We here at AP often face difficult choices on what we should write about.

Shouldn't we say something about Vladimir Putin’s endless persecution of his nemesis, Алексей Навальный (Alexei Navalny)?

Navalny is a very prominent anti-corruption crusader in Russia whom Putin had poisoned, and as soon as Navalny returned to Moscow from Berlin, where he was treated with expertise and compassion, Putin had him arrested; but Navalny has hundreds of thousands of dedicated followers, and there have been many demonstrations in major cities all across Russia, demanding his release, and the demonstrators are carrying signs saying Putin is a thief (https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/23/europe/russia-navalny-oposition-demonstrations-intl/index.html). Putin’s police and military are dramatically beating up protesters, whom we can, in a perverse way, liken to Donald Trump’s thugs who stormed the Capitol on January 6.

Or should we write about Trump’s plot, during his final days in office, to fire his Acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen, and replace him with a super-loyalist who would sue election officials in Georgia to make them overturn Georgia’s election results, as expertly described by the Times’ Katie Benner (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/us/politics/jeffrey-clark-trump-justice-department-election.html?referringSource=articleShare)?

And these are only two of the stories that we simply could not ignore today.

First off, we asked our Moscow-based correspondent, associate solitary reporter Foma Kheroshonsky, to spring Navalny, which he accomplished in the twinkling of an eye. Navalny and his followers immediately stormed the Kremlin and carried Putin to Vladivostok and told him to swim from there to Hawaii to prove his machismo.

Next, our Chief Investigative Reporter, associate solitary reporter Susanna Sherman, spoke with Rosen, who confirmed Benner’s report in every detail.

Rosen told Sherman that he’d like to be Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Deputy in the Biden Administration.

President Biden’s Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, said that Biden would, for Rosen, make an additional exception for Trump holdovers in addition to asking FBI Director Christopher Wray to stay on.

We here at AP always do our utmost to fulfill the mission of the Democratic Party, both nationally and locally right here in Colorado.

As this is a satirical blog, we always start with a news item that is factually true, and then we spin it.

To do this, we have assembled, over the years, a stellar cast of the very best associate solitary reporters, including Pastor Eddie Cook, the Chairman of the Denver Republican Party.

Ever since Donald Trump, the least qualified by far of any previous individual to serve as Commander-in-Chief, descended down his escalator at his Tower in June, 2015, then Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez assigned twenty-five year old associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones, a former Miss Universe and an African American, to be with Trump at all times. Jones has diligently, and always with elan, reported directly to us and then to Perez.

Jones has thus participated in every single flawed moment of the time that Trump was a candidate and when he was on his very numerous and very private golf courses, as well as when he sat behind the Resolute Desk being typically brash and totally iressponsible.

Today, Joe Biden became our President, and Kamala Harris became our Vice President.

So we here at AP, who always coordinate very closely with the Democratic National Committee, have just received a text from newly minted DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, an African American from South Carolina who almost nipped Trump’s close personal friend and always stalwart Trump supporter Lindsey Graham in the Palmetto State on November 3.

Harrison has now replaced, at President Biden’s request, former DNC Chair Tom Perez. 

Perez was Secretary of Labor under President Obama. Your soitary reporter was an attorney in the U S Labor Department from 1968, when Richard Nixon was still president, and served there in the District of Columbia and in Denver for twelve years before he became a community minister with the Unitarian Universalists and then, in retirement, your solitary reporter.

Harrison texted us moments ago to inform us that he has selected Sylvania Juguete to succeed ASR Jones. Jones is now assigned in her continuing capacity as an associate solitary reporter to stay with Trump, the man who today did the same as Andrew Johnson, our seventeenth president, who was impeached only once, did on Inauguration Day in 1869, while Trump’s been impeached twice, and Trump did the same thing as president Johnson, an arrogant son of Tennessee but President Lincoln’s Vice President, when president Andrew Johnson skipped the inaugaatioan of President General Ulysses S. Grant, because president Andrew Johnson detested Grant, and refused to ride to the Capitol with him for President Grant’s inauguration.

Newly minted presidential associate solitary reporter Juguete was with President Biden during our forty-sixth President’s stirring Inauguration today, where she observed that Senator Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said appropriate words during and immediately after the inauguration ceremony. Juguete thanked former Vice President Mike Pence for showing up at the Inauguration instead of being with Trump at his poorly attended sendoff from Andrews Air Force Base this morning.

