07/21/25

Good morning! It’s Monday, July 21st

National Take a Monkey to Lunch Day

You know what? No… too many days. Officially, this is too many days. What are we doing?

And now, the news.

Los Angeles Crowd Crash

-via CNN

Starting in Los Angeles, east Hollywood specifically, where, early Saturday morning, a car drove through a crowded sidewalk, injuring at least 30 people, at least seven critically.

Pieces are coming together slowing but here’s what’s known so far:

Around 2 AM, the suspect, who had been kicked out of the Vermont Hollywood earlier for being disruptive and, per the police, likely drunk, drove into the crowd. Early reports said the driver was unconscious; some reports say it was intentional but officials are currently saying there is no evidence to show there were criminal intentions beyond being drunk.

There were a lot of people standing around outside of the club waiting for the valet and, this being LA, obviously there were dirty dogs and taco trucks. So it was a crowded area.

The car then hit a hot dog stand got stuck there, which likely saved many more lives.

Following that, a few people outside of the club pulled the driver out and beat him until he was unconscious, before someone in the crowd shot him before fleeing the scene.

All in 124 firefighters responded to the scene.

And it says here… zero National Guard troops because the president is wasting their time and your tax dollars by forcing them to stay here for no reason.

Israel-Hamas

-via AP News

On Sunday, the Gaza Strip saw its deadliest day for those seeking aid, when 81 Palestinians were killed while trying to reach food in the central area of the Gaza Strip.

They were just trying to get food.

But instead, as the UN World Food Program brought in trucks, Israeli forces shot at the crowds who tried to take that food.

This comes as the government of Israel has ordered yet another evacuation order in the area.

Central Gaza is one of the areas where Israel’s military hasn’t sent a lot of troops on the ground, and so that’s where most international aid organizations have set up shop to distribute aid. Several of those groups were told to evacuate immediately.

79 people were killed in that attack, and separately, seven Palestinians, including a five-year-old boy, were killed while sheltering in a tent because bullets don’t, you know, know about perimeters and stuff.

Colbert’s Colcancelled

-via Vox

On Thursday, just after I finished recording Friday’s episode (because Paramount is trying to silence everyone!), CBS announced that this season, which ends in May of 2026, will be both the last season of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, as well as the end of a television era, because it will be the end of The Late Show completely. No one will take over when Colbert is done.

CBS says the move is financial. And to be fair - Paramount, which owns CBS, is short $16 million after folding like a paper-soaked piece of cardboard in the 60 Minutes lawsuit Trump filed. A suit that every expert agrees they would have very easily won.

The truth is that we may never know specifically why the show was canceled, and yes obviously, while Colbert is the most profitable Late Night show, it doesn’t bring in a ton of money and I’m sure cash money did play a part in it.

But I think a better word to use would be… retaliatory. Trump has thin skin; everyone knows it. Dude is sensitive. He’s a little baby. All his feelings are hurt all the time. That’s why he does literally anything that he does – ever.

As such, he specifically hates Colbert and Kimmel (Fallon lifts right out for him). Paramount is still attempting to merge with Skydance Media, which the FCC can potentially halt. That’s why CBS settled that suit with Trump.

It would make sense, therefore, that in order to keep this deal going, CBS cancels a show Trump hates in order not to derail the merger.

I mean, who knows, but that sure seems like more of a realistic reason rather than financial.

Worse reason, for sure. But it also makes more sense.

But, you know… what do I know?

Trump’s Meltdown Continues

-via The Guardian, AP News, AP News, CNN, NY Times, BBC, CNN, and NY Times

And yet again… we must end with more of the Trump meltdown over the Epstein files, which has rippled out even further. What we’ve got here is the Epstein files and then the ramifications of his meltdown.

Let’s start with the significant updates in the Epstein files from over the weekend.

