Random News: May 4, 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 4, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. I am, oddly, not in a bathrobe; I have a special live music show to perform early this afternoon, so I’m showered and dressed, up and about, and I can’t spend a whole lot of time doing this news. But we’ll get the important shit in, because we always do.

• Do I have to so it? The Star Wars thing?
• Sigh. Fine.
• May the 4th be with you. Lord help me.
• I should mention that I don’t dislike Star Wars. It’s just that there’s a reason why Star Trek now has like 752 total TV series and films, while Star Wars is… a goofy-ass space cartoon.
• But don’t let me stop you from enjoying it. As Master Yoda would say, enjoy, or do not enjoy. There is no try.
• Let’s do some news.
• Actually, as a segue into the news, the date is significant: it was on May 4, 1970 that students at Kent State University, not far from Akron, OH, were demonstrating against the Vietnam War when National Guard troops opened fire with live ammo, killing four kids and wounding nine others.
• Want to know the prevailing attitude at the time? President Nixon referred to student protesters as "bums," while then-California Governor Ronald Reagan said "if it takes bloodbath" to deal with campus demonstrators "let's get it over with."
• The day before the massacre, May 3, Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes described campus demonstrators as "the worst type of people that we harbor in America."
• So basically that was the Fox News-type messaging of the day.
• One thing to keep in mind… for college students in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Vietnam was more than a social issue to get behind; our country was directly involved in the military conflict and those students’ friends and family were being forced to participate in violent military action via the draft.
• And if you were male between 18-25 and weren’t a full-time student, your ass was going to ‘Nam. My father was 26 years old and married to my mom in 1967, and he still got drafted. His platoon guys called him the Old Man, because the average age for the foot solider in Vietnam was 19.
• Back to the present.
• I support the right of people to protest, end of story. I do hope that the current batch of pro-Palestine demonstrators are smart enough to understand that while their cause is legit, they are also being useful tools of factions whose outlooks aren’t nearly as noble.
• I’m also hoping that a cease-fire and the return of hostages is imminent. Peace talks continue in Cairo today.
• Hamas said its delegation was in a positive spirit after studying the latest truce proposal. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is involved in the negotiations being brokered by Egypt and Qatar that would at least temporarily pause Israel's offensive in Gaza in return for freeing hostages.
• The main issue appears to involve whether the ceasefire deal would be permanent or temporary. Hamas is insisting any deal makes a specific commitment towards an end to the war, but Israel is reluctant to agree while the group remains active in Gaza.
• Here’s hoping. Let’s move on.
• In yesterday’s session of Donnie Dump’s hush money/election interfere criminal trial, his former communications director Hope Hicks was nervous and occasionally in tears as she told the jury about how Dumpy reacted when news reports surfaced about his extramarital sexual encounters and his attempts to suppress them.
• Hicks said she was initially unaware of the deals in 2016 to pay two women, Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, for their silence about their sexual encounters with Fat ’n’ Smelly.
• She testified that she first learned of the payments on November 4 of that year, when a reporter sent her questions about McDougal, a former Playboy model who received $150,000 from the National Enquirer's parent company.
• Hicks was Dumpy’s PR person when the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape went public, a 2005 recording in which Trump is heard saying he could "grab [women] by the pussy" and "make them do anything."
• They didn’t want any more political fallout after the “grab ‘em but he pussy” tape came out, so that’s why Dump had his then-lawyer Michael Cohen pay $130,000 in exchange for Stormy Daniels' silence.
• So…
• Hicks made it clear that Dump knew of the Cohen payoff scheme to Daniels. Her testimony sank Dump's defense since he is on record in a civil case admitting that he reimbursed Cohen the $130,000.
• And she established that Dump knew that money was for Daniels’ silence — not for the claimed legal fees for ongoing legal work by Cohen.
• Which is the entire basis of the 34 counts of falsifying business records related to those reimbursements to Cohen.
• So Hicks was an absolutely devastating witness against Dump. The trial continues next week.
• In other news…
• As you likely recall, in February, the Alabama Supreme Court put the entire in-vitro fertilization (IVF) medical practice in jeopardy after declaring that frozen embryos were, in the eyes of the law, children.
• That Court had the opportunity yesterday to reconsider their controversial ruling, and in a 7-2 decision without comment, they rejected a request to revisit the ruling that drew international attention and prompted fertility clinics to cease services earlier this year.
• It wasn’t a mistake or an accident. They don’t want IVF procedures to be legal in the state, and they want women to require to become impregnated via penetrative sex or not at all.
• After the Alabama justices ruled that three couples could pursue wrongful death lawsuits for their "extrauterine children,” women saw fertility treatments canceled or put in jeopardy after the ruling.
• The Mobile Infirmary Medical Center, which was the focus of the two lawsuits that led to the state Supreme Court's controversial ruling, announced last month that it will stop IVF treatments at the end of 2024 due to litigation concerns. 
