Random News: May 28, 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 28, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. As usual after a three-day weekend, this Tuesday feels like a Super Monday thus far. I awoke not quite remembering who I was or what I did for a living, so perhaps writing this news column will help alleviate my hopefully temporary holiday-based amnesia.

• I’m calling bullshit on this first news item before you even read it.
• Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that a “tragic mistake” was made in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that set fire to a camp housing displaced Palestinians and, according to local officials, killed at least 45 people.
• Yeah, a tragic mistake for yourself and your country, Bibi.
• The strike greatly added to the surging international criticism Israel has faced over its war with Hamas, with even its closest allies expressing outrage at civilian deaths.
• Israel insists it adheres to international law even as it faces scrutiny in the world’s top courts, one of which last week demanded that it halt the offensive in Rafah.
• Netanyahu did not elaborate on the error. As details of the strike and fire emerged, the military said it had opened an investigation into the deaths of civilians.
• At least 45 people were killed in Israel’s strike on Rafah. The dead included at least 12 women, eight children, and three older adults, with other bodies burned beyond recognition.
• Around 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes. Severe hunger is widespread, and parts of the territory are experiencing famine.
• I can’t see how the world will stand back and allow this to continue. The US has stepped into plenty of other conflicts where unabated genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other war crime actions were evident.
• As of today, despite their admission of wrongdoing, Israeli forces have reached the center of Rafah. Tanks were stationed at al-Awda roundabout, which is considered a key landmark.
• Western areas of the city also came under intense bombardment overnight. They have no intention of stopping this nightmare.
• Moving on.
• In seemingly better international news, this coming Sunday June 2 is Mexico’s election day, and all signs say that the next President of our southern neighbor is going to be Claudia Sheinbaum.
• The politician, 61, has a a PhD in environmental engineering and served a term as Mexico City mayor. Now she’s poised to make history as Mexico’s first female president and first Jewish head of state.
• Polls say that Sheinbaum has a wide lead over the next-placed candidate, conservative entrepreneur Xóchitl Gálvez.
• Good luck, Mexico.
• Let’s move on.
• Today the Supreme Court turned away a bid by disgraced attorney Michael Avenatti to overturn his conviction for attempting to extort nearly $25 million from sporting goods giant Nike.
• The rejection of Avenatti's appeal means his conviction on three federal charges will remain in place. 
• Good. Avenatti, 53, is currently incarcerated at a federal corrections facility not far from here in San Pedro, CA. He is scheduled to be released in 2035.
• Separate from the Nike case, the scumbag was also convicted for cheating Stormy Daniels and other clients out of millions of dollars.
• Let’s move on.
• I want to talk about the recent Texas GOP convention, because if you want to see the ultimate in a horrifyingly dystopian future, it already exists today.
• Steve Hotze was an exhibitor there. An indicted election fraud conspiracy theorist, Hotze has helmed hardline anti-abortion movements and virulently homophobic campaigns against LGTBQ+ rights, comparing gay people to Nazis and helping popularize the “groomer” slur that paints all gay people as pedophiles.
• Those opinions used to be considered fringe, and not representative of the Republican party as a whole. Now they’re mainstream. Hotze said Saturday that he was pleased by the party's growing embrace of his calls for spiritual warfare with “demonic, Satanic forces” on the left.
• Delegates at the event approved rules that ban candidates — as well as judges — who are censured by the party from appearing on primary ballots for two years, a move that would give a small group of Republicans the ability to block people from running for office.
• The party’s proposed platform also included planks that would effectively lock Democrats out of statewide office by requiring candidates to win a majority of Texas’ 254 counties, many of which are dark-red but sparsely populated, and called for laws requiring the Bible to be taught in public schools.
• This is real. This is today. These aren’t just weirdos in a basement somewhere.
• At the event, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said,“They want to take God out of the country, and they want the government to be God.”
• State Sen. Angela Paxton (R-McKinney) said, “Our battle is not against flesh and blood. It is against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
• And not to be left out, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas stated, ”Look at what the Democrats have done. If you were actively trying to destroy America, what would you do differently?”
• If you empower these people, they will force their religion on you by law. They will remove the rights of women to vote. They will sound up people who aren’t straight and white and those who aren’t killed immediately will meet worse fates.
• We do not live in a theocracy like Iran. This is America.
• One thing that we can count on, though, is Republicans turning one each other.
• Remember the ill-fated 2022 Senate election in Georgia when former football star lost to Reverend Raphael Warnock?
• Georgia and national Republicans, in dire need of money, are furious that Walker is sitting on more than $4 million in leftover campaign funds and seems to have no intention of using it to help the GOP or Donald Trump in the key battleground state in November.
• Hahahahah. Snort.
• And now, The Weather: “In Amber” by DIIV
• Hundreds of thousands of people in Texas and elsewhere remain without power today after getting battered by severe storms. Good luck, friends.
• A pre-Sports Desk rest in peace going out to the iconic NBA center Bill Walton, who died yesterday at 71 after a long battle with cancer.
• In college, he was a two-time champion at UCLA and a three-time national player of the year under coach John Wooden.
• In the NBA, Walton was MVP of the 1977-78 season and a member of the league's 50th and 75th anniversary teams. He also had a long career as a sports broadcast commentator.
• Many of us will also remember Bill as one of the world’s most beloved Deadheads. He was a hardcore fan of the band for more than 50 year.
• From the Sports Desk… in the midst of NHL and NBA playoff finals, let’s look at the divisional leaders in MLB standings.
• AL East: Yankees (37-18). AL Central: Guardians (36-18). AL West: Mariners (29-26).
• NL East: Phillies (38-17). NL Central: Brewers (31-22). NL West: Dodgers (33-22).
• Today in history… A solar eclipse occurs, as predicted by the Greek philosopher and scientist Thales (585 BC). In the first engagement of the French and Indian war, Virginia militia under the 22-year-old lieutenant colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania (1754). U.S. President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act which denies Native Americans their land rights and forcibly relocates them (1830). In San Francisco, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club (1892). Alan Turing submits ‘On Computable Numbers’ for publication (1936). Volkswagen, the German automobile manufacturer, is founded (1937). Peter Benenson's article ‘The Forgotten Prisoners’ is published in several internationally read newspapers, later thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International (1961). The Palestine Liberation Organization is founded, with Yasser Arafat elected as its first leader (1964). U.S. President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal, and the Governor of Arkansas, Jim Guy Tucker, are convicted of fraud (1996). The last steel girder is removed from the original World Trade Center site (2002). 
• May 28 is the birthday of UK prime minister William Pitt the Younger (1759), poet/composer Thomas Moore (1779), inventor Carl Richard Nyberg (1858), athlete Jim Thorpe (1888), author Ian Fleming (1908), singer-songwriter/guitarist T-Bone Walker (1910), actress/activist Zelda Rubinstein (1933), NBA player/executive Jerry West (1938), lawyer/politician/national joke Rudy Giuliani (1944), singer-songwriter Gladys Knight (1944), physician Patch Adams (1945), singer-songwriter John Fogerty (1945), bass player Leland Sklar (1947), singer-songwriter Wendy O. Williams (1949), guitarst Jerry Douglas (1956), MLB player Kirk Gibson (1957), singer-songwriter/actress Kylie Minogue (1968), politician Rob Ford (1969), politician Marco Rubio (1971), and NFL player Percy Harvin (1988).

That’s all for now. I could really use another day off. Or two. Or ten. But no, back to being a productive member of society, I suppose. Enjoy your day.