07/03/25
Good morning! It’s Thursday, July 3rd.
National Day Out of the Sun Day
And I know you’re probably thinking I’m going to make a joke here, because I’m so funny and also charming, but this one’s real… take sun safety seriously. Stay out of the sun when you can, and when you don’t, please wear sunscreen.
And now, the news.
Sean Combs Verdict
-via AP News
Starting with the news that, after Tuesday’s false start, Wednesday brought a verdict in the Sean Combs trial.
Brace yourself.
Though he was convicted of the prostitution-related charges, he was found not guilty of the sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
I… am not a lawyer, not was I a juror in that courtroom.
But wow. I’m shocked.
And also not. Because I am, you know… am woman in this world. In this country, even.
The two charges that he was found guilty of, transportation for purposes of prostitution, carry a maximum sentence of ten years in prison but he is expected to be sentenced to around two.
And the judge denied his request to be released on bond before his sentencing because of his “yearslong pattern of violence.” Which he… will serve zero time in prison for.
I… don’t even know what to say. I’m surprised, but I’m also surprised to be surprised.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Win
-via The Hill
How about a win to make us feel better?
Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that abortions will continue to be allowed in the state after it ruled that its more recent laws superseded the state Constitution.
How? Great question!
In 2022, abortions were paused in the state after Trump placed three Justices on the Supreme Court who lied under oath when they said they believed Roe was settled law but overturned it at first chance.
That 2022 national decision reactivated the state’s 1849 law outlaws abortion except to save the mother’s life
But what the law actually did was ban killing a fetus without the mother’s consent, but not abortions specifically.
You know, were I Wisconsin (or, I guess, a person in Wisconsin. Not the state of Wisconsin.), the next move I would make is… try and change the Constitution. (Tragically, the state does not allow for citizen-led initiatives to do that, but if they can get some Democrats in office, they could work with them to get the legislation passed. Just a thought.)
Big Beautiful Bill Burnout
-via Axios
As I record this, the House is still voting on the Big Beautiful Bill. You’ll be shocked to hear that the Republicans are all over the place and truly just can’t get themselves together. Speaker Johnson is so bad at his job.
He is supposed to be in charge of his party! It’s wild how bad that dude is at his job.
They’re going to try to get it done Wednesday night, so by the time you head this in the morning, the House may have passed it but I don’t except it to be done during normal business hours.
And that’s how you know the bill is good – because it’s going to be passed in the middle of the night.
CA Firework Factory Explosion
-via NBC News
Seven people are missing after a fireworks factory in northern California caught fire on Tuesday evening, causing a fireball and fireworks to shoot out above the factory.
Evacuation orders remained in place on Wednesday, with officials saying that the risk of an additional fire was low but not completely out.
Because fireworks shot out of the building, fire spots from the explosion covered about 80 acres.
Judge Blocks Trump’s Asylum Block
-via CNN
Let’s talk about some court stuff!
On Wednesday a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from preventing people from crossing the southern border to seek asylum.
That’s right.
This… every time there’s a story like this, I… see red.
Like – you know what, man? What do you want? Well, again, we know what he wants. He wants to wake up, play golf, drink diet coke, eat overcooked McDonalds, then go to bed, and at no point in any of that does he want to see non-white people. Specifically brown people.
Gotta come in the right way gotta come in the right way
Seeking asylum is a legal pathway to citizenship.
It provides a legal basis for someone to be in this country.
In the ruling, the judge said: “Nothing in the (Immigration and Nationality Act) or the Constitution grants the President or his delegees the sweeping authority asserted in the Proclamation and implementing guidance.”
Obviously Captain 100 Million Americans, Stephen Miller, was like we hate this ruling but I’m not going to repeat his language because it’s really like an impressive amount of disgust packed into one single tweet.
It was actually multiple tweets.
Expect this one to go to courts on courts on courts because the man’s so lazy he needs two hands to drink water but when it comes to his racism… there’s no limit to what he’ll do.
