Random News: July 29, 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 29, 2024, and it’s a Monday. The past week or so still feels like I’ve been swept up in a tornado but somehow am still surviving, though it’s hard to tell when and where I’ll land. Either way, there’s plenty of excitement in the air. Maybe we’ll all land somewhere better, soon enough.

• Little update for those men out there planning to attend tonight’s “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call.
• They hit their goal of 50,000 registrants by yesterday afternoon, then passed 60,000 by the evening. I think a lot more will be there by tonight. And this was an event that got put together on Friday. Yes, this past Friday.
• And now, the speaker list includes Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeig, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Congressman Adam Schiff, author Scott Galloway, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin Ben Wikler, actors Misha Collins, Josh Gad, Rory O’Malley, and Michael Kelly, singer Josh Groban, activist George Goehl, and others.
• Actors Bradley Cooper and Mark Hamill both said they’ll be in attendance. I’m sure plenty more will as well.
• If you’re attending, don’t be surprised if you hear some stuff that puts you on the defensive. They’re doing this to have some tough but fair conversations with the hope that as a group, we are more successful at engaging a higher percentage of white dudes to move their support to Harris.
• I can deal with that. I’ll once again put the link in the comments. Join us tonight!
• And while I’m being all involved and shit, I also signed up for another event.
• On Tuesday night, I’ll be joining Vice President Harris herself along with thousands of supporters across the country for a National Organizing Call after Harris’s huge campaign event in Georgia.
• We will hear directly from the future President about what’s at stake, the freedoms we’re fighting for, and how you can help her win.
• Everyone is welcome. I’ll put a link to that event in the comments as well. It’s tomorrow (Tuesday July 30) from 7:15 – 8PM ET (4:15-5PM PT).
• Moving on.
• We’re now 99 days from the election, which is a perfect time for me to start badgering you to please do one of two things.
• If you’re not registered to vote where you live, it’s easy to do and you can do it right now in just a few minutes. The info you need is at Vote.org.
• If you have some fear about registering to vote and you want to talk about it, hit me up in my messages and I promise I can help you.
• If you are registered to vote, please also make a quick stop at Vote.org and confirm your registration status. These crooks like to purge the voter rolls without informing anyone, and then you try to vote on election day and find out you can’t.
• Check your status even if you think you are certain you’re good.
• Me? I live in California, the best state for voters in the nation. I’ve already received both written (snail mailed) and emailed correspondence from Los Angeles County to tell me that my ballot will be arriving before October 7.
• And our ballots are tracked so you get text or email (your choice) confirmation when you fill out and submit them and they’re received, for those of you who like to vote early like I do.
• I love my state.
• Let’s do the news.
• Today, President Biden endorsed sweeping changes to the Supreme Court. He called for 18-year term limits for the justices and a binding, enforceable ethics code for the high court.
• He is also pushing for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit blanket immunity for presidents, a rebuke of the Supreme Court after it ruled this month that former president Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts.
• Over the course of Biden's presidency, the Supreme Court has veered sharply to the right — overturning Roe v. Wade, ending affirmative action in college admissions, weakening federal agencies’ power by overturning a 40-year decision, and striking down Biden’s student-loan forgiveness program.
• Time to make some changes. Joe’s the guy to get it done.
• Moving on.
• Today is the day that Iowa's cruel abortion law goes into effect. It immediately prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
• Iowa’s Republican leaders have been seeking the law for years, and it was made possible by Donald Trump’s Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. The Iowa Supreme Court also issued a ruling that year saying there was no constitutional right to abortion in the state.
• Across the country, four states ban abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and 14 states have near-total bans at all stages of pregnancy.
• Kamala Harris, the next president of the United States, made a statement on this.
• “If extremist so-called leaders have their way, no woman in our nation will be safe from the government telling her what to do with her own body. More than 1 in 3 women of reproductive age in America now live in a state with a Trump abortion ban. When I am President of the United States, I will sign a law restoring and protecting reproductive freedom in every state.”
• She’s right. I think the issue of women’s reproductive rights alone will be enough of a factor to propel her to victory.
• Her support continues to surge. 88% of Democrats now hold favorable views of Harris.
