Random News: August 14, 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 14, 2024, and it’s a Wednesday. We have just tons of news this morning, to the point that there’s no way I’m going to get to every single important thing that’s happening in this wonderful world of ours. Anyway, maybe get a fresh cup of coffee or whatever… this is going to be a long one.

• Guess where Kamala Harris is going next?
• Her campaign announced yesterday that the Democratic nominee is heading to Raleigh, North Carolina for a campaign event Friday.
• It will be a policy-focused rally where she will discuss her plan to lower costs for middle-class families and take on corporate price-gouging. The trip will mark Harris’s eighth visit to North Carolina this year.
• You know what that means? It means that she’s planning to flip that state that Dumpy won in 2020. And guess what? I think she can do it.
• Before that stop in NC, Harris will also travel to Maryland tomorrow for an event alongside President Biden that will be similarly focused on plans to lower costs.
• And then on Sunday, Harris and her running mate will begin a bus tour starting in Pittsburgh, PA, and will end up with their respective appearances and next week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
• In other news…
• I mentioned yesterday that Arizona had gathered far more than enough signatures to put abortion rights on their ballot this fall.
• Turns out they weren’t the only ones.
• Yesterday, Missouri did the same. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft certified that the petition, which required roughly 170,000 signatures from six out of eight congressional districts, had enough support to appear on the ballot. 
• Missouri currently has a near-total ban on women’s reproductive rights. The ballot measure will present Missouri voters with an opportunity to amend the constitution to establish a right to "make and carry out decisions" about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, while removing the state's current abortion restrictions.
• It would allow abortion to be restricted or banned after fetal viability is reached with exceptions related to the health of the patient, which is a sensible line in my opinion.
• And perhaps while Missourians are at the polls, they might choose to cast a vote for Harris for President, or maybe even for Lucas Kunce to get that asshole Josh Hawley out of the Senate. Just a thought.
• Arizona and Missouri now join six other states with abortion rights on the ballot in November: Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota, New York, Maryland, and Florida.
• Ballot measures in Montana and Nebraska are still pending.
• Voters in all seven states that have had abortion questions before voters since 2022 — California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, and Vermont — have sided with abortion rights supporters.
• Moving on.
• Quick note from yesterday’s primaries… progressives in the House received a much-needed victory last night when Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) won her primary by a huge +13 point margin.
• One big difference between Omar’s victory versus the recent primary losses by progressives Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) is that Omar’s race did not draw the involvement of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who funneled millions into defeating the other two.
• In Wisconsin, the final major Senate race of this election year is set. Incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) will face off in November against Dump-supported rich guy Eric Hovde (R), who owns a bank in California.
• Moving on with an encouraging news item from our current President, Joe Biden.
• Yesterday Joe held his first public event since his exit from the 2024 race last month, for a very good cause: his “cancer moonshot.”
• Biden highlighted $150 million in new research awards to eight organizations, including $23 million to Tulane University, where he made the announcement.
• This “Cancer Moonshot” program was founded while Biden was vice president under Obama, and it aims to provide cutting-edge research to halve the number of cancer deaths in the coming decades.
• Here’s hoping.
• Moving on.
• As you’re likely aware, a number of groups have convened in support of Kamala Harris, rating from Black women to white dudes to cat ladies to Latinos to Deadheads and many more. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have participated in these events over the past few weeks.
• But the group that should really frighten the GOP doesn’t convene until August 27. That’s when the kickoff for “Swifties for Harris” happens.
• “Swifties” are the diehard fans of pop icon Taylor Swift. They’ve been organizing informally for a long time, even making “get out the vote” friendship bracelets for one another.
• Taylor herself has yet to make an official endorsement, and it would frankly surprise me if she did. She’s a very savvy businesswoman who knows that any support for one candidate over the other, even an implied one, would have an impact on her current and future fan base.
• I get that. But she’s been attacked by MAGA relentlessly merely for encouraging young people to register to vote. This “Swifties for Harris” call is a grassroots effort being spearheaded by the fans themselves, who also seem to love VP candidate Tim Walz.
• Who wouldn’t love Tim Walz, other than a miserable person incapable of experiencing joy?
• But wait. There was another call, just last night, that should make Team Dump take note.
