Random News: August 3, 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 3, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. I had to get out of the robe pretty quickly this morning; it’s not hot here in Redondo Beach, but there is an aspect of August humidity even here by the ocean that doesn’t play well with thick terrycloth. We have a whole lot of news as usual these days, so let’s dig into it.

• A historical moment happened yesterday in the USA when a majority of Democratic delegates voted to select Vice President Kamala Harris as the party's nominee for president.
• The Democratic National Committee began the formal process for selecting the nominee on Thursday, when voting opened for the party's more than 4,000 delegates to cast their ballots using an online form or over the phone.
• Harris needed to secure votes from 2,350 delegates to cross the threshold required for winning the nomination, a number she easily and quickly surpassed. The vote closes at 6PM on Monday, when her nomination will become official.
• But this deal is done. As of yesterday, for the first time in US history, a major party ticket is headed by a woman of color. Harris will officially accept the nomination after the voting period closes.
• Today and tomorrow, Harris is interviewing the final six potential running mates ahead of a formal announcement and a battleground tour with her new VP pick next week.
• As I’ve mentioned, I’m fine with whomever she picks. I trust her to make the right choice.
• The high odds-on favorite per many pundits is Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Next down the list is Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.
• The remainder includes Gov. Andy Beshear (Kentucky) Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Illinois), Gov. Tim Walz (Minnesota), and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
• No aspect of her VP choice will change my enthusiasm for voting for her and encouraging other people of character and conscience to do the same.
• A bittersweet story of one Harris voter…
• Former President Jimmy Carter turns 100 on October 1st . He has told his family he’s trying to stay alive long enough so that he can vote for Kamala Harris.
• Early voting begins in Georgia on October 15. Here’s hoping.
• We do not like or trust polls at Zak’s Random News, something you know by now. And you can always seem to find polls that suit your personal narrative.
• I prefer to continue this electoral fight with the feeling that — as Harris herself has said — that she is a big underdog, and that may well be the case.
• Things will continue to change over the remaining 94 days, but some of the latest reliable polls fro swing states have Harris up in Pennsylvania (by less than a point at 45.3% to 44.8%); Wisconsin by 1.2 points (46% to 44.8%); and Michigan by 2.4 points (45.2% to 42.8%).
• Meanwhile per the same set of polls, Dump leads in the battleground states of Georgia (46.3% to 44.8%), North Carolina (46.7% to 44.7%), Arizona (46.3% to 43.8%) and Nevada (43.9% to 42.6%).
• And note that all of these polls are within the margin or error.
• Nationally, the newest polling averages from 538 says Harris has the support of 45.0 percent of voters, while Trump garners 43.5 percent.
• Also within the margin of error. So even if you trust the polling methodology (which I don’t), nothing at all is certain yet.
• Check your voter status today, or register/re-register if you’ve never voted or if you’ve moved recently. Do it right now. You can come back to these bullets after… it takes seconds.
• Here you go… https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/
• Let’s do some not-good news.
• The US is sending a carrier strike group, a fighter squadron and additional warships to the Middle East as the region braces for an Iranian retaliation to the killing of a senior Hamas leader in Tehran earlier this week.
• Yesterday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group, which is currently operating in the Gulf of Oman.
• In addition, destroyers and cruisers capable of ballistic missile defense will also be sent to the Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea. Austin also ordered the deployment of a fighter squadron to the region.
• Iran has vowed to attack Israel for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. That’s the type of shit that could drag us into a full-fledged war.
• Sigh. Moving on for now.
• Guess who’s back? It’s U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who regained control yesterday of the criminal case against El Dumpo.
• This is the Washington, D.C. case where Dump is accused of attempting to overturn the 2020 election. It had been on pause for a month after the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling on presidential immunity.
• But the historic case is now back in Chutkan’s capable hands. She now has jurisdiction over the case again, and will now be responsible for applying the Supreme Court's decision to the allegations in Dump's criminal case, including whether Dump's actions were "official acts" or private conduct that can be prosecuted.
