Random News: December 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 December 18, 2023, and it’s a Monday. I am both excited and nervous that I finally have a dentist appointment today… excited to start resolving some of the tooth pain issues I’ve been gong through, and nervous because of some guy is going to be doing painful shit to my teeth to help fix them. Let’s do some news to take my mind off that shit.

• A car plowed into a parked SUV that was guarding President Joe Biden's motorcade last night while the president was leaving a visit to his campaign headquarters in Delaware. The president and first lady Jill Biden were unharmed.
• While Biden was walking from the campaign office to his waiting armored SUV, a car hit a U.S. Secret Service vehicle that was being used to close off intersections near the headquarters for the president's departure. The driver then tried to continue into a closed-off intersection before Secret Service personnel surrounded the vehicle with weapons drawn and instructed the driver to put his hands up.
• The Bidens were driven swiftly back to their home. Everything was fine. Local Wilmington police were handling the crash as opposed to the Secret Service or other federal agencies, which means the driver was not considered a serious threat to the president.
• Moving on.
• In the most literal version of “fuck around, find out”, the leadership of Florida’s Republican Party voted yesterday to censure Chairman Christian Ziegler and remove his authority as he faces an investigation into sexual assault.
• The group, which voted 39-0, also reduced Ziegler’s salary to $1 annually. Ziegler will no longer be able to hire or fire staff; speak on behalf of the Florida GOP; or raise funds for the party, though he retains his title as chairman.
• Ziegler and his wife Bridget had planned a three-way sexual encounter with the victim on the day of the assault on October 2, and when the victim learned that Bridget could not make it, she changed her mind and canceled with Christian. The Zieglers had a previous consensual sexual relationship with the accuser.
• Surveillance video showed Ziegler arriving at the victim’s residence on the day of the assault. He entered the apartment and raped her on a bar stool.
• Moving over to world news for a moment.
• North Korea launched a ballistic missile today that exhibited the range to hit anywhere in the US. The missile could have a flying range of over 9,320 miles, meaning the whole of the US territory would be within range. The test missile flew for about 73 minutes before falling into the sea west of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
• I’m sure it could at least make it here to the West Coast. Can we not blow each other up and end the world? That would be nice. I have things to do. Thank you.
• And now some more awful news out of the Israel-Hamas war, where on Saturday, an Israeli military sniper shot and killed two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza.
• The mother and daughter were walking to the Sister’s Convent when gunfire erupted. One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety.
• It’s actions like these that will end up with Israel losing the support of its allies. Pope Francis spoke about it yesterday.
• “I continue receiving very serious and sad news about Gaza. Unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire. And this has happened even within the parish complex of the Holy Family, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick and have disabilities, sisters.”
• On another more positive topic in regard to Pope Francis, he has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God’s love and mercy shouldn’t be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” to receive it.
• To be clear, the new document which was released today repeats that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a man and a woman. The blessings in question must be non-liturgical in nature and should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union, using set rituals or even with the clothing and gestures that belong in a wedding.
• But it says requests for such blessings for same-sex couples should not be denied full stop. It offers an extensive and broad definition of the term “blessing” in Scripture to insist that people seeking a transcendent relationship with God and looking for his love and mercy should not be denied.
• That’s a big step in a positive direction.
• Back in the USA…
• The FDA announced a recall of more than 40 Quaker Oats granola bar and cereal products because they could be contaminated with salmonella. The affected foods were sold across all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico, Guam and Saipan.
• The recalled items include the classic Chewy granola bar variety pack, the chocolate-covered Chewy Dipps bars, puffed and protein cereals, and even granola bars that are included in some Frito-Lays snack boxes.
• Check your pantries and dispose of any affected products. You don’t want to be poisoned right before Christmas, or frankly ever.
• Moving on.
• As you are already aware, conservatives are between a rock and a hard place in regard to the draconian women’s reproductive health care laws in many states. Now they’re testing new tactics to keep abortion off the ballot following a series of high-profile defeats.
