Losing My Perspicacity February 14, 2025

The SDNY in chaos; “Protecting women’s sports” looks a lot like discrimination; a victory for trans kids; This JFK investigation is real dumb; and The High Note

Author

Julie DiCaro
February 14, 2025

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Good morning and Happy Valentine’s Day. Thanks for being here.

Yesterday was another doozy of a news day, with both Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. being confirmed to their respective cabinet positions within a few hours of each other, Trump alienating all of NATO, and news that Elon Musk, who infamously owns SpaceX, is now auditing NASA, which is a bit like allowing Pepsi to decide which parts of Coke need to go. Oh, and a whole bunch of people in the US’s preeminent federal prosecutor’s office resigned in protest.

But before we get to all that, I had to share this with you guys. I missed this entirely because I don’t peruse X anymore, but …

This was moments before said kid, whose name I’m not even going to attempt, wiped his boogers on the resolute desk. I’ve said that I think it was beyond weird that Musk brings his kid with him everywhere, with some suggesting he does it out of fear of assassination. But this piece, over at The 19th, nails the bigger reason, I think.

 Laura Lovett, a professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh who researches women’s political action in the 20th century and is the author of the book “Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890-1938,” said Musk and X’s appearance in the Oval Office was a throwback to the kind of language associated with the rise of the pronatalists movement at the turn of the last century. 

“Trump begins with identifying the son, X, as a ‘high IQ individual,’” she said. “Every time you’re using this kind of language around comparative investment in the offspring, you are explicitly invoking the history of eugenics. In this case, it’s what they used to call ‘positive eugenics,’ or encouraging the ‘right people’ to have larger families, which is very much what Musk does.”

****

“In a way, there’s Trump articulating that this is a child worthy of investment, because he has a high IQ, has the right parent.”

The main thread, through much of what’s happening in America right now, from RFK’s weird fascination with getting rid of medicines and vaccines that cure and prevent disease to the rise of trad-wives on TikTok to Elon Musk offering to impregnate Taylor Swift, is eugenics. I remember someone posting on social media after January 6 that there is a very bizarre wellness-to-Nazism pipeline in this country, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

For the anti-vaxxers, the kids who survive previously eradicated childhood diseases are the ones strong enough to survive, meant to survive. Trad wives embrace the gender roles of staying home and raising as many (white and Christian) kids as possible, supposedly with pure, organic, real foods, not like the crap us working moms feed their children, right? Of course, Elon Musk has 12 kids and wants to have many more, because he feels his genes should be spread far and wide. He’s even corralled his progeny and their baby mamas into a compound in Texas; something we sneer at when it’s fundamentalist Mormons doing the same thing. Meanwhile, Trump just issued an executive order that takes aim at anti-depressants and ADHD meds.

Don’t forget Tommy Tuberville’s take on ADHD:

With the confirmation of RFK Jr as head of Health and Human Services, I don’t know what the future of health care in America looks like. As someone who has taken medications to combat depression and anxiety/ADHD for years, that is a sobering thought. Here’s where I tell you that many people on both sides of my family, who were born at a time when people did not have access to such medications, drank themselves into early graves. These medications really do affect people’s quality of life.

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Today: The SDNY is in chaos; Turns out “protecting women’s sports” looks a lot like discrimination; A victory for trans kids; This JFK investigation is real dumb; and The High Note

Here we go.

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Welp, there goes the SDNY

For those of you who aren’t law dorks like me, the Southern District of New York is the country's premier US Attorney’s Office. This office is infamous for taking down mobsters, corrupt Wall Street firms, and just about everyone in between (and, I’m told, it’s the office fictionalized for the show Billions, which I have never seen but assume is great because Damian Lewis and Paul Giamatti are on it). Okay.

First, let me stress that the US Attorneys’ offices around the country aren’t supposed to do the President’s bidding, much like the DOJ and Attorney General aren’t supposed to do his bidding. Sure, a President may say, “We’re going to crack down on tax evasion,” or “We’re making it a priority to go after gun traffickers.” But by and large, the US Attorney who runs the office is in charge — sworn to prosecute cases on behalf of the federal government, which is to say the people of the United States of America.

You probably heard that the Trump administration ordered the US Attorney for the SDNY, Danielle Sassoon (a recently sworn-in Republican,) to drop the corruption case of New York Mayor Eric Adams. This was almost certainly done in exchange for Adams’ agreement to cooperate with whatever Trump wants, specifically with allowing ICE officers to have the run of NYC, which Adams did yesterday. This is what we call a quid pro quo. Another way to say it is, “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” This is not legal and not ethical.

As a result, yesterday we saw a slew of resignations from felony prosecutors, including Sassoon.

Manhattan’s U.S. attorney on Thursday resigned rather than obey an order from a top Justice Department official to drop the corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams.

Then, when Justice Department officials transferred the case to the public integrity section in Washington, which oversees corruption prosecutions, the two men who led that unit also resigned, according to five people with knowledge of the matter.

Several hours later, three other lawyers in the unit also resigned, according to people familiar with the developments.

Sassoon also wrote a lengthy memo citing a lot of law to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, in which she alleged that she was not only ordered to dismiss a solid case in a quid pro quo with Adams, but that those in the meeting were discouraged from taking notes, to minimize material that could be discoverable in a lawsuit.

In her letter, Ms. Sassoon said that (number 2 in the Justice Department Emile) Bove had scolded a member of her team for taking notes during the meeting and ordered that the notes be collected at the meeting’s end.

