Random News: May 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 May 9, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Maybe this is just some perception thing based on my age and other factors, but this year seems to be flying by so far. I think one of those factors is actually that I’m busy as fuck far too often, and shit would slow down if I were to chill more often than I do. Something to keep in mind. Anyway, lets do some news.

• President Biden said yesterday that he would halt the shipment of U.S. offensive weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if the country moves ahead with a long-planned ground invasion of Rafah.
• Biden said, “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers. I made it clear that if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities — that deal with that problem.”
• Good.
• Biden and his top aides have expended energy in recent months trying to reach a weeks-long cease-fire in exchange for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, but hope is dimming that a deal between Israel and Hamas can be reached.
• And Bibi Netanyahu has vowed to forge ahead with a Rafah invasion regardless of whether or not there is a deal.
• I’d say we’ve given Israel every opportunity to act responsibly and ethically in this conflict, and they’ve failed.
• And good for Biden to take a strong stance on this, but Republicans are very angry. They want continual bombing of women and children Palestine.
• House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and House Armed Services Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) said yesterday they were “appalled that the administration paused crucial arms shipments to Israel.”
• In case anyone is unaware, the U.S. provides billions of dollars every year to Israel, and the White House has continued shipping arms to the country in its war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
• Just last month, Biden signed into law a national security package that includes $26 billion for Israel, but any small reduction in the supply of large bombs that will level civilian cities in Palestine is a problem for Republicans.
• Let’s move on to laugh, as a nation, at Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
• Yesterday, the congressman was heckled and booed by her own Republican party when she tried to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from leadership.
• She’s very mad at him for doing his job.
• Greene’s effort proved to be the final straw for many of her GOP colleagues who have expressed a growing distaste for her antics during her three years in Congress. It even led to a rare admonishment by one of her most ardent supporters — Donnie Dump.
• 196 Republicans — most of the conference — rejected her bid and voted alongside 163 Democrats to procedurally block her motion.
• Sporky had just 10 GOP colleagues vote with her, and a half-dozen of them waited until the very end of the roll call to post their votes to be clear they did not want to be associated with Greene.
• The overall vote was 359-43, with seven Democratic lawmakers voting present. What an embarrassment for Marge.
• Moving on.

