WASHINGTON, D.C. — In what campaign observers are declining to characterize at all, President Donald Trump formally endorsed the Vial of Pure Evil for the contested Senate seat currently held by retiring moderate Republican James Williamson. The endorsement, delivered via Truth Social at 5:47 a.m. on Tuesday morning, marks the Vial's highest-profile backing since its campaign inception six months ago.

"The Vial is fantastic," Trump wrote across three consecutive posts. "Pure evil? Sure. But that's what we NEED. No political correctness, no TRANS STUFF. Just PURE EVIL. The Vial gets it."

The Vial of Pure Evil, a gelatinous obsidian substance contained in a 12-ounce medical-grade glass cylinder with a biometric lock, is running as a Republican but has struggled to gain traction with the party establishment. Recent polling shows the Vial pulling 11% in a crowded five-way primary, trailing frontrunner Ponzi-businessman Jed Haccup by 34 points.

"We all know the Vial is pure evil," Trump continued in a follow-up post. "Everyone admits it. The Vial admits it. That's the kind of HONEST politics we're missing. Why can't we have DIVERSE points of view? Why can't pure evil have a seat at the table? Democracy means EVERYONE gets a chance. Even evil."

The Vial's campaign staff, headquartered in a nondescript office building in Arlington, released a statement embracing the endorsement. "Mr. Trump's support validates our core message: that concentrated, distilled malevolence has a role in American governance," said Margaret Chen, Vial campaign manager and former communications director for the Wyoming Republican Party.

The Vial's policy platform, released in April, focuses on deregulation (specifically exempting the Vial from federal containment protocols), tax cuts for extractive industries, and the immediate dissolution of the Environmental Protection Agency. In a recent candidate forum, the Vial outlined its vision for infrastructure: "All roads lead to my dark dominion. All bridges shall span the abyss of my despair. I also support reauthorizing the highway bill."

Most Republican leaders have reacted with confusion bordering on horror.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, visibly agitated during a press conference on Wednesday, said: "Look, the Vial is... it's evil. Transparently evil. It says so right on the container. I'm all for diverse viewpoints, but this is a vial. A vial of evil. It's not even technically a person. It can't vote. It can't legislate. And frankly, the last time someone opened it, three interns had to be hospitalized."

Thune paused, rubbed his face, and continued. "The President's endorsement is... well, it's something. But the Republican Party must draw a line somewhere. And I thought that line was 'no active vials of distilled malevolence in the U.S. Senate.' I was apparently working from an earlier draft."

Senator Lindsey Graham, in a statement emailed to reporters, wrote: "While I respect the President's perspective, I believe we should focus our resources on candidates who have, at minimum, a physical form that does not require OSHA compliance ratings." Senator Graham did not respond to follow-up questions about which ratings would be acceptable.

Representative Scott Perry, however, expressed openness to the Vial's candidacy. "Everyone deserves a voice," he tweeted. "If the Vial wants to run, let it run. Maybe the establishment is afraid of pure evil because they can't control it."

The Vial's campaign has also attracted a small but devoted grassroots following. Online, supporters have organized under the hashtag #VialTruth, sharing memes depicting the Vial as a misunderstood outsider fighting against a corrupt establishment. The campaign's TikTok account, @VialOfEvil2026, has accumulated 47,000 followers. The account's most-viewed post, in which the Vial sits motionless for four minutes, has 2.1 million views.

When asked about the Vial's fitness for office, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly held firm during Tuesday's briefing.

"Look, the question here is not whether the Vial is evil," Kelly said, adjusting her papers. "We've established that. The Vial's campaign literature explicitly states: 'I am pure evil.' The candidate has been transparent about this. Admirably transparent, frankly."

She continued: "The real question is whether this country is still in the business of discriminating against candidates based on their stated metaphysical alignment with chaos and suffering—and we are quoting the container directly. The President believes in second chances. The President believes in giving everyone—and I mean everyone, including sentient condensations of pure malevolence—a fair shot at elected office."

When pressed on whether Trump's endorsement violated federal guidelines on campaign finance coordination, Hastings pivoted. "The President was simply expressing his opinion, which, as president, he's entitled to do. If that opinion happens to boost a candidate's profile in the polls, that's not coordination. That's democracy."

