Random News: January 13, 2024

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 January 13, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. It’s cold (for Southern California; yes, I know it’s a million degrees below zero wherever you are), and I’m in a robe. This morning’s brew is the classic Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend, and I’m ready to see what’s happening in this world in which we all live.

• Let’s start today’s reporting in Taiwan, where their ruling Democratic Progressive Party pulled off a historic third consecutive presidential victory today as voters told China to fuck off.
• Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s current vice president, declared victory and his two opposition rivals both conceded defeat.
• Lai received over 40% of the total votes. Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party candidate Hou Yu-ih garnered 33.49% of the votes, with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je received 26.45%. More than 14 million people took part, meaning that voter turnout came in at just over 71%.
• Can you imagine having over 70% voter turnout int he USA? I will say that registered voter turnout has been consistently on the rise in this country.
• In 2012 and 2016, it was about 54%. In 2020, a crucial vote in this county, it hit 62%, the highest turnout in any presidential election year since 1960, and the second highest in US history.
• If we got 70% or more of the registered voters participating in the democratic process, MAGA would be done forever.
• And, the people would subject their will on politicians with topics like women’s reproductive freedom, as well as appointing Supreme Court justices who aren’t openly corrupt. The implications of a truly high voter turnout this fall would last generations.
• Congrats to Taiwan, and here’s hoping for the USA.
• Continuing with world news for now, more than 30 Palestinians, including young children, were killed in two Israeli airstrikes overnight in the Gaza Strip.

