Random News: August 17, 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 August 17, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I just lost a filling while brushing my teeth, so my day is off to a rollicking start. Instead of obsessing about that, let’s look at some news…

• Got a little more news in the Georgia RICO case against Donald John Trump and 18 other defendants. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has proposed a March 4, 2024 trial date.
• The proposed schedule was put put together so it would not conflict with "defendant Donald John Trump's other criminal and civil matters." 
• Snort.
• Willis’ office also suggested all 19 defendants, including attorney Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, can be arraigned the week of September 5. They are all accused of operating a criminal enterprise while pursuing their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost.
• Willis has given Trump and his co-defendants until August 25 — eight days from now — to turn themselves in for booking, a process that is expected to include mugshots at the Fulton County jail. In Georgia, unlike in federal court and in New York, the proceedings are allowed to be televised. 
• Chef’s kiss. Let’s continue on this topic, shall we?
• Yesterday, we started looking at the 18 other defendants beyond Orange Julius Caesar in the Georgia RICO trial regarding subversion of the 2020 election. Let’s continue that today, this time focusing on the fraudulent fake electors.
• David Shafer is the chairman of the Georgia GOP. He was one of 16 state Republicans who met at the state Capitol on December 14, 2020, to sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won and also declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
• Shafer also joined Trump in a lawsuit challenging the certification of the 2020 election in Georgia.
• Shawn Still is a state senator in GA. He was also one of the 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won in Georgia and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
• Still was the finance chairman for the state GOP in 2020 and served as a Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention that year. He was elected to the Georgia state Senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlanta’s suburbs.
• Cathy Latham is yet another of Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. She was also chair of the Coffee County Republican Party. 
• Latham was at the county elections office for much of the day on January 7, 2021, and welcomed a computer forensics team that arrived to copy software and data from the county’s election equipment in what the secretary of state’s office has said was “unauthorized access” to the machines.
• In addition to RICO, all three are charged with impersonating a public officer, forgery, making false statements and so on. Latham also faces charges of conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to defraud the state, and related charges.
• Let’s talk about Trump trying to start a race war as a deflection for his many crimes.
• The day after the Georgia indictments, Donnie made a social post that read, “They never went after those that Rigged the Election. They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!”
• His base of MAGA deplorable picked up on the dog whistle allusion to the racial slur immediately. Right-wing sites were flooded yesterday with hundreds of posts featuring “riggers” in their headlines in a disparaging context.
• The “riggers” who were specifically pointed out in these racist posts were all Black, including Fani Willis herself as well as Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, and the judge in the federal case, Tanya Chutkan.
• As you’re probably aware, Chutkan had explicitly warned Trump to be very careful not to make inflammatory public comments about the federal proceedings, saying she would “take whatever measures are necessary” to prevent intimidation of witnesses or contamination of the jury pool.
• As a result of Trump’s public comments, calls to racial violence have proliferated across all far-right sites, including images of nooses and gallows, and calls for Willis and the grand jurors who delivered the charges to be hanged.
• Aren’t all these people just full of shit and talking out their ass on social media? Apparently not Abigail Jo Shry, a Texas woman who has been arrested and charged with threatening to kill Tanya Chutkan.
• Shry sent a voice message to Chutkan's chambers on August 5, which included a racial slur and a death threat. Her message warned Chutkan that she will be killed if Trump does not get elected president in 2024.
• In addition to Chutkan, Shry also allegedly threatened Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), “all Democrats in Washington D.C. and all people in the LGBTQ community.”
• And if she’s one who got caught, there are thousands waiting in the wings behind her, emboldened to kill Democrats, black people, gay people, and anyone else who seems opposed to the Republican philosophies of racism and bigotry.
• Finally, for now anyway, you may know that Trump has promised to do a press conference on Monday and show a report that will, according to him, exonerate him from all charges.
• However, his legal advisers have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems and some of his attorneys have advised him to cancel it.
• Guess we’ll see what he does. He keeps painting himself into a smaller and smaller corner.
• Let’s move on. I have some important abortion rights news for you.
• Yesterday, a federal appeals court ruled that mifepristone, one of two pills used in medication abortions should not be prescribed past seven weeks of pregnancy or via a telemedicine. However, a previous stay by the Supreme Court means this won't go into effect right away.
• In a 93-page ruling, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans sided with plaintiffs that want to restrict use of mifepristone.
• The Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian Republican group which brought the case, cheered the opinion.
• The Southern Poverty Law Center designates ADF as an anti-LGBT hate group. They should also expand it to being an anti-woman hate group now.
• The Supreme Court is likely to hear the case in the fall, possibly with another case from Washington state that seeks to expand access to the medicine.
• Stay tuned for more assaults on women’s reproductive rights and the candidates who support those assaults.
• Moving on… to another story in the “political people behaving badly” file…
• Samuel Miele, a fundraiser for fraudulent scumbag Rep. George Santos (R-NY), was indicted yesterday on federal allegations that he had impersonated a top aide to a member of House leadership while soliciting donations for Santos’s campaign.
• Miele is charged with four counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
• A complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission accused Miele of impersonating Dan Meyer, who previously served as chief of staff to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), in fundraising emails for Santos. Snort. They’re all so fucked.
