Random News: August 12, 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 August 12, 2025, and it’s a Tuesday. This year is jamming by; I have friends talking about “back to school” stuff for their kids, and it feels like summer just got started. Ah well. Time is a slippery motherfucker. I try to enjoy the moment, and live in the present. The future is uncertain, the past unchangeable. All we have is the now.

• So now I’d like to welcome you to the Fascist States of America. We’ve already been here awhile, but much like boiling the proverbial frog, they’ve continued to turn up the heat slowly.
• The latest dive toward dictatorship happened yesterday morning, when Dumpy the Wannabe-Stalin Clown announced he would take control of the police department in Washington, D.C., and deploy 800 National Guard troops, allegedly to fight crime in the nation’s capital.
• He also made threats to clear out the city’s unhoused population by any means necessary.
• Dump said the federal takeover of D.C. will last for 30 days. Dump described D.C. as a city filled with “roving mobs of wild youth,” “bloodthirsty criminals,” and “drugged out maniacs.”
• I mean, there are a lot of MAGA congresspeople there. He has a point. But the city’s official data shows that violent crime is at a 30-year low.
• Does Dump have the legal authority to do this in D.C..? He does. D.C. doesn’t have any of the benefits of statehood, and this action is yet another in a long list of reasons why D.C. should be a state.
• The Home Rule Act of 1973 is a law that balances D.C.’s local self-governance with federal oversight. While the president can assume control of the police department for up to two days, extending this authority would require congressional notice or a change to the law.
• Regardless, keep in mind: this is yet another dress rehearsal for the big moves.
• Dump suggested that he would be using Washington as something of a guinea pig to prove that Republicans can clean up cities better than Democrats can, and that the federal government might eventually target cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.
• Honestly, what a piece of shit this guy is. A bloviating anti-American piece of fucking shit.
• Military soldiers in our fucking streets. Remember when we used to make fun of third-world nations for those kinds of things? Welp, now it’s us. That’s what happens when you vote for assholes who hate you.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the D.C. National Guard will be “flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week,” and added that he’s “prepared to bring in other National Guard units, other specialized units.”
• Anyway, good luck, folks in D.C., and if you need some pointers, we’ve been dealing with this for awhile here in LA. Just saying.
• Oh, Dump also answered a couple of questions during his soapbox talk. He said, “I’m going to Russia on Friday.”
• Fact Check: He is not going to Russia on Friday. Alaska is in the USA.
• And how does he think it will go at the important summit with his buddy Putin?
• Dumpy “I think it’ll be good, but it might be bad.”
• Jesus Fucking Christ. Let’s fucking move on.
• Going to the “I Told You So” Desk…
• It was just over 10 years ago, in June 2015, that the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide.
• And this next term, they’re going to overturn it.
• Kim Davis — a name you probably haven’t heard for awhile, thankfully — is the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple on religious grounds.
• She’s appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys fees. her argument is that First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses.
• She also claims — and I don’t know why anyone should give a shit about her opinion on this matter — that the high court's decision in Obergefell v Hodges was "egregiously wrong."
• It’s the first time since 2015 that the court has been formally asked to overturn the landmark marriage decision. Davis is seen as one of the only Americans currently with legal standing to bring a challenge to the precedent.
• Lower courts have dismissed Davis' claims and most legal experts consider her bid a long shot. But I don’t.
• I say she wins the case 6-3, and not only do same sex marriages get legally dissolved, but that eventually all LGBTQIA+ actions are made illegal with the reimplementation of so-called anti-sodomy laws.
• Go ahead and tell me I’m wrong.
• At the time Obergefell was decided in 2015, 35 states had statutory or constitutional bans on same-sex marriages. Only seven states and territories had enacted laws explicitly allowing the unions.
• If you’re curious, those states were Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, the District of Columbia, and California.
• But back to the present. So far in 2025 alone, at least nine states have either introduced legislation aimed at blocking new marriage licenses for LGBTQ people or passed resolutions urging the Supreme Court to reverse Obergefell at the earliest opportunity.
• A two months ago, the Southern Baptist Convention — the nation's largest Protestant Christian denomination — overwhelmingly voted to make "overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God's design for marriage and family" a top priority.
• Let’s move on. There’s gotta be some good news.
