Random News: July 28, 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 28, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. It seems 100% impossible that it was just one week ago today, I was writing these bullets for you early on Sunday morning, oblivious to the fact that in just a few hours, Joe Biden would be removing himself from the 2024 election and passing the torch to Kamala Harris. And yet, here we are. Life is funny sometimes.

• I should note that — as I’d mentioned — I wasn’t entirely shocked by the news. My feeling was that if it was going to happen, that was the day it would, and it did.
• Since then, so many things have happened. I’m certainly not going to do a recap of them all.
• I will note that per an announcement this morning, the Harris campaign has pulled in over $200 million in her first week as a presidential candidate.
• It’s a staggering figure that’s evidence of the intensity and enthusiasm surrounding her bid for President with exactly 100 days to go before Election Day as of today.
• It’s even more astounding when you become aware that the bulk of the donations — 66% — came from first-time contributors in the 2024 election cycle.
• Also, how about this… in under a week, over 170,000 volunteers have also signed up to help the Harris campaign with phone banking, canvassing and other get-out-the-vote efforts.
• I’ll tell you…
• I’ve been a registered Democrat since I was old enough to vote (which, in case you were wondering, was in 1987). I can genuinely say that I have never experienced this level of intense excitement behind any candidate, and that includes Barack Obama in 2008.
• Harris is not only attracting a supportive base that’s comprised of typical liberal voters. I’ve seen evidence of people spanning many political ideologies — left, right, and center — who believe that Harris is the best choice for the USA at this moment.
• Even those who were previously Trump supporters.
• Yesterday in The Villages — a large age-restricted area in Florida that had famously been a bastion of right-wing Trump fans — hundreds of golf carts showed up to support Harris.
• One older woman named Diane Ruggiero, a registered Republican, stated, “It’s nice to see her bring such energy to young people, but Kamala is not just for the young. She gives us all hope.”
• And why would a Republican vote for Harris?
• “She is someone to be positive about. I’m tired of all the negativity — who we don’t want and who we don’t like. Now we have someone to like and be happy and excited about. I’m trying to be less negative and it’s great to be for something instead of against so many things.”
• But aren’t older folks in a retirement community more likely to be prejudiced toward a woman of color?
• Not according to Villages resident Jim Guy, who said, “That’s not a problem. What matters is she is a high-quality, experienced individual, and she cares about working people.”
• The top officials of the Republican Party have correctly determined that attacks on Harris’s race and gender will backfire spectacularly, and they’re trying to contain that strategy… unsuccessfully.
• Right after Harris announced her candidacy, Republican members of Congress including Harriet Hageman (R-WY) and Tim Burchett (R-TN) described her as a “DEI hire” in public comments.
• A guest on Fox Business repeated that idea and then implied without evidence that Harris had somehow used sexual relationships with powerful men to advance her career.
• The problem is that in doing so, they are tell all voters who are women or people of color that they are unworthy of success on their own merits. If you’re a woman, you must have slept your way to the top.
• It’s an old and tired message, and people not only sick of it, but will go out of their way to not support candidates who spread it.
• Younger voters are all the more likely to be completely disgusted and turned off by that kind of bigoted and racist messaging.
• As a result of that and more, this week Harris opened up a 20 point advantage among voters 18- to 34-years-old in a head-to-head against Trump (60 percent to 40 percent).
• Biden had only had a narrow five-point advantage for that same voter bloc.
• The bigger aspect of all this is the unification of the Democratic voters as a whole behind Harris. Nearly 80% of Democrats polled this week say they support Harris’s bid for election, and that number will grow even higher as more and more Americans get to better know her and her excellent record of success.
• There was a time that I cynically believed that a Black person couldn’t be elected President. Then Obama came along in 2008.
• There was a time — especially after Hillary Clinton’s shocking loss in 2016 — that I felt the American public was too misogynistic as a whole to get behind a woman candidate.
• And now I am realizing that I was wrong about that too. Kamala is — in my opinion — a better candidate than Hillary. More likable, more relatable, more experienced, and with none of the baggage of having a former President as a husband.
• I think we can elect a woman President, and I think we will on November 5.
