Random News: October 31, 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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Ghoul morning (evil cackle, lightning flashes). It’s October 31, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. It’s also Halloween.

• What the fuck is Halloween, anyway?
• As we know, Halloween has become a celebration of horror, being associated with the macabre and supernatural.
• One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which are believed to have pagan roots.
• Some suggest that Samhain itself was Christianized as All Hallow's Day, along with its eve, by the early Church.
• Celebrated in Scotland and Ireland for centuries, Scottish and Irish immigrants took many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century, and then through American influence various Halloween customs spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century.
• A lot of the current traditions — putting on costumes, going trick-or-treating, playing pranks — stem from celebrations that go back many centuries.
• What’s with the carving of pumpkins and making jack-o’-lanterns, though?
• Well, in Ireland, Scotland, and Northern England, the turnip has traditionally been carved during Halloween, but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which is both much softer and much larger, making it easier to carve than a turnip.
• Even seen a carved turnip? Way more horrifying.
• Anyway, the American tradition of carving pumpkins is recorded in 1837, and was originally associated with harvest time in general, not becoming specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.
• I’ll end this by saying that first, I’m not doing shit for Halloween (I very rarely do), and I also never know if we’re going to get three trick-or-treaters, or 300 of them.
• Nevertheless, I am prepared. The candy selections at my home include Snickers, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, and Twix. they were all in one variety pack, you see.
• None of those, somewhat surprisingly, are in this year’s top selections of Halloween candies, per a report from a candy web site. In order, the popular treats for 2024…
• 1. M&M’s 2. Reese's Cups 3. Sour Patch Kids 4. Skittles 5. Starburst 6. Hot Tamales 7. Candy Corn 8. Hershey's Kisses 9. Hershey's Mini Bars 10. Butterfinger
• A different report lists them as such…
• 1. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups 2. M&Ms 3. Snickers 4. Peanut M&M’s 5. Twix 6. Kit Kat 7. Hershey's Milk Chocolate 8. Milky Way 9. Sour Patch Kids 10. Skittles
• Okay, let’s do some actual news.
• The election is in five days.
• Are you ready for “hardship” under a second Dump presidency?
• Dump surrogate Elon Musk said that’s what will happen and it’s what you deserve.
• At a recent virtual town hall event held on Musk’s social media platform, the multibillionaire said he was “praying for a victory” for Trump, so he could begin working in a high-level Cabinet role to axe federal spending.
• “We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” Musk said. “And, you know, that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”
• A huge majority of economists agree that Dump’s economic and fiscal proposals will spark an economic calamity. 
• In a joint letter released last week, 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists warned that Dump’s terrible plans for tariffs, tax cuts for the wealthy, and an immigration crackdown — including detaining and deporting millions of people — would “lead to higher prices, larger deficits, and greater inequality.”
• More than anything, they wrote, electing Dump would undermine the rule of law and political certainty, “the most important determinants of economic success.”
• At this moment, under the leadership of Biden and Harris, the U.S. economy heads toward Election Day on firm footing, with consumer confidence rising, employers still adding hundreds of thousands of jobs, wages handily outpacing inflation, and overall economic output in great shape.
• And now the Dump Team says you will have to endure hardship under his regime, while the super-rich get even more wealthy and there’s less and less money for a shrinking middle class.
• Please vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
• And while you’re at it, vote for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.
• Speaking of voting, I have the latest statistics for people like me — and many of you — who have already voted.
• As of yesterday afternoon, more than 55 million people have already cast their ballots — either in person or by mail during early voting.
• Of those, more than 29 million early votes have been cast at polling places in-person, and another 25.9 million mail ballots have been returned. There were more than 65.6 million mail ballots requested.
• A slightly higher number of registered Democrats, just under 11 million, have already voted, compared to nearly 10 million registered Republicans, according to data from 25 states that report party registration.
• Of those who have submitted ballots in-person during early voting, 3.8 million are registered Republicans and 3.1 million are registered Democrats.
• For people voting by mail, more Democrats, 7.3 million, have returned ballots, compared to just over 5.6 million registered GOP voters.
• So what does that mean for Election Day? Well, using the battleground state of Georgia as an example, more than 3 million people have voted so far, which is 45% of registered voters in the state.
• GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that the figures mark the best turnout during the early voting period that the state has seen.
• And what it might mean — depending on where you live — is that lines are shorter than usual on Election Day, and that perhaps votes can be tallied more quickly.
• Unless some set of circumstances means that we have to wait for Maricopa County, AZ to count their votes.
• The county, which includes Phoenix, is one of the most consequential battlegrounds in the country. Their election workers on November 5 will begin a grindingly slow tally of every ballot cast in the vast expanse.
• And this year, election officials warn it could take as long as 13 days to tabulate all of the ballots in Maricopa.
• The reason it takes so long there is simple. With its 4.5 million residents, Maricopa has more residents than nearly half of the states in the country and is home to 60% of Arizona’s voters.
• But the real slowdown comes from election workers following their voting laws — which were put in place and approved by Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislatures.
• And since Maricopa is one of the few counties in the U.S. that is so evenly divided politically that races are often close, it takes even longer to know who has won.
• Jesus Fucking Christ. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to Arizona. Let’s say, if Harris wins Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia, it might not matter how long Arizona takes to do their tally.
