Random News: February 7, 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 7, 2025, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! I’m feeling pretty good thus far today. It’s been raining here in the Los Angles area and since it’s such a rare event in recent times, I’m making its point to enjoy and appreciate it.

• Let’s do some news.
• Yesterday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Office of Personnel Management's deadline for federal employees to accept the Dump administration's "deferred resignation" offer.
• U.S. District Judge George O'Toole prevented the agency from implementing the program's deadline during a brief hearing held hours before federal workers were required to notify OPM of whether they would accept or reject the offer to step away from their positions.
• President Musk sent out an email last week with the subject line "Fork in the Road" that offered the more than 2 million federal employees "deferred resignation." Under the program, they could allegedly resign their positions and retain full pay and benefits until September 30. 
• Employees previously had until yesterday (February 6) to accept or reject the offer.
• If it were me, I wouldn’t believe a damn thing they said.
• Let’s move on.
• I can’t imagine feeling more foolish today than someone who sat out the last election because of the “Free Palestine” protests.
• Because now, Israel says it has begun preparations for the departure of Palestinians from Gaza despite international rejection of t Donnie Dump’s plan to empty the territory of its population.
• Dumpy has tried to dial back aspects of the proposal after it was widely rejected internationally, saying the relocation of Palestinians would be temporary. But officials have provided few details.
• Yesterday, Dumples the Colonialist Clown said that the Palestinians would be “resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes,” after which Israel would turn Gaza over to the United States. 
• Palestinians have vehemently rejected Dump’s proposal, fearing that Israel would never allow refugees to return.
• They’re right.
• Egypt has warned that an expulsion of Palestinians would destabilize the region and undermine its peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of stability and American influence for decades.
• They are also right.
• Saudi Arabia, another key U.S. ally, has also rejected any mass transfer of Palestinians and says it will not normalize relations with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state that includes Gaza.
• Dump and Israeli officials have not said how they would respond if Palestinians refuse to leave. But Human Rights Watch and other groups say the plan, if implemented, would amount to “ethnic cleansing,” the forcible relocation of the civilian population of an ethnic group from a geographic area.
• This is the stuff that the worst human beings in history do.
• Moving on.
• And fighting back.
• DOGE, the group run by billionaire asshole Elon Musk, is facing new lawsuits and court orders in its attempts to wrest control over various government agencies.
• In one action yesterday, a judge issued an order allowing only two named DOGE officials to have access to a Treasury Department system that makes billions of dollars in annual payments on behalf of the government. One of those staffers resigned Thursday after racist posts he made resurfaced.
• 25-year-old Marko Elez, the staffer who was granted access to the Treasury Department’s sensitive payments system, made a series of disgusting posts. Some of the words from this guy that Elon Musk hired include…
• “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”
• “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.”
• ″’Normalize Indian hate.’
• “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”
• And of course, Elon knew who this guy was before hiring him to a top-level position. Elez had posted this stuff on Elon’s own social network.
• This isn’t an anomaly. These are the kinds of people that President Musk and his sidekick Dumples want dictating policy of the USA.
• Let’s move on.
• Yesterday, the NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes, limiting competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth only.
• They did it because Dumpy signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes only from girls’ and women’s sports. The order gives federal agencies latitude to withhold federal funding from entities that do not abide by Title IX in alignment with the Dump administration’s view, which interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.
• I want you to look at this in the perspective that matters.
• The NCAA has some 1,100 member schools with more than 500,000 athletes, easily the largest governing body for college athletics in the U.S.
• Out of those half million athletes, there are exactly 10 known transgender competitors across all sports in the NCAA.
• But yeah, let’s focus on that instead of the fact that people can’t afford food and medicine and housing.
• Moving on to some other fucking bullshit.
• Dumpy said yesterday that he would create a White House faith office and direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead a task force on eradicating what he called anti-Christian bias within the federal government.
• That fucking moron said he will sign an executive order today to have Bondi head the task force and vowed his attorney general would work to "fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide."
• Of note: there is zero evidence of anti-Christian bias in the USA. No examples of the alleged bias were cited by Dump. He’s pulling this out of his fat fucking ass.
• The actions announced on Thursday pose major constitutional questions about the separation of church and state, with the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment limiting government endorsement of religion.
• What you can expect over the next several years: a constant stream of fake problems, followed by illegal solutions, followed by lawsuits, followed by appeals, followed by losses, followed by… no work getting done for people who desperately need the aid of a competent government.
• And while it will negatively impact all Americans, the fastest and hardest hit will be people in states who supported Dump.
• Look.
• I don’t have to continually say what’s going on in the big picture.
• All of Dump’s actions are a direct threat to democracy. He plans on consolidating more and more power, and — assuming he remains alive for the next four year or so — he will not relinquish power after the next national election, assuming that there is another election.
• We told you that for the past couple of years. You voted for him anyway.
• And as the saying goes, you reap what you sow.
• So we have no choice other than to fight against him at every single step.
• And now, The Weather: “Atom” by Finnish Postcard & Short Frenzy
• From the Sports Desk… just four players — Antonio Gates, Jared Allen, Eric Allen, and Sterling Sharpe — were voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the smallest induction class in 20 years following offseason rule changes meant to make it harder to get inducted.
• The four other modern-era candidates who reached the final stage but fell short were Willie Anderson, Torry Holt, Luke Kuechly, and Adam Vinatieri. They automatically advance to the final 15 for next year’s voting.
• The other eight finalists who got cut earlier were Eli Manning, Jahri Evans, Steve Smith Sr., Terrell Suggs, Fred Taylor, Reggie Wayne, Darren Woodson, and Marshal Yanda.
• Frankly, a lot of those guys very much merit HoF induction. Guess we’ll see how it plays out for them in future years.
• Today in history… In Florence, Italy, supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burn cosmetics, art, and books in a "Bonfire of the vanities” (1497). The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified (1795). The Cripple Creek miner's strike, led by the Western Federation of Miners, begins in Cripple Creek, CO (1894). The second full-length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premieres (1940). The United States bans all Cuban imports and exports (1962). Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since either was discovered (1979). The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly on power (1990). Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-98, carrying the Destiny laboratory module to the International Space Station (2001). Bushfires in Victoria leave 173 dead in the worst natural disaster in Australia's history (2009). The U.S. state of Mississippi officially certifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery (2013).
• February 7 is the birthday of lawyer/politician Thomas More (1478), blacksmith/businessman John Deere (1804), novelist Charles Dickens (1812), author Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867), novelist Sinclair Lewis (1885), pianist/composer Eubie Blake (1887), physicist Harry Nyquist (1889), swimmer/actor Buster Crabbe (1908), engineer/businessman An Wang (1920), saxophonist King Curtis (1934), actor Pete Postlethwaite (1946), actor/screenwriter Robert Smigel (1960), actor James Spader (1960), singer-songwriter Garth Brooks (1962), comedian Eddie Izzard (1962), actor Chris Rock (1965), NBA player/coach Steve Nash (1974), guitarist Wes Borland (1975), and actor Ashton Kutcher (1978).

I’m going to try and have a good day. I know a lot of folks are in panic mode about the Dump/Musk administration, and that’s fully understandable. But not me! I was ready for all of this shit, and am expecting much worse. And I’ll deal with each thing as it happens. That’s how we do it. Enjoy your day.