Random News: November 3, 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 3, 2023, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I have so fucking much news for you today. Maybe refresh your beverage and get a snack.

• We’ll start today with another reminder that Ohio’s Issue 1, which codifies the right for women to control their own reproductive freedom instead of handing it to the state, is on the ballot there for Tuesday of this coming week (November 7).
• So to any Ohioan looking at this, please don’t underestimate the huge importance of voting Yes on Issue 1. It’s going to have an effect on the entire direction of the country, and will be an indicator of more than just women’s reproductive rights moving forward, but also how it reflects on political candidates who either do or don’t support a woman’s right to choose.
• It’s a big fucking deal. Please vote.
• I’m also gonna ask folks in Kentucky once again to vote for Andy Beshear for governor.
• And down in Mississippi, a recent poll shows incumbent Republican governor Tate Reeves in a statistical tie with Democrat Brandon Presley in that state’s governor race. Presley, the second cousin of music legend Elvis Presley, has pulled off an incredible fundraising effort, outraising Reeves by more than $5 million in the 2023 election cycle.
• Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-LA) and other prominent elected Dems are working hard to turn out Black voters, who make up the base of the state Democratic Party and could easily vault Presley to victory. That frightens the GOP more than anything… Black voters using their power.
• Here’s hoping.
• Moving on to other news…
• Yesterday was more testimony from Dumples the Second and L’il Eric Dump in their family's ongoing civil fraud trial in New York. Both guys, who took over day-to-day operations at the Trump Organization when their father became president in 2017, stated repetitively under oath that they were unaware or couldn’t remember the details of the scheme.
• The judge in the case has already found the Trumps and their company liable for fraud, determining that they manipulated the financial statements to obtain favorable deals with banks and insurers.
• Dump Jr. ultimately laid the blame for the alleged fraud in this case at the feet of CFO Allen Weisselberg and the company's outside accountants.
• The younger genius Eric Dump wasn’t quite as calm as his brother on the witness stand. He was shown a series of emails and notes showing his involvement in rejecting and approving outside appraisals at a Westchester property that was later overvalued by more than $200 million.
• Then they showed a deposition clip in which he said, "I really haven't been involved with appraisal work on this property."
• A couple of minutes later, when pressed more about the calendar invites, emails, and conversations he had related to the appraisal, L’il Dump contradicted himself, saying, "I was clearly involved, but to a very small point.”
• Pfffft.
• Toward the end of Eric’s time on the stand, things got really testy.
• Don the Con has already been sanctioned twice by the judge for targeting his clerk, with a warning that if he does it again, he will likely face jail time. With Trump not attending his trial this week, his lawyers decided to do it for him.
• When the prosecutor began to emphasize the number of times Eric Trump pled the 5th in his deposition, Dump lawyer Christopher Kise made a comment about the Judge's law clerk, which resulted in the judge pounding his fist on the table.
• Kise then absurdly claimed that he has a "First Amendment right" to criticize the judge's clerk. Fact check: no, lawyers do not have a right to say whatever they want in court during a trial. Kise then randomly said that he couldn't possibly be a misogynist since he was happily married and had a 17 year old daughter. What?
• Jesus, do I feel sorry for his family.
• Also, word to the wise, if you’re ever a defendant in a civil suit: being openly hostile and attacking the judge or their clerks and other staff is probably the last thing you or your lawyers ever want to do.
• Moving on.
• One issue that has typically enjoyed broad support from both parties is the support of Israel, but the ridiculous Republican package that combines Israel aid with cuts to IRS funding has House Democrats lining up in overwhelming opposition.
• In addition to the IRS cuts — meant to slow the investigation of billionaire tax cheats — the deal proposed by the GOP is bereft of additional funding for Ukraine or humanitarian aid for Gaza.
• Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the senior Dem on the Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that requiring offsets for emergency aid would set a dangerous precedent that could hobble Congress’s ability to help allies in times of crisis.
• “My message to the caucus is: If you’re pro-Israel, you’re voting no. Republicans are playing politics with this. We’ve never had a situation where any aid to Israel or our national security was conditioned, and here they’re conditioning it as well as increasing the deficit.” - Meeks
• Fact check: true. Tapping IRS funds has the additional disadvantage of piling billions of dollars onto the federal debt. It’s a terrible — and very expensive — plan that the GOP is pushing.
• At least the House agrees that antisemitism is bad. Amazing they can agree on anything.
• Lawmakers approved a resolution condemning the support of terrorist organizations and antisemitism on college campuses on a 396-23 bipartisan vote yesterday.
• The resolution calls out college leaders for not speaking out in support of Jewish and pro-Israel students. It urges them to condemn all forms of antisemitism on their campuses and ensure Jewish faculty and students can exercise free speech without intimidation.
