Random News: May 28, 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 28, 2025, and it’s a Wednesday. We have so much news today, it’s not even funny. I mean, most news isn’t funny, unless you can laugh at that fucking clown in the White House, but that’s just the way it is.

• Let’s jump right in.
• It’s been discovered that Dump’s border czar, Tom Homan, recently earned big consulting fees from a detention center company that will benefit financially from Dump’s immigration crackdown.
• Homan grabbed an undisclosed amount in fees consulting for a division of the GEO Group, one of two companies that operates the vast majority of the nation’s immigrant detention facilities.
• ICE initially declined to comment. After this news went public yesterday, the agency issued a statement, saying, “Tom Homan has never been involved in any contract discussions or decisions at ICE since being named border czar."
• Yeah… but he sure made those arrangements before taking the job, huh?
• Does anyone here see anything wrong with the guy who got paid by a for-profit prison corporation now being in charge of who gets sent to those same prisons?
• Apparently Dumpy is fine with this insane conflict of interest. And probably gets a cut.
• Homan has gone on record saying that the nation’s immigrant detention system needs at least 100,000 beds to accommodate the large numbers of noncitizens the administration plans to deport. 
• Let’s move on.
• Yesterday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the federal government to transfer thousands of acres of national forestland containing a Native American sacred site to a copper-mining company.
• The land in central Arizona known as Oak Flat, which has great spiritual value to the Western Apache Indians, sits on the world’s third-largest deposit of copper ore.
• Well, if there’s money involved, the native people of this nation — or most nations, frankly — will get completely fucking screwed even time.
• Interestingly, it was conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch — whose rulings have long supported Native American rights — who called the court’s refusal to review the case a “grievous mistake — one with consequences that threaten to reverberate for generations.”
• And I fully agree. It’s fucking vile. The copper mine will create a disgusting two-mile-wide crater, eliminating all access to the sacred site.
• Wendsler Nosie Sr. of Apache Stronghold called the court’s order a “heavy blow” and said in a statement that the group’s efforts to protect the site would continue. I hope it does continue, by any means necessary
• Western Apaches have worshiped at Oak Flat for centuries, conducting ceremonies that they say cannot take place anywhere else.
• Mark my words, that’s not the last time you’ll be hearing about this story.
• We have more news out of the Supreme Court.
• Yesterday, the SCOTUS rejected the appeal of a Massachusetts student who was barred from wearing a t-shirt to school proclaiming there are only two genders.
• Good. Fuck that kid.
• The justices left in place a federal appeals court ruling that said it would not second-guess the decision of educators in Middleborough, MA to not allow the T-shirt to be worn in a school environment because of a negative impact on transgender and gender-nonconforming students.
• I’d love to explain all the intricacies of free speech here, but I think it’s very clear here that allowing a kid to wear that shirt is no different than allowing a shirt that expressed hate toward a specific race or religion.
• Oh, and just for fun, I’ll note that justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, because if there’s a wrong side of anything, they’ll be on it.
• Moving on.
• Abortions are back off in Missouri.
• And yes, you remember correctly that Missouri is the only state where voters have used a ballot measure to overturn a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy.
• But yesterday, the state’s top court ruled that a district judge applied the wrong standard in rulings in December and February that allowed abortions to resume in the state.
• The state is using a baseless excuse that abortion facilities are “functionally unregulated” and leave women with “no guarantee of health and safety.”
• Planned Parenthood — who has the state’s only abortion clinics — maintains that those restrictions were specifically targeted to make it harder to access abortion.
• Fuck you, Missouri. Allow your women to have reproductive freedom, per the will of the people. 
• In other news…
• Dumpy is pardoning a whole lot of sleazy fucking people all of a sudden.
• Taking bribes much, Donnie?
• Yesterday, Dump said he would pardon reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who are in prison for charges that include bank fraud and tax evasion.
• The couple was sentenced in 2022, with Todd Chrisley receiving 12 years and Julie Chrisley receiving seven years. They’d submitted false financial statements to obtain more than $30 million in personal loans to pay for their luxury cars, designer clothes, real estate, and travel. 
• And then later, after earning millions from their reality TV show, the couple concealed their income from the IRS to avoid paying nearly $500,000 in delinquent taxes, while also failing to file tax returns and pay taxes from 2013 through 2016. 
