Random News: February 9, 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 9, 2024, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I am continuing to be the most impatient patient ever, annoyed that my mouth hasn’t completely healed just a few days after I went through hell. But I am — slowly — improving, so I’m going to stay positive here, and meanwhile there’s a bunch of news…

• I’ll do my best to give you a brief synopsis of yesterday’s historic Supreme Court oral hearing regarding the question of Donald John Trump’s eligibility to run for president after leading an insurrection against the USA in 2021.
• All signals point to the Court siding with Dump, and it’s likely they’ll allow him to appear on Colorado’s ballot (and therefore all other state’s as well).
• The court’s conservatives repeatedly questioned whether the insurrection ban was intended to apply to former presidents, and whether the ban could be enforced without Congress first enacting a law.
• Others questioned whether courts removing a candidate from the ballot is democratic.
• It wasn’t just the hardcore conservatives who seemed skeptical. Ketanji Brown Jackson said that the 14th Amendment provision did not include the word “president,” even though it specifically listed other officials who would be covered.
• Elena Kagan questioned the implications of a single state banning a candidate in a presidential election.
• Long story short: I never thought this was going to make it through the Supreme Court. We’ll find out soon enough, but if I had to guess at this moment, my money is on 9-0 in Dump’s favor. Maybe 8-1, because Sonia Sotomayor seems to feel the 14th Amendment case against El Dumpo is legit.
• I mean, so do I.
• Moving on.
• Meanwhile, a special counsel report released yesterday found evidence that President Joe Biden willfully retained and shared highly classified information when he was a private citizen, including about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, but concluded that criminal charges were not warranted.
• A valid question: you have to wonder if the report was tilted in a way that sets a better precedent for El Dumpo’s own alleged crimes related to document theft and sharing of classified intel.
• And of course, despite abundant differences between the cases, Dumpy immediately seized on the special counsel report to portray himself as a victim of a “two-tiered system of justice.”
• While we’re on the topic of President Biden, yesterday he said that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has been “over the top” in his sharpest rebuke yet, and said he hoped the current negotiations over a release of hostages in exchange for a long-term pause could lay the groundwork to change the course of the war.
• Biden has been resistant to speak in detail about the suffering in Gaza, but he also spoke in the most visceral terms yet about the desperation in the enclave.
• “I’ve been pushing really hard to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza. A lot of innocent people are starving. A lot of innocent people are in trouble and they’re dying and it’s got to stop,” he said.
• That’s accurate. As I’ve said the entire time about this conflict, there’s no excuse for the people of Palestine to bear the entire horrible cost of the action of their terrorist leaders.
• Would you have wanted the rest of the world punishing you because of the actions of leaders like Bush or Trump?
• Moving on.
• The Senate voted yesterday afternoon to proceed with a stripped-down bill that would provide aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, just one day after Republicans in the chamber rejected a bipartisan border security and foreign aid bill.
• The vote of 67-32 means the Senate can begin consideration of the $95 billion package, although the next steps are uncertain and it’s not yet clear it will have the votes for final passage in the chamber.
• In other news…
• Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that robocalls using voices generated by artificial intelligence are illegal, amid concerns over how the cutting-edge technology is being used to scam people and deceive voters.
• Last month in New Hampshire, a robocall using an apparently AI-generated voice depicting President Biden discouraging Democrats from voting reached thousands of voters just days before the state's primary.
• A Texas telemarketer was behind the call, and another Texas-based company transmitted it. It’s resulted in an investigation into illegal voter suppression.
• AI has also been used to extort money from families by mimicking the voice of a loved one in danger. Last year the Federal Trade Commission warned consumers those scams are on the rise.
• Be wary, people.
• Let’s do some good news.
• Peter Navarro, a former trade adviser to President Donnie Dump who was convicted of contempt of Congress, has been ordered to report to prison after a judge denied Navarro’s effort to stay out of prison while he appeals the conviction.
• Ha ha, you fucker.
• Navarro was sentenced by Judge Amit Mehta in late January to four months behind bars after a jury in Washington, DC, found him guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena related to the congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021 failed cup attempt at the US Capitol.
• Moving on.
• You’ve probably heard by now that fired former Fox News host Tucker Carlson did a big interview with Russian authoritarian Vladimir Putin.
