Random News: November 6, 2024

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 November 6, 2024, and it’s a Wednesday.

• Let’s get it out of the way: Donald Trump was elected as the 47th president of the USA last night, per all projections.
• Votes are still being tallied as of 7am PT, but it was Trump’s win in Wisconsin put him over the 270 threshold needed to clinch the presidency.
• I am not going to get into a big analysis of “why.” I believed, and still believe, that Kamala Harris was an excellent candidate who was highly qualified to be POTUS.
• I am also not going to entertain the second-guessing aspects of “what if we’d stuck with Biden?” No one can answer that.
• While I felt confident that Harris would win, a good portion of my optimism can be chalked up to a couple of points.
• One is that I had faith that in the big picture, America was a place of kindness, where women are given an equal level of respect as men. I do not think that’s the case anymore. I guess I’m not too old to learn things.
• The other — and this is my own fault — was the propensity that many of us share to surround ourselves with like-minded people in a bubble.
• As such, I refused to believe the polls that turned out to be pretty accurate. Like most humans, I tend to believe the things that appeal to me, and doubt that which doesn’t. 
• I do want to be clear: every moment I spent supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz was worth it. I’d do it again with pleasure.
• But I also want to say that throughout the race, I clearly said that either of the candidates could win. There was never a clear front-runner.
• If I gave anyone a false sense of optimism about this, I do apologize. It’s pretty terrible that while I am as saddened as any of you, I am not shocked.
• For good and bad, this is America. We have a long track record of doing terrible things, often against our own best interest and that of the world.
• So where are we now, and what happens next?
• I’m not going to start speculating. We have plenty of time ahead to look over the many possibilities of what happens in a second Trump term.
• I want to preemptively express my condolences to the people whose lives will be most impacted by the potential devastation of his policies.
• As a white heterosexual middle-aged male, it’s not myself who has the brunt of my concern. But I do think that in many ways yet to be defined, every American will pay some price for the decision we collectively made last night.
• And frankly, the world itself — with America’s long-staring position as a superpower — will be affected by this.
• However, I’m not going to dwell on what might happen.
• I know a lot of you are deeply sad. I know others are emotionally numb. And yet others are openly angry. I’m not going to tell you to feel otherwise. Your feelings are legitimate. I will not negate them.
• But I do want to mention some other aspects of the 2024 election. Not all of it was bad, and some of it is still ongoing.
• Let’s continue with the shitty news, while we’re in that mode.
• The Senate will flip to Republican control. There are still six races yet to be called, but the makeup of the upper chamber of Congress looks like it will be 52-48 in favor of the GOP.
• With Trump as president and a Republican Senate in place, a lot of horrible shit will happen. I don’t want to sugarcoat any of this.
• It is unknown at this point who will have control of the House of Representatives. There remains a possibility that the Democrats will reach the 218 tipping point that allows them to take over.
• If that becomes the case, Hakeem Jeffries will become Speaker.
• But that remains up in the air for now.
• I do want to talk about some important wins from last night.
• Measures to protect abortion access in Arizona, Colorado, New York, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada passed. In New York, Colorado, and Maryland, where abortion is legal at least up to the point of viability, the measures will maintain current abortion access.
• Voters in Florida and South Dakota, however, decided to retain their draconian abortion bans. Nebraska seems on track to also continue their ban, though votes are still being counted in their dueling measures that are for and against.
• Both Colorado and California voted to remove same-sex marriage bans from their respective state constitutions.
• I want to quote the statement from the American Civil Liberties Union from last night.
• The ACLU wrote, “We’re clear-eyed about the chaos and destruction a second Trump administration will cause to our nation. That’s why we’re done with handwringing, admiring the problem, or waiting anxiously to see which unlawful action President-elect Trump will take on Day One. We are ready to take action the minute Trump takes the oath of office.”
• And I want this to be known. There have been people preparing for this moment for months, if not years. There are steps being taken behind the scenes to shore up our rights and freedoms.
• I know that’s not a lot of comfort. I’m not tell you to keep your chin up or to have some silly sense of optimism at this moment.
• But I will say this.
• In ways that most of you can’t even imagine, any move to turn the USA into a fascist dictatorship will be fought.
• It will be harder in some places than others. But the fight will go on. We’ve held this democracy for 248 years; it’s not going away overnight.
• A lot of work will be done between now and January 20, and then continuing after Trump takes office.
• One final point I’d like to make for now: try to refrain from placing blame on each other. Don’t feed Russia’s intentions. Today Putin and his gang have succeeded. But we have to stick together as we navigate this. It’s the only way.
• And one other note for now.
• As I laid awake last night between fitful moments of sleep, I briefly considered stopping my daily random news, thinking, “What’s the point?”
• And then as I dragged myself out of bed to try the seemingly impossible task of having a normal day today, I realized something.
• It’s more important now than ever. Every single person’s efforts to fight for what’s right in their own unique way is now a necessity if we want the USA to survive.
• So… give up? Fuck no.
• Game on.
• And now, The Weather: “Grinning William” by Blood Wizard
• From the Sports Desk… nope.
• Today in history… Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States with only 40% of the popular vote, defeating John C. Breckinridge, John Bell, and Stephen A. Douglas in a four-way race (1860). Rutgers College defeats Princeton University 6–4, in the first official intercollegiate American football game (1869). President William McKinley is re-elected, along with his vice-presidential running mate, Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York (1900). The 1st Ukrainian Front in WWII liberates Kyiv from German occupation (1943). ‘Meet the Press’, the longest running television program in history, makes its debut on NBC (1947). Art Modell announces that he signed a deal that would relocate the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore (1995). Tammy Baldwin becomes the first openly gay politician to be elected to the United States Senate (2012). The Democratic Party wins the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections (2018).
• November 6 is the birthday of sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1494), instrument designer Adolphe Sax (1814), economist Charles Dow (1851), composer John Philip Sousa (1854), basketball inventor James Naismith (1861), film director Mike Nichols (1931), actress Sally Field (1946), singer-songwriter/guitarist Glenn Frey (1948), journalist Maria Shriver (1955), actress Rebecca Romijn (1972), NBA player Lamar Odom (1979), actress Emma Stone (1988), and comedian Bowen Yang (1990).

Now that these news bullets are written, I’m going to do what I do every day. Put on sweats, go downstairs, work out, and be productive and do work to earn a living. It’s all I can do. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about more stuff soon enough. I’m not going anywhere. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 5, 2024

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 November 5, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. What’s that? Oh, is something happening today? Ah yes. Yes. The day that will determine the direction of the world for generations to come. That day.

