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If it feels like America is being pummeled by rampant outbreaks of diseases, you’re not wrong. If it feels like you’re hearing about people getting sick because of diseases that shouldn’t exist in the richest nation in the world, you’re not wrong. If it feels like someone should be Doing Something, you’re not wrong.

Republicans have deliberately and methodically crippled our national immune system by firing tens of thousands of government workers who kept our food clean and safe while also convincing millions of their inbred imbecile voters to stop vaccinating against diseases we had eradicated from this country.

Now we’re seeing all of that hard work pay off: Americans are getting sick and dying. Exactly what Republicans intended all along. The midterms are going to be the largest dose of anti-parasitic relief America has ever received, and, wow, do we need it.

Ogre Nation News Update!

4:00 - 10:05 Republicans canceled billions in grants to blue states explicitly because they’re run by Democrats. The press that spent months crying about a fake IRS scandal under Obama? Completely silent. Funny how that works…

10:06 - 19:16 Trump’s moronic “two-week” Iran War enters its SIXTH FUCKING MONTH! And it’s getting stupider and uglier by the day.

19:17 - 27:10 I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream Because of Fucking ICE

27:11 - 55:15 Headlines for Short Attention Spans!

55:16 - 59:47 Self-care of the Week

The Hotmess Unedited Livestream!

I’ve written about this before: No matter how loudly Trump screeches and stamps his feet and threatens and shits his diaper, Senate Republicans WILL NOT get rid of the filibuster. It is the one thing, the ONLY thing, that stands between them and extinction. And they know it. Senate Leader John Thune, a well-known ally of democracy and the rule of law, just whacked Trump’s knuckles with a ruler yet again and told him and his demands to end the filibuster to fuck allllll the way off.

That’s why the closer we get to Democrats reclaiming control of the upper chamber and eyeing a trifecta in 2029, the louder the signals from the right that the filibuster is sacred. Can’t be touched. Must be preserved “for the good of the nation.” Today, we just got the most concrete (and obnoxious) sign of this yet.

I need you to understand this for what it is. This is not a backstabbing scumbag selling out his party, although it IS that, too. This is a huge flashing neon sign that the Republicans who own Fetterman know that they are fucked. Completely, utterly, hilariously fucked. Hard, fast, and without lube.

Substack has been slowly choking off traffic to smaller newsletters like this for more than a year. If you appreciate the stories I tell and the voice I tell them in, please become a contributing subscriber and push back on corporate censorship. We need all of the independent media we can get before the only news we’re allowed to consume is what is allowed by a fascist regime controlled by billionaires. For just $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!), you can help fight back against Substack’s censorship. Thank you for reading and keeping this newsletter going.

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They’re going to lose Alaska. They’re going to lose North Carolina. They’re going to lose Ohio. They’re going to lose Iowa. They’re going to lose Maine. Shit, Texas is in real jeopardy, and that means they can’t even play their, ahem, Trump card and have Fetterman switch parties.

Because let’s be 100% clear: If Democrats hold a 51-seat majority this coming January, John Fetterman will “suddenly” discover he can no longer, in good conscience, caucus with the party that got him elected. Gosh darn it! He’ll be “forced” to become an “independent!” And wouldn’t you know it? All of his votes will just so happen to help Republicans when they need it the most.

But a 52-seat majority fucks all of that up. All of the money Republicans promised Fetterman? Or the blackmail they promised to burn? That won’t mean a fucking thing. Can’t be a backstabbing scumbag if your backstabbing doesn’t change anything. Go fuck off to the GOP, ya overgrown shitstain. You’ll be out of office in 2029, and no one will give a good golly goddamn about you.

Not for nothing, the only thing anyone knows about treasonous twatwaffle Krysten Sinema these days is that she’s being sued for being homewrecking trash. I spelled her name wrong, and you didn’t even notice. Those that did? You don’t care.1 Remember Joe Manchin? Not really. He’s desperate for attention because everyone forgot he existed three minutes after he left office. How desperate for attention is he? Manchin is trying to start a not-a-third-party-but-it’s-really-a-third-party of, you guessed it!, “independents.” That’s “independents” pronounced “professional ratfuckers.” Gee, I wonder if all the money is coming from right-wing billionaires? I’ll bet you a shiny nickel it is. Please hurry up and die, Manchin. I want to celebrate your death in style.

But, back to the point, Fetterman’s “sudden” reversal on the filibuster cannot be blamed on his stroke. He was for filibuster reform when it was safe to do so, when it looked like the Senate was too heavy a lift for Democrats. It allowed Fetterman to burnish his “liberal” street cred while he stabbed us in the back in other areas.

But now? Now the GOP can only watch in horror as their Dear Leader sends it all down the drain. Trump escalating his war of choice in Iran just three months before the midterms is the move of a fucking imbecile. Inflation will rise. The price of gas will rise. Groceries will get more expensive. The economy will not stumble along for much longer, and the AI bubble is popping.

Republicans are already deeply unpopular, and their midterm message of “communism!” is going to crash and burn harder than Trump’s lame-ass attempts at comedy at the second White House Correspondents’ Dinner. When they switch back to pure, unadulterated racism sometime in September or October,2 it will be too late to move the needle. The crass and heavy-handed appeals to white nationalism will do more to piss off the left and independents than they will to motivate Trump’s base.

With both chambers of Congress in Democratic hands, Trump will turn into a rabid fucking animal. Moreso than he already is. Congressional investigations, even with all of the obstruction we know is coming, will reveal corruption and murder and treason on a level the legacy press will have to work 24/7 to whitewash. Trump, whose health, both physical and mental, is already hanging by a thread, will be pushed over the edge, and if he survives to the 2028 election, I would be quite surprised.

Even if he makes it that far, Trump will spend every waking moment screaming in blind rage instead of doing his fucking job. That means his idiot war will continue to spiral out of control. Plus, he’ll start new ones to try to look tough. While he’s throwing away the lives of American troops, the coming economic downturn will be met with denials of reality until it, too, spirals out of control.

In short, Trump will sabotage the entire Republican effort to hold and regain power in 2028. I know it, and so do Republicans. That means losing the House and Senate in November makes it vastly more likely Democrats will have a trifecta in 2029. Democrats, for their part, have made an awful lot of noise about doing away with the filibuster to clean up the Supreme Court and end gerrymandering and restore voting rights. In 2021, Republicans had Manchin and Sinema to save them. Now? They only have Fetterman, and he’ll be gone by then.

The only play Republicans have is to reinforce the idea that the filibuster is so inviolate that Democrats will refuse to get rid of it when they have power. Because, as I keep pointing out, once they do, that is the end of the Republican Party for a generation, if not forever.

Pay attention to this. The closer we get to November, I believe, the louder the pro-filibuster shrieking from the right (with a healthy assist from their collaborators in the legacy press) will get.3 Democrats have to tune that bullshit out. They have to tune Fetterman and HIS bullshit out. Once they have a 52+ seat lock on the Senate, they should kick his lying ass out of the party until he’s primaried out of existence. He can go make a living on Fox News with the other scumbag sellouts and traitors like we allll know he wants to.

Republicans are terrified. They elected a pedophile with dementia to lead their party, and now the bill for decades of lies and corruption and hate and propaganda and cruelty and spite is coming due. Aren’t you looking forward to collecting? I know I fucking am.

These are dark times, but I will continue to tell the stories you need to hear in a clear (and usually profane) voice. If I entertain/anger/inform you, preferably all three, please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!).

Not a fan of long-term subscriptions? That’s OK! I’ll be your one-night stand with a one-time donation through PayPal or Venmo! I’m easy like that! Just don’t tell Mrs. Ogre! 😜

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The louder the right screams about how masculine they are, the less convincing it is. To paraphrase Tywin Lannister from Game of Thrones, “Any man who must say 'I am a man!’ is no true man.”

The performative nature of it all gives it away. No one secure in who they are would be so desperate to be acknowledged. But they know their cowardice and degenerate perversion strips them of any ability to look in the mirror and see anything but craven filth, envious of the comfortable masculinity of the left.

After all, we don’t constantly question our manhood. We just live our lives, and we’re happy. When was the last time you met a happy Republican?

Exactly.

Anyway, lots to catch up on this week! So hop on your dragon and let’s see what you missed!

Monday: Billionaires can hide in their bunkers after crashing the economy, but data centers will have a giant bullseye on them…

Tuesday: Why are fascists so…gay?

Wednesday: Recording!

Thursday: Podcast!

Friday: Like magic, Cuba became a global supervillain!

These are dark times, but I will continue to tell the stories you need to hear in a clear (and usually profane) voice. If I entertain/anger/inform you, preferably all three, please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!). If subscriptions aren’t your thing, you can leave a one-time PayPal or Venmo tip instead!

5 Things I Found Interesting This Week

Lalisa

🌑🔆 They Just Sold the Sky

On July 9, the FCC gave Reflect Orbital permission to launch Eärendil-1, an 18-meter mirror that will orbit 625 kilometers up and bounce sunlight down onto a patch of dark Earth about five kilometers wide…

Read more

9 days ago · 210 likes · 57 comments · Lalisa

Decolonized Journalism

The New Red Scare: Targeting Leftists, Blaming Cuba for Civil Rights in the U.S.

In the early to mid-20th century, many hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, and supporters of Jim Crow laws would associate everything they hated with communism, including integration and giving nonwhite people equal rights. Nearly a century l…

Read more

8 days ago · 97 likes · 6 comments · Arturo Dominguez

Bette Dangerous

Moral Clarity: 'Time to Deal with Collaborators'

***Please take out a membership to support the light of truth…

Read more

5 days ago · 17 likes · Heidi Siegmund Cuda

The Long Read (but worth your time)

The Watch

Suing Stephen Miller

Last week I had an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that if the Democrats retake Congress, they should pass legislation that would (a) create a cause of action to sue federal law enforcement officers for violations of constitutional rights, and (b) create a cause of action to sue supervisors and political appointees …

Read more

9 days ago · 1208 likes · 5 comments · Radley Balko

I have a confession to make: I do not pay a huge amount of attention to Cuba. I never have. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a little nothing island about 100 miles away from Florida. It’s where the Cuban Missile Crisis happened and where Al Pacino’s Scarface comes from. Also, they apparently make really good cigars, and a lot of really racist Latino assholes who think they’re white fled the tiny island nation over half a century ago. Now they live in Florida and reliably vote for Republicans who will throw these dumb fucks into concentration camps ten seconds after toppling American democracy and installing a white nationalist fascist dictatorship.1

Beyond that, I don’t think about Cuba much, if at all. When I DO think about it, I’ve always thought our obsessive embargo of the terrifying “communist” nation was stupid. Especially after the Soviet Union fell. What was the point? What was Cuba going to do? Lead a communist revolution? With their 1950s cars? Motherfucker, please.