Associate solitary reporter Keith Coleman was at Biden’s inauguration, but he immediately teleported himself to Raleigh, North Carolina, where Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, announced that she is running for the U S Senate in the Tarheel State to suceed senator Richard Burr, who is not seeking re-eleciton in 2022.

Lara Trump is married to Eric Trump, Donald’s second son. Eric’s the guy who is not nearly so good looking as Trump Jr., because Eric's hair style most closely resembles the best of Mafioso dos. Lara has been very active in supporting her father-in-law's constant mendacity, and she was instrumental in his electoral defeat on November 3.

Lara Trump grew up in North Carolina. Donald Trump had previously told North Carolina Republican Congressman and Baptist Minister Mark Walker that he would endorse him to run for the Senate (https://apnews.com/article/senate-elections-mark-walker-richard-burr-north-carolina-elections-334a70aad6901dc6ed0247b39c503f4a), but naturally, if Lara Trump jumps in, which ASR Cook tells us has already occurred, Lara will get the nod.

As to First Daughter Ivanka, she’s very busy being her usual self as a fashionista, but Cook says that Ivanka is likely to seek the Trumpite nomination to oppose Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) in 2022. Coleman tells us that AOC (Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), is interested in taking on Schumer in the primary, as well.

As the camerafolk from CNN did their usual good job, most eyes were riveted on President Biden’s 16 year old granddaughter Natalie, in a brilliant monochromatic pink coat. Natalie stood out with her charm. Coleman said that Natalie will be attending Harvard, starting tomorrow, and concentrating in Government.

Here at AP, we have never had any occasion whatsoever to say anything favorable about the current (for only a few more days) Senate Majority Leader, Addison “Mitch” McConnell (R-Kentucky).

There are several reasons for this.

First, Mitch is a Republican, whose control of his Senate is well-known.

Like LBJ, he’s a Master of the Senate. See Robert Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson, volume 3, Master of the Senate. Caro’s book about LBJ’s many years in the Senate is 1,167 pages long, and we are absolutely certain that Donald Trump did not read it, ‘cause he doesn’t read, he just watches Fox News and Fox and Friends, and he tweets, and fulminates at rallies, where’s very well known for telling lies that his deplorable base laps up.

Mitch’s sole goal from early 2009 until the end of time was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Fortunately, the American people had better ideas.

Mitch has, always and forever, sought to remake the Supreme Court in his conservative image. With considerable help from Donald Trump and many others, including The Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, he’s done that. So now we have The McConnell Court.

When hyper-conservative ideologue SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly at somebody’s hunting lodge in the Lone Star State in February, 2016, he refused to allow Chief Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s carefully chosen nominee to succeed Scalia, even the opportunity to receive a hearing.

Mitch, a master manipulator of Senate rules, said, oh no, we have to wait to see who the next president will be, and it didn’t turn out to be Hillary (who, sure enough, had lotsa baggage), so now we have conservative Republican Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, and then we got Brett Kavanaugh, and now hyper-conservative Amy Coney Barrett, she’s on the Supreme Court as well.

But, one day before Donald and Melania leave the White House, we have to say, although grudgingly, that Mitch did something sensible: he said that Trump provoked the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/19/mcconnell-trump-provoked-capitol-attackers-460372.

We are eagerly waiting to learn if Mitch will vote for President Biden’s nominee for Attorney General, the very same Merrick Garland.

And we’re even more curious to see if Mitch will vote to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection on January 6.

Our Sore Loser-in-Chief, Donald J. Trump, is no longer interested in living in Gotham, where he came from. On Wednesday morning, January 20, he'll be going to his lavish, pricey private club, Mar-a-Lago, a place for very wealthy people.

His neighbors there have made it very clear that he has no right to live there (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/trump-mar-a-lago-neighbors-dispute/2020/12/15/bc2ce1d0-3ed4-11eb-9453-fc36ba051781_story.html).

It will be the first time since 1869 that a Commander-in-Chief of this unusual nation (a nation founded during the Englightenment as a political experiment) will not attend the inauguration of his duly elected successor (https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/08/andrew-johnson-inauguration-trump-biden/).

That’s because Trump does not believe in the peaceful transition of power, as clearly evidenced by the fiery speech he gave to his deplorable base on January 6, before his devoted insurrectionists stormed our Capitol, many of them bent on murdering elected officials, including Nancy Pelosi.