• Indeed, here we are.
• I feel pretty good.
• If you’re an American citizen 18 years of age or older and haven’t voted yet, please stop reading this now and make a plan to vote today. To that end…
• Just a couple of notes for voters today.
• I repeat, do NOT wear any kind of campaign swag to the polls. Not a shirt, a hat, a button. Nothing. At minimum, you will be told to remove the offending item. If you refuse, a series of worse things will happen quickly.
• If you’re in line, stay in line. Even if the polls close, they have to accept your vote if you’re in line before closing time.
• If you make a mistake on your ballot, you have the right to ask for a new one.
• If the machines are down at your polling place, you have the right to ask for a paper ballot.
• Note that any kind of intimidation at the polling place is a federal crime.
• If you run into any problems or have questions tomorrow on Election Day, call the Election Protection Hotline: 1-866-OUR-VOTE.
• Possible handy info: 28 states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring workers be given time off to vote, with most but not all stipulating that workers not take a financial hit.
• They are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
• In the remaining 22 states, you might not be able to leave work to do your patriotic duty. That’s just shitty. Hopefully you’ll have the chance during your break or after you get off work.
• Without a federal law, voting leave per above is based on state regulations. I am 100% in favor for making Election Day a national holiday. No one should have to be concerned keeping their job (or even taking an income hit) in order to vote.
• These nine states have strict requirements to have a valid photo ID when you vote…
• Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
• In another 14 states, you can only cast a provisional ballot without photo ID…
• Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.
• No photo ID is required to vote in the other 28 states.
• While every single vote in every state is vitally important, the final results on Election Day will be most highly influenced by votes in seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
• Let’s take a quick look at each of those.
• Arizona: polls open right now at 8am PT. Joe Biden carried this state in 2020 by 0.3%, only the second Democratic presidential candidate to do so in nearly 70 years. Polls will close at 9pm. Arizona does not release votes until all precincts have reported (or one hour after all polls are closed, whichever is first). If it’s a very close race, it could take Maricopa Country weeks to report. Let’s hope that’s not the case, or holds up the election if it is.
• Georgia: polls are open now, and have been since 7am ET. In 2020 Biden was the first Democrat in a White House race to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. You may recall that he defeated Dump by 11,779 votes. Georgia’s polls close at 7pm. 
• Michigan: polls are also open now, and have been since 7am local time. Biden won it in 2020 after Dumpy took it in 2016. Polls in most of the state close at 8pm, with the rest at 9pm.
• Nevada: polls have been open for an hour since 7am PT. Fun fact: the candidate who won Nevada has gone on to win the White House in 27 of the past 30 presidential elections. Polls close at 7pm local time. 
• North Carolina: polls opened bright and early at 6:30am ET. Democrats have carried NC only two times in presidential elections since 1968. But Dump’s 2020 victory there was by about 1 percentage point, was his smallest winning margin in any state. Polls close at 7:30PM ET.
• Pennsylvania: polls have been open for hours, since 7am EST. Biden’s 2020 margin in Pennsylvania was about 80,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million votes. With 19 electoral votes, PA has the most of any of the battlegrounds. Polls close at 8pm ET.
• Wisconsin: polls are also open there since 7am CT. The margin of victory in the state was less than 1 percentage point in 2000, 2004, 2016, and 2020. Polls close at 8pm CT.
• Moving on.
• Let’s talk about when we may know the results of the election. Note that these estimates only happen if there’s a clear early winner, state by state. Anything involving very close races (with ballots to count and recount) negate ll info below.
• That being said…
• Tonight between 7pm-10pm ET (4pm-7pm PT): most results from GA & NC (unless it’s too close to call). Partial results from PA, WI, and MI. Near-complete results from VA, FL, OH, and CO.
• I mean, if Harris wins a number of those crucial states, we could be aware of our next president and still get to sleep at a reasonable hour. It’s a nice thought; pretty sure that won’t happen, but it would indeed be nice.
• Tonight between 10pm-midnight ET (7pm-9pm PT): most results from GA, NC, and potentially MI (unless too close to call). Partial results from PA, WI, and AZ. Initial results from NV.
• Tonight/tomorrow between midnight and 6am ET (9pm-3am PT): most results from WI & MI. Partial results from PA, AZ, & NV.
• Tomorrow: additional results from all states, particularly PA, AZ, NV, MI, & WI (unless, yes, too close to call).
• Thursday and beyond: more results trickling in from all states, particularly PA, NV, and AZ. In NV, ballots can continue to arrive through 11/9, and voters can cure ballots through 11/12. Note that in PA, thousands of provisional ballots are expected that will be counted starting 11/8; in NC there may be challenged ballots that are not counted until 11/15.
• And again, maybe it goes this way or maybe it’s super close and there end up being court challenges and it takes weeks.
• We. Do. Not. Know.
• But soon we will. Maybe tonight. Maybe next week. Maybe in December.
• But either way, we’re going to stay optimistic today. I gave you my electoral vote prediction yesterday and I’ll stand by it… Harris 298, Dump 240.
• Let’s see how close I am.
• A very important reminder: Dump will ABSOLUTELY declare victory. I’m surprised he hasn’t done so already at 7am PT.
• But do not listen to him or anyone else. As the saying goes, it win’t over ’til it’s over.
• Moving on.
• We’re collectively voting for a lot more than just the President. 
• Voters in nine states are deciding whether their state constitutions should guarantee a right to abortion, weighing ballot measures that are expected to spur turnout for a range of crucial races.
• Abortion was a right for all women in the USA until Donald J. Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on his order.
• Passing certain amendments in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota likely would lead to undoing bans or restrictions that currently block varying levels of abortion access to more than 7 million women of childbearing age who live in those states.
• Keep in mind that the future legality and availability of abortion hinges not only on ballot measures, as policies could shift depending on who controls Congress and the presidency.
• But if you don’t vote, you can expect that the Republicans will continue to force women in the USA to give birth against their will.
• And that American women will continue to die from a lack of reproductive health care.
• And that Dump has sworn that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be in charge of the health of women.
• Please vote. thank you.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, El Dumpo spent a chunk of the day calling Republican members of Congress and threatening them if they acknowledge a Harris victory on election day, or announce the party needs to "move on" from him.
• My sincere hope is that in a matter of hours, Dump finds that he has no power, and that most of the Republicans at that point will be aware that moving on from him is that absolute best thing for themselves (which, of course, is what they care about the most).
• Not to mention the country and the people they serve.
• If things go well today, the only necessary reason I’ll have to make mention of him in the future is in regard to his pending trials and sentencing dates.
• And those crimes may be still in progress.
• Dump is mobilizing his Proud Boys once again. The decentralized all-male far-right group remains active around the country, and some of its members are openly making plans to get involved in today’s elections.
• They’ve been doing their usual thing… posting violent and threatening imagery. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to hear about a number of those dumbfucks getting their asses in serious trouble in certain states tomorrow.
• Hey Ohio. Just saying.
• This would be a good place to mention that when you see election workers tomorrow, be sure to thank them. It’s a tedious, stressful, and often thankless job, and it’s important.
• In somewhat related news…
• This morning, federal judges denied two states’ requests to bar the Justice Department from dispatching lawyers to monitor adherence to federal voting rights laws on Election Day.
• Both Missouri and Texas asked federal courts to keep DOJ lawyers away from their polls. Fucking pricks.
• Missouri’s attorney general and secretary of state said any monitoring would “displace state election authorities,” and Texas’s attorney general contended that “Texas law alone determines who can monitor voting in Texas.”
• This is America. 
• The DOJ has sent poll monitors to 27 states. This is normal. The agency regularly deploys its staff to monitor for compliance with federal civil rights laws in elections in communities all across the country.
• They should be welcomed.
• In one crucial city, the District Attorney was clear about what will happen to those who intend to disrupt their elections.
• Yesterday, Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner activated his office's Election Task Force with a warning to anyone who may plan to interfere with elections in the City of Brotherly Love…
• “F around and find out.”
• He actually said that, which made me laugh. He also said that the task force, which Krasner noted was operating on a non-partisan basis. “We do not care who gets your vote. We care that you get to vote," he promised.
• Let’s keep on keeping on.
• I was going to add a section here about what our plan is if Kamala Harris doesn’t win. It’s a distinct possibility, and I know most people like being prepared for all possible outcomes.
• But I’ve changed my mind. I’ll have plenty of time to go over those thoughts after today, if necessary.
• For today, I’m riding the blue wave, and I invite all of you to go along with me.
• A few other news tidbits…
• Lt. John Rodgers, a 20-year veteran sheriff's patrol commander in Clark County, Ohio, declared on Facebook that he would not help Democrats and would require proof of who a person voted for before providing them aid.
• He has since apologized and blamed his prescription sleep aids for causing his "out of character" actions. Rodgers will remain on duty but got a written reprimand for violating the department's social media policy.
• Elsewhere in Ohio, the U.S. Justice Department said its election monitoring efforts will include Portage County, where a sheriff was accused of intimidating voters last month.
• As I mentioned, Republican Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski posted on social media that people with Kamala Harris yard signs should have their addresses written down so that immigrants can be sent to live with them if the Democrat wins the presidency.
• Not acceptable. It’s examples like these that massively raises the public mistrust of law enforcement across the country.
• And now, The Weather: “Even” by Oca Pine
• From the Sports Desk… I CAN’T THINK ABOUT SPORTS RIGHT NOW, YOU FUCKS.
• Um… sorry, freaked out for a sec. On Monday Night Football, the Chiefs (8-0) beat the Bucs (4-5) 30-24 in overtime. There you go.
• Today in history… Guy Fawkes is arrested in the Gunpowder Plot (1605). French-American forces under Colonel LaBalme are defeated by Miami Chief Little Turtle (1780). Nat Turner, American slave leader, is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia (1831). In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100 (1872). Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th President of the United States, defeating incumbent William Howard Taft (1912). The Everett massacre takes place in Everett, WA as political differences lead to a shoot-out between the Industrial Workers of the World organizers and local police (1916). Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first and only President of the United States to be elected to a third term (1940). Richard Nixon is elected as 37th President of the United States (1968). Bill Clinton is reelected President of the United States (1996). The Astroworld Festival crowd crush results in 10 deaths and 25 people being hospitalized (2021).
• November 5 is the birthday of painter Anna Maria van Schurman (1607), socialist/politician Eugene V. Debs (1855), journalist Ida Tarbell (1857), writer/philosopher Will Durant (1885), astronomer Fred Lawrence Whipple (1906), singer/guitarist/actor Roy Rogers (1911), actress Vivien Leigh (1913), accordionist Myron Floren (1919), singer-songwriter/guitarist Ike Turner (1931), singer-songwriter/guitarist Art Garfunkel (1941), actor/playwright Sam Shepard (1943), musician Gram Parsons (1946), musician Peter Noone (1947), actor Armin Shimerman (1949), NBA player Bill Walton (1952), guitarist/songwriter Jeff Watson (1956), actor Robert Patrick (1958), singer-songwriter/guitarist Bryan Adams (1959), actress Tatum O’Neal (1963), actress Famke Janssen (1965), actor Sam Rockwell (1968), guitarist/songwriter Jonny Greenwood (1971), MLB player Johnny Damon (1973), singer-songwriter/guitarist Ryan Adams (1974), golfer Bubba Watson (1978), NBA player O. J. Mayo (1987), and NFL player Odell Beckham Jr. (1992).

I’ll leave you on this momentous day with these words. No matter what happens, we’re going to be okay. If we need to fight, we fight. But there will be no despair. As President Biden often reminds us, this is the UNITED States of America. One way or another — and it’s not always easy — we’ll stay united. Please vote for Kamala Harris and Democrats down your entire ballot, and make the world a better place in which to lie for everyone. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 4, 2024

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 November 4, 2024, and it’s a Monday. How’s everyone feeling? Doing okay? The sensation of living in real time at a point that you know with 100% certainty will be in every history book isn't as great as some would assume. But here we are.