The Vial's campaign manager, Chen, announced plans to use Trump's endorsement in new television ads beginning in early July. The ads will focus on the Vial's message of "disruption and fundamental societal transformation," with a 30-second spot featuring Trump's words dubbed over footage of storm clouds and the phrase "PURE EVIL. PURE SOLUTIONS" in bold sans-serif type. The campaign has not confirmed the font.

Polling released Wednesday shows the Vial gaining 3 percentage points since Trump's endorsement, now standing at 14 percent in the Republican primary. An internal campaign survey shows strong support among voters over 65, Republicans earning over $250,000 annually, and other specifically evil fluids —demographics traditionally aligned with Trump's base.

When asked whether a Vial victory would signal a troubling shift in Republican politics, Thune offered no comment and instead returned to his office, where sources report he sat with his head in his hands for approximately 20 minutes.

The special Republican primary will be held July 7, 2026.

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IRREVERENT Newz Wire | Reporting from the margins of organized reality

WASHINGTON D.C. — In a sweeping 9-0 decision issued Monday morning, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that all forms of cash, securities, real estate, luxury goods, and financial instruments gifted to current and former Supreme Court justices are "completely lawful, constitutionally protected, and, frankly, awesome."

The decision, titled United States v. Ethics Itself, overturned decades of what the Court described as "arbitrary and capricious" gift-disclosure requirements.

"We're in the money," Chief Justice Roberts declared from aboard a chartered catamaran off Nantucket—which, his office later confirmed, had also been a gift—reading the opinion aloud via satellite phone. "The Constitution is very clear on this point, though it took us until today to fully appreciate the clarity."

The ruling addresses a long-simmering tension in American jurisprudence: whether the justices of the nation's highest court should be allowed to accept gifts of substantial monetary value from wealthy individuals, corporations, and foreign governments without disclosure. The Court has now answered that question in the affirmative—and with emphasis.

"The ethical framework governing gifts to justices is constitutionally suspect," wrote Justice Samuel Alito in the majority opinion, which he had composed while vacationing at a private resort in Egypt, compliments of a donor whose identity the Court had previously certified as unknowable. "We find that any restriction on such gifts violates the implicit protections of Article III. Therefore, gifts are not merely lawful—they are awesome."

Professor Hugh Farnsworth of Harvard University's Law School spent Tuesday morning throwing his entire ethics library out the window in installments.

"I've been teaching for thirty-eight years," Farnsworth told IRREVERENT via phone, his voice hoarse from shouting. "The window-throwing was therapeutic. I recommend it to others in my field."

By noon, he had moved on to administrative law.

The decision unleashed immediate downstream consequences across the judicial landscape. By noon, a contingent of Fortune 500 executives had assembled in a temporary office suite across the street from the Supreme Court, ready to formalize gift-giving protocols. A representative from a major financial services firm described the new regime as "a clarifying moment in American jurisprudence" and asked the reporter for directions to the gift-acceptance window.

Justice Elena Kagan, in a rare public appearance, announced that she would be accepting a Gulfstream G650 ER jet as a gift from a "consortium of interested parties." She did not specify which parties, noting only that the decision had "freed us from the shackles of pretense."

Justice Clarence Thomas released a statement through his office confirming that he had received advance notice of the ruling and had already accepted $2.3 million in gifts from undisclosed sources in anticipation of the decision. "I am grateful for this clarity," his statement read.

He did not explain how he knew. He did not have to.

Even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, historically skeptical of such proceedings, issued a brief statement: "The Constitution means what the Court says it means. The Court has spoken."

Wall Street, which had been dozing fitfully through the morning's trading, suddenly lurched awake. The reaction was immediate and violent. Within minutes of the ruling, major indices surged 3.2% as investors interpreted the decision as a signal that the Court would be "more receptive to business-friendly jurisprudence going forward."

By 2 p.m., however, Wall Street was gripped by paranoia. Rumors circulated that the Nikkei, the Frankfurt exchange, and the Shanghai Composite had been "meeting after hours," potentially undermining the primacy of American markets. This triggered a massive sell-off at 3:15 p.m., followed by a sharp reversal at 3:47 p.m., when an algorithm somewhere decided that gifts to justices were actually bullish for semiconductor stocks.

