Random News: October 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 October 25, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. Yesterday was a huge news day. Let me see how much of it I can impart to you in the story time I have.

• God, where to even start?
• Okay.
• The long-running joke that is the Republican’s process of choosing a new Speaker of the House got even more hilarious yesterday morning after a secret internal ballot had them select Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) as the newest Speaker candidate.
• Minutes after this info became public, the shit hit the fan in MAGAland.
• First came the news that a multitude of GOP Reps went on record saying they would not support Emmer’s bid for Speaker… far more than that razor-thin margin of 4-5 no-votes required for election.
• Then well-known MAGA personalities on social media began stating that they’d primary any member of the House GOP who supported Emmer.
• And then, the Dumpalumpagus weighed in…
• “I have many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House, and some are truly great Warriors. RINO Tom Emmer, who I do not know well, is not one of them. He never respected the Power of a Trump Endorsement, or the breadth and scope of MAGA-MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! He fought me all the way, and actually spent more time defending lIhan Omar, than he did me- -He is totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters. Voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!”
• Hahahahahaha… god, what an idiot.
• And of course, moments after Trump wrote that, Emmer dropped out of the Speaker race. His chance of being Speaker lasted, oh, about four hours.
• They are all so deeply fucked, it just boggles the mind.
• Later in the day, more pointless candidates for House speaker emerged (or rejoined the fray) including Reps. Byron Donalds (R-FL), Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), Mark Green (R-TN), Mike Johnson (R-LA), and Roger Williams (R-TX).
• After meeting again behind closed doors, the latest sacrificial lamb was chosen, and it’s Mike Johnson. Among the 221 Republicans, Johnson won 128, Donalds received 29 votes, Kevin McCarthy (who was not a nominee) received 43 votes, and there was one other vote for another unnamed candidate.
• Johnson is a complete piece of shit. He was a former right-wing radio host from Louisiana who was first elected to Congress in 2016. He voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results. And Trump likes him.
• If something happens in 2024 like it did in 2020, Johnson would subvert the voters of America and hand the Presidency to Trump.
• Will Johnson get the necessary 217 votes in a floor vote? We’ll find out soon, but I think the GOP has been deeply embarrassed by this process thus far and perhaps more willing to compromise. It wouldn’t surprised me if Johnson got the gavel.
• We may see today.
• Moving on.
• Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to the former guy, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath.
• Apparently, Meadows informed Smith's team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless. Meadows also told the federal investigators Trump was being "dishonest" with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed in November 2020.
• Meadows privately told Smith's investigators that even to this day, he has yet to see any evidence of fraud that would have kept now-president Joe Biden from the White House. He told them he agrees with a government assessment at the time that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in U.S. history.
• Under the immunity order from Smith's team, the information Meadows provided to the grand jury earlier this year can't be used against him in a federal prosecution. But it’s extremely likely that Meadows — who knows every detail of Dumpy’s nefarious plans — can be expected to testify against El Dumpo at his D.C. trial.
• And Meadows is still facing those charges in Fulton County, GA, where three of Dumples’s lawyers — Sidney Powell, Ken Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis — have already pleased guilty and offered to help the prosecution.
• A little follow-up note on yesterday’s guilty plea from Dump attorney Jenna Ellis. She had been saying that she was going to fight with all her might to defend herself against these spurious charges, and just needed some money to mount her defense.
• So the MAGA community rushed to her aid, and donated $216,431 via a crowdsourcing site.
• Well-known right-wingers spread the word. Figures like Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro, One America News’ Liz Wheeler, conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, Fox Host Mark Levin, Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, and many others posted links to Ellis’ fundraiser and/or urged their followers to donate.
• Now they’re bigly mad at her.
• “Jenna Ellis scammed all of you who donated to her. I TOLD YOU NOT TO DONATE TO THIS DISLOYAL WENCH… She’s now going to use the money so many of you foolishly gave her to work against President Trump in an election year. Shame on every single MORON who donated to Jenna Ellis.”  - MAGA psycho Laura Loomer
• “Is she pocketing the money? I think she should return it.” Pro-Trump political consultant Alex Bruesewitz
• As you know, Ellis is the fourth person indicted in the Fulton County, GA RICO case to accept a plea deal in exchange for testimony, following bail bondsman Scott Hall, election attorney Sidney Powell, and lawyer Ken Chesebro.
• Tick tock, Donnie.
• Let’s do one more piece of El Dumpo news.
• Dumpy and his former attorney/fixer Michael Cohen came face-to-face in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday, their first in-person meeting since Cohen flipped on his boss five years ago.
• With Dumples looking on angrily, Cohen testified that Dump was at the top of a conspiracy to defraud banks and insurers about his worth.
• "I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected. And my responsibility, along with Allen Weisselberg, primarily, was to reverse engineer" the value of Trump Organization assets, Cohen added, "in order to achieve the number that Mr. Trump tasked us."
• Lordy. Cohen is back on the stand right now, delivering his second day of testimony against Dump, who is facing $250 million in damages and being barred from doing business in New York.
• Now let’s move on.
• It’s been awhile since we delved into the topic of the Republican party’s plans to control the bodies of women across America.
• And I told you before about a seemingly dystopian nightmare where women would be stopped on roads by law enforcement to see if they were pregnant.
• Well, Lubbock County, TX has now voted to ban women from using their roads to seek abortions.
• During a meeting on Monday, the Lubbock County Commissioners Court passed an ordinance banning abortion, abortion-inducing drugs and travel for abortion in the unincorporated areas of Lubbock County, declaring Lubbock County a "Sanctuary County for the Unborn."