• The election is tomorrow, and I want to talk about women.
• I think women have been underestimated in this election cycle… by the media, by Republicans, by men, and even by their fellow women. Sometimes by themselves.
• I don’t think women are going to easily surrender their bodily autonomy to the government. I think women aren’t going to stand for another Dump presidency and all that comes with it.
• I think the full effect of the rage fueling Roevember isn’t something that’s been fully understood or measurable by polls.
• I think that women won’t allow their children to die via the Republican plan for unvaccinated kids spreading otherwise easily-manageable diseases.
• I think that older women are as angry as younger women. Possibly angrier.
• I think real men are going to support the women in their lives and also vote for Kamala Harris.
• And as a result, here’s what I think is very possible.
• Harris almost certainly wins CA, HI, OR, WA, NM, CO, IL, NY, VT, NH, most of ME, MA, CT, RI, DE, MD, VA, NJ, DC, and the “blue dot” of Omaha, NE. That’s 216 electoral votes to start.
• And Dumpy should be expected to take AK, UT, ID, MT, WY, ND, SD, most of NE, one district of ME, KS, OK, LA, AR, MO, MS, AL, SC, TN, KY, IN, and WV. That’s 126 votes.
• I think Harris also wins MN, WI, MI, PA, though by closer margins. That’s 270 right there. That wins her the presidency. Dump is pretty likely to take one swing state with AZ, getting him to 137.
• But I don’t think it’s stopping there. A few respected pollster on Saturday claimed that Harris is up +3 in Iowa. If that’s the case, other states are in play.
• I think she wins GA, NC, and NV, bringing her up to 308.
• And I have suspicions that due to the aforementioned will and determination filling women and many other voter blocs, there is a low percentage but still very real possibility of Harris also winning Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and even Texas.
• That would be an electoral victory of 401-137 for Harris. I even have a “you have no idea how angry women really are” scenario with Harris winning 431-107.
• Those seem like lovely thoughts, but obviously also very optimistic. I’m going to tone that back for my final prediction.
• Harris 298, Dump 240.
• So tomorrow, just vote. See what happens. My scenario above is just a somewhat educated guess combined with my personal bias.
• And I’ll reiterate… with polling as close (and sometimes contradictory) as it’s been, none of us really have any idea what’s going to happen tomorrow.
• But the reality is that every day of your life, you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow with 100% certainty. Ask anyone who was ever struck by lightning, or gotten a surprise proposal, or any of a million things that happen to people from time to time that they didn’t see coming.
• We’ll find out what happens tomorrow… tomorrow. And we’ll figure things out from there, good or bad or otherwise. That’s called life.
• In more election news…
• Here are some of the key demographic groups that will likely decide the presidential election.
• The largest single voting group is white voters, but they’re been on a sharp decline as a share of the electorate since the 1990s.
• The biggest predictor of voting among white people? Whether or not they have a college degree. White voters with college degrees had long been reliable Republican voters. But Biden won that group in 2020. Polling suggests Democrats’ advantage with them could balloon in this election.
• The opposite has been true with white voters who don’t have college degrees. The Dump team believes it can turn out even more of them this year, but they are generally less likely to vote at all.
• As referenced above, women are the biggest factor in this election. And in fact, they’ve made up a majority of the electorate in every presidential election in the last 40 years.
• In 2020, Democrats won their largest share of women — 57%, and Democrats hope that number goes even higher this year for reasons of Roevember per above.
• The gender gap in 2024 could be the widest in any presidential election ever. The last two elections showed very wide gaps — 24 points in 2016, and 23 in 2020.
• Harris is currently polling among women with a whopping 34 point advantage. That can’t be surprising to anyone… especially considering the guy who’s running for office said just last week he’d force women to accept his “protection” whether they like it or not.
• That being said, white women voted 11 points in favor of Trump in 2020. That was, of course, before Dump’s SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade.
• Black women, though, voted for Biden by 81 points (hahahahahahah, fuck you, Dumpy). Latinas also broke overwhelmingly for Biden, too, 69% to 30%.
• How about Black voters overall? The latest poll had Harris winning 78% of Black voters, but that’s a lower percentage than either Biden or Obama.
• While Black voters may be only 13% of the vote nationally, they are crucial to Democrats’ chances in the swing states, particularly in Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan.
• Latinos have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in each of the last four presidential elections by at least a 2-to-1 margin.
• Despite demonizing immigrants, making xenophobic and white nationalist messaging, and threatening mass deportations, Dump actually gained among Latinos in 2020. Biden won them in the seven most closely watched swing states, but by less than Clinton did in 2016.
• And in his usual inability to not fuck anything up, Dump then killed a huge amount of Latino support during his weird rally at Madison Square Garden when one of his chosen speakers called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”
• While Latinos are the largest-growing demographic group, Asian Americans are the fastest. 
• Since 2008, they have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats. They could have the biggest impact in Nevada, where they are more than 9% of the eligible-voter population.
• They could also be crucial in places like Georgia. The AAPI population in the state has grown by more than 50% since 2010. While only about 3% of eligible voters in Georgia, there were more than 45,000 first-time AAPI voters in the state in 2020.
• Here’s another: when young voters turn out, Democrats win. In 2008, 2012 and 2020, Democrats won 60% or more of voters 18 to 29 years old and won.
• But this is a group that turns out at lower rates than others, and polls have indicated that they are among the least likely to say they are definitely voting in this election.
• In North Carolina, a big margin with young voters is crucial for Harris is going to win there.
• While I’m on the topic of North Carolina, their State Board of Elections announced yesterday that more than 4.2 million voters cast ballots at early in-person voting sites.
• That’s crazy. Including absentee voting, 4,465,548 voters — or 57% of the state’s 7.8 million registered voters — cast ballots in the general election as of yesterday morning.
• Will Harris be the first Democrat in 20 years to win seniors? She very well might.
• The last time was former Vice President Al Gore’s bid in 2000, when he won a larger share of voters 65 and older. Seniors and white voters with degrees are among the most likely voters.
• Let’s move on.
• On this final day before the election, Kamala Harris will be campaigning in Pennsylvania.
• She started with a canvass kickoff in Scranton this morning. Next is a rally in Allentown, featuring performances by rapper Fat Joe and Puerto Rican singer Frankie Negrón. Then she makes a stop in Reading.
• Tonight, Harris holds a rally in Pittsburgh. She’ll be joined by Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and musical guests including Katy Perry. She wraps up the campaign late tonight with a rally in Philadelphia, featuring Oprah and Lady Gaga.
• Where’s ol’ Dumpy? He has three rallies planned; in Reading, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, and ending in Grand Rapids, MI.
• So that’s it. This is the end of all that.
• Tomorrow morning, I”ll tell you about how I plan to monitor the election as it happens.
• In other news…
• Severe storms and tornadoes battered Oklahoma yesterday, tossing cars and ripping roofs off buildings in the middle of the night and leaving tens of thousands of homes and businesses without power.
• Numerous people were injured, including 11 who required hospitalization. Much of the damage was reported in and around the state capital of Oklahoma City, but also scattered elsewhere around the state.
• More than 99,000 Oklahoma homes and businesses lost power during the overnight storms. Forecasters warned state residents to brace for more heavy rain and possible severe weather through today.
• Thoughts are with our OK friends.
• And now, The Weather: “Falling Down A Well” by Jack J
• Rest in peace to a titan of the world of music. Musician, songwriter, arranger, composer, performer, and producer Quincy Jones died yesterday. He was 91.
• In a prolific career that spanned more than 70 years, Jones established himself as a behind-the-scenes force and a gifted artist in his own right, leaving his imprints on jazz, pop, hip-hop, and dozens of film and television soundtracks.
• You are probably most familiar with Q from his work as the producer of Michael Jackson’s landmark ‘Thriller’ album, but his work went far beyond that. Jones won 28 Grammys, putting him third on the list of all-time winners. 
• There are a million Quincy Jones stories. I never met or even spoke to the man, but I worked closely with many who did, and their personal tales of him confirm the fact that he was an extraordinary human being.
• A great story is that in the early 1970s, he had a medical condition that was believed to be so dire that his friends and family began preparing for his death. He eventually attended his own memorial service alongside comedian Richard Pryor, actor Sidney Poitier, and singer Marvin Gaye.
• And then lived for another 50 years. That’s a great life. RIP.
• From the Sports Desk… we’re at that point in the NFL season that the teams who are sucking are casting blame for their issues.
• The New Orleans Saints fired coach Dennis Allen after losing seven straight games. The Las Vegas Raiders — tied for the worst team in the league at 2-7 — fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy along with offensive line coach James Cregg and quarterbacks coach Rich Scangarello.
• They should probably just fire everyone and start fresh.
• The best teams in the NFL remain the Chiefs (7-0), Lions (7-1), Bills (7-2), Commanders (7-2), and Steelers/Vikings/Eagles (6-2).
• Today in history… The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange; they later jointly reign as William and Mary (1677). Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 36 is performed for the first time in Linz, Austria (1783). Sir James Young Simpson, a Scottish physician, discovers the anesthetic properties of chloroform (1847). Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi is assassinated in Tokyo (1921). British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings (1922). Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female elected as governor in the United States (1924). Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel begins a retreat of his forces after a costly defeat during the Second Battle of El Alamein (1942). The United States government establishes the National Security Agency, or NSA (1952). Dr. Jane Goodall observes chimpanzees creating tools, the first-ever observation in non-human animals (1960). Ronald Reagan is elected as the 40th President of the United States, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter (1980). Barack Obama becomes the first person of biracial or African-American descent to be elected as President of the United States (2008). 
• November 4 is the birthday of painter Guido Reni (1575), painter Gerard van Honthorst (1592), king William III of England (1650), actor Edmund Kean (1787), actor/social commentator Will Rogers (1879), physicist Alfred Lee Loomis (1887), actor Gig Young (1913), gunnery sergeant John Basilone (1916), journalist Walter Cronkite (1916), actor Art Carney (1918), actor Martin Balsam (1919), actress Doris Roberts (1925), actress Loretta Swit (1937), singer-songwriter Delbert McClinton (1940), conservationist Kafi Benz (1941), first lady Laura Bush (1946), photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946), actress Markie Post (1950), race car driver Jacques Villeneuve (1953), guitarist/composer James Honeyman-Scott (1956), keyboardist/composer Jordan Rudess (1956), actress Kathy Griffin (1960), actor Ralph Macchio (1961), rapper/sex trafficker Sean Combs (1969), actor Matthew McConaughey (1969), NFL player Vince Wilfork (1981), and NFL player Dez Bryant (1988).

