Random News: August 24, 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 24, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. I was exhausted last night and went to sleep pretty early; hence, I am also up somewhat early for a weekend. But that’s fine; I have some shit to do anyway, starting with whatever news I’m about to write for you.

• Last week’s Democratic National Convention got a big ratings win over the RNC held a month before.
• Viewership of the four-day festivities in Chicago drew an average of 21.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, eclipsing the audience of the Republican National Convention by nearly 15 percent.
• Kamala Harris’s acceptance address was watched by 28.9 million viewers, outdrawing Dump’s speech in Milwaukee.
• Fun Fact: Dump droned on for more than 90 minutes during his speech and said almost nothing of substance. But our next President, Kamala Harris, had a crisp and concise speech that clocked in at just 38 minutes, the 12th-shortest in modern history.
• As all of us communications professionals know, the shorter and more focused something is, the more effective it is.
• Jack Welch, the longtime chairman of General Electric, once famously wrote a memo to his executive team, and ended it by saying, “I’m sorry this letter is so long; I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.”
• The last thing anyone wants in a rambling, meandering, incoherent message.
• Harris’s viewership victory amounted to a blow for Dumpy, who is famously obsessed with television ratings and the size of his crowds.
• What’s next for the Harris/Walz campaign? Georgia!
• Kamala and Tim will launch a bus tour of southern Georgia next week, the duo’s first time campaigning in the state together and their first public event after the Democratic convention.
• The pair will be using the momentum from the DNC to drive them into the last couple months of the general election. In addition to the bus tour, Harris and Walz are expected to tape their first joint interview next week and attend multiple fundraisers, most likely to take place in New York, California, Florida, and Georgia.
• Following the tour, Harris will headline a solo rally in Savannah, Georgia. The trip will mark Harris’ seventh visit to the state this year and her second since launching her presidential campaign last month.
• Let’s move on.
• I don’t want to waste your time (or worse, mislead you) by citing polls. Like I told you, Hillary Clinton had a very comfortable polling lead over Dump at this exact moment in 2016.
• I got fooled then, and I promised myself I never would again.
• I will say that the overall trajectory in polls right now shows Harris maintaining a slight lead over Dumpy in national averages.
• But despite any level of optimism and enthusiasm you feel, especially on the tail end of the very successful DNC, the fact is that out of hundreds of millions of votes, the election will almost certainly come down to maybe 50,000-75,000 votes in swing states.
• What can you do to help? Well, you can start by helping yourself by visiting vote.org and making absolutely sure you’re registered.
• Yes, even if you voted in the 2020 election, or the 2022 midterms. Just go and check.
• One really great thing about living in California — and yes, I do brag about my state because the longer I live here (since I moved here at age six in 1975), the more I appreciate it — is that they are really on top of that process.
• Over a month ago, I received both email and physical mail confirming that my ballot would be arriving no later than October 7. They send that stuff proactively, without my even requesting it.
• So start with you. Then help out any members of your household who are over 18 and legal voters. Make sure your spouse and adult children are registered.
• If you’re good with that step and want to take some more, an excellent place to start is eat Kamala Harris’s web site, where you can sign up to find events and access volunteer resources at https://go.kamalaharris.com/.
• What kinds of things are there to do? You can phone bank, send texts, write letters, go door to door… there’s probably something there that doesn’t inconvenience you too much and you can do in whatever spare time you have.
• Moving on.
• I guess we should at least mention something that shouldn’t matter to almost anyone: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, and endorsed Dumpy.
• Something you should know: RFK Jr. had only officially qualified to be on the ballot in eight states. The entire concept of him being some kind of election spoiler for either side was moot.
• I’m not going to waste any space here taking about that guy. His own family, the famed Kennedy clan, immediately disparaged the endorsement.
• Kerry Kennedy wrote in a statement alongside four of Kennedy’s siblings, “We want an America filled with hope and bound together by a shared vision of a brighter future. We believe in Harris and Walz. Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear.”
• That’s all that’s needed to say about that.
• Oh wait, except one thing that cracked me up this morning. Dump shared a social post that referred to himself and RFK Jr. as a Republican dream ticket.