• And an ABC News/Ipsos survey of 1,200 adults released yesterday showed that Harris' national favorability rating stands at 43 percent, 8 points up from the 35 percent favorability rating she recorded in a previous poll conducted before Biden ended his 2024 campaign.
• How’s weird old Dumpy doing? Not so good.
• Dump's favorability rating has fallen 4 points between the two surveys from 40 percent to 36.
• In international news…
• The USA isn’t the only country trying to get rid of an autocrat once and for all.
• Tensions were high in voting centers across Venezuela yesterday as citizens cast ballots in an election that could bring an end to the authoritarian government of Nicolás Maduro.
• The country’s opposition, suffocated by the autocratic government, saw its best chance in more than a decade to unseat the strongman, whom many here blame for this oil-rich country’s economic collapse and the exodus of millions of migrants, hundreds of thousands of them having headed to the United States.
• But as of this morning, both Maduro and his political opponent claimed victory in an election that was marked by accusations of fraud and counting irregularities.
• And with 80% of votes counted, Maduro allegedly secured about 51% of the vote, beating the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) candidate Edmundo González Urrutia with his more than 44% of the vote.
• But exit polling had showed that the opposition candidate should have won in a landslide.
• The United States and multiple global leaders voiced skepticism about the supposedly official results that handed victory to the strongman leader.
• And this is what happens when you elect a dictator. You never get a free and fair election again. In some cases, you don’t get the right to vote at all in future elections. It’s something we have to avoid at all costs in the USA.
• Continuing on the international front…
• The U.S. said yesterday that it has been in continuous discussions with Israel and Lebanon after Israel and the U.S. blamed Hezbollah for a rocket attack on Saturday at a Golan Heights soccer field that killed at least 12 children and teens, sparking fears of a broader conflict in the region. 
• Hezbollah has denied responsibility. Israel's military confirmed it had launched airstrikes against Hezbollah targets deep inside Lebanese territory.
• Sigh.
• Back in the USA, the more disgusting aspects of modern politics are already being aimed at Kamala Harris… and they’re being promoted by Elon Musk.
• A manipulated video that mimics the voice of Harris saying things she did not say is raising concerns about the power of artificial intelligence to mislead with Election Day about three months away.
• It was Elon Musk who shared it on his social media platform X on Friday evening without noting it was originally released as parody.
• The video uses many of the same visuals as a real ad that Harris released last week launching her campaign. But the video swaps out the voice-over audio with another voice that convincingly impersonates Harris.
• The fake voiceover says that she is a “diversity hire” as a woman and a person of color. It also states that “Joe Biden finally exposed his senility” and that she doesn’t know “the first thing about running the country.”
• The original user who posted the video, a YouTuber known as Mr Reagan, has disclosed both on YouTube and on X that the manipulated video is a parody.
• But Musk’s post, which has been viewed more than 123 million times, according to the platform, only includes the caption “This is amazing” with a laughing emoji.
• I think this is a crime, and that the use of generative AI deepfakes — showing fake nude bodies on young girls, or adding realistic fake voices to make statements that were never said to influence voters with misinformation — falls outside the realm of the First Amendment.
• And I’m sure it’s something we’ll be looking at closely during the first Harris administration.
• Another thing we can count on under President Harris will be the continuation of Joe Biden’s environmental policies. You ay not know this but it’s true: Biden did more for clean energy than any other US president before him
• From shifting federal policy in support of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to pushing through the Inflation Reduction Act — which directs what could add up to more than $1 trillion in federal tax credits and tens of billions of dollars to manufacture and deploy everything from solar and wind power to industrial decarbonization technologies — Biden will be in the history books for all time.
• One of the main reasons to support a Kamala Harris presidency, among many, is that Dumples the Clown has already promised to undo the historic climate successes of the Biden administration.
• You know, one thing you can say about both Dump and his VP pick.
• They’re just fucking weird. They’re both just weird people. I mean, look at J. D. Vance and his crusade against people who don’t have biological children. It’s like his main point against Harris.
• You know who else was a pretty damn fine President and didn’t have any biological children and, exactly like Kamala Harris, had two stepchildren?