• Okay.
• Over the weekend, a federal appeals court gave the Dump administration until this Friday to restore a website that tracks spending appropriated by Congress.
• The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit refused to block a lower court order requiring the restoration. The court said disclosing the spending information was a “permissible exercise of legislative authority” with roots in the nation’s founding.
• The database at issue went up in July 2022. The Dump administration pulled it down in March. It argued publicly disclosing spending decisions intrudes on executive power.
• Wasn’t this the guy who wanted things to be transparent in government? Especially shit like federal spending?
• I mean, obviously not things like the Epstein files, am I right?
• Moving on.
• President TACO is back.
• Yesterday, Dump once again delayed his tariff threat against China for another 90 days, purportedly to allow for broader negotiations between the world’s two biggest economies.
• The US and China had set tariff levels at more than 100 percent on each other’s goods through much of April and early May. The update means the new deadline for massive tariff hikes is now November 10.
• TACO — short for “Trump Always Chickens Out” — also didn’t follow through last week on a threat to impose secondary tariffs of up to 100 percent on China because of its continued purchases of Russian oil, even though he punished India for the same thing by doubling U.S. tariffs to 50 percent.
• One of the (many) problems with Dump is that most of the shit he says is either a straight-up lie or garbled nonsense based on no aspect of reality.
• And in related news…
• It’s now official: Dump’s tax and spend plan — his Big Bullshit Bill — will result in less income for the poorest Americans while sending money to the richest, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported yesterday.
• The CBO estimates that the 10% of poorest Americans will lose roughly $1,200 a year as they experience restrictions on government programs like Medicaid and food assistance, while the richest 10% of Americans will see their income increase by $13,600 from tax cuts.
• We knew this, but it’s nice to see our own government admitting it.
• Republicans muscled the legislation through Congress in July. Democrats all vehemently opposed the legislation, warning that its tax cuts and spending priorities would come at the expense of vital government aid programs and a ballooning national debt.
• Let’s move on.
• Today’s Asshole of the Day is youth paster Thomas Pinkerton Jr.
• Known to the kids as Pastor Tommy, Pinkerton is now being held without bond following accusations that he sexually abused six teens from 2006 to 2010 while working at Central Christian Church in Maryland.
• He used to tell children in his youth group that it was normal for a pastor to kiss kids on the lips, because that’s how Jesus greeted his disciples. But the kissing led to massages and touching of genitalia.
• Pinkerton now faces 24 felony and misdemeanor counts in Baltimore County, MD. But in the years since then, Pinkerton has preached — if that’s what you want to call it —  in at least six different states, and has evangelized in South America, Europe, and Asia.
• So detectives believe there may be more victims, and have asked anyone with information to come forward.
• I would never, under any circumstances, allow my child to be alone with a so-called religious leader.
• As long as we’re talking about assholes, we should mention Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA). The Congressman represents much of California’s rural north, and made the poorly-thought-out decision to hold a public town hall yesterday.
• He opened his mouth to speak, and a chorus of boos and jeers overpowered him. And it didn’t relent for nearly 90 minutes.
• Ha ha.
• The crowd of more than 650 people peppered him with obscenity-laden comments and slammed him for his vote for Dump’s budget bill, which cuts more than $1.1 trillion in federal spending for Medicaid, Medicare, and plans under the Affordable Care Act over the next decade.
• And the crowd got even angrier when LaMalfa passed along the lie that the legislation makes “no cuts to the people themselves” in California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, and instead only targets “waste, fraud and abuse.”
• If California moves ahead with the redistricting plan that will be triggered by Texas doing the same, LaMalfa is toast regardless.
• Moving on with a quick look at how things are going in the tight-knit MAGA community.
• Laura Loomer, a close friend and adviser to Donnie Dump, made the following social media post yesterday, tagging Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)…
• “I wish @RepMTG got on her knees for her lord & savior as much as she got on her knees for men who aren't her husband. Just another fake Christian. Can you call yourself a Christian when your mouth is full of other men's cock? I may be Jewish, but at least l'm not a Jezebel.”
• Welp. There you have it.
• And now, The Weather: “memory cube” by Welcome Strawberry
• In actual weather news, we might have our first Atlantic hurricane of the season.
