Losing My Perspicacity, December 5, 2025

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Good morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for reading today. I know there’s a lot going on in the world of news right now — The Epstein Files, SCOTUS allowing Texas to use racial gerrymandering, a grand jury refusing to indict Letitia James (yay) — but some issues weigh more heavily on the soul of our nation than others. Today, I wanted to write solely about the war crimes the US has been committing in the Caribbean.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m desperately waiting for this documentary on Seymour Hersh, Cover Up, to hit Netflix on December 19. Yesterday, while hoping to find a theater taking part in the limited release of the film, I went down a rabbit hole and learned a bunch of things I didn’t know about Hersh - that he got kicked out of U of Chicago law school for poor grades, that he quit his job with the AP in 1967 after they “diminished” one of his pieces, and that many of his books have been commercially unsuccessful. Above all, I learned that Hersh is still actively reporting and even has a Substack. All of this, along with Hersh’s many, many career changes and roadblocks, got me thinking about how hard the journalism industry is, even on our greatest reporters.

It’s impossible to think about Hersh without thinking about My Lai, the massacre of nearly 500 Vietnamese villagers at the hands of American troops on March 16, 1968. Along the way, I found this 1972 piece by Hersh that’s still up over at The New Yorker, and it’s as important a piece of journalism as has ever been published in this country. If you’re not familiar with the story, here’s a History Channel short:

The slaughter at My Lai played a major role in ramping up anti-war protests. It disillusioned the American public, who had been conditioned after World War II to always, always see American troops as the “good guys.” In 1969, Anchor Frank Reynolds (no, not that Frank Reynolds) signed off an ABC News broadcast by saying that My Lai offered, “the most compelling argument yet advanced for America to end its involvement in Vietnam, not alone because of what the war is doing to the Vietnamese or to our reputation abroad, but because of what it is doing to us.”

This was what was going on in my head yesterday as I watched congressional Republicans, like Tom Cotton (R-OK), who never met a bomb he didn’t want to drop on someone, justify vaporizing two men as they bobbed in the warm waters of the Caribbean, clinging to the wreckage of their ship, which had been hit moments before. For 41 minutes, members of the US military watched the men scramble to turn their boat upright before making the decision to hit them with a second strike. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) said after seeing video of the strike, “What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service."

It’s refreshing, I suppose, to hear someone say that watching two human beings blown out of the water was “troubling,” though, to my mind, the murder of two people calls for much stronger language. These days, Americans seem to see life as cheap. At the very least, we vote that way. Even given all the havoc Donald Trump has wrecked since his inauguration, summarily executing human beings without evidence or due process would seem to rate a much more robust response from the American People.

But after years of Republicans engaging in wholesale demeaning of entire groups of people (Haitians are eating our pets; Somalis are “garbage,” Mexicans are criminals, drug dealers, and rapists, African immigrants come from “shithole countries,” etc.), perhaps we’re all just immune to it. Certainly, there is something deeply disturbing about our elected representatives, some of whom can’t even bring themselves to say that executing people without trial is bad.

Despite all the rhetoric coming out of the White House — Donald Trump has falsely claimed that every boat that gets blown out of the water saves 25,000 American lives — it’s necessary to remind the hawks among us that, even if we had any evidence that the 80 people the US has killed in boat strikes since Trump took office (which we don’t), the penalty for trafficking drugs is not summary execution. And given that Trump this week pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who, according to US officials, was at the center of one of the most significant and most violent drug trafficking rings in the world, it’s hard to take the administration seriously when they talk about protecting Americans from the narcotics trade.

Though Trump keeps banging on about fentanyl, that particular drug doesn’t come from Venezuela in any significant quantity. According to the American Immigration Council, most of the fentanyl coming into the US is being brought in by American citizens via the Mexican border.

In fact, a DEA Report from January of 2020 that traces the flow of fentanyl into the US makes no mention of South America at all, sourcing most fentanyl to China, India, and Mexico. A 2025 DEA report on fentanyl trafficking also fails to mention Venezuela.

When it comes to drug trafficking, experts say Venezuela isn’t even a major player, certainly not on par with its neighbor, Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine. But Venezuela isn’t even the main channel through which cocaine gets into the US, either. That’s the South Texas border. And yes, some boats bring drugs to the US via the Caribbean, but the Coast Guard has been successfully interdicting those boats for years. All of this information is readily available for anyone with access to Google, including the White House press corps who stand by, daily, while Trump peddles lies, damn lies, and racial division to the American people.