That’s enough. It will be nice when this is all over — whenever that is, hopefully sooner than later — and we can talk about more topics than the election. My advice for today? Be calm, make sure you have a plan to vote if you haven’t done so already — knowing where and what time you’re going to the polls — and apart from that, try and focus on the things you can affect, here and now. You’re important to the world every single day. Keep it in mind. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 3, 2024

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 November 3, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. The clocks may have changed, but both my brain and the timing of the sun rising have me up and about before 7am on a Sunday. As long as I’m here — with my delicious coffee and in my comfy robe — let’s chat about things.

• Zakstrodomus here to give you some predictions with two days remaining until the election.
• No, not about who will win the election. Nobody knows that.
• Instead, about one thing that will happen on election night. Donnie Dump is going to claim victory very early in the process, most likely before the polls have closed. Twice in 2020 on Election Day, he falsely claimed victory. He will 100% do this again.
• Here’s why.
• He’s setting up his base to believe that if Kamala Harris wins, it was done via some kind of cheating, or rigged system.
• It’s a continuation of Dumpy’s Big Lie. He’ll be telling people that he’d already won and the evil Democrats stole the election away from him.
• This is in a direct attempt to foment civil unrest and violence between families and neighbors. That’s his plan.
• Don’t fall for it on either side. Here’s how the election will be called… and it’s not via either candidate.
• As each state has its polls close, results will come in at varying times. Larger population counties and states have more voters and it takes longer to deliver official results.
• At some point — maybe late on Tuesday, maybe days or weeks from now — the math will be apparent that one candidate will be able to surpass the 270 electoral vote threshold.
• At first, one of the large mainstream news outlets will call the election for one or the other Presidential candidates. It might be Fox, CNN, MSNBC, or any of them.
• Now, that’s still not an official call, but at that point, there has never been a case where they made that announcement incorrectly.
• In 2020, it was CNN who felt strongly enough about the voting data to call the race for Joe Biden at 11:24am EST on Saturday November 7, four days after election day. They were quickly followed in the next couple of minutes by NBC, CBS, MSNBC, ABC, and the Associated Press — and later Fox at 11:40am.
• But the actual official declaration of victory in a US presidential election happens when the vote is certified by Congress. I’ll bet you know that date.
• Yes! It’s January 6, 2025. Cue fits of insane laughter.
• Before then, the electors vote in their states on December 17, and the votes must arrive at the  Senate by December 25.
• So then on January 6, Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes. 
• Here’s a weird thing you probably haven’t considered. Remember how it was Mike Pence that certified the results of the Electoral College vote in 2021?
• That’s because it’s an official duty of the Vice President, as President of the Senate
• An who’s the Vice President? Why, it’s Kamala Harris!
• Harris wouldn’t be the first VP to certify themselves; obviously every vice president who won the subsequent election — like George H.W. Bush and others — were the people who certified the electoral vote count for their own election.
• And now, one absolute nightmare scenario that have a very low, yet still statistically possible, chance of happening.
• What if the electoral votes are tallied and there is no winner? There is at least one thankfully unlikely route to this circumstance that is still feasible for this election.
• If Harris wins the solid blue states plus MN, WI, MI, PA, and VA… and Dump wins the predictably red states plus NV, NC, and GA (and the blue dot in Nebraska), then the electoral vote tally is 269-269.
• In that situation under the 12th Amendment, the House of Representatives then decides the Presidential election. Yeah. Can you imagine?
• The vote would be taken by state, with each state regardless of size having one vote. And even, it would seem to be very close. Jesus.
• So… let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that. A Kamala Harris landslide win on election night would negate all of those headaches.
• And now, some news.
• In a move that seemed to take everyone by surprise, the cold open to last night’s episode of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” featured the one and only Vice President Kamala Harris.
• The skit was adorable. It had Maya Rudolph in her usual role as Kamala, sitting backstage at a rally and wishing she had someone to give her advice. Someone… "who's been in my shoes, a Black, South Asian woman running for president, preferably from the Bay Area.”
• And the camera panned to show the opposite side of a vanity mirror to show the actual Harris. The audience went fucking psycho. The cheers and screams lasted for nearly 30 seconds — an eternity in live TV time — making it hard to hear the next line.
• Eventually, she got it out. “It is nice to see you, Kamala, and I'm just here to remind you, ‘You got this,’ because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors,” Harris told Rudolph, referencing Donnie Dump nearly face-planting while trying to get into a garbage truck.
• They spent a few lines riffing on the VP’s name, with Rudolph saying, “Take my palm-ala,” while holding Harris’s hand. “The American people want to stop the chaos and end the dram-ala with a cool new step-mamala. Kick back in our pajam-alas and watch a rom-com-ala.”
• They ended up the section by saying in unison, “Keep Calm-ala and Carry On-ala,” before getting to the end and shouting the classic wrap-up line together, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!"
• It was fun. It was something that The Other Guy would never have been able to do. Harris is warm and kind, and not so self-absorbed that she can’t poke fun at herself from time to time.
• Moving on.
• With only 48 hours remaining in the race for the White House, Kamala Harris is campaigning in Michigan today. The veep will attend a service and deliver remarks at a Black church in Detroit, visit a local barbershop in Pontiac, and hold a rally at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
• Tomorrow, the last day before the election, Harris will wrap up the campaign in Pennsylvania by holding rallies in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, followed by a concert in Allentown featuring rapper Fat Joe and a performance by Frankie Negron, both of whom have Puerto Rican heritage.
• Dumpy is also busy, holding events in Lititz, PA, Kinston, NC, and Macon, GA.
• What about election night?
• On Tuesday, the Harris-Walz campaign will host its election night event at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Harris’s alma mater.
• Dumples the Clown will spend election night in Florida, but has not announced specific election night plans.
• Hmm.
• A couple of other notes o the campaigns.
• For much of the past five decades, North Carolina has landed on the Republican side of the ledger in presidential elections. This year, the state is a true toss-up.
• So yesterday, both Harris and Dumples the Clown held rallies there.
• After a Saturday afternoon rally in Atlanta, Harris traveled to Charlotte for an event alongside North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and musicians Jon Bon Jovi and Khalid.
• Dumpy held a rally in Gastonia, and then another in the evening in Greensboro.
• A note about NC: when Obama won it in 2008, it was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had done so since 1976. But he narrowly lost the state in 2012.
• Dump carried the state in 2020 by just a point and a half — but changing demographics could boost Harris's chances here.
• It sure would be nice for Harris to get those 16 electoral votes.
• Let’s move on.
• The last time I voted in a ballot booth in a general election was literally in 2012, when I helped Obama beat Mitt Romney. Every year since, I’ve voted early — initially by mail, and then by drop off at a ballot drop box location.
• Why would I wait and then stand in a long line? That sounds awful.
• Well, a huge number of Americans have now seen the advantages of early voting, and more than 74 million people had already cast their ballots as of yesterday, which is almost half of the total number cast in the 2020 presidential election.
• That’s awesome.
• It includes 4 million voters in Georgia — or 80 percent of the total that voted there in 2020. In the battlegrounds of Arizona and North Carolina, roughly half of eligible voters have already shown up. And in three states — Connecticut, Delaware and South Carolina — early voting has surpassed 2020 levels.
• Most analysts are correctly saying that the pandemic that impacted the 2020 election — with many doing early voting for the first time — led to a lasting change in voting habits, with Election Day increasingly subsumed by Election Season.
• While nationwide rates of early voting aren’t quite as high as they were at this time in 2020, they’re significantly higher than in 2016 or any previous election year.
• Let’s move away from the Presidential race for a moment and look down-ballot to the House, something we haven’t spent a lot of time discussing.
• As you know, the House has 435 members who have to get re-elected every two years. The Republicans are currently defending a slim majority there, and Democrats need a net gain of four seats to flip control of the chamber.
• If the GOP remains in control, Mike Johnson (R-LA) remains the Speaker of the House. But if the Democrats pick up those few seats, that role shifts over to Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who would make history as the first Black speaker.
• There’s more than that. If Dumpy wins, a Republican House could help advance his agenda, while a Democratic-controlled chamber would serve as a big ol’ roadblock.
• While every House seat is important, here 10 races that may have the biggest impacts. Watch them carefully on Tuesday.
• VA-7: Democrat Eugene Vindman vs. Republican Derrick Anderson (no incumbent, with Dem. Rep. Abigail Spanberger launching a campaign for governor in 2025).
• NE-2: Republican incumbent Rep. Don Bacon vs. Democrat Tony Vargas.

• ME-2: Democrat incumbent Rep. Jared Golden vs. Republican Austin Theriault.
• MI-7: Democrat Curtis Hertel vs. Republican Tom Barrett (no incumbent, with Dem.Rep. Elissa Slotkin running for the US Senate).
• CO-8: Democratic incumbent Rep. Yadira Caraveo vs. Republican Gabe Evans,
• PA-10: Republican incumbent Rep. Scott Perry vs. Democrat Janelle Stelson.

