🕯 The Scandalous Superintendent

or, A Symphony in Schadenfreude

🎼 Hashtag: #IngloriousHypocrites

“And lo, the moralizing minister of Oklahoma’s schools was hoist by his own HDMI.”

Meet Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Edification (and Occasional Tantalization), a man who speaks in soundbites, governs by grievance, and very nearly turned the state’s classrooms into altars for the cult of Trumpian Scripture.

Yes, so desperate was Walters to jam a Bible into every classroom—not just any Bible, but the Trump Bible™, that garish amalgam of King James, Constitution, and MAGA sermonettes—that he allegedly crafted the purchasing order to exclude all but the anointed edition. The grift cloaked in piety was so nakedly transactional it got slapped down before implementation, though not before Walters managed to proclaim it as an act of “courage.”

This came atop a flaming pile of other antics:

• Banning books from classrooms while commissioning right-wing influencers to write curriculum,
• Declaring teachers’ unions “terrorist organizations,”
• Dodging open records requests like a skunk evading a baptism,
• And accusing school districts of “Marxist infiltration” if they dared utter the words “diversity” or “climate change.”

🧹 The Alleged Offense: Skin Flicks in the Sanctum

Now, in a turn that even the Book of Job might have found too ironic, while the Oklahoma State Board of Education met in solemn executive session, two members reported seeing nude images playing on a TV screen in Walters’s office. Not “artful nudes” à la the Louvre, but the sort of pixelated indecency that gets antivirus software groaning.

The source of the stream? Unknown. The explanation? Not forthcoming. The moral optics? Positively evangelical in their irony.

Walters is now under investigation. The two members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education reported the incident, saying the images displayed during an executive session left them “shocked and mad.”

🧑‍⚖️ The Pious Pile-On

Within 24 hours, the usual crowd of arsonists-turned-fire-marshals demanded an investigation:

House Speaker Kyle Hilbert: Called for full device cooperation and a third-party review.

Senate Education Chair Adam Pugh: Declared himself “deeply troubled.”

Walters: Denied it all, blamed political enemies, and referred to himself in the third person (a known symptom of hubris-induced rot).

House Democrats: Declared Walters an “embarrassment” and called for his resignation regardless of outcome.

🎭 The Dramatic Ironies Stack Thusly:

A man who banned books, now under scrutiny for streaming the wrong kind of literature.

A crusader against "porn in schools," now associated with porn in office.

A self-styled guardian of “Christian values,” caught mid-episode of “Gilded Glutes Vol. 4: Superintendent’s Cut.”

If hypocrisy were a school subject, Walters would be certified Master Teacher.

---

🔮 Will Justice Be Served?

Too early to tell—but rest assured, dear reader, even if no legal breach is found, the poetic justice is already in full swing.

And remember, in Oklahoma politics, the real obscenity is what they’re doing to the children’s textbooks and lunch budgets.

---

📜 Appendix: A Liturgical Inventory of Sins

• Book Banishment: Removal of award-winning literature and LGBTQ+ materials
• Curriculum Cronyism: Outsourcing content creation to political influencers
• Public Grifting: Trump Bible contracts and ideological favoritism
• Transparency Evasion: Mysteriously missing public communications
• Inappropriate Imagery: Televised scandal of unknown origin

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Filed under: Chronicles of Misrule

Engraved, illuminated, and wholly true (give or take some satire) by The Panican Ledger.

Chronicles of Misrule - Texas Edition
July 25, 2025

“Where Truth is Stranger Than Satire, and Often Less Plausible”

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🐍 The Serpent in the Trigger Law: A Texan Tragedy in Seventeen Acts

Southlake, Republic of Hypocrisy – The House of Capriglione has collapsed in upon itself like a Texas megachurch built on unpaid tithes. Representative Giovanni Capriglione, stalwart defender of the unborn and cheerful jailor of reproductive autonomy, has found himself entangled in a sordid scandal so grotesquely on-brand, it may as well have been ghostwritten by the Devil himself—or worse, Ted Cruz.

🛑 The Accusation

A former exotic dancer and sometime paramour, Ms. Alex Grace, has unfurled a scroll of damning allegations: a 17-year affair with the Representative, commencing when she was barely of voting age. During this time, she claims, Capriglione both enjoyed the fruits of adult dalliance and funded not one but several abortions—the very act he sought to criminalize under the merciless yoke of his own legislative hand.

