Random News: September 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 September 17, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. Feels very Tuesdayish this morning, which is to say that Monday beat the shit out of me and now I’m marveling that I still have another four days to grind through until the weekend. Meanwhile, plenty going on, so let’s jump in.

• Election Day is just 49 days away — seven weeks from today — but voters across the country, including in some of the seven swing states, will start casting ballots as soon as this week.
• In Wisconsin, municipalities must send out mail ballots by Thursday.
• In Nevada, Carson City is expected to send absentee ballots and mail ballots this week for residents who expect to be out of state on Election Day. Other Nevada counties are expected to do so in the following days.
• In Georgia, while most mail ballots won’t go out until next month, counties will start sending military and overseas ballots tomorrow. Federal law requires all states to send military ballots by Saturday.
• In North Carolina, counties must send military ballots by Friday. They’re expected to start sending mail ballots to voters who aren’t in the military or overseas next week.
• In Pennsylvania, counties had a deadline to start processing applications for mail ballots yesterday, although the ballots can’t go out until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decides several outstanding cases.
• Moving on.
• A huge endorsement for Harris came in yesterday from Scientific American magazine. What’s the big deal about that?
• Well, in their 179-year history, this is only the second time that the editors of that venerable publication have made any Presidential endorsement at all.
• The synopsis for their reason…
• “In the November election, the U.S. faces two futures. In one, the new president offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience. She pushes policies that boost good jobs nationwide by embracing technology and clean energy. She supports education, public health and reproductive rights. She treats the climate crisis as the emergency it is and seeks to mitigate its catastrophic storms, fires and droughts.
• “In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies. He ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution. He requires that federal officials show personal loyalty to him rather than upholding U.S. laws. He fills positions in federal science and other agencies with unqualified ideologues. He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living.”
• I mean, that’s as clear cut and concise and understandable as any analysis you’ll find anywhere. The entire article goes into extreme detail on each of these topics and it’s worth a read.
• In other election news, we don’t talk about polling here at Zak’s Random News. Polls are all bullshit.
• So this is just a point of interest, reflecting back on the debate between Harris and Dump a week ago tonight. 
• Vice President Harris leapt to a six-point lead over Dumpy in the wake of last week's presidential debate, according to a Morning Consult poll published this morning. It showed nationwide support for Harris at 51% compared to 45% for Dump.
• Most polls before the debate had the pair locked in a virtual dead heat.
• And this was a big poll: Morning Consult surveyed 11,022 likely U.S. voters from September 13-15 in the poll, which had an unweighted margin of error of +/-1 percentage point.
• Eli Yokley, political analyst at Morning Consult, stated, "A majority of likely voters — including 1 in 5 Republicans — believe Harris won the debate, and performance appears to be crystalizing her national lead over the former president.”
• Also notable: ”Her 51% of support among likely voters, which is also at a record high, is driven largely by her best figures to date among Democrats, Biden 2020 voters, liberals, women, 18- to 34-year-olds and millennials.”
• All that being said, Dump still leads among white males in general, especially those with lower education levels. A lot can happen in seven weeks, so it’s crucial that you keep up the mindset that Harris is an underdog.
• And fight like hell for her.
• One of the most important issues facing voters is that of women’s reproductive rights and access to health care. And now, one state’s restrictive abortion law has resulted in a provably preventable death of a young woman.
• Amber Nicole Thurman, a 28-year-old Georgia mother, died after not receiving care for an infection due to the state’s law.
• The report said the woman should not have died, citing an official state committee, adding that the experts examining pregnancy-related deaths “deemed hers ‘preventable’ and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a ‘large,’ impact on her fatal outcome.”
• I’ll remind you that Donald Trump takes full credit for Roe being struck down, and stated many times that “everyone” wanted it gone.
• VP Harris was furious.
• “This is exactly what we feared when Roe was struck down. In more than 20 states, Trump Abortion Bans are preventing doctors from providing basic medical care. Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again.”
• She continued, “Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying. These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions.”
• Please register. Please vote. Please encourage others around you to be brave and do the right thing so that this doesn't happen again and again.
• In other news…
• The criminal complaint charges against Ryan Routh — the guy who had a gun on Dumpy’s golf course — include possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, and possession and receipt of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
• Both are federal felonies. The first charge carries a punishment of up to 15 years behind bars if he is found guilty.
• In very related news, let’s turn the clock back to February 2017, when then-President Donald Trump signed a bill into law that rolled back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun.
• The rule added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database.
• Had the rule fully taken effect before Dumpy pulled it, the Obama administration predicted it would have added about 75,000 names to that database.
• The original rule was hotly contested by gun rights advocates who said it infringed on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Gun control advocates, however, praised the rule for curbing the availability of firearms to those who may not use them with the right intentions.
• And in the most ironic possible way, the would-be assassin Ryan Routh would not have been allowed to have a gun had Dump not explicitly made sure that he did.
• Funny how the world works that way sometimes.
• Also in related news…
• From the “Things That Don’t Really Matter” Desk, there was a good amount of confusion about the weapon that Routh used to frighten Dumpy on Sunday at his golf course.
• It was first thought to be an AK-47, then said to be an AR-15. Apparently it was neither. It’s now being said to be an SKS-type rifle, a semiautomatic weapon that chamber 7.62mm rounds, a higher caliber than is most often used by AR-style rifles.
