Random News: June 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 June 8, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. I am truly enjoying the quiet morning when I’m the only one up, in my bathrobe and sipping coffee. Well, not sipping exactly. Gulping is the more accurate description. Let’s see what’s happening.

• Here’s a crazy-ass story.
• Yesterday, the jury reached a verdict in the Feeding Our Future trial, where seven Minnesotans were accused of a scheme to steal more than $40 million from the federal child nutrition program.
• Five defendants were found guilty on most charges, while the remaining two were acquitted on all charges. 
• But that’s not the weird part of this federal fraud trial, the first in an alleged $250 million COVID relief scheme that prosecutors say is the largest of its kind.
• On Sunday night, a woman appeared at a juror’s home and delivered a gift bag with $120,000 cash and stated there would be another package if the juror agreed to vote not guilty.
• Yikes!
• The juror was dismissed after reporting the alleged bribe attempt to the court and police. A second juror was then released Tuesday after a family member brought up the alleged bribe in a conversation.
• Federal agents have now searched the Minnesota home of at least one of the seven defendants.
• Bribing a juror is a felony and comes with a substantial term of imprisonment, including a 20-year statutory maximum in certain cases. The judge ordered the defendants to surrender their cellphones and all seven were taken into custody.
• That’s… really fucking stupid.
• Let’s move on.
• In our continuing celebration of Pride Month, our Gay of the Day today is United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
• Born in 1982, Pete was mayor of South Bend, IN from 2012 to 2020, which earned him the nickname "Mayor Pete”. While serving as mayor, Buttigieg came out as gay in 2015. He married Chasten Glezman, a schoolteacher and writer, in June 2018.
• Is Pete a smart guy? You could say that. He’s a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Oxford, attending the latter on a Rhodes Scholarship.
• Is Pete a tough guy? From 2009 to 2017, he was an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant. He was mobilized and deployed to the War in Afghanistan for seven months in 2014.
• While deployed in Afghanistan, Buttigieg was assigned to the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, a counterterrorism unit that targeted Taliban insurgency financing, and was awarded the Joint Service Commendation Medal.
• Buttigieg ran as a candidate for president in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, becoming one of the first openly gay men to launch a major party presidential campaign.
• No one thought an openly gay guy had any chance of winning the presidency, but Buttigieg highly exceeded expectations and, surprisingly, narrowly won the Iowa caucuses, then placed a close second in the New Hampshire primary.
• By all accounts, Pete’s done an exemplary job as transportation secretary, both dealing with transportation emergencies such as train derailments and maritime disasters, and putting together infrastructure and travel programs that help all Americans.
• I think he’d make a fine president someday. Salute to Pete!
• Moving on.
• You’ve likely seen headlines about Israeli forces having rescued four hostages who’d been held by Hamas since October in a raid in Gaza today.
• What you may not have seen is that over 200 Palestinians were killed in airstrikes in the same area in one of the bloodiest Israeli assaults of the war.
• While it’s not immediately clear if the hostage rescue and the Israeli air assault were part of the same operation, both took place in central Gaza's al-Nuseirat.
• Sigh.
• The rescued hostages — Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41 — were in good health. They were all kidnapped from the Nova music festival during the deadly raid by Hamas-led Palestinian militants on Israeli towns and villages near Gaza on October 7.
• Moving on.
• Details about how the Supreme Court justices made money in the past year were made public yesterday through the court's financial disclosures.
• The reports, which cover the 2023 year, were made public for eight of the nine justices with Justice Samuel Alito requesting a 90-day extension for his report. Because of course he did.
• Clarence Thomas included in this year's report a disclosure that he took two trips with billionaire Harlan Crow in 2019 — one to Bali and one to California. The trips were added as an amendment to a previous disclosure.
• Food and lodging for both trips were gifted to Thomas, according to the disclosure, but he did not include the exact monetary value of the trips.
