Losing My Perspicacity, September 26, 2025

RIP "Liberty and Justice for All"

Author

Julie DiCaro
September 26, 2025

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Good morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for starting your day with me.

There was a time, when I was in law school in the late 1990s, when it seemed that anytime we heard the DOJ was getting involved in a case, it meant the guys in the white hats were riding in to make sure the right thing was done. Back then, the DOJ prosecuted things like voter suppression, civil rights violations, and white supremacist militias, who acted as if the Justice Department was unfairly targeting them for their beliefs, rather than the arsenals of weapons they had amassed.

Don’t get me wrong, I remember Waco too well to think the feds were infallible, but, for the most part, the feds acted as the adults in the room when the states couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing.

Those days are now well and truly behind us, as Donald Trump’s quest to turn the Department of Justice into his personal vengeance machine is complete with the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, just days before the statute of limitations on the charges against him would have run. Comey has been charged with making false statements and obstructing a federal proceeding. He faces up to five years in prison.

“JUSTICE IN AMERICA! One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey, the former Corrupt Head of the FBI,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

It’s no secret that Trump has been frantic to get Comey charged before the statute of limitations ran out. So much so that he seemingly posted a text/DM to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Truth Social, because Trump has oatmeal for a brain.

It’s also widely known that the attorneys and investigators working on the case against Comey recommended against charging him, finding insufficient evidence of Comey’s guilt. But, as I said, the DOJ no longer works for the American people; it’s now Donald Trump’s personal grievance apparatus. Trump ousted the US Attorney who refused to prosecute Comey and replaced him with one of his personal goons, Lindsey Halligan, who has no prosecutorial experience.

All of this is over a single statement Comey made in testimony before Congress in 2020, when Comey testified that “he did not authorize someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source” for a Wall St. Journal article about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. According to the indictment, the DOJ is claiming that the statement was false. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn that Ted Cruz was part of all of this.

Cruz told the Justice Department in a letter three months later that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe admitted knowing about and authorizing the leak.

McCabe insisted that Comey was aware of his decision to authorize the disclosure, while Comey “has denied this claim,” Cruz wrote.

“Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe’s statements are irreconcilably contradictory,” Cruz wrote. “Mr. McCabe says that he told Mr. Comey of the leak and that Mr. Comey approved — effectively authorizing the leak after the fact. Mr. Comey, on the other hand, has said that he neither authorized the leak nor knew of Mr. McCabe’s involvement.”

The irony in all of this, of course, is that Comey is being indicted by the very people who lie, forcefully and regularly, to the American people about all manner of things. RFK Jr. lied in his confirmation hearing when he said he wouldn’t mess with the childhood vaccination schedule. Every Republican who claimed Donald Trump won the 2020 election lied. The claim that the failure to release the Epstein files and overturning Roe v. Wade was for the protection of women is a lie. The statements about immigrants committing more crimes than American citizens are lies. Hell, Trump and Stephen Miller lie about what the Constitution allows on a daily basis.

Keep in mind that an indictment is not a conviction, and the standard of proof is much higher in a criminal trial than it is in a grand jury proceeding. Still, the fact that the DOJ got 12 people to agree that there is enough evidence for Comey to stand trial is unsettling, despite the old adage that “you can indict a ham sandwich.”

Here’s Comey’s response.

Comey: My heart is broken for the Department of Justice. But I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I'm innocent, so let's have a trial.

— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social)2025-09-26T00:34:37.640Z

I’m sure Trump was counting on Comey rolling over and accepting a plea deal, but I hope he takes this thing all the way to a jury trial and makes the prosecution eat their words. He should also sue Trump for defamation.

If you’re on Bluesky, you can read about how this entire case is premised on a faulty reading of McCabe’s conflicting testimony.

Comey's testimony in 2020 On the left: In hearing, Senator Cruz erroneously claimed McCabe had said Comey "directly authorized" leak to press. Comey denied that. On the right: Cruz was wrong. McCabe did not say Comey authorized the leak (source: Inspector General Report, on which Cruz relies)

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw.bsky.social)2025-09-25T00:53:46.832Z

But wait! It gets worse! Yesterday, Trump, who is definitely feeling like a really big boy after the Comey indictment, also signed an (illegal) executive order directing federal law enforcement to investigate “liberal” groups for “domestic terrorism.”

“This is the first time in American history that there is an all of government effort to dismantle left-wing terrorism," White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said during a Sept. 25 event at the White House.

FBI Director Kash Patel said law enforcement would focus on who is funding such groups, saying he plans to "follow the money."

***

"We are properly going to chase them down like the domestic terrorists that they are," Patel said.

The memorandum directs the National Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is part of the FBI, to “coordinate and supervise a comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation.”

Yeah, there’s a reason this is the first time, you dolts. That order is entirely unconstitutional. If you’re following along, this is the part in Red Dawn where we all go hide in the Colorado mountains.

Today: Jimmy Kimmel is back, but Disney shareholders aren’t done; Meta is acting all evil again; You’ll never guess what the latest Trump administration sex pest is doing; and The High Note.

Before we get to the news, and in the wake of the Jimmy Kimmel shenanigans, please consider supporting independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber to LMP. You can join for as little as $1.01 per month, and every dollar helps ensure that I can keep reporting and commenting on the news without some corporate overlord telling me that I need to “dial it down,” or “be more generous” with the bad guys. Given the state of legacy media in this country and the willingness of outlets to roll over for Trump, we desperately need a robust independent media.