• In actual news from the Israel/Hamas war, the IDF’s ground assault continued today with troops tightening their encirclement around Gaza City. International calls for a ceasefire are growing louder as civilian deaths mount and the humanitarian crisis grows.
• More than 8,800 people — including thousands of children — have since been killed in retaliatory strikes across the Gaza Strip.
• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is in Tel Aviv to meet with Netanyahu, urged Israel to do everything in its power to protect civilians caught in the fighting in Gaza and ensure they receive humanitarian aid, while underscoring the country’s right to defend itself.
• Also of note: ever since the October 7 assault, there have been concerns the conflict could ignite fighting on other fronts, and Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group have repeatedly traded fire along the border. Hezbollah is an Iran-backed ally of Hamas.
• Sigh.
• Moving on with some more Washington news, but this is good.
• Yesterday, the Senate once again bypassed that anti-American prick Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and confirmed three more senior military officers.
• Admiral Lisa Franchetti will become the first woman to lead the Navy and join the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General David W. Allvin will lead the Air Force. Lt. General Christopher J. Mahoney will be promoted to four-star general and will become the Marine Corps’s No. 2 officer, stepping in as the caretaker commandant in the absence of Gen. Eric Smith, who suffered apparent cardiac arrest on Sunday.
• All the confirmations were approved by lopsided margins in the Senate. Each of the officers confirmed is considered highly qualified. Tuberville’s efforts to undercut U.S. military readiness at a time when wars are raging in the Middle East and Ukraine will not be forgotten.
• Moving on.
• For those of you who think that only Republican politicians get investigated for serious crimes, maybe take a look at New York City mayor Eric Adams.
• Early yesterday morning, a raid in Crown Heights, Brooklyn neighborhood featured FBI agents carrying evidence boxes from the home the mayor's chief fundraiser, Brianna Suggs.
• Adams had been at a meeting in D.C. when he got word of an international probe into "foreign government influence peddling."
• That doesn’t sound good! Adams bolted from the meeting to head back to NYC. In the interest of fairness, no arrests have yet been made, no charges have been filed, and according to the mayor's lawyer, Adams has not been contacted.
• Guess we’ll wait and see!
• Moving on.
• Desmond Mills Jr., a former Memphis police officer, changed his plea to guilty yesterday in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, becoming the first of five officers charged to reverse course, with prosecutors recommending up to 15 years in prison.
• It wasn't immediately clear whether the four other officers would follow suit.
• Mills pleaded guilty to federal charges of excessive force and obstruction of justice and agreed to plead guilty to related state charges. Mills also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. He remains free on bail ahead of his May 22 sentencing hearing.
• Tyre Nichols remains dead. Why is this guy still walking around and enjoying his freedom?
• Let’s move on. How about that zany Sam Bankman-Fried?
• Yesterday, the former head of cryptocurrency exchange FTX was found guilty of each of the seven criminal charges he was facing.
• SBF faces the prospect of spending decades in prison after being convicted on charges including securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. The jury deliberated for just a few hours before reaching its verdict.
• Bankman-Fried remains incarcerated in a federal jail in Brooklyn, and may spend the rest of his life in prison. Too bad, so sad.
• Maybe try not being a greedy piece of shit, and life will be more pleasant for everyone.
• Speaking of which…
• In the many woes of Donnie T, Minnesota Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical yesterday that states have the authority to block Dumpy from the ballot. That is rather expected.
• The argument that the 14th Amendment can be used to keep Dump off individual state ballots has seemed a long shot form the get-go. Don’t get me wrong; I agree with it.
• In Minnesota, the judges cited Congress’ role in certifying presidential electors and its ability to impeach. Several justices said it seemed that questions of eligibility should be settled there.
• Shrug.
• A slightly disturbing story out of Alabama this week involves a newspaper publisher and a reporter who’ve been arrested for publishing an article that officials said was based on confidential grand-jury evidence.
• Publisher Sherry Digmon and reporter Don Fletcher of the Atmore News in southwestern Alabama were arrested last week after a story by Fletcher disclosed details of an investigation into the local school board’s payments to seven former school-system employees.
• They were charged with revealing grand-jury proceedings, a felony under Alabama law and face up to five years in jail. The problem? While it’s illegal for a grand juror, witness, or court officer to disclose grand-jury proceedings, it’s not a crime for a media outlet to publish such leaked material, provided the material was obtained by legal means.
• The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the First Amendment forbids punishing journalists for publishing information of public importance, even if the information came from a source who broke the law in leaking it. It definitely applies to grand-jury information.
• Despite that, the local yokel prosecutor said he brought charges because disclosure of grand-jury proceedings is “not allowed. All three of them, the girl, were all charged with the same thing. But, you just can’t do that, and there’s no reason for that. Innocent people get exposed, and it causes a lot of trouble for people.”
