Jul 3, 2025 | Diddy cleared on RICO charges, BBB has the votes

Hi everyone!

 

The Big Beautiful Bill is back in the House today and Speaker Mike Johnson said that he has the votes. When I woke up this morning, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was STILL TALKING in an effort to delay the vote. He started just ahead of 5 am this morning. The filibuster has been more successful than Jeffries could have realized.

As he was talking, JD Vance posted "GOP Congressman just texted me: 'I was undecided on the bill but then I watched Hakeem Jeffries' performance and now I'm a firm yes." We can expect to see that vote come off later today and by tomorrow it will be on Trump's big Resolute Desk for his big, resolute signature. Is he the only president who signs his bills and orders with a big, black Sharpie?

Sean "Diddy" Combs heard his verdict in a New York court yesterday, where he was found not guilty on all the RICO charges but was guilty of transporting for the purposes of prostitution. Given that this was a pretty minor charge, all things considered, I thought, and so apparently did Diddy's defense, that he'd be able to walk out of the court straight into the arms of his supporters, who had been spraying themselves with baby oil since hearing the verdict. But no, the judge sent him back to jail to await his sentencing. He's been in jail this whole time, so whatever you think of Diddy or his crimes, the just thing to do seems to be to give him time served.

When former NY Governor Elliot Spitzer was ousted from office over his whole thing of transporting for the purpose of prostitution, he wasn't even charged at all. I don't recall all the circumstances around that one, except that New York lost a promising governor to a bad sex habit, but the Diddy still in jail thing does seem a little excessive.

In a town where the likely incoming mayor is a believer that "sex work is work," one wonders if these sorts of things will even stay crimes in the city at all, maybe Mamdani will make NYC a sanctuary city for LGBTQIA+, illegal immigrants, AND sex workers. What with the plethora of weed shops on every corner, I can't see how a city like that doesn't turn out a total paradise. (Yes, that's sarcasm.)

Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty in an Idaho courtroom yesterday to murdering four college students. He made the admission after securing a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, about which some of the students' parents were horrified. The accounts of his admission to the gruesome murders tell of a man with no remorse, no feelings, and no real acknowledgement of wrongdoing.

The Kohberger family released a statement, saying "In light of recent developments, the Kohbergers are asking members of the media for privacy, respect, and responsible judgment during this time. We will continue to allow the legal process to unfold with respect to all parties, and will not release any comments or take any questions." There's seemingly no motive for the slayings.

In the UK, an LGBTQ+ activist was sentenced to 24 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy. Stephen Ireland, who co-founded Pride in Surrey, and was an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ whatnot, assaulted the boy after meeting him on gay dating app Grindr. The boy was reported missing and when he finally emerged from the apartment, where he'd been given a bong to smoke meth out of and treated to a showing of pornography, he told police what happened and where.

The judge said: "Stephen Ireland is a man who prided himself on being versed in and highly alive to the vulnerabilities of young people linked to the Surrey Pride organisation he was at the time pivotal to."

The twist is that Ireland was also an online tormenter of novelist and women's rights campaigner JK Rowling. "Stephen Ireland, who targeted me with endless abuse on here because I oppose the chemical castration of children and the removal of protected spaces for women and girls, has just been sentenced to 30 years in jail for child rape," Rowling said on X following the verdict.