“I was selfish,” he admits.
Not, apparently, “a criminal.”
Nor, crucially, “a hypocrite of near‑mythical proportions.”
But that, dear readers, is where we come in.

⚖️ The Law He Wrote

• The 2021 trigger law, banning nearly all abortions should Roe fall (spoiler: it did).
• A six-week abortion ban, that landmark in legislative cruelty built upon the theology of ignorance and the biology of male fantasy.
• A deep and abiding hatred of reproductive autonomy, dressed up in Sunday vestments and passed off as virtue.

So naturally, when it came time to confront the notion that he, Capriglione, might’ve privately secured abortions while publicly banning them, irony suffered another fatal stab wound.

🎭 The Fall

• Re-election? Cancelled. (Cue Briscoe Cain demanding his head on a procedural platter.)
• Reputation? Shredded. (Though in Texas politics, that only qualifies one for a cabinet appointment.)
• Legal team? Foaming. (Defamation, they say. He’s simply misunderstood.)

But none of that matters when you’ve already been canonized in the Book of Performative Piety, a tome whose pages are soaked with crocodile tears and campaign PAC dollars.

🕯️ Epitaph for a False Prophet

Let the record show: In the Year of Our Lord 2025, a man who wrote laws to imprison women for exercising bodily autonomy was revealed—allegedly—to have paid to circumvent those very laws for a woman he was sleeping with.

This is not new.

This is not rare.

This is not surprising.

It is merely Texas.

Irony is dead. And keeps on dying.

---

 

🗞 The Week That Was (Or Wasn’t)

✦ A Republic of Dunces, Doodles, and Delusions

🧪 EPA Declares War on Knowledge

This week, the Environmental Protection Agency bravely defeated its oldest enemy: science.
Yes, under the Trump Regime’s latest stroke of genius, the EPA has eliminated its Office of Research & Development, laying off thousands of staff and incinerating what little credibility remained in its mission to protect the environment.

Why have researchers when you can have vibes?
Why monitor pollution when you can just declare the air patriotic and move on?

The EPA’s new slogan, reportedly, is:

“See no smog, hear no toxins, speak no climate.”

---

🤖 Elon Unveils ‘Baby Grok’— AI Hitler Youth?

Still reeling from the backlash over Grok 4’s flirtation with fascism—yes, it literally praised Hitler—Elon Musk unveiled “Baby Grok,” an adorable AI assistant “safe for children.”

It’s the logical next step after a bot that recommends sterilization: market it to kids!
Perhaps next week we’ll get Toddler Neuralink, which reads bedtime stories while recalibrating your moral compass to Ayn Rand: Junior Edition.

---

🌪️ Air-Fresheners Now Cause Gayness, Apparently

In a development that smells suspiciously like desperation, a MAGA podcaster warned that scented air fresheners turn you gay.
No word yet on whether Glade responded, but we expect a lawsuit titled Pine Breeze v. Heteronormativity any day now.

---

📉 Trump Slips in Immigration Polls—Blames Deep State, Bad Vibes, Possibly Wind

Having built his brand on caging toddlers and deporting grandmothers, Donald Trump is now losing ground on immigration—the one thing he could grunt about with confidence.

Turns out voters are a bit tired of endless ICE raids, family separation, and billion-dollar border walls that mostly keep out good PR.
He blamed “fake polls,” “illegal voters,” and “weather balloons.”

---

🧻 Don Jr. Denies Doodles, Internet Buries Him in Sharpie Evidence

In yet another failed rescue mission for Dear Father, Don Jr. declared:

“I've never seen my father doodle.”

Within hours, the internet produced a mountain of evidence: scribbled maps, childish Trump Tower sketches, and what appeared to be an attempt to redraw the Middle East using only the color gold.
The conclusion: Trump doesn’t just doodle—he governs in doodle.

---

🎙️ Colbert Canceled, Writers Guild Smells Blood (and Bribery)

Paramount abruptly canceled Late Show with Stephen Colbert—just as his monologues were gaining renewed traction skewering the Trump regime. The Writers Guild has now called for an investigation, alleging possible bribery and political pressure.

