Random News: February 20, 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 20, 2025, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Let’s see what’s going on while we still can.

• Yesterday, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that they will not allow the Dump administration to end birthright citizenship for certain children of immigrants.
• Their ruling is almost certain to propel the issue to the Supreme Court.
• The appeals court declined an emergency Justice Department request that it lift the hold a Seattle judge had placed blocking implementation of Dumpy’s executive order, after concluding the order ran afoul of the Constitution.
• In case you’re wondering, the 9th Circuit panel is made up of a Dump appointee, a Jimmy Carter appointee, and a George W. Bush appointee. They said that a closer review of the case will move forward in its court, with arguments slated for June.
• For decades, under an 1868 constitutional amendment and a statute that preceded it, citizenship has been extended to anyone born on US soil, regardless of the immigration status of their parents.
• Dump is seeking to end birthright citizenship for children whose parents are either undocumented or are lawfully present in the United States on temporary visas.
• Judge Danielle Forrest, a Dump appointee, wrote that she had voted against Dumples because he had not shown that there was an “emergency” requiring an immediate intervention of the court.
• Agreed.
• Moving on.
• I suppose we should cover that idiot’s tidal wave of lies in regard to Ukraine.
• And all of those lies are talking points from the Kremlin and his pal Vladimir Putin.
• Let’s start at the start.
• Dumpy said that Ukraine “never should have started” their war with Russia.
• Truth: Russia’s army crossed the border on February 24, 2022, in an all-out invasion that Putin sought to justify by falsely saying it was needed to prevent the country from joining NATO.
• Dumpy said, “The leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating."
• Truth: Zelenskyy retains a fairly high level of public trust with an approval rating at about 57 percent — much higher than Dumpy has in the USA.
• Dumpy said that millions of Ukrainians had been killed. Side note: Dumpy has no understanding of numbers, so that’s to be expected.
• In fact, this quote is so hilariously wrong, I’ll reprint it: “When you see what’s taken place in Ukraine with millions of people killed, including the soldiers, millions of people killed, a big percentage of their cities knocked down to the ground, I don’t know how anybody even lives there.”
• Wow, okay. Truth: over 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the start of the full-scale war in February 2022, along tens of thousands of civilians killed by Russians in occupied areas of Ukraine.
• It’s terrible… but yes Dumpy, people still do live in the rather large country of Ukraine.
• I hate quoting that fool. Let’s move on.
• Once again, president Musk and his little band of Nazi Youth have made a major error that will impact American citizens.
• You already know that they fired a bunch of people who were in charge of maintaining our nuclear arsenal. They got rid of them, shut down their work email, and now have no way of contacting them to rehire them.
• Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it is trying to rehire bird flu experts that the agency accidentally fired as part of its efforts to cut costs based on recommendations from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. 
• "Although several positions supporting [highly pathogenic avian influenza] were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters," the USDA said in a statement. 
• Since the H5N1 strain of the bird flu began spreading in the U.S. in 2022, about 148 million birds have been euthanized to prevent additional infections, which has caused egg prices to spike.
• In March 2024, the illness was found in dairy cows for the first time, while almost 70 human cases have been identified, mostly in dairy and poultry workers, including one fatality.
• And now we have even less people to try and stop this disease before it gets worse.
• Thanks President Musk.
• While we’re on that topic…
• After repeated delays, Musk’s DOGE released a "wall of receipts" — what it characterized as documentation of the money saved by the slashing cuts to jobs and contracts pushed by Team Elon. 
• But the initial accounting was overstated by billions of dollars. that’s billions with a “B.“
• Among the errors were contracts that DOGE identified for cuts, saying the move could save billions for taxpayers. But they were actually standard government funding vehicles called "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity" contracts. The DOGE team misread these specialized contracts, and as a result overstated their push for savings by as much as $1.96 billion.
• A closer inspection of another big so-called savings: the cancellation of a contract DOGE identified as worth $8 billion was in fact worth only $8 million.
• This single mistake alone slashed the receipts of savings DOGE said it had identified in half — to $8.4 billion.
• A reminder for those who didn’t study math… a billion is a THOUSAND TIMES a million. So they were off by a factor of a fucking thousand.
• Morons.
• Moving on to what some of us might consider some good news, all things considered.
• An asteroid gaining notoriety for its potential to collide with Earth in 2032 now has roughly a 3% chance of striking our planet — the highest probability ever assigned — according to NASA and the European Space Agency.
• Risks of the massive space rock known as 2024 YR4 — which falls into the "city killer" category — actually making impact have steadily increased since it was first discovered last December.
• There is currently a 3.1% chance the asteroid will hit Earth on December 22, 2032, during a fleeting window of time in which the rock's orbit around the sun intersects the path of the planet.
• I know where I’d like it to impact, if it must.
• Let’s move on to some general observations about the people who are responsible for our country falling into a fascist dystopia — namely, those who supported Dumples the Clown and his boss Elon Musk in the 2024 election.
• I saw a lot of activity from Latinos for Trump. Now your families are being deported and the citizenship of your children who are born in the USA is being endangered.