• However, ProPublica reported last year that the 2019 trip to Bali may have cost as much as $500,000. Thomas has accepted vacations from Crow, a real estate mogul, nearly every year for two decades.
• Over the years, Thomas has likely accepted tens of millions of dollars in bribes- I mean, gifts.
• How about the other judges?
• Well, four of them disclosed financials related to book deals.
• And Justice Brown Jackson received four concert tickets from Beyoncé. Pfft. At least she properly reported the gift, unlike Thomas who said nothing until the news came out through the press.
• How do I feel about this? Simple: I think that every single Court decision that Thomas has been part of where Harlan Crow or other wealthy benefactors may have benefitted needs to be thrown out and retried from start to finish.
• And I think Thomas should be impeached and relieved of his duties, assuming he doesn’t resign in disgrace (note: he won’t), and possibly charged with crimes.
• Moving on.
• In the “Assholes to Keep an Eye On” file, meet Russ Vought.
• He’s a self-described Christian nationalist who is helping Dump draw up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power if Dump is reelected in November.
• Vought has helped craft proposals for Dump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department, and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations… all on Dump’s first day back in office.
• If you don’t think this guy is for real, note that Dump and the Republican National Committee last month named Vought policy director for the 2024 platform committee.
• Among other heinous and unAmerican ideals, Vought has called for mass deportation of immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States.
• This is what you’d get if you cast votes for Dump or other Republicans this coming fall.
• Let’s move on.
• Rest in peace to American astronaut William Anders, a member of the Apollo 8 crew who was killed in a plane crash yesterday just off the San Juan Islands in Washington. Anders was 90.
• In 1968, Anders operated the Apollo 8 mission alongside Air Force veteran Frank F. Borman II and Navy veteran James A. Lovell, Jr.
• That’s when Anders took the iconic “Earthrise” photo, showing our planet as a shadowed blue marble from space.
• Moving on…
• I thought, for perspective’s sake, it would be interesting to look at the five closest presidential elections in US history. It was the topic of a recent video from a political historian I follow.
• To preface this, note — as I’m sure you’re aware — that the popular vote does not elect presidents in this country. There have been multiple occasions where the winner did not get the most votes.
• And frankly, not to go off on a tangent, the electoral college is fucking bullshit. But it is the votes of the 538 electors that choose a President… not the votes of the people. This list, however, takes both factors into account.
• Counting down…
• 5. The 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. While Kennedy seemed to cream Nixon in the electoral college 303-219, the popular vote was insanely close.
• Kennedy: 49.98% (2,377,846) to Nixon’s 49.80% (2,368,988). Holy shit. 1960 was also the first time the winner carried fewer states than the other candidate.
• 4. The 1884 election between Grover Cleveland and James Blaine, Cleveland took 48.8% of the vote (4,914,482) to Blaine’s 48.3% (4,856,905). While Cleveland won handily in the electoral college, there were 14 (!) swing states at play, so it could have easily gone the other way.
• 3. Four years earlier, the election of 1880 had James Garfield winning with 48.32% of the popular vote versus Winfield Hancock’s 48.21%. This election was so close that just 144 votes separated the candidates in California. Garfield’s national margin of victory was only 1,898 votes.
• 2. The election of 2000, one that many of us remember all too well. Al Gore won the popular vote by a good margin, getting 48.4% (50,999,897) to George W. Bush’s 47.9% (50,456,002). Gore won that shit by over a half million votes.
• But Bush won the electoral college vote 271-266 after a series of court cases about vote tallies in Florida.
• And now, the top spot. The closest presidential election in US history was in 1876, when Rutherford B. Hayes beat Samuel J. Tilden. The popular vote was close, yes… Hayes lost it 47.9% (4,034,142) to Tilden’s 50.9% (4,286,808).
• Side note: that election had the highest voter turnout in any election before or since, with 82.6% of registered voters participating. I wish we could get that today.
• Hayes ended up winning the electoral college and the presidency by just one vote. It was 185-184. There were 15 swing states, out of 38 states total.