When Obama mostly dropped the embargo and opened up trade and tourism, I thought that was nice. We have other things to worry about. Economically crippling an itty bitty nation right in our backyard probably should be at the bottom of our list. We’re in the 21st century. Move on. Bigger fish to fry. Also, bacalao is delicious.2

Substack has been slowly choking off traffic to smaller newsletters like this for more than a year. If you appreciate the stories I tell and the voice I tell them in, please become a contributing subscriber and push back on corporate censorship. We need all of the independent media we can get before the only news we’re allowed to consume is what is allowed by a fascist regime controlled by billionaires. For just $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!), you can help fight back against Substack’s censorship. Thank you for reading and keeping this newsletter going.

Not a fan of long-term subscriptions? That’s OK! I’ll be your one-night stand with a one-time donation through PayPal or Venmo! I’m easy like that! Just don’t tell Mrs. Ogre! 😜

Now, of course, Trump is waging full-scale economic war on a nation that hasn’t done a fucking thing to anyone, cutting its oil off for months. This has resulted in the deaths of at least hundreds of the sick and elderly, including children who were in NICUs. Because the Trump regime is full of serial killers the most pro-life ever.

The regime is doing this because they’re sadistic and cruel and in the neocon business of regime change. Curiously, they’re building a case for an invasion, something they have not bothered to do with any of the other countries we’ve gone to war with since Trump waddled back into power.3

at Decolonized Journalism digs into the report released by Marco Rubio’s deeply compromised State Department that is obviously a prelude to something darker. His analysis is worth a read:

Decolonized Journalism

The New Red Scare: Targeting Leftists, Blaming Cuba for Civil Rights in the U.S.

In the early to mid-20th century, many hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, and supporters of Jim Crow laws would associate everything they hated with communism, including integration and giving nonwhite people equal rights. Nearly a century l…

Read more

9 days ago · 97 likes · 6 comments · Arturo Dominguez

“The Cubans devoted themselves to recruiting, cultivating and mobilizing a global coalition of activists, intellectuals, and political groups around this cause, building a sprawling revolutionary network that shaped a disproportionate share of America’s most famous and influential extremist movements, from the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground through to Antifa,” reads the Department of State report. “Today, that network continues to maintain ties to powerful leftist nonprofits, anti-ICE collectives, socialist groups, and Marxist militant organizations across the United States.”

The fascinating thing about this report is that Cuba is apparently a global supervillain, spreading sccccaaaaaryyyy leftist ideology like dandelion seeds. Undermining world order with ideas like…I dunno…human rights? Universal healthcare? Anti-imperialism? Anti-fascism? Racial equality?

Is Cuba actually behind half a century of countries struggling against injustice and poverty and imperialism? Maybe. A simpler explanation is that people do not like living in squalor and being told that the color of their skin and the language they speak make them inferior. I dunno, call me crazy, but that seems more likely than a tiny little nation with little to no money running a global terrorist organization that no one fucking noticed until exactly the moment the Trump regime needed a justification for invasion.

Here’s the thing, though, and this is my very different take-away from Arturo’s. Republicans are lying sacks of shit. They’re also insanely lazy when it comes to said lying. They cannot be bothered to come up with anything original because thinking are hard and Brawndo has electrolytes. So these twatwaffles look around, see what they’re already doing, and then just blame it on the people they hate. They’ve been doing this for YEARS, and I’ve been repeating this ad nauseam for a reason: Every Republican accusation is a confession.

This is where I remind you that Russia is/was the central hub for global white nationalism/neo-Nazism for the last twenty years. Not because Putin himself is a white nationalist/neo-Nazi, but because far-right extremism is a useful tool to undermine Western democracies and easy to fuel with money and propaganda:

Though Nazzaro’s relationship with the Russian government remains uncertain, these reports point to a broader trend: a mutual affection between Western white supremacists and the Russian government. It also highlights the reality that the distinction between foreign terrorism and so-called domestic terrorism is increasingly irrelevant. Dating back to 2004, David Duke characterized Russia as the “key to white survival,” and American white supremacist Richard Spencer recently identified Russia as the “sole white power in the world.” Both Jared Taylor—founder of the white supremacist outlet American Renaissance—and Matthew Heimbach—a Unite the Right organizer and leader of the now-defunct Traditionalist Workers Party—have met in person with ultranationalist Russian political leaders in 2015 and 2017, respectively.

For its part, the Russian government has exploited this interest. It has both turned a blind eye to far-right paramilitarism within its own borders and actively cultivated neo-Nazism in the West. These decisions align with its broader project to sow discord in Western democracies and influence transcontinental relations, despite its relatively weak military and economy. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for right-wing violence in the West constitutes an element in his broader destabilization campaign.

Ohhhhh riiiiight! You might have forgotten about that because the legacy press doesn’t like to talk about mediocre racist white men and their ongoing assault on the rule of law, democracy, civil rights, decency, morality, etc. etc. There was a while there when the legacy press couldn’t stop breathelessly asking if the march of fascism was unstoppable. If democracy was doomed.

For a very VERY brief time, the legacy press made the connection to this assault on democracy to the regimes in Russia and, later, Hungary. But that quietly went away lest we make mediocre racist white men who idolized the fascist governments of both countries angry. You see, Republicans loooooved themselves some Putin and Orban, so we weren’t allowed to talk about how they funded white nationalist extremism all over the world.

We were, of course, allowed to talk about how Iran funded Muslim extremism all over the world. They were the bad guys, you see. And Muslim extremists are evil! No good! Very bad! Islamic terrorism is wrong! We don’t like it!

But white nationalism across the globe? Wellll…that’s different. Those were white men. Usually Christians. Frequently, Trump fans. Here in the United States, they were almost always Republicans. It’s not terrorism when OUR people do it, right? It’s only terrorism when the left does it! Or when brown people do it! Otherwise, it’s patriotic and for love of ‘Murika!

I’ve been wondering for a while now what is going to happen to global white nationalism when Russia falls. I thought that maybe Hungary would take its place buuuuut…no.

Like Russia, Hungary was secretly funneling money to bankroll far-right extremists.4 With Orban gone, their government is cutting all of the proto-fascists off. So much for Plan B.

What about Plan A? Well, Russia’s economy has been on the brink of collapse for a while now, and Ukraine has shifted from battlefield objectives to economic ones, methodically crippling Russia’s oil infrastructure. Now, Ukraine is going after Russia’s commercial infrastructure, and that’s going to hurt just as much:

Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries, Moscow’s answer to Amazon, said on Friday three more of its warehouses had been attacked by Ukraine overnight, part of a widening campaign by Kyiv to damage Russia’s economy and logistics chains.

So…if Russia is struggling and they’re running out of money, what does that mean for fascists in other countries? Well, here’s a hint from rabidly pro-Russian lunatic Laura Loomer:

In other words, those Russian checks stop coming, and the fascists stop spewing pro-Kremlin propaganda.

More importantly, without Russian money flowing into their pockets, a lot of formerly influential far-right groups are suddenly going to find themselves less capable of attracting attention. It costs money to make noise. Online campaigns are expensive. Getting on TV requires $$$. Real-world events like rallies are not cheap when you live in mommy’s basement and spend all day on The Daily Stomer crying about how women won't fuck you after complimenting the size of their tits and telling them the Jews secretly drink the blood of children.5

Iran and China and other authoritarian countries fund extremism, but not in the same way and not as overtly. And they certainly can’t be seen as a guiding light for global white nationalism. At the highest levels, authoritarians don’t really see race. A billionaire dictator is a billionaire dictator. But down here among the poor and middle-class white trash? They’re not going to devote themselves to a Chinese overlord while waving a “whites only” sign. That’s a level of cognitive dissonance not even Fox News could overcome.

It should be noted that the Trump regime is trying to set itself up as the new exporter of white nationalism, attempting to boost Canada’s far right in exactly the same way that Russia instigated a pseudo-separatist movement in Ukraine as a pretense for its invasion. But that lasts exactly as long as the regime is in power, which will be until noon on January 20th, 2029. Then we can hand over all of the records of whom the regime was working with, and all of those Canadians will be facing charges of treason. So…good luck with that.

In the meantime, we should view this “report” on Cuba, the Communist Superpower, as about as reliable as reports on Trump’s perfect health and perfect cognitive tests. All of it smells like bullshit. Or at least like Trump’s rancid diapers.

I don’t know why Cuba, of all the countries the regime wants to bomb into submission, requires an elaborate cover story to justify a war no one needs or wants, but it’s obvious that’s what we’re doing here. Pay attention in the coming weeks and months to the rhetoric around this as the regime uses it to prepare for war, as well to label its domestic enemies as “collaborators” engaged in “sedition.” Don’t be surprised if we “discover” that Cuba has been “interfering” with our elections as well, since the claims about China have fallen flat. The regime is desperate and panicking and will lash out in wild and unpredictable ways to cling to power, just like all failing and dying fascist regimes.

I write to help you cope with the fear and anger threatening to overwhelm you every day. If this newsletter gets you through these dark times, please consider becoming a contributing supporter for only $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!). Thank you for everything!

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There are only 101 days until the midterms, and the regime is panicking. They’re afraid of us. Keep making them afraid every single day. Remember, you are never alone. We beat the fascists once. We will fucking do it again.

Not a great week for the manosphere. Elon Musk orders a boycott, and no one gives a shit. Donald Trump gave a prime-time speech to kick off his terrorist campaign against the midterms, and no one gave a shit. Andrew Tate begged for help from the regime to keep him and his rapist pedophile brother from being extradited to the UK. And no one gave a shit.

It surely does break my heart to see so much misery for the worst people in the world…

Anyway, we discuss all of this and more, so come join the Ogre Nation Conversation!

Ogre Nation News Update!!

2:10 - 7:30 Trump’s big election speech was only half as crazy as originally planned, and Trump accidentally told on himself. Because he’s a fucking moron.

7:31 - 16:40 Our new forever war is dragging on, and now we know the military is hiding how many Americans are being injured.

16:41 - 27:44 Murderer ICE agent David Brouillette has a long and well-documented history of violence. Why was he given a badge and a gun?

27:45 - 41:32 Headlines for Short Attention Spans

41:33 - 54:35 Self-Care of the Week

The Hotmess Unedited Livestream!

When I was growing up, I remember one of the weirder things I learned about the Nazis was how weirdly homoerotic they were. For an ideology that quite literally had the death penalty for homosexuality, Nazis spent an awwwwful lot of time obsessing over the male body. Lots of pictures of young men in tight shorts, covered in sweat. It was very fetish-coded, and this was before I really understood the concept. As I got older, good fucking god, it wasn’t just gay, it was SUPER gay.

