08/12/25
Good morning! It’s Tuesday, August 12th.
National Youth Day
I gotta be honest… I know what’s in this episode (yeah I don’t mean to brag but I’ve got an in and I’ve read the script. Actually this part is scripted too, so as I’m writing this, the rest of the news isn’t scripted but when you hear me reading this, the rest of the episode will be scripted and so what I just said will have been a lie - WHOA)
Anyway, I know what’s in this episode and I don’t really know what to say to the youths. But I know some youths, I’ve got an 8-year-old best friend, and obviously we need to make things better for them but let me tell you about an 8-year-old who wants to be an artist and an astronaut and is kind and funny and so smart… there’s hope, you know?
And now, the news.
Mass Shootings
-via ABC News, ABC News, AP News, CNN, and NPR
We start how we start here in America.
Again.
And again and again and again.
In Chicago, a woman is dead and five others were injured after someone opened fire at a large outdoor gathering just before three AM. Neither a suspect nor motive have been named.
One of the injured was shot in the chest and, as of this recording, is in critical condition.
This is one day after a 38-year-old man and five others were injured, including a five-year-old girl, after gunfire broke out at a crab feed on Saturday evening, just before 9PM.
A motive for that shooting is also under investigation but the Police Commissioner noted, "it looks like somebody just opened fire."
Just opened fire.
And in Georgia, a man opened fire on the CDC, killing one police officer after firing more than 180 shots into the complex after blaming the Covid vaccine for making him depressed and suicide.
The shooter, identified by police as Patrick Joseph White, died but police have not clarified whether it was by suicide or by police.
RFK Jr put out a thoughts and prayers statement, which was swiftly rejected by a group of laid-off CDC employees called Fired But Fighting, who said, "Kennedy is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC's workforce through his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust.”
And literally while I was writing this story, three people were killed and another was injured after a suspect opened fire in a, Austin, Texas Target. He fled in a stolen car before he was taken into custody.
This is the 224th day of the year.
There have been 269 mass shootings so far.
PS – they caught Michael Paul Brown, the man in Montana who killed the four people in the bar he lived next door to before going into hiding in the woods for a week.
Steel Plant Explosion
-via NY Times
And in Pennsylvania, at least one person is dead, ten are injured, and one person remains missing after a US Steel plant exploded in Clairton, Pennsylvania.
The Allegheny County health department has recommended that anyone within a mile of the plant remain indoors.
No word yet on how it happened.
Lots of mysteries so far in this episode!
Israel Takes Gaza
Okay listen, I have three stories here that should all be their own episode. But here we are. So we’re just gonna do our best. That’s all we can do. You, me, and Councilwoman Ruth Meowser Stanton. Just try.
Starting in Gaza, where five Al Jazeera journalists were killed in what Israel called a targeted strike on a tent near a hospital in Gaza. The Committee to Protect Journalists say 186 Palestinian journalists have now been killed in Gaza.
This comes just days after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for Benjamin Netanyahu to occupy Gaza City. A phased move that would take up to five months and would see about one million Palestinians being evacuated, once again, out of Gaza City and into evacuation areas in southern Gaza.
Shortly before the meeting to approve this, in an interview with Fox News, because of course Fox News is platforming that guy, when asked if he intends to take military control of all of Gaza he said, “We intend to.”
Let’s be clear.
Now, the official statement is, “The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) will prepare for the takeover of Gaza City while ensuring the provision of humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones.”
But let’s be clear – they are barely letting supplies in to begin with and since May, more than, 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food from aid sites.
This is, this has been, a genocide.
Israel has, as Gaza does, the right to defend themselves.
Hamas, not Gaza, not Palestinians at large, the militant group Hamas attacked Israel. 1,195 people died and 251 people were taken hostage. It is believed they are still holding 50 hostages.
Israel has a right to defend itself from Hamas and take back the hostages.
Hamas’ relationship to the governance of Gaza is a complicated one for sure, but since October 7th 2023, more than 61,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza. Those are deaths that the government of Israel is responsible for.
Hamas is dangerous, there is no doubt about it. Palestinians deserve better than Hamas as their de facto government.
But they didn’t choose any of this! They just live where they live.
There is no world, there no rational person, who can look at what is happening and believe that 61,000 people deserve to be killed simply because they were born in Gaza. Made a life in Gaza. Raised a family in Gaza. Fell in love and made friends and had jobs and inside jokes and good days and bad days and absolutely medium days in Gaza.
Just like they do in Israel.
Just like they do in every single country.
But because they do it in Gaza, and only because of that, they will suffer.
Israel has a right to defend itself.
Israelis have a right to feel safe in their homes and in their country.
What makes Palestinians different?
Trump’s DC Takeover
-via AP News, CNN, NY Times, Washington Post, and Politico
Speaking of people taking over areas…
Things in DC have escalated quickly.
Here’s where things stands as I record this on Monday evening: Trump has announced that the DC police department is “under direct federal control.” He also announced he is sending 800 National Guard troops to the capital. The FBI has already dispatched about 120 agents for overnight shifts in the last few days.
