Random News: September 20, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s September 20, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives. Let’s do the news…

• In our continuing coverage of the people who attempted and failed to commit a coup against the USA on January 6, 2021, here’s an interesting one.
• Ray Epps, a former Marine and Trump supporter who became the center of a conspiracy theory, has been charged in connection with the insurrection. Epps is charged with disorderly or disruptive conduct on restricted grounds. He's expected to appear in court tomorrow for a plea agreement.
• In the years since the 2021 riot, Epps has been accused of being a government plant on January 6, 2021. Far-right conspiracy theorists believe he was part of a plot to turn the “peaceful protest” into a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol.
• There’s been no evidence to suggest the conspiracy theory has any basis in truth. The FBI in April responded to repeated "60 Minutes" inquiries on the issue with a statement, saying: "Ray Epps has never been an FBI source or an FBI employee."
• So fuck Ray Epps and fuck the MAGAs and QAnons who turn on each other. They all get what they deserve. I’ll update you on Epps’ trial when it happens.
• Let’s do some positive news, in the form of the newly-announced American Climate Corps.
• Today the White House unveiled a new climate jobs training program that it says could put 20,000 people to work in its first year on projects like restoring land, improving communities' resilience to natural disasters and deploying clean energy.
• The American Climate Corps is modeled after a program that put millions to work during the Great Depression. President Biden's climate policy adviser Ali Zaidi says that the program has broader goals beyond addressing the climate crisis.
• "We're opening up pathways to good-paying careers, lifetimes of being involved in the work of making our communities more fair, more sustainable, more resilient."
• That’s awesome. The program will pay participants, and most positions will not require previous experience. The administration is also proposing new regulations aimed at making it easier for participants to enter the federal public service after the program.
• In other, much more annoying news…
• Here’s the funny thing about the pending government shutdown: the people who are forcing the shutdown (Republicans) are fighting other people (who are also Republicans) about the shutdown, when all of them are 100% aware that the spending cuts insisted by GOP hardliners have no hope of being passed by the Senate or signed by President Joe Biden. Their plan is dead on arrival.
• Instead, all that will happen is that federal workers who provide basic services will be furloughed, troops will go unpaid, and the economy will be severely damaged if the impasse is prolonged.
• The House Republicans, with their razor thin margin of majority, are already on thin ice due to their support of measures that control women’s reproductive rights and their focus on topics like drag queens rather than the things that affect everyday Americans.
• A shutdown now could sour voters on the small House majority they gave to Republicans in the midterm elections in 2022, and also slim the chances of any Republican to win at any level, including the presidency, in 2024.
• As it stands, with a Republican majority so thin that Speaker Kevin McCarthy can lose only four votes with its current margin to pass any legislation, and the party so bitterly divided that none of them will acquiesce anything, there’s almost no chance that they’ll do the primary job we hired them to do, which is to pass a budget.
• The only solution is to vote every single one of them out at the earliest opportunity… especially the extremist right-wing coalition. Frankly, that’s the only way the Republican party can save itself and have any hope of continuing in the future.
• Let’s move on.
• Speaking of polarized places, good news out of Pennsylvania. Democrat Lindsay Powell, a nonprofit worker and former staffer for the city of Pittsburgh, won a special election yesterday and gave her party control of the state House of Representatives.
• Powell’s victory was expected, but it's still important because it tips the balance of power in the statehouse’s lower chamber back to Democrats, who will hold 102 seats after she is seated, compared to Republicans’ 101 seats.
• It’s a very similar situation in New Hampshire, where yesterday Democrat Hal Rafter beat Republican James Guzofski by 12 percentage points. Since the seat had been held by a Republican, the Democrats picked up one seat, giving Republicans just a one-seat advantage in the state House.
• There are now 198 Republicans, 197 Democrats, two Independents, and three vacant seats in the New Hampshire House. Amazing.
• In comedy news…
• The three fake Republican electors charged in Georgia’s election subversion case will try to convince a federal judge today to move their case into federal court.
• Former Georgia GOP chair David Shafer, Georgia state Sen. Shawn Still and former Coffee County GOP chair Cathy Latham might have had at least a chance of this if they were actual federal officials. But these fake GOP electors weren’t federal officials in 2020.
• Their lawyers argue that since they were acting under the direction of then-President Donald Trump, they were “essentially” federal officials. Ha ha ha ha ha, oh sweet Lordy.
• Let’s move on.
• Food giant Kraft Heinz has announced it is recalling more than 83,000 cases of individually wrapped Kraft Singles American processed cheese slices due to a potential choking hazard.
• Uh oh.
• The recall applies to 16-ounce Kraft Singles American Pasteurized Prepared Cheese products with a use-by date between Jan. 10, 2024, and Jan. 27, 2024, and other cheesy packages.
• The voluntary recall came after it discovered that one of its wrapping machines allowed for thin strips of film to remain on the cheese slices after the wrapper is removed, thereby allowing the intermingling of the plastic wrap with the plastic-like cheese.
• Let’s just move on.
• Convicted murderer Billy Chemirmir was killed in prison yesterday morning. He was found dead in his cell at the Coffield Unit in Tennessee Colony. 
• His cellmate, who is also serving a sentence for murder, was identified as the person who killed him. Chemirmir was suspected of killing more than two dozen elderly victims across Dallas and Collin counties. He would also take the jewelry of his victims and sell it for cash.
• He… probably won’t be missed.
• There’s another big developing schism in the GOP… and it’s back on the topic of abortion.
