Random News: August 17, 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 August 17, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. Once again, assholes with chainsaws are on my street, starting at 8am. It’s a whole fucking story that isn’t worth telling, but as long as my peaceful morning is fucking shattered, I might as well tell you some news, both good and bad and all the shades in between.

• Let’s start with some bad.
• Yesterday the Supreme Court declined to let the Biden administration enforce portions of a new rule that includes protections from discrimination for transgender students under Title IX.
• They left intact two separate orders from federal courts in Kentucky and Louisiana, which blocked the Department of Education from enforcing the entirety of the rule across 10 states. 
• Four of justices — the three liberals plus Gorsuch — would have let part of the rules take effect per the order, but all members of the court agreed that the key disputed changes, including the new definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and the restrictions on same-sex spaces, could remain blocked.
• Let’s be clear on this. The SCOTUS is in agreement with the backwards Republican states that discriminating against kids who don’t identify with their biological gender is perfectly fine.
• I mean, we live in a country where the SCOTUS decided that Black people could not be considered American citizens (Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857), where people with intellectual disabilities could be forcibly sterilized "for the protection and health of the state” (Buck v. Bell, 1927), where people could be imprisoned by being gay or lesbian (Bowers v. Hardwick, 1986), and where corporations were considered people to make nearly unlimited donations to purchase the candidates that the wealthy want elected (Citizens United v. FEC, 2010).
• Sometimes they fix their mistakes. Other times, they don’t. But I believe that within my lifetime, the Court will extend the types of anti-hate protections to transgender people as they do to other marginalized human beings.
• But not today. Let’s move on.
• This coming week is the Democratic National Convention, starting on Monday at the United Center in Chicago, IL.
• The speakers will include exactly who you’d expect… President Joe Biden, various Democratic leaders including former Presidents including Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, VP candidate Tim Walz, and ending with our 2024 Presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
• I’ll obviously be checking out moments from each of the days of the DNC. My only point of concern lies with what will be happening outside of the arena as opposed to inside.
• I’ll try and make this quick: as you’re well aware, the terror group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 of last year, killing hundreds and taking many hostages.
• And Israel’s response has been overblown, continual military actions against Palestine that have been far more damaging to the civilians — primarily women and children — than they have been on stopping the terrorism behind the initial attack.
• Anyway, now here we are, with Kamala Harris needing all the support she can get to avoid another Trump presidency, and the people who are understandably upset about the situation in Gaza are protesting Harris.
• I support people’s right to peaceably protest. I’ve done plenty of my own protesting.
• But here’s what I don’t understand.
• If Harris is not elected, the situation in Gaza will be a thousand times worse under Trump. He’s a man who completely and openly supports the total genocide of the Palestinian people. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that the protestors’ actions would almost certainly end up delivering the exact thing they are protesting against?
• And wouldn’t a smart person realize that perhaps they’re being used by forces who want exactly that?
• Anyway, at the moment, months of meetings and phone calls between pro-Palestinian activists and the Harris campaign have fallen into an effective impasse. The activists want Harris to endorse an arms embargo to Israel and a permanent cease-fire. Harris has supported Biden’s negotiations for a cease-fire, but has rejected an arms embargo.
• Israel is crucial to the USA having an ally in the Middle East. Do I agree with their brutal actions against Palestine? No, of course not. I condemn it entirely. But leaving Israel defenseless is also not an appropriate diplomatic option.
• What does all this have to do with the DNC, you ask? Inside the event itself, not a lot; of the thousands of delegates at the DNC, just 36 will belong to the “uncommitted” movement who are angry at Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
• But outside the arena? Yeah, there could be upwards of 25,000 assholes who will create civil unrest, which will dominate media headlines, and then the Republicans will use that messaging to try and defeat Harris.
• And then as a direct result of their actions, Trump can come in, band and deport Muslims (as he’s promised he’ll do), and take direct action to blow Palestine off the face of the Earth. Well done, protestors (slow clap).
