Random News: May 10, 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 May 10, 2025, and it’s a Saturday. I awoke to a sore throat (boo!) that I’m hoping doesn’t develop into anything worse. Meanwhile, I am enjoying not having anything major to jump up and do today, so while in my robe and sipping a giant cup of Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend, let’s take a look at the news.

• Starting with a few really good items for a change.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Judge William Sessions ordered Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University doctoral candidate, to be immediately released from immigration custody on bail as she pursues a challenge to her detention after the Dump administration revoked her student visa.
• Ozturk, who we’ve mentioned multiple times here, is the woman who was grabbed off the street on March 25 by a swarm of masked men in plan clothes near her Somerville, Massachusetts home as she shrieked in fear.
• They were some of Dumpy’s ICE goons. 
• Why did they grab her and put her in custody for six weeks? Ozturk had co-authored a campus newspaper op-ed that was critical of Tufts University’s response to the war in Gaza.
• Is she in the US illegally? No, she was welcomed here on a valid F-1 student visa.
• Was she charged with any crime? No, none at all. Was any evidence of any criminal activity presented? No.
• Judge Sessions said at the conclusion of yesterday's bail hearing that Ozturk raised "very substantial" and "very significant" claims that her First Amendment and due process rights were violated when she was taken into custody.
• Ozturk had been held at an immigration facility in Basile, Louisiana, where she was transferred after she was detained in Massachusetts.
• Now she’s returning to her home in Massachusetts with no travel restrictions. The bail hearing in her challenge to her confinement came after a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the Dumpy had until May 14 to comply with a district court's order to transfer Ozturk to immigration custody in Vermont.
• But wait! There’s more good news on this same topic.
• Yesterday, a federal appeals court said Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi can remain released from immigration custody while a legal challenge to his detention moves forward, denying a request from the Dump administration to allow immigration officials to re-detain Mahdawi.
• The three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit unanimously rejected Dump's bid for emergency relief, finding that he is unlikely to succeed on his arguments that a Vermont district court did not have jurisdiction over Mahdawi's habeas petition.
• The 2nd Circuit panel also said that the Justice Department was unlikely to succeed on its claims that the lower court lacked the authority to order Mahdawi's release last week.
• Mahdawi — who’s graduating from Columbia this month with a bachelor's degree in philosophy — is the guy who was detained by immigration agents in Vermont last month during what he was told was his citizenship interview.
• Again, this is a person who is in the USA legally, and has not been charged with a crime. He was detained for his role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia, in violation of the First Amendment.
• A brief side note to all you Second Amendment supporters.
• This is the exact scenario you’ve always spoken about and dreamed of: a tyrannical government imprisoning innocent people and ignoring the Constitution.
• You’ve always claimed you would use your weapons to defend against said government. Where are you and your well-regulated militia now?
• Let’s move on to yet more promising news.
• Yesterday, Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco issued an emergency order in a lawsuit filed by labor unions and cities, saying that Dumpy and his boss Elon Musk must halt much of its dramatic downsizing of the federal workforce.
• In her order, Illston wrote, “The Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime.”
• The temporary restraining order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on Dump’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management.
• Note that the order, which expires in 14 days, does not require departments to rehire people. It is limited to departments where dismantlement is already underway or poised to be underway — including at the the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which announced in March it will lay off 10,000 workers and centralize divisions.
• Any measure that stops or even delays Dumpy from enacting his fascist agenda is a good moment for America.
• Let’s move back to the immigration issue for the next item.
• Yesterday, the mayor of Newark, NJ was arrested at an ICE facility during a visit with members of New Jersey's congressional delegation.
• Mayor Ras Baraka was taken into custody at the Delaney Hall facility in Newark, which quietly started housing detained migrants this month.
• Some New Jersey lawmakers, including Baraka, and immigration advocates have argued the 1,000-bed facility is dangerous and illegal.
• The private prison company that signed a contract with ICE did not obtain proper permits and blocked fire, electrical, and plumbing inspections. 
• Several members of Congress — including Reps. Robert Menendez Jr. (D-NJ)  and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) — were present. They say Baraka's arrest was about intimidation. 
• ”When they arrested the mayor, he was in the public domain. He was not on their property. They made a decision to make an example of this. They huddled, they discussed and then they announced that they were going to arrest him," Watson Coleman said. 
