Random News: April 23, 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 April 23, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. It’s a fresh new day, the sky is gray, so why not listen to what I have to say?

• With last night being the start of Passover, and with all kinds of crazy shit going on in the world, it seems like a good time to talk about Jewish topics.
• Chag pesach sameach!
• The Bible describes Passover in the Book of Exodus, when God commanded Moses to tell the Israelites to mark a lamb's blood above their doors so that the Angel of Death would pass over them.
• Doing so meant they would not be touched by the tenth Plague of Egypt, the death of the firstborn. After this Plague, Pharaoh ordered the Israelites to leave, taking whatever they wanted, and asked Moses to bless him in the name of God.
• So, good move, Jews.
• People get confused about Judaism, and for good reason.
• I am ethnically Jewish, or about 80% of my genetics are. But I am not at all Jewish from a religious standpoint. I’m Jewish in the way that Scarlett Johansson is Swedish. My ancestors came from places with historically high Jewish populations, like what would now be Ukraine and Lithuania.
• For as long as I can recall for my entire life, I’ve been pretty committed to my Atheism. I don’t think they allow people who don’t believe in any god at all to be considered a good Jew.
• I’ve never been inside a synagogue, and any information I’ve picked up about the religion has been through basic cultural awareness.
• But I will say that over the course of my life, my many Jewish friends, schoolmates, coworkers, colleagues, and acquaintances have been great people who’ve given me a lot of enjoyment. I’d say I am better having known them.
• And of course, if you’re a Christian, the central figure of your religion was a young Jewish guy in the Middle East.
• So, let’s shift this pleasant chat into some actual news tidbits.
• Early yesterday, police in riot gear swarmed Yale University’s campus and arrested dozens of students who refused to clear out from an anti-Israel protest encampment.
• At least 47 protesters were cuffed and hauled away from the New Haven, CT campus on shuttle buses, and given trespassing summons. They will also be referred for Yale disciplinary action, which may include suspensions.
• Not very far away in New York City, leaders and organizations have called on Columbia University to protect students amid reports of antisemitic and offensive statements and actions on and near its campus via its own pro-Palestinian encampment and protest.
• How do I feel about this? It’s complex. I support the right to free speech and protest. I 100% do NOT support singling out people from racial or ethnic groups and making them feel unsafe or unwanted.
• That goes against everything I stand for.
• You think that being an antisemitic piece of shit to your fellow Americans is going to somehow change things in Israel?
• Fuck all the way off with your TikTok political research, kid.
• And that is coming from someone who fully supports Palestine’s right to coexist peacefully without having its citizens attacked by militant Israeli assholes.
• If you really want to know what I think, it’s that Nazis have seen this situation as an opportunity to inflame anti-Jewish sentiment, and are driving a lot of the messaging that these college kids are sucking up.
• Let’s move on with some better news.
• Remember back in 2022 when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) threw 49 helpless migrants on an airplane and dropped them off in the wealthy enclave of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts?
• He did it as a cruel joke, so people could laugh at the desperate folks who came here to escape extreme poverty and persecution.
• They were promised by DeSantis’s team that they’d be flown to New York, Washington, D.C., and other locations, and assured they'd get housing and jobs.
• Well guess what? That’s a crime, and now those people — as victims of crime — have cleared a significant hurdle in their efforts to obtain visas to remain in the USA and get lawful employment.
• So, to be clear, as a direct result of DeSantis’ criminal action, these immigrants will now be protected from deportation and will be able to continue to live and work productively in the USA.
• Let’s move on.
• Newly unsealed documents show that in late November 2021, as officials at the National Archives were trying to persuade El Dumpo to return a trove of records he had taken from the White House when he left office, an unnamed associate advised him in the sharpest terms possible to give the materials back.
• “Whatever you have, give everything back — let them come here and get everything,” they told Dump, per an interview the person gave the F.B.I. “Don’t give them a noble reason to indict you, because they will.”
