Random News: July 28, 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 28, 2023, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I am greatly looking forward to it being a weekend, even if I’m spending a chunk of it improving my home in various ways. I’m just happy to not be doing work activities on Saturday or Sunday. Let’s do some news…

• Holy shit!
• Court papers filed in federal court last night indicate that prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith's office have added new charges against former President and current alleged felon Donald Trump in the case involving classified documents at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago.
• This superseding indictment lists multiple serious new counts against Trump, including altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; and corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object; and an additional charge of willful retention of national defense information.
• There’s also a new, third defendant named in the case: Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago property manager and former valet. He faces one count of altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; one count of corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object; and one count of making false statements and representations during a voluntary interview with federal investigators.
• Wow.
• On a completely different Trump criminal matter…
• The grand jury conducting special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s bid to interfere with the 2020 presidential election met again yesterday amid signs of a looming indictment.
• That indictment, whatever it may entail, could happen as early as today.
• Also yesterday, Trump posted about a meeting his attorneys held that morning with the special counsel’s team. Last time they met as such, the indictments came down the next day, which would be today if it follows the same pattern.
• And in addition to all that…
• In Fulton County, GA, images of newly-installed security barricades around the courthouse there — where Trump may face similar charges related to his role in seeking to subvert Biden’s win in Georgia — also contributed to the sense that Trump’s already serious legal troubles are about to become even graver.
• Okay. Enough on that guy… for the moment.
• Yesterday we mentioned Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s brain having frozen during a press conference. Mitch is only 81; let’s talk about his older colleague Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
• I love and admire and respect my Senator. She has been a lion in liberal politics for well over 50 years. She’s also 90 years old and has been through some health issues in recent years.
• Yesterday, she appeared to get confused during a committee vote. After Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, asked members to vote on the Defense Appropriations Act, the clerk called on Feinstein to cast her vote. The senator then began reading aloud a statement, instead of saying how she wanted to vote, with either an “aye” or “nay” response.
• As Feinstein continued to read her statement, an aide nudged her to vote, while Murray, who was sitting immediately left of Feinstein, told the senior senator to “just say, ‘Aye,’”. Murray had to prod her three times to cast her vote before she seemed to click in.
• She’s still planning on finishing out the remainder of her term, which ends in early 2025.
• Sigh. The same strength that’s fueled her successful acts in the Senate is also what’s likely driving her obstinance at not retiring despite being long past the point of being effective in her role.
• Moving on…
• An actual headline from CBS yesterday afternoon: “Trader Joe's recalls broccoli cheddar soup because it contains bugs.”
• That’s nice.
• The FDA said in a recall notice that the soup "has insects in the frozen broccoli florets,” and is being voluntarily recalled by its manufacturer, Winter Gardens Quality Foods of New Oxford, PA. It’s called Trader Joe's Unexpected Broccoli Cheddar Soup
• Say, that really is unexpected. Snort.
• Also noted in the same article: earlier this week, the company recalled two varieties of cookies, Almond Windmill Cookies and Dark Chocolate Chunk and Almond Cookies, because some batches contain rocks.
• Rocks and bugs. I think I’ll continue not shopping at Trader Joe’s.
• And now, The Weather: “Bug Like an Angel” by Mitski
• Rest in peace to Randy Meisner, who died yesterday at 77. In 1971, Meisner, along with Glen Frey, Don Henley, and Bernie Leadon, formed a band called Eagles. He played bass and sang the high harmony parts in the iconic band until 1977, and sang lead on their first million-selling single, “Take It to the Limit”.
• Meet Anthony Gibson. He’s a Black man who lives in Georgia and he likes to fish. In 2021, he moved into in a 200-home development called Springwater Plantation that has a lake.
• On July 11 video, Gibson sat with two Black female friends when a white resident named Tanya Petty told him that the lake was for “residents only,” and that she would take down his license plate to report him to local authorities. 