• In any case, no matter how long it ends up taking, you don’t have the option of sitting this out. I like the way that one guy said it: “Tell your friends who don’t want to vote because they’re ‘not into politics’ that it’s too late. Politics are into them.”
• Let’s move on with some predictably shitty election-related news from the Supreme Court.
• Yesterday, they allowed Virginia to move forward with its removal of roughly 1,600 alleged noncitizens from its voter rolls just days before the 2024 election.
• A provision of the National Voter Registration Act requires states to complete programs aimed at purging ineligible voters from registration lists up to 90 days before federal elections.
• But they’re purging those votes anyway. Hey, maybe they’re a bunch of Republicans. All I know if that removing eligible people’s right to vote is not the American way.
• Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have denied the request from Virginia officials.
• Back to the horror show that Donnie Dump wants for the USA if elected.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson told a group of supporters this week that Republicans will seek “massive reform” to the Affordable Care Act if Dumpy is reelected — previewing a major piece of the GOP’s legislative plans for next year.
• During a campaign swing in Pennsylvania, the GOP speaker vowed that overhauling the 14-year-old health care law would be part of a “very aggressive” first 100-days agenda if Republicans win back control of the White House.
• At one point, an attendee asked Johnson directly: “No Obamacare?” And the speaker, wearing a personalized Trump-Vance jacket, responded: “No Obamacare.”
• That means you will no longer have access to affordable insurance, that you won’t be able to even get insurance if you have preexisting conditions, and that private insurance companies will charge anything they want.
• Electing Dump places you and your family in immediate danger.
• Let’s move on to a positive note and talk about another Republican who has endorsed Kamala Harris: it’s former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• In a lengthy post on social media yesterday, Schwarzenegger wrote, “A candidate who won’t respect your vote unless it is for him, a candidate who will send his followers to storm the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke, a candidate who has shown no ability to work to pass any policy besides a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me but helped no one else, a candidate who thinks Americans who disagree with him are the bigger enemies than China, Russia, or North Korea - that won’t solve our problems. It will just be four more years of bitching with no results that makes us angrier and angrier, more divided, and more hateful.”
• The Governator continued, “We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that. He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already has been, and we, the people, will get nothing but more anger. That’s enough reason for me to share my vote with all of you. I want to move forward as a country, and even though I have plenty of disagreements with their platform, I think the only way to do that is with Harris and Walz. Vote this week. Turn the page and put this junk behind us.”
• Fuck yes, Arnold. Thank you.
• Side note from me: Dump supporters are weak pansy-ass punks. Real men (and women) support Kamala Harris.
• As long as we’re mentioning endorsements…
• Remember at that Las Vegas rally in September when Dumpy the Ignorant Ass announced the very male reggaeton star Nicky Jam by saying, “Do You Know Nicky? She’s Hot!”
• Welp.
• Nicky apparently forgave Dump for misgendering him, but couldn’t accept it when Dump’s handpicked speaker called Puerto Rico "a floating island of garbage" at a Madison Square Garden rally last weekend.
• Yesterday, Jam — who is Puerto Rican — rescinded his endorsement of Dumpy via an announcement to his 42 million social media followers.
• “I never thought in my life that a month later a comedian would come along and criticize my country, speak poorly of my country, therefore I renounce any support for Donald Trump,” he said in Spanish in an Instagram post.
• Good for him. No one should just let this guy shit on them. And Dump shits on literally everyone. Keep it in mind when you vote on Tuesday.
• By the way…
• Dump tried a stunt where he rode around in a garbage truck, perhaps as a reference to his speaker calling Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage.
• But while trying to get into the vehicle, he had some issue with his depth perception, grabbing the air instead of the door handle and nearly falling on his ass.
• Jimmy Kimmel had this to say…
• “He went out and rented a garbage truck and put his name on the side. Shouldn’t they have put him in the back of that? The garbage goes in the back of the truck.”
• Good point.
• A final note for today about that Bloated Bloviating Blimp…
• Dumpy said at his rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that his people previously told him they did not think he should say that he wanted to "protect the women of our country.”
• And then he added, "I said, 'Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not.’"
• Vice President Kamala Harris quickly highlighted his comments, saying, "Donald Trump thinks he should get to make decisions about what you do with your body. Whether you like it or not."
• There’s a name for men who impose their wills and desires on women whether they like it or not.
• Moving on to the Little Punk-Ass Bitch Desk…
• An 18-year-old man remained in Duval County jail yesterday after Neptune Beach, FL police said he was antagonizing voters. Caleb Williams is charged with aggravated assault on persons 65 years or older and improper exhibition of firearm or dangerous weapon.
• On Tuesday afternoon, Williams who was standing with a group of males near a truck in the parking lot near an early voting location, displaying Dump signs.
• Williams approached a 71-year-old woman with a machete raised above his head in an intimidating manner. A 54-year-old woman standing next to her told police she also feared for her safety and snapped a photo of Williams using her phone.
• Neptune Beach police Chief Michael Key said he believed the men were there to intimidate voters, which is a federal crime.
• “I’m extremely angry at this,” he said. “It’s is one thing to exercise your First Amendment right which we so dearly take as a sacred right, but the moment you move to violence, that goes out the window. To say I’m disturb is an understatement. I’m mad.”
• I am too, Chief. I’m also interested in what kind of parents this young adult has. I have to assume that his actions of terror start at home. 
