Random News: May 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 May 7, 2025, and it’s a Wednesday. I slept like a log, or a rock, or a fish, or whatever other simile you have that imparts the concept of having gotten a full night of uninterrupted slumber. In fact, I slept so hard that I’m having trouble getting my hands and brain to work. More coffee please.

• I have another date for you to mark on your calendar: June 14.
• June 14 is Flag Day — but this year, it will be the day that Donnie Dump wants tanks and thousands of soldiers in the street for a made-for-TV display of dominance for his birthday party.
• It will cost over $100 million in taxpayer funds just to entertain that fat fancy boy.
• But we’re not watching that disgusting display. Instead, we’re taking to the streets for the next major national mobilization.
• We don’t have kings in the USA, and that will be the theme of our activism that day. Events are being planned across the country to let Dumpy know what real power looks like.
• Visit nokings.org and get signed up. I’ll post more details as they become available.
• Let’s do the news.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein blocked the Dump administration from deporting noncitizens detained in the Southern District of New York under Dump’s bullshit proclamation invoking the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
• Hellerstein said that Dump’s proclamation ordering the summary removal of Venezuelan migrants exceeded the scope of the Alien Enemies Act, an 1798 law that Dumpy relied on to deport brown people.
• That act does give the president the power to detain and deport migrants… when there is a declared war between the U.S. and a foreign nation.
• But Hellerstein noted quite correctly that there is no war, invasion or predatory incursion. Because of that, the Alien Enemies Act "was not validly invoked by the presidential proclamation," he wrote.
• He’s the second federal judge to bar Dumpy from using the proclamation invoking the 1798 law to remove certain Venezuelan migrants at risk of deportation. 
• How glad are you that we have judges who follow the laws of this country instead of bending the knee to a fascist pig?
• Let’s move on.
• The FDA announced yesterday that it has picked a new head of its center charged with vaccine approvals and other biologics products.
• It’s anti-vaxxer Dr. Vinay Prasad. Because of course it is.
• Prasad replaces Dr. Peter Marks, who served as the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA and played a key role in launching Operation Warp Speed.
• That program was likely the only really great action that came out of Dump’s entire first term. It allowed the medical community to speed up the development of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• But Prasad wouldn’t have allow it. He has long criticized the FDA for granting emergency use authorization for COVID-19 vaccine boosters, saying last year that Marks was "either incompetent or corrupt to authorize a booster without clinical, randomized data."
• Marks was forced out by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• Better hope we don’t have another pandemic while this guy is around. Tens of millions more people would have died without the fast development of a safe and effective vaccine.
• In other pretty shitty news…
• Yesterday, the Supreme Court allowed Dumpy to enforce a ban on transgender people in the military, while legal challenges proceed.
• The court’s three liberal justices said they would have kept the policy on hold. And three federal judges had ruled against the ban.
• Let’s move on to some much better news.
• The nomination of a real piece of shit — Ed Martin, Dump's controversial pick to be the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — is in jeopardy.
• Martin is a "Stop the Steal" advocate who backed January 6 insurrectionists. And, thankfullly, he’s struggling to find sufficient Republican support in the Senate. 
• Yesterday, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee,  said that he won't support Martin's nomination. And with that, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Martin's nomination may not make it out of the judiciary panel for a floor vote.
• Tillis managed to say something correct and also completely fucked up in one sentence: "If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where January 6 happened, the protests happened, I'd probably support him," Tillis said.
• But why? Why would you support him at all? Jesus.
• Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, said the "writing's on the wall" for Martin. 
• What kind of horrible person would nominate Martin to run the office that prosecuted more than 1,500 Capitol defendants, despite the fact that Martin previously worked to defend those very same people?
• Dumpy, of course. Martin has been serving as the District's top prosecutor in an acting capacity since Inauguration Day. He said he shares Dump's view of the Capitol attack as a "day of love," and he has already fired some of the prosecutors who handled Jan. 6 cases. 
• Fucking assholes.
• Moving on to some disturbing international news.
• Early today, India fired missiles into Pakistani-controlled territory in several locations, killing at least 26 people including a child, in what Pakistan’s leader called an act of war.
• India said it struck infrastructure used by militants linked to last month’s massacre of tourists in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.
• Pakistan claimed it shot down several Indian fighter jets in retaliation as two planes fell onto villages in India-controlled Kashmir. At least seven civilians were also killed in the region by Pakistani shelling, Indian police and medics said.
• Violent conflict and war is always bad news. But it’s particularly bad when both sides are armed with nukes, as is the case here.
• Moving on.
• I think I have an understand of the overall Dump philosophy: when something is bad, make it worse.
• Case in point: last week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy informed employees at the Department of Transportation to brace for layoffs.
• Duffy did not offer specifics about which agencies or employees would be affected. The Department of Transportation said the final number of cuts would depend on how many employees first take a buyout offer. 
• The cuts could happen as soon as the end of the month.  
• While Duffy has promised the DOT's workforce cuts won't affect airline safety, note that he became Transportation Secretary amid two high-profile airline crashes, including a midair collision in January over the Potomac River in Washington that left 67 dead.
• And in typical contradictory terms, on May 1 Duffy announced plans to boost air traffic controller recruiting. The announcement came as Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the country's largest and busiest hubs, experienced an onslaught of delays and canceled flights.
• Duffy’s DOT blamed staffing shortages, equipment malfunctions, and system outages for the selays and ground stops at the New Jersey airport.
• And now he and Dump are making it even more difficult and unsafe to travel in the USA.
• Let’s move on.
• Today’s the day that travelers flying within the US must use a state-issued ID or license that is “REAL ID” compliant.