First, the NY Times dropped a bombshell story (multiple bombshells were dropped over the weekend! Well, just two. But both by the Times.) about a party that for something called a “calendar girl competition.” Trump was the host and Epstein was the only guest. We know about this party because of a Florida businessman who arranged the event. That same businessman’s then-girlfriend and business partner, who attended the party, later accused Trump of sexual assault at the party.

She also said, that same night, a 22-year-old “calendar girl” contestant told her that Trump crawled into bed with her that night uninvited.

The suit was later dropped after a related case was settled.

According to this NY Times piece, which is very in-depth, the two didn’t stop being friends because Epstein went to jail. No, it was over a real estate deal that they faced off on and Trump won.

In fact, don’t forget that Trump even said about Epstein, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. 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. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

To my knowledge, that party is new news – or at least newly widely published news.

Another piece from the Times over the weekend, which was previously told in 2020 but was updated on Sunday, is the story of Maria Farmer, who was sexually assaulted by Epstein, as well as Ghislaine Maxwell when she was a teenager. This was back in 1996 and after learning that the same thing happened to her little sister, she first went to the police and ultimately went to the FBI about Epstein and Maxwell, and told them to look into Trump too.

Back in 1996.

They interviewed her again about Epstein in 2006, and she said the same thing – look into the people in his orbit. Including Trump. And, in the spirit of being completely honest, Bill Clinton. Which we also knew was coming.

But these stories show that they were close. It also shows that it’s possible that, hey maybe he wasn’t assaulting minors. Maybe all of his sexual assaults were against women who were 18 and above, but he likely knew what Epstein was doing and didn’t stop it.

Julie K Brown, an award-winning journalist who’s been on this case since Epstein was arrested the first time and exposed his sweetheart 13-month deal, went on CNN over the weekend and raised more questions about Epstein’s death and called out all of the financial questions that are still looming in the case – the answers to which are probably in the hands of the FBI.

Plus, of course, as I mentioned on Friday, that birthday card came out over the weekend and it’s very clearly from Trump to Epstein. Trump says he doesn’t draw, but then a lot of his drawings were uploaded (gotta say… they’re not bad!). Trump has filed a $10 billion suit ($10 billion!!!) against Wall Street Journal's parent company Dow Jones and its owner Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch owns Fox News. They used to love Trump, but we’ll see how this plays…

On Friday, after demands to see the Epstein files, the Department of Justice requested to have the grand jury testimony unsealed – which sounds like a big deal. It’s not. Here’s what it really means: grand jury testimonies are purposely brief – all they’re trying to do is get the indictment. Per a Manhattan federal prosecutor who spoke with the AP - “it’s not going to be everything the FBI and investigators have figured out about Maxwell and Epstein.”

In other words, Trump thought he had something to satisfy the masses, but quickly people started saying it wouldn’t work.

So big updates there and none in Trump’s favor, which is why you can also imagine Trump had a super normal weekend of… telling the Washington football team the Washington Commanders that if they don’t change their name back to their old racist name that he “won’t make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington.”

He also said the Cleveland Guardians baseball team should change their name back.

Super normal guy.

Speaking of normal – in an effort to get back into his good graces, Tulsi Gabbard has offered up her own distraction for Trump, which he spent all weekend posting about… over the weekend she called for former president Barack Obama, as well as former senior US national security officials, to be prosecuted for “treasonous conspiracy” in the 2016 election.

2016!

She is the director of national intelligence!

Her claim is that Obama, and others, laid the groundwork for a years-long coup against Trump by manufacturing intelligence to suggest that Russia tried to influence the election.

Which… he did. But I guess Obama did it? And it was a coup?

The word intelligence is in her job description!

Baby, a coup a literally defined as: “a sudden, violent, and unlawful seizure of power from a government.”

He was elected president! Tragically, he was president the whole time.

Anyway… what a weekend.

When this Epstein thing first dropped last month, I was taking my week off and really thought that’s interesting. Good thing I’m not going to have to talk about that on the news, because that would be annoying.

….

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of monkeys.

They can find their own lunch.

And because you are a silly little monkey who can find your own lunch also, I’m proud of you.