Random News: August 25, 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 25, 2023, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I’ve had a reasonably good week and I’m looking to wrap it up on a high note. Let’s take a look around the world and see what interesting shit catches our eye…

• The day many people waited for — frankly for decades — arrived yesterday when Donald John Trump turned himself in at the Fulton County jail on more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to reverse Georgia’s 2020 election results.
• It wasn’t a big event. The Orange Menace spent a little more than 20 minutes at the Fulton County jail, where he was processed and released on bond. His booking number was P01135809.
• Side note: I’ve been singing Donnie’s criminal booking number as if it was the song by Tommy Tutone. Those who know will know.
• A mug shot of Trump was released soon after he left the jail. He looks completely deranged, meaning it was an accurate portrayal of the man.
• Right after The Dumpster was booked, co-defendants Jeffrey Clark, Emily Hayes, Michael Roman, Shawn Still, and Robert Cheeley had surrendered at the jail. That leaves only two of the 19 defendants remaining: Stephen Lee, an Illinois police chaplain, and Trevian Kutti, a former publicist for Kanye West. They have a couple of hours left before being brought in via warrant. By the time I post this, they may already be in custody.
• Anyway, that was fun. But the bigger news was going on earlier in the day. I’ll start by saying that if there’s such a thing as a Fani Willis fan club, I want to sign up immediately as a Fani Fan.
• The Fulton County, GA District Attorney has proposed an astonishingly quick start to the trial for Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants in Georgia. Why?
• She called their bluff. After co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro demanded yesterday that he get a speedy trial (as is his constitutional right), Willis was very agreeable, saying she’d be more than happy to put all 19 defendants on trial starting October 23, 2023—just eight weeks away.
• Willis had originally proposed a March 2024 trial date. Chesebro’s gamble was that Willis wasn’t ready. He was wrong. He done fucked up.
• Judge Scott McAfee — I like that guy! — who has been handling the initial booking and bond proceedings for the 19 defendants agreed to the October 23 trial date for Chesebro. Ha!
• Of course, neither Chesebro nor any of the other defendants were actually ready for this same-day response. Trump’s brand new attorney, Steve Sadow, quickly objected to Willis’ proposed trial date and indicated he would file a motion to sever Trump’s case from Chesebro’s and from “any other co-defendant who files such a demand.”
• You know how Trump claims that each of his indictments and arrests drive him upward in the polls? Like almost everything Don the Con says, that’s not true.
• A new POLITICO/Ipsos poll provides some bad news for The Crime King: while he remains the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination, the cascading indictments are likely to take a toll on his general election prospects.
• Fifty-nine percent of respondents in the poll said that the federal trial in Trump’s 2020 election subversion case should take place before the 2024 Republican primaries begin early next year. 61 percent of all respondents said that the trial should take place before the general election next November.
• Nearly 90 percent of Democratic respondents sought an early trial date and roughly a third of Republican respondents agreed.
• It was the reaction of independents, however, that may prove most ominous for Trump. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of independents said that Trump should stand trial before next November.
• About half of the country — including overwhelming majorities of Democrats and roughly half of independents — believe that Trump is guilty of the series of charges.
• If he is convicted, 50 percent of respondents said that he should go to prison, including a large majority of Democrats (87 percent) and a slight majority of independents (51 percent).
• To wrap this up, the poll respondent’s unfavorable rating of Trump was far above that of Joe Biden, as well as the “villains” of the MAGA world like Merrick Garland and Jack Smith.
• Let’s move on for now.
• Vivek Ramaswamy certainly got some attention at Wednesday night’s GOP presidential debates. His name was Googled over a million times in the hours following the debate. That surge in interest put Ramaswamy at the top of Google’s daily search trends, above the Inter Miami soccer team’s anticipated U.S. Open match, Rudy Giuliani’s arrest that day, and Yevgeny Prigozhin’s reported death.
• He also raised almost a half mil in funds after the debate.
• Ramaswamy is a terrible piece of shit — a 9/11 conspiracist and a believer that young adults shouldn’t be allowed to vote without passing tests —  but I love that there’s a viable candidate who will draw support and enthusiasm away from He Who Shall Not Be Named. Plus, Ramaswamy’s newfound attention will be a huge cause of angst to Ron De Santis, so win-win.
• How did President Biden’s campaign react to the GOP debate? Their answers were so awful, Biden used them in a new ad that features a series of Republicans discussing the end of Roe v. Wade and calling for national limits on abortion.
• The spot will run online and in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 
• And now, The Weather: “D 4 N” by Laura Groves
• Hundreds of thousands of people are without power in Michigan after a tornado ripped through Ingham County last night. Ohioans also are dealing with power outages and damage from a series of storms. Good luck, folks.
• Somewhat good news in relation to the Maui fires: only roughly 388 people remain unaccounted for, which is a big drop from the 1,300 folks missing a few days back.
• Also in weather: parts of Chicago hit a “feels like” temp of 120 degrees yesterday. GOP politicians and candidates continue to refuse to acknowledge mankind’s effect on the climate.
