Random News: February 20, 2024

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 February 20, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. I have many things to do today, which means it’s a normal day. Honestly, once you define being productive as being normal, nothing but good happens. However, like any aspect of life, the key is balance, and finding that area where you get stuff done and also find enjoyment isn’t always easy. One thing that helps is being aware and informed, so let’s see what’s in the news.

• Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) signed new legislative district maps into law yesterday that he proposed and that the Republicans who control the Legislature passed to avoid having the state Supreme Court draw the lines.
• Democrats hailed the signing as a major political victory in the swing state where the Legislature has been firmly under Republican control for more than a decade, even as Democrats have won 14 of the past 17 statewide elections.
• Democrats are almost certain to gain seats in Wisconsin’s state Assembly and state Senate under the new maps, which will be in place for the November election. Republicans have been operating since 2011 under maps they drew that were recognized as among the most gerrymandered in the country.
• This is a huge win, and there are many other states with horrible gerrymandered maps that still need to be addressed in similar ways. Hats off to Wisconsin for getting this done.
• In other news…
• The first federal trial over a hate crime based on gender identity is set to begin today in South Carolina, where a man faces charges that he killed a Black transgender woman and then fled to New York.
• The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that in August 2019, Daqua Lameek Ritter coaxed the woman into driving to a sparsely populated rural county in South Carolina. Ritter shot her three times in the head after they reached an isolated area near a relative’s home.
• In recent years there has been a surge in attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. For decades, transgender women of color have faced disproportionately high rates of violence and hate crimes. In 2022, the number of gender identity-based hate crimes reported by the FBI increased by 37% compared to the previous year.
• Your hate — toward other races, religions, nationalities, genders, and sexual orientation — will never be tolerated, and you will face extraordinary punishment eventually.
• Moving on.
• Let’s do some election news, I guess. There were some whispers last night that Nikki Haley might be suspending her Republican presidential campaign today, based on a scheduled press conference.
• Whether it happens today or next week or next month, it’s obvious that the GOP has pre-determined that Donnie Dump is the person they want to run against President Biden.
• How is that Don the Con doing, anyway? Does he actually have the money to pay off the massive settlement judgements that were levied against him last week?
• It depends who you ask. Estimators including Forbes and Bloomberg place Dumpy’s wealth between $2.6 billion and $3.1 billion.
• But that’s total worth, including things like real estate holdings, stocks and so on. His actual accessible liquid cash is much, much lower. Estimates have put Dump’s liquid assets, or cash and personal assets, at around $600 million.
• So keep in mind that in addition to the $83.3 million he owes E. Jean Carrol and the $354.8 million in the fraud judgement Friday, that amount is compounded by prejudgement interest from the time he profited from his alleged fraud at an annual rate of 9 percent, per New York law.  
• From that, Dump owed another $98.6 million in interest the day Engoron issued his ruling, bringing the grand total to $453.5 million for that case alone. 
• Every day, interest increases the total amount Dump owes by more than $87,000.
• He said he’s going to appeal. Fine. No problem. But before he can, Dump will have to post a bond or pledge assets equal to the verdict plus 9% post-judgment interest. This assures that if Trump loses the appeal, the state of New York will collect the money.
• He would have to pay a nonrefundable fee of around $18 million to obtain a bond (for a $370 million judgment, so slightly more than the actual judgment). Any company putting up the bond will demand collateral.
• Also, Dump is legally blocked from borrowing money from any financial institution chartered to do business in New York — America’s financial center.
• Dumpy’s go-to plan has been to raise money from his supporters to pay his burgeoning legal fee obligations, and has spent almost $50 million of campaign funds on lawyers’ bills in the past year.
• Meanwhile, he still has a political campaign he needs to fund. And if all that wasn’t enough, Dumpy is now open to civil lawsuits over his alleged role in the January 6, 2021 failed coup attempt after missing a deadline to appeal a lower court ruling to the US Supreme Court.
• In December, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the 45th president’s bid to toss out three civil cases filed by Capitol Police officers and Democratic lawmakers.
• Dumpy had until February 15 to ask the nine justices to rule on whether he should be immune from civil cases blaming him for the violence — but no appeal was filed.
• So, you can do the math. He does not have the cash to just pay the ever-increasing fines, much less pay his lawyers and pay for his campaign at the same time. Something has to give, which leaves him in a position of extreme vulnerability to entities — private citizens and countries — who will offer to lend him the money if he does them favors.
