Random News: April 7, 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 7, 2025, and it’s a Monday. I was very disappointed by the sound of my alarm beeping at 6am. I got plenty of sleep; I just know that about two more hours would have been enjoyable.

• I’m still pretty hyped about Saturday’s “Hands Off!” day of action. I won’t keep going on and on about it, I promise.
• In fact, I’m primarily starting to shift my focus to the next activism event, wherever and whenever it may be.
• Some folks are talking about another nationwide day of action in less than two weeks on Saturday April 19. If I feel like it’s well organized, I’ll be there.
• Let’s do the news.
• Starting with the nightmare of the stock market that’s reacting to that Bloated Orange Idiot who calls himself the president, and his horribly executed tariff plan.
• It’s early in the morning — especially here on the West Coast — but already, investors are panicking, understandably.
• US stocks tumbled for a third straight day today, and the S&P 500 entered bear market territory.
• Stock markets in Asia and Europe also plunged today, following Dumpy the Economic Clown’s announcement of sweeping tariffs last week.
• Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng index nosedived, closing 13.2% lower – its worst day since 1997, 28 years ago.
• It’s so bad that even the real president, Elon Musk, has split with Dumpy as of today. Musk is now recommending a “zero-tariff situation” between Europe and the US.
• Again, it’s still early, but already the Dow has fallen another 1,200 points, or 3.2%. The broader S&P 500 was 3.4% lower and opened in bear territory.
• A huge chunk of money that was in your IRA or 401(k) retirement account is now just gone… poof.
• You don’t get it back. And it’s 100% the fault of the guy that many of you chose to be president back in November.\
• This shit would have NEVER, ever been happening under Kamala Harris had she won.
• And now you’re fucked.
• A lot of you who don’t have any savings to speak of may feel that this news doesn’t apply to you and that you have no reason to worry. Think again.
• Retail prices are about to skyrocket, people are going to stop any excess spending on goods and services, and then as a result companies are going to be forced to lay off staff.
• That’s you.
• Hillary Clinton point out this morning, “Remember: Republicans in Congress can put a stop to this at any time.”
• But they choose not to. They’re fucking every single one of you.
• Look, we did our very best to tell you what would happen after Dumpy became president again. I don’t know what else we could have done.
• While the world financial markets were crashing and US citizens were losing their entire retirement savings, Dump spent the weekend playing golf. Today, instead of working, he’s meeting the Los Angeles Dodgers at the White House.
• Let’s move on for now.
• Once again, a federal judge in a scathing decision yesterday said the Dump administration had no legal grounds to arrest, detain, and deport Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the United States to a prison in El Salvador, saying the decision was “wholly lawless.”
• U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in a 22-page decision ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Secretary Kristi Noem to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
• As I’ve mentioned many times, the Justice Department has already admitted that sending him to notorious CECOT supermax prison — known for widespread human rights violations — was an “administrative error.”
• But as Judge Xinis wrote, “Abrego Garcia’s case is categorically different — there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention, or removal. Nor does any evidence suggest that Abrego Garcia is being held in CECOT at the behest of Salvadoran authorities to answer for crimes in that country. Rather, his detention appears wholly lawless.”
• And Dump and his team don’t care. They don’t want to bring in another brown-skinned man to the USA while they’re trying to force the others out.
• You do realize that all it would take is one phone call from Dumpy, and Abrego Garcia would be on the next flight home to Maryland to see his wife and three little kids.
• They’re doing this on purpose because they want the USA to be a white nationalist, christofascist country.
• That’s why I protest.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, Israeli soldiers killed a 14-year-old Palestinian American boy and wounded two others in the occupied West Bank.
• The boy was shot dead by Israeli troops in the village of Turmusaya. Two other Palestinian American boys, ages 14 and 15, were injured in the incident.
• The Israeli military called the three boys “terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway, thus endangering civilians driving.”
• Imagine shooting children with high-powered rifles… for throwing rocks. Imagine supporting the actions of a country who condones that.
• Let’s move on.
• A note from the Health Desk…
• A second school-aged child has died in Texas from measles. Their death comes as an outbreak of measles originating in West Texas continues to spread.
• The child was not vaccinated. Spokespeople for the state health department and U.S. Health and Human Services Department — which is run by Dump appointee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. —didn’t respond to requests for comment yesterday.
• Moving on.
• Any bad news for Dumpy — even of a momentary nature — is good news for the rest of us.
• I’m happy to report that two board members fired by The Dumpster can go back to their jobs, a split appeals court ruled this morning ahead of a likely Supreme Court showdown on the president’s power over independent agencies.