• I’d advise that you avoid the DMV for a bit. In downtown Chicago, for example, a line this morning to get into one wrapped around a city block.
• In addition to being used to board domestic flights, REAL IDs also will be required to enter secure federal facilities. REAL IDs are marked with a star in the upper right-hand corner, no matter what state you live in.
• I still need to get mine, but I’m going to wait just a bit while the madness calms down.
• In other news…
• Let’s talk about surveillance capitalism.
• What is it? Well, here’s an example: when teenage girls delete a selfie, they get bombarded with ads for beauty products.
• Yeah. It’s fucking horrible. The data trade is how social media platforms like Facebook, Google, YouTube, and TikTok make their dough. In 2022, the data industry raked in more than of $274 billion worth of revenue.
• And by 2030, it's expected to explode to just under $700 trillion. Yes. You read it right.
• These hyper-personalized ads are crafted and delivered for very specific groups of users, a system called "social media targeting."
• Side note: this is part of my job. I work in marketing. I make ads that target people who create music and do other professional audio jobs and hobbies, such as recording and live sound engineers.
• Targeted ads on social media are made possible by analyzing four key metrics: your personal info (like gender and age); your interests (like the music you listen to or the comedians you follow); your "off app" behavior (like what websites you browse after watching a YouTube video); and your "psychographics," meaning general trends glossed from your behavior over time, like your social values and lifestyle habits.
• Everything you do on social media is logged and recorded. Maybe you didn’t know that.
• Now you do.
• And from the “Everyone’s An Asshole” Desk…
• On Saturday, Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, went to a Kentucky Derby party at The Liberty Hotel in Boston, MA.
• I suppose I should note up here, to avoid any confusion, that these are both women. Cisgender women, born as women, identifying as women. They’re women. With me?
• Their fun afternoon ended abruptly when hotel security searched the women's restroom and asked them to show their identification to prove their sex. 
• The couple were in the women's lobby bathroom when a male security guard came in and started banging on the stall doors. Baker was in one of the stalls while Victor waited for her near the sinks.
• "All of a sudden there was banging on the door," said Baker. "I pulled my shorts up. I hadn't even tied them. One of the security guards was there telling me to get out of the bathroom, that I was a man in the women's bathroom. I said, 'I'm a woman.'" 
• Nevertheless, Baker was forcefully escorted out of the restroom and then comments were directed at her from other women waiting in line, yelling things like, “Get him out of here,” “He's a creep,” and so on.
• Stay classy, Boston. Fucking Jesus.
• Yesterday morning, The Liberty Hotel said it has finished an investigation into the incident and the security officer is being suspended from his position. It also said all staff are being retrained "on inclusive practices and guest interaction protocols."
• The hotel is also making a donation to a local LGBTQ+ organization. I’ll bet they are, if they want to have any hope of staying in business. What a huge fucking self-inflicted blunder.
• And from the “Not All Men” Desk…
• Smokey Robinson has been accused of sexual assault by four former employees in a lawsuit filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court yesterday.
• In the complaint, the 85-year-old singer and former Motown Records executive is accused of sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, gender violence, and creating a hostile work environment.
• All four plaintiffs, identified as Jane Does, previously worked as housekeepers for Robinson and his wife. The lawsuit accuses Robinson of forcing himself on their “entire bodies, including their vaginas, breasts, legs, abdomen, lips, and face” and claims they did not consent to his “sexual contact or touching.”
• Each plaintiff was afraid to report Robinson to the police due to fear of losing their jobs and reprisal against themselves and their families. The women are seeking damages of no less than $50 million.
• I second that emotion.
• And now, The Weather: “Pink Silence” by Cloth
• From the Sports Desk… oh, you like playoff scores? We have those.
• In the NBA: the Pacers shocked the top-seed Cavaliers, winning game 1 of their round 2 playoff series 120-119. The Warriors handily beat the Timberwolves 99-88, but at a price: superstar Stephen Curry left the game with a left hamstring strain, and is doubtful for game 2.
• In the NHL: The Hurricanes upset the Capitals in game 1, winning 2-1. And in another upset, the Oilers beat the Golden Knights 4-2. Both underdogs have a 1-0 lead in their respective series.
• Today in history… State funeral of James VI and I is held at Westminster Abbey (1625). Robespierre introduces the Cult of the Supreme Being in the National Convention as the new state religion of the French First Republic (1794). World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria (1824). During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō; the battle marks the first time in naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships (1942). Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering is founded and is later renamed Sony (1946). The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey Dummer (1952). Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law (1992). Edvard Munch's painting ‘The Scream’ is recovered undamaged after being stolen from the National Gallery of Norway in February (1994). Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for US$40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history (1998). Vladimir Putin is inaugurated as president of Russia (2000).
• May 7 is the birthday of politician Stephanus Van Cortlandt (1643), composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840), politician Josip Broz Tito (1892), actor Gary Cooper (1901), actress/Argentina first lady Eva Perón (1919), NFL player Johnny Unitas (1933), singer Jimmy Ruffin (1936), singer Thelma Houston (1946), drummer Bill Kreutzmann (1946), journalist Tim Russert (1950), film writer/producer Amy Heckerling (1954), actress Traci Lords (1968), singer-songwriter Eagle-Eye Cherry (1969), NBA player Shawn Marion (1978), NFL player Alex Smith (1984), drummer Matt Helders (1986), actress Aidy Bryant (1987), and NFL player Earl Thomas (1989).

I’ll obviously be filling you in on more information on “No Kings Day” as it becomes available. Meanwhile, there are plenty of things you can do to aid in the resistance of Dumpy and his gang. We’ll talk about that stuff too. Enjoy your day.