Random News: June 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.

---

Good morning. It’s June 28, 2025, and it’s a Saturday. I’m in Saturday morning mode, which involves a bathrobe and a giant mug full of amazing coffee. I really slept in, which for me means it was nearly 8am before I got my ass out of bed. Now I’m here and we have a bunch of things to talk about.

• A Pride Note…
• What are you proud of?
• I’m not talking about LGBTQIA+ stuff here. I’m talking to you (whether you’re gay or not).
• Are you proud of your children? Perhaps your work accomplishments? Proud of your material possessions, like your house or your car or your fancy sneakers? 
• Maybe you’re proud of your skills, like painting or music or crochet? Or your efforts in environmentalism or political activism?
• While we’re taught that pride isn’t always positive — and indeed is listed among the Catholic Church’s deadly sins, along with greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth — pride of a positive nature is a good feeling.
• It means you’ve experienced a sense of satisfaction with your identity, your performance, or your accomplishments. In some aspects, it’s something we’ve all strived to achieve; having done something to the best of your abilities and knowing that you pushed yourself to hit that goal.
• Pride in the sense of the LGBTQIA+ world is no different.
• I think a world where people could walk around with their heads held high, knowing they are being authentic to themselves and the world around them, is a far better world than one filled with shame, guilt, and negativity.
• That’s what I think, anyway.
• Let's do some news.
• We need to take a closer look at the Supreme Court decisions that were handed down yesterday on the final day of this session’s term.
• Some of them are extremely important, and possibly difficult for you to understand in terms of the broader picture, so we’ll look at that.
• Starting with the big one.
• The far-right conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled that federal judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions.
• Full stop. That’s what they decided. They didn’t decide anything about birthright citizenship, which we’ll get to in a moment. And what they did was horrible on its own, and much bigger than the one topic relating to citizenship.
• U.S. federal judges have, until now, been the major blocking point to many of Dump’s most evil agenda items. Nationwide injunctions have been the most effective check on Dumpy’s efforts to expand executive power and remake the government in ways to benefit himself and his wealthy pals.
• Let me put this in a way that everyone here can easily understand.
• Until yesterday, we lived in a country where there could be laws that applied everywhere in the country. With me so far?
• Now we basically have 50 micronations, each with their own laws interpreting the U.S. Constitution, that are wholly separate from one another.
• Don’t we still have laws that still apply to everyone in the country? I’m not sure how you can say that when a judge can rule a certain way that is no longer applicable throughout the whole country.
• And as you know, the Supreme Court doesn’t have the bandwidth to take on every single national ruling. They only do a handful of cases per year.
• Also need to point out: this goes both ways. Example: if a U.S. District Court judge in Texas says that abortion pills are illegal, it won’t mean shit to a doctor in New York.
• In her dissent, SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor was clear: "No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship."
• She’s 100% correct.
• Now, will Dumpy get away with abandoning the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by revoking birthright citizenship?
• If you’re unclear, since the Civil War, the law has clearly stated that if you’re born in the USA, you’re an American citizen regardless of the origins of your parents. Dumpy wants to change that.
• Here, read it for yourself…
• “Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
• So Dumpy’s executive order to try and revoke birthright citizenship is overtly unConstitutional, obviously. He’d need to amend the Constitution to make it legal.
• Will he get away with it? I don’t know. But I’d like to think he wouldn’t, nor was the Supreme Court willing to make that call yesterday.
• There were more Supreme Court rulings handed down yesterday.
• They upheld the Texas law that forces adult website users to verify their ages to access pornographic material.
• The court split along ideological lines in the 6-3 ruling. Clarence Thomas, who wrote the majority opinion, didn’t think the measure restrict adults’ free-speech rights. “Adults have the right to access speech obscene only to minors ... but adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification,” he wrote.
• But getting more to the heart of the matter, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the court should have used a higher legal standard in weighing whether the law creates free-speech problems for adults. “I would demand Texas show more, to ensure it is not undervaluing the interest in free expression,” she wrote.
• I would have too. And as we mentioned before, there’s a very strong possibility that adults who are required to submit personal information could be vulnerable to hacking or tracking, or blackmail or any number of bad things when your name and photo is traceable to the porn you watch.