• ”ICE brought to meet the mayor of Newark, over 20 armed individuals. Twenty armed individuals to confront the mayor of Newark along with three members of Congress. It was an act of intimidation. It was an act of intimidation not just to the mayor, not just to us, but to everyone watching," Menendez said.
• Mayor Baraka — who is also a Democratic candidate for governor — was released from custody last night.
• If you are too blind or stupid to understand what it means when the federal government is moving in to arrest political leaders and judges, I promise that you’ll be next.
• And if you don’t stand up to save them, there will be no one around to save you when it happens to you.
• Resist them at every opportunity.
• And on a very related side note… but one that affects us all, immigrants and natural-born citizens alike…
• The Dump administration is considering suspending the writ of habeas corpus, which is the legal right to challenge one’s detention.
• Stephen Miller, one of the most revolting human beings in history and a top White House adviser, announced this yesterday.
• This evil piece of shit said, “The constitution is clear, and that of course is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus could be suspended in time of invasion. So that’s an option we’re actively looking at. A lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”
• We are not being invaded. We are not at war. In fact, the most recent event that may have legally justified the suspension of habeas corpus was, in fact, the January 6, 2021 failed coup attempt. The Constitution does note that it can be suspended in cases of rebellion.
• The writ of habeas corpus has only been suspended four times in US history, most notably by Abraham Lincoln during the civil war. It was also suspended during efforts to fight the Ku Klux Klan in the 19th century in South Carolina, in the Philippines in 1905, and in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor.
• Let’s move over to Tennessee, one of a handful of states where Republican officials have pledged to use state resources to carry out Dump’s racist plans.
• More than 100 people have recently been taken into custody by federal immigration officials in a joint operation with the Tennessee Highway Patrol, leaving many in Nashville’s immigrant community uncertain and worried.
• The operation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a reminder of how local and state law enforcement jurisdictions are critical to Dump’s plans for mass deportations of brown-skinned people. In this case, it’s with the assistance of Republican Gov. Bill Lee.
• And last week, Florida officials touted a joint operation with ICE that resulted in 1,120 immigration arrests.
• Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, says that “All signs point to this being racial profiling intended to terrorize the heart of the immigrant and refugee community. What we’ve heard is that THP is flagging people down for things like a broken taillight or tinted windows.”
• She also notes that some of those being detained would be allowed to stay in the country if they were able to receive competent legal representation at an immigration hearing.
• Instead, people are agreeing to be deported out of fear that they could spend months or years in immigration detention.
• You can’t blame them. Holding people behind bars with no due process is becoming a hallmark of the Dump regime.
• I should note that there is at least one group of immigrants whom the Dump administration is welcoming with open arms.
• Dump’s immigration team will welcome more than two dozen white South Africans to the United States as refugees next week.
• The first Afrikaner refugees are arriving Monday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. They are expected to be greeted by a government delegation, including the deputy secretary of state and officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, whose refugee office has organized their resettlement.
• And this flight will be the first of several in a “much larger-scale relocation effort,” said little bald asshole and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
• Keep in mind that Dump’s State Department refugee programs have been suspended — halting arrivals from Afghanistan, Iraq, most of sub-Saharan Africa, and other countries in a move being challenged in court.
• But Dump issued an executive order in February to prioritize the processing of white people.
• Wake. The fuck. Up.
• You’re living in an exact parallel to Nazi Germany in 1938. If you have any awareness of history, you already know what will happen next.
• Let’s move on.
• Chinese exports to the U.S. plunged in April, as steep tariffs on China make it too costly for many U.S.-based retailers to import goods from the country.
• Dumples the Inept Clown ratcheted up his trade war with Beijing in April, hiking tariffs on Chinese goods to up to 145%. China retaliated with 125% levies on Americans goods. 
• And now, as a result, shipments of goods from China to the U.S. in April dropped 21% compared with the same period one year earlier. Chinese exports to Southeast Asian countries surged by the same amount, demonstrating how Dumpy has no clue about how global trade works.
• And Dump is caving.
• Yesterday, he claimed that the levies on China could come down to 80%. He wrote that the lower rate "seems right," whatever the fuck that means.
• Even at his random 80% rate — which, knowing Dump, could change again at any moment — would still make importing goods from China prohibitively expensive for many U.S.-based businesses.
• American consumers, meanwhile, are unlikely to afford price hikes from steep tariffs at a time when they are already squeezed financially.
