Random News: May 22, 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 22, 2025, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I’m awake and aware, or at least as much as one can be at this time in the morning.

• I’ll open today’s Random News with an old joke from the Soviet era.
• A guy stops by the newsstand every day, scans the front page, but he doesn't buy the paper. One day the vendor asks what he's up to.
• The guy says: “I’m looking for an obituary." The newsstand vendor says “Obituaries are towards the back of the paper, comrade."
• The guy replies, "Not the one l'm looking for."
• I mention this for a simple reason: I hear all the time from many, many people that they can’t wait for a particular fascist wannabe dictator to die. And trust me, I understand that emotion.
• But Dump, who turns 79 in a few weeks and obviously doesn’t have that much longer among the living, is not the problem.
• The problem is that Dump was able to make himself a solution for people who believe in the same vile things that he espouses.
• And though cults tend to dissolve once their charismatic leader is no longer influencing them, the same factors still run rampant through American society and in other places around the globe.
• Racism. Nationalism. Xenophobia. Religious bigotry. Homophobia. Classism. And until those things go away — while won’t happen any time soon — there will always be a Dump-like figure there waiting to take advantage of these most immature and negative of human fears.
• Let’s do some news.
• Very early this morning, House Republicans passed Dumpy’s budget.
• This legislation offers big tax breaks for the wealthy, almost nothing fore the middle class and poor, and removes a wide range of social programs relied on daily by millions of Americans.
• I am not a fear-monger, so before I say another damn thing, allow me to remind you that the bill next goes to the Senate where — if they change even one word of the bill, which they 100% definitely will — it has to go back to the House for more votes.
• To pay for the tax breaks in the bill, House Republicans would reduce spending on food aid, what is known as the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP), by about $267 billion.
• And with the Republican bill, to be eligible for Medicaid, you have to work at least 80 hours per month. The new requirements would begin on Dec. 31, 2026.
• A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the Republican bill will reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over the decade.
• And at the last minute, Republicans threw a lot of other shit into the bill which was over 1,100 pages long.
• They’re eliminating taxes on gun silencers, something that’s existed since Congress passed the National Firearms Act in 1934.
• They’re prohibiting funds from going to Planned Parenthood, making it harder for millions of patients to get cancer screenings, pap tests, and birth control.
• They’re encouraging people to open “Trump Accounts” for babies. They were called “MAGA Accounts” but changed the name at the last minute. These are federal banks accounts that a baby can allegedly get access to when they turn 30 years old.
• There’s a lot more. $46.5 billion to revive construction of Dump’s useless wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and more money for his cruel deportation agenda. $150 billion in new spending for the Defense Department and national security. And leasing of public lands for drilling, mining, and logging 
• So that’s where it stands for now.
• We need four sitting Republican Senators to vote against this madness. And, as I said before, there’s no way in hell this clusterfuck is getting through the Senate as-is.
• More on that later. For now, moving on.
• Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice said that it is moving to drop police reform agreements, known as consent decrees, with the cities of Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis.
• The court-enforceable agreements were born out of probes launched after the 2020 police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
• The agreements with Minneapolis and Louisville were intended to address allegations of systemic unconstitutional policing and civil rights violations.
• Officials in both cities had previously said that they are still committed to the reforms outlined in the agreements and plan to implement changes with or without the support of the Dump administration.
• Moving on.
• Going somewhat under the radar with all that shitty news are a couple of items of outstandingly good news.
• Today, the Supreme Court effectively ended a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, dividing 4-4.
• It was one of the term’s most closely watched cases. The outcome keeps in place an Oklahoma court decision that invalidated a vote by a state charter school board to approve the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would have been the nation’s first religious charter school.
• While it leaves the issue unresolved nationally, the tie leaves in place a ruling that says public schools must stay secular, marking a key moment for church-state separation.
• Why did only eight justices take part in the case? Justice Amy Coney Barrett is good friends and used to teach with Notre Dame law professor Nicole Garnett, who has been an adviser to the school.
• The SCOTUS didn’t provide a breakdown of the votes, but it seems that Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberals to make the outcome 4-4.
