05/12/23
Good morning! It’s Friday, May 12th. National Limerick Day.
There once was a fly on the wall,
I wonder, why didn’t it fall?
Because its feet stuck? Or was it just luck?
Or does gravity miss things so small?
Oh my god, that was like… actually very beautiful.
And now, the news.
Title 42 Comes to an End
-via Houston Chronicle
Title 42, the Covid-era federal border policy that gave America the power to forgo our asylum process and just casually turn people away, is coming to an end tonight. In preparation for this, thousands of people are at the border waiting for midnight to strike so that they can cross the border and request asylum, a process that will take years – at the end of 2022, there was a backlog of over 800,000 cases and the average wait time for a hearing was four years.
We’re talking about a very serious issue that is going to take a very complicated, and multi-branch, solution.
Which I mention because Texas, which shares more than 1,200 miles of the 1,933 mile US-Mexico border, is lead by Greg Abbott. A… um… I guess technically he’s a human but that certainly feels like the most polite thing I can call him. Abbott, who has still not commented on the 8 deaths in Brownsville nor anything about the literal Nazi tattoos on the Texas who killed 8 in a mall, is regularly tweeting footage of the Texas National Guard “holding the line” against people who are risking everything for a better life.
I don’t time travel or make wild predictions on this show (just in reach life or on twitter) but the footage he’s posting is pretty apocalyptic. Here’s hoping for a calmer weekend than Abbott appears to be planning and hoping for.
Jordan Neely’s Killer to be Charged
-via NY Times
Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who put Jordan Neely in a chokehold for several minutes resulting in his death, will be charged with second-degree manslaughter and is expected in court today.
As a reminder, he was originally questioned by police but was released without being charged. After public outcry, and the medical examiner saying that it was Penny’s chokehold that killed Neely, he is finally being charged. But, you know, not without a heads up. I mean, we’re all for due diligence here but a white man killed a Black man on the subway almost two weeks ago, and not only has it taken until today for him to be charged – he got a heads up! I wonder if that would be the same story if Neely was white and Penny was Black.
No, I’m just kidding. I don’t wonder that. No serious person does!
Virginia Breaks Up with ERIC
-via NPR
Virginia has become the eight state to breakup with ERIC. ERIC, also known as the Electronic Registration Information Center, is something no one had even heard about until last year. In fact, I’m willing to be that you still haven’t heard about it. That’s because it’s a totally innocuous bipartisan partnership between states to share voter data.
I don’t know, sharing voter data? Sounds pretty shifty… Why would anyone do that? Probably because sharing data allows them to keep records accurate. They can correct outdated addresses, remove dead voters, and reach out to eligible people who aren't registered.
Wait a minute… reach out to people who are registered? Huh. I wonder if that’s the problem.
I also love all these people that are like “no, this is good. We HAVE to get rid of this awful program. For democracy!” First of all, hun, some of you were calling it a godsend (literally, “godsend”) just three months ago. And the rest of you probably had never even heard of it at all. Because it’s important but boring.
Make no mistake…
They hate it because it helps make the business side of elections more efficient and could increase voter turnout.
George Santos Settles Brazilian Charges
-via NY Times
George Santos, who is, somehow, still a voting member of the House of Representatives, settled the Brazilian money crimes charge against him on Thursday. He was probably anxious to get this handled, since he has THIRTEEN federal charges against him, stateside. And while he’s still fighting those charges, it appears he owned up to the check fraud in Brazil and will pay just under $4,900.
So he’s clear in Brazil. Just… you know… thirteen federal charges to deal with here in America.
Twitter’s New CEO
-via Reuters
Elon Musk, the creator of chaos and inventor of nothing has found a new CEO for Twitter. There are rumors about who it is, but no one has been publicly named officially. We just know it’s a woman.
The transition will take place in the next few weeks.
This is great. I hope they can fix the platform because right now, Twitter fully sucks. Suddenly my feed is just a ton of people I don’t follow, and most of them are Ted Lasso fan accounts that hate this season. And I love this season! I don’t want a bunch of people I don’t follow, in my feed trying to tell me not to like my favorite show! Get out of here!
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I’m proud of… Ted Lasso. This season is good! NO SPOILERS but it’s great.
Also limericks. They’re just silly little rhyming stories and I love that for them.
But more than that, more than the mouse who ran up the hickory dickory clock, which subsequently rang one, causing the mouse to exit the dock… I’m proud of you.