• Can someone show this asshole a law book, please? Press-freedom advocates are raising the alarm that the arrests of the Atmore News’s publisher and reporter are unconstitutional. they’re right.
• Moving on.
• And now, The Weather: “Jelsy” by bar italia
• I do have a chart for you on this fine Friday. It’s November 1981, 42 years ago. I am in 8th grade, and I am way into music. I will eventually own nine out of these top 20 albums, and in fact, ‘Tattoo You’ is the first LP I ever bought with my own money, and ‘Ghost In The Machine’ remains on my top albums of all time list to this day.
• 1. 4 (Foreigner). 2. Tattoo You (The Rolling Stones). 3. Ghost In The Machine (The Police). 4. Escape (Journey). 5. Raise (Earth, Wind & Fire). 6. Nine Tonight (Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band). 7. Bella Donna (Stevie Nicks). 8. Private Eyes (Daryl Hall John Oates). 9. Abacab (Genesis). 10. Physical (Olivia Newton-John). 11. Exit...Stage Left (Rush). 12. Something Special (Kool & The Gang). 13. The Innocent Age (Dan Fogelberg). 14. If I Should Love Again (Barry Manilow). 15. Precious Time (Pat Benatar). 16. Why Do Fools Fall In Love (Diana Ross). 17. Greatest Hits (Queen). 18. Beauty And The Beat (Go-Go’s). 19. Songs In The Attic (Billy Joel). 20. Breakin' Away (Jarreau)
• As a longtime Beatles fan, I would be remiss to not mention the last-ever song being released by that band… “Now and Then”, which came out yesterday.
• If you don’t know the story, I’ll do it fast: in the late 1970s, John Lennon hit the record button on a boombox at his Upper West Side co-op and sang a new song he had been working on, accompanying himself on piano with a TV playing in the background.
• It was considered unusable as such. But brand new AI technology allowed them to isolate John’s voice on the tape, and then bring it in to be mixed with the full arrangement that also features his surviving bandmates.
• The song is… fine. It’s fine. It’s good to hear John sing on something with which I was previously unfamiliar. Also nice to hear George Harrison’s guitar, which was recorded back in 1995 during their original unsuccessful effort to resurrect the song.
• But the song itself is going to inevitably be compared to (drum roll)… other Beatles songs. The finest and most admired and influential songs in the pop and rock realm. And it’s not an awful song by any definition. It’s just not “Strawberry Fields Forever” or “A Day In The Life”. Or even “Glass Onion”.
• However, it was cool to hear a Beatles song I’d never heard before for the first time in almost 30 years.
• From the Sports Desk… if you’re not yet familiar with NBA rookie Victor Wembanyama, you’re likely going to be hearing that name for many years to come. Wembanyama is 15-of-19 in the fourth quarter this season thus far. His 78.9% is the best in the league among the 117 NBA players who have attempted 10 field goals in the fourth.
• Wemby, as he’s known, is crazy talented. 
• Today in history… The River Arno floods causing massive damage in Florence (1333). Christopher Columbus first sights the island of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea (1493). English Parliament passes the first Act of Supremacy, making King Henry VIII head of the Anglican Church, supplanting the pope and the Roman Catholic Church (1534). French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges is guillotined (1793). The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper is founded (1838). John Willis Menard (R-LA) was the first African American elected to the United States Congress, but because of some racist shit, he was never seated (1868). Panama separates from Colombia (1903). William Howard Taft is elected the 27th President of the United States (1908). Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T (1911). Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected President of the United States (1936). Lyndon B. Johnson is elected to a full term as U.S. president (1964). Democratic Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton defeats Republican President George H. W. Bush and Independent candidate Ross Perot in the 1992 United States presidential election (1992). The 2020 United States presidential election takes place between Democratic Joe Biden and Republican incumbent President Donald Trump. On November 7, Biden was declared the winner (2020).
• November 3 is the birthday of painter Annibale Carracci (1560), businessman Stephen F. Austin (1793), SCOTUS chief justice Edward Douglass White (1845), MLB player Bob Feller (1918), actor Charles Bronson (1921), actor Ken Berry (1933), singer-songwriter/guitarist Bert Jansch (1943), singer-songwriter Lulu (1948), actress Roseanne Barr (1952), singer-songwriter Adam Ant (1954), NFL player Phil Simms (1955), actor Dolph Lundgren (1957), singer-songwriter/guitarist/producer Steven Wilson (1967), and guitarist/composer Mick Thomson (1973).

Well, that’s just too much news. Sorry. I don’t make the news. I just tell you what’s happened. Enjoy your day.