• While we’re on the topic of pardons…
• Ed Martin — the racist asshole who was forced to withdraw from his nomination for U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — is now Dump’s “pardon attorney.”
• Now he wants Dump to pardon the worst of the January 6 coup organizers, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.
• In addition to a potential pardon for Rhodes, pardon applications were discussed for Proud Boys Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Dominic Pezzola, and others.
• As you know, Dumpy already issued pardons to over 1,500 people convicted for their participation in the January 6 insurrection on the first day of his second term.
• That includes more than 170 who were accused of using a deadly or dangerous weapon, such as a fire extinguisher or bear spray, against police officers. Because MAGA hates cops, as we know.
• However, a group of 14 current and former members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers — including Rhodes — were only given commutations that allowed them to leave prison but left their criminal convictions in place.
• Those were the assholes who were found guilty of more serious charges, like conspiring to use force to resist the transfer of power and seditious conspiracy.
• Let’s keep moving on.
• Yesterday, former heroin addict and parasite host — and U.S. Health Secretary — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women.
• Kennedy said he removed COVID-19 shots from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for those groups.
• U.S. health officials, following recommendations by infectious disease experts, have been urging annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older.
• I’ve gotten a COVID booster once or twice each year after the initial set of inoculations in 2021.
• HHS officials refused to respond to questions about why Kennedy decided to take the step now, or to release additional information about what went into the decision.
• In other news…
• You can expect to see more and more news stories like the horrific one below, due to the climate of hate that’s fomented by Dump and the people who are like him.
• Kady Grass is a woman. She was born a woman and identifies as a woman. She took her 13-year-old cousin to get some McDonalds in Carpentersville, IL after a middle school choir concert.
• When she went to use the restroom, patrons accused her of using the wrong gender bathroom — and beat her unconscious in front of the kid. Even after she was unconscious, they continued stomping on her head.
• Grass was nearly killed. She suffered a broken nose, a hemorrhage in her eye, and is understandably experiencing severe PTSD after the attack. "I genuinely think that their plan was to kill me, and that they didn't care if they ended my life that day,” she said.
• The Kane County State's Attorney's office is considering hate crime charges in addition to aggravated battery for perpetrators 19-year-old John Kammrad and an unnamed 17-year-old boy.
• So is that how it is now? If you don’t wear your hair long, put on garish makeup, or have immediately identifiable feminine facial and body features, you get stomped to death when you have to use the bathroom?
• And where are the Republicans to speak out against this, or defend Grass’s right to look the way she wants?
• Let’s keep on moving.
• Elon blew up another rocket. You sure you want this guy transporting you to Mars?
• After the last two test flights ended prematurely with the destruction of the spacecraft, yesterday's Starship launch left the spacecraft spinning and mission control unable to control the craft.
• So it spun into a wild dive and exploded in the atmosphere, with pieces falling into the Indian Ocean.
• Slow clap. Good job, Elmo.
• It’s been awhile since I noted a “Florida Man” story that was so outrageous, I felt the need to share it.
• But then came Timothy Schulz, 42, who had a history of drug-related arrests and had only recently been released from Polk County Jail on charges of methamphetamine possession.
• What did Tim do after getting out of jail? Well, he got all tweaked out on meth, jumped into an alligator-infested lake, got bit by one of them, refused the offer of a life preserver, and then attacked sheriff deputies with garden shears and tried to steal their patrol vehicle.
• “As a result, Timothy is deceased,” stated the sheriff.
• Now that is prime Florida Man lore right there. RIP Tim, I guess.
• And now, The Weather: “BOYS WITH THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOLVES” by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
• A genuine rest in peace going out to guitarist, songwriter, and producer Rick Derringer. He died yesterday at 77.
• It was all the way back in 1965 that Derringer first gained success in his band the McCoys via their debut single "Hang on Sloopy,” which was a number-one hit. Then in 1973, Derringer found further success with his now classic-rock song "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo".
• Derringer also worked extensively with Edgar and Johnny Winter, playing lead and rhythm guitar in their bands and producing all of their gold and platinum records, including hits "Frankenstein" and "Free Ride.”
