Random News: August 10, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s August 10, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. Some prick is running a chainsaw in the street outside my home at 8am, and it’s not assisting in my life goal of a mellow existence, man. I guess I’ll look at the news and try and zone it out.

• Here’s some unexpected and excellent news: the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) has endorsed Kamala Harris for president.
• Why is this a big thing? Well first, it’s the oldest and largest Latino civil rights group in the country. But second, the announcement marks the first time the group has formally endorsed a presidential candidate in its 95-year history.
• That’s right. Since its foundation in February 1929, never once has this organization made a Presidential endorsement. This time, the stakes are too great to sit on the sidelines.
• “We are proud to endorse Kamala Harris and Tim Walz because of the real issues facing Latino communities and all Americans across the nation; we can trust them to do what is right for our community and the country,” said Domingo Garcia, chairman of the organization’s political arm.
• Let’s see how things are going with the presidential campaigns.
• Yesterday, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz took their message to the people of Phoenix, AZ.
• They had their largest crowd yet, filling the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, AZ, a venue that can hold 20,000 people.
• Among many speakers there, including Senator Mark Kelly and his wife Gabby Giffords, and future Senator Ruben Gallego, my favorite was Republican mayor of Mesa, AZ, John Giles.
• Here’s what he said that impressed me so much.
• “I am a lifelong Republican. I do not recognize my own party. The Republican Party has been taken over by extremists. I have something to say to those of us who are in the middle. You don’t owe a damn thing to that party. You don’t owe anything to a party that is out of touch and hellbent on taking us backward. You owe no displaced loyalty to a candidate who is morally and ethically bankrupt. In the spirit of the great Senator John McCain, please join me in putting country over party, stopping Donald Trump, protecting the rule of law, protecting our Constitution, and protecting democracy by voting for Kamala Harris.”
• And what also impressed me… the crowd. Not a single boo when he started his speech by say he’s a Republican. They supported and cheered this man despite his open admission of being from the “other side.”
• While the Harris/Walz campaign was rocking in Phoenix, Ol’ Dumples took a trip to Bozeman, Montana. 
• Actually, his old-ass 757 plane didn’t make it there, and had to land in Billings after an alleged mechanical issue.
• Dump eventually made it to Bozeman, taking the stage at 9:30pm for an event scheduled to start at 8pm.
• He’s very upset about being called “weird,” and spent a good part of the rally trying to explain how he’s not weird, that instead “they’re” weird, and how “they” and the media conspired to make him seem like the weird one when he’s definitely not weird at all.
• So that was weird.
• Today, VP Harris and Gov. Walz will be rallying in Las Vegas, NV.
• Their visit comes on the heels of yesterday’s huge announcement that the union representing 60,000 workers in the Culinary Workers Union, a huge factor in Vegas, is endorsing Harris. About 54% of the union’s members are Latino, 55% women and 60% immigrants.
• And another note that affects the election in that swing state: Dump has proposed mass deportations if he returns to the White House, but nearly 7 in 10 Nevada voters said that immigrants living in the United States illegally should be offered the chance to apply for legal status.
• Moving on.
• There are many sad, bad, not-good things happening to the candidacy of Donald John Trump… and the calls are coming from within the house.
• Here’s how it was supposed to go for Dumpy, per the original plan cooked up by the now-incarcerated gelatinous cube Steve Bannon.
• They were going to draft Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run in the primary against Joe Biden, attempt to divide Democrats, and make Biden spend money to fight him off.
• Slight problem: RFK Jr. turned out to be a complete psycho who was far more attractive to on-the-fence Republicans and the weirder subsets of MAGA than he was to Democrats.
• RFK Jr. decided to run as an independent. Then the news started hitting about seemingly impossibly insane yet true actions of the man, from having his brain eaten by a parasite worm to his frequent excursions with Jeffrey Epstein to, most recently, his propensity to pick up roadkill and eat it. None of that was denied by Kennedy.
• Dumpy’s campaign was horrified to note via internal polling that for every vote RFK Jr. was pulling from Democrats, he was pulling 3-4 away from Dump.
• Ha ha!