• By the end of the day, Gibson said he and his friends were approached a total of four times that day by residents asking him if he lived in the community. All of those residents were white.
• The harassment began right form the start. Once, two white men whom he didn’t know approached Gibson and asked him to provide his address. When Gibson declined, the man called the police.
• White people who weren’t residents of the community but fished there told Gibson they’d never been questioned by residents.
• We’ve got to get better. Moving on…
• Anyone ever tell you that you were worth your weight in gold? It’s a high compliment.
• I checked my weight in gold at the current market rate for said precious metal at $1,951/ounce. Turns out that I’d be worth $5,618,880 in gold. That is considerably more than my tangible net worth, but still seems kinda chintzy. I’m only worth five and half mil?
• I want to be worth my weight in plutonium. That shit goes for $4,000/gram. I weigh about 80kg. That’s $320,000,000. That’d be impressive.
• It’s getting to be that time of year around these here local parts where the ants suddenly become an issue. I’m having to be vigilant about any ant sightings, especially monitoring the cat find dishes downstairs.
• But I do have a nightmarish real life ant story to share with you. I may have shared it before.
• Summer 1987, I was working for the City of Rancho Palos Verdes being a laborer. My little team would go clear out overgrown fields, cut trees that were blocking stop signs, and all that fun-ass city shit.
• One day I’m taking out a field of fennel. I spent most of the day hacking at it with a machete. Then I get an idea. A brilliant idea. I’m going to take a chainsaw and remove the fennel much more expediently via raw power.
• So I start up my Stihl, rev it a few times, and bend down to take out a big batch of vegetation at the root. I realized that I’d fucked up immediately when I slightly missed the bottom of the plant and instead sprayed my own face and torso with dirt.
• Except it wasn’t dirt. I’d chainsawed an anthill and hundreds of them were angrily crawling all over me.
• I won’t describe the rest of it, which involved a lot of screaming and tearing off of clothes on a public street, but I will tell you that hours later when I finally got into a shower, I was still finding live ants in various crevices of my body. That’s the kind of thing that leaves one traumatized, and ants have never been my friends to those day.
• From the Sports Desk… just a note of admiration about the man who might end up as the best Major League Baseball player of all time: Shohei Ohtani.
• Yesterday, the Los Angeles Angels’ pitcher/slugger became just the fifth player since 1900 to throw a shutout and hit 2 home runs on the same day, and the first ever to do so over a doubleheader. 
• He leads the league in home runs (38 currently). The only player that’s come close to him so far is Babe Ruth.
• Today in history… Henry VIII marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard (1540). Maximilien Robespierre is executed by guillotine in Paris (1794). Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, GA at the Battle of Ezra Church (1864). The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is certified, establishing African American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law (1868). The city of Miami, FL is incorporated (1896). The US occupies Haiti and stays for 19 years (1915). Lyndon B. Johnson increases US troops in Vietnam from 75,000 to. 125,000 (1965). 600,000 people go see bands rock at Watkins Glen Summer Jam (1973).  The Summer Olympics open in Los Angeles, CA (1984). 
• July 28 is the birthday of pianist/businessman Ignaz Bösendorfer (1796), writer/illustrator Beatrix Potter (1866), activist Lucy Burns (1879), painter/sculptor Marcel Duchamp (1887), actor/singer Rudy Vallée (1901), inventor/businessman Earl Tupper (1907), composer/conductor Carmen Dragon (1914), US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929), guitarist Mike Bloomfield (1943), keyboardist Richard Wright (1943), cartoonist Jim Davis (1945), actress Sally Struthers (1947), guitarist/composer Gerald Casale (1948), Venezuela president Hugo Chávez (1954), guitarist/composer Steve Morse (1954), NHL player Garth Snow (1969), NBA player Manu Ginóbili (1977), and rapper Soulja Boy (1990).

So, many things might happen today. Some may be good, some may be bad. I’ll be here to observe and document it all. Enjoy your day.