• I want to once again mention that tomorrow night (Monday July 29) at 8PM ET/5PM PT, I’m attending the “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call. Over 42,000 people have sent RSVPs for this online event.
• Pete Buttigieg and a bunch of other speakers will be there to plan our strategy and organize to help get Harris elected.
• I’ll once again put a link in the comments. Please come!
• In other Harris news…
• There are states in play that just a few weeks ago were considered solidly for Dump. Georgia, for example, was expected to swing back to being a red state after choosing Biden in 2020, but the trajectory of recent polls, especially with Harris’s popularity among youth voters and people of color, have seen her even the odds.
• Senator Jon Osoff (D-GA) says, “I think that this is a true toss up race in Georgia. I expect her to win Georgia, it’s going to take a mighty effort the kind of effort that we summoned here in Georgia to deliver the state for President Biden in November of 2020, and to win those two historic Senate runoff victories in 2021.”
• The same effect might be what helps keep Arizona a blue state this fall.
• And it’s reinforced by millions of voters who are demanding a return of the rights removed when Roe v. Wade was reversed by the Trump-appointed Supreme Court in 2022.
• Speaking of the devil, how are things going over in Dump Land?
• Not so good.
• The fallout from Dumples the Dictator’s little speech — the one where he told a group of Christian voters that they “won’t have to vote anymore” if they elect him — hit the front of every major media outlet in the world yesterday.
• It was a top headline on CBS, CNN, NPR, Politico, The Hill, The Atlantic, Newsweek, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, LA Times, and many more, including international publications and media.
• You would think that someone would have mentioned to the old guy that nearly all Americans love freedom, enjoy having choices, and prefer democracy over autocracy.
• Meanwhile, many House Republicans are privately bashing Dump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) as his running mate, warning that the pick will not help — and could hurt — the party’s chances of winning in November.
• It does have a feel of Sarah Palin all over again.
• The Republicans are raising concerns about Vance’s foreign policy positions, lack of experience, and inability to expand the Republican coalition beyond Dump’s base.
• Vance’s outings and appearances to rally for Dump thus far have been embarrassingly bad.
• Speaking anonymously as to not offend their lord and his minions, one said, “He was the worst choice of all the options. It was so bad I didn’t even think it was possible. Anti-Ukraine, more of a populist. He adds nothing to the Trump ticket. He energizes the same people that love Trump.”
• Another said, “I think if you were to ask many people around this building, 9 out of 10 on our side would say he’s the wrong pick. He’s the only person who can do serious damage.”
• Vance’s biggest fuckup of all might be his open disdain for a group of voters he calls “childless cat ladies,” a term he’s also incorrectly applied to Harris. Vance also think that your texes should be higher if you haven’t biologically created children, I should note.
• But you know who else is a childless cat lady? Taylor Swift.
• Do you really want to feel the wrath of millions upon millions of Taylor Swift fans? Is that what’s going to best help the Trump/Vance ticket?
• But to quote GOP policy back to them, they made the choice, so now they have to carry Vance to term.
• Moving on, sorta.
• Still tons of speculation going on about Harris’s VP pick. I have come to a conclusion on the topic.
• And that is simply this: all of the top candidates that have been mentioned could be excellent choices, from Senator Mark Kelly to Governors Josh Shapiro and Tim Walz to Secretary Buttigieg.
• So at this point, I trust Kamala Harris to make the right choice, and whoever she picks will be fine by me.
• In a speech in Massachusetts yesterday — her first fundraiser since becoming her party’s candidate for president — Harris called herself the underdog, but predicted that she and the Democrats would win in November.
• I agree.
• And one thing that we’ll discuss at a later date is how the entire psy-op system of bot farms and AI messengers — mostly in Russia, China, and Southeast Asia — were caught off guard and were unprepared for Harris to enter the race.
• They’ll catch up eventually, but that’s the reason that the messaging against her has been so scattered thus far.
• They were not ready for her.
• Another side point we’ll be discussing: Kamala’s entry into the race will almost certainly have a big impact on down ballot races, where the voters she pulls in will also be selecting Senators and House reps.
• Okay, let’s move on for real now.