History, as they say, doesn’t repeat, but it sure as hell rhymes, and right now, MAGAland is hitting all the high notes. If you know what I mean. Heeeeeeeeey, girlfriend!

From Tucker Carlson telling men to tan their balls:

To Donald Trump being obsessed with how sexy men are:

To one of the leading misogynists of the Manosphere, Andrew Tate, dressing like your divorced aunt on her way to brunch with the girls:

The “manly” fascists of the far right are gayer than almost every gay man I have ever met in my life, and I’ve met more than a few. Since the early 90s, I’ve been a walking safe zone for the LGBTQ community. So much so, I collected them like barnacles. To the point where my best “man” at my wedding was a lesbian. Of the remaining four in my party, two more were gay (one male, one female), one was bi (female), and only one was a heterosexual (male). It was made known to the assembled guests that comments on this would be most unwelcome.

And then there’s this nonsense:

The right has been screaming about “low-T” men for years. There’s an epidemic of low testosterone in American men! We’re being wussified! Feminism/chemicals in the water/empathy is making our men weak and soft! We need to return to the old days when men were MEN. When we were tough and manly and and and…you know…MEN!

But have you looked at MAGA men lately? Have you ever seen a group less manly than your average Republican voter?

Start with the stereotypes. Men are supposed to be strong, stoic, brave, and persevere in the face of adversity. What part of that even remotely describes the whining and weeping mass of MAGA manbabies who cling to their guns in terror?

Every day, MAGAland wakes up to a new panic. Are Muslims in your neighborhood? BE AFRAID! Is someone flying a pride flag on the next block? BE AFRAID! A Trans kid goes to your local school? BE AFRAID! And you don’t even have school-age kids!

The list is never-ending. Immigrants. Jews. Blacks. People who speak a second language. Educated people. Chemtrails. People with accents. Homeless people. Feminists. Liberals. The Deep State. China. The media. And on and on and on forever.

The victimhood of mediocre racist white people is eternal. Their fear is deeper than the Marianas Trench and wider than the Grand Canyon. They are consumed by fear. They do not persevere in the face of terror; they crumble and submit, begging for a strongman to save them, surrendering their liberty while groveling for a crumb of illusory security. Not that the Founding Fathers were paragons of virtue, but, holy shit, they would throw themselves into an active volcano if they saw the abject cowardice and self-subjugation of the people who claim to be their ideological successors.

Take another stereotype: Fatherhood. A real man is a good father. We’re going to skip over rates of child abuse among MAGA vs. non-MAGA. That gets complicated. Even staunch liberals can abuse their kids because “that’s how I was raised.” The cycle of abuse is hard to break.

But taking a step back, what does MAGA vote for? Do they vote for a better future for their children? No. They vote for cuts to education. They vote for cuts to healthcare. They vote for more pollution and tainted food and anti-vaxxerism. They vote to burn this country to the ground rather than let their white privilege slip away.

These are not good fathers (and grandfathers). These are men who see their children (and grandchildren) as entirely disposable. They do not care what happens to them. Children are little more than pawns to be used up and cast aside in their fight to “own the libs.” If little Timmy dies from the Measles, or is killed in a school shooting, or is maimed at age 13 in a factory job, or graduates and can’t read because his Bible-themed charter school never bothered to teach basic academic skills? That’s just fine because it makes libs cry, and isn’t that the most important thing? Sure, little Timmy’s life is ruined (or just ended), but admitting they were wrong is worse than death itself for MAGA. What’s the life and future of their children compared to that?!

MAGA are not good husbands, either. They do not view women as partners. Misogyny is a core feature of fascism, and there’s a reason the American right adores Donald Trump. His hatred of women appeals to them on a visceral level. The right has long seen feminism as a threat to the power of men. This is why they have worked tirelessly for the last 50 years to undo Roe. This is why they are trying to make contraception illegal again. This is why they want to make no-fault divorce illegal again.

This is why the American right is openly embracing pedophilia.

The Banter

The Right's Pedophile Problem Is Getting Worse

by Justin Rosario…

Read more

4 years ago · 23 likes · 6 comments · The Opinionated Ogre

Women terrify MAGA men. You know, the big, strong, tough manly men. The men who are so masculine and powerful that there is a real conversation on the right about being attracted to women is actually kind of…gay.

Got that? Sex with women is only for making babies. Otherwise, you’re gay. Or maybe sex with women is just gay altogether. It should be noted that when a middle-aged woman knocked on then-25-year-old Nick Fuentes’ door, he panicked, pepper-sprayed her, and shoved her away before slamming the door and hiding.

Soooooo fucking manly.

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The right’s creepy homoerotic obsession with masculinity is not really all that complicated. They are full of self-loathing and hollowed out by decades of subsisting on a diet of nothing but fear and hate. They are incapable of anything but performative toxic masculinity because true masculinity requires a sense of self and security. You have to be comfortable with who you are as a man before you can be masculine.

But MAGA men live in a state of constant insecurity. They have to. It’s their organizing principle. Security would take away their fear, and without fear, they would not hate. Without hate, what are they? How would they identify with the GOP’s appeal to aggrieved, mediocre, racist white men?

The phrase “masculine MAGA” is an oxymoron. By definition, MAGA men cannot be masculine. They can only playact a caricature of masculinity. The real thing will be forever beyond their grasp because they do not understand it or themselves. They are selfish, empty things, devoid of love and the concept of putting others before themselves. They are built of weakness and an inability to see beyond that weakness or even admit to it.

This is why they despise those of us who put the lie to their cosplaying. We expose their failures just by existing. They spit their hate and rage while envying everything we have: The loving family. The happy home. Living comfortably in our own skin without self-loathing. Living without fear. They despise us and want nothing more than to drag us down to their level because that’s easier than escaping the pit they’ve dug for themselves.

And there’s the irony of it all. What could possibly be more low-T than that?

I hope you feel better informed about the world and ready to kick fascists and their enablers in the teeth to protect it. This newsletter exists because of you, so please consider a one-time donation if you’re not up for a recurring subscription!. Thank you for everything!

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There are 104 days until the most important midterm election in American history. The regime is afraid, and they should be. We are legion, and they are weak.

Stay strong. You are never alone.

The billionaire pedophile Epstein class has been busy building their little doomsday bunkers because they think they’ll be able to hide from the world they’ve destroyed when everything falls apart. I would sell my left kidney to watch the look of horror on their face when they discover that all the money in the universe doesn’t mean a fucking thing when the angry mob comes for them. Or that being rich is useless when the ex-military they hired to secure their little underground utopias decide they’re in charge, and the billionaire and their billionaire buddies are either disposable or will look mighty pretty in a dress.1

But while their bunkers are supposed to be ultra safe (lulz) and protected, do not be surprised if their precious fucking multi-billion-dollar data centers are giant bonfires by this time next year.

Let me explain.

The billionaires love data centers. Wall Street loves data centers. The elected officials (mostly Republican but not all) bribed to sign off on the construction in their communities, love data centers. A handful of Musk-smitten tech bros who do not live anywhere near a data center love data centers.

Literally no one else loves data centers. No. One.

In fact, we all hate them. Liberals, progressives, centrists, conservatives, MAGA, even fascists, really REALLY do not fucking like data centers. We do not like them with green eggs or ham. We do not fucking like them Uncle Sam I am.

I am not exaggerating. At all.

A rare issue uniting Americans is opposition to data centers, the sprawling computer complexes that are the most visible manifestation of the artificial intelligence boom. In a recent Gallup poll about 7 of 10 Americans said they would oppose a data center being built near them, and many express concerns about the projects operating in secret and gobbling scarce land, water and electricity.

The thirty percent that wouldn’t mind a data center in their backyard? I promise you, they haven’t actually thought about what that would mean. Once it was there, they would be on Team Fuck Data Canters in a goddamn heartbeat with the rest of us, no matter how much they like the smell of Elon Musk’s underwear.

Data centers are loud. They don’t have to be, but they are. Any building can be built to dampen the noise it produces. That would cost money, though, and the tech companies don’t give a fuck about the communities they’re putting these monstrosities in, so eat shit and enjoy the sound pollution, peasants.

And please, for the love of fucking god, do not tell me that they cannot afford it. These are some of the wealthiest companies to ever exist in all of human history. They are pissing away hundreds of billions of dollars on this bullshit. They are, quite literally, propping up the economy with a bubble so massive, it makes the dotcom bubble of the 90s look like a blip on the charts. They can absolutely fucking afford it. They just don’t want to because the billionaires and their child-raping pals aren’t the ones who have to live in the 24/7 sound bath.

Data centers are also dirty. They require backup generators so they are never offline, even for a second. Those generators pump out toxic fumes that pollute the local communities. Just ask South Memphis, Tennessee:

Since breaking ground on its supercomputer facility last year, xAI has been operating dozens of unpermitted methane gas turbines without public notice, permits, or air pollution controls. These turbines emit dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde and smog-forming pollution. These pollutants can cause increased rates of asthma, heart disease, and cancer.

This is not an isolated story. Musk is just the most obnoxious and overtly racist face of it.

Then, as mentioned earlier, there is the environmental impact. Now, you would think this is a hippie dippie concern, and MAGAland wouldn’t give a shit. But that is not true. When a data center pops up in their backyard, their power bills go through the roof. Water gets expensive or scarce or both. The air, again, gets polluted. Just like that, even the most hardcore Red Hat becomes deeply concerned about the environment, and they know exactly who to blame.

It’s not undocumented immigrants and Trans kids. Just an FYI.

On top of all of this, the direct, physical assault, there is the economic impact. Jobs are getting gobbled up.

I, myself, lost a job to AI, and that was over two years ago, well before AI really started to penetrate the economy like a virus.

Since then, CEOs have fired hundreds of thousands, millions?, of workers and blamed AI. Not all of it was actually because of AI, but it was a handy villain to shift all the responsibility to. Of course, lots of companies have since discovered a few problems with investing millions into unproven technology on the promise of getting rid of all those pesky humans and their demands of fair pay and vacation time and sick time and bonuses and humane treatment and uggggggh! so annoying! AI, it turns out, is crap and cannot replace a human workforce. Not yet and probably not for a very long time.2

Whoops.

People don’t like it when they lose their jobs to code. Especially when shitty billionaires won’t shut the fuck up about how they’re personally going to replace human jobs with AI, and hahaha, too fucking bad, peasants, enjoy being unemployed forever.

Then there is the non-stop promise of human extinction. Billionaires will not stop flapping their drug-addled lips about how the technology THEY’RE working on is going to destroy humanity.