• Tropical Storm Erin formed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean yesterday. The storm was expected to strengthen later in the week. Early models showed that the storm was expected to strengthen into a major hurricane by the time it nears the Caribbean islands toward the end of the week.
• It doesn't pose an immediate threat to the U.S. But still, a reminder to have your shit together if you live in a hurricane-prone area. You know some of these storms will hit us square on and will be powerful due to the effects of climate change.
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s mid-August 1959, and I am almost negative 10 years old. Where am I?
• This is the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at the time.
• 1. A Big Hunk O' Love (Elvis Presley With The Jordanaires). 2. There Goes My Baby (The Drifters). 3. My Heart Is An Open Book (Carl Dobkins, Jr.). 4. Lavender-Blue (Sammy Turner). 5. Lonely Boy (Paul Anka). 6. What'd I Say (Part I & II) (Ray Charles and his Orchestra). 7. The Three Bells (The Browns). 8. What A Diff'rence A Day Makes (Dinah Washington). 9. Just A Little Too Much (Ricky Nelson). 10. Forty Miles Of Bad Road (Duane Eddy And The Rebels). 11. Tiger (Fabian). 12. My Wish Came True (Elvis Presley With The Jordanaires). 13. The Battle Of New Orleans (Johnny Horton). 14. Here Comes Summer (Jerry Keller). 15. It Was I (Skip And Flip). 16. What Is Love? (The Playmates). 17. Waterloo (Stonewall Jackson). 18. Sweeter Than You (Ricky Nelson). 19. Thank You Pretty Baby (Brook Benton). 20. Lipstick On Your Collar (Connie Francis).
• From the Sports Desk… I’m going to continue to ignore preseason NFL football unless something worth talking about happens.
• The regular season starts just three weeks from this Thursday on September 4.
• In MLB, six dudes have hit more than 30 home runs this season. Who are they?
• 1. Cal Raleigh (SEA) - 45. 2. Kyle Schwarber (PHI) - 42. 3. Shohei Ohtani (LAD) - 42. 4. Eugenio Suarez (SEA/ARI) - 37. 5. Aaron Judge (NYY) - 37. 6. Junior Caminero (TB) - 37.
• Today in history… Christopher Columbus arrives at the Canary Islands (1492). Charles de La Vieuville is arrested and replaced by Cardinal Richelieu as the French king's chief advisor (1624). Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine (1851). Joseph Lister, British surgeon and scientist, performs 1st antiseptic surgery (1865). The US flag is raised in Hawaii to signify the transfer of sovereignty (1898). Alençon is the first French city liberated from the Germans in WWII (1944). The Soviets conduct the first thermonuclear bomb test (1953). NASA’s first communications satellite is launched (1960). South Africa is banned from the Olympics due to racist policies (1964). The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise (1977). The IBM Personal Computer is released (1981). Canada, Mexico and the USA complete negotiations for NAFTA (1992). Major League Baseball players go on strike, eventually forcing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series (1994). The Unite the Right rally occurs in Charlottesville, VA, leading to the deaths of 3 and injuring nearly 50 more (2017).
• August 12 is the birthday of UK king George IV (1762), businessman Diamond Jim Brady (1856), poet Katherine Lee Bates (1859), MLB player/manager Christy Mathewson (1880), director Cecil B. DeMille (1881), physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887), actress Jane Wyatt (1910), music promoter Sid Bernstein (1918), publishers/activists Norris & Ross McWhirter (1925), singer-songwriter/guitarist Porter Wagoner (1927), singer-songwriter/guitarist Buck Owens (1929), businessman/investor George Soros (1930), actor John Cazale (1935), actor George Hamilton (1939), composer/keyboardist Ron Mael (1945), singer-songwriter/guitarist Mark Knopfler (1949), singer-songwriter Kid Creole (1950), guitarist/composer Pat Metheny (1954), guitarist/composer Roy Hay (1961), rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot (1963), tennis player Pete Sampras (1971), actor Casey Affleck (1975), NFL player Plaxico Burress (1977), and MLB player Julio Urías (1996).

That’s a lot of things to think about, and most of it is pretty important. We’ll be continuing to follow up on several of these stories for a long time to come. Count on it. Enjoy your day.