07/20/26
Title
I Know There’s a Moon
Good morning! It’s Monday, July 20th.
Moon Day
Yeah right, like there’s moons.
And now, the news.
Tucson Mass Shooting
-via ABC News and Gun Violence Archive
The news is back baybee. Good thing nothing happened while I took some time off. Just kidding, literally everything happened and now I gotta figure out how to talk about all the things!
But of course, first – we start how we start here in America, with at least nine people critically injured after a gunman, who was shot by police and taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, opened fire in downtown Tucson, Arizona around 2 AM Sunday morning.
A motive is still under investigation, but earlier that night, there was an altercation between two groups. It’s unclear if the shooting is related to that. What is known, however, is that the shooter didn’t appear to be targeting anyone specific.
Today is the 201st day of the year and this is the 258th mass shooting of the year.
Update: Iran
-via AP News, ABC News, Politico, Reuters, NY Times, The Hill, and The Guardian
And moving overseas, things in Iran remain… well, frankly, they remain a story where using a word like “remain” is a wild choice.
On the 7th, the US launched a series of strikes against Iran in response to Iran’s attacks on ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Following that, the memorandum of understanding that was signed between the US and Iran kind of… fell apart. And the reason we know that is because of vibes and also because Trump took to Temu Twitter and posted, “the Cease Fire is OVER!”
He also said this to ABC News about Iranian leadership: "I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people.”
Yeah we know what scum is you moron.
Iran, for their part, said the US violated its own commitments and the already planned follow-up negotiations got the old “I’m busy that day. I need to reschedule. I don’t have my calendar right now. I’m sure we’ll find time, though.”
Since then, the US has targeted bridges, water desalination plants and electrical facilities in Iran, while Iran has focused on allied countries throughout the Middle East.
What that means is that, on Friday, two US servicemembers were killed and, on Sunday, a third unidentified servicemember’s remains were found.
Following that, the US announced new airstrikes on Sunday in retaliation.
So basically where things currently stand is… there.
Things are escalating and Trump, who didn’t have an exit strategy to begin with, still doesn’t.
Don’t worry though, the men are here. Last week, Pete Hegseth. Announced that the Pentagon will start testing testosterone levels for troops 30-and-up. He announced it on Twitter, and called it The High-T Department of War. "War fighters age 30 and older are gonna be tested annually as part of their periodic health assessment...if treatment is recommended, it's entirely your choice to receive testosterone replacement therapy."
Hegseth is caked in makeup for the video, by the way.
Also… this is gender-affirming care! This is a transphobic man, caked in makeup, announcing gender-affirming care for our troops.
Incredible stuff.
Nolan Wells
Over the 4th of July weekend, Nolan Wells, a Black 18-year-old, went to a small island off the coast of Mississippi with his white high school friends. But somehow his friends all made it back safely and Nolan Wells didn’t.
He was last seen alive at 3 PM on the 4th. At 4:31 PM, GPS data shows the boat he left for the island on leaving for the mainland. He was not on the boat.
Sometime after it left, there was a distress call made from someone on the boat saying the boat was taking on water and asking for a tow. The operator asked is everyone was on board, the person calling said, "Yeah, everybody is onboard.”
At 11:00 PM that night, one of Nolan’s friends called his parents to say he hadn’t come back. His parents immediately called the police and the next morning they went back to the island to search for him.
The next day, Nolan’s parents were able to get his phone because one of his friends mom tracked it using Snapchat. It was at a house where “a lot of people” were gathered and, after about 15 minutes, someone handed over the phone.
Nolan’s mom said the phone was “too clean.” Noland son takes pictures all the time but suddenly there were no pictures or video from the day they went to the island.
One of his friends, who was on the island, said: “I’ve never known Nolan to stay back while his friends leave. He’s always been a guy where if he rode with you, he’s going to come back with you. That’s always how he’s been every single time.”
And yet still, the sheriff said: “From the people we’ve talked to, it sounds like he chose to stay on the island with the assumption that he was going to ride back to the mainland with someone else.”
But, if so… why was his phone with his friends? Who took 15 minutes to hand it over? But never reported him missing?
On July 6th, a body was found. That call I mentioned? That’s where Nolan’s body was found.
The body didn’t show any signs of foul play, but it was sent for an autopsy, obviously, and the toxicology report hasn’t come back yet. In the meantime, the family has sent the body for a second autopsy.
So obviously there are a lot of questions and very few answers. And at the base of all of it, an 18-year-old is dead and a family is grieving.
There’s also a lot of misinformation. For example, a photo believed to be Nolan Wells at a pool party on the mainland after the boat got back was actually from a different date. There are also conflicting stories about whether he fought with friends on the island. Apparently there’s a video where a voice can be heard saying, “Give me my freaking phone! What are you freaking doing?” A friend has come forward to say that’s his voice, not Nolan’s voice.
