Random News: September 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 September 22, 2023, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! My significant other finally returns from a land down under tonight, so I’m looking forward to things getting back to whatever my version of normal is around here. But first, let’s see what’s going on.

• Happy first day of Fall 2023… maybe.
• If you’re on the West Coast like me, the autumnal equinox — the moment the sun is directly on the planet’s equator — is today at exactly 11:50PM PDT. In most other places, it will already be Saturday, September 23 before the moment of the equinox happens.
• So happy autumn regardless. This is often my favorite time of year.
• For pagans, the autumnal equinox is a holiday known variously as Harvest Home, Mabon, the Feast of the Ingathering, Meán Fómhair, An Clabhsúr, or Alban Elfed. It is a festival of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth and a recognition of the need to share them to secure the blessings of the Goddess and the Gods during the coming winter months.
• You can celebrate (or not) however you like. It’s a free country. I’m going to dance around naked, which I try and do as often as possible, but I don’t mention it unless I have a valid reason.
• Also, there are 100 days remaining in 2023. Time goes by. Hopefully you’re enjoying whatever time you have.
• Now, the news.
• Next time a conservative whines to you that “they only go after Republicans”, you can tell them about Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). A federal grand jury in New York has returned an indictment against the chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee.
• The investigation focused on a luxury car, gold bars and an apartment allegedly received by Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, who was also indicted. The indictment charges Menendez, 69, and his wife with having a corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen -- Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daides.
• And guess what? If he’s guilty, throw his ass in jail, or whatever the punishment is. When we say, “No one is above the law,” we literally mean NO ONE. It doesn’t matter if they’re Republican or Democrat, blue or red, black or white, tall of short, man or woman.
• Justice is only just when it’s applied equally to everyone. Get it?
• Moving on.
• Speaker Kevin McCarthy sent his House members home for the week without a clear plan to avoid a looming government shutdown after the right-wing freaks in the Republican conference once again scuttled his spending plans, delivering an embarrassing floor defeat for GOP leadership for the second time this week.
• McCarthy slammed his far-right flank for wanting to “burn the place down,” after conservatives dramatically bucked McCarthy and GOP leadership on a procedural vote over a Pentagon funding bill, throwing the House into total paralysis.
• It’s not that they can’t pass a budget; they can’t even pass a rule on how to pass a budget. The GOP-led Congress is completely at a standstill, unable to perform the most basic task that we elect them to do.
• “It’s frustrating in the sense that I don’t understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea and having the debate,” said Kevin yesterday.
• So, unless something drastically changes, which it won’t, count on a government shutdown after September 30.
• Also, don’t be surprised if McCarthy ends up ousted from his role in the near future.
• In other news…
• Vice President Kamala Harris will lead a new federal office of gun violence prevention, the White House said yesterday. President Joe Biden will formally announce the new office today during a Rose Garden event.
• Harris has played a leading role in gun safety policy. Longtime Biden aide Stefanie Feldman, who has worked on gun policy for more than a decade, will serve as its director.
• Good. I like this. And more good news…
• Millions of Americans with unpaid medical bills would no longer have that debt show up on credit reports under proposals being considered by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• The agency, which is soliciting feedback from small businesses that may be affected, expects to issue a proposed rule next year. If the rule is finalized, consumer credit companies would be barred from including medical debt and collection information on reports that creditors use to make underwriting decisions.
• Right on.
• In tragic and yet perplexing news, the family of a North Carolina man has sued Google, claiming the company’s Maps application last year led him to drive off a collapsed bridge and fall about 20 feet to his death.
• Philip Paxson was following Google Maps directions while driving home late at night in September 2022 from his daughter’s 9th birthday party when the navigation system directed him to go over an unmarked and unbarricaded bridge that had collapsed years prior.
• I’m trying to be sympathetic here and maybe there was no way for the guy to know the bridge was out. But I would never just drive somewhere because a fucking robot told me to do so.
• Maybe that’s just me.
• In “evil piece of shit” news, meet Michael Andrew Martinez, a former Doña Ana County, NM sheriff’s deputy.
• Martinez arrested a woman at a traffic accident, handcuffed her, and then sexually assaulted her in the back of his patrol vehicle. Then, realizing he had committed a crime on camera (what an idiot), he tried to destroy the WatchGuard DVR system… but the video remained and was found by Motorola and then investigators.