• Since mainstream media wants nothing to do with this mental case, all of Kennedy’s interviews have been with Fox, Newsmax, and right-wing podcasters — where the only people he is reaching are Trump supporters.
• Now the worst has happened, at least if you’re a MAGA person. The fringe of the former MAGA loyalists are now drifting over to RFK Jr., who will be on the ballot in many states.
• On Thursday, podcaster Joe Rogan announced to his audience of millions that he was backing RFK Jr. for President. Like most spineless MAGAs, he later clarified that he liked RFK Jr. as a person and knew nothing about politics (his words, not mine).
• But then yesterday, perhaps influenced by Rogan, right-wing podcaster Tim Pool announced that he was voting for RFK Jr.
• Even weirdo celebs and athletes — like Aaron Rodgers — are endorsing RFK Jr., all at the expense of votes for Dumpy.
• And a number of super-extra MAGA people, like white nationalist Nick Fuentes and completely insane woman Laura Loomer have been making public statements questioning why the Dump campaign is being run so poorly.
• And Dump himself has been making huge unforced errors, from his attacks on popular Republicans like Georgia governor Brian Kemp to that disaster of a press event that Dump held at his golf motel on Thursday.
• Quick funny story about that. We mentioned how Dump told a story about nearly “going down” in a helicopter with then San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. 
• Brown said it never happened (“I’ve never been in a helicopter with him in my life,” he said) and Dump threatened to sue the New York Times for reporting this fact.
• But it turns out there was once a helicopter incident with Dump.
• Former Los Angeles city councilman and California state Sen. Nate Holden said yesterday that he was with Dumples in a helicopter ride that made an emergency landing.
• “Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco. I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles. I guess we all look alike,” Holden noted.
• Let’s move on.
• In our continuing coverage of worthless assholes who attacked the United States on January 6, 2021, you’re about to meet one of the very worst of them: David Dempsey.
• Dempsey was the asshole who viciously assaulted law enforcement officers at the lower west tunnel of the Capitol, where some of the worst violence took place that infamous day in American history.
• He climbed over fellow rioters like human scaffolding and used his hands, feet, flag poles, crutches, pepper spray, broken pieces of furniture, and anything else he could get his hands on as weapons against police officers.
• Dempsey pleaded guilty specifically in connection with attacks on Washington Police Detective Phuson Nguyen, whom he hit with a torrent of pepper spray just after another rioter compromised Nguyen's mask, and with Washington Police Sgt. Jason Mastony, who was hit so hard with a metal crutch that he collapsed in a daze and was left with a gash in his head.
• But sure, MAGA loves cops, right? Thin blue line? Fucking hypocritical scum, all of them.
• They arrested Dempsey in August 2021, but he’d previously been charged in 2019 with dousing demonstrators in California with bear spray while he wore a "Make America Great Again" hat; he pleaded no contest in that case. He pleaded guilty in his Capitol attack case on January 4.
• Yesterday, Dempsey was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. It’s the second-longest sentence handed out in a January 6 case to date.
• I will say in advance to any person reading this: if you think that we won’t be ready for another insurrection attack or coup attempt if Donald Trump is beaten again this fall, you’ve lost your damn mind.
• I 100% promise that if you or a member of your household has been involved in online groups or social media conversations with the goal of disrupting the US’s election system, you’re already being being watched very carefully.
• “All enemies, foreign and domestic.” Keep it in mind.
• Got some good news on the Trial of Dumpster topic.
• Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan approved the request from special counsel Jack Smith to delay the next steps in the government’s election interference case against Dumpy. 
• How is that good, you ask?
• It’s very important, moving forward, to determine how to factor in the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling between the government and Dump’s representation. Otherwise, they’re simply going to state that anything Dump did was “official,” and therefore legal.
• That’s what happens when you have a corrupt Supreme Court who made our US presidency into royalty.
• It’s a decision that the far right may deeply regret if their Orange Lord is a loser this fall.
• With the judge’s approval, the report is now due in three weeks on August 30. A status conference that was scheduled in court for August 16 has also been delayed until September 5. 
