Random News: October 18, 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 October 18, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. A lot of stuff is going on in this world of ours, some good, some bad, and some that’s hard to tell. Let’s dive into it.

• Yesterday morning, we saw the first attempt of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives try and elect a new Speaker of the House after dumping Kevin McCarthy 14 days prior.
• It didn’t go well. The first ballot had House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffies (D-NY) getting all 212 votes from each of the House Democrats. Jim Jordan (R-OH) got 200 votes, far from the 217 need to win a majority. 
• 20 other Republicans who know what a disaster Jordan will be in this role voted for other people… six for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), seven for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), and another seven spread between former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK), and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY).
• Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) expressed concerns about Jordan’s stance on the January 6, 2021 failed coup attempt at the Capitol.
• “If he’s gonna lead this conference during a presidential election cycle, particularly a presidential election year with primaries and caucuses around the country, he’s gonna have to be strong and say Donald Trump didn’t win the election.”
• Immediately after the vote, Jordan said another vote would be forthcoming later in the day. That did not happen. I don’t think they want the same spectacle that happened earlier this year when Kevin McCarthy took 15 votes to gain his fragile Speaker status.
• The second round of votes is currently scheduled for today at 11am ET, just a few minutes from now.
• Of note: before Jim Jordan's first defeat yesterday, the wife of Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) received anonymous messages warning him to back Jordan's speakership bid or risk being ousted.
• Bacon said this morning, ”Jordan is headed for defeat. He'll fight to death likely, and we won't let off. Their tactics angered us. They're harassing our spouses even. Jordan hit a brick wall."
• While it would seem likely that they’ll eventually find the votes the elect Jordan, I really would enjoy seeing him lose time after time. Maybe he’ll quit trying eventually and storm away angrily, as he tends to do. I guess we’ll all see soon enough.
• Moving on.
• A horrible event happened yesterday in the midst of the Israel/Hamas war when hundreds of people were killed in an airstrike on a Gaza hospital. The casualty figures from the strike on Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist hospital range from 200 to more than 500. Hamas is saying that it was an Israeli IDF strike that caused the blast.
• However, the Israel Defense Forces says that based on intelligence information, the cause of the deadly strike was a failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. One video released by the IDF appears to show the site of a failed rocket launch that may have caused the explosion at the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, and they released audio of two Hamas militants discussing how a misfired rocket launch from Islamic Jihad caused the hospital explosion.
• I have no possible way of knowing 100% who to believe. But any situation where innocent people in a hospital are killed via rockets or bombs is horrible and tragic, and should never be accepted by the international community.
• Again, I need to remind you that this isn’t just stuff happening to other people far away. The USA is directly impacted in many ways, from the war’s effect on our large populations of Jewish and Palestinian people to our official national response.
• To that end, in addition to our diplomatic efforts, it includes the deployment of two U.S. aircraft carriers and their associated escort ships, hauling some 15,000 personnel combined; the repositioning of an amphibious task force made up of about 4,000 Marines and sailors; and undisclosed increases to fighter squadrons already arrayed throughout the Middle East. 
• Another 2,000 support troops have been put on alert and told they should be ready to go within days. It’s… a lot, and my hope is that they can turn around and go elsewhere rather than join into violent conflict.
• President Biden is in Israel right now. He announced an agreement to allow humanitarian aid to move from Egypt to Gaza and confirmed $100 billion in U.S. funding for assistance to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
• In his speech in Tel Aviv, Biden said he asked the Israeli Cabinet to agree to the delivery of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza “based on understanding that there will be inspections and aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas.”
• I approve of this.
• Let’s move on.
• I guess we should do some Dumpy news…
• Former president and current accused felon Donald John Trump is appealing the gag order issued on him by the federal judge overseeing his federal 2020 election subversion case. The notice of appeal was filed with Judge Chutkan yesterday.
• As would be the case in any court proceeding that required it, the gag order restricts Dumples’s ability to publicly target court personnel, potential witnesses or special counsel Jack Smith and his staff. The very lenient order does not impose restrictions on disparaging comments about Washington, DC – where the jury will take place – or certain comments about the Justice Department at large, both of which prosecutors requested.
• The gag order stays in place while Dumpy’s team appeals it.
• Moving on.
• Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) will not run for reelection in her Phoenix area district in 2024, she announced yesterday, saying, “Right now, Washington, D.C. is broken; it is hard to get anything done.”
• I will definitely not miss her. Before anyone gets their hopes up, it’s doubtful the seat could flip. It’s a heavily red district to the northwest of Phoenix. Dumples the Clown won it by 13 points in 2020.
• There’s an absolutely gross nightmare of a story I’ve been avoiding, but it seems necessary to mention.
• Two weeks ago, people had been complaining about an abhorrent smell around a Colorado funeral home. Turns out that they’d had 189 decaying and improperly stored bodies there.