• The ordinance was passed by a vote of 3-0 by commissioners Terence Kovar, Jason Corley and Jordan Rackler, all Republicans.
• They also made a statement saying travel-related restrictions on abortion is worthy of being placed in every state in America.
• In related news, the Georgia State Supreme Court upheld the state’s six-week abortion ban in a ruling yesterday morning.
• Georgia’s LIFE Act bans abortion when early cardiac activity is detected – which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, when many women don’t yet know they are pregnant.
• You have the power to stop this now. You can vote for candidates who support a woman’s right to have autonomy over her own body and her reproductive choices.
• If we codify abortion rights at the national level, all this bullshit goes away. If we don’t, you or your wife or daughter might be stopped while driving and forced to take a pregnancy test on the roadside. You like that? No? Stop voting for politicians who do.
• Moving on.
• Believe it nor not, some good news out of Washington, D.C.
• The Senate voted 98-0 yesterday to approve President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, ending a span of nearly 19 months in which the agency was without a Senate-confirmed chief.
• Michael Whitaker is a former deputy FAA administrator who will take over an agency that faces many challenges, including a surge in close calls between planes at major airports, a shortage of air traffic controllers, and aging technology that resulted in a brief nationwide halt in flights in January.
• More good news? Sure.
• Some genuinely wonderful news out of Franklin, TN, the Nashville suburb where incumbent Mayor Ken Moore easily defeated insane MAGA white supremacist, Christian nationalist Gabrielle Hanson.
• Hanson not only lost; she got creamed. 12,822 votes (79.4%) voted for Moore, compared to Hanson's 3,322 votes (20.6%). Good. Fuck all MAGA pieces of shit.
• Back in Texas, yesterday the state sued the Biden administration, seeking to stop federal agents from cutting the state’s razor wire that has gashed or snagged migrants as they have attempted to enter the U.S. from Mexico at the Rio Grande.
• Attorney General and amazing asshole Ken Paxton accuses the Biden administration of “undermining” the state’s border security efforts.
• Fuck you, Ken.
• Let’s go over to California, where police officers pulled over a pregnant woman and her eight-year-old son at gunpoint while on the way to the boy’s football practice in a case of mistaken identity.
• Shanice Stewart, who is nine months pregnant, said she knew she was not just pulled over for a traffic violation when she saw the police officers had drawn their guns and instructed her to throw her keys out of the window and open the car door with her left hand.
• The officers first believed her son Brandon was an older juvenile suspect with two pending felony warrants. Brandon is eight years old, in third grade, and four feet tall.
• Good job, cops. I wonder… for what reasons that this little boy was mistaken for a dangerous criminal?
• “We must acknowledge that a case of mistaken identity occurred. Our officers provided explanation and an apology to the mother and her son. Our department has been in contact with the mother since the incident. We recognize the impact that police interactions can have on our community members.”
• And now, The Weather: “Do You” by Maple Glider
• Rest in peace to actor Richard Roundtree, who was best known for his performance as the tough-talking private eye “Shaft from 1971. He died yesterday at age 81.
• Pest control company Orkin has released their annual list of the “Rattiest Cities in America”, based on the number of new rodent services and the efforts that residents and businesses of the top cities have taken to treat rodent issues.
• Here’s the top 5: Chicago (leading the way for the ninth consecutive year), followed by Los Angeles, New York City, Washington D.C., and San Francisco.
• Fun fact: everyone hates rats, but everyone loves squirrels (which are basically cuter rats).
• From the Sports Desk… we have a World Series matchup! The AL champion Texas Rangers will host the Arizona Diamondbacks for Game 1 on Friday. 
• How likely was this matchup? Pretty fucking not at all. Betting analysts say the preseason odds of a D-backs-Rangers World Series were +175000. If you had put down $10 on these two teams meeting in the World Series before the season started, you’d have won $17,510 total.
• The Rangers are favored to win this series pretty handily, but we’ll watch the games and see.
• Today in history… Execution of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, the patron saints of leather workers, curriers, and shoemakers (285). Henry V of England, with his lightly armoured infantry and archers, defeats the heavily armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt (1415). King George III succeeds to the British throne on the death of his grandfather George II (1760). The Battle of Balaclava takes place during the Crimean War (1854). Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army (1940). Adlai Stevenson shows the United Nations Security Council reconnaissance photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba (1962). Microsoft releases Windows XP (2001).
• October 25 is the birthday of astronomer Heinrich Schwabe (1789), composer Georges Bizet (1838), businessman John Francis Dodge (1864), artist Pablo Picasso (1881), aviator/explorer Richard E. Byrd (1888), antisemitic piece of shit Charles Coughlin (1891), comedian Minnie Pearl (1912), drummer Earl Palmer (1924), actress Marion Ross (1928), basketball coach Bob Knight (1940), singer-songwriter Helen Reddy (1941), singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Jon Anderson (1944), political consultant James Carville (1944), songwriter/guitarist Glenn Tipton (1947), NFL player John Matuszak (1950), singer-songwriter/guitarist Richard Lloyd (1951), voice actress Nancy Cartwright (1957), drummer Chad Smith (1961), comedian/host Samantha Bee (1969), singer-songwriter/guitarist Ed Robertson (1970), actor Craig Robinson (1971), singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Bat for Lashes (1979), singer-songwriter Katy Perry (1984), and singer-songwriter Ciara (1985).

That’s way too much news. We need less news. I want to wake up some day and be like, “Today, the sun was shining and a dog was barking and butterflies were… flying.” Enjoy your day.