Random News: June 18, 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 June 18, 2025, and it’s a Wednesday. I'm trying to get my brain to work, and my typing fingers aren’t exactly cooperating just yet either. Sometimes it’s best to just go on autopilot and see what happens. I know we have a shit-tonne of news, so let’s focus on that. 

• A Pride Note…
• Homophobic people often confidently proclaim that same-sex relationships are “unnatural,” claiming that if that wasn’t the case, you’d see gay interaction between other non-human animals.
• Uh oh. I’m about to pop your little bubble.
• Same-sex behavior has been observed in over 1,500 different species. This includes activities such as mating, courtship, and pair bonding.
• And in some species, it’s very common to have strong pair bonds, with same-sex couples raising offspring together.
• Being gay isn’t any more unnatural than being tall, or having blonde hair, or any other aspect of humanity that differentiates us.
• Let’s do some news.
• Dump’s enthusiastic messaging about getting the USA directly involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran is creating a big schism in the MAGA world.
• You have to understand that many in the MAGA community were sold on a concept of the USA having an isolationist philosophy and not being involved in any foreign war, be it in support of Ukraine or Israel or anywhere else.
• I don’t like war either. But my reasons are somewhat different than most of theirs,
• In any case, the displeasure toward Dump driving us hard toward direct conflict with Iran includes some of MAGA’s most well-known members.
• Tucker Carlson, for example, spent the past week railing against warmongers, including his former colleagues at Fox and those in the party who he says are nudging Dump toward a needless war.
• He said, “The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians. The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it.”
• Fascinating.
• And last night, Carlson got into a screaming match with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on this very topic, accusing Cruz of knowing nothing about “the country he seeks to topple.”
• Cruz made another huge unforced error in the interview — which comes out in full today — when we admitted that the USA is already involved in the conflict.
• And other MAGA freaks and geeks have been openly supportive of Carlson’s view, which places them in direct opposition to Dump.
• Those people with anti-war (and hence anti-Dump) statements include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, strategist Steve Bannon, and many others.
• Dumpy is definitely making it clear that the USA is already directly involved in the conflict, and that in itself is a problem; despite his role as commander in chief, the president is not allowed to unilaterally involve us in wars.
• That’s a task of Congress. So don’t be surprised if there’s suddenly a convenient reason that Congress would have no choice but to declare war on Iran.
• Dump’s unpopularity is rising fast. He desperately needs a distraction. He was hurt by his horrible birthday parade and the simultaneous massive success of the No Kings movement the same day.
• Along with his unpopular tariff program, his slashing of Medicaid, his dismantling of crucial  government programs… you know the rest.
• So the war that he’s trying to manufacture is, in his mind, the best thing for himself. He’s not thinking — or caring — about the thousands of American service people who will die as a result.
• Let’s move on with some excellent news.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick expanded a ruling that blocks the Dump administration from enacting policy changes to sex markers on passports for many transgender and nonbinary Americans.
• Dump had issued an order in January that says a person is male or female, and rejects the idea that someone can transition from the sex assigned at birth to another gender.
• Kobick granted a motion to apply her earlier ruling to people who want a passport different than the male/female sex designation they were given at birth and those who want an X designation.
• The ruling applies to all people who are currently without a valid passport, those whose passport is expiring within a year, and those who need to apply for a passport because theirs was lost or stolen or because they need to change their name or sex designation.
• You can thank the tireless efforts of the ACLU, who made the motion for a preliminary injunction on behalf of six transgender and nonbinary people.
• Moving on.
• Dump’s ICE gestapo is continuing to flaunt its lawlessness and direction of fascism.
• Yesterday, New York City comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested by federal agents at an immigration court as he was trying to accompany a person out of a courtroom.
• Lander had spent the morning observing immigration court hearings and said he was there to accompany some immigrants out of the building.
• In the moments before Lander was handcuffed, agents could be seen trying to violently separate Lander from the man they had come to detain. Lander briefly struggled to stay close to the detainee before he was pulled away.
• They said Lander was “obstructing.”
• “I’m not obstructing, I’m standing right here in the hallway,” Lander said as he was being handcuffed.
• He added, “You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens asking for a judicial warrant,” as he was led away down a hallway and into an elevator.
• One of the officers who led Lander away wore a tactical vest labeled “federal agent.” Others were in plainclothes, with masks over their faces.
• Important note: not only is Lander a candidate in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary, but early voting in the contest is already underway.
• Important note two: at least five elected officials have recently faced similar confrontations with Dump’s immigration goons. 
• In addition to Lander, there was Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), Newark Mayor Ray Baraka, Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), and Milwaukee judge Hannah Dugan.