Looking for more ways to help? You can always send me a coffee and click on the link below to help keep the lights on here at LMP. Every little bit makes a big difference!

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Let’s get into it.

Disney shareholders demand answers

I’m sure that Disney hoped that by relenting on Kimmel — one day before their price increase kicked in, no less — their customers would give them lots of pats on their mouse ears for “doing the right thing” and come rushing back.

That’s not exactly how it’s going. For starters, Disney’s investors are demanding answers.

A group of Disney investors is demanding access to company records, alleging that the entertainment giant’s handling of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension reflected political pressures rather than the best interests of shareholders.

***

The investor groups argue that the decision was driven by threats from federal regulators and broadcast affiliates, rather than a business calculation to benefit shareholders.

“Disney’s stock suffered significant declines in response to the abrupt suspension, which appeared to be in response to political threats,” the investors wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Semafor.

Disney’s stock was already down for the month, but you can see how dramatically it fell off on September 17, when Kimmel was suspended.

After a slight rebound on Wednesday, Disney was down again yesterday. And despite Kimmel’s return, it doesn’t look like the masses are scrambling to re-up their subscriptions.

Maybe Disney should have watched Season 2 of Andor before bowing to fascist censorship.

Meta is sucking…. again

I would love the chance to interview Mark Zuckerberg, even for just five minutes. I want to ask him all the questions that those who get access to him never do. Questions like, “What do you think your 20-year-old self would think of all the political groveling you’ve done to Donald Trump?” and “How much money is enough money to justify all the evil Meta does?” and “Do you really think you look cool in those glasses? Do you not have any friends close enough to tell you to take them off?” You get the idea.

Anyway, whatever Zuckerberg once was, he’s entirely a comic book bad guy at this point. Every day, I read a headline about Meta that’s worse than the day before. Today, I learned that Meta, having been busted for hiding information about the abortion pill in January, has now resorted to just deleting the accounts of those who advocate for reproductive freedom.

When the team at Women Help Women signed into Instagram last winter, they were met with a distressing surprise: without warning, Meta had disabled their account. The abortion advocacy non-profit organization found itself suddenly cut off from its tens of thousands of followers and with limited recourse. Meta claimed Women Help Women had violated its Community Standards on “guns, drugs, and other restricted goods,” but the organization told EFF it uses Instagram only to communicate about safe abortion practices, including sharing educational content and messages aimed at reducing stigma. Eventually, Women Help Women was able to restore its account, but only after launching a public campaign and receiving national news coverage. 

Unfortunately, Women Help Women’s experience is not unique. Around a quarter of our Stop Censoring Abortion campaign submissions reported that their entire account or page had been disabled or taken down after sharing abortion information—primarily on Meta platforms. This troubling pattern indicates that the censorship crisis goes beyond content removal. Accounts providing crucial reproductive health information are disappearing, often without warning, cutting users off from their communities and followers entirely.

I’ve been trying to get off Facebook for over a year. Unfortunately, I’m a witness in a lawsuit where social media posts are relevant, so I’ve had to keep everything status quo. But the minute I get the okay, I’m going to drop-kick that site into the sun. The only redeeming quality about that place is the Nate the Hoof Guy videos, and I can get those elsewhere.

I regret to inform you of yet another Trump administration sex pest

To me, this is the perfect summation of the Trump administration. Trump tapped the Department of Homeland Security’s Micah Bock to lead the administration’s campaign to take down “sex predators.”

The only problem (do I even have to spell it out)? Bock was himself accused of sexual assault of a teenager in 2016. That allegation came out as part of a Buzzfeed investigation into former GOP Congressman Madison Cawthorne’s behavior towards women in college, and guess who one of his BFFs was?

You guessed it: Micah Bock.

But Bock himself allegedly engaged in nonconsensual physical contact, according to Petree, the current Republican intern at the Capitol. She said Bock repeatedly pressed his body — first his arm and later his genitals against her — while she slept at a house with friends after a pool party in 2016 that Cawthorn did not attend.

Petree said she had dodged Bock’s touches all night and that she told a friend who attended the party with her to sleep next to her specifically to keep him away from her. But when she woke up in the middle of the night, it was his body that was pressed against hers, his arm wrapped around her.

“I remember physically taking his arm and being like, ‘What are you doing?’ Like, physically picking it up and pushing it off of me and going, ‘You need to stop. Like, stop,’” she recalled.

But when she woke up a few hours later, Petree said Bock was still there, curved around her like a spoon. “I could feel, like, hard genitalia. It was that level of, like, I could feel him pressed into me and just being like, no,” Petree said.

Later that day, she said she got a message from Bock, who asked how she was doing.

“He says to me, ‘You definitely weren't really asleep. You wanted it,’” she recalled. “That's what he tells me. And I just remember being like getting in this text battle with him being like, what are you talking about?”

As disturbing as all of that is, it’s also worth noting that Bock doesn’t seem to have any experience in investigation or law enforcement. A quick review of his credentials reveals nothing but jobs in communications for various congressional representatives. He’s only been with DHS since April.

If only we all rose through the ranks of our chosen professions the way problematic young white men do in Trump’s administration.

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.

Because I dumped a bunch of icky news on you above, please enjoy this delightful video of Weird Al discussing his most iconic hits.

I’ve heard multiple times that Al Yankovic is the rare exception to the “never meet your heroes” rule, and I am holding on to that truth like grim death. In a world full of Donald Trumps and JD Vances, be a Weird Al.

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

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