No, I am not making this up:

So the techfuck billionaires are wrecking our communities, destroying our jobs, openly promising to kill us, and we are in an economic bubble so vast, its collapse sometime in the next several months will trigger a recession significantly worse than the Great Recession of 2008-2009. This, while we have a fascist government whose malicious incompetence will use the collapse to do as much damage as possible to…us, not the billionaires.

Remember, the regime has been cutting the social safety net with reckless abandon because “America is broke and we can’t afford to feed school children and the elderly.” But I promise you, when tens of millions of people lose their jobs and their homes because Silicon Valley detonated an economic nuclear bomb, we will have a trillion dollars to bail out Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and the rest of the broligarch scumbags.

Put all of that together, and the only future I see is one of intense public rage directed at Silicon Valley. This rage will be across the political spectrum. Left, right, and center. I’m not even sure Fox News is going to leap to the defense of check notes OpenAI and Anthropic and Meta.

With the economy a smoldering wreck and millions of Americans left to fuck off and starve as they discover just how much Republicans have decimated social services and food banks and unemployment services, they’re going to vent their rage at what is most responsible for the crash in the first place: The Billionaires and their stupid fucking AI bullshit.3

And, hey, look at that! There are literally thousands of AI data centers sprinkled across the United States. Large facilities with a giant bullseye painted on them, just waiting for an angry mob with pitchforks and torches, or just a small handful of dedicated arsonists.

Silicon Valley will rush to hire an army of security guards, but that won’t mean a goodamn thing. Those data centers are enormous, and if someone wants to break in and set them on fire, they’re going to get in. Hell, just fly a bunch of drones with Molotov cocktails attached, and the building is going to catch fire. No data centers, no AI. No AI, and how will Silicon Valley continue to destroy jobs/the economy/humanity? Not exactly a difficult set of dots to connect.

Data Centers were not built as hardened targets able to withstand violent assault by an angry populace. Standard security, sure. But not real violence. After all, billionaires control the country, so why worry about consequences? I’m sure nothing bad will ever happen, like someone setting it on fire from the inside.

I am not advocating for violence. Unless you’re a Nazi. Then you deserve to be punched in the face. But the billionaire techshits have been openly working to destroy everything and bragging about it. When that blows up in their stupid, smug junkie faces, the only people who are going to be surprised will be them, assuming they wake up from their Ketamine stupors long enough to notice. The rest of us will have seen it coming a few hundred miles away.

Personally, I plan to roast marshmallows over the burning data centers. Sing a few campfire songs. Have a beer or two and enjoy the show. They want to set fire to our lives; someone is going to return the favor. I’ll bet a shiny nickel on it.

ICE cannot exist after 2029. The incoming Democratic president has to burn it to the ground and create a special task force to expose every agent, their crimes, and deliver justice for the people they’ve murdered, raped, beaten, and kidnapped. Every single ICE agent involved in terrorizing the American public has to face a tribunal and decades in prison.

Anything less means the fascists will learn that there are no consequences for their actions, and they will do it again the second they have the chance.

Never again means holding fascism accountable.

Now, lots to catch up on this week, so let’s hop on the rewind and see what you missed!

Monday: Stop pretending these people will ever stop being fucking trash.

Tuesday: Played video games with my daughter. It’s summer break, y’all. Gonna be taking time off to chill with the kids.

Wednesday: Podcast recording.

Thursday: The Podcast!

Friday: It’s OK to not live in the spotlight.

5 Things I Found Interesting This Week

Robert Reich

Trump's National Socialism

Friends…

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14 days ago · 1836 likes · 180 comments · Robert Reich

Civil War Memory

The Lost Cause Can't Draw a Crowd

In my last post I offered some context for Senator Lindsey Graham’s shifting positions on the public display of the Confederate battle flag over the course of his long career. What I did not mention is a coincidence of timing that anyone interested in Civil War memory will find difficult to ignore…

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16 days ago · 44 likes · 4 comments · Kevin M. Levin

Dean Blundell

James Woods, The Loudest Mouth on MAGA Twitter, Just Went Silent After Amber Tamblyn Told Us, Again, That He Propositioned Her and Her Friend When She Was 16

July 11, 2026…

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18 days ago · 4553 likes · 54 comments · Dean Blundell

Notes From the World

The Platner Class

The campaign of Graham Platner for the U.S. Senate in Maine has come to its inevitable dénouement…

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20 days ago · 80 likes · Michael Deibert

The Long Read (but worth your time)

This Woman Votes - Progress & Politics

Life Unworthy of Funding: The 2026 Update

Before We Begin: A Note on Boredom…

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15 days ago · 14 likes · 1 comment · Rachel @ This Woman Votes

I know people who know people. Bob Cesca is friends with a lot of famous people and interviews them regularly. Ben Cohen has hobnobbed with people I wouldn’t even accidentally bump into on the Metro. Before his tragic death, Chez Pazienza had traveled all over and done shit that I can’t even contemplate.1 I know a lot of people who know people.

But I, myself, do not know people. I don’t go to award ceremonies. I don’t shake hands with anyone truly famous. I don’t sit at dinner tables with the rich and powerful. I certainly don’t do podcasts with them. I do not move in those circles, and I never will.

Thank god.

Some people are cut out for that sort of thing. Some people seek it out like a plant seeks water and sunlight. Some people are addicted to it. Some people fall into it by accident and rise to the occasion, or they are crushed by it.2

I am not one of those people.

I am content to live my small and quiet life, which in this age of social media Look At Me! Look At Me! Look At Me!, might seem a little odd. Especially considering my chosen profession. I’m a writer. I want people to see me. It’s kind of a core requirement for what I do.

But honestly, even when hundreds of thousands of people were reading my articles back on Facebook before Mark Zuckerberg went full fash, no one saw me. They saw my articles. They even saw my (now deleted) Facebook profile. But they didn’t see me. And that was just fine.

This isn’t about me being (relatively) anonymous. That’s a more recent development having to do with living under a fascist government and writing what is considered “subversive” material. Because Stephen Miller is pushing REALLY hard to classify even minor criticism of Führer Trump as literal domestic terrorism.

No. Even when I was public, I never wanted to be famous. Even as this newsletter grew (before being strangled into stagnancy by Substack), I was only ever “mini-famous,” and that was more than enough for me. I do not crave the spotlight. I want what I have to say to get out there (hence the free newsletter), but I have no particular interest in anyone knowing or caring about the person behind the message. That only matters to me inasmuch as you trust me, because that is obviously important if I want you to listen to what I have to say. But beyond trust, I never needed people to be invested in me and my life.

I know that’s also a weird thing to say because I do, in fact, write about my life. A lot. I write about my kids and my anxiety and my failures and triumphs as a parent to a special needs son and two daughters. But that is not so you will see me. It was so you would see yourself and feel less alone. It was also to leave a record for my girls to look back someday and see how much they meant to me.

Remember, writing is my side gig. Being a father is and always has been my main job. At the end of my life, I am not going to look back and think about all the articles I’ve written, which will be a blur numbering in the thousands.3 I will look back and think about my children and consider how well I did by them.

Are they happy? Did I prepare them for adulthood? Did I give them a childhood where they felt safe and loved and appreciated? Did I create a strong foundation for them to build their life on? Are they thriving? Is Jordan safe in whatever assisted living facility we found for him? Is Anastasia taking care of him because that’s what we taught her to do? Are the girls still sisters? Is that bond I painstakingly crafted still strong?

These are not big, exciting life goals. My bucket list is not to travel the world and have exotic adventures.4 I don’t need to live out loud and leave a bold legacy. I don’t have to be the main character. I don’t even need my girls to be main characters. I don’t need them to grow up to be famous and rich. I don’t need them to be superstars or world leaders. I need them to be happy and loved. If that’s where they are when I leave this world, I win. Suck it, universe, I go out with the gold medal.

Is that thinking small? Are those pedestrian goals? I would argue that as a parent, they’re the only goals worth pursuing. Boomers spent so much time chasing their own bliss, they forgot they were parents at all. My entire generation (X) was left to fend for itself, effectively becoming our own parents by age 6 or 7 because our mothers and fathers were too busy putting themselves first, consumed by their own stories.

I will never stop fighting fascism until the last fascist is hanging from the gallows or flees to Russia. But neglecting your children to make their future safe feels like a hollow bargain. What was the point of winning a future for them if you threw it away in the process? Think of it as a work-life balance. Yes, punching Nazis is important, but your little girl still needs you to kiss her goodnight.

So no, I do not think of myself as an indispensable main character. I am not a larger-than-life figure. I do not have to be the center of attention. I do not need to network with famous people and be “known.” I live my small and quiet life and invite you to follow along. Some of you do. Most of you don’t. And that’s OK. Maybe if we didn’t all aspire to the center stage, the world would be a kinder, better place for our children to grow up in. But what do I know? I’m just a father doing the best he can for his kids.

UPDATE! DERP! Sorry! The full episode didn’t upload this morning, and I’ve been reading Dungeon Crawler Carl all day, so I didn’t realize. I’m dumb. In my defense. DCC is a REALLY good book.

ICE is not a rogue agency. ICE does not require better training and oversight. ICE is operating exactly as it is designed to: As a white nationalist secret police kill squad. The only solution to is to disband ICE permanently, expose every agent’s name to the public, investigate them all, charge them with crimes against humanity, and either send them to prison for life or the gallows for waging a campaign of domestic terrorism against the people of the United States.

When they cry, “I was just following orders!”, they should be marched through the streets with a swastika branded on their forehead.

We have to send a message that this will never happen again.

Ogre Nation News Update

1:58 - 7:05 Trump escalates his attack on American elections by getting rid of the Election Assistance Commission.

7:06 - 18:18 ICE goes on another murder spree and once again lies about it.

18:19 - 25:25 Trump can’t admit he lost the Iran War, so we’re back to dropping bombs on civilians.

25:26 - 43:45 Headlines for Short Attention Spans

43:46 - 51:32 Self-care of the Week

The Unedited Hotmess Livestream!

I like Thom Hartmann. I do. Despite having spent time on RT (Russia Today) before wisely leaving the Kremlin’s shitty propaganda network, Hartmann is unapologetically progressive without spending all of his time trying to keep Republicans in power. Unlike, for instance, Cenk Uygur and The Young Turks, a group of “progressives” who are openly opposed to the progressive agenda if it helps minorities and women and the homeless and the Trans community and and and.

One of the things I like most about Hartmann is that he focuses on wealth inequality, but not in a way that throws marginalized communities under the bus. Usually. There are other times, however, where he has a bit of a blind spot for who and what the American right wing really is.

