Random News: June 3, 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 3, 2025, and it’s a Tuesday. It’s one of those days where I wake up and know that I have 10,000,000 things to accomplish between now and whenever I get back in bed. The best way to do 10,000,000 things? One at a time, so let’s start with this.

• A Pride Note…
• Something I’ve been doing over the past couple of days: scrolling down Facebook and adding a like or a love reaction to every single fucking post that positively promotes Pride.
• Why?
• Because I understand a lot about social media and how it works, and how it’s measured. Why do I understand these things? Because it’s part of my job in marketing communications.
• Here’s the deal: when you see a post from a city, or a business, or a sports team, or other entity that expresses support of Pride, what happens is there’s an immediate army of bots and bigots and people filled with hatred who react with a laughing or angry emoji, and make derogatory comments.
• If you don’t counter the ratio of shitty hateful reactions with positive ones, someone at that organization who posted it will use that reaction metric as an excuse to cancel their support in subsequent years.
• And here’s something you may have figured out on your own: when you react to a post, it’s more likely to then be displayed on your friends’ walls as well.
• In fact, if you’re suddenly seeing a bunch of those supportive Pride posts, I may be to credit/blame.
• So get that mouse finger (or screen finger) ready and like/love the living shit out of Pride posts. 
• What you want to see in every single post is for the “like” and “love” reactions to be higher than the scornful laughing and furious angry reactions.
• No need to get into the comments. Arguing with those people is a ridiculous waste of time, and like I said, many of them are bots regardless. Don’t bother. But do add a like or love reaction.
• If the worst thing that happens as a result is that the Meta algorithm believes you’re gay (assuming you’re not), or that you’re supportive of gay people (which you are)… that’s not the end of the world, I promise.
• And now, the news.
• Yesterday, Dump's administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to move forward with its plans to lay off thousands of federal workers at nearly two dozen agencies while a legal battle over the Asshole In Chief’s plans to drastically cut the size of the government moves forward.
• The Justice Department's request for emergency relief is the second in which it has asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the ongoing dispute over its efforts to execute reductions-in-force, or layoffs, across the executive branch.
• Dump initially asked the Supreme Court to halt a two-week temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, but withdrew its request after she granted longer relief last month.
• That preliminary injunction issued by Illston prevented Dump from implementing planned reductions-in-force, placing employees on administrative leave, and proceeding with job cuts that are already in motion.
• The Justice Department's latest request for the Supreme Court's intervention comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit declined last week to halt Illston's order, which would have allowed the administration to resume its efforts to sharply scale down the size of the federal workforce.
• Moving on.
• It’s the time of year for Supreme Court news, and we have more of it.
• Yesterday, the SCOTUS rejected a pair of gun rights cases, though one conservative justice predicted the court would soon consider whether assault weapons bans are constitutional.
• The majority did not explain its reasoning in turning down the cases over high-capacity magazines and state bans on guns like the AR-15, popular weapons that have also been used in mass shootings.
• But three conservative justices on the nine-member court publicly noted their disagreement, and a fourth said he is skeptical that assault-weapons bans are constitutional.
• Surprising no one,  Alito and Gorsuch said they would have taken a case challenging Maryland’s ban, and Thomas wrote separately to say the law likely runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
• And while Kavanaugh agreed with the decision to pass on the case for now, he indicated that he is skeptical such bans are constitutional and that he expects the court will address the issue “in the next term or two.”
• The Maryland law in question was passed after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that killed 20 children and six adults. The shooter was armed with an AR-15, one of the firearms commonly referred to as an assault weapon.
• Ten states and the District of Columbia have similar laws, covering major cities like New York and Los Angeles. But Congress allowed a national assault weapons ban to expire in 2004.
• So it’s good news for now… and absolutely terrible news for the inevitable point in the future that the Supreme Court forces all states to allow as much murder and human suffering as possible.
• Let’s move on… to a story that is so incredibly insane, it almost seems like it couldn’t be possible.
• But it be. Lordy, it be.
• Yesterday, staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were confused and dispirited after the acting head of the agency said during a daily briefing that he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season.
• The remark — not made in jest, per a number of direct witnesses — was said by David Richardson at the conclusion of a daily operational briefing typically attended by hundreds of FEMA staffers and interagency partners.
• Richardson, a former Marine Corps officer, has led FEMA since early May. He has no disaster response experience.
• His comment flustered many staffers who genuinely believe he was truly surprised to learn that hurricane season had started. 
• After the news hit, the Department of Homeland Security — FEMA’s parent agency — said the comment was a joke and that FEMA is prepared for hurricane season.
• My response: I do not believe you.
• FEMA’s staff is already suffering from low morale amid a flurry of resignations, firings, leadership overhauls, and polygraph tests distributed to staffers.
