They paid a billion to kill the wind farms and Kansas City hit 85 in March. Same fact. Same crime.

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Atlanta: 55°F, mostly cloudy — azaleas opening early again and nobody in the statehouse will say why.

Detroit: 45°F, overcast — gray ceiling over a city where TSA agents haven't been paid in thirty-eight days.

Kansas City: 63°F climbing to 85 — twenty degrees above normal, the plains sweating through a season that no longer exists.

New York: 46°F, cloud cover — damp cold settling into a city watching its airports slow to a crawl.

San Francisco: 55°F, cloudy — diesel at $7.79 a gallon and the fog doesn't care.

Miami: 76°F, sunny — warm enough to forget the Strait of Hormuz is closed and oil is kissing $100.

The partial shutdown hit Day 38. TSA agents screening your bags for free. Iran rejected the ceasefire. A drone struck Kuwait's airport this morning. The White House is selling the war with TikTok mash-ups.

First time here? Welcome to The Gathering.

Editor's note: If that paragraph didn't spike your blood pressure, check your goddamn pulse.

The 15-point ceasefire plan arrived in Tehran through Pakistani intermediaries Wednesday. Iran's Foreign Ministry responded flatly: there have been no negotiations for twenty-five days.

What they said: "There is no talks or negotiations between Iran and the United States."

That bone-spur generalissimo launched joint U.S.-Israeli strikes February 28 that killed Ayatollah Khamenei on day one. His son Mojtaba took over. Iran responded with missiles targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases, and Gulf nations. A drone hit Kuwait's airport fuel storage this morning. Brent crude at $99. The war costs $1 billion a day. The Pentagon wants another $200 billion. 2,000 paratroopers deploying.

The damage: Human cost: Three U.S. servicemembers killed — the spray-tanned warmonger said there will "likely be more."

Pattern: DHS shutdown Day 38. TSA agents unpaid. Delta suspended congressional flights. AFGE told lawmakers: do not get on a plane.

Action: Call your senators. Demand DHS funding. Demand a war powers vote.

Senate Democrats rejected the GOP's latest carve-out deal, 51-46. The Hill

The machinery eats what it cannot negotiate.

The Interior Department announced Monday it will pay TotalEnergies — one of the planet's twenty largest historical emitters — $928 million to abandon two offshore wind projects off New York and North Carolina.

Evidence:

Relationship breaking: The reimbursement covers Biden-era lease costs. TotalEnergies promised to reinvest every dollar into Texas oil and gas. The fossil-gargling imbeciles at Interior cited "national security concerns."

Scale: Federal judges already dismissed identical claims against five other wind farms, calling the suspension "arbitrary and capricious." A billion dollars to a company being sued in European courts for greenwashing.

Expert voice: Evergreen Action's Lena Moffitt called it a taxpayer-funded bribe. 350.org's Anne Jellema: a handout to polluters while households get crushed by utility costs.

This shit-soaked giveaway dropped the same week diesel hit $7.79 in California. Connect the goddamn dots.

Action: Support Evergreen Action and 350.org. Contact your representative. Earth.org

The land remembers what was promised.

Katy Faust started as an anonymous blogger in 2012 under the handle "Ask the Bigot." Her mother is a lesbian. Her mother's partner helped raise her. In January 2026, she launched Greater Than — 47 anti-LGBTQ+ organizations united to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges.

Stakes:

Pattern: The coalition includes the Family Research Council (SPLC-designated hate group), Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Heritage Foundation — the Project 2025 network. Faust's organization earned $900,000+ in 2024, bankrolled by foundations funding the country's most powerful anti-queer legal operations.

Timeline: Anonymous blogger (2012) → Witherspoon Institute mentorship → SCOTUS briefs → foreign legislatures → 47-org assault launched from Heritage's media platform.

What the actual fuck. She was raised by queer women, credits them with making her a good mother, and built a career claiming families like theirs victimize children. She told hate-group leader Tony Perkins there's "a direct connection between gay marriage and child victimization." Her campaign message: Don't touch the kids. The old slander with a softer accent.

