Losing My Perspicacity February 5, 2025

Good Morning and Happy Wednesday. If you’re conscious and reading this, congrats on hanging in there.

I’ll be honest: I intended to make today’s LMP a “Hey! Here’s some good stuff happening in America!” edition. Then, last night, Trump announced that the United States is set to “take over” and “own” Gaza, which means forcibly removing and displacing more than two million Palestinians from their ancestral homeland, all so that he and his billionaire buddies can redevelop the area and make it the “Riviera” of the Middle East. Oh, and he wants to use American troops to do it.

That pretty much destroyed any optimism I had mustered.

Of course, Trump doesn’t have the legal authority to use troops in such a manner without Congressional approval, and he’s almost certainly going to be condemned by nearly every free country in the world (and hopefully the UN). But who’s going to stop him? Not his party, which currently holds both houses of Congress. Not his advisors, who have enabled and emboldened him every step of the way. The American people? I’d love to think so, but I am dubious. Half my Facebook timeline is still more upset about the Super Bowl halftime show than the state of America.

This is, of course, ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people dressed up as an excellent real estate investment. According to the Palestinian Health Authority, Israel has already killed more than 46,000 people since October 7, 2023, and over half of them were women and children. Meanwhile, tech broligarchs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been implementing algorithms that suppress stories about the suffering in Gaza since the war began. And we knew this “Riviera of the Middle East” thing was on the table since Jared Kushner started talking about all the great real estate opportunities in the Gaza Strip back in March.

Last night, I saw a lot of talking heads (including those in Congress) banging on about how none of this is legal; they’re going to fight back; yada yada yada. They’re right, of course — all of this is illegal. But it’s remarkable how our entire democracy is predicated on the agreement that we all abide by the same rules. All it takes is one person to decide the rules are stupid and not binding, and the whole thing goes to hell.

If you can get past the ethnic cleansing portion of the newsletter, we’ve got plenty more to discuss. It’s been 36 hours since Trump tried to pull his tariff stunt, and the story has already scrolled out of the news cycle.

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Today: Proof of Life (finally) from the Democrats; Suck on that, Proud Boys; Women's sports are in trouble; White man with no experience hired to high-paying job; and The High Note

Let’s all huddle around the fire and try to get through this together.

Here we go.

The Democrats decided to show up

Hey, it only took two and a half weeks for the Congressional Democrats to get their act together and put together a hard-hitting media event. In their defense, no one could have known this was coming. I mean, it’s not like Donald Trump and his people have been foreshadowing their plans for two years or anything.

A dozen Democratic leaders arrived at the US Treasury today, demanded entry, and were turned away.

Some good video bytes came out of the move, like Elizabeth Warren pointing out the obvious — no one elected Elon Musk to anything, yet he seems to have taken over the entire federal government.

Every time I think that we could have had Elizabeth Warren as our president, my pulse goes through the roof.

Still, when it comes to actually stopping Trump and Musk, the Dems don’t seem to have a great wealth of ideas. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) has placed a blanket “hold” on all Trump’s nominees for diplomatic posts in protest, but why the Democrats haven’t implemented roadblocks for the GOP every step of the way, I couldn’t say. For example, why are Dems still showing up and helping the Republicans achieve a quorum? Hold a sit-in instead. Let them get their own people there if they want a vote.

To that end, here’s a great list of things the Democrats could do tomorrow to impede Republicans. You know, in case you wanted to call your reps and make suggestions, or something.

Reminder: The best thing you can do to help right now is to call your Congressional reps and stay on their asses. Even if they are progressive Democrats. Even if they are dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. Call. And keep calling.

Suck on that, Proud Boys

Among the rare bits of good news today was this absolute banger: The Proud Boys have lost the trademark to their name, and it is now owned by a Black church in Washington D.C. that they vandalized in 2020.

What a delightful story. Congrats and best wishes to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Things are looking bleak for women’s sports

In the next few days, Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order that would ban trans women and girls from competing in women’s sports. In addition to this being blatantly cruel and stupid (especially for those of us Gen X women who often had to compete with boys if we wanted to compete at all), no one has asked for this, outside of a few mediocre college athetles who can’t let not winning go (looking at you, Riley Gaines), JK Rowling, and a bunch of white men who never cared about women’s sports until they could use it as a cudgel in the culture wars.

So, let’s be clear: Trans girls are girls. Trans women are women.

Worse, it’s also being reported that Trump is preparing to sign an executive order that will begin the process of dismantling the Department of Education. Saying “this is bad” is the understatement of the year for too many reasons to enumerate. Another reason it’s awful is that the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights is charged with enforcing Title IX.

If you love the USWNT, the US Women’s Hockey Team, the WNBA, the PWHL, the NWSL, or any other women’s sports league, you can thank Title IX, which ensures that girls have the same opportunities as boys in schools that get federal funding. Title IX has positively impacts everything from equity in the classroom to the creation of girls’ sports teams to how schools handle allegations of sexual assault on campus.

Needless to say, nothing good, and particularly nothing good for women, comes from eliminating the Department of Education.

Thank God merit is now controlling new hires!

When last we left Daniel Penny, he was being acquitted of murdering Garrett Foster on a NYC subway car. But now, thanks to the death of DEI, guys like Daniel Perry can be hired on their merit and intelligence alone!

Sounds like he knows a ton about the industry and it’s very clear he’s being hired solely on his outstanding qualifications. Great job.

The High Note

Each day, I do my best to leave you with a smile in your heart — or at least the ability to hold the tears at bay. Today, we have a couple of things to make you smile!

Despite what the GOP would have you believe, America still values diversity.

You can watch the full video of yesterday’s Parade of Nations on Instagram. *Sniff*

Elsewhere, the Goonies got back together! And we’ve never needed them more.

That’s Ke Huy Quan, Sean Astin, and Jeff Cohen (Chunk!) on the set of Quan and Astin’s new movie, Love Hurts. I’m using that image because I couldn’t find a way to share the pic of them all (minus Martha Plimpton) at Quan’s hand and footprint ceremony at the Chinese Theater in LA (I could never afford to be sued by Getty Images, you guys), but you can see it here. I realize that, as a Gen Xer who is exactly the same age as the Goonies, the movie holds an outsized place in my heart and my memories. But Goonies never say die. And neither will we.

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