Random News: August 22, 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 22, 2023, and it’s a Tuesday. The sky is blue, and so is the sea, so let’s look around and see what we see…

• The former president and current accused felon has agreed to a $200,000 bond and other release conditions after his lawyers met with the Fulton County district attorney's office yesterday. 
• He plans to turn himself in and be processed at the Fulton County jail on Thursday.
• The release conditions outlined in Trump’s bond order are more extensive than those laid out in the other bond orders approved earlier. 
• He is barred from using social media to target his 18 co-defendants in the case, as well as any witnesses or the 30 unindicted co-conspirators. We’ll see how well that goes for him.
• He is also prohibited from communicating directly or indirectly about the case with any of his co-defendants or witnesses in the case, except through his attorneys. A similar provision has been included in bond orders for some of his co-defendants.
• Moving on, except to say the next 14 or so months between now and the election are going to be so bonkers, there are few words that will describe it properly.
• Christopher Worrell, 52, is a member of the Proud Boys who was convicted in seven charges related to his actions during the January 6, 2021 failed coup attempt at the US Capitol.
• He was scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Washington on Friday but is now missing. He’s now a federal fugitive.
• Worrell has been under house arrest in Florida. Perhaps house arrest is a bit to lenient for these people?
• Let’s move on to some really, really, really bad news.
• I want to warn you about a group that is banding together to subvert the democratic laws of the USA and its Constitution.
• They are called sheriffs.
• The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, teaches that elected sheriffs must “protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government” by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or “unjust.”
• The sheriffs group has railed against gun control laws, COVID-19 mask mandates and public health restrictions, as well as alleged election fraud. It has also quietly spread its ideology across the country, seeking to become more mainstream in part by securing state approval for taxpayer-funded law enforcement training.
• Over the last five years, the group has hosted trainings, rallies, speeches and meetings in at least 30 states for law enforcement officers, political figures, private organizations and members of the public. They also have supporters who sit on three state boards in charge of law enforcement training standards.
• Legal experts warn that such training is part of a broader insurrectionist ideology that has gripped the nation since the 2020 presidential election.
• At least 69 sheriffs nationwide have either been identified as members of the group or publicly supported it. A 2021 survey of sheriffs found that more than 200 of the estimated 500 sheriffs who responded agreed with the group’s ideology.
• This is a big fucking problem.
• Nationwide, there are about 3,000 sheriffs. Especially in rural areas, sheriffs hold immense sway over what happens in their county, another reason that I will never live in a rural area if I can help it.
• In oddly related news, a Georgia sheriff resigned and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sexual battery charge yesterday after he grabbed Judge Glenda Hatchett’s boob. What the actual fuck?
• Bleckley County Sheriff Kris Coody was sentenced to 12 months probation and was also ordered to complete community service. He must also pay a $500 fine and was ordered to complete an alcohol and drug evaluation.
• Hatchett said she was attending a reception and the sheriff came up to her. During introductions, the sheriff poked her briefly in the chest after the judge said she was not familiar with Bleckley County.
• “But then he grabbed my breast. He grabbed my left breast. He squeezed it, he then started rubbing on my breast,” until someone removed Coody’s hand and pushed him away.
• Okay, enough on these psychos. Let’s do some better news.
• On Sunday, a federal judge temporarily blocked part of Georgia’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, ordering state officials to stop enforcing a key provision of the law more than a month after it took effect.
• US District Judge Sarah Geraghty said the provision of Georgia’s law that bars licensed medical professionals in the state from providing patients under the age of 18 with cross-sex hormone therapy is “likely” unconstitutional. The law, Senate Bill 140, went into effect July 1.
• Geraghty said her order will remain in effect “pending trial, or until further order of the Court.”
• On the opposite end of the same issue, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Alabama can enforce a ban outlawing the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat transgender children.
• The decision leaves families of transgender children, who had been receiving treatment, scrambling for care. Once the current injunction is officially lifted, the Alabama attorney general’s office will be able to enforce the ban, which threatens doctors with prison time.
• Fucking pieces of shit.
• I have a follow-up story from yesterday, and a word to the wise for you to keep an eye on the social posts of people you know.
• Travis Ikeguchi, the 27-year-old California man who shot and killed Lauri Carleton for having a Pride flag outside her business, was posting anti-LGBT+ content on social media before the murder.
• If you see social posts from friends, acquaintances, coworkers, old schoolmates, and so on that promote violence against any group of people… believe them! 
• I hear pretty often, “Oh, they’re just blowing off steam,” and perhaps that’s usually correct, until it isn’t.
• Ikeguchi fled the scene of Carleton’s murder before being confronted by police and killed. Carleton was a married mother of nine.
• And on a related topic, no matter how much you detest anyone — a politician, a criminal, an unrepentant evildoer, a rapist, a racist, a former president (even if they’re all the same guy) — it is unacceptable to threaten harm to that person regardless of circumstances, and you will get in trouble, and you’ll deserve it.
• Tracy Marie Fiorenza, 41, of Plainfield, IL sent emails threatening to shoot Donald Trump and his 17-year-old son, Barron, "straight in the face at any opportunity that I get."