Movement: SPLC, People for the American Way, and Global Project Against Hate have documented the ties to Project 2025. Support them. Fund them. LGBTQ Nation

They will tell you it's about children. It has never been about children.

Survival wisdom — how you carry this forward: There is a violence in being loved for everything except the truth of yourself. Liberace filled arenas shining and kept the most fundamental fact of his life locked behind lawsuits. The audience knew. They always know. What his distance between candelabra and closet teaches: visibility without honesty costs the performer everything. The world has changed enough. You can just laugh. As yourself.

Mel Schilling: MAFS relationship expert died Tuesday at 54 — cancer spread to her brain. She worked with the show's first trans participant and never missed a filming day through two years of chemo. PinkNews

Katie Rinderle: Georgia appeals court upheld firing of a Cobb County teacher who read My Shadow Is Purple to fifth graders — SPLC fighting the case. LGBTQ Nation

Lung cancer: Missing protein (caspase-8) triggers inflammatory cell death fueling small cell lung cancer's 5% survival rate — may explain why it always returns. ScienceDaily

Deep sea: Twenty-four new species including an entirely new superfamily found in the Pacific's Clarion-Clipperton Zone — 90% of species there remain unnamed. ScienceDaily

Dryer running forever → Clean the exhaust vent duct, not just the lint trap — a clogged duct adds 20 minutes per load and triples fire risk. A $7 brush kit fixes it in ten minutes. Feeling: The thump of a dryer finishing on time.

$6/day coffee → Cold brew concentrate: 1 cup coarse grounds, 4 cups water, 12 hours in the fridge, strain through cheesecloth. Cost: $0.40/serving. Monthly savings: $168. Feeling: First cold sip on your own terms, money still in your pocket.

Wilting herbs → Trim stems, stand in water like flowers, cover loosely, refrigerate. Cilantro lasts two weeks instead of three days. Feeling: Reaching for green that's still alive on Thursday.

Asparagus → Snap woody ends, toss in olive oil, salt, lemon zest, roast 425°F for 12 minutes until tips char and stalks bend. First local asparagus tastes like the ground waking up.

Garlic scapes incoming → Buy a pound at the farmers' market in three weeks. Blend raw with olive oil, parmesan, walnuts — pesto for $2, no basil needed. Freeze in ice cube trays for July. Your garden, your economy.

Emergency dinner: lemon garlic pasta → Spaghetti, 4 cloves garlic sliced thin, olive oil, lemon juice, red pepper flakes, parmesan, parsley. Seven ingredients, feeds four, nine minutes. Nobody goes hungry because the week was hard.

Moving forward — your armor for today: You are not going to fix this in one afternoon. You will not outrun forty-seven organizations or billion-dollar bribes. That is not the assignment. The assignment is: do not stop. Show up tomorrow. Make the call. Write the check. This isn't optimism — it's obligation. The work does not require your hope. It requires your goddamn hands.

Three who refused the comfortable lie.

Liberace. $300,000 weekly in Vegas, 200+ TV stations, audiences who knew and loved him anyway. He dazzled in sequins and sued in silence.

Harper Jean Tobin. Every model trans rights policy for housing, shelters, law enforcement — her fingerprints. Co-led the U.S. Transgender Survey reaching 28,000 respondents. Trained DMV employees in all 50 states.

Bill McKibben. The End of Nature (1989, 24 languages). 350.org, 20,000 rallies, fossil fuel divestment reaching $40 trillion. Gandhi Peace Prize. No compromise.

"Grab Bag: Meme Game, Wanker Pete, Bret(bug)" — Sweaty's Corner | Geoff Anderson. Diesel at $7.79 and the White House selling war via TikTok with three billion impressions — family reads like this keep you sane. Read

"Neoextractivism: Your Future Is to the South" — Adverse Action Daily | Rick Herbst. Since 1975, $79 trillion redistributed from the bottom 93.9% — Rick traces the extraction model from Potosí's silver mines to your DoorDash receipt. Essential family. Read