Random News: May 31, 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 31, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. I have a veritable shit-ton of things to mention today, and I think some of them are pretty important to various people in various ways, so let’s jump into the deep end of the wackiness…

• Yesterday, impeached Texas AG Ken Paxton was on the podcast of Steve Bannon.
• Allow me to interrupt myself to note that both of these men are under indictment for fraud, which is more than a coincidence.
• Anyway, Paxton told Bannon that if he had not intervened, former President Donald Trump would have lost in Texas during the 2020 election.
• "If we'd lost Harris County—Trump won by 620,000 votes in Texas. Harris County mail-in ballots that they wanted to send out were 2.5 million, those were all illegal and we were able to stop every one of them," said Paxton.
• This in itself is total bullshit. The truth is that Harris County had planned to mail out applications for mail-in ballots to all registered voters due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as they do in most civilized states. Paxton's office successfully blocked this initiative through litigation.
• So to be clear, if Texas had a fair voting system, not only would Biden have likely won that state in 2020, but I also think it’s likely that Beto O’Rourke would be governor of Texas today as well.
• Pieces of shit. Moving on…
• Legendary humanitarian (ha!) Donald Trump said yesterday that if elected president again in 2024, he will end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to immigrants in the country illegally.
• Little problem with that, Trumpalumpagus: it’s in direct conflict to a little thing called the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution.
• Dumbass Don said that he would issue an executive order instructing federal agencies to stop what is known as birthright citizenship. Any such action by Trump would be certain to draw a legal challenge and would lose immediately. Losing is something that the Orange Goblin is good at, possibly the only thing.
• As long as we’re covering assholes, let’s do a Jan 6 defendant.
• Pauline Bauer, a 55-year-old Pennsylvania woman who said she wanted to "hang" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the failed coup attempt, was sentenced to 27 months in prison, 24 months of supervised release and fined $2,000 for her conviction on charges including obstructing an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building and disorderly or disruptive conduct in a Capitol building. 
• Enjoy prison. Oh, and speaking of which…
• Ten years ago, Elizabeth Holmes’ biotech startup, Theranos, was valued to be worth $10 billion. Five years ago, she was indicted for wire fraud. Yesterday, Holmes reported to the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, TX to begin serving her sentence of 11 years and 3 months.
• It’s a minimum security prison for white-collar criminals, but it won’t be glamorous. Every new person arriving at Bryan gets cleared by medical and they have to go work in the kitchen for 90 days.
• Holmes will be living in dormitory-style rooming with a four-bunk cubicle and communal bath facilities with no privacy. She’ll be required to maintain a job assignment with hourly wages ranging from $0.12 to $1.15. 
• Welp. Don’t defraud people, and this stuff won’t happen. Moving on…
• Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro will stand trial in September on contempt of Congress charges filed after he refused to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta set a September. 5 trial date.
• I’ll enjoy that.
• Here’s some totally bonkers news…
• Does the name Tara Reade ring any bells? Back in 2020, the MAGA contingent put her on a pedestal for her claim that in 1993 as a former Senate staffer, Joe Biden pushed her against a wall and assaulted her, an accusation that Biden has repeatedly denied.
• Media outlets have consistently found inconsistencies in her and witnesses' accounts of the allegations, which were made public in March 2020.
• Then yesterday, out of the blue, where does Tara pop up? In Russia, where she has defected. She did a press junket alongside Maria Butina, a convicted Russian spy who was jailed in the US but now a member of parliament in Russia.
• She is expressing support for Putin and apologizing via the Russian state media about America’s support for defending Ukraine. Amazing. Why do I keep being surprised by the depths to which the MAGA world will sink?
• I suppose I should mention the debt ceiling yada yada.
• Yesterday the debt ceiling bill cleared the powerful House Rules Committee with a vote of 7-6.  That means the bill will come to floor today for debate and a final passage vote before it goes to the Senate. 
• The Rules Committee vote had been highly anticipated due to the fact that some of the loudest conservative critics of the bill are members of the panel.
• The buzz around the water cooler says there are approximately 150 Republicans who have indicated they will support the measure. It’s also said that Democrats have at least 100 votes. That should be more than enough to pass it, for good or bad.
• What’s making this shitshow more exciting? The extremist assholes like Matt Gaetz, who said yesterday that if McCarthy tries to pass the debt ceiling bill with Democrats and a minority of Republicans, that would violate his deal with the Freedom Caucus when he became Speaker, and would trigger an immediate Motion to Vacate him from the Speaker’s chair.
• Snort. Moving on…
• The family of Aderrien Murry, the 11-year-old boy who was shot by a Mississippi police officer after he called 911 for help, filed a $5 million federal civil rights lawsuit yesterday.
• Officer Greg Capers arrived "with his firearm drawn at the front and asked everyone inside of the residence to come outside”. Police were told that three children were in the residence.
• As Aderrien was coming around the corner with his hands raised, "he was instantly shot by Defendant Officer Capers," according to the suit. The child suffered a collapsed lung, a lacerated liver and fractured ribs.
