Random News: March 25, 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.

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Good morning. It’s March 25, 2024, and it’s a Monday. I have a large thing to do this morning, so my bullets will be limited, but as is the case with many things in life, I’ll do the best I can with the time I have.

• Today is “Pay Up or Shut Up” day for Don Poorleone.
• Smelly Man spent a good chunk of the weekend railing about the fact that he has to pay his dues like any other normal criminal.
• Why was the judgement for $464 million? Because that’s the value of how much he stole in taxpayer money, along with some penalties that may persuade him or people like him from doing it again.
• Where did that money go? He spent it on gaudy apartments, cringe-inducing country clubs, and an old ugly jet.
• If Dump does not pay the money — that he doesn’t have and no on was willing to lend him — his ill-gotten assets will be seized and sold to the highest bidder, just like anyone else who is caught doing this.
• Also, “this” happens all the time. Drug dealers, embezzlers, illegal stock traders, thieves and others get caught and their assets are seized and auctioned. Much higher penalties in terms of bond amounts and asset values have been taken, many into the billions.
• Dumpy isn’t special. He's just another grifting criminal who got caught.
• Moving on to a whole other trial…
• There’s a hearing today regarding Dump’s hush money case. The trial, original scheduled to start today, is now delayed until at least mid-April.
• Why the delay? Because earlier this month, federal prosecutors this month began turning over what would become more than 100,000 pages of records.
• Today they’re battling about Dump’s attempt to use the new records as an excuse for yet additional delays.
• Dumpy has repeatedly sought delays in all four of his criminal cases. He wants to win the election and then drop the cases or pardon himself.
• In this one, El Dumpo is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels.
• Let’s move on to something that matters.
• Over the weekend, President Biden easily won the Louisiana Democratic presidential primary. The incumbent president will take all 47 delegates allocated to the Pelican State.
• Good. I offer my full endorsement to Joe Biden. He’s done a great job under extremely difficult circumstances during his presidency thus far.
• Not everyone is as enthusiastic about their candidate. Take, for example, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
• Aghast at Dumpy’s candidacy and the direction of her party, Murkowski won’t rule out bolting from the GOP.
• She’s one of just seven Republicans who voted to convict Dump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, and she is just done with him.
• She said she “absolutely” would not vote for him. The former Republican Party’s shift over to MAGA and Dump has caused Murkowski to consider her future within the GOP.
• In other news of another politician, New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy is suspending her campaign for Senate in New Jersey, she announced yesterday.
• She was running for the seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, who is accused of major crimes. I can predict right now, the Senate seat will instead go to current Rep Andy Kim (D-NJ), who is well liked and has done a great job.
• And now, The Weather: “Lines” by Maxband
• Thousands of people in the Northeast are still without power after a storm slammed New England, taking out trees and power lines.
• Good luck, peoples.
• For no reason: a list of every Supreme Court justice who has been on the bench at some point within my lifetime, with their year of departure indicated…
• Earl Warren (1969), John Marshall Harlan (1971), Potter Stewart (1981), Warren Burger (1986), Lewis Powell (1987), William Brennan (1990), Thurgood Marshall (1991), Byron White (1993), Harry Blackmun (1994), William Rehnquist (2005), Sandra Day O’Connor (2006), David Souter (2009), John Paul Stevens (2010), Antonin Scalia (2016), Anthony Kennedy (2018), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (2020), Stephen Breyer (2022), Clarence Thomas (-), John Roberts (-), Samuel Alito (-), Sonia Sotomayor (-), Elena Kagan (-), Neil Gorsuch (-), Brett Kavanaugh (-), Amy Coney Barrett (-), and Ketanji Brown Jackson (-).
• Who were the best Supreme Court justices in history? Obviously a subjective question. I’d have to go with the ones who best defended and interpreted the constitution and acted in the best interests of the people… again, in my opinion.
• In no order: John Marshall, Earl Warren, Louis Brandeis, William Brennan, John Marshall Harlan, William Douglas, Joseph Story, and Thurgood Marshall.
• The worst? Mostly the ones who defended the worst decisions ever made by the body or acted unscrupulously, like Roger Taney, James McReynolds, Stephen Johnson Field, Clarence Thomas, Melville Fuller, John Archibald Campbell, Lewis Powell, James Wayne, and Samuel Alito.
• From the Sports Desk… some good games scheduled today in the NCAA Women’s Tournament. 5-seed Oklahoma vs. 4-seed Indiana, 7-seed Ole Miss vs. 2-seed Notre Dame, 5-seed Utah vs. 4-seed Gonzaga, 6-seed Tennessee vs. 3-seed NC State, 6-seed Syracuse vs. 3-seed UConn, 1-seed USC vs. 8-seed Kansas, 7-seed Creighton vs. 2-seed UCLA, and 1-seed Iowa vs. 8-seed West Virginia.
• Today in history… Italian city Venice is founded (421). Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scots (1306). Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia (1584). Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens (1655). Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet ‘The Necessity of Atheism’ (1811). Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, OH for Washington, D.C. (1894). The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape (1931). United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" on obscenity grounds (1957). Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, AL (1965). The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch (1979). The European Union's Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (1996).
• March 25 is the birthday of U.S. navy founder John Barry (1745), sculptor Gutzon Borglum (1867), conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867), composer Béla Bartók (1881), director David Lean (1908), journalist Howard Cosell (1918), businesswomen Eileen Ford (1922), film critic Gene Shalit (1926), activist Gloria Steinem (1934), singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton (1938), screenwriter D. C. Fontana (1939), singer-songwriter/pianist Aretha Franklin (1942), singer-songwriter/pianist Elton John (1947), actress Sarah Jessica Parker (1965), MLB player Tom Glavine (1966), singer-songwriter/guitarist Jeff Healey (1966), WNBA player Sheryl Swoopes (1971), race car driver Danica Patrick (1982), and NBA player Kyle Lowry (1986).

Well, send me some good thoughts today. I’m chauffeuring Kat for a medical procedure which is routine and minor, but it’s also a good ways from here, so we’ll be traversing the whole greater Los Angeles area getting there and back. Hey, I used to do that shit daily, but… I do not miss it. Enjoy your day.