04/25/25

Good morning! It’s Friday, April 25th.

National Pretzel Day.

Someone call Stanley Hudson!

And now, the news.

Trans Rights in America

-via Politico, Politico, AP News, NY Times, and NBC News

Starting with three stories about trans rights in America, two of which contradictorially involve the Pentagon.

On Thursday Trump, who never served in the military because a podiatrist who rented his office from Trump’s dad did what the doctor’s daughter described as a “favor” said Trump had bone spurs to get him out of serving in Vietnam, asked the Supreme Court to immediately ban transgender folks from joining the military, while lower court proceedings, well, proceed.

Two federal judges have already ruled that the administration cannot expel any transgender troops.

In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could exclude trans folks who had undergone gender transition and those unwilling to serve “in their biological sex” from the military. That ruling was split 5-4 and was reversed by Biden.

This is much broader.

Cruel for the sake of being cruel.

So that request has been made of the Supremes, we’ll see if they pick up the request.

But speaking of the Pentagon, on the same day, it was announced that they will resume gender-affirming care for trans service members.

This is because it was ruled that Pete Hegseth’s demand that struck down the Biden-era policy was unconstitutional.

Again, cruel for the sake of being cruel.

And speaking of, AG Pam Bondi issued a memo this week directing US attorneys to prosecute doctors who provide gender-affirming care for minors. I’m not even going to use the language she used in the memo, because it is truly heinous.

These people are just so… hateful.

And here’s what’s really like – here’s what’s really the cherry on this terrible ice cream sundae but in a bad way – while all of this was going on, Trump pardoned a Nevada (Republican, obviously) politician who used money meant for a statue meant to honor a police officer who died but instead she used that money for plastic surgery.

Which is also – gender-affirming care!

So a guy who didn’t serve this country because someone did him a favor and got him out of ever having to serve, is now, as president, making life harder for transgender Americans while he does abhorrent stuff like this.

Disgusting.

Trump and Russia

-via AP News

Turning to Russia, where a nearly eleven-hour-long missile and drone strike on Kyiv killed at least twelve people, injuring at least 90 others, in the deadliest assault on Ukraine since July.

This occurred just a day after JD Vance said Crimea should be given to Russia as part of the peace agreement, and Trump backed him up with even more incendiary language.

How did the prince of peace react to this eleven-hour deadly attack? He sent an all caps tweet on Truth Social telling him to “STOP”

So… things are going terribly there.

As predicted.

Signalgate Continues

-via Washington Post and Washington Post

Hey, remember a few days ago when we learned that Pete Hegseth put his brother and wife on a Signal group chat to talk about the Yemen strikes and we were like whoa! Pretty bad! How on earth was that allowed to happen?

But it was his personal phone and so I guess maybe no one who knew, or cared, or was about to speak out, knew, or cared, or was able to speak out.

Turns out… he also had the app installed on his office computer!

His OFFICE computer!

What an absolute dunce!

This news broke, and it was like – already a bad news day for Hegseth whose not having an amazing moment (which I find I’m fine with), and then it got worse when the news broke that his chief of staff quit!

Because, you know… now it seems like Hegseth is probably on his way out (despite the White House denying otherwise) so… as someone who has closed multiple Hollywood Videos and Blockbusters, I’ll tell ya this much: when the store’s about the close… no, that analogy doesn’t work. When the store’s about to close, you stick around because all the movies are going to go on sale for a penny, so you hide the ones you want to buy in the ceiling until the last day.

The point is… when your boss is talking about war plans on his personal phone and it’s looking like his days are numbered, feel free to get that resume on Monster.com

Mahmoud Khalil

-via CBS News

On Thursday we learned that the ICE officials did not have a warrant when they detained Mahmoud Khalil last month. His attorneys are now asking to have his case dropped because of that.

If it doesn’t work, there is the good ole classic—this is a First Amendment violation (relax! They’re going to go with that, too!).

The Department of Homeland Security argued he was arrested without a warrant because they believed Khalil would flee the country, which his lawyers deny and used his full compliance during his arrest as proof, saying, "Tellingly, no agent present at the scene has ever submitted sworn or unsworn testimony that Mr. Khalil attempted to flee or otherwise posed a flight risk."

While Khalil was anti-constitutionally under arrest for using his First Amendment right to speak out against the atrocities happening in Gaza, he missed the birth of his son.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

Listen, it’s Friday. It’s a Friday show.

Trump is out there selling Trump 2028 hats on his official website – third term hats! For sale on his official website!

Yesterday it was ants. Today it’s the dumb hats.

Let’s all take it easy on ourselves.

I’m proud of trans Americans who are living their most authentic lives. I’m sorry that it happens to coincide with the worst possible president, in the worst possible timeline, passing these awful laws.

I’m also proud of pretzels. And Stanley Hudson.

But more than pretzels, but you’re all sweet, no salty… I’m proud of you.