Random News: April 17, 2025

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 April 17, 2025, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Feeling pretty good so far today, despite knowing my work schedule will once again be stressful… but I’d much rather have too much work than not enough. Same goes with money. Regardless of all that, I think today’s report will begin with a little remedial education. By the way, this shit is going to be super long today. Go get a fresh cup of whatever before you start.

• It was mentioned recently by a couple of my friends that we’re talking a lot lately about the concept of “due process,” and that perhaps we’re giving people too much credit to understand what this term means, and why it’s so important.
• It’s a broad term that encompasses the idea that all legal rights that are owed to a person are respected. When a government harms a person without following the exact course of the law, this constitutes a due process violation, which offends the rule of law.
• What it primarily means on a practical basis is that if you are accused of a crime or are otherwise subject to some kind of punishment, you have specific rights.
• For example, you have the right to a trial.
• Right now, you may be thinking that due process is only important to protect criminals. That is the exact opposite of the truth.
• Let’s say I call federal authorities and tell them that you are a dangerous gang member and should be deported.
• And you say, “That’s ridiculous. I’ve never been associated with a gang or committed any crime in my life.”
• Without due process, you have no opportunity to defend yourself against a false accusation. The feds come around, arrest you at gunpoint, and send you to be tortured in El Salvador, or wherever, with no trial.
• Due process is in place to protect you — an innocent person — from being punished for crimes you did not commit.
• Here in the USA, the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution are primarily what grants people in the USA — not only citizens, but everyone — their rights of due process.
• The Fifth Amendment reads as follows…
• No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
• And the Sixth is as such…
• “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
• And to clarify some aspects of those, we added the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment— the same one that gave full citizenship rights to all people regardless of their race.
• It explicitly applies the Fifth Amendment's similar clause to state governments.
• “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
• Anyway, the reason I’m telling you all this is simple: what Donnie Dump is doing by sending people to be tortured and killed in a foreign country without any kind of trial or opportunity to otherwise defend themselves is not only unconstitutional.
• It’s the most anti-American thing ever done by a president. And if we don’t nip it in the bud now, every citizen — of every race, born here or elsewhere — will lose these rights that are the basis of freedom for our entire country.
• And now, some big news on the topic of whether we still have a democracy.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote in a 46-page decision that probable cause exists to find the Dump administration in criminal contempt over its defiance of an order to turn around planes carrying Venezuelan migrants that was bound for El Salvador.
• He said that the government's actions on March 15 demonstrate a willful disregard for his order barring the government from transferring certain migrants into Salvadoran custody under the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
• As such, he found their actions are "sufficient for the court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt. The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory."
• So this is it — the smashing of the emergency glass for our country. And the final chance, perhaps, for Dump to act within the accordance of the laws of the United States like every president before him.
• Or to choose to be an open fascist dictator, obeying no one but himself. If it goes that way — which I assume it will — we are unavoidably headed for a more modern and updated version of civil war.
• It will be ugly and will take form in ways most of you can’t anticipate or predict.
• Moving on for now.
• Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) was denied by the government of El Salvador to visit Kilmar Abrego García, his constituent who was wrongly deported to the Central American country last month.
• Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador yesterday with the intention of meeting Abrego García at the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where US authorities have said that the Maryland father of three is being held along with others deported at Dumpy’s orders.
• At a press conference in El Salvador, Van Hollen said that he had met with the country’s vice-president, Félix Ulloa, who told him it would not be possible for him to speak with Abrego García in person or on the phone.
• Van Hollen said. “I’m not interested at this moment in taking a tour of CECOT, I just want to meet with Mr. Abrego García. He said he was not able to make that happen.”
• I’m nearly sure Abrego García is dead, possibly tortured by the people that the USA was protecting him from.
• Despite that possibility, several other Democratic lawmakers — Congressional Hispanic caucus chair Adriano Espaillat, as well as Robert Garcia and Maxwell Alejandro Frost of the House oversight committee — have signaled that they also plan to visit El Salvador to check on Abrego García.
• “I can assure the president, the vice-president, that I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more and there will be more members of Congress coming,” Van Hollen said.
• And I can tell you something. Unless some things change quickly, El Salvador is about to find out what happens when you act against the people of America. They made the mistake of confusing our president with its people.
• We’re the ones who buy things and have international business relationships. And know how to boycott.
• Let’s move on.
• Kilmar Abrego García is far from the only person being disappeared by the Dump regime.
