Random News: September 13, 2023

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 September 13, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. I believe many things hav happened and that we’re all better off knowing about them. Let’s go.

• Yesterday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy all but handed the 2024 election to Joe Biden.
• He announced that Tuesday he is calling on his committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden, despite having no proof of any wrongdoing or even any credible allegations of such.
• McCarthy did it under pressure from the far right wing of his party. He caved when threatened to oust McCarthy from his speakership if he does not move swiftly enough on an impeachment inquiry.
• Kevin is a very frightened man who tries to play both sides of an ever-separating fence. McCarthy is also trying to secure votes as part of negotiations to keep the government funded beyond the September 30 deadline to avert a shutdown.
• This immediately angered… Senate Republicans, who are more realistic than their lower-chamber counterparts.
• One GOP senator, in an interview under anonymity, said, “It’s a waste of time. It’s a fool’s errand.”
• The senator said even if the House did vote to impeach Biden after an inquiry, there is no way the Senate would vote to convict.
• “Fortunately, it’ll be dispensed with fairly quickly if they ever send articles of impeachment over to us,” the GOP senator said. “We know how this is going to end. It just creates tumult within the conference. I can see it already how people are going to react when they send a message over if they go that far.”
• Along with the many issues that make the GOP’s popularity plummet, including women’s reproductive rights, the attempted coup on January 6, 2021, and the upcoming criminal trials for The Orange Man, any attempt to impeach the President without evidence will be a galvanizing moment for Dems and Independent voters to strengthen their support for Biden.
• Aim… foot… fire. Ow! Why did the Democrats make me shoot my own foot?
• Moving on.
• Owen Shroyer, a far-right conspiracy theorist and an employee of Alex Jones as an InfoWars host, was sentenced to 60 days in jail yesterday for his involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
• In June, Shroyer pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining on restricted grounds. He did not enter the Capitol building itself; hence the lightweight sentence.
• On January 6, Shroyer attended Dumpalumpagus’ speech at the Ellipse and made his way to the Capitol with other rioters. he had a megaphone with him and led chants among the rioters.
• Fuck that guy. 60 days doesn’t seem like nearly enough, but with a person like that, he’ll dig himself another hole and jump in eventually.
• Let’s move on to something that matters.
• Five former Memphis police officers involved in the deadly police beating of Tyre Nichols have been indicted by a federal grand jury.
• Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith are facing several charges, including federal civil rights, conspiracy, and obstruction offenses resulting in Nichols’ death.
• Tyre Nichols was violently beaten by Memphis police officers in January and died in the hospital from his injuries. Nichols was repeatedly punched and kicked by the five Memphis Police Department officers after the officers conducted a traffic stop and brief foot chase.
• May justice serve its purpose.
• This week is National Suicide Prevention Week, an annual campaign to inform and engage people about suicide prevention and warning signs of suicide.
• The campaign also strives to reduce the stigma surrounding the topic, as well as encourage the pursuit of mental health assistance and support people who have attempted suicide.
• The proliferation of guns and the resulting gun violence isn’t limited to acts of murder. The use of guns in suicides is also higher than ever before.
• If you or a loved one is struggling with thoughts of self-harm, the Suicide and Crisis Hotline is 988. Help is always available. My only note: things tend to get better when you stick around to see what happens.
• Let’s move on.
• Women in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee filed legal actions this week against their states over abortion bans, saying they were denied abortions despite having dangerous pregnancy complications.
• Four women in Idaho — Jennifer Adkins, Jillaine St.Michel, Kayla Smith and Rebecca Vincen-Brown — and abortion providers filed a suit against the state, Gov. Brad Little, attorney general and the state's board of medicine, claiming the state's ban has "sown confusion, fear and chaos among the medical community, resulting in grave harms to pregnant patients whose health and safety hang in the balance across the state.”
• Three women in Tennessee — Nicole Blackmon, Allyson Phillips and Kaitlyn Dulon — and abortion providers filed a suit against the state, attorney general and the state board of medical examiners, claiming they and others were denied "necessary and potentially life-saving medical care" because physicians "fear the penalties imposed by that ban," according to the lawsuit.
• Good for those brave women to stand up to this bullshit. I’ll be keeping an eye on that.
• The ride-hailing service Lyft announced a new feature yesterday, allowing women and nonbinary drivers to match with women and nonbinary riders. 
• When the feature goes live, women and nonbinary riders will be prompted to select “Count me in” in their apps, increasing their chances of being matched with their preferred drivers. 
• Why is this needed? A 2021 community safety report detailed that Lyft received more than 4,000 reports of sexual assaults during trips from 2017 to 2019.
• In other news…
• Yet another lawsuit pertaining to Donald John Trump’s eligibility to run for president has been filed, this time in New Mexico.
• John Anthony Castro’s suit looks to remove Trump from the New Mexico Republican primary election and the 2024 presidential ballot in the state citing the 14th Amendment, which bars any person who took an oath to uphold the Constitution but later engaged in an act of insurrection against the country. Similar moves have been taken in Colorado and Minnesota.
