Random News: June 27, 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 June 27, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Today is going to be a huge news day; I’m sipping my coffee a bit before 7AM and await some potential huge Supreme Court decisions in a few minutes, and like it or not, tonight is the Biden/Dump debate. Yikes. Well, let’s jump in.

• Okay, here we go. We won’t have much time for analysis, but let’s list them as they come.
• First up: Ohio v. EPA. The Court votes 5-4 to grant states application to put "good neighbor" policy on hold while litigation goes through the courts. That policy requires upwind states to reduce emissions in downwind states. Not good news. Gorsuch wrote the opinion. Amy Coney Barrett joins the liberals in dissent, interestingly.
• Second decision: Harrington v. Purdue Pharma. This is the big opioid case, and it ends in a 5-4 decision, again with the opinion by Gorsuch. Weirdly, Kavanaugh dissents, joined by Roberts, Sotomayor, and Kagan. I don’t get it.
• Third decision: SEC v. Jarkesy. Vote is 6-3 with the three liberals dissenting. This was a case about whether the enforcement powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission violate the Constitution. The Supreme Court holds that when the SEC seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial.
• Fourth and final decision for today, and the big one of the day: Moyle v. US in a 6-3 decision, with Barrett, Roberts, and Kavanaugh joining the liberals. Idaho hospitals must, at least for now, provide emergency abortions despite their state ban. This is a win for women, for the Biden admin, and the EMTALA law.
• However, it does not resolve the issues at the heart of the case, meaning the same justices who voted to overturn the constitutional right to abortion could soon be again considering when doctors can provide abortion in medical emergencies.
• Whew, that’s a lot of both good and bad news.
• Let’s move on for now.
• Pride Month is winding to a close, but we still have a few more days to honor people. Today’s Gay of the Day is Navy veteran and activist Monica Helms.
• In 1970, at age 19, Helms entered the Navy, attending Naval Nuclear Power School. She served from 1970-1978, while living and working on two missile-carrying submarines, the USS Francis Scott Key and the USS Flasher.
• She underwent the process of gender transitioning in 1997, and reapplied to join the Phoenix chapter of the US American Submarine Veterans Group.
• After not-unexpectedly encountering resistance, she was admitted as the first women to ever join the organization. Monica co-founded It's Time Arizona, an Arizona-based organization advocating for equal treatment for trans people in the military.
• In 1999, Helms created the iconic Transgender Pride Flag. In 2003, she co-founded the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA). In 2014, the Smithsonian accepted Monica's original trans flag, so it may be preserved for future generations.
• Moving on.
• You know assumes that Dump is getting elected again? Iran.
• They are also holding presidential elections tomorrow, and all six candidates are using the same talking point: how they will handle Dump as the next president of the USA.
• They are speaking about Dump’s election as a foregone conclusion.
• They hardly ever mention President Biden, and they never bring up the many polls suggesting that the American election will be extremely close.
• This kind of thing is pretty typical in politics in every nation, including ours. Use a boogeyman as your scapegoat, and claim to be the only person who can defeat him.
• One Iranian candidate, cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, has campaign posters showing himself and Dump eye to eye, staring each other down. “The person who can stand in front of Trump is me,” it reads.
• Okay then. Let’s move on.
• A little follow-up from a story we covered not long ago.
• Five people have been indicted for their roles in the $120,000 bribery attempt of a juror during the Feeding Our Future fraud trial earlier this month.
• As you may recall, a juror was dismissed after reporting that a woman dropped a fat bag of cash, 120 large, at her home and offered her more money if she would vote to acquit seven people charged with stealing more than $40 million from a program meant to feed children during the pandemic.
• The scheme is estimated to have diverted $250 million in federal funds in the largest pandemic fraud in the United States.
• The five defendants targeted the 23-year-old juror because she was the youngest, and because they believed her to be the only juror of color.
• Fortunately, she was a woman of principle. The five charged — Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Said Shafii Farah, Abdulkarim Shafii Farah and Ladan Mohamed Ali — found the juror's information online, including her home address.
• That’s a fucking problem. We need to start taking greater steps to ensure jury anonymity. Obviously the current system isn’t working in this age of too-readily-available information.
• In other news…
• Maybe you didn’t hear the news about a president who’s going to prison for 45 years.
• No, not that one. Not yet, anyway.
• Juan Orlando Hernández served as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022 for two consecutive terms. Yesterday, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison and given an $8 million fine by a US judge for drug trafficking offenses.
• In March, a jury in New York found Hernández guilty on three drug trafficking charges after a two-week trial in Manhattan federal court. He denied the charges. He had been extradited from Honduras after the US Department of Justice filed three drug-trafficking and firearms related charges against him in 2022.
• What did he actually do? Oh, just moved more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras toward the United States, and received millions of dollars in bribes that he used to fuel his rise in Honduran politics.
• Ha ha… what an asshole. Enjoy prison.
• Moving on with a whole different thing happening in Latin America.
• Armored vehicles rammed into the doors of Bolivia’s government palace yesterday in a coup attempt. President Luis Arce said “irregular” deployment of troops was taking place in the capital.
• That sounds pretty irregular to me.
• Arce called for “democracy to be respected” as Bolivian television showed two tanks and a number of men in military uniform in front of the government palace.
• News of a coup anywhere is never good news.
• The coup ended after a few hours, with hundreds of Arce’s supporters rushing the square outside the palace, waving Bolivian flags, singing the national anthem and cheering.
• The soldiers’ retreat was followed by the arrest of army chief Gen. Juan José Zúñiga, after the attorney general opened an investigation.
• Yikes.
• In happier news from points south, Brazil’s Supreme Court voted this week to decriminalize possession of marijuana for personal use, making the nation one of Latin America’s last to do so, in a move that could reduce its massive prison population.
