Random News: August 8, 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 8, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I’ve not had the easiest time staying focused lately; that happens when there’s s much going on, sometimes things fall under the radar or get pushed aside. There’s only so many things one can think about much less do in a day. Let’s take a look at the news at try and get a handle on some of it.

• Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz hit two major battleground states yesterday, doing rallies in Eau Claire, WI and Detroit, MI.
• Both events were packed beyond belief. Crowd shots of the Wisconsin rally looked like Woodstock, with a sea of people as far as the eye could see.
• 50,000 people had RSVP’ed to try and get into the Detroit event, held in a hangar at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, with Air Force Two sitting in the background.
• Attendees expressed feelings of elation at the Harris/Walz ticket.
• During a speech at the airport in Detroit, Harris was interrupted by trolls who accused her of supporting genocide in Gaza.
• But Harris knows how to deal with people like that. “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that,” she said, talking over the protesters. “Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
• That shut them the fuck up. If those people want Dump, they can expect Palestine to get bombed into oblivion and for Muslim people in the USA to face deportation.
• The Harris/Walz tour now heads today to Phoenix, AZ, and then to Las Vegas, NV.
• Donald Trump appears to be hiding at home in Florida while the Harris/Walz whirlwind tour keeps rocking. Reports say he is in full-fledged panic from all the media coverage and the surging poll numbers of the Harris/Walz campaign.
• This morning, he just announced a press conference for this afternoon. His narcissism forces him to feel like no one can help his floundering chances of election other than himself.
• Of course, it’s at his golf motel, Mar-a-Lago. He doesn’t seem to have the energy to go out and campaign at this crucial time.
• However, his creepy VP pick JD Vance is following Harris around the country, holding pathetic press conferences for anyone who will listen to him.
• And just when you think Vance couldn’t get any worse, he managed to scrape beneath the bottom of the barrel yesterday.
• Desperate to find any talking points against the momentum of the Harris/Walz ticket, Vance claimed in a press conference yesterday that, “When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him—a fact he’s been criticized for aggressively by many of the people he served with.”
• Let’s now look at the actual facts.
• Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard when he turned 17. During his military career, he had postings in Arkansas, Texas, the Arctic Circle, Minnesota, and elsewhere. He trained in heavy artillery.
• During his 24 years of service, Walz worked in disaster response postings following floods and tornadoes and was deployed overseas. In 1989, he earned the title of Nebraska Citizen-Soldier of the Year. He led an artillery unit and attained the rank of command sergeant major near the end of his service.
• So what did JD Vance do in the military that puts him on a pedestal?
• He attained the rank of corporal in the Marines, and served in Iraq as a combat correspondent for six months in late 2005. That means he sat in an air-conditioned room and wrote press releases. Vance did not see any combat.
• I mean, thanks for your service, I guess.
• And now, let me bring up the thing that is getting JD Vance yelled at this very moment, which would have been obvious to any experienced leader.
• This now reopens the scrutiny into Donald Trump’s lack of any military service. 
• While in college, Dump obtained four student draft deferments during the Vietnam War. In 1966, he was deemed fit for military service based on a medical examination, and in July 1968, a local draft board classified him as eligible to serve.
• But in October of that year, Dumples was classified 1-Y, a conditional medical deferment, and in 1972, he was reclassified 4-F, unfit for military service, due to alleged bone spurs, permanently disqualifying him.
• My dad was 26 years old and married when he was drafted in 1967, during that same Vietnam era. He went and fought for our country. Donald Trump was too much of a coward to do the same.
• Do you need another big Tim Walz scandal? Sure, no problem.
• Walz and his wife Gwen appear to not be wealthy. They don’t have any assets like stocks or bonds or real estate, or anything else beyond their pensions. Unlike Dump and Vance, who are millionaires or billionaires and avoid paying any taxes, Walz is a person much more like the other 99% of people in the USA.
• Walz’s salary as governor of Minnesota is $127,629 (which, frankly, isn’t enough for a particularly great lifestyle where I live in Southern California). He was eligible for a raise last year to $149,550, but he chose not to accept it, according to the state.
