Random News: June 14, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s June 14, 2025, and it’s a Saturday. It’s the big day: No Kings is happening across the USA and around the world. We’ll get to that and some more news on this early morning, but not for long; today, my presence is required in the streets… not behind a computer keyboard for a change. My news may be slightly abbreviated as a result.

• A Pride Note…
• Since I’m headed out shortly to a street demonstration, I thought today’s note could be about Stonewall, a street demonstration that helped launch the Pride movement.
• The Stonewall uprising was a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City.
• Fascinating Fact: the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Genovese crime family.[ In 1966, three members of the Mafia invested $3,500 to turn it into a gay bar, which was illegal at the time. The Mafia have always known how to profit off businesses that cater to activities outside the norm.
• And indeed, once a week, a crooked police officer would collect envelopes of cash as a protection payoff known as “gayola,” since the Stonewall Inn had no liquor license. Figures.
• Although the demonstrations were not the first time American LGBTQ people fought back against government-sponsored persecution of sexual minorities, the Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
• And one year later, on the first anniversary of Stonewall, the occasion was marked by peaceful demonstrations in several American cities that grew to become pride parades in a multitude of locations.
• Which we now know today as Pride.
• Let’s do some news.
• As mentioned above, I am leaving shortly for my local “No Kings” protest. There are roughly 2,000 of these events happening in every US state, and even some international events in solidarity with ours.
• The USA was founded on concepts of democracy, of co-equal branches of government, and above all, escaping the unjust and unfair aspects of being ruled by a king.
• Today, we remind ourselves of that.
• Donald Trump thinks he’s the king of America. He’s defied our courts, deported Americans, disappeared people off the streets, attacked our civil rights, and slashed our services. The corruption has gone too far.
• No thrones. No crowns. No kings.
• Most events today happen around noon local time; mine starts at 11am. Go to nokings.org and find your local event… and go!
• Trying not to be overly optimistic, but the projected turnout for today’s events in total should be in the millions. We will have multiple thousands at my little local event alone.
• Strength in numbers, ya know.
• I’ll report back later today and let you all know my perspective on it.
• Let’s do some news.
• Starting with the breaking (and still developing) news that two Democratic Minnesota lawmakers have been shot in their separate homes. They were targeted in the Minneapolis suburbs of Champlin and Brooklyn Park.
• The victims have been identified as state senator John Hoffman and state representative Melissa Hortman.
• There is little information on the suspect at this time, but he is allegedly presenting himself as a member of law enforcement.
• I want you to keep in mind that once That Fat Piece of Orange Shit blanket-pardoned 1,500 people who defiled out Capitol and maimed/killed cops, these MAGA fucks think they can kill liberals and get away scot-free.
• If the MAGA world thinks that political violence is the solution, they’re about to learn some stuff… including that Americans both conservative and liberal do not accept it on multiple levels.
• Moving on.
• Explosions could be seen in Tel Aviv last night as sirens rang out across Israel amid an Iranian missile barrage. The attack, which Iranian officials dubbed “Operation Severe Punishment,” came after Israel launched what it said was a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program and military targets earlier in the day.
• The Israeli strikes killed four senior commanders, including Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Nuclear officials were also killed.
• Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, promised “severe punishment” for the attacks. Dumples the World War III Clown urged Iran to “make a deal” with Israel “before it is too late.”
• Will the USA get directly involved in this conflict? I’d say the answer is almost certainly yes.
• Dumpy claims that the USA did not participate in Israel’s sprawling attack on Iran, but the U.S. Navy does have a broad array of firepower arrayed in the Middle East if Iran decides to attack U.S. forces or interests in the region.
• And Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with both Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday — condemning Israel’s attacks in his call with the former and urging Israel to return to the negotiating table when speaking with the latter.
• In both conversations, Putin offered to serve as a mediator.
• Yep.
• Relevant side note: war isn’t good for your financial stability.
• Stocks closed sharply lower yesterday and oil prices climbed after Israel struck Iran, stirring investor fears about the risk of war breaking out in the Middle East.
• The S&P 500 slid 68 points, or 1.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 749 points, or 1.8%. The Nasdaq Composite shed 1.3%.
