Random News: July 31, 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 31, 2023, and it’s a Monday. I’m showered and dressed and have a cup of coffee that I scraped together from the remains of several bags of coffee because UPS is late in delivering the coffee I’d rather be having, but these are first-world problems and I’ll survive. Let’s do some news…

• No one is claiming responsibility for Sunday’s bombing in Bajur, Pakistan that killed 54 people (including at least five children) and wounded nearly 200 people.
• It happened at an election rally for a pro-Taliban cleric. The attack appeared to reflect divisions between Islamist groups. It targeted the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, which has ties to the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban.
• I will say, as fucked up as our own divided climate is here in in the USA, we do tend not to bomb each other over our political differences. At least not often.
• Moving on…
• We spoke quite extensively this weekend about Carlos De Oliveira, the new co-defendant in the Trump classified documents criminal case.
• Carlos was scheduled for an arraignment this morning, but that’s up in the air because he has not yet gotten a lawyer who practices in Florida to represent him.
• Without a Florida lawyer present, a judge could delay Carlos’s scheduled arraignment in Miami federal court. De Oliveira’s failure so far to get a Florida lawyer mirrors the difficulties former President Donald Trump briefly had hiring a local attorney for the case. The third co-defendant, Trump toady Walt Nauta, had his arraignment twice postponed because of the same issue.
• Sucks to be them. Why not just assign them a public defender like any criminal?
• In other news, GOP leaders are finally getting sick of Tommy Tuberville’s shit. 
• His blockade of military promotions is uncomfortably splintering both the Senate GOP and Alabama Republicans. Tuberville has refused to allow any of the more than 300 stalled military promotions to advance. This is in retribution for the Defense Department allowing paid leave for abortions.
• Democrats could have called individual votes on the nominations over the August recess, but ultimately decided it was the GOP’s responsibility to eat Tuberville’s shit.
• So due to Tuberville and the GOP, we have no functioning military and are more vulnerable to attack than ever. And now the Senate has left for five weeks, and the Republican’s nearly five-month hold appears almost certain to stretch into September.
• Typical MAGA mentality. “Give me what I want or I’ll destroy the whole country!” Whining baby-ass bitches, all of them.
• Moving on…
• Yesterday, I mentioned that accused felon Donald John Trump had spent more that $40 million raised for his reelection on legal fees.
• Now Save America, his primary fundraising PAC, requested a refund of $60 million it had given to another political action committee supporting his 2024 White House bid.
• Snort. Moving on…
• One more note on that guy and his cult members. Footage from a pre-rally interview shows a Trump supporter saying that he will “guarantee” that Trump gets back into the White House. He’s then asked what his opinion is on “globalists and RINOs” and he responds with, “Kill them all,” to which reporter Matthew Alvarez says, “I agree with you on that.”
• Nice people, these Republicans. Speaking of which…
• Some piece of shit in North Carolina intentionally drove his SUV into a crowd of migrant workers in a Walmart parking lot yesterday afternoon. Six of them were transported to hospitals with injuries, none of them appearing being life-threatening.
• Police say they're still looking for the vehicle and driver involved in the incident, which they said took place at 1:17 pm ET. The vehicle is an older model SUV with a luggage rack, and the driver, shockingly. is an older white male.
• And now, The Weather: “Vampire Empire” by Big Thief
• Yesterday, Phoenix, AZ set a new record: 31 days straight of over 110-degree heat. It smashes the previous record of 18 days set in June of 1974.
• One July 23, police in Frisco, TX held a Black couple at gunpoint and handcuffed their son after mistyping their car's license plate into their system, leading them to falsely believe the car the family was driving was stolen.
• Body cam footage shows an officer holding the family at gunpoint. Officers ordered the family to show their hands, and commanded the driver to exit the car, face away from the officers, lift up her shirt while spinning to reveal her waistband, and walk backwards.
• "We made a mistake," said Frisco Police Chief David Shilson. "Our department will not hide from its mistakes. Instead, we will learn from them."
• Will they, though?
• As mentioned previously, I spent the entire weekend poring over genealogy information, and found some fascinating shit. I may fill you in on some of it at some point.
• From the Sports Desk… tomorrow at 6PM ET is the deadline for MLB trades. Who has been dealt? Who’s going where? I’m not sure.
• Today in history… Marc Antony wins the Battle of Alexandria over Octavian, but most of his troops desert (30 BC). The oldest recorded eruption of Mount Fuji (781). All remaining Jews are expelled from Spain when the Alhambra Decree takes effect (1492). Christopher Columbus “discovers” Trinidad (1498). Odawa Chief Pontiac's forces defeat British troops at the Battle of Bloody Run during Pontiac's War (1763). Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city (1856). The Nazi Party wins 38% of the vote in German elections (1932). New York International Airport is dedicated, and is later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport (1948). Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes (1964). Michael Phelps breaks the record for most medals won at the Olympics (2012).
• July 31 is the birthday of Holy Roman emperor Maximillian II (1527), French Prime Minister Henri Brisson (1835), painter Mary Vaux Walcott (1860), animation producer Fred Quimby (1886), music producer Ahmet Ertegun (1923), guitarist/composer Kenny Burrell (1931), tennis player Evonne Goolagong (1951), actor Michael Biehn (1956), drummer/composer Bill Berry (1958), guitarist Stanley Jordan (1959), NFL player Kevin Greene (1962), actor Wesley Snipes (1962), DJ/musician Fatboy Slim (1963), author J. K. Rowling (1965), MLB player/manager Gabe Kapler (1975), singer-songwriter/guitarist Zac Brown (1978), actor/screenwriter B. J. Novak (1979), and NFL player DeMarcus Ware (1982).

Okay, I have to jump. Time and tide wait for no man, and I’ve got shit to do. Enjoy your day.