• Forbes estimates Vance’s net worth, based on publicly reported investments and cash, to be between $3 million and $10 million.
• That probably helps explain why we can relate to Tim so well, and why the Dump/Vance ticket seems so weird.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously upheld a 2023 state law that restores voting rights to 55,000 Minnesotans on parole, probation, or community release due to a felony conviction.
• Gov. Tim Walz signed the legislation last March. The state’s highest court rejected a bid from a right-wing organization known as the Minnesota Voters Alliance to invalidate the historic rights restoration legislation for allegedly violating the state constitution.
• Under the re-enfranchisement statute enacted by the state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature last summer, voting rights were restored to Minnesotans with felony convictions immediately after release from incarceration.
• Good. When you’ve done the crime and served the time and paid your dues, there’s no legal reason that the state can continue to punish you.
• I have another JD Vance note. No, it’s not about any kind of furniture.
• Back in 2022, Dump’s VP candidate apparently struck up a relationship with Charles Johnson, a blogger who has zealously promoted right-wing conspiracy theories.
• Their correspondence over the next 20 months — extending into the weeks before Dumpy picked Vance as his running mate — was made over the encrypted messaging app Signal.
• Vance solicited Johnson’s views on many topics, including UFOs (“What is your read”), the Republican Party’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (“What is GOP Bibi problem?”) and the death of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (“Do you think Epstein actually killed himself?”).
• Who is this buddy of Vance? Well, he's made comments casting doubt on the Holocaust. He was banned from Twitter in 2015 for soliciting donations aimed at “taking out” Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson.
• Johnson’s account was restored under the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, because of course it was.
• In other news…
• Three Taylor Swift concerts in Austria were cancelled yesterday as authorities said that two suspects were arrested in connection with plans for an alleged attack in the Vienna region.
• Swift was due to play three shows in Vienna between today and Saturday. Those dates were cancelled on Wednesday.
• Speaking at a press conference, police said a 19-year-old Austrian citizen, who they identify as a sympathizer of Islamic State, was arrested yesterday morning in Ternitz, while another arrest was carried out later that morning in Vienna.
• “The two suspects became radicalized by the internet, a 19-year-old citizen of Lower Austria made an oath of allegiance to the current leader of IS at the beginning of July,” police said.
• Fucking hell.
• I’m not paranoid but the timing is interesting; the previous day, Swift had teased an image on her official social media showing a stage photo of Swift alongside what people believe is the silhouette of Kamala Harris.
• Moving on with some notable news from Tuesday’s primary elections.
• Valentina Gomez, a Republican candidate in the race for Missouri Secretary of State, finished near the bottom of the pack in Tuesday’s primary contest. In a field of eight candidates, she took sixth place.
• Her campaign was based on hatred of the LGBTQ community and Black people. Earlier this year, she released a bizarre campaign video in which she told voters not to be “weak and gay” while jogging down the street in a bulletproof vest.
• She also filmed herself burning a pile of LGBTQ-themed books she claims are “indoctrinating” children.
• On Juneteenth, Gomez told Black Americans to “get the fuck out of the country” if they don’t like it.
• I’m sure she’ll be missed by her fellow Republicans. Maybe she could move to Arizona and work with Kari Lake? Their views seem to be compatible.
• Let’s move on.
• As a followup to the shooting death of Sonya Massey, who was shot and killed in her home by Deputy Sean Grayson of the Sangamon County Sheriff's Office, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton are formally calling for Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell to resign.
• Following the shooting, Grayson was fired from the sheriff's office and charged with three counts of first-degree murder, among other charges.
• It was sheriff Campbell who hired Grayson in May 2023 despite his two prior DUI convictions and the fact that he’d worked for six different Illinois police departments between 2020 and 2024.
• Jesus. And while we’re talking about people and guns…
• A little reminder that not all gun deaths are purposeful. Preventable, yes, but not always purposeful.
• A San Antonio, TX man taking his trash to an apartment dumpster was shot and killed after he slipped while walking and the gun he was carrying went off accidentally.
• The man, in his 50s or 60s, slipped in a wet area and his own gun went off, wounding him the chest.
