Random News: January 22, 2025

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 January 22, 2025, and it’s a Wednesday. I really wish it was a regular-ass Wednesday, but it’s not; I’m heading out of town — though not very far — to a business event for the next few days. Like many things in life where we are compelled to do things we’d rather not (but responsibility dictates that we do it anyway), I’m just going to take care of business and try not to complain very much.

• Let’s start today with a true-or-false statement. An executive order from a president can override the U.S. Constitution.
• FALSE.
• We have a Constitution to specifically prevent a maniac from taking over the country with tyranny. So any of Dumpy’s little orders that do not pass Constitutional muster will never be part of American life.
• Case in point: Dump’s bid to cut off birthright citizenship is a "flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage," attorneys for 18 states, the city of San Francisco and the District of Columbia said yesterday in a lawsuit challenging the Presidumb's executive order signed just hours after he was sworn in Monday.
• The lawsuit, first filed by 18 attorneys general and then joined by four more, accuses Trump of seeking to eliminate a "well-established and longstanding Constitutional principle" by executive fiat.
• ”The President has no authority to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment or duly enacted statute. Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth," the lawsuit said.
• Correct.
• Dump’s order directed federal agencies — starting next month — to stop issuing citizenship documents to U.S.-born children of undocumented mothers or mothers in the country on temporary visas, if the father is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
• About 150,000 children born each year to two parents who were noncitizens and lacked legal status could lose access to basic health care, foster care, and early interventions for infants, toddlers, and students with disabilities.
• I might as well say this now…
• If you think I’m going to spend every damn day filling these bullets with the shitty things Dump does, you’re in the wrong place.
• We’ll obviously mention stuff from time to time, but usually in the context of what’s being done to fight back or resist Dump’s desire to turn the country into a fascist dystopia.
• You can find plenty of complaint-based bloggers and social mavens. They’re everywhere. I’m not one of them.
• But here’s another good example of what I’ll be continuing to cover in Dumpyville in coming days/weeks/months/years…
• A federal employee union has sued over an executive order from Dumpty Dump creating a new class of federal employee — allowing those working on policy to be swiftly hired and fired like political appointees.
• Dump’s EO creates a class of employee — Schedule F — who can be hired outside the traditional merit-based system for bureaucrats, raising fears of politicization of the workforce.
• In their suit filed Monday, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) wrote, “Congress has enacted comprehensive legislation governing the hiring and employment of federal employees. Because the Policy/Career Executive Order attempts to divest federal employees of these due process rights, it is contrary to congressional intent.”
• I agree.
• As a reminder to people who didn’t bother listening in their days in elementary school, the United States has three branches of government, each with equal power and the ability to override the others.
• The Judicial (courts), Legislative (Congress), and Executive (president) branches operate in a system of checks and balances, purposefully designed by the founding fathers to ensure that no one branch grows overly powerful.
• You will see that system in action on many occasions over the coming years.
• Let’s move on.
• An interesting ruling by the Supreme Court yesterday.
• They issued a rare ruling in favor of a death row inmate, finding that an Oklahoma woman convicted of murdering her estranged husband in 2001 can pursue a claim that prosecutors inappropriately focused on her sex life at trial.
• Their 7-2 ruling allows Brenda Andrew to challenge her conviction and death sentence. She is the only woman on death row in Oklahoma.
• The right to due process under the Constitution's 14th Amendment "forbids the introduction of evidence so unduly prejudicial as to render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair," the Supreme Court said.
• Among the issues raised at trial were that Andrew previously had affairs with other men, that she dressed provocatively, and that she had made sexual advances towards two young men working in her yard.
• None of that factored into the details of her murder trial. Even Alito agreed this was fucked up.
• Out of the remaining justices, only Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch thought that being put to death by the state for being sexually active was okay.
• Moving back to another story of Dumpy Resistance… this one coming from traditional conservative Republicans.
• A small core of GOP Senators — including Mitch McConnell — has denounced Dump's blanket pardon of January 6 insurrectionists.
• Let’s be clear: most Republicans are publicly applauding the release of these violent criminals. But McConnell (R-KY) said, “No one should excuse violence. And particularly violence against police officers."
• Thom Tillis (R-NC) said, "I've got concerns with any pardons for people who did any harm to police officers. Full stop."
• Susan Collins (R-ME) called Monday a "terrible day" for the Justice Department, citing the pardons by both Trump and former President Biden.
• Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said, "I'm disappointed to see that and I do fear the message that is sent to these great men and women that stood by us,” in regard to Dump’s release of hundreds of criminals including cop killers.
• So, all this is meaningless. These people saying “tsk tsk” after the fact changes nothing.
• But maybe some folks across the country who truly do support law enforcement and believe in the rule of law might feel taken aback by the blanket pardon that included the most violent offenders and organizers of Jan. 6.
• Shrug.
• I’m not going to to discuss the viral news about the reverend at a National Cathedral prayer service for the inauguration who called on Dump to have mercy on transgender children and immigrant families.
• Dump lashed out angrily at Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, as you knew he would.
• But I will say this: Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) stated that, “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”
• Budde is a 65-year-old American who was born in New Jersey and serves as the Bishop of Washington for the Episcopal Church.
• I think you can look at Collins’s statement as a clue to the plans the MAGA world has for American citizens. Remember that when they deport you too.