• And now, The Weather: “Anchor” by Soccer Mommy
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s November 1992. Republican George W. Bush is running for reelection to the presidency against Democrat Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas.
• It’s the first national election in which I voted. I was 23 at the time.
• Election Day was November 3, and it wasn’t even close. The election was called for Clinton that night, receiving 43% of the popular vote against Bush's 37.4% and independent candidate Ross Perot's 18.9%.
• Clinton got 370 electoral votes to Bush’s 168. And Clinton was the first Democrat since 1964 to win a majority of states.
• Believe it or not, I could see a similar victory, both in the popular and electoral vote, for Kamala Harris next Tuesday. Assuming you vote. Yes, you.
• 1. How Do You Talk To An Angel (The Heights). 2. End Of The Road (Boyz II Men). 3. I'd Die Without You (P.M. Dawn). 4. If I Ever Fall In Love (Shai). 5. Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough (Patty Smyth). 6. Rump Shaker (Wreckx-N-Effect). 7. Rhythm Is A Dancer (Snap!). 8. What About Your Friends (TLC). 9. Erotica (Madonna). 10. Jump Around (House Of Pain). 11. Real Love (Mary J. Blige). 12. Good Enough (Bobby Brown). 13. Free Your Mind (En Vogue). 14. Walking On Broken Glass (Annie Lennox). 15. Would I Lie To You? (Charles & Eddie). 16. Layla (Eric Clapton). 17. Love Is On The Way (Saigon Kick). 18. Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad (Def Leppard). 19. People Everyday (Arrested Development). 20. She's Playing Hard To Get (Hi-Five).
• From the Sports Desk… congratulations to my Los Angeles Dodgers, champions of Major League Baseball in 2024. Game 5 of the World Series was one for the record books… literally.
• Down 5-0 to the Yankees through four innings, the Dodgers made the largest comeback in a clinching game in MLB history, winning 7-6 in a nailbiter and winning the series 4-1.
• Freddie Freeman, the nicest man in baseball, was well-deservedly awarded World Series MVP.
• This is the eighth championship in Dodgers franchise history, the others coming in 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988, and 2020.
• I am a lifelong Dodger fan and I enjoyed the playoffs this year a lot… but I’m still kinda glad baseball is over. I have enough shit fighting for my poor brain’s attention.
• Today in history… Byzantine Empress Irene is deposed and banished to Lesbos (802). Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state (1864). Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile highway across United States (1913). Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy (1922). After 14 years of work, Mount Rushmore is completed (1941). Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two security guards (1984). Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors (1998). Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station (2000). A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas indicts former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice (2002). The global population of humans reaches seven billion (2011). 
• October 31 is the birthday of Portugal king Ferdinand I (1345), Portugal king Edward (1391), painter Johannes Vermeer (1632), physicist Laura Bassi (1711), Portugal king Luis I (1838), Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low (1860), photographer Helmut Newton (1920), astronaut Michael Collins (1930), journalist Dan Rather (1931), actor Michael Landon (1936), actress Sally Kirkland (1941), actor David Ogden Stiers (1942), NFL player Brian Piccolo (1943), songwriter Russ Ballard (1945), actor John Candy (1950), journalist Jane Pauley (1950), bass player Bernard Edwards (1952), author Neal Stephenson (1959), director Peter Jackson (1961), drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. (1961), guitarist Johnny Marr (1963), rapper Ad-Rock (1966), rapper Vanilla Ice (1967), bass player/songwriter Adam Schlesinger (1967), songwriter Adam Schlesinger (1967), and singer Willow Smith (2000).

That seems like plenty of news. I am — as usual — busy today. I am feeling pretty optimistic about things overall while remaining almost nauseously nervous about the election next week. Please vote and encourage those around you to vote. Enjoy your day.

Random News: October 30, 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 October 30, 2024, and it’s a Wednesday. Lots to talk about in this news-packed era in which we live right now. I’m looking forward to things mellowing the fuck ut, he said, not sure if they ever would.

• Last night in Washington D.C., Vice President Kamala Harris delivered the speech of a lifetime.
• In front of over 75,000 cheering fans situated at the same site where Dumpy encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol to try and enact a coup against the USA on January 6, 2021, Harris made her closing argument  for the election.
• The crowd at the Ellipse near the White House was massive. Far, far bigger than any event I’ve ever seen Dumpy try.
• There were well over three times as many people there to support Harris as there were at the Nazi rally that Dump did in Madison Square Garden over the weekend.
• Harris said, “We know who Donald Trump is. He is the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election, an election that he knew he lost.”
• She continued, “America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote.” 
• Harris’s speech drew a contrast between her vision for the country and Dump's as she sought to win over any remaining undecided voters a week before Election Day. 
• Where was Joe Biden for this? Getting ice cream in Baltimore, MD. Because of course he was. He said he was watching Kamala’s speech on TV.
• When asked why he wasn’t at the Ellipse with Harris in person, I loved his response: “Because it's for her, it's her night.”
• Goddamn right. Good call, Joe.
• Let’s move over to the International Desk for a moment.
• At least 62 people have died and a number feared missing after torrential rain led to flash floods in the south-east of Spain.
• More than a year's worth of rain fell in just eight hours in Chiva, Valencia, with video showing floodwaters dragging cars through the streets and leaving people clinging to trees.
• More than 1,000 troops have been deployed to help with the rescue operation, with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez promising residents "we won't abandon you.”