And while I have rarely met prosecutors who I agreed with politically or even respected, I’ll give props to Sassoon for this:

Ms. Sassoon, in a remarkable letter addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, said that Mr. Bove’s order to dismiss the case was “inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”

“I have always considered it my obligation to pursue justice impartially, without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office, or harsher treatment for the less powerful,” she said. “I therefore deem it necessary to the faithful discharge of my duties to raise the concerns expressed in this letter with you and to request an opportunity to meet to discuss them further.”

This is the biggest pushback on Trump’s startling corruption we’ve seen so far from inside the federal government, and it’s heartening to see Republican lawyers who remember their oath of office and duty to the rule of law.

Will it make a difference? Only time will tell. I hope it gives others the courage to stand up.

“Protecting women’s sports” isn’t looking great

Donald Trump has insisted he will “protect women” whether we like it or not, and it’s always felt more like a threat than a promise. So far, he’s protected women’s sports by bullying trans kids, and now Trump has rescinded Biden-era Title IX guidance on how schools should equitably distribute funds between men’s and women’s teams.

The Trump administration’s latest directive on Title IX offered athletic departments more certainty about paying players, while suggesting the federal government wouldn’t hold schools to rigid requirements to distribute the proceeds equitably between men and women.

Though experts say Wednesday’s largely expected decision to rescind guidance issued by the Biden administration will have more symbolic than real-world impact on the class-action lawsuit settlement and other issues reshaping college sports, some see that as exactly the reason it’s unwelcome news.

“Here we are experiencing this immense growth across all women’s sports and this sort of says we really don’t really believe that’s valuable,” UCLA women’s basketball coach Cori Close said. “It really feels like it’s putting women’s sports back 25 years, honestly.”

Notice that the guidance doesn’t say schools are bound to equally distribute funds between men’s and women’s teams, but equitably. In other words, fairly. The Trump administration will not interpret Title IX to mean that schools have to distribute funds fairly between men’s and women’s teams. Super.

Someone should ask Riley Gaines for her take on that.

A (temporary) victory for trans kids

Yesterday, a federal judge in Baltimore blocked Trump’s executive order restricting gender-affirming care for kids under 19.

The judge’s ruling came after a lawsuit was filed earlier this month on behalf of families with transgender or nonbinary children who allege their health care has already been compromised. A national group for family of LGBTQ+ people and a doctors organization are also plaintiffs in the court challenge, one of many lawsuits opposing a slew of executive orders Trump has issued as he seeks to reverse the policies of former President Joe Biden.

Huzzah. The 14-day temporary restraining order, put in place by Judge Brendan Hurson, prevents the federal government from pulling funding for hospitals and medical centers that provide gender-affirming care to kids for at least 14 days, and possibly for the entire time the lawsuit works its way through the courts.

We’ll take our wins where we can get them.

This JFK ‘investigation’ is about to get real dumb

One of the many things Trump has prioritized over the price of eggs or… really, anything voters elected him to do has been releasing federal files relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He’s even created a “task force”(pretty sure we already had this, and it was called the Warren Commission, but I digress) for it. This is a dumb use of taxpayer money, but look, I love a good X-Files conspiracy theory as much as anyone else. So let’s see what we’re working with here.

That’s Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna from Florida heading up this “task force,” because these people will do anything except the job they were elected to do. It will be a significant impediment to Luna’s investigation that all the people she’s mentioned speaking to are long dead. Luna’s tweet now has a “Community Note” on it, reminding everyone that every member of the Warren Commission has been dead for some time.

The High Note

Each day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face and a song in your heart. Today, rather than post some pithy video or tweet, I decided to share some of the best things I’ve watched recently to help me completely avoid reality.

  • Paradise (Hulu) - I can’t decide if this show is good or not, but it’s a fun distraction from the real world. It stars Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, and James Marsden, and it portrays a dystopian future in a way that feels unrelated to our dystopian present.

  • Scamanda (Hulu) - This one is a doc about a woman who claimed to have cancer and scammed thousands (as far as I know, only 3 of the 4 episodes are currently out) from friends and her church for her “treatment.” It’s tabloid and trashy and a great distraction from real life.

  • Apple Cider Vinegar (Netflix) - This is a dramatization of the downfall of Australian wellness influencer Belle Gibson, who also falsely claimed to have cancer. I learned about this story from an episode of the great podcast “Maintenance Phase,” which dove into Gibson’s story a few years ago. It's also tabloidy and fun.

  • For All Mankind (Apple) - I’ve seen a lot of people call FAM “the best show you’re not watching,” and I agree. If you haven’t started it, what are you doing with your life? Set in an alternative timeline where the US gets beat to the moon by the USSR, it tracks NASA as it attempts to navigate a very different world from the one we live in. It’s very good, and Season 5 is set to come out sometime this year. It also stars Joel Kinnaman and the wonderful Krys Marshall, who also pops up on Paradise.

  • Skeleton Crew (Disney) - Some of the more recent offerings from the Star Wards universe (Boba Fett, The Acolyte) have left me cold, but Skeleton Crew is a great way to kill time while waiting for Season 2 of Andor, which I call “Star Wars for grown-ups who love NPR” (and I mean that in the best possible way). Skeleton Crew stars Jude Law and is pretty much Star Wars meets The Goonies meet ET. I loved every second of it.

    What are you guys watching when you turn off the news?

There will be no LMP on Monday, so if you’re on one of the plans that calls for a Monday, I’ll make sure you get LMP on Tuesday, instead.

Hey, survive and advance out there. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Take some time away from the TV/doomscroll this weekend.

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