Random News: July 16, 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 July 16, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. Just tons of stuff going on, to the point where there’s no way I can encompass everything to the degree I prefer each morning. But we do what we can with the time that we have, which is kind of like life itself. Let’s go.

• I’m still absolutely livid at the miscarriage of justice that happened yesterday morning when U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon dismissed the federal indictment against that fucking prick El Dumpo on charges of mishandling classified documents.
• Yesterday’s ruling tosses Dump’s 40 criminal charges that accused him of mishandling classified info and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve those records from Mar-a-Lago following his presidency. 
• It was the first time Trump has gotten one of his criminal indictments dismissed. 
• We continue to see more and more evidence that there is not, I repeat, not a set of laws that apply equally to all Americans.
• Cannon’s excuse is that special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed. Her decision did not address the merits of Trump’s charges, be he guilty or innocent.
• Saying that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional has been considered a very legally dubious argument, and an extreme long-shot to be successful. And yet, here we are.
• Many other courts — including the Supreme Court — have rejected arguments similar to the one that Trump’s team made in Florida about the legality of Smith’s appointment.
• By dismissing the entire indictment, Cannon’s decision also means that the charges are dropped for Trump’s two co-defendants, Waltine “Walt” Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.
• All legal experts have long considered the classified documents case to be the strongest of the four criminal cases against Dumples. The acts in question mostly occurred after he left the White House.
• And I’ll remind you… other people face decades in prison for being in possession of a tiny fraction of the hoard that Dump stole when leaving office in January 2021.
• So, once again… the courts will NOT save us from this asshole.
• That being said, the reasoning behind the dismissal was so ludicrous that within hours after Cannon’s ruling, Jack Smith announced his appeal to the three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though the issue could ultimately end up before the Supreme Court. 
• No one can predict what will happen after that.
• Let’s go back to the assassination attempt against the Dick Tater.
• As we know, firefighter Corey Comperatore was killed Saturday at the Trump rally while shielding his family from the shooting.
• President Joe Biden called Comperatore’s widow, Helen, but she declined to speak with him, citing her husband’s support of Trump. I get that.
• Frankly, I wouldn’t want my family accepting a condolence call from Dumples the Clown in a similar situation.
• But Dump has still not called the Comperatore family or contacted them in any way. It’s beyond sick. Wouldn’t that be the very first thing you did?
• The man got a band-aid on his ear, went golfing, and then flew off to his coronation without a single thought of that poor family.
• Let’s move on to a brand new fuckup for the Orange Menace.
• Yesterday, Dumpy announced his VP pick. Say, what happened to the last guy who was El Dumpo’s vice president?
• Oh yeah, never mind.
• J.D. Vance didn’t always seem to be a big fan of his new master. Back in 2016, he wrote, "If I feel like Trump has a really good chance of winning, then I might have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton."
• Around the same time, Vance also wrote, “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America's Hitler."
• But as soon as he was aboard the Dump Drain, his true self came out full bore.
• Vance is a 39-year-old with a whole year and a half of government experience. He’s the Senator from Ohio — a state with a large Ukrainian population — who said, “I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”
• In 2021, Vance was asked if there should be exceptions to strict abortion laws if rape or incest were factors. His response? “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” meaning that the woman should be forced to carry and deliver the child of her rapist… or her father.
• And then, just this past February, Vance made the statement that was almost certainly the key to Dump having chosen him.
• Referring to when Mike Pence followed the law and let the electoral votes be counted, Vance said, ”If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so many others that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the US Congress should have fought over it from there."
• So he would have illegally installed Dump as President in 2020. Good to know.
• What else can I tell you about this deeply shitty person? Well… J.D. Vance supports a national abortion ban. And he believes that abused women should be forced to stay in their marriage.
• In 2023, he introduced legislation to criminalize gender-affirming care for minors. He has called Social Security and Medicare “the biggest roadblocks to real fiscal sanity.”
• Vance thinks you’re worthless if you don’t have children. In an interview, he criticized “the childless left,” saying, “Why have we let the Democrat Party become controlled by people who don’t have children?”
• Fuck that guy. Moving on.
• President Biden did an outstanding interview with Lester Holt last night. It aired unedited.
• Biden was back in the form that suits him the best… feisty, bordering on prickly. He was assertive and energetic.
