Random News: February 25, 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 February 25, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. I’m a guy in a bathrobe and I have some delicious Peet’s Sumatra in my cup, so let’s explore the many things that make up the current news.

• Everything went as expected in the South Carolina GOP primary. Donnie Dump was declared the victor about ten seconds after the polls closed.
• One interesting way to consider it, though, is that 40% of voters in one of the most conservative states in the country chose Nikki Haley over Dump. I don’t think that bodes super well for Dumpy in the general election when he faces Biden.
• Polls going into the SC primary had Dump up more than 30 points over Haley. They were 10 points off. 10 points is a massive difference in polling accuracy, even with the standard margin of error.
• I should note that President Biden easily won the presidential primary here earlier in February. In fact, to make an unfair comparison that suits my views, Biden won with 96% of the vote, while Dump got less than 60%.
• Perhaps in bigger primary news is this coming Tuesday’s election in a major swing state. Michigan’s primary on February 27 is for both Democrats and Republicans.
• It’s a serious test of President Biden’s ability to navigate dissent within the Democratic Party over his response to Israel’s war with Hamas, due to the state’s high population of Arab Americans.
• Dump is also looking for another primary win that would add to his sweep of the early-voting states and move him that much closer to becoming his party’s nominee.
• The results this Tuesday will be closely watched for any clues about where Michigan is trending before the November election. With a narrow win in 2016, Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state since 1988. Biden reclaimed the state for Democrats in 2020, contributing to his defeat of Trump.
• I think the most important thing for liberal Michiganders to remember is this: you may be upset regarding Biden’s support of Israel right now. But Dump has said many times over that he would like to literally deport American citizens who are of Muslim descent.
• And a vote for anyone other than Joe Biden — including a vote for “uncommitted” — is a vote for Dump. It’s just true.
• Meanwhile, the Michigan Republican Party is trying to emerge from an internal struggle between two competing pro-Dump factions. Regardless, you can bet almost 100% odds that Dump will beat Haley in that state as well.
• Just a week later is Super Tuesday, where more than a dozen states (including mine) will hold elections with thousands of delegates at stake.
• I do have a little breaking news about Ol’ Dumperino this morning: Federal District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Dumpy's request for an emergency stay on the collection of the $83.3 million dollar judgment won by E. Jean Carroll against him.
• Pay up, bitch.
• Enough on that. Let’s move on to a disease we shouldn’t have to be talking about in 2024: measles.
• This week, health officials in Broward County, Florida confirmed a seventh case of the virus, a child under age 5. The patient is the youngest so far to be infected in the outbreak, and the first to be identified outside of Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston, near Fort Lauderdale.
• How contagious is measles? It’s literally the most infectious pathogen in humans that we know of. Unvaccinated people have a 90% chance of becoming infected if exposed.
• So you’d think that people would get this disease all the time, right? No, because measles is a required childhood vaccination in most places in the USA and has been for multiple generations.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that as of Friday there have been at least 35 measles cases in 15 states in 2024. Florida’s outbreak is the largest in the U.S. right now.
• Why? Because Florida health and education authorities are scared to even mention, much less require vaccination for anything. Pertinent note: the standard MMR vaccine that’s required in most states for children to enter public school offers 97% protection against infection.
• While we’re in health news, let’s talk about an aspect of the recent attack on in vitro fertilization (IVF) that you might not have considered: cancer patients who want to have children.
• See, people fighting cancer have for years turned to IVF as a way to preserve their reproductive options. The recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court — that frozen embryos are considered children under the law — may end up removing the only way of having a family after chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
• Those treatments, as effective as they are at helping people live longer, often have the side effect of infertility and premature menopause. Freezing embryos and using IFV to gestate them is the only option they have.
• I think it needs to be explained that in a situation where fertilized eggs are legally recognized as children, you need to understand the IVF process a little better.
• To ensure a viable birth, multiple eggs are made available, and then those are tested to see which will most likely be viable. It’s common for five eggs to be processed in this way, with two of them being used to try and create a pregnancy, and the three others discarded with the parents’ consent.
• This law that defines a fertilized egg as a child could be interpreted so that the medical facility, the parents, or both, could be charged with manslaughter or murder.
• Get it now?
• Moving on.
• Wait, hold on. One more thing.
• The majority of House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, have signed onto a bill that would ban all abortions nationwide and completely rip away access to IVF.
• This aligns with their “Project 2025” plan to restrict reproductive rights in all 50 states under a second Trump term.