ICE Killings
-via NY Times, NPR, CBS News, TRAC Immigration, and NBC News
And in other very sad stories that should also make you mad – I mentioned in the July 8th episode that an ICE officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on July 7th. He’d been in the country for 35 years. He came here from Mexico and was in the process of becoming a citizen. He was murdered in front of one of his sons.
And by the way, him being in the process of becoming a citizen? That’s just an interesting fact about him. Because even if he wasn’t? He did not deserve to die. The civil violation of being undocumented in a country that was stolen should not be punishable by death.
So that was July 7th in Houston.
Then on July 15th in Maine, ICE officers shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero – a 25-year-old father, whose 3-year-old was in the car when he was killed.
Guerrero was not the target of a warrant. For whatever reason, he was shot because the officer feared “for public safety.”
DHS never clarified what that means. But it’s possible that the fear was just… fear of a brown man. Because a woman has come forward to say it’s her ex-husband that shot Guerrero and after the shooting, he called her and asked her to vouch for his character. It’s gonna be a hard pass for her though because, as she told NPR: "There was an incident where we had been fighting, and I walked away and I got in the shower, and he comes in with a gun and pointed at me and tells me that he's going to blow my brains all over the bathtub."
There are no police reports of the incident because she would often recant her story. She says she’s known him since they were preteens and, as can be the case in an abusive relationship, he was awful and as can be the case in an abusive relationship, he was a threat and a safety net.
NPR was given a voicemail he left her saying he, and the women in her family should have their throats slit. "Am I threatening that I'm gonna do that? No, no. But do I think that you should have your f-ing throat cuts? Or should have had them cut. Yep."
And I say all of this because, on top that, his high school nickname was White Boy David. His ex-wife said he was racist and believes racism played a part in the shooting.
No video has been released showing what led up to the shooting, or the actual shooting, in which the ICE officer shot five times.
From there, the car just kind of slowly circled 4 times in an intersection, presumably because Guerrero was unable to control it. When it came to a stop, the officers pulled him from the car. Kind of. They… this is so awful… they let him fall to the ground and then handcuffed him.
All the while, he’s not moving.
Following that, Maine’s Senator King announced that DHS said they would pause traffic stops. But no. Because our white supremacist president took to Temu Twitter, the website he had to start because he was kicked off every other social media platform after doing insurrection, to say: "We CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.'s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal's hands."
Less than 14% of the people ICE arrests have violent criminal records. That’s per DHS. And a group called TRAC Immigration notes that 70.8% of people currently held in ICE detention centers have ZERO criminal convictions.
But, not only is Trump allowing those deadly traffic stops to continue BUT, on Sunday, we learned that the FBI will no longer investigate confrontations with immigration agents.
So, for example, when an ICE agent murders someone in broad daylight while they try to stop them from pepper spraying a woman, the FBI won’t investigate that. When an ICE agent with a history of racism and violence shoots a 25-year-old father while his three-year-old in Bluey pajamas is in the car with him and then lets his lifeless body fall to the ground before they handcuff him, the FBI won’t investigate that.
Instead, DHS will now handle those investigations.
I’m sure that’ll go great and ethical.
Canadian Wildfires
-via NY Times
As the fires in Canada continue, New York, Toronto, and Washington officially had the worst air quality in the world on Saturday.
As of this recording, there were almost 200 wildfires in Ontario, 70 of which were out of control, burning around 1.7 million acres. Despite the fact that Canada’s got 155 (likely very polite) fire crews working on these fires, because the country’s so vast, it’s hard to fight these fires efficiently.
Don’t worry, the American’s are on it. Congressional Republicans are criticizing the way Canadian firefighters are working on the fires and Trump’s threatening tariffs.
That’ll help!
Lindsey Graham
-via The Guardian, PBS, and Time
“If you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, you’ve got a problem. He’s the nicest person I’ve ever met in politics. As good a man as God ever created.”
“He’s a race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party, he doesn’t represent the values the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.” (That’s about Trump)
Those two quotes are from Lindsey Graham in 2015.
Just this year, he said this about Trump: “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God.”
Lindsey Graham suddenly died on July 11th. He was 71.
One of the things people talked about, when they were memorializing him, is that Graham would fight in front of the cameras and then, once the cameras were off, he’d say he wanted to work with you.