• Return to Nature Funeral Home offered cremations and "green" burials without embalming fluids. Green burials are legal in Colorado, but any body not buried within 24 hours must be properly refrigerated. These…. weren’t. Law enforcement officials said the owners were cooperating as investigators sought to determine any criminal wrongdoing.
• Jesus. I just can’t with this. Moving on.
• A former San Diego police detective was sentenced to nearly three years in federal prison for operating illicit massage parlors that offered commercial sex services.
• Peter Griffin — heh heh — a retired cop who spent part of his 27-year career working as a vice detective, was sentenced Friday to 33 months imprisonment followed by one year of supervised release. He operated a network of illicit massage businesses based in California and Arizona, which sold commercial sex for profit and used therapeutic massage services as a front.
• In other news, a man who was wrongly incarcerated for 16 years in Florida, and was exonerated in 2020, was fatally shot by a sheriff's deputy in Georgia during a traffic stop Monday.
• Leonard Cure had spent over a decade behind bars after he was convicted of armed robbery in Florida in 2003. In 2020, he was the first person to be exonerated as part of the state attorney's office Conviction Review Unit after a reinvestigation of the case found he was innocent. 
• But on Monday, he got pulled over in Georgia, got out of the car at a deputy’s request, and complied with commands until learning that he was under arrest. That led to him being tased and then shot to death. Sigh.
• Moving up to New York, where a 19-year-old Sikh on a bus in Queens was attacked in a suspected hate crime assault by an assailant who tried to remove his turban while saying, “We don’t wear that in this country.”
• The assailant punched him in the back of the head, face and back multiple times. Far too many people in this world are ignorant and full of hate.
• And now, The Weather: “In Routine” by Lev Snowe
• Do you remember the Scholastic Book Fair when you were a kid? I do, and I loved them.
• But now, Scholastic, a billion-dollar educational company that both publishes and distributes books, is allowing schools to opt out of providing diverse books at its nationwide book fairs, angering both educators and writers.
• Enacted or pending legislation in more than 30 states prohibits certain kinds of books — mostly LGBTQIA+ titles and books that engage with the presence of racism in our country — from being in schools.
• Fuck all this evil shit.
• From the Sports Desk… the Phillies crushed the Diamondbacks 10-0 in game 2 of the NLCS. They now have a 2-0 lead in the series.
• Also from the Sports Desk, per the current standings, here are the ten best teams in the NFL going into week 7… Chiefs (5-1), 49ers (5-1), Dolphins (5-1), Eagles (5-1), Lions (5-1), Ravens (4-2), Jaguars (4-2), Bills (4-2), Cowboys (4-2), and Buccaneers (3-2).
• And the ten worst… Packers (2-3), Chargers (2-3), Vikings (2-4), Titans (2-4), Bears (1-5), Giants (1-5), Patriots (1-5), Cardinals (1-5), Broncos (1-5), and Panthers (0-6).
• Today in history… King Chlothar II promulgates the Edict of Paris that defends the rights of the Frankish nobles while it excludes Jews from all civil employment in the Frankish Kingdom (614). African-American poet Phillis Wheatley is freed from slavery (1775). Herman Melville's ‘Moby-Dick’ is first published as ‘The Whale’ (1851). United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million (1867). The United States takes possession of Puerto Rico from Spain (1898). The British Broadcasting Company is founded by a consortium to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters (1922). Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón marries actress Eva Duarte (1945). Texas Instruments announces the first transistor radio (1954). NASA Astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch take part in the first all-female spacewalk when they venture out of the International Space Station to replace a power controller (2019).
• October 18 is the birthday of poet Lady Mary Wroth (1587), painter Luca Giordano (1634), composer Baldassare Galuppi (1706), painter James Brooks (1906), Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau (1919), singer-songwriter/guitarist Jessie Mae Hemphill (1923), singer-songwriter/guitarist Chuck Berry (1926), actor George C. Scott (1927), actor Peter Boyle (1935), actress Dawn Wells (1938), NFL player/coach Mike Ditka (1939), assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (1939), songwriter Cynthia Weil (1940), TV host Huell Howser (1945), composer Howard Shore (1946), singer-songwriter/pianist Laura Nyro (1947), tennis player Martina Navratilova (1956), actress Erin Moran (1960), trumpeter/composer Wynton Marsalis (1961), sportscaster Rachel Nichols (1973), skier Lindsey Vonn (1984), MLB player Yoenis Céspedes (1985), and WNBA player Britney Griner (1990).

Well, it’s a busy time in news, which is usually not a good thing. I’d love to write a hundred bullets about people helping each other, showing kindness and compassion, or just having a good-ass time together. That’s usually not what news is all about though. Still, I have to think that good things are happening out there along with the bad and the mundane. Enjoy your day.