• By the way, the GOP’s “Project 2025:” also rapidly privatizes Medicare if Trump wins. It would be a historic handout to the insurance industry, and the death of Medicare as we know it.
• Okay, enough for now.
• You’re probably reading these words on a social media network right now, most likely Facebook.
• Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that will determine whether state governments or tech companies have the power to set the rules for what posts can appear on popular social networks.
• And that will absolutely affect you if you use Facebook, X, Reddit, Threads, or any other social net you can access in the USA.
• Here’s the topic of the case. In 2022, a Reddit user called a Star Trek character a “soy boy,” and the discussion board’s volunteer moderators kicked him out.
• The user filed a lawsuit against Reddit under a landmark Texas law that prohibits social media companies from removing posts or accounts based on a viewpoint — an unprecedented regulation subverting how the internet has operated for decades.
• So now, the constitutionality of that Texas law is being questioned at the highest level, along with a related Florida law which prohibits platforms from suspending the accounts of political candidates or media publications.
• You’re probably smart enough to know what’s at stake here. 
• Do you want the government telling private companies that they are forced to be a platform for hate speech? Look, I’m no fan of censorship, but why should Facebook or any other social platform be literally required by law to host violent and other harmful posts?
• Ridiculous. Keep an eye on this.
• It’s Sunday Gunday, where we take a quick look at recent incidents of gun violence in the USA over the past two days.
• Two dead in a shooting in Wichita, KS. One dead, three wounded in a shooting at a parking lot in Kansas City, MO. One dead, three wounded in a shooting at a bar in the Marshall-Shadeland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. One dead, one wounded in a shooting in South Los Angeles, CA. A woman shot and killed in the Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramento, CA. A woman shot and killed at a motel in Madisonville, TX. One shot dead by his roommate in Jefferson County, CO. A 16-year-old shot dead in his car in Antioch, CA. One shot dead during a carjacking in Selma, CA. One shot dead in Eagle Grove, IA. One shot dead in Raleigh, NC. One shot dead in Cudahy, WI. Three people shot in Willingboro, NJ. Two people shot in Winston-Salem, NC. Two people shot in New Orleans, LA. A teenager in critical condition after being shot at a hotel in the River North area of Chicago, IL. A teenager seriously injured in a shooting on a Green Line Train in Washington, DC. A teenager seriously injured in a shooting in Stoughton, MA. A teenager shot on a SEPTA train in Philadelphia, PA. One shot in a road rage incident in Blaine, MN. One shot on a bike trail in Colorado Springs, CO. One shot at an apartment complex in Huntsville, AL. One shot in the Bellevue neighborhood of Nashville, TN. One shot in New Haven, CT. One shot in Orange City, FL.
• Super important note: these are only shootings from the past 48 hours, and I only cover a short list of the ones I see via a quick scroll through news on Sunday mornings.
• I do not cover the many accidental shootings, suicides, or police shootings that happen each weekend. So my list is actually really small compared to the full scope of gun incidents that are mostly preventable.
• And now, The Weather: “I Told You So” by Briston Maroney
• From the Sports Desk… some of you are probably doing an NCAA bracket. I sometimes think about doing it, and then never do, because I don’t follow any college sports and don’t plan on starting.
• However, here are the top seeds in each of the four men’s tournament divisions.
• Midwest: 1. Purdue. 2. Marquette. 3. Alabama.
• East: 1. UConn. 2. North Carolina. 3. Iowa State
• West: 1. Arizona. 2. Kansas. 3. Creighton.
• South: 1. Houston. 2. Tennessee. 3. Duke.
• Today in history… George Frideric Handel's opera ‘Nero’ premiered in Hamburg (1705). Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for his revolver firearm (1836). Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in Congress (1870). In his speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, denounces Stalin (1956). President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos flees the nation after 20 years of rule and Corazon Aquino becomes the Philippines' first female president (1986).
• February 25 is the birthday of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841), tenor Enrico Caruso (1873), diplomat/politician John Foster Dulles (1888), spiritual leader Meher Baba 1894), comedian Zeppo Marx (1901), NHL player King Clancy (1903), actor Jim Backus (1913), author Anthony Burgess (1917), singer Ralph Stanley (1927), singer-songwriter/guitarist George Harrison (1943), wrestler Ric Flair (1949), NBA player/coach Kurt Rambis (1958), comedian Carrot Top (1965), actress Téa Leoni (1966), actor Sean Astin (1971), comedian Chelsea Handler (1975), actress Rashida Jones (1976), NBA player Jimmer Fredette (1989).

That’s all I’ve got. Time to do things that aren’t this. Enjoy your day.