• Guess what? That associate was correct. Federal prosecutors charged Dumpy last June with violating the Espionage Act, accusing him of illegally holding onto more than 30 highly classified documents and obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.
• We find out now about this because yesterday, nearly 400 pages of investigative records were unsealed by judge Aileen M. Cannon.
• The same associate also said to the F.B.I. that Dump told his personal aide, Walt Nauta, who was ultimately charged as a co-defendant in the case, that he would receive a pardon if Dump was elected again.
• What an asshole. Lock him up!
• Back to today’s events with Dumples…
• His criminal hush money/election interference trial in New York continued this morning with a hearing on prosecutors’ accusations that he violated a gag order in the case taking place before testimony resumes.
• The hearing to start today’s trial proceedings is inn regard to the prosecution’s request that Dump be held in contempt of court and fined at least $3,000 for allegedly violating his gag order.
• Prosecutors cited 10 posts on Dump’s social media account and campaign website that they said breached the order, which bars him from making public statements about witnesses in the case.
• Prosecutors are seeking a $1,000 fine — the maximum allowed by law — for each of the first three alleged violations. They did not specify the punishment they are seeking for the seven other posts, which date to the morning jury selection began in the trial last week.
• Lock him up!
• Moving on.
• In our continuing coverage of the assholes who attempted and failed to enact a coup against the USA on January 6, 2021, meet Isreal Easterday.
• He was sentenced yesterday to more than two years in prison for pepper spraying two police officers in the face, partially blinding them for hours.
• Easterday stormed the U.S. Capitol while carrying a Confederate battle flag. He was only 19 when he participated in the insurrection, which was cited by Chief Judge James Boasberg as a reason for handing down a prison term — two years and six months — that was over five times lower than the Justice Department’s initial sentencing recommendation.
• Plus, the dumbass was homeschooled by his mother while living on a family farm and may have just been too stupid to know what he was doing, per the judge.
• And now, The Weather: “Martini” by Sofia Bolt
• The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has revealed its class of 2024, and I have to say, it’s a good one.
• This year’s inductees include Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Matthews Band, Cher, A Tribe Called Quest, Mary J. Blige, Peter Frampton, Foreigner, and Kool & The Gang.
• As long as we’re doing music news, we have to acknowledge ‘The Tortured Poets Department,’ the newest album from megastar Taylor Swift.
• It smashed previous records, and is the first album in Spotify's history to have more than 300 million streams in a single day.
• The same day, Swift also became the most-streamed artist within a single day ever on Spotify — and the album's first track, "Fortnight," which also features Post Malone as a vocalist, became Spotify's most-streamed song in a single day.
• Happy for her and her fans.
• From the Sports Desk… in the NBA playoffs thus far, not a single underdog team has yet to win a game.
• Boooooo.
• Today in history… Edmund Ironside succeeds his father Æthelred the Unready as King of England (1015). The first public school in the United States, Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston (1635). King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland is crowned in Westminster Abbey (1661). First baseball game at Wrigley Field, then known as Weeghman Park, in Chicago (1914). Coca-Cola disastrously changes its formula and releases New Coke (1985). The first YouTube video, titled "Me at the zoo", was published by co-founder Jawed Karim (2005). 
• April 23 is the birthday of US president James Buchanan (1791), politician Stephen A. Douglas (1813), physicist Max Planck (1858), actress/singer/dancer/diplomat Shirley Temple (1928), singer-songwriter Roy Orbison (1936), actor Lee Majors (1939), actress Jan Hooks (1957), actress Valerie Bertinelli (1960), comedian George Lopez (1961), wrestler/actor John Cena (1977), comedian/TV host John Oliver (1977), and model Gigi Hadid (1995).

As usual, there’s much more news than I have time to deliver, but many things are always happening around the world that merit your awareness and attention. For now, I’m going to go do yoga and strength training and a tiny bit of aerobics, all of which which I do daily despite hating. Enjoy your day.