Thank the gods he doesn’t take the alt-left position that our tent is so wide, we should have room for literal Nazis and other assorted monsters as long as they’re pro-universal healthcare. That is a core tenet of the liars who call themselves “progressives” and then go against everything actual progressives advocate for.

Hartmann does not do that. He does, however, think that if Republican voters could just see through right-wing propaganda, they would totally be on our side:

The entire con depends on voters on the right never turning around and realizing they’re mourning the same identical loss that progressive Democrats are trying so hard to repair.

The instant working people stop asking “who’s the enemy who looks, prays, or loves differently than I do” and start asking “who took my dad’s paycheck,” the whole game is over.

That’s the one conversation the billionaires and their bought-off lickspittle politicians are truly terrified of.

So have it. Have it at the summer picnic with your MAGA brother-in-law and your progressive niece sitting side by side, and watch what happens when you skip the slogans and ask them both what kind of country they actually want to live in.

You’ll find (outside of the unrepentant and largely unreachable racists) that they want the very same America back, the one where an honest week’s work bought a decent life.

And I get it. It seems like a really obvious truth. Right-wing voters, especially the poor and working class, are being fucked non-stop by the policies they vote for. Every year, they get a little bit poorer. Every year, a little bit more economically insecure. Every year, a hell of a lot angrier.

We all know why this is happening. Billionaires are looting the country, and the Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Billionaire, Inc. The people screaming the loudest about being abandoned and ignored by the system are right-wing voters. They want economic justice! They want jobs! They want schools and roads and hospitals! They want a future! Our lives are a pile of shit, and we want something better!

Then they vote for the party who explicilty tells them that they’re going to cut taxes for the rich, kill millions of jobs, and close down their schools and hospitals. And take away their future.

Now, Hartmann believes this is because they’ve been conned by culture war issues in order to ignore the class war the rich have been waging on us for generations. It’s a really tempting narrative. It means that millions of Americans are just one revelation away from joining us in moving this country forward in leaps and bounds. If we can JUST reach them, everything will change.

But, I’m sorry Thom, that is just not going to fucking happen. Ever. I’d love to believe it could, but even though I will work to manifest a future where Republicans and ICE and CBP and the billionaires funding it all are dragged before tribunals and sentenced to life in prison or the gallows, I cannot engage in pure fantasy.

The cold, hard, and deeply depressing truth is that Republican voters are not being conned. Not really. For a con to be a con, you have to be unaware that you’re being lied to and manipulated. That simply is not the case here.

Republican voters know they’re being lied to. They know they’re being manipulated. They know the culture war stuff is bullshit. Obama’s tan suit? Hunter Biden’s laptop? Hillary’s secret pedophile sex dungeon? They know none of that was real or mattered. Republican voters know children are not getting sex change operations at school. They know Haitians are not eating cats and dogs. They know Central American drug gangs are not lurking around every corner.

Republican voters fucking know this is all bullshit or wild exaggerations. Their fuckwit of a Vice President literally told them he was making shit up: “Mr. Vance, who amplified false claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets, said he was willing “to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention.”

I know we all love to joke about how stupid MAGA is, and it’s true. They are willing to say the dumbest shit imaginable and insist it’s factual, no matter what the reality is. But a lot of that is performative nonsense. It’s an act. It’s a show of fealty to their tribe. It tells them that they belong and gives them permission to hate and oppress the people they fear.

Because the very foundation of who these people are is nothing more than fear and hate, and they goddamn well know it. These are the mediocre, racist white people who see every minority as a threat to the unearned privilege that keeps them in power. It doesn’t matter if it’s social, cultural, or economic power. They all respond the same way: With hate and rage at any minority that challenges their domination.

Black and Latino voters will vote for Black and Latino candidates. Not enough of those candidates will be champions of white supremacy.

Women have an annoying habit of not voting for misogyny and rape culture. How is THAT fair to mediocre white men? Won't someone think of THEIR needs?!

Muslims and Jews and atheists tend to vote for people who won’t force Christianity on them. But without JAY-zus, how will mediocre racist white people justify oppressing The Gays and stripping women of their reproductive rights?

Republican voters know full well that their party of pedophiles and traitors and grifters does not represent their economic needs. But at the same time Republicans are emptying the national treasure into the bank accounts of billionaires and their buddies, they will abuse their power to crush everyone the right hates.

They will pass laws targeting Trans kids. All 1% of the population of them.

They will pass laws turning women into breeding cattle to be disposed of at will.

They will pass laws making protests against fascism a crime.

They will pass laws making it legal to kill anyone as long as you are white and can pretend you were afraid.

They will pass laws stripping black voters of their rights.

They will pass laws to put Latino children in cages.

Republican voters see this, and they celebrate. The black empty void where their souls should be rejoices at the cruelty and violence and evil. They’ll tell themselves they’re the heroes of the story, but they don’t really care one way or another. As long as Those People suffer, Republicans can do literally anything.

Exaggeration? Cool. Riddle me this, then: The right spent years, fucking YEARS!, screaming their rage at the global cabal of pedophiles they KNEW for a fact existed. They thought the cabal was comprised of Jews and Democrats and liberal elites. What happened when they discovered that the cabal was actually real and a lot of Republicans, including their beloved Dear Leader, were among the names of the child rapists?

Well…is it really THAT important to see all of the Epstein Files? Can we really hold the Trump regime accountable for not releasing all of them? Aren’t Democrats really just as bad anyway?

Sure, the press keeps telling us that MAGAland is furious about the Epstein Files. Are any of them willing to vote for a Democrat to get them released? Are any of them looking to put Republicans in prison for obstruction and cover-ups?

Motherfucker, please.

Republican voters will make a big show of outrage and then pull that lever for any name with an "R" next to it. All of their big sobby tears vanish in the blazing heat of the racism and misogyny that really gets them up and moving in the morning. It has been this way since before the Civil War, when a handful of mediocre, racist slave owners convinced hundreds of thousands of medicocre racist white men to die horrifically, just to preserve their place in the racial hierarchy.

Medicocre, racist white people have been dying for racism for generations. Our generation is watching rural America be ravaged by opioids, and we’ll never know how many Republican voters died of Covid to “own the libs.” Then they voted for the party that murdered their friends and loved ones with a smile on their face and song in their hearts. Why? Because Trump promised them white nationalism, and that was more important than a prosperous future for themselves or their children. They traded it all away to hurt the people they hate, even at the cost of their own financial security.

So when Thom Hartmann says all we have to do is convince Republican voters that the racism and bigotry and misogyny are a con, I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. The hate is not the con. The hate is the entire point.

I wish it weren’t true, but we can’t pretend it’s not. These people are lost to us. Forever? Maybe. Maybe not. But until the pain of wallowing in hate becomes intolerable, they will never abandon those who promise to feed their addiction. Our job is to either cut off their supply or make the cost so high, they give it up. Nothing else will ever make them stop. They love it too much to walk away. They’re willing to die and sacrifice their own children to get more, and that’s the ugly truth Hartmann doesn’t want to confront.

Watching people claiming to be “progressives” spend days defending Graham Platner with Republican talking points was pretty fucking depressing. No, the Jews did not sabotage Platner. He did that himself. No, his victim didn’t have to come forward years ago to be credible. We on the left know for a fucking fact women sometimes take decades to talk about their trauma. No, Platner’s victim is not responsible for Platner coming over and raping her. Platner is responsible for not stopping when she said, “No.”

If your candidate is more important than your morality, you were always immoral. Go put on the red hat of hate and stop pretending you’re a good person.

Anywho! Lots to catch up on this week! Let’s turn back that clock and see what you missed.

Monday: Forecast for this week - Peak White Victimization Complex

Tuesday: White Nationalism is all they know.

Wednesday: Recording and editing and writing!

Thursday: Podcast!

Also Thursday: Masterful gambit, Trump! This will definitely win you the midterms!

Friday: Dungeons & Dragons scripting and cleaning.

5 Things I Found Interesting This Week

The Hartmann Report

They're Shocked We Won't Pretend Anymore

The “partisan split” of Americans showed up in a big way at Fourth of July celebrations and backyard barbecues last week, but the media, while noting or even complaining about it, rarely mentions exactly why it’s happening…

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23 days ago · 3455 likes · 32 comments · Thom Hartmann

News from Underground

All You Had To Do Was Be Nice

Greetings from The Underground…

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21 days ago · 43 likes · 21 comments · Evan Fields

Skeptical Sociopath

The Emasculation of Mark Rutte

Metaphorically speaking, Rutte is a bottom. He’s submissive, a serial groveler, and he seems to enjoy being slightly humiliated by those he calls ‘daddy’. I am not one to yuck anyone’s yum, but in this case, I absolutely will. Mark Rutte’s unbearable ass-kissing of Donald Trump is not only an embarrassment; it’s extremely dangerous. “Unbefitting” is the…

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2 months ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Skeptical Sociopath

DEFIANT Dispatches

The Make-A-Wish Presidency

Somewhere in America right now, a kid with a terminal illness is getting the best day of their life. A trip to Disney World. A locker room visit with their favorite team. A afternoon that costs some stranger money and asks for nothing back except a smile…

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19 days ago · 16 likes · BrooklynDad_Defiant!

There was a teeny tiny sliver of a path for us to get through Trump’s debacle in Iran without the nation feeling the full impact of a gas shortage. Pretty sure Trump’s imbecile warmongering has closed it tighter than the Strait of Hormuz, and now the really nasty stuff is coming.

Two things were keeping the United States from being crushed under a fuel shortage. First, oil companies have been drawing on their reserve stock to stabilize prices. This strikes me as an odd move for companies whose top priority is profits. High prices are good for the bottom line. On the other hand, it’s really bad politically for the party in power. I’ll bet a shiny nickel if a Democrat were in the White House, gas would still be sky high. Does that sound like collusion? You’re goddamn right it does.

The second thing keeping the price of oil out of a doom spiral is that the regime has been draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Now, before you get outraged by this, the SPR exists explicitly for times when the global oil market is under strain, usually because of a war. The regime is using it exactly as it was meant to be used.

The caveat here, of course, is that we’re using it because of a stupid fucking war WE started (and then lost). If Trump, suffering from deep dementia and a lifelong lack of intelligence, had not listened to Netanyahu’s promises of a quick and glorious war against Iran, we wouldn’t need to touch the SPR at all. But Shitler was desperate for easy military victories, and here we are.

Using backstocks of oil to keep prices under control is all well and good. But these stocks are not infinite, and they’re going to run out soon.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell again, dropping by 6.2 million barrels in the week ending July 3, 2026, to 319.5 million barrels. That level marks the lowest inventory in the federal emergency crude stockpile since April 1983.

