Random News: May 26, 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 26, 2023, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! It’s also the Friday before a three-day weekend here in the USA, so motivating myself to work or (even harder) motivating others will be a challenge, so let’s do this for awhile instead…

• Starting with some outstanding news: Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers, has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison in connection with the Jan. 6 failed coup attempt on the Capitol, following his conviction on seditious conspiracy.
• Rhodes’ sentence is the longest imposed on a Jan. 6 defendant to date. The prick had the nerve to call himself a "political prisoner” in court.
• The judge disagreed that Rhodes had been locked up for politics, saying it was his actions that led to his criminal convictions.
• “You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy.” - Judge Amit Mehta
• Kelly Meggs, a fellow Oath Keepers member, was also sentenced by Judge Mehta yesterday, to 12 years in federal prison. Mehta said Meggs did not pose the same continuing threat as Rhodes and a shorter sentence was more appropriate. The 12-year sentence for Meggs is the third longest handed down for a Jan. 6 defendant.
• Fuck around, find out. As I’ve stated many times before, justice will not be complete until every person who planned, participated in, or abetted the January 6 insurrection is prosecuted appropriately.
• I told you some weird shit was going on with some kind of internal Republican civil was in Texas. Welp…
• Yesterday, a Texas House committee unanimously voted to recommend that state Attorney General Ken Paxton be impeached and removed from office.
• And the state House of Representatives could vote on the recommendation as early as today. Crazy!
• The House General Investigating committee told the panel there was evidence that Paxton had repeatedly broken state laws, including misuse of official information, abuse of official capacity, and retaliation. Some of the allegations against Paxton date back years.
• Haha, you fuckers. I’ll be over here while you eat each other alive.
• Moving on… to some shitty news.
• The type of wetland that gets protection under federal law was reset by a sweeping ruling yesterday from the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Nearly two decades ago, the court ruled that wetlands are protected by the Clean Water Act if they have a “significant nexus” to regulated waters. But this current hyper-conservative Supreme Court decided that rule no longer applies and said the Environmental Protection Agency’s interpretation of its powers went too far.
• Justice Alito ruled that the Clean Water Act extends only to “those wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right, so that they are ‘indistinguishable’ from those waters.” He was joined by Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Coney Barrett.
• In fact, all nine justices agreed that the land in the case brought before them should not have been subject to regulation. but only five of them want to curtail the EPA’s ability to help the environment. Oddly, you might note a missing name on that list: Kavanaugh. He sided with the liberal wing, saying the majority was ignoring precedent and jeopardizing water quality in the US.
• Environmental groups and legal experts estimate that the decision will remove federal protection from half of all wetlands in the continental United States.
• Fucking assholes. Moving on…
• Do I waste time talking about the criminal who once called himself President? If I must…
• Two of Donald Trump’s employees moved boxes of papers the day before an early June visit by FBI agents and a prosecutor to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena.
• Investigators are suspicious about the timing of this — ya think? — and have come to view it as an indication of possible obstruction.
• But wait.
• Trump and his aides also allegedly carried out a “dress rehearsal” for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the May 2022 subpoena.
• Jesus. Okay, enough of that.
• This little 11-year-old kid who got shot by the cops responding to his own 9-1-1 call just boils my blood.
• Aderrien Murry is recovering after an Indianola, MS police officer shot him in the chest. The child’s mother said an officer arrived with “his gun drawn at the front door and asked those inside the home to come outside.”
• The kid obeyed the order and walked out with his hands up where he was shot. “His words were, ‘Why did he shoot me? What did I do?’” his mom said.
• Body-cam footage apparently exists but the police refuse to release it or even show it to the family due to the “ongoing investigation”. The cop is on paid administrative leave, but remains an employee of the Indianola Police Department.
• Let’s get back to some good news.
• President Joe Biden announced his nomination of Air Force chief of staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday.
• If confirmed, it would be the first time in US history that both of the Defense Department’s top leaders – the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs – are African American.
• The Joint Chiefs chairman is the country’s most senior ranking military officer, who serves as the principal military adviser to the president of the United States, secretary of defense and National Security Council.
• Brown, who goes by CQ, started his military service as a fighter pilot, logging 3,000-plus flying hours and 130 combat hours. He was confirmed as chief of the Air Force in a 98-0 vote. He would be the second Black man to serve as the Joint Chiefs chairman, following Gen. Colin Powell who served from 1989 to 1993.
