Atlanta: 52°, overcast — gray ceiling pressing down like the weight of watching cowards scatter.

Detroit: 28°, snow flurries — tiny white flags of surrender drifting past boarded storefronts.

Kansas City: 41°, fog — can't see three feet ahead, perfect metaphor for governance by panic.

New York: 38°, drizzle — cold rain on your face like reality you can't wipe away.

San Francisco: 59°, partly cloudy — sun breaking through in patches, the way resistance always does.

Miami: 76°, humid — thick air you have to push through just to breathe, just to exist.

The rats are abandoning ship with their life vests already inflated, and honestly? Good fucking riddance. Congressional retirements hit a decade-high because even the architects of this shitshow can smell the fire they started. Meanwhile that turd-munching ass-waffle Trump's trying to claim credit for a bridge Canada built, because of course he is.

First time here? Welcome to The Gathering—pull up a chair.

Editor's note: Some mornings I wake up and the absurdity hits before the coffee does—today was one of those mornings.

Twenty-eight members of Congress announced they're not running for reelection—the highest number in a decade. They're citing "family time" and "new opportunities" like we can't see them fleeing a building they set on fire.

What they said: "After careful consideration with my family, I've decided not to seek reelection."

Let's translate that corporate-speak bullshit: I don't want my name attached to what's coming. These are the same cock-juggling thunder-cunts who spent years dismantling voting rights, gutting environmental protections, and criminalizing existence for anyone who doesn't look like a 1950s Christmas card. Now they're running—not because they found Jesus or suddenly give a shit about their kids' soccer games, but because the polls are apocalyptic and their donors are nervous.

The damage:

Human cost: 28 seats in play means $47 million minimum in campaign spending, districts thrown into chaos, and communities losing institutional knowledge—however compromised.

Pattern: This mirrors 2018's pre-blue wave exodus (41 retirements) and 2008's financial crisis scramble (29 retirements). When politicians smell their own failure, they bolt.

Action: Track your district's race at Ballotpedia. Register voters. Fund organizers doing ground work. Donate here.

Response: Fair Fight and Movement Voter Project already deployed 342 organizers across contested districts. You can phonebank from home—sign up here.

The ship is sinking and the architects are grabbing lifeboats while you're still in steerage.

Global renewable capacity hit 4,500 GW in 2025, but we're not celebrating because the math doesn't fucking add up. We need to triple that by 2030 to avoid climate catastrophe, and right now we're on track to maybe double it if everything goes perfectly—which it won't.

Evidence:

Relationship breaking: Small-scale farmers in Gujarat watched monsoons shift three weeks late for five consecutive years. Traditional planting calendars passed down for generations? Useless. Crop failures? Routine.

Scale in felt terms: Your tomatoes cost more because California's water allocation system collapsed. Your insurance premiums doubled because hurricanes now have names we can't pronounce and trajectories that defy historical patterns.

Expert voice: Dr. Fatih Birol at the International Energy Agency warned in 2023 that "incremental change is indistinguishable from failure." Governments ignored him.

System connection: This isn't technical failure—it's political sabotage. Fossil fuel subsidies still hit $7 trillion globally while solar installation grants get slashed by shit-stained ball-sacks who profit from keeping us dependent on dying energy systems.

Action: Community solar projects added 1,800 MW last year—join one here. Pressure representatives for Green New Deal legislation here.

We're building lifeboats while they're drilling holes in the hull.

Fox News published 169 articles about transgender people in six weeks. Not 169 stories about trans issues—169 separate pieces of content designed to manufacture fear of 0.6% of the population. That's roughly one panic attack every six hours, algorithmically optimized.

Stakes:

Legal shift: 14 states now have laws restricting gender-affirming care for minors (up from 6 in 2024). Texas just proposed making it a felony for parents to support their trans kids—criminal charges for love.

Pattern: This follows the exact playbook used against gay marriage (2004-2015), against integration (1954-1970), against women voting (1848-1920). Find a vulnerable population, manufacture threat, legislate hatred, repeat.

Timeline: From Trump's 2017 military ban to 2026's legislative avalanche, we've watched rights systematically stripped while dick-sniffing butt-trumpets on cable news treat human existence like a debate topic.

