Random News: May 8, 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 8, 2024, and it’s a Wednesday. I really need this coffee I’m drinking, but let’s take a look at the news while I bring my caffeine levels back up to the zone of safety for myself and those around me.

• Let’s start today with the results of the Indiana primary elections, where once again, a shocking result showed that Donnie Dump does not have the enthusiasm from Republicans that he once maintained.
• Dump obviously won… but he only got 78% of the vote.
• Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race over two months ago, received nearly 22% of the vote in the state.
• If you don’t think that’s meaningful, I don’t know what to tell you.
• President Biden ran unopposed in the state.
• In other 2024 presidential candidate news, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that a worm literally ate part of his brain, according to a new report from The New York Times. 
• I’m not even going to comment on this. What can I possibly say? The headline says it all.
• We should probably review the testimony of porn star Stormy Daniels at yesterday’s criminal hush money trial of that notorious accused felon, Donald John Trump.
• The first thing that happened was a last-second request from Team Dump to have the court bar Daniels from testifying.
• Dump is evil and demented, but he’s not so stupid to not see how the open court testimony about him fucking a porn star while his wife was home caring for his youngest child would have a big impact with family-oriented Republican voters, especially in places like the South and Midwest.
• Having Stormy testify was a horror show for him. Keep in mind that he has 100% denied that there was ever any sexual affair between him and Daniels.
• However, the prosecution refuted the objection by stating — quite correctly — that the details of the sex encounter between Dump and Daniels are important to buttress Daniels’ credibility, which the defense has questioned.
• The prosecution assured Judge Merchan that the description of the sexual act would be “really basic” and would not “involve any details of genitalia.”
• Whew.
• During Daniels’ testimony, Dump sat at the defense table. He rarely reacted and avoided looking in her direction as she recounted vivid descriptions of her allegations.
• She testified that she met Dump at a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada in 2006. He invited her to his hotel suite, having been told that the plan was for her and Dump to go down to one of the hotel’s restaurants for dinner.
• Dump entered the room in silk pajamas (eek!), and she made fun of him, so he changed into a suit. They talked for a couple of hours.
• Dump made some claims about getting her on his TV show, The Apprentice.
• Daniels asked about Dump’s wife while in the hotel room, calling her very beautiful. Dump responded that they did not sleep in the same room. Welp. 
• It’s important to note here (as you’ll see below) that Judge Merchan at that point admonished the prosecution for allowing Daniels to go into a level of unnecessary detail.
• After that, Daniels went to use the bathroom. When she came back, Dump was sitting on the bed wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt.
• She said they had sex. While keeping the details minimal, Daniels said only that the sex was brief, and Dump didn’t wear a condom.
• They did meet a few times after that, but never had sex again, despite Dump repeatedly propositioning her. Dump, of course, never actually intended on putting her on his TV show.
• The remainder of her testimony was in regard to getting the payment for her silence about the encounter ten years later, during the end of the 2016 presidential race.
• Dump’s then lawyer Michael Cohen made the payment just days before the presidential election. Cohen subsequently received monthly reimbursement payments from Dump of $35,000 throughout 2017.
• And now you know why Dump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records stemming from those reimbursements to Cohen.
• Right after her testimony, Dump's attorneys asked the judge to declare a mistrial, saying elements of her testimony had nothing to do with the case. The judge immediately rejected that request, saying the defense had many opportunities to object — and that he himself had curtailed the details of Daniels’ testimony.
• So that’s plenty of that. Meanwhile, a fucking travesty was happening in one of Dump’s other criminal trials… or lack thereof.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponed the criminal classified documents trial of Dumpy.
• That trial, on charges that Dump willfully retained classified national security records after leaving the White House and then hid them from federal authorities, was scheduled to start May 20.
• But Cannon’s ruling yesterday vacates that date and sets a new slate of pretrial proceedings, the latest of which is a hearing set for July 22.
• This basically guarantees that Dumpy will not face any justice on this incredibly important matter until after the election in November.
• Which is exactly what he wanted.
• One set of laws for the nation, and a different set of laws for the wealthy and powerful. When has it not been that way?
• Cannon wrote in yesterday’s court order that it “would be imprudent” to finalize a trial date “at this juncture” when various pretrial issues have yet to be resolved.
• She pointed to pending questions about how classified information will be handled, along with “additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury.”
• Bullshit. She just gave in to precisely what Dump wanted from her… or possibly promised her in compensation.
