Random News: June 29, 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 29, 2025, and it’s a Sunday. I’m feeling quite sanguine on this peaceful morning. No particular reason. I do have my coffee and am in a bathrobe, so those two factors alone are enough to make me appreciate being a human being, at least for a moment or two.

• A Pride Note…
• Let’s imagine your life was in danger.
• You’ve had a heart attack and are being wheeled into an ER. Your house is on fire and you’re trapped in a room upstairs. Your country has been invaded and you’re praying that an allied soldier stops an enemy. You’re drowning and hoping that someone gets to you before you sink to the murky depths.
• At that moment, how concerned are you that the person who might save you is gay, or a lesbian, or a transgender person?
• Probably not very much. Instead, what you probably hope for is help from any human being who’s skilled in whatever they do that will allow you to go on living.
• Why not live your life the same way? Why not respect people for what they do to make the world a better place in which to live, rather than obsessing on how they look or how they talk or who they love?
• Every day, you’re surrounded by other people who differ from you in many ways. You can choose a path of fear and hatred, or a path where you get to benefit from their contributions.
• It’s your choice. It always was.
• And I'm going to open today’s news with a beautiful Pride story.
• Over 100,000 people defied a government ban and police orders yesterday to march in what organizers called the largest LGBTQ+ Pride event in Hungary's history in an open rebuke of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government.
• Imagine living in a country where Pride was literally outlawed… and marching anyway. Don’t think it couldn’t happen here; there are plenty of MAGA people who would push you back into the closet if they could.
• Marchers gambled with potential police intervention and heavy fines to participate in the 30th annual Budapest Pride, which was outlawed by a law passed in March by Orbán's right-wing populist governing party.
• The march began at Budapest City hall and wound through the city center before crossing the capital's Erzsébet Bridge over the Danube River. Members of Hungary's LGBTQ+ community and large numbers of supporters danced to music and waved rainbow and anti-government flags.
• This was giant “fuck you” to Orbán. He may still be the European Union's longest-serving leader, but his popularity is tanking and actions like this may be the tipping point to allow a new opposition force to finally take control of the nation.
• Don’t ever tell me these things don’t matter. They fucking do. If you don’t use your rights— all of your rights — you WILL lose them.
• And now, on to the expected wave of shit news.
• After some performative but unserious objections raised by a few GOP senators, Dumpy’s Big Bullshit Bill passed a procedural hurdle yesterday evening.
• All 47 Democrats voted against it, and they were joined by two Republicans. But that still gave it enough room, passing 51-49 in the Republican-controlled Senate and moving ahead for a vote that’s likely scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.
• Don’t let any of those GOP Senators try to say they didn’t understand what was in the bill, or believe their claims that they still want to amend it more before passing it.
• This bill is about two things only: a $3.8 trillion tax break that will only benefit the extremely wealthy, and allocating a lot of money to further Dump’s cruel plans to eliminate Latino people from the USA.
• And to pay for those things, Dump is slashing huge amounts from Medicaid, food stamps, and other essential programs.
• So here’s what I want you to remember. First is that EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN SENATOR, with the exception of Rand Paul (R-KY) and Thom Tills (R-NC) voted to advance this bill in its current state.
• Whatever happens to you as a result is 100% their fault… and, of course, that of Dumples the Fascist Clown.
• And while we’ll try and summon sympathy for people who continue to support Dumpy while he screws them (and their families) over, all I want you to do is look at the claims that Dumpy himself made over the past few days while the Senate was going back and forth.
• Dumpy claims: people are “not going to feel any” of the spending cuts included in the bill. He then said, “Your Medicaid is left alone. It’s left the same.”
• That is 100% false. The bill very clearly makes multiple significant changes to Medicaid and reduces federal funding for the program by hundreds of billions of dollars.
• The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the legislation’s Medicaid provisions will result in 7.8 million more people being uninsured.