• Moving on to related news… of a very good sort.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams held Florida’s attorney general James Uthmeier in contempt of court for continuing to enforce an immigration law she blocked, and then bragging about it in media interviews afterwards.
• Fuck you, you piece of Florida shit.
• Williams pointed to Uthmeier’s defiance in a scorching ruling yesterday afternoon that accused the Republican of twisting words in her April stay of a February law making it a state crime for undocumented aliens to enter Florida.
• She noted that Uthmeier — an ally of hard-right Florida governor and extremely unlikable person Ron DeSantis — chose merely to inform state law enforcement agencies of her temporary restraining order preventing them from making arrests.
• He then issued a further instruction telling them to go ahead anyway, insisting that Williams’s order carried no weight because no specific agency was named.
• So despite her order, at least 25 people had been arrested under the law, many handed over into ICE detention.
• We’ll be keeping a close eye on that. It’s high time that some actual accountability falls on these lawbreaking assholes.
• In other news…
• Yesterday, an Illinois toy company challenged Dumpy’s tariffs in front of the Supreme Court in a long shot bid to press the justices to quickly decide whether they are legal.
• Learning Resources Inc. filed an appeal asking the Supreme Court to take up the case soon rather than let it continue to play out in lower courts. The company argues that Dump illegally imposed tariffs under an emergency powers law rather than getting approval from Congress.
• They’re not wrong.
• While the company won an early victory in a lower court, the order is on hold as an appeals court considers a similar ruling putting a broader block on Dump’s tariffs. The appeals court has allowed Dump to continue collecting tariffs under the emergency powers law ahead of arguments set for late July.
• But the company argued in court documents the case can’t wait that long, “in light of the tariffs’ massive impact on virtually every business and consumer across the Nation, and the unremitting whiplash caused by the unfettered tariffing power the President claims.”
• Again, I agree entirely.
• However, the Supreme Court is typically reluctant to take up cases before appeals courts have decided them, lowering the odds that the justices will agree to hear it as quickly as the company is asking.
• Learning Resources CEO Rick Woldenberg said tariffs and uncertainty are taking a major toll now. He’s looking ahead to the back-to-school and holiday seasons, when the company usually makes most of its sales for the year.
• Dump has defended the tariffs by arguing that the emergency powers law gives the president the authority to regulate imports during national emergencies.
• Except there is no national emergency. Dump is full of shit.
• Let’s move on.
• No matter who wins in this fall’s gubernatorial election in Virginia, history will be made.
• Democrat Abigail Spanberger will battle Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — the only Republican who qualified for the ballot.
• That means Virginia will have a female governor — a first in the state’s history since it was founded nearly 250 years ago.
• Why is this important across the country? Because Virginia is one of two states that host statewide elections the year after a presidential election — New Jersey is the other — and the races are typically seen as referendums on the party in power before Congress heads into midterm elections.
• And Democrats have history on their side: the party of the sitting president typically suffers defeat in Virginia’s statewide races.
• Let’s go back a little bit to last weekend’s Pencil Penis Parade.
• Dumpy is super mad about his little birthday fiasco, and directed his ire at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
• He screamed at Hegseth that the soldiers were “hamming it up,” as opposed to delivering the menacing show of force that he’d expected.
• That’s why he looked so damn miserable throughout the event. He really didn’t like the soldiers smiling, waving, and enjoying themselves.
• Hegseth also took Dump’s blame for the soldiers not marching in lockstep during the parade as they made their way down Constitution Avenue.
• And I have to admit, they looked pretty lackluster. Almost like they didn’t want to be there and thought the whole thing was fucking stupid… which it was, so I don’t blame them.
• Biographer Michael Wolff said, “Apparently, there was a phone call, and he said to Hegseth, the tone was all wrong. Why was the tone wrong? Who staged this? There was the tone problem. Trump, he keeps repeating himself.”
• Ha ha. I’m happy that he was sad on his birthday. He really should appreciate and enjoy however many birthdays he has remaining; Dump turned 79 on Saturday, and is the oldest person to have ever taken office as president.
• Meanwhile, the number of people involved in Saturday’s “No Kings” day of activism continues to swell.
• While the lowest-end estimates have the number of participants at 5,000,000 — which is just silly, given that single cities like Boston had over a million at their events — there are credible reports that the number is as high as 13.14 million in attendance across 2,300+ No Kings protests nationwide.
• That count came local authorities at each event. An example: my event in Torrance, CA had an attendance of 20,000+, with that number being provided by the Torrance Police Department… not some propaganda machine.