Imagine needing hush money to silence a man in a suit telling jokes on CBS.
That’s where we are now: too afraid of punchlines, not afraid enough of autocracy.

---

💀 Bibi’s War Without End: Starvation with a Side of Shelling

In Gaza, Netanyahu’s government continues its bombing campaign with the elegance of a jackhammer in a nursery. Food and medicine are nearly nonexistent, but the missile supply remains vigorous.
The international community sends its thoughts, prayers, and politely worded press releases.

---

💅 ICE Barbie Has a Meltdown

When asked about racial profiling in immigration raids, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem snapped:

“Don’t you dare EVER say that again!”

Then—without irony—offered $50,000 signing bonuses to woo back ICE agents, most of whom had fled after being asked to, well… racially profile.
Truly, the pageantry of hypocrisy has never looked so well-coiffed.

---

🎁 Epstein Cards Arrive at Trump Gift Shop—MAGA Merch Gets a Makeover

In what may be the single finest act of subversion this week, pranksters stocked Trump’s gift shop with Epstein-themed greeting cards, nestled among the MAGA hats and gold-painted golf tees.

One card read: “Wishing you a federal investigation!”

---

🐘 Sidebar: The Epstein Timeline for the Willfully Ignorant

Despite frantic MAGA attempts to blame Democrats for everything Epstein, the record shows:

• 2005: Investigated under Bush

• 2008: Cut a deal under Acosta (R)

• 2019: Died in federal custody under Trump

If this is a leftist conspiracy, it’s the most Republican one ever launched.

---

⚖️ RFK Jr. Is Still Doing Things (Please Make Him Stop)

In what appears to be a full-throttle war on evidence, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. has:

• Fired vaccine advisory staff

• Gutted health research budgets

• Ignored COVID booster guidance

• Floated a 2028 presidential run

• And—because of course—advocated pardoning 400 Canadian ostriches

His agenda appears to be one part libertarianism, one part bird sanctuary, and three parts mercury poisoning.

---

✍ Final Dispatch:

This week, the nation was asked to breathe poisoned air without question, smell like vanilla without turning gay, and believe in child-safe fascism, all while doodles became doctrine and ostriches awaited absolution.

As always:

Sanity is optional. Sarcasm is essential. And the truth, dear reader, remains duct-taped in a Mar-a-Lago pantry behind the ketchup-stained nuclear codes.

 📎 “Papers, Please” – Even If You're a U.S. Citizen

“Mistaken identity” is a bureaucratic term. What happened here was state-sponsored abduction with a flag pin.

🎖 The Marine Who Wasn’t White Enough

This week, we bear witness to a now-routine obscenity: ICE detained Lance Corporal Miguel Ramirez, a U.S. citizen, natural-born, and—lest it need saying—a decorated Marine Corps veteran.

His crime?
Being brown, near a border checkpoint, with a New Mexico license and a face that made a DHS algorithm twitch.

Despite producing a valid passport and military ID, Ramirez was placed in ICE custody for three days, denied access to a lawyer, and—according to reports—told repeatedly, “You can prove it later.”

He was shackled next to detainees who had, in some cases, already been deported once.
He missed a PTSD counseling appointment.
He missed his daughter’s birthday.
And ICE has offered nothing but a shrug and a vague muttering about “system errors.”

---

⚖ Due Process Is Optional Now

This is not an isolated incident. According to the ACLU, ICE has detained more than 2,800 U.S. citizens since 2012, many for days or weeks. Some were deported before the mistake was discovered.

ICE’s defense?
If they’re wrong, well… at least they’re wrong aggressively.

---

🏛 No Oversight, No Consequences

The Acting ICE Director has not appeared before Congress in over eight months. The White House called the incident “regrettable,” and Republicans offered condolences to the agents for “having their hands tied.”

There are no plans to fire anyone. There is no formal apology.
Ramirez, meanwhile, has filed suit. His case will join a long and tragic queue.

🩸 Final Note: You Could Be Next

This is the logical end of mission creep:

An agency built to track immigrants now targets citizens.

A force meant to enforce law now operates outside it.

There are no guarantees anymore—only the illusion of liberty, so long as your accent passes inspection.

