Random News: September 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 September 3, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. It’s also “get your ass back to work” day after a three-day holiday weekend. Give me 72 hours off work and I have trouble remembering my name, much less what I do for a living, so this will take some adjustment time. Meanwhile, let’s do some news.

• Yesterday on Labor Day, Vice President Harris and President Biden rallied with union workers in Pittsburgh, with Pennsylvania being a critical battleground state. It was their first joint appearance on the campaign trail.
• “I will continue to count on the strength, the determination, and the hard work of the leaders in this room to knock on doors, to get folks to the polls and, bluntly put … to help us win Pennsylvania,” Harris said to cheers. 
• Biden was deservedly met at the Pittsburgh event with chants of “thank you, Joe.” 
• Earlier in the day, the busy POTUS candidate stopped in Detroit where she also addressed a crowd of union members. Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, met with union workers in Minnesota, and then stopped in Wisconsin. 
• Labor Day is classically a big day in election years, when candidates get out in front of the hard workers of the country to show their commitment to helping them.
• But the Republican candidate Dumpy Dump and his running mate JD Vance held no events on Monday. Huh.
• I should mention that some vans carrying media and staff following Tim Walz’s motorcade got into a collision while heading from the airport to his campaign stop in Milwaukee. Walz was unharmed and there were no serious injuries.
• Knowing Tim, he probably got out, picked up some debris, and said, “That scratch will buff right out.”
• Some huge news out of the Harris campaign you might not see elsewhere: along with the DNC, they announced this morning that they are sending nearly $25 million to support down-ballot Democrats — an earlier investment and far more money than the top of the ticket has sent in past election years.
• Some of this is possible due to Harris’s record fundraising over the past six weeks. But it is also a recognition of the importance of this year’s down-ballot races — which overlap with many of the swaths of the country that could decide the presidential election, and whose outcomes will substantially affect how Harris will be able to govern next year after she’s elected.
• Ask Dumpy how much money he’s having the Republicans send to down-ballot candidates. Hahahahahaha, oh Lordy. He’d never send them a penny.
• Let’s move on.
• In one of the best moments of unintended hilarity in history, Dumples the Clown drew ridicule after accusing Kamala Harris of mistreating Mike Pence.
• As you likely recall, Dump’s supporters brought a gallows with them to the January 6 insurrection with the intention of hanging Mike Pence in front of the Capitol.
• The comments evoked references to Dump’s notorious treatment of Pence after his presidential election defeat to Biden, when he tried to pressure the vice-president into refusing to certify the results in Congress, as dictated by the Constitution, and then egged on a mob to attack the US Capitol while Pence was inside.
• Journalist David Corn wrote: “What? Did she call him the p-word and incite the violent mob that chanted ‘Hang Mike Pence’? Because if she did, she probably should drop out of the race.”
• Side note: it was Dump who did those things.
• Dump’s comments prompted a response from Harris’s campaign, which appeared to interpret it an example of age-related confusion and evidence that the former president, who is 78 and now the oldest presidential candidate in US history, is in mental decline.
• “In a stunning senile moment, Donald Trump just suggested it was Kamala Harris who treated Mike Pence poorly. Donald Trump clearly cannot remember anything,” write the Harris campaign.
• In other news…
• The United States has seized an airplane belonging to Venezuela's hard-line president, Nicolás Maduro. 
• The Justice Department alleges that the aircraft was purchased from a company in Florida for about $13 million by people affiliated with Maduro who used a Caribbean-based shell company and smuggled it out of the United States for use by Maduro and his associates, in violation of U.S. sanctions and export controls.
• Fuck around, find out.
• The U.S. has placed numerous sanctions on Venezuelan companies and individuals, including Maduro, for alleged corruption and human rights abuses among other things.
• As you should hopefully be aware, Venezuela's contentious presidential election about a month ago had both Maduro and the main opposition declaring victory.
• But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was "overwhelming evidence" that opposition candidate "Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election."
• I don’t think things are going to go well for Maduro. You don’t want an angry USA on your ass.
• Let’s move on.
• Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against a new wave of pressure to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza after hundreds of thousands of Israeli protested and went on strike and U.S. President Joe Biden said he needed to do more after nearly 11 months of fighting.
• Netanyahu stated  “No one is more committed to freeing the hostages than me. But no one will preach to me.” But all signs say that keeping the Philadelphi corridor is more important to him than winning the hostages’ release.
• There will be no peace there until they oust his ass from office.
• Moving on.
• Huge Donnie Dump supporter Elon Musk has amplified a theory that only "alpha males" can be trusted to make good decisions, and should therefore be the ones to participate in democracy.
• Elmo shared a screenshot of a theory that referred to "people who can't defend themselves physically (women and low T men)," suggesting they are "very malleable to brute force manufactured consensus."
• The postals said that only "high T alpha males and aneurotypical people" are able to question new information, concluding, "This is why a Republic of high status males is best for decision making. Democratic, but a democracy only for those who are free to think."
• When I tell you that Republicans plan to take away voting rights from women and anyone else they deem inferior, I fucking mean it.
• If you vote for Dump in November, you may never be allowed to vote again. For your own sake and that of all future generations, please don’t make a fatal mistake. Vote for Harris/Walz.
• Elmo is very upset in recent days as Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva backed the top court's Judge Alexandre de Moraes' decision to suspend Muck’s little social media company from the country.
• The judge found that X allowed postings of hate messages and falsehoods about the country's electronic voting system that undermined Brazil’s democracy. He’s right.
• And tensions between Brazil and Muck ratcheted up further as the country's telecoms regulator threatened to sanction his satellite broadband company Starlink.
• Got some news from the Health Desk.
• For about three weeks in 2000, there were zero measles cases in the United States. It was declared eradicated.