• He is charged with deprivation of rights under color of law and obstruction of justice. Cops who commit crimes while acting in a position of authority should (and generally do) get much higher sentences than typical criminals.
• I don’t know what the sentencing guidelines are, but I hope Martinez serves 25 to life.
• In other bad behavior news, the DOJ has arrested and charged an IT contractor with two counts of espionage for allegedly taking secret and top-secret information from the State Department and sending it to a foreign country.
• Abraham Teklu Lemma, a foreign national with U.S. citizenship, was working as an evening help desk technician assigned to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research with the U.S. Department of State when he is alleged to have copied large amounts of classified information, including documents, photographs, notes, maps and satellite imagery, and transmitted it to a foreign country using an encrypted messaging application.
• Honestly, from cops to doctors to coaches to even IT help desk workers, there’s nothing worse than any person who’s been put in a position of trust and then violates that for their own benefit.
• And perhaps the ultimate example of this is the case of a Supreme Court justice.
• Per a new report, Clarence Thomas attended at least two donor events for the Koch network.
• Thomas in 2018 went to a private dinner for donors at the group’s annual summit in California and was brought into speak with the hopes that the access would encourage donations.
• Charles and David Koch have poured millions into conservative and libertarian causes. David Koch died in 2019. 
• Thomas did not disclose the trip to the summit on his annual financial disclosure, much like other luxury gifts provided to him by conservative entities that would benefit from cases Thomas had before the Court.
• Let’s move on… to something very encouraging.
• I’ve mentioned a few of the recent special elections in states like Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. They might not seem like big deals on their own.
• But in these special elections so far this year, Democrats are outperforming by an average of 7.4 percentage points. Some of them, like in New Hampshire where a Democrat flipped a state House seat from red to blue in a district that heavily backed Donald Trump in the 2020 cycle, show a distinct trend that I think will carry over to the bigger elections next year.
• On average, Dems have won by margins 11 points higher than the weighted relative partisanship of their districts. In each of the past three election cycles, a party’s average overperformance in all special elections in a given cycle has been a close match for the eventual House popular vote in the eventual general election.
• So I’m going to say it now, and with your help it will happen: in 2024, Democrats will keep the presidency, keep the Senate, and re-take the House. Women who want to protect their reproductive freedom and millions of young Gen Z voters will be crucial to this, and I believe they will come through.
• And now, The Weather: “The Deal” by Mitski
• A tropical or subtropical storm seems to be forming off the Southeast U.S. coast, and it will spread heavy rain, strong wind gusts, high surf, coastal flooding and rip currents up the East Coast into the weekend. be safe, people.
• From the Sports Desk… as expected, in last night’s NFL game with the New York Giants visiting the San Francisco 49ers, the Niners won pretty handily 30-12. In the game, RB Christian McCaffrey tied Jerry Rice's 49ers record for consecutive games with a touchdown.
• Rice held this title solo from 1987 up until last night, when McCaffrey scored a touchdown in his 12th straight game. That dude is a monster.
• Today in history… The last hanging of those convicted of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials, including Samuel Wardwell, my 10th great-grandfather (1692). George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz are crowned King and Queen of Great Britain (1761). Nathan Hale is hanged for spying during the American Revolution (1776). Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history at the time (1896). The steel strike of 1919 begins in Pennsylvania before spreading across the United States (1919). On Rosh Hashanah, the German SS murders 6,000 Jews in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, who are the survivors of the previous killings that took place a few days earlier in which about 24,000 Jews were executed (1941). François Duvalier is elected president of Haiti (1957). Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford (1975). Iraq invades Iran, sparking the nearly eight year Iran–Iraq War (1980). 
• September 22 is the birthday of Chinese emperor Li Zicheng (1606), physicist Michael Faraday (1791), actor Paul Muni (1895), actor John Houseman (1902), Nazi war criminal Ilse Koch (1906), MLB player/manager Bob Lemon (1920), MLB player/manager Tommy Lasorda (1927), NBA commissioner David Stern (1942), singer/choreographer Toni Basil (1943), singer-songwriter King Sunny Adé (1946), singer-songwriter David Coverdale (1951), singer Debby Boone (1956), bass player Doug Wimbish (1956), singer-songwriter Nick Cave (1957), singer-songwriter/bass player Johnette Napolitano (1957), singer Andrea Bocelli (1958), singer-songwriter/guitarist Joan Jett (1958), and actor Tom Felton (1987).

That’s plenty of stuff. I’m sure glad it’s Friday. Enjoy your day.