• Dumpy claims: the bill is “so good” because it includes “hundreds of things” that will benefit Americans — including “no tax” on Social Security.
• This is also 100% false. The bill temporarily beefs up seniors’ standard tax deduction, but it in no way eliminates taxes on Social Security benefits. It’s just a straight-up lie.
• Dumpy claims: “If the bill doesn’t pass, there’ll be a 68% tax increase. Think of that: 68%.”
• And once again, this is provably false. There is no credible basis for the claim that failing to pass the bill would result in anywhere near a 68% tax increase. Dump just picked a number that sounded good to him and used it. There’s not one economic indicator that backs it up.
• The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center think tank thinks that taxes might rise by an average of about 7.5% in 2026 if Dump’s bill didn’t pass. Not 68%.
• There are other people who detest this bill for the wrong reasons, but detest it nonetheless. One of them is Dump’s ex-boyfriend Elon Musk.
• His remark yesterday?
• “The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country! Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”
• See, the bill raises taxes on solar, battery, geothermal, wind, and nuclear energy projects. Elmo’s companies produce, sell, and install battery energy storage systems and solar photovoltaics.
• And the bill also adds new subsidies for… coal. Jesus. So that’s why Elmo doesn’t like it.
• Anyway, I can’t blame you if — as a Dump voter — you feel like a fool when the impact of his bill starts to affect you. No one likes being lied to. And this is stuff that’s more than just bothersome to your political outlook; it’s going to mean life or death for many of you.
• And your families. I genuinely wish you the best of luck, regardless if you brought it upon yourself.
• When your elderly parents have to turn to you for financial support or to pay their medical bills or costly prescriptions. When your kids don’t get their SNAP benefits in order to eat. One way or another, you’ll be paying more, not less.
• Some folks just aren’t that great at seeing when they’re being scammed. I think of your support of Dump as a kind of disability. I won’t poke fun at you for it, though I certainly will talk some shit about it, because your choices affect me and my friends/family too.
• We’ll cover the vote itself, and any final changes to the Big Bullshit Bill, as it goes through the voting process tomorrow.
• Let’s move on.
• Yesterday, mourners gathered for the funeral of Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota lawmaker who was slain by a far-right MAGA psycho in a display of political violence that shocked the nation.
• In addition to Hortman, a former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House, the murderer shot and killed her husband, Mark as well as the family dog, a golden retriever named Gilbert.
• The service was attended by family and friends of the couple and a number of high-profile Democrats, including former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who delivered remarks.
• In addition to the Hortman family, the evil MAGA asshole also shot Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, but the pair survived, despite sustaining multiple gunshot wounds.
• Vance Boelter has been charged with stalking and murdering the Hortmans, and stalking and shooting the Hoffmans. Boetler — a conservative Christian MAGA — is being held in federal custody.
• Like most MAGAs, Boelter is painting himself as a victim, complaining about unsatisfactory jail conditions. He doesn’t like his pillow and says doors get slammed and it smells. He believes he should be granted bail to leave prison.
• Sheriff Joel Brott, thankfully, doesn’t give a shit. "He is not in a hotel. He's in jail, where a person belongs when they commit the heinous crimes he is accused of committing," he said. 
• It is yet unknown whether Dump will attempt to pardon Boelter.
• Moving on.
• I want to tell an immigration story having nothing to do with immigration, but rather the illegal kidnapping of a U.S. citizen.
• This week, Andrea Velez — a 32-year-old woman who was born and raised in the USA, and who graduated with a degree in fashion from Cal Poly Pomona — was walking into work.
• An ICE raid was happening nearby. Out of nowhere, a masked ICE agent barreled into her, tackled her to the ground, and handcuffed her.
• Why? Because she’s Latina and has brown skin. There’s no other possible explanation. Velez had done nothing wrong other than not being white. No one asked her for ID or asked about her status.