• Putin was in complete control the entire interview, with Carlson lobbing softball questions that gave Putin a platform to spread his propaganda to a global audience with little to no scrutiny of his claims.
• Russia is already spreading the Carlson interview around. Not sure how you folks who consider yourself Americans can support either Putin or Carlson.
• Back to the good news…
• Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist, won his long-standing legal battle against two right-wing bloggers who claimed that he manipulated data in his research and compared him to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky, a major victory for the outspoken researcher.
• A jury in a civil trial in Washington yesterday found that the two writers, Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn, defamed and injured the researcher in a pair of blog posts published in 2012, and awarded him more than $1 million.
• Remember this: when you post things online, you are actually publishing information. If you are purposefully writing false information that causes damages to a person, who can and will be held responsible for it.
• It’s called accountability, folks, and there needs to be more of it.
• And now, The Weather: “Get Down Tonight” by Starwolf
• From the Sports Desk… I’m just going to say it: the Super Bowl isn’t really sports.
• Yeah, of course, it is the championship game for the NFL. Sometimes it’s a really exciting and fun game to watch. But when you have an event that’s blown so far out of proportion as an entertainment item, the actual game is secondary to its real purpose of advertising and nationalistic jingoism.
• It’s fine. It is what it is. So instead of talking about the possibilities of the game — none of which are anything you can impact at this stage — here are some favorite foods and snacks that people enjoy for The Big Game in various places.
• Chips and dips are always omnipresent. Per Google, across the Northeast in states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey, buffalo chicken dip reigns supreme. Maryland and Virginia's most searched dip was crab dip, and Alaska's was smoked salmon dip. California’s is artichoke dip. Yum.
• Chicken wings are all over the map… all over the actual map. Hot wings were the most searched flavor in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, and several other states. In my state and many others, dry rubs are big, like lemon pepper, salt and pepper, and salt and vinegar. Lots of states seem to be into air fried wings this year. Hmm.
• At my house, the tradition is guacamole, hand crafted by Christina. The problem: with my recent dental surgery, eating something with sharp, hard, pointy edges like chips is a non-starter.
• So, I think we have a plan. She’ll make her guac as usual, but I will have it with soft tortilla quesadillas. I can definitely live with this compromise.
• The 49ers are still considered -2 point favorites over the Chiefs. The over/under is 47.5 points.
• Today in history… The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion (1775). Rhode Island becomes the fourth US state to ratify the Articles of Confederation (1778). After no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the US presidential election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as sixth President of the United States in a contingent election (1825). Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Provisional Confederate Congress at Montgomery, AL (1861). Verdi's last opera, ‘Falstaff’, premieres at La Scala, Milan (1893). William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball (1895). A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of the Americas, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth (1913). Year-round Daylight saving time, aka War Time, is reinstated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources (1942). HMS Venturer sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat (1945). US Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists (1950). The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a record-setting audience of 73 million viewers across the United States (1964). Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro league player to be voted into the USA's Baseball Hall of Fame (1971). Halley's Comet last appeared in the inner Solar System (1986). Voters in Lithuania vote for independence from the Soviet Union (1991). Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins (2021).
• February 9 is the birthday of US president William Henry Harrison (1773), politician Samuel J. Tilden (1814), pathologist Howard Taylor Ricketts (1871), poet Amy Lowell (1874), actor Ronald Colman (1891), actress Carmen Miranda (1909), biochemist Jacques Monod (1910), singer-songwriter Ernest Tubb (1914), illustrator Frank Frazetta (1928), songwriter/pianist Barry Mann (1939), singer-songwriter Carole King (1942), actor Joe Pesci (1943), novelist Alice Walker (1944), actress Mia Farrow (1945), actress Judith Light (1949), MLB player Mookie Wilson (1956), journalist/writer/TV producer David Simon (1960), MLB player John Kruk (1961), MLB player Vladimir Guerrero (1975), actor Tom Hiddleston (1981), and actor Michael B. Jordan (1987), and NFL player Jaire Alexander (1997).

Again, I am still grateful and happy to be alive after Monday evening. I am, at the same time, super annoyed and frustrated with the pain and swelling and such that is inevitable after what I went through. The common prognosis is that it takes 7-10 days for a surgery like mine to heal, and it’s been less than four. I need to just be aware that soon enough, I’ll be fine. Meanwhile, I’m thankful for ibuprofen. Enjoy your day.