Random News: June 20, 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 June 20, 2023, and it’s a Tuesday. Every day I wake up, and I discover things have happened, and most of them have happened before, but I talk to you about them anyway because maybe we don’t want them to happen again, or something…

• For today’s LGBTQIA+ topic, I want to look into the “Q” of the abbreviation… which is Queer, or per some people, Questioning.
• I had to actually ask a number of my friends who identify as Queer to develop any kind of understanding about this.
• Humans are, by nature, overly binary in their thinking. Something either is… or it isn’t. You’re gay or straight. Tall or short. Black or white. Good or bad. On or off. You get the idea.
• But sexual orientation, as I’ve discussed previously, isn’t necessarily like that. Yes, a certain small percentage of people are 100% heterosexual or 100% homosexual. But many more people are on a variable scale in terms of their sexual identity. 
• Let’s start at the start. Queer is a reclaimed word. It originally referred to something or someone that was peculiar or strange. And then, starting in the late 1800s, people started using the word queer as a pejorative to describe people with same-sex desires.
• I’m sure you’re aware that various cultures have reclaimed words that were previously used as slurs against them. That is the purposeful case of queer.
• It was in the late ‘80s that queer activists began to use the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community.
• Over the past 20 years, queer became increasingly used to describe a broad spectrum of non-normative sexual or gender identities and politics.
• Today, queer can be described as an umbrella term that describes sexual and gender identities other than straight and cisgender. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people may all identify with the word queer. 
• Queer is often used to express that sexuality and gender can be complicated, can change over time, and might not fit neatly into either/or identities, like male or female, gay or straight, per my aforementioned point.
• Complicating matters, some people believe the “Q” stands for Questioning, and I don’t want to minimize its importance.
• The questioning of one's sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender, or all three is a process of exploration by people who may be unsure, still exploring, or concerned about applying a social label to themselves for various reasons.
• Makes sense. All people — especially younger people — are trying to figure out who they are and how they fit in.
• While some people in their adolescence have little to no issue in self-identifying, many youths encounter a great deal of confusion and uncertainty at this stage. They may have issues in understanding their sexuality, sexual orientation, gender identity, or whether or not they fit into any preconceived social normative labels.
• Studies have shown that 57% of people first had questioning thoughts on their sexuality or gender between the ages of 11 and 15.
• I have friends who didn’t become comfortable with their sexual/gender identity until much later… 20’s, 30s, 40s and beyond.
• Anyway, these are often people who need support and understanding the most, and it’s sadly often the opposite case.The absence of accurate and positive LGBTQ+ information and discussions are strongly associated with higher levels of stress in adults who are in the questioning or exploration process.
• Be supportive to people you care for and love. Yes, it’s that simple.
• And now, some news… and this first item seems too good to be true, and probably won’t be in the long term, but…
• U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who was appointed by Donald Trump, and is overseeing his Mar-a-Lago classified documents debacle, appears to have placed the case on warp speed—setting a trial just two months away.
• That’s… nuts. 
• This morning, federal court records showed that Cannon created what's referred to as a “rocket docket” to speed his trial through the system. She issued an order stating that the most historic criminal trial in American history will commence August 14.
• Yes, of this year. That’s just 55 days away, while most federal trials take up to a year or more as both sides prepare for an epic showdown in court.
• However, a review of Cannon’s criminal cases since she took the bench in late 2020 suggests this is standard practice for the Florida-based judge. She typically sets trial dates six to eight weeks from the start of a case, only to allow weeks- or months-long delays as issues arise and the parties demand more time to prepare.
• While her order starts the clock on a slew of important pretrial matters in the Trump case, it’s not likely to resemble anything close to the timeframe that will ultimately govern the case.
• So don’t get your hopes too high.
• But still, holy shit!
• As long as we’re on the topic of the Creamsicle Criminal, he had a disastrous interview on Fox last night with Bret Baier. I will say, Baier actually stood up to Trump and grinned him on the tough topics… losing the 2020 presidential election, hiring a cabinet of people who’ve since turned against him, and, most importantly, his pending prosecution for criminal document retention and obstruction.
• The general consensus is that Trump openly admitted guilt multiple times during the interview, which will now become another piece of evidence against him at his trial.
• Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume said after the interview, “His answers on the matter of the law seem to verge on incoherent.”
• In other news…
• Hunter Biden, President Biden's son, has reached a tentative deal with the U.S. attorney in Delaware, agreeing to enter guilty pleas to two misdemeanor tax charges and admitting to felony gun possession. 
• The agreement means that for two years, Hunter Biden must remain drug-free and can't commit additional crimes. If Hunter Biden fulfills this successfully, the gun count would be dismissed. This does not amount to a guilty plea.
• Little side note: if people do crimes, they should be tried and punished. I, and 99% of every other Democrat I’ve ever meet or spoken to, don’t care if the criminal is Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative. No one is above the law.