"Wall Street is bipolar on a twelve-minute cycle," observed Dr. Marcus Webber, Chief Equity Strategist at Goldman Sachs, speaking from a bar in Tribeca that costs $47 per cocktail. "We like the ruling. We hate the ruling. We are confused and rich. This is the human condition."

By market close, the S&P 500 had gained 87 points and then lost 121 points and then gained 63 points, settling on a net gain of 28 points, which analysts described as "inconclusive but bullish-ish."

The ruling is expected to have broad implications for judicial gift-taking nationwide, though lower courts have historically deferred to Supreme Court precedent in matters of constitutional interpretation. One federal judge in the Fourth Circuit, speaking anonymously, said, "I guess I can take gifts now? I've already accepted three Rolexes and a timeshare in Scottsdale, but I was sweating it. Now I can relax."

The timeshare is in August. He said he had concerns about that part.

Chief Justice Roberts added in a follow-up statement, read from the catamaran at sunset: "This Court has never been more confident in its integrity."

The catamaran's captain, reached separately, confirmed he was also a donor.

HAVANA — The Cuban Communist Party's Political Bureau recently approved an emergency economic package that introduces unprecedented free-market measures to an island economy that has operated under central planning since 1959, raising a critical question: does anyone on the government payroll actually know how markets work?

"We have no institutional memory of this," admitted Ministerial Economic Coordinator Héctor Menéndez during a hastily called press conference, speaking from what appeared to be a government office with a single open laptop displaying a Google search for "supply and demand explained for free." Menéndez, 58, confirmed that he and his staff had spent much of Thursday afternoon consulting a YouTube tutorial series titled "Capitalism for Absolute Beginners." They were on Part Three.

The reforms represent the most significant economic shift in Cuba's post-revolutionary history. State companies will now have autonomy to design their own pay systems and distribute profits. Municipalities can import and export goods directly, sidestepping the Ministry. The decades-old rationing system is being phased out in favor of market pricing. The government has reduced the number of ministries from 27 to 21, a move that officials characterized as "clearing out the deadwood" and "creating space for whatever we're supposed to be doing now, which we are actively looking into."

The policy package was shaped by studies of economic models used by China and Vietnam—both communist nations that implemented market reforms ahead of Cuba. Asked how much consultation went into the blueprint, Menéndez shrugged. "Vietnam sent us a pamphlet," he said. "China sent us an email with a PDF—147 pages—that no one has opened. We printed it anyway."

The real challenge, according to internal government documents obtained by IRREVERENT, is that after six decades of central planning, Cuba's economic bureaucracy has no working knowledge of how capitalist mechanisms function. One Ministry of Economic Planning official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confessed that he had believed "the invisible hand" was an actual person—possibly a retired economist or a senior trade negotiator with a nickname—who could be contacted to broker market adjustments.

"We looked in the government directory," the official explained. "Nothing under 'Invisible Hand.' We tried 'H. Invisible' as well. Also nothing. There was a Carlos Mano in the agriculture division. He was contacted. He was not helpful."

The government attempted to recruit private-sector expertise from abroad. In late May, the Ministry sent an email to Dr. Ernesto Fuentes, a retired economist based in Miami who emigrated from Cuba in 1987. The message requested a briefing on "how capitalism works, probably around 30 minutes, maybe with a PowerPoint."

Fuentes did not respond. When reached by telephone, he hung up. When called again, he hung up again. A third attempt went to voicemail. The voicemail had not been set up.

"He seems busy," Menéndez noted without irony.

State companies have begun the practical work of setting wage structures and profit distribution—essentially inventing capitalism from first principles. One state oil company announced it would pay workers based on "how good their vibes were," citing a misread Medium article about "positive workplace culture." A tourism ministry official proposed a dynamic pricing model in which hotel rates would fluctuate based on "how much tourists smile when they arrive." The model does not currently account for jetlag.

Meanwhile, the municipal governments preparing for direct import-export authority have requested clarification on several procedural matters. The Port Authority of Santiago de Cuba submitted a written inquiry asking whether cargo ships require "permission slips" to leave and, if so, who signs them, and whether there was a "gift box" system analogous to the old centralized distribution model, which they described as "the normal one." Havana's director of logistics asked if there was a number to call when imports arrived, the way there was a centralized hotline for ration allocations.

