that, just minutes before, he and his producer “could be heard on his podcast discussing what they said were the president’s masturbation habits and whether to refill their beers while they waited to be connected to the leader of the free world.” Just minutes before that, Melendez “called the White House switchboard, affected a British accent, and identified himself as Sean Moore (‘S-E-A-N, as in Sean Connery, and Moore, as in Roger Moore’),” claiming to be an aide to New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez. And it worked. Well done, Stuttering John! If nothing else, you distracted history’s most gullible president for six whole minutes—thus preventing him from doing something else that probably would’ve made this week even more awful.