Random News: July 22, 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 22, 2024, and it’s a Monday. As you may recall, I was sort of anticipating this weekend to go off the rails with big news, and yeah… that indeed happened. We gotta talk about that.

• Where should I start to discuss this unprecedented moment in American history?
• I guess I’ll start at the start.
• Um. Lemme think.
• Okay.
• In 2020, things were really bad. To this day, I’m not sure that most of you understand how bad it actually was, or how much worse it could have gotten.
• Donald Trump had been elected in 2016 and had been an abject failure to the country. He was so bad at the job that a consortium of political scholars — both liberal and conservative —  placed him in very last place in their recent ranking of all U.S. Presidents.
• By 2020, America’s global standing had fallen dramatically. The economy was already starting to tank well before COVID hit. And then we had the pandemic itself. Mass deaths. Lockdowns. And then a summer of demonstrations and riots.
• And then, in the first huge turnaround of fortune since the Obama era, we elected Joe Biden in November of that year.
• I remember that moment. It was the Saturday after the election. November 7, 2020. I was chilling here at home and then it was actually Fox News that broke the story that Biden had won Arizona and thereby passed the 270 electoral mark to win the presidency.
• The final count was Biden with 306 electoral votes to Dump’s 232. The popular vote was a wide margin of victory as well… Joe got 81,283,501, and Donnie got 74,223,975.
• It was a glorious day.
• We all know in retrospect about the crazy shit that transpired right after… the election deniers, the series of failed lawsuits, the fake electors, the insurrection at the Capitol… all of it.
• Over the following three years, I’m going to say that Biden had one of the most challenging presidencies in US history, right up there with those of Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. He had to pull us back from the depths of COVID. He made brilliant moves to help the country get back on its feet and kickstart the economy, all with the MAGA world trying — and failing —to stop US progress at every turn.
• That same set of scholars and historians who put Trump last placed Biden as the 14th best President of all time. He’s been considered by many as one of the most effective presidents in US history. I completely agree.
• And remember… before the election, I was NOT a Joe Biden fanboy by any means. Joe proved me wrong in my perception of him as a boring centrist career politician. He used his experience to get shit done, and he stayed open to new ideas.
• Joe Biden did more to help seniors and military vets than any other President. He was pro-union. Expanded health care. Forgave student debt. Boosted the rights of marginalized people, including the LGBTQ+ community.
• So all that was good, and I was happy with Biden’s performance as President, and would have happily voted for him to serve a second term. I’ve noted that about a million times here.
• And so, here I was yesterday, lazily scrolling down Facebook, when a new post popped up that I saw within seconds of posting at 11AM PDT. It was a letter. From Joe Biden. I scanned it quickly and got to the important part.
• “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
• Welp.
• So lemme tell you: yesterday had specifically been rumored as they day Joe would drop out, if he was going to. It made sense… still a month out from the Democratic National Convention where the nominee is officially chosen and named.
• And still 106 days until the election. Any more waiting would have been detrimental to whoever the replacement candidate would be.
• Anyone who knows anything about Joe Biden knows that he was never going to be forced out. That it was his decision to make. If you trust him, you also trust that he made the right call for the country here based on the info he had available.
• And if for one second he thought that he was only staying in the race for his own ego or his legacy, well… that’s not the kind of person Biden is.
• His stepping aside tells me that he was provided proof that he didn’t have the best chance of beating Dump in November compared to someone else. I can guarantee the final decision was his and his alone.
• So let’s talk about where we are and what happens now.
• Immediately after his announcement that he was dropping out of contention, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee.
• It’s rumored that part of Joe’s agreement to step down was contingent on the plan for everyone to rally behind Kamala.
• Does Harris automatically become the nominee? No, of course not. Harris will have to win a majority of the convention just like anyone else. 
• And she will. I would say that on a 99% probability, Kamala is our candidate. See below for details.
• The Democrats had been in the process of setting up a system to conduct their presidential nomination vote remotely in a “virtual roll call” before the party’s convention next month. 
• It’s not yet clear whether the party will stick with the remote vote plan or scrap it and allow the formal vote to happen on the convention floor. 
• Could other candidates get in the race? Yes, but I think the ship already sailed.
• To do so, they’d have to gather hundreds of signatures from delegates from several states. But that’s not why they won’t get the nomination.
• The endorsements from across the entire Democratic landscape started pouring in for Harris immediately. First (and most importantly) from Biden himself, as noted above. I think next up were Bill and Hillary Clinton.
• Over the next few hours, endorsements flowed from everywhere.
• The Senators… Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Bob Casey (D-PA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chris Coons (D-DE), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jackie Rosen (D-NV), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and more.
• Harris also got immediate endorsements from Governors like Josh Shapiro (D-PA), Roy Cooper (D-NC), Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Kathy Hochul (D-DY), Phil Murphy (D-NJ), Janet Mills (D-ME), and others.
• She also got them from influential US Reps like Jamie Raskin, Jim Clyburn, Adam Schiff, Pramila Jayapal, Nanette Barragán, Ruben Gallego, Annie Kuster, Ted Lieu, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• Over 150 Senate and House Democrats endorsed Harris before day’s end yesterday. As did the Congressional Black Caucus. And the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. All six Black attorneys general in the United States.
• Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.  Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.
• SEIU, the second largest labor union in the United States, is backing Harris. So is the Human Rights Campaign. The American Federation of Teachers.