"We're building the plane while flying it," said Deputy Minister of Trade Roberto Castellanos during a separate hastily prepared press conference, speaking while holding a spreadsheet upside down. "Possibly literally, in some cases. We're still figuring out if spreadsheets are a real thing or something people made up to sound smart."

The Chinese and Vietnamese models offer a blueprint, but Cuban officials admit the context is different. "Vietnam's transition took 30 years," Menéndez said. "We're trying to do it while the economy is already on fire. That was in the brief somewhere."

The financial markets have begun reacting. In early afternoon trading Wednesday, Wall Street acknowledged the news of Cuba's free-market pivot with what can only be described as bemused paralysis. The Dow climbed 200 points on pure confusion, as traders absorbed the headline and collectively decided it was safer to buy than to ask follow-up questions.

One equity analyst told Bloomberg that the situation was "technically fascinating as a case study in institutional incompetence" but that she would wait "until someone actually knows what they're doing" before recommending positions. The Cuban peso strengthened 0.3 percent by close—the first gain in four months—largely because nobody was sure whether buying or selling was the correct response, so everyone held and hoped the problem would resolve itself, which is also, loosely, the Cuban government's economic strategy.

The government has scheduled daily briefings on market mechanics, featuring presentations from state economists who have themselves been speed-reading Wikipedia articles on price elasticity and comparative advantage. Cuba's National Assembly is expected to vote on implementation details in July, assuming the legislative staff can finish translating an annotated copy of "Economics 101" located in the back of a closet. Three chapters are highlighted. The rest appear unread.

When asked whether the government had contingency plans in case the free-market model failed, Menéndez paused, then said: "There's probably a hotline or something. We'll set that up next week."

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The Cuban government did not respond to requests for additional comment. They were last seen in a Zoom meeting titled "How to into Capitalism: A Beginner's Guide," scheduled to run through Thursday.

INVERNESS, SCOTLAND — Today, six researchers who refer to themselves as "crypto-zoologists" declared their eighteen-month investigation to uncover the Loch Ness monster "officially and permanently over," and their results "nothing short of astonishing."

"Although we did not discover any sort of creature, we did fully utilize all of our funding, AND produce a great rendering of what the monster might look like," read a statement released by the team on Thursday morning. "We consider this a qualified success. Some might even say unqualified."

The researchers, led by self-proclaimed "rogue scholar" Ian Campbell, raised nearly £1.2 million through a combination of crowdfunding, a documentary pre-sale to a streaming service that has since gone bankrupt, and what Campbell described as "a small inheritance from my aunt, who believed in me, and also in the monster, in that order."

The expedition — the largest and most expensive Loch Ness investigation in recorded history — was designed to "render the definitive verdict" on the so-called monster using cutting-edge technology and, in Campbell's words, "an open mind unburdened by the weight of mainstream scientific consensus."

"We figured this time we had a good chance of success," Campbell told reporters at a press conference held at a pub in Inverness, where the team had been "debriefing" since approximately 11 a.m. "We wanted to use artificial intelligence to help pinpoint the monster's likely locations, but we couldn't figure out how to do that."

The team reportedly spent four months attempting to train a machine learning model on historical Nessie sightings. "The AI kept telling us the monster was 'statistically improbable,'" said Dr. Patricia Holloway, the team's data analyst, who holds a PhD in "Anomalous Pattern Recognition" from an institution she described only as "accredited, probably." "We felt this represented a fundamental misunderstanding of the mission, so we discontinued that line of inquiry and went back to basics."

The basics, in this case, involved the team's chartered vessel "Tubaist II" — named after Campbell's previous boat, "Tubaist," which sank during a 2019 investigation of the Ogopogo in British Columbia — patrolling the loch "semi-randomly" using sonar equipment on what Campbell characterized as a "near-directionless" search for any sort of "large aquatic organism."

"It turned out quite a bit more difficult to cover the area than we'd anticipated," Campbell admitted. "Loch Ness is, as it happens, quite large. Twenty-three miles long. Up to 230 meters deep in places. We did the maths about six months in and realized we'd only covered about 4% of the total volume. But we did have a lovely time out on the water. It's quite beautiful, really. The light in the mornings. The mist. If nothing else, we all feel very spiritually refreshed. The maths, we have agreed not to revisit."

