Random News: February 17, 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 17, 2025, and it’s a Monday. It’s also a national holiday in the USA called Presidents’ Day.

• Fun Fact: at the federal level, it’s not called Presidents’ Day. It’s still officially named Washington's Birthday.
• It is celebrated on the third Monday of February.
• I’ll ask the same question I do each year: how does one celebrate Presidents’ Day?
• What cultural activities are associated with the holiday? What foods are eaten? What clothing is worn?
• Got nothing? That’s okay. No one knows how you’re supposed to celebrate this holiday.
• The one and only thing Presidents’ Day is known for is discounts for big ticket items such as appliances, furniture, and mattresses.
• Why? Retailers are trying to clear their inventory and taking advantage of tax season.
• This is just a bullshit day. Happy for you if you can relax and enjoy it, of course. I work for myself; I rarely give myself days off despite any holiday with the exception of the ones that matter to me and my family.
• Let’s do some news.
• It’s looking like something we anticipated over the weekend is coming to fruition.
• Dumples the Clown wants the Supreme Court to permit the firing of the head of the federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers.
• This will mark the first appeal to the justices since Dumpy took office.
• And yes… the emergency appeal is the start of what probably will be a steady stream from lawyers for the Dump Gang seeking to undo lower court rulings that have slowed his second term agenda.
• They are starting by asking the far-right court to lift a judge’s court order temporarily reinstating Hampton Dellinger as the leader of the Office of Special Counsel.
• Dellinger has argued that the law says he can only be dismissed for problems with the performance of his job, none of which were cited in the email dismissing him.
• And now we’ll get an idea of how much the SCOTUS is willing to go along with Dumpy’s MAGA plan to ruin democracy and the USA.
• The case is not expected to be docketed until after the Supreme Court returns from the Presidents Day holiday weekend. The justices would not act until Tuesday at the earliest.
• So we’ll wait and see.
• Let’s move on.
• Elon Musk’s bullshit DOGE Service is seeking access to a heavily guarded Internal Revenue Service system that includes detailed financial information about every taxpayer, business, and nonprofit in the country.
• I’ll remind you that DOGE is something Elon made up, and includes no one who was elected by any American, and is accountable to no one in our government and has no Congressional oversight.
• And that guy is getting access to all of your most personal financial info to do whatever he wants with.
• Under pressure from the White House, the IRS is considering a memorandum of understanding that would give Elon’s little minions from DOGE — which stands for Department of Government Efficiency — broad access to tax-agency systems, property and datasets. 
• Among them is the Integrated Data Retrieval System, or IDRS, which enables tax agency employees to access IRS accounts — including personal identification numbers — and bank information. It also lets them enter and adjust transaction data and automatically generate notices, collection documents, and other records.
• Just to put this in perspective… IDRS access is extremely limited. Any taxpayer who’s had their information wrongfully disclosed or even inspected are entitled by law to monetary damages. Even IRS commissioners traditionally do not have IDRS access.
• And now some kid working for Elmo can pull up all of your info whenever he feels like it, for no reason, and you can’t do shit.
• Is that what you wanted when you voted for Dumpy?
• Moving on.
• No, wait.
• As I mentioned earlier, it’s important to note that DOGE has already been at the root of a major embarrassing fuckup for Dumpy that places our entire national security at major risk.
• Dump has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs who were accidentally fired by Elmo and DOGE.
• Up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration were abruptly laid off late Thursday, with some losing access to email before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning to find they were locked out.
• One of the hardest hit offices was the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX, which saw about 30% of the cuts. Those employees work on reassembling warheads, one of the most sensitive jobs across the nuclear weapons enterprise, with the highest levels of clearance.
• And now they can’t even get in touch with them to re-hire them.
• Let’s do one more story of the dismantling of our government and the effect on our civilian population.
• Again with the advice of Elon Musk, Dump has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, upending staff on a busy air travel weekend and just weeks after a January fatal mid-air collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
• The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing, and navigational aid maintenance.
