- Losing My Perspicacity
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- Losing My Perspicacity, June 30, 2025
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Good morning and Happy Monday! Thanks for swinging by today.
I want to start with a conversation that has been taking place online for the last few weeks regarding Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Andrew Cuomo, and the NYC mayoral race.
We’re all painfully aware of the sexism and misogyny on the right. It’s impossible not to be aware, when having been accused of sexual misconduct seems to be a requirement for holding a position in the Trump White House. But there’s also a good amount of sexism on the left. Think back to how the Bernie Bros insisted that Elizabeth Warren drop out and endorse Bernie Sanders, and then branded her as a “snake,” complete with ever-present emoji, when she called Sanders out for saying America wouldn’t elect a woman president. Or all the guys on the left who would totally vote for a woman president, just not Hillary Clinton. Or Kamala Harris. For reasons.
A lot of online rage has been directed toward Gillibrand in recent years for allegedly leading the charge to oust Al Franken from the Senate, after eight women came forward and accused Franken of sexual harassment. In truth, Gillibrand was among a group of the Senate’s most influential women, including Harris, all of whom went to Chuck Schumer with their concerns about Franken.
On December 1, 2017, seven female Democratic senators—Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Claire McCaskill, Mazie Hirono, Patty Murray, Maggie Hassan, and Catherine Cortez Masto—met with Chuck Schumer to tell him that most of them were on the verge of demanding Franken’s resignation. At least one of them had already drafted such a statement, and the group’s resolve hardened further when some of its members learned of an impending Politico story that contained a seventh allegation, by a former Senate staff member. The accuser, whose name is being withheld at her request, was known to some of the seven female senators. The woman said that, in 2006, when Franken was still a comedian, he had made her uneasy by looking as if he planned to kiss her. The senator she had worked for hadn’t known of the allegation at the time, but vouched for her credibility.
I think the piece linked above is probably the fairest written about the entire Franken fiasco. Gillibrand was the first to publicly call for Franken’s resignation. So many, many people rightly called her a hypocrite when Gillibrand demurred on the many allegations of sexual harassment against NYC mayoral candidate Cuomo.
Hypocritical? Absolutely. Criticism? Fair. And while I will not defend Gillibrand on this particular topic (or many others, frankly), I can’t help but wonder if being saddled with allegations “forcing” Franken out of the Senate for the last seven years played any role in her decision to sit this one out.
The idea that Gillibrand was responsible for pushing Franken out of the Senate is ridiculous. Franken resigned of his own volition because eight women came forward with stories of his behavior, and more were rumored to be waiting in the wings to do so. If you want to blame someone for Franken – as talented and popular a Senator as we’ve had in this country — being out of politics, you should lay that blame squarely at Al Franken’s feet. And to be clear, I was a huge Al Franken fan.
But I’m not here to rehash Franken’s decision to resign. Frankly, it’s old news, and I’m sick of the whole thing. But I do want to address the stance so many on the left have taken, which is that, if Democrats want to take back Congress, they need to care less about things like sexual misconduct by their most popular leaders. You know, like the Republicans do.
Like this guy:
And this guy:
And this guy:
So, this is where I find myself on a Sunday evening, after my entire Bluesky timeline filled up with Franken apologists. Some of them were even women, one of whom accused the #MeToo movement of “romanticizing victimhood.” Because yes, being sexually harassed or assaulted at work is a great time for all involved.
When it comes to banishing misogyny, the left has nearly as far to go as the right. We may not be as obvious about how we ignore it, but it’s there, constantly bubbling beneath the surface nonetheless.
So I guess what I want to say is this: If you believe that, to win, the left needs to throw women under the bus and demonize the one moment of actually accountability we’ve enjoyed in this country in 250 years, I’d invite you to sit with that and ask yourself why our lived experiences, mental health, and personal safety is less a priority than a shitty man escaping responsiblity for his own actions?
“But if we hold the House and Senate, we could enact policies more favorable to women!” Well, you’ll excuse me for not believing that men who harass women have our best interests in mind, in or out of Congress. And we have to stop blaming women for demanding accountability from their colleagues for behavior that would get them canned from nearly every private company in the country in a New York minute.
I reject the idea that, in order to win politically, Democrats should abandon women, the same way I reject Dems moving to the right on trans rights or DEI. Democrats didn’t lose Congress because they don’t have Al Franken. They lost because people like Chuck Schumer and a whole host of others don’t stand for anything except politics as usual and voting like diet Republicans. And that is finally a perfectly reasonable reason to criticize Kirsten Gillibrand.
Today: Thom Tillis peaces out; ICE impersonators are becoming a problem; Tesla robotaxis are off to a rough start; Trump targets journalists on Iran; and The High Note.
Let’s get into it.
