Random News: December 14, 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 December 14, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I’m here to tell you things. Some things are good, some are bad, and others just are what they are. Let’s go.

• It’s the anniversary of an event that I wish had never happened. It’s one of the few occasions that if I had a time machine, I’d go back and prevent it from happening, regardless of its impact on the future timeline.
• 11 years ago today, on December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.
• Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old, and the other six were adult staff members. Earlier that day, before driving to the school, Lanza fatally shot his mother at their Newtown home. As first responders arrived at the school, Lanza died by suicide, shooting himself in the head.
• The incident remains the deadliest mass shooting in Connecticut history, and the deadliest at an elementary school in U.S. history. At the time, it prompted renewed debate about gun control in the United States, including proposals to make the background-check system universal, and for new federal and state gun legislation banning the sale and manufacture of certain types of semi-automatic firearms and magazines which can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition.
• None of those things happened. The Republicans decided that stopping children from being slaughtered on a regular basis was less of a priority than allowing their base of manly men to continue to buy and use as many guns and as much ammunition as they could afford.
• Today, one in five Americans have a family member who had been killed by a gun. More than one in five American adults said they have been personally threatened with a gun. And gun violence is now the number-one killer of children in our country.
• I’ve been threatened with a gun on multiple occasions. At least two of those were by law enforcement, but a couple of them were from typical assholes.
• Let’s do some news.
• Yesterday, the Supreme Court said it will hear an appeal that could upend hundreds of charges stemming from the failed coup attempt at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, including those against Orange Dump.
• The justices will review a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding that has been brought against more than 300 people. The charge refers to the disruption of Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Dump.
• That’s among four counts brought against El Dumpo in special counsel Jack Smith’s case that accuses him of conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss. Dumpy is also charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
• The court’s decision to weigh in on the obstruction charge could threaten the start of Trump’s trial, currently scheduled for March 4. The justices separately are considering whether to rule quickly on Trump’s claim that he can’t be prosecuted for actions taken within his role as president. A federal judge already has rejected that argument.
• This is definitely a make-or-break moment for justice in our country.
• Meanwhile, the Supreme Court must also decide if they will immediately weigh in on whether Dump is immune from criminal prosecution for his actions on and preceding Jan. 6, putting the justices front and center in a pivotal election-year battle. 
• Calls by Democrats for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from the decision are already being made, underscoring the court having to take up a thorny political issue — something its chief justice does not want his legacy to hinge on.
• Agreeing to take up the request this term would mean the Supreme Court resolves the immunity issue by the end of June. Smith’s request further asks the justices to resolve the case even sooner.
• Such a timeline would ruin Trump’s desire to delay his trial until after the 2024 election, a strategy that could end with Trump returning to the White House and potentially pardon himself or directing his Justice Department to shut down the prosecution.
• I think you can see how important this is.
• As a result of all this, the federal judge overseeing Dump’s 2020 election interference case has temporarily paused all procedural deadlines while appeals over Dump’s supposed immunity play out – which could lead to his March 2024 trial date being pushed back.
• The order from Judge Tanya Chutkan acknowledged that she no longer has jurisdiction over aspects of the criminal case while the DC Circuit Court of Appeals considers whether Trump is immune and can be tried. That’s why Jack Smith has asked the Supreme Court to step in.
• Chutkan said in her order that the trial date of March 4, 2024, could be affected, and that she would reconsider that date when the appeals process has concluded.
• Let’s just hope that the USA isn’t a sham and that no one is above the law. If legal precedent makes that the case, there will be complete and total anarchy in this country. If laws don’t apply to a President, they don’t apply to anyone.
• While we’re on this topic, here’s a weird thing you may not have heard.
• Four hours after testimony wrapped in the civil-fraud trial against Dump and the Dump Organization, the lower Manhattan courthouse was evacuated after someone set papers on fire and then used multiple fire extinguishers on the same floor as the courtroom.
• New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron was in his robing room when he heard shouting on the floor. He was safely escorted out of the courthouse.
• The evacuation was prompted by a man creating a small fire by igniting paperwork and then setting off two or more fire extinguishers. The man, who was not identified and was not a courthouse employee, was arrested.
• Hmm.
• Moving to another trial, this one of Rudy Giuliani for his defamation damages trial over how much he should pay two Georgia election workers — Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss — who want millions of dollars in damages for spreading conspiracy theories about them after the 2020 election.
• Rudy was very blustery as usual before the trial… until this morning, when he decided that he would not testify in his own defense. Rudy has based all of his statements on lies, and testifying would place him in even more trouble. He’s lawyer and he knows this. The truth is not on his side.
• Let’s continue our discussion about women’s reproductive rights, but this time, let’s look at a Republican perspective.
• More than 150,000 registered Republican voters in Florida have signed a petition in support of a ballot amendment that would bar the state from restricting abortion “before viability” — which is usually at 24 weeks — or “when necessary to protect the patient’s health.” 
• That total comes from the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition, one of several groups working to gather the 891,523 signatures necessary to get the measure on the ballot, working with Floridians Protecting Freedom, the campaign leading the ballot initiative. The group says it has gathered and submitted more than 1.3 million signatures so far. The website of the Florida Division of Elections says it has validated 687,699 signatures as of mid-December.