• In Arizona, Florida, Nevada and other states, several anti-abortion groups are buying TV and digital ads, knocking on doors, and holding events to persuade people against signing petitions to put the issue before voters in November.
• Republicans are also appealing to state courts to keep referendums off the ballot, while GOP lawmakers in states including Missouri and Oklahoma are pushing to raise the threshold for an amendment to pass or to make it to the ballot in the first place.
• The actions follow abortion-rights victories in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio, and underscore abortion opponents fears that their monumental victory overturning Roe v. Wade is being undone one state at a time.
• But more importantly — to them — is that they know they can’t win by accepting the will of the people. Protecting the right of women to get abortions and other reproductive care is an issue that crosses political affiliations. It might be what brings down the entire Republican party in 2024.
• Moving on.
• As you know, I enjoy poking fun at the asshole who was president for awhile, but Donnie Dump is crossing some lines that could easily result in mass death and mayhem due to the gullible nature of his cult.
• Yesterday, Dump speech in Reno, NV saw him state that immigrants to the USA are like a military invasion.
• Fact check: the huge majority of migrants detained at the southern border are parents and children seeking protection, and studies show that undocumented immigrants are less likely than U.S. citizens to commit crimes.
• “This is an invasion. This is like a military invasion. Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.”
• When Dump says “they,” he means people who aren’t white. That’s what he means. He’s not talking about immigrants from Sweden, okay?
• Dump continues to double-down on statements saying that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, a phrase that he’s directly borrowing from Hitler. I know that you people are better than those who would want some kind of Aryan race-based Christofascist nation.
• I hope you are anyway.
• Some big news out of Arlington National Cemetery, where a monument to Confederate soldiers is scheduled to be removed by the end of the week.
• In 2021, Congress passed a law requiring the Department of Defense to look at removing "names, symbols, displays, monuments, or paraphernalia" commemorating the Confederacy.
• Per a commissioned report, Arlington’s Confederate Memorial offers a mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery. That shit has got to go. I don’t care who gets butt hurt about it.
• And now, The Weather: “gardenside” by Swansea Skag
• This is already a stormy week everywhere from California to Florida, up the East Coast, across the Midwest, and many points in between. It’s getting pretty gnarly in many places.
• Have some mercy for your delivery drivers out there while you’re anxiously awaiting those remaining holiday presents to arrive.
• And don’t take any unavoidable risks yourself either.
• From the Sports Desk… remember yesterday when I said that only two NFL teams had been eliminated from the playoffs? That number grew quite a bit after yesterday’s games.
• The Tennessee Titans, New York Jets, Washington Commanders, Arizona Cardinals, New England Patriots, and Carolina Panthers will all spend January on relaxing vacations.
• Today in history… Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan dynasty of Mongolia and China (1271). New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution (1787). US Secretary of State William Seward proclaims the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery throughout the USA (1865). Premiere performance of The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Saint Petersburg, Russia (1892). A meteor exploded over the Bering Sea with a force over 10 times greater than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945 (2018). The United States House of Representatives impeaches Donald Trump for the first time (2019).
• December 18 is the birthday of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863), politician Joseph Stalin (1878), painter Paul Klee (1979), MLB player Ty Cobb (1886), actress Betty Grable (1916), actor Ossie Davis (1917), music publisher Allen B. Klein (1931), bass player/manager Chas Chandler (1938), saxophone player Bobby Keys (1943), singer-songwriter/guitarist Keith Richards (1943), activist Steve Biko (1946), director/producer Steven Spielberg (1946), guitarist/composer Elliot Easton (1953), actor Ray Liotta (1954), NBA player Charles Oakley (1963), actor Brad Pitt (1963), rapper DMX (1970), actress Katie Holmes (1978), singer-songwriter Christina Aguilera (1980), and singer-songwriter Billie Eilish (2001).

Okay, time for me to do things. I’ll let you know tomorrow how my dentist experience this afternoon goes. Wish me luck. Enjoy your day.