• On Monday,  ICE agents smashed a car window and forcibly removed a man in New Bedford, MA. Problem: he’s not the man the agents were looking for. 
• See if this sounds familiar: Juan Francisco-Mendez, 29, has no criminal record and was awaiting his final documentation to solidify his asylum status when ICE violently arrested him.
• "They said they were looking for a certain individual, by a different name," said immigration attorney Ondine Galvez Sniffin. "I said that's not my client... I know my client's history, that is not him."
• Mendez’s wife, Marilu Domingo Ortiz, and 9-year-old son are protected under an asylum status after persecution in their home country of Guatemala. 
• When agents approached Mendez in his car, they were asking for a man by the name of Antonio, someone who used to live in his building. Mendez told them that it wasn't him. They took him anyway.
• If you think only brown people are subject to this disgusting disregard for our rights and protections, you’ll never know how wrong you were until they’re dragging you and your family away.
• Start fighting back now. You’ll regret it later if you don’t.
• Moving on.
• I almost don’t want to bother discussing Dump’s idiotic war with the United States’ most prestigious university, Harvard.
• The school stands to lose billions in federal funding, but the government’s actions against one of the world’s top research institutions were applied with vague accusations and no proof of specific legal violations.
• Dump’s decision to freeze $2.2 billion to Harvard after the school announced it would not yield to demands to change admissions, hiring, and governance practices did not follow procedures set out in civil rights law.
• Dump’s government claimed that Harvard was not keeping Jewish and pro-Israel students safe and allowed antisemitism on campus.
• But the notice did not list a single instance of these claims, nor did they explain the specific violations that occurred at Harvard.
• The attack on higher education in the USA is certainly not limited to Ivy League schools like Harvard and Columbia.
• The speed and scope of the federal government’s efforts to terminate the legal status of international students have stunned colleges across the country.
• Students at schools ranging from prestigious private universities, large public research institutions, and tiny liberal arts colleges are getting legal status terminations one after another.
• In the past few weeks, at least 901 students at more than 128 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated. Hundreds more students could be next.
• Almost none of them are white people. Most of the students losing their legal status are from India and China, which together account for more than half the international students at American colleges.
• Foreign enrollment is a huge source of essential revenue for tuition-driven colleges because international students are not eligible for federal financial aid. Often, they pay full price.
• And before you speculate, none of these students have been charged with crimes. So I can tell you what this is about.
• What Donnie Dump is, is an asshole. He singles out people and entities that make him feel threatened and goes after them.
• The day I open my news at 6am and he is no longer among the living will be one of the greatest days of my life. I can’t think of anyone else I’d feel that way about.
• Let’s move on.
• Ed Martin is currently the interim U.S. attorney for D.C., and is Dump’s pick to serve full time in the role.
• But as a conservative activist and former Missouri Republican official, Martin appeared more than 150 times on RT and Sputnik — networks funded and directed by the Russian government — as a guest commentator from August 2016 to April 2024.
• An example of Martin’s pro-Russian propaganda: in early 2022, he told an interviewer on RT that “there’s no evidence” of a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, criticizing U.S. officials as warmongering.
• Russia invaded nine days later, igniting a war that continues today.
• Where did this guy come from? He’s a Dump “Stop the Steal” organizer who has called the 2020 election and the 2016 Russian election interference investigation “hoaxes.”
• Last month when submitting a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, which asks nominees to list all media interviews, Martin did not disclose any of his dozens and dozens of appearances on Russian-run media.
• But he went on RT and Sputnik more often than on any major cable network during that span.
• How much more do we need to show you before you understand that the USA is being taken over by hostile entities?
• From the International Desk…
• It’s easy to understand why you think the USA is the only country in the world that is going backwards, erasing freedoms, and making lives more difficult for its citizens.
• Nope.
• Yesterday, in a potential landmark decision, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled that in a 2010 civil rights law called the Equality Act, the word "woman" refers to someone's biological sex.
• The ruling by the U.K. Supreme Court comes at the same time as efforts by the Dump administration in the United States to to prohibit gender-affirming care for minors and bar trans people from serving in the U.S. military.
• Writer and famed anti-transgender bigot J.K. Rowling, who has campaigned for the primacy of biological sex, celebrated the judgement on social media.
• And lest we forget…
• The crisis in Gaza isn’t going away. It is, in fact, getting worse.