• No Sunday Gunday today. I’ve been doing that feature every weekend for about a year. Suffice it to say that if it was a weekend in the USA, dozens of people were shot and/or killed via incidents of gun violence.
• But frankly, my positivity and optimism about the USA via the Harris campaign doesn’t need to be brought down by acknowledging the current reality of the number-one cause of children’s deaths in our country… which is gun violence.
• I think future President Harris can help that.
• Moving on.
• I want to briefly mention — for reasons that will be apparent — the public tensions between billionaire weirdo Elon Musk and his estranged transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson.
• Musk actually wrote that his daughter was “dead — killed by the woke mind virus.”
• He wrote that his child was born “gay and slightly autistic” and claimed these traits “contribute to gender dysphoria.”
• But his daughter shot back, dismissing her father’s characterization about her childhood and criticized him for peddling harmful stereotypes about trans and queer people in “an attempt to garner sympathy points.”
• “He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there,” she wrote. And when her father was present, Wilson said, he “relentlessly harassed” her for her “femininity and queerness.”
• What a fucking asshole.
• Side note: Vivian is one of six children that Elmo had with Justine Wilson, a writer. He also has three children with Grimes, a musician, and three children with Shivon Zilis, an executive at Musk’s Neuralink company.
• Let’s move on.
• I saw that a number of you went yesterday to the opening weekend of “Deadpool & Wolverine.” You weren’t alone.
• Marvel’s latest comic-book blockbuster made a staggering $205 million in its first weekend in North American theaters. It shattered the opening record for R-rated films previously held by the first “Deadpool” ($132 million) and notched a spot in the top 10 openings of all time.
• Including international showings, where it’s racked up an addition $233.3 million from 52 markets, “Deadpool & Wolverine” is looking at a global opening of over $438.3 million from Friday and Saturday.
• I’d find some reason to be cynical about this, but Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman both seem like genuinely good dudes.
• And now, The Weather: “Sandy's Dead” by Luke Temple
• From the Sports Desk… Team USA’s medal count is now up to six. Since my last report…
• We took the gold in the Men's 4x100m Freestyle Relay (swimming) with the team of Jack Alexy, Chris Guiliano, Hunter Armstrong, and Caeleb Dressel.
• Our Women's 4x100m Freestyle Relay grabbed silver medals via the team of Kate Douglass, Gretchen Walsh, Torri Huske, and Simone Manuel. A silver medal also went to Haley Batten, getting hers in the Women's Cross Country Mountain Bike final.
• And we picked up another bronze in Women's 400m Freestyle via the great Katie Ledecky.
• USA! USA!
• Today in history… Henry VIII marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard (1540). Maximilien Robespierre is executed by guillotine in Paris (1794). Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, GA at the Battle of Ezra Church (1864). The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is certified, establishing African American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law (1868). The city of Miami, FL is incorporated (1896). The US occupies Haiti and stays for 19 years (1915). Lyndon B. Johnson increases US troops in Vietnam from 75,000 to. 125,000 (1965). 600,000 people go see bands rock at Watkins Glen Summer Jam (1973).  The Summer Olympics open in Los Angeles, CA (1984). 
• July 28 is the birthday of pianist/businessman Ignaz Bösendorfer (1796), writer/illustrator Beatrix Potter (1866), activist Lucy Burns (1879), painter/sculptor Marcel Duchamp (1887), actor/singer Rudy Vallée (1901), inventor/businessman Earl Tupper (1907), composer/conductor Carmen Dragon (1914), US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929), singer/guitarist Junior Kimbrough (1930), guitarist Mike Bloomfield (1943), keyboardist Richard Wright (1943), cartoonist Jim Davis (1945), actress Sally Struthers (1947), guitarist/composer Gerald Casale (1948), Venezuela president Hugo Chávez (1954), guitarist/composer Steve Morse (1954), runner/activist Terry Fox (1958), NHL player Garth Snow (1969), NBA player Manu Ginóbili (1977), and rapper Soulja Boy (1990).

That’s more than enough for now. I’m going to recommend that you take a look at Kamala Harris’s web site if you’re looking for ways you can personally assist her in her quest to be our next President. It’s more than just sending money, I promise. I’ll throw in a link to that in the comments too. Enjoy your day.