🗞 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

☠️ 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."