Random News: July 18, 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 July 18, 2023, and it’s a Tuesday. The sun is up and so am I, so let’s see what news hits me in the eye…

• Some breaking whining from the Former Guy…
• This morning, Donnie T said he has been told he is a target in the January 6 criminal investigation by special counsel Jack Smith.
• Ha ha!
• Smith already has criminally charged Trump with about three dozen counts related to retaining classified documents when he left the White House.
• Now Orange Man says… well, you can read it yourself.
• “Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.”
• So go get your party supplies handy for that imminent next round of indictments. Tip: cheese goes well with whine.
• Moving on…
• This is weird. A U.S. service member crossed into North Korea and was believed to be in the custody of the country's force. It was the United Nations Command, which operates the Joint Security Area within the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, that first said an unidentified U.S. national had crossed the border.
• The person in question was being escorted back to the United States for disciplinary reasons. I don’t think this is going to go very well for him.
• In other news…
• I know this back-and-forth abortion news can feel like you’re helplessly strapped to a see-saw, but at least one fight went back in the right direction yesterday, at least for now.
• An Iowa judge has temporarily blocked the state’s new ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, days after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the measure into law.
• That means abortion is once again legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy while the courts hash out the new law’s constitutionality.
• The law that the forced-birth contingent in Iowa are trying to pass prohibits almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant.
• Moving on…
• Alabama Republicans are going into the “fuck around” phase before they eventually “find out”.
• Despite orders of the U.S. Supreme Court to redraw congressional districts to give minority voters a greater voice in elections, they rejected calls yesterday to craft a second majority-Black district and proposed a map testing the judges’ directive.
• Lawmakers must adopt a new map by Friday after the high court in June affirmed a three-judge panel’s ruling that Alabama’s existing congressional map — with a single Black district out of seven statewide — likely violated the Voting Rights Act.
• The Republicans in Alabama are desperately trying to avoid a fair map for Black voters in the state. They proposed a map that would increase the percentage of Black voters in the 2nd congressional district from about 30% to nearly 42.5%, wagering that would satisfy the court — or that the state will prevail in a second round of appeals.
• But the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case that would make the 2nd district 50% Black note that 42% is actually not 50%. Ask any calculator.
• Moving on…
• Yesterday, the Georgia Supreme Court declined to take up an effort from former President and current allegedly multi-count felon Donald John Trump to quash an investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.
• The unanimous decision from the court’s nine justices was swiftly delivered just days after Trump’s legal team asked the court Friday to block an investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
• Eat shit, you Sad Scrotum.
• In other news…
• House Democrats are finally going to force a vote on censuring Rep. George Santos (R-NY) for repeatedly lying about his background.
• Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) plans to introduce the resolution as "privileged," a designation under House rules that require a floor vote within two legislative days. 
• Censure is essentially a formal public reprimand by the House to punish misconduct that falls short of warranting expulsion. The censured member typically must stand on the House floor as the resolution detailing his or her offenses is read aloud.
• A draft of the resolution lists a number of lies Santos has told about his education, career and family. Among them are that his grandparents survived the Holocaust, his mother died in the 9/11 terror attacks, and that he helped produce the Broadway musical "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark." 
• In May, Santos was charged in a 13-count federal indictment accusing him of fraud, money laundering, and other crimes. Santos has pleaded not guilty and announced he will run for reelection next year.
• Unlike expulsion, which needs two-thirds support, a censure vote requires a simple majority. 
• Fuck that guy. Moving on…
• Remember last November, when Lauren Boebert had the most narrow of victories over her Democratic opponent in their congressional race? She only beat her challenger, Adam Frisch, by 546 votes.
• Frisch has now raised three times more than the incumbent in second-quarter fundraising as he seeks a 2024 rematch.
• His campaign reported bringing in $2.6 million from April through June, which is more than triple Boebert’s roughly $818,000. He’d raised $1.7 million in the first quarter, while Boebert reportedly brought in around $764,000.
• It would be so nice for her to vanish into the background and never return. Am I asking too much to want to have qualified, intelligent, compassionate people representing us in Congress?
• And now, The Weather: “Little Apartment” by Squitch
• I live in a delightful city called Redondo Beach, CA. The weather has remained very nice here, with daytime highs of about 80. We’ll typically get our heat wave here in September.
• But just about 250 miles northeast of here is Death Valley, the literal hottest place on Earth. Temps there reached 128F (53.3C) on Sunday at the aptly named Furnace Creek.
• The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 134F (56.7C) in July 1913 at Furnace Creek. Temperatures at or above 130F have only been recorded on Earth a handful of times.