• Not to go off further, but in many cases, there’s nothing worse than a single-issue voter. It’s incredibly selfish.
• Women having reproductive rights then away? Fuck them. People going bankrupt over medical debt? Don’t care. Catastrophic global climate change? Tough shit. As long as the one issue that’s important to them is addressed, they don’t give two shits about anyone or anything else.
• Let’s move on for now. I truly hope my concerns about what happens at the DNC are overblown. We’ll see starting on Monday.
• The one thing that can always defeat Donald Trump is (drum roll) Donald Trump, and he made some great headway in that regard yesterday.
• He said that an award recognizing civilian contributions to society is “much better” than one bestowed on members of the military because many of those who receive that award are wounded or killed in combat.
• I’m not making this up. He was at an event in New Jersey where he was introduced by Miriam Adelson, a top Republican donor whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom when he was president in 2018.
• First, Dumpy’s quote…
• “It’s actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said. “They’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead. [Adelson] gets it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman. They’re rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom and she got it through committees and everything else.”
• Let’s be clear: the Medal of Honor is the highest award for any American. It is reserved for only the most outstanding acts of valor on a battlefield by military members. The only people who receive it are those who’ve risked their lives. Many of the recipients receive the award posthumously after dying for their country.
• The Presidential Medal of Freedom, considered the highest U.S. civilian award, has no specific criteria required. Presidents can give it whomever they want for any reason.
• It’s sometimes given to entertainers and athletes. Bill Cosby got one. Trump gave one to Rush Limbaugh. In fact, 12 of the 24 of them that Dump handed out were to athletes.
• Sometimes it’s given to people like astronauts, or business leaders, or to other politicians and donors.
• Trump saying that it’s literally “much better” than the Medal of Honor is a huge slap in the face to anyone who’s served the USA in any military brand at any level.
• And Trump has long shown total disdain for our military, openly denigrating military members. His former chief of staff, John Kelly, confirmed last year that Trump privately disparaged dead service members as “suckers” and “losers” when Kelly worked for Trump.
• Trump refused to appear with soldiers who’d been wounded or maimed, saying they’d make him look bad.
• It’s interesting to me that Dump has been vocally against the use of mail-in ballots in elections. You know who uses the most mailed ballots? Our military who are serving overseas. That’s who he wants to disenfranchise by not allowing them to vote while they risk their lives for the USA.
• Moving on.
• Remember former Rep. George Santos (R-NY), the guy that lied about literally everything? He’s reportedly agreed to plead guilty this week after being accused of five criminal schemes that sparked his disgraced fall from the House.
• The plea deal apparently enables Santos to avoid trial next month on 23 criminal charges that could’ve carried significant prison time, if convicted.
• Federal prosecutors accused Santos of five criminal schemes: misleading campaign donors, charging their credit cards without authorization, falsely inflating campaign finance reports, fraudulently receiving unemployment benefits, and lying on his financial disclosures. 
• I hope this doesn’t mean he walks away without facing any kind of punitive action. The guy is a fucking major criminal.
• Let’s move on.
• Do you know how rare it is for planes to make emergency landings? 
• Of the roughly 9.7 million commercial aircraft landings annually in the US, less than 200 are declared emergencies. That’s like, one out of ever 50,000 flights.
• But yesterday, the charter plane carrying Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) made an emergency landing in Milwaukee after a door seal malfunction.
• And that emergency landing comes just a week after Trump’s plane was diverted for. mechanical emergency as he headed to Montana for a rally last Friday.
• The odds of both of those allegedly happening randomly are incredibly high. My guesses narrow things down pretty easily…
• One or both of those events weren’t actual emergencies and were being used as an excuse for something else, or…
• Dump doesn’t pay his bills so the people who maintain his personal crafts don’t bother doing great work on them, or…
• Dump knows he made a terrible decision about Vance, can’t turn back, and is now trying to kill him. Just a thought.