The police, as well as DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, say they knew nothing about this prior to Trump’s announcement, calling it “unsettling and unprecedented” but, in a clear attempt to keep some sort of diplomacy, noted that his view of DC is likely shaped by his first term, when crime was on the rise because of covid. Because crime in DC is down. Not only down from those COVID numbers, but pre-COVID numbers.
Violent crime specifically is at a thirty-year low.
But as I mentioned last week, there’s not much that can be done here – due to DC’s home rule, Congress is in charge of DC’s laws.
As for the police, if he sends a special message to leaders of certain congressional committees, he can use them as he currently is for up to 30 days.
Past that, he will need Congress to sign off on it.
Trump says that, under his control, the police will protect federal buildings and monuments. Alright but… that’s the US Park Police and Federal Protective Services.
There are already people doing this. This is nothing! Crime is down in DC, there is no threat to the monuments or buildings in DC, and even if there were, people are already being paid to guard them. But instead he’s pulling the police, which he’s federalized, from their job of catching criminals and preventing crime, and putting them to do a job that other people do. And he’s doing it because… he’s so worried about crime?
Make it make sense!
Ya can’t.
But of course, putting cops on buildings is what Trump loves doing. That’s what he did in LA.
What else did he do in LA that we’re seeing again in DC? Encourage officers to hit back “hard” if instigators spit at the officers. Adding, “They fight back until you knock the hell out of them, because it’s the only language they understand.”
They fight BACK. Who fought first? Who threw the first punch? What does the first punch look like?
Nancy Pelosi said, “activating the DC Guard to distract from his incompetent mishandling of tariffs, health care, education and immigration — just to name a few blunders.” And okay, maybe, but he is also doing it because he likes it. He likes the look of it. He likes what this looks like in Russia. He likes how Russians are forced to view Putin.
Is this a distraction? This is the thing we can’t get distracted from. There are so many things we can’t get distracted from! That’s okay, I gotcha. We’re in it together. It sucks! But we’re in it together. You, me, and Councilwoman Ruth Meowser Stanton.
I wouldn’t take my foot off the gas when it was LA. So how on earth can I possibly be so selfish to do it when it’s not LA? How could I not, with my whole chest, continue to shout when it’s every other city? When he made the announcement about what he was doing in DC, he also threatened Baltimore, Oakland, New York, and yes… coming back to Los Angeles.
We are in the middle of a hostile government takeover.
And all of this builds, protest is building in DC as well. As of this recording, protestors have begun to march through the streets. It started with 150 people around 3:30 PM. Those marches have grown considerably but it’s genuinely hard to tell how many people are taking part because they are growing.
Because this is how we fight fascism – not with a whimper, but a bang.
This one’s fast-moving… who knows where things will be by tomorrow’s episode.
Obergefell’s Future
-via ABC News
And I wasn’t kidding when I said these three stories needed their own episode.
On Monday, Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who spent six days in jail because she refused to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples, has decided she’s not a bad enough person yet and is appealing those six days, arguing a First Amendment violation, saying she had a 1A right to deny those couples those licenses.
And so she, with her lawyer, has officially asked the Supreme Court to consider overturning Obergefell, the landmark Supreme Court decision that made same-sex marriage legal.
A 1A violation!
Yeah, you have a First Amendment to your religion. Okay, fine, great, I don’t agree with your view of love. If your faith leads you to be so filled with hate that you would deny the love of two consenting adults – it’s not for me. But that’s your right to have that faith.
But that right does not supersede the right of the couple who came into the Kentucky county clerk’s office. Because tucked into the First Amendment are the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause.
The Establishment Clause means government neutrality towards religion. Not every religion bans same-sex marriage.
The Free Exercise Clause means you can practice your religion however you want, but not when it conflicts with the rights of others.
Your right to make a fist ends at my face.
Okay fine, don’t give someone a marriage license. I don’t get it, not for me to get. But your right to the Free Exercise Clause doesn’t supersede that couple’s.
Just like how your right to use the First Amendment to open your mouth and file this obnoxious, cruel-for-the-sake-of-being-cruel, suit, I can use mine to say this:
Get a life, you absolute 100% up to your eyeballs in it, hate-filled loser.
Have the life you deserve.
To quote the singer Ethel Cain after Trump was elected a second time: “I hope that peace never finds you. Instead, I hope clarity strikes you someday like a clap of lightning and you have to live the rest of your life with the knowledge and guilt of what you've done and who you are as a person.”
Oh no Kim, too harsh too harsh.
All they want to do is be married. That’s it. But because a woman in Kentucky woke up in the morning and found another ounce of hate in her heart, it is almost certain now that new marriages will not be allowed. Marriages that have already taken place will still be technically legal, but the nearly 2,000 federal rights that their marriage license affords them will be taken away.
For what? For why?
And that’s it. That’s the news.
Ending on an up! We did it!
Look – big stories. Bad stories. Not a good day.
But the biggest thing all three of those stories have in common is this: they require your voice. We can make a difference as long as we refuse to let them silence us.
I’m not proud of that Kim woman. She sucks and she’s ruining my good name!
But because you’d never pull that loser energy move, you don’t even have that ability, you’re so up to your eyes goodness actually… I’m proud of you.