Losing My Perspicacity April 18, 2025

Congress needs to shut up about being "terrified" of Trump

Author

Julie DiCaro
April 18, 2025

Good morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for starting your day with me. I’m happy to see you.

Once again, I'm entirely at a loss as to where to start today. You would think that, 11 weeks into this whole thing, those of us working in media would have a better handle on managing the firehose of news coming down the pike each day. But, alas.

I guess we can start out with China’s trolling game, which has been firing on all cylinders lo these past few weeks.

For example:

YIKES. Keep in mind, that’s the person Trump wanted to send to the UN as our ambassador. And then there’s this:

Those are tweets from the Chinese Embassy trolling White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt for wearing clothes made in China while excoriating China to the press. I’ve been assured by multiple talking heads on FOX that the people working at the White House are “very smart,” so I feel like Leavitt should have seen this one coming.

The Dow Jones dropped by nearly 500 points yesterday, and we had two school shootings, so pretty much a regular Thursday here in the good ole US of A. Are we gret again yet?

I want to take a few moments to address the video of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) that’s been circulating.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R): "We are all afraid…I am oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real."

— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.bsky.social)2025-04-17T14:01:58.825Z

As the Trump Administration has gotten bolder and more authoritarian, we keep seeing these quotes about how “terrified” every Republican in Congress is of Donald Trump and his followers. As Garfield (the cat, not the President) would say, “Big fat hairy deal.”

(CW: blood, violence against women, sexual assault)

Look, when you run for a role in Congress, no one promises you that it will be easy or that you won’t be frightened at times. I’ve had to deal with Stoolies and Blackhawks fans making my life miserable for years. I once had a viral tweet show up on Hannity, and he and Don Jr. discussed it at length, ensuring that I got plenty of death threats. When I was working in sports talk radio, I once had to stay home from work because I got a very specific threat to my physical safety. Once (and skip to the top of the next graf if violence against women is a trigger for you), someone sent me a photo of a bound woman being held by multiple men while they drained her blood into a bucket. Another guy threatened to kill me and rape my corpse with a hockey stick. I have digital folders full of this kind of thing.

I know I’m not alone. Matt Gaetz publicly and virally body-shamed a then-teenaged Olivia Julianna to millions of MAGA followers. This woman had to change her morning routine due to threats after she criticized Brett Kavanaugh. The President of the United States went after Jemele Hill, and she got so many death threats that she had to get the FBI involved. Dragging sites have popped up all over social media, leading to coordinated campaigns to “take down” anyone who posts content the trolls don’t agree with. Those being “dragged” are almost always women.

My point is that Congress won’t be the first Americans living with the threat of virulent or violent backlash looming over their heads, and we all have to do things that frighten us sometimes. Most of us “regular people” have far fewer resources available to defend ourselves — I can’t call the Secret Service or Capitol Hill Police and get them to follow me around like Murkowski can — and yet the “regular people” are out in the streets fighting for the America they believe in. I’m afraid some MAGA Stoolie is going to see me on the street and kill me because of some BS he heard on a podcast. Murkowski is afraid of not being a Senator anymore. We are not the same.

The least Congress can do is spare us their “woe is me” arguments.

I can’t imagine a more important thing to do than to stand up to a man who is putting extrajudicial kidnappings into place and withholding funds from schools that value equity and inclusion. If you are too frightened to do that, because you believe you’ll lose your job or because you fear being less rich than you are now (looking at you, Big Law), you are not qualified to be a United States Senator, and you should step down. Let someone else lead. Maybe someone with less to lose. Definitely someone with more courage.

Before we get to the news, a reminder to support independent journalism by upgrading to a paid subscription. For less than the cost of one over-priced cocktail a month, you can get LMP in your inbox five days a week. Or you could send me a cocktail — I would not complain.

Today: Looks like we’re headed back to SCOTUS over the word “facilitate;” More American citizens are told to self-deport; Eric Adams continues to set record for dumbassery; Welcome to the Jungle; and The High Note.

Let’s go.

Here we go again

As I predicted yesterday, we’re on our way back to SCOTUS over the definition of the word “facilitate” in the fight to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home to the United States. That prediction came one step closer to reality as the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to stay Judge Paula Xinis’ order requiring the DOJ to check in every day on what it has done to secure Abrego Garcia’s release. The Court also told the DOJ that “sitting on your ass and doing nothing” is not a viable interpretation of the word “facilitate.” Okay, they said it more nicely than that. Kinda.

"The Supreme Court's decision does not, however, allow the government to do essentially nothing."

— Joshua J. Friedman (@joshuajfriedman.com)2025-04-17T18:52:58.240Z

”Facilitate is an active verb” nearly took me out when reading the opinion, but while that was the funniest line, this was the one that hit the hardest.

An absolutely beautiful opinion from Fourth Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a conservative Reagan appointee.

We also got the transcript of this great moment from Tuesday’s hearing in front of Judge Xinis. This is her trying to explain to the DOJ that their arguments have been heard and rejected by multiple courts.

So that was pretty delightful.

At any rate, you can bet your sweet fanny that the DOJ is going to appeal this order and try to argue before SCOTUS that Judge Xinis’ ruling, which ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, doesn’t mean they have to actually do anything. It’s really the only argument they have left, now that El Salvadoran officials have told Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) that they haven’t received any requests from Trump to release Abrego Garcia, and that the reason he’s still in CECOT is that “Trump is paying” them to keep him there. The argument “we don’t have any control over a prisoner in a foreign jail!” is pretty much shot, given the steady stream of Republicans that have headed to CECOT for photo ops.

One final follow-up to yesterday’s report that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is trying to get her hands on the contract between the US and El Salvador that addresses the jailing of undocumented American immigrants. The Secretary of State, by law, is supposed to hand those contracts over to Congress at least once a month. So why hasn’t Marco Rubio allowed Congress to see this particular contract? Over at her newsletter, Asha Rangappa has an idea.