If 6.2 million doesn’t sound like a large number, you would sort of correct. It’s a lot of oil, but not compared to the amount we actually have. On the other hand, we’re using it up at an alarming rate.

Here are the total SPR levels by week and how much we’ve been using:

• Mar 20, 2026: 415,442,000 barrels of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This is the level we were at before we started draining the SPR to offset the damage from Trump’s imbecile war.

• Mar 27, 2026: 415,064,000 -378,000 This number is how much we drained from the SPR.

• Apr 03, 2026: 413,325,000 -1,739,000 You can see we rapidly increased the amount being drained.

• Apr 10, 2026: 409,181 -4,144 This is all in millions. I just stopped adding the zeroes. You get the idea.

• Apr 17, 2026: 405,045 -4,136

• Apr 24, 2026: 397,924 -7,121

• May 01, 2026: 392,700 -5,224

• May 08, 2026: 384,095 -8,605

• May 15, 2026: 374,175 -9,920

• May 22, 2026: 365,112 -9,063

• May 29, 2026: 357,119 -7,993

• Jun 05, 2026: 349,192 -7,927

• Jun 12, 2026: 340,251 -8,941

• Jun 19, 2026: 331,191 -9,060

• Jun 26, 2026: 325,655 -14,596

• Jul 03, 2026: 319,489 -6,166

In just fifteen weeks, we have drained 96 million barrels of oil from the SPR. We are now at the lowest point in over forty years. This wouldn’t be a problem if we could just keep dipping into the SPR for another four or five months. But we can’t.

Somewhere between 250 and 300 million barrels is when we hit the national security line. That’s what the military insists it needs to maintain operations in case of a war. Somewhere below that, although it’s not super clear where, we hit the physical limit. That’s when the caves the oil is stored in become unstable, threatening to collapse in on the remaining stocks.

Will Trump ignore national security in order to keep pumping out oil? Maybe, but that’s going to be a very ugly story when it breaks. “Trump Puts National Security At Risk” is not the headline you want right before an election. Republicans love their racism, but they love national security almost as much. Good luck selling the idea of leaving America defenseless to the defense hawks. And god forbid the caves start to collapse and render the remaining oil unusable. How do you think the public would react to THAT news? Hint: Not in a good way for Republicans.

At the current pull rate, we have less than three weeks before we hit the 300,000 mark. Even if we go fully optimistic and say the floor is 250,000, that only gives us another five to six weeks. So, the end of August will see us run up against the limits of the SPR, and I seriously doubt the oil companies have enough stock on hand to fill that void.

This is where I remind you that if the Strait of Hormuz were to open right now, and shipping resumed in full this very second, it would still be two months before the first drop of oil reached American shores. That’s how long it physically takes to get the oil from there to here, and it cannot be magically sped up.

That was the teeny tiny sliver of a path we were on. The path where using existing stockpiles would let us ride out the conclusion of Trump’s war for dummies while keeping the oil shock from hitting the nation. But, of course, Trump fucked that up:

The U.S. launched new airstrikes against Iran early Thursday, hours after President Donald Trump said recent Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz signaled the end of the ceasefire and threatened to escalate the conflict if they didn’t stop. Iran responded by targeting U.S.-allied Kuwait and Qatar and accused the U.S. of striking near its sole nuclear power plant.

It will take weeks to get back to a proper ceasefire and even longer to get a real treaty in place. It will take even more weeks to clear the mines and for shipping to fully resume. About a quarter to one-fifth of the shipping traffic is going through, and that keeps stopping with every round of new attacks.

That means we are months away from getting enough oil to stave off an economic catastrophe of our own making. The SPR will not last long enough to tide us over.1 I originally thought the oil shock would hit in July, maybe August if we were lucky. I didn’t realize how heavily the regime is relying on the SPR to hold off the damage. But we’re almost at the end of our rope, and then the bad things happen.

We’re not going to run out of gas, of course. The Gulf is only2 20% of the world’s oil production. That’s not enough to see gas stations run dry. I’m not even sure we’ll see significant gas lines. There will be a decrease in driving when prices skyrocket and “demand destruction,” a phrase I was not aware of until a month ago, kicks in. But we’ll still need diesel for shipping, and that price increase will push inflation into the clouds.

So gas will be more expensive. Everything from groceries to socks will be more expensive. Electricity bills will be more expensive (if you rely on fossil fuels for energy as opposed to renewables). Heading into the Fall, heating will be astronomically more expensive.

All of that just in time for the November elections, while Trump continues to tell the public he doesn’t give a fuck about inflation or affordability.

Truly, Donald Trump is a master of political strategy. I cannot see a single way this will hurt his regime or the GOP. Everything is going to be awesome for Republicans in November! For sure!

And if beleive that, I have a tanker of oil to sell you…

Look, as much schadenfreude as I’m enjoying from watching the regime doom itself, it’s important to understand how bad this is going to get for the rest of us. Money is going to evaporate like fog under a summer sun. If we’re lucky the recession this will cause will only3 be as bad as 2008-2009. If we’re not, the banking and AI bubbles will pop at the same time, and we will long for the good ol’ days of the Great Recession.

Please remember, we have a maliciously incompetent regime in power. They will do everything possible to make the economic collapse worse in order to use the anger and despair to their advantage. Forewarned is forearmed, and I have been screaming about this for months. Be ready for a sharp economic downturn and for the regime to try to give itself “emergency powers” as a result. They can only use panic as a tool if we do, in fact, panic. Not for nothing, the regime doesn’t have a single original idea, which makes them painfully predictable.

The really bad things are coming, and it’s up to us to stomp the fascists into the mud when they try.

It’s been a rough week for the misogynists masquerading as “progressives.” They’ve had to twist themselves into knots to defend a rapist, and they’re very VERY angry at AIPAC/Democrats/women for…something.

Maybe Graham Platner shouldn’t be an abusive partner? Maybe he should have been vetted better by his progressive backers? Maybe don’t blame the victim?

It’s all very difficult to see clearly when your entire political philosophy is “Destroy the Democratic establishment!” Maybe that’s not a solid foundation for a successful campaign.

Anyway, and I talk about Platner, Israelis attacking Christians, Republican hypocrisy and incompetence, and a whole lot more this week.

Come join the Ogre Nation Conversation!

Ogre Nation News Update!

4:30 - 11:30 Why are Republicans ignoring Christians being attacked by violent Israeli extremists?

11:31 - 16:10 How did Republicans fuck up their assault on Planned Parenthood this badly?

16:11 - 22:04 Why is the regime supporting the antisemitism of marching Nazis?

22:05 - 27:35 I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream Because of Fucking ICE

27:36 - 44:45 Headlines for Short Attention Spans

44:46 - 57:08 Self-care of the Week

The Unedited Hot Mess Livestream!

Share The Opinionated Ogre

When Anastasia was in second grade, I chaperoned a field trip with her class to the Smithsonian Museum of American History in DC. This was not the first field trip I had chaperoned, and I had learned that, for most teachers, museum field trips are not an ideal place to teach a lesson. Too many kids, too many strangers wandering around, not enough time, and it’s really hard to get the kids to focus.

I, on the other hand, am a huge history nerd, and I’m very good at getting children to listen to me. Years of retail taught me to project my voice like a drill instructor. Also, children love Ogres.

Two years previously, I had chaperoned Jordan’s class. I had given a really detailed tour of the museum and several fun lectures along the way to a small group consisting of Jordan and about four kids. This time, I had the entire class listening and delivered a lesson about racism in America while we were all standing around the 1960 Woolworth’s counter made famous in Greensboro, North Carolina, when a bunch of Black activists sat down at the “White’s Only” section and asked to be served.

Anastasia’s class, almost all of whom were minorities of one kind or another, was fascinated by the story I told of how some people didn’t want kids that looked like them to sit and eat lunch with kids that looked like my lily-white daughter. And how a group of people refused to allow that to keep happening.

Afterwards, Anastaisa’s teacher, Mrs. Hall, told me that several people had stopped to listen to me talking to the group of seven-year-olds. She was very pleased that the kids got a full history lesson, and I was just as pleased to deliver it.

Fast forward a decade, and the mediocre racist white men of the Trump regime would like to ensure that never happens again. That the only history children learn is white nationalist propaganda.

This is why, in the middle of an economy on the brink and a disastrous mess in the Gulf still unresolved, the regime is going to war against the very same Museum of American History I gave my lectures in:

In a broadside posted to its website just as fireworks celebrating America’s 250th birthday were lighting up skies on Saturday, the White House condemned the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for what it said was a failure to celebrate the nation’s heritage, arguing it had become a political tool intent on denigrating the American story.

The 162-page report, by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, represents a sweeping attack on the museum’s presentation of American history. It is the latest step in the Trump administration’s campaign to pressure the Smithsonian into conforming to what President Trump has described as “patriotic” history.

What, exactly, is the regime whining about? White people are being oppressed! American history that teaches about racism is racist! Against white people! Because, of course, that’s the (completely fabricated) problem:

Titled “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage,” the report accuses the museum of anti-white bias and of minimizing and distorting the nation’s founding. Those actions, the report asserts, have shifted the museum’s mission “from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”

The museum, it says, “no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit and discourage our citizens.”

Fascists are not subtle. When they say our history is no longer a “shared national inheritance,” what they mean is that we are no longer telling history from the mediocre, racist white man’s point of view.

The right has long resented the fact that American education has been slowly telling the whole story of America. The pace has been glacial, but we’ve moved away from “Happy Slaves” to a more accurate depiction of who we are as a nation and how we can be better. This has terrified the right for decades. A history that isn’t whitewashed is a history that does not produce racists.

This, more than anything, is the driving force behind the right’s all-out war on public education. They’re not subtle about the racism driving them, either:

The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term. - Sen. Lindsay Graham

Not too long ago, Moms for Liberty, a fascist organization that tried to seize control of public education before being crushed by the voters, said the quiet part out loud:

The Hamilton County chapter of Moms for Liberty quoted Hitler’s remarks at a 1935 rally on the front page of its new newsletter on Wednesday. The quote, placed directly below the masthead, read: “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.”

There are a million different quotes that convey the same message. But they liked the Hitler version the most. Why? Because Hitler is their fucking guy, and returning to a whitewashed version of American history serves the singular purpose of generating more mediocre racist voters who will support the party of white nationalism. They’re telling us, out in the open, why they hate an honest accounting of America.

The right does not want history. They want anti-minority and anti-woman propaganda taught as the truth to children. Children who will internalize the lies and grow up to be mediocre racists who will view actual history as lies meant to make them feel bad. This is how you mass-produce Republican voters.