• I am concerned that in the effort to save itself, Israel is going to instead end up destroying itself as its international support crumbles in the midst of accusations of genocide against the Palestinian people.
• The war in Gaza enters its 100th day tomorrow. The World Health Organization has said only 15 of the territories' 36 hospitals still partially functional. The main hospital in central Gaza, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah, went dark yesterday morning after running out of fuel.
• As most of you are aware, this is also having an impact on the US elections of 2024, with people being unwilling to support the current administration while it continues to enable Israel’s destruction of Palestine.
• Something’s going to have to change, and soon.
• Moving back to news in the USA…
• The Iowa caucus is set for next week. What in the actual fuck is a caucus? Why does it matter? And will the current -20 degree wind chill factor be a… factor?
• In nearly every state in the USA, voters have a primary election, where registered voters go to polling places (or submit mail-in and/or drop-off ballots) to cast votes and determine who the candidates will be in a general election.
• But not Iowa. Instead, they pretend that it’s 1924 as opposed to being 100 years later. They gather at local caucus meetings, held in school gymnasiums, community centers, and even family living rooms. It’s quaint, but Jesus f-ing Christ, I don’t want to go to some fucking person’s house to take part in the democratic process.
• Anyway, as you likely know, presidential candidates flood the state for months, if not years, to try to woo Iowans and gain their support. The national and international media descends on the state, ready to derive meaning from caucus night results.
• Ironic side note: Iowa has a population of 3.2 million people, and has six electoral votes. My state, California, has a population of 39.24 million, and carries 55 electoral votes.
• When’s the last time you heard about candidates campaigning in California? When do you hear news reports about how Californians are planning to vote? Never? It’s just Iowa and tiny-ass New Hampshire?
• We live in a weird country. I’m telling you.
• But while we’re on this topic, let’s look at a tale of one party, two messages.
• In Iowa, the remaining GOP candidates (Trump, Haley, and DeSantis) can be very vocal in their opposition of women’s reproductive rights. The typical Republican voter there is in favor of making abortion illegal with no exceptions.
• But in New Hampshire — which will have its primary on January 23, eight days after the Iowa caucuses — independents play a large role for GOP votes and slight majority of likely GOP primary voters say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
• It’s pretty cringe inducing, watching the candidates try and balance these polar opposite prevailing attitudes between the two states.
• No matter what they say now, the GOP has already taken credit for having stacked the Supreme Court with the specific purpose of striking down Roe v. Wade, as they did in 2022.
• Until you hear otherwise, you should assume that every Republican candidate wants to make abortion illegal nationwide — and they’re coming after your birth control as soon as they can.
• Moving on.
• We have continued reporting each time one of the insurrectionist assholes from the January 6, 2021 failed coup attempt is sentenced. Today’s asshole is William Chrestman, 50, of Olathe, KS.
• He was wielding an ax handle while leading rioters and his group of Kansas City-area Proud Boys during the attack against the USA.
• Chrestman pleaded guilty in October to threatening a federal officer and obstructing Congress’s confirmation of President Biden’s 2020 election victory. He was sentenced yesterday to 55 months in prison.
• At least 140 police officers were assaulted that day. In no world can you support the MAGA insurrectionists and then claim to support law enforcement in the next breath.
• Let’s talk about crime and punishment. Specifically capital punishment, aka the death penalty.
• When Attorney General Merrick Garland took office, he issued a moratorium to halt federal executions — a stark contrast after his predecessor carried out 13 executions in six months. Under Garland’s watch and a president who vowed to abolish the death penalty, the Justice Department took on no new death penalty cases.
• That changed yesterday.
• Federal prosecutors said that they will seek the death penalty against Payton Gendron, a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022.
• Gendron, 20, is already serving a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole after he pleaded guilty to state charges of murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism. The state of New York does not have capital punishment, but the Justice Department had the option of seeking the death penalty in a separate federal hate crimes case.
• This is a very complex topic, to put it mildly. I’ve covered it before, but the short version: I am very opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances.
• And now, to seemingly contradict the thing I just wrote, I’d have no trouble at all personally ending the life of someone who tried to cause deadly harm to me or my loved ones.
• But state-sanctioned murder is a different story. You’re counting on the state to get it right in 100% of the cases. How many times has new evidence come in that’s exonerated an accused person who’d been wrongly convicted?
• How big of a discrepancy is there in how the justice system treats people of low income and minorities?
• You can’t put a person in the gas chamber, give them lethal injections, or electrocute them to death, and then realize afterwards you’d made a mistake. No amount of money makes up for a life lost.
• There’s an argument that says — and I understand it — that long-term imprisonment is a bigger punishment than quickly ending a life. But as the saying goes, and I truly believe this: I’d rather have 99 guilty people walk free than mistakenly kill one innocent person.
• Moving on.
• Let’s talk about how Ron DeSantis’s crusade to ban books in Florida is going.
• For example, the Escambia County school district has included five dictionaries, eight encyclopedias and "The Guinness Book of World Records," in its list of more than 1,600 books that could soon be banned. 
• That’s right. It will soon be illegal for children to be provided with “Merriam-Webster's Elementary Dictionary”. Thanks DeSantis!
• Ironically, the one thing you could do to help kids develop excellent learning skills has always been to tell them to look up the meanings of words and phrases for themselves. Florida is on a fast track to creating kids who have lower intelligence, lower knowledge, and lower marketable skills, thanks to DeSantis’s putrid leadership.
• Let’s do some good news.
• Former crackhead and prominent election denier Mike Lindell said last night that Fox News has stopped running his company’s commercials.
• Lindell claims he’s been “canceled” by Fox due to a big conspiracy. Fox says it’s much more simple: Lindell hasn’t paid his bills for his MyPillow ads.
• Losing Fox was just the latest in a series of financial and legal setbacks for Minnesota-based MyPillow and Lindell, who continues to propagate former President Donnie Dump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Several big-box retailers, including Walmart, have discontinued his products, and lawyers who were defending him against defamation lawsuits by voting machine companies quit.
• Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Fuck around, find out, you mustachioed insane dipshit.
• And now, The Weather: “Hollow” by Chastity Belt
• And yes, the weather remains the actual top news item here in the USA. Every state in the country is under some kind of dire weather situation, from deep freezes and brutal cold to coastal flooding, intense storms, and high winds.
• Be safe, people. Weather can and will kill you.
• From the Sports Desk… more weather news.
• The NFL, in consultation with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, has postponed the Buffalo Bills’ home playoff game until Monday because of the potential for hazardous weather in the Buffalo area.
• The game now is scheduled to be played Monday at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time.
• The Bills are hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers in a Wild Card AFC playoff game in Orchard Park, NY. The game originally had been scheduled for today at 1pm Eastern time (aka right now).
• At the moment, the game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs is still on today’s schedule despite it being in subzero temps in KC, with wind chill hitting the -30º range.
• Today in history… Nicolas Jean Hugon de Bassville, representative of Revolutionary France, is lynched by a mob in Rome (1793). United States President Andrew Jackson writes to Vice President Martin Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina's defiance of federal authority (1833). The Treaty of Cahuenga ends the Mexican–American War in California (1847). The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C. (1888). The first public radio broadcast takes place; a live performance of the operas Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci is sent out over the airwaves from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York (1910). Henry Ford patents a soybean car, which is 30% lighter than a regular car (1942). An article appears in Pravda accusing some of the most prestigious and prominent doctors, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership (1953). Anti-Muslim riots break out in Calcutta, in response to anti-Hindu riots in East Pakistan (1964). Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member when he is appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1966). Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison (1968). Space Shuttle Endeavour heads for space for the third time as STS-54 launches from the Kennedy Space Center (1993). A false emergency alert warning of an impending missile strike in Hawaii causes widespread panic in the state (2018). The Thai Ministry of Public Health confirms the first case of COVID-19 outside China (2020). Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump is impeached for a second time on a charge of incitement of insurrection following the January 6 United States Capitol attack one week prior (2021).
• January 13 is the birthday of painter Jan van Goyen (1596), SCOTUS chief justice Salmon P. Chase (1808), suffragist/abolitionist Ernestine Rose (1810), novelist Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832), singer/actress Sophie Tucker (1886), actor Robert Stack (1919), guitarist/composer Joe Pass (1929), actor Rip Taylor (1931), actor Richard Moll (1943), singer-songwriter/guitarist Trevor Rabin (1954), actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus (1961), entrepreneur/politician Andrew Yang (1975), actor Orlando Bloom (1977), statistician Nate Silver (1978), NFL player Nick Mangold (1984), and actor Liam Hemsworth (1990).

Time for me to get my ass in gear. I am not working today (yay!), but I am running around taking care of various menial tasks (boo!). Enjoy your day.