10/20/25
Good morning! It’s Monday, October 20th.
National I’m Back Back, Baybee! Day
No no – it’s actually Diwali.
Diwali, as made famous by NBC’s The Office, is celebrated by Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs all over the world. The more than five-day celebration is known as the Festival of Lights because “availi” means “row” and "deepa” means “clay lamps.”
The lights used in the celebration symbolize the inner light of spirituality that protects folks from the darkness.
See? And you thought it was all downhill once I started talking about The Office.
And now, the news.
“Cease” Fire… Deal or No Deal
-via Al Jazeera, Reuters, PBS, and NY Times
I was gone for a whole week and change, but luckily, nothing too big happened while I was out, so this should be a fairly short episode.
Just kidding! So much happened that there will be two episodes. This will cover the news at-large, and then there will be also be a second, special episode in feed called, helpfully, Special Episode. And that will be about the Supreme Court’s decision last week to gut the voting right’s act. Because what to we always say? If you want to have a normal conversation with me, don’t bring up voting, because that’s the rest of the day.
But let’s start here with – peace in the Middle East! Well, they tried, at least.
While I was out, the chair of peace himself, President Trump, did in fact create a ceasefire deal that, while fragile, seems to be holding(ish).
Last Monday, the remaining 20 living hostages that have been held in Gaza by Hamas were released. Which is absolutely incredible.
Hamas has also returned a few of the bodies of the dead, but says they will not be able to retrieve more bodies without specialist equipment because most of the bodies are below the rubble caused by the damage that Israel caused.
However, that is a sticking point with Israel. So much so that Trump, on Wednesday, said, Israeli forces could resume attacks on the streets of Gaza, “as soon as I say the word.”
Your chair of peace, ladies and gentlemen.
Trump also noted that Hamas, who, as part of this 20-point peace plan, is not supposed to have any part in future governance, is currently, “going in and clearing out the gangs, violent gangs.” But when asked whether Hamas could also be executing innocent Palestinians, Trump said he was looking into it. “I’m doing research on it.” Adding, “It could be gangs plus.”
Ah yes, gangs plus. The least successful streamer of all.
So no one worry – Trump’s the one deciding when Israeli forces will resume attacks and Trump’s the one doing research on Hamas.
Trump. Well known for both his calm demeanor and research skills. So no one worry!
So that was last week. The ceasefire deal had actually got got, as long as, you know, no one moves or breathes or does anything.
But of course, people do move and breathe and do things.
On Sunday, Israel launched a series of attacks into Gaza in response to Hamas’ attacks on Israeli troops. I do think it’s important to note that, yes, a ceasefire is a ceasefire. As in Cease. Firing.
Two Israeli troops died Hamas fire and at least 18 people have died in Gaza from the Israeli-launched strikes. Additionally, Israel announced that humanitarian aid to Gaza has also been paused.
I’m recording this on Sunday. The strikes are fairly new. The future is uncertain. The future has been uncertain. When we know more, we’ll know more.
The Government Shutdown
But how are things here in this country? How is our own government functioning?
Imagine you not knowing. “I don’t know Kim. Things seem good to me!”
Well spoiler alert, things are… not functioning.
Welcome everyone, to the third-longest government shutdown in history.
Day 20.
So far, the Senate has failed to pass 10 budget votes.
But what about the Hizzie? (Mom, that means House. I’m now going to start talking about the House of Representatives.
The House has been shut down since September 19th.
Why? Well, Speaker Johnson says it’s because the House passed a spending bill already so it’s job is done.
And far be it for me to not take at face value the word of a man who doesn’t trust himself with the internet and so he has to rely on a porn tracking app that he shares with his son but…
It could also be that the entire Hizzie of Representatives (See mom, what I’m doing there is a callback) is shut down because once it’s back up and running, Johnson will have to swear in Adelita Grijalva, the latest democrat to win an election in a special election.
This would give the final yes vote needed to make the Epstein files public.
So the entire House of Representatives is closed for business so that Mike Johnson, a man whose says his faith is very important to him, can protect a pedophile and every single person connected to one of the most prolific sex trafficking rings ever.
Everyone’s faith is their own, but boy oh boy is Mike Johnson’s faith… interesting.
Meanwhile Trump is, unsurprisingly, attempting to use this to his advantage.
Wait, did I write that right? Donald J Trump? Taking advantage of an entire government shutdown? That doesn’t sound like him!
