Random News: June 9, 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 9, 2023, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! Many things have happened, some of them glorious, and things are going to be super interesting for awhile, in all the good and bad connotations attached, so let’s all keep a close eye on what the hell is going down…

• But first…
• My Pride note for the day is to comment that in the USA, we’ve never had a gay President. Or have we?
• Let’s talk about James Buchanan, who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861.
• Buchanan wasn’t a great President. In fact, he’s often ranked as one of, if not the, worst in history, mostly because he couldn't seem to grasp the enormity of America's divisions over slavery, ignoring the strife and letting the issue fester in the years leading up to the Civil War.
• In his youth, Buchanan allegedly dated a woman for a short while who was the daughter of a wealthy iron manufacturer. Even then, it was speculated that Buchanan was only interested in her for her family’s money.
• Apart from that reported romantic relationship, Buchanan never had another one, becoming America’s only “bachelor President” in history. However, he had a close, longterm relationship with a fellow politician named William Rufus King.
• Buchanan and King lived together in a Washington boardinghouse and attended social functions together for over a decade between 1834 and 1844. Their relationship was a popular target of gossip at the time.
• Other political figures referred to King as Buchanan's "better half", "wife", and "Aunt Fancy”.
• There’s no proof that Buchanan was actually gay and he certainly wouldn’t have been openly so at a time where America and much of the world still considered homosexuality as a mental disorder and an illegal activity. One of his biographers suggests that instead, Buchanan was celibate, if not asexual. I’m pretty sure he was gay.
• Do I think it’s possible a person openly in the LGBTQIA+ realm could be elected President today? Yeah, I actually do, and I think that eventuality is more likely with each passing year. We currently have openly LGBT governors, state and federal reps, Senators, cabinet members and more.
• Okay then. Let’s do big fucking news things…
• Donald John Trump, the 45th President of the United States of America, was indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury on seven criminal counts in connection with his mishandling of more than 100 classified documents that were discovered last year at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
• He is the first former president to face federal criminal charges.
• Donnie has received a summons to appear in U.S. district court on Tuesday, June 13 at 3pm local time.
• What are the charges? They’re currently sealed; we won’t have them confirmed until his appearance on Tuesday. But trusted sources claim that the seven federal charges (number confirmed by his attorney John Rowley) include…
• Willful retention of national defense information to conspiracy to a scheme to conceal, a charge under the Espionage Act.
• Obstruction of justice/conspiracy to conceal/false statements and so on.
• I wrote a pretty long piece explaining some of these things last year, when the stolen classified documents scandal first broke. I’ll hold off until after Tuesday’s court appearance to get more specific about these potential charges.
• But I can’t emphasize enough that the indictment itself is a historical moment in the USA.
• There are already large groups of Trump supporters who are calling for violence in response to the indictments being issued. That’s to be expected from those people. They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again.
• I will not be surprised when that happens, and neither should you.
• This morning, CNN aired a transcript of the former president admitting in a 2021 meeting that he had retained “secret” military information that he had not declassified.
• “All sorts of stuff – pages long, look. Wait a minute, let’s see here. I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t.”
• Welp.
• I have little more to add for the time being except a tidbit from early this morning that says the summons sent to Trump last night indicates that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon will be assigned to oversee his case, at least initially.
• That’s the same judge who was appointed last year as a "special master" to review those materials seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. Legal experts accused Cannon of handing Trump a series of head-scratching victories over the course of those proceedings.
• Regardless, we’re a long way off from “what will happen?”, so let’s hold tight for now.
• Moving on… and yes, there’s always other news…
• Yesterday, the FBI arrested a businessman at the center of the scandal that led to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s historic impeachment.
• Nate Paul, 36, was taken into custody by federal agents and booked into an Austin jail in the afternoon. Records showed he was being held on a federal detainer for a felony.
• Louisiana lawmakers passed a bill that requires kids and teens under 18 years old to require their parents’ permission to sign up for online accounts, including for social media, gaming and more.
• Affected apps and sites would include TikTok, Instagram, Roblox, Facebook, YouTube, and many more. A number of states have passed or are considering similar legislation.
• The Louisiana bill would also clarify agreements minors made when they signed up for existing accounts to be rendered null. The state code already says parents or legal guardians can rescind contracts their kids sign up for.
• While we’re on the topic of kids and social media…
• European Union officials will be confronting Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an in-person meeting over reports this week that the company has failed to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse material on its platform. Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, among others.