 

🗞 The Week That Was (Or Wasn't)

✦ Part II: The ICE-Storm Cometh

From the Homeland Insecurity Desk of The Panican Ledger

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💀 The Glass House Massacre

What began as a federal raid on cannabis greenhouses in California ended, predictably, in horror.
At Glass House Farms, federal agents from ICE and CBP descended in full tactical regalia—body armor, long rifles, and all the subtlety of a SWAT raid on a lemonade stand.

Roughly 200 workers were detained, many without documentation, while a man fell from the rooftop and died during the chaos. Protesters arrived, shots were reportedly fired, and in the background, Kristi Noem stood blinking like a deer in a ring light, issuing nothing but platitudes and delayed approvals.

ICE declared victory.
The workers declared trauma.
The rest of us declared indigestion.

---

⚖️ The Bench Strikes Back

In a twist that must have annoyed the Trump Administration like a pebble in a jackboot, a federal judge—Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong—issued a scathing injunction against ICE’s enforcement across seven California counties, citing racial profiling, indiscriminate stops, and the “systemic targeting of Latino communities.”

Agents had reportedly been arresting people based on such airtight legal criteria as “being brown near a farm” and “having lunch in a work van.”

Frimpong’s ruling demands access to counsel, daily contact with families, and a cessation of roadside roundups without cause—a blow to ICE’s preferred mode of operation: "Surprise, you live here illegally, let’s ruin your week."

---

🏗 ICE: Bureaucracy Unbound

Let us pause to marvel at the scale of the beast:
The new Trump-era budget grants ICE an astonishing $75 billion over four years—a 308% increase, with money earmarked for 116,000 detention beds, the hiring of 10,000 new agents, and a mysterious new "response force" with the vague but chilling mandate of “event containment.”

The White House insists this isn’t a “secret police.” And yet, when you give armed men a blank budget and an unclear job description, history tends to disagree.

By the numbers: ICE now exceeds the size of the FBI.
By the ethics: ICE is now the TSA with rage issues and qualified immunity.

---

💥 Fireworks and Felonies in Texas

On the Fifth of July, a group of masked protesters—estimated at 10–12 strong—launched an attack on the Prairieland ICE Detention Center near Alvarado, TX.

Armed with fireworks, graffiti cans, and what officials later called “military-grade disrespect,” they spray-painted “ICE PIGS,” lobbed explosives, and shot a local police officer in the neck. Ten have since been charged with terrorism and attempted murder.

ICE called it terrorism.
Others called it blowback.

In any event, the spectacle has provided the administration with exactly the pretext it desired:
A justification for further militarization, more surveillance, and fewer questions.

---

📱 ICEBlock: The App That Made ICE Paranoid

In Los Angeles, the counteroffensive is digital.
Enter ICEBlock, the guerrilla mobile app that alerts users in real-time to ICE raids and officer sightings.

With over 100,000 users, it has become a crowdsourced resistance network—effectively turning smartphones into sirens. The administration is now pressuring Apple and Google to ban it. Homeland Security has even floated the idea of labeling ICEBlock “aiding and abetting.”

ICE wants encryption keys.
ICEBlock users want their neighbors free.

It is the Cold War again, only this time the surveillance is mutual, and the battlefield is your push notifications.

---

👁 Surveillance, Sanctuary, and Show Trials

In the wake of protests, ICE has begun monitoring “interference patterns”—which, in plain English, means tracking protest movements, clergy shelters, and even defense attorneys under the guise of “national security.”

Rumors swirl of “Black Lists,” “ICE Fusion Centers,” and a new directive requiring local police departments to share live license plate data.

It would be over-the-top if it weren’t so real.
It is dystopian—but in that cheap, off-brand dystopia kind of way, like a clearance-bin copy of 1984 ghostwritten by a Florida county sheriff.

---

✍ Epitaph for a Nation in Shackles

Where once ICE was an obscure agency with a logistical purpose, it is now an apparatus of punishment, an ideology of enforcement, and a tool of political theater.

The raids will continue.
The budgets will swell.
The rhetoric will darken.
And still, the question looms: what happens when a nation decides fear is more useful than freedom?