• Again, you don’t need to be some financial expert to project where this will end up in a short time frame.
• I do want you to remember: this is 100% the fault of Donnie Dump. When you lose your job, when your life savings gets depleted, when you can’t find items at the grocery store, when you can’t afford basic living necessities, when health care is unavailable, when your Social Security or Medicaid gets reduced or eliminated, when your friends and neighbors are being grabbed from their homes and held without trial or evidence of wrongdoing…
• Dump did that. And he told you he was going to, and you did nothing to stop it. Now fucking live with it.
• Or redeem yourself and resist it with all your might. Today.
• Moving on.
• Do you live in a place where weather events might be dangerous or harmful to yourself and your home?
• Don’t count on any help from Dump.
• Yesterday, the new acting Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator, David Richardson, had his first all-hands meeting with agency personnel. He was named to the role Thursday and has not been formally nominated nor confirmed by the U.S. Senate. 
• So you’ll understand who this guy is, I don’t need to do anything other than to repeat what he told the agency’s staff.
• Richardson said, ”Obfuscation, delay, undermining. If you're one of those 20% of the people and you think those tactics and techniques are going to help you, they will not, because I will run right over you. I will achieve the president's intent."
• He continued, "I, and I alone in FEMA, speak for FEMA.”
• My advice: after the next series of hurricanes devastates the Southeast and Atlantic regions, do not count on Dumpy to give you a single penny when your family is injured and your home destroyed.
• Even though you pay Dumpy taxes for this. He’s going to pocket your money and laugh at you.
• And in current natural phenomena news…
• A mild 4.1 magnitude earthquake just southeast of Greenback, TN was felt across the southeastern region of the United States this morning from Knoxville to Atlanta, Asheville, and beyond.
• I’m not going to make fun of anyone back east who freaks out about a 4.1 quake. That’s at least noticeable. We get them pretty often here in California, as you’re likely aware.
• No injuries or damage were immediately reported.
• And now, The Weather: “The Better Half” by Men I Trust
• From the Sports Desk… playoff scores in basketball and hockey keep rolling along.
• In the NBA: the Cavs put a beatdown on the Pacers, winning 126-104 and taking a 2-1 series lead. The Nuggets once again shocked the Thunder, winning 113-104 in on overtime thriller and going up 2-1 in the series.
• In the NHL: The Panthers managed to take a game from the Maple Leafs, winning 5-4 in overtime, with Toronto still holding a 2-1 lead in the series. The Jets shut out the Stars 4-0, tying up that series at 1-1.
• Today in history… A sunspot is observed by Han dynasty astronomers during the reign of Emperor Cheng of Han, one of the earliest dated sunspot observations in China (29 BC). Christopher Columbus visits the Cayman Islands and names them Las Tortugas after the numerous turtles there (1503). Jacques Cartier visits Newfoundland (1534). The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by reducing taxes on its tea and granting it the right to sell tea directly to North America (1773). Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette become King and Queen of France (1774). The National Gallery in London opens to the public (1824). A riot breaks out at the Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City over a dispute between actors Edwin Forrest and William Charles Macready, killing at least 22 and injuring over 120 (1849). The First transcontinental railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory with the golden spike (1869). Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States (1872). The Horch & Cir. Motorwagenwerke AG — eventually changing its name to Audi — is founded (1904). Mother's Day is observed for the first time in the United States, in Grafton, WV (1908). J. Edgar Hoover is appointed first Director of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation, and remains so until his death in 1972 (1924). In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings (1933). Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain (1940). Marvel Comics publishes the first issue of The Incredible Hulk (1962). Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder (1975). Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first Black president (1994). 
• May 10 is the birthday of actor/assassin John Wilkes Booth (1838), composer/conductor Max Steiner (1888), actor/singer/dancer Fred Astaire (1899), film producer David O. Selznick (1902), actress Nancy Walker (1922), physicist George E. Smith (1930), singer-songwriter Donovan (1946), singer-songwriter Graham Gouldman (1946), singer-songwriter Dave Mason (1946), drummer Sly Dunbar (1952), murderer Mark David Chapman (1955), bass player Sid Vicious (1957), singer-songwriter Bono (1960), astronaut/criminal Lisa Nowak (1963), drummer Dante J. Silva (1967), race car driver Hélio Castroneves (1975), and actor Kenan Thompson (1978).

Okay then. Time to get moving and do various things. Enjoy your day.