Losing My Perspicacity November 21, 2024

Good Morning and Happy Thursday! I finally mustered the enthusiasm to use an exclamation mark, though I’m not sure I feel it in my heart. But fake it ‘til you make it, as the old saying goes. And anyway, since most of you read this newsletter between 5 and 6 am ET, I don’t want to depress you first thing in the morning. Up and at ‘em! The Resistance needs you awake!

On a seasonal note, it is snowing here in Chicagoland. That’s not abnormal for us at the end of November, but given that we were seeing the 80s just a few weeks ago, it’s wild. I stopped transitioning my closet halfway through the seasonal purge, so I now have shorts and t-shirts or jeans and sweaters to choose between. My beloved hammock and my indoor plants are still outside, so picture me frantically running out yesterday afternoon, when the driving snow started, in my bare feet, to grab my plants and haul them inside. Worldwide climate change, it’s never boring.

Just a head’s up: I’ve got 19 (yes, I said 19) people coming to my house for Thanksgiving (no, I didn’t intend on that many people coming), so I’m likely going to take some time off next week to figure out how to cook for that many people at once (suggestions are welcome). As of right now, I think I’ll do LMP on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday and take the rest of the week off, but I’ll decide by Friday and let you all know.

Today, Nancy Mace: Mean Girl; Lamar Odom did WHAT?; Where is our Daniel Ellsberg? And, as always, we leave on The High Note.

Let’s get into it.

Nancy Mace is a Mean Girl who gives us Regina George vibes

Two things: First, I’m so annoyed that I had to scroll down SIX PAGES of Google searches to find this scene because a search for “Mean Girls Regina George lesbian” now has to do with the new Mean Girls Musical and the new Mean Girls Musical movie Respect your elders, Google!

Secondly, I love the theory that the reason Regina thinks Janis Ian is a lesbian is because she doesn’t know the difference between “lesbian” and “Lebanese,” which Janis reveals is her heritage at the end of the movie.

But I digress. Let’s get to the point.

Nancy Mace is an asshole mean girl who is spending her time bullying a trans woman instead of ….doing whatever a conservative woman from South Carolina is supposed to do… carry water for the men in her party or whatever.

If you missed it, Mace started a whole thing over newly-elected Delaware representative and trans woman Sarah McBride using the women’s room at the Capitol. I thought we had dispensed with this issue back in 2016, when North Carolina passed the country’s first bathroom ban, and America was so outraged that the NCAA pulled its tournaments from the state and Paypal called off a planned expansion in Charlotte. Clearly, no one in the GOP remembers that time at all.

However, given that we’re moving backward in time, Mace threw a congressional tantrum about having to share the bathroom with a trans woman (for anyone who doesn’t know, women’s bathrooms consist of all stalls with doors) and proposed a “resolution” that prohibits McBride and other trans woman working at the Capitol from using women’s bathrooms. Speaker Mike Johnson, who has never met a bar he won’t slither under, quickly agreed, saying, “All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” adding, “Women deserve women’s only spaces.”

If Johnson is so concerned about women, he could release the House Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz. I see the GOP is already making good on the “protecting women whether they like it or not” pledge.

It’s fascinating that anyone cares this much about who is in the restroom with them. When I’m using the facilities, I’m not thinking about or looking at anyone else or their genitals. I’m certain I’ve been in the restroom with trans women more than once and not even realized it. Who cares? What is Mace doing in there, anyway? Use the bathroom, wash your hands, and leave.

Bewilderingly, while Mace has spent the majority of this week screeching about her bathroom habits, she’s also been on CNN defending Trump and his cabinet picks, many of whom actually do pose a threat to women. As I wrote earlier this week, so far, four of Trump’s cabinet nominees have been credibly accused of sexual assault or aggressive harassment. If you truly want to protect women, start there.

Apparently believing that any attention is good attention, Mace has now introduced a bill to ban the transgender community from using the bathrooms that reflect their gender in all federal buildings. This is not only stupid and cruel, it’s dangerous. Given the demonization campaign the GOP just ran against trans people, I can’t imagine a men’s bathroom is a safe place for trans women anywhere, much less in red states where people bought the smoke and mirrors.