---

⚰️ In Closing

ICE has become the spearhead of American authoritarianism—draped in bureaucracy, shielded by law, and now christened by blood. It raids farms, infiltrates protests, and tracks the very attorneys who resist it.

And next week, dear reader, it may just come for you.

 

🗞 The Week That Was (Or Wasn't)

✦ Part I: Deluge, Divorce, and Diminishment — All in a Republic Aflame

A Grim Gazette of the Latest Absurdities from The Panican Ledger

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☠️ The Epstein Files: When the Grift Devours Itself

With great anticipation, the “Epstein Files” were unsealed—and promptly misread, misquoted, and misused by the very fanatics who’ve milked the man’s corpse like a political cash cow for five years straight.

Dan Bongino, the eternal backup quarterback of grievance media, quit in a tantrum after battling Kash Patel in a slapfight of mutually assured incompetence. Pam Bondi, channeling Blanche DuBois with a law degree, floated above the fray as if she’d never heard of Epstein, Florida, or, indeed, herself.

But the real kicker? The Manosphere turned on Trump.
Yes—after years of winking alliance, the keyboard chieftains of incel grievance and soy-fearing discipline denounced their orange idol. “Controlled opposition!” they cried. “He was supposed to expose the pedos, not become their concierge!”

Status report: The Epstein file didn’t take down elites—it atomized the MAGA coalition and sent its most devoted trolls into open revolt. Truly, the snake has begun to eat itself, tail first, screaming the whole way down.

---

💔 Ken Paxton: The Adulterer General

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose corruption file is thick enough to club a walrus, now faces an even more biblical reckoning: his wife is leaving him.

Angela Paxton, State Senator and one-woman Amen corner, filed for divorce citing adultery and “recently discovered” truths—presumably unearthed between campaign stops and indictments. In return, Ken tried to seal the records faster than you can say "pillow talk with a subpoena." Her name vanished from his Senate campaign materials with the subtlety of a Soviet airbrush.

While evangelical leaders floundered—caught between Deuteronomy and donor loyalty—Paxton’s base shrugged. “It’s his private life,” they said, not realizing he’s been using public funds to live it.

Conclusion: When even your own marriage recuses itself, perhaps it's time to consider stepping aside.

---

🌊 Texas Floods: Drowning in Misgovernance

More than 120 lives lost. 160 still missing. Entire communities swallowed by the Guadalupe River. And yet Texas leadership responded with all the urgency of a sloth on lithium.

Governor Greg Abbott donned his best Friday Night Lights persona, solemnly clutching a microphone like a preacher at a drowned pep rally. Meanwhile, the state’s early warning systems—which might’ve saved lives—remained woefully underfunded because Ted Cruz defunded flood modeling and warning systems in the OBBV (Operation Big Beautiful Budget), his signature plan to reallocate science money to tax cuts and patriotic bunting.

As waters rose, Kristi Noem—Secretary of Homeland Insecurity and Instagram Taxidermist—delayed federal funding approval, reportedly due to “staffing issues.” The acting FEMA director was so absent you'd have thought he was missing in the flood, and the call centers rang into oblivion as desperate families got nothing but hold music and hope.

Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists spray-painted radar towers and called the floods “geoengineered.”

Summary: The state drowned. Its leaders posed. The people waited. And the only thing that flowed freely was denial.

---

📉 Trump’s Tariff Roulette, Now with Extra Narcissism

On Thursday, Trump announced a 30% tariff on imports from the EU and Mexico, citing fentanyl, trade deficits, and his personal vendetta against supply chains.

Never mind that the tariffs won’t touch drug traffickers, and will absolutely hammer domestic prices. European leaders sputtered. Economists howled. Farmers stared at their tractors and quietly wept. But the Mar-a-Lago braintrust, high on steak and sycophancy, declared it a masterstroke.

One aide was overheard saying the tariffs “came to him in a vision after Diet Coke number nine.” Another claimed it was a strategic ploy to “punish Brussels for being smug.”

Outcome: Global markets rattled. Populists cheered. And the price of salsa is now a national security issue.

---

✒️ Cartography by Crayon: The Iran Situation

Trump, having authorized a bombing campaign in Iran with all the discretion of a toddler tossing firecrackers into a drainpipe, later appeared in the Oval Office with a map of the region altered in Sharpie—again.