• And he still has criminal trial coming soon.
• Let’s move on to one other Dump-related news item.
• This morning, the Supreme Court declined to undo sanctions against several lawyers allied with Don the Con for filing a meritless lawsuit challenging Michigan’s 2020 presidential election results.
• Lawyers Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and others brought the lawsuit against Michigan state officials and Detroit in November 2020, one of dozens of suits filed in an attempt to prove election results were illegitimate in states where Dumpy had lost. The efforts failed across the board and no evidence of widespread fraud was uncovered.
• After dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker, of the Eastern District of Michigan, ordered sanctions for the Dump-aligned lawyers, describing the lawsuit as a “historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”
• Ha ha, fuckers. Okay, let’s actually move on now.
• I reported yesterday that Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was going to take up his cause after he was murdered by dictator Vladimir Putin.
• She created an account on the X social media platform, and then Elon Musk immediately suspended it.
• Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation then tagged Elon in a post to ask “exactly which rules were violated” by Navalnaya. X claimed that the site’s mechanism against manipulation and spam had “mistakenly flagged” Navalnaya’s account as violating its rules.
• Sure Elon, you Putin dick lover. After the news went public last night, they unsuspended Navalnaya’s account today.
• In other news of Russia…
• A right-wing Canadian family of 11 decided to move to Russia because the patriarch felt that Canada was too full of gays and trans people.
• They took donations on their social media platform from fellow right-wingers, and Russian officials assured them that they would work with them to get them established, and even help them get a farm. They did all of this just three weeks ago.
• How do you think this is going for them?
• Well first, the Russian bank where they moved the proceeds from selling their farm and belongings immediately froze their assets. The family has no money to live on.
• And then the family started criticizing Russia in YouTube videos that were quickly pulled down. Who knows what will happen to them next? And all of that was to help them live a better life without the gays.
• Welp.
• Back in the USA, Representative Lauren Boebert is struggling to gain traction in her new district’s primary election, as nearly every Republican voter and lawmaker seems to loathe her intensely.
• As they should.
• Boebert, who currently represents Colorado’s 3rd district, announced in December that she would run for election in the 4th district instead. But during the first primary debate in January, Boebert ranked fifth out of eight candidates in an informal straw poll.
• The real reason she’s moving districts is that she was going to lose her former district by a large margin. She barely won it even before all of the news hit of her giving her date a hand job in public at a theater with children present.
• And now, The Weather: “Staying here” by Astrid Sonne
• It’s raining here. It will continue to rain here. Hopefully there’s minimal flooding and landslides, but those will happen.
• From the Sports Desk… I know March Madness is coming soon. It’s been like 30 years since I filled out an NCAA bracket. Maybe I’ll do it this year for no reason other than to have a sport to pay attention to for awhile.
• Today in history… Juan Ponce de León sets out from Spain for Florida with about 200 prospective colonists (1521). Edward VI of England is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey (1547). The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by United States President George Washington (1792). Rossini's opera ‘The Barber of Seville’ premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome (1816). The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City (1872). Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (1877). The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Massachusetts's mandatory smallpox vaccination program in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905). The U.S. Congress approves the construction of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California (1931). American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies (1943). While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes (1962). 
• February 20 is the birthday of physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844), race car driver/entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari (1898), photographer/environmentalist Ansel Adams (1902), actor Gale Gordon (1906), fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt (1924), film director Robert Altman (1925), actor Sidney Poitier (1927), race car driver/businessman Roger Penske (1937), singer Nancy Wilson (1937), singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie (1941), NHL legend Phil Esposito (1942), politician Mitch McConnell (1942), actress Sandy Duncan (1946), songwriter/guitarist J. Geils (1946), songwriter/guitarist Walter Becker (1950), songwriter/guitarist Randy California (1951), songwriter/guitarist Poison Ivy (1953), author Patty Hearst (1954), NBA legend Charles Barkley (1963), model/businesswoman Cindy Crawford (1966), singer-songwriter/guitarist Kurt Cobain (1967), actress Lili Taylor (1967), NBA player Stephon Marbury (1977), comedian/TV host Trevor Noah (1984), singer-songwriter Rihanna (1988), and singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo (2003).

That’s plenty for now. Enjoy your day.