• That state has successfully used the 14th Amendment as such, kicking convicted insurrectionist Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin out of his office.
• New Mexico’s primaries are on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. The presidential election will be on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
• And now, The Weather: “Indigo” by Lewis Coleman
• Today on Capitol Hill, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Sam Altman and other tech figures will be spending the entire day privately huddling with senators to discuss how lawmakers can regulate artificial intelligence.
• The bipartisan gathering was organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) along with Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD), Todd Young (R-IN), Martin Heinrich (D-NM). Why the secrecy, folks?
• Hmm.
• Yesterday, California lawmakers made us the first state in the USA to ban four chemicals from processed food and drinks sold here by 2027.
• The chemicals — red dye no. 3, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil and propyl paraben — are used in popular products like Peeps, Brach’s Candy Corn, and Strawberry Yoo-hoo.
• Those chemicals have already been banned by the European Union and other countries because of scientific research linking them to health problems, including cancer.
• But fear not, snackers… an earlier version of the bill would also have banned titanium dioxide, which is used in Skittles, but amendments in the state Senate removed that chemical from the ban.
• Mmmm! Delicious titanium dioxide.
• In slightly more serious news from my state, nearly a million California workers are poised to win major salary increases.
• Most of California's 500,000 fast food workers would be paid at least $20 per hour next year under a new bill aimed at ending a standoff between the industry and labor unions over wages and working conditions. Also, about 455,000 health care workers — not doctors and nurses, but the people who do everything else at hospitals, dialysis clinics and other facilities — will see their salaries rise to at least $25 per hour over the next 10 years in a separate bill.
• Good.
• From the Sports Desk… two days later, I still can’t get over the fact that Aaron Rodgers spent his last couple of years in Green Bay being dramatically critical of his team, went through a whole media circus in the process of seeking a new team for his talents, aligned himself with people who actively fought COVID vaccination (thereby influencing other people to avoid vaccination), spent a week in total darkness deciding what he wanted to do, came to an agreement with the NY Jets that cost the team a whole lot in the trade process… and then, on his very first drive with his new team, not having even completed one pass for them, had a possible career-ending injury.
• That seems too impossible to have actually happened, and yet I witnessed it with my own eyes. I don’t hate Rodgers or the Jets. I am just aghast at the fact that it happened. If you write that into a movie plot, it would seem too far-fetched to be realistic enough for a film.
• One other note on Rodgers’ tragic and possibly career-ending injury… the NFL Players Association's new executive director has called for the league to change all of its field surfaces to natural grass. MetLife Stadium, the home of the Jets and Giants, had installed a new surface earlier this year called FieldTurf.
• Today in history… Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David (1501). After three years of exile, John Calvin returns to Geneva to reform the church under a body of doctrine known as Calvinism (1541). Henry Hudson reaches the river that would later be named after him (1609). Great Britain, Austria and the Kingdom of Sardinia sign the Treaty of Worms (1743). The Philadelphia Convention sets the date for the first presidential election in the United States, and New York City becomes the country's temporary capital (1788). In a turning point in the War of 1812, the British fail to capture Baltimore. During the battle, Francis Scott Key composes his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", which is later set to music and becomes the United States' national anthem (1814). American troops under General Winfield Scott capture Mexico City in the Mexican–American War (1847). Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film (1898). Margaret Chase Smith is elected United States senator, and becomes the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate (1948). Nikita Khrushchev is appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1953). ‘Super Mario Bros.’ is released in Japan for the NES (1985). Hurricane Gilbert is the strongest to-date recorded hurricane in the Western Hemisphere (1988). Largest anti-Apartheid march in South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu (1989). Hurricane Ike makes landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast (1988). 
• September 13 is the birthday of Italian cardinal Cesare Borgia (1475), pianist/composer Clara Schumann (1819), physician Walter Reed (1851), composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874), actress Claudette Colbert (1903), singer-songwriter/mandolin player Bill Monroe (1911), novelist Roald Dahl (1916), singer-songwriter Mel Tormé (1925), animator Don Bluth (1937), actor Richard Kiel (1939), actress Jacqueline Bisset (1944), singer/bass player Peter Cetera (1944), actress/singer Nell Carter (1948), producer/bass player Don Was (1952), drummer Vinny Appice (1957), singer-songwriter/guitarist Dave Mustaine (1961), drummer Stephen Perkins (1967), actor Tyler Perry (1969), fashion designer Stella McCartney (1971), politician Ro Khanna (1976), singer-songwriter/pianist Fiona Apple (1977), actor Ben Savage (1980), NB player Nenê (1982), and NFL player Darren Waller (1992).

Alrighty. That’s plenty of stuff to think about. I’m thinking about this delicious coffee I’m having before I force myself to go work out in a few minutes, as I do each morning. Also, I got the results of my Ancestry DNA test late last night, and will at some point have a remarkable story to share with the world… but not just yet. Enjoy your day.