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That escalated quickly
To recap, Senator Tom Tillis (R-NC) came out against Donald Trump’s budget deal. Trump went after Tillis on Truth Social and made noises about someone primarying him. And now:
Tom Tillis announced he will retire a day after opposing Trump’s devastating cuts to Medicaid. There’s no room in the Republican Party for anyone who cares about protecting health care for working people and keeping rural hospitals open. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
— Defend The Vote (@dtvpac.bsky.social)2025-06-29T19:39:57.873Z
If I were a Republican in Congress, I would have gotten heartily sick of the Tommy Tubervilles and Jim Jordans and Josh Hawleys years ago, so I get where Tillis is coming from. But still, this is an insane way to live your life. What are all these GOPers so afraid of? Losing? Trump being mean to them on social media? Does he really think someone who comes out on the side of cutting Medicaid is going to survive a primary?
I really don’t get it. No one has the courage of their convictions on that side of the aisle?
Oh gee, looks like people are impersonating ICE agents
If only someone could have foreseen that allowing federal agents to dress like soccer hooligans would backfire.
Police in southern California arrested a man suspected of posing as a federal immigration officer this week, the latest in a series of such arrests, as masked, plainclothes immigration agents are deployed nationwide to meet the Trump administration’s mass deportation targets.
The man, Fernando Diaz, was arrested by Huntington Park police after officers said they found a loaded gun and official-looking documents with Department of Homeland Security headings in his SUV, according to NBC Los Angeles. Officers were impounding his vehicle for parking in a handicapped zone when Diaz asked to retrieve items inside, the police said. Among the items seen by officers in the car were “multiple copies of passports not registered under the individual’s name”, NBC reports.
And, according to CNN, this isn’t just happening in California.
Authorities in at least three states have arrested individuals allegedly impersonating Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at a time when real ICE agents have ramped up immigration enforcement efforts under the Trump administration, adding to existing fears of law enforcement among migrant communities.
In South Carolina, Sean-Michael Johnson, 33, was charged with kidnapping and impersonating a police officer after allegedly detaining a group of Latino men along a Charleston County road. Johnson is accused of “willfully and unlawfully presenting himself as an ICE Agent and detaining a vehicle of individuals from moving,” according to court records.
Given that ICE agents have been hiding their faces and refusing to give their names or credentials, I would love for someone to enlighten us on how to tell them from general sociopaths.
Welp.
After the last six months, I’m not sure why any city would follow through on plans to do anything with Elon Musk, much less an infamously progressive city like Austin, Texas. However, on June 22, Austin allowed Musk to unleash his self-driving robotaxis on their streets.
What quickly became apparent, however, was that the same influencer videos Musk promoted also depicted the self-driving cars appearing to break traffic laws or struggle to properly function. By Tuesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had opened an investigation into the service and requested information from Tesla on the incidents.
***
Footage from at least 11 rides showed that the trial run did not pan out as flawlessly as Tesla’s tweet suggested. In one case, a robotaxi failed to make a left turn and instead drove into a lane meant for oncoming traffic, then corrected itself by driving across a double yellow line. Other videos appeared to show the cars exceeding the speed limit, braking for no discernible reason and dropping passengers off in the middle of an intersection.
You’ll be shocked to hear that Musk’s ego is a huge part of the problem.
Despite the advantages to lidar and radar, Musk has been adamant that Tesla remain lidar-free. “Lidar is lame,” Musk said during a Tesla autonomy day in 2019. “In cars, it’s friggin’ stupid. It’s expensive and unnecessary.”
I want only failure and shame for Elon Musk.
Trump is going after journalists over Iran
Trump wants to be able to keep claiming that a US airstrike “obliterated” Iranian nuclear facilities, despite a lot of evidence and voices to the contrary. Obviously, this dissonance is the fault of the media, and journalists who don’t fall in line must be punished.
Donald Trump said he is weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources – and the president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply.
In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump doubled down on his claim that the 21 June airstrikes aimed at certain Iranian facilities successfully crippled Iran’s nuclear program. He insisted the attacks destroyed key enriched uranium stockpiles, despite Iranian assertions that the material had been relocated before the strikes.
Just what we need. More reasons for legacy media to cower under their desks.
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 think about this guy, who had the presence of mind (while being interviewed for literally catching babies from a burning building) to call out then-Eagles’ receiver Nelson Algohor for dropping a bunch of passes that week.
If I ever get a hero TV interview, I hope I remember to take a shot at Aaron Rodgers.
And while I’m on the subject of great sports interviews, this woman was an icon on Twitter. I can’t believe how quickly this interview has fallen out of the public consciousness. We need to bring it back.
This woman is so superior to infamous Jags fan Jason Mendoza. They should put her on their helmets. I want to hang out with her at her beach house and drink Everclear daiquiris and watch Love Island.
Hey, survive and advance out there today. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
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