04/28/25
Good morning! It’s Monday, April 28th.
National Superhero Day, which was created by Marvel Comics in 1995, is a day to celebrate all comicbook heros.
NERDS.
…In 2013 the razor brand Gillette ran an ad series called How Does Superman Shave and the thing that’s always bothered me about that ad campaign is that Superman actually doesn’t need to shave because his hair and fingernails don’t grow in earth. Obviously, were he exposed to red kryptonite, that’s a different story, but the point is that Superman traditionally doesn’t need to shave, and so really Gilette’s ad was – How does Superman shave? He does not. He doesn’t buy razors and if you want to be like Superman, neither will you.
It doesn’t make any dang sense.
Anyway… a day for superheroes? Nerds!
Can I tell you something? Didn’t look a lick of that up. It’s bothered be for twelve years.
And now, the news.
Vancouver Attack
-via NPR
Starting in Vancouver Canada, where at least eleven people are dead and dozens more are injured after a man drove his SUV into a crowd on Saturday night.
The victims range in age from 65 to five. Five years old.
The police department’s acting chief called Saturday, “the darkest day in our city's history,” as he warned that the death toll could continue to rise.
The attack took place at a Filipino festival, but it’s important to note that it is not suspected of being a terrorist attack. The driver will not be named until charges are filed, but is known to police as someone who has "a significant history of interactions with police and health care professionals related to mental health."
An investigation, in particular for a motive, is ongoing as are hearts and minds are with everyone in Vancouver.
Canadians are also headed to the polls today to select their new Prime Minister, an election that will be a clear referendum on Trump.
American Deportations
-via The Guardian, NY Times, AP News, and CNN
Over the weekend, a collection of stories about deportations broke that paint a pretty bleak picture on top of an already bleak picture. A bleak mixed media, if you will.
Starting on Friday, when Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan was arrested after the FBI accused her of obstructing justice for what they say is helping a man evade immigration agents in the courthouse.
She appeared briefly in court on Friday and has been released but will appear again on May 15th.
Wisconsin’s Senator Tammy Baldwin called this a “gravely serious and drastic move” that “threatens to breach” the separation of the judicial and executive branches of government. At the same time, Senator Elizabeth Warren said, “This administration is threatening our country’s judicial system. This rings serious alarm bells.”
Meanwhile, the FBI posted a photo of the judge in handcuffs and with the caption, “No one is above the law.” Clearly meant to intimidate other judges as they work to press their thumb on the judicial branch.
So that was Wisconsin.
We also learned, on Friday, that the Trump administration deported a two-year-old US citizen without due process.
I’m gonna say that again, because I needed to read that sentence multiple times.
The Trump administration deported a two-year-old US citizen without due process and against her father’s wishes.
Here’s what happened – the child’s mother was deported back to Honduras, but even though dad filed an emergency petition to stop his daughter, a US citizen, from being sent to Honduras, the child was still deported because the government says the mother wanted the child to be with her. Of course she did. Of course. That is her baby. She is two. Of course she wants her baby with her.
But she is a US citizen and, legally speaking, the government believing something has nothing to do with anything, especially because the court doesn’t know that. All the court knows, again, evidentially speaking, is that this is a US citizen whose father has filed an emergency petition to keep her in this country with him.
And if it was so important, so vital to this country, to keep this family together, if this government cared at all, the solution was not to illegally deport a US citizen. It was to allow the mother to stay her and find a pathway to citizenship while she got to stay with her baby.
And lest you say that this baby, this two year old US citizen is an accident that the government will fix as soon as possible first of all – boy of boy would I love for you to go back and listen to some past episodes because there are 238 Venezuelans in a torture chamber in El Salvador who haven’t been given due process, a man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was transferred from that torture prison to another prison in El Salvador on an administrative error that the government is now trying to say is proof of him being in a gang, and a whole bunch of students who are about to lose their student visas for using their first amendment rights, including Mahmoud Khalil, whose presence here this government says is a threat to Jewish Americans simply because he doesn’t think genocide is something Columbia University should be funding.
A two-year-old US citizen. Deported.
The government of course has no comment.
Then the following day, ICE announced that they had arrested nearly 800 people in a “massive, multi-agency immigration enforcement crackdown.”
City and local leaders worked together with ICE to make the arrests happen, but not happily. For example, one city council member out of a Miami suburb said this: “We’re being mandated by the state to take certain actions and if we don’t, we’re being threatened with criminal penalties. Passing this is painful for all of us. We’re all immigrants … we all have families that derive from different places where, right now, there’s great suffering.”
A judge arrested. A two-year-citizen deported. City officials pressured.
This is America.
Good Trouble
And given all that, it should be no surprise that Trump’s first 100-day ratings are the lowest of any President in more than 80 years.
80!
Only 24% of all US adults believe he has the right priorities, including 54% of Republicans, more than we want but not great still.
On immigration, 4 in 10 adults agree with him.
4 in 10.
4 in 10 is low, until you think about a two-year-old US citizen who was deported and then you can’t even fathom understanding the four.
And given all of that, it makes complete sense that, on Sunday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and US Senator Cory Booker started the first bicameral sit-in.
Bicameral means from both chambers of Congress.
They sat right there, on the steps of the Capitol, and got it started.
They are sitting-in in protest of the upcoming budget reconciliation bill that they believe, “presents one of the greatest moral threats to our country that we’ve seen in terms of what it will do to providing food for the hungry, care for the elderly, services for the disabled, health care, health care for the sick and more.”
They were joined by Congressional and Senate democrats, as well as progressive leaders.
The House returns today from a two-week recess.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I’m proud of anyone out there getting into good trouble.
You know what I heard the other day? I heard someone say that if everyone could be just two percent more brave, no one would have to be a hero.
Wouldn’t that be something?
Speaking of brave? Imagine having every superpower in the entire world and using it for good. People make fun of Superman because he’s a do-good, but that’s what we need right now. Someone who could do anything, ANYTHING, and chooses to do good with it.
But more than… wow. Not more than Superman! More than… blueberry pies. It’s also National Blueberry Pie Day. Because you’re also the first sign that summer is right around the corner – I’m proud of you.