• And now, The Weather: “Owl Moon” by Oeil
• In real weather news, New Orleans shattered its single-day snow record yesterday during a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm. At least 10 inches of snow fell in the Big Easy.
• That city never had that kind of weather when it was on the Gulf of Mexico. Now that it’s the Gulf of America, welp… guess it’s a little colder down there.
• Rest in peace to Garth Hudson, the last surviving member of the iconic rock band The Band. He was 87.
• Hudson was known primarily as an organ player, but was actually a multi-instrumentalist who was a huge contributor to that band’s sound.
• As you may know, The Band started as The Hawks, backing up Ronnie Hawkins. In 1966, Bob Dylan took the group out as his own backing band on his tumultuous first tour as a rock ‘n’ roll performer.
• A couple years later, the musicians stepped out as The Band on one of the best debut albums of all time, ‘Music From Big Pink.‘
• Another RIP heads out to Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter and children’s book author Jules Feiffer, who died at 95.
• Unapologetically liberal in his political views, Feiffer was one of the first cartoonists to criticize the Vietnam War in a mainstream newspaper. 
• “Munro,” his best-selling 1959 book about a 4-year-old boy who is mistakenly drafted into the Army, became an Academy Award-winning animated short film in 1961.
• His best-known screenplay was “Carnal Knowledge,” a 1971 film directed by Mike Nichols starring Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margaret, and Candice Bergen.
• But my personal favorite batch of Feiffer creative work were his illustrations for the 1961 classic children’s novel “The Phantom Tollbooth,” written by his friend Norton Juster.
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s January 1993, and I’m 23 years old and heading to the NAMM Show for the first time. I’d always wanted to go to NAMM, and at the end of my college career, I was considering accepting an internship with the NAMM organization.
• So I received two passes to the show, which was — back then — hard to get into unless you worked for a manufacturer of musical instruments/audio gear, or for the stores who sold them.
• By the following year, I’d gotten a job at a manufacturer, and NAMM was never fun again. It was a mountain of hard work, and it remains so to this day.
• And here’s the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart at the time. With few exceptions, it’s pretty shitty.
• 1. The Bodyguard (Whitney Houston). 2. Unplugged (Eric Clapton). 3. Timeless (The Classics) (Michael Bolton). 4. The Chase (Garth Brooks). 5. Breathless (Kenny G). 6. Some Gave All (Billy Ray Cyrus). 7. Home For Christmas (Amy Grant). 8. A Very Special Christmas 2 (Various Artists). 9. The Christmas Album (Neil Diamond). 10. Beyond The Season (Garth Brooks). 11. Ten (Pearl Jam). 12. Automatic For The People (R.E.M.). 13. Pure Country (Soundtrack) (George Strait). 14. It's Your Call (Reba McEntire). 15. Totally Krossed Out (Kris Kross). 16. Love Deluxe (Sade). 17. Ooooooohhh. . .On The TLC Tip (TLC). 18. Hard Or Smooth (Wreckx-N-Effect). 19. 25 (Harry Connick, Jr.). 20. Cooleyhighharmony (Boyz II Men).
• From the Sports Desk… hats-off to the newest members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame: outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, starting pitcher CC Sabathia, and closer Billy Wagner.
• Ichiro not only became the first Japanese-born player elected to the Hall, but he fell just one vote shy of unanimous selection, getting 393 of 394 votes in balloting of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
• He would have joined Yankees great Mariano Rivera (2019) as the only unanimous selections. Still, his 99.746% of the vote is second only to Derek Jeter's 99.748% in 2020 as the highest HOF voting plurality for a position player.
• Also, while we’re awaiting this Sunday’s NFL Conference Championships, let’s peek at another sport we’ve been ignoring all season… NHL hockey.
• Here are the current leaders and their points.
• Eastern Conference: Capitals (69), Maple Leafs (62), Hurricanes (61), Panthers (59), Devils (58), Lightning (53), Senators (52).
• Western Conference: Jets (65), Golden Knights (62), Oilers (61), Wild (60), Stars (59), Avalanche (57), Kings (55).
• Today in history… Edward VII is proclaimed King of the United Kingdom after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria (1901). Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1924). Australian and American forces in WWII defeat Japanese army and navy units in the bitterly fought Battle of Buna–Gona (1943). KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, begins operation in Hollywood (1947). Apollo 5 lifts off carrying the first Lunar module into space (1968). The Boeing 747, the world's first "jumbo jet", enters commercial service for launch customer Pan American Airways with its maiden voyage from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport (1970). The Supreme Court of the United States delivers its decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, legalizing elective abortion in all fifty states (1973). The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, is introduced during a Super Bowl XVIII television commercial (1984). The space shuttle Discovery launches on STS-42 carrying Dr. Roberta Bondar, who becomes the first Canadian woman and the first neurologist in space (1992). Kmart becomes the largest retailer in United States history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (2002). U.S. President Barack Obama signs an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp; congressional opposition will prevent it being implemented (2009).
• January 22 is the birthday of soldier/writer/explorer Walter Raleigh (1552), philosopher/politician Francis Bacon (1561), poet John Donne (1573), sailor/pirate William Kidd (1645), poet Lord Byron (1788), philanthropist Edward Harkness (1874), director D. W. Griffith (1875), SCOTUS chief justice/politician Fred M. Vinson (1890), actress Piper Laurie (1932), actor Bill Bixby (1934), actor John Hurt (1940), impresario Malcolm McLaren (1946), singer-songwriter Steve Perry (1949), director Jim Jarmusch (1953), NHL player Mike Bossy (1957), actress Linda Blair (1959), singer-songwriter Michael Hutchence (1960), DJ/producer DJ Jazzy Jeff (1965), actress Diane Lane (1965), chef Guy Fieri (1968), actress/singer Olivia d’Abo (1969), NFL player Ray Rice (1987), NBA player Dillon Brooks (1996), and WNBA player Caitlin Clark (2002).

If you didn’t see my earlier couple of notices, here it is again: I’ll be working a business event for the next few days, and definitely will not have time to write these news bullets in the morning… or any other time. You’re on your own until I return on Sunday, but I trust that you’ll stay alert and informed… and awake. Enjoy your day.