Random News: August 23, 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 23, 2025, and it’s a Saturday. I started this morning in my blue bathrobe as usual, but it’s actually hot enough that wearing a thick terrycloth gown wasn’t an option for long. Now now, in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and my trusty cup of Peet’s (Cafe Domingo today), I shall endeavor to see what’s happening in this wacky-ass world.

• There’s just a ton of shit going on. This might take awhile. Where to even start?
• I guess with the Epstein files.
• Yesterday, the Justice Department released what it claims is the complete transcript and audio recording of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's conversations with Ghislaine Maxwell last month.
• As you know, Maxwell was the longtime partner and pimp for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She was sentenced to a 20-year prison term for helping Epstein sexually abuse children.
• Blanche met with her in late July. The useless transcripts, running more than 300 pages in length, are marked “redacted." Blanche's meeting with Maxwell was highly unusual for involving such a senior Justice Department official.
• After seeing the transcripts, many people were highly suspicious.
• One of them was former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. He questioned the veracity of statements made by Maxwell.
• “It’s so suspicious. When you listen to the tapes, you get the sense that Ghislaine Maxwell went into that room knowing what information she had to deliver to get their attention and to get their approval and to get some sort of benefit that she is pursuing from the administration,” he said.
• No shit.
• And as soon as that meeting with Blanche was done and she said what he’d wanted, Maxwell was moved from a high-security prison to a luxurious “Club Fed” that houses people convicted of nonviolent crimes.
• Unlike her crimes of sex trafficking and pedophilia.
• Dump’s DOJ is still sitting on the big treasure trove of information regarding Epstein. It’s likely they’ll never allow the real info to be seen.
• Let’s move on to some good news.
• Late yesterday, U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that the Dump administration cannot deny funding to Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and 30 other cities and counties because of policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts.
• Orrick extended a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of federal funds for so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions. His earlier order protected more than a dozen other cities and counties, including San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.
• In his ruling, Orrick said the administration had offered no opposition to an extended injunction except to say the first injunction was wrong. It has appealed the first order. Orrick also blocked the administration from imposing immigration-related conditions on two particular grant programs.
• After Dump and his evil minions Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem sent a letter threatening to withhold federal money from sanctuary jurisdictions and to charge them criminally if they didn’t comply, those cities and counties sued.
• And most of them directly told Dump and team to fuck off.
• For now, moving on.
• Yesterday, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was finally released from prison, and has been reunited with his family while he awaits trial. 
• If you need a reminder: Abrego Garcia is the Maryland father of three who was mistakenly removed from the U.S. to an El Salvador prison where he was tortured.
• Abrego Garcia's lawyers had requested a delay of his release from jail earlier this summer, fearing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could immediately detain him and try to deport him again.
• But now that’s exactly what’s happening. The Dump administration is now going to try to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda.
• Hours after he was released from pre-trial detention, his attorneys were sent a court-required notice of his potential deportation to the East African country. 
• We truly live in perhaps the shittiest possible timeline of the USA. All I can say is, keep fighting and keep making it difficult for these assholes to do what they do.
• Every single obstacle, every delay, every court motion, every protest, every note of your unwillingness to comply… it all matters, I promise.
• Let’s keep moving on.
• This morning, Texas Republicans approved a new, aggressively gerrymandered congressional map, moving forward with a power grab pushed by Dumpy.
• This is one of those moments that will be part of a future high school kid’s history exam, under the “What were the key points of the second U.S. Civil War?” section.
• Texas’s GOP-controlled state Senate approved the map on a party-line vote. Republicans used a procedural move to block a Democratic senator’s plans to filibuster the bill, forcing it to a vote.
• All of this was fully expected. Texan Republicans are weak. They will do whatever Dumpy wants with no pushback at all.
• So while the new Texas map will likely help flip as many as five seats for the GOP starting with next year’s midterms, their little redistricting game set off a contentious national tit-for-tat. 
• As a result, California formally launched its preemptive retaliation on Thursday, with lawmakers approving a ballot measure redrawing the state’s map to create five new Democratic seats to offset Texas.
• Unlike Texas, California is letting our voters make the ultimate decision about redistricting. We have a special election on November 4.
• So, here’s the first time you’ll hear me write this, and you’ll hear me say it a LOT for the next 2-1/2 months…
• My fellow Californians: check your voter registration now, and vote YES on Proposition 50.
• Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. A million yeses.
• This is nowhere near done. Other states are already getting involved, And keep in mind: right now the difference between Republican or Democratic control of the House is just three seats.