• Another Supreme Court ruling yesterday, Kennedy v Braidwood Management, was the only one where three conservative justices — Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts — joined with the court’s liberal branch for a six-to-three ruling.
• The case was about the ability of a government task force to determine what kinds of preventive healthcare the country’s insurance providers had to cover.
• And it was the latest case to challenge the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, which you may know as Obamacare. This case focused on a section of the act that allowed a panel of health experts who determine what preventive services should be covered at no cost.
• A group of individuals and Christian-owned businesses had challenged the legality of that task force, though. And thankfully, they lost and can go fuck themselves as far as I’m concerned.
• However, the last ruling the SCOTUS offered was back on the side of the far-right.
• Mahmoud v Taylor was the case centered on a Maryland school where books portraying LGBTQ themes had been approved for use in primary school curricula. their parents wanted to be able to opt out of those assignments.
• Some education officials argued that allowing kids to opt out of LGBTQ material would confer a stigma on the people who identify as part of that community, which of course is accurate.
• But again, the right-wing Court struck again, with Samuel Alito interpreting the books as being against the religious views of parents.
• Hey Alito. Fuck you.
• There’s another case we were watching that ended up getting booted to the next term for some reason.
• The Court said it would reargue Louisiana's congressional redistricting plan in its next term, after this summer.
• At issue is the Louisiana legislature's creation of a Black-majority congressional district. A group of voters sued, arguing that the state legislature had unconstitutionally relied on race in drawing new congressional district lines.
• Well, guess what? Louisiana's population is roughly one-third Black. But the state legislature drew new congressional district lines that provided for only one majority-Black district in a state that has six congressional seats.
• See how they continue systemic racism in the USA?
• If they redid the districts in a fair way, both Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) would be in danger of losing their jobs. That’s why it keeps getting bounced around.
• That’s all for the Supreme Court for now. Except this side note…
• I find it likely that right now, Dump is negotiating with both Thomas and Alito to retire in the next 12 months so he can replace them with young MAGA conservatives who will impact the country for generations to come.
• Why in the next 12 months? If Congress flips blue in 2026, Dump will never get any SCOTUS nominee confirmed.
• You heard it here first. So now we have to hope that these respective 75- and 76-year-old jerks stay alive and choose not to retire. What a conundrum.
• Moving on.
• The Senate is actually working this weekend. Boo fucking hoo.
• The rare weekend session has Republicans racing to pass Dumpy’s Big Bullshit Bill of tax breaks for the wealthy and spending cuts that affect everyone else by his July Fourth deadline.
• Republicans are doubt everything they can to kiss Dumpy’s big fat ass, but they have run into a series of political and policy setbacks. Not all GOP lawmakers are on board with proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8 trillion in Dump tax breaks.
• The 940-page bill was released shortly before midnight last night. Senators were expected to take a procedural vote today to begin debate on the legislation, but there’s at least 10 hours of debate time and an all-night voting session on countless amendments.
• Fucking pricks.
• In any case, Senate passage could be days away, and the bill would need to return to the House for a final round of votes before it could reach the White House.
• We will obviously cover the final version of the bill in depth so you’ll be aware off what to expect in terms of what’s being stolen from you. In any case, I would expect a lot more of your tax money to go straight to the richest people in the country.
• That’s what you got when you voted for Dumples the Oligarch Clown.
• Let’s move on.
• A note from the Immigration Desk…
• On Thursday, an Afghan man in San Diego who saved the lives of U.S. troops in Afghanistan was placed in expedited removal from the USA.
• Sayed Naser was detained by ICE officers two weeks earlier when he appeared at the San Diego federal courthouse for his mandatory immigration hearing. 
• Shawn VanDiver, executive director for a nonprofit that advocates for U.S. wartime allies, said, "A bureaucratic technically just stripped a wartime ally of his legal protections and fast-tracked him for deportation. Sayed stood with U.S. forces in combat. Now he faces removal without a lawyer, without a hearing and possibly without a country. This isn't just cruel, it's cowardly.”
• Fucking disgusting. What are they going to do, send him back to Afghanistan to be tortured and killed? No MAGA person ever gets to say that they support the troops again.
