Random News: April 13, 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, or afternoon to be more precise. It’s April 13, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. The robe wasn’t cutting it on this overcast day, so I’m showered and dressed and ready to do whatever I do. Note that when I say “dressed,” it’s in my typical style that is more akin to that of a middle schooler than a middle-aged grown-ass man, but I’m not here to impress anyone.

• Let’s look at some news.
• While Donnie Dump’s first criminal trial begins in Monday, we have some news from another of his criminal actions.
• US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is running the classified documents trial against El Dumpo and his co-defendants, appeared dubious yesterday of his efforts to get the charges against them thrown out and to get more information from prosecutors about the charges.
• Yesterday’s hearing was the first major test of the obstruction case that special counsel Jack Smith has brought against Dump’s valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira.
• For over two hours, Cannon grilled attorneys for Nauta and De Oliveira about their arguments that the charges against their clients lacked adequate clarity. Dump’s employees are accused of conspiring to help Dumples hide documents at his golf motel in Florida, and lying to the FBI in interviews about their alleged involvement in moving the documents. They have pleaded not guilty.
• Moving on.
• The House managed to do actually do their jobs yesterday when they passed a bill to reauthorize Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a crucial national security surveillance program, despite a conservative revolt two days earlier. 
• The bill revises a portion of FISA for a shortened period of two years, instead of the full five-year reauthorization first proposed. The change was made to sway whiny GOP baby critics. 
• Despite that, the vote on final passage was 273 in favor to 147 opposed. It wasn’t as split on party lines as you might imagine.
• 147 Republicans and 126 Democrats voted in favor of the reauthorization, but 59 Republicans and 88 Democrats voting against it.
• My feelings? Well… sometimes you have to be a grown-up and acknowledge that a country’s national security is crucial, even when you are very much opposed to things like warrantless spying on people under its Section 702.
• And let’s be clear here: the only reason the far-right are opposed is that the investigation into Dump’s relationship with Russia used FISA as the basis to gather information.
• Moving back to Monday’s criminal trial.
• No, I’m not going to again explain the charges of falsifying business records. All I want to mention is what happens at the start.
• The first part of the process, as it would be for any criminal, is jury selection, which will last one to two weeks.
• Prosecutors and Dumpy’s lawyers will be choosing among hundreds of people who were randomly summoned, whittling them down to 12 jurors and six alternates.
• For those interested in law, this process is called “voir dire,” a term meaning "to speak the truth”. It encompasses all procedures during a trial that help determine if prospective jurors can be fair and impartial, if witnesses are competent to testify, and to decide the admissibility of evidence.
• The reality is that the prosecution and defense lawyers are simply looking for the jurors who will most likely benefit their respective sides, without choosing those who are openly biased and could derail the standing of the trial.
• Each prospective juror in Dump’s trial will answer 42 questions designed to discern whether they can be impartial about Big Smelly. As is almost always the case, the jurors will be anonymous, meaning their identities will be withheld from the public because of security concerns.
• As you’d imagine, the jurors would immediately become the objects of threats and/or violence via the MAGA community if their names become public.
• So that’s what starts Monday. It’s really the most important part of the trial, even though it’s not as sexy as having Stormy Daniels testify, which will happen a few weeks later.
• Let’s move on.
• Here’s some crazy shit.
• One person was killed and more than a dozen injured after a man intentionally crashed a stolen semi-truck into a Texas Department of Public Safety office in Brenham, TX yesterday.
• On Thursday, Clenard Parker, 42, went to the office but got informed that he was not eligible to renew his commercial driver's license.
• So yesterday morning, he stole a huge-ass truck and drive it straight into them.
• Yikes! That seems like a bit of an overreaction to me. Parker is being held without bail on two initial charges — suspicion of evading arrest causing serious bodily injury, and unauthorized use of a vehicle.
• In other news…
• Let’s send our collective admiration to Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D), who vetoed a ban yesterday on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth in the state.
• She stated, "This divisive legislation targets a small group of Kansans by placing government mandates on them and dictating to parents how to best raise and care for their children. I do not believe that is a conservative value, and it's certainly not a Kansas value."
• Kansas is lucky to have her at the helm.
• Moving over to sending collective scorn to Colorado State Representative Don Wilson (R-Monument), who left a loaded 9mm Glock handgun in a bathroom of the Colorado State Capitol on Tuesday.
• But wait… they were literally just considering a state bill to prohibit firearms in sensitive spaces — including the Rotunda.
• Wilson said, “I want to be clear that I take full and complete accountability for the incident. I made a mistake and am very sorry. I take firearm safety very seriously. This is a humbling experience, and I will reaffirm my commitment to responsible handling procedures.”
• So you have a guy who is voting to derail laws on gun regulation and safety, who goes to take a shit, and leaves his fucking loaded weapon on the bathroom counter at work? I should note, it was found by the janitorial staff.
• Where does he place his loaded gun while at home? Does he have any small kids/grandkids? Every week, it seems we hear of another horrible situation of a little kid finding a loaded gun.
• The Glock was returned to Wilson after law enforcement determined that no state statutes were violated and no criminal charges were pending as a result of the incident. 