• Aderrien said the moment he was struck by the bullet felt like "a big punch to the chest.” No charges have been filed, and Capers remains on paid administrative leave.
• Trying not to boil over with rage about this. Calming down. Moving on…
• A little good news.
• Nevada’s Joe Lombardo became one of the first Republican governors to enshrine protections for out-of-state abortion patients and in-state providers, adding the western swing state to the list of those passing new laws to solidify their status as safe havens for abortion patients.
• Nevada is not a very conservative state, and Lombardo, despite describing himself as “pro-life”, knows it would be his political death knell to do otherwise.
• Only three Republican governors — Lombardo, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, and former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker — have signed laws enshrining protections for abortion, ostensibly for the same reason (that they’d have their asses handed to them in those states had they not).
• Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) is resigning his seat to focus on his wife’s health. He could resign as soon as this week.
• Stewart’s departure would reduce the GOP’s already-slim majority in the House — 222 seats to the Democrats’ 213. Currently, if Democrats oppose a piece of legislation, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA.) can afford to lose only four votes from his caucus.
• Could be interesting.
• Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is expected to announce his 2024 Republican candidacy for president next week. Christie, 60, is a former close Trump ally who now calls the former president a "coward" and "puppet of Putin."
• I can’t imagine why this guy with zero shot of winning is running, but that’s his call, I guess.
• And now, The Weather: “Cellar” by Sea Lemon
• Speaking of the weather… we are having the heaviest marine layer in recent memory here at the beach. Every day for like a month, it’s been overcast with a high of 66. This is why we have local terms like May Gray, June Gloom, and No-Sky July.
• I generally like it, but I would also enjoy seeing the sky like, once in a while.
• Sad to report that 95-year-old former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has been diagnosed with dementia. As you’re aware, her husband Jimmy Carter, 98, has been in hospice care for several months.
• They’re both the best sorts of people.
• From the comedy department… guess which company is the latest to gain the ire of the far right for having “gone woke”? Just guess. I’ll give you a thousand guesses.
• Wrong! It’s Chick-fil-A. Yes, the devoutly Christian-run highly conservative chicken sandwich place that closes on Sundays for the sabbath and formerly provided prolific monetary support to organizations with anti-LGBTQ views. They’re the woke ones now.
• It started with a Monday post from some podcaster named Joey Mannarino. “We have a problem,” he tweeted, “Chick-Fil-A just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is bad. Very bad. I don’t want to have to boycott.”
• “Chick-fil-A goes WOKE, commits to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion agenda,” tweeted Charlie Kirk, founder of the far-right Turning Point USA.
• These kinds of people always destroy themselves from within eventually.
• From the Sports Desk… um. Okay, here’s something.
• The 2023 Women's College World Series softball field is set, and I watched snippets of some of the game last weekend. These women are impressive,
• The series starts Thursday with four games: No. 5 Alabama vs No. 4 Tennessee; No. 9 Stanford vs. No. 1 Oklahoma; No. 6 Oklahoma State vs. No. 3 Florida State; and No. 15 Utah vs. No. 7 Washington. Oklahoma, unsurprisingly, are the reigning champs.
• Today in history… Emperor Petronius Maximus is stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome (455). King Henry III lays the first stone of the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge of Paris, France (1578). Citing poor eyesight as a reason, Samuel Pepys records the last event in his diary (1669). The United States enacts its first copyright statute, the Copyright Act of 1790 (1790). The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time (1859). Gilmore's Garden in New York City is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue (1879). The National Negro Committee, forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, convenes for the first time (1909). The RMS Titanic is launched in Belfast, Northern Ireland (1911). The Tulsa race massacre kills at least 39, but other estimates of black fatalities vary from 55 to about 300 (1921). The U.S. Supreme Court expands on its Brown v. Board of Education decision by ordering district courts and school districts to enforce educational desegregation "at all deliberate speed.” (1955). The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is completed (1977). Usain Bolt breaks the world record in the 100m sprint, with a wind-legal 9.72 seconds (2008). 
• May 31 is the birthday of poet/journalist Walt Whitman (1819), entrepreneur John Ringling (1866), actor Don Ameche (1908), Monaco prince Rainier III (1923), actor/director Clint Eastwood (1930), singer-songwriter Peter Yarrow (1938), actress Sharon Gless (1943), NFL player Joe Namath (1943), singer-songwriter Jimmy Cliff (1946), drummer John Bonham (1948), actor Tom Berenger (1949), guitarist Tommy Emmanuel (1955), actress Lea Thompson (1961), Hungary prime minister Viktor Orbán (1963), rapper Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels (1964), model/actress Brooke Shields (1965), actor Colin Farrell (1976), NBA player Nate Robinson (1984), NFL player Jordy Nelson (1985), and rapper Azealia Banks (1991).

So yes, that’s a lot of stuff. Something you may not know: I often purposefully curtail the amount of news I throw into this schizz because when you’re thrown too much info at once, everything gets watered down, and I don’t want that to happen. I also don’t have time to tell you everything in the world that you might want or need to know. Anyway, that’s it for now. Enjoy your day.