• Speaking of Li’l JD, word on the street is that he’s furious that Dump is making him do poorly-planned campaign events to humiliatingly small crowds while Dump is out on the golf course every day.
• Also in the rumor mill… it’s being reported that House Speaker Mike Johnson had a private call with House Republicans, ringing the alarm bell that Dump’s weakening popularity and low chances of winning the presidency is going to have a deleterious impact on down-ballot races.
• Meanwhile, the Harris-Walz campaign is making a massive $370M investment in digital and TV ads from Labor Day through Election Day, including the largest digital reservation in U.S. political history at over $200M.
• With more than 1,600 staff and 280 offices across battleground states, they’re leaving no stone unturned to reach voters. They intend to ensure that every battleground voter hears about Harris’ story and vision.
• Moving on.
• Following up from our previous story, the estate of Isaac Hayes made good on. their threat of legal action against the Dump campaign. They’ve sued Dumpy, alleging 134 counts of copyright infringement after asking the campaign to refrain from using the hit song “Hold On, I'm Comin’.”
• The Hayes estate is the latest in a list of more than a dozen musicians, music groups, and estates to distance popular catalogs from Trump presidential campaigns. Who would want to be associated with that assclown?
• And now, The Weather: “abasement tapes” by semiwestern
• From the Sports Desk… it’s just ten days until every team in the NFL has to pare down to the final 53-man roster, by August 27 at 4PM EDT.
• The team of which I am guilty of being a fan — the Las Vegas Raiders — are still being pretty opaque as to whether their starting quarterback is Gardner Minshew or Aidan O’Connell.
• I actually like both guys for different reasons, and the Raiders have historically benefitted from having multiple high-quality QB’s who actually play at important times. Knowledgeable sports fans will recall tandems that included players like Jim Plunkett, Daryle Lamonica, Ken Stabler, and others.
• Today in history… Cesare Borgia, the son of a pope, becomes the first person in history to resign the cardinalate (1498). The first group of colonists lands in the New World to create Roanoke Colony in modern-day North Carolina (1585). The British parliament accepts registration of births, marriages, and deaths (1836). The Union beats the fuck out of Confederate-held Fort Sumter in Charleston (1863). Bridget Driscoll became the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in the United Kingdom (1896). US Marines raid the Japanese-held island of Makin (1942). The novella ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell is first published (1945). The first meeting of Narcotics Anonymous is held, appropriately, in Southern California (1953). Pioneer 0, the attempted first launch beyond Earth’s orbit, fails on launch (1958). Cat 5 Hurricane Camille smashes the Gulf Coast, killing 256 people (1969). The Soviets launch Venera 7, the first spacecraft to soft-land on another planet (1970). US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1998). Michael Phelps wins a record eight gold medals at one Olympic Games (2008). 
• August 17 is the birthday of painter Francesco Albani (1578), frontiersman Davy Crockett (1786), activist/journalist Marcus Garvey (1887), actress Mae West (1893), US general Leslie Groves (1896), lawyer/spy Mark Felt (1913), actress Maureen O’Hara (1920), military pilot Francis Gary Powers (1929), poet/writer Ted Hughes (1930), computer scientist Margaret Hamilton (1936), actor Robert De Niro (1943), businessman Larry Ellison (1944), drummer Sib Hashian (1949), guitarist/composer Eric Johnson (1954), bassist/composer Colin Moulding (1955), singer Belinda Carlisle (1958), actor Sean Penn (1960), NFL coach Jon Gruden (1963), singer/actor Donnie Wahlberg (1969), NFL player Antwaan Randle El (1979), NBA player Rudy Gay (1986), actor Austin Butler (1991), and singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers (1994).

Alrighty then. Things are gonna be pretty insane all the way through Election Day. Weird things will become more and more frequent. And the more desperate Dump gets, the more insane things will go down. I know I keep saying that; I am just trying to minimize your shock when whatever happens… happens. Enjoy your day.