• For the first 24 hours, her family couldn’t find Andrea. Then DHS said she would be charged with “assaulting an officer,” despite no assault having occurred. When they got to court on Friday, ICE lawyers downgraded that to “obstructing” an officer.
• How so? An ICE officer claimed that Andrea stepped in his way. But multiple witnesses saw an ICE agent approached her, knock her down, then arrest her without asking any questions about her status or identity.
• Velez was released on a 5k bond.
• While it’s not yet clear how many citizens have been affected by the Dump administration’s attack on immigrant communities, a government report found that between 2015 and 2020, ICE erroneously deported at least 70 US citizens, arrested 674, and detained 121.
• These people are Americans. Again, their crime is not being white. Is that what you want happening in the country you know and love?
• I sure hope not.
• While we’re here at the Immigration Desk…
• I have yet to talk about the imminent construction of an immigrant detention center in Florida that the right wing is referring to as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
• But from what I understand, the more appropriate name analogy is “Alligator Auschwitz.”
• How fast is this hellhole going up? Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis fast-tracked the project under emergency powers via an executive order, sidestepping the state’s purchasing laws.
• And unsurprisingly, Dump has backed the building of this concentration camp, which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said will be partially funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (yes, the same FEMA that Floridians will go to for help after the next inevitable series of hurricanes).
• They’re not even waiting for it to be built to use it. The facility will have temporary structures like heavy-duty tents and trailers to house detained immigrants. The state estimates that by early July, it will have 5,000 immigration detention beds in operation.
• The compound’s proponents have noted its location in the Florida wetlands — teeming with massive reptiles like alligators and invasive Burmese pythons. Once a brown person is sent there, you’ll likely never hear from them again.
• Many have already raised human rights concerns over what they condemn as the inhumane housing of immigrants. Worries about environmental impacts have also been at the forefront, as groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of the Everglades filed a lawsuit Friday to halt the detention center plans.
• Yesterday, a coalition of groups, ranging from environmental activists to Native Americans advocating for their ancestral homelands, converged outside an airstrip in the Florida Everglades to protest the detention center.
• This is the kind of place where people will be forced to stay after being kidnapped by Dump’s ICE gestapo. They aren’t criminals, but they’ll be treated far worse than most people who receive due process and are incarcerated in the USA.
• And if you really want to know what kind of people are in the Republican party, Florida’s GOP is now selling merchandise to promote “Alligator Alcatraz.”
• Like I’ve said before, the cruelty is the point. Republicans are salivating at the prospect of subjecting undocumented migrants to brutal conditions in giant plastic tents situated in the oppressive heat and humidity of backwater Florida. 
• They sent a fundraising email this past week.
• “The feds have greenlit Alligator Alcatraz — Florida’s gator-guarded, python-patrolled prison for illegal aliens who thought they could game the system. Surrounded by miles of swamp and bloodthirsty wildlife, this ain’t no vacation spot. It’s a one-way ticket to regret for criminals who’ll wish they’d self-deported.” 
• And they want you to buy a t-shirt, hat, or beer koozie with an AI-generated image of a prison in a swamp, with a python and an alligator in the foreground.
• The cruelty is the point. They get off on people suffering and dying. And if the person isn’t white, all the better. Just ask them; they’ll tell you.
• So any time you wonder why they’re doing something so awful and inhumane — is it for money? Political clout? Brainwashed by a cult leader? — just read that sentence again. The cruelty is the point.
• And now, The Weather: “Heaven” by Laveda
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s late June 1971. I am two. I do not have specific memories of being two. It’s very odd how your brain has to develop and, in essence, come online before you’re able to retain memories.
• This phenomenon is known as infantile amnesia. It isn't because babies don't form memories, but rather because the brain structures and processes involved in memory encoding and retrieval are still developing during infancy. makes sense.
• Specifically, the hippocampus, crucial for forming new memories, undergoes significant development during this period. Additionally, the way memories are organized and stored in the brain changes as we mature, making it difficult to access early memories.
