Random News: September 25, 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 September 25, 2024, and it’s a Wednesday. I’m Zak, here to tell you the news, good or bad, happy or sad. We’re all better off knowing things than… not.

• Let’s start with the horrible news about Marcellus Williams, who was executed via lethal injection last night after a lengthy and complex effort to exonerate him based on DNA testing issues.
• Williams spent over two decades in prison, convicted of a 1998 murder that he says he did not commit. The original prosecutor, the victim’s family, and a wide range of legal groups were vehemently opposed to the execution.
• But after refusals for clemency by Republicans Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Gov. Mike Parson, his last-minute attempt at reprieve via the U.S. Supreme Court was also denied, despite evidence that could have potentially exonerated him.
• The court’s three liberal members — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — disagreed and said they would have granted the request to halt the execution.
• Williams, 55, was pronounced dead at the Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point.
• NAACP President Derrick Johnson stated, “Tonight, Missouri lynched another innocent Black man. When DNA evidence proves innocence, capital punishment is not justice — it is murder.”
• That’s right. I’ve told you my feelings on capital punishment before… if the risk of letting a thousand guilty people go unpunished versus putting one innocent human to death is worth it to you, I don’t know what to say.
• RIP Mr. Williams. Let’s move on.
• Donald John Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) were hit with criminal charges yesterday over their role in elevating false allegations about Haitian immigrants abducting and eating local pets in Springfield, OH.
• The complaint, filed by Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) in Clark County Municipal Court, alleges that Dump and Vance, by amplifying those claims, had a “direct impact” in spurring the 33 bomb threats that rocked the southwest Ohio city.
• HBA Executive Director Guerline Jozef filed the document, backed by an affidavit alleging Dumpy and Vance committed seven separate offenses, including disrupting public services, making false alarms, aggravated menacing, complicity, and telecommunications harassment.
• I’ll remind you, if I haven’t mentioned it already, that close to 600,000 Haitian-American people live in Florida, which per recent polls should be considered a swing state. The horrible lies Dump and Vance have spread about them could cost them that state in the November election.
• Moving on.
• Hey kids, what are polls? We all know the answer by now. Polls are bullshit.
• So here’s how I want you to think about this morning’s Reuters/Ipsos national poll that finds Vice President Harris with a 7-point lead over Dumpy, with 46.61 percent support compared to his 40.48 percent.
• The more accurate way to see it: Harris still has a lower degree of advantage over Dump on this date than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 (and lost) or Joe Biden did in 2020 (and won by a very close margin),
• And the national poll averages don’t mean shit. With Dump still apparently leading in Georgia and Arizona, it will be very difficult to Harris to win enough of the other swing states to get elected.
• We still have 41 days and we have to do our part every single one of those days to ensure that Dumpy cannot enact his brutal plans for the USA.
• Speaking of which…
• Buried in Dumpy’s Project 2025 is a plan to eliminate overtime pay.
• Donald Trump's Project 2025 has a provision where employers could force workers to work more than 40 hours a week without paying them time-and-a-half.
• It is a generous gift from Dumpy to the extremely wealthy people and their big corporations, and an insult to the American worker.
• If you want to work harder and get paid less, I guess Dump is your guy.
• Let’s get some more news of that prick’s legal shit out of the way.
• Yesterday, Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request from Dumples the Clown, who’d asked her to upend previously set deadlines and bar a lengthy filing from special counsel Jack Smith.
• The order from Chutkan comes after Dump complained about a decision that allowed Smith’s team to first file their brief laying out how to proceed in the case in the wake of a decision from the Supreme Court granting former presidents broad immunity.
• “The court has already addressed the scheduling objections Defendant raised when he was given an opportunity to do so,” she said.
• In the same order, Chutkan granted Smith’s request to file a 180-page opening brief on how to address the immunity issues in the case, a request which likewise earned pushback from Trump’s team.
• Fuck all the way off, Dumpy.
• And in super fucking weird news, yesterday prosecutors filed the charge of attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate against Ryan Wesley Routh, the psycho who camped outside Dump’s golf course and was caught by the Secret Service before trying anything.
• Which is fine by me. No assassination attempts are ever acceptable.
• But here’s the insane part: Routh’s case was assigned — allegedly via random selection — to Judge Aileen Cannon, the Dump-appointed judge who oversaw, and later threw out, the federal criminal classified documents case against Dumpy.
• With any other judge, it would be assumed that she would recuse herself due to this conflict, but I’m done trying to assume that any GOP-related official will act along the lines of ethics that have been in place for hundreds of years.
• Relevant side note: if you think Dump is the only candidate who is getting violent threats and actions, think again.
• On Monday night in Tempe, AZ,, some asshole took shots at a Democratic Party-coordinated campaign office for Vice President Harris. She is scheduled to visit Arizona this week.
• Tempe police observed gunshots through the front windows of the office, which is shared by staff members for the Arizona Democratic Party, the Harris campaign, and Senate and House campaigns to boost turnout for the party in November.
• Violence is the only thing that stupid people have to solve their problems.
• Moving on.