• NY-19: Republican incumbent Rep. Marc Molinaro vs. Democrat Josh Riley.
• CA-45: Republican incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel vs. Democrat Derek Tran.
• NC-1: Democratic incumbent Don Davis vs. Republican Laurie Buckhout.
• IA-3: Republican incumbent Rep. Zach Nunn vs. Democrat Lanon Baccam.
• Please vote blue up and down the whole ballot. It’s more important now than ever.
• Back to presidential election thoughts.
• A reminder that Donald J. Trump was born in June 1946 and is now 78 years old. If he won on Tuesday and managed to stay alive for four years, he would be 82 during his last year in office.
• Dump currently seems to be experiencing a rapid deterioration of both his physical and mental fitness.
• One should make the assumption that statistically, it’s nearly certain that JD Vance would serve a good portion of Dump’s term if Dump is elected.
• As long as we’re talking about age, here’s a list of dudes who were younger than I am when they became President of the USA. It’s shockingly how many there are, in order of youngest to oldest.
• Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Ulysses S. Grant, Barack Obama, Grover Cleveland, Franklin Pierce, James A. Garfield, James K. Polk, Millard Fillmore, John Tyler, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Chester A. Arthur, Abraham Lincoln, Jimmy Carter, William McKinley, Martin Van Buren, Rutherford B. Hayes, George W. Bush, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon B. Johnson, Warren G. Harding, and Benjamin Harrison.
• All 25 of them were under the 55 years and 228 days that I’ll be on January 20, 2025.
• Seriously, I refuse to believe this shit. I can’t be older than most presidents. Let’s look at the old dudes — who were older than me when they got into office — in order of oldness.
• Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, William Henry Harrison, James Buchanan, George H. W. Bush, Zachary Taylor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Andrew Jackson, John Adams, Gerald Ford, Harry S. Truman, James Monroe, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, George Washington, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon, and Grover Cleveland.
• Oh lovely. Only 21 of them. I am older than most people when they start their presidency. That’s fucking great.
• And now, The Weather: “you’re like me” by shower curtain
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s this date in 1964. Kamala Harris is a newborn; I won’t be born for another 4-1/2 years. Dumpy is 18.
• In the election that week, the former vice president of John F. Kennedy was running for election. Lyndon B. Johnson continued the great path that JFK had set for the nation, and then ended up with an even stronger focus on civil rights during his presidency.
• He beat his Republican opponent by the largest popular vote margin since the advent of widespread popular elections in 1824.
• The tally was 43,129,040 (61.1%) for Johnson versus 27,175,754 (38.5%) for Barry Goldwater. The electoral vote was similarly lopsided, with LBJ winning 486-52.
• Here was the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at the time…
• 1. Baby Love (The Supremes). 2. Last Kiss (J. Frank Wilson and The Cavaliers). 3. Do Wah Diddy Diddy (Manfred Mann). 4. Leader Of The Pack (The Shangri-Las). 5. Let It Be Me (Betty Everett & Jerry Butler). 6. Have I The Right? (The Honeycombs). 7. Come A Little Bit Closer (Jay & The Americans). 8. The Door Is Still Open To My Heart (Dean Martin). 9. Chug-A-Lug (Roger Miller). 10. We'll Sing In The Sunshine (Gale Garnett). 11. Oh, Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison And The Candy Men). 12. Dancing In The Street (Martha & The Vandellas). 13. Little Honda (The Hondells). 14. Tobacco Road (The Nashville Teens). 15. Everybody Knows (I Still Love You) (The Dave Clark Five). 16. I Don't Want To See You Again (Peter And Gordon). 17. I Like It (Gerry And The Pacemakers). 18. Ain't That Loving You Baby (Elvis Presley). 19. I'm Crying (The Animals). 20. You Really Got Me (The Kinks).
• From the Sports Desk… I got nothing. I’ll be watching some football today, but my mind is too preoccupied with more important stuff than to focus on sports for the moment.
• I’m sure you understand.
• Today in history… The River Arno floods causing massive damage in Florence (1333). Christopher Columbus first sights the island of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea (1493). English Parliament passes the first Act of Supremacy, making King Henry VIII head of the Anglican Church, supplanting the pope and the Roman Catholic Church (1534). French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges is guillotined (1793). The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper is founded (1838). John Willis Menard (R-LA) was the first African American elected to the United States Congress, but because of some racist shit, he was never seated (1868). Panama separates from Colombia (1903). William Howard Taft is elected the 27th President of the United States (1908). Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T (1911). Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected President of the United States (1936). Lyndon B. Johnson is elected to a full term as U.S. president (1964). Democratic Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton defeats Republican President George H. W. Bush and Independent candidate Ross Perot in the 1992 United States presidential election (1992). The 2020 United States presidential election takes place between Democratic Joe Biden and Republican incumbent President Donald Trump (2020).
• November 3 is the birthday of painter Annibale Carracci (1560), chemist Daniel Rutherford (1749), businessman Stephen F. Austin (1793), SCOTUS chief justice Edward Douglass White (1845), MLB player Bob Feller (1918), actor Charles Bronson (1921), actor Ken Berry (1933), politician Michael Dukakis (1933), singer-songwriter/guitarist Bert Jansch (1943), singer-songwriter Lulu (1948), actress Roseanne Barr (1952), comedian Dennis Miller (1953), singer-songwriter Adam Ant (1954), NFL player Phil Simms (1955), actor Dolph Lundgren (1957), singer-songwriter/guitarist/producer Steven Wilson (1967), guitarist/composer Mick Thomson (1973), NFL player Colin Kaepernick (1987), singer-songwriter/guitarist Courtney Barnett (1987), and model Kendall Jenner (1995).

That’s enough for now. We have a lot to talk about over the next couple of days. Keep Calm-ala and Carry On-ala. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 2, 2024

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 November 2, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. I’m here in my blue bathrobe, drinking coffee. There is definitely a “calm before the storm” vibe going, so hopefully next weekend I’m still here in my robe and not in a kevlar helmet and a bulletproof vest.