• Yesterday, Israel’s defense minister said that troops will remain in so-called security zones in the Gaza Strip, in Lebanon, and in Syria indefinitely.
• Meanwhile, Israeli strikes across Gaza killed another 22 people yesterday, including a girl who was not yet a year old.
• Our world is seriously fucked up. Let’s try to cheer up with a look at… other worlds.
• From the Space Desk…
• K2-18b is a planet orbiting a dwarf star located about 124 light years away, in the constellation of Leo.
• It’s smaller than Neptune but bigger than Earth, and belongs to a mysterious class of planets not found in our own solar system. It could be a world completely covered by a deep ocean, with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.
• And potentially — scientists are hopeful to confirm — life.
• Nikku Madhusudhan of the University of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy says, "These are the first hints we are seeing of an alien world that is possibly inhabited. This is a revolutionary moment."
• Using the James Webb Space Telescope's unprecedented ability to probe the atmosphere of small planets that orbit far away stars, the tell-tale gases that appear to be in this planet's atmosphere are either dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide, or some combination of the two.
• And here on Earth, these are only produced by life, particularly by marine microbes.
• Like any good science hypothesis, it will require tons of confirmation with more telescope observations and extensive checking of data before anything is confirmed, which will likely take years.
• But how exciting would it be that, within our lifetimes, if life was first found somewhere in the universe other than on our little planet?
• And now, The Weather: “Western Pepsi Cola Town” by The Convenience
• It’s long past time for The Who to hang it up and retire… and I say this as a massive fan of the band since I was a child.
• Yesterday, they fired their drummer — Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr — who’s worked with the band for almost 30 years, since 1996.
• Why?
• They were playing at a charity show at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust. And Roger Daltrey — who is now 81 fucking years old — had a tizzy fit over the drums being loud.
• Jesus Christ, man. You had Keith fucking Moon playing behind you, one of the world’s most heavy-hitting and loudest drummers, during your heyday.
• Enjoy your final years in peace, Roger. But don’t play rock music if you can no longer rock.
• From the Sports Desk… the play-in tournament is underway, and the rest of the NBA playoffs — which start Saturday — are closer to being locked up.
• Eastern Conference: 1-seed Cavaliers vs. 8-seed winner (Heat or Hawks). 2-seed Celtics vs. 7-seed Magic. 3-seed Knicks vs. 6-seed pistons. 4-seed Pcers vs. 5-seed Bucks.
• Western Conference: 1-seed Thunder vs. 8-seed winner (Mavericks or Grizzlies). 2-seed Rockets vs. 7-seed Warriors. 3-seed Lakers vs. 6-seed Timberwolves. 4-seed Nuggets vs. 5-seed Clippers.
• Today in history… Trial of Martin Luther over his teachings begins during the assembly of the Diet of Worms (1521). The state of Virginia's secession convention votes to secede from the United States, later becoming the eighth state to join the Confederate States of America (1861). Confederate forces attack Plymouth, NC (1864). The Supreme Court of the United States decides Lochner v. New York, which holds that the "right to free contract" is implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1905). The Ellis Island immigration center processes 11,747 people, more than on any other day (1907). A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro (1961). Jerrie Mock completes the first around-the-world airplane flight by a woman (1964). Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy (1969). The ill-fated Apollo 13 spacecraft returns to Earth safely (1970). NASA's Kepler space telescope confirms the discovery of the first Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of another star (2014). 
• April 17 is the birthday of poet/playwright John Ford (1586), SCOTUS justice Samuel Chase (1741), financier J. P. Morgan (1837), MLB player Cap Anson (1852), ventriloquist Señor Wences (1896), actor William Holden (1918), journalist Harry Reasoner (1923), music manager/producer Don Kirshner (1934), keyboardist Jan Hammer (1948), wrestler Roddy Piper (1954), singer-songwriter Michael Sembello (1954), DJ/producer Afrika Bambaataa (1957), actor Sean Bean (1959), NFL player Boomer Esiason (1961), singer-songwriter Liz Phair (1967), actress Jennifer Garner (1972), and actress Rooney Mara (1985).

Even with all that, there’s more news I just don’t have time to cover here. Once again, I’ll remind you that nothing going on with the US government is in any way normal, and a large amount of it is straight-up illegal (not to mention immoral and unethical). You’re all going to have to make decisions as to how you resist the efforts to destroy our way of life. Will you roll over and accept it, or will you fight? That’s a decision only you can make. I know exactly where I stand. Enjoy your day.