Intro
Welcome to The Cameron Journal Newsletter. Each week, Cameron Lee Cowan wraps up the headlines with commentary, helping you navigate today’s media narratives, how they are affecting our Culture, Lifestyle, and Society.
The World is Hard, This is Not
If you’re new here, my name is Cameron Lee Cowan M.A. MFA, and I’m the Creative Director here at The Cameron Journal. You can learn more about me on the about page. I do research and commentary on politics, culture, and the world around us. Each week I send out the latest news narratives, the latest videos from The Cameron Journal and commentary about the week’s events.
Remember, The World is Hard, This is Not.
Update from Cameron
You’re getting this very late because I’ve had a hell of a week. After a long week of being me and handling business, I found out that a close friend of mine died this week on Wednesday. I found out Friday morning around 2 a.m. and was then up all night talking about it and went through Friday on almost no sleep.
Today, we celebrate William Griffin Sandefur, aged 37. I met him at the height of his fame within tattoo and outlaw culture. Newer readers don’t this, but I briefly owned a tattoo shop and was a contributor to Inkspired Magazine. In fact, you can read the definitive article on Low-Brow Art on The Cameron Journal. It is a unique piece that talks about a very specific art style associated with that culture. I met Griffin in the road on Broadway in Denver. He saw what I was wearing and knew that I had to be “that guy he had heard about.” And that began a friendship with ups and downs for a decade and change.
Unfortunately, he and I had not spoken recently, and I do somewhat regret some of the last things that I said. He has left us far too young, and he leaves behind three children. As a friend told me last night, in one of the many phone calls I’ve taken in the last 24 hours, he was a unicorn. He was 1 of 1 and, for better or for worse, our world tends not to be kind to people like that. I was relieved to know that he was surrounded by family and friends at the end and that he was not in any pain.
Rest in peace, brother.
Personally, I was just getting over another friend’s death earlier this year, and this is much closer to me and more distressing. We were supposed to do so much together, and now I sit here on a rainy evening in New England, and I’m eulogizing him. I could say a lot of emotional stuff here, but I will not bore you with that all of that.
Shall we talk about the latest news narratives, then?
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The News Narratives of the Week
Don’t forget to join me on Monday for The Cameron Journal Newshour!
Rand Paul Goes after Hemp?
If you watched The Living Joke, you already saw us talk about this topic, but this week, Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) introduced a clause in the continuing resolution to re-open the government that would restrict the sale of hemp products that include THC-A and would restrict the concentrations of THC-A and other cannabinoids like Delta 8 and 10 to less than 1 percent.
I first heard about this story from a post from someone in the hemp industry at first and didn’t quite understand why this would kill the hemp industry. As it turns out, as Will pointed on the show, there are many CBD and other cannabis products that are untaxed but on sale that include minor concentrations of THC-A and other cannabinoids. With his restriction, those products would be illegal and would be pulled off shelves. Those companies would go out of business and much of the hemp industry with it. Many of these hemp-derived THC products or hemp derived cannabis products exist in a sort of gray market where it isn’t high enough to come under a ban or be criminal in other ways. These products have become quite popular for treating pain and other ailments. This reverses a provision in the 2018 farm bill that allowed these products to thrive to the tune of $28 billion.
MAGA, Epstein, and Immigration
I started writing about these issues as separate things, but they are a bit connected. So we’ll just do it all at once. Let’s start with the Epstein situation!
This week, the House Oversight Committee released 20,000 pages of Epstein documents (which I am currently searching through) because Democrats released a trio of emails from Epstein himself that (weirdly) implicate Trump and Bill Clinton. I won’t get into all the rumors because they are a stretch but I guarantee you’ve already seen the memes on social media involved an “oral transaction” that is supposed to have taken place, based on how you interpret one of the released emails. And that doesn’t even get into the political brinksmanship email where Epstein is advised that his information could be used politically against Trump. There’s not much to learn from this information without a ton of context. Most of what has been said so far is conjecture. But narratives don’t always follow the truth. These new documents and emails are an interesting release of information, at an inconvenient time for the White House.
In any case, this has undone weeks of work by the White House to drive Epstein from the headlines. Meanwhile, the House is set to vote on a full release of the files now that the new congresswoman from Arizona has been seated and signed the petition, making a vote on it mandatory. The White House has put pressure on Lauren Boebert to withdraw her support to stop the vote and, so far, she has refused.
All the while that is going on, we have another news narrative developing around immigration. More and more facts have come out about how the H-1B visa program has been run and the odd instance of companies laying off thousands (see tech layoffs) and yet, companies applying for more visas for more workers because they can’t find any Americans. I’ve seen it all go down, from business people claiming that offshoring and visa workers are only fair to keep labor costs down and folks demanding American jobs for American workers. However, that is juxtaposed against reporting from The New York Times about how immigration is down “bigly” this year.
While some of right-wing twitter want more deportations, more people leaving and more immigration crackdown, there is also anger that is rising to cabinet-level, and the White House that the government is issuing too many visas to companies who are looking for cheap workers. This goes back to my usual canard about immigration: you will never solve the immigration problem as long as corporate American relies on cheap labor.
What has this all led to? Many right-wing X (formerly known as Twitter) accounts freaking out and declaring MAGA dead. Especially after President Trump pulled his endorsement of Marjorie Taylor Greene late on Friday via Truth Social. Democrats, calm down, MAGA is far from dead. But it appears that there are some fractures appearing around affordability for average Americans as the cost of living rises, immigration, good jobs, and Epstein. Which is why I had to talk about all of this at once.
There’s an interesting dynamic where, for the first time, President Trump isn’t commanding the loyalty that he once did. Republicans are looking at the mid-terms (which don’t look great after last week’s victories for Democrats) and 2028 and right now, it’s not looking too rosy. Trump is about to find out what the word lame duck means. I always said, he only had about two years to be effective before politics would move on without him. It may have already started based on the new fractures opening up right now. The only good news for Democrats is that the shutdown stuff has been shoved right off the front page, and that’s probably a good thing.
America’s Lost Generation is Out Now! Get Your Copy!
I’m excited to announce that America’s Lost Generation is out now! It’s available everywhere books are sold or through The Cameron Journal directly. You’ve been hearing me talk about this book for a long time, and you’ve read the Millennials collection on The Cameron Journal. Looking to Japan for guidance (and a cautionary tale), I told the story of Millennials through their voices.
Articles of Interest
Keep up with The Cameron Journal Podcast and The Living Joke
The Interview:
I was editing video this week, and we didn’t have any new podcast episodes. There will be new episodes upcoming starting this week!
The Cameron Journal Newshour:
The Living Joke:
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