Random News: November 17, 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 November 17, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. It is also, by Southern California standards, chilly here at my beach city home; it was 44º when I walked out to my back patio just now in my bathrobe. I suppose I could consider turning on the heat here, but that sounds… expensive. Let’s do some news.

• This week, the House passed legislation that would provide full Social Security benefits to millions of people, pushing it one step closer to becoming law.
• Despite it winning broad bipartisan support in the House, passing 327-75 in this lame-duck period for Congress, passage in the Senate is not assured.
• Decades in the making, the bill would repeal two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — that currently limit Social Security payouts for roughly 2.8 million people.
• Those policies broadly reduce payments to two groups of Social Security recipients: people who also receive a pension from a job that is not covered by Social Security and surviving spouses of Social Security recipients who receive a government pension of their own.
• Who will benefit? People who worked in state, local, and federal government jobs, as well as teachers, firefighters, and police officers.
• And though the Social Security bill has 63 sponsors in the Senate — with 60 votes needed to pass most legislation in the chamber — the Senate has a jam-packed schedule in the remaining weeks of the year, with government funding, disaster relief, and an annual must-pass defense bill likely to eat up considerable floor time.
• If the bill doesn’t pass the Senate by January 3, when a new session of Congress begins, it would expire and supporters would have to start over… and may be negated under a Trump administration.
• Guess we’ll see.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, a federal judge in Texas struck down a new rule from the Biden administration aimed at extending overtime protections to millions of workers.
• Trump-appointed judge Sean D. Jordan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled that the Labor Department went beyond its authority in issuing the regulation earlier this year. He granted summary judgment to the state of Texas, which had sued to stop the rule from taking effect.
• Biden’s overtime rule would dramatically expand the share of workers who are entitled to time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week.
• It almost isn’t worth discussing now; Donnie Dump has promised to undo Biden’s agenda.
• Jordan’s order halts the regulation across the country, leaving the current, stricter overtime rules intact.
• You should anticipate more and more government rules that limit your ability to make money during the incoming Trump government.
• Let’s move on.
• I’ve done almost no international news in recent times… we’ve been a little busy with our own news here in the USA for the past few weeks you see.
• But the spokesperson of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Mohammed Afif, was killed today in an Israeli strike on Beirut.
• Lebanese security sources told both Reuters and AFP that he was killed in the strike on the center of Lebanon’s capital. Afif was at the headquarters of the pro-Hezbollah Baath Party when it was struck.
• On the campaign trail, Donnie Dump said he would put a quick end to both the Israel/Hamas/Hezbollah conflict and the Russia/Ukraine war.
• Guess we’ll see how that goes.
• I’ll keep covering Dumpy’s picks for cabinet positions, just so those of you who voted for him are aware of what you voted for. Hopefully it makes you happy. 
• Yesterday he named oil executive Chris Wright to be the secretary of energy, a role in which he's likely to promote fossil fuel development and reverse many Biden-era initiatives.
• Wright is the chief executive of oil and natural gas fracking services company Liberty Energy and sits on the board of a nuclear reactor company.
• He is a well-known climate change denier, saying recently, ”There is no climate crisis, and we're not in the midst of an energy transition either.”
• And in other news of Dump’s nightmare team, more details are emerging about a 2017 sexual assault allegation made against Pete Hegseth, Dumpy’s secretary of defense pick.
• News of the sex assault came to light Friday. It took place in a California hotel after a California Federation of Republican Women conference.
• Yesterday, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore confirmed that the Fox News host had paid his accuser out of fear that he would lose his TV gig.
• And in other news about this despicable person, Hegseth was barred in 2021 from serving in support of Joe Biden’s inauguration as a National Guard member.
• It was due to his tattoos. Hegseth had posted pics of his bicep that clearly showed the Latin words “Deus Vult,” a battle cry from the First Crusade in the Middle Ages: “God wills it.”
• It’s popular with the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other extremists groups that participated in the siege at the Capitol. Hegseth has other tattoos that are widely recognized as white supremacist symbols.
• As a result of the episode of being excluded from the inauguration, he left the military. 
• Interesting.
• In other news, we should chat about who will be affected by Dump’s biggest campaign promise: mass deportations.
• His MAGA crowds salivated at the thought of brown people being roughly rounded up and thrown on trains.
• It is true that at least 13 million undocumented migrants are living in the US. That includes those who entered the US illegally, overstayed their visas, or have protected status to avoid deportation.
• Interestingly, most of them feel they won’t be the ones singled out for deportation.
• A lady from Bolivia who’s been living and working as a housekeeper in the USA more than 20 years stated, "I'm not scared at all, actually. That’s for criminals to worry about. I pay taxes, and I work.”
• She added, “In any case, I'm undocumented, so how would they even know about me?”
• Sigh. Like so many things in the Dumpyverse, it remains unclear what exactly these immigration enforcement operations will look like.
• One thing I don’t hear people discussing often — especially MAGA people.
• US authorities deporting migrants is nothing new. More than 1.5 million people have been expelled under President Joe Biden, in addition to millions more swiftly turned away from the border during the COVID pandemic.
• And some called Barack Obama the “deporter-in-chief,” having sent away three million people during his two terms.
• But the sad part about what’s going to happen under Dumpy is that a large portion of the people who are likely to be deported also supported him.