• As we predicted yesterday, Nebraska GOP Gov. Jim Pillen announced he will not call a special legislative session to change how the state allocates its electoral votes, dashing Republican hopes that the switch could happen before November.
• Dumpy and his allies have been pushing hard for state lawmakers to switch to a winner-take-all system instead of delivering electoral votes by congressional districts.
• Pillen said that Republicans still do not have the 33 votes needed to overcome a filibuster in the unicameral legislature, noting that he and his team "have worked relentlessly" to find the votes.
• So the Nebraska Blue Dot lives on, at least for this election.
• In other news, the Senate will vote this afternoon on a stopgap measure funding the federal government until December 20. They will not consider any amendments that the Republicans were trying to jam in.
• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) received unanimous consent for the Senate to immediately proceed to the three-month government funding bill once it passes the House, which is expected to happen today as well.
• So that’s good. Let’s do some more happy news.
• Yesterday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said during a court hearing that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars media platform and its assets will be sold off piece by piece in auctions this fall to help pay the more than $1 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
• Good. Fuck that asshole. I hope they take every fucking thing he owns. Jones, of course, will continue trying to spread his bullshit via other means.
• We have some more news from the Asshole Files.
• Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), one of the GOP’s most endangered House incumbents, gave both his lover and his fiancée’s daughter part-time jobs in his district office on Long Island, a violation of House ethics rules.
• What an asshole.
• D’Esposito hired the pair shortly after taking office in 2023, together paying them nearly $30,000 in taxpayer funds, records of which are publicly available.
• The House of Representatives’ code of conduct forbids members from employing close family members.
• D’Esposito is already locked in a tight rematch with Democrat Laura Gillen, whom he defeated by fewer than 10,000 votes two years ago.
• Fuck D’Esposito, that corrupt piece of shit. Vote for Gillen, people of NY-4.
• Moving on to some business news.
• The U.S. Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services giant uses its size and dominance to stifle competition in the debit card market, costing consumers and businesses billions of dollars.
• I agree!
• The complaint filed yesterday says Visa penalizes merchants and banks who don’t use Visa’s own payment processing technology to process debit transactions, even though alternatives exist.
• That’s pretty much the definition of an illegal monopoly. Visa earns an incremental fee from every transaction processed on its network.
• 60% of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa’s debit network, allowing it to charge over $7 billion in fees each year for processing those transactions.
• Get their asses.
• And now, The Weather: “Circles” by Tanukichan
• From the Non-Sports Desk… retired NFL hall of fame quarterback Brett Favre, who has been at the center of a welfare misspending scandal in Mississippi, announced he has Parkinson’s disease during a congressional hearing yesterday.
• Favre, who is a few months younger than me, does not face criminal charges after repaying just over $1 million in speaking fees funded by a welfare program in the state, and was also an investor in a biotech company with ties to the case.
• The causes of Parkinson’s disease is unknown, and it is unclear if Favre’s disease is connected to his football career or head injuries. Like many NFL players, he experienced a multitude of concussions during his career.
• Sigh.
• From the actual Sports Desk… the MLB playoffs continue to solidify. Here’s who’s in as of today…
• AL East: Yankees, Orioles.
• AL Central: Guardians.
• AL West: Astros.
• NL East: Phillies.
• NL Central: Brewers.
• NL West: Dodgers, Padres.
• Just a handful of games remain to determine the final slots.
• Today in history… the last Roman emperor elected by the Senate is Marcus Claudius Tacitus (275). England and Scotland sign the Treaty of York, establishing the location of their common border (1237). Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reaches what would become known as the Pacific Ocean (1513). The United States Congress passes twelve constitutional amendments: the ten known as the Bill of Rights, the unratified Congressional Apportionment Amendment, and the Congressional Compensation Amendment (1789). The United States Congress establishes Sequoia National Park (1890). Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York City (1912). TAT-1, the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system, is inaugurated (1956). Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is integrated by the use of United States Army troops (1957). Dr. Frank Jobe performs first Tommy John surgery on baseball player Tommy John (1974). Bill Cosby is sentenced to three to ten years in prison for aggravated sexual assault (2018). 
• September 25 is the birthday of novelist William Faulkner (1897), artist Mark Rothko (1903), pianist/composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906), MLB player/sportscaster Phil Rizzuto (1917), journalist Barbara Walters (1929), author/illustrator Shel Silverstein (1930), pianist/composer Glenn Gould (1932), keyboardist John Locke (1943), actor Michael Douglas (1944), model/actress Cheryl Tiegs (1947), actor/director Anson Williams (1949), actor Mark Hamill (1951), NBA player Bob McAdoo (1951), actor Christopher Reeve (1952), actor Michael Madsen (1957), actress Heather Locklear (1961), actress Aida Turturro (1962), NBA player Scottie Pippin (1965), rapper/actor Will Smith (1968), journalist Bill Simmons (1969), actor Hal Sparks (1969), actress Catherine Zeta-Jones (1969), NFL player Matt Hasselbeck (1975), rapper T.I. (1980), actor/rapper Donald Glover (1983), and NFL player Brandin Cooks (1993).

There’s always more news than I realize there is, and never enough time to tell you everything you need to know. Hopefully you find out the rest on your own. Enjoy your day.