• They handed down the 7-4 decision in lawsuits brought by two women separately fired from agencies that both deal with labor issues, including one with a key role for a federal workforce Dump is aiming to drastically downsize.
• The order relies largely on a Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey’s Executor, which found that presidents can’t fire independent board members without cause.
• It’s likely that despite that, the current conservative majority on the Supreme Court will be poised to overturn it.
• Who are these women?
• Cathy Harris is from the Merit Systems Protection Board, which reviews disputes from federal workers and could be a stumbling block as the Dump administration seeks to carry out a dramatic downsizing.
• Gwynne Wilcox has served on the National Labor Relations Board, which resolves hundreds of unfair labor practice cases every year.
• Both were fired without notice, a hearing, or identifying any neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.
• Let’s move on.
• I realized awhile back that I’d let my driver’s license expire. Whoops.
• Anyway, I am heading to the DMV soon to get that rectified, but the reason I bring this up is that I’m also upgrading to a REAL ID while I’m there.
• On May 7, the Department of Homeland Security is set to enforce the deadline for “REAL ID” after years of pushing it back. The REAL ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005 so the federal government could enhance security standards for identification.
• It has many residents confused about who needs a REAL ID, what’s required to get one, and how quickly they’ll be able to get a new ID now that the looming deadline has ramped up demand from people rushing to meet it before they travel.
• People who don’t have REAL IDs will still be able to drive using current non-compliant licenses. But REAL IDs will become essential for boarding flights.
• To avoid delays at airport security checkpoints, all air travelers aged 18 and older are urged to secure proper identification by May 7, 2025.
• Keep it in mind.
• And now, The Weather: “PS” by Fib
• From the Sports Desk… congratulations to the Women’s NCAA basketball champs, the UConn Huskies. it’s the team’s 12th national championship.
• They had to get past three No. 1 seeds — USC, UCLA and yesterday’s 82-59 trouncing of South Carolina in the NCAA — to win the title.
• Senior star Paige Bueckers is expected to be the WNBA's No. 1 draft pick on April 14.
• Tonight is the NCAA Men’s championship game between Florida and Houston.
• And in other Sports Desk news, congrats to Washington Capitals legend Alex Ovechkin, who scored goal No. 895 yesterday, passing Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky to become the NHL's all-time goal scoring leader.
• Ovi scored on a pass from longtime teammate Tom Wilson with a power-play goal in the second period of Sunday's game — the 1,487th game of his career, the same as Gretzky's career total.
• Amazing.
• Today in history… Attila the Hun captures Metz in France, killing most of its inhabitants and burning the town (451). Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Cebu (1521). Premiere performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's ‘St John Passion’, BWV 245, at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig (1724). The French First Republic adopts the kilogram and gram as its primary unit of mass (1795). The Mississippi Territory is organized from disputed territory claimed by both the United States and the Spanish Empire (1798). Ludwig van Beethoven premieres his Third Symphony at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna (1805). The Union's Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio defeat the Confederate Army of Mississippi near Shiloh, TN (1862). Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples (1906). AT&T transmits the first long-distance public television broadcast, from Washington, D.C., to New York City, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover (1927). Nazi Germany issues the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service banning Jews and political dissidents from civil service posts (1933). Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp (1940). In Terebovlia, Ukraine, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress and march through the city to the nearby village of Plebanivka, where they are shot and buried in ditches (1943). The National Football League makes helmets mandatory (1943). The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations (1948). IBM announces the System/360 (1964). The Internet's symbolic birth date: Publication of RFC 1 (1969). During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first Space Shuttle spacewalk (1983). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces that the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant has become the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States (2021). Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed for the Supreme Court of the United States, becoming the first black female justice (2022).
• April 7 is the birthday of poet William Wordsworth (1770), businessman Will Keith Kellogg (1860), journalist/activist Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890), journalist Walter Winchell (1897), composer/bandleader Percy Faith (1908), singer-songwriter Billie Holiday (1915), sitar player Ravi Shankar (1920), actor James Garner (1928), actor Wayne Rogers (1933), politician Jerry Brown (1938), trumpet player Freddie Hubbard (1938), film director/producer Francis Ford Coppola (1939), singer-songwriter John Oates (1948), singer-songwriter Janis Ian (1951), martial artist/actor Jackie Chan (1954), NFL player Tony Dorsett (1954), actor Russell Crowe (1964), NFL player Ronde Barber (1975), NFL player Tiki Barber (1975), and MLB player Adrián Beltré (1979).

Enough for now. I’ll be keeping you updated on ways — large and small — to continue to resist the fascist takeover of the USA. Never despair. These losers will never win in the long term. That’s why they’re fucking losers. Enjoy your day.