• And now, The Weather: “Water” by Spectral Tilt
• From the Sports Desk… the 2024 Summer Olympics are soon drawing to a close. I find they’ve been a good distraction from the rest of the insanity of life these past couple of weeks.
• Team USA did some serious ass kicking, and are now up to 113 total medals.
• Our speedy ladies grabbed another gold, winning the Women's 4 x 100m Relay with Sha'Carri Richardson, Melissa Jefferson, Twanisha Terry, and Gabrielle Thomas. Rai Benjamin got the gold in Men's 400m Hurdles, and Olivia Reeves took it in Women's 71kg weightlifting.
• Note: that one was the USA’s first weightlifting gold medal in 24 years. Go Olivia!
• Spencer Lee is bringing home a silver medal in Men's 57kg wrestling. Brooke Raboutou got hers in Women's Boulder & Lead sport climbing. Nevin Harrison took a silver for Women's Canoe Single 200m.
• More bronze medals for Team USA went to the Men’s volleyball team as well as Aaron Brooks in Men's 86kg wrestling, to Kristina Teachout in Women’s 67kg taekwondo, and to Helen Maroulis in Women's 57kg wrestling.
• USA! USA!
• I’m also very, very happy to report that Algeria's Imane Khelif beat China's Yang Liu to claim the gold medal in the women's welterweight boxing at the Olympics yesterday.
• Khelif had been a silver medalist at the 2022 world championships. As I wrote about at length previously, she’d been under unfair and false accusations — much of it stemming from Russian disinformation propaganda — that she’d been born male.
• For the record, one last time: Khelif is female, was born female, has female reproductive organs, is listed as female on both her birth certificate and passport, and is from Algeria, a Muslim country where transgender treatment and even homosexuality is prohibited by law.
• So Khelif not only had to be the best athlete in her sport but had to fight the court of public opinion as well. She did both magnificently.
• Today in history… Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, defeats the Magyars (955). Ferdinand Magellan’s five ships set sail to circumnavigate the globe (1519). Elizabeth I signs the Treaty of Nonsuch (1585). King Marthanda Varma of Travancore defeats the Dutch East India Company at the Battle of Colachel, effectively bringing about the end of the Dutch colonial rule in India. (1741). Word reaches London of the US Declaration of Independence (1776). Louis XVI is taken into custody and his guards are murdered by the Parisian mob (1792). The Louvre opens (1793). Missouri is admitted as the 24th state (1821). The Smithsonian Institution is chartered after Jane Smithson kicks down $500,000 (1846). Felix Hoffman — who also created heroin — synthesizes acetylsalicylic acid, aka aspirin (1897). ‘Candid Camera’ debuts on television (1948). The Secretary of Defense is placed in charge of the Army, navy, and Air Force, and establishes the Department of Defense (1949). The US Army sprays 20 million gallons of defoliants and herbicides over South Vietnam to deprive the Viet Cong of food and cover (1961). Postal employee David Berkowitz is arrested as the serial killer Son of Sam (1977). Three members of a family are killed in a car accident, leading to the Ford Pinto litigation (1978). The US pays $20,000 to each of the Japanese-Americans who were relocated and interned in WWII (1988). Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are indicted for the Oklahoma City bombing (1995). 
• August 10 is the birthday of Aragon king James II (1267), organist/composer Hieronymus Praetorius (1560), businessman Henri Nestlé (1814), bass player William Manuel Johnson (1872), US president Herbert Hoover (1874), game designer Charles Darrow (1889), actor Jack Haley (1897), businessman Leo Fender (1909), actor Noah Beery Jr. (1913), singer/businessman Jimmy Dean (1928), singer-songwriter Bobby Hatfield (1940), singer-songwriter Ronnie Spector (1943), singer-songwriter/flautist Ian Anderson (1947), singer Patti Austin (1950), actress Rosanna Arquette (1959), NBA player John Starks (1965), actor Justin Theroux (1971), model/actress Angie Harmon (1972), NFL player Dalvin Cook (1995), personality/businesswomen Kylie Jenner (1997).

Okay then. Enough for now. I’m going to get my day rolling and do… I have no idea. Stuff and things? Enjoy your day.