Random News: December 19, 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 December 19, 2023, and it’s a Tuesday. I’m currently sitting in a very dark room because my lightbulb burned out and the sun is not yet up. Of course, the sun is actually where it always is; I’m just waiting for this world to turn a little more. Let’s do some news.

• Yesterday, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed into law a bill that makes entering Texas illegally a state crime.
• The measure, SB 4, grants local law enforcement the power to arrest migrants and judges the ability to issue orders to remove them to Mexico. Quick question: how does a cop look at a Latino person and determine if they’re an “illegal human”?
• Latino people make up 40% of Texas’s population. The new law was condemned by civil rights organizations and immigration advocacy groups after the Texas legislature passed it last month. It’s expected to take effect in March.
• Is there a surging problem with migration at the Southern border? Yes. Is arresting all the brown people the way to handle it? No, obviously not.
• Democratic House members have said the bill oversteps the federal government’s powers and echoes Arizona’s immigration status provision in what opponents have dubbed the “show me your papers” law. The law was mostly rejected by the US Supreme Court in 2012 when it upheld that the federal government sets immigration policy and laws.
• This bullshit is both anti-American and unconstitutional. If Texas wants to secede and not observe the laws of the United States, then it should do so. This will not stand in our country, though.
• Moving on.
• Three days after winning an award of $148 million in damages in their defamation case against former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss have filed a new complaint alleging he continues to make false claims about them.
• Rudy is still doubling down in public and continuing his defamatory campaign against the mother-and-daughter duo, whom Giuliani falsely accused of participating in a ballot fraud scheme during the 2020 election.
• The new complaint is not seeking any money from the former mayor, beyond filing costs and attorney's fees. They’re just requiring that he stops spreading lies. I guess that’s too much to ask for an utter idiot.
• Moving on to a follow-up story that boils my blood.
• Ruby Franke, a Utah mother of six who gave parenting advice via a once-popular YouTube channel called "8 Passengers”, pleaded guilty yesterday to four felony counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse for abusing and starving two of her children. She likely faces a prison sentence… hopefully a long one.
• Sentencing is scheduled for February 20. I’m bringing this up again for the simple reason that this awful woman was out there on YouTube influencing other moms to behave in the same atrocious way as she did.
• Franke and her cohort Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested on August 30 after Franke's 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt's house in southern Utah and asked a neighbor to call police. The boy was emaciated and had duct tape around his ankles and wrists.
• The boy told investigators that Hildebrandt put the ropes on his ankles and wrists and that they used cayenne pepper and honey to dress the wounds caused by the ropes.
• No lengthy prison sentence will pay for what those women did in torturing those children. Be very careful about what you watch and who you believe. If something feels wrong, it is wrong. Remember that.
• Let’s do some Dump-related news.
• A federal appeals court yesterday unanimously rejected an effort by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move the Georgia election interference case against him from state to federal court.
• Hallelujah.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower-court ruling from September that found Meadows had not proved his alleged conduct charged as part of the sweeping criminal racketeering case was related to his official duties as El Dumpo’s White House chief of staff.
• After being indicted along with Trump and 17 others in August on charges they illegally conspired to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia, Meadows had sought to move his case to federal court, claiming protections under a federal statute that allows federal officials to move legal cases against them from state to federal court when the charges are tied to official duties.
• The appellate court panel was skeptical of Meadows’s claims that his alleged actions outlined in the Fulton County indictment were tied to his official government duties. Um, duh.
• Let’s move on to the reaction of Senate Republicans after the former presidumb said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” 
• “I think it’s unhelpful rhetoric.” - Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). 
• “Obviously, I don’t agree with that. We’re all children of immigrants. It’s just part of his campaign rhetoric, I guess. I don’t know, I can’t explain it.” - Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
• “My grandfather was an immigrant so I don’t agree with that sentiment.” - Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-KY), the No. 2-ranking member of the Senate GOP leadership
• The obvious point: Dump is fine with white immigrants. It’s Black and brown people who are being referred to in Dump’s horrific rhetoric. It can never be part of American policy or culture.
• Let’s move on.
• A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring removal of a memorial to Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.
• It was in response to a lawsuit filed Sunday in federal court by a group called Save Southern Heritage Florida. A hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday.