• Not acceptable. Not ever, not to anyone, not under any circumstances. She was arrested yesterday morning and she’s charged with one federal count of transmitting threats to kill or injure another person in interstate commerce.
• Of note: in addition to anti-Trump posts on her Facebook, Fiorenza also had references to pedophile rings and the Illuminati. So… yeah.
• In other news…
• The Archdiocese of San Francisco has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as it faces more than 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse.
• “We seriously doubt that the Archdiocese of San Francisco does not have the assets to settle these lawsuits,” the Survivors Network of Abuse by Priests said. “We find it disturbing that Archbishop Cordileone claimed this is the ‘best way’ for victims’ lawsuits to be resolved.”
• I agree. It is disturbing to say the least. No justice, no peace.
• And now, The Weather: “Different Now” by Courtney Barnett
• RIP to John Warnock, the co-founder of Adobe Systems who helped invent the PDF. He was 82.
• Warnock worked for Xerox before he and colleague Charles Geschke created a company around a rejected idea in 1982. It was 1991 when Warnock outlined an early version of the Portable Document Format, or PDF, transforming the way documents are exchanged.
• Side note: like a lot of creative professionals, my entire day is filled with Adobe apps, from Photoshop to Acrobat to Illustrator to InDesign.
• Moving on…
• In 2018, there were a dozen new cars that were still available for under $20,000.
• Today there’s just one: the Mitsubishi Mirage, at $19,205… and it’s soon going away.
• Car prices — new and used — having soared since the pandemic. The average price for a new vehicle is now just above $48,000 — 25% more than before the pandemic struck three years ago. The average American pays north of $700 a month for their new car.
• Jesus. I was with my dad in 1977 when he bought my mom her shiny new Datsun 280-Z, and I marveled that the car was about $10,000. Of course, via inflation alone, that $10k in 1977 is now about $52,000. C’est la vie.
• NPR's top programming executive, Anya Grundmann, announced yesterday that she will step down at the end of the year after nearly three decades at the network. Since becoming head of programming in 2015, Grundmann has overseen music, entertainment and talk shows such as Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and Fresh Air, and most of the network's podcasts.
• Honestly, if you see me in a car, 99% of the time I’m listening to my local NPR station, KCRW. Whether it’s news, lifestyle, or music content, no one does it better.
• From the Sports Desk… while I entirely disagree with any societal action that is prejudicial against transgender people, I can at least logically understand how in some sports, a biological athlete of one gender might have an unfair advantage over others based on factors such and strength, speed, endurance, and other athletic qualities.
• But what about… chess?
• The International Chess Federation (FIDE) says it is temporarily banning transgender women from competing in its women's events. What the actual fuck?
• The FIDE added that transgender players could still compete in the open section of its tournaments. Yosha Iglesias, a trans woman professional chess player with the FIDE rank of chess master, said the policy would lead to "unnecessary harm" for trans players and women.
• Let’s look at what the FIDE is saying here: that men are more capable at logic and planning and overall intelligence than women and therefore have a gender-based advantage over women? Is that what they’re saying? Because it sounds like that’s what they’re saying.
• Otherwise, why would a transgender female have any particular advantage over the other women in a competition? This is insane.
• The Sports Desk also sends congratulations to American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson. You may remember her from the Tokyo Olympics when she was disqualified after a positive marijuana test.
• Yesterday, the 23-year-old won the world title Monday in Hungary, loudly asserting her status as a Paris 2024 medal contender. She ran 100 meters in a blazing, personal-best 10.65 seconds at the 2023 World Athletics Championships. She’s currently the fastest woman in the world, and I think she’s great.
• Today in history… King Richard III dies at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485). The English civil War begins (1642). The first America’s Cup is won by a yacht called ‘America’ (1851). 12 nations sign the first Geneva Convention (1864). Cadillac Motor Company is founded (1902). Michael Collins of the Irish Free State army is shot dead in an ambush (1922). German troops begin the siege of Leningrad (1941). Nolan Ryan becomes first to get 5,000 strikeouts (1989). Roy Moore is suspended for refusing to remove a 10 Commandments rock in the Alabama Supreme Court building (2003). 
• August 22 is the birthday of physicist Denis Papin (1647), pianist/composer Claude Debussy (1862), writer/satirist Dorothy Parker (1893), filmmaker/;propagandist Leni Riefenstahl (1902), singer-songwriter/guitarist John Lee Hooker (1917), writer Ray Bradbury (1920), US general Norman Schwarzkopf (1934), actress Valerie Harper (1939), MLB player Carl Yastrzemski (1939), writer/director David Chase (1945), singer Donna Jean Godchaux (1947), actress Cindy Williams (1947), guitarist/songwriter Vernon Reid (1958), singer-songwriter Roland Orzabal (1961), singer-songwriter/pianist Tori Amos (1963), rapper GZA (1966), singer-songwriter Layne Staley (1967), actress Kristen Wiig (1973), TV host James Corden (1978), NFL player Randall Cobb (1990), singer-songwriter Dua Lipa (1995), and NFL player Maxx Crosby (1997).

That’s plenty for now. Yesterday was nice and quiet. I’m hoping for more of that today. Enjoy your day.