09/10/25
Good morning! It’s World Suicide Prevention Day
I know I sort of say this all the time, as a throwaway line, that therapy should be free and mandatory but we do need to be able to have these conversations more freely.
And I could throw all kinds of numbers and everything at you, but here’s the bottom line: things are better with you here. They’d be worse without you.
That’s the ballgame.
Sometimes our brains lie to us. Our brain tries to be smarter than our brain, and we have incredible imaginations that, for whatever reason, sometimes only want to find the absolute worst thing. But if anything is possible, doesn’t that mean that anything is possible?
Because you haven’t even heard your next favorite song yet. Or read your next favorite book. There are all kinds of things coming that are going to be really incredible, and sometimes when our brains lie to us they make us forget that.
And that’s no one’s fault. And it’s okay. It just means that sometimes our only job in the entire world is just to stick around.
There is not one single thing that is not made better because you’re here.
And now, the news.
Israel Strikes Qatar
-via AP News
Starting in Qatar, where Israel struck Hamas’ headquarters while the group gathered to consider the US peace proposal. I wonder how that conversation’s going…
Here’s what makes this attack different (not that they’re not all bad, but here’s what makes this different): Qatar has served as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, and is an ally of the United States.
Israel striking Hamas in Qatar is, as Qatar says, a “flagrant violation of all international laws and norms.”
Hamas has reported that, although its top leaders survived the attack, five other members were killed.
Trump called this attack, which again happened on the soil of an ally, an “unfortunate incident.”
So… we’ll see where we go from here.
SCOTUS to Hear Tariff Case
-via Axios
On Tuesday the Supreme Court (they’re on my list! Don’t you worry, I’m gonna come back to them!) said that they will expedite an appeal on a ruling that struck down Trump’s tariffs, giving both sides until September 19thto file their initial briefs, with oral arguments set for the first week of the November session.
So put that on your calendar I guess?
Trump said losing this case would “literally destroy” America.
My guy – have you not been paying attention?
Literally? Literally?
LEARN WHAT A TARIFF IS!
Nope… nope… save it for the other story.
The Epstein Birthday
There used to be a line.
There used to be a point where we could, as a society, say – this is too far.
There are certain crimes that we, as a society, deem the worst of the worst. All of us have a moral compass, they’re all set to different Norths, but I think we can all agree on a few true facts. A few true worsts.
And masterminding, taking part in, knowing about, and covering up an extensive and international child sex abuse ring is universally at the top of that list.
But somehow…
Somehow, even though for years he and his followers have demanded this Epstein list – not because they want actual justice for the survivors of the horrific crimes that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell carried out – now that their deal leader is suspect number one… it seems like half the country is fine with that line being crossed.
By the President of the United States.
On Monday the House Oversight Committee released the infamous birthday book letter, which we knew about a few months ago, where Trump drew the outside of a naked woman and wrote some inane, made-up, conversation between him and Epstein where they talk about the secrets between them “may every day be another wonderful secret” and Trump’s line is “we have certain things in common, Jeffrey” as well as “enigmas never age.”
The letter is signed by Trump. It is very clearly his signature. But because it’s only his first name (although he has signed only his first name in other things to Epstein, which makes sense because they each, multiple times, called each other their close or even best friend), the White House, as well as his supporters are happy to say this letter isn’t from him.
Trump himself is calling it a “dead issue.”
There is also a picture of him in the birthday book. In it, and this is even worse, somehow, than the drawing – Epstein is standing with a couple other people holding a phony check, signed with a fake DJ Trump signature. Under the photo (the check is for $22,500) is a handwritten note joking that Epstein has “early talents with women + money” and sold a “fully depreciated” woman to Trump for that price.
The woman in question is someone who dated both men. This apparently is a hilarious reference to them competing for her.
Meanwhile, the acting deputy chief of a Justice Department unit thought he was on a date when he was caught on camera saying that the government will “redact every Republican” from the Epstein client list.
He also said Ghislaine was moved after her interview with the Justice Department basically as a favor and that she’s not supposed to be there.
“May every day be another wonderful secret”
“enigmas never age”
“we have certain things in common”
There used to be a line.
We used to be appalled.
The news that the Department of Justice is probably going to cover up any Republican appearance on the client list isn’t even in the news at all anymore. It was barely in the news when it happened.