• Moving on.
• In our ongoing reporting of the assholes who attempted and failed to enact a coup against the United States on January 6, 2021, meet Richard Ackerman of Salem, MA.
• This young neo-Nazi group member and MAGA/Dump supporter pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony charge of civil disorder and a misdemeanor charge of theft of government property for his actions during the insurrection.
• Among other things, Ackerman stole and kept a police helmet as a "war trophy" during the attack. MAGA scum hate cops. Don’t ever think otherwise. His sentencing is scheduled for July 25 in Washington, D.C.
• More than 1,300 people have now been charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol attack. Arrests, trials, and sentencing will continue until every one of them is met with justice, no matter how long it takes.
• Also in the asshole file, one we haven’t mentioned recently due to his irrelevance: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
• Thursday night, he signed a law that prevents cities or counties from creating protections for workers who labor in the state's often extreme and dangerous heat.
• More than two million Floridians work outdoors in positions ranging from construction to agriculture to many other key professions, often in brutally humid blazing heat.
• For years, those workers have asked for rules to protect them, like paid rest breaks, water on the job, and access to shade when temperatures soar.
• But DeSantis happily signed a law to block those protections from being implemented in cities and counties across the state.
• Last year was the hottest summer in Florida's history, along with the rest of the USA. This summer will be even hotter. Working people in Florida will die as a direct result of this.
• You’re doing a great job, Ronnie.
• Relevant side note: in 2006, California became the first state to establish regulations protecting workers from heat. We require employers to provide shade, rest breaks, and access to cool, clean water for outdoor workers.
• And after the rules were implemented here, heat-related workers compensation claims dropped considerably. See how that is good for everyone?
• After several farm workers died in the deadly June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, Washington and Oregon also created worker protections from heat.
• And now, The Weather: “Something in the Room She Moves” by Julia Holter
• Let’s do a chart. it’s April 1969, and I’m going to be born in less than two months. This is the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart.
• 1. Hair (Original Cast Recording). 2. Blood, Sweat & Tears (Blood, Sweat & Tears). 3. Galveston (Glen Campbell). 4. Donovan's Greatest Hits (Donovan). 5. Cloud Nine (The Temptations). 6. Help Yourself (Tom Jones). 7. Wichita Lineman (Glen Campbell). 8. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Iron Butterfly). 9. Bayou Country (Creedence Clearwater Revival). 10. Switched-On Bach (Wendy Carlos) 11. Greatest Hits (The Association). 12. At Your Birthday Party (Steppenwolf). 13. Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin). 14. Goodbye (Cream). 15. Ball (Iron Butterfly). 16. Engelbert (Engelbert Humperdinck). 17. Freedom Suite (The Rascals). 18. The Beatles [White Album] (The Beatles). 19. The Tom Jones Fever Zone (Tom Jones). 20. Soulful (Dionne Warwick).
• From the Sports Desk… with the playoffs starting soon, here are the ten best teams in the NBA and their current respective records.
• 1. Celtics (63-18). 2. Thunder (56-25). 3. Timberwolves (56-25). 4. Nuggets (56-25). 5. Clippers (51-30). 6. Mavericks (50-31). 7. Bucks (49-32). 8. Knicks (49-32). 9. Pelicans (49-32). 10. Cavaliers (48-33).
• Today in history… Constantinople falls to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire (1204). Samuel Argall, having captured Pocahontas in Passapatanzy, VA, sets off with her to Jamestown with the intention of exchanging her for English prisoners held by her father (1613). George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah makes its world premiere in Dublin, Ireland (1742). Raleigh, NC is occupied by Union forces in the American Civil War (1865). The New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded (1870). Up to 150 black men are murdered in Colfax, LA while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan (1873). German WWII troops kill more than 1,000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen, Germany (1945). CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program Project MKUltra (1953). The United States launches Transit 1-B, the world's first satellite navigation system (1960). Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American man to win the Best Actor award for the film ‘Lilies of the Field’ (1964). An oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes while en route to the Moon (1970). Two women and four children are killed after Israeli helicopter fired rockets at an ambulance in Mansouri, Lebanon (1996). Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to win the Masters Tournament (1997). The house of Jack Teixeira was raided in an investigation into leaked Pentagon documents, where he was later arrested on the same day (2023).
• April 13 is the birthday of soldier/terrorist Guy Fawkes (1570), US president Thomas Jefferson (1743), surgeon/radiologist Robert Abbe (1851), businessman Frank Winfield Woolworth (1852), criminal Butch Cassidy (1866), novelist/poet Samuel Beckett (1906), actor Don Adams (1923), poet/playwright Seamus Heaney (1939), actor Paul Sorvino (1939), composer/conductor Bill Conti (1942), singer-songwriter/pastor Al Green (1946), actor Ron Perlman (1950), singer Peabo Bryson (1951), drummer/bandleader Max Weinberg (1951), chess player Garry Kasparov (1963), actor Ricky Schroder (1970), NBA player Baron Davis (1979), and singer-songwriter/musician Ty Dolla Sign (1982).

Okay then. Time to do stuff and things. Enjoy your day.