• 73,000 people joined the “Republicans for Harris” event, which featured many well-known Republican politicians and public figures. One attendee wrote this afterwards…
• “It was a great program. Congratulations! Republicans for Harris are not closet Democrats. They are Republicans—some, quite conservative—who understand how Trump and the MAGA cult have become a threat to the constitutional order and toxic to the country and the party. Their long-term goal is to restore the party to sanity. The first step is to defeat Trump in November. America needs a responsible center-right party. Make the Republican Party Great Again.”
• I’m actually very heartened to see that at least some Republicans haven’t totally abandoned their party to the MAGA maniacs. I know a few of them personally.
• Let’s move on. I suppose we should do a little news about the Screaming Yam.
• In an analysis of the garbled gobbledegook that passes for communication from the mouth of the Dumpster, something has become quite clear.
• You ever listen to him talk about the fictional character Hannibal Lecter, or hear him mention ridiculous lies that immigrants are being given credit cards, and you wonder what the fuck he’s talking about?
• It’s finally been deciphered.
• He thinks the word “asylum” is only used in context with the archaic term “insane asylum.” That’s why he keeps saying that Hannibal Lecter is coming.
• Asylum from an immigration standpoint is a form of legal protection that host countries grant to migrants who have been forcibly displaced and are fleeing harm or persecution, or the fear of persecution, in their place of origin.
• Dump think the word “visa” is only a brand name for a credit card, as opposed to legal documentation that allows a foreign national to visit the USA.
• So he’s not only insane and evil… he’s also very, very stupid. I mean, we knew this instinctually, but the direct evidence of it is important to note as well.
• We should touch base on another unintended result of Monday night’s disastrous chat between Dumpy and his pal Elon.
• The United Auto Workers said yesterday that it filed federal labor charges alleging that Dumples and Muskrat attempted to intimidate and threaten workers during their Monday evening interview.
• “I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk. “You walk in, you say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.’”
• But as the UAW points out, not only does federal law protect workers who go on strike from being fired; it’s also illegal to even threaten to fire them.
• I doubt anything will happen as a result, but it does show both Trump’s and Musk’s immense disdain for labor unions.
• Following legitimate allegations of unfair labor practices, Musk’s SpaceX has directly challenged the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board, the agency charged with investigating allegations brought by employees, unions, and employers.
• UAW chief Shawn Fain said, “Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected.”
• Last month, the UAW endorsed pro-union Kamala Harris for the upcoming presidential election.
• There’s one more point on recent statements by Dumpalumpagus, and it’s courtesy of one of my favorite people, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
• He says Dump's easily disprovable lies about AI-generated crowds at Vice President Harris' Michigan rally are "laying the groundwork for rejecting the election results if he loses."
• Bernie said, and I agree, ”If you can convince your supporters that thousands of people who attended a televised rally do not exist, it will not be hard to convince them that the election returns in Pennsylvania, Michigan and elsewhere are 'fake' and 'fraudulent.'"
• The weird thing is, his cult members can’t reconcile the evidence they see with their own eyes even when it contradicts the things he says. That’s common with cult behavior; they’d prefer to believe him than believe themselves.
• During his horrid little chat with Mucky Muck, Dumpy claimed that President Biden was “close to vegetable stage” and that “He can barely walk.”
• But the previous day on Sunday, Biden was seen in TV news footage taking a miles-long bike ride through Gordons Pond State Park in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and then made his appearance yesterday for his cancer program. He seems a million times more fit, physically and mentally, than Dumpy.
• Moving on.
• In our continuing coverage of the assholes who tried and failed to take over the USA on January 6, 2021, meet Rebecca Lavrenz, the 72-year-old Coloradan who promotes herself online as the “J6 praying grandma.”
• Fuck that grandma. Prosecutors accused her of “profiting off the celebrity of her conviction” with a slew of media appearances questioning the integrity of the court system and the jurors who convicted her.
• She also used a crowdfunding website to bilk over $230,000 from MAGA supporters.
• She was sentenced on Monday to just six months of home confinement in her Capitol riot case, instead of the 10 months behind bars that prosecutors had sought.
• However, Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui also fined her $103,000, saying he needed to send a message that defendants cannot profit off their “egregious conduct.” He sentenced her to one year of probation, with the first six months in home confinement.