• The election is this Tuesday, November 5. That’s in three days. I know you knew that. I just thought I’d get it out of the way.
• You have much to lose by not voting, and a lot to gain by voting. If you don’t vote, I want you to think about the people who will be doing the voting for you.
• They very well may not have your best interests at heart. Some of them are actively conspiring against you… your gender, our nationality, your ethnicity, your religion, your sexual orientation, your age. There are many factors that make you who you are.
• And some people want to make who you are illegal and make it easier for you to be persecuted, treated unfairly, and punished just for the crime of being you.
• Don’t let them do it Stand up for yourself and vote.
• I know that many of you want a solid answer about who’s going to win, and you want it today.
• No one knows that answer. No pollster, no pundit, no one who “just has a strong feeling.”
• Trump could win. Harris could win. Either of them could win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote, or vice-versa. There is no way right now to predict with any degree of certainty who will win.
• It could be decided in a landslide and we go to sleep on Tuesday night knowing who the next President of the USA will be. That’s… unlikely, but you never know.
• In a situation where vote counts are very close in one or more states, it could take days or even weeks, and there might be court cases to content with before we know for sure.
• So my advice — to myself and everyone around me — is to chill. Do your part, vote, encourage others to vote. And that’s it.
• Don’t lie awake at night worrying about something you can’t control. Whatever happens in the election, good or bad, is what will happen, and we will plan and act accordingly after it’s done.
• For now, just make sure you vote. That’s it. That’s what you can do to help yourself, your friends, your family, and the future. Vote.
• Let’s do some news.
• A reminder that daylight saving time ends tonight. Set your clocks back an hour before you go to bed.
• All of your “smart” things… your computers, your phone, and so on will just set themselves. Your car? Probably not. That cheap-ass alarm clock you bought off Amazon for $11.99? Definitely not.
• Anyway, don’t let anyone say you get an “extra” hour. There are no extra hours. And time is a human construct anyway.
• Ask someone to tell you what time actually is. 99% of people have no idea, or can only give a vague response that only explains what it does, rather than what it is.
• I can tell you what it is… but not why it is. Best not to worry about it, frankly.
• Okay, now some news.
• Yesterday, the Justice Department said it will send election monitors to 86 jurisdictions in 27 states on Tuesday, the most in two decades amid growing fears of improper partisan influence and voter suppression.
• I don’t blame them.
• Since 1965 and the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department has dispatched government officials into polling sites to ensure fair ballot access for vulnerable populations — including racial minorities, disabled people, and those with limited English-language ability — and to protect against unlawful partisan influence.
• Democratic and Republican administrations have monitored elections for potential voting rights irregularities for decades.
• But officials in some Republican-led states have warned they might attempt to ban federal authorities from entering polling sites on Election Day.
• Fucking assholes.
• Florida Secretary of State, Republican Cord Byrd, said he would ban federal authorities from entering polling sites in the four counties from his state — Broward, Miami-Dade, Orange, and Osceola.
• And in the same breath he said that his office plans to send his own state monitors to polling sites in the same counties.
• Douchebag prick.
• All seven of the nation’s most closely contested swing states are represented on the list, with monitors planning to visit six counties in Michigan, five in Georgia, four in Wisconsin and Arizona, three in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and one in Nevada.
• Monitors also will be present in a mix of red and blue states, including California, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, and Virginia. Texas and Massachusetts have the most jurisdictions on the list with eight apiece.
• Jurisdictions where monitors will be sent are selected based on factors that include requests from local officials, federal court settlements, and areas with fast-changing demographics.
• I am more and more glad for being an early voter. Fuck all that crazy shit.
• Let’s move on.
• Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court left in place a lower court ruling that allows Pennsylvania voters to cast provisional ballots if their mail-in ballots have been invalidated.
• That’s good.
• Since 2019, all Pennsylvania voters have been able to cast ballots by mail, but to have their mail ballots counted, they have to follow strict rules laid out in the state election code. One of those rules requires voters to place their ballot into a “secrecy envelope” before placing it into the mailing envelope. Without the secrecy envelope, the ballot is considered “naked” and will not be counted.
• After two voters in the 2024 primary election were notified that their ballots would not be counted because they had not put their ballots in the secrecy envelope, the voters went to the polls on Election Day to cast provisional ballots.
• But Butler County refused to count their votes. The voters sued, arguing that the Board of Elections was obligated to count their provisional ballots. The Republican National Committee and the Butler County Board of Elections countered that under the state election code provisional ballots cast by those whose mail ballots were received on time cannot be counted, even if the mail ballots were deemed invalid.
• In a 4-3 decision, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court sided with the voters. The court determined that a naked ballot is automatically void, meaning it was never received or counted by the Board of Elections. Under that logic, if the ballot was never received, a voter is eligible to cast a provisional ballot.
• So yesterday, the Supreme Court declined to intervene, leaving in place the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that allows provisional votes to be cast and counted when a “naked” mail-in ballot is invalidated.
• Moving on.
• Why was Dumpy simulating sex acts with his microphone at a rally?
• We already know how he’s obsessed with penises. His previous rally, where his main point was the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer’s dick, was a good indication of how this old man thinks about dicks all the time.
• But last night in Milwaukee, as he had problems with his microphone, he began to sexually stroke it, and then pretended to perform oral sex on it.
• What the actual fuck? Why do you want this guy? I have suspicions about a good number of Dump voters that become more and more confirmed as time goes by.
• In other news…
• Information has come to light of yet another pregnant woman who died because of a state’s abortion laws that went into effect after the overturn of Roe v. Wade by Dump’s hand-selected Supreme Court.
• Nevaeh Crain, 18, had gone to two different emergency rooms within 12 hours in October 2023, each time returning home feeling worse than before. Crain was only diagnosed with strep throat upon her first visit. The hospital did not investigate her sharp abdominal cramps.
• Medical records indicate Crain tested positive for sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition, on her second visit. But doctors still cleared her to leave after apparently confirming that her six-month-old fetus still had a heartbeat.
• These incidents are seen as evidence of a new reality in which US healthcare professionals in states with new tough abortion restrictions are hesitant or even afraid to give care to pregnant mothers over fear of legal repercussions.
• Texas’s abortion ban threatens prison time for interventions that end a fetal heartbeat, regardless of whether the pregnancy is wanted or not.
• Please vote for Kamala Harris, who will push for and pass legislation to guarantee the right of reproductive health care for women in all 50 states. thank you.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, a judge rejected Elon Musk’s attempt to move to federal court a lawsuit challenging his $1 million daily giveaways to registered voters in swing states, enabling a hearing to proceed before Election Day. 
• Seems a bit too late to me, but if Elmo is culpable of a crime, he should definitely face justice, regardless of when it comes.
• The Philadelphia district attorney sued the billionaire and his pro-Trump super PAC on Monday, urging the court to immediately halt the sweepstakes and alleging that America PAC’s daily $1 million giveaways are an “illegal lottery” under Pennsylvania state law. 
• And the Department of Justice had also warned the super PAC that its giveaways could violate a federal law against paying people to register to vote.
• Asshole.
• Let’s do some more good news.
• Late yesterday, a federal jury convicted former Kentucky police detective Brett Hankison of using excessive force on Breonna Taylor during the botched 2020 drug raid that left her dead.
• The six man, six woman jury had deliberated for more than 20 hours over three days.  
• Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, celebrated the verdict outside the federal courthouse, saying, “It took a lot of time. It took a lot of patience. It was hard. The jurors took their time to really understand that Breonna deserved justice.”
• I also appreciate when justice is served. Sometimes it takes awhile.
• In international news…
• Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of Britain’s right-of-center Conservative Party, is the first Black woman to lead a major UK political party.
• She was born Olukemi Adegoke in London in 1980 to well-off Nigerian parents, and spent much of her childhood in the West African country.
• Shrug. I mean, I’m glad to see more women and people of color represented in political leadership around the world.
• It seems strange to me that those people would want to represent the political ideologies that have traditionally treated them as second-class citizens compared to white men, but maybe the very act of infiltrating those parties will help end the practice.
• I don’t know.
• Today is the Day of the Dead, or Día de Muertos. 
• The holiday involves family and friends gathering to pay respects and remember friends and family members who have died.
• One thing I like about the holiday — which is widely observed in Mexico but is also observed in other places, especially by people of Mexican heritage — is that rather than somber and sad events, the celebrations often take a humorous tone, as celebrants remember amusing events and anecdotes about the departed.
• And now, The Weather: “ROCKMAN” by Mk.gee
• From the Sports Desk… if you’re keeping an eye on NFL games this Sunday, the ones with the biggest point spreads include Raiders at Bengals (-7), Saints (-7) at Panthers, Jaguars at Eagles (-7.5), and Bucs at Chiefs (-9).
• Today in history… North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states (1889). The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire (1914). KDKA of Pittsburgh starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station (1920). The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, "high-definition" - then defined as at least 200 lines - service (1936). Howard Hughes performs the only flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules, also known as the "Spruce Goose” (1947). Game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance (1959). Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the trial 'R v Penguin Books Ltd’, the ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover’ case (1960). Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (1983). The Chicago Cubs defeat the Cleveland Indians in the World Series, ending the longest Major League Baseball championship drought at 108 years (2016).
• November 2 is the birthday of English king Edward V (1470), hunter/explorer Daniel Boone (1734), French queen consort Marie Antoinette (1755), US president James K. Polk (1795), physician John Light Atlee (1795), inventor John J. Loud (1844), US president Warren G. Harding (1865), actor Burt Lancaster (1913), actor Ray Walston (1914), music producer Rudy Van Gelder (1924), engineer/businessman Amar Bose (1929), saxophonist/composer Phil Woods (1931), sexologist Shere Hite (1942), keyboardist/composer Keith Emerson (1944), singer-songwriter/guitarist J. D. Souther (1945), drummer/composer Carter Beauford (1957), MLB player Willie McGee (1958), singer-songwriter k. d. lang (1961), politician Brian Kemp (1963), actor David Schwimmer (1966), singer-songwriter Kurt Elling (1967), rapper Nelly (1974), NFL player Jimmy Garoppolo (1991), and NFL player Jordan Love (1998).

Do you need some advice on not allowing election anxiety to get the best of you? I offer none. There’s a reason why the saying “ignorance is bliss” exists, and one of the prices you pay by being aware of what’s going on around you is a sense of uneasiness at times like these. But I will say this: I remain optimistic, and that allows me to go about my day and be productive. And now I will take a shower and get dressed and do things. Enjoy your day.

Random News: November 1, 2024

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 November 1, 2024, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! It’s also the last weekday morning for me waking up long before the sun for awhile; by Monday, daylight savings will have ended and it will be a bit lighter at 6am. I am nevertheless appreciating my coffee a lot today.