• Trump knows that laws that limit women’s reproductive rights are tremendously unpopular. And sine he doesn’t actually give a shit about the topic, he’s going to say anything that helps gain him votes.
• That’s why he said in an interview last weekend that a six-week abortion ban is "a terrible thing and a terrible mistake," one of the few area where Trump and I are in agreement.
• But now, by playing both side of that fence, he’s at odds with the crazies in his party. Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) defended legislation she signed that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, saying, "It’s never a ‘terrible thing’ to protect innocent life. I’m proud of the fetal heartbeat bill the Iowa legislature passed and I signed in 2018 and again earlier this year."
• Already, some states are trying to make it a criminal offense for you, as a woman, to seek medical treatment outside of the state, or for me, as a decent human, to help you do so.
• We’ll be talking about this topic a whole lot more as we get deeper into the next election cycle.
• And now, The Weather: “Le Temple Volant” by Crumb & Melody's Echo Chamber
• In hilarious news from this morning, Donald Trump Jr.’s Twitter got hacked once again. They’ve since fixed it, and I’m not going to repost what was written there, but I promise you, I was laughing loudly. You can probably see the sceencaps over there on that shithole site.
• Per the just-released U.S. News list, two California-based school are the top public universities in the country. The top spot was grabbed by UC Berkeley, while the second place ranking went to UCLA.
• The rest of the top ten includes U Michigan Ann Arbor, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, UC Davis, UC San Diego, University of Florida, UTA, and Georgia Tech.
• For today’s chart, we’re going back exactly 60 years to September 1963, not long before the British Invasion of the Beatles, Stones, and the rest a few months later. Lots of soundtracks… those were big then. Lots of folk and pop-folk. The beginnings of R&B crossing over the the pop charts. Some surf rock.
• 1. My Son, The Nut (Allan Sherman). 2. Trini Lopez At PJ's (Trini Lopez). 3. Bye Bye Birdie (Soundtrack). 4.(Moving) (Peter, Paul & Mary). 5. Peter, Paul And Mary (Peter, Paul & Mary). 6. Little Stevie Wonder/The 12 Year Old Genius (Stevie Wonder). 7. West Side Story (Soundtrack). 8. Days Of Wine And Roses (Andy Williams). 9. Sunny Side! (The Kingston Trio). 10. Live At The Apollo (James Brown). 11. Hollywood-My Way (Nancy Wilson). 12. Surfin' U.S.A. (The Beach Boys), 13, Shut Down (Various Artists). 14. Lawrence Of Arabia (Soundtrack). 15. So Much In Love (The Tymes). 16. Joan Baez In Concert (Joan Baez). 17. The Barbra Streisand Album (Barbra Streisand). 18. Cleopatra (Soundtrack). 19. Wipe Out (The Surfaris). 20. Joan Baez (Joan Baez).
• From the Sports Desk… the baseball season is coming to a close and the playoffs are about to get rolling. The following teams have secured a playoff spot this far…
• American League: Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays. National League: Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers.
• The following teams have been eliminated from playoff contention…
• American League: Los Angeles Angels, Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals, and Oakland Athletics. National League: Washington Nationals and Colorado Rockies.
• There are less than ten games left in the regular season. Major League Baseball playoffs begin on Tuesday October 3.
• Today in history… Saladin begins the Siege of Jerusalem (1187). Cardinal Robert of Geneva is elected as Pope Clement VII, beginning the Papal schism (1378). The Nankai tsunami washes away the building housing the Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in, and it’s been outside ever since (1498). Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda which ultimately culminated in the first circumnavigation the globe (1519). The future King Edward VII of the United Kingdom begins the first visit to North America by a Prince of Wales (1860). U.S. President Chester A. Arthur is sworn in upon the death of James A. Garfield the previous day (1881). British police known as "Black and Tans" burned the town of Balbriggan and killed two local men in revenge for an Irish Republican Army (IRA) assassination (1920). The first Cannes Film Festival is held, having been delayed seven years due to World War II (1946). James Meredith, an African American, is temporarily barred from entering the University of Mississippi (1962). Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome (1973). Singer Jim Croce, songwriter and musician Maury Muehleisen and four others die when their light aircraft crashes on takeoff at Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana (1973). American football players in the National Football League begin a 57-day strike (1982). In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a "War on Terror” (2001). The United States military ends its "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time (2011). Hurricane Maria makes landfall in Puerto Rico as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, resulting in 2,975 deaths, $90 billion in damage, and a major humanitarian crisis (2017). Roughly four million people, mostly students, demonstrate across the world to address climate change, and 16-year-old Greta Thunberg from Sweden leads the demonstration in New York City (2019).
• September 20 is the birthday of inventor Frederick Ellsworth Sickels (1819), publisher Herbert Putnam (1861), novelist Upton Sinclair (1878), actor Kenneth More (1914), animator Jay Ward (1920), actress Anne Meara (1929), actress Sophia Loren (1934), guitarist Eric Gale (1938), businessman/politician Pete Coors (1946), novelist George R. R. Martin (1948), bass player Chuck Panozzo (1948), drummer John Panozzo (1948), NHL player Guy Lafleur (1951), singer-songwriter Alannah Currie (1957), singer-songwriter/guitarist Nuno Bettencourt (1966), singer-songwriters/musicians Gunnar and Matthew Nelson (1967),  songwriter/musician Ben Shepherd (1969), and NFL player Dante Hall (1978).

I suppose that’s enough. Enjoy your day.