Random News: November 18, 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 November 18, 2023, and it’s a Saturday. I have a hot cup of Peet’s Major Dickasons’s Blend and I’m in my blue robe, which reminds me of a story…

• I was about 16 and was getting high in my room one weekend morning at my parents’ house, trying to be discreet about it. I was wearing only a ratty old green robe at the moment. I was using matches, and went to go light a bong hit… and dropped the match.
• I don’t know what material that ‘80s robe was made from, but I heard a “FWUMP” sound and my entire robe burst into flame. 
• I ripped off the robe and, stark naked and heart pounding, stamped out the tiny inferno, and between the matches, the weed, and the flaming poly-cotton, my room smelled like a chemical factory in a jungle. I was otherwise unharmed.
• Memmmmmmoriessss…
• Let’s do some news.
• Elon Musk fucked up. Badly.
• I reported recently how he endorsed a very antisemitic post on X, the social network formerly called Twitter, which Musk owns.
• As a reminder, someone posted a rather classic bigoted statement saying Jews “have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them” and that “hordes of minorities” flood Western countries, to which Musk re-shared the post and responded, “You have said the actual truth.”
• He sent that to his more than 160 million followers, many of whom are people who are very influenced by the owner of the platform.
• Well, as the old saying goes… fuck around and find out.
• By this morning, IBM, Disney, Apple, Paramount, Comcast NBCUniversal, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, and others had all stopped advertising on X/Twitter. Thousands of other smaller but significant advertisers stopped doing business with the platform as well.
• Apple alone spends tens of millions per year on Twitter ads. Or, at least they did, before it became a platform for racial and ethnic hatred.
• Musk has owned Twitter for only about 15 months. It’s amazing how quickly a truly incompetent person can destroy a formerly successful business.
• Before Elon bought Twitter, advertising made up about 90% of the company’s revenue. It’s unclear how much of X's revenue currently comes from ads, because it's now a private company and no longer publishes quarterly reports. But estimates show advertising down by far over 50% well before this latest fuckup.
• To wrap this up for now, this morning, Musk vowed to hit Media Matters for America, a nonprofit media watchdog group, with a “thermonuclear lawsuit” after the organization published a story showcasing major companies’ advertisements appearing next to bigoted and white nationalist posts.
• Media Matters found a dozen instances of ads run by companies including Amazon, NBCUniversal Catalyst, and NBA Mexico next to posts featuring “White Lives Matter” and “white pride world wide” hashtags.
• Moving on.
• A Denver District Court judge ruled yesterday that former president and current accused felon Donald John Trump engaged in insurrection during the January 6, 2021 failed coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol, but rejected an effort to keep him off the state's primary ballot because it's unclear whether a Civil War-era Constitutional amendment barring insurrectionists from public office applies to the presidency.
• Using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was always a longshot in terms of keeping Dumpy off the ballot, which I mentioned to you multiple times. It has now failed in three states. 
• In more pertinent news of Dumples the Clown, Fulton County DA Fani Willis requested a trial date of August 5, 2024, per a motion filed yesterday afternoon. If it goes through, the racketeering and election interference case will happen just three months before the 2024 presidential election. Ha ha.
• The request, made to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, notes that two criminal cases against Trump in federal court are scheduled for March and May, respectively, so an August start date in the Georgia case is unlikely to be subject to delay or interference from these other trials.
• Good point. Get his ass. Get all their asses.
• I should also mention a couple of Bigly Failures for Team Dumpy yesterday.
• Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected a motion by Dumpy to strike allegations that he helped lead the January 6 attack from the indictment in his federal election interference case.
• She said in a terse ruling that the references to the violent attack on the Capitol in the charging document would not prejudice a jury against Dump.
• Also yesterday, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron denied a request by Dump for a mistrial in the $250 million civil business fraud case against Dumples and his adult Little Dumps.
• Engoron derided as “utterly without merit” Trump’s motion for a mistrial. Ha ha.
• Let’s move on.
• Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has entered hospice care at home, nine months after her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, started hospice care.
• She is 96 years old and had been diagnosed with dementia in May. I wish her well.
• In other news…
• Yesterday, OpenAI — the company behind the viral chatbot ChatGPT — fired its CEO and founder, Sam Altman.
• The company said that Altman was not always truthful with the board. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”
• Ouch.
• Let’s talk about the 2024 elections.
• One way or another, Congress is going to look quite different in 2024. Here is a list of the current 26 House members who are either retiring or seeking other offices.
• Democrats: Porter (D-CA) - running for Senate. Lee (D-CA) - running for Senate. Gallego (D-AZ) - running for Senate. Schiff (D-CA) - running for Senate. Slotkin (D- MI) - running for Senate. Allred (D-TX) - running for Senate. Trone (D-MD) - running for Senate. Blunt Rochester (D- DE) - running for Senate. Napolitano (D-CA). Wexton (D-VA). Kim (D-NJ) - running for Senate. Jackson (D-NC) - running for Attorney General. Sarbanes (D-MD). Blumenauer (D-OR). Kilmer (D- WA). Spanberger (D- VA) - running for Governor. Kildee (D- MI). Jackson Lee (D- TX) - running for Houston Mayor. Phillips (D- MN) - running for President.