• I can guarantee you that Jack Smith was aware this was a possibility, though whether he can do anything about it is a big question mark.
• Disappointing, but not unexpected. Let’s move on.
• Also in the Not Unexpected file: TikTok is suing the U.S. government to stop a bill passed last month that seeks to force the app’s owner to sell it or have it banned.
• The lawsuit, filed yesterday in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., argues that the bill violates constitutional protections of free speech.
• I think they have a case. We’ll see what the courts say.
• In other news…
• Clashes between police and pro-Palestine supporters continue.
• D.C. police arrested 33 people as they began clearing an encampment at George Washington University early today, hours before the mayor and police chief were set to testify on Capitol Hill about why they had previously declined to take action.
• Welp.
• Protests are ongoing at hundreds of colleges in every state of the USA and across parts of Europe.
• In related news, yesterday President Joe Biden decried a “ferocious surge” in antisemitism on college campuses and around the globe in the months since Hamas attacked Israel and triggered a war in Gaza.
• Biden made use of a ceremony to remember victims of the Holocaust to also denounce new waves of violence and hateful rhetoric toward Jews.
• Also in related news, the U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns about Israel launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
• The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, with the focus of U.S. concern being the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban setting.
• More than one million civilians are sheltering in Rafah after evacuating other parts of Gaza amid Israel’s war on Hamas.
• Sigh.
• And now, The Weather: “Burden” by Gracie Gray
• Also in weather news, severe storms barreled through the Midwest late last night and early this morning. Tornadoes were reported in parts of Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, while portions of Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri were also under a tornado watch.
• Stay safe, my friends.
• Here’s a fascinating fun fact.
• If you took all the living creatures on this planet and made them into one big ball, here are the percentages of that biomass in each animal group.
• Arthropods (insects, spiders, crustaceans, etc.): 42%
• Fish: 29%
• Mollusks (snails, clams, octopi, etc.): 8%
• Annelids (segmented worms, leeches): 8%
• Livestock: 4%
• Cnidarians (jellyfish, anemones, coral, etc): 4% 
• Humans: 2.5%
• Nematodes (roundworms); 1%
• Wild mammals: 0.3%
• Wild birds: 0.1%
• What this should tell you: there really are a lot of bugs on this planet. Like, almost half of everything is a bug. Seems about right, now that I think about it.
• From the Sports Desk… NHL playoffs continue in the second round.
• The Bruins have a 1-0 lead over the Panthers. The Rangers have a 2-0 lead over the Hurricanes. The Avalanche have a 1-0 lead over the Stars. The series between the Canucks and the Pilers starts tonight.
• Today in history… The house of Zhao defeats the house of Zhi (453 BC). Hernando de Soto stops near present-day Walls, Mississippi, and sees the Mississippi River (1541). American forces led by Zachary Taylor defeat a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the Mexican-American war (1846). Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine (1886). Paramount Pictures is founded (1912). The Beatles release their 12th and final studio album ‘Let It Be’ (1970). The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox (1980). The USSR announces a boycott upon the Summer Olympics at Los Angeles, later joined by 14 other countries (1984). 
• May 8 is the birthday of UK prime minister William Cavendish (1720), businessman William Henry Vanderbilt (1821), president Harry S. Truman (1884), film director Roberto Rossellini (1906), singer-songwriter/guitarist Robert Johnson (1911), environmentalist David Attenborough (1926), comedian/actor Don Rickles (1926), author Peter Benchley (1940), singer-songwriter/actor Ricky Nelson (1940), singer-songwriter Toni Tennille (1940), bass player Paul Samwell-Smith (1943), singer-songwriter/guitarist Danny Whitten (1943), singer-songwriter/pedophile Gary Glitter (1944), pianist/composer Keith Jarrett (1945), singer-songwriter Philip Bailey (1951),   NBA player/coach Mike D’Antoni (1951), drummer/music producer Chris Frantz (1951), drummer Alex Van Halen (1953), NFL player/coach Lovie Smith (1958), NFL player Ronnie Lott (1959), politician Bill de Blasio (1961), actress/union leader Melissa Gilbert (1964), singer-songwriter Enrique Iglesias (1975), guitarist Joe Bonamassa (1977), and rapper 6ix9ine (1996).

That’s plenty for now. Oh, and I did a pretty damn good show last night, so I’ll write up some details on that when I have time. Enjoy your day.