Random News: September 26, 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 September 26, 2022, and it’s a Monday. Let’s find some stuff to talk about…

• A little reminder: Wednesday of this week, the January 6 committee resumes its hearings.
• The September 28 session is the final hearing before the Midterms. Expect to learn things.
• CNN gained access to some text messages between former chief of staff Mark Meadows and operatives who sought to overturn the 2020 election via illegal means.
• They were trying to directly access voting machines in Georgia and Arizona.
• Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel, sent Meadows a PowerPoint presentation outlining a plan for overturning the election, which was later used to brief Republican lawmakers, titled, in part: "Options for 6 Jan."
• Waldron also helped draft language for an executive order directing the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines on behalf of the White House.
• Fucking hell. We nearly lost America. I know I’ve said it before, but each items that comes out shows how we could easily be living in a totalitarian nightmare right now.
• Moving on for now.
• A great article in Politico talks about how wrong polling can be, for various reasons. Any poll you read with a Democrat ahead is potentially wrong.
• You should vote and encourage others to vote as if the poll was 10 points behind as opposed to three points ahead, or whatever.
• If the GOP takes the House and Senate, they’re already told you what their plan is.
• They’ll ban abortion nationwide.
• They’ll cut or eliminate Social Security so your loved ones who rely on it — the elderly, the disabled — will now be forced to rely on you for financial support instead.
• They’ll remove protections and rights of LGBTQIA+ people, including that of marriage.
• They’ll further cut taxes for the extremely wealthy and leave you middle class folks with the financial burden for running the country.
• And so on.
• Vote please.
• It’s hurricane season in places from Florida to the eastern seaboard of Canada. It’s also typhoon season along the east coast of Asia.
• We just don’t get them on the west coast of the USA. Earthquakes, drought, and fires, yes. Big windy, wet storms that fuck up people’s lives, no.
• This week in the criminal investigation for espionage and obstruction over the FPOTUS’s theft and storage of classified documents at his golf motel, the big event is a Friday deadline given by Special Master Raymond Dearie to Trump's lawyers that they need to say clearly in court "whether the president ever declassified anything" and "whether they actually believe and have evidence that anything was planted at Mar-a-Lago."
• That’ll be fun. Can’t wait!
• And now, The Weather: “Medieval Heart by Pool Holograph.
• From the Sports Desk… my football team sucks. I mean, they lose games closely, but 0-3 is 0-3. I make no excuses for their inability to win.
• In other news, you may recall that when Texas governor Greg Abbott was confronted with the fact that Texas’s abortion laws made no exception for rape, he replied that Texas would simply eliminate the rapists.
• However, per an AP report, Texas’s number of rape cases has remained "consistently" high.
• And that’s just the reported cases. The grand majority of all rapes do not get reported, often out of embarrassment, or via the fact that society has trained women to blame themselves for being raped.
• It’s fucking sick and sad.
• Today in history… William II is crowned King of England (1087). Francis Drake finishes his circumnavigation of the Earth in Plymouth, England (1580). The Parthenon in Athens, used as a gunpowder depot by the Ottoman garrison, is partially destroyed (1687). George Washington appoints Thomas Jefferson the first United States Secretary of State (1789). Albert Einstein publishes the third of his Annus Mirabilis papers, introducing the special theory of relativity (1905). The United States Federal Trade Commission is established (1914). The ocean liner RMS Queen Mary is launched (1934). United Nations troops recapture Seoul from North Korean forces (1950). Typhoon Vera, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history, makes landfall (1959). In Chicago, the first televised debate takes place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy (1960). Abbey Road, the last recorded album by the Beatles, is released (1969). Nolan Ryan sets a Major League record by throwing his fifth no-hitter (1981). 
• September 26 is the birthday of gardener/environmentalist Johnny Appleseed (1774), physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849), poet T. S. Eliot (1888), composer George Gershwin (1898), actor George Raft (1901), fitness expert Jack LaLanne (1914), musician Marty Robbins (1925), musician Brian Ferry (1945), activist Andrea Dworkin (1946), singer Olivia Newton-John (1948), musician Cesar Rosas (1954), actress Linda Hamilton (1956), musician Darby Crash (1958), sports executive Jeanie Buss (1961), drummer John Tempesta (1964), politician Beto O’Rourke (1972), hockey players Daniel and Henrik Sedin (1980), and tennis great Serena Williams (1981).

Well, here we are at Monday again. I don’t mind Mondays. I often have pretty good Mondays. It’s funny (not ha-ha funny) that I used to hate Mondays when I used to drink alcohol on a more regular basis. It’s been about 20 years since then. I was already a very bad hangover person, and when I started developing an intolerance for alcohol in my early 30s, my hangovers would last for multiple days since my body wasn’t able to properly process it and cleanse it from my system. Those were bad days. These days are better. Enjoy your day.