• Jeff Buchbinder, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial, said, ”The initial market response has been largely contained, but the risk of a broader military conflict certainly cannot be dismissed. Iran has begun to retaliate and will continue to do so. This phase of the conflict will likely last several weeks at least."
• Sigh.
• Moving on.
• A quick note on the illegal use of our military for law enforcement work.
• The 4,000 California National Guard soldiers who Dump surged into Los Angeles remain unpaid due to delays in issuing official activation orders, leaving compensation and benefits in limbo.
• According to more than a dozen Guardsmen across four units, none has received formal activation orders, the critical paperwork that not only authorizes their duty status, but also unlocks pay, Tricare health benefits, and eligibility for Department of Veterans Affairs services.
• Without those orders, troops remain in a legal and administrative limbo."
• They sent them in with no plans to house or feed them. As usual, Republicans expect our fine military to do the dirty work, and then treat them like shit. Ask any veteran who’s trying to get help from the country for which they fought.
• Let’s move on.
• U.S. Capitol Police arrested about 60 military veterans last night during a protest of the appearance of troops in today’s Pencil Penis Parade for Dumpy’s birthday.
• Capitol Police said the arrests came after a bicycle-rack barrier was pushed down and a police line was “illegally crossed” while demonstrators approached the steps leading to the Capitol Rotunda.
• Wearing fatigue clothing, then sat on the steps of the Capitol, behind a sign that read “Vets Say Military off our Streets.”
• The 60 were part of a larger group that had been demonstrating peacefully at the Supreme Court.
• Moving on.
• Four detainees have escaped from an immigration detention facility in Newark, NJ.
• The men escaped from Delaney Hall, a privately run New Jersey detention facility that local elected officials have sought to close since before it began receiving detainees in May.
• Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said the men broke through a drywall and mesh barrier to escape. “Somebody kicked down a wall that wasn’t supposed to be there,” Baraka, who was arrested in May after trying to inspect the facility.
• Delaney Hall was also the scene of a disturbance Thursday as demonstrators protesting conditions in the facility were facing off with law enforcement officers.
• Amy Torres, executive director of advocacy group New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said she went to the facility after her group received reports on their hotline of a lunchtime fight breaking out and inmates not receiving adequate food.
• I’d try and escape too, under those conditions.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Farbiarz, who is presiding over Mahmoud Khalil’s case, ruled that the Dump administration can continue to detain the Columbia University activist.
• Why?
• Farbiarz rejected Khalil's request for release, writing that he can remain in ICE custody as long as the detention is not based on a determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the activist is a national security threat.
• DoJ officials had argued that while Khalil can’t be detained based on Rubio’s determination, he can be detained for other reasons, citing immigration-related statutes.
• It’s obvious that the Dump administration is just delaying his release for reasons of cruelty.
• Brett Max Kaufman of the ACLU said, “The government practically never holds people in detention on a charge like this, and it’s clear that the government is doing anything they can to punish Mahmoud for his speech about Palestine. We will not stop until he’s home with his family.”
• Good.
• Moving on with some good news form the Justice Desk…
• Yesterday, a federal appeals court declined to rehear Dump's challenge to a $5 million civil judgment after a jury found him liable in 2023 for the battery and defamation of the writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.
• A jury in Manhattan federal court found in 2023 that Dumpy the Rapist Clown attacked Carroll in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s and later defamed her when he denied her claim.
• Dump had sought a hearing before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit after a three-judge panel declined to overturn the judgment.
• Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said, "E. Jean Carroll is very pleased with today’s decision. Although President Trump continues to try every possible maneuver to challenge the findings of two separate juries, those efforts have failed. He remains liable for sexual assault and defamation.”
• Fucking fat rapist piece of shit. Remember folks, your uncle, your neighbor, your boss knew Dump is a rapist and voted for him anyway. Makes you wonder what they think about you.
• Speaking of right-wing sex offenders…
• Moms for Liberty, the anti-LGBTQ+ extremist hate group, honored South Carolina state Rep. RJ May as their 2023 Legislator of the Year and had him speak at their 2022 event on “Reclaiming Education in America.”
• Yesterday, May was arrested on nearly a dozen federal charges for distributing child sex 
• abuse material.
• The three-term, 38-year-old Republican used the screen name “joebidennnn69” to exchange 220 different files of toddlers and young children involved in sex acts. He uploaded the explicit images and photos using his home wi-fi network and cellphone.