• How sad is someone’s life that they feel a need to be armed to take out the trash?
• Moving on.
• The Kamala Harris website was updated yesterday with a new batch of merch that promoted the Harris/Walz ticket. I bought a couple of mugs, a t-shirt, and some buttons.
• One item I couldn’t buy was the camo cap with the camping logo in orange. Why not?
• The $40 camo hat sold out in 30 minutes, with 3,000 orders. Now it's only available for pre-order, with an expected October release date. As of late yesterday, sales of that item have totaled almost $1 million.
• The hat is a nod to the one Walz is wearing in the video in which Harris calls to ask him to be her running mate.
• A guy like Walz — born in the Midwest and who hunts and fishes — wears clothing like that authentically. People know when something is fake, like when an Ivy League Republican puts on cowboy boots.
• Walz is the real deal.
• And now, The Weather: “Things Around Here Will Never Be The Same” by hockey season
• RIP going out to Patti Yasutake, who portrayed Nurse Alyssa Ogawa on ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ and a pair of franchise movies. She was 70.
• Nurse Ogawa was one of the only named characters on the Enterprise D’s medical staff, working alongside Dr. Beverly Crusher. This is geeky but true. Rest in peace to Ms. Yasutake.
• From the Sports Desk… Team USA is still kicking ass at the Paris Olympics, with their medal count now up to 95.
• The latest gold medal winners include the Women's Team Pursuit in cycling (Jennifer Valente, Lily Williams, Chloe Dygert, and Kristen Faulkner), as well as Quincy Hall (Men's 400m) and Sarah Hildebrandt (Women's 50kg wrestling).
• USA added to our silver medal collection with the Team Acrobatic Routine in Artistic Swimming, Tom Schaar for Men's Park skateboarding, Katie Moon for Women's Pole Vault, and Kenneth Rooks for Men's 3000m Steeplechase.
• We also added a bronze via Hampton Morris in Men's 61kg Weightlifting, and to Samuel Watson in Men's Speed climbing.
• The USA, with its 95 medals, has taken a big lead over the other participating countries. China is in second place with 67; France in third with 51.
• USA! USA!
• Today in history… King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England (1503). Bartolomeu de Gusmão demonstrates the lifting power of hot air in an audience before the king of Portugal (1709). Mont Blanc is climbed for the first time (1786). Following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee sends a resignation letter which is turned down by Jefferson Davis (1863). Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph (1876). Wilbur Wright does the first public flight at Le Mans, France (1908). The German airship Graf Zeppelin begins an around-the-world flight (1929). First flight of the Convair B-36, the first intercontinental bomber and the first designed to deliver nuclear weapons (1946). The Beatles take the street-crossing cover pic for the album ‘Abbey Road’ (1969). President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day (1974). The first night baseball game in the history of Chicago's Wrigley Field was rained out in the fourth inning (1988). Space Shuttle Columbia STS-28 takes off on a 5-day secret mission (1989). Dave Matthews’ tour bus dumps 800 pounds of poop onto a boat full of passengers (2004). Opening of the 2008 summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China (2008). The Federal Bureau of Investigation executes a search warrant at former president Donald Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL (2022).
• August 8 is the birthday of painter Godfrey Kneller (1646), cavalry officer/politician George Stoneman, Jr. (1822), physician/AA co-founder Bob Smith (1879), physicist Paul Dirac (1902), composer/musician Benny Carter (1907), producer Dino De Laurentiis (1919), producer/director William Asher (1921), swimmer/actress Esther Williams (1921), basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian (1930), actor Dustin Hoffman (1937), drummer Anton Fig (1952), radio host Robin Quivers (1952), actor Don Most (1953), musician The Edge (1961), politician Ron Klain (1961), rapper Kool Moe Dee (1962), singer-songwriter Scott Stapp (1973), and baseball player Anthony Rizzo (1989).

That’s all I have for now. I’m sure more things will happen today that will be newsworthy tomorrow. That’s how it goes… a train that keeps chugging along, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes on a straight track and sometimes hitting curves, but never stopping. Enjoy your day.