Random News: July 26, 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 26, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. All alone and awake, I’m like a garter snake. Let’s see what’s up…

• Last night, formerly respected guy Rudy Giuliani conceded that he made false and defamatory statements about Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
• He still claims that his statements about voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 election were protected speech. Notably, he also refuses to concede that his statements caused damages to Moss or Freeman.
• Hmm. Moving on…
• Just a heads-up: as mentioned previously, there’s a distinct possibility that in the next few days — perhaps even today — former president Donald Trump will be indicted for his actions that directly led to the failed coup attempt on January 6, 2021.
• Politico has a terrific article that encapsulates the range of conduct that led to the possibly imminent indictments, from the disinformation campaign leading into the 2020 election to the attempts to illegally override state legislatures, make sue of fake electors, looking into seizing voting machines (!), weaponizing the DOJ, through to the “rally” and the resulting insurrection.
• I’ll save those details for when they become relevant in a court case. Moving on…
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential hopes are diminishing daily. His campaign is letting go of more than a third of his staff from the payroll in a move designed to keep him financially solvent into the fall. 
• Are you wondering why DeSantis is funneling money into an obviously losing cause as a distant second-place candidate? That’s easy.
• He knows that the presumed candidate might be in jail or otherwise occupied by the time November 2024 rolls around.
• He’s also getting more national exposure for a 2028 run if this doesn’t work out.
• Back to the present. The layoffs include 10 event staffers, two senior advisers, and other staffers from "across all departments".
• Whatever. None of this will matter.
• Moving on…
• Let’s do some outstanding news regarding women’s body autonomy…
• Ohio voters will have the opportunity this fall to decide whether to guarantee access to abortion in the state.
• State officials said yesterday that a ballot measure to change the state constitution had enough signatures. It would establish “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” with “reasonable limits.”
• Will it pass in November? That depends on the outcome of an upcoming August 8 special election called by Statehouse Republicans to determine whether to raise the threshold for passing future constitutional changes from a simple majority in place since 1912 to a 60% supermajority.
• They’re trying anything to subvert the will of the people. It will be close; AP VoteCast polling last year found 59% of Ohio voters say abortion should generally be legal.
• And now some disgusting news on the same topic…
• Over this past weekend, a panel of all-male anti-abortion movement leaders gathered in Georgia to harass a nearby abortion clinic and to brainstorm strategies to subject people who have abortions to the death penalty.
• Every speaker at the extremist group Operation Save America’s abortion panel—which included voices from a diversity of groups including End Abortion Now and Georgia Right to Life—was a man. To be clear, these “pro-life” men are publicly stating that women who choose not to be pregnant should be put to death.
• Before Roe v Wade was destroyed, most people said that only ”extremist groups” were behind efforts to remove women’s reproductive autonomy. You saw what happened there.
• Voting for any Republican at any level is a vote for these men who will hunt down women and kill them for the crime of not wanting to be forced to give birth. Ask them; they’ll gladly tell you. They’re already planning the details.
• Moving on…
• U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar has blocked the Biden administration's new rules for asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. He found the rules unlawful because they impose conditions on asylum-seekers that Congress did not intend.
• Tigar stayed his own ruling for 14 days, giving the Biden administration a chance to appeal before it takes effect.
• The asylum rules, which took effect in May, make it harder for migrants to get asylum if they cross the border illegally after passing through Mexico or another country without seeking protection there first.
• Tigar blocked a similar policy during the Trump administration, and immigrant advocates had urged him to do the same in this case.
• Let’s do some January 6 news. I will continue doing these until every single person involved in the failed coup attempt is brought to justice.
• Today’s dumbass is Brian Gundersen of Armonk, NY. He was sentenced yesterday to a year and a half in federal prison. Prosecutors had recommended 46 months.
• How did Gundersen get identified? Well, it might be because he wore his high school football letterman jacket during the insurrection. He was found guilty of two felony counts of obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.
• Gundersen’s public defender, Eugene Ohm, indicated in court that his client had underlying mental health issues. I’d say being a stupid asshole is indeed a mental health issue of sorts.
• More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, and more than 300 thus far have been sentenced to incarceration.
• In other news…
• UPS reached a contract agreement with its 340,000-person strong union yesterday, averting a strike that had the potential to disrupt logistics nationwide for businesses and households alike.
• The Teamsters called the tentative agreement "historic" and "overwhelmingly lucrative." It includes, among other benefits, higher wages and air conditioning in delivery trucks.
• Under the preliminary agreement, full-time drivers will make $49 per hour and part-time drivers will make $21 per hour. UPS will also add air conditioning to U.S. small delivery vehicles purchased after January 1, 2024.
• Good.
• Yesterday, first-term Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) introduced a resolution to censure Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) over her controversial comments and actions, with the most recent being her public display of sexual images of the president’s son Hunter Biden in a hearing last week.
• The resolution introduced Tuesday is a laundry list of around 40 points of grievance against Greene, many of which list her specific comments and the dates on which she said them.
• Here’s a follow-up that I’d been waiting on…
• Robert Hadden, the gynecologist who sexually abused dozens of vulnerable and trusting patients for over two decades at prestigious New York hospitals, was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison by a federal judge who called his crimes shocking and unprecedented.
• The sentence for Hadden, 64, came nearly a month after he heard nine victims describe how the doctor abused them during gynecology treatments at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The institutions have agreed to pay more than $236 million to settle civil claims by more than 200 former patients.
