Random News: December 2, 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 2, 2023, and it’s a Saturday. It’s 48 degrees, which is chilly for Southern California, and more so when one is wearing a bathrobe while writing news items. But such are the sacrifices of an information junkie. Besides, I’ve got a cup of Peet’s Cafe Domingo, so it all balances out.

• Let’s start with a breaking story.
• A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 struck a few hours ago off the coast of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Philippine authorities issued a tsunami warning.
• Good news: there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
• But the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said based on the magnitude and location, it expected tsunami waves to hit the southern Philippines and parts of Indonesia, Palau, and Malaysia.
• Hoping that doesn’t fuck those places up too badly.
• Moving on.
• Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is now former Rep. George Santos (R-Nothing).
• He was expelled from the House on yesterday in a historic vote following a House Ethics Committee investigation into alleged fraud perpetrated by his campaign after months of scandals.
• Being expelled from Congress is super rare. It’s only happened six times in US history, and three of those were Confederates who were removed due to the Civil War. It requires 2/3 of the entire House voting in favor of expulsion.
• Out of 435 members of the House, there were 311 votes to remove Santos, with 114 voting against and two voting present. One hundred and five Republicans voted to boot Santos, and 112 voted for him to remain. Reps. Bobby Scott of Virginia and Nikema Williams of Georgia were the only two Democrats to vote against expelling Santos.
• His expulsion came shortly after a report from the House ethics committee detailed how he spent campaign funds on luxury goods, cosmetics and an OnlyFans subscription. Can you imagine donating your hard-earned money to some politician and find out he was using your money to literally jack off?
• I mean, I guess it’s not entirely impossible to consider in today’s political environment.
• Anyway, did Santos take his expulsion well? I’ll give you three guesses, and they all better be “no”.
• He grabbed his coat and left the floor before the vote had concluded. Outside after the vote, he told reporters, “Why would I want to stay here? To hell with this place,” and then he ran away like a baby.
• By last night, he was tweeting about his colleagues. He wrote that he would file an ethics complaint against three fellow Republicans from New York – Mike Lawler, Nicole Malliotakis and Nick LaLota – who had long pushed to oust him from Congress. He offered no proof of wrongdoing against any of the three.
• Side note: any person — you, me, George Santos, a three-year-old with good typing skills — can file a complaint to the Office of Congressional Ethics, but that does not mean it will result in an investigation.
• Hopefully our last note on George Santos for a good long while: he also has pleaded not guilty to a 23-count federal indictment related to his use of campaign funds, so our next report should come sometime after his conviction and sentencing next year.
• What will happen with Santos’s former seat? New York is immediately beginning the process for a special election that will take a good while to organize, with the House continuing on with 434 members until a new rep is elected.
• There’s a strong chance that a Democrat could flip this seat to blue. Meanwhile, the thin Republican majority in the House got even more razor slim, with just four votes tipping the scales.
• Moving on with some excellent news.
• Texas must move a floating barrier on the Rio Grande river, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday, dealing a huge blow to one of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's assholish measures aimed at stopping migrants from entering the USA.
• The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals requires Texas to stop any work on the roughly 1,000-foot barrier and move it to the riverbank. The order sided with a lower court decision in September that Abbott called "incorrect" and had predicted would be overturned.
• Ha ha, fucker.
• It was the second legal defeat for Abbott and Texas Republicans this week. On Wednesday, a federal judge allowed U.S. Border Patrol agents to continue cutting razor wire the state installed along the riverbank, despite the protests of Texas officials.
• Good. Let’s move on.
• The inmate who stabbed former Minneapolis police officer and convicted murderer Derek Chauvin in federal prison last week did so 22 times. He also admitted to corrections officers that he would have killed Chauvin had they not responded as quickly as they did.
• I’ll once again state that despite being an awful person, Chauvin should not be murdered in cold blood. If we can come together to condemn Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd in 2020, we can also agree that being stabbed 22 times is not the punishment that society determined was just.
• The perpetrator is 52-year-old John Turscak, who now faces charges of attempted murder, assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and assault resulting in serious bodily injury.
• Chauvin was hospitalized following the attack, but is said to be in stable condition.
• Let’s move over to some international news with coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
• Our optimism for continued peace between the waring factions was misplaced. The temporary truce collapsed yesterday, and Israel's military says it launched more than 400 strikes on a northern Gaza refugee camp in the first 24 hours since then.
• Israel also expanded its operations, which had been concentrated in northern Gaza, to the region's south.
• To that end, US Vice President Kamala Harris told Egypt's president today that we will not allow the redrawing of Gaza's borders or forced relocation of its residents, amid fears that Israel would likely use the war as an excuse to seize parts of Gaza and expel Palestinians.
• On the Hamas front, they continue to refuse to release a group of women that remain held hostage despite Israel’s insistence. 
• Israeli and US officials believe Hamas continues to hold hostage a number of women between the approximate ages of 20 to 30 – many of them kidnapped from the Nova music festival. Hamas claims that the remaining women they’re holding hostage are part of the Israel Defense Forces, which Israel denies.
• Sigh. Let’s move on with a little Dumpy news.
• The Dumpinator does not have immunity from criminal charges for actions he took as president, a U.S. judge yesterday while rejecting his bid to toss out the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith accusing him of unlawfully trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.
• U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan found no legal basis for concluding that presidents cannot face criminal charges once they are no longer in office. "Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy, the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong 'get-out-of-jail-free' pass," Chutkan wrote.
• She also rejected Trump's argument that the charges violate his free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.
• Ha ha, you criminal piece of shit.
