Random News: May 21, 2023

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 May 21, 2023, and it’s a Sunday. All is quiet, I have a fresh cup of Peet’s Sulawesi Kalosi, I’m in a robe, so why not see what’s going on in this wacky world? Let’s go…

• I’m sick to death of this long-lasting pattern of using the budget to hold the whole fucking country hostage.
• How many times have we experienced government shutdowns as a result of these people who we elect to do a job… don’t?
• We raised the debt ceiling three time under Trump without cutting essential programs.
• Despite all that, the U.S. has never defaulted on its debt over failure to raise the debt ceiling. Not once.
• But make no mistake: due to the extreme positions of the current GOP-led House of Representatives, we are very much in danger of that now.
• "I'm not going to agree to a deal that protects $200 billion in excess payments for pharmaceutical industries while cutting over 100,000 school teachers and assistants' jobs, 30,000 law enforcement officers, jobs cut across the entire United States of America.” - President Joe Biden
• And here’s the actual reason for all this…
• “I think there are some MAGA Republicans in the House who know the damage it would do to the economy, and because I am president, and a president is responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame and that’s the one way to make sure Biden’s not reelected.” - President Joe Biden
• Well, let it be known: it’s not Biden that wants to slash your (or your parents) Social Security and Medicare. It’s not Biden who wants to leave your kids without a teacher or your city without a police force.
• Final notę: let’s say you’re some wealthy person who doesn’t give a fuck about government support of vulnerable people. Fair enough. If the U.S. defaults on its debt in a little over a week, the effect on stock markets and your personal portfolio will be immediately devastating.
• Enough on that for now. Maybe these assholes can figure it out.
• A Mississippi transgender high school student was not able to attend graduation after a federal judge said the school district could bar the teen from wearing a dress to walk across the stage and collect her "long-awaited diploma." 
• The 17-year-old student has been openly transgender since she began attending the school four years ago as a freshman, and her identity has been known to her classmates, teachers and administrators.
• She attended the school’s prom last year wearing a formal dress and high-heeled shoes, without any issues or repercussions.
• Administrators at Harrison Central High School informed the teen less than two weeks before the event there was a dress code policy for the May 20 graduation which states girls "must wear a white dress and dress shoes," and that boys "must wear a white button-down shirt, black dress pants, black dress shoes, and a tie or bowtie.”
• That’s entirely fucked up.
• Gov. Ron DeSantis (F-FL) is asking that a federal judge be disqualified from the First Amendment lawsuit filed by Disney against him and his appointees, claiming the jurist's prior statements in other cases have raised questions about his impartiality on the state's efforts to take over Disney World's governing body.
• That’s the move of a desperate man. We don’t get to hand-pick out judges in actions against us, Rhonda.
• Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker was nominated to the federal bench in 2012 by President Barack Obama.
• Even Florida’s Republican senators are speaking out against DeSantis’s colossal blunder.
• "This is the biggest or second-biggest employer in the state. Half the tourism that comes to our state comes to visit Disney. It's a reason people come to our state. After they come there, people move there. So I think cooler heads need to prevail. My view is we have to do everything to help our businesses grow.” - See Rick Scott (R-FL)
• "If it starts to be perceived that any corporate entity that's operating directly or indirectly in furtherance of a political agenda that the powers that be don't agree with, therefore we're going to use the power of government to target you, you get concerned. If a Democratic [governor] and a Democratic legislature takes over Florida, they're going to go after Chick-fil-A?” - Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)
• And final note for now on that state: yesterday, the NAACP issued a formal travel advisory for Florida, saying the state has become “hostile to Black Americans” under DeSantis’s leadership.
• “On a seeming quest to silence African-American voices, the Governor and the State of Florida have shown that African Americans are not welcome in the State of Florida,” the travel advisory reads.
• Moving on…
• I know I tend to talk about guns and shootings on Sundays. Frankly, it’s depressing. Why? Because it only grows worse and no one does a damn thing about it and nothing changes.