As an occupant of the People’s White House, Mr. Trump has never visited any part of Africa, but he sure has visited Israel, where his similarly corrupt close personal and political friend, Bibi Netayanhu, is on trial for corruption.

He’s conspicuously referred to sub-Saharan nations with a well-known vulgarity beginning with the letter “s."

The numerous associate solitary reporters who write for this apocryphal newspaper have given its editor strict instructions never ever to use bad language, hence we are not allowed to quote his very words describing Africa.

But our Chief International Correspondent, associate solitary reporter Larry Theis, is fluent in all languages spoken in Africa, including Arabic, Swahili, and all the other 39 living languages spoken in Uganda.

Theis is also fluent in Latin and New Testament Greek. 

It was Theis, a 1963 summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, who delivered the Latin Oration during the Commencement Exercises in Harvard’s Tercentennary Theatre in June, 1963. The title of his speech — which was received by a standing ovation — was Quo Vadis? (“Where Are You Going?") —  in which he implored his fellow graduates to figure out where they are going in life, instanter (right away).

Theis is a true Man of the World, and he has travelled to all continents, including Antarctica, but he’s never visited France, and if his life depended on it to give a speech in French, he would immediately revert to German, his first language.

Yesterday, a not nice man, Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Kaguta Museveni, Uganda’s dictator since 1986, was re-elected — over substantial opposition from Robert Kyagulanyi, known as Bobi Wine. 

Wine’s party is challenging the validity of the election — which he won because Musevini’s thugs stuffed ballot boxes. Musevini’s soldiers have surrounded Wine’s home, and Wine is under house arrest. 

But as soon as Trump’s Chief of Staff, former North Carolina Tea Party Congressman Mark Meadows, told Trump about Musevini’s victory, Trump called him to congratulate him for defeating Wine.

We know this because associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones was with Trump when he placed the call, and Jones had arranged for Theis to be on the call as well.

“Ah, Mr. Trump Sir, I am so grateful for your phone call,” Musevini said, “as it totally legitimizes my authoritarian style of government ever since I seized power from Idi Amin in 1986.”

“Sir, I salute you, because I know full well,” Musevini continued, “that the election was stolen from you, and I totally applaud the brave patriots in your country, Sir, who, under your direction and inspiration, tried to take back America from the voters on January 6 last.”

Trump smiled, thanked Musevini, and went to his pricey resort in Bedminister, New Jersey, for a round of golf. Melania wasn’t with him because she’s busy packing up. Trophy wife number three has never liked living in Washington, and she’s desperate to get to a warmer climate.

Today, the National Rifle Administration filed for bankruptcy in New York, the State where it was founded in 1871. 

The Empire State is a blue state, which means that gun “rights” organizations are not favored there.

The NRA’s been morally bankrupt for years, and, as reported by Judy Woodruff on this evening’s PBS NewsHour, as well as by the Times, there are allegations that some $64 million dollars have been siphoned off from the NRA into the private pockets of leaders of the organization.

So it came as no real surprise to us here at AP that the NRA is looking forward to relocating in a red state where guns are favored: Texas.

Our Chief Investigative Reporter, associate solitary reporter Susanna Sherman, asked the Lone Star State’s governor, Republican Greg Abbott, why Texas is the ideal place for the NRA’s leader, gunslinger and longtime lobbyist Wayne LaPierre.

“That’s easy, Susanna,” Abbott began. “Think about the Texas so vividly portrayed by such classics as Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. Think about our brave Ted Cruz, who is so effective in conveying Mr. Trump’s message of defiance. I’m so thrilled to have Wayne and his guntoting buddies here in my very own state.”

No sooner had Abbott spoken than Colorado’s superguntoting Congresswoman from western Colorado, Lauren Boebert, best known for her role supporting insurrectionists at our Capitol on January 6, burst out in ecstasy that her close personal friend and hardcore Trump supporter, LaPierre, would be moving to Texas. “Now Texas won’t just be the Lone Star State,” the 34 year old owner of The Shooters’ Grill in Rifle, Colorado; we can now call Texas the Refuge for Gun Lovers State."

But in Denver, a leading gun safety leader, associate solitary reporter Ellen Morton, said that Texas should go back to its beginnings as an independent republic. “Let them be isolated, we in Denver want nothing to do with them."