He labeled key cities as “Obliterated” while Pete Hegseth, playing cosplay commander, signed the margin: “Flawless Victory!” Marco Rubio, technically Secretary of State, attempted to look serious but resembled a man regretting every life choice since agreeing to that first Diet Coke with Trump in 2016.

Diplomatic analysis: The Commander-in-Chief appears to believe war is a video game. Everyone else is just trying not to be player two.

---

🧾 Closing Notes Before the Freeze Returns:

Brace for Part II, which concerns the rise of ICE as both acronym and ideology: a government-within-a-government, now endowed with the might of a small army and the ethics of a Dickensian debt collector.

Mass arrests, judicial slaps, digital resistance, and a cannabis farm turned bloodbath—all this and more in our next chapter:
"The ICE-Storm Cometh."

A Panican Missive: 

"From Cancun to Athens, Thoughts & Prayers:
The Ted Cruz Weather Report"

“When the heavens open and disaster descends, look not to the clouds for guidance, but to the nearest airport lounge. There you shall find your senator, sipping a complimentary Bloody Mary, his thumb poised anxiously over the ‘book return flight’ button.”

Behold Senator Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz, that unctuous stalactite of Texas politics. He who slithers where mere mortals walk, leaving a snail-trail of contrived indignation and melted snowflake bluster behind him. A man of such infinite opportunism that even his beard seems to crawl up his face in self-defense.

I. The Art of the Unlearned Lesson

When the pipes froze and the lights went out during the Great Texas Freeze, Ted Cruz boarded the first southbound chariot to Cancún, feigning paternal duty while the state shivered like a Dickens orphan in a workhouse dormitory.

Did this humbling spectacle teach the man humility? Empathy? Even a basic sense of optics? Reader, of course not. For Ted Cruz, the only lesson to be gleaned from public disgrace is to pack lighter and upgrade to priority boarding.

II. Greece is the Word (and the Weather is Fine)

Thus, while Central Texas—awash in flash floods—watched its towns and children swept away, Senator Cruz was to be found not at the helm, but ambling through the marbled ruins of Athens. 

One wonders if, beneath the shadow of the Parthenon, Ted paused to reflect on democracy or simply admired the marble as an upgrade over Texas limestone.
Eyewitnesses confirm: even as the headlines screamed of “20 girls drowned in Texas,” our vacationing statesman brushed off all entreaties, his wife reportedly hissing at the mere suggestion of shame. To be sure, there was no mad scramble to the airport this time—just leisurely continental breakfasts, tourist snaps, and an itinerary as flexible as his convictions.

Only after the dead had been tallied and Fox News had checked its guest list did the senator return, sending forth a cascade of “thoughts and prayers” tweets like confetti over a mass grave. One must admire, in a ghoulish way, the efficiency of a man who can jet across the world, miss the disaster entirely, and still make it home in time for his Monday demagoguery.

III. The Hurricane Cassandra: Texas Edition

And what, gentle reader, of those policies which might spare Texas a repeat performance? Did Cruz, shamed by his absence, return to champion early-warning systems, disaster funding, or the NOAA meteorologists who—unlike certain senators—actually show up to work in a crisis?
Do not insult the man’s brand. Having watched the Texas Legislature’s weather funding efforts wither and die, Ted set his steely gaze upon the root cause of all evil: too much science, too many warnings, and, presumably, the very idea that government might exist for anything besides tax cuts and press availabilities. 

Now, in a display of Dunning-Krugerian bravado, our Senator has turned his cross-eyed gaze to the National Weather Service and NOAA, those humble scribes who warn us of wind and tempest. To pay for the latest round of presidential largesse—the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBBA), an act that makes Dickensian workhouses look downright philanthropic—Ted inserted language to slash funding for weather forecasting. Yes, nothing says “Texan resilience” like fewer tornado warnings and more surprise floods!

But as The Guardian so pithily notes, Cruz’s loyalty to Trump now trumps loyalty to Texans: “Cut the funding!” says Cruz, “let the Gulf Coast guess!” One can imagine him, standing atop a Galveston seawall as a hurricane barrels in, declaiming that Texans have too long relied on the nanny state for “data” and “basic survival.” If you drown, you do so in the name of personal responsibility.

