Random News: September 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 September 8, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. And it’s not just any Sunday; it’s the first Sunday in a long time where NFL football games will be played. I mention this up here because in terms of my planning my day, that will be a large factor. So let’s do some news before kickoff time.

• I can’t stand talking about that fucking prick who once cheated his way into becoming the president. I especially don’t like leading my news with stories about him.
• But I will today, only because as he progresses deeper and deeper into the ravages of insanity, it’s important for you all to see it in real time and plan accordingly with your votes.
• Dumpy issued a warning on his social media last night.
• “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”
• So obviously, first off he’s completely freaking out about the strong possibility of a) losing, b) losing to a Black woman, and c) facing the real possibility of being imprisoned for his serious crimes.
• And he’s already taking steps to try and sow doubts about the integrity of the election, even though cheating in US elections is incredibly rare.
• He continued in his demented, paranoid manner… “Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
• Fuck this asshole.
• His campaign aides and allies have urged him to keep his focus on Harris and make the election a referendum on issues like inflation and border security. But he can’t. he doesn’t have that ability. Instead, especially in recent days, he keeps veering far off course.
• He’s also announced some completely half-assed plan to create a new “Government Efficiency Commission,” and he wants it to be run by Elon Musk.
• No, seriously. It’s like if the worst of the worst made a club.
• So let’s move on from that shit, but not before I tell you that the latest New York Times/Siena poll has Dump at 48 percent and Harris at 47 percent — yes, within the three-point margin of error.
• But when I tell you that she’s an underdog and we have to fight like hell to make sure our country doesn’t fall into a dark dictatorship, I fucking mean it.
• Let’s move on.
• After next Tuesday’s presidential debate, Vice President Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will rally supporters in critical battleground states.
• Harris’s campaign will kick off its “New Way Forward Tour” on Thursday, two days after the debate and a day after the vice president marks the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
• Harris will visit North Carolina on Thursday and Pennsylvania on Friday. Walz will be in Nevada on Tuesday, Michigan on Thursday, and Wisconsin on Friday. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Walz’s wife, Gwen, will also visit key swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, and Maine.
• In addition to their travel, the campaign will also launch a new ad called “New Way Forward” that highlights Harris’s key proposals, including a ban on price-gouging and investments to increase the housing supply. The ad will air in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Nebraska.
• Good. Let’s keep driving home her great policy messages. Dump has nothing to offer in return.
• Moving on.
• The Biden administration is denouncing Tucker Carlson after the far-right personality hosted a guest on his show this week who suggested the Holocaust happened by accident, calling the interview “a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans.”
• Carlson did a two-hour sit-down with Darryl Cooper, whom he said “may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.”
• Cooper claimed that Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Jews was due to poor planning instead of the methodical extermination that it actually was.
• Elon Musk, who promoted the interview on his dead social media platform X, called it, “Very interesting. Worth watching,” but even he wasn’t able to stand by that statement and later deleted his post.
• Senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said “giving a microphone to a Holocaust denier who spreads Nazi propaganda is a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans, to the memory of the over 6 million Jews who were genocidally murdered by Adolf Hitler, to the service of the millions of Americans who fought to defeat Nazism, and to every subsequent victim of Antisemitism.”
• Racists and holocaust deniers are disgusting scum humans who have no positive contributions to any civilized society.
• Despite the condemnation, Carlson has continued to be embraced by the Republican Party, which gave him a prime time speaking slot at last month’s party convention in Milwaukee.
• Carlson is also undertaking a live speaking tour this fall with events across the country. Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee, JD Vance, is scheduled to appear with Carlson at a September 21 event in Hershey, PA.
• That tracks.
• And since I brought up Jeremiah Dipshit Vance, I’ll also add that yesterday, Dump called for modifying the 25th Amendment to allow for the removal of a vice president who “lies or engages in a conspiracy to cover up the incapacity of the president.” 
• I know the Tangerine Twat is talking about Harris and Biden, but he’s also looking toward the future of being removed by Vance as Dump sinks further into his dementia.
• Moving on.
• We no longer do “Sunday Gunday” here at Zak’s Random News. Pointing out that dozens and dozens of Americans shoot and kill each other via horrible instances of gun violence each weekend didn’t seem to change that fact in any way.
• But I will mention that once again, one guy with a gun can destroy the lives of many families in an instant.
• Multiple people were shot yesterday along a highway in a rural area of southeastern Kentucky. Seven people were hurt in the shooting and a vehicle accident that accompanied the violence.
