07/23/25

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, July 23rd.

National Vanilla Ice Cream Day

Okay great, now I can tell you about something I learned the other day. During Jim Crow segregation, it was not necessarily illegal as in on the books but it was a very clear social law that during that time, Black Americans could not be sold vanilla ice cream in Southern states… simply because it’s white.

They could, however, get it on the 4th of July.

Racism is very dangerous and abhorrent and terrible, but it is also… very embarrassing and lazy.

Just because it’s white! That’s it!

Wild.

And now, the news.

LA Marines Withdraw

-via The Guardian

Starting in Los Angeles where the 700 Marines that were deployed here to this incredibly dangerous city, danger as far as the eye can see, have been withdrawn.

Whatever will we do?!

The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson says this is happening because stability is returning to Los Angeles which is so funny to me because we have literally not done anything.

I want to really nail down what happened here, so that the real story is told correctly.

ICE raids are happening all over the country. Here in Los Angeles, our reaction was swift and passionate – we immediately took to the streets. We are a sanctuary city. We are a city full of immigrants. Our culture, our business, everything… last weekend I went to Koreatown. Little Tokyo. Thaitown. Chinatown – that one’s a movie too! Little Ethiopia. I had lunch in Hollywood last week and had to go through Little Armenia to get back on the freeway. Olivera St.

Los Angeles.

You kidnapped our neighbors.

We reacted appropriately.

As there are in any protest, there were some agitators. Luckily, the 2nd best funded police department in the entire country, with a yearly budget of more than a billion dollars, had it covered.

Trump sent in the National Guard (as a reminder, there are still some troops remaining in Los Angeles) and the Marines, not to quell any unrest in Los Angeles. He didn’t send them in because Mayor Bass or Governor Newsom asked.

He sent them in because he wanted a show of force.

And he sent them in because he wanted Los Angeles to do something. He wanted us to step out of line so he could declare Martial Law. We know this from his first term, in the Black Lives Matter protests.

The Trump administration, and lazy journalists, are going to try and frame what happened in Los Angeles as if the National Guard and Marines are the ones who saved the city from some great disaster.

But to be clear – we understood the moment, understood the threat, and refused to give Trump what he wanted. We saved ourselves.

Just as we have always done.

We didn’t stop because the National Guard and Marines enforced it. We didn’t stop because we’re afraid of Trump.

Us? Afraid of Trump? Absolutely not. That would be insane! Literally nothing could be further from the truth. No. We stopped because we don’t care about that dude literally at all and just didn’t want to give him what he wanted.

Don’t get me wrong, we respect the military. We respect that more that Pete Hegseth does, that’s for sure. Because I wouldn’t have wasted their time by sending them here to begin with.

Anyway, the Marines have been released and are now free to be of service to our country in better ways.

Ozzy Osbourne

-via Axios

Ozzy Osbourne, the king of heavy metal (he was British), died on Tuesday.

Earlier this month, on July 5th, he held what he said would be his final concert. Not only did the original Black Sabbath lineup reunite for the first time in two decades, but bands like Metallica, Guns and Roses, Tool, and performers like Steven Tyler and Travis Barker took the stage.

Although he was a controversial figure on stage, it wasn’t until MTV’s The Osbournes when a new generation was introduced to him, and original fans got to know the real Ozzy Osbourne for, perhaps, the first time ever – a kind man and loving father and husband, who, although he struggled with addiction his entire life, having long periods of sobriety, in an interview in 2021 he said he he’d been sober for seven years.

He was 76 years old.

Olympics Ban Trans Athletes

-via NY Times

On Monday, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee quietly changed their rules to bar transgender women from competing in women’s supports, saying this is in compliance with Trump’s executive order.

…

Why is it always women? Can we have nothing? We gotta protect women. Then protect women. Trans women are women.

Notice that I said quietly in that first sentence? No one really noticed this until Tuesday – they know this in wrong. However, we do have to give some grace to the Olympics here. In a statement from the committee they said: “As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations.”

Prior to this, the committee allowed each sport to make its own decision about trans athletes, stating they were relying on “real data and science-based evidence rather than ideology.”

Because this deserves nuanced, thoughtful, conversation. Something this administration is incapable of.

Epstein

-via AP News, NPR, CBS News, and CNN

Speaking of that guy…

On Tuesday, Todd Blanche, the second-highest ranking person within the Department of Justice, after Pam Bondi, announced that he has reached out to Ghislaine Maxwell and plans to meet with her “in the coming days,” stating in an announcement, “Justice demands courage. For the first time, the Department of Justice is reaching out to Ghislaine Maxwell to ask: what do you know? At @AGPamBondi’s direction, I’ve contacted her counsel. I intend to meet with her soon. No one is above the law—and no lead is off-limits.”

Now, if that sounds good, please note that his second statement said: "President Trump has told us to release all credible evidence." So, how much are we supposed to trust?

Trump, of course, called it a “continuation of the witch hunt."

I can tell you this much – at this point, I don’t know what will be enough for the MAGA masses who are still hyper focused on this, but if this results in the DOJ once again saying yep, just as we suspected – nothing to see here, that’s only going to make things worse.

Which is fine by me, frankly, but still.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned yesterday, there was a movement in the House to force a vote on legislation that would have forced the administration to release the Epstein files.

However, because he was too scared of that vote passing (and probably embarrassed a Republican could manage his party better than him. Seriously, how does that man still have his job?), he sent members home early for their typical August break.

Literally shut down Congress, because he was afraid of a bipartisan effort to release the files.

When he goes home at night, what do you think he tells himself about his day at work. Do you think he sips a large glass of milk and thinks, good job Mikey? No way, right?

I don’t care what political party you align yourself with, this has gotta make you angry – willing to shut the House down, just to protect possible evidence of a pedophile’s crimes.

Good job Mikey.