I often think about who I believed Americans were when I was a child versus who we turned out to be. Somewhere along the way, we allowed devious and violent men to convince us that human life doesn’t have much worth, and the lives of those from other nations (particularly those where people have brown or black skin) are worth nothing at all. Those men have always existed, of course (thinking of you, Dick Cheney, Andrew Jackson, and Henry Kissinger), but it feels like there has never been less pushback against them than there is now. Each and every day, Trump slanders our fellow Americans from the Oval Office, and the rest of us shrug and go about our business.

Every few days, I have to wrap my head around the fact that a sitting President has declared war on “blue” American cities, regularly calls other Americans derogatory names, and is using the Oval Office as his own personal wealth generator. He’s pardoned those who attempted to hang the Vice President and overthrow the Republic, is rolling back our clean air and water laws, and has sicced armed storm troopers on thousands of our friends and neighbors. And while many Americans have taken to the streets in protest, a good many, including the US Congress, have decided to sit back and watch it all happen. I get it. It’s easier to believe whatever you see on Facebook and then watch Real Housewives than it is to think too much about any of it.

“A Republic, if you can keep it.” — Benjamin Franklin

I’ve always enjoyed the turning inward and taking stock of life during the winter months, and as we head deeper into colder weather and the holiday season, perhaps it’s time for Americans — all Americans — to think seriously about what kind of country they want to belong to. Sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option. Murdering people for political reasons, without evidence or due process, is what we used to denounce other regimes for. Just yesterday, the Pentagon announced another boat strike, this time killing four people. Is this just what we do now? And we don’t care? Something in us feels profoundly broken.

Of all the wrongs Donald Trump has committed against our nation, convincing people that abject cruelty doesn’t matter is the worst.

This cri de coeur is a plea for my fellow Americans to shake off the indifference and to care. Care about something bigger than yourself. Care about us as a people. All of us. We’ve handed our country over to sociopaths on a silver platter, and it is changing who we are. Stop giving money to Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel. Stop using AI, even if it’s “fun” — it’s killing the environment and putting artists out of work. Stop going to Starbucks — their baristas are on strike. Stop supporting grifters who tell lies to terrify you into voting for those who only see you as a means to an end. Stop shopping at Target — there’s a boycott on. Stop brutalizing the trans community. Stop voting for those who don’t give your best interests a second thought as soon as they're elected. CARE.

Most of all, stop being so apathetic to everything going on around us. Care about something bigger than you and yours. Care about us - not just those you know, but those you will never meet. Care about what is being done by evil men in our name.

If the last 11 months have shown us anything, it’s that we can’t delegate our moral compass to those in the three branches of government. We now have a mentally deficient, petty, vindictive man in the White House, and both Congress and the Supreme Court are beholden to billionaires and special interests. The only way out of this is through it, and the only way through it is with our wallets and our votes. If we want to survive these dark days with our democracy intact — with some semblance of the America we say we are — we’re all going to have to be more mindful. Do more. Care more.

I’m heading into this holiday season with a heavy heart and a deep sense of loss. Maybe I’m overtired. Maybe I’m stressed out. Maybe existing in this news cycle day in and day out has addled my brain. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and be embarrassed at how overwrought this piece is, like Jerry Maguire after he sent his late-night ramblings out into the world. But I know what doing nothing isn’t an option. And I don’t know what the point of being in this world is if we don’t save each other.

A plea

This is a rough time for journalism. Our industry has imploded, having fallen victim to venture capitalists and AI evangelists. Those who ask hard questions and speak truth to power have been systemically drummed out of the field. The Pentagon chased legitimate journalists out and installed political operatives like Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz in the press room.

Independent journalism isn’t only the sole way some of us can practice our craft these days, it’s also essential to the survival of our democracy. God knows legacy media isn’t doing us any favors. To that end, I’m asking you to consider becoming a paid subscriber to Losing My Perspicacity. My generous paid subscribers are the only reason I’m able to listen in on legal proceedings and pour over pleadings all day. I think it’s important work, and I hope you do, too. Subscriptions start at just $1.01 per month, and you can always leave a “tip” for a piece you liked by clicking on “Buy Me A Coffee” at the bottom of the page.

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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.

We have another trailer for Project Hail Mary, which I am ridiculously excited for. I loved this book so much, and while I often prefer beloved books to remain off the big screen, this looks like it’s going to be wonderful.

If you want to read something life-affirming over the holiday, I can’t recommend Project Hail Mary enough.

Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Have a great weekend, and go Hoosiers!

Follow Julie on Bluesky and Instagram so she can get another book contract.