• In more immigration news…
• Here’s a fucking weird win: yesterday, Robert E. McGuire, acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, ruled that Kilmar Abrego Garcia should remain in jail.
• Why? That was the request of Kilmar’s legal team, who know that he will be deported if released from custody.
• As you know, in March, Abrego Garcia was deported to his native El Salvador in what federal officials later admitted was an "administrative error."
• Earlier this month, Garcia was returned to the U.S. where he was charged with human trafficking.
• And then last Sunday, Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes of Nashville ordered Garcia to be released on bail, saying she did not believe he was a flight risk or a threat to the wider community.
• But his own legal team knows that ICE will not only kidnap him is he’s released; they will send him to a third country where he’d never be seen or heard from again.
• He’s safer in jail. How fucked up is that?
• Moving on.
• Dumpy is bigly mad at Canada (again).
• Yesterday, Dumpy said he’s immediately suspending trade talks with Canada over its plans to continue with its tax on technology firms, which he called “a direct and blatant attack on our country.”
• Maybe someday someone will actually attack our country, and Dumples can reset his definition of the word “attack.”
• Like all of President TACO’s tariff announcements, it’s hard to say what will actually transpire, or whether he’ll follow through with any announced plans.
• In other news…
• Yesterday, the Senate voted down an effort to block Dump from using further military force against Iran.
• The measure failed in a 47-53 vote, with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voting with most Democrats in favor of the resolution, and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voting with most Republicans against it.
• I should note that Fetterman has been a massive disappointment. I”m glad he beat Dr. Oz in the election, but he’s been of little help to his party and the country ever since.
• Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) introduced the war powers resolution days before the U.S. bombed three locations central to Iran's nuclear program, seeking to force the president to get congressional authorization before entering the conflict between Israel and Iran. 
• You know, like the law says he should.
• Let’s just move on.
• For more than 40 years, the Defense Department has operated satellites that collect information about conditions in the atmosphere and ocean.
• That data has been crucial for hurricane forecasters to provide accurate and timely information about the specific of hurricanes.
• That’s gone now.
• This week, the Department of Defense announced that it would no longer provide that data, according to a notice published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.
• The Navy did not respond to questions about why it has stopped sharing the data with scientists and forecasters.
• Does this… save money, or something?
• Nope. The satellites and instruments are still functional, and the Department of Defense will continue to use them even as it cuts off access for scientists. there’s no cost savings or other reason provided.
• I’m pretty sure that Dump just wants everyone to die. I think he masturbates to these fantasies.
• Let’s do a tiny bit of good news. We need it.
• Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) will not seek reelection. And his district — which includes Omaha — went for the Democratic candidates Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election and Joe Biden in 2020.
• And just last month, Omaha voters elected a Democratic mayor in John Ewing Jr., the city’s first Black mayor, who defeated three-term Republican Jean Stothert.
• So assuming we have elections in 2026, this would be a very important seat to pick up for the Democrats.
• I’m actually hoping/planning for 40-50 seats swinging over to the Democratic side, especially after voters in rural areas feel the shocking loss of government services like Medicaid due to Dumpy’s bill.
• Those congressional reps are the ones who were supposed to be fighting for their constituents’ needs. But their votes to take away Medicaid are already on record.
• Moving on.
• After the SCOTUS ruling on forcing people to submit their photo ID and other personal info to be able to view porn in Texas, I found myself asking if many people actually visit porn sites often.
• Welp… let’s look at the world’s most visited web sites.
• A lot of them are what you assume. The very top of the list is Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, ChatGPT, X (Twitter), WhatsApp, Wikipedia, and Reddit.
• Next up is a mix of info/social/entertainment and shopping sites. Yahoo JP, Yahoo!, Yandex, TikTok, Amazon, and Baidu.
• But also in the list of most visited web sites in the entire fucking world are Pornhub, XVideos, and XHamster. Pornhub is the 17th most visited site on Earth.
• It’s above Netflix, Temu, Microsoft, and the New York Times.
• So yes… whether you’re morally opposed to porn or not, millions of people view it daily. And now you know.
