Random News: February 21, 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 21, 2025, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I’m short on time this morning, so let’s jump in and cram together whatever news strikes our respective fancy.

• Something worth pointing out…
• Elon Musk’s DOGE group has carried out mass worker firings at…
• The FAA, which oversees his company SpaceX.
• The FDA, which oversees his company Neuralink.
• USAID, which probed his company Starlink.
• The CFPB, which oversees his company’s Tesla's financing arm as well as a potential payment platform on his social media platform X.
• To say that there’s a conflict of interest here is understating it to the highest order. No other entity in the history of the country has been gifted that kind of leeway to do whatever the fuck they want at the expense of everyone else.
• Let’s move on.
• Early this morning, Senate Republicans took a major step to advance Dump’s sweeping agenda. They voted to adopt a budget blueprint that sets up a clash with House Republicans, who have put forward a competing plan.
• The final vote came after a rare overnight work session for the Senate that started yesterday evening and stretched into the early hours of the next day, wrapping up close to 5 am ET this morning. The final tally was 52 to 48, with GOP Sen. Rand Paul joining Democrats to oppose the resolution.
• During the late-night session, Democrats attempted to force tough votes for Republicans over a slate of contentious issues, including the war in Ukraine, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and protecting Medicare and Medicaid from cuts as Republicans seek to enact Trump’s legislative priorities.
• But Dumples the Clown has endorsed a competing plan from House Republicans that is more expansive. Dumpy's version of the bill that would include trillions of dollars in tax cuts for wealthy people.
• Even if the House and Senate achieve agreement over the budget blueprint, the process of drafting the text of actual legislation is likely to be contentious and involve painstaking negotiations that could stretch over months.
• So, guess we’ll see.
• But before we move on…
• The House’s version of the budget plan to advance Dump’s agenda will result in steep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps.
• And that puts some of those Republicans in a tough spot… appease Dump, or kill many of their constituents who put them in office.
• There are a number of House Republicans who represent parts of the country where sizable shares of the populations receive government assistance from Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
• The lawmakers from the 10 GOP-held districts with the highest percentages of Medicaid or SNAP beneficiaries include members from deep-red districts, such as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), as well as those in competitive battlegrounds, such as Reps. David Valadao (R-CA), Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), and Monica De La Cruz (R-TX).
• I’m sure they’ll choose Dump over their voters.
• Now let’s move on.
• As we’ve mentioned many times, everything Dump attempts ends in abject failure. The latest example: his desire to bring down our ally Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• It’s just a few days before the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The mood in the country is somber with support from the USA fading and Dump becoming a willing tool of their enemy, Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin.
• However, after Dump’s provably false claims this week that Ukraine is led by a “dictator” who started the war with Russia, even some Zelenskyy’s harshest critics have rallied around him and feelings of unity have surged again.
• “We may have different opinions about Zelenskyy, but only Ukrainian citizens have the right to judge his support,” said Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker from the opposition party Holos. “And to publicly criticize him too, because, in the end, he is our elected leader.”
• Correct.
• Yesterday, the deepening tensions due to Dump’s barrage of lies led to the cancelation of a news conference that had been planned to follow talks between Zelenskyy and Trump’s Ukraine envoy over how to end the war.
• A poll released Wednesday shows public trust in Zelenskyy at 57%. By trying to bring him down, Dump has made him more popular than ever.
• Seems about right. Dumpy is a failure.
• Let’s move on.
• A quick mention of the next asshole move by the Dumpster: he’s taking over the USPS.
• Dumpy is preparing to dissolve the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service and absorb the independent mail agency into his administration, potentially throwing the 250-year-old mail provider and trillions of dollars of e-commerce transactions into turmoil.
• He’s going to — via executive order, as usual — fire the members of the Postal Service’s governing board and place the agency under the control of the Commerce Department.
• The board is planning to fight Dump’s order. In an emergency meeting yesterday, the board retained outside counsel and gave instructions to sue the White House if Dumpy follows through on his latest bullshit.
• Like many of his sweeping plans, Dump’s order to place the Commerce Department in charge of the Postal Service would likely violate federal law.
• In other news…
• You know those assholes who were pardoned after beating and killing cops and smearing their own shit on the walls of our nation’s Capitol January 6, 2021?
• Yeah, they’re going to pardon them even further.
