07/21/26
Title:
I Was a Water Polo Goalie
Good morning! It’s Tuesday, July 21st.
National Junk Food Day
Don’t moralize food. No food is junk. Well no, that’s not true. Some food is walnuts.
But some food is Mexican food. And sushi. And food. I’m just hungry.
And now, the news.
Federal Building Attack
-via AP News
Starting in New York where, on Monday morning, a 43-year-old man showed up to a Manhattan federal office building that holds, among other things, ICE offices.
There are, confusingly, two different stories that lay out a different sequence of the same events. New York City’s Police Commissioner cited the security footage when she said the man first lit a bundle of fireworks. When they began to smoke, he fired a pellet gun at the building, and then dumped a flammable liquid near bushes around the building and lit those on fire.
Oddly, FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating but isn’t classifying it as an act of terrorism. And the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office said the fire happened before the shooting. Which is just a weird thing to do. Because it’s the same actions, just a different series of events.
The man, who is a former US Army soldier, has a wagon with him with an “ICE Off Our Streets” sign on it and is said to have “used bad words” about ICE while being arrested.
So… I guess… maybe more to come?
Ohio Drownings
-via AP News
In Ohio, five people have died after a group of people jumped into a river after a friend who was having trouble swimming.
This comes just two days after five other people in Ohio died in a flash flood while they were on a hike.
Water is no joke – it does not mess around. I’m a very confident swimmer, and currents still make me nervous.
And I was a water polo goalie.
An ATHLETE.
I could have been an Olympic speed skater.
Anyway, the point is – please be super careful around water.
Courts Hit Pause on Merger
As you may recall, Paramount Skydance, used to be just a company called Skydance and no one really cared about it but the Trump’s little buddies the Ellison’s only want there to be one company in the world so they bought Paramount and now it’s Paramount Skydance and they do things like make sure that 60 Minutes can’t run the stories they want to run.
And now they want to merge with Warner Bros.
Luckily, that merger has run into problem after problem.
And the latest one is pretty nice.
First up, 12 state attorneys general sued to stop the merger, claiming it would reduce competition, hurt TV, film, and news consumers, and especially hurt people like me who rely on those consumers to be able to do things like pay bills. Following that, a federal judge granted a 14-day temporary restraining order to hit pause on the merger.
Stopping this merger is vital.
Not only would this merge CNN and CBS News (which we don’t want – you can think whatever you want about those networks but having different networks, different reporters, different angles… that matters), but it would also merge Paramount's and Warner's movie and TV studios; Paramount+ and HBO Max; and CBS network with 50 cable TV channels.
The Ellisons are trying to say that this merger would give more opportunities for work in LA. More jobs. That’s a lie. All that merging will eliminate jobs. David Ellison says Paramount Skydance will put out 30 movies a year. 15 for Paramount, 15 for Warner Bros. Currently, Paramount does 8.
30 movies? They’re going to compete with themselves. They’re not going to put their all towards these movies. The cast and crew are going to work their hardest and then the studio is going to give about a week and a half of promos to it and then they’ll toss it onto a streamer called Paramount to the Max or whatever.
And when it doesn’t make the money it could make, they won’t say maybe they should stop paying the C-Suite $30M a year, they’ll say let’s make these movies in Omaha and now cast and crew, with their kids in schools here in LA, have to miss half of their kids’ school year because they need to work.
This merger is just a flat-out bad idea.
And I very clearly am indifferent to it.
Trump’s Tariffs
-via Axios
Starting next month, under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (which has never been used but was written during the Great Depression), an additional 50% tariff will be imposed on certain Canadian goods, including wine, cement, and (and this is real)… hockey sticks.
Apparently because of the wildfires which, as you may recall, Trump threatened to put on Canadian goods to punish Canada for the fact that smoke moves. How dare they, frankly.
This is because Canada is discriminating against America, that’s Trump’s words not mine, in three U.S. industries: motor vehicles, dairy, and alcohol.
The tariffs (which, again, are a tax that you and I pay, so it doesn’t punish anyone but us) are set to go into effect in 30 days but will for sure be challenged in court.
Taylor Farms’ False False Positive
The case of the bad belly continues, which has been linked to a specific Taylor Farms plant. Taylor Farms is a company that makes bagged salads as well as sells lettuce to places like Taco Bell (though it’s vital to be that you know that Taco Bell is not using Taylor Farms lettuce anymore).
However on Sunday there was a little confusion when the FDA announced that there was a false positive, making it seem like maybe Taylor Farms wasn’t involved in the outbreak. However, the FDA still says epidemiology and traceback evidence point toward Taylor Farms' lettuce from central Mexico.
Meanwhile, Taylor Farms is being very clever with its language. Because yes, as they say, technically, no lettuce from Taylor Farms has tested positive for the bacteria. But not unlike salmonella, it can be very difficult to detect because the contaminated lettuce is usually already eaten and it’s not like it’s spread evenly among all the leaves.
So just to repeat what I said before, that false positive headline that you might have seen on Sunday was confusing, but it doesn’t totally clear Taylor Farms.
But at the end of the day, the most important thing you need to know is this… Taco Bell is safe.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I’m proud of Taco Bell.
Delicious. No notes. THAT’S not junk food, that’s for sure.
Also sour straws.
But more than sour straws.
Because you’re also sweet – I’m proud of you.