When the regime falls, a top priority for the Democratic president is to purge the right-wing propaganda from our schools and museums and other public spaces. Because while teaching white nationalist propaganda produces fascists, teaching the real history produces Americans. Americans who see this country not just for what it is but, more importantly, what it can become. The potential has always been there, and mediocre racist white men have been trying to snuff it out since our founding 250 years ago.

It took decades to get rid of the “Happy Slave” lie in schools. We can erase the right’s toxic white nationalist propaganda in a fraction of the time, and we must. We cannot afford an entire generation of children being poisoned by the fascist right. We will not go back, no matter how much the racists scream and stamp their feet.

In case you missed it, this 4th of July weekend went very poorly for the regime. Thunderstorms, torrential rain, hail, and, of course, extreme heat, combined to make Trump’s life very difficult over the course of 48 hours. Couldn’t you just weep an ocean of tears for the fascist scumbags?

Naturally, MAGAland has the answer: “THEY” were controlling the weather to make Trump look bad. No, I am not fucking joking.

To say this is unhinged is an insult to hinges. This is the kind of knuckledraggimg cesspit of stupidity the American right wallows in on a daily basis and has been for over fifty years. These are the rantings of people suffering from a deep disconnect from reality, which is why Democrats should never bother trying to get them to vote for us.1

Now, I generally don’t write about a single social media post unless it points to a larger issue, and, surprise!, this one absolutely does. Kremer has over 100,000 followers, which, for a wannabe MAGA influencer, is on the small side. Still, it’s important to understand the purpose of this tweet.

Kremer may actually be an insane person who thinks there are secret weather control satellites in orbit being deployed against her shit-encrusted rapist pedophile Lord and Savior. It’s far more likely, however, that Kremer is simply advancing the long-running narrative that all of MAGA is under attack at all times.

Nothing whips the GOP’s base into a mindless frenzy more than their permanent victimization complex. Everyone is out to get them. There are secret enemies around every corner and in every nook and cranny of America. They are besieged and abused, and oh, woe is fucking them. If I sold a line of MAGA fainting couches for the manly men of the right who quail at the sight of a trans woman, I would be obscenely wealthy.

So why do they do this? Why do the morons and imbeciles of the right allow themselves to drown in a constant fog of terror and grievance?

There are a few reasons:

1. Manipulation and grifting - They have been trained like Pavlov’s dog to live in fear. The Republican Party and its propaganda wing have spent over half a century and billions of dollars to reduce their voters to spineless, quivering sacks of jelly.

   

   @cheemcreemwe’ve lost the crew… #funny #airplane #jelly #fyp #fypage

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   Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

This makes them easy to control and even easier to grift out of their money. There’s nothing MAGA loves more than showering thieves and liars with cash as long as the grifters tell them who to blame for everything from inflation to impotence. SOMEONE has to be responsible and thinking for themselves has never been the forte of mediocre, racist white people. Show me an angry white man, and I will show you someone ripe for the plucking.

This allows the GOP to steal literally trillions from their voters and be rewarded for it. You would hope that no one this stupid would survive to adulthood. But eating paint chips, licking toilet seats, and owning the libs isn’t quite enough for MAGAts to bleach themselves from the gene pool before they get to vote for fascists.

It IS, however, killing them faster than Democrats:

Many constituents in those districts also lack health insurance. Health challenges include diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease and breast cancer.

The dashboard found 70% of House Democrats represent districts where life expectancy now exceeds the national average. Life expectancy lags behind the national average in 70% of Republican-held seats.

I feel bad for the non-MAGA living in these Republican-controlled hellholes, but for the mediocre racist white people who have been voting for this for generations? I feel nothing but contempt, and I find their suffering to be hilarious. Fuck around, find out. Thank you for making the world a better place by removing yourself from it.

However, manipulation and grifting are not the main reasons the GOP has turned its base into cowards and inbred idiots. That’s just a bonus. The actual reason is much worse.

2. Justification for anything and everything - I’ve talked about this repeatedly over the years. When you are the hero of the story, and you’re fighting the most evil thing to ever exist, there are no red lines to cross. Literally anything you do is moral and just. Lying, stealing, assault, rape, murder, all of it is permissible because you’re the good guy saving America from trans/cartels/commies/antifa.
   
   As long as you’re the victim of a global conspiracy to destroy you and your loved ones, you can do anything with a clear conscience. The Nazis understood this, and so does the GOP.
   
   They have been working their way to this moment in time for decades. Carefully warping their fuckwit voters into a mob that will either kill on command or mindlessly cheer atrocities, even atrocities committed against them by their own glorious leaders. After all, what’s so bad about burning your future to the ground as long as the godless, baby-killing libs are crying?

   
   Sell your base of voters a myth of their oppression, and you are free to commit unspeakable crimes while the drooling masses applaud your cruelty.
   
   What part of that doesn’t describe the modern GOP base? Nothing is ever their fault. And if nothing is ever their fault, they can never be held accountable. They didn’t try to overthrow the government. They were FORCED to try and stop a stolen election. They didn’t build concentration camps so they could commit genocide. They were FORCED to defend themselves against The Great Replacement. They didn’t end Roe and murder thousands of women. They were FORCED to protect innocent babies.
   
   They didn’t abandon democracy and embrace murderous fascists. They were FORCED to reject the rule of law to protect the Constitution.

   
   You see? They were the victims all along! They’re the heroes striving to save everything good in America by ending America!
   
   It’s all gibberish but very effective. It helps when your base knows it’s all lies and plays along because being the victim feels empowering. It allows Republicans to be their worst selves and then point a finger at us, insisting it’s all our fault that they’re soulless monsters. The logic of the abuser: Look at what you made me do!

I know it’s tempting to ignore these ramblings. But it’s important that you don’t. Every time you see an insane post from some MAGA influencer blaming secret weather weapons or the “deep state,” you are seeing this specific agenda at work. In order to keep the mob of cousin-fucking inbreds angry at all times, they must be fed a steady diet of conspiracy and fantasy and hate. The absurdities allow the atrocities. If you don’t understand what they’re doing and why, you cannot be prepared for what they’re planning.

The end of another week of lawlessness is here. The six Republican Justices on SCOTUS have once again proven that they are an imminent threat to the rule of law in the United States. They have to be stripped of their power.

Any Democrat not running on expanding the Court and restoring the Constitution is not serious about fixing this nation. It’s that simple.

Now, jump in your Delorian and let’s see what you missed this week!

Monday: Captain Couch-fucker’s future is looking just awesome! Just kidding. He’s totally screwed.

Tuesday: Jesus fucking Christ. The whining is playing on my last nerve…

Wednesday: so…tired…just recorded the podcast and crashed out.

Thursday: Podcast!

Thursday: Bonus article! Russia is going through some things…

Friday: Thank you for walking this road with me. I hope I helped some of you with your own struggles.

5 Things I Found Interesting This Week

Monica Andreasen

Iran, Oil, And The Cliff America Hits In August

The United States has 57 days of oil left before the Pentagon can’t fight a war…

Read more

a month ago · 528 likes · 69 comments · Uncomfortable Truth by Monica

PunchUp

Stephen Miller ‘Blindsided’ by Trump Move Causing DHS Revolt

Got a story from inside the heart of U.S. politics? Contact Tom in complete confidence on Signal, Threema, or at punchuptom@proton.me…

Read more

a month ago · 193 likes · 19 comments · Tom Latchem

Brian Tyler Cohen

The Dam Is Breaking on Democrats Embracing Supreme Court Expansion

This was the week the Supreme Court broke. The cracks were showing for a long time, but after the latest run of mind-blowing rulings – including giving Trump sweeping authority to fire regulators, teeing up the deportation of thousands of people back to war-ravaged countries, and all but obliterating campaign spending rules – the court has completely ab…

Read more

a month ago · 1695 likes · 180 comments · Brian Tyler Cohen

Grounded

Bunkers Full of Billionaires: What Could Go Wrong? Oh, It Already Did.

We figured the billionaire bunkers would fail, but get this…

Read more

a month ago · 1339 likes · 161 comments · Jessica

I started writing the anxiety journal as a way to process unusually intense emotions I was struggling with. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that starting back in March, I fell into (for me) a deep depression and was overwhelmed with anxiety, something I had never dealt with before and was entirely unequipped to handle. This all had to do with my daughter Lila leaving for college in August.

I was terrified that, as found family, we would drift apart. Or, worse, I would be out of sight, out of mind, and that by the time she came back after four years, I would be effectively a stranger to her, someone she didn’t really need or want in her new life as an adult.

I was also afraid she would need me while away at school, and, since I would not be there as I’ve always been these last ten years, I would fail her as a father. Finally, my anxiety and depression found a way to turn her new girlfriend into a looming disaster. What if she didn’t like me? What if she hated me?

Since then, Lila and I have talked about this more than once (with a fair amount of crying). In the last three months, as the time to leave gets closer, Lila has been far more present. She’s made a conscious effort to stay connected to me, even if it’s something as small as making sure my texts show up as read. This has done an enormous amount to quiet my fears. At the same time, she’s going to be at school with June, and they are both rabidly devoted to each other, which means I’m far less worried about Lila being alone when she needs someone to be there for her. My fear of her girlfriend hating me was always the most irrational, but we’re getting along just fine, and that was the end of that. She made freaking muffins for us and has made an effort to connect with Anastasia, Lila’s little sister/my bio-daughter. I mean, really. Even deep anxiety can’t spin that into anything to be afraid of.

But there’s still the future, and the future is unknowable. And yet, I am not as afraid as I was. Everything is going to be all right. I know it. How can I be so sure? I have faith.

Now, I am not a man of spiritual faith. I don’t believe in a higher power or an afterlife. I am a man of temporal faith, though. I believe in things that I cannot possibly know will come to pass, but believe them nonetheless because I have faith. I have faith in people.

As cynical as I am, and I am deeply cynical,1 I believe we will survive this dangerous moment in time. I believe that American fascism will fail. I believe we as a nation will build something better and stronger from the carnage 60 years of Republican evil has wrought. I believe the Epstein class and the billionaires will spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders as they flee justice for what they’ve done. I believe not a few of them will be Luigied, and nothing of importance will be lost.

But on a personal level, I believe, with all of my heart, that Lila will come home to us. To me. That she will graduate from college and still want me to be a part of her life. That she will still be Anastasia’s sister. That she will not move on from us when she moves out into the world.

I know this because I know Lila. I raised her, as much as I was able to, to be better than that. I know she may not need me to be her father, but she’ll still want me to be her father. She will still, every now and then, want to hear how proud I am of her. To sometimes share something exciting in her life and know that her father will be just as excited for her. To know that no matter what, I will be there if she does need me.