• Some quotable moments…
• “Look, I've been doing this a long time. The idea I'm the old guy – I am, I'm old, but I'm only three years older than Trump, number one. And number two, my mental acuity has been pretty damn good.”
• Yessir. And when Holt tried to pivot back to Biden’s poor debate performance in late June, Biden snapped back.
• “Lester, look, why don’t you guys ever talk about the 28 lies he told? Where are you on this? Why doesn’t the press ever talk about that? Twenty-eight times, it’s confirmed, he lied in that debate.”
• Point Biden. And at the end of the chat, Joe had a clear message for the media…
• “Sometime come and talk to me about what we should be talking about, OK? The issues.”
• Well done. Four more years!
• I want to move on to a topic I’ve never covered here because I find it so nightmarish.
• Also, like most things that happen in the entire continent of Africa, we seem to ignore it in the USA and much of the rest of the world.
• Yesterday, Gambian National Assembly members voted to continue the ban on female genital mutilation, which is very good news.
• I’ll try and be brief here: female genital mutilation refers to all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
• In Gambia, that usually means removing the clitoris and labia minora. It is a fucking vile, nightmarish practice with results that I hopefully don’t have to explain.
• It is most often carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15. In every form in which it is practiced, FGM is a violation of girls’ and women’s fundamental human rights, including their rights to health, security, and dignity.
• Women’s rights groups have tried for decades to end the practice, which had been temporarily banned in Gambia, a sliver of a country on the west coast of Africa.
• As recently as March, 42 of the 47 present members of Gambia’s National Assembly voted to overturn the ban. But yesterday, 34 voted to keep the ban, and 19 to overturn it. The ban remains in place for now.
• Why don’t I cover this kind of thing more often? Because I also try not to dictate my values on cultures that are very different from my own and who don’t want me telling them how to live their lives.
• But I am genuine in my support of women’s rights worldwide, in the many forms in which women face subjugation and inequality.
• Let’s move on with some happy news. We need that.
• Back in the USA, my state of California became the first U.S. state to bar school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child's gender identification change under a law signed yesterday by Governor Gavin Newsom.
• The law bans school rules requiring teachers and other staff to disclose a student's gender identity or sexual orientation to any other person without the child's permission.
• Proponents of the legislation say it will help protect LGBTQ+ students who live in unwelcoming households. Opponents say it will hinder schools' ability to be more transparent with parents.
• Fuck those opponents.
• You want me to cover the RNC? Nah.
• Okay, wait, I will.
• Thousands of protesters descended on the Midwestern city of Milwaukee, WI yesterday, denouncing the Republican Party and its presidential nominee Donald Trump.
• Even as elected leaders called for unity in the aftermath of political violence, there were few signs that either side of the partisan divide would lower the rhetorical temperature on a sweltering summer afternoon.
• About 3,000 people filled a park near the arena, including representatives from more than 100 activist groups, in a long-planned protest of the GOP’s positions.
• The coalition said in its platform that it opposed Republicans’ “racist and reactionary agenda,” which organizers said threatens the rights of women, the LGBTQ community and immigrants.
• They are right, and good for them.
• One thing the RNC wanted to avoid was a focus on the January 6, 2021 failed coup attempt, but that was impossible with many insurrectionists in attendance at the event.
• The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Debbie Kraulidis, an Illinois activist who was part of the Jan. 6 mob. Ed Martin, the deputy policy director of the convention platform committee, was another insurrectionist who participated in the attack on the US Capitol.
• And at least three other people photographed in that mob are serving as RNC delegates. So are five people who previously served as alternate electors, including four who have been charged with fraud, forgery, and conspiracy.
• Fucking figures. Those people are being celebrated for their attempts to overthrow democracy.
• One other note from the Republican convention, only because it made me giggle.
• Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said that the speech he gave on the first night of the Republican National Convention was “the wrong speech.”
• “That speech was written last week. They literally loaded the wrong speech,” he said afterward, referring to the what he read off the teleprompter.
• Johnson claims that he had altered the speech to “heed President Trump’s call to unite, to be strong, to be determined. We must heal and unify this nation,” the senator said, but that he didn’t know how to add that into his remarks without messing up the teleprompter.
• Slow clap, Ron.