• Moving on.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from U.S. strikes angered Dumpy.
• Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. Kruse’s assessment found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the U.S. strikes.
• But Dump doesn’t want the American public to be aware of the truth; only a perverted version of events that make him look different than the weak and useless person he truly is.
• Because Kruse dared to contradict the lies put forth by Dump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who claims that the damage from the bombing attacks completely obliterated Iran’s nuclear program.
• Neither Hegseth now any other defense official offered any direct evidence of the destruction of Iranian nuclear production facilities.
• And now they also shoot the messenger. Typical fascist bullshit. Dump is just using the same old playbook that worked for everyone from Julius Caesar to Joseph Stalin.
• In other news…
• Were you expecting a package from Europe or India?
• Now you’re not.
• Multiple postal services around Europe announced today that they are suspending the shipment of many packages to the United States amid a lack of clarity over new import duties.
• Postal services in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Italy said they will stop shipping most merchandise to the U.S. effective immediately. France and Austria will follow Monday, and the United Kingdom Tuesday.
• India’s government also said the country will temporarily suspend postal deliveries to the United States starting Monday.
• Under a decree signed by that Fat Piece of Shit last month, international goods that were previously exempt from U.S. tariffs — those valued under $800 — will be subject to import duties starting August 29.
• Little follow-up from a story I reported this week.
• You know how the state of Florida painted over a rainbow-themed crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando where 49 people were murdered?
• At first, protesters brought the crosswalk back to life the following day using chalk. MAGAs and other homophobes poked fun at them, saying it would only last until it rained.
• Well, ask and ye shall receive. This time, instead of chalk, demonstrators used paint to restore the colors. One by one, people gathered at the intersection of Orange Avenue and Esther Street for a second day in a row, and repainted the rainbow colors.
• And that is symbolic of how we have to treat the descent into fascism. Keep fucking rebuilding the shit they tear down. Make them aware that we will never, ever stop.
• Because we won’t. 
• And now, The Weather: “Dead Rat” by Hand Habits
• From the Sports Desk… soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo hit a pretty amazing milestone today.
• He’s now the first player to score 100 competitive goals for four different clubs. The 40-year-old has now hit the century mark for his latest club, the Saudi Arabian Al Nassr, which he joined in December 2022.
• It adds to his 450 goals for Real Madrid, 145 for Manchester United, and 101 for Juventus. Ronaldo is also the leading international goalscorer, with 138 goals for Portugal.
• You know, I do try and give a shit about futbol or football or soccer or whatever you want to call the world’s most popular sport. I really do. I played it for five straight years in AYSO as a kid. I’m not bad at it.
• It’s just fucking boring as fuck for me to watch. I find golf more exciting as a spectator. I find paint drying more exciting. I’d rather watch grass grow on a football pitch than watch the game itself.
• Today in history… Jerusalem surrenders to the Khwarazmiyya, ending Christian control of the city for the next 672 years (1244). The Golden Horde lays siege to Moscow (1382). George III states that the American colonies are in open and avowed rebellion (1775). A state named Franklin in what’s now eastern Tennessee declares itself independent but is not accepted into the USA and only lasts four years (1784). The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, AL, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico except Galveston, TX (1864). Japan declares war on Germany in WWI (1914). Italy executes anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti (1927). I: Kharkiv is liberated by the Soviet Red Army for the second time after the WWII Battle of Kursk (1943). Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies in WWII (1944). César Chávez begins the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history (1970). The World Wide Web is opened to the public (1991). Muammar Gaddafi is overthrown during the Libyan Civil War (2011). Chandrayaan-3 mission initiated first Moon landing in Indian history (2023).
• August 23 is the birthday of King Louis XVI of France (1754), physicist/astronomer Sarah Frances Whiting (1847), businessman/philanthropist Harry Frank Guggenheim (1890), actor/dancer Gene Kelly (1912), actress Barbara Eden (1931), drummer Keith Moon (1946), singer-songwriter Linda Thompson (1947), singer-songwriter/actor Rick Springfield (1949), actress Shelly Long (1949), guitarist/songwriter Dean DeLeo (1961), actor River Phoenix (1970), politician Gretchen Whitmer (1971), NBA player Kobe Bryant (1978), singer-songwriter Julian Casablancas (1978), NBA player Jeremy Lin (1988), and NBA player Seth Curry (1990).

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. These coming few years will likely be far different than any previous time in your life. I suggest you start preparing to become more flexible in how you plan to live your life. You don’t want to be caught be surprise if and when things suddenly — and drastically — change. I’m just saying. Enjoy your day.