Random News: September 18, 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 18, 2024, and it’s a Wednesday. I have just a ton of news to tell you people this morning, and not nearly enough time to do it well. (Cracks knuckles)… here we go.

• Some more good news for the Harris/Walz campaign arrived yesterday in the form of a strong endorsement from another influential musician.
• Billie Eilish and her brother, artist/songwriter/producer Finneas, have officially endorsed Kamala Harris for president over Dumples the Clown. In a joint video post on Instagram, the Grammy and Oscar-winning duo celebrated National Voter Registration Day by encouraging their followers to register, vote early, and to vote for the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket.
• “We are voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz because they are fighting to protect our reproductive freedom, our planet and our democracy,” Eilish said.
• Finneas added, “We can’t let extremists control our lives, ours freedoms and our future. The only way to stop them and the dangerous Project 2025 agenda is to vote and elect Kamala Harris.”
• Fuck yes.
• Moving on.
• Today the House will vote on a government funding bill that appears doomed to fail, with less than two weeks left to prevent a partial shutdown starting October 1.
• Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team spent the weekend trying to shore up support for his short-term funding plan. But it is still expected to fail when it comes to the floor today. He doesn’t have the votes.
• Johnson’s proposed bill combines a six-month stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, a controversial proposal that would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote.
• Important note: it is already illegal for non-citizens to vote, and the only thing this law would do is hinder legitimate voters’ efforts to cast their ballots.
• No Democrat is going to vote for that shit, and a good number of Republicans won’t either. So if it fails, it will highlight publicly what some House Republicans have been saying privately for days: They can’t pass any government funding bill on their own and will ultimately need to team up with Democrats to pass a short-term measure, likely into December.
• Duh.
• Let’s move on. We have some super weird news on the international front.
• Yesterday, at least nine people were killed and 2,800 wounded in an attack that targeted pagers held by members of Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was one of those injured, according to Iranian state media.
• Hezbollah said it holds Israel responsible for the deadly explosions, amid already increased tensions in the region. There was a “no comment” response from the Israeli military. Hmm.
• At least 170 people injured are in critical condition, and many hospitals in southern Lebanon have exceeded capacity.
• Apparently, Israel (probably) intercepted the shipment of the pages and stuffed them with explosives. Then they sent a code that would cause the pagers to vibrate with an error message.
• When the user pressed the button to stop the error… blammo.
• I mean… exploding pagers? I’m not going to defend any terror groups like Hamas or Hezbollah or the Taliban or any of them. But I will say, this kind of action seems to me to be begging for a violent response.
• Let’s move on.
• Microsoft is warning that Russia is using fake videos and phony social media accounts to target Kamala Harris as the U.S. presidential election draws closer.
• The Kremlin’s influence operations initially struggled to pivot operations aimed at the Democratic campaign following President Biden’s departure from the US 2024 presidential race in July.
• But starting in August, influence campaigns the company has been tracking began to churn out content about Harris and her running mate Tim Walz.
• The Russia-linked campaigns included a baseless claim accusing Harris of being involved in a hit-and-run in 2011 that was spread via a website claiming to be a local San Francisco TV station.
• The article was accompanied by a video in which a woman, whom Microsoft identified as an actor, claimed to be the victim of the crash. There is no evidence any such incident occurred, and the purported TV station does not exist.
• Moving on.
• I bring up this next point not just to illustrate how you should never listen to what a politician says… but instead, watch what they do.
• For example, when Dump says he won’t sign a national abortion ban, and then does the moment he gets elected, it’s because you mistakenly trusted him and allowed that to happen.
• Recently, Dump has not only voiced total support for In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), but says that the expensive procedure will be free (without explaining how, but that’s Dumpy for ya).
• But yesterday, Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would protect access to IVF.
• The package, called the Right to IVF Act, would establish a nationwide right "to receive fertility treatment from a health care provider, in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based medical standards of care." 
• The legislation was first blocked three months ago by Senate Republicans.
• The legislation needed 60 votes to move forward. The vote was 51 to 44, with just two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — joining Democrats in voting to advance the measure. 
• Interestingly, all nine Republican Senators who are up for re-election this fall also voted against protecting IFV. They are John Barrasso (R-WY), Marcha Blackburn (R-TN), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Rick Scott (R-FL), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).