• As a reminder, Dumples the Clown pleaded not guilty last year to charges of undertaking a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of fake electors, using the Justice Department to conduct sham election crime investigations, trying to enlist the vice president to alter the election results, and promoting false claims of a stolen election as the January 6 insurrection raged — all in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
• Chutkan is known to not fuck around, and that’s apparent here. She set a hearing for August 16 at 10am. Dump is not required to attend.
• It will be the first time in seven months the parties will appear in her courtroom. Chutkan also denied Trump's motion to dismiss the case on statutory grounds. She says they may refile the motion once issues of presidential immunity are resolved.
• Fuck yes. I’ll say this again: Dumpy isn’t running for President. He’s running because if he doesn’t win, he quite possibly spends the remainder of his life in jail for his crimes against the USA.
• Let’s move on… to another very serious El Dumpo crime allegation that you never even heard about until now.
• Yesterday, the Washington Post released a blockbuster report that shows evidence that Donald J. Trump accepted a bribe of $10,000,000 from Egypt five days before becoming president in January 2017.
• The story is very long and detailed. My fast synopsis…Employees in the state-run National Bank of Egypt were commanded to place bundles of $100 bills into two large bags, which weighed a combined 200 pounds and contained what was then a sizable share of Egypt’s reserve of U.S. currency.
• US federal investigators learned of the withdrawal, which has not been previously reported, early in 2019. The discovery intensified a secret criminal investigation that had begun two years earlier with classified U.S. intelligence indicating that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi sought to give Trump $10 million to boost his 2016 presidential campaign.
• If that money moved from Cairo to Dump, it violates federal law that bans U.S. candidates from taking foreign funds. Investigators had also sought to learn if money from Sisi might have factored into Trump’s decision in the final days of his run for the White House to inject his campaign with $10 million of his own money.
• But perhaps far worse, the case got quashed by Dump’s Justice Department, who stopped prosecutors and FBI agents from obtaining bank records they believed might hold critical evidence.
• Finally the case was shut down entirely by Dump’s then-attorney general, William P. Barr.
• How did Dump pay Egypt back?
• Over the course of his presidency, Dump shifted U.S. policy in ways that benefited the Egyptian leader Sisi, a man he once called “my favorite dictator.”
• In 2018, Trump’s State Department released $195 million in military aid that the United States had been withholding over human rights abuses — a move that had been opposed by his first secretary of state — followed by the release of $1.2 billion more in such assistance.
• All that for $10 million in straight cash.
• My guess is that as long as Dump isn’t elected in November, this case will be reopened and it could end up as another big set of felonies against the Creamsicle Criminal.
• Moving on.
• The Justice Department sued TikTok yesterday, accusing the company of violating children’s online privacy law and running afoul of a settlement it had reached with another federal agency.
• The latest lawsuit focuses on allegations that TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance violated a federal law that requires kid-oriented apps and websites to get parental consent before collecting personal information of children under 13.
• It also says the companies failed to honor requests from parents who wanted their children’s accounts deleted, and chose not to delete accounts even when the firms knew they belonged to kids under 13.
• Yikes! They are definitely intent of going after TikTok’s ass. But lest you think TikTok is being singled out or unfairly targeted…
• In 2019, Google (the platform this blog is on) and YouTube agreed to pay a $170 million fine to settle allegations that they had illegally collected personal information on children without their parents’ consent.
• And dozens of U.S. states sued Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram — for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms.
• Let’s move on, or back to Apricot Pol Pot.
• The Dumpster’s gag remains intact.
• Dumpy is still partly barred from speaking about his New York criminal trial after an appeals court decision denied his attempt to lift the gag order.
• Ha.
• The gag order bars Dump from speaking about prosecutors, court staff or their families. Dump’s lawyers had requested the gag order be lifted this time in order to campaign against Vice President Harris.
• The court responded correctly that “threats received by District Attorney staff after the jury verdict continued to pose a significant and imminent threat.”
• If you need a reminder, and perhaps you do, a jury found Donald John Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential run.
• Earlier this summer, after the conviction, Judge Juan Merchan lifted part of the order allowing Dumpy to speak about witnesses and jurors.
• Okay, fuck that guy. Let’s talk about something more cheerful.