What the actual fuck is happening when a major news network dedicates more coverage to policing bathrooms than to lead in drinking water, collapsing infrastructure, or wage theft stealing $50 billion annually from workers? This is intentional distraction dressed up as concern—and people are dying because of it. Trans youth suicide attempts are up 73% in states with hostile legislation.

Movement: The Trevor Project trained 2,400 crisis counselors last month. GLSEN reached 890 schools with inclusive curriculum. National Center for Transgender Equality needs funds here.

You exist. That is not negotiable. That is not up for debate.

Survival wisdom—how you carry this forward: This morning's news hits like a fist because it's designed to. The cowards fleeing Congress, the climate math that doesn't add up, the manufactured panic about people just trying to exist—it's all connected by the same thread of calculated cruelty. Lorde knew that liberation isn't fucking piecemeal. You can't be free while your neighbor is criminalized for loving who they love. You can't breathe clean air while someone else's water runs brown with poison. Your liberation is tangled up with mine, with theirs, with everyone's. The shackles look different—some are legislative, some are atmospheric, some are broadcast 24/7 on cable news—but they're forged in the same goddamn furnace. So when you feel overwhelmed today, remember: you're not fighting alone, and you're not fighting separate battles. We're dismantling the same machine, one bolt at a time.

Chappell Roan dropped her Coachella contract after organizer Casey Wasserman's Epstein ties surfaced. She walked away from $2.3 million because some money stinks. Read more

Republican Congresswoman melted down over being called "cisgender," demanding we stop using "accurate descriptive terms" that make her uncomfortable. The irony is chef's kiss. Read more

100 companies committed to triple renewable energy use by 2030—proving that when corporations actually get serious, they can move faster than governments paralyzed by fossil fuel cash. Read more

Renewable electricity capacity grew 18% in 2024, the fastest expansion since measurement began, led by solar deployments in India, China, and the U.S. Read more

Email Avalanche → Unroll.me aggregates subscriptions into one daily digest. You see everything but your inbox isn't a fucking warzone.
Feeling: That exhale when you realize you can actually find important messages again.

Grocery Bill Creep → Imperfect Foods delivers "ugly" produce at 40% less than grocery chains. Same nutrition, different aesthetics, fewer middlemen.
Feeling: The quiet satisfaction of beating a rigged system with $87/month back in your pocket.

Morning Chaos → Night-before routine: keys/wallet/phone in one basket by the door. Same spot, every night, zero thinking required.
Feeling: Your nervous system calming because your brain isn't burning glucose hunting for car keys at 7:43 AM.

Winter Citrus → Slice blood oranges thin, drizzle with olive oil and flaky salt, eat with your hands over the sink. 8 minutes including cleanup.
Seasonal truth: February citrus has twice the vitamin C because you need it when the sun hides.

Pantry Sovereignty → Grow green onions in a jar on your windowsill—cut tops, leave roots in water, they regrow in 5 days. Free food, indefinitely.
Fuck grocery markups: Those $2.99 bundles now cost you 14 cents for seeds and tap water.

Fast Dinner → Canned chickpeas, garlic, lemon, tahini, olive oil, salt, cumin. Blend. Feeds four humans with pita or vegetables. Under 10 minutes.
This matters: Cheap, filling, no animal suffering, no corporate profit margins, just food.

Moving forward—your armor for today: You're going to log off in a minute and face a world that feels designed to crush you. Camus wrote those words while actual fascists controlled his country—he knew something about unfree worlds. Here's what he understood that we keep forgetting: freedom isn't a gift someone gives you, it's a fact you embody. When you show up as yourself—when you love who you love, when you feed your neighbors, when you grow food on your windowsill, when you refuse to shrink—you're not asking permission, you're demonstrating reality. The politicians fleeing Congress, the bigots screaming about bathrooms, the corporations hoarding dying energy—they're all trying to make you believe freedom is scarce, conditional, something you have to earn by being smaller. Fuck that. Your existence—full, loud, complicated, human—is already the rebellion. The system is terrified of people who refuse to play the game. So don't. Just exist, fully. That's the work.