Random News: September 19, 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 19, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Once again, we have a lot of important things going on in the world. It’s often difficult to pick and choose what I’m going to cover here. Every day, I’d say there are at least three times as much news than what I select for this little column that is still pretty damn relevant to people’s lives, but overwhelming you with too much info means you might lose interest in all of it. So I try to stick to the things I know will be the most impactful to you. Let’s do it.

• As predicted, yesterday the Republican-led House was unable to do the one thing they are required to do: pass a budget. It’s their one job.
• A diverse group of House Republicans torpedoed Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) proposal to fund the government, dealing an embarrassing blow to the GOP leader and derailing his strategy to avoid a shutdown at the end of the month.
• Fourteen Republicans joined virtually every Democrat in voting against the spending plan — which paired a six-month stopgap bill with a measure that would require proof of citizenship to vote — bringing the final tally to 202-220, with two voting present. Three Democrats crossed the aisle to back the measure.
• The GOP opposition included hardline conservatives criticizing the use of a continuing resolution; defense hawks voicing concern about the impact the long-term funding bill would have at the Pentagon; and moderates expressing worries about having a shutdown threat so close to the election.
• Now Mike Johnson is in a bit of a bind. There’s no obvious path to averting a shutdown on October 1, he’s disappointing his lord and savior Donnie Dump along with the far-right wing of his party, and the likelihood of him remaining Speaker grows more dim.
• Obviously, if we do the right thing and elect a Democratic majority to the House, he won’t have to worry about that, and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) will take the job anyway.
• And none of this actually matters anyway. It’s all performative. The bill as it stood had no chance of progressing in the Senate.
• Again, note: it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote, and there’s zero need to place extra burdens on eligible voters.
• Shutting down the government via the inability for Republicans to work for the good of the entire country is a politically horrible idea right before an election. It’s bad for Dump and for GOP incumbents trying to hang on to their jobs.
• Let’s move on from that clusterfuck.
• Vice President Kamala Harris will return to Atlanta tomorrow to highlight her support for expanded abortion rights and make it clear that the deaths of two Georgia women died as a direct result of Dump having killed Roe v. Wade, the former legal landmark that allowed for women to have reproductive rights in the USA.
• Harris plans to address the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, both of whom died shortly after Georgia’s anti-abortion limits took effect following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion.
• “This is exactly what we feared when Roe was struck down,” Harris said of Thurman. “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.” 
• Georgia law bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six weeks into a pregnancy and before many know they are pregnant. Thurman’s death took place two weeks after the law took effect in 2022. 
• In other news…
• I’m not a big finance guy, but I know enough to know this is good news.
• Yesterday, the Federal Reserve said it is cutting its benchmark interest rate by 0.50 percentage points, marking the first reduction in four years and moving to ease borrowing costs.
• That’s a big cut. Experts were expecting half that. It’s going to help consumers who are grappling with high rates on everything from mortgages to credit cards.
• The cut lowers the federal funds rate into a range of 4.75% to 5%, down from its prior range of 5.25% to 5.5%, which had been its highest level in 23 years. 
• The half a percentage point cut suggests an abrupt switch of focus back to the maximum employment mandate and a very sharp improvement in confidence in inflation progress in the last month and a half.
• It also shows confidence in the current direction of the economy, with inflation dropping and employment high.
• Moving on to some real news about fake news.
• Yesterday, fake info was spread around social media reporting that explosives had been found in a car near former Dump’s planned rally in Long Island, New York.
• Who helped spread it? Among thousands of MAGAs, Elon Musk and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shared the misinformation.
• The local cops reported that the source of the ridiculous rumor was a civilian who’d said he trained his own bomb-sniffing dog. No really, I’m serious. Stop laughing.
• And side note: what in the name of fuck is Dump doing campaigning in New York in the first place? Did someone tell him it’s a swing state?
• Lordy. Let’s move on to some real, actual explosions from yesterday.
• Another series of explosions rocked Beirut yesterday in an apparent second wave of attacks targeting devices a day after pagers used by Hezbollah blew up.
• This time, it was walkie-talkies and solar equipment. At least 20 people were killed and more than 450 wounded in the second wave. The attacks are widely believed to be carried out by Israel targeting Hezbollah… but they’ve also killed civilians.
• It’s not good.
• Speaking of Hezbollah (and therefore Iran)… let’s talk about something that caused Dumpy to shit his pants while tweeting in all caps.
• Iranian hackers sent unsolicited information they stole from Dump’s presidential campaign to people who were affiliated with Joe Biden’s campaign over the summer.
• The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said that in late June and early July, Iranian malicious cyber actors “sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails.”
• There is no indication that Biden’s staff ever replied or made use of the stolen info. At the same time, the New York Times and The Washington Post reported that they, too, had been sent a similar cache, including a 271-page document on JD Vance dated February 23 and labeled “privileged & confidential.”
• Both news outlets noted the content sent to them was based on publicly available information.
• How did Iran get that info, if you need a reminder? They breached the email account of longtime Dump buddy Roger Stone, and then used that email account to try to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official as part of a persistent effort to access campaign networks.
• Moving on.
• Some good news out of Kentucky, where Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear banned the use of “conversion therapy” on minors in the state yesterday.
• He called his executive order an overdue step to protect children from a widely discredited practice that tries to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling.
• The governor took action using his executive powers after efforts to enact a state law banning the practice repeatedly failed in the state’s Republican-dominated legislature.
• Well done. Beshear is a great guy.
• Also in Kentucky… yesterday, police found a body believed to be Joseph Crouch, the man accused of opening fire on a major Kentucky highway this month, injuring several people and inciting an 11-day manhunt.
• Unspecified items found near the body make police confident of the identification. The cause of death remains under investigation.