• Around 155,000 households are still without electricity in the region. Train service on the high-speed Madrid-Valencia and Barcelona-Valencia routes have been cancelled.
• My thoughts are with those people. Americans tend to think that the difficulties we experience with natural disasters and political strife and so on are unique to us, for some reason.
• But they’re not. Save some thoughts and positive vibes for the people in Spain, please.
• Moving on.
• I’ll bet you didn’t know that Allentown, PA is one of the cities that will decide next week’s US election… and has a huge population of Puerto Rican people.
• After a speaker at the Dump Nazi rally in New York City called Puerto Rico — a US territory in the Caribbean Sea — an “island of garbage”, residents there said the fallout could be brutal for the former president.
• Pennsylvania is the largest battleground state and the biggest prize in the White House race between Dump and Harris. The state has a Puerto Rican population of nearly 500,000. As US citizens, Puerto Rican adults can vote.
• Dump has refused to personally apologize for the statement, as some members of the Puerto Rican community in Allentown have been demanding.
• Instead, before flying to Pennsylvania to try and control the damage, he called the New York rally a “lovefest.”
• But Matt Tuerk, the mayor of Allentown, said that his constituents are "furious."
• ”People are going to turn that anger into voting. That's how people will react," he said. "We don't get mad; we get even."
• I approve of this.
• And if you want a sure sign that Dumples the Demented Clown is panicking about the state, he wrote on social media, “"Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before."
• That fat asshole didn’t identify what, specifically, he's accusing the state of cheating at, nor did he provide any evidence. That means he knows he losing.
• Let’s talk about one of the many awful consequences that are guaranteed to happen: huge price increases on consumer goods across nearly all categories of products due to Dump’s idiotic tariff plan.
• And across the United States, companies that rely on foreign suppliers are already preparing to raise prices in response to Dumpy’s ridiculous massive import tariffs.
• The planned price increases next year would come as consumers are beginning to enjoy relief from high inflation, and directly contradict Dump’s repeated assurances that foreigners will pay the tariff tab.
• Timothy Boyle, chief executive of Columbia Sportswear, said it straight out: “We’re set to raise prices. We’re buying stuff today for delivery next fall. So we’re just going to deal with it and we’ll just raise the prices. It’s going to be very, very difficult to keep products affordable for Americans.”
• While Dump lies over and over again, saying foreign companies — not Americans — pay such import taxes, the fact is that American importers pay all tariffs to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency at the time their products enter the country.
• And then you, the consumer, cover the bill.
• A Dump presidency means prices on nearly everything you buy will skyrocket. Hopefully you’re smart enough to understand this.
• Let’s move on.
• Another Texas woman has died as a result of Dump’s Supreme Court having killed Roe v. Wade.
• Josseli Barnica was 17 weeks pregnant, and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records.
• But doctors at the hospital in Houston refused to give her medical attention until the fetus had no heartbeat, per the laws in that state.
• For 40 hours, the anguished 28-year-old mother prayed for doctors to help her get home to her daughter; all the while, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria.
• Three days after she delivered the stillborn baby, Barnica died of an infection.
• For the love of God, please vote for Kamala Harris and end this fucking nightmare.
• Thank you.
• In other election news…
• While former President George W. Bush will not be weighing in on this year's divisive election, his daughter is.
• Barbara Bush, 42, one of the former GOP president's two children, spent part of the weekend campaigning in Pennsylvania for Democrat Kamala Harris.
• She said, “It was inspiring to join friends and meet voters with the Harris-Walz campaign in Pennsylvania this weekend. I’m hopeful they'll move our country forward and protect women’s rights.”
• Well done!
• And now some of the most horrifying info to come out previous to the 2024 general election.
• Yesterday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said that Dumples the Clown has promised him control of all of the public health agencies.
• According to him, that includes but is not limited to: Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
• So a vote for Dump means that a man who had a worm eat part of his brain… a man who found a dead bear cub and placed it in a park… and man who sawed the head off a whale to keep for reasons unknown… will be in charge of the medical care you receive and the food you and your kids eat, among other things.
• RFK Jr. is also staunchly against childhood vaccinations, and the USA will have an immediate outbreak of otherwise easily-controllable diseases including polio, diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, hepatitis, and much more.
• I have been telling you that this election matters more than any other in your lifetime.
• I was serious every time. PLEASE FUCKING VOTE.
• While we’re on the topic of that weird fucking freak, RFK Jr.’s bewildering campaign has shot itself in the foot for the umpteenth time. 
• Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against his request to be removed from presidential ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin. Justice Neil Gorsuch was the only dissenting vote, for some reason.
• As we’ve mentioned previously, the third-party spoiler turned Dump advocate has been pathetically attempting to help Dumpy by removing his name from swing state ballots, while remaining on the ballot elsewhere. But even the Supreme Court has had enough of his shit.
• Moving on…
• David DePape, the asshole who was convicted in the 2022 attack on the husband of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole yesterday following his state trial.
• DePape’s early morning break-in at the Pelosi home almost exactly two years ago on October 28, 2022 — just days before the 2022 midterm elections — sent shockwaves through the United States and was attributed to the predictable effects of increasingly demonizing political rhetoric.
• And yes, DePape was already sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for this same brutal crime. He can start his life sentence with the state after he finishes that one. Fuck around, find out, motherfuckers.
• Let’s move on.
• Jaywalking is now legal in New York City.