In 1895 Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for “gross indecency,” which was just the legal term for being gay. I’m going somewhere with this. Hang on! In 1895 Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for being gay, and he wrote a letter to his lover. It obviously wasn’t allowed to be given to him, but rather than having Wilde do physical labor, the new prison governor told him to write because he thought it would be more cathartic. He’d write a page, and then the guards would take it away. When Wilde was released from prison, he got the whole long letter back. But he wasn’t with the guy he was writing too anymore, so instead he gave it to a journalist that he also had a little thing with (none of that really matters to what I’m trying to say but I like that he was messy). Five years after Wilde died, the letter was published and it included this quote:
"A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a Member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment. Those who want a mask have to wear it."
For me, Lindsey Graham will always be a warning about changing your moral compass. A resetting.
He was a JAG lawyer who raised his sister when both of his parents died in just under a year. He was 22 and she was 13, and he became her legal guardian. That is the potential for good. But given free will, Lindsey Graham chose to be the person he was. On January 6th, 2021, he said, "Count me out. Enough is enough." That’s what he said about Trump after he witnessed the insurrection. And then he chose to vote against an independent January 6th commission. He voted to acquit Trump for insurrection. He opposed both the For the People Act and the John R Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would have expanded voting rights.
This is how he used his free will.
And legacies and lives are complicated things, and Lindsey Graham’s public versus private life certainly seemed to be complicated.
But his legacy, in my mind, is not that complicated. He used his one wild and precious life to make this country worse and democracy weaker.
Graham’s sister, Darline Graham, has been named his successor. She has never held political office before. She’s just been at a lot of Lindsey’s events.
And speaking of… The day that it was announced that Graham died, a picture of Mitch McConnell was released by his team to be like “BUT THIS ONE’S ALIVE!”
It’s very hard to believe it’s real. There’s still no video or audio proof of life. I’ll believe it when I see video. Which we probably won’t because… you know…
Trump Lied (Shocking, I Know)
-via CBS News, Newsweek, ABC News
Last Thursday, Trump did a national address at 9 PM eastern. Asked the networks to cut their primetime feed so that he could use his own free will and… lie about voting.
Specifically about the 2020 election. In this speech, now he says that I guess China altered the elections? And also something about voting machines… I’m not going to talk about it because I’m not going to carry water for this administration. It’s obviously a lie. How do we know? Look – Trump was the president during the 2020 election. But apparently his own administration lied to him. I guess. He offered zero proof in his speech. Why? Because he doesn’t have any.
Everything he said was a lie. He’s a liar.
But then his little MarcusWayne McMullion (I’m going to do this joke and not actually know his name and… that’s fine) got on television and further lied and said 250,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada.
David Becker, the executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told CBS News: "I guarantee you, that data includes a ton of people, maybe even a majority of people, who are absolutely eligible voters, and states would probably be breaking the law if they remove those voters from the rolls.”
Confirmed cases of noncitizens voting are extremely, wildly, incredibly rare. Why? Because that’s fraud by voters. Which is, as you know, extremely, wildly, incredibly rare.
So basically I just want you to remember that fraud by voters is extremely, wildly, incredibly rare and also that Trump is a super loser because it’s 2026 and if you didn’t get a job 6 years ago, that you then ended up getting 4 years later, but have still spent the last 6 years being obsessed with the fact that you didn’t get the job in 2020, you’d be a loser. Sorry, that’s just a fact.
Luckily that’s not the case. You’re like… the polar bear opposite of a loser.
Cyclosporiasis
-via ABC News
Taylor Farms, the bagged salad company which also sells lettuce to Taco Bell and other places, but it’s important to me, emotionally, that I’m aware of the Taco Bell thing, is responsible for bad belly all around the country, giving more than 1,600 cases of it.
You’re probably already aware of this one you just… I just wanted you to know that I know too.
Ferry Sinking
-via The Guardian
A ferry carrying 116 people, including passengers and crew, sank off the coast of South America’s Guyana late Saturday night. As of this recording, 67 people, including 15 children, have been rescued.
There were no problems with the boat itself, but the tide caused the boat to sink.
Rescue efforts are continuing as of this recording.
Sports by Kim™️
-via ESPN
And finally, in a match that was nil-nil until nil-ly the last minute… Spain overtook Argentina 1-nil to win the World Cuppa!
France’s Kylian Mbappé won the Golden Boot yet again. He won it in 2022 thanks to a hat trick against Argentina. Spain’s Rodri won the Golden Ball and his teammate Unai Simon won the Golden Glove.
And Ted Lasso was there. That’s probably the most important thing you need to know.
And that’s Sports by Kim™️
And that’s it. That’s a long episode of the news.
So much news!! Sorry.
I’m proud of everyone who came here to watch the World Cup but learned about ranch and reminded us that we actually should love this country in spite of, and literally to spite, this administration. Also the moon. I was just kidding. I know there’s a moon.
But more than that, more than the moon, because you’re cheesy but you exist in the night and in the day… I’m proud of you.