• All 50 Democratic party state chairs threw their support to Harris that same day. Tennessee was the first state to pledge all their delegates (77) to Kamala. Four more states of electors quickly joined them.
• In the hours immediately following Kamala’s decision to run, she also raised about $47 million in small donations from ActBlue alone. And now that the uncertainty of Biden’s decision is out of the way, the big dollar donors will be coming in hot. Several well-known megadonors have already committed their financial support for Harris. And she also now officially has the Biden/Harris hard money war chest of $96 million.
• The full numbers aren’t readily available, but it was postulated that yesterday was the single biggest fundraising day for Democrats... ever.
• In a complete turnaround within a day, Democrats have closed ranks and seem full onboard, unified behind our candidate.
• As of this morning, even some of the politicians who briefly made mention of challenging Harris for the nomination have stepped aside. No one is going to stop her momentum.
• Overall, it’s been the fastest launch of a presidential campaign in history. Wow.
• Stock markets opened higher this morning due to the boost of a possible Harris presidency that would continue the successful economic policies that Biden put in place.
• I’ve heard plenty of fearful messaging since yesterday that all fall under, “We can’t win because the racists and bigots won’t vote for Kamala!”
• Here’s a clue: the racists and bigots were never going to vote for anyone but Dump. Our new candidate being Kamala Harris changes nothing about that. Not a single vote has been lost.
• And possibly many gained. LET’S FUCKING GO.
• The 2024 election will pit an ex-prosecutor against a convicted felon. It will be a matchup with the most fierce defender of women’s rights versus the man who wants to remove those rights nationwide.
• And since the MAGA world was so focused on Joe Biden’s age, despite him being just a couple of years older than Dump, I feel justified in pointing out that future President Harris is a youthful-seeming and energetic 59-year-old going up against the man who is now the oldest presidential candidate in history at 78.
• Women, people of color, younger voters, every person who prioritizes compassion and empathy… they now all have a candidate who they don’t merely accept, but who they are completely excited to be supporting.
• This is the greatest nightmare for Dump, the GOP, and the rest who thought they had an easy path to enact their draconian Project 2025 plan.
• Before this announcement, polls that pitted a theoretical Harris/Trump battle had them at a statistical tie, with Harris doing slightly better than Biden in several states. But now it’s not a theory; now it’s real.
• The MAGAs all assumed they were on a glide path to victory. No more. The election map is going to have a very different look after the next set of (mostly pointless) polls come out.
• And I’d even say that some states that were considered absolute locks for Dump — Texas and Florida come to mind — are now possibly in play as swing states that could go to Harris.
• Can you imagine Dump and the MAGA world being beaten in a landslide by a Black woman? Nothing would be better than that.
• I’ll end this by quoting the end of Joe Biden’s letter…
• “I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can't do - when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.”
• Thanks Joe, for your service to our country. Your legacy will be among the very best. God bless America. Now let’s elect President Harris.
• And now, The Weather: “Here It Comes” by Oneida
• From the Sports Desk… nah, fuck it. Unless Kamala Harris was in a game of pickleball last night, I’m not covering sports today.
• Today in history… Godfrey of Bouillon is named the Defender of the Holy Sepulchre (1099). A second group of English settlers arrives on Roanoke Island off North Carolina to re-establish the deserted colony (1587). Albany, NY is chartered (1686). Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first recorded human to complete a transcontinental crossing of North America (1793). The Slavery Abolition Act passes in the British House of Commons, initiating the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire (1833). Outside Atlanta, Confederate General John Bell Hood leads an unsuccessful attack on Union troops under General William T. Sherman on Bald Hill (1864). Katherine Lee Bates writes “America the Beautiful” (1893). The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States (1937). The USA begins compulsory civilian gas rationing for WWII (1942). The Mariner I spacecraft launches erratically and has to be destroyed (1962). Greg LeMond wins his third Tour de France (1990). US military attacks a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay along with others (2003). 
• July 22 is the birthday of painter Edward Hopper (1882), philanthropist Rose Kennedy (1890), psychiatrist Karl Menninger (1893), politician Bob Dole (1923), actor Orson Bean (1928), fashion designer Oscar de la Renta (1932), novelist Tom Robbins (1932), actress Louise Fletcher (1934), TV host Alex Trebek (1940), singer-songwriter/producer George Clinton (1941), singer-songwriter/keyboardist Rick Davies (1944), actor Danny Glover (1946), actor/writer Albert Brooks (1947), singer-songwriter/drummer Don Henley (1947), author S. E. Hinton (1948), guitarist/composer Al Di Meola (1954), actor Willem Dafoe (1955), musician/music producer Steve Albini (1962), actor John Leguizamo (1964), actor David Spade (1964), NFL player Tim Brown (1966), NFL player Keyshawn Johnson (1972), singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright (1973), NFL player Steven Jackson (1983), singer/actress Selena Gomez (1992), and NFL player Ezekiel Elliott (1995).

It’s a new day in America. I was so filled with adrenaline after what transpired yesterday, it was hard to come down and focus on the mundane aspects of life. But we still have another 105 days until the election, so I’m going to try and take it one step at a time, and focus on the things that we can do together. We will definitely be discussing ways to help Kamala become the first president of the USA over the coming weeks. It’s exciting, and I think it will happen. And I want to add… thanks to the great Joe Biden for putting the country before himself. It took a big man to make that call, and not everyone would have had the class to do it. Joe did. Enjoy your day.