Progressive and conservative women don’t agree on much, but what we do typically agree on is what puts women in danger. The fact that there is such a divide about trans women using women’s bathrooms, with the left seemingly not caring at all and the right being obsessed with stopping it, should tell you all you need to know. Like so many other culture war initiatives, this one is addressing a problem that doesn’t exist. Much like kids getting gender reassignment surgery at school, Seth Moulton’s fictional “formerly male athletes” running over his “little girls” in sporting events, or immigrants taking away “Black jobs,” this is not a real problem.

If there’s anyone harming women in women’s bathrooms, it’s cis men. In fact, a 2018 UCLA study found no evidence that trans-inclusive bathroom policies led to increased crime in public bathrooms. In fact, trans people are four times as likely to be victims of violent crime than cis people are.

Mace is, of course, trying to portray herself as the victim in this whole thing, claiming she’s getting death threats. That’s terrible if true; no one should be threatening anyone else. On an unrelated note, minding your own business (and private parts) is highly effective in not having people hate you.

For her part, McBride has agreed to abide by the GOP’s hateful new policy, though I shudder to think of what kind of reception she’ll get in the men’s bathrooms, and I hope there are male allies willing to escort her into and out of there. Frankly, I’m pretty disgusted by the Democratic leadership (if it even exists anymore) not fighting harder for McBride and pointing out to the country that this stupid culture war BS is cruel and a waste of everyone’s time.

Do better, House Democrats.

So Lamar Odom is super-weird

I somehow missed the news that Lamar Odom bought a custom sex doll that looks like his ex-wife, Khloe Kardashian.

Oh, I don’t doubt it’s about mental health, just not in the way that he thinks.

Look, I don’t want to kink shame anyone, but if my theoretical ex-husband did this to me and then told the entire world about it, I’d be livid. It has the same creepy vibes as the guy who made the mannequin that looked just like Elaine, but because it’s a sex doll, it feels like consent is implicated, too. I don’t know; the whole thing gives me the icks.

Where is our generation’s Daniel Ellsberg?

There’s a House Ethics Committee report with highly damaging information about Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz floating around, and the fact that no one has leaked it yet is a devastating condemnation on us as a country. The Committee is reportedly deadlocked on whether or not to release it, and the GOP is doing its damndest to block it, because whether the nominee for the highest law enforcement office in the land sex trafficked underage girls is not relevant, or something.

Given that the lawyer of the two women accusing Gaetz has been giving interviews left and right, it’s worth wondering what else in there that the GOP doesn’t want us to see. Something worse?

Which brings me to my question: Where is our Daniel Ellsberg?

In 1971, at the age of 40, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg decided he could no longer stand by and watch the Nixon Administration lie to the American people about the Vietnam War. He leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. If you’ve never seen the movie The Post, about the much smaller, more vulnerable Washington Post’s courageous decision under legendary editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katherine Graham to also print the Papers, it’s worth a watch. Though Ellsberg certainly was aware of what his disclosure meant — he was ultimately charged with espionage and conspiracy and faced 115 years in prison but wasn’t convicted — he did it anyway because he believed that America should be better than it was. What do we have? Joe and Mika going to Mar-a-Lago to bend the knee because they’re pre-afraid of being audited. God help us.

Are there any heroes left in Washington?

(On the off chance one of you has access to this report, shoot it my way, and I’ll publish it. No questions asked. Though I might ask you guys to start getting the bail money together.)

The High Note

As always, I am determined to leave you on a high note. Here are a few for you today.

• The City of Cleveland has launched its bid for a WNBA franchise.

• Aaron Rodgers has reportedly “fractured” the Jets’ locker room.

Boomer might hate to say it, but I looove to hear it.

• Please enjoy this video of New Zealand soccer star Annalie Longo’s dog taking over the pitch during a match.

• And finally, shoutout to Keith Conrad for pointing out that yesterday was the nine-year anniversary of the time my colleagues and I found out we were losing our jobs while on the air. Via a tweet.

See? Your day could be worse! By the way, our bosses were not apologetic and, in fact, were indignant that we were upset over it.

Survive and advance, don’t let the bastards get you down.