• Speaking of which…
• Controversial influencer (and complete asshole, in my humble opinion) Andrew Tate has been charged in Romania with rape, human trafficking and forming an organized crime group to sexually exploit women. He and his brother were first arrested at their Bucharest home in December.
• Tate is a self-proclaimed misogynist who spreads his hatred to a loyal, worldwide fan-following, mostly comprised of impressionable young male teens.
• I’ll look forward to what happens to him next.
• Moving on…
• A series of threatening letters containing a mysterious white powder is raising concerns that Republican lawmakers in Kansas and across the nation who received them are being targeted by someone cryptically calling themselves "your secret despirer.”
• That’s a terrible name.
• Since Friday, about 100 letters have been received by Kansas GOP lawmakers and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who is also a Republican. Similar letters containing a cryptic note and a “suspicious powdery substance” were addressed to former President Donald Trump, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and other high-profile individuals, though the U.S. Postal Inspection Service intercepted them before they were delivered.
• The substance has been deemed harmless by postal inspectors. 
• This is not the way to address grievances, people.
• Moving on…
• More than 1 million people have been dropped from Medicaid in the past couple months as some states moved swiftly to halt health care coverage following the end of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Most got dropped for not filling out paperwork.
• Florida has dropped several hundred thousand people, by far the most among states. The drop rate also has been particularly high in other states. For people whose cases were decided in May, around half or more got dropped in Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia.
• Make sure your Medicaid is still valid, or check for your elderly parents, before an emergency happens and they find out then they’re not covered.
• In horrifying news, a search and rescue mission has been underway for a submarine that went missing in the North Atlantic on an expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic.
• The Titan submersible, which operates tourist trips to the Titanic wreck costing $250,000 a person, has five people on board.
• Here’s some sadly unsurprising news…
• A year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the U.S. is facing a shortage of OB-GYN doctors. It's only expected to get worse in the years ahead as medical students make decisions on what and where to practice, in part, based on states' abortion laws.
• Applicants in forced-birth states plummeted more than 10%. Sigh.
• And now, The Weather: “Paper Machete” by Queens of the Stone Age
• Tropical Storm Bret formed in the Atlantic Ocean yesterday, making it the second named storm of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season.
• Forecasters said the storm could strengthen into a hurricane in the next few days. It’s too early to precisely forecast the storm's path.
• Here’s a juicy tidbit…
• A lawsuit filed by a former Apex City Councilman claims that North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland County) started an affair with his wife and engaged in group sex with other people seeking political favor.
• Scott Riley Lassiter is suing Moore and an unnamed John Doe defendant for several claims, including alienation of affections and civil conspiracy.
• What is up with Republicans and weird orgies? And why are they obsessed with other people’s sex lives?
• Here’s a dumb story…
• In Louisville yesterday, officers were in the area of 22nd Street and Griffiths Avenue investigating a man wanted for a non-fatal shooting.
• While they were there, a man in his 20s tried to carjack the officers with a gun. The officers were undercover, in plain clothes and in an unmarked car.
• That’s when one of the officers, a 10-year veteran of LMPD, shot the man attempting to carjack them. She said the officer immediately rendered aid to the man while waiting for EMS to arrive. He didn’t make it.
• Don’t carjack people. And definitely don’t carjack cops.
• From the Sports Desk… 
• Chris Paul, the future Hall of Fame point guard who is now about 137 years old, was traded from the Phoenix Suns to the Washington Wizards. He said that he found out about the news in a text from his son. That’s… not cool.
• Today in history… Flavius Aetius battles Attila the Hun, who retreats, and the Romans interpret it as a victory (451). A British garrison is imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta (1756). Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention to call the government the 'United States’ (1787). Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne (1837). Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph (1840). West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state (1863). Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp (1942). The Mali Federation gains independence from France (1960). Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union and the United States sign an agreement to establish the so-called "red telephone" link between Washington, D.C. and Moscow (1963). An 18½-minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex (1972). The film Jaws is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of that time and starting the trend of films known as "summer blockbusters” (1975). Wikipedia is founded (2003).
• June 20 is the birthday of cellist/composer Jacques Offenbach (1819), astronomer Mary R. Calvert (1884), actor Errol Flynn (1909), singer-songwriter/guitarist Chet Atkins (1924), soldier/actor Audie Murphy (1925), actor Martin Landau (1928), actress Olympia Dukakis (1931), actor Danny Aiello (1933), actor John Mahoney (1940), singer-songwriter/producer Brian Wilson (1942), singer-songwriter/producer Lionel Richie (1949), actor John Goodman (1952), bass player Michael Anthony (1954), bass player John Taylor (1960), actress Nicole Kidman (1967), bass player Jeordie White (1971), singer-songwriter Chino Moreno (1973), and NFL player Darren Sproles (1983).

Well hell, that’s a lot of stuff. I’m now going to do my usual Tuesday things. Enjoy your day.