• And now, The Weather: “Erased” by Lipsticism
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s the end of June 1991. I am in college at Cal State Dominguez Hills, studying music and communications. Life is kinda topsy turvy but mostly okay, and since I’m 22, I don’t really know enough to complain.
• I do have a job; I had to work throughout college because I otherwise wouldn’t eat and stuff. At this moment, I’m an IT admin for a library district. A few days a week, my shift starts at 5:30am to run backups and bring the circulation system online before the library opening… but I’m done working by 10am, which was cool too.
• Here’s the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart at the time.
• 1. Efil4zaggin (N.W.A.). 2. Spellbound (Paula Abdul). 3. Out Of Time (R.E.M.). 4. Gonna Make You Sweat (C+C Music Factory). 5. Time, Love And Tenderness (Michael Bolton). 6. Mariah Carey (Mariah Carey). 7. Coolin' At The Playground Ya' Know! (Another Bad Creation). 8. No Fences (Garth Brooks). 9. New Jack City (Soundtrack). 10. Shake Your Money Maker (The Black Crowes). 11. Extreme II Pornograffitti (Extreme). 12. Schubert Dip (EMF). 13. Power Of Love (Luther Vandross). 14. Unplugged - The Official Bootleg (Paul McCartney). 15. Heart In Motion (Amy Grant). 16. Wilson Phillips (Wilson Phillips). 17. Empire (Queensryche). 18. Mama Said Knock You Out (LL Cool J). 19. Vagabond Heart (Rod Stewart). 20. O.G. Original Gangster (Ice-T).
• From the Sports Desk… I’m not quite sure what lacrosse is, or how it’s played. I know people run around with little stick-net things and there’s probably a goal somewhere on the field. It’s played on a field, right?
• But there is apparently a Premier Lacrosse League (PLL), and here’s the current power rankings going into Week 5 (of how many weeks? I have no idea. Could be 10, could be 30. I do not know anything about this sport and couldn’t name one team or one player).
• 1. Boston Cannons (3-1). 2. Denver Outlaws (2-2). 3. New York Atlas (2-2). 4. Utah Archers (2-2). 5. Philadelphia Waterdogs (2-2). 6. California Redwoods (2-1). 7. Maryland Whipsnakes (2-3). 8. Carolina Chaos (1-3).
• Go Redwoods Go!
• Today in history… The American Continentals engage the British in the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse resulting in standstill and British withdrawal under cover of darkness (1778). Coronation of Queen Victoria of the UK (1838). The first conformation dog show is held in England (1859). The US Congress establishes the first federal holidays - New Year’s Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving, and Christmas (1870). Labor Day becomes an official US holiday (1894). The U.S. Congress passes the Spooner Act, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal (1902). Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated, leading to WWI (1914). The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending the state of war between Germany and the Allies of World War I (1919). Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merge their two car companies and call the new one Mercedes-Benz (1926). The Korean People's Army kills almost a thousand doctors, nurses, inpatient civilians and wounded soldiers in the Seoul National University Hospital massacre (1950). Malcolm X forms the Organization of Afro-American Unity (1964). The Stonewall Riots start in New York City, launching the Gay Rights Movement (1969). Mike Tyson is disqualified in the third round of a match for biting a piece off Evander Holyfield's ear (1997). The United States Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012).
• June 28 is the birthday of Frankish king Carloman I (751), English king Henry VIII (1491), painter Peter Paul Reubens (1577), playwright/composer Richard Rodgers (1902), physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906), actor/director/screenwriter Mel Brooks (1926), actor Pat Morita (1932), US secretary of defense Leon Panetta (1938), comedian Gilda Radner (1946), actress Kathy Bates (1948), actress Alice Krige (1954), NFL player John Elway (1960), actor John Cusack (1966), actress Mary Stuart Masterson (1966), NBA player Bobby Hurley, and businessman Elon Musk (1971).

My schedule today includes a somewhat rare Saturday live music show at 4pm in Second Life for Hotel Chelsea’s anniversary celebration. I’m trying to build out a cool set list for that, so hopefully that’ll be fun and will go well. We’ll be back tomorrow, as we are every damn day of the year, with more important news and various things to think about. Enjoy your day.