Just because they lost their moral compass. Just because they’re fine with who they’ve decided to back, doesn’t mean they’ve chosen right. And it doesn’t mean that we should ever stop talking about it.
Trump wants this to go away.
We can’t let it.
DOJ v LA
-via Reuters, NBC News, Politico, and BLS
And speaking of lines being crossed – as ICE raids ramp up in Chicago (I think? There’s a name for what Trump’s doing. He’s calling it Operation Midway Blitz, but he still says he hasn’t declared war on the country’s third largest city so I don’t know what to believe here), I am now ready to talk about the Supreme Court ruling that came down on Monday.
And now that I’ve had some sleep. Now that I’m feeling better… I’m still mad!
Outraged, in fact.
The majority offered no explanation (I mean, what explanation are you supposed to give? What can you possibly say to make this right?). Well don’t you worry because Coach Justice Kavanaugh was like, I have thoughts and offered this: he said it was reasonable to briefly question people who meet “common sense” criteria for possible illegal presence — including employment in day labor or construction, and limited English proficiency.
Again, we do not have a national language. Limited English proficiency isn’t proof of anything.
Employment in day labor or construction.
Welp, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that’s about eight million Americans who are employed in construction alone.
And even if what Coach Justice made sense, the “briefly question” part of his response seems to take place on a different planet. That’s not what’s happening.
Instead, people in masks are kidnapping our neighbors, based on vibes alone. People who are here legally, including American citizens, are sitting in jails even after having proven their legal status just because, in some cases, they haven’t proven it well enough.
No one is being questioned. They’re just being scooped just and thrown in jail.
And don’t forget that there are still hundreds of Venezuelans in a torture prison in El Salvador literally because they are Venezuelan. We do not know the citizenship status of everyone there because we don’t know everyone there.
We know Kilmar Abrego Garcia was there on a paperwork error. Are we meant to believe only one person, out of hundreds, has legal status here in America?
It used to be that, before any operation to arrest an immigrant, ICE officers had to actually fill out paperwork with details about who they were arresting and then give it to their supervisor for approval.
You know, like a warrant.
But no more. No need! The name of the game (and it is a game to them. Forget that these are human beings. These are lives and families and communities torn apart) is numbers.
They have literally dropped the paperwork needed because it was seen as a “waste of time.”
For those people, who look at someone working hard to put food on their table, that happens to be in that moment speaking Spanish, and immediately thin this person is a criminal and must be stopped and throw them into the back of some van or cop car, while they themselves are masked and sometimes even without any identifying official badges or anything on, thereby making it appear as though these poor souls are literally being kidnapped and for all intents and purposes they are, all before even asking for, or accepting, citizenship papers. And instead locking them up for hours, or days before either releasing them before they are, actually, allowed to be here OR sending them to a detention center hundreds of miles away from their family before ultimately possibly deporting them to a third-party country that they’ve never even been to and may never be able to escape from…
For those people who don’t have time to fill out paperwork. Who don’t have time to ask questions. Who just need to hear the hint of Spanish accent to have their assumptions proved correct. For those people who voted for this. For those people who nod sagely yes well if they only came here the right way while they read headlines about a mother of three who was arrested at her immigration hearing because their simple brains can’t wrap their head around what “coming here the right way means” because if they got arrested at an immigration hearing they were trying to come here the right way. There is no right way to come here when the only person the president of the United States doesn’t have a problem with is something who said if he had it his way there would only be 100 Million Americans and they would all look like him and looking like him means you don’t have a reflection in the mirror and can’t eat garlic or go out in the sunlight.
For those six Justices that put themselves on the majority in this ruling and the President that sat three of those Justices.
Again, I must quote Ethel Cain: “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.”
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I’m proud of… people who risked everything to come here. No one is illegal on stolen land but there is no America without immigrants. And there is absolutely no Los Angeles, no culture, no food, no economy, no name, no cities, no nothing – there is no Los Angeles without immigrants. Specifically, the people who immigrated here from Mexico.
And there is no world in which all of this, Los Angeles, and California, and America, and every planet that we know and everything that hasn’t been invented yet – that isn’t better just because you are here right now.
And for that alone, simply because you are here and exist, I’m proud of you.