- Losing My Perspicacity
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- Losing My Perspicacity, October 3, 2025
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Good morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for starting your day with me today.
There are so many things to talk about right now, it feels sort of self-indulgent to keep banging on about what’s happening to journalism — a field in which I have a vested interest. However, I don’t only care about the decimation of the news industry because it's an industry that once employed me, and I would like to work in it again someday. I care about the news because an informed electorate would, presumably, make better choices than the ones America is currently making.
How often have you heard a Trump voter say, “I didn’t vote for this” in the past 10 months, while Harris voters insist, “This is exactly what you voted for!” There’s a reason for that disconnect, and it’s that we’re getting two different sets of “facts,” depending on how you consume the news.
Growing up in a rural town in the 80s, you either paid hundreds to have an enormous satellite dish in your backyard or lived close enough to town to have cable (we didn’t). But having cable didn’t really matter for the news. There were three main news broadcasts each night — CBS, NBC, and ABC. (It wasn’t until the first Gulf War that everyone started watching CNN, which actually used to have entertainment and sports news shows during the day.) But whether you got your news from Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, or Peter Jennings, you could be confident that you were hearing the same basic facts as your neighbor who watched another channel.
Since the arrival of FOX News, that’s no longer the case. FOX proved you can get away with telling outright lies to your audience if your boss is powerful enough, and outlets like OAN and Newsmax followed soon after. No matter that much of what is said on those stations is half-truths or blatant falsehoods, a dedicated segment of America falls for “the news” those outlets pump out, hook, line, and sinker.
Meanwhile, the “reliable” news outlets, CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, and MSNBC have all been listing further to the right for some time. MSNBC has a nasty habit of firing women of color who call it like they see it (see, e.g., Joy Reid, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Tiffany Cross), while their morning show hosts flew off to bend the knee to Trump shortly after the election. ABC caved to Trump in a laughable lawsuit that they were practically guaranteed to win, had they chosen to fight, before they pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air for a pretty innocuous comment about the murder of Charlie Kirk.
But CBS bested them all, settling yet another lawsuit with Trump (this time, over a 60 Minutes interview) to ensure that a Trump-controlled FCC would approve owner Shari Redstone’s Paramount merger with Skydance studios. CBS then proceeded to cancel The Late Show, hosted by regular Trump critic Stephen Colbert, and, somewhere along the way, alienated the executive producer of 60 Minutes, who announced that the show — the gold standard in investigative journalism for decades — had lost its journalistic independence on his way out the door.
Now, CBS has abandoned any pretense of being an impartial arbiter of the news by hiring Bari Weiss as its new editor-in-chief.
If you don’t know who Bari Weiss is, it’s hard to explain her. She made her name as an (extremely mediocre) NYT columnist, who whined regularly about her freedom of speech being infringed upon (while writing for the NYT) and tried to get university professors she disagreed with fired. Weiss is the kind of person you come to roll your eyes at after years of seeing her horrible takes on everything elevated to the national discourse.
Over at his newsletter, Both/And, writer Jay Michaelson does a better job of summing up Weiss than I:
I’m still not going to write a hit piece. Rather, I’m going to focus on three core features of the journalistic charlatanism that has propelled Weiss’s career to the zenith of our profession:
1) Presenting herself as a disillusioned liberal when she is not in fact one, and maintaining a myopic, obsessive focus on the excesses of the Left to the exclusion of anything bad that happens on the Right — all the while taking large amounts of money from conservative mega-donors who have an obvious ideological interest in her doing so.
2) Depicting herself as an anti-establishment outsider, martyr, and independent when, in fact, she is an establishment insider with unparalleled access to right-wing figures, and
3) Holding extremely sloppy journalistic standards that turn rumors into facts, marginal figures into representatives of the great evil, minor incidents into major scandals. In a society struggling to tell truth from bullshit, the “Free Press” is part of the problem, degrading our public discourse and stoking rage for clicks.
Michaelson does a commendable job breaking down each of his complaints about Weiss, and I’d say his piece is pretty even-handed, considering the contempt in which much of the media industry holds Weiss.
So… yeah. Where are we supposed to go for fair and balanced news these days? You’ve got me. PBS and the BBC? It’s certainly not any of the primary broadcast channels that originate in the United States. If you didn’t cancel Paramount Plus after the Colbert shenanigans, now’s your chance to take a stand in defense of ethics in journalism.
And if you suffer from imposter syndrome, maybe take a look at the President of the United States, his entire cabinet, and the head of CBS News, and get over it.
Today: Dave Chappelle and everyone else at the Riyadh Comedy Fest show their asses; The entire federal government appears to violate the Hatch Act; the FBI reportedly fires an agent who displayed the Pride flag; and The High Note.