• That Powerball has hit $1bn again. Do you know what I’d do with a billion dollars? No, you don’t, and you’d never know, because if I won that money, I wouldn’t tell you or anyone else.
• That being said, I doubt I’ll buy a ticket because the odds are way better that a cow will fall out of the sky and crush me than for me to win a lottery.
• Have you heard of the clothing brand Shein? They’re a Chinese fast fashion retailer who seems to use paid YouTube influencers as their primary marketing tool.
• The company is facing a lawsuit that claims the clothing maker’s copyright infringement is so aggressive, it amounts to racketeering. The filing this week claims that Shein is in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO, a law originally crafted to prosecute organized crime.
• “Shein has grown rich by committing individual infringements over and over again, as part of a long and continuous pattern of racketeering, which shows no sign of abating,” the filing says.
• The lawsuit, filed by three fashion designers in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges “Shein produced, distributed, and sold exact copies of their creative work.”
• The lawsuit is just the latest in a series of difficulties Shein has faced. In May, a bipartisan group of two dozen lawmakers asked the SEC to put the brakes on an initial public offering by Shein until it verified that it does not use forced slave labor from the country’s predominantly Muslim Uyghur population.
• Another Chinese retailer you want to avoid for similar reasons: Temu.
• Please don’t support this shit by buying their products. Thank you.
• RIP to the great Brazilian composer and pianist João Donato. He died yesterday at 88.
• Donato helped create the entire bossa nova sound, and worked with many other acclaimed and influential artists like Chet Baker, João Gilberto, Sergio Mendes, Tito Puente, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and countless others.
• A 47-year-old woman from Phoenix was gored by a bison after she turned around to walk away from it in Yellowstone National Park. It was the first goring reported in 2023.
• Scary fact: a bison can run three times faster than you and many weigh over 2,000 pounds. Here’s some general good advice from a very committed nature lover: love nature from a distance.
• From the Sports Desk… literally nothing. I can’t wait for football preseason.
• Okay, fine. Here are the MLB teams with the ten best W-L records at this moment. 1. Atlanta Braves (61-31), 2. Tampa Bay Rays (60-37), 3. Baltimore Orioles (57-36), 4. Texas Rangers (56-39), 5. Los Angeles Dodgers (54-39), 6. Toronto Blue Jays (53-41), 7. San Francisco Giants (52-41), 8. Milwaukee Brewers (52-42), 9. Arizona Diamondbacks (52-42). and 10. Houston Astros (52-42).
• Today in history… A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome (387 BC). King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion, banishing all Jews from England (1290). Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of his cantata ‘Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz’ in Leipzig (1723). The U.S. Congress forms the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, giving official status to aircraft within the U.S. Army for the first time (1914). Adolf Hitler publishes ‘Mein Kampf’ (1925). Germany test flies the Messerschmitt Me 262, the first jet-powered fighter plane (1942). Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to war setbacks (1944). A racially charged incident in a bar sparks the six-day Hough riots in Cleveland, Ohio; 1,700 Ohio National Guard troops intervene to restore order (1966). Intel is founded in Mountain View, CA (1968). Nadia Comăneci becomes the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics (1976). A picture of parody pop group Les Horribles Cernettes was taken, which became the first ever photo posted to the World Wide Web (1992). The Government of Detroit, with up to $20 billion in debt, files for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history (2013).
• July 18 is the birthday of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552), marshal Virgil Earp (1843), gangster Machine Gun Kelly (1895), politician S. I. Hayakawa (1906), actor Hume Cronyn (1911), actor Red Skelton (1913), activist/politician Nelson Mandela (1918), astronaut/politician John Glenn (1921), singer-songwriter/musician Screamin’ Jay Hawkinds (1929), journalist/writer Hunter S. Thompson (1937), pianist Ian Stewart (1938), film director Paul Verhoeven (1938), keyboardist Brian Auger (1939), actor James Brolin (1940), singer-songwriter/guitarist Lonnie Mack (1941), singer Martha Reeves (1941), publisher/politician Steve Forbes (1947), businessman Richard Branson (1950), actress Elizabeth McGovern (1961), actor Vin Diesel (1967), NBA player Penny Hardaway (1971), baseball player Torii Hunter (1975), guitarist/composer Daron Malakian (1975), NFL player Deion Branch (1979), and actress Kristin Bell (1980).

Well. Big news day, especially the target letter for El Dumpo that might very well involve seditious conspiracy and aiding insurrection. I have a feeling we’ll be talking about that a whole lot more in coming days/weeks/months. Enjoy your day.