Random News: February 14, 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 February 14, 2025, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I’m grateful to be heading into a weekend. I like those.

• Happy Valentine’s Day to all who celebrate.
• If you think of today as a celebration of love, then anyone and everyone can participate.
• Love is the unselfish, loyal, and benevolent concern for the good of another. That sentiment can be applicable in many ways.
• In fact, I’d say that this broad definition of love is the most important of all.
• You don’t need to be in some formal relationship to experience love, or to give love. And your love can be shown in ways that go far beyond buying a heart-shaped box of candy every February 14 (though that’s nice too).
• I write this daily column out of my love for my fellow humans and other inhabitants of this little planet.
• If I didn’t give a shit about you, I certainly wouldn’t bother.
• So again, happy Valentine’s, and I love you.
• Let’s do some news.
• As usual, my focus is on the roadblocks preventing — or at least delaying — the USA from becoming a dystopian nightmare of a fascist dictatorship.
• Yesterday a federal judge temporarily blocked Dumpy the Dick’s recent executive order aimed at restricting gender-affirming health care for transgender people under age 19.
• His ruling came after a lawsuit was filed earlier this month on behalf of families with transgender or nonbinary children who allege their health care has already been compromised. 
• Judge Brendan Hurson granted the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order following a hearing in federal court in Baltimore. The restraining order, which lasts 14 days but could be extended, essentially puts Dump’s directive on hold while the case proceeds.
• The restraining order is nationwide in scope and will apply to institutions across the country. Attorneys for the government didn’t indicate whether they plan to appeal it.
• But I’d imagine they will, just to be cruel.
• But wait… there’s more.
• Yesterday a federal judge ordered the Dump administration to reinstate funding for foreign aid contracts and other awards while litigation moves forward, delivering yet another setback for the Creamsicle Criminal as he seeks to make sweeping changes to the federal government.  
• U.S. District Judge Amir Ali partially granted a request for a temporary restraining order from a group of organizations that receive funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, and other agencies, but have since been cut off from federal dollars or had to suspend their work in the wake of Dump's executive action ordering a 90-day pause on foreign development aid.
• The nonprofit organizations argued that Dumpy's directive and a subsequent memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued late last month — which temporarily stopped new obligations of funding for foreign assistance programs and called for stop-work orders — was an unlawful and unconstitutional exercise of executive power.
• I agree. Fuck those guys and their boss, Elon Musk.
• But wait… there’s still more. 
• Yesterday, fourteen states sued Elon Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Dump, arguing that Elmo’s sweeping efforts to cut government spending are unconstitutional.
• Note: they’re right.
• The coalition of states, led by New Mexico, alleges that Musk’s expansive role as the head of DOGE violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution given that he has not been confirmed by the Senate. 
• The states — Arizona, Michigan, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington in addition to New Mexico — are asking the court to bar Musk and his DOGE team from taking a wide range of actions. 
• They seek to prevent the Tesla CEO and his aides from making changes to the disbursement of public funds, government contracts, regulations or personnel, as well as receiving access to or altering data systems.
• Get his dorky ass.
• Moving on.
• Three senior federal prosecutors resigned yesterday in connection with the department's shady decision to drop the criminal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
• Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned. She’d appointed interim U.S. attorney by the Dump administration literally last month in January.
• Fucking chaos is all they create.
• In other news…
• The Dumpster doubled down on his insane plans for new reciprocal tariffs that could ignite a global trade war and add to America’s rebounding inflation problem.
• If you need a refresher, it’s the US-based importers who pay the tariffs, who pass the costs on to retailers, which then raise prices for consumers.
• The Wall Street Journal editorial board snarkily asked: “Does President Trump understand money?”
• No. No, he doesn’t.
• He also doesn’t understand people, as evidenced by his choice of the person to oversee Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, respond to epidemics and approve of vaccines.
• Yesterday morning, the Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., anti-vaccine activist, as secretary of health and human services in a 52-48 vote. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined all Democrats in opposition.
• Both Republican and Democratic senators confronted Kennedy about his past anti-vaccine statements, including his belief in the debunked link between autism and vaccines. His mixed signals on abortion rights were also a subject of the questioning.
• But McConnell — because he’s retiring and not seeking reelection — was the only member of the GOP to vote against this guy RFK Jr., who was a former heroin dealer and whose brain was literally partially eaten by a parasitic worm.
• That’s the kind of guy Dump likes. A fucking wormy drug-dealing nepo baby.
• Moving on.
• New York Gov. Kathy Hochul rejected a request to extradite a doctor who was charged with prescribing abortion pills online to a Louisiana resident last month.