• In other news…
• I’d like to mention something I haven’t spoken about in a good long while. Remember COVID-19? That respiratory/vascular disease that killed millions of people and forced us into pandemic mode for years?
• Yeah, it’s definitely surging again right now.
• No need to panic, especially if you’ve kept up on your vaccinations and boosters as I have. The current strain is officially known as EG.5 but is being colloquially called “Eris”.
• The variant poses a similar level of global risk as existing variants. Updated vaccines created to provide better protection against the variant are set to be available in the U.S. starting in late September.
• Symptoms for Eris are reported to be the same as past variants, including a fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue, runny nose, and change in taste and smell. As always with COVID, the elderly and the health compromised are more likely to face serious effects than the rest of us.
• EG.5 is likely no more contagious than other recent variants, but since the huge majority of people completely stopped doing any preventive measures for COVID in the past year (masking, frequently washing hands, social distancing, etc.), Eris is spreading pretty quickly.
• Of course, as has been said, it’s amazing COVID is still hanging around despite most people pretending it never existed or pretending it went away. Somehow those methods didn’t work as expected.
• Let’s do a follow-up report from earlier news, headed in a better direction…
• The prosecutor in Marion County, KS said yesterday that police should return all seized material to a weekly newspaper that was raided by officers in a case that has drawn national scrutiny of press freedom.
• Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey said he found "insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized."
• The publisher believes that the raids were carried out because the newspaper was investigating the background of local police chief Gideon Cody, who personally authorized the raid on the newspaper offices and publishers’ home. The paper was following tips that Cody had been accused of sexual misconduct.
• Gideon Cody needs to be charged for this. This isn’t going away.
• It’s been awhile since we mentioned the forthcoming impeachment of suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). Paxton’s impeachment trial is currently scheduled for September 5.
• In a new impeachment filing, Texas state House investigators revealed new evidence further illustrating the close relationship between Paxton  and real estate investor Nate Paul.
• Paul — who was arrested in June — set up a fake Uber account under the name “Dave P.” Both men accessed the account, according to Uber records cited in the filing, with Paxton allegedly using it to visit a woman he had an affair with.
• Ken Paxton is a terrible person and he deserves all that’s coming to him.
• And now, The Weather: “For You, I Will” by George Clanton (feat. Hatchie)
• A group of kids of kids from Maine set up a stand and sold lemonade and donuts to help the victims of the Hawaii wildfires, and once word got out online, they raised over $1,900 in donations this past weekend. Cute.
• A 22-year-old resident of Honolulu decided to start her own fundraiser: she’s sending a free nude pic for every $10 donated. She raised over $7,300 in a couple of days, unsurprisingly.
• Hey, whatever works.
• In other weather news, Tropical Storm Hilary has strengthened to hurricane level. A rare west coast storm, Hilary is expected to weaken after hitting landfall in Baja California, Mexico, but could potentially still bring heavy rain and flooding to Southern California on Sunday/Monday.
• From the Sports Desk… the league-leading Atlanta Braves have some incredible weapons on both sides of the plate. Ronald Acuna Jr. is batting .335, has 161 hits, and 55 stolen bases. Matt Olson has 43 home runs and 107 RBIs (teammate Ozzie Albies has 90, also up near the top). Spencer Strider leads all pitchers with 13 wins and 217 strikeouts, while fellow ATL pitcher Charlie Morton has 12 wins. 
• Today in history… Cesare Borgia, the son of a pope, becomes the first person in history to resign the cardinalate (1498). The first group of colonists lands in the New World to create Roanoke Colony in modern-day North Carolina (1585). The British parliament accepts registration of births, marriages, and deaths (1836). The Union beats the fuck out of Confederate-held Fort Sumter in Charleston (1863). Bridget Driscoll became the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in the United Kingdom (1896). US Marines raid the Japanese-held island of Makin (1942). The novella ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell is first published (1945). The first meeting of Narcotics Anonymous is held, appropriately, in Southern California (1953). Pioneer 0, the attempted first launch beyond Earth’s orbit, fails on launch (1958). Cat 5 Hurricane Camille smashes the Gulf Coast, killing 256 people (1969). The Soviets launch Venera 7, the first spacecraft to soft-land on another planet (1970). US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1998). Michael Phelps wins a record eight gold medals at one Olympic Games (2008). 
• August 17 is the birthday of painter Francesco Albani (1578), frontiersman Davy Crockett (1786), activist/journalist Marcus Garvey (1887), actress Mae West (1893), US general Leslie Groves (1896), lawyer/spy Mark Felt (1913), actress Maureen O’Hara (1920), military pilot Francis Gary Powers (1929), poet/writer Ted Hughes (1930), computer scientist Margaret Hamilton (1936), actor Robert De Niro (1943), businessman Larry Ellison (1944), drummer Sib Hashian (1949), guitarist/composer Eric Johnson (1954), bassist/composer Colin Moulding (1955), singer Belinda Carlisle (1958), actor Sean Penn (1960), NFL coach Jon Gruden (1963), singer/actor Donnie Wahlberg (1969), NFL player Antwaan Randle El (1979), NBA player Rudy Gay (1986), actor Austin Butler (1991), and singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers (1994).

That’s plenty of news for now. Go plant a tree, or save a bee, or sing with glee, and be sure to pee. Enjoy your day.