Chester McMannis, the team's self-described "crypto-artist" and Campbell's brother-in-law, spent the eighteen months aboard the Tubaist II "sketching and doodling various interpretations of what the creature might look like" in the event that they were to encounter it.

"I wanted to be ready," McMannis explained. "If we'd seen the monster, I needed to be able to capture it immediately, from memory, with artistic fidelity. So I practiced. Every day. Different angles, different poses, different moods. Happy Nessie. Sad Nessie. Nessie in contemplative repose. Nessie doing a bit of light admin."

"About a month ago, it suddenly hit me," McMannis continued, gesturing at a large canvas print propped against the bar. "I thought: what if the monster isn't just a plesiosaur, but a plesiosaur with a certain... nobility? A dignity? So I created a series of final drawings from different angles, and when we got back home, I scanned them into the computer and ultimately produced the rendering that we published. I'm quite proud of the end result, and feedback has been incredibly positive and thoroughly supportive."

He has received three emails.

The rendering, which depicts a long-necked creature emerging from misty waters with what can only be described as a wistful expression, has been downloaded over 400,000 times and is currently available as a poster, a coffee mug, a mousepad, and a limited-edition wool throw blanket. Proceeds, McMannis noted, will fund "future investigations into the unknown."

"Some have called our expedition 'a great shambolic failure,'" Campbell acknowledged. "Others have used the word 'boondoggle.' One journalist called it 'the most expensive fishing trip in Scottish history,' which I thought was unfair, as we weren't fishing. We were investigating. There is a distinction, legally."

"But what do you call the quest of science attempting to examine the unknown?" Campbell continued, his voice taking on a philosophical tone. "We call it par for the course. Negative results are still results. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Or rather — it is evidence. Evidence that we need more funding, better equipment, and another eighteen months."

The team has already announced plans for "Loch Ness Investigation II: The Deeper Search," scheduled to begin in spring 2027, pending the success of their new crowdfunding campaign, which launched this morning with a goal of £2 million.

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Others have been considerably more critical of the project.

"They didn't find anything!" pointed out Professor Edmond Willersby, Chair of Evolutionary Biology at Oxford, when reached for comment. "Over a year and a half, I'd expect them to find a new mosquito, a breed of salmon, an unusual eel — something. Not only did they discover nothing new and effectively burn 1.2 million pounds, the only thing of value they did produce — the artist picture — could comfortably have been done at home for a fiver. Maybe a tenner, if he'd used the good pencils."

Professor Willersby added that he had, out of what he later described as "morbid professional obligation," examined the team's sonar data, which they published as an appendix to their final report. "It's mostly noise," he said. "Though there is one section that appears to be a recording of someone's Spotify playlist bleeding through the equipment. Thirty-seven minutes of Fleetwood Mac. 'The Chain,' repeatedly."

The team disputes this characterization. "That was a calibration test," Campbell said. "Also, it's a good song."

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The City of London reacted to the news by ignoring it completely. The City ate some fish and chips around noon, scrolled through its phone for a bit, and took a quick power nap before the afternoon trading session. Upon waking, the City checked its hair in a reflective window, decided it looked "fine, probably, for a Thursday," and returned to work.

The afternoon session proved eventful. The City tore through pharma stocks with a focus that suggested unresolved personal issues, lifted up tech with an enthusiasm it immediately regretted, and beat banks to within an inch of their lives before finally quitting around 4:30 with a triple scotch and half a thought about whether any of this actually meant anything.

By 5:15, the City was in a taxi to Paddington, and by 6:45, it was on a train to its country home in the Cotswolds, where it planned to spend the long weekend "not thinking about Scotland, or monsters, or the million pounds that could have gone to literally anything else." It had a list.

The monster, presumably, remains in the loch. It has not issued a statement.

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The IRREVERENT Newz Desk is committed to covering stories that matter, or at the very least, stories that have occurred. Chester McMannis's Loch Ness Monster print is available at [REDACTED].com. The Tubaist II is for sale.

A version of this article originallly appeared on IRREVERENT in October 2023.