Random News: August 13, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 13, 2022 and it’s a Saturday. I’m in a bathrobe, so let’s do some newsy things…

• Basically, everything we expected to have happen yesterday regarding the unsealing of the FBI’s search warrant for Mar-a-Lago did happen, but then more happened.
• The big thing was seeing the specific legal charges under which the former President is being investigated. Here they are, with a very brief explanation of each. 
• 18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information. This is the law that came out of the Espionage Act of 1917. It has to do with obtaining information about national defense with the intent of causing injury to the USA. Penalty is a fine, up to 10 years imprisonment per document, or both.
• 18 U.S. Code § 1519 - Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy. This law is commonly called “obstruction”, and it’s actually the biggest one here. Penalty is a fine, up to 20 years imprisonment per document, or both.
• 18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally. This law makes it illegal to steal, hide, or destroy any kind of document without proper authorization. Penalty is a fine, up to 3 years imprisonment per document, or both.
• So, let’s chat for a second about something important. WHY NOW?
• Trump has been out of the White House since January 2021. Why did this search warrant get executed almost 18 months later?
• I think I can tell you, speculatively.
• See, no matter what Trump had stashed away, it only became an imminent threat to the USA after some agency got information about Trump attempting to make use of the classified and top secret documents.
• I have reason to believe that our government agencies intercepted communications between a foreign entity and Trump with specific information about some upcoming (or past) use of the secret information.
• Merrick Garland is a notoriously thorough and effective prosecutor. He’s supervised some of the highest-profile domestic terrorism cases in US history, including the OK City bombing, the Unabomber, and the Atlanta Olympics bombing. I know he’d never sign off on the warrant without overwhelming evidence that there was an immediate need to do so.
• I think we may find out that the need to remove the classified information was urgent.
• Any specifics will have to wait for an eventual trial.
• You can read the entire search warrant online. Google “Trump search warrant” and bang zoom, you got it.
• Okay. Enough on that for now. There will be so, so much more moving ahead.
• I normally would have spent today writing about the tremendous success of the Democrats having finally passed a major health, climate, and tax bill that was years in the making. It passed the House on straight party lines, and goes to Biden to sign next week.
• Major shit is going on in Baja California. Streets being taken over by drug cartel narco gangs. It is awful. Tijuana, just over the border south of San Diego, is in particularly awful shape with roads blocked by burning cars and violence being rampant. Hoping the best for my friends down there.
• In good news, the Southern Baptist Convention is under investigation by the DOJ for mishandling accusations of sexual abuse. I have no deeper seething anger than institutions in position of trust — churches, schools, and so on — that tolerate and cover up abuse of any sort.
• I’m sad about Salman Rushdie. He was giving a speech in western New York and was stabbed multiple times. The fatwa against him from Iran has been in place since 1988. He’s in bad shape and currently on a ventilator, and I hope he makes it through. Great writer, brave human.
• And now, The Weather: “Lylz” by Helena Deland.
• From the Sports Desk… The Sports Desk would like to once again reiterate its firm dislike for playing starters in NFL preseason. Case in point: Zach Wilson, the assumed starting QB for the New York Jets, got a knee injury during their first preseason game. It’s unknown how bad it is yet or if he’ll be healed up by the start of the actual season. Their backup QB is 83-year-old Joe Flacco.
• Today in history… Octavian holds a triumph in Rome for the victory over Dalmatian tribes (29 BC). Maurice becomes Emperor of the Byzantine Empire (582). Cortés conquers Tenochtitlan after a long siege (1521). Buddhist monks from Kyoto burn down the temples (1536). Louis XIII appoints Richelieu as Prime Minister (1624). Louis XVI is arrested as an enemy of the people (1792). Huge (8.5-9.0) earthquakes strikes Peru, killing 25,000+ and creating a massive tsunami (1868). Norway ends its union with Sweden (1905). Women enlist in the US Marine Corps, with the first female Marine being Opha May Johnson (1918). A public company is established in Germany called Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, later shortened to BMW (1918). Construction of facilities for the "Development of Substitute Materials" project, better known as the Manhattan Project, begins (1942). Apollo 11 astronauts get a ticker tape parade in NYC and are given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Nixon that night in Los Angeles (1969).
• August 13 is the birthday of physicist Anders Jonas Ångström (1814), abolitionist/suffragist Lucy Stone (1818), activist Leonora Barry (1849), gunslinger Annie Oakley (1860), inventor of the television John Logie Baird (1888), actor Bert Lahr (1895), director Alfred Hitchcock (1899), rotary engine inventor Felix Wankel (1902), golfer Ben Hogan (1912), politician Fidel Castro (1926), singer Don Ho (1930), Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders (1933), NHL player Bobby Clarke (1949), singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg (1951), photographer Herb Ritts (1952), actor Danny Bonaduce (1959), CIA agent Valerie Plame (1963), figure skater Midori Ito (1969), former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (1982), actor Sebastian Stan (1982), and NBA player DeMarcus Cousins (1990).

I guess that’s all for now. I should shower and be productive in some way. I’m happy it’s Saturday. I need the time to do things I enjoy. Hope you get that time as well. Enjoy your day.