• Here are the candidates running against them. I highly recommend that instead of these incumbents who want the government to control your reproductive decisions, you vote for Scott Morrow (D-WY), state rep Gloria Johnson (D-TN), professor Katrina Christiansen (D-ND), Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), union president Dan Osborn (I-NE), Lucas Kunce (D-MO), Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), and Ty Pinkins (D-MS).
• Moving on.
• Texas Attorney General — and one the USA’s most preeminent assholes — Ken Paxton has failed to block a voter registration drive in one of his state’s most populous urban counties and biggest Democratic strongholds.
• On Monday, State District Judge Antonia Arteaga dismissed the Republican attorney general’s lawsuit against Bexar County, the home of San Antonio. 
• Paxton’s suit was part of a broader GOP campaign against Democratic voter registration efforts as the Senate and presidential races have tightened in Texas — a campaign marked by false claims and conspiracy theories of a grand Democratic plot to steal the election with a wave of ballots cast by voters who are in the country illegally.
• Paxton is the guy who  kicked off the plan to search Latino and Democrat activists and a candidate in counties surrounding Bexar.
• Bexar County had proposed to send out registration forms to unregistered voters — something Paxton argued was outside of the scope of the county’s legal powers.
• Judge Arteaga ruled Paxton’s suit was moot, because the county had already sent out the voter registration forms.
• Again, to be clear: the County is just sending out registration forms. They’re not automatically registering these voters. What they’re doing is 100% the right thing to do in a democracy.
• And with the Senate race in Texas appearing tight — Democratic Rep. Colin Allred has repeatedly polled within the margin of error against incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R) — the election could come down to registration.
• In 2020, less than 80 percent of Texas’s voting age population registered to vote, and just more than half of eligible voters cast a ballot. Less than three weeks remain to register Texas voters for the election to come.
• Please, Texans friends and other good people of the Lone Star state: let everyone around you know that voting now will make a huge impact on their lives moving forward.
• Let’s move on.
• Fun Fact: one of the segments of the US populace who are overwhelmingly in support of Kamala Harris… our friends, the gays.
• A resounding 70% of LGBTQ+ voters are backing VP Harris and Gov. Walz, but the more impressive number is that 95% of those surveyed have confirmed they are registered to vote. 
• With their (and many others’) help, we’re going to create a better future for our country.
• Let’s do another Fun Fact. I like those.
• X, the web site formerly know as Twitter, has had an extraordinary revenue collapse in the time frame that supposed business genius Elon Musk has owned it. I think this will be studied in “what not to do” classes in business schools for years and years.
• In Quarter 2 of 2022, the platform took in a respectable $661 million in revenue, primarily via advertising. But in Q2 of this year, it was only $114 million.
• Not only is that a drop of over 500%, but the company’s total annual revenue is insufficient to cover its interest payments on its debt. The equity of Musk’s X is now worth zero.
• Womp womp. And just think, all Elon had to do was to not be an evil prick. Guess that was asking too much.
• In somewhat related news, yesterday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the country’s toughest law banning digitally altered political “deepfakes,” following through on a vow to act after rebuking Elon Musk for sharing a doctored video of Vice President Kamala Harris.
• The new California law — which will take effect before the November election — channels rising alarm about artificial intelligence’s capacity to disrupt elections by sowing misinformation, with voters increasingly confronted with deepfake images and audio impersonating candidates.
• It was due to Musk, who shared the AI-altered video of Harris in July, drawing Newsom’s public promise to prohibit similar practices. Newsom made it clear that it wouldn’t have mattered whether Musk had shared fake AI videos of either Harris or Dumpy.
• Newsom also signed a companion bill that targets deepfakes by compelling platforms to pull down such content when users flag them, although that bill will not take effect until next year. He signed a third measure requiring disclaimers on political ads that use AI.
• Good. We need this.
• In other news…
• The fallout from the made-up “immigrants eat our pets” debacle is impacting more than just the Dump/Vance campaign. It now affects a number of down-ballot races to politicians who helped spread the baseless rumor.
• New York Rep. Marc Molinaro followed Dump’s lead and posted the false claims that Haitian newcomers to Springfield, OH abduct and eat cats and dogs to X, Instagram, and Facebook. He was trying to challenge his Democratic rival’s commitment to border security.
• Two congressional districts to the south, Rep. Mike Lawler, whose constituency includes a sizable Haitian American population, released a statement urging his fellow Republicans to refrain from circulating unsubstantiated rumors.