• Let’s move on to our continuing coverage of the assholes who attempted and failed in a coup against the USA on January 6, 2021. Meet Klete Keller, a former U.S. Olympic gold medalist in swimming.
• Keller was sentenced yesterday to three years probation and six months of home detention… a very lenient punishment for the felony crime of obstruction of an official proceeding.
• Obviously a man of high intelligence, Keller wore his fucking USA Olympic jacket during the insurrection, making him very easily identifiable. He admitted to later trying to delete evidence on his phone and throwing away the jacket.
• Let’s move on with a follow-up note on the married Florida couple Christian and Bridget Ziegler. As you likely heard yesterday, Sarasota police are investigating an allegation that Christian Ziegler raped a woman. The alleged victim has been in a three-year romantic and sexual threesome with the Zieglers.
• But Bridget Ziegler is the author of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay Bill” and took a place on the board that Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to oversee Disney’s operations in Orlando, charging that the company had been “sexualizing children” while defending his anti-LGBTQ+ measures.
• At the same time, Christian Ziegler declared that political opponents who are “passionate and perverted enough” to oppose the anti-LGBTQ measures should just leave Florida.
• And now it seems that Mrs. Ziegler enjoys same-sex activities herself. It’s always the hypocrisy that slays me. Just be yourself and let others be themselves. How hard is that?
• Let’s talk a moment about AI. Not the technology, but the human propensity to use everything for evil purposes.
• A mother and her 14-year-old daughter are advocating for better protections for victims after AI-generated nude images of the teen and other female classmates were circulated at a high school in New Jersey.
• Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, officials are investigating an incident involving a teenage boy who allegedly used artificial intelligence to create and distribute similar images of other students – also teen girls - that attend a high school in suburban Seattle, Washington.
• Explicit AI-generated material that overwhelmingly harms women and children is booming online at an unprecedented rate. More than 143,000 new deepfake videos were posted online this year.
• It will soon be at a point that AI images and video are indistinguishable from reality, and nothing you see and hear on a screen will be trustworthy. Meanwhile, people’s reputations will be harmed by this fake content. And especially for teens who are so fixated on how others perceive them, it will lead to horrible life-altering events.
• And now, The Weather: “While You Wait” by Niall Mutter
• Got a chart for you. It’s Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks for this week exactly 30 years ago, in December 1993. I was at that moment, to a lesser degree and using very different tools, doing the same job I do today in the same industry. Not coincidentally, I was stressing at the time over getting ready for a big industry trade show that happens in January… which I am also doing now. Same show. Anyway…
• 1. Into Your Arms (The Lemonheads). 2. Daughter (Pearl Jam). 3. Heart-Shaped Box (Nirvana). 4. Linger (the Cranberries). 5. Laid (James). 6. Low (Cracker). 7. Found Out About You (Gin Blossoms). 8. Gepetto (Belly). 9. Cannonball (The Breeders). 10. Today (Smashing pumpkins). 11. Because The Night (10,000 Mniacs). 12. Rubberband Girl (Kate Bush). 13. Photograph (R.E.M. with Natalie Merchant). 14. Tuesday Morning (the Pogues). 15. Sexual Healing (Soul Asylum). 16. Heal It Up (Concrete Blonde). 17. The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove (Dead Can Dance). 18. Debonair (The Afghan Wigs). 19. Slackjawed (The Connells). 20. Butterfly Wings (Machines Of Loving Grace).
• From the Sports Desk… here’s the current best team in each NBA division based on win-loss record.
• Eastern Conference… Atlantic: Boston Celtics (15-4). Central: Milwaukee Bucks (13-6). Southeast: Orlando Magic (13-5).
• Western Conference… Northwest: Minnesota Timberwolves (14-4). Pacific: Phoenix Suns (11-7). Southwest: Dallas Mavericks (11-7).
• Today in history… The University of Leipzig opens (1409). Swedish parliament approves the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act and implements it as a ground law, thus being first in the world with freedom of speech (1766). In a State of the Union message, U.S. President James Monroe proclaims American neutrality in future European conflicts, and warns European powers not to interfere in the Americas (1823). In a State of the Union message, U.S. President James K. Polk proposes that the United States should aggressively expand into the West (1845). Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, WV (1859). Alabama ratifies the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, followed by North Carolina, then Georgia; U.S. slaves were legally free within two weeks (1865). Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile (1927). In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Herbert Hoover proposes a $150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy (1930). New York City's LaGuardia Airport opens (1939). During the Manhattan Project, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (1942). In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba will adopt Communism (1961). The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations (1970). Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart (1982). NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope (1993). Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (2001). Cannabis is removed from the list of most dangerous drugs of the international drug control treaty by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (2020).
• December 2 is the birthday of lawyer/politician John Breckinridge (1760), painter Georges Seurat (1859), businessman Charles Edward Ringling (1863), general/politician Alexander Haig (1924), actress Julie Harris (1925), lawyer/politician Harry Reid (1939), fashion designer Gianni Versace (1946), actress Lucy Liu (1968), bass player/songwriter Nate Mendel (1968), rapper Treach (1970), tennis player Monica Seles (1973), singer-songwriter Nelly Futado (1978), singer-songwriter Britney Spears (1981), NFL player Aaron Rodgers (1983), and bass player/composer Tal Wilkenfeld (1986).

I’m going to take a shower and dress myself like a human being. Also, I feel inspired to maybe think about making some music soon. Hopefully I can get off my creative ass and do that. My music will live after I am long gone, and I think it would be nice to be immortal in that way, knowing someone might hear something I created a thousand year from now. It could happen. Enjoy your day.