• But if I don’t talk about it and you start thinking it’s normal for people to have access to high-powered, high-capacity weapons and use them to kill others every fucking day, it’s partially my fault too.
• That being said, a student in Phoenix faces a number of serious felony charges after police accused him of bringing an AR-15 and ammunition to a high school.
• Phoenix Police Department officers and two school security officers responded Friday afternoon to a call of a student with a gun on campus at Bostrom High School. In addition to what he had locked and loaded, he also had additional ammunition in his lunchbox and backpack.
• The AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle that’s designed to kill as many people in as short amount of time as possible. It’s also the most popular gun in the USA.
• So, as long as we’re on this topic… three dead and two wounded in a bar in Kansas City. Two dead two injured in a car shooting in New Orleans. 21 people shot (!) and somehow just one dead in Chicago. One dead, three injured at a party in Birmingham. Three dead, two injured in Indianapolis. One dead, one injured in Knoxville. A five-year-old was shot in Detroit… thankfully expected to survive.
• Again, just bringing this stuff up make me anti-American to some folks, and if being American means lusting over violence and death, I suppose they’re right.
• And now, The Weather: “Spiral” by Pynkie
• I mentioned that other day about Timothy Parlatore, who recently left the team of defense lawyers for the criminal investigation into the mishandling of classified documents by Donald Trump.
• Yesterday, he explained why, saying that there were “certain individuals that made defending the president much harder than it needed to be.”
• He singled out Boris Epshteyn, another lawyer and top Trump adviser in multiple criminal investigations, whom he accused of “doing everything he could to try to block us to prevent us from doing what we could to defend the president.”
• Parlatore’s resignation comes as the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith shows signs of winding down and nearing a decision on whether or not to bring charges against the former president.
• From the Sports Desk… the Lakers are toast. After last night’s home loss to the Nuggets (119-108), they’re down 3-0, and Los Angeles has never won another game in a playoff series after being down 3-0.
• Look, Denver had the best record in basketball and was the #1 seed in the playoffs for a reason.
• The Celtics play the Heat in Miami today and will try to escape the same fate.
• In the NHL playoffs, the Panthers lead the Canes 2-0 in their Eastern Conference finals series, while Vegas Golden Knights are up 1-0 on the Dallas Stars. Game 2 of that series is today.
• Today in history… Daniel Defoe is imprisoned on charges of seditious libel (1703). Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces (1856). The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C. (1881). FIFA — the Fédération Internationale de Football Association — is founded in Paris (1904). Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (1927). Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (1932). Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her handbag (1936). Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory (1946). Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out (1961). Transamerica Corporation agrees to sell United Artists to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $380 million after the box office failure of the 1980 film ‘Heaven's Gate’ (1981). After 30 seasons Johnny Carson hosted his penultimate episode and last featuring guests — Robin Williams and Bette Midler — of ‘The Tonight Show’ (1992). Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date (2011).
• May 21 is the birthday of prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780), painter Henri Rousseau (1844), volcanologist Giuseppe Mercalli (1850), physician/businessman Armand Hammer (1898), singer-songwriter Fats Waller (1904), author Harold Robbins (1916), actor Raymond Burr (1917), physicist/activist Andrei Sakharov (1921), Australia prime minister Malcolm Fraser (1930), singer-songwriter Ronald Isley (1941), singer-songwriter Bill Champlin (1947), singer-songwriter Leo Sayer (1948), actor/writer/politician Al Franken (1951), actor Mr. T (1952), drummer Stan Lynch (1955), actor Judge Reinhold (1957), serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (1960), rapper The Notorious B.I.G. (1972), NFL player Ricky Williams (1977), and singer-songwriter Gotye (1980).

There’s always more news, but there’s never more time, so I’ll leave it at that. I want to give a shoutout to a few friends who are dealing with the health issues of their aging parents. Having just gone through that earlier this year, I know how shitty it is. At the age range that I and a good number of my friends are in — late 40s to early 50s — it’s kind of an expected part of life, but that doesn’t make it easier. Best of luck to you all. Enjoy your day.