Random News: June 21, 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 21, 2025, and it’s a Saturday. I’m just a guy in a bathrobe, sipping coffee and taking a look around the world to see what it’s all about.

• A Pride Note…
• I seem to know a lot of gay people who attend church. Doesn’t the Bible condemn same-sex relationships?
• For many evangelicals and other conservative Christians, the answer to this question is yes. Their interpretation is usually that same-sex relationships are not able to reflect God’s “creative intent.”
• And there are some oft-quoted passages that they use to back their point (though they are almost always misinterpreted).
• The stories of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) and the Levite’s concubine (Judges 19) are actually about sexual violence and the stigma toward violating male honor.
• The injunction that “man must not lie with man” (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13) coheres with the context of a society anxious about their health, continuing family lineages, and retaining the distinctiveness of Israel as a nation… not specifically about the acts of gay sex.
• But let’s go with the idea that the conservative Christians are correct in their extremely literal yet misdirected interpretations. What else does the Bible — on a much more direct basis — prohibit?
• Welp.
• Eating a cheeseburger. Eating shellfish. Not bleeding when you lose your virginity. Having sex with a woman who is menstruating. Being a male who is not circumcised. Being a female virgin and being raped in a city. Performing any work on the Sabbath. Planting more than one kind of seed in a field. Wearing clothing woven of more than one kind of cloth. Having tattoos.
• Those things are much more clearly defined in the Bible compared to same-sex relationships. So, I assume if you’ve done any of those things, you’re aware that we’re expected to either stone or burn you to death, and that hell awaits your eternal soul.
• Good luck down there, ya filthy shrimp eater.
• Let’s do the news, starting with some good stuff.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiar ordered that Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil must be released from detention by ICE as his immigration proceedings play out. 
• Khalil's attorneys asked the judge to free Khalil from detention or transfer him to New Jersey. Farbiarz agreed, determining that Khalil is not a threat to the community, not a flight risk and that his detention has been "highly unusual." 
• Farbiarz denied the government's request to stay his decision, meaning it is effective immediately.
• I want to pause here to remind you: Khalil is a green card holder — a legal U.S. permanent resident — who was detained by immigration agents in March and is currently being held in Louisiana.
• He was initially detained under a determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that his "presence or activities would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest."
• The man has committed no crime, not has he been charged with any. He missed the birth of his first child while being held in custody. He’s had his freedom removed for months.
• He’s been jailed this whole time for having expressed views that were pro-Palestinian while a graduate student at Columbia University.
• Our entire country is based on the idea of freedom… of speech, of the press, or religion, or the ability to peaceably assemble. Any change to that premise is a step toward fascism.
• Even Judge Farbiarz was mystified by the government’s holding of Khalil, saying that he has given government attorneys ample opportunity to address the lack of evidence and that they have provided none.
• Let’s move on.
• With more good news. It happens more than you realize.
• Yesterday, US District Judge Allison Burroughs indefinitely blocked the Dump administration from revoking Harvard University’s ability to host international students and scholars while legal challenges continue.
• The preliminary injunction extends a temporary block the judge had issued last month against the administration after it revoked the school’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which allows it to host foreign students and scholars.
• We’ll keep following that case as it progresses, of course.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, California’s challenge of the Dumpy’s military deployment in Los Angeles returned to a federal courtroom for a brief hearing after an appeals court handed Dump a key procedural win.
• U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer put off issuing any additional rulings and instead asked for briefings from both sides by noon Monday on whether the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits troops from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil, is being violated in Los Angeles.
• My opinion: it 100% is being violated. Any court or judge who says otherwise would have to be a MAGA cultist.
• Dump will be moving military into more and more cities soon enough if he’s not stopped. Is that what you want?
• Let’s move on.
• Here’s a piece of great news that I said at the time was likely to happen, but in this crazy-ass world was impossible to predict for sure…
• Yesterday, a panel of three federal appellate judges has ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in each of the state's public school classrooms is unconstitutional.
• OBVIOUSLY. Fucking hell.
• The ruling marked a major win for civil liberties groups who say the mandate violates the separation of church and state, and that the poster-sized displays would isolate students — especially those who are not Christian.
• Louisiana’s mandate has been touted by Republicans, including Dumpy, and marks one of the latest pushes by conservatives to incorporate religion into classrooms.
• Here’s my response: fuck all of you. If one of those appeared in my child’s classroom, I would set it on fucking fire and deal with the consequences later as needed.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, Dumpy the War Clown said his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was "wrong" when she testified that Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon, marking the second time in a week the president has dismissed the assessment of the intelligence director he selected. 