• Fast forward to 2024, and measles cases are surging as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the vaccination rate among kindergartners is dropping, and more and more parents are seeking exemptions to school vaccine requirements.

• And now, The Weather: “Minute Papillon” by WORLD BRAIN
• An RIP going out to actor James Darren, who died yesterday at age 88. Some folks of older generations might remember him from his role as the surfer Moondoggie in the “Gidget” movie.
• But we Star Trek geeks recall him from the ‘90s as the holographic lounge singer Vic Fontaine in the criminally underrated “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” series.
• From the Sports Desk… I’m a little bit excited that NFL football returns this week, with the first game of the regular season this Thursday night.
• Just for the hell of it, here’s Week 1’s matchups with their odds. I probably won’t do this every week of the season… or will I?
• Baltimore at Kansas City (-3)
• Green Bay at Philadelphia (-3)
• Pittsburgh at Atlanta (-3)
• Arizona at Buffalo (-6)
• Tennessee at Chicago (-4.5)
• New England at Cincinnati (-8.5)
• Houston (-2.5) at Indianapolis
• Jacksonville at Miami (-3)
• Carolina at New Orleans (-4.5)
• Minnesota (-1) at New York Jets
• Las Vegas at Los Angeles Chargers (-3.5)
• Denver at Seattle (-5.5)
• Dallas at Cleveland (-2.5)
• Washington at Tampa Bay (-3.5)
• Los Angeles Rams at Detroit (-3.5)
• New York Jets at San Francisco (-3.5)
• Today in history… Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa defeats Sextus Pompey, ending Pompeian resistance to the Second Triumvirate (36 BC). San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's oldest republic still in existence, is founded (301). Richard I of England — aka Richard the Lionheart — is crowned at Westminster (1189). During the Battle of Cooch's Bridge, the Flag of the United States is flown in battle for the first time (1777). Future abolitionist Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery (1838). Malcolm Campbell reaches a speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph (1935). France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, forming the Allied nations (1939). Qatar becomes an independent state (1971). The American ‘Viking 2’ spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars (1976). The U.S. and China, together responsible for 40% of the world's carbon emissions, both formally ratify the Paris global climate agreement (2016).
• September 3 is the birthday of businessman George Hearst (1820), engineer/businessman Ferdinand Porsche (1875), physicist Carl David Anderson (1905), actress Kitty Carlisle (1910), pianist/composer Memphis Slim (1915), singer-songwriter/guitarist Freddie King (1934), singer-songwriter Al Jardine (1942), singer-songwriter/bassist Dug Pinnick (1950), singer-songwriter Steve Jones (1955), MTV veejay Adam Curry (1964), actor Charlie Sheen (1965), NBA player Damon Stoudamire (1973), NFL player Mason Crosby (1984), and snowboarder Shaun White (1986).

Alrighty. Time to work, if I can remember what that means. Enjoy your day.