• Now both incumbents might end up losing their races… one for being a racist idiot, and the other for not being supportive enough of Dump’s lies.
• Meanwhile, MAGA social media accounts are still circulating AI-generated art of Trump rescuing and embracing kittens and ducks.
• Honestly, the level of unintentional comedy would be off the charts if not for the fact that real human beings are being threatened with violence over these things that never, ever happened.
• Let’s just move on.
• Do I have to talk about Diddy? I’d rather not.
• Let’s just get it out of the way. Sean “Diddy” Combs has been charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking in a federal indictment unsealed yesterday in New York.
• He “abused, threatened and coerced victims” from at least 2008 to the present, the New York US attorney said. Combs, aka Diddy, aka Puff Daddy, created and ran a “criminal enterprise” through his business empire that engaged in crimes including sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
• Diddy was arrested Monday night at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan and taken into custody by Homeland Security.
• At an arraignment yesterday afternoon, Diddy was denied bail. He’s in jail and may remain there until his trial. The racketeering charge alone carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, and a sex trafficking conviction would carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years.
• Sucks to be him.
• But wait! We have more news of shitty people being shitty, and the justice they face.
• Yesterday, a federal appeals court upheld the sex trafficking conviction of the former British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, rejecting her appeal.
• Maxwell, 62, was arrested in 2020 and charged with involvement in her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of teenage girls.
• She was found guilty of sex trafficking in 2021, convicted on five of the six charges she faced for having recruited and groomed four underage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004, and was sentenced to 20 years behind bars.
• Maxwell has been serving her sentenced at a low-security prison in Tallahassee and she is eligible for release in July 2037.
• And now, The Weather: “Sleeper” by knitting
• Rest in peace to JD Souther, a prolific songwriter and musician who helped shape the country-rock sound that took root in Southern California in the 1970s with his collaborations with Eagles and Linda Ronstadt. He died yesterday at 78.
• Souther collaborated on some of Eagles’ biggest hits, such as “Best of My Love,” “James Dean,” “New Kid in Town,” and “Heartache Tonight.”
• He also worked with James Taylor, Bob Seger, Bonnie Raitt and many more, and also found success as a solo artist. He also dated a lot of musicians including Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, and Stevie Nicks.
• From the Sports Desk… Shohei Ohtani is getting closer to the amazing landmark of 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases. Last night he hit a third-inning home run in an 11-9 loss to the lowly Miami Marlins.
• He is currently at 48 each of home runs and steals with 11 games remaining in the regular season.
• Today in history… Nerva is proclaimed Roman emperor after Domitian is assassinated (96). Norwegian king Harald Hardrada lands with Tostig Godwinson at the mouth of the Humber River and begins his invasion of England (1066). The first cornerstone of the United States Capitol is laid by George Washington (1793). Tiffany & Co. (first named Tiffany & Young) is founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young in New York City (1837). First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times (1851). Fritz Pollard becomes the first African American to play professional football for a major team, the Akron Pros (1919). The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) goes on the air (1927). General Douglas MacArthur moves his general headquarters from Manila to Tokyo (1945). Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations (1960). Voyager I takes the first distant photograph of the Earth and the Moon together (1977). First mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks (2001). Scotland votes against independence from the United Kingdom, by 55% to 45% (2014). 
• September 18 is the birthday of Roman emperor Trajan (53), singer-songwriter/lute player Francesca Caccini (1587), lexicographer Samuel Johnson (1709), actress Greta Garbo (1905), actor Jack Warden (1920), director/producer Bud Greenspan (1926), actor Robert Blake (1933), actor Fred Willard (1933), singer Frankie Avalon (1940), singer-songwriter Michael Franks (1944), computer businessman John McAfee (1945), guitarist/songwriter Kerry Livgren (1949), singer-songwriter/bass player Dee Dee Ramone (1951), basketball coach Rick Pitino (1952), football coach/politician Tommy Tuberville (1954), actor James Gandolfini (1961), NBA player Toni Kukoč (1968), actress Jada Pinkett Smith (1971), cyclist Lance Armstrong (1971), rapper Xzibit (1974), and soccer player Ronaldo (1976).

Holy shit, that was a lot of news, and trust me… there was a lot more I didn’t have time to cover. It’s a busy-ass world out there, so stay focused on the things that are important and we’ll make it through. Enjoy your day.