• Do NOT assume that the people of supposedly conservative states — both Republican and Democrat voters — don’t side with women. Abortion rights have been solidified in Kansas and Ohio, and now Florida is one of nine states where groups are pushing to get measures on the ballot that would bar restrictions on abortion rights.
• Let’s go Florida Republicans! Jesus Christ, I never thought I’d have an occasion to write those words.
• In addition to the much-publicized case of Kate Cox in Texas, reproductive rights cases are coming to the forefront in states all over the country.
• Abortion rights opponents argued before Arizona’s Supreme Court in favor of reverting to an 1864 law that predates Arizona’s statehood and could send abortion providers to prison.
• In New Mexico, which has a more liberal abortion law, the state Supreme Court is considering whether to strike down local restrictions at the city and county levels.
• Michigan’s governor signed a new law to do away with restrictions on abortion rights and no longer require women to obtain a special abortion rider in their health insurance plans.
• And as I reported yesterday, at the national level, the US Supreme Court agreed to consider whether to restrict the access of every American woman to mifepristone, the long-approved medication behind most early term US abortions.
• I think it’s going to become the tipping-point issue in many elections in 2024.
• Moving on to some international news.
• Poland has a new prime minister. he’s a good guy with an unfortunately familiar-sounding name: Donald Tusk.
• Tusk’s clearly pro-European Union, pro-NATO stance marks a stark change from the country's outgoing, right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
• With his election victory, Tusk, a 66-year-old former European Commission president, has also become a new bearer of hope for European progressives and centrists at a time when many nations on the continent are showing increasing affinity for far right-wing populism.
• Good stuff. Thank you Poland.
• Back in the USA, a 13-year-old in Ohio is facing criminal charges after allegedly crafting a detailed plan for a mass shooting at a synagogue. The kid made his plans some five weeks before Hamas’ attack on Israel.
• The teen posted plans online for the shooting plot at Temple Israel in Canton, OH. The kid — who I assume is male, with young men being what they are — is charged with inducing panic and disorderly conduct in the September 1 incident.
• And now, The Weather: “About It” by Raavi
• Ever take a DNA test? I have — both Ancestry and 23andMe — and I got some revelatory information from it.
• In the case of a family in Boston, they got some news they definitely didn’t expect. In 1980, Sarah Depoian sought the help of a fertility specialist, resulting in the birth of her daughter who is now in her 40s.
• But the daughter took a purchased DNA test, and her biological father turned out to be Dr. Merle Berger… the guy who ran the fertility clinic. At the time, Depoian was told by Dr. Berger — one of the founders of Boston IVF and a former Harvard Medical School professor — that the sperm used in the insemination would be from a medical resident “who resembled her husband” and “whom she did not know.”
• They’re suing, as they should. How many other kids did he father? Yikes.
• From the Sports Desk… Draymond Green is a fucking head case.
• The Golden State Warriors forward has been suspended again for his on-court behavior, but this time it comes without a time frame for his return. The NBA suspended Green indefinitely on Tuesday, one day after the four-time champion struck Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkic in the face in the third quarter of the Warriors' 119-116 loss on Monday.
• Green has been ejected three times this season. I get that he’s a player who is all-in on his game, which I would respect if that didn’t translate to his being a thug who thinks rules don’t apply to him.
• Today in history… Emperor Wenzong of the Tang dynasty conspires to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot is foiled (835). Founding Father Alexander Hamilton marries Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, New York (1780). The French invasion of Russia comes to an end as the remnants of the Grande Armée are expelled from Russia (1812). Alabama becomes the 22nd U.S. state (1819). Max Planck presents a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law, quantum theory, at the Physic Society in Berlin (1900). The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu (1902). Roald Amundsen's team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first to reach the South Pole (1911). The 1918 United Kingdom general election occurs, the first where women were permitted to vote (1918). Plutonium (specifically Pu-238) is first isolated at Berkeley, California (1940). Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann are granted a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game (1948). NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus (1962). In Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, the Supreme Court rules that Congress can use the Constitution's Commerce Clause to fight discrimination (1964). Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final extravehicular activity of the Apollo 17 mission (1972). Twenty-eight people, including the gunman, are killed in Sandy Hook, Connecticut (2012). The Walt Disney Company announces that it would acquire 21st Century Fox, including the 20th Century Fox movie studio, for $52.4 billion (2017). 
• December 14 is the birthday of astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546), composer/pianist Maria Szymanowska (1789), businessman/politician Erastus Corning (1794), lawyer/activist Louis Marshall (1856), UK king George VI (1895), pilot/general Jimmy Doolittle (1896), singer/bandleader Spike Jones (1911), novelist Shirley Jackson (1916), trumpet player Clark Terry (1920), singer-songwriter Charlie Rich (1932), actress Lee Remick (1935), actress Patty Duke (1946), talent agent Michael Ovitz (1946), guitarist Christopher Parkening (1947), journalist Lester Bangs (1947), MLB player Bill Buckner (1949), NHL player Bill Ranford (1966), singer-songwriter Beth Orton (1970), and NFL player DK Metcalf (1997).

Okay. There’s so much more to talk about, but I have to stay on schedule in these busy days. Try and stay positive. That’s all you can do. That, and vote like fuck when the opportunity arises. Enjoy your day.