• It’s sickening that the other four — Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch — actually voted for public funds to go to a religions school.
• Moving on to some more good news.
• Greenland has signed a lucrative mineral deal with Europe, delivering a blow to Dumpy’s plans.
• It allows a Danish-French consortium to mine anorthosite, a substance key to the production of aluminum.
• The permit granted to Greenland Anorthosite Mining (GAM) is for 30 years. The goal is to use a more climate-friendly alternative to bauxite in producing aluminum for aircraft, vehicles, and defense.
• Let’s move on.
• Those piece of shit grifters actually accepted that ridiculous plane for Dumpy.
• Yesterday, the Defense Department confirmed it’s taking ownership of a Boeing jet from Qatar that will be retrofitted and used to transport Clown Boy.
• They claim that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth accepted the Boeing 747 "in accordance with all federal rules and regulations.
• Minus the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution, of course.
• The USA is going to spend millions and millions of taxpayer money to bring the jet up to usable standards,  and then Dumpy gets to take it with him after he leaves office.
• Moving on, but back to the Republican budget for a moment.
• You know how we’ve recently mentioned how vulnerable Republican congressional reps are in blue states.
• Now that Dumpy’s budget has passed — taking away from Medicaid and putting more money in the hands of the wealthiest Americans — there are specific congresspeople who will be held fully accountable for their support of this disaster of a budget.
• Here in my state of California, the bill will strip up to 3.4 million people of their health coverage, and cost the state an estimated $30 billion in lost federal funding.
• Here’s a list of California Republican lawmakers and the direct impact on the number of their own constituents who will lose health coverage. Every one of them voted in favor of the Dump budget.
• And these people assume the same constituents will vote for them in 2026. Hahahaha…
• Doug LaMalfa (CA-1) - 38,000 constituents lose coverage. Kevin Kiley (CA-3) - 23,000. Tom McClintock (CA-5) - 30,000. Vince Fong (CA-20) - 29,000. David Valadao (CA-22) - 43,000. Jay Obernolte (CA-23) - 38,000. Young Kim (CA-40) - 18,000. Ken Calvert (CA-41) - 28,000. Darrell Issa (CA-48) - 21,000.
• And that’s just my state. If Dump’s budget gets past the Senate and is made law, I project that Republicans will lose 50-60 seats in the House and 14-18 seats in the Senate.
• Assuming the USA still exists in 2026 and they allow us to vote.
• Call your Senator TODAY and make sure they know how you feel about this.
• Moving on.
• South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa is being praised for keeping his cool despite serious provocation by Dumpy during a meeting at the Oval Office yesterday.
• Dumpy even went so far as to play an insane montage video purporting to prove "white genocide” in Ramaphosa’s country.
• But Dumpy is nothing to this guy. The South African leader, who was a protégé of Nelson Mandela, has experience intense negotiations. He was one of the key mediators in the talks that ended South Africa's apartheid in 1994.
• Dumpy doesn’t mean shit to a real leader like that.
• And now, The Weather: “Hell Island” by Deradoorian
• Let’s do a chart.
• We’re heading to May 1992, which is somehow 33 years ago. Think about this: the time distance between 1992 and today is the same between 1959 and 1992. That’s a long fucking time.
• I was wrapping up my final year of study at Cal State Dominguez Hills at the time of this chart. I was also working various shitty jobs in between my insane school schedule, in which I took 21 units that semester, and 24 units the following semester so I could graduate and move on with my life.
• How’d that work out for me? Pretty goddamn good; I graduated that fall with a 3.7 GPA, enough to get honors. Here’s the top of the Billboard 200 album chart at the time.
• 1. Adrenalize (Def Leppard). 2. Totally Krossed Out (Kris Kross). 3. Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Red Hot Chili Peppers). 4. Classic Queen (Queen). 5. Ropin' The Wind (Garth Brooks). 6. Wish (The Cure). 7. No Fences (Garth Brooks). 8. Nevermind (Nirvana). 9. Wynonna (Wynonna). 10. Wayne's World (Soundtrack). 11. Achtung Baby (U2). 12. Greatest Hits (ZZ Top). 13. Wild Life (Slaughter). 14. Funky Divas (En Vogue). 15. Metallica (Metallica). 16. Human Touch (Bruce Springsteen). 17. Off The Deep End ("Weird Al" Yankovic). 18. Check Your Head (Beastie Boys). 19. Ten (Pearl Jam). 20. Luck Of The Draw (Bonnie Raitt).