• Rabbit rabbit rabbit.
• Of all the months where I could use some good luck, this one feels… extra required.
• So, the election is in four more days, counting today.
• AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
• Okay, let’s all calm down. Deep breaths.
• Another big — although rather late — endorsement for Kamala Harris came in yesterday. It was from NBA superstar LeBron James, who posted that the “choice is clear” in the election.
• Yesterday afternoon, James posted a video of Donald Trump using extreme and violent rhetoric. The video also included a clip of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe from Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally earlier this week, making a racist joke about he and a Black friend carving “watermelons together.” The video ended with the message, “Hate Takes Us Back.”
• James wrote, “What are we even talking about here?? When I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. VOTE KAMALA HARRIS!!!”
• With 159 million followers on Instagram, James’s influence is undeniable.
• And then, as if to live up to every accusation of using violent rhetoric, yesterday Dumpy said that Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney should be subjected to a firing squad during a live event with Tucker Carlson.
• “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
• That’s the guy that MAGAs want to lead the country. An elderly, unhinged, and sad man who is desperate for power. I promise, he’ll also have you in front of a firing squad if he chooses.
• Tonight, Harris and the Fat Fascist will host dueling rallies in the Milwaukee area as part of a final push for votes in swing-state Wisconsin.
• The candidates will appear at events just miles apart from each other on Friday.
• Both sides say the race is once again razor tight for the state’s 10 electoral votes. Four of the past six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a point, or fewer than 23,000 votes.
• Let’s step away from the presidential race for a moment and mention the equally important U.S Senate battles.
• In three races alone — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Montana — more than $1 billion will have been spent by Election Day on November 5.
• And, late in the game, Democrats are sending millions more dollars to Texas, a GOP stronghold where the party has new hopes of knocking off two-term conservative stalwart Sen. Ted Cruz, an upset that could help them protect their majority.
• Republicans need to pick up two seats to capture a surefire majority, and one of those — West Virginia — is all but in the bag for the GOP. Other races are more volatile and less predictable.
• Democrats are facing some brutal math that is forcing them to defend eight seats in tough states. The election also will test the down-ballot strength of both parties in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the premier presidential battleground states known as the Blue Wall for their relatively reliable Democratic voting history.
• Republicans are most confident about flipping the seat in deep-red Montana, where Republican Tim Sheehy is challenging third-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. They are also optimistic about reliably red Ohio, where Republican Bernie Moreno is challenging third-term Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
• Even Pennsylvania is a danger zone, with Republican David McCormick trying to knock off three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in a battleground undercard that both sides say is close.
• All I can tell you folks in those places is to please vote, and encourage everyone around you to vote. The more people that vote, the more they tend to vote for the real interests of the people.
• And that’s why Republicans are always trying to suppress — rather than encourage — the vote.
• Your votes will determine much more than who the President is; Congress (both House and Senate), and local officials and ballot measures are crucial to your daily life as well.
• In other news…
• You know those 1,600 voters in Virginia who were removed form voter rolls because they were suspected of being noncitizens?
• A whole bunch of them were shocked by the news… and are very much U.S. citizens.
• Case in point: Phoebe Taylor was all ready to vote in Tuesday’s election. She even knew her precinct number in the city of Richmond off the top of her head.
• She had to hear from a reporter that she — a naturalized U.S. citizen, originally from Great Britain — had been purged from Virginia’s rolls for no reason.
• Another Richmond voter, 66-year-old Eric Terrell, said he had his voter registration mistakenly canceled. He said he learned about the issue because he called the elections office to inquire about the status of his absentee ballot request, and after a couple of calls they informed him he’d been purged from the rolls.
• He was told that he can go to the polls on Tuesday and cast a ballot through Virginia’s same-day registration process. The ballot will be a provisional ballot.
• These people are Americans who are getting their right to vote taken away by Republican state leaders. That is unforgivable.
• Speaking of people who aren’t being forgiven, a brief word about Rudy Giuliani.
• The former mayor, former lawyer, and continual national joke had to give access to a moving company representative and lawyers to his Manhattan apartment yesterday after he failed to turn over belongings to two former Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him.
• Among the prized possessions Rudy had to turn over to Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss are his $5 million Upper East Side apartment, a 1980 Mercedes once owned by movie star Lauren Bacall, and a variety of other belongings, from his television to a shirt signed by New York Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio to 26 luxury watches.
• Rudy Tootie said he didn’t get a chance to defend himself in the Georgia election workers case. That is a lie; he was given every opportunity to turn over information requested by lawyers for Freeman and Moss last year, but didn’t do so.
• While we’re on the topic of fucking round and finding out…
• Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of Dump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election, had his law license suspended in New York yesterday.
• Chesebro is just the latest lawyer involved in Dumpy’s 2020 scheme to face professional sanctions. The list also includes John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, and the aforementioned Giuliani. All have been suspended or disbarred from practicing law.
• And now, The Weather: “City Is Taken” by BODEGA
• From the Sports Desk… week 9 of the NFL seasons started last night with the underdog Jets surprisingly beating the Texans 21-13.
• Today in history… Philip II is crowned as 'King of France’ (1179). The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time (1512). The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, is first discovered and navigated by European explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the first recorded circumnavigation voyage (1520). French Huguenots establish the France Antarctique colony in present-day Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1555). William Shakespeare's tragedy ‘Othello’ is performed for the first time (1604). Shakespeare's play ‘The Tempest’ is performed for the first time (1611). The British Crown colony of New York is subdivided into 12 counties (1683). John Adams becomes the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion, later renamed the White House (1800). President Abraham Lincoln appoints George B. McClellan as the commander of the Union Army (1861). A picture showing the bare breasts of a woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time (1896). Photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography (1941). 6,500 United States Army soldiers are involuntarily exposed to 'Desert Rock' atomic explosions for training purposes (1951). Leon Jaworski is appointed as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor (1973). Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of its factory in Marysville, OH (1982). The Republic of Serbia and Montenegro joins the United Nations (2000).
• November 1 is the birthday of polymath Jan Brożek (1585), UK prime minister Spencer Perceval (1762), UK prime minister F. J. Robinson (1782), doctor/abolitionist Caroline Still Anderson (1848), painter William Merritt Chase (1849), novelist Stephen Crane (1871), sportswriter Grantland Rice (1880), race car driver Ken Miles (1918), golfer Gary Player (1935), publisher Larry Flynt (1942), bass player Ric Grech (1946), NFL player Ted Hendricks (1947), songwriter Jim Steinman (1947), music producer David Foster (1949), computer programmer Mitch Kapor (1950), singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett (1957), businessman Tim Cook (1960), singer-songwriter Anthony Kiedis (1962), drummer Rick Allen (1963), singer-songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins (1964), NHL player Tie Domi (1969), actress/anti-vaxxer Jenny McCarthy (1972), and MLB player Coco Crisp (1979).

For the first year in a long while, I got ZERO trick-or-treaters last night. I was worried that I didn’t have enough candy; now I’m sitting on a pile of it and I’m going to have to lock it away as opposed to giving myself diabetes. In more important news, PLEASE make sure you have a plan to vote on Tuesday if you haven’t done so already. Thank you. Enjoy your day.

Random News: October 31, 2024

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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Ghoul morning (evil cackle, lightning flashes). It’s October 31, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. It’s also Halloween.

