Random News: May 8, 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 8, 2023, and it’s a Monday. Let us explore the things that are happening here at the start of a fresh new week...

• I fucking hate opening with shitty news.
• In Brownsville, TX, a driver plowed into a group outside a shelter that had been housing migrants. Eight died and close to a dozen more were injured.
• The folks were waiting at a bus stop across the street from the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center, a non-profit homeless shelter that has been helping house migrants. It clearly seems intentional but that hadn’t been confirmed.
• The driver, who was being uncooperative, was arrested on charged with reckless driving. More charges will likely be filed.
• Moving on…
• Yesterday, after the name of the shooter in the Texas outlet mall massacre was released, a bunch of MAGA folks chortled in glee that someone named Mauricio Garcia couldn’t be one of them.
• Wrong.
• The gunman who killed at least eight people and wounded a half-dozen more was a 33-year-old suspected neo-Nazi sympathizer. Garcia was killed Saturday by a police officer who happened to be at Allen Premium Outlets, about 25 miles north of Dallas.
• At the time of the massacre, he was wearing a patch on his chest that included the acronym "rwds," which stands for "right wing death squad.”
• Garcia’s social media accounts reveal hundreds of posts that include racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist rhetoric, including neo-Nazi material and material espousing white supremacy.
• The investigation is ongoing.
• In the wake of that mass shooting — one of about 200 so far this year — President Biden is again asking Congress to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
• I find it unlikely that it will pass despite having been successful last time it was in place from 1994-2004.
• In other Texas news, one person was killed and two others were injured in a shooting when an altercation broke out aboard a DART train in Dallas yesterday. A suspect remains at large.
• Believe it or not, it was almost a year ago, on May 24, 2022, since 19 students and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde.
• C’mon Texas. You can be better than this. You’re spiraling down a drain and I’m not sure there’s any return.
• The sickness in your state starts at the top. As long as Greg Abbott is running things, the horror will continue.
• One final Texas note.
• The Texas House of Representatives will vote this week on whether to expel Rep. Bryan Slaton (R) after a committee unanimously recommended his dismissal over sexual misconduct with a 19-year-old aide.
• The House’s general investigation committee accused Slaton, 45, in an investigative report released Saturday of engaging in disorderly conduct — including harassment, serving alcohol to someone underage and abusing his position.
• Last time Texas expelled a legislator? In 1927, for bribery charges.
• Former President and continual asshole Donald Trump rejected his last chance Sunday to testify in his own defense at his civil trial for rape and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll.
• The Spray-Tan Con Man had been given until 5 p.m. Sunday by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to file a request to testify. Nothing was filed.
• Carroll is seeking compensatory and punitive damages totaling millions of dollars.
• In other news…
• The United States is bracing for the May 11 expiration of Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allowed the government to quickly turn away certain migrants at the border, originally with the aim of stopping the spread of COVID-19.
• Officials fear it will spur a surge of migrants and exacerbate an already challenging humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
• “No matter how much we are prepared, I don’t think we are going to be prepared enough.” - John Martin, deputy director of the Opportunity Center for the Homeless in El Paso, TX.
• In world news, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang said today that it is imperative to stabilize Sino-U.S. relations after a series of “erroneous words and deeds” threw ties back into a deep freeze.
• I agree.
• The biggest issue between the US and China that’s not going away? Taiwan.
• As a part of the 2023 budget, U.S. Congress has authorized up to $1 billion worth of weapons aid for Taiwan using a type of authority that expedites security assistance and has helped to deliver arms to Ukraine.
• And now, The Weather: “Energy Go” by Jana Horn
• Is anything going to happen to SCOTUS justice Clarence Thomas in regard to his accepting of payments from GOP donors, possibly compromising his ethical requirements as a judge?
• Yesterday, Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin that “everything is on the table” as the panel scrutinizes new ethics concerns around Thomas.
• “Day after day, week after week, more and more disclosures about Justice Thomas – we cannot ignore them. The thing we’re going to do first, obviously, is to gather the evidence, the information that we need to draw our conclusions. I’m not ruling out anything.”
• Okay then.
• From the Sports Desk… somewhat surprisingly, the Philadelphia 76ers are hanging tough against the Boston Celtics. The won 116-155 in overtime yesterday to tie their series at 2-2. Phoenix Suns also fought back against the favored Denver Nuggets, winning 129-124 and knotting up their series at 2-2 as well.
• Lakers/Warriors and Heat/Knicks play their respective game 4’s tomorrow night.
• Today in history… Hernando de Soto stops near present-day Walls, Mississippi, and sees the Mississippi River (1541). American forces led by Zachary Taylor defeat a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the Mexican-American war (1846). Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine (1886). Paramount Pictures is founded (1912). The Beatles release their 12th and final studio album ‘Let It Be’ (1970). The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox (1980). The USSR announces a boycott upon the Summer Olympics at Los Angeles, later joined by 14 other countries (1984). 
• May 8 is the birthday of UK prime minister William Cavendish (1720), businessman William Henry Vanderbilt (1821), president Harry S. Truman (1884), film director Roberto Rossellini (1906), singer-songwriter/guitarist Robert Johnson (1911), environmentalist David Attenborough (1926), comedian/actor Don Rickles (1926), author Peter Benchley (1940), singer-songwriter/actor Ricky Nelson (1940), singer-songwriter Toni Tennille (1940), bass player Paul Samwell-Smith (1943), singer-songwriter/guitarist Danny Whitten (1943), singer-songwriter/pedophile Gary Glitter (1944), pianist/composer Keith Jarrett (1945), singer-songwriter Philip Bailey (1951),  drummer Alex Van Halen (1953), NFL player Ronnie Lott (1959), politician Bill de Blasio (1961), actress/union leader Melissa Gilbert (1964), guitarist Joe Bonamassa (1977), and rapper 6ix9ine (1996).

Well, time for me to work out, as I do each weekday morning. I work out for the simple reason that despite not wanting to do it literally EVER, when I don’t do it, worse things happen. Also, note that my “workout” is simply some yoga stretching, a small amount of strength training, and a tiny bit of cardio. But it works for me. I just hate actually doing it, despite having hardly missed a day of it since 2010. Enjoy your day.