• Carlos, an undocumented Mexican who lives in New York City, said, “A lot of Latinos, those who can vote, did so because they think he can improve the economy. That would be very good for us too.”
• Good luck, Carlos.
• I totally blanked on yesterday’s edition of “Hey, You Have Rights!”, which goes to show you how easily you can take your rights for granted, or forget you have them at all.
• Making up for that today is the first on several pieces about what I consider to be the most important Amendment in the Bill Of Rights: the 1st Amendment.
• For being so vitally important to the lives of Americans, it is shockingly short…
• “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
• There’s a lot to unpack in that one sentence. We’re going to go in order, starting today with the part at the top: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
• In the simplest of languages, it means that our government can’t make laws that acknowledge any religion in any way, and the government can’t stop you from being part of a religion.
• This section of the 1st Amendment is known as the Establishment Clause, and it acts as a double security: the prevention of religious control over government, and the prevention of political control over religion.
• Thomas Jefferson said it better than I can. In 1802, he replied to the Danbury Baptists, a religious minority that was concerned about the dominant position of the Congregational church in Connecticut.
• “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
• That “wall between church and state” has been tested many times in a variety of landmark Supreme Court cases. It’s the reason why your kids aren’t forced to pray in public schools to a religion that might not be yours.
• The 1st Amendment applies to federal, state, and local levels.
• A quote from Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) confirms that the 1st Amendment applies at all levels and to the religious and non-religious alike.
• “We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person 'to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.' Neither can it constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can it aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.”
• Is the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment still under attack in 2024? Yes, 100% yes, all the time.
• Every time you hear a story about a public school where bibles are mandatory curriculum for students, or the Ten Commandments are legally required to be on display, that’s an egregious violation of the 1st Amendment.
• Thankfully, the ACLU and other entities that protect our freedoms are constantly fighting against such anti-American practices. They’ve sued school districts and education boards to stop this practice on many occasions.
• One other note: it’s especially important to understand there’s not even an implied official religion in the USA. There are countries in the world led by religious leaders under religions laws… those are called theocracies. 
• They include Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, and Afghanistan. Let’s not be like them except with Christianity as the forced religion.
• Moving on. 
• From the Health Desk… the first known case of a more severe strain of mpox in the USA was confirmed in California, per the CDC yesterday. The risk of clade I mpox to the public remains low.
• The person diagnosed with clade I mpox had recently traveled from Eastern Africa, where an mpox outbreak is ongoing. They were treated at a local medical facility and released, and is now improving at home. The state and CDC are working to identify and follow up with potential contacts.
• In the long list of things you don’t want to get, mpox is definitely one of them. Try not to be naked and rub up against random people.
• Even if you’re into that.
• And now, The Weather: “Enjoy Yourself” by Dejima
• From the Sports Desk… some cool news for NBA fans.
• “Inside the NBA,” the popular long-running show featuring the quartet of Ernie Johnson Jr., Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal will appear on ESPN and ABC beginning next season as part of a settlement between Warner Bros. Discovery and the NBA.
• Even though “Inside the NBA” will be on ESPN and ABC beginning with the 2025-26 season, TNT Sports will continue to produce the popular studio show and it will air from Atlanta, except when the show goes on the road.
• Today in history… Emperor Charles the Fat is deposed by the Frankish magnates (887). Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I of England (1558). Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason (1603). The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C. (1800). Sweden declares war on the United Kingdom, though no fighting ever takes place (1810). The city of Denver, Colorado is founded (1858). In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated (1869). The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party splits into two groups: The Bolsheviks — Russian for “majority" — and Mensheviks — Russian for “minority" (1903). The Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath (1947). American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor (1947). United Nations Security Council Resolution 89 relating to the Palestine Question is adopted (1950). President John F. Kennedy dedicates Washington Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C., region (1962). Viewers of the Raiders–Jets football game in the eastern United States are denied the opportunity to watch its exciting finish when NBC broadcasts Heidi instead, prompting changes to sports broadcasting in the U.S. (1968). In Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook.” (1973). United States House of Representatives passes a resolution to establish the North American Free Trade Agreement (1993). The first known case of COVID-19 is traced to a 55-year-old man who had visited a market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China (2019).
• November 17 is the birthday of Roman emperor Vespian (9), painter Bronzino (1503), French king Louis XVIII (1755), actor Lee Strasberg (1901), engineer/businessman Soichiro Honda (1906), actor Rock Hudson (1925), politician Jim Inhofe (1934), film director Martin Scorsese (1942), model/actress Lauren Hutton (1943), singer-songwriter/guitarist Gene Clark (1944), actor Danny DeVito (1944), film/TV producer Lorne Michaels (1944), MLB player Tom Seaver (1944), NBA player Elvin Hayes (1945), guitarist/songwriter Martin Barre (1946), politician Howard Dean (1948), guitarist East Bay Ray (1948), politician John Boehner (1949), actor Stephen Root (1951), talk show host Jonathan Ross (1960), actor RuPaul (1960), diplomat Susan Rice (1964), singer-songwriter/guitarist Jeff Buckley (1966), actress Daisy Fuentes (1966), and NFL player Reggie Wayne (1978).

I’m going to get my chilly ass into the shower and into some warm clothes, and then do whatever I do after that. Enjoy your day.