• And during her home confinement, the judge ordered her to stay off the internet. You know that grandma is going to fuck this up.
• More than 1,400 people have now been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol insurrection. Over 900 of them have been convicted and sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.
• Hundreds of other people like Lavrenz, who did not specifically engage in violence or destruction at our nation’s Capitol, were charged only with misdemeanor offenses.
• In other news…
• So, the other day, when we reported about someone hacking the Dump campaign through an email phishing scam?
• We found out whose email was accessed to gain access to another campaign official. It was Roger Stone.
• Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa.
• And now, The Weather: “34” by J.R.C.G.
• From the Sports Adjacent Desk… a little note for any of you pricks who were talking shit about Olympic gold medal boxing champ Imane Khelif: she’s not taking it.
• Khelif has filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment after a rain of criticism and false claims about her gender during the Paris Olympics.
• The complaint was filed Friday with a special unit in the Paris prosecutor’s office for combating online hate speech, alleging aggravated cyber-harassment targeting Khelif.
• It is now up to prosecutors to decide whether to open an investigation. As is common in French law, the complaint doesn’t name an alleged perpetrator but leaves it to investigators to determine who could be at fault.
• I could send them a big list of people right here on Facebook. Maybe I should.
• The offenses include death threats, public provocations aimed at attacking a person, and cyberbullying. Under French law, the crimes, if proven, carry prison sentences that range from two to five years and fines ranging from 30,000 to 45,000 euros.
• Experts say the scrutiny of Khelif and boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan reflected disproportionate scrutiny and discrimination toward female athletes of color when it comes to sex testing and false claims that they are male or transgender.
• Additionally, public figures like JK Rowling and Elon Musk have been named in a cyberbullying lawsuit filed in France today. Others may be added to the suit.
• From the Sports Desk… another complaint about NFL preseason — a big one.
• The status of J.J. McCarthy — the 10th pick in the first round of this year’s NFL draft — is in question after tests revealed the Minnesota Vikings rookie quarterback has a tear in the meniscus of his right knee, with a final determination to be made once he undergoes surgery this week.
• Yeah. That’s their supposed new starting QB, hurt after one fucking meaningless preseason game. It happened during their game against the Raiders on Saturday.
• Now Sam Darnold will be the Vikings' starting quarterback in Week 1 and likely beyond.
• Today in history… Huh Guang presents articles of impeachment against Liu He for 1127 offenses that included sexual debauchery and fiscal negligence (74 BC). Duncan I is killed in battle against his cousin and rival Macbeth, who replaces him as King of Scotland (1040). The Second Seminole War ends, forcing the Seminoles from Florida (1842). France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration (1893). The Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium raises the then-new Olympic flag for the first time ever (1920). Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act (1935). Pakistan gains independence from Britain (1947). Founding of the American Football League (1959). Bahrain declares independence from Britain (1971). Lech Wałęsa leads strikes at the Gdańsk, Poland shipyards (1980). Big power blackout in the NE USA and Canada (2003). Egypt declares a state of emergency as security forces kill hundreds of demonstrators supporting former president Mohamed Morsi (2013). Former U.S. President Donald Trump is charged in Georgia along with 18 others in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state, his fourth indictment of 2023 (2023).
• August 14 is the birthday of Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III de' Medici (1642), dentist/gunfighter Doc Holliday (1851), architect Amaza Lee Meredith (1895), businessman Wellington Mara (1916), MLB manager Earl Weaver (1930), singer-songwriter David Crosby (1941), actor/comedian Steve Martin (1945), cartoonist Gary Larson (1950), film composer David Horner (1953), actress Jackée Harry (1956), actress Marcia Gay Harden (1959), NBA player Magic Johnson (1959), singer Sarah Brightman (1960), actress Halle Berry (1966), NFL player and coach Mike Vrabel (1975), actress Mila Kunis (1983), and NFL player Tim Tebow (1987).

As I said, lots going on, but it’s not unexpected at this time of year with history hanging in the balance. I’m just going to do what I do, which is to document this stuff as best I can, and otherwise just vote, encourage others to do the same, and be a productive person. That’s just how I roll. Enjoy your day.