• Mercedes Narcisse, a Brooklyn Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said yesterday that the new law ends racial disparities in enforcement, noting that more than 90% of the jaywalking tickets issued last year went to Black and Latino people.
• The new law permits pedestrians to cross a roadway at any point, including outside of a crosswalk. It also allows for crossing against traffic signals and specifically states that doing so is no longer a violation of the city’s administrative code.
• Before you go play in traffic, it should be noted that the new law also warns that pedestrians crossing outside of a crosswalk do not have the right of way and that they should yield to other traffic.
• A good idea no matter where you are.
• In New York City, where struggles between pedestrians and motorists are constant, the jaywalking law had been on the books since 1958, and carried a penalty of up to $250.
• And now, The Weather: “Lazy Universe” by Phoebe Rings
• A huge RIP going out to Oscar-nominated actress Teri Garr, who was best known for her work in films like “Young Frankenstein,” “Tootsie,” and “Mr. Mom.” She was 79.
• She died yesterday in Los Angeles, more than twenty years after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
• From the Sports Desk… the Yankees finally showed that they have some life in them, beating the Dodgers 11-4 in Game 4 of the World Series and avoiding an embarrassing sweep.
• Game 5 is tonight in New York.
• Today in history… Guangzhou is sacked by Arab and Persian pirates (758). Simón Bolívar becomes President of the Third Republic of Venezuela (1817). Orson Welles broadcasts a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's ‘The War of the Worlds’, causing a massive panic in some of the audience in the United States (1938). Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the baseball color line (1945). President Eisenhower approves the top-secret document NSC 162/2 concerning the maintenance of a strong nuclear deterrent force against the Soviet Union (1953). The Soviet Union detonates the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful explosive device ever detonated (1961). Quebec citizens narrowly vote in favor of remaining a province of Canada in their second referendum on national sovereignty (1995). Sweden becomes the first European Union member state to officially recognize the State of Palestine (2014).
• October 30 is the birthday of US president John Adams (1735), poet Ezra Pound (1885), bodybuilder Charles Atlas (1893), actress Ruth Gordon (1896), journalist Fred W. Friendly (1915), trumpeter/composer Clifford Brown (1930), film director Louis Malle (1932), NFL coach Dick Vermeil (1936), singer-songwriter Grace Slick (1939), actor Henry Winkler (1945), journalist Andrea Mitchell (1946), drummer Chris Slade (1946), singer-songwriter/bass player Timothy B. Schmit (1947), soccer player Diego Maradona (1960), singer-songwriter/guitarist Gavin Rossdale (1965), umm… Ivanka Trump (1981), NFL player Trent Edwards (1983), and NBA player Devin Booker (1996).

There is so much more news happening, but I never have time to deliver it all. Hopefully the stuff I chose is as important and/or interesting to you as it is to me. Enjoy your day.

Random News: October 29, 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 October 29, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. I woke up stressed with the daunting awareness that I have an insanely busy day scheduled for today, with tons of meetings, deadlines, and responsibilities to handle. Oh, and election that will change the entire world coming very soon.

• We are one week away from the 2024 general election, which happens on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
• Do not panic. Don’t even get mad. Just vote. That’s all you have to do.
• Blue states, red states, swing states. Vote. That’s it.
• Let’s do the news.
• Starting with news of a vile act: on Sunday night in Portland, OR, and in nearby Vancouver, WA, someone set fire to ballot drop boxes, destroying hundreds of ballots inside.
• Police officers and firefighters in Portland responded to a fire in one ballot drop box at about 3:30am and determined an incendiary device had been placed inside.
• A fire suppressant inside the drop box protected nearly all the ballots; only three were damaged, and those voters will be contacted to help them obtain replacement ballots.
• But then, a few hours later across the Columbia River, smoke was pouring out of a ballot box at a transit center.
• Perhaps not coincidentally, Vancouver is the biggest city in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country. It’s between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.
• Gluesenkamp Perez beat Kent by only a handful of votes in 2022.
• That drop box also had a fire suppression system inside, but for some reason it wasn’t effective. Responders pulled a burning pile of ballots from inside the box, and hundreds were lost.
• Some good news, maybe: there were surveillance cameras that covered the drop box and surrounding area. Anyone who dropped their ballot there after11am on Saturday — the time of the most recent pick-up — was urged to contact the auditor’s office to obtain a new one.
• Like California and elsewhere, Washington and Oregon are both vote-by-mail states. Registered voters receive their ballots in the mail a few weeks before elections and then return them by mail or by placing them in ballot drop boxes.
• In Phoenix last week, roughly five ballots were destroyed and others damaged when a fire was set in a drop box at a U.S. Postal Service station there.
• What kind of anti-American scum would attempt to destroy people’s votes? Hopefully we’ll find out and that person will face the wrath of an entire nation.
• Let’s move on, staying on the topic of scum.
• As predicted, a speaker at the Dump rally and his racist comments about Puerto Rico on Sunday night has sparked outrage among Republicans in Florida, home to the largest population of Puerto Ricans in the continental United States.
• If you weren’t aware, the first speaker at the MAGA rally at Madison Square Garden, some guy named Tony Hinchcliffe who I’d never heard of but apparently MAGA people like, described the American territory as a “floating island of garbage.”
• While the Dump campaign panicked and tried to distance itself from the racist comments, the “joke” was on at the teleprompter and had been vetted by the campaign, meaning they did indeed approve of the message.