• From the Desk Next To the Sports Desk…
• Rest in peace to Jim Irsay, the owner and CEO of the Indianapolis Colts, who died yesterday 65. A cause of death was not immediately given.
• He took over sole ownership of the team after his father's death in 1997.
• Irsay is well known to me as a huge collector of historic and valuable musical instruments. He started in 2002 by purchasing Jerry Garcia's custom Tiger guitar.
• He also owned the guitars of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Kurt Cobain, Prince, Lou Reed, Eddie Van Halen, Johnny Cash, Les Paul, The Edge, Walter Becker, and Neal Schon, as well as Elton John's grand piano, Ringo Starr’s drums, John Coltrane’s sax, and Miles Davis’ trumpet.
• It’s probably the most valuable collection in the world.
• From the Sports Desk… basketball and hockey playoffs continue. And I really miss NFL football, which is still months away from being a thing.
• In the NBA: game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals was totally fucking bonkers. New York was up by 11 with two minutes left, but the final score was Pacers over Knicks 138-135 in overtime.
• More news from the NBA: after winning his first scoring title and leading the OKC Thunder to a league-high 68 wins, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has earned this year’s MVP award.
• How good is SGA? He led the league with 32.7 points per game on 51.9% shooting, and also averaged 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.0 blocks.
• The only other player in NBA history to average at least 30 points on 50% shooting, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1.5 steals and 1 block per game? That would be Michael Jeffery Jordan.
• Shai is a great baller. Well deserved.
• In the NHL: another game 1 — this one for the Western Conference finals — had the Stars beat the Oilers 6-3.
• Today in history… Fourteenth recorded passage of Halley's Comet (760). The massacre at the festival of Tóxcatl takes place during the Fall of Tenochtitlan, resulting in turning the Aztecs against the Spanish (1520). The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, MO (1804). A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason (1807). HMS Beagle departs on its first voyage (1826). The Associated Press is formed in New York City as a non-profit news cooperative (1846). Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats, making him the only U.S. president to ever hold a patent (1849). Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina severely beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made regarding Southerners and slavery (1856). Oliver Winchester founded the Winchester Repeating Arms (1866). President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act into law, restoring full civil and political rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers (1872). The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their “Flying-Machine" (1906). Mexico enters the Second World War on the side of the Allies (1942). U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson launches his Great Society program (1964). Ceylon adopts a new constitution, becoming a republic and changing its name to Sri Lanka (1972). Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia join the United Nations (1992). A U.S. federal judge rules that U.S. Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the Lewinsky scandal involving President Bill Clinton (1998). The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum (2015). 
• May 22 is the birthday of Mayan king Itzam K'an Ahk I (626), physicist William Sturgeon (1783), composer Richard Wagner (1813), painter Mary Cassatt (1844), actor Laurence Olivier (1907), pianist/composer Sun Ra (1914), TV producer Quinn Martin (1922), politician Harvey Milk (1930), actress Susan Strasberg (1938), actor Paul Winfield (1939), journalist Bernard Shaw (1940), serial killer Ted Kaczynski (1942), MLB player Tommy John (1943), lyricist Bernie Taupin (1950), activist Barbara May Cameron (1954), politician Lisa Murkowski (1957), singer-songwriter Morrissey (1959), model Naomi Campbell (1970), politician Sharice Davids (1980), speed skater Apolo Ohno (1982), NFL player Julian Edelman (1986), and tennis player Novak Djokovic (1987).

Is that all the news? No, it’s not even close. Is that some news that might impact you and your friends and family? Yeah, 100%. That’s all I try and give you each time I write this shit. I think it’s helpful in various ways. Enjoy your day.