Trump Looking to Bar ASL Interpreters in Briefings
-via CNN
But that wasn’t the only legal loss the Trump administration suffered on Wednesday. They actually suffered a lot of legal losses. Well, until they get to the Supreme Court. Then it’s 50/50. Probably because they’re doing so many illegal things.
Funny how that works.
Anyway, this isn’t a loss but a signal that it’s about to be a loss… On Wednesday, a federal judge appeared to be leaning towards providing ASL interpreters at White House press briefings.
The Biden administration staffed its briefings with interpreters, but the Trump administration promptly stopped that.
When asked for a comment, one of the former White House ASL interpreters said ______
Omg… I wrote that joke before I wrote anything else in this episode. I’m so proud. Because they’re bilingual! But this isn’t a visual medium!
The Department of Justice’s argument here is that the closed captions should be good enough, but ASL and English are two different languages so for someone who is only fluent in ASL, closed captions don’t help because the person then needs to translate on the fly and can miss vital information.
Which I mention because… that’s just a fun fact for you. Grammatically, ASL and English are different. So that’s something to think about when you’re thinking about closed captions in general.
I also mention it because when the Department of Justice brought up closed captions, the judge said, “How does it help to point to things that may not be adequate?”
Which I thought was a cool energy to bring to the room.
DOJ Suing Los Angeles
-via AP News, Politico, and AP News (Mamdani)
And finally, here’s the story that I wanted to talk about earlier and was like… it’s too early in the week for this energy!
On Monday, the Trump administration announced that they are suing Los Angeles.
Suing! Us!
Can we sue you for… just… actually can we sue for you emotional distress?
The administration is claiming that our sanctuary policies limit our cooperation with federal immigration authorities and clash with federal law.
Yeah! That’s… why we have them.
That’s why we’re a sanctuary city!
We are literally not wanting to cooperate. That’s the language of our sanctuary city status, which we’ve been moving towards since the 70s! If we didn’t want to do this, we probably would have said something. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this is Los Angeles. When we have a problem with something, we say it.
Buncha talkers, we are.
In her press release, Pam Bondi said, “Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles.”
We were fine! We were fine until you sent your ICE agents here and started kidnapping our neighbors!
Meanwhile, the top military commander in charge of the 4000 National Guards and 800 Marines who have been here has asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth if 200 of the National Guards can be returned to wildfire fighting duty. Because normally that’s what they would be doing – they would be on the California National Guard’s Joint Task Force Rattlesnake, where they work with CALFIRE to respond to wildfires, among other things.
But there’s nothing for them to do! So hopefully these 200 National Guards can at least go where they’ll be more useful.
Meanwhile, this isn’t really connected but it’s not really a story so I don’t know where else to put it, but Trump is still very upset that Zohran Mamdani won the democratic mayoral primary in New York and so he’s going to do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn’t win. Some of the things he’s said have been horrific. (He’s threatened to deport him – even though he’s a US citizen. He’s also threatened to have him arrested, despite committing no crimes.)
But on Wednesday he also said he wanted to make New York “hot and great again”
Hot? You’re going to make America hot again? Hey New York… we’re thinking about suing him for emotional distress. You might wanna get in on this.
Here’s what I would like to tell Trump about this whole thing: Do it, I dare you. Sue us. We are not afraid of you. What do you not understand? You picked the wrong city.
I’m not saying go pick on another city, because no one else deserves this.
But I am saying… boy oh boy, did you pick wrong when you picked Los Angeles.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
Hey, I’d really like to take a little break next week. I’m going to bring my microphone with me, just in case but if there’s no breaking news – there will be no news tomorrow and no news next week.
Tomorrow is fourth of July. You can feel complicated about it, that’s okay. It’s a complicated moment. But this moment is not forever. His is not forever. He takes up a lot of space and a lot of news, but there is so much here in this country to fight for. I promise. It’s worth it. Maybe tomorrow is a day to think about that.
Or maybe it’s just a day to eat hot dogs and watch Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde.
Protect your peace, ya know.
I’m proud of hot dogs. And Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde. And Reese Witherspoon (I like her!). But more than hot dogs… because I know what you’re made of, and it’s all the best stuff… I’m proud of you.