• You’re just a machine. Beep bloop beep beep.
• Here’s the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at the time…
• 1. It's Too Late/I Feel The Earth Move (Carole King). 2. Rainy Days And Mondays (Carpenters). 3. Want Ads (The Honey Cone). 4. Brown Sugar (The Rolling Stones). 5. It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr). 6. Treat Her Like A Lady (Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose). 7. Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation Indian) (The Raiders). 8. Joy To The World (Three Dog Night). 9. I'll Meet You Halfway (The Partridge Family Starring Shirley Jones Featuring David Cassidy). 10. Sweet And Innocent (Donny Osmond of The Osmonds). 11. Bridge Over Troubled Water/Brand New Me (Aretha Franklin). 12. When You're Hot, You're Hot (Jerry Reed). 13. I Don't Know How To Love Him (Helen Reddy). 14. Don't Knock My Love - Pt. 1 (Wilson Pickett). 15. Double Lovin' (The Osmonds). 16. Nathan Jones (The Supremes). 17. Superstar (Murray Head With The Trinidad Singers). 18. Me And You And A Dog Named Boo (Lobo). 19. Don't Pull Your Love (Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds). 20. She's Not Just Another Woman (The 8th Day). 
• From the Sports Desk… there are now two MLB teams with over 50 wins: the AL’s Detroit Tigers (52-32) and the NL’s Los Angeles Dodgers (52-32).
• Interestingly, there are also two teams that are exactly 2.5 games behind them… the Houston Astros (49-34) and the Chicago Cubs (49-34).
• The saddest two teams in baseball remain the same as last season. They are the Chicago White Sox (27-56), and the far more pathetic Colorado Rockies (18-65).
• Today in history… Sverre is crowned king of Norway, leading to civil war (1194). English crown bans tobacco growing in England, giving the Virginia Company a monopoly in exchange for tax of one shilling per pound (1620). Hyde Park and several other Illinois townships vote to be annexed by Chicago, forming the largest United States city in area and second largest in population at the time (1889). The first Miss Universe pageant is held and Armi Kuusela from Finland wins the title of Miss Universe (1952). The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System (1956). Prior to re-entry, the crew capsule of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft depressurizes, killing the three cosmonauts on board (1971). The United States Supreme Court rules in the case Furman v. Georgia that arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment (1972). Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the Soviet Union to Canada while on tour with the Kirov Ballet (1974). Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir for the first time (1995). The U.S. Supreme Court rules that President George W. Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates U.S. and international law (2006). Apple Inc. releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone (2007).
• June 29 is the birthday of Aragon queen Petronilla (1136), diplomat/statesman Peter Agricola (1525), Japan emperor Go-Mizunoo (1596), poet Lavinia Stoddard (1787), poet Celia Thaxter (1835), activist/politician Julia Lathrop (1858), physician/clinic founder William James Mayo (1861), writer/pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900), actor Slim Pickens (1919), actor/producer Robert Evans (1930), singer Little Eva (1943), actor Gary Busey (1944), actor Richard Lewis (1947), drummer Ian Paice (1948), NFL player/sportscaster Dan Dierdorf (1949), sportscaster Craig Sager (1951), singer-songwriter Don Dokken (1953), singer-songwriter Colin Hay (1953), MLB player Pedro Guerrero (1956), actress Maria Conchita Alonso (1957), actress Sharon Lawrence (1961), NHL player Theoren Fleury (1968), actor/musician Bret McKenzie (1976), writer/comedian Colin Jost (1982), NBA player Kawhi Leonard (1991), and NBA player Michael Porter Jr. (1998).

Okay then. I have a bunch of stuff to do today. It’s not horrible, but you probably know as well as I do that weekends are often the only time you can do larger-scale housekeeping chores. Is it what I’d prefer to be doing on my alleged “day off”? No, but it’s just life, at least at this point in time in our universe. I’ll be glad when it’s done. Enjoy your day.