• The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a brief statement this morning it was “analyzing the effect of the reported federal employee terminations on aviation safety, the national airspace system and our members.”
• Look…
• When you’re dead, don’t blame me. I told you all this shit was going to happen and then told you it was happening while it happened.
• Okay, let’s move on.
• Let’s talk about the immigrants who are being sent to Guantánamo Bay.
• Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said they were “the worst of the worst.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called them “high-threat” criminals who had crossed the border to bring “violence and mayhem to our communities.”
• Officials put them in a prison on the U.S. naval station in Cuba created for suspected terrorists after 9/11.
• So who are they?
• In one image is a man with his head bent as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer holds the back of his collar. Relatives have identified him as Luis Alberto Castillo.
• In another photo, a bearded man stands in front of a plane and its unfurled ramp. Tilso Gómez’s family says that is him.
• All three men were taken into custody after crossing the southern border — not during a targeted immigration operation in a U.S. city or at a jail or prison while serving a sentence.
• There are no violent federal criminal records for Castillo and Gómez.
• ICE has now sent at least nine planes carrying migrants to Guantánamo. As of Friday, 126 migrants were detained at the naval station, according to a Defense Department official. Dump wants troops to prepare to house as many as 30,000 more.
• It’s a concentration camp. Call it what it is.
• I’ll remind you that Jews, gays, Gypsies, intellectuals, and other non-desirable people were also falsely demonized as criminals when they were being rounded up and sent to places like Auschwitz in the 1930s and ‘40s.
• Let’s just move on.
• In entertainment news, a lot of people watched the 50th anniversary special for ‘Saturday Night Live’ last night.
• I checked out some of it. It seemed like they took every celebrity who ever had any association with the show, from actors to musicians to athletes and more, and made sure everyone got at least a few seconds of screen time.
• The result was kind of sprawling and disjointed, but for fans of the show, there were also a lot of throwbacks to favorite sketches over the years.
• I enjoy SNL. That’s very white of me, I know. The “Black Jeopardy” sketch even pointed this out very firmly. But I’ve liked it since I was a kid, and every Sunday morning, it’s become a tradition here to watch the cold open and a few sketches from the previous night’s show via YouTube.
• And now, The Weather: “Bigger Pieces” by Helena Deland
• From the Sports Desk… the NBA had their All-Star weekend.
• I didn’t watch it. It just looked silly to me. I’ll go back and check out the slam dunk contest at some point.
• Today in history… Myles Standish is appointed as first military commander of the English Plymouth Colony in North America (1621). A tie in the Electoral College between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives (1801). The United States House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise for the first time (1819). A group of citizens of Geneva found an International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross (1863). Columbia, South Carolina, is burned as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces (1865). The Armory Show opens in New York City, displaying works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century (1913). Chaim Weizmann begins his term as the first President of Israel (1949). Cumulative sales of the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model T (1972). World champion Garry Kasparov beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match (1996). Kosovo declares independence from Serbia (2008). Libyan protests against Muammar Gaddafi's regime begin (2011).
• February 17 is the birthday of Chinese empress Wu Zetian (624), astronomer Tobias Mayer (1723), businessman Aaron Montgomery Ward (1843), physicist Otto Stern (1888), singer-songwriter Tommy Edwards (1922), actor Hal Holbrook (1925), NFL coach Buddy Ryan (1931), model/actress Mary Ann Mobley (1937), activist Huey P. Newton (1942), actor Lou Diamond Phillips (1962), NBA player Michael Jordan (1963), NHL player Luc Robitaille (1966), model/actress Denise Richards (1971), singer-songwriter/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong (1972), singer-songwriter/drummer Taylor Hawkins (1972), actor Jerry O’Connell (1974), actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (1981), socialite/businesswoman Paris Hilton (1981), NBA player Marcin Gortat (1984), and singer-songwriter/guitarist Ed Sheeran (1991). 

Time for me to go work out, and then work. Enjoy your day.