• In other news…
• For the first time since 1996, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have declined to endorse anyone in the 2024 presidential race, becoming the only one of the nation's major 10 unions not to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. No unions have endorsed Dump.
• But minutes after that announcement, West Coast Teamsters announced their endorsement of Harris in a sharp break with the powerful union’s membership.
• Teamsters Joint Councils 7 and 42 — which are made up of 39 local unions representing 300,000 members in California, Nevada, Hawaii, and Guam — wrote in a statement that Harris and her running mate Tim Walz have a history of supporting expanded labor protections for workers, like the proposed Protect the Right to Organize Act and a Minnesota law that will ban employers from forcing workers to attend anti-labor meetings.
• And then other local Teamsters unions showed their support. The Teamsters Joint Council 43 in Michigan and Teamsters Joint Council 39 in Wisconsin both offered their hearty endorsement to the Harris/Walz ticket.
• In other news…
• I was unaware until yesterday that this is Bisexual Awareness Week. Apparently it runs annually from September 16–23, culminating on Celebrate Bisexuality Day, held each year on September 23.
• According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, bisexuals represent approximately 40% of the LGBTQ community.
• So shout out to the Bi people. I am aware of you!
• Moving on.
• We all know that billionaire Elmo Muck has endorsed Dumpy McDumpster for president.
• Isn’t it sorta awkward that very few of his own employees are in agreement with him?
• Workers at Tesla have contributed $42,824 to Harris' presidential campaign versus $24,840 to Trump's campaign, per a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks U.S. campaign contributions and lobbying data.
• Employees at SpaceX have donated $34,526 to Harris versus $7,652 to Trump. Employees at the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, have donated $13,213 to Harris versus less than $500 to Trump.
• Relevant side note: I’ve known multiple people who’ve worked at SpaceX, Tesla, and X. Every one of them said it was the single worst place they’d ever been employed.
• Let’s move on.
• Diddy has been denied.
• Yesterday, a federal judge ordered Sean Combs to remain in jail until his trial for sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, rejecting an appeal by the music mogul’s lawyers requesting that he be released on bail.
• Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. said that Puff Daddy posed a risk of witness tampering and was a danger to the safety of the community. I 100% agree.
• How serious is this shit? Diddy’s lawyers had offered a $50 million bond for his release, and they were still shot down.
• From the “What the Fuck?” Desk: six people who sat behind Dump at a rally in Tuscon, AZ last week were left with strange eye injuries, including one who says she was nearly blind the day after.
• One of the victims, anti-abortion activist Mayra Rodriguez, told the station her eyes began hurting after leaving the rally last Thursday. She went to the ER for treatment, where staff reportedly told her it looked like she was sprayed with something.
• Rodriguez thought it might have been the result of allergies until she learned that five other people in her section reported similar symptoms.
• Maybe they were blinded by the gaseous emissions from Dump’s ass? There’s no way to know for sure.
• And now, The Weather: “Driver” by Soccer Mommy
• From the Sports Desk… San Francisco 49er George Kittle has surpassed Hall of Famer Kellen Winslow Sr. (6,330 receiving yards) for the third-most receiving yards ever by a tight end in his first 100 games.
• Honestly, if you don’t like Kittle, I’m not sure how you call yourself a sports fan, or a human. The dude is great.
• Also note: there’s a football game tonight, starting Week 3 of the NFL season. The New England Patriots (1-1) visit the New York Jets (1-1) in this division game. The Jets are favored by -6 points.
• Today in history… Jamestown is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon during Bacon's Rebellion (1676). The Continental Congress passes the first United States federal budget (1778). George Washington's Farewell Address is printed across America as an open letter to the public (1796). Union troops under William Rosecrans defeat a Confederate force commanded by Sterling Price (1862). Union troops under Philip Sheridan defeat a Confederate force commanded by Jubal Early (1864). The Electoral Act of 1893 is consented to by the governor, giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote (1893). Witold Pilecki gets captured on purpose, and is sent to Auschwitz concentration camp to gather and smuggle out information for the resistance movement (1940). Tipper Gore and other political wives form the Parents Music Resource Center as musicians testify at U.S. Congressional hearings on obscenity in rock music (1985). Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees surpasses Trevor Hoffman to become Major League Baseball's all-time saves leader with 602 (2011). A drone strike by the United States kills 30 civilian farmers in Afghanistan (2019). The state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom is held at Westminster Abbey, London (2022).
• September 19 is the birthday of Roman emperor Antoninus Pius (86), Liao emperor Mu Zong (931), explorer Thomas Cavendish (1560), lawyer Leon Jaworski (1905), car designer/businessman Ferdinand Porsche (1909), actress Frances Farmer (1913), actor/TV host James Lipton (1926), actor Adam West (1928), music manager Brian Epstein (1934), singer-songwriter Bill Medley (1940), singer-songwriter Paul Williams (1940), singer Cass Elliot (1941), songwriter/musician Lol Creme (1947), actor Jeremy Irons (1948), model/actress Twiggy (1949), journalist Joan Lunden (1950), music producer Daniel Lanois (1951), songwriter/guitarist/producer Nile Rodgers (1952), singer-songwriter/guitarist Lita Ford (1958), chef Mario Batali (1960), actress Cheri Oteri (1962), singer-songwriter Tricia Yearwood (1964), politician Tim Scott (1965), astronaut Sunita Williams (1965), journalist Soledad O’Brien (1966), TV host Jimmy Fallon (1974), actress Alison Sweeney (1976), NBA player Tyreke Evans (1989), and NBA player Trae Young (1998). 

Again, sorry to bombard you with a million news items. I promise you, I also left a ton of stuff out. But it’s Thursday, and that means we’re getting closer to the weekend, and I don’t know about you, but I cold really use a weekend sooner than later. Enjoy your day.