On Wednesday a federal judge blocked (are we noticing a trend here) the Trump administration from firing thousands of federal workers, siding with unions who said the firings were political as well as improperly handled and based on the incorrect belief that a government shutdown means you get to do literally anything you want.
That’s what the Supreme Court you hand-picked is for, ya goof.
For now at least – fun fact. The Supreme Court is part of the government, and while billionaires may fund a few of our justices, they don’t fund the court at large. The Supreme Court will continue doing vital business but not unlike me every Wednesday before Thursday’s paycheck drops – they, too, have run out of money. I’m kidding! I’m kidding.
But really… $10 million a year or. I. Walk.
No Kings
And hey listen, if they government’s shutdown anyway, why not do a full reboot? This nation was born out of protest.
And so, one Saturday, every single state saw protests as No Kings rallies spread across more than 2,700 cities and towns, with more than seven million people taking part, making it the largest single-day protest in US history.
Though I want to note that the largest protest in US history was actually in 2020 for the George Floyd protests – when between 15M and 26M people took part, at some point, in the multiday protests of the murder of George Floyd as well as the number of Black and Brown Americans who are beaten and killed by police every year for the crime of, you know, daring to be Black and Brown in America.
That happened during Trump’s first presidency and here we are, five years later, still yelling at that man and trying to grab the attention of anyone that’ll listen – there are no kings in this country.
And if I sound well-rested, it’s because I didn’t get to go to San Diego to watch the Wave FC play this weekend (and it was such a good game too!) because the president is so afraid of protest, so afraid of us speaking out against him, that he’ll do anything he can to distract.
And so on the same day as the No Kings protest, Veep Vance went to Camp Pendleton to attend a celebration of the Marine Corps 250th anniversary… Great. Great! I’m from Oceanside, where Camp Pendleton is. I’m from Oceanside because my Grandpa was a Marine. I saw was because he died. That’s the only reason I saw “was” because he was a Marine until the day he died. I don’t respect a fraction of an inch of this administration but I respect the people who made the decision to be of service to this nation.
Which is how I know… the Marine Corp birthday is November 10th!
Anyway, don’t let them act like this was because they want to celebrate the military.
Pay the military!
But they don’t want to do that. They would be the adult thing to do. They’re not adults. Just because someone’s old doesn’t always make them an adult – write that down.
Anyway, instead of paying the military, they forced them, unpaid, to put on a show for Veep Vance. The show included firing live artillery over the 5 freeway and so, to keep drivers safe, a 17-mile stretch of the freeway was shutdown. If you don’t live in California and aren’t familiar with the 5 – it is our main freeway in that area. Closing it is a huge deal.
So let’s run it back on face value.
When faced with what was always expected to be the largest single-day protest in US history, based on the numbers at the last No Kings day, the President and Vice President manufactured a fake event that allowed them to close a major freeway in the most populous state in the country, during which they used our own military to launch artillery shells across the freeway and onto US soil as a show of force.
Here's the thing though – we know who that show of force was for. It was meant to scare us. He’s mad. Nothing he’s doing is working. He’s putting the National Guard in Chicago and Portland and Los Angeles and judge after judge is telling him that he can’t. So the National Guard troops are forced to stand down. Or, when they’re able to stay, there’s literally nothing for them to do, so newspapers show them cleaning up trash or looking bored.
He's losing the troops.
He’s losing the optics.
We know he’s upset because he literally, on Saturday night, posted an AI video of him, wearing a crown, flying a plane and dropping, I’m not kidding, um… it’s presumably the morning so we’ll call it brown stuff… on protestors.
I understand that story after story, hit after hit, is exhausting. And I am not here to belittle your lived experience or the truth of what you’re feeling.
But I’m telling you – if you can, when you can, take a moment and take a wide-angle lens view of this and understand that we are winning. He wants to be a strongman. He is not one.
He is a small, sad, angry man – those are decisions he makes.
But he only wins if we decide he does.
And I’m sorry – I just refuse to hand over my country to someone like that.
And on Saturday, more than seven million people made that same decision. Some did so in completely red states. Some did so in places where speaking out is a real danger.
He is not the one who writes the end of America’s story.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
As a reminder, there’s another episode in the feed. It’s all about voting. You’ll love it!
I’m proud of seven million people! Can you believe that? I don’t even know some of them. Most of them, sure (I’m very popular), but not all of them.
Also lights.
Lanterns.
Tangled.
But more than 7 million people. More than 7 billion people. More than 8.142 billion people. Because you are worth asking Jeeves how many people are in the world… I’m proud of you.