• Side note: hurricanes kill dozens of people and cost hundreds of millions of dollars annually across a swath of U.S. states every year. The storms have become increasingly more destructive and costly due to the effects of climate change.
• The Atlantic hurricane season officially began on June 1 and lasts through November. 
• Moving on with some much better news.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Judge John Holcomb blocked the Dump administration from using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants in the Los Angeles area, ruling that the government hasn't promised adequate due process.
• Here’s where I grin and add that Holcomb was nominated by Dump in 2019.
• His is the latest ruling to limit the administration's controversial practice of rapidly deporting people under the 1798 law, which allows removals during an "invasion" or "predatory incursion" of the United States. 
• Courts in three other states have also blocked Alien Enemies Act removals, though under different arguments.
• Holcomb’s preliminary injunction applies to most migrants who are in custody in the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, Orange County, and several bordering areas.
• In other immigration news…
• Protests broke out over the arrest of Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a Massachusetts high school student who was grabbed by ICE agents over the weekend while on his way to volleyball practice.
• Gomes da Silva is a junior at Milford Public High School. Students at the high school staged a walkout yesterday in support of him, holding signs that said "Free Marcelo." The protest followed community demonstrations at the Milford Town Hall on Sunday calling for his release.
• The teen, who is currently in ICE custody, was not the target of the operation but was a collateral arrest. He was born in Brazil and brought to the U.S. in 2012 at age five via a student visa. He has no criminal history and is eligible for and intends to apply for asylum.
• A federal judge issued an emergency order Sunday afternoon directing the government not to remove Gomes da Silva from the U.S. or to transfer him out of the judicial district of Massachusetts for at least 72 hours.
• The story that Dumpy and his evil gang tell you — that they’re going after immigrants who are gang members and criminals — is 100% bullshit. Gomes da Silva’s crime was having somewhat darker skin than most people in Massachusetts.
• U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) said, “I don't see how a kid en route to volleyball, who is an honors student, who's a musician in the high school band — that kid is not a threat to law and order.”
• I have another immigration story for you — one that illustrates what can happen in an environment where people know they can take advantage of this dystopian hell of the Dump/MAGA world.
• A Wisconsin man forged a letter threatening Dump’s life in an effort to get another man who was a potential witness against him in a criminal case deported.
• Demetric D. Scott sent a letter to state and federal officials with the return address and name of Ramón Morales Reyes.
• He was charged yesterday with felony witness intimidation, identity theft, and two counts of bail jumping.
• But not before immigration agents arrested Morales Reyes, 54, after he dropped his child off at school in Milwaukee. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the arrest, saying he had written a letter threatening to kill Trump and would “self-deport” to Mexico.
• The announcement, which also was posted by the White House on its social media accounts, contained an image of the letter as well as a photo of Morales Reyes.
• Morales Reyes works as a dishwasher in Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife and three US citizen children.
• But the claim started to unravel as investigators talked to Morales Reyes, who doesn’t speak English fluently, and obtained a handwriting sample from him that was different from the handwriting in the letter.
• He’s applied for a U visa, which is for people in the country illegally who become victims of serious crimes, but the processing of that visa can take years.
• So they’re deporting him anyway.
• Let’s move on.
• As you know, Dumpy is very particular about the media who are allowed in the White House press corps.
• Dump wants to be able to control every word of journalists who report on him and his administration.
• So you’d think that Gabrielle Cuccia — a reporter who covers the Pentagon for the super-conservative outlet One America News Network and describes herself as “a MAGA girl” —- would be perfect for the kind of ass kissing Dump requires.
• Nah, they fired her. She said something critical of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and was out of a job days later
• Hegseth had issued new rules that banned reporters from accessing large areas of the Pentagon without being watched by his minders, and she criticized him for limiting freedom of movement in the name of national security.
• She also criticized Hegseth for not yet holding a media briefing at the Pentagon.
• So if a reporter from fucking OAN isn’t MAGA enough for Dumpy, you can imagine the level of biased information of the people who remain there to cover this shitty administration.
• Let’s move on.
• I want to circle back to illustrate a story on why Pride is so important.
• Jonathan Joss, a voice actor best known for his role as John Redcorn on “King of the Hill,” was murdered Sunday following a dispute with his neighbor.
• Joss’ husband issued a statement revealing that the incident was, in fact, a hate crime.
• They’d stopped by to check the mail at their former home that had burned down after over two years of threats from people in the area.
• A man approached them, yelled violent homophobic slurs, and then raised a gun from his lap and fired. Joss was killed immediately.
• Sigfredo Alvarez-Cega was arrested and charged with murder shortly after the shooting.
• Joss was murdered simply for loving another human being who loved him back. And until we make it clear that a person’s sexual orientation isn’t justifiable cause for murder, Pride needs to be bigger, more widespread, and more confrontational than ever.