• One of the most tangible aspects of the 2024 presidential election is that Joe Biden wants to create legislation that enshrines the right to reproductive freedom nationwide, while Donnie Dump won’t even commit to stopping a national abortion ban.
• Vote accordingly.
• Moving on.
• For those of you who think this column is biased against right-wing political candidates… you are correct.
• However, I always call out any unjust action no matter what side of the aisle it’s on. That rings us to…
• Yesterday, the Justice Department indicted longtime Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-TX, and his wife, Imelda, charging the pair with bribery and money laundering related to their ties with a bank in Mexico and an oil and gas company controlled by Azerbaijan.
• Assholes.
• The Cuellars accepted roughly $600,000 in bribes from the two foreign entities in exchange for the congressman performing official acts. The bribe payments were laundered via sham consulting contracts through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar.
• The congressman and his wife are each charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery of a federal official and to have a public official act as an agent of a foreign principal; two counts of bribery of a federal official; two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; two counts of violating the ban on public officials acting as agents of a foreign principal; one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering; and five counts of money laundering.
• Yikes!
• If convicted, they could spend years or even decades in prison. If they are guilty, they should pay the price like any criminal. I don’t give a single shit that Cuellar is a Democrat.
• I’ll note that they profess their innocence. Save it for the court, Henry.
• Moving on.
• Some interesting news hit yesterday about an accounting firm named BF Borgers. They were charged yesterday by the Securities and Exchange Commission with widespread fraud, and were accused of operating a “sham audit mill.”
• Why might you give a shit? Because Borgers is the accounting form used by Trump Media & Technology Group. The SEC accused BF Borgers of “deliberate and systemic failures,” including “fabricating” audit documentation and falsely representing to clients its work would comply with accounting standards.
• The SEC lowered the fucking hammer on Borgers, permanently suspending the firm from practicing as accountants effective immediately. The firm and its owner, Benjamin Borgers, also agreed to pay $14 million collectively in fines.
• The fraudulent company served as Trump Media’s independent registered accounting firm before his social media company went public in March.
• Pffft.
• The backlash toward South Dakota governor and Republican vice-president contender Kristi Noem continued this week. Noem, as you’re most certainly aware by now, is the politician that wrote about shooting her puppy in the head for being rambunctious.
• Yesterday, a Republican group in Colorado said that it was cancelling a fundraiser featuring Noem. The group's fundraising dinner, which was set to take place today, was being cancelled due to safety concerns after the group, the governor and her staff, and the hotel hosting the event received numerous threats.
• Look, people like dogs, and we don’t like people who shoot and kill them for no reason at all. Noem called the puppy “less than worthless” before killing the small and defenseless animal.
• That’s your Republican party, folks.
• And to bring this all full circle, Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) shared a video online yesterday that showed anti-Palestine counter-protestors at the University of Mississippi who were taunting a Black woman by making monkey noises at her and jumping up and down.
• “Ole Miss taking care of business,” wrote Collins on social media platform X.
• The racist counter-protestors were also praised by Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and Donnie Dump.
• Again, folks… that’s the Republican party. If you’re a part of it, I assume you support those actions. Even if you say nothing at all, I still assume this is what you support.
• If it bothered you, you’d speak up.
• And now, The Weather: “Station REM” by Goofy Geese
• From the Sports Desk… with many of the NBA and NHL playoff series being blowouts, we actually have a few exciting game 7’s coming up in this first round.
• In the NBA, with the semifinals already getting underway today, tomorrow will have a matchup between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic, who are knotted up at 3-3.
• In the NHL, the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs are tied at 3-3 with game 7 happening tonight. Likewise, the Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights are wrapped at 3-3 and their game 7 is tomorrow. 
• Today in history… Assassination of the Swedish rebel — later national hero — Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson (1436). Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III (1776). The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, IN (1871). The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal (1904). Student demonstrations take place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred Chinese territory to Japan (1919). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated (1927). In Atlanta, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion (1932). Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ (1953). The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held (1959). The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others (1970). Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979). Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges, but the convictions are later overturned on appeal (1989). Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord, granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho (1994).
• May 4 is the birthday of abolitionist Horace Mann (1796), first lady Julia Gardiner Tyler (1820), biologist Eugenie Clark (1922), actress Audrey Hepburn (1929), bassist Ron Carter (1937), guitarist/songwriter Dick Dale (1937), journalist George Will (1941), actress Pia Zadora (1953), singer-songwriter Randy Travis (1959), actress Ana Gasteyer (1967), actor Will Arnett (1970), sportscaster Erin Andrews (1978), singer Lance Bass (1979), golfer Rory McIlroy (1989), and NBA player Victor Oladipo (1992).

I mentioned up top that I have a show today. For you Second Life people, it’s a special charitable show at Feed-a-Smile at 1PM SLT. Come see me if you can. For now, time to tune the Takamine and get warmed up to play. Enjoy your day.