11/13/25
Good morning! It’s Thursday, November 13th.
National Dream Destination Day
You know what would be a dream destination for me? New Zealand. Not necessarily to be there, though that would be nice too I’m sure, but I’d like to take one of those really fancy flights where it’s like you’re in an apartment and I don’t want to waste it on a short flight.
Or Londontown.
And now, the news.
Government Shutdown
-via CBS News
Starting with the government shutdown.
Again.
Soon enough we won’t have to. And then January will come around and we’ll see. But in the meantime, we’ll have other things to worry about. And that’s the great thing about being an optimist, is knowing that there are always things to worry about.
On the 43rd day of the shutdown, my House Reps gave to me… the reopening of the House! A real-life, actual working House of Representatives. That’s right, for the first time since September 19th, the House of Representatives is back in session.
Newly elected House Rep Adelita Grijalva has finally been sworn in. Her first order of business? Signing off on the petition to compel the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files (more on that in a whoosh).
Her signature starts a clock, meaning that there is now a seven-day waiting period before the motion can be brought to the floor. Once it’s been brought to the floor, it has to be voted on in two days.
Speaker Johnson, however, says he’s going to bypass that waiting period and bring it to a vote as soon as next week.
If it passes the House, it’ll head to the Senate and then to the President’s desk. I wonder if the President will sign it… (he definitely will not. Again, more on that in a whoosh).
Prior to the vote, Minority Leader Jeffries gave a speech on the floor to say that the fight for affordable healthcare and cost of living, “is not over. We're just getting started."
Alright well love to see the passion. Now we need to see the action. I’m sorry that rhymed.
In the end, the bill did make its way through the House, passing on a 222-209 vote.
Six democrats crossed party lines to vote with the Republicans to open the government. Marjorie Taylor Greene also voted to open the government. We’ll see what she does next – because what she COULD have done was hold her vote, see that the government was going to open, then vote no because she’s been so vocal about healthcare.
But who knows.
She’s up to something! There’s a play here for sure. We’ll see.
Anyway, the bill was zoom zoomed over to Trump’s desk, where he signed and now the government is reopened.
Which is great news for things like travel and SNAP and WIC, things that will take a bit to return to normal but thankfully that process will now start.
The bad news is… the government that’s opening is this government. So… could be better.
Epstein Emails
And while he may be celebrating that the government is open again (although I gotta be honest, I think he liked it better when it was closed), Donald Trump had a very bad Wednesday.
A VERY bad Wednesday.
When the House opened for business on Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee was like “oh! That’s right, I was about to hit send on an email before we all were kicked out of here for almost two months.” And then released 20,000 pages of documents from the Epstein estate. The big headline on Wednesday? Three emails from the Epstein estate that mention Trump.
Now remember – they were best friends. Self-proclaimed! So that’s not that much of a surprise.
Except, context is key here.
In a 2011 email, Epstein described Trump as the dog that hasn’t barked.
“i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump. REDACTED spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once mentioned. police chief, etc. im 75 % there”
In 2019, Epstein emailed author Michael Wolff. He said that Trump asked him to resign from his membership at Mar a Lago, but he was never a member. However, he also says, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
He knew about the girls.
The dog that hasn’t barked.
Here are other quotes from Trump about Epstein: “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Trump once saw underage girls in Epstein’s pool and this is how he told the story: “The swimming pool was filled with beautiful young girls. How nice,’ I thought, ‘he let the neighborhood kids use his pool.’”
And given all of that, I want to direct you to one more quote. This one is from Sam Nunberg, a former campaign aide who had concerns about Trump’s connections with Epstein. “Trump said, ‘I kicked him out of the clubs when this stuff became public, and I made sure NBC knew.’”
I kicked him out of the clubs when this stuff became public.
Not when he learned about it. Not when he was a witness to it.
When it became public.
So, as mentioned in that other story, no Trump will not sign off on letting these files out. But that doesn’t matter. The files can still get released as long as the public pressure doesn’t ease up.
Donald Trump knew what was happening. The only reason, the ONLY one, that he created any distance at all is that the public found out. Otherwise, he’d have had no problem continuing to hang out with and be a part of the heinous crimes that Epstein was committing.
I’m not saying that Trump was doing what Epstein was doing. However, he gave safe harbor to, even joked about, what was happening.
The dog that didn’t bark.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
Not really! Not by a long shot! But when 20,000 pages of documents come out, and some of them accuse the President of the United States of helping to cover up, which is the most generous thing we can infer from these emails but certainly it’s more nefarious than that, maybe we don’t need to pop right into another story about, like… Target employees now being forced to smile at customers when they’re within ten feet of a customer.
If you weren’t already boycotting Target, this is enough of a reason. These poor employees!
I’m proud of… retail workers.
That is a hard job! I did it for a very long time and it was very difficult. You have to hit impossible goals and deal with impossible customers and now this?
Be kind and be patient, especially if you’re shopping in stores over the holidays.
Also when you’re traveling. Because of how I’m trying to tie this back to Dream Destination Day. But more than the fanciest plane in all the land, because there’s no destination dreamier than you… I’m proud of you.