• The Department of Justice has widened the scope of Dumpy's pardons for Jan. 6 defendants to include separate but related gun charges. The charges stemmed from FBI searches executed during the sprawling investigation into the failed coup attempt, which turned up evidence of other crimes not directly connected to the Capitol breach.
• In legal filings this week, federal prosecutors asked judges to dismiss cases against two former January 6 defendants, who had both faced federal gun charges.
• If you can’t tell what’s happening here, let me spell it out: Dump wants to show that not only will those people not face accountability for their actions; he wants them to be rewarded.
• So that’s where we live now. A country of lawlessness.
• And if that’s what they want, well… it can go both ways, ya know?
• And now, The Weather: “Not A Phase” by Communions
• Let’s do a chart
• It’s 50 years ago today in February 1975. I am five years old. We’re still living in Marblehead, MA, but that summer, my family will move to Southern California, where I’ll remain for the subsequent five decades (or more).
• Here’s the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart at the time. My parents had a lot of these.
• 1. AWB (Average White Band). 2. Blood On The Tracks (Bob Dylan). 3. Heart Like A Wheel (Linda Ronstadt). 4. Miles Of Aisles (Joni Mitchell). 5. War Child (Jethro Tull). 6. Do It 'til You're Satisfied (B.T. Express). 7. Empty Sky (Elton John). 8. Rufusized (Rufus And Chaka Khan). 9. Barry Manilow II (Barry Manilow). 10. All The Girls In The World Beware!!! (Grand Funk Railroad). 11. Dark Horse (George Harrison). 12. Phoebe Snow (Phoebe Snow). 13. What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits (The Doobie Brothers). 14. Fire (Ohio Players). 15. Joy To The World-Their Greatest Hits (Three Dog Night). 16. Prime Time (Tony Orlando & Dawn). 17. So What (Joe Walsh). 18. Souvenirs (Dan Fogelberg). 19. Perfect Angel (Minnie Riperton). 20. It'll Shine When It Shines (Ozark Mountain Daredevils).
• From the Sports Desk… in a thrilling finish, Connor McDavid scored at 8:18 of overtime to give Canada a 3-2 victory over the United States last night to win the 4 Nations Face-Off.
• The tournament, which had been set up a tuneup for the 2026 Olympics, into a geopolitical brawl over anthems and annexation as much as international hockey supremacy.
• The US might have won, but Dump put up a post predicting their victory.
• And — repeat after me — everything Dump touches dies.
• Today in history… A force of 1,400 French soldiers invade Britain at Fishguard in support of the Society of United Irishmen and are defeated by 500 British reservists (1797). John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine (1842). Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish ‘The Communist Manifesto’ (1848). The first telephone directory is issued in New Haven, CT (1878). The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated (1895). The New Yorker publishes its first issue (1925). In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America (1947). The peace symbol, commissioned in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom (1958). Malcolm X is gunned down while giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem (1965). United States President Richard Nixon visits China to normalize Sino-American relations (1972). The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal pursuant to a truce with Egypt (1974). Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison in the Watergate scandal (1975). Russian President Vladimir Putin declares the Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic as independent from Ukraine, and moves troops into the region, an action condemned by the United Nations (2022).
• February 21 is the birthday of executed accused witch Rebecca Nurse (1621), scientist/inventor Francis Ronalds (1788), Mexico president Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794), guitarist Andrés Segovia (1893), essayist//novelist/diarist Anaïs Nin (1903), poet W. H. Auden (1907), computer scientist Thelma Estrin (1924), film director Sam Peckinpah (1925), journalist/humorist Erma Bombeck (1927), singer-songwriter Nina Simone (1933), actress Rue McClanahan (1934), businessman David Geffen (1943), actress Tyne Daly (1946), actor Alan Rickman (1946), guitarist/songwriter/producer Jerry Harrison (1949), keyboardist Vince Welnick (1951), actor Kelsey Grammer (1955), novelist Chuck Palahniuk (1962), singer-songwriter Ranking Roger (1963), NBA player Steve Francis (1977), actress Jennifer Love Hewitt (1979), actor/filmmaker Jordan Peele (1979), singer-songwriter Charlotte Church (1986), actor Elliot Page (1987), and actress Sophie Turner (1996).

There… that’s plenty of news for now. Hey, it’s Friday! I’m gonna do Friday things. Enjoy your day.