• What the fuck is Halloween, anyway?
• As we know, Halloween has become a celebration of horror, being associated with the macabre and supernatural.
• One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which are believed to have pagan roots.
• Some suggest that Samhain itself was Christianized as All Hallow's Day, along with its eve, by the early Church.
• Celebrated in Scotland and Ireland for centuries, Scottish and Irish immigrants took many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century, and then through American influence various Halloween customs spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century.
• A lot of the current traditions — putting on costumes, going trick-or-treating, playing pranks — stem from celebrations that go back many centuries.
• What’s with the carving of pumpkins and making jack-o’-lanterns, though?
• Well, in Ireland, Scotland, and Northern England, the turnip has traditionally been carved during Halloween, but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which is both much softer and much larger, making it easier to carve than a turnip.
• Even seen a carved turnip? Way more horrifying.
• Anyway, the American tradition of carving pumpkins is recorded in 1837, and was originally associated with harvest time in general, not becoming specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.
• I’ll end this by saying that first, I’m not doing shit for Halloween (I very rarely do), and I also never know if we’re going to get three trick-or-treaters, or 300 of them.
• Nevertheless, I am prepared. The candy selections at my home include Snickers, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, and Twix. they were all in one variety pack, you see.
• None of those, somewhat surprisingly, are in this year’s top selections of Halloween candies, per a report from a candy web site. In order, the popular treats for 2024…
• 1. M&M’s 2. Reese's Cups 3. Sour Patch Kids 4. Skittles 5. Starburst 6. Hot Tamales 7. Candy Corn 8. Hershey's Kisses 9. Hershey's Mini Bars 10. Butterfinger
• A different report lists them as such…
• 1. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups 2. M&Ms 3. Snickers 4. Peanut M&M’s 5. Twix 6. Kit Kat 7. Hershey's Milk Chocolate 8. Milky Way 9. Sour Patch Kids 10. Skittles
• Okay, let’s do some actual news.
• The election is in five days.
• Are you ready for “hardship” under a second Dump presidency?
• Dump surrogate Elon Musk said that’s what will happen and it’s what you deserve.
• At a recent virtual town hall event held on Musk’s social media platform, the multibillionaire said he was “praying for a victory” for Trump, so he could begin working in a high-level Cabinet role to axe federal spending.
• “We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” Musk said. “And, you know, that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”
• A huge majority of economists agree that Dump’s economic and fiscal proposals will spark an economic calamity. 
• In a joint letter released last week, 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists warned that Dump’s terrible plans for tariffs, tax cuts for the wealthy, and an immigration crackdown — including detaining and deporting millions of people — would “lead to higher prices, larger deficits, and greater inequality.”
• More than anything, they wrote, electing Dump would undermine the rule of law and political certainty, “the most important determinants of economic success.”
• At this moment, under the leadership of Biden and Harris, the U.S. economy heads toward Election Day on firm footing, with consumer confidence rising, employers still adding hundreds of thousands of jobs, wages handily outpacing inflation, and overall economic output in great shape.
• And now the Dump Team says you will have to endure hardship under his regime, while the super-rich get even more wealthy and there’s less and less money for a shrinking middle class.
• Please vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
• And while you’re at it, vote for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.
• Speaking of voting, I have the latest statistics for people like me — and many of you — who have already voted.
• As of yesterday afternoon, more than 55 million people have already cast their ballots — either in person or by mail during early voting.
• Of those, more than 29 million early votes have been cast at polling places in-person, and another 25.9 million mail ballots have been returned. There were more than 65.6 million mail ballots requested.
• A slightly higher number of registered Democrats, just under 11 million, have already voted, compared to nearly 10 million registered Republicans, according to data from 25 states that report party registration.
• Of those who have submitted ballots in-person during early voting, 3.8 million are registered Republicans and 3.1 million are registered Democrats.
• For people voting by mail, more Democrats, 7.3 million, have returned ballots, compared to just over 5.6 million registered GOP voters.
• So what does that mean for Election Day? Well, using the battleground state of Georgia as an example, more than 3 million people have voted so far, which is 45% of registered voters in the state.
• GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that the figures mark the best turnout during the early voting period that the state has seen.
• And what it might mean — depending on where you live — is that lines are shorter than usual on Election Day, and that perhaps votes can be tallied more quickly.
• Unless some set of circumstances means that we have to wait for Maricopa County, AZ to count their votes.
• The county, which includes Phoenix, is one of the most consequential battlegrounds in the country. Their election workers on November 5 will begin a grindingly slow tally of every ballot cast in the vast expanse.
• And this year, election officials warn it could take as long as 13 days to tabulate all of the ballots in Maricopa.
• The reason it takes so long there is simple. With its 4.5 million residents, Maricopa has more residents than nearly half of the states in the country and is home to 60% of Arizona’s voters.
• But the real slowdown comes from election workers following their voting laws — which were put in place and approved by Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislatures.
• And since Maricopa is one of the few counties in the U.S. that is so evenly divided politically that races are often close, it takes even longer to know who has won.
• Jesus Fucking Christ. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to Arizona. Let’s say, if Harris wins Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia, it might not matter how long Arizona takes to do their tally.
• In any case, no matter how long it ends up taking, you don’t have the option of sitting this out. I like the way that one guy said it: “Tell your friends who don’t want to vote because they’re ‘not into politics’ that it’s too late. Politics are into them.”
• Let’s move on with some predictably shitty election-related news from the Supreme Court.
• Yesterday, they allowed Virginia to move forward with its removal of roughly 1,600 alleged noncitizens from its voter rolls just days before the 2024 election.
• A provision of the National Voter Registration Act requires states to complete programs aimed at purging ineligible voters from registration lists up to 90 days before federal elections.
• But they’re purging those votes anyway. Hey, maybe they’re a bunch of Republicans. All I know if that removing eligible people’s right to vote is not the American way.
• Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have denied the request from Virginia officials.
• Back to the horror show that Donnie Dump wants for the USA if elected.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson told a group of supporters this week that Republicans will seek “massive reform” to the Affordable Care Act if Dumpy is reelected — previewing a major piece of the GOP’s legislative plans for next year.
• During a campaign swing in Pennsylvania, the GOP speaker vowed that overhauling the 14-year-old health care law would be part of a “very aggressive” first 100-days agenda if Republicans win back control of the White House.
• At one point, an attendee asked Johnson directly: “No Obamacare?” And the speaker, wearing a personalized Trump-Vance jacket, responded: “No Obamacare.”
• That means you will no longer have access to affordable insurance, that you won’t be able to even get insurance if you have preexisting conditions, and that private insurance companies will charge anything they want.
• Electing Dump places you and your family in immediate danger.
• Let’s move on to a positive note and talk about another Republican who has endorsed Kamala Harris: it’s former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• In a lengthy post on social media yesterday, Schwarzenegger wrote, “A candidate who won’t respect your vote unless it is for him, a candidate who will send his followers to storm the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke, a candidate who has shown no ability to work to pass any policy besides a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me but helped no one else, a candidate who thinks Americans who disagree with him are the bigger enemies than China, Russia, or North Korea - that won’t solve our problems. It will just be four more years of bitching with no results that makes us angrier and angrier, more divided, and more hateful.”
• The Governator continued, “We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that. He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already has been, and we, the people, will get nothing but more anger. That’s enough reason for me to share my vote with all of you. I want to move forward as a country, and even though I have plenty of disagreements with their platform, I think the only way to do that is with Harris and Walz. Vote this week. Turn the page and put this junk behind us.”
• Fuck yes, Arnold. Thank you.
• Side note from me: Dump supporters are weak pansy-ass punks. Real men (and women) support Kamala Harris.
• As long as we’re mentioning endorsements…
• Remember at that Las Vegas rally in September when Dumpy the Ignorant Ass announced the very male reggaeton star Nicky Jam by saying, “Do You Know Nicky? She’s Hot!”
• Welp.
• Nicky apparently forgave Dump for misgendering him, but couldn’t accept it when Dump’s handpicked speaker called Puerto Rico "a floating island of garbage" at a Madison Square Garden rally last weekend.
• Yesterday, Jam — who is Puerto Rican — rescinded his endorsement of Dumpy via an announcement to his 42 million social media followers.
• “I never thought in my life that a month later a comedian would come along and criticize my country, speak poorly of my country, therefore I renounce any support for Donald Trump,” he said in Spanish in an Instagram post.
• Good for him. No one should just let this guy shit on them. And Dump shits on literally everyone. Keep it in mind when you vote on Tuesday.
• By the way…
• Dump tried a stunt where he rode around in a garbage truck, perhaps as a reference to his speaker calling Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage.
• But while trying to get into the vehicle, he had some issue with his depth perception, grabbing the air instead of the door handle and nearly falling on his ass.
• Jimmy Kimmel had this to say…
• “He went out and rented a garbage truck and put his name on the side. Shouldn’t they have put him in the back of that? The garbage goes in the back of the truck.”
• Good point.
• A final note for today about that Bloated Bloviating Blimp…
• Dumpy said at his rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that his people previously told him they did not think he should say that he wanted to "protect the women of our country.”
• And then he added, "I said, 'Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not.’"
• Vice President Kamala Harris quickly highlighted his comments, saying, "Donald Trump thinks he should get to make decisions about what you do with your body. Whether you like it or not."
• There’s a name for men who impose their wills and desires on women whether they like it or not.
• Moving on to the Little Punk-Ass Bitch Desk…
• An 18-year-old man remained in Duval County jail yesterday after Neptune Beach, FL police said he was antagonizing voters. Caleb Williams is charged with aggravated assault on persons 65 years or older and improper exhibition of firearm or dangerous weapon.
• On Tuesday afternoon, Williams who was standing with a group of males near a truck in the parking lot near an early voting location, displaying Dump signs.
• Williams approached a 71-year-old woman with a machete raised above his head in an intimidating manner. A 54-year-old woman standing next to her told police she also feared for her safety and snapped a photo of Williams using her phone.
• Neptune Beach police Chief Michael Key said he believed the men were there to intimidate voters, which is a federal crime.
• “I’m extremely angry at this,” he said. “It’s is one thing to exercise your First Amendment right which we so dearly take as a sacred right, but the moment you move to violence, that goes out the window. To say I’m disturb is an understatement. I’m mad.”
• I am too, Chief. I’m also interested in what kind of parents this young adult has. I have to assume that his actions of terror start at home. 
• And now, The Weather: “Anchor” by Soccer Mommy
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s November 1992. Republican George W. Bush is running for reelection to the presidency against Democrat Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas.
• It’s the first national election in which I voted. I was 23 at the time.
• Election Day was November 3, and it wasn’t even close. The election was called for Clinton that night, receiving 43% of the popular vote against Bush's 37.4% and independent candidate Ross Perot's 18.9%.
• Clinton got 370 electoral votes to Bush’s 168. And Clinton was the first Democrat since 1964 to win a majority of states.
• Believe it or not, I could see a similar victory, both in the popular and electoral vote, for Kamala Harris next Tuesday. Assuming you vote. Yes, you.
• 1. How Do You Talk To An Angel (The Heights). 2. End Of The Road (Boyz II Men). 3. I'd Die Without You (P.M. Dawn). 4. If I Ever Fall In Love (Shai). 5. Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough (Patty Smyth). 6. Rump Shaker (Wreckx-N-Effect). 7. Rhythm Is A Dancer (Snap!). 8. What About Your Friends (TLC). 9. Erotica (Madonna). 10. Jump Around (House Of Pain). 11. Real Love (Mary J. Blige). 12. Good Enough (Bobby Brown). 13. Free Your Mind (En Vogue). 14. Walking On Broken Glass (Annie Lennox). 15. Would I Lie To You? (Charles & Eddie). 16. Layla (Eric Clapton). 17. Love Is On The Way (Saigon Kick). 18. Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad (Def Leppard). 19. People Everyday (Arrested Development). 20. She's Playing Hard To Get (Hi-Five).
• From the Sports Desk… congratulations to my Los Angeles Dodgers, champions of Major League Baseball in 2024. Game 5 of the World Series was one for the record books… literally.
• Down 5-0 to the Yankees through four innings, the Dodgers made the largest comeback in a clinching game in MLB history, winning 7-6 in a nailbiter and winning the series 4-1.
• Freddie Freeman, the nicest man in baseball, was well-deservedly awarded World Series MVP.
• This is the eighth championship in Dodgers franchise history, the others coming in 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988, and 2020.
• I am a lifelong Dodger fan and I enjoyed the playoffs this year a lot… but I’m still kinda glad baseball is over. I have enough shit fighting for my poor brain’s attention.
• Today in history… Byzantine Empress Irene is deposed and banished to Lesbos (802). Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state (1864). Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile highway across United States (1913). Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy (1922). After 14 years of work, Mount Rushmore is completed (1941). Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two security guards (1984). Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors (1998). Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station (2000). A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas indicts former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice (2002). The global population of humans reaches seven billion (2011). 
• October 31 is the birthday of Portugal king Ferdinand I (1345), Portugal king Edward (1391), painter Johannes Vermeer (1632), physicist Laura Bassi (1711), Portugal king Luis I (1838), Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low (1860), photographer Helmut Newton (1920), astronaut Michael Collins (1930), journalist Dan Rather (1931), actor Michael Landon (1936), actress Sally Kirkland (1941), actor David Ogden Stiers (1942), NFL player Brian Piccolo (1943), songwriter Russ Ballard (1945), actor John Candy (1950), journalist Jane Pauley (1950), bass player Bernard Edwards (1952), author Neal Stephenson (1959), director Peter Jackson (1961), drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. (1961), guitarist Johnny Marr (1963), rapper Ad-Rock (1966), rapper Vanilla Ice (1967), bass player/songwriter Adam Schlesinger (1967), songwriter Adam Schlesinger (1967), and singer Willow Smith (2000).

That seems like plenty of news. I am — as usual — busy today. I am feeling pretty optimistic about things overall while remaining almost nauseously nervous about the election next week. Please vote and encourage those around you to vote. Enjoy your day.