Sam drove himself to the emergency room this morning.

We’ve had a slight change of plans at Howdygram headquarters. Sam drove himself to the emergency room at Baylor Medical Center in Garland about an hour ago because his swollen eye and infected insect bites are FAR WORSE THAN LAST NIGHT ... and we didn’t think anything could look worse than that! To get things rolling at the crack of 8 a.m., Sam called in sick at work and left a message with Dr. M’s answering service, and I cancelled the 10 a.m. appointment for my ankle-brachial index text because I have no way to get there. I’ll provide updates throughout the day whenever I hear from Sam. Stay tuned, okay?

And now, as a change of pace, I’d like to introduce our latest Putz of the Week! This time it’s war crimimal and convicted felon Oliver North, former aide to National Security Adviser John Poindexter during the Reagan administration. Apparently North is attempting to insinuate himself into the right-wing’s “rage” against President Obama for negotiating the release of prisoner-of-war Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan.

In a Fox News interview North demanded to know if there was “a ransom, a fiscal, financial, money transaction” with the Taliban as part of the deal. To quote him exactly: “Was there a ransom paid? Did the government of the United States, either directly or indirectly, finance a terrorist organization?”

For the record here, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to suggest that U.S. officials made “a fiscal, financial, money transaction” with ANYBODY as part of the prisoner swap that freed Sergeant Bergdahl. But the bigger issue is ... in what deranged, absurd parallel universe does a dirtbag like Oliver North enter this debate with a straight face?

In case you’ve forgotten — or you’re too young to know — in 1989 Oliver North was convicted of selling illegal arms to Iran in exchange for American prisoners and then secretly diverting the profits to Nicaragua to finance a war in Central America ... after Congress expressly voted to forbid it. North was at the center of this scandal, one of the most serious in America’s history, and he was convicted of multiple felonies that even included laundering money for large-scale Nicaraguan drug traffickers.

The fact that anybody considers “Ollie” to be a legitimate critic of the Obama administration exposes what everybody has suspected from the beginning ... no matter what President Obama does, the right wing wants to hang him for it. If he leaves a solider behind in Afghanistan, the terrorists win. If he rescues the guy, he’s a traitor and deserves impeachment. After six years of this transparent, relentless hatred from GOP mouth-breathers I’M TOTALLY FED UP, and the next person who pisses me off gets whacked in the head with my cane.

Thank you for putting up with me. I positively have to watch a William Powell movie now.