• And now, The Weather: “Garden Path” by Laughing
• Severe storms and tornadoes in the Midwest knocked out power to over a half million people last night.
• I’ve told all of you many times that global climate change will drive worse and worse weather patterns of intense storms and lethal heat. That is now inevitable for the foreseeable future, and most likely forever.
• Rest in peace to journalist Evan Wright. He was probably most well known for having been embedded with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the United States Marine Corps during the early stages of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
• He wrote a series of articles for Rolling Stone based on the experience which were then released as a book, and a subsequent acclaimed 8-part HBO miniseries, called ‘Generation Kill.’
• Wright died by suicide last Friday, July 12, at the age of 59. 
• Let’s do a chart. It’s the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart for this week in July 1982. I’ve just graduated from middle school and am getting ready for my freshman year of high school. I’m playing summer league basketball at this very moment.
• 1. Asia (Asia). 2. Always On My Mind (Willie Nelson). 3. Dare (The Human League). 4. Toto IV (Toto). 5."Still Life" (American Concert 1981) (The Rolling Stones). 6. Tug Of War (Paul McCartney). 7. American Fool (John Cougar). 8. Diver Down (Van Halen). 9. Get Lucky (Loverboy). 10. Eye Of The Tiger (Survivor). 11. Special Forces (38 Special). 12. Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium I (Stevie Wonder). 13. Throwin' Down (Rick James). 14. Keep It Live (Dazz Band). 15. Aldo Nova (Aldo Nova). 16. Picture This (Huey Lewis & The News). 17. Vinyl Confessions (Kansas). 18. Escape (Journey). 19. Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet (Rick Springfield). 20. Good Trouble (REO Speedwagon).
• From the Sports Desk… the Olympics start a week from Friday, and NFL preseason football starts the following Thursday after that.
• Which means I probably won’t be covering baseball very often after that, but for now, here’s the top teams in all of MLB at this moment.
• 1. Phillies (62-34). 2. Guardians (58-37). 3. Orioles (58-38). 4. Yankees (58-40). 5. Dodgers (56-41). 6. Brewers (55-42). 7. Twins (54-42). 8. Braves (53-42). 9. Red Sox (53-42). 10. Royals (52-45).
• The worst team in baseball by far right now? Still the White Sox (27-71).
• Today in history… The Hijrah of Muhammad begins, marking the beginning of the Islamic calendar (622). King Richard II of England is crowned (1377). Jacques Cartier returns home after claiming a bunch of now-Canada for France (1536). Father Junípero Serra founds California's first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcalá, which evolves into the city of San Diego, CA (1769). The District of Columbia is established as the capital of the United States (1790). The world’s first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, OK (1935). Joe DiMaggio gets a hit in 56 consecutive games, a record that still stands today (1941). The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, NM (1945). J.D. Salinger publishes ‘Catcher in the Rye’ (1951). Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, FL (1969). Saddam Hussein becomes the president of Iraq (1979). Comet Shoemaker-Levy crashes into Jupiter (1994). John F. Kennedy Jr. and several others die in a plane crash (1999). 
• July 16 is the birthday of religious leader Margaret Baker Eddy (1821), journalist/activist Ida B. Wells (1862), explorer Roald Amundsen (1872), MLB player Shoeless Joe Jackson (1887), farmer/businessman Orville Redenbacher (1907), actress Barbara Stanwyck (1907), actress/dancer Ginger Rogers (1911), tennis player Margaret Court (1942), NFL coach Jimmy Johnson (1943), singer-songwriter/guitarist Rubén Blades (1948), musician Pinchas Zukerman (1948), drummer/composer Stewart Copeland (1952), actress Phoebe Cates (1963), actor/comedian Will Ferrell (1967), NFL player Barry Sanders (1968), actor Corey Feldman (1971), singer-songwriter Ed Kowalczyk (1971), NBA player Zach Randolph (1981), and singer-songwriter/rapper Kevin Abstract (1996).

I’m gonna end this today with a cliche… when the going gets tough, the tough get going. I have an expectation that those you who have something to fight for are getting ready to fight. And the good news is, there are many ways to do that. One of them is to simply vote, which is easy but incredibly important. I hope you have a plan together to make sure that your vote counts in this most-ever crucial election of our American lives. No excuses. Enjoy your day.