• My take: if the people who supported the Confederacy’s acts of war and treason against the United States, they should not expect to have memorial statues in the cemetery of the United States military whom they fought against and lost.
• A Florida man has pleaded guilty in connection with threatening to kill a Supreme Court justice. The guilty plea from 43-year-old Neal Brij Sidhwaney of Fernandina Beach stemmed from a call he made to a Supreme Court justice in July.
• He faces up to five years in federal prison on one count of transmitting an interstate threat. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
• Court documents did not indicate what prompted Sidhwaney to make the threat. Hot tip: don’t threaten to kill anyone. I don’t care who you are or what your reason is. I also don’t care if it’s Sotomayor or Thomas or Kavanaugh or whoever. Don’t do it.
• And now, The Weather: “Morning Fire” by Furrows
• RIP to Jim Ladd, an iconic Los Angeles rock radio DJ, and a guy you may know even if you don’t know you know. He died this weekend at age 75. Ladd was the inspiration for the Tom Petty song and album title, "The Last DJ," and had remained one of the few free-form rock DJs still going in radio.
• Here in Southern California, Ladd worked in music radio for more than 50 years, and was named Los Angeles' top FM DJ in the late 1970s and early 1980s during his runs at KMET and KLOS. He was kinda the prototype for every rock radio DJ of that time frame.
• From the Sports Desk… surprising congrats to the Seattle Seahawks, who upset the Philadelphia Eagles last night on Monday Night Football in a stunning fourth quarter comeback led by backup Drew Lock, who got the start for a second straight week for Seattle as Geno Smith deals with a groin injury.
• Also from the Sports Desk… Pittsburgh Steelers safety Damontae Kazee has been suspended without pay for the remainder of the regular season – and any potential postseason games – for repeated violations of rules intended to protect the health and safety of players. In the second quarter of Pittsburgh’s road loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, Kazee launched himself at the head of Michael Pittman Jr., who was diving to try to make a catch.
• "With 8:49 remaining in the 2nd quarter, you were involved in a play that the League considers a serious violation of the playing rules. The video of the play shows that you delivered a forcible blow to the head/neck area of Colts' receiver Michael Pittman Jr., who was in a defenseless posture. You had an unobstructed path to your opponent and the illegal contact could have been avoided. Your actions were flagrant, and as a result, you were disqualified from the game."
• Gotta say, I like that the NFL is cracking down on this shit. No one deserves to be seriously injured or permanently disabled from playing a sport.
• Today in history… Henry II of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey (1154). The ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery depart England carrying settlers who founded, at Jamestown, VI, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States (1606). Fascist John Amery is executed at the age of 33 by the British Government for treason (1945). The last crewed lunar flight, Apollo 17, carrying Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth (1972). The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1983). President Bill Clinton is impeached by the United States House of Representatives, becoming the second President of the United States to be impeached (1998). Park Geun-hye is elected the first female president of South Korea (2012). 
• December 19 is the birthday of astronomer John Winthrop (1714), activist Mary Livermore (1820), physicist Albert Abraham Michelson (1852), historian Carter G. Woodson (1875), sportswriter/MLB commissioner Ford Frick (1894), pastor Martin Luther King Sr. (1899), actor Ralph Richardson (1902), politician Leonid Brezhnev (1906), singer Édith Piaf (1915), producer/talk show host David Susskind (1920), actress Cicely Tyson (1924), MLB player Al Kaline (1934), singer-songwriter/guitarist Phil Ochs (1940), singer-songwriter Maurice White (1941), actor Tim Reid (1944), actor Robert Urich (1946), drummer Lenny White (1949), NBA player/coach Kevin McHale (1957), NFL player Reggie White (1961), actress Jennifer Beals (1963), TV host/journalist Richard Hammond (1969), NFL player Warren Sapp (1972), actress Alyssa Milano (1972), NFL player Jake Plummer (1974), actor Jake Gyllenhaal (1980), activist/journalist Ronan Farrow (1987), and singer-songwriter King Princess (1998).

So, a brief aside. This news will not be coming in at its usual time tomorrow. I will be having some dental surgery 24 hours from now. If I’m feeling up to it, we’ll do the Wednesday news later in the day. I’d be glad to accept your positive thoughts while I’m in surgery, which is routine and relatively minor but… well, you know. Also, the sun came up while I wrote this shit so life seems a little more bright. Enjoy your day.