Happy new year, you radical left scumbags
The only resolution that matters is to survive 2026
I submit for the record today’s dispatch from the crumbling American empire.
I’m wishing you all a happy new year, despite the fact that I know we’re in for anything but happiness, or growth, or prosperity. Normally, I’d never kick off a new year being such a downer, but [motions at literally everything around us.]
At the stroke of midnight, as the ball dropped and champagne corks popped across the country, the Trump regime delivered a devastating blow to the American people—millions lost access to anything resembling affordable healthcare. This, not to mention another year of fascism stretching out before us like a prison sentence we’re serving for a crime we didn’t commit.
Out with the old, in with the same old same old.
I see no reason for celebration. Fuck a ball drop—I’m saving up to celebrate when the One Big Beautiful Obituary drops. Let’s hold out hope and remember that anything is possible. May the odds be ever in our favor.
This is your report for January 1, 2026.
The Lede
On New Year’s Eve, as Trump was auctioning off a painting of white Jesus to a room full of billionaire assholes at Mar-a-Lago, the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced subsidies expired—and with them, any remaining pretense among the ignorant that this regime gives a single solitary fuck about whether they live or die. We with more than three brain cells have known this from day one, but some people are slower than us and will have to feel the sting of illness or a loved ones death before they’re going to wake the fuck up.
For the roughly 22 million Americans who will suffer because of this, their premiums are skyrocketing by an average minimum of 114 percent—over a thousand dollars more per year—because Republicans in Congress wouldn’t extend the tax credits that made coverage affordable for these Americans.
A breast cancer survivor in Indiana watched her family’s annual premium jump from $9,100 to $23,400. A chiropractor and his wife in New Jersey—healthcare providers who can no longer afford their own healthcare—are going uninsured in 2026. A Vermont farmer’s premium is going from $900 a month to $3,200. These aren’t statistics—they’re human beings. People who will delay preventative care and surgeries, people who will ration or skip medications altogether, and yes—people who are going to die. For this regime, the cruelty is always the point.
The Report
PAY MORE, GET LESS
As if the ACA disaster weren’t enough, pharmaceutical companies are ringing in the new year by raising prices on at least 350 medications—including vaccines for COVID, RSV, and shingles, plus cancer treatments like Ibrance. The median increase is about 4 percent, but Pfizer’s jacking up its COVID vaccine by 15 percent. This comes despite Trump’s much-touted “most favored nation” deals with 14 drugmakers, which apparently did jack shit to stop companies from continuing to gouge Americans who already pay nearly three times more for medications than people in other developed countries. Trump bragged that these deals represented “the greatest victory for patient affordability in the history of American health care.” Pfizer, GSK, Sanofi, Novartis, and Boehringer Ingelheim—all signatories to those deals—are raising prices anyway. May he choke on his lies. Meanwhile, the con continues…
INJUSTICE SERVED
The House Judiciary Committee released Jack Smith’s 255-page deposition transcript on New Year’s Eve, and it’s exactly as damning as you’d expect. The former special counsel told lawmakers his team “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump was guilty of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and illegally retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Smith called Trump “the most culpable and most responsible person” in the January 6th conspiracy and said the Capitol riot “does not happen” without him. He revealed that Republicans—including a former congressman who was going to be a Trump elector in Pennsylvania—were prepared to testify that “what they were trying to do was an attempt to overthrow the government and was illegal.” Even Rudy “Colludy” Giuliani, in a recorded interview, “disavowed a number of the claims” about voter fraud. Of course, none of this shit matters now. The felon took office, the cases were dismissed, and Smith himself expects to be indicted for doing his job which was to follow the facts and the law. That used to mean something.
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HEART? WHAT HEART?
In a Wall Street Journal interview, Trump dismissed concerns about his health—the sleeping during public appearances, the thick patches of makeup covering bruises on his hands, the MRI or CT scan or whatever the fuck he had. The ridiculous orange shitweasel then revealed he takes 325mg of aspirin daily—about four times the typically recommended dose—and does so against his doctors’ advice. “They’d rather have me take the smaller one,” Trump said. “I take the larger one.” He explained he wants “nice, thin blood pouring through my heart.” The man who mocked Biden’s mental acuity for years is now publicly admitting he ignores his doctors’ medical advice which is on-brand for a dumb fuck who stares directly into a solar eclipse, but hey—I’m actually with Trump on this one. I think he should take forty-four times the recommended dosage, and ignore all the expert medical advice any reputable doctors give him. Instead, he should look to RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, and Ronald McDonald for guidance on all future health decisions.
BONJOUR, MOTHERFUCKERS
George Clooney is a real bastard—he’s insanely handsome, filthy rich, and no longer living in the United States thanks to his newly obtained French citizenship. Of course, he’s not really a bastard—I’m just jealous he cllimbed out of the dumpster fire before any of us did. Of course, Dear Leader attacked the actor—calling him “one of the worst political prognosticators of all time” with “totally mediocre movies.” Clearly, the very stable genius has never seen a Clooney film, nor does he have any idea what the word “prognosticator” means. Clooney fired back: ”I totally agree with the current president. We have to make America great again. We’ll start in November.” Let the orange piece of shit stress over that for the next eleven months. I hear lots of stress is bad for one’s health even though, according to him, he’s in “perfect health.” Be a damn shame if something happened to his “perfect health.”
The Rest
New immigration restrictions now in effect: Travel to the U.S. from Burkina Faso, Laos, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Syria banned as of today
Trump still contemplating revoking citizenship of Somali Americans
Superbug hits 27 states: A deadly fungus is spreading across the country
The Kicker
That concludes today’s report.
I spent New Year’s Eve the same way I spend most nights—researching rat bastards, reading about atrocities, cataloging cruelties, and trying to process the sheer scale of what’s being done to this country and to us in the past year.
2025 was the dress rehearsal for the horror show that will be 2026.
That’s not doomsaying—it’s our reality. It sucks now, but it’s going to fuck us up soon. They’re just getting started. The cruelty is accelerating. The institutions we counted on to stop all of this have been gutted, captured, or cowed into submission. I hope you aren’t still waiting for someone to swoop in and save us, because that’s not happening. No one is coming—not the courts, not the military, not George Clooney or Taylor Swift or Jesus Christ.
This is the cost of denial. It’s what repeating the lie “it can’t happen here” looks like. It’s what ignoring privilege and taking things for granted gets us. It always had the possibility of happening here. And now it is. Here we go again.
Officially over this stupid shit,
—Zappa
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In Canada the new year brought a big tax break for the middle class extended our dental care greatly and even a trade surplus. I'll keep donating when I can to help keep you caffeinated and writing.
Happy NewYear! Thank you!