10/28/25
Good morning! It’s Tuesday, October 28th.
National Chocolate Day.
Chocolate covered strawberries. I am so unique.
And now, the news.
Hurricane Melissa
-via CNN
Starting with Hurricane Melissa, which has become a Category 5 with winds of up to 175 miles an hour. It is also now the strongest storm this year… on the entire planet.
As I record this, Jamaica is bracing for it to make landfall. Though, to be clear, the country has already been hit with the winds and rains.
Three people have died in Haiti and another in the Dominican Republic, on top of three in Jamaica, who have died in Jamaica during storm preparations. Another 13 have been injured.
…sidenote. Very unimportant sidenote but it’s so interesting reading all of these stories where people say Hurricane Melissa and then later just call the storm Melissa. Because then you accidentally find yourself in this sentence: “Melissa has already killed three people in Haiti and one person in the Dominican Republic.”
Uh oh!
Argentine Win
-via NY Times
And staying in international news… as promised, I do have the results of Sunday’s election in Argentina, where, after a $40 billion carrot was dangled in front of voters, as their country continues to be in a very desperate financial position, the president’s party has won the election and, thus, the country should be receiving the promised $40 billion.
Which Trump is also seeing as a win for him as well.
And to be clear, it’s not like we’re talking about an incredibly popular guy going into this election. He was politically unpopular, and his inner circle was rife with scandals.
(You can see why Trump liked the guy.)
But a $40 billion economic boost…
So that’s the update there.
Government Shutdown
But the update here is… our government is still shut down.
Welcome to Day 28.
Federal food benefit, aka SNAP, will not go out on Sunday, November 1st.
More than 40 million people depend on SNAP for food. 40 million Americans will go without food because the Republicans want to cut access to healthcare to 20 million people.
The pro-life party, ladies and germs!
As you may recall, the House has not been in session since September 19th because Speaker Johnson doesn’t want to swear in the final House member that would then allow the Epstein files to be made public and so he has closed the House of Representatives to protect a child sexual assaulter and everyone connected to him because I guess everyone’s religion is different…
BUT
California’s Kevin Kiley, a Republican representing the 3rd district (including Yosemite and Death Valley), has shown up to work every single day, criticizing both the shutdown and the fact that the House has yet to swear in its newest member.
"Sometimes you have to work with people who have a different position in order to find common ground."
When someone does the right now, and this is the right thing, we gotta call it out. Because it’s rarer and rarer.
I may disagree with him on many fronts but he’s out there doing the right thing for the people he was elected to represent, and that’s more than we can say for anyone else in his party.
Plus, he’s adorable. His hair does a cute little swoop. Gotta respect a swoop.
Meanwhile, what we don’t have to respect is that, while the government isn’t open because there is no budget… the Trump administration is planning to replace some ICE officials with border patrol in an attempt to intensify their mass deportations. Because what Trump lacks in budgets, he makes up for in white supremacy.
A Department of Homeland Security told NBC News: “The mentality is CBP does what they’re told, and the administration thinks ICE isn’t getting the job done.”
Doesn’t think ICE is getting the job done.
Terrifying.
ICE is arresting, on average, 1,178 people a day but, remember, Mr. 100 Million Americans wants 3,000 people arrested a day.
I’m sorry – if you’re new here… Trump’s advisor, Stephen Miller, who (and this has been noted by people who have been in the inner circle for years) is the only person that Trump doesn’t have a problem with. He complains about everyone… he does not complain about Miller.
Stephen Miller once said that if he had it his way there would only be 100 million Americans and they would all look like him, which means you’re allergic to the sun, garlic, and wooden stakes.
So this switch to CPB from ICE is in an effort to up the arrest numbers.
This is America.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
A somewhat short episode but it was a somewhat slow news day.
The big news was, of course, Hurricane Melissa.
I’m proud of chocolate. Sweets of all kinds really. They can really change the moment. But more than chocolate, because you require no moderation at all… I’m proud of you.