• No sympathy for this scum.
• And in related news, yesterday, a federal jury found a former nurse at Oregon’s women’s prison guilty of sexually abusing nine women while they were in custody.
• 38-year-old Tony Klein was convicted of 21 of the 23 federal charges he faced including 17 counts pertaining to sexual assault and four of making false statements under oath in a deposition.
• Looking forward to his sentencing. I wonder how the inmates in his prison will feel about a rapist guard?
• And now, The Weather: “Push Back Baby” by Lutalo
• This is absolutely horrifying…
• Excessively hot waters off the coast of South Florida rose to an unfathomable level this week.
• A buoy in Manatee Bay, about 40 miles south of Miami, posted a temperature of 101.1 degrees at 6PM after a morning low of 91 degrees. Water temperatures remained at or above 100 from 5PM through late evening.
• For comparison, the suggested ideal temperature of a hot tub is 100 to 102 degrees.
• The fish are gonna die. The things that eat the fish are gonna die. We’re all gonna die. Does no one give a shit?
• Calming down. Hey, let’s do some charts!
• It was July 1978, and I was nine, but I was absorbing all music like some kind of sound sponge. I think this is the first Billboard Top 20 I’ve posted here where I could sing every song without a reminder of what they were. Lots of good shit here.
• 1. Shadow Dancing (Andy Gibb). 2. Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty). 3. Take A Chance On Me (ABBA). 4. Use Ta Be My Girl (The O’Jays). 5. Still The Same (Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band).  6. Miss You (The Rolling Stones). 7. The Groove Line (Heatwave_. 8. Dance With Me (Peter Brown With Betty Wright). 9. It's A Heartache (Bonnie Tyler). 10. Last Dance (Donna Summer). 11. Grease (Frankie Valli). 12. Bluer Than Blue (Michael Johnson). 13. Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad (Meat Loaf). 14. Love Will Find A Way (Pablo Cruise). 15. Runaway (Jefferson Starship). 16. Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton). 17. Copacabana (at The Copa) (Barry Manilow). 18. I Can't Stand The Rain (Eruption). 19. Life's Been Good (Joe Walsh). 20. Hot Blooded (Foreigner)
• X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, is now in such desperate straits that it is resorting to extorting brands for advertising money.
• They sent a warning to brands that they will lose their verification checkmark if they haven’t spent at least $1,000 on ads in the past 30 days, or $6,000 in the previous 180 days.
• Brand verification is important in that without it, it opens the platform to impersonators who could deceive the public by making false statements under the brand’s name.
• Fuck off, Elmo.
• From the Sports Desk… U.S. swimming champion Katie Ledecky has tied a record with legend Michael Phelps for the most individual world swimming titles.
• Ledecky, 26, achieved the feat while competing in Fukuoka, Japan, at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, where she won the 1,500-meter freestyle race —her 15th world title, and her fifth in the specific race.
• In Women’s World Cup news, the USWNT plays the Netherlands tonight. They will provide a tougher test than Vietnam, which the U.S. defeated, 3-0 last week.
• A win would give the U.S. six points, which could be enough to reach the knockout stages. If not, it would come down to Tuesday’s game against Portugal.
• Today in history… Rout of an alliance of Christian troops from Navarre and Léon against the Muslims at the Battle of Valdejunquera (920). Francis Drake, the English explorer, discovers a major bay on the coast of California, now known as San Francisco (1579). The office that would later become the United States Post Office Department is established by the Second Continental Congress, and Benjamin Franklin takes office as Postmaster General (1775). New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States (1788). Liberia declares its independence from the United States (1847). George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run (1861). Premiere of Richard Wagner's opera ‘Parsifal’ (1882). France annexes Tahiti (1891). United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner, later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1908). In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, the United States, Britain and the Netherlands freeze all Japanese assets and cut off oil shipments (1941). The USS Indianapolis arrives at Tinian with components and enriched uranium for the Little Boy nuclear bomb (1945). Aloha Airlines begins service from Honolulu (1946). U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council… holy shit (1947). Truman signs Executive Order 9981, desegregating the military of the United States (1948). Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution (1953). A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (1989). The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is signed into law by President George H. W. Bush (1990). Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster (2005). Hillary Clinton becomes the first female nominee for President of the United States by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia (2016). 
• July 26 is the birthday of US vice president George Clinton (1739), playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856), psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875), novelist Aldous Huxley (1894), actress/comedian Gracie Allen (1895), actress Vivian Vance (1909), director Blake Edwards (1922), actor Jason Robards (1922), writer/illustrator Jan Berenstain (1923), director Stanley Kubrick (1928), singer-songwriter Dobie Gray (1940), singer Darlene Love (1941), singer-songwriter Mick Jagger (1943), actress Helen Mirren (1945), singer-songwriter/drummer Roger Taylor (1949), figure skater Dorothy Hamill (1956), actress Nana Visitor (1957), actor Kevin Spacey (1959), actress Sandra Bullock (1964), actress Kate Beckinsale (1973), singer-songwriter Iron & Wine (1974), UK prime minister Liz Truss (1975), and NBA player Delonte West (1983).

Okay, I guess that’s plenty for now. There’s always more. I get PMs fairly often from folks who tell me I left out something important, and I tell them the same thing every time: they’re right. But this is all the news I can do between 7:15 and 7:45 each morning, and it is what it is. Enjoy your day.