Losing My Perspicacity, July 7, 2025

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Good morning and Happy Monday, friends! Thanks for stopping by this morning.

First, a big mea culpa from me for being a dumbass who screwed up the scheduling on Thursday’s post. I was up late Wednesday night watching congressional Republicans haggle over the vote on Trump’s budget bill, and I guess I was more tired than I thought when I set the publishing time. If you missed it, you can read it here. I talked quite a bit about why women stay in abusive relationships and/or don’t go to law enforcement, a topic that is very personal to me.

By way of an apology, I’m sending today’s newsletters out to everyone who has subscribed, and if you’d do me a favor and help me make up the ad revenue I missed on Friday by clicking on the ad below, I’d be much obliged. Of course, it’s even better if you become a paid subscriber, wherein you could see me screw something up five days a week. Talk about a bargain!

As I’m writing this, news is coming in from various media outlets that 80 people have now died in the floods that hit Texas over the weekend. That number includes 28 children. Ten more children and a camp counselor are still missing in Kerr County. I fear the number of dead will be higher by the time this newsletter makes it to your inbox on Monday morning.

I’ve seen a few people on social media suggest that Texans “got what they voted for” and that no one should shed a tear for Americans who voted for Trump. That’s the kind of thing I’d expect to hear from Laura Loomer or Don Jr. So let’s take a moment to acknowledge that we should not be wishing for the deaths of fellow Americans, no matter who they voted for, and that many people who did not vote for Donald Trump are undoubtedly being affected by this deadly weather, including people who the GOP has intentionally disenfranchised.

Of course, men on the right are never responsible for the consequences of their disastrous policy decisions. Most of us are aware that, as part of the dismantling of the federal government, DOGE, at Donald Trump’s direction, decimated the National Weather Service, putting all of us at risk of falling victim to climate change. That tidbit of information seems to have escaped local officials, who are blaming the NWS for the tragedy.

None of that is true.

Reasonable people can probably argue about whether or not three hours of lead time is enough to evacuate people from low-lying areas, but those of us who live in tornado country are used to warnings that come with much shorter notice.

Either way, there’s no getting around the fact that, when Trump layed off 600 NWS staffers, weather scientists told the world this was going to happen.

Wow. It’s almost like the bunch of weirdo white Christian Nationalist men who wrote Project 2025 didn’t have expertise in every area they targeted. How strange.

By the way, if you want to know where Donald Trump’s priorities are, he’s visited the ridiculously named “Alligator Alcatraz” already but hasn’t been to Kerr County. As for Trump’s gutting of FEMA to pay for the construction of more concentration camps.

Sure thing, buddy. Hey, what’d you shoot today?

Today, Whither all the trade deals?; We have GOT to stop calling it “Alligator Alcatraz;” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is all out of gum; and The High Note.

Here we go.

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Hey, what happened to all those trade deals?

I know it feels like 47 years ago, and we’ve all aged decades since, but it was only three months ago that Trump put a three-month “pause” on all those tariffs we’ve been worried about. That pause is set to expire on Wednesday, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that, for those countries that have not made deals with the US, tariffs will “boomerang” back to April levels.

Unsurprisingly, this was news to Trump.

If you’ll recall, Trump assured Americans that other countries would be tripping over themselves to make trade deals, and his staff set out a goal of 90 deals in 90 days.

So, how many of those deals ever came to fruition? Well, the US agreed to a 10 percent tariff rate with the UK, but only on specific sectors of industry, like cars. Uh, how many of us are buying British cars? A lot of you out there driving Bentleys and Land Rovers?

Then there’s Vietnam - that deal was closed just a few days ago, and sets a 20 percent tariff rate.

Aaaand that’s it. Of course, the White House is promising a bunch of new deals in the coming days.

And, I’m sure it will shock you to learn that Trump’s assurance that countries would be beating down the door to make deals with the US never really panned out.

According to the Trump administration, this is what meritocracy looks like. Anyway, I’ll be at Costco buying everything I can fit in my car before tariffs kick in.

Stop parroting “Alligator Alcatraz”

Before we get to my rant, I had to show you this:

At least now we have a handy-dandy way to identify the people who definitely would have told the Nazis where Anne Frank was hiding. If I lived in Florida, I’d park myself next to this sign with the intention of publishing the names and photos of every single person who stopped to take a pic. But I digress.

I hate the term “Alligator Alcatraz,” and we have to stop using it.

First, much like the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which is probably in the top five most harmful pieces of legislation ever passed in this country, we must stop accepting and adopting Trump’s framing. There was nothing “beautiful” about that bill, yet we saw nearly every legacy media outlet use Trump’s moniker for the bill in headlines and in news stories themselves. Words matter.

But moreover, while I will be the first to say that our criminal justice system sucks, we need to remember that the people who wound up in Alcatraz were afforded a chance to hire an attorney, cross-examine prosecution witnesses, and answer the allegations against them. In other words, they got due process. Not only that, criminal defendants in this country are subject to the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The undocumented Americans being held in what are actually concentration camps all over this country are not being afforded the same rights as those held in Alcatraz. We need to remember that and keep screaming it from the rafters. After all, most ICE detainees have no criminal record, but calling their detention center “Alcatraz” sure makes it sound like they do. Again, words matter.

If you need any more evidence that everything to do with “Alligator Alcatraz” is ignorant, moronic, illegal, stupid, and cruel, I’ll just remind you that Chipper Jones had this idea back in 2013, and we all laughed at what a dumbass he was.

JB Pritzker delights in sticking it to Trump

Someone messaged me last week and asked me about Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Is he really as good as people think? Are there red flags worth knowing about?

I’ll be the first to admit that I was not at all fired up to vote for JB Pritzker the first time around. Oh joy, another billionaire. But Bruce Rauner, a Republican billionaire and Pritzker’s predecessor, was a complete waste of air, and there was no way I was voting for him, so Pritzker it was.

Sometimes, I think people find their calling along the way. Pritzker may not have been the guy Illinois needed when he first ran, but he became the guy awfully quickly. Since his election in 2019, Pritzker has been a staunch advocate for reproductive freedom, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and access to healthcare. In fact, he just signed two new laws on that front: One lowering the cost of prescription drugs and one strengthening consumer protection in healthcare, including getting rid of prior authorizations in mental health care. Eventually, Pritzker wants to eliminate prior authorizations in Illinois altogether.

Is he as progressive (liberal? I have no idea what terms we’re supposed to use anymore) as I would like? No. But not a single governor in the United States is — I’ve never had the chance to vote for a candidate as far to the left as I am. But Pritzker has stood up for Illinoisans when others haven’t, and he torments Donald Trump with a glee that I can’t help but appreciate.

So, yeah. In my humble opinion, Illinois could do a lot worse than JB Pritzker. And has. He really does seem to be who we think he is. Maybe, at some point, some huge scandal or something will come out, but so far, he’s been as good as advertised.

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.

Oh, you guys knew this one was coming. Oasis is back, baby! I can’t believe they made it a whole year without blowing this tour up (there’s still time), but I am’m thrilled about it.

Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.

Hey, survive and advance out there today. Don’t let the bastards get you down.