Random News: May 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. It’s May 13, 2024, and it’s a Monday. I’m up and about bright and early as usual, getting myself ready for another work week, but first I want to see what’s happening in this world of ours.

• I’m gonna make a prediction. It’s not a difficult one.
• With school getting out soon and students becoming more scarce on campuses, the pro-Palestine protest movement will continue at colleges, but I find it likely that summertime will also see them out in the streets.
• It’s kind of the pattern of things. Unless some measure of peace happens fairly soon in the Middle East, I think it’s gonna be a hot and angry summer.
• Sigh.
• Let’s see what’s happening now.
• Michael Cohen is taking the stand in today’s Dump hush money trial. Let’s start with an important fact…
• No one likes Cohen. He’s a sleazy slimeball who once said he’d take a bullet for Donnie Dump. Now, of course, he’s even more hated by Team MAGA than anyone. 
• Despite that, when Cohen takes the stand today as a star witness for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, he’ll be tasked with convincing the jury that he’s a credible witness.
• Cohen is the one who, weeks before the 2016 election, directly made the $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels to stay silent about her previous sex experience with Dump.
• To make the payment, Cohen funneled his own money through a shell company he opened for that sole purpose.
• He’ll directly connect Dump to the 34 allegedly falsified records he is charged over, taking a step that Dump’s current and former employees who have testified have not done.
• How will Dump’s team defend against him? Easy. They’ll paint Cohen as a liar.
• Obviously we’ll be keeping an eye on that testimony today.
• And a relevant side note, in case you’re trapped in the bubble of your friends who think there’s no way a man accused of 91 felonies has a chance of winning the presidency.
• Polling released today shows that Dump leads President Biden in hypothetical head-to-head general election match-ups in five of six key battleground states.
• The New York Times/Siena College/Philadelphia Inquirer polling, conducted from April 28 to May 9, shows Dump leading Biden among registered voters in Pennsylvania (47 percent to 44 percent), Arizona (49 percent to 42 percent), Michigan (49 percent to 42 percent), Georgia (49 percent to 39 percent), and Nevada (50 percent to 38 percent).
• If you think things will be fine without your vote and your efforts to get others to vote, you’re straight up wrong.
• In other news of ugliness and corruption and accountability…
• The trial of Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) starts today. It’s the second time in a decade that Menendez has been rung up on federal charges, this time for using his position and influence to benefit a trio of businessmen who were plying him with luxury gifts.
• He and his wife were being bribed with those gifts in exchange for his help paving the way for lucrative deals lined up with the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
• A 66-page indictment says Menendez tried to pressure law enforcement officials in New Jersey to drop criminal investigations into three people connected to him.
• Fucking asshole.
• Moving on.
• Beloved actor Steve Buscemi was randomly assaulted in New York City last week. He was walking along in Manhattan's Kips Bay neighborhood and some piece of shit punched him in the face in a random act of violence.
• Buscemi was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition for treatment of bruising, swelling, and bleeding to his left eye. He’s going to be okay.
• How good a guy is Buscemi? After 9/11, he sought out and rejoined his old FDNY firefighting brigade and helped find and assist survivors in lower Manhattan.
• Wishing him well and moving on.
• You know those intense aurora displays seen all across northern Europe, Asia, and North America this past weekend? That geomagnetic storm reached G5 strength, making it the strongest solar event since 2003. 
• And now, The Weather: “Asha The First (feat. Thundercat, Taj Austin, Ras Austin)” by Kamasi Washington
• Rest in peace to Roger Corman, a trailblazer in the world of independent film. He died this week at 98.
• In addition to his famously low budget cult films, Corman is also famous for handling the U.S. distribution of many films by noted foreign directors, including Fellini, Bergman, Truffaut and Kurosawa.
• He also mentored young film directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, and many others. Corman also launched the careers of actors like Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, William Shatner and more.
• From the Sports Desk… let’s take a peek at the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs.
• Florida Panthers lead Boston Bruins 3-1. New York Rangers lead Carolina Hurricanes 3-1. Dallas Stars lead Colorado Avalanche 2-1. Vancouver Canucks lead Edmonton Oilers 2-1.
• Today in history… Amerigo Vespucci sets sail for western lands under a Portuguese flag (1501). Sword duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro on the shores of Ganryū Island; Kojiro is slain (1612). Ecuador gains its independence from Gran Colombia (1830). The United States declares war on the Federal Republic of Mexico following a dispute over the American annexation of the Republic of Texas and a Mexican military incursion (1846). Southern slave Robert Smalls commandeers the USS Planter, and is later officially appointed as captain, becoming the first black man to command a United States ship (1862). Ben Carlin becomes the only person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle during a ten-year journey (1958). Hundreds of University of California, Berkeley students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (1960). Police bombed MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia, killing six adults and five children, and destroying the homes of 250 city residents (1985). Alison Hargreaves, a 33-year-old British mother, becomes the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas (1995). 
• May 13 is the birthday of Count of Champagne — and my 26th great-grandfather - Theobald III (1179), physician/historian Ole Worm (1588), Great Britain prime minister Charles Watson-Wentworth (1730), painter/sculptor Georges Braque (1882), pianist/composer Gil Evans (1912), boxer Joe Louis (1914), actress Bea Arthur (1922), cult leader/mass murderer Jim Jones (1931), actor Harvey Keitel (1939), singer-songwriter Ritchie Valens (1941), singer-songwriter Mary Wells (1943), harmonica player Magic Dick (1945), singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Stevie Wonder (1950), NBA player Dennis Rodman (1961), comedian/TV host Stephen Colbert (1964), singer-songwriter Darius Rucker (1966), singer-songwriter Chuck Schuldiner (1967), Australia prime minister Scott Morrison (1968), guitarist Buckethead (1969), rapper Pusha T (1977), NBA player Mike Bibby (1978), actor Robert Pattinson (1986), and NHL player P. K. Subban (1989).

Well, that’s it for now. Time to work out and then work and then whatever. Enjoy your day.