• Republicans: Mooney (R-WV) - running for Senate. Banks (R-IN) - running for Senate. Spartz (R-IN). Bishop (R-NC) - running for Attorney General. Lesko (R-AZ). Granger (R-TX). Buck (R- CO). Burgess (R-TX). Santos (R-NY). Wenstrup (R-OH).
• Are any of those districts flippable? You betcha… in both ways.
• As we get closer to the primaries, I will be offering more detailed guides as to who’s running and what their chances are and whom I endorse.
• Moving on.
• It’s actually election day in Louisiana today. Yes, today. Why? I don’t know.
• Louisiana’s runoff elections will include dozens of statewide and local races. Topping the ballots, voters will decide on candidates for three vacant statewide offices: attorney general, secretary of state, and treasurer.
• Vote please, Louisianan peoples.
• Some other political news, of a good sort.
• Yesterday, lawmakers at the Texas State Capitol rejected a bill that included taxpayer subsidies for some students to attend private school. This was Texas Governor Greg Abbott's big proposal for school vouchers that goes down in defeat.
• Thank God.
• The measure would have allowed eligible students to receive up to $10,000 per year to attend private school. Would you like your tax money going to pay for kids to attend a private school, or a church school? I wouldn’t either.
• As long as we’re in Texas…
• Yesterday, the Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education rejected seven of 12 proposed science textbooks for eighth graders because they include information on climate change.
• The 15-member board largely rejected the books either because they included policy solutions for climate change or because they were produced by a company that has an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policy.
• Yup.
• Moving on to our continuing coverage of team “fuck up and find out”, aka the insurrectionists who followed the orders of Dumpy and attacked to U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. meet Kenneth Joseph Owen Thomas of East Liverpool, OH.
• Prosecutors say Thomas has acted as a "one-man misinformation machine" since the insurrection, using his social media platforms to spread false narratives about the attack. They say Thomas produces more than 20 hours of Jan. 6-related online content every week. Thomas has also grifted about $75,000 from his social media followers.
• U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced Thomas, 41, to four years and 10 months of incarceration. The judge also ordered him to pay a $20,000 fine and $2,000 in restitution.
• And now, The Weather: “All Over Again” by Bedlocked
• Speaking of the actual weather, if you’re traveling for the holiday this coming week, be aware that a cross-country storm is heading west-to-east as the Transportation Security Administration said it expects its busiest holiday travel season ever.
• I’m just saying, a) be careful and b) be patient. Tuesday and Wednesday of this week are both the busiest and most expensive days to fly anywhere in 2023.
• And snow will be hitting in some areas before Turkey Day. Crazy.
• From the Sports Desk… a fun fact. The Las Vegas Raiders are now the first-ever NFL team with an all-Black group of interim head coach (Antonio Pierce), president (Sandra Douglass Morgan) and interim general manager (Champ Kelly).
• Hats off to them.
• Other Sports Desk helpful info regarding the NFL… here are the teams most likely to win tomorrow.
• Dolphins over the Raiders (-13.5); 49ers over the Buccaneers (-12); Cowboys over the Panthers (-10.5); Commanders over the Giants (-8.5); and Lions over the Bears (-8).
• Guess we’ll see.
• Today in history… The Visigoths, led by king Alaric I, cross the Alps and invade northern Italy (401). A dike in the Netherlands breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people (1421). Susan B. Anthony and 14 other women are arrested for voting illegally in the United States presidential election (1872). Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries, including two Americans, are executed (1909). In their campaign for women's voting rights, hundreds of suffragettes march to the British Parliament in London, and several are beaten by police (1910). Release of the animated short ‘Steamboat Willie’, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon (1928). The first push-button telephone goes into service (1963). In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder–suicide that claimed 918 lives in all (1978). Massachusetts rules that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, making it the first state in the US to grant marriage rights to same-sex couples (2003).
• November 18 is the birthday of physicist August Kundt (1839), politician Carl Vinson (1883), statistician George Gallup (1901), actress Imogene Coca (1908), singer-songwriter/producer Johnny Mercer (1909), singer-songwriter Hank Ballard (1927), trumpeter Don Cherry (1936), astronomer Edwin C. Krupp (1944), NFL player Jack Tatum (1948), drummer/songwriter Herman Rarebell (1949), bassist Rudy Sarzo (1950), singer-songwriter/guitarist John Parr (1952), NFL player Warren Moon (1956), singer-songwriter Kim Wilde (1960), MLB player Gary Sheffield (1968), actor Owen Wilson (1968), singer-songwriter/guitarist Duncan Sheik (1969), and weirdo journalist Megyn Kelly (1970).

Welp. I should take a shower and do things. Eventually. Enjoy your day.