• How about GEORGE WASHINGTON? Was he a pretty good President? Most say yes.
• And now, The Weather: “Train” by Niall Summerton
• The Park Fire in northern California now stands as the state's sixth-largest on record after burning for less than a week.
• Ugh. It stood at 368,256 acres at 12% containment as of this morning, and was still getting worse.
• Let’s do a chart. This is the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart for this week in July 1983, when Kamala Harris would have been starting at Howard University. I will bet any amount of money she had some of these albums. Or maybe a lot of them.
• I was between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I had them too.
• 1. Thriller (Michael Jackson). 2. Synchronicity (The Police). 3. Flashdance (Soundtrack). 4. Pyromania (Def Leppard). 5. Let's Dance (David Bowie). 6. Cargo (Men At Work). 7. The Wild Heart (Stevie Nicks). 8. Keep It Up (Loverboy). 9. 1999 (Prince). 10. Killer On The Rampage (Eddy Grant). 11. Frontiers (Journey). 12. Cuts Like A Knife (Bryan Adams). 13. H2O (Daryl Hall John Oates). 14. Kilroy Was Here (Styx). 15. State Of Confusion (The Kinks). 16. Listen (A Flock Of Seagulls). 17. Piece Of Mind (Iron Maiden). 18. Living In Oz (Rick Springfield). 19. Eliminator (ZZ Top). 20. Return Of The Jedi (Soundtrack).
• From the Sports Desk… the Team USA medal count is now up to 12.
• Two more gold medals were achieved. Torri Huske got gold in the Women's 100m Butterfly swimming competition, while Lee Kiefer took the top honors in Women's Individual Foil fencing. 
• Three more silver medals were awarded to Team USA with Gretchen Walsh getting it in the Women's 100m Butterfly, Nic Fink in Men's 100m Breaststroke, and Lauren Scruggs in Women's Individual Foil for fencing.
• Another bronze medal was added to the collection with Carson Foster taking third in the Men's 400m Individual Medley swimming competition.
• USA! USA!
• Today in history… The Neo-Babylonian Empire sacks Jerusalem and destroys the First Temple (587 BC). The Siege of Damascus ends in a decisive crusader defeat and leads to the disintegration of the Second Crusade (1148). Mary, Queen of Scots marries Henry Stuart (1565). The US Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps is founded when General George Washington appoints William Tudor as Judge Advocate of the Continental Army  (1775). The Arc de Triomphe is inaugurated in Paris (1836). United States and Japan sign the Harris Treaty (1858). Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested (1864). Land lottery begins in Oklahoma (1901). Robert Baden-Powell hosts the first Scout camp (1907). Adolf Hitler is named head of the Nazi Party (1921). After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, the Summer Olympics open in London (1948). The International Atomic Energy Agency is established (1957). The Tonight Show with Jack Paar begins, starting the modern dat talk show (1957). Eisenhower signs the National Aeronautics and Space act, founding NASA (1958). David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz kills his first victim (1976). 700 million people watch the wedding of Charles and Diana (1981). British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel (1987). Astronomer discover the dwarf planet Eris (2005). The International Space Station temporarily spins out of control (2021).
• July 29 is the birthday of organist/composer Johann Theile (1646), historian/philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville (1805), novelist Booth Tarkington (1869), fascist politician Benito Mussolini (1883), gynecologist Bernhard Zondek (1891), businessman J.R.D. Tata (1904), actress Clara Bow (1905), guitarist Charlie Christian (1916), businessman Jim Marshall (1923), wrestler Lou Albano (1933), politician Elizabeth Dole (1936), journalist Peter Jennings (1938), actor David Warner (1941), actor Tony Sirico (1942), keyboardist/songwriter Neal Doughty (1946), filmmaker Ken Burns (1953), singer-songwriter/musician Geddy Lee (1953), singer-songwriter Martina McBride (1966), actor Will Wheaton (1972), and NFL player Dak Prescott (1993).

Again, if you white guys could join us tonight on the Zoom call, that would be cool. I think it might give you some useful perspective and open your minds in ways you might not be considering at the moment. Try and stop by, to that and the Harris event tomorrow night as well. Links in the comments. Enjoy your day.