• As a result, by Sunday evening several high-profile Puerto Ricans threw their support to Harris, including singers Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and Luis Fonsi. Meanwhile, Puerto Rican rap star Bad Bunny reposted Harris’ video supporting Puerto Rico four times.
• A former Department of Homeland Security official under Dumpy the Racist Clown also said that Dump called Puerto Rico “dirty,” its residents “poor,” and inquired whether the American territory could be swapped for Greenland.
• Quick side note: apparently it was Joe Rogan who suggested to Dump that Hinchcliffe appear at his rally. If so… we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Rogan for having undermined Dump at the worst possible time.
• And final note: for people like JD Vance and others who say that Puerto Ricans should just “lighten up” and accept “jokes” at their expense, I say… you have just told me that you never met a Puerto Rican.
• They are very proud people and don’t take shit like this lightly.
• Moving on.
• Today, Vice President Harris will deliver a campaign speech at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C.
• It’s not a random location; that’s where Dumples the Sad Clown delivered his speech on January 6, 2021 — which led to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
• Today’s high-profile speech is one of the last remaining opportunities for the vice president to try to reach a critical segment of the electorate known inside the campaign as “conflicted voters.”
• Those are people who have serious concerns with Dump’s conduct, but who are not yet convinced Harris is a candidate who can get the country on track.
• Will one speech move significantly that needle? Probably not. But it’s also intended to draw a clear contrast with Dump’s controversial Madison Square Garden Nazi rally.
• In other news…
• You may (or may not, I don’t give a shit) have noticed that I haven’t wasted any space here on Elon Musk’s ridiculous attempt to buy votes with million-dollar giveaways.
• I knew it was shady. Now Philadelphia’s district attorney has asked a state judge to shut it down, calling it an “illegal lottery scheme.”
• Philly DA Larry Krasner filed the civil lawsuit yesterday against Musk and his pro-Trump group, America PAC.
• “America PAC and Musk are lulling Philadelphia citizens – and others in the Commonwealth (and other swing states in the upcoming election) – to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1 million,” the lawsuit alleges. “That is a lottery. And it is indisputably an unlawful lottery.”
• I completely fucking agree! Side note: as part of my job for my clients, I often run contests and promotions and sweepstakes to help promote their brands. We have to steer very clear of anything even resembling a lottery for these same reasons.
• Pennsylvania law requires all lotteries to be “operated and administered by the state” – and that Musk’s daily $1 million giveaway must be halted because it’s operating outside of those legal guardrails.
• Also noted by the DA’s office: “Though Musk says that a winner’s selection is ‘random,’ that appears false because multiple winners that have been selected are individuals who have shown up at Trump rallies in Pennsylvania.”
• What, so it’s also fixed? I’m so completely shocked. I never saw that coming, said the guy who 100% saw it coming.
• Let’s move on.
• In our continuing coverage of the assholes who attempted and failed a coup against the USA, let’s talk about Hollywood actor Jay Johnston, who’s had supporting roles in "Anchorman," "Mr. Show," "Arrested Development,” and "Bob's Burgers.”
• Yesterday, Johnson was sentenced to 12 months and a day in federal prison for his role in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He’d been arrested in June 2023 and pleaded guilty in July to a felony offense of obstructing officers during a civil disorder.
• Federal prosecutors had sought 18 months in federal prison for Johnston, topping their sentencing memo off with a photo of Johnson in which he "made light of his participation in the riot by dressing up as Jacob Chansley, known as the 'QAnon Shaman,' at a Halloween party that he attended" in 2023.
• More than 1,500 people have been arrested in connection with the Capitol attack, and federal prosecutors have secured the convictions of over 1,100 defendants so far.
• And it will continue until every one of the anti-American pieces of shit face justice. Additional arrests took place just last week, including numerous rioters charged with assaulting officers during the attack.
• In other news…
• The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Kamala Harris for president.
• More than 200,000 people — holy shit! — had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday yesterday. The figure represents almost 10% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers.
• And the number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon. Good job, Bezos. Slow clap.
• Also, yesterday two more members of The WaP editorial board stepped down over the incident. The two writers, David Hoffman and Molly Roberts, said they thought it was important for the paper to endorse Harris.
• I agree. Too late now.
• Let’s chat for a moment about how things will go one week from tonight, or rather, how they might go. No one actually knows for sure.
• In 2020, we voted on a Tuesday (as per our Constitution), but had to wait until Saturday before the vote tally had been confirmed and Joe Biden was named president.
• Those days in limbo just sucked. I mean, it was better than the year 2000, when we had to wait over a month until fucking December for a Supreme Court case to finalize the vote when Bush beat Gore.
• Remember the “hanging chads” in Florida? Jesus.
• Anyway, this year ballots will be counted faster than in 2020 — but everyone should still be prepared for a long night, if not a couple days of waiting.
• Fewer votes will be cast by mail compared with during the pandemic, and some states have tweaked their laws to speed up the count.
• But the single biggest factor that will determine when Americans know the winner is, however, out of the control of election workers: the margin of victory in key states.
• You know how some people say things like, “We always used to know the winner on election night!”
• Yeah, that’s total bullshit. First, results have never been official on the night of any election.
• But there have been elections where the results were so lopsided that unofficial winner announcement from news agencies like the Associated Press, Fox, CNN and the like have been comfortable calling the race that evening.
