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.
Good morning. It’s December 13, 2023, and it’s a Wednesday. I’m at that point of working endless 12+ hour days that I’m probably less fun to be around than usual, but I can sorta make out the light at the end of the tunnel, so I’m gonna keep on moving forward. Let’s look at what’s happening around the world.
- Our top news today is, once again, in regard to women’s rights to reproductive health care.
- The Supreme Court announced this morning that it will decide this term whether to limit access to mifepristone, a key abortion drug. This is the first time the high court has considered reproductive rights since the conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
- The Biden administration and the manufacturer of mifepristone have asked the justices to overturn a lower-court ruling that would make it more difficult to obtain the medication, which is part of a two-drug regimen used in more than half of all abortions in the United States.
- The conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit said the federal government acted unlawfully years ago when it began loosening regulations for obtaining the pill. The appeals court said the Food and Drug Administration did not follow proper procedures when it allowed the drug — which was first approved more than 20 years ago — to be taken later in pregnancy, to be mailed directly to patients, and to be prescribed by a medical professional other than a doctor.
- This is another possible step for the far-right to enact their control over women’s bodies nationwide. If access to mifepristone was restricted, pregnancies could still be terminated using only the second drug in the regimen, misoprostol.
- But using that drug alone causes more cramping and bleeding, and abortion opponents will move to restrict its use as well if they win limits on the use of mifepristone from the high court.
- So keep a very close eye on this case as it progresses.
- In related news, a pregnant woman in Kentucky who is challenging state officials over the right to have an abortion has learned that her embryo no longer has cardiac activity.
- The woman, who goes by Jane Doe in the lawsuit, is still not allowed to get proper medical treatment in her state. Her lawsuit will continue.
- Moving down to Arizona, where the future of a 158-year-old near-total abortion ban still on the books in the political battleground of Arizona is now in the hands of the state Supreme Court.
- Justices heard opening arguments yesterday in a suit challenging the restrictive law. The outcome of the case will dictate which abortion ban the state must enforce: the ban enacted in 1864 — a half-century before Arizona even gained statehood — that would likely end almost all legal abortion care in the state, or a 2022 law that bans most abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy.
- A ruling is expected early in 2024, a timeline that will dramatically highlight the already prominent role abortion rights will play in Arizona, as well as in other crucial battleground states, in the 2024 election.
- Here’s a thought: in the name of gender equality, instead of just controlling women’s bodies, how about we start controlling men as well?
- Why would a man need erectile disfunction treatment unless he was planning to have sex and thereby potentially impregnate a woman? Why not just cut off the ability to impregnate at the source?
- How about a national law that mandates any man who wants Viagra or the like to be required to seek the approval of a federal panel of judges? And then, if they’re caught buying medication without a prescription, the get an automatic lengthy prison sentence?
- What, does that sound silly to you?
- Then think long and hard about these laws that are being applied only to women.
- Side note: how many babies could be born if a guy doesn’t get a vasectomy? Like, millions? Why isn’t the Pro Life crowd protesting in front of vasectomy clinics? How many sperm do I thoughtlessly kill when I jack off? OH NO THE PRECIOUS BABIES.
- Fucking fools. Let’s move on.
- You know that MAGA congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY)? The one who grilled the heads of three of the country’s most prestigious universities at a hearing last week about antisemitism on campus?
- Where did she go to school? This conservative hero who is now the face of a Republican movement to target elite higher education institutions… is a graduate of Harvard University.
- Why can’t people see the hypocrisy here? Jesus.
- Speaking of antisemitism, yesterday, a far-right Polish lawmaker named Grzegorz Braun used a fire extinguisher to put out the candles in a Hanukkah menorah placed in the parliament lobby.
- The ceremony for lighting the nine-branched candelabrum was held in the Polish parliament to celebrate the Jewish Festival of Lights, and was attended by rabbis and a Jewish music band.
- Braun, a pro-Russian member of the Confederation party, has previously claimed that there's a plot to turn Poland into a "Jewish state."
- This is what being “right wing” means. It means that you are consumed by hatred. In Poland or the USA or Argentina or anywhere in the fucking universe. The right wing only exists due to their inability to be motivated by anything other than hate.
- Let’s do some good news.
- Yesterday, New York’s highest court ordered the state to redraw its congressional map, handing Democrats a major win in the fight for control of the US House of Representatives in the upcoming 2024 election.
- By a 4-3 vote, the New York State Court of Appeals ordered the state to restart the mapmaking process. New York’s bipartisan Independent Redistricting Commission will be tasked with creating a new map. The Democratic-controlled state legislature would have ultimate say over the new lines for New York’s 26 congressional districts.
- Yesterday’s decision upends last year’s court-drawn map, which led to New York Republicans flipping four seats, victories that helped their party win a majority in the House in 2022.
- Good. Fuck off, you fucks.
- On the flip side of that story, yesterday the Supreme Court allowed a local Texas election to go forward under a map that a lower court had found diluted the votes of Black and Latino residents.
- As is customary with emergency applications, the Supreme Court majority did not explain its rationale for leaving the map in place for now. That means it is unclear whether the majority thought it was too close to the election campaigns to get involved, or if some justices are sympathetic to the argument that “majority-minority” districts are not covered by the Voting Rights Act.
- Assholes.
- And speaking of assholes… hi Elon!
- Tesla is recalling nearly all 2 million of its cars on US roads to limit the use of its Autopilot feature following a two-year probe by US safety regulators of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged.
- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the Autopilot system can give drivers a false sense of security and be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when a Tesla’s technology may be unable to safely navigate the road.
- Womp womp.
- And now, The Weather: “Obsessed With Your Mind” by Love Spells
- RIP to actor Andre Braugher, who starred in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Homicide: Life on the Street” and other shows and films. He died on Monday at 61.
- From the Sports Desk… one of the most lauded and successful coaches in NFL history may be out of a job..
- Reports have said that Patriots owner Robert Kraft has already made the decision to part ways with coach Bill Belichick. Kraft reportedly made the decision to make the change after New England’s Week 10 loss to the Colts in Frankfurt.
- Crazy.
- Today in history… Saint Celestine V resigns the papacy after only five months to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit (1294). Sir Francis Drake sets sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage (1577). The Plymouth Colony establishes the system of trial by 12-men jury in the American colonies (1623). The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians, a date now considered the founding of the National Guard of the United States (1636). Dartmouth College is founded by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock (1769). The start of the Nanking Massacre, in which Japanese troops rape and slaughter hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians (1937). The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (1949). While Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia visits Brazil, his Imperial Bodyguard seizes the capital and proclaims him deposed and his son, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, Emperor (1960). PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat gives a speech at a UN General Assembly meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, after United States authorities refused to grant him a visa to visit UN headquarters in New York (1988). Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit (2003).
- December 13 is the birthday of nurse Ana Néri (1814), engineer/businessman Werner von Siemens (1816), first lady Mary Todd Lincoln (1818), journalist Drew Pearson (1897), activist Ella Baker (1903), geologist/physicist Elizabeth Alexander (1908), politician George P. Shultz (1920), actor Dick Van Dyke (1925), actor Christopher Plummer (1929), guitarist/songwriter Jeff Baxter (1948), actor Steve Buscemi (1957), musician Morris Day (1957), NFL player Richard Dent (1960), actor Jamie Foxx (1967), singer-songwriter/guitarist Tom DeLonge (1975), singer-songwriter Amy Lee (1981), and singer-songwriter/guitarist Taylor Swift (1989).
That’s plenty. Time to go work out so I can then spend another 12 hours at my desk cranking out words and pictures that help companies sell things. Someone’s gotta do it. Enjoy your day.
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