Random News: February 4, 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 4, 2025, and it’s a Tuesday. I have a busy day ahead, with a bunch of work and meetings, and then a live music show tonight. Let’s get this party started.

• If you haven’t figured it out by now, Dumpy’s game plan couldn’t be more obvious.
• All he does is sow chaos and disorder, purposefully instilling fear and panic.
• And the reality is, just like in his first term, he’s incompetent and  paints himself into a corner, opening himself to be easily manipulated by smarter governmental leaders both foreign and domestic.
• Case in point: his tariffs (aka taxes on the American people) against Mexico and Canada that were supposed to go into effect today… do not.
• Yesterday Dumples the Chaos Clown was forced to take a 30-day pause on his tariff threats against Mexico and Canada as America’s two largest trading partners took steps to make him believe they are appeasing his concerns about border security and drug trafficking.
• The pauses provide a cool-down period after a tumultuous few days that put North America on the cusp of a trade war that risked crushing economic growth, causing prices to soar and ending two of the United States’ most critical partnerships.
• Oh, and the stock market damn near crashed because of this fucking moron. I promise you, his wealthy friends will yank on his chain when he starts fucking with their money.
• Let’s move on to some news of the system pushing back against the wannabe fascist.
• Yesterday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. issued a temporary restraining order against a Dump’s effort to freeze funding for federal grants and other programs.
• The order by U.S. Judge Loren AliKhan comes in response to a memo released by the Office of Management and Budget last week directing the funding pause. The memo spurred a legal challenge from a group of nonprofits, prompting the judge to initially order a temporary stay. 
• The temporary restraining order expands the scope of the initial pause the court put in place last week, just as the funding freeze was set to take effect.
• Good.
• The restraining order also directs the OMB — which is part of the executive branch — to provide the court with a status report on its compliance by Friday. The judge also noted that any open awards that were previously frozen must be released.
• Do NOT obey this fucking clown. We have laws and we will make full use every one of those options until we have to take more drastic steps.
• This piece of shit does not win this thing.
• Let’s move on.
• Speaking of shitty people…
• Elon Musk is rapidly consolidating control over large swaths of the federal government with Dumpy’s blessing, sidelining career officials, gaining access to sensitive databases, and dismantling a leading source of humanitarian assistance.
• None of this is happening with congressional approval, inviting a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority.
• Musk has now been named as a “special government employee”, which subjects him to less stringent rules on ethics and financial disclosures than other workers.
• And of course, one aspect that will be somewhat helpful is Dumpy’s jealousy over Mucky. “Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” Dump told reporters in the Oval Office yesterday.
• Muck’s race to take control of crucial federal agencies and functions — and to dismantle some of them virtually overnight — has violated the Privacy Act and cybersecurity laws.
• The Musk-led effort to gain entry into Treasury’s huge payment database drew a lawsuit yesterday from two major federal employee unions.
• The suit filed yesterday in federal court in Washington by the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union argues that the Dump administration is breaching the Privacy Act of 1974 by sharing payment information with members of the DOGE team.
• Other lawyers said DOGE’s access violates cybersecurity-related laws, like the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2002.
• So that’s happening. Remember kids, it’s not just liberal voters getting hurt here; it’s all of us.
• You’ll soon see.
• Moving on.
• Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Dumpy at the White House. Bibi is the first world leader to meet Dump since the inauguration two weeks ago.
• They say the meeting is about a second phase of a ceasefire deal that would end the war with Hamas and return all Israeli hostages from captivity in Gaza. Also on the table: a deal to open Israel's diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
• Those don’t seem like bad things on the surface. But I have my suspicions that nothing that happens in these talks will actually be to the benefit of the people in Gaza.
• Quite the opposite, in fact.
• Here’s a side effect of the anti-immigration ideology of Dumpy that we could have predicted.
• A South Carolina man who was seen in a disturbing video confronting a Latino man in a pickup truck and telling him he was going to be sent back to Mexico has been arrested on charges that include impersonating an ICE officer.