• I have two pieces of news regarding the private space exploration firm SpaceX.
• A SpaceX and NASA mission that was set to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station was abruptly called off Thursday evening. They said only that they were delaying the liftoff time to Saturday, August 26 because it “provides teams additional time to complete and discuss analysis,” whatever that means.
• That crew includes a NASA commander, a Danish co-pilot, a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut.
• Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but the same day, the US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against SpaceX for allegedly discriminating against refugees in its hiring practices.
• The suit claims that “from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX routinely discouraged asylum seekers and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
• SpaceX also falsely claimed in its job listings that only green card holders and United States citizens could work at the company because of federal export control laws.
• SpaceX is owned by Elon Musk… an immigrant from Africa.
• Moving on. To Florida. Because Florida.
• Wild monkeys spotted in parts of the state have prompted authorities to issue warnings about the primates, urging people to not feed or attempt to capture the animals. 
• Per to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, these monkeys "pose a variety of environmental and human health concerns," and some of the monkeys in Florida have tested positive for herpes B. 
• Seeing monkeys is weird even in Florida. Having herpes in Florida is not at all weird.
• For charts today, we’re checking out the Billboard 200 album chart for this week in 1975. I was six years old. Some very good stuff in here. How lucky am I in my career choice? Well, I just counted, and out of the 20 albums listed below, I’ve been able to interview or hang out with people who were involved with 10 of them that I recall. Not too shabby.
• 1. One Of These Nights (Eagles). 2. The Heat Is On (The Isley Brothers). 3. Red Octopus (Jefferson Starship). 4. Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy (Elton John). 5. Cut The Cake (Average White Band). 6. Cat Stevens Greatest Hits (Cat Stevens). 7. Between The Lines (Janis Ian). 8. Love Will Keep Us Together (Captain & Tennille). 9. Why Can't We Be Friends? (War). 10. The Basement Tapes (Bob Dylan And The Band). 11. That's The Way Of The World (Soundtrack) (Earth, Wind & Fire). 12. Fandango! (ZZ Top). 13. Gorilla (James Taylor). 14. Toys In The Attic (Aerosmith). 15. Venus And Mars (Wings). 16. Melissa (Melissa Manchester). 17. Greatest Hits (Tony Orlando & Dawn). 18. Horizon (Carpenters). 19. Chocolate Chip (Isaac Hayes). 20. Diamonds & Rust (Joan Baez).
• From the Sports Desk… in more track and field news from the Budapest championships, U.S. athletes Janee' Kassanavoid and DeAnna Price secured silver and bronze respectively behind meet winner Camryn Rogers of Canada in the women's hammer throw competition.
• Those are some strong ladies!
• Today in history… Byzantine emperor Constantine V discovers a plot against him and executes the leaders (766). António Mota and a few of his friends become the first Europeans to visit Japan (1543). Gallileo demonstrates his first telescope (1609). A hoax is published in ‘The New York Sun’ about the discovery of life and civilization on the Moon (1835). Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim across the English Channel (1875). Germany purposefully destroys the library of the Catholic University, losing hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts in WWI (1914). The British Royal Air Force bombs Berlin in WWII for the first time (1940). Paris is liberated by the Allies during WWII (1944). American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell is shot and killed by a former member of his group (1967). ‘Voyager 2’ makes its closest approach to Saturn (1981). ’Voyager 2’ makes its closest approach to Neptune (1989). Belarus gains its independence from the Soviet Union (1991). Linus Torvalds announces the first version of Linux (1991). Aaliyah is killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas (2001). Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in Florida (2005). ’Voyager 1’ becomes the first man-made object to enter interstellar space (2012). Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Texas as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2004 (2017).
• August 25 is the birthday of Russian ruler Ivan the Terrible (1530), painter George Stubbs (1724), Bavarian king Ludwig I (1786), writer/activist John Neal (1793), detective/spy Allan Pinkerton (1819), dentist Henry Trendly Dean (1893), actor Van Johnson (1916), actor Mel Ferrer (1917), athlete Althea Gibson (1927), actor Sean Connery (1930), TV host Regis Philbin (1931), saxophonist/composer Wayne Shorter (1933), MLB player Rollie Fingers (1946), singer-songwriter/bass player Gene Simmons (1949), singer-songwriter Rob Halford (1951), keyboardist/composer Geoff Downes (1952), singer-songwriter Elvis Costello (1954), director Tim Burton (1958), singer-songwriter Billy Ray Cyrus (1961), guitarist/composer Vivian Campbell (1962), rapper Shock G (1963), singer-songwriter/murder victim Mia Zapata (1965), singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy (1967), NBA player Robert Horry (1970), model Claudia Schiffer (1970), actor Alexander Skarsgård (1976), actress Blake Lively (1987), and MLB player Max Muncy (1990).

Well, I guess that’s all for now. Last weekend I was getting ready for a hurricane. Today I’m just looking forward to my sushi lunch, as is my Friday tradition. Enjoy your day.