• Honorable mentions for also being very close elections: 1796 (Adams/Jefferson), 1888 (Cleveland/Harrison), 1916 (Wilson/Hughes), and 1968 (Nixon/Humphrey/Wallace).
• Why am I telling you any of this shit? Because you are constantly being told who we are “more polarized than ever” and that current events have no historical precedent, and that America is on the brink of total failure as a result.
• And that’s fucking bullshit. It has always been in the best interest of the people in power to keep Americans sharply divided.
• Will the next election be close? You bet your ass it will. Maybe right up there with the five I just mentioned. But we’ve been through that before and will again.
• And now, The Weather: “Kamikaze” by Idaho
• Let’s do a chart. It’s 50 years ago in June 1974, and many of these albums were playing in high rotation in my parents’ collection.
• Weird to think that my mom was just 29 at the time, which seems incredibly young to me now. I was five and already playing piano, and would take up guitar the following year.
• 1. Band On The Run (Paul McCartney And Wings). 2. The Sting (Soundtrack). 3. Sundown (Gordon Lightfoot). 4. Buddha And The Chocolate Box (Cat Stevens). 5. Maria Muldaur (Maria Muldaur). 6. John Denver's Greatest Hits (John Denver). 7. Shinin' On (Grand Funk Railroad). 8. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John). 9. Court And Spark (Joni Mitchell). 10. Chicago VII (Chicago). 11. Bachman-Turner Overdrive II (Bachman-Turner Overdrive). 12. On Stage (Loggins & Messina). 13. Apostrophe (') (Frank Zappa). 14. Bridge Of Sighs (Robin Trower). 15. What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits (The Doobie Brothers). 16. Innervisions (Stevie Wonder). 17. American Graffiti (Soundtrack). 18. On The Border (Eagles). 19. Pretzel Logic (Steely Dan). 20. Head Hunters (Herbie Hancock).
• From the Sports Desk… today marks the start of the NHL’s Stanley Cup finals, with the EdmontonOilers at the Florida Panthers.
• Both teams handily defeated their opponents in the conference finals 4-1.
• The Panthers look super tough. They’ve never won the cup, have a great goalie, and were last year’s runner up.
• The Oilers are a storied franchise who had a string of cup victories in 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, and 1990. They also have a great goalie and a team packed with all-stars.
• Should be good.
• Today in history… Attila leads a Hun army in the invasion of Italy, devastating the northern provinces as he heads for Rome (452). Edward the Confessor becomes King of England (1042). James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in Congress (1789). Tennessee secedes from the Union (1861). Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value (1906). The Imperial Japanese Navy submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle (1942). George Orwell's ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ is published (1949). The United States Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co. that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons (1953). The National Football League and American Football League announced a merger effective in 1970 (1966). James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr., is arrested at London Heathrow Airport (1968). Homosexuality is decriminalized in the Australian state of New South Wales (1984). Former US President Donald Trump is indicted on federal charges of misusing classified information (2023).
• June 8 is the birthday of composer Robert Schumann (1810), mathematician Charlotte Scott (1858), architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867), SCOTUS justice Byron White (1917), US first lady Barbara Bush (1925), actor Jerry Stiller (1927), comedian/TV host Joan Rivers (1933), actor/singer James Darren (1936), singer Nancy Sinatra (1940), singer-songwriter/guitarist Boz Scaggs (1944), pianist Emanuel Ax (1949), singer-songwriter Bonnie Tyler (1951), computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee (1955), singer-songwriter Mick Hucknall (1960), actress Julianna Margulies (1967), tennis player Lindsay Davenport (1976), rapper Kanye West (1977), and tennis player Kim Clijsters (1983).

It’s time for me to eat breakfast and eventually dress myself in some form more presentable than a bathrobe. I unfortunately have a couple of things that will force me to leave the house and interact with other humans. It’s awful. Enjoy your day.