07/22/25
Good morning! It’s Tuesday, July 22
Mango Day
Did you know they were first cultivated more than 4,000 years ago in India?
Man I love mangos. Mango, lime, and tajin – elite combination.
And now, the news.
Israel-Hamas
-via ABC News
Starting with the Israel-Hamas war, where more than 25 countries have signed onto a joint statement calling for the government of Israel to end the war in Gaza, saying, "The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity."
The release of the letter follows Sunday’s attack as they went to get food off the UN food trucks, which left 81 dead and more 150 injured.
Unsurprisingly, a spokesperson for the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has rejected the statement, "as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas."
It also said there is a concrete proposal for a ceasefire deal but Hamas “stubbornly refuses to accept it.”
Beyond those statements, there has not been any real movement on the ceasefire deal after Hamas said Israel rejected the deal late last week because, although it would have released all of the hostages still being held by Hamas, it would also see all Israeli forces leaving Gaza.
Sentencing in Taylor Raid
-via NY Times
Despite the head of the civil rights division at the Department of Justice asking that he serve just one single day in jail – Brett Hankinson, the officer who shot ten shots into Breonna Taylor’s window the night that a botched drug raid ended into her murder, will serve 33 months.
Yes, it’s more than the single day they originally requested, but it’s a far cry from the year lifetime he was originally up to serve.
But that 33 months is 33 more than the officers who shots killed Breonna Taylor ever served.
So… no justice to be seen here.
Malcom Jamal-Warner
-via NPR
Some very sad news – Malcom Jamal-Warner, who played Theo on The Cosby Show, died on Sunday in a drowning accident while on vacation with his family.
In addition to his work as an actor, he won a Grammy in 2015 for a song called “Jesus Children” which memorialized the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting (he didn’t sing on it, but did a spoken word contribution). He was also a poet, and was nominated for a second Grammy in 2023 for a spoken word poetry album.
Last year he started a podcast called Not All Hood.
He was an executive producer and a director. And – he played the guitar!
He was 54 years old.
FBI Files Released
And finally, on Monday the Trump administration released the FBI surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr.
This was done against the specific request of the King family, but you know, it’s the Trump administration – they don’t really care about the consent.
The document includes more than 240k pages that had been under seal since 1977, when the FBI turned them over to the National Archives.
In a statement, King’s two living children asked that the public view the files “within their full historical context.”
Because we put people on pedestals, especially MLK Jr, whose memorial in DC is literally the second largest in the mall, second only to the Washington Monument. And MLK Jr is one of the most important leaders in the civil rights movement but to know his story, to respect who he was and the work he did, is to see him as a real human being. And that means knowing that he was not a perfect man.
He was flawed, as we all are.
But he was also a great man and a great leader, and the things he did for this country can’t be diminished by whatever is going to be found in those files.
Because what’s in those files is just a distraction.
That’s all this is.
Don’t buy into it.
There are like a million books you can about King. About a lot of the civil rights leaders, actually. Read those.
Don’t read these files, which are only just a reminder that the FBI spied on our civil rights leaders because they didn’t want them to be doing civil rights because they didn’t want them to have civil rights and time is a flat circle because boy oh boy do they not want them to have them now and anyway it’s all just a distraction because the twice impeached president of the United States was besties with a pedophile and is now putting pressure on the Department of Justice to not release those files so instead these are are.
And while the Republicans are running around telling you how disappointed they are, running to every single podcast they can get their hands on (they asked to come on this one but I said no – some of us have integrity!) to say the President needs to release the files, and while news outlets are trying to act like there’s a rift in the GOP over these Epstein files…
Mike Johnson won’t hold a vote in the House before their August recess on a resolution to call on the Trump administration to release more files.
It carries no legal weight – it’s literally just a hey do you mind? And he still won’t ask them to do it
Republican Tom Massie is leading a charge in the House to have the House vote sooner, but it will need 218 signatures, so we’ll see if some of those Republicans, who are just so upset over these files but had two opportunities to vote to release the files and didn’t do so, sign this resolution.
And that’s it, that’s the news.
I’m proud of mangos. Ugh, now I really want one.
But more than mangos, seriously, I really want a mango now… how am I gonna get my hands on a mango – because I always know how to get in touch with you (I just yap on this podcast, really)… I’m proud of you.