• The only way that could possibly happen in this election is for one of the candidates to win literally every East Coast and Midwest swing state.
• Which could actually happen. We don’t know.
• But what I’m saying here is, be prepared to exercise patience, and not freak out. I find it highly likely that Dump will declare victory long before the vote tallies are in.
• He’s setting up another round of election denying, just as he did in 2020. The stakes are way higher for him this time. If he loses, he remains on trial for dozens of felonies and likely is convicted and faces punishment.
• Anyway, be ready for whatever happens… that night and for months ahead.
• Some horrible news out of Kansas over the weekend, where a woman who was trying to take a photo backed into the spinning propellor of a plane. She was critically injured and died shortly thereafter.
• Jesus.
• She was identified as 37-year-old Amanda Gallagher of Wichita, KS. She’d been on a skydiving flight as an observer in order to take photos.
• After the airplane landed, for unknown reasons, as the next group of jumpers were boarding, she moved in front of the wing, a complete violation of all basic safety procedures.
• Folks… there’s something I’ve begged of you in relation to many circumstances in life: please have some situational awareness and be aware of your surroundings at all times.
• I sometimes think that with all the gaming and virtual reality that many of us enjoy, some folks have forgotten that you don’t respawn after being killed in real life, And it often hurts a lot.
• Let’s move on to a sad but not-unexpected story that tells you the state of the music recording industry in 2024.
• English singer-songwriter and actress Lily Allen has reported that her foot pics on OnlyFans make more money than her music does on Spotify.
• She charges $10 per month on her OnlyFans account, which would come out to around $10,000 per month based on her subscriber count.
• In comparison, she has 7.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, which pays out between $.003 and $.005 per stream to artists.
• So those thousand people who masturbate to her feet give her more income than nearly 8,000,000 people who listen to her music.
• And you wonder why musicians see bitter.
• And now, The Weather: “Goldfish” by Wand
• From the Sports Desk… the dominant Dodgers took a 3-0 lead in the World Series last night, beating the Yankees at home 4-2. It was nearly a shutout; the Bronx Bombers got two runs in the ninth but it was too little, too late.
• Game 4 — and possibly the final one of the season if the Dodgers complete the sweep — is tonight.
• In Monday Night Football, the Steelers beat the Giants 26-18. Russell Wilson had a reasonably good game for Pittsburgh, throwing for 278 yards, one TD, and no picks.
• As we’ll be shifting quickly to more NFL coverage after baseball ends, here are the best teams in each conference as we head toward the second half of the season.
• AFC: Chiefs (7-0), Texans (6-2), Steelers (6-2), Bills (6-2), and Broncos (5-3).
• NFC: Lions (6-1), Commanders (6-2), Packers (6-2), Vikings (5-2), and Eagles (5-2).
• Today in history… First trial for witchcraft in Paris leading to the death of three people (1390). Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England (1618). Mount Hood in Oregon is named after Samuel Hood by Lt. William E. Broughton (1792). Eighteen countries meet in Geneva and agree to form the International Red Cross (1863). Second trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in Boston, MA (1921). The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of '29 or "Black Tuesday", beginning the Great Depression (1929). The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet (1969). Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year-old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space at that time (1998). Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to five (2008). Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States, killing 148 directly and 138 indirectly, while leaving nearly $70 billion in damages and causing major power outages (2012). China announces the end of its one-child policy after 35 years (2015).
• October 29 is the birthday of author Jean Giraudoux (1882), Nazi piece of shit Joseph Goebbels (1897), writer Dominick Dunne (1925), animator Ralph Bakshi (1938), painter Bob Ross (1942), film producer Don Simpson (1943), actor Richard Dreyfuss (1947), singer-songwriter Kevin DuBrow (1955), actor Dan Castellaneta (1957), actress Joely Fisher (1967), actress Wynona Ryder (1971), actress Gabrielle Union (1972), swimmer Amanda Beard (1981), NFL player Andy Dalton (1987), and singer-songwriter Tove Lo (1987).

As always, there’s more news, but not more time, and my day is super busy, as referenced up top. I’m always confident that I’ll do whatever I need to do, because I am still here and alive and have lived up to most of my previous expectations. No reason to change now. Enjoy your day.

Random News: October 28, 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 October 28, 2024, and it’s a Monday. This week before daylight savings time goes away is a trip… I’m up and about for well over an hour before the sun decides to join me for the day. Let’s shine a light through the darkness and awaken the world with some news.

• The 2024 general election is a week from tomorrow.
• But by election day, millions of Americans will have already voted, in various forms of early voting — either in person or via mail or ballot drop-off.
• I voted the day after my ballot arrived, on Sunday October 6. They’d literally unlocked the drop boxes the night before. I’ve been voting that way for a good while, but for many people, voting early is a new experience.
• Four years ago — which, to be fair, was in the midst of a pandemic with no available vaccine — just 30 percent of people voted in person on election day, and 69 percent voted early or by mail.
• As early voting got underway this past weekend in New York and New Jersey, more than 140,000 people voted in New York City on Saturday, making it the city's highest early voting on day 1 voter turnout ever.
• Brooklyn had more than 40,000 people vote early on Saturday, over 38,000 in Manhattan, over 16,000 in the Bronx, over 31,000 in Queens, and over 13,000 in Staten Island.
• So… how are you feeling?