I believe this in a way I couldn’t allow myself to believe back in March. The fear and sadness were too strong for me to see Lila clearly. All I could see was the loss, and it was devastating. But now, I can see clearly again and I see Lila, the smart, sweet, caring girl I tickled when she was little and held close while she cried when she was older. The teenager who needed someone to tell her they loved her on her worst days and still smiles to hear it now as a woman heading to college. That is the Lila I know and love.

I’m not completely over my fears, of course. That only happens in movies. But I only have flashes of anxiety over the future, and I haven’t fallen into a fit of depression in months. I’m still sad. I’m sad a lot, actually. But that’s OK. My daughter is leaving for college, and I’m allowed to be sad that she’ll be gone. I would be worried if I wasn’t. But thinking of Lila not being here no longer cripples me with pain and grief.

This is why I stopped seeing my therapist a little over a month ago. I’m not “fine,” exactly, but I can see fine from where I’m sitting, and I know how to get there. And that is why I’m turning the page on the Anxiety Journals. I am no longer overwhelmed and struggling just to breathe. Even when I have a flash of anxiety, I can manage it and keep moving.

I know Lila loves me as much as I love her, and we will be a part of each other’s lives until I’m gone. Even after that, she will carry the memory of me and our time together with her and, every now and then, she’ll look back and smile that she had a father who loved her as fiercely and deeply as any father could. I know this to be true because I believe in the little girl I helped raise to be an amazing adult. I have faith, and that will keep the darkness at bay.

I hope these journals helped some of you as much as they helped me. My apologies/thanks to Lila and June for making them the center of so much attention in these articles. It wasn’t my intent to cause you any discomfort, and you’ve been incredibly accommodating when you didn’t have to. I love how happy you are together, and it’s impossible to fully express how much that means to me. June, you’ve given Lila something precious and vital, and I will always love you for that. Lila, through all of your struggles and pain and sadness, you still found your way back to the person you’ve always been, the person I’ve always known you are. Even in a time of change and uncertainty, you still made the time to help pull me out of the darkness. You don’t know how special you are, but I have faith that someday you’ll see the Lila I’ve unconditionally loved for the last ten years. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me that didn’t involve a wedding ring or a maternity ward. Love, you sweetie. Always.

I would also like to thank Anastasia and Claudia for putting up with my months-long meltdown. I know it has been disconcerting to watch me, the person who has always been a shoulder to lean on when things were rough, fall apart and need to lean on you, instead. A lot. Anastasia, you’ve been so brave and loving while I’ve struggled, and that tells me everything about the incredible person you are. You are an amazing daughter and sister and friend. You’re any parent’s dream come true. There are no words to explain how proud I am of you and how much I love you.

Claudia, you’ve let me be a father to your child, and not everyone would be comfortable with that. A lot of people weren’t, but you saw what your daughter needed and let me be that person for her. That took a lot more courage than you realize. As painful as this entire ordeal has been, I wouldn’t change a second of the last decade. You raised an incredible daughter, and I cannot wait to see what comes next, stumbles and all.

Finally, my eternal gratitude and deepest love and respect to Mrs. Ogre, who, like Claudia, let me be a father to a child that was not my own. Most wives would balk at that, but you are not most wives. You are the wife who said, “Meh” to everyone who insisted we do things the way everyone else does it. You are the wife who took in a little girl and her mother when they needed family and treated them like your own. You are the wife who held her husband while he sobbed over a child that wasn’t yours and did everything possible to ease his pain. It doesn’t matter that your family never understood who you are. I see you, my love. I know how special you are and how unbelievably lucky I am to be your husband and the father of your children. I will never not be in awe of the force you are in our lives.

Annnnnnd…that’s it for now. Lila leaves for college in the middle of August. That means I still have a month and change to spend any time I can with her before, I hope, her mother and I and Anastasia drive her to college and help her move all of her stuff into her dorm room. Then we’ll hug and say goodbye (and mostly like sob a lot), and then she’ll be gone. I don’t know what that will feel like. Painful. Scary. Empty. But I know I’ll be fine because nothing can break the connection we’ve all forged as a family. Everything is going to be all right. I know it because I have faith in my daughter, and it’s exciting to think of the joy and wonder the next ten years and the ten after that of being her father will bring.

This is not going to be a deep and lengthy article.1 Honestly, I’m only writing it because it’s so fucking funny, I couldn’t do it justice in a note, and I HAD to share this with you, Ogre Nation.2

OK, so we all know that Vladimir Putin, the aging oligarch with delusions of empire, invaded Ukraine with the specific intent of toppling the government and rebuilding the Soviet Union of his youth. That was four loooong years ago and things went from bad to worse to absolutely fucking catastrophic.

Turns out that invading a country with an untrained, under-equipped, and underpaid military is a really REALLY shitty idea. Especially when the country you’re invading has a military trained by the United States military, the most lethal fighting force in human history.

Even with treasonous Republicans and a fascist pro-Russia regime doing everything possible to cut Ukraine off from American weapons, supplies, and money, Russia could not seal the deal. Getting a sloppy blow job from Donald Trump and half of elected Republicans somehow wasn’t enough. Weird.

It also turns out that hollowing out your economy with corruption and looting means you will not be able to sustain military operations without severe economic consequences. Invasions are crazy fucking expensive, and all the propaganda in the world will not keep your GDP from shrinking faster than Donald Trump’s tiny mushroom dick when the Viagra wears off.

Russia’s already broken economy has been crumbling for the last four years under the combined weight of international sanctions and the drain of a war that was only supposed to last a few weeks. So, in order to stave off the inevitable economic ka-boom, Russia has been selling oil to India. A LOT of oil. India is the third-largest oil importer in the world, and about half of its oil is now coming from Russia.

Here’s the thing, though. Russia is so desperate for money, they’re selling oil to India at an insane discount:

With China significantly reducing crude oil purchases, Russia is offering oil at a discount of $2-5 per barrel to India. This compares to a premium of $13-15 per barrel paid by refiners from March to May, during the beginning of the conflict, as countries raced to secure supplies.

That’s great for India. They’re saving billions. Russia is getting money, but they’re operating at a loss. Couldn’t you just weep for their troubles?

Now, that’s already hilarious. Russia is a petrostate, and they’re so desperate for money, they’re practically giving away their only real export (other than vodka, failure, and sadness). But wait! I promised you that this was getting even funnier, and I aim to deliver!

In the last several months, the Ukrainian military has been crippling Russian infrastructure. Not just bridges and roads and power plants and military factories, but the clever Ukrainians are kicking Putin right in his balls. They’re blowing up the oil. So much of Russia’s oil infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, Russia is suffering from fuel shortages. Russia. The petrostate. They’re out of fuel:

Vladimir Putin has admitted Russia is facing fuel shortages as Ukraine steps up its long-range drone campaign, with repeated strikes setting oil refineries ablaze and forcing multiple regions to introduce unprecedented petrol rationing.

Speaking to Russian state television late on Sunday, the Russian president acknowledged for the first time that Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure were affecting domestic fuel supplies. “Of course, they create problems, that’s obvious,” Putin said. “Right now we’re observing a certain shortage, but it’s not critical.”

This is like the United States having a shortage of racist, mediocre white men. That’s just fucking insane! How can that even be a thing?!

Aside from all of that, though, of COURSE it’s fucking critical, or Putin would never have admitted there was a problem. The gas lines are miles long, and people are starting to panic. This war was supposed to be over four years ago, and nothing would ever blow back on the Motherland. And yet, drones are raining from the sky in Moscow, the economy is dying, and an entire generation of Russian men is dead, wounded, and/or psychologically broken.

Now, that’s just awful for Russia, but they’re the ones allowing their government to continue, so I don’t really feel all that bad for them.3

OK, so Russia is frantically selling oil for pennies and at the same time running out of fuel. That’s funny, but not comedy gold. This? THIS is comedy gold:

July 1 (Reuters) - Russia has started seaborne imports of gasoline from India, two industry ​sources said on Wednesday, in an effort to mitigate fuel shortages triggered by ‌Ukrainian attacks on its energy infrastructure.

Fuel shortages are being felt across Russia’s 11 time zones with rationing, long queues at filling stations and a record gasoline price increase.

NOW we have reached peak hilarity. Russia starts a war. Its economy implodes. They sell oil to India at a steep discount. They have to buy back the refined oil for WAY more than they originally sold the oil for.

Even if India is not price-gouging Russia, even if they’re selling the gasoline at a regular price, Russia is paying billions more than they made from the original sale.

This arrangement is so fucking stupid, it sounds like the kind of deal Donald Trump would make. It sounds like someone in Russia owns a lot of stock in Indian companies. It sounds like someone used ChatGPT to translate “buy low, sell high” into Russian and is now discovering how shitty AI is.

This is still great for India. They’re making bank on both ends of the deal. But Russia? They’re getting exactly what they deserve, and I cannot tell you how much popcorn I am devouring while I enjoy the show.

The delicious irony underneath all of this is that Ukraine probably would have never started blowing up Russian infrastructure had Russia not been engaged in a years-long effort to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure. Chef’s kiss! 😘😘😘

Them chickens have come how to roost, baby. Now, seriously, GIVE ME MORE FUCKING POPCORN!

This week’s entire show is devoted to the (mostly) corrupt Supreme Court rulings handed down over the last several days. Best make sure to take your blood pressure medication. The Most Corrupt Supreme Court In American History™ really outdid itself…

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Ogre Nation Supreme Court News Update!

1:41 -6:30 Mullin v Doe - A racist ruling on the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of refugees.

6:30 - 13:05 Mullin v Al Otro Lado - Another racist ruling about asylum seekers that hinges on a deliberate mangling of the English language.

13:06 - 17:10 Blanche v Lau - ANOTHER racist ruling concerning green card holders.

17:11 - 19:49 Wolford v Lopez - A ruling expanding on the rights of ammosexuals that endangers the public.

19:50 - 23:35 Watson v RNC - The regime takes an L, and stealing the midterms just got harder for the fascists.

23:36 - 27:40 Trump v Slaughter - SCOTUS hands Trump even more power to corrupt the federal government.

27:41 - 29:25 Trump v. Cook - SCOTUS protects the money of billionaires by denying Trump the power to fuck with the Federal Reserve

29:26 - 31:49 NRSC vs FEC - Another gift to the billionaires who can now inject unlimited money into our elections.

31:50 34:45West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox - The next disgusting step in erasing the Tans community.

34:46 - 45:35 Trump v Barbara - A rare loss for white nationalism. Birthright Citizenship is upheld (for now).

45:36 - 49:40 An Ogre Rant about what Democrats have to do to save this country from SCOTUS’ corruption.

The Hot Mess Livestream!