• The SKS is a mainstay at shops and gun shows in the United States because they are relatively cheap and fire plentiful ammunition.
• It’s also a poor choice for a long-distance assassination, though with Dumpy being some 300 to 500 yards away from where the armed man was spotted, it’s quite feasible that he could have been hit by a skilled marksman with that weapon.
• And also in related news, President Biden and called Trump yesterday. “We had a very nice call. It was about Secret Service protection,” Trump said in a statement.
• About the call, Trump said about Biden, “He was very nice. He called me up to make sure I was okay."
• Joe Biden is a good person. That’s no surprise to anyone.
• The White House described the call as “cordial” and said Biden “conveyed his relief that [Trump] is safe.”
• Alrighty then.
• Let’s move on.
• Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine revealed yesterday that a recent spate of bomb threats targeting the town of Springfield have all been “hoaxes,” with some (but not all) originating from “one particular country” overseas. 
• DeWine says that law enforcement has responded to at least 33 separate bomb threats made against Springfield government offices, schools, and medical centers since the town was thrust into the national spotlight over the influx of Haitian migrants. 
• He declined to name the country in reference, but Russia and Iran have both been accused by US officials of attempting to influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
• DeWine also announced that he has authorized a contingent of state troopers to be stationed at each school building in Springfield after Dumpy mentioned the city last week during the presidential debate, as he repeated false claims about Haitian migrants eating people’s pets.
• Sigh. Want to know how fake news can impact real people in this regard?
• An Ohio sheriff this weekend urged residents in his county to collect the addresses of homes displaying campaign signs Harris/Walz.
• Bruce Zuchowski, the sheriff of Portage County who is seeking reelection, made the remarks Friday in two identical posts on his personal and professional Facebook accounts.
• “I say … write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards!” said Zuchowski, a far-right Republican. That way, he said, when undocumented immigrants — which he referred to as a “locust” — flooded in, “We’ll already have the addresses of their New families … who supported their arrival!”
• The sheriff’s posts sparked tension across the county, which Dump carried by 12 points in the 2020 election. Zuchowski is now being accused of voter intimidation ahead of November’s election.
• I wonder what Zuchowski’s address is?
• Let’s do some much-needed good news…
• Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced yesterday that it has banned Russian state media broadcaster RT and other Kremlin-controlled networks, alleging the outlets have engaged in deceptive influence operations and attempted to evade detection.
• They stated, “After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity.”
• Prior to Monday’s ban, RT had 7.2 million followers on Facebook and 1 million followers on Instagram.
• As we mentioned last week, this move comes days after the US Justice Department announced charges against two RT employees for funneling nearly $10 million into US company Tenet Media to create and amplify content that aligned with Russian interests. 
• The covert influence campaign was aimed at the American public ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, using high-profile right-wing, pro-Dump commentators including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson and several others.
• We will not allow these piece of shit Russians to be a voice in our free and fair elections. Fuck them all.
• And now, The Weather: “Where You Want to Go” by Allegra Krieger
• From the Sports Desk… yesterday we said there were seven upsets in the second seek of the new NFL season.
• Make that eight. The Falcons, a -6.5 point underdog, beat the Eagles 22-21 in a thrilling last-minute finish. I literally only chose six out of 16 games correctly in week 2. It’s a good thing I don’t bet money on sports.
• Today in history… Louis the Great's daughter, Mary, is crowned "king" of Hungary (1382). The Invasion of Canada in the Revolutionary War begins with the Siege of Fort St. Jean (1775). The Presidio of San Francisco is founded in New Spain (1776). The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia (1787). American abolitionist Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery (1849). Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history (1862). The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge, who becomes the first airplane fatality in history (1908). Manfred von Richthofen ("The Red Baron"), a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France (1916). The National Football League is organized as the American Professional Football Association in Canton, Ohio (1920). The Space Shuttle Enterprise is unveiled by NASA (1976). The Camp David Accords are signed by Israel and Egypt (1978). Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America (1983). Estonia, North Korea, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia join the United Nations (1991). The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released to the Internet (1991). The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression (2001). Occupy Wall Street movement begins in Zuccotti Park, New York City (2011). 
• September 16 is the birthday of SCOTUS chief justice John Rutledge (1739), gunman Billy the Kid (1859), poet William Carlos Williams (1883), businessman J. Willard Marriott (1900), SCOTUS chief justice Warren E. Burger (1907), singer-songwriter Hank Williams (1923), NFL player George Blanda (1927), actor Roddy McDowall (1928), racing driver Stirling Moss (1929), actress Anne Bancroft (1931), politician Chuck Grassley (1933), novelist Ken Kesey (1935), SCOTUS justice David Souter (1939), NBA player/coach Phil Jackson (1945), cartoonist Jeff MacNelly (1947), actor John Ritter (1948), singer-songwriter Fee Waybill (1950), TV host Cassandra Peterson (1951), comedian Rita Rudner (1953), director Baz Luhrmann (1962), singer-songwriter Keith Flint (1969), NBA player Rasheed Wallace (1974), NHL player Alexander Ovechkin (1985), model Pixie Geldof (1990), and NFL player Patrick Mahomes (1995).

Well, that’s a lot of important stuff. Keep kicking ass and not accepting any shit. Life is better that way. Enjoy your day.