• Here’s a story that should piss you off and that seems to happen far too often.
• Deputies responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot a Black U.S. Air Force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun.
• Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, who was based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, was at his home five miles from the air base and was on a Facetime call with a woman at the time of the encounter.
• Fortson was alone in his apartment when he heard an aggressive knock at the door. He asked who was there but didn't get a response. He was concerned and went to retrieve his legally-owned gun.
• That’s when deputies burst through the door and shot him six times. He died at a hospital.
• I have to ask: would this young man have been killed had he not been armed and therefore wouldn’t have been seen as a threat to the cops?
• Moving on.
• Maybe you remember backing 2018, when then-president Donnie the Dumpster did a grandiose speech in Wisconsin where he announced a huge new manufacturing facility for Foxconn, the Chinese tech builder.
• Dumpy called the proposed plant "the Eighth Wonder of the World.” Well, the land was cleared in preparation for the facility, but it never got built.
• Because everything Dump touches dies.
• Instead, yesterday President Biden made a trip to Wisconsin to formally unveil a new $3.3 billion investment by Microsoft in artificial intelligence in the state with a forthcoming data center… on the same site where Dumpy couldn’t deliver his Chinese manufacturing plant.
• ”On my watch, we make promises and we keep promises," he stated, just in case anyone missed the message.
• Go Joe.
• Let’s move on.
• The U.S. Department of Education is looking at the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, TX over four students’ civil rights complaints — a signal that the department has substantiated the students’ allegations of racist and anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
• The development comes three years after the civil rights organization filed federal complaints on behalf of students who said Carroll officials failed to protect them from harassment.
• The four students, all of whom have either graduated or left the district, reported to the Education Department that they had been subjected to a barrage of racist and homophobic slurs and comments during their years at Carroll.
• One student said he suffered retaliation after reporting racial harassment to administrators. Another said he contemplated suicide after classmates repeatedly mocked him for his sexual orientation; his family said the district failed to address the bullying.
• Back to the present…
• At least 22 Republican-led states are now suing the Biden administration over its new rules to protect LGBTQ students from discrimination in federally funded schools. 
• The states want to be able to openly discriminate against LGBTQ students. Let’s be clear. They are not denying this.
• The lawsuits follow the Education Department’s expansion of Title IX federal civil rights rules last month, which will now include anti-discrimination protections for students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
• The new rules would prohibit schools from barring transgender students from using bathrooms, changing facilities, and pronouns that correspond with their gender identities.
• Attorneys general in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia sued the administration in separate lawsuits last week.
• They argued that Joe Biden efforts to protect gay and trans kids is illegal.
• And this week seven other states — Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota — joined the legal battle by filing two additional lawsuits. 
• All federally funded schools are obligated to comply with Title IX. If they want to discriminate against children, all they have to do is relinquish all their federal funding.
• That’s how it worked when Alabama fought to eliminate Black kids from white schools in the ‘60s. They changed their minds when the USA stopped giving them money.
• In other news…
• Yesterday was Wednesday, which means they took the day off in the ongoing criminal hush money trial of Donald J. Dumperoo.
• This morning, the trial resumed with Stormy Daniels returning to the witness stand.
• Dump’s lawyers today are seeking to undermine her credibility. That’s a common situation in defense of, say, a rape case where the lawyer tries to make it seem that the victim was “asking for it.”
• Most of the cross-examination thus far has been about Daniels’ social posts about Dump.
• One thing I will say about Stormy Daniels and many others in the sex industry: people tend to write them off and act in a discriminatory, holier-than-thou way toward them.
• But many of them are actually very smart and savvy, and purposeful with their decision to go into their field of employment. You don’t have to respect them for their career choice, but I highly recommend that you don’t underestimate them.
• We’ll report tomorrow on any significant events in that trial.
• Moving on.
• After 114 years of being known as the Boy Scouts of America, the nation’s largest scouting organization is changing its name to the more inclusive Scouting America.
• I like it. I was a Boy Scout. Yes, me. I did a lot of shit as a Scout that I never would have otherwise been able to experience.
• I paddled a canoe down the Sacramento River from Redding to Red Bluff. I rode a bicycle 100 miles through the Mojave Desert. I ran from a wild boar on Catalina Island.
• All true.
• Anyway, the organization desperately needed a rebrand. Making it inclusive to children of more than one gender is a good thing. the change takes effect in February 2025.
• And now, The Weather: “Pallor Tricks” by Cola
• Here’s an RIP that I didn’t see coming and is devastating to hear about. Rest in peace, musician, engineer, and producer Steve Albini. He died yesterday of a heart attack at 61.
• To call Albini an icon in the world of indie rock is a massive understatement. He recorded Nirvana’s In Utero, Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me, and countless more classic albums by some of my favorite artists and bands including Slint, the Breeders, the Jesus Lizard, Low, Helmet, Superchunk, Mogwai, Cloud Nothings, Ty Segall, Sunn O))), Joanna Newsom, and so many more… it’s an amazing list.
• While that passing form the world of music and audio was front page news yesterday, and rightfully so, there was by terrible coincidence another passing of a terrific audio engineer/producer on the same day.
• Rest in peace to Eric “ET” Thorngren. Details are scarce but is seems he was the victim of a motorcycle accident. I’m not sure how old Eric was, but like Steve, he was still way too young to die.
• ET was probably most well known for engineering The Talking Heads 'Little Creatures’ and ‘Stop Making Sense,’ but he worked with a ton of amazing bands and artists like Robert Palmer, Eurythmics, Squeeze, Cyndi Lauper, and so many more.
• And one more RIP today, this one going out to Pete McCloskey, who died yesterday at 96. McCloskey was a Republican congressman and decorated Marine who went up against Richard Nixon.  
• He was unusual for a Republican, being against the Vietnam War and supportive of race relations and the environment. He worked to gain passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, helped organize the first Earth Day that year, and supported the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
• From the Sports Desk… an update from the second round of the NBA playoffs.
• Celtics lead Cavs 1-0; Knicks lead Pacers 2-0; Thunder lead Mavericks 1-0; Timberwolves lead Nuggets 2-0.
• Today in history… England and Portugal formally ratify their alliance with the signing of the Treaty of Windsor, making it the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force (1386). The figure who later became Mr. Punch — as in Punch and Judy — makes his first recorded appearance in England (1662). Nathan Bedford Forrest surrenders his forces at Gainesville, AL (1865). The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making Enovid the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill (1960). The United States House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon (1974). The COVID-19 recession causes the U.S. unemployment rate to hit 14.9 percent, its worst rate since the Great Depression (2020).
• May 9 is the birthday of abolitionist activist John Brown (1800), archaeologist Howard Carter (1874), prostitute Denham Fouts (1914), singer-songwriter Hank Snow (1914), journalist Mike Wallace (1918), guitarist Nokie Edwards (1935), actor Albert Finney (1936), director/producer James L. Brooks (1940), singer-songwriter Richie Furay (1944), singer-songwriter/pianist Billy Joel (1949), MLB player Tony Gwynn (1960), singer-songwriter Dave Gahan (1962), NHL player Steve Yzerman (1965), rapper Ghostface Killah (1970), actress Rosario Dawson (1979), singer-songwriter Andrew W.K. (1979), MLB player Prince Fielder (1984), NFL player Jake Long (1985), and NFL player Trey Lance (2000).

That’s plenty of news for you to enjoy, or learn from, or something. My day seems like a normal day, with work and meetings and various things I either want to do, or have to do. Enjoy your day.