• Let’s fucking go! More to come in that regard.
• From the sarcastic “Aw, That’s a Shame” Desk…
• Yesterday afternoon, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was transported by ambulance to a hospital in Washington, DC, after an allergic reaction.
• She’s the lady who runs ICE, runs FEMA (but intends to shut it down ASAP), shot her puppy, had her purse stolen with $3,000 in cash inside, had Senator Alex Padilla arrested at her press conference, and is about as evil a human as one cold possibly imagine.
• The rumor mill says her allergy is to latex. The rumor mill did not speculate as to how said latex was encountered. Norm is fine, by the way.
• Shrug.
• From the Crime/Entertainment Desks…
• R. Kelly was hospitalized for an overdose after prison staff gave him "an amount of medicine that could have killed him" and was later forcibly removed from a hospital against medical advice, his lawyer alleged in a federal court filing on Monday.
• The disgraced singer's lawyer is requesting that a judge move him to home detention from the North Carolina prison where he his serving his sentences.
• This is not the first time Kelly has tried to get out of federal custody over purported threats to his life. Earlier this month, he claimed prison officials recruited a white supremacist to kill him.
• I’m looking deep inside myself for sympathy and finding little.
• Kelly was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking in 2021 and of child pornography a year later. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in the first case and 20 years in prison in the second, which he is serving mostly simultaneously.
• Assuming he lives, he’ll be in his 80s before he gets out of jail.
• And now, The Weather: “Holy Water” by Teethe
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s exactly 39 years ago on June 18, 1986, and I am graduating from high school on this day.
• A couple of memories. First, it was fucking hot that afternoon in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, and I was wearing a maroon robe over a jacket and tie, and sweating in the sun. I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about the ceremony. I know some kids did speeches.
• I can tell you that despite having already been accepted into several reasonably good universities (and decided to go to SDSU), I just barely graduated due to my overall crappy grades, especially in math.
• What I remember better was the party that night at my friend Kim’s house, which eventually got busted up by LA County Sheriffs and my friend John ended up fighting a bunch of cops.
• John made myriad bad decisions, that being one in a list of many.
• 1. Live To Tell (Madonna). 2. On My Own (Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald). 3. Greatest Love Of All (Whitney Houston). 4. I Can't Wait (Nu Shooz).  5. All I Need Is A Miracle (Mike + The Mechanics). 6. If You Leave (Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark). 7. Something About You (Level 42). 8. Crush On You (The Jets). 9. There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry) (Billy Ocean). 10. A Different Corner (George Michael). 11. Be Good To Yourself (Journey). 12. Move Away (Culture Club). 13. Is It Love (Mr. Mister). 14. No One Is To Blame (Howard Jones). 15. Nothin' At All (Heart). 16. Holding Back The Years (Simply Red). 17. I Wanna Be A Cowboy (Boys Don't Cry). 18. Who's Johnny ("Short Circuit" Theme) (El DeBarge). 19. What Have You Done For Me Lately (Janet Jackson). 20. West End Girls (Pet Shop Boys).
• From the Sports Desk… we have an NHL champion.
• The Panthers beat up the Oilers 5-1 in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals, winning the series 4-2 and repeating as hockey’s top dogs. Congrats to them.
• Today in history… The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is revoked via a scire facias writ issued by an English court (1684). The British Army abandons Philadelphia (1778). The United States declaration of war upon the United Kingdom is signed by President James Madison, beginning the War of 1812 (1812). Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory (1858). Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election (1873). The "Finest Hour" speech is delivered by Winston Churchill (1940). Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album (1948). SALT II is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union (1979). On Space Shuttle STS-7, astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space (1983). Titan, a submersible operated by OceanGate Expeditions, imploded while attempting to view the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five people on board including the co-founder and CEO of the company, Stockton Rush in the North Atlantic Ocean (2023).
• June 18 is the birthday of publisher E.W. Scripps (1854), winemaker Robert Mondavi (1913), actor E. G. Marshall (1914), NBA player George Mikan (1924), MLB player Lou Brock (1939), film critic Roger Ebert (1942), singer-songwriter/musician Paul McCartney (1942), actress Carol Kane (1952), film producer Barbara Broccoli (1960), singer Alison Moyet (1961), NFL player Bruce Smith (1963), singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne (1973), NHL player Martin St. Louis (1975), singer-songwriter Blake Shelton (1976), NFL player Antonio Gates (1980), and rapper Takeoff (1994).

No matter how much stuff I put in here, there’s always more. But I also believe that you folks know how to seek info on your own, with or without my help. If we all believed in each other just a little more, marvelous things could happen. Enjoy your day.