Random News: June 10, 2022

DISCLAIMER: Zak's Random News is very random and doesn't cover many things, and not everything may be accurate, because I'm just some guy. Go find a real news source.

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Good morning. It’s June 10, 2022, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! Here’s a bunch of stuff with some variety but not a lot…

• I really hope you watched the first session of public House Select Committee hearings for the January 6 insurrection last night.
• I really, really hope so.
• I mean, it was on every channel but one, for some reason.
• Let’s get this out of the way. The footage — some seen previously but a lot that was brand new to the public — was sickening. Combined with the testimony of Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards, it was almost too much to see, and I had to step away a couple of times.
• Liz Cheney was very clear and purposeful in her definition of the January 6 riot. She said it was a coup that was carefully orchestrated by Donald Trump himself.
• Perhaps the best Cheney quote, directed at her fellow Republicans who continue to support the former guy: "Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
• They are clearly talking about accountability for any and all people responsible for the attempted coup and the criminal conspiracy that led to it.
• Committee chair Bennie Thompson had the perfect tone to lead the proceedings. Calm and eloquent, he laid the foundations of all key points in a way that was understandable for anyone watching.
• We also saw damning statements against Trump and the Big Lie from everyone from former AG Bill Barr to many members of Trump’s cabinet to his own daughter Ivanka Trump.
• We also saw testimony statements from some of the people who’ve been charged via their actions at the insurrection. They all had a similar message: that they were there because Trump told them to be there.
• Trump also stated, when the rioters were calling for the VP to be hung, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Maybe Mike Pence deserves it.”
• We learned that a number of as-yet unnamed Republican Congressmen asked for preemptive pardons for their roles in the coup. I’m looking forward to learning who they are. 
• During the coup, text messages between Sean Hannity and Kayleigh McEnany talked about invoking the 25th Amendment against Donald Trump, which very much explains Fox’s refusal to air it.
• There will be somewhere around eight total public hearings.
• Next is Monday June 13, followed by Wednesday June 15.
• If EVER in your life you supported law enforcement, you should be rabidly seeking justice and retribution toward these insurrectionist pricks. You can’t support cops and their killers. It doesn’t work both ways.
• My only thing to add for the moment is that I’ve never seen anything as anti-American as the footage of these pieces of shit attempting to subvert the Constitution and take over the US government by force. Anyone you know who supports or condones them is nearly as big a piece of shit as they are.
• Call them any name they’d like… Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, MAGAs, QAnons. They’re all anti-American groups and should be treated as domestic terrorists.
• I think it really hit home how close we came to losing American democracy that day, possibly forever.
• Okay, that’s it on that for now.
• Inflation is undeniably awful. Rent, gas prices, and basic grocery bills are through the roof. There’s little that can be done about corporate greed, but the one thing that tends to slow down inflation is a drastic drop in consumer spending, which then creates its own economic problems. We’ve been through this before in the 1970s; it will eventually resolve, but it’s going to hurt a lot of people in the process.
• From the sports desk, my Las Vegas Raiders announced a new two-year deal with receiver Hunter Renfrow. I like that guy a lot. He’s no bigger than me; we weigh about the same and he’s actually a little shorter than me, and yet he is a feared and respected NFL player who comes through over and over for the team. Good for him.
• Today in history… 1854: The US Naval Academy graduates its first class of students. 1863: Mexico City is captured by French troops (I did not know that). 1940: Fascist Italy declares war on France and the UK (I did know that). 1944: 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall starts a game for the Cincinnati Reds. 1963: The Equal Pay Act is signed by John F. Kennedy, and is supposed to eliminate gender-based pay inequality (narrator’s voice: it didn’t).
• June 10 is the birthday of actress Hattie McDaniel (1895), blues musician Howlin’ Wolf (1910), actress Judy Garland (1922), author/illustrator Maurice Sendak (1928), bossa nova king João Gilberto (1931), musician Kim Deal (1961), and model/actress Elizabeth Hurley (1965).

I hope you all have a great day. Keep in mind: it’s hard to acknowledge painful events in life, like what happened on January 6. It’s human nature to want to forget. But this coup didn’t end on that day, and there are thousands of people who are poised and ready to ignore the rule of law and the will of the people, and to try to violently overthrow the country again. Finding accountability and punishing those involved last time is the first step to preventing the next one… which I promise, someone is planning right this moment. Stay awake and aware, and keep being the kind of person who makes life better for everyone else. I believe in you!