• The arrest was followed by a similar case the next day at Temple University, where a 22-year-old man and two other people were accused of falsely identifying themselves as officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• Sean Michael-Emmrich Johnson, 34, was arrested Friday after he turned himself in at the Sullivan’s Island Police Department. He was booked for investigation of one count of felony kidnapping, impersonating a law enforcement officer, and two other misdemeanors. Yesterday, the police department said it had obtained warrants charging Johnson with two more counts of kidnapping.
• So now you not only have the real assholes from agencies like ICE and DHS acting under the umbrella of questionably legal status, but copycat criminals doing it as well.
• Let’s move on to some schadenfreude news.
• Tesla registered fewer cars in California in all four quarters of 2024, as sales of its second-most important model plunged 36% for the year.
• Good. Fuck Elmo Muck.
• Annual registrations of the Model 3 sedan dropped by more than a third. Tesla’s registrations declined despite the company adding a fifth model — the polarizing Cybertruck — to its lineup last year.
• There are a lot of Teslas around here, but many people seem embarrassed to own them now via association with the piece of shit who owns the company.
• We seem to have a lot of news of shitty people today, so let’s add one more.
• The new State Department Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs is Darren J. Beattie. You might recall him (I don’t) from his role in the previous Dump administration as a speechwriter.
• He was fired in 2018 after revelations about his attendance at a conference with white nationalists, where he publicly told Black people to "learn their place" and "bend the knee to MAGA."
• But of course, he’s now being welcomed back. It was no surprise that a social media post he wrote in the fall said, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”
• I want the MAGA women of the world to keep in mind: you’re not viewed any better than any other object of hatred. In the MAGA world, if you get a job, it’s because of DEI. And any control you think you have over your body is because men allow it.
• And that’s what you support. I guess, as a white man, I could just tell you what to do as my underling, right ladies?
• And now, The Weather: “Juno” by flipturn
• From the Sports Desk… been a minute since we last looked at the National Hockey League. Here are the current teams at the top of the standings, listed by points.
• Eastern Conference: Capitals (75), Hurricanes (68), Panthers (67), Maple Leafs (64), Devils (64), Senators (62), Red Wings (59).
• Western Conference: Jets (77), Stars (69), Oilers (68), Golden Knights (68), Wild (66), Avalanche (64), Kings (60).
• Today in history… The coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu of Song, initiating the Song dynasty period of China that would last more than three centuries (960). In Edo, all but one of the Forty-seven Ronin commit seppuku as recompense for avenging their master's death (1703). George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College (1789). John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States (1801). The Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal (1825). Adolf Hitler appoints himself as head of the Armed Forces High Command (1938). The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops (1941). The Yalta Conference between the "Big Three" — Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin — opens at the Livadia Palace in the Crimea (1945). Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft (1967). A coup d'état is led by Hugo Chávez against Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez (1992). Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot 41 times by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race relations in the city (1999). Facebook, a mainstream online social networking site, is founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin (2004). 
• February 4 is the birthday of composer Johann Ludwig Bach (1677), labor organizer Bill Haywood (1869), pilot/isolationist Charles Lindbergh (1902), astronomer Clyde Tombaugh (1906), civil rights activist Rosa Parks (1913), actor Conrad Bain (1923), actor Jerry Adler (1929), film director George A. Romero (1940), computer scientist Ken Thompson (1943), politician Dan Quayle (1947), singer-songwriter Alice Cooper (1948), New Zealand prime minister Jenny Shipley (1952), NFL player Lawrence Taylor (1959), playwright Jonathan Larson (1960), singer-songwriter Clint Black (1962), musician/songwriter Noodles (1963), attorney/lobbyist Hunter Biden (1970), boxer Oscar De La Hoya (1973), singer-songwriter Natalie Imbruglia (1975), and singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw (1977).

Like I’ve said many times before: there are always many more news items than the batch I deliver to you here each morning. I tend to pick and choose the ones where I feel there’s something you can do personally to make a difference, if you want. Either way, it’s better to know a little about some things than nothing about a lot of things, I believe. Enjoy your day.