• ”I will not be signing an extradition order that came from the governor of Louisiana, not now, not ever,” Hochul said yesterday after her office received the order for the abortion provider, Dr. Margaret Carpenter.
• A grand jury in West Baton Rouge Parish District Court indicted Carpenter last month along with her company, Nightingale Medical, and the Louisiana mother who ordered the pills online for her child, a pregnant minor. All three were charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony.
• Fuck off, you Louisiana cousin fuckers. Go smoke some more meth.
• In other news…
• More than one million Igloo rolling coolers sold nationwide by retailers including Amazon, Costco, and Target are being recalled after a dozen reports of fingertip injuries, including amputations.
• Yikes!
• The tow handle on the Igloo 90-quart Flip & Tow rolling coolers can pinch users' fingertips, posing amputation and crushing hazards. Katy, TX-based Igloo Products Corp has received 12 reports of fingertip injuries, including amputations, bone fractures, and lacerations.
• Lordy.
• Let’s move on to some more Dump/Musk fuckery.
• The State Department planned to spend $400 million over the next five years on a contract to build armored electric vehicles… with Tesla.
• The lucrative contract — which is projected to be awarded in September — was published on the State Department’s website in accordance with transparency laws aimed at boosting competition in the government’s procurement process, but was amended Wednesday to not show Tesla as the manufacturer.
• Yup, the document was updated to omit any reference to Tesla, changing the “Armored Tesla” contract to one for “Armored Electric Vehicles,” although the contract’s $400 million value remained the same.
• In an extreme example of hypocrisy, just this past Tuesday, Elmo was speaking in the Oval Office - -an appropriate place for the real president — and said that, “Transparency is what builds trust,” in response to a reporter’s question on whether he would disclose any potential conflicts of interest that arose from his role.
• And then the Dumpster — Musk’s whipping boy — vowed to prevent Musk from playing a role in any area of government business that intersects with one of his companies. “If we thought that, we would not let him do that,” Dump said.
• Lying liars who lie.
• And now, The Weather: “Black Hole” by Sofia Bolt
• From the Sports Desk… it's official: the Aaron Rodgers era with the New York Jets is over.
• Two years after welcoming him with a large-scale news conference, the Jets said goodbye to Rodgers yesterday with a news release.
• Rodgers is 41 years old. His tenure with the Jets produced almost no on-field success. He won only six of his 18 starts, and the Jets sputtered to a 5-12 record in 2024.
• It’s too bad that guy managed to destroy what would have been a great legacy. Will he try and remain a QB in the NFL? Will he take a broadcast job? Will he go to work for Dumpy? Any of the above is possible.
• Today in history… Several hundred Jews are burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews are forcibly removed from Strasbourg (1349). The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones (1778). James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii (1779). In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken (1849). Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state (1859). Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray (1876). Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections (1899). Arizona is admitted as the 48th and the last contiguous U.S. state (1912). The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changes its name to International Business Machines Corporation, aka IBM (1924). Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone's gang, are murdered in Chicago (1929). The British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden (1945). The Knesset (parliament of Israel) convenes for the first time (1949). Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California (1961). Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster (1989). The Voyager 1 spacecraft takes the photograph of planet Earth that later becomes famous as ‘Pale Blue Dot’ (1990). YouTube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world (2005). A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 17 injuries (2018).
• February 14 is the birthday of painter/poet/philosopher Leon Battista Alberti (1404), composer Francesco Cavalli (1602), composer Georg Friedrich Kauffmann (1679), businesswoman Lydia Hamilton Smith (1813), journalist/politician/inventor Christopher Latham Sholes (1819), soldier/drummer Julian Scott (1846), engineer George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (1859), actor John Barrymore (1882), actor Jack Benny (1894), union leader Jimmy Hoffa (1913), journalist Hugh Downs (1921), actor Vic Morrow (1929), actress Florence Henderson (1934), politician Donna Shalala (1941), businessman/politician Michael Bloomberg (1942), actor Andrew Robinson (1942), saxophonist Maceo Parker (1943), journalist Carl Bernstein (1944), film director Alan Parker (1944), actor/dancer Gregory Hines (1946), singer-songwriter Tim Buckley (1947), guitarist Roger Fisher (1950), journalist Terry Gross (1951), NFL player Jim Kelly (1960), actor/director/producer Simon Pegg (1970), NFL player Drew Bledsoe (1972), singer-songwriter Rob Thomas (1972), NFL player Steve McNair (1973), and NBA player Richard Hamilton (1978).

No matter who you love, I hope you get some love in return on this day. If you can’t find anyone to love you, hit me up. I always have extra love. Enjoy your day.