• Good move.
• It took them nine years since deliberations began in 2015 for a majority of the justices on the 11-person court to voted in favor of decriminalization.
• While they are not legalizing weed per se, they removed criminal penalties for possession of up to 40 grams of the sweet leaf.
• If you were unaware (I was), Brazil is the seventh most populous country in the world with more than 215 million people, but has the world’s third largest prison population at roughly 840,000, trailing only the U.S. (1.8 million) and China (1.7 million).
• Relevant side note: seventy percent of Americans now believe marijuana should be legal, according to Gallup, up from 31 percent in 2000.
• Recreational weed is legal now in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
• But it remains illegal on a federal level. I think that will change soon enough.
• Moving on, but speaking of legal matters…
• Gregory Bombard lives in St. Albans, VT. Back in 2018, State Trooper Jay Riggen stopped Bombard’s vehicle because he believed Bombard had shown him the middle finger.
• Bombard was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct, and his car was towed. He was jailed for over an hour and cited to criminal court.
• While it’s probably a bad practice in general to flip off cops, it’s not illegal per se. Yesterday, Vermont agreed to pay $175,000 to settle the lawsuit brought on behalf of Bombard by the state’s ACLU chapter.
• They said Bombard’s First Amendment rights were violated via both the unnecessary traffic stop and retaliatory arrest. I agree.
• I still highly advise you don’t point your middle finger at angry people with guns and badges. Just from a self-preservation standpoint, it’ll probably make your day worse rather than better.
• Moving on…
• I advise that you do watch tonight’s debate on CNN or wherever.
• I think it will be good for you to see the dynamics and interactions for yourself. Obviously I’ll be describing the event tomorrow, but you should get your own take on it.
• It starts at 9PM EDT.
• And now, The Weather: “Precious” by Lozenge
• Rest in peace to actor Bill Cobbs, who died yesterday at 90. You don’t know his name? I 100% promise that you know his face.
• Cobbs didn’t even try acting until her was 36 years old. Since then, he’s had roles in over 100 films and nearly as many TV shows. RIP.
• Let’s do a chart. It’s this week in June 1980, and I’ve just finished my first year of middle school. I am already playing guitar and am definitely aware of all of this music.
• 1. Glass Houses (Billy Joel). 2. Just One Night (Eric Clapton). 3. McCartney II (Paul McCartney). 4. Against The Wind (Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band). 5. Mouth To Mouth (Lipps Inc.). 6. Star Wars: Episode V-The Empire Strikes Back (London Symphony Orchestra (Williams)). 7. The Wall (Pink Floyd). 8. Let's Get Serious (Jermaine Jackson). 9. Empty Glass (Pete Townshend). 10. Middle Man (Boz Scaggs). 11. Women And Children First (Van Halen). 12. Christopher Cross (Christopher Cross). 13. Duke (Genesis). 14. Heroes (Commodores). 15. Scream Dream (Ted Nugent). 16. Sweet Sensation (Stephanie Mills). 17. Off The Wall (Michael Jackson). 18. Trilogy: Past, Present And Future (Frank Sinatra). 19. 21 At 33 (Elton John). 20. The Rose (Bette Midler).
• From the Sports Desk… um, soccer, I guess?
• Georgia got a massive win over Portugal in a 2-0 game that is being called the biggest upset by FIFA rankings in European Championship history.
• The punched their ticket to the last 16 of Euro 2024 in their debut appearance at a major tournament. It should probably be noted that the win was against a largely second-string Portugal team who had already made it into the next round.
• Regardless, it was the greatest result for Georgia since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
• Good job, Georgia. Still many games to go, but Euro 2024 has its final on Sunday July 14.
• The Sports Desk should note that soccer is overwhelmingly the most popular sport in the world, with some four billion fans (like, half the fucking planet). The Sports Desk also notes that he played AYSO soccer for five years in his youth, in positions including goalkeeper, fullback, midfielder, and striker.
• The Sports Desk now acknowledges that he doesn’t follow soccer or really know shit about who’s good and who’s not in soccer, or football, or futbol, or whatever you want to call it.
• Today in history… The thirteen Stratford Martyrs are burned at the stake near London for their Protestant beliefs (1556). In the Battle of Dettingen, George II becomes the last reigning British monarch to participate in a battle (1743). Cherokee warriors defeat British forces at the Battle of Echoee near present-day Otto, NC (1760). The first solo circumnavigation of the globe is completed by Joshua Slocum from Briar Island, Nova Scotia (1898). Romanian authorities launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history in the city of Iași, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews (1941). The United States decides to send troops to fight in the Korean War (1950). U.S. president Richard Nixon visits the Soviet Union (1974). France grants independence to Djibouti (1977). Space Shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the final research and development flight mission, STS-4 (1982). Tony Blair resigns as British Prime Minister (2007). NASA launches the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, a space probe to observe the Sun (2013).
• June 27 is the birthday of French king Louis XII (1462), French king Charles IX (1550), anarchist/activist Emma Goldman (1869), author/activist Hellen Keller (1880), pool player Willie Mosconi (1913), philosopher/activist Grace Lee Boggs (1915), singer-songwriter Doc Pomus (1925), businessman/politician Ross Perot (1930), fashion designer Norma Kamali (1945), fashion designer Vera Wang (1949), singer-songwriter Lisa Germano (1958), film director/producer J. J. Abrams (1966), actor Tobey Maguire (1975), businesswoman Khloé Kardashian (1984), actor Drake Bell (1986), singer-songwriter/guitarist H.E.R. (1997), and NFL player Will Levis (1999).

Okay, that’s way too much news. Lots to absorb. We’ll be here early tomorrow to await the remaining Supreme Court decisions and talk about whatever insanity happens tonight in the death. See you then. Enjoy your day.