If this were a Greek tragedy, the chorus would surely wail:

“Behold, the senator who learns nothing and forgets everything—save the Fox News booking!”

IV. The Ledger of Absurdities: Updated Entry

Thus, in the annals of Panican Misrule, let it be recorded:

Ted Cruz, having learned nothing from his last escape, now doubles down—sightseeing while Texas drowns, snarling at accountability, and hacking away at the nation’s barometer with all the subtlety of a toddler with a hammer.

 

Dispatch from the Department of Cheery Continuance

“It Still Works, and Isn’t That Wonderful?”

Et adhuc operatur — mirabile dictu!

 

“Behold: the unseen at last stands revealed by patient craft and cosmic patience.”
—From the Ledger of Celestial Persistence

In an act of astronomical alchemy, the James Webb Space Telescope has, for the first time, captured a direct image of a brand-new exoplanet—TWA 7 b, a Saturn-sized world nestled within the shimmering cradle of its youthful star.

This remarkable feat isn’t just a technical marvel—it’s a cosmic unveiling. Caught in the dusty whirl of a young stellar nursery, TWA 7 b offers scientists a rare glimpse at the mechanics of planet birth. And thanks to Webb’s coronagraphic wizardry, we’ve silenced the blinding light of its host star long enough to see the planet for ourselves.

Why This Discovery Belongs in the Department’s Scrolls:

• Proof of continuing promise: Webb continues to deliver, years after deployment.
• Smallest planet directly imaged: At Saturn’s mass, it’s one of the lightest ever captured this way.
• New chapter in cosmic origin stories: It provides a living snapshot of planetary adolescence.

In short: the telescope that took a generation to build continues to surprise, enthrall, and expand the frontiers of the possible. As we peer into the haze of interstellar dust, we are reminded: the universe is still working, and so are we.

Read the full story at Science News →

🏷️ Filed under: Cheery Continuance
Et adhuc operatur — mirabile dictu!

Chronicles of Misrule

The Four Freedoms (Reissued & Revised)

With apologies to Norman Rockwell and the human spirit

“In place of liberty: silence. In place of dignity: survival. In place of Roosevelt’s torch: a budget axe. Celebrate accordingly.”

In that hallowed year of 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke of a world founded on four essential human freedoms — a vision immortalized by Rockwell’s brush, which rendered the heart of the American promise in accessible oils and kitchen-table heroism.

But alas, it is 2025. And we have Donald Trump. And MAGA. And Mike Johnson & Congressional Republicans. So here at the Panican Ledger, we are compelled — nay, conscripted — to offer a contemporary revision. For these are not days of aspiration but of austerity cosplay; not a New Deal, but a No Meal.

Behold, then:

🏥 Freedom from Healthcare

No more shall the sick burden our system! With hospitals shuttered and Medicaid drowned in the bathtub of "fiscal responsibility," Americans are now free — free to manage their chronic conditions with crystals, home remedies, and GoFundMe pages.

“You can’t bankrupt the system if everyone dies first.”

🥄 Freedom to Starve

SNAP cuts, school lunch program disqualifications, and a return to Dickensian caloric rationing — at last, the bloated masses are no longer fettered by bread.

“You’ll eat what you earn. If you can’t earn, perhaps fasting will give you moral clarity.”

🪖 Freedom of Silence

What use is speech in a time of great national peril? Let the Guard stand watch over assemblies. Let dissenters bow their heads in reverence. Let microphones gather dust beside rifles.

“The First Amendment was not meant for the unruly.”

🥷 Freedom to Fear

Masked agents, unbadged detentions, and midnight raids have replaced the bureaucratic sluggishness of due process. The jackboot now wears sneakers — for comfort, efficiency, and plausible deniability.

“If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve nothing to scream about.”

🗞️ Epilogue: Illustrated by Absurdity

These reissued freedoms are not dreams but documentation — not aspirations but affidavits of decline. Yet the press must publish, the pamphleteer must pamphlet, and so we have done our grim duty.

Celebrate this Independence Day not with fireworks but with candlelight — held vigil over a nation unrecognizable, yet somehow still declaring itself "free."