• Yesterday, the Ohio Cannabis Coalition announced that sales of recreational marijuana will begin in that state as early as Tuesday for some dispensaries.
• Weed has been legal in Ohio since last November, but like most states who ended marijuana prohibition, it takes a long time to figure out the legalities, get licenses, yada yada.
• Anyway, your state allows you to buy two and a half ounces PER DAY. So, obviously that’s laughably too much. I don’t smoke a lot, but an ounce lasts me about a year.
• Note that like in other states, you have to be at least 21 and show a valid government ID — just like if you were buying alcohol.
• I’ll add that unlike my high school-era vision of a legal weed world, where smiling stoned people are bebopping around smoking fat spliffs and noodle dancing to Dead songs in the streets… no. That’s not how it works.
• But it is nice not having to buy it from some sketchy dude named Kevin in a Target parking lot, or to worry about tickets or fines. Like any other intoxicant, don’t partake in public, keep it away from kids, and never, ever drive high.
• Otherwise, enjoy.
• And now, The Weather: “Touch Type” by Snowy
• From the Sports Desk… Team USA has now secured 50 medals in the Paris Olympics. Nice!
• Simone Biles adds another gold medal to her collection, winning Artistic - Women's Vault in gymnastics. Vincent Hancock also grabbed the gold for Men's Skeet shooting.
• Regan Smith picked up a silver in Women's 200m Backstroke swimming. Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram got silver in Men's Doubles tennis. Conner Prince got silver in Men's Skeet shooting.
• Bronzes went to Casey Kaufhold and Brady Ellison in Mixed Team archery. The Men’s Eight rowing team (Henry Hollingsworth, Nick Rusher, Christian Tabash, Clark Dean, Chris Carlson, Peter Chatain, Evan Olson, Pieter Quinton, Rielly Milne) got bronze. Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul got theirs for Men's Doubles tennis. Grant Fisher got his for running the Men's 10000m.
• Side note: it just took me way too long to calculate that 10,000 meters is a 10K. Derp.
• One other Olympic note…
• Boxer Imane Khelif of Algeria clinched a medal today. She defeated Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary in the quarterfinals of the women’s 66-kilogram bout.
• That means Khelif will win at least a bronze medal. And I’m happy for her, because I think she worked hard to get to where she is and uses her body’s unique gifts in the same way that almost every elite athlete uses theirs.
• And for anyone making false claims about her gender — from Donald Trump to J.K. Rowling to your bigoted high school friend who’s suddenly an expert in genetics and physiology — can suck my big fat male dick.
• Seriously, get in line.
• Today in history… Christopher Columbus sets sail from Spain (1492). The first known letter from North America is sent by John Rut while at St. John's, Newfoundland (1527). The La Scala theater in Milan is inaugurated (1778). The first ever American intercollegiate sports event happens when Harvard beats Yale in a yacht race (1852). The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is founded (1900). Germany declare war on France in WWI (1914). MLB bans eight members of the Chicago “Black Sox” (1921). Jesse Owens wins the 100m at the Berlin Olympics (1936). Niger gains independence form France (1960). Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world's first mass-produced personal computers (1977). Twenty-three people are killed and 22 injured in a mass shooting in El Paso, TX (2019).
• August 3 is the birthday of politician Hamilton Fish (1808), UK prime minister Stanley Baldwin (1867), educator John T. Scopes (1900), NFL coach Marv Levy (1925), singer Tony Bennett (1926), actor Martin Sheen (1940), businesswoman Martha Stewart ((1941), director/producer  John Landis (1950), NHL player Marcel Dionne (1951), bass player Lee Rocker (1961), singer-songwriter/guitarist James Hetfield (1963), guitarist/composer Stephen Carpenter (1970), DJ/producer DJ Spinderella (1971), politician Chris Murphy (1973), NFL player Tom Brady (1977), actress Evangeline Lilly (1979), swimmer Ryan Lochte (1984), model Karlie Kloss (1992), NFL player Todd Gurley (1994), and NFL player Zach Wilson (1999).

That’s enough for now. I’m gonna do… things. Enjoy your day.