Random News: May 15, 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 15, 2024, and it’s a Wednesday. I’m sure many things have happened since we last met here; let’s see what they are.

• This morning, President Biden said that he will not participate in the decades-old tradition of three fall meetings organized by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.
• Instead, he called on the Dumpinator to join him for two televised presidential debates in June and September.
• Dump accepted the offer. I can’t think of anything I’d rather watch less than these two crotchety elderly men arguing. It sounds horrible.
• Moving on.
• Some bad breaking news out of Slovakia, where their populist Prime Minister Robert Fico is in life-threatening condition after being wounded in a shooting after a political event just now.
• Fico, 59, was hit in the stomach after four shots were fired outside the House of Culture in the town of Handlova, where the leader was meeting with supporters. A suspect has been detained.
• Assassinations are never good news.
• In other news…
• Looks like Harvard has worked out a deal with the pro-Palestinian protesters who’ve maintaining a presence at the school. They will end their encampment that lasted 20 days.
• Harvard has agreed to hold reinstatement proceedings for 20 or so students and student workers suspended by the University for their participation in the encampment.
• For 60 protestors facing disciplinary procedures, the university has agreed to expedite their cases.
• Fun fact: Harvard is the nation’s oldest university. Their commencement events start May 21.
• Moving down the New York City, where the testimony of Donnie Dump’s former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen continued yesterday.
• Team Dump opened their cross-examination by pressing Cohen about critical comments and vulgar social media posts he’s made about Dumpy.
• In fact, there was very little testimony about the case at all. Everything form the defense was intended only to portray Cohen as former loyalist who is now on a mission to get fame and revenge.
• The only other notable thing from yesterday’s proceedings was the appearance of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to obsequiously show support to his boss.
• Johnson addressed the media outside the courthouse, calling the trial a “sham.” He also stuck to the messaging they told him to, lambasting Cohen as a man bent on “personal revenge.” 
• Kinda hilarious, though, this allegedly highly moral and ethical Christian man showing up to defend his boss in a trial that stemmed from him literally fucking a porn star while his wife sat home with the newborn.
• Is that what Jesus would do, Mike?
• What it is, obviously, is returning the political favor Dump gave Johnson by publicly opposing efforts to oust him form the Speaker job.
• Several states had primary elections yesterday… Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia.
• Not many big surprises on the Presidential side of things. Both Biden and Dump won their primaries pretty handily.
• I’d say there were signs of both candidates’ relative unpopularity. Biden won Maryland’s primary with just over 86%, with a full 10% voting “uncommitted.”
• But in the same state, Dumpy once again was shown that even in his own party, many people don’t want him running the country again. Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race over two months back, got 20% of the GOP votes.
• Perhaps more interesting in that state is a sign on the ineptitude of polling. Days before the election, Dem Senate candidates Angela Alsobrooks and David Trone were thought to be neck and neck per polls.
• Alsobrooks ended up trouncing Trone by double digits, winning 54% of the votes to Trone’s 42%. She’ll take on the state’s former governor Larry Hogan in the fall.
• In West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice (R) prevailed in a GOP contest for the seat held by retiring Sen. Joe Manchin III (D). Justice is heavily favored in the fall against Democrat Glenn Elliott, meaning that seat will almost certainly flip.
• Guess we’ll see.
• Hunter Biden’s bid to delay the trial for his federal gun case was denied. The case will go to trial next month.
• The younger Biden had request to push the trial back to September, which the defense said was necessary to give the defense time to line up witnesses and go through evidence handed over by prosecutors.
• Nope.
• He’s accused of lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days.
• If he’s guilty, he should be punished. That’s how the legal system is supposed to work, whether your last name is Trump or Biden or anything else.
• No one is above the law. End of fucking story.
• And now, The Weather: “Vendredi Minuit” by Sofia Bolt
• From the Sports Desk… tonight will have the announcement of the 2024 NFL regular season schedule.
• Who will your team play? When? Where? What’s the road schedule like? When’s the bye week? 
• We find out tonight at 8pm EDT.
• In non-sports Sports Desk news, meet Kansas City Chiefs kicker and backwards-ass moron Harrison Butker.
• He gave a commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend where he railed against Pride month, working women, President Biden’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, and abortion.
• Perhaps Butker’s most egregious statements happened when he addressed the women in the audience, arguing that their “most important title” should be that of “homemaker.”
• “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”
• Jesus Fucking Christ.
• Today in history… Cape Cod is sighted by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold (1602). Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion (1618). Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason, now known as Friends Hospital, Philadelphia, PA (1817). The city of Las Vegas is founded in Nevada, United States (1905). In Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the United States Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be broken up (1911). The Winnipeg general strike begins and by 11:00, almost the whole working population of Winnipeg had walked off the job (1919). Richard and Maurice McDonald open the first McDonald's restaurant (1940). Gordon Cooper becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space, and the last American to go into space alone (1963). President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army generals (1970). Édith Cresson becomes France's first female Prime Minister (1991). California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional (2008).
• May 15 is the birthday of novelist L. Frank Baum (1856), physicist Pierre Curie (1859), banker/politician Prescott Bush (1895), politician Richard J. Daley (1902), photographer Richard Avedon (1923), painter Jasper Johns (1930), painter Ralph Steadman (1936), US secretary of state Madeleine Albright (1937), singer/guitarist Trini Lopez (1937), songwriter/producer Brian Eno (1948), actor Chazz Palminteri (1952), MLB player George Brett (1953), songwriter/producer Mike Oldfield (1953), MLB player John Smoltz (1967), NFL player Emmitt Smith (1969), NFL player Ray Lewis (1975), and actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler (1981).

Welp, that’s all for now. Gotta go. Enjoy your day.