• Poor JD Vance. Hahahahahaha…
• In other news…
• Former Okaloosa County deputy Eddie Duran was charged with manslaughter in the May 3 shooting death of U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson.
• Body camera video showed the deputy knock on the door of Fortson's apartment. The deputy initially knocks without announcing himself, but then about 30 seconds later, he knocks again, saying he's with the sheriff's office and for Fortson to open the door.
• When he did, the deputy yelled for Fortson, 23, to step back. Video showed that within seconds of Fortson opening the door, the deputy shoots him, and he immediately falls to the ground. 
• But if history goes with its most common path, Duran probably has nothing to worry about.
• Case in point…
• On Thursday, a federal judge dismissed felony charges against two former Louisville Metro Police Department detectives who worked on the search warrant in the deadly raid on Breonna Taylor’s home.
• Taylor, a 26-year-old ER technician, was shot and killed in her own apartment during a flawed forced-entry raid in the early hours of March 13, 2020.
• Louisville detective Joshua Jaynes and Sgt. Kyle Meany were federally charged in 2022 with submitting a false affidavit to search Taylor’s home ahead of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department’s raid, then working together to create a “false cover story in an attempt to escape responsibility for their roles in preparing the warrant affidavit that contained false information.”
• The charges carried a maximum sentence of life in prison.
• “There is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death,” the court ruled.
• So once again, on a 99.9% basis, cops are free to kill anyone they want, with no repercussions. Can you see why justice is such an important part of the Democratic platform?
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, Texas and a coalition of Republican-led states sued President Joe Biden’s administration over a new program that offers a path to citizenship for immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally but are now married to U.S. citizens.
• The initiative, called Keeping Families Together, provides a path to citizenship to an estimated 500,000 immigrant spouses who entered the U.S. illegally and have at least 10 years of residence.
• But America First Legal, an organization led by Dump adviser and human ghoul Stephen Miller, is the driving force to rip these families apart.
• And now, The Weather: “Oh Well” by Lutalo
• From the Sports Desk… Shohei Ohtani continues to prove that he’s one of the best baseball players in the history of the game.
• Last night, he entered the 40/40 club in grand fashion, hitting a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning to reach 40 home runs for the season.
• And earlier in the game, Ohtani stole his 40th base, reaching on an infield single to lead off the fourth inning then stealing second during Freddie Freeman's at-bat.
• He is the fastest player in major league history to reach the vaunted 40/40 mark, doing so in his 126th game of the season. Alfonso Soriano held the previous mark, reaching 40/40 in 147 games for the Washington Nationals in 2006.
• Amazing.
• Today in history… the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs is written (367). The Visigoths pillage Rome (410). Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz, Germany after being blamed for the bubonic plague (1349). William Penn receives a colony now known as Delaware, and adds it to Pennsylvania (1682). British troops invade Washington, D.C. and burn the White House, the Capitol and other buildings (1814). Amelie Earhart flies across the USA from Los Angeles to Newark non-stop (1932). Allied troops attack German-held Paris (1944). The treaty creating NATO goes into effect (1949). Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies disrupt the NYSE by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery (1967). Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon (1981). Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union (1991). The IAU redefines the meaning of “planet” and Pluto is demoted (2006). Proxima Centauri b, the closest exoplanet to Earth, is discovered by the European Southern Observatory (2016).
• August 24 is the birthday of Count of Anjou — and my 27th great-grandfather — Geoffrey Plantagenet (1113), writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899), mob boss Carlo Gambino (1902), historian Howard Zinn (1922), actor Kenny Baker (1934), guitarist Mason Williams (1938), guitarist John Cipollina (1943), businessman Vince McMahon (1945), writer Paulo Coelho (1947), politician Joe Manchin (1947), musician Jean Michel Jarre (1948), politician Mike Huckabee (1955), actor Stephen Fry (1957), MLB player Cal Ripken Jr. (1960), actress Marlee Matlin (1965), NBA player Reggie Miller (1965), comedian Dave Chappelle (1973), and actor Rupert Grint (1988).

So, listen up: if you’re a Second Life person, I’m doing a show tonight at 6PM SLT at Lutz City of Templemore. I’m not above shameless self promotion. Beyond that, I have various things to take care of today, and some time slated to relax and do nothing as well. That’s important too. Enjoy your day.