In short, both Trump and Bukele appear to be complicit in a plan to allow MS-13 to operate in El Salvador on its own terms, in exchange for making it look like both are “cracking down” on the gang in their respective countries. Of course, the fact that MS-13 will continue to operate in cahoots with the El Salvadoran government means that citizens of that country who are victims of the gang will continue fleeing to the United States, undercutting the Trump administration’s claim that it is trying to end the “invasion” of asylum seekers. Then again, Trump needs a steady influx of people to continue trying to cross the border in order to keep claiming the “national emergency” he is using to expand his authority. So it’s a win-win propaganda operation.

That’s the last of three giant paragraphs that explain the complex relationship between El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, and MS-13. I didn’t want to rip off Asha’s entire piece, but I recommend heading over to her site and reading it for yourself. It’s eye-opening, to say the least.

And finally some good news that broke after I put the newsletter to bed. Sen. Van Hollen finally got to meet with Kilmar Abgrego Garcia yesterday. This proof of life is a huge relief.

I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.

— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@vanhollen.senate.gov)2025-04-18T01:02:08.991Z

More Americans are told to self-deport

In the last 24 hours, three Americans (and likely far more) have gotten letters from the Department of Homeland Security, telling them “it’s time to leave America” and ordering them to self-deport. On Tuesday, I wrote about immigration lawyer Nicole Micheroni, who was born in Massachusetts, who got a letter from DHS telling her to leave the US within 7 days or else.

Today, others getting the same notice from DHS started popping up all over social media. Lisa Anderson, a doctor in Connecticut, was one of the American citizens who also received such a letter. So was Wisconsin’s Tom Frantz, who was born in Western Pennsylvania.

So what gives? If the first thing that popped into your mind was “DOGE,” you may be right.

The mistakes both acknowledged and unacknowledged, email addresses shared with one agency being used by another – it’s part of a familiar pattern in the early months of the Trump administration, which often breaks things first and asks questions later. Indeed, a Politico article published last week offered a significant clue as to why the “leave the United States” letters have been such a mess.

The article reveals that some of the staffers associated with DOGE, which has focused so far on eliminating “government waste” and granting itself access to government databases, are now pivoting to implementing Trump’s immigration agenda. And their first project, per the article, is the large-scale revocation of parole.

Big Balls strikes again?

Meanwhile, it’s not just your email that’s not safe from DHS. Currently, a 20-year-old American citizen is being held for “illegally entering Florida.” Even though a judge found Juan Gomez Lopez’s birth certificate, showing he was born in Georgia, to be authentic, she says she lacks the power to free him. Now he could be headed to an ICE detention facility.

After inspecting his birth certificate, Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans said during the hearing that “this is indeed an authentic document,” but that she did not have jurisdiction beyond finding no probable cause for the charge.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s role is to enforce immigration laws that generally apply to noncitizens. American citizens are protected under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution from unreasonable search and seizure, arrest and detention.

Nonetheless, he remains detained locally at ICE’s request, said Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson at the Florida Immigrant Coalition who attended Thursday’s hearing.

“Everything tracks for him being sent to an ICE detention center,” he told NBC News in a phone interview.

Thankfully, Lopez Gomez was released around 7:30 pm ET last night. Good news, but this never should have happened in the first place.

BREAKING: Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez has been released. This is the moment he reunited with his mom.

— Jackie Llanos (@llanosjackie.bsky.social)2025-04-17T23:23:23.756Z

My God, Eric Adams is dumb

(pinches bridge of nose between fingers, sighs heavily)

I give you the governor of New York.

In case you can’t see it very well, that shirt says “In Dio confidiamo,” which is definitely Italian, not Spanish. I know languages aren’t easy for everyone, but I’m guessing I learned the Spanish word for God — Dios — from Sesame Street or Looney Tunes sometime around age 7. How can you grow up in America — better yet, in Brooklyn, where Adams was raised — and not pick up on some basic Spanish, absolutely bewilders me.

I’m not a scholar of Spanish, but I don’t even think “in” is an article in Spanish. At least not one that I ever learned, it’s “en,” right? Finally, if I were wearing a shirt to honor those killed and injured in a terrible accident, I’d make damn sure I knew what the shirt I was wearing said, and in what language.

This is your reminder that New Yorkers could have elected Maya Wiley.

Welcome to The Jungle…

No, we don’t got fun and games. What we got is a throwback to the lack of food inspection we haven’t seen since the days of Upton Sinclair.

The Food and Drug Administration is drawing up plans that would end most of its routine food safety inspections work, multiple federal health officials tell CBS News, and effectively outsource this oversight to state and local authorities.

The plans have not been finalized and might need congressional action to fully fund, said the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly. Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, denied that the FDA was making plans to do this.

Some FDA employees have been working on a possible shift of the agency's routine food efforts to states for years, one current and one former official said, which could free up resources to focus on higher priority and foreign inspections. The FDA already outsources some routine food inspections through contracts with 43 states and Puerto Rico.

I should probably also tell you that there was recently an E. Coli outbreak in 15 states, and the FDA decided not to mention it to anyone, so this should go swimmingly.

Finally, “outsourcing some routine food inspections” to states is very different from “okay, you guys are in charge of the whole damn thing.” And since every single service the federal government provides is getting cut, can I pay less taxes?

The High Note

Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.

I love Dave, though I am disturbed by how much he looks like JD Vance here, but maybe I’m just reacting to vibes.

And finally today, here are the citizens of Chelsea, Michigan, banding together to help a local bookstore move its entire stock to a new store.

If only America could have her act this together on everything.

Survive and advance today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

See you on Monday.

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