Random News: January 3, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s January 3, 2024, and it’s a Wednesday. I am up and it’s raining and I’m dealing with some ongoing tooth pain issues, and I don’t like it at all. But still, I’m a good deal better off than most folks, and my teeth issues are on a path to resolution, so for now let’s do some news and not let the pain win.

• Starting with some breaking international news.
• Two explosions rocked a memorial event for Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, killing more than 100 people and injuring at least 140.
• Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq's capital Baghdad in January 2020.
• That’s not good. It’s unknown if the blasts were related to the Israel-Hamas war, but the incident could heighten tensions in the region as Israel and others face-off with Iran-backed groups.
• Sigh. As long as we’re starting with bad news, here’s some more.
• Yesterday, a federal appeals court ruled that Texas hospitals and doctors are not obligated to perform abortions under a long-standing national emergency-care law.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, a panel of judges dominated by Dump appointees, ruled that if a woman is dying from medical complications and needs an abortion to save her life, she can be denied basic health care.
• This is what you get when you have a right taken away from you, which is what happened in June 2022 when Roe v. Wade was overturned by the far-right Supreme Court. 
• I would be extremely fearful to be a woman in Texas right now, for a multitude of reasons but certainly this one as well. The only way out of this mess is to codify women’s reproductive rights into law at a federal level.
• I would be asking any candidate how they plan to address that before they get my vote later this year.
• In related news, thousands of women stocked up on abortion pills just in case they needed them, with demand peaking in the past couple years at times when it looked like the medications might become harder to get.
• Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the US, and typically involves two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. Requests for the medication were highest right after news leaked in May 2022 that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade.
• Understandably. Side note: the conservatives are not planning on stopping here. They want to take away your ability to get contraception as well.
• The plan is to force women to be pregnant whether they want to have children or not, thereby keeping them out of leadership roles in business and in the government.
• Moving on.
• A man was arrested early yesterday after he broke into the Colorado Supreme Court overnight, then forcibly took keys from an unarmed security guard, fired shots in the building, and set a fire in a stairwell.
• While you might assume this had something to do with recent threats against the Colorado Supreme Court Justices inspired by the statements of El Dumpo, the preliminary investigation confirmed a high probability that the incident is not connected to that situation.
• The break-in comes two weeks after the court ruled 4-3 to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, finding he was ineligible to hold office under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”
• In other news…
• Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University, resigned from her position yesterday after just six months in the role.
• Gay has recently come under sharp public scrutiny over her handling of antisemitism on campus since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, as well as accusations of plagiarism in some of her past academic writings.
• Moving on.
• Just three candidates have qualified for another pointless Republican presidential primary debate: former president and accused felon Donald John Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
• It will be held on January 10. Haley and DeSantis have said they will participate in the debate, while Dump, as usual, will not. It will therefore be a one-on-one with two people who have no hope of being elected president this year.
• No one cares.
• Let’s move down to Florida, where Sarasota authorities are expanding their investigation into Florida Republican Chair Christian Ziegler to probe whether he broke any laws when he recorded a sexual encounter with a woman accusing him of rape.
• A search warrant sought access to Ziegler’s Instagram messages, videos and photos, including those that were under the “vanish” mode that makes them disappear from the app.
• According to the affidavit, the victim told police she didn’t consent to being recorded.
• We have a couple of other entries in the Asshole News folder today.
• NRA leader Wayne LaPierre is in a legal showdown with New York Attorney General Letitia James in a lawsuit filed amid an abrupt effort by the NRA to clean up its practices, which seeks to oust him from the group after reports of corruption and mismanagement.
• NRA membership has plummeted to 4.2 million from nearly 6 million five years ago. Revenue is down 44% since 2016, and legal costs have soared to tens of millions a year.
• Good. Fuck them.
• Our next asshole is Aaron Rodgers, the guy who was once an NFL quarterback before becoming old, injured, and useless. During an appearance on a podcast yesterday, Rodgers suggested that talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was among those named on the Epstein list, saying, “There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, really hoping that doesn’t come out.”
• Kimmel responded.
• “Dear Aasshole: for the record, I’ve not met, flown with, visited, or had any contact whatsoever with Epstein, nor will you find my name on any ‘list’ other than the clearly-phony nonsense that soft-brained wackos like yourself can’t seem to distinguish from reality. Your reckless words put my family in danger. Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.”
• Get his ass.
• I guess we have room for one more asshole.
• U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) introduced a member of the Qatari royal family and principal in a company with ties to the government of Qatar to a New Jersey businessman before the company invested millions of dollars in the businessman's real estate project.
• That’s according to a rewritten indictment issued yesterday. This is a big difference between Republican and Democrat voters: I don’t give a shit what party Menendez is from. If he did this shit, he should be fully liable for actions that happen as a result.
• In other words, fuck around and find out.
• And now, The Weather: “Rain Water Promise” by Nourished By Time
• From the Sports Desk… I don’t do NCAA sports much, but I do have to note that the Grambling women's basketball team ushered in the new year last night with a performance unseen in any year before it.
• The Lady Tigers rolled to a 159-18 triumph at home against the College of Biblical Studies. It’s the biggest margin of victory (141 points) in Division I women's basketball history.
• Kinda feel bad for the College of Biblical Studies. Maybe they should pray for better defensive skills. How are they in Division I?

• Today in history… Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem (1521). American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton (1777). Delaware votes not to secede from the United States (1861). Minnie D. Craig becomes the first woman elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first woman to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States (1933). Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time (1947). Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state (1959). Apple Computer is incorporated (1977). Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces (1990). Israeli forces seize the Palestinian freighter Karine A in the Red Sea, finding 50 tons of weapons (2002). The first block of the blockchain of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, is established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto (2009). Chang'e 4 makes the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, deploying the Yutu-2 lunar rover (2019).
• January 3 is the birthday of philosopher/politician Cicero (106 BC), soprano Henriette Sontag (1806), businessman Ichizō Kobayashi (1873), UK prime minister Clement Attlee (1883), writer J.R.R. Tolkien (1892), pianist/comedian Victor Borge (1909), NFL coach Hank Stram (1923), music producer George Martin (1926), director Sergio Leone (1929), actor Robert Loggia (1930), NHL player Bobby Hull (1939), singer-songwriter Van Dyke Parks (1943), singer-songwriter/guitarist Stephen Stills (1945), bass player/composer John Paul Jones (1946), actor/director Mel Gibson (1956), WBNA player Cheryl Miller (1964), racing driver Michael Schumacher (1969), singer-songwriter/guitarist Kurt Vile (1980), NFL player David Tyree (1980), NFL player Eli Manning (1981), murderer Kyle Rittenhouse 92003), and environmental activist Greta Thunberg (2003).

In better personal news, I had a fun show in SL last night which I will write about when I have the opportunity to do so. Also, I will be fine; this tooth shit is temporary, I am a tough motherfucker, and I am taking steps to have it resolved. Enjoy your day.