• There were plenty of Farmers for Trump. You've now lost 2 billion for USAID, and lost much more than that via food exports, and some of your crops are rotting on the vine due to a lack of undocumented workers you formerly hired to work the fields. 
• Police Unions for Trump? Dumpy immediately released hundreds of people who killed and assaulted your fellow cops during the January 6 coup attempt.
• Blacks for Trump are now being told they were only hired based on the color off their skin via DEI policies, and now are facing legal discrimination in hiring and school admission.
• How about those Women for Trump? Your reproductive autonomy is being taken away, and pretty soon your right to vote, have your own bank account, be able to own a business, or even have a credit card in your name without a man co-signing will all go away.
• How about the Muslim protest voters for Trump? Congrats, Gaza will have hotel resorts built on top of the mass graves of your compatriots. And the Palestine people will not be allowed to remain there.
• Gays for Trump? The MAGA world is working overtime to rescind the rights from Obergefell v Hodges, meaning that same-sex marriage is heading back toward being illegal, and soon sodomy laws may make your very existence illegal.
• And then there’s everyone else dealing with skyrocketing costs of living, job insecurity, investment account losses, workplace safety diminishing, education budgets being slashed or removed entirely…  
• Anyway, that’s what you voted for. That’s what you get. Don’t be all sad now that what they said would happen… is happening.
• Let’s move on.
• You may have noted the other day when I reported about Andrew Lester, the 86-year-old Missouri man who shot a Black honor student in the face for knocking on the wrong door and pleaded guilty.
• I opined he should die in prison, but that won’t happen. He died yesterday instead.
• Then-16-year-old Ralph Yarl survived the pointless attack and is now a freshman at Texas A&M. Lester was scheduled to be sentenced on March 7, facing up to seven years of imprisonment for his crime.
• No need now.
• And now, The Weather: “Focus” by Preoccupations
• An honorable salute to the most decorated dog in U.S. history.
• Hurricane, a Belgian Malinois who served as a Special Operations Canine for the Secret Service from 2012 to 2016, passed away this week. He was 16.
• This heroic doggy worked for the Secret Service during President Obama's second term.
• In October 2014, a fence jumper breached the perimeter to trespass on White House grounds. Then he met Hurricane, who did exactly as he was trained to do.
• He was awarded the USSS Award for Merit, the DHS Award for Valor, the PDSA Order of Merit, and several other honors, including being the first dog in history to receive the Animals in War and Peace Distinguished Service Medal in 2022.
• Hurricane was medically retired from service in 2016 after sustaining injuries during the White House incident. He lived peacefully for the rest of life with his handler and owner.
• After this outstanding doggo’s retirement, his handler founded Hurricane's Heroes, a nonprofit organization aimed at providing subsidized veterinary care for retired law enforcement and military dogs in their later years.
• Hats off to an American legend.
• From the Sports Desk… the 4 Nations Face-Off is a new international hockey tournament. It brings together the best talent from Canada, Finland, Sweden, and the United States.
• From what I can tell, it’s been pretty exciting and well received. The first game between the two North American teams featured three fights in the first nine seconds of play, and was heralded by many players as one of the most intense games they had played in in their careers.
• Tonight is the final, with the US and Canada going for the top spot. 
• If ticket prices are any indication of public interest, the average listed price for tonight’s 4 Nations Face-Off championship game has skyrocketed by 137% since USA and Canada first faced off on February 15, jumping from $990 on that day to $2,350 yesterday.
• Today in history… Juan Ponce de León sets out from Spain for Florida with about 200 prospective colonists (1521). Edward VI of England is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey (1547). The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by United States President George Washington (1792). Rossini's opera ‘The Barber of Seville’ premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome (1816). The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City (1872). Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (1877). The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Massachusetts's mandatory smallpox vaccination program in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905). The U.S. Congress approves the construction of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California (1931). American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies (1943). While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes (1962). The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft (1986). During a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island, a pyrotechnics display sets the Station nightclub ablaze, killing 100 and injuring over 200 others (2003).
• February 20 is the birthday of admiral/politician William Cornwallis (1744), physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844), race car driver/entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari (1898), photographer/environmentalist Ansel Adams (1902), actor Gale Gordon (1906), fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt (1924), film director Robert Altman (1925), actor Sidney Poitier (1927), race car driver/businessman Roger Penske (1937), singer Nancy Wilson (1937), singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie (1941), NHL player Phil Esposito (1942), politician Mitch McConnell (1942), actress Sandy Duncan (1946), songwriter/guitarist J. Geils (1946), songwriter/guitarist Walter Becker (1950), songwriter/guitarist Randy California (1951), songwriter/guitarist Poison Ivy (1953), author Patty Hearst (1954), NBA legend Charles Barkley (1963), model/businesswoman Cindy Crawford (1966), singer-songwriter/guitarist Kurt Cobain (1967), actress Lili Taylor (1967), NBA player Stephon Marbury (1977), comedian/TV host Trevor Noah (1984), singer-songwriter Rihanna (1988), and singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo (2003).

That’s it for now. Enjoy your day.