• And now, The Weather: “Elderberry Wine” by Wednesday
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s June 1975, and I am about to turn six years old. We’re living in Marblehead, MA. My family has moved five times in six years… from Cleveland, OH to Detroit, MI to Evanston, IL to Lynn, MA, before landing in Marblehead, a small city north of Boston close to Salem.
• And in another month, we’ll move again, this time to Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, where I’d stay all the way through the end of high school.
• Still, I think that constant instability in my early life — and the effort of making new friends and then moving away to never see them again — had a negative impact on my development.
• And that’s one reason why I did the exact opposite with my own family. I moved to this neighborhood in Redondo Beach, CA in 1995. My son was born in 1999. And here I’ve remained, giving him the stability I never experienced.
• Here’s the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart 50 years ago today.
• 1. Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy (Elton John). 2. That's The Way Of The World (Soundtrack) (Earth, Wind & Fire). 3. Tommy (Soundtrack). 4. Blow By Blow (Jeff Beck). 5. Hearts (America). 6. Welcome To My Nightmare (Alice Cooper). 7. Chicago VIII (Chicago). 8. Straight Shooter (Bad Company). 9. Nuthin‘ Fancy (Lynyrd Skynyrd).  10. Playing Possum (Carly Simon). 11. Stampede (The Doobie Brothers). 12. Four Wheel Drive (Bachman-Turner Overdrive). 13. Spirit Of America (The Beach Boys). 14. Mister Magic (Grover Washington, Jr.). 15. Survival (The O’Jays). 16. A Song For You (The Temptations). 17. Just Another Way To Say I Love You (Barry White). 18. Physical Graffiti (Led Zeppelin). 19. Fandango! (ZZ Top). 20. Judith (Judy Collins).
• From the Sports Desk… while we await the start of the NBA and NHL championship finals, there are always other sports things going on.
• How about the Women’s College Softball World Series?
• The stage for the 2025 Women's College World Series finals is set! 6-seed Texas will take on 12-seed Texas Tech in the national championship.
• The WCWS finals begins tomorrow.
• From the Desk Adjacent to the Sports Desk… an RIP to John Brenkus, the Emmy-award winning host and co-creator of ESPN's "Sport Science” who died on Saturday battling depression. He was 54.
• In a tribute on ESPN, Brenkus was described as "an innovator, an entertainer and an educator" who will be missed by many.
• Here’s the thing about depression… it’s not tied to the things you think it might be. Someone can be tremendously successful, seemingly happy, and have what others would perceive as an enviable life.
• It’s a disease, and it can be battled. But sometimes it wins despite all the best efforts.
• And as always, if you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
• Today in history… After a five-month siege during the First Crusade, the Crusaders seize Antioch, today’s Turkey (1098). Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain (1539). The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherland (1621). Jack Jouett begins his midnight ride to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of an impending raid by Banastre Tarleton (1781). In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kilograms of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War (1839). Union forces rout Confederate troops in Barbour County, VA, now West Virginia (1861). The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, OR (1889). In Los Angeles, CA, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines attack Latino youths in the five-day Zoot Suit Riots (1943). Ed White, a crew member of the Gemini 4 mission, performs the first American spacewalk (1965). A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded (1979). The union of Serbia and Montenegro comes to an end with Montenegro's formal declaration of independence (2006). The trial of United States Army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks begins in Fort Meade, MD (2013).
• June 3 is the birthday of mathematician/astronomer David Gregory (1659), Confederate president Jefferson Davis (1808), businessman Ransom E. Olds (1864), UK king George V (1865), singer-songwriter Memphis Minnie (1897), physician Charles R. Drew (1904), actress/singer/resistance operative Josephine Baker (1906), burlesque dancer Lili St. Cyr (1918), actor Tony Curtis (1925), poet Allen Ginsberg (1926), TV host/producer Chuck Barris (1929), businessman Joe Coulombe (1930), politician Raúl Castro (1931), novelist Larry McMurtry (1936), singer-songwriter Ian Hunter (1940), singer-songwriter Curtis Mayfield (1942), drummer Michael Clarke (1946), singer-songwriter/bass player Suzi Quatro (1950), US first lady Jill Biden (1951), singer-songwriter Dan Hill (1954), guitarist/composer Kerry King (1964), actor James Purefoy (1964), journalist Anderson Cooper (1967), NBA player Al Horford (1986), tennis player Rafael Nadal (1986), and singer-songwriter/guitarist Beabadoobee (2000).

That’s a bunch of news. today, I have a bunch of work, a bunch of meetings, a bunch of personal responsibilities, and a big-ass live show tonight in Second Life. But idle hands are the devil’s workshop, or something. My hands will not be idle this entire day, so too bad for you, Satan. Enjoy your day.