• Because some of the images featured children the same age as his own child, prosecutors recommended he be held without bail until his trial.
• Moms for Liberty regularly seeks to ban LGBTQ+-inclusive children’s books as a form of “pornography” and regularly accuses LGBTQ+ people and their allies of “grooming” children for sexual abuse, a decades-old claim that inspires hatred and violence against queer people and their supporters.
• And then they support a guy who jacks off to literal babies. That’s your Republican party for ya.
• And now, The Weather: “Long Gone” by Ford Chastain
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s June 2001. I’m in a period of transition in my life. My son is about to turn two, and my marriage isn’t going well.
• I’d met and started dating my then-wife when we were respectively 19 and 20. My 2001, now both in our early 30s, we are very different people. We eventually separate a couple of years later.
• And my life was better in nearly every measurable way ever since.
• Here’s what was on top of the Billboard 200 albums chart at the time.
• 1. Lateralus (Tool). 2. Miss E ...So Addictive (Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott). 3. Survivor (Destiny's Child). 4. Weezer (Green) (Weezer). 5. All For You (Janet). 6. Reveal (R.E.M.). 7. Now 6  (Various Artists). 8. Exciter (Depeche Mode). 9. Wingspan: Hits And History (Paul McCartney). 10. Moulin Rouge (Soundtrack). 11. Set This Circus Down (Tim McGraw). 12. Double Wide (Uncle Kracker). 13. Until The End Of Time (2Pac). 14. Drops Of Jupiter (Train). 15. Hotshot (Shaggy). 16. The World Needs A Hero (Megadeth). 17. Part III (112). 18. No Name Face (Lifehouse). 19. Country Grammar (Nelly). 20. Trouble In Shangri-La (Stevie Nicks).
• From the Sports Desk… Game 4 of the NBA finals was another exciting one, ending with the Thunder coming from behind to beat the Pacers 111-104.
• Today in history… Kublai Khan defeats the force of Nayan and other traditionalist Borjigin princes in East Mongolia and Manchuria (1287). The Continental Army is established by the Continental Congress, marking the birth of the United States Armed Forces (1775). The Second Continental Congress passes the Flag Act of 1777 adopting the Stars and Stripes as the Flag of the United States (1777). Trade unions are legalized in Canada (1872). Hawaii becomes a United States territory (1900). U.S. House of Representatives passes the Marihuana Tax Act (1937). Albert II, a rhesus monkey, rides a V-2 rocket to an altitude of 83 miles, thereby becoming the first mammal and first monkey in space (1949). U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words "under God" into the United States Pledge of Allegiance (1954). Disneyland Monorail System, the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, opens to the public in Anaheim, CA (1959). Mariner 5 is launched towards Venus (1967). The 1994 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot occurs after the New York Rangers defeat the Vancouver Canucks to win the Stanley Cup, causing an estimated C$1.1 million, leading to 200 arrests and injuries (1994). Near-Earth asteroid 2002 MN misses the Earth by 75,000 miles, about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon (2002). US Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, and three others, are shot and wounded by a terrorist while practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game (2017). 
• June 14 is the birthday of author/activist Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811), psychiatrist/neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer (1864), singer Burl Ives (1909), journalist/politician Pierre Salinger (1925), guerrilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928), actress Marla Gibbs (1931), saxophonist Junior Walker (1931), politician Steny Hoyer (1939), keyboardist Rod Argent (1945), businessman/politician Donald Trump (1946), drummer Alan White (1949), basketball player/coach Pat Summitt (1952), bass player/composer Marcus Miller (1959), singer-songwriter Boy George (1961), NBA player Sam Perkins (1961), tennis player Steffi Graf (1969), and NBA player Nikola Vujčić (1978).

Okay, so listen. One way or another, today will be in US history books. I understand if you’re scared. I understand if you can’t get involved for various logistic reasons. I’m not going to make you feel badly if you choose to sit it out. But I will say… we need you. All of you. You have a role in this, whether you choose to or not. I will report in later on my own firsthand observations of No Kings Day. I am energized and excited. I also need to shower and have more coffee, so that happens first. LET’S FUCKING GO! Enjoy your day.