• Thierry Breton noted that Meta will be subject to the European Union’s sweeping content moderation law — known as the Digital Services Act — by the end of the summer, and that violations could carry “heavy sanctions.” The law permits fines equaling up to 6% of a company’s global revenue.
• Interesting.
• Continuing our coverage of repercussions for January 6 defendants, a Florida man was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison for his role at the U.S. Capitol insurrection.
• Court records indicate that John Herbert Strand, 38, was sentenced Monday to two years and eight months for obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building and grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
• And now, The Weather: “Cantonese Dream” by Jason Nolan
• Air quality conditions over much of the eastern US are forecast to slowly improve this weekend, but schools in some metro areas will undergo remote learning today as officials remain on guard about pollution exposure.
• Potentially harmful air pollutants over cities including New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. are forecast to linger today before the areas slowly clear over the next several days.
• Conservative news outlets are telling people that heavily polluted air won’t harm them. Take that for what it’s worth.
• What we haven’t spoke about yet: climate change is the reason for these increasingly more devastating fires, which in turn lead to the air quality event that’s plaguing the Eastern US now.
• And all I can say is that since we don’t seem to be taking any steps to reverse mankind’s impact on the environment, you can expect this type of event to happen more and more for the rest of your lives.
• And you’ll hear, “Why didn’t they tell us this would happen?”
• Moving on…
• The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision yesterday, sided with Jack Daniel's in its legal fight with Bad Spaniel, a dog toy maker that parodies the storied whiskey brand.
• Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court, saying, "The use of a mark does not count as noncommercial just because it parodies, or otherwise comments on, another's products."
• I agree.
• A family in Nevada called 9-1-1 to report an extraterrestrial craft crashing in their yard and seeing aliens walking around.
• ”We just see in the corner of our eye something fall down from the sky, and it was with lights, and when it hit down there was like a big impact, and we felt like an energy? And then we hear like a lot of footsteps near us. And then - we have, like, big- a big equipment, and we see there's a, there's like an eight-foot person beside it and another one's inside, and it has big eyes and it's looking at us. They’re very large. They're like eight foot, nine foot, 10 foot."
• I’m sorry, I don’t have time for this alien invasion now. I really don’t.
• A bit of news from my industry (I work in the realm of musical instruments and professional audio)…
• Logitech is getting rid of the Blue microphone brand, and will now sell the products under the Logitech G gaming brand. Blue has been removed from Logitech's "brands" section on its website, and the Bluemic.com domain now directs to Logitech. All Blue products, including the Yeti, Snowball and others, are now found only on the Logitech G section of its website.
• Logitech bought Blue in 2018 for $117 million. It’s sort of a shame, because before they were known for gaming/podcasting mics, Blue made some absolutely outstanding higher-end microphones for professional music recording and live sound.
• From the Sports Desk… the Florida Panthers will not be swept by the Vegas Golden Knights, it turns out. The scrappy team won 3-2 in overtime last night in game 3. Vegas leads the series 2-1. Game 4 is tomorrow.
• Speaking of Game 4, tonight’s NBA Finals game between the Nuggets and the Heat also will move the series on from its current 2-1 series score. That starts at 8:30pm ET.
• Today in history… Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia (53). Nero dies by suicide after quoting Vergil's ‘Aeneid' (68). James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia (1732). Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail (1856). Bulgaria's military takes over the government in a coup (1923). Joseph N. Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy, saying, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” (1954). U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1968). Secretariat wins the U.S. Triple Crown (1973). 
• June 9 is the birthday of Russian emperor Peter the Great (1672), engineer/businessman Samuel Slater (1768), physician/politician Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836), songwriter/composer Cole Porter (1891), guitarist/songwriter Les Paul (1915), film director George Axelrod (1922), businessman/philanthropist Herman Sarkowsky (1925), comedian Jackie Mason (1931), basketball coach/broadcaster Dick Vitale (1939), keyboard player Jon Lord (1941), businessman Charles Saatchi (1943), bass player Trevor Bolder (1950), composer James Newton Howard (1951), actor Michael J. Fox (1961), screenwriter/producer Aaron Sorkin (1961), actor Johnny Depp (1963), soccer player Heather Mitts (1978), NBA player Udonis Haslem (1980), actress Natalie Portman (1981), and actress Mae Whitman (1988).

Okay well… that’s just a lot to absorb, and like most news in life, little of this is resolved and it’s going to be ongoing for a good long while. I’ll have more to say tomorrow, as I always do. Meanwhile, it’s Friday, and I’m planning on trying to have a productive and also peaceful day if at all possible. Enjoy your day.