• Since I can’t stand either of them, I don’t really care about them squabbling.
• In a move very reminiscent of the alleged “weapons of mass destruction” that were used as an excuse for the Middle Eastern invasion in the early 2000s, the White House this week said Iran has everything it needs to build a nuclear weapon within weeks.
• In March, Gabbard testified on Capitol Hill that the U.S. "continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003."
• It was kind of funny to hear Dump respond to the point yesterday. A reporter called him on it, asking, "What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your intelligence community had said they have no evidence that they are at this point."
• Dumpy: ”Well then, my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?"
• Reporter: "Your director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard." 
• Dumpy: ”She’s wrong.”
• You can see what they’re doing, right? Information is being twisted to match Dump’s agenda.
• He’s not the first president to do this and sure won’t be the last, but you hate to see war happen — and thousands of military and civilian deaths and injuries result — based on what’s likely nothing at all.
• Let’s keep moving.
• From the “Not Sports” Desk…
• Yesterday, the Los Angeles Dodgers announced a $1 million donation to help immigrant families impacted by the recent immigration enforcement operations in Southern California. 
• That’s my Dodgers.
• The team said they plan to announce more support for organizations helping immigrant communities, including the California Community Foundation and the L.A. County Federation of Labor. 
• As we mentioned yesterday, fans protested at Dodger Stadium after the team said ICE gestapo agents tried to enter the stadium's parking lot Thursday morning.
• And now, The Weather: “People On TV” by SLEEP CLUB
• I usually don’t include these kinds of notices, but I should mention an RIP going out to a member of the Second Life music community.
• Rhob Elliott, who some of you know as Rock Doghouse, passed away last night. I believe he was 61. A songwriter, good musician, and genuinely nice guy, he will be missed by many.
• From the Sports Desk… before tomorrow’s NBA Finals Game 7, a different kind of sports note.
• The Senegalese women's basketball team was going to train in the U.S. for the upcoming AfroBasket tournament in the Ivory Coast. Then we denied their visas.
• The visa denials are all part of Dump’s xenophobic policies. Interestingly, Senegal wasn't on Dump’s list of banned countries, and it was not immediately clear why the visas were denied.
• The travel ban includes exemptions for the World Cup, the Olympics and any "other major sporting event," though it's unclear what is considered a major event.
• Shrug. Just Dumpy being an asshole to people who aren’t white and male. so no surprise.
• Today in history… Halifax, Nova Scotia is founded (1749). The United States captures Guam from Spain (1898). China formally declares war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan as an edict issued from the Empress Dowager Cixi in the Boxer Rebellion (1900). The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States, striking down Oklahoma grandfather clause legislation which had the effect of denying the right to vote to blacks (1915). Italy begins an unsuccessful invasion of France (1940). A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by Japan against the United States mainland (1942). Ellen Fairclough is sworn in as Canada's first female Cabinet Minister (1957). Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan, later documented in the film ‘Mississippi Burning’ (1964). In its decision in Miller v. California, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller test for determining whether something is obscene and not protected speech under the U.S. constitution (1973). John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan (1982). The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson that American flag-burning is a form of political protest protected by the First Amendment (1989). SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight (2004). Pluto's newly discovered moons are officially named Nix and Hydra (2006). Greenland assumes self-rule (2009).
• June 21 is the birthday of composer Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732), Daniel Carter Beard (1850), astronomer Max Wolf (1863), chemist/activist Clara Immerwahr (1870), caricaturist Al Hirschfeld (1903), philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905), actress Jane Russell (1921), actress Maureen Stapleton (1925), composer Lalo Schifrin (1932), singer-songwriter/guitarist Ray Davies (1944), businessman Maurice Saatchi (1946), actress Meredith Baxter (1947), actor Michael Gross (1947), singer-songwriter/guitarist Joey Molland (1947), drummer Joey Kramer (1950), singer-songwriter/guitarist Nils Lofgren (1951), illustrator Berkeley Breathed (1957), singer-songwriter Kip Winger (1961), comedian Jim Breuer (1967), actress Juliette Lewis (1973), guitarist/composer Mike Einziger (1976), actor Chris Pratt (1979), actor Jussie Smollett (1982), activist/criminal Edward Snowden (1983), singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey (1985), and singer-songwriter Rebecca Black (1997).

That’s enough news for now. I’m going to drink more coffee, take off this robe (stop looking at me, you cheeky monkeys), get into the shower, put on human clothes, and do various things that range from cleaning my home to working on music. At least I think I am. We’ll see. Enjoy your day.