10/16/24
Good morning! It’s Wednesday, October 16th.
National Feral Cat Day!
Which is a great time to ask what I should name the two feral cats that live outside of my apartment. Once is dark calico and the other is orange.
Circle back on the name thing.
And now, the news.
Update: Middle East
Starting with an update on the Middle East – in a letter dated Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned their Israeli counterparts that Israel must increase the amount of humanitarian aid getting into Gaza within the next thirty days or risk losing access to our weapons funding.
Back in April, they sent a similar letter, but it’s actually fallen by more than 50% from where it was before.
The letter specifically notes that aid must increase to at least 350 trucks a day, plus they will need to institute additional humanitarian pauses and increase security for humanitarian sites.
So far, Israel’s response has been… yeah no I mean, we definitely got the letter. Why? What’s up?
It’s not a lot, arguably it’s not as much as we could or should be doing but… it’s something.
We’re also still waiting (still nervously!) for Israel to respond to Hezbollah’s attack earlier this month. Here’s the good news, the Israeli government has told the Biden administration that they’ll avoid nuclear and oil production sites when it does respond. So that’s… also something.
Here’s the bad news, the acting leader of Hezbollah says they want to expand their feud with Israel and will launch deeper strikes into the country. So uh…
Georgia Must Certify
In election news – On Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that hey, Georgia – you gotta certify your votes.
As you may recall, Georgia is a swing state. Why any state is a swing state is beyond me, because this guy is a radical white supremacist who wants to be a dictator and does appear to be in some sort of cognative decline. And also because there shouldn’t be swing states because we should get rid of the Electoral College.
Nevertheless! It’s a swing state.
And while Kalama is working hard to earn the votes of voters, Team Trump is… trying to cheat voters out of having a vote.
In Georgia, like other states, this gameplan played out locally, with local election superintendents saying they needed to handcount every ballot (with an obvious goal of not counting ballots in time to certify and therefore creating chaos).
Well fear not (fear other things, but fear not this)… Judge McBurney has ruled that election results shall be certified by the Monday after election or, since this year the Monday after the election is Veterans Day, they shall be certified by Tuesday at 5pm.
McBurney? More like McBurnYourIdeasOfStealingElectionsYouWannabeElectionStealingLosers
GOT ‘EM!!!
Got em.
Hey guess what? They’re going to try and cheat their way into a win, because they can’t actually win.
That means what we need to do it win big time. Huge time.
The other big story was what I kind of mentioned yesterday – that, on Monday, Trump stopped his rally after four questions and then made everyone stick around for a concert full of music that no one got the rights to.
And he just bopped around, swaying awkwardly. He genuinely did not seem okay. Not mentally sound.
By the way, he did all of that in front of a giant sign that read “Trump was right about everything.”
Truly unhinged.
Is that who we want as the president?
No! Because his brain ain’t right!
Also, his heart is bad as well. Heart and brain – two things we want to be good in a president. But he’s just like – hey, let’s all sway to Memory, from the hit musical Cats while I further contemplate doing mass deportations.
And speaking of… that guy.
After everyone was, rightfully, upset about his ongoing relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and after he denied speaking with him and sending covid tests secretly, even as Americans here were dying due to a lack of testing… on Tuesday Trump said that he wasn’t going to comment on whether he’s still in touch with Putin (it’s noteworthy that the Kremlin did confirm that covid testing machines were sent to Russia) but if he did do it… it would be smart.
"If I'm friendly with people, if I have a relationship with people, that's a good thing, not a bad thing."
You’re not friendly with people! You sometimes act as if because you want something but like, and I truly mean this… does he have friends? Have you ever heard a story of someone having, and maintaining, a real friendship with Trump?
Also… that’s beside the point. Putin is not some dude you’ve met at McDonalds a few times. He is a dictator and the adversary of a country we are trying to help.
You don’t get to be friends with them if you’re running for president.
And finally, this is not really anything but when I heard Trump say, "Well, I don't comment on that, but I will tell you that if I did, it's a smart thing," all I kept thinking was…
I can’t wait to do the news and remind us all that OJ’s book about being a murder was called “If I Did It.”
Anyway, there are only 20 days until Election Day.
Raisingvoters.org/increaseturnout
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I’m proud of those cats outside of my apartment. They’re cute! I’m sorry, but they’re adorable.
But more than that. Because you don’t have fleas (presumably…)… I’m proud of you.