• Let’s do a chart. It’s late May 1996, and I’m about to turn 27. I’ve recently been named the director of marketing communications for a respected manufacturer of musical instruments and audio gear.
• It’s probably too big a job for me at that time, and I did end up paying a price in the mental and emotional aspects, trying to keep that shit running without a ton of support.
• But I did keep it running, and I’m proud that I stepped up to handle that shit as well as I did. Side note: I still have those same job responsibilities — doing advertising and various marketing content and PR — today, 29 years later. I just do it independently, which is much, much nicer.
• Here was the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at that moment in time.
• 1. Tha Crossroads (Bone Thugs-N-Harmony). 2. Always Be My Baby (Mariah Carey). 3. Because You Loved Me (From "Up Close & Personal") (Celine Dion). 4. Nobody Knows (The Tony Rich Project).  5. Ironic (Alanis Morissette). 6. Give Me One Reason (Tracy Chapman). 7. You're The One (SWV). 8. Count On Me (From "Waiting To Exhale") (Whitney Houston & CeCe Winans). 9. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New) (Coolio). 10. Follow You Down/Til I Hear It From You (Gin Blossoms). 11. Down Low (Nobody Has To Know) (R. Kelly Featuring Ronald Isley). 12. Keep On, Keepin' On (From "Sunset Park") (MC Lyte Featuring Xscape). 13. Sittin' Up In My Room (From "Waiting To Exhale") (Brandy). 14. Old Man & Me (When I Get To Heaven) (Hootie & The Blowfish). 15. Fastlove (George Michael). 16. Insensitive (From "Bed Of Roses") (Jann Arden). 17. Get Money (Junior M.A.F.I.A. Featuring The Notorious B.I.G.). 18. Sweet Dreams (La Bouche). 19. Missing (Everything But The Girl). 20. Woo-Hah!! Got You All In Check/Everything Remains Raw (Busta Rhymes).
• From the Sports Desk… grinding through the basketball and hockey playoffs. 
• In the NBA: the Pacers grabbed a crucial victory in a hard-fought game 4 against the Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals, winning 130-121. They’re now up 3-1 in the series.
• In the NHL: the Oilers are now just one win away from making the Stanley Cup finals after beating the Stars 4-1 in game 4. 
• Today in history… A solar eclipse occurs, as predicted by the Greek philosopher and scientist Thales (585 BC). In the first engagement of the French and Indian war, Virginia militia under the 22-year-old lieutenant colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania (1754). U.S. President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act which denies Native Americans their land rights and forcibly relocates them (1830). In San Francisco, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club (1892). Alan Turing submits ‘On Computable Numbers’ for publication (1936). Volkswagen, the German automobile manufacturer, is founded (1937). Peter Benenson's article ‘The Forgotten Prisoners’ is published in several internationally read newspapers, later thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International (1961). The Palestine Liberation Organization is founded, with Yasser Arafat elected as its first leader (1964). U.S. President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal, and the Governor of Arkansas, Jim Guy Tucker, are convicted of fraud (1996). The last steel girder is removed from the original World Trade Center site (2002). 
• May 28 is the birthday of physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738), UK prime minister William Pitt the Younger (1759), poet/composer Thomas Moore (1779), inventor Carl Richard Nyberg (1858), athlete Jim Thorpe (1888), author Ian Fleming (1908), singer-songwriter/guitarist T-Bone Walker (1910), actress/activist Zelda Rubinstein (1933), NBA player/executive Jerry West (1938), lawyer/politician/national joke Rudy Giuliani (1944), singer-songwriter Gladys Knight (1944), physician Patch Adams (1945), singer-songwriter John Fogerty (1945), bass player Leland Sklar (1947), singer-songwriter Wendy O. Williams (1949), guitarst Jerry Douglas (1956), MLB player Kirk Gibson (1957), singer-songwriter/actress Kylie Minogue (1968), politician Rob Ford (1969), politician Marco Rubio (1971), and NFL player Percy Harvin (1988).

That was a lot of news. Don’t get overwhelmed. Pick your battles and fight accordingly. And a quick reminder that on two weeks from Saturday, we’re going to organize nationally for “No Kings” day on June 14. Just keep it in mind. I’ll be pumping out details about that as the big day grows closer. Enjoy your day.