• Cool. Back in 2020, Brown made a video in support of the people upset at George Floyd’s murder. Seems like a good guy.
• And now, The Weather: “Constant Repeat” by Kurt Vile
• Planning on traveling for Memorial Day weekend? Airports in every city in the USA are expecting record surges of travelers today. I advise a lot of patience and giving yourself a ton of extra time to get to the airport, through security. to your gate and so on.
• If you’re driving, here’s some good news: the cost of a gallon of gasoline averages $3.65 nationwide right now, a 12-cent decline from a month ago – but over a dollar less compared to this time last year, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. 
• Thanks Joe Biden!
• Just kidding. The president doesn’t control prices of things, be they up or down. Jesus Christ, people.
• There was a good news story out of the SCOTUS this week.
• Yesterday they ruled unanimously in favor of a 94-year-old Minneapolis woman after her county kept the entire $40,000 when it sold her condominium over an unpaid tax bill of $2,300.
• The justices ruled that Hennepin County in Minnesota violated the constitutional rights of the woman, Geraldine Tyler, by taking her property without paying "just compensation."
• This is good too…
• U.S. Marshals announced this week that they found or recovered 225 endangered missing children during a coordinated 10-week effort with multiple law enforcement agencies.
• “Operation We Will Find You” included the US Marshals Service, along with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and state and local agencies in 16 federal judicial districts and 15 geographical locations across the U.S.
• A bear broke into a Connecticut bakery on Wednesday, ate 60 cupcakes, and destroyed a coconut cake. Sounds like a pretty good Wednesday to me.
• From the Sports Desk… these conference finals are going somewhat longer than expected.
• In the NBA, the Boston Celtics, who were down 3-0 to the Miami Heat, won two consecutive games to stay alive and are now down 3-2 going into game 6. They won game 5 last night 110-97. It’s extremely rare for this to happen. Out of 150 situations an NBA playoff team was down 3-0, only 15 of them made it to game 6, only 3 of them made it to game 7, and none of them have ever won the series.
• Similarly in the NHL, the Vegas Golden Knights came very close to sweeping the Dallas Stars, but lost to them in Game 4 by a score of 3-2 in overtime. That series stands at 3-1 now.
• Today in history… Geneva expels John Calvin and his followers from the city (1538). Montana is organized as a United States territory (1864). The Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi division, is the last full general of the Confederate Army to surrender, at Galveston, TX (1865). The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson ends with his acquittal by one vote (1868). Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (1896). The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles (1927). In the United States, the House Un-American Activities Committee begins its first session (1938). In northern France, Allied forces begin a massive evacuation from Dunkirk (1940). The Beatles' ‘Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’ is released (1967). Apollo 10 returns to Earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the forthcoming first crewed moon landing (1969). The United States and the Soviet Union sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972). The European Community adopts the European flag (1986). United States Army veteran Terry Nichols is found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing (2004). Protests triggered by the murder of George Floyd erupt in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, before becoming widespread across the United States and around the world (2020). 
• May 26 is the birthday of singer/actress/musician Mamie Smith (1883), singer/actor Al Jolson (1886), photographer Dorothea Lange (1895), actor John Wayne (1907), actor Peter Cushing (1913), singer-songwriter Peggy Lee (1920), trumpet player/composer Miles Davis (1926), pathologist Jack Kevorkian (1928), singer-songwriter/drummer/actor Levon Helm (1940), guitarist/songwriter/producer Mick Ronson (1946), singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks (1948), actress Pam Grier (1949), physicist/astronaut Sally Ride (1951), actor Bobcat Goldthwait (1962), singer-songwriter Lenny Kravitz (1964), actress Helena Bonham Carter (1966), animator Matt Stone (1971), singer-songwriter Lauryn Hill (1975), singer-songwriter Phil Elvrum (1978), and NHL player Jimmy Vesey (1993).

I suppose that’s plenty of stuff. I’m going to try and not stress today. It’s generally not worth it, not that I’m always in control of my ability to stay cool and calm regardless of the circumstances. But I do try and keep in mind that the stress only makes things worse. I’ll do what I can and that’s good enough. Enjoy your day.