• The sheriff's office said it was searching for 32-year-old Joseph A. Couch. He was described as a white man, about 5-foot-10 and weighing 154 pounds. Authorities said he should be considered armed and dangerous and people should not approach him. 
• Little man, big gun. Seems typical to me.
• And now, The Weather: “Four Leaf Clover” by Peel Dream Magazine
• And yes, still hot here in SoCal. I feel bad for my friends who are more inland and getting the worst of it. Thousands of them lost power at various points, with the power grid being overtaxed by people using their AC.
• Let’s do a chart, going back 40 years to the day with the top of the Billboard Hot 100 on September 8, 1984.
• On that day, Kamala Harris was starting classes for her second year at Howard University in Washington, D.C., while Tim Walz was taking classes at the University of Houston and being enlisted in the Texas Army National Guard. Me? I was starting my junior year at Miraleste High School in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA.
• 1. What's Love Got To Do With It  (Tina Turner). 2. Missing You (John Waite). 3. She Bop (Cyndi Lauper). 4. Ghostbusters (Ray Parker Jr.). 5. Stuck On You (Lionel Richie). 6. Let's Go Crazy (Prince And The Revolution). 7. If This Is It (Huey Lewis & The News). 8. The Warrior (Scandal Featuring Patty Smyth). 9. Sunglasses At Night (Corey Hart). 10. Drive (The Cars). 11. When Doves Cry (Prince). 12. Lights Out (Peter Wolf). 13. The Glamorous Life (Sheila E.). 14. If Ever You're In My Arms Again (Peabo Bryson). 15. Rock Me Tonite (Billy Squier). 16. Round And Round (Ratt). 17. Cover Me (Bruce Springsteen). 18. Cruel Summer (Bananarama). 19. All Of You (Julio Iglesias & Diana Ross). 20. Dynamite (Jermaine Jackson).
• From the Sports Desk… as I mentioned above, today is the first Sunday of the 2024-25 NFL season. While I almost never have time to actually watch full games — I’m a busy human — I do have a routine during this time of year.
• It starts with the fact that here on the West Coast, the first batch of games start bright and early (for a Sunday) at 10am, with the second batch around 1pm, and the Sunday Night game at 5pm.
• So basically, I keep a browser tab open on ESPN’s NFL scores, and another on my pick ‘em pool,, and have all of the above easily accessible on my phone as well.
• I sometimes watch a bit of a game here and there — especially if my Las Vegas Raiders seem to be doing well. And then I catch various highlights, usually on the NFL’s YouTube channel that has become really good at showing them in near real-time.
• So that’s my plan today. Football is a terrific distraction from stressful life… until I start getting stressed about the games, but those aren’t real life. I have my perspective straight in that regard.
• Today in history… Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence (1504).  Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1761). The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board, arriving six months later at the mouth of the Columbia River and establishing the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon (1810). The Northern Pacific Railway was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana (1883). To prove women were capable military dispatch riders, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren arrive in Los Angeles, completing a 60-day, 5,500 mile cross-country trip on motorcycles (1916). 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape (1930). The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation makes its first televised broadcast (1952). The landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premieres with its first-aired episode, "The Man Trap” (1966). In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated (1971). Gerald Ford signs the pardon of Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office (1974). US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual” (1975). NASA launches Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-106 to resupply the International Space Station (2000). Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom dies at Balmoral Castle in Scotland after reigning for 70 years (2022).
• September 8 is the birthday of king Richard I of England (1157), mathematician Marin Mersenne (1588), composer Antonín Dvořák (1841), mandolin player/composer Seth Weeks (1868), politician Claude Pepper (1900), actor Sid Caesar (1922), activist Jacqueline Ceballos (1925), actor Peter Sellers (1925), singer-songwriter Patsy Cline (1932), politician Bernie Sanders (1941), singer-songwriter/keyboardist Ron Pigpen McKernan (1945), NHL player Rogie Vachon (1945), singer-songwriter/bass player Benjamin Orr (1947), bass player Will Lee (1952), actress/activist Heather Thomas (1957), singer-songwriter/guitarist Aimee Mann (1960), singer-songwriter/guitarist Neko Case (1970), actor David Arquette (1971), actor Martin Freeman (1971), singer-songwriter Pink (1979), rapper Wiz Khalifa (1987), DJ/remixer Avicii (1989), and MLB plater Gerrit Cole (1990).

Okay. That’s all for now. Time for more coffee and then… are you ready for some football? Why, yes. Yes I am. Enjoy your day.