Before we get to the news, please take a moment and consider becoming a paid subscriber to LMP. For the reasons I outlined in today’s top story and more, a press that is not beholden to the political whims of management is more vital than ever to the survival of our democracy. If you can’t subscribe at this time, please click on the ad below — every click helps defray the cost of using beehiiv to create LMP five days a week.
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Let’s go.
Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, and others embarrass themselves in Saudi Arabia
Look, I don’t expect much out of comedians these days when it comes to political activism. After all, comedians like George Carlin, Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, and DL Hughley are few and far between (though Ronny Chieng from The Daily Show and Josh Johnson are making a good run at it). And that’s fine. I love Nate Bargatze, and he doesn’t get anywhere near politics.
But when you head to a comedy festival in a country that jails women for “feminism,” beheads people for alleged crimes, and brutally murdered an American journalist, you should expect some blowback. I hope it goes without saying that choosing to perform in a country that has been attempting to sportswash and otherwise launder its human rights abuses and role in 9/11 for the last 30 years is undoubtedly a choice.
Let’s start with Dave Chappelle who, on the anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said this:
“Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you’ll get canceled,” the comedian Dave Chappelle quipped on Saturday at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, the first event of its kind in Saudi Arabia. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m gonna find out.”
A headline act, Mr. Chappelle was met with whoops, cheers and applause as he told an audience of 6,000, “It’s easier to talk here than it is in America.”
Sure, Dave. Having people complain about your terrible jokes about the trans community, a group that is subjected to more violence than just about any other, is the same as being tossed in prison by the government. You should feel free to say whatever you want, but anyone responding to your words is a jerk who is censoring you. Do I have that right?
Then there’s Bill Burr, a guy who always seems to make me laugh, but then makes me regret it 10 seconds later when he says something brain-dead, usually about women.
Burr painted a portrait of a region where people were, well, “just like us” — wanting live comedy, wanting to relax and have fun, and consuming a surprising amount of Western culture.
“It was great to experience that part of the world and to be a part of the first comedy festival over there in Saudi Arabia,” Burr said. “The royals loved the show. Everyone was happy. The people that were doing the festival were thrilled. The comedians that I’ve been talking to are saying, ‘Dude, you can feel [the audience] wanted it. They want to see real stand-up comedy.’ It was a mind-blowing experience. Definitely top three experiences I’ve had. I think it’s going to lead to a lot of positive things.”
Well, as long as the royals and the people being paid big bucks to perform for them loved the show, who are we to complain? By the way, the performers were given a list of things they couldn’t joke about, including making fun of the royals or religion, among other things.
Many comedians who chose not to go to the festival, including Marc Maron and Zach Woods, have been outspoken about their colleagues who did perform:
“I mean, how do you even promote that? You know, like, ‘From the folks that brought you 9/11. Two weeks of laughter in the desert, don’t miss it!’” Maron said. “I mean, the same guy that’s gonna pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bone saw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a fucking suitcase. But don’t let that stop the yucks, it’s gonna be a good time!”
There’s a complete list of those performing in Riyadh here. And I had just decided to forgive Aziz Ansari for being a sex pest…
So much for the Hatch Act, I guess
The Hatch Act, a federal law passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees, as well as some state, D.C., and local government employees who work in connection with federally funded programs. The law’s purposes are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.
Knowing that, please spot the problem here:
Those screengrabs are from the Department of Justice, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the White House, all in blatant violation of the Hatch Act. Yesterday, I highlighted that federal employees got a memo directly from the Trump White House that instructed them to blame the shutdown on Democrats. Over at the Department of Education (or what little of it remains), employees were shocked to learn that their non-partisan “out of office” messages were changed, without their knowledge, to denigrate Democrats.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is using the shutdown to further purge non-MAGA employees from “Democrat agencies,” whatever those are.
Trump, posting to Truth Social, said the Vought meeting will "determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent."
On a separate but related note, we really need to push our elected officials to confront Trump’s evident cognitive decline. How long are they planning to let this go on?
Do we know that Trump even knows what he’s attacking at this point?
FBI reportedly fires agent for displaying PRIDE flag
Each morning, I wake up thinking, “Surely, Kash Patel can’t get any worse,” and each morning, I am incorrect.
FBI Director Kash Patel on Wednesday fired an agent in training for displaying a gay pride flag on his desk while appointed to a field office in California last year, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The trainee, who previously worked as an FBI support specialist in Los Angeles, received a letter — dated Oct. 1 and signed by Patel — claiming he had displayed an improper “political” message in the workplace during his assignment in California under President Joe Biden, according to a copy of the letter shared with MSNBC.
I am disgusted, and I hope this former agent gets a good lawyer.
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.
God, what another shitty week this was for those who care about other people and the Constitution. And we lost Jane Goodall. So here’s national treasure Yo-Yo Ma to soothe all of our souls.
Survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Have a great weekend.
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