Losing My Perspicacity, October 14, 2025

Come for the ICE updates, stay for Mike Johnson getting destroyed on C-SPAN

Author

Julie DiCaro
October 14, 2025

Good morning and Happy Tuesday! Thanks for reading today.

Things were relatively quiet in Chicago yesterday, and by “relatively quiet,” I mean that we were only getting sporadic reports of ICE harassing people all across the city and suburbs instead of multiple emergency hearings in court or reports of federal officers arresting city officials. Speaking of city officials, shout out to the Windy City Times, another local media outlet doing excellent reporting, on this piece about the ICE agent who was caught arresting Ald. Jessie Fuentes (for the crime of asking him a question, no less) on October 3.

If you don’t remember the specific incident, here it is:

ICE just blatantly violated the law and arrested sitting Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes while seeking to illegally arrest a patient in a hospital. Fuck these fascists.

— Eric Reinhart (@eric-reinhart.com)2025-10-03T19:18:59.813Z

Turns out that agent in the striped shirt? Kind of a problem:

Fuentes added that the same ICE agent who handcuffed her has been filmed in at least three other violent encounters, including one at a Walmart, the viral arrest in Waukegan where the mayor was present, and another incident involving a woman.

“It seems that he’s a bit unhinged,” Fuentes said. “He’s obviously a danger to individuals and particularly women.”

Fuentes said the violence she experienced is part of a broader campaign of control and intimidation.

Fuentes is now preparing to sue that agent over her arrest, and good for her. We also learned that ICE issued a Chicago man a $130 ticket yesterday for “not having his papers on him.” Nothing makes you feel more like living in Germany in 1938 than having some guy demand your proof of citizenship while you’re minding your own business in a public park. Foreign nationals have always been required, under federal law, to have their registration papers on them, but it was never enforced until Trump took office for the second time.

Meanwhile, in Boston, ICE kidnapped a 13-year-old with a pending asylum claim and transported him across state lines without his parents’ knowledge.

That kid has now been released by a federal judge after being held for six days. If you’re thinking this was surely a mistake, think again. DHS officials have zero remorse for traumatizing children.

We have a juvenile justice system for this kind of thing, Trish, you Nazi.

Finally, airports across the country are refusing to air Kristi Noem’s propaganda video blaming Democrats for the federal government shutdown.

Last week, the White House bragged that a video of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming the ongoing government shutdown on Democrats is “currently playing at every public airport in America.”

But according to local reports, airports across the country—from Washington state to New York—have announced their refusal to subject travelers to the propaganda.

So far, airports in Portland, Reno, Seattle, and Westchester, NY have refused to play the video for passengers.

Today: Dan Rather has plenty to say about CBS News and Bari Weiss; Legacy Media outlets collectively stumble upon backbones; Another measles outbreak is ravaging multiple states; and The High Note.

Let’s get to it.

If Dan Rather said this about me, I’d quit journalism

It brings me no pleasure to inform you that one of my (former) heroes, (former) WaPo sports columnist Sally Jenkins, has been slowly melting down on Bluesky. First, she defended Charlie Kirk, saying that Kirk spoke with “civility.”

It would have taken 15 seconds to Google “Charlie Kirk problematic,” and all her questions would have been answered. Also, Joseph Goebbels probably sounded “civil” if you ignored the meaning of the words he was saying.

Then Jenkins, who has now jumped to The Atlantic, defended new CBS News head Bari Weiss, and called users “thought police” for trying to explain to her why she was wrong.

That’s not…great, Sally. I’m getting the feeling that Sally needs to learn a little more about the world of politics before she makes the jump from sports. Anyway, in light of The Atlantic running PR for Weiss, I thought I’d share some of what Dan Rather wrote about her recently over on his Substack.

The former opinion writer for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times is not a reporter. She has never worked in television news and she has never led a staff larger than a few dozen. That all changed this week when David Ellison, whose Skydance Media recently acquired CBS, installed Weiss in a position created for her. She will not report to the president of CBS News — as one might expect — but to David Ellison directly.

Weiss’s management style has been called abrasive and disorganized. “It is chaos. She would admit that she can be difficult to work with. Even for people who totally agree with her,” a former Weiss staffer told Oliver Darcy of “Status.”

***

It is also hard to believe Weiss will be an equitable steward of the storied news division in light of how the Ellisons acquired it.

GAH. The second-hand embarrassment. I would walk out of the newsroom and into the ocean of an icon like Dan Rather wrote that about me.

Someone go tell Sally.

Hey, legacy media did something right

Speaking of legacy media outlets like CBS News, I am happy to report that at least some outlets have found something resembling a backbone and have refused to sign Pete Hegseth’s loyalty pledge to keep covering the Pentagon.

Several leading news organizations with access to Pentagon briefings have formally said they will not agree to a new defense department policy that requires them to pledge they will not obtain unauthorized material and restricts access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.

The policy, presented last month by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been widely criticized by media organizations asked to sign the pledge by Tuesday at 5pm or have 24 hours to turn in their press credentials.

So far, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Reuters, The Associated Press, NPR, HuffPost, and the trade publications Breaking Defense and Task & Purpose have refused to sign the pledge.

Yay, more measles

More than 150 children in South Carolina schools are quarantining after being exposed to the virus at school. And that’s not the only place measles outbreaks are happening across the United States.

Meanwhile, a large measles outbreak along the border areas of Arizona and southwestern Utah continues to grow, with Utah now reporting 55 cases this year as of Friday. Nearly all of the cases occurred in people who were unvaccinated. Six people required hospitalization. According to the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, wastewater testing shows that the measles virus is more widespread in the state than previously known. In neighboring Arizona, officials have reported 63 cases so far this year.

And in Minnesota, officials last week reported that a small, recent surge in measles cases there has brought the state's total for the year to 20.

All told, the CDC has confirmed 44 measles outbreaks in 41 states this year.

Golly gee, someday science will figure out how to beat that pesky measles virus, friends! If only we had some way to prevent outbreaks across our great country! I can’t wait until we bring back smallpox.

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.

Today, please enjoy American citizens asking Mike Johnson better questions than the American media does.

C-SPAN caller to Mike Johnson: "Hearing you say that 'everyone is smiling' in cities where troops have been rolled into feels dystopian and insane watching the response to it."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)2025-10-09T13:00:09.090Z

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

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