• The American Psychological Association’s annual Stress in America survey found that, even as far back as August, politics was the leading cause of stress for seven out of 10 adults across party lines.
• In a poll from a mental-health-care company the same month, 79 percent of respondents reported that the presidential election made them feel anxious this year, and more than half thought about the election every day.
• By now that number has likely grown. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have some degree of anxiety about it.
• Obviously, most of us don’t like stress, and go out of our way to avoid it. But there’s another way to think about election stress: A big event should prompt big feelings.
• We all know that the stakes of this election go far beyond anyone’s preferred party winning or losing. Why wouldn’t you feel anxious?
• A recent survey showed that most adults (54%) say they have little to no trust in the U.S. government, and 41% say the state of the nation has made them consider moving to a different country.
• 46% of respondents say they wouldn’t date someone who didn’t share the same political opinions (47% of women said this, and 45% of men).
• I sure wouldn’t if I was single. Date a MAGA? No fucking way.
• And 82% said they are worried that people are basing their values and opinions on false or inaccurate information.
• I share this worry as well.
• I’m not here to give you any advice to make it through the next week stress-free. I don’t have any to give. But I will say, your stress emphasizes that you understand the importance of what’s happening in the USA, and perhaps drives you to do your part… by voting.
• And I will tell you, after I had signed my ballot and dropped it off a few weeks ago, I felt an immediate sense of relief. I’ve done my part.
• Let’s move on.
• Speaking of stress relief, yesterday, Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez streamed themselves playing video games together — primarily Madden — while they chatted about the importance of regaining Democratic control of the US House, maintaining a majority in the Senate and ensuring Kamala Harris wins the election against Dumpster.
• “We don’t all share the same politics, we don’t all share the same views, but the need to defeat Trump this year has been my number one priority,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
• In case you were wondering, Walz played with the Minnesota Vikings and Ocasio-Cortez with the Buffalo Bills as thousands of users watched via Twitch.
• I suppose we should talk about what Team Dump was doing at the same time. It’s pretty sickening, so if you’re sensitive to topics ike race hatred, you might want to skip the next batch of bullets.
• Dump was holding a very strange rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. It should be noted that Dump has zero chance of winning in the state of New York, where he’s down by double digits.
• But that wasn’t the point of this event.
• This was a hate rally not designed to win Dump win, but to coalesce his faction for what happens after he loses.
• One of his first speakers there was a guy named Tony Hinchcliffe. I’d never heard of him before.
• But as soon as he got in front of the microphone, he launched into a crude and disparaging set of comments about the conflict in the Middle East, Black voters, and Latinos.
• I won’t repeat all the racist things he said on behalf of Dump. He did speak about Latinos in general (“These Latinos, they love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They cum inside, just like they did to our country.”).
• He also told a “joke” about one of his alleged Black buddies and how they carved watermelons together for Halloween.
• But one thing this GOP speaker said is likely to backfire in a huge way and be of tremendous damage to the Dump campaign.
• “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
• I should stop here and mention that Puerto Rico is a US territory where the people are US citizens… and they vote.
• There are 130,000 people from Puerto Rico in Ohio. There are 239,000 in Texas. There is a half million in Pennsylvania. And there are 1.2 million in Florida.
• Would you like your state to be described by a speak at a political event as a “floating island of garbage?” Anyway, that’s how the GOP courted voters in swing states this weekend.
• Side note: Tim Walz and AOC were still playing Madden when this GOP speaker made his racist remarks.
• “Who is that jack-wad? Who is that guy?” asked Walz. Seriously, I don’t know the answer. I’d never heard of the guy. The GOP must have gone far out of their way to find this racist piece of shit.
• Walz continued, “People in Puerto Rico are citizens. They pay tax and they serve in the military at almost a higher rate than anybody else.”
• “Obviously, it’s super upsetting to me,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I need people to understand that when you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico floating garbage, know that that’s what they think about you.”
• Back to the question of why Dump would waste a whole day campaigning in New York, a state he is bound to lose. Vice President Harris is leading him in New York by 17.8 percentage points.
• But it was in February 1939 that another very similar rally was held there at Madison Square Garden. Infamously, it was for the American Nazi Party. That event lured 20,000 supporters to the iconic New York City landmark.
• For those of you who don’t follow history, the American Nazis at the time wanted us to support Hitler in World War II.
• Instead, we fought fascism with the full might of the USA, and defeated Hitler and the Nazi party in 1945.
• And we will defeat fascism once again next Tuesday.
• In other news…
• Harris and Walz are visiting all seven presidential battleground states this week, starting with Michigan today.
• After Tuesday’s closing argument in Washington, Harris plans to visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Wednesday alone. She then heads to Nevada and Arizona on Thursday.
• She’s in it to win it.
• Let’s move on with some good news.
• Following up on our recently story, a federal appeals court yesterday upheld the ruling of a Virginia judge who struck down an effort from state officials to automatically cancel voter registrations of suspected noncitizens, pointing to a federal law that prohibits states from purging voters 90 days before a presidential election.
• The decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit comes after U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles on Friday rejected arguments from attorneys for Attorney General Jason S. Miyares and Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
• They'd signed an executive order August 7 to expedite the removal of registered voters who checked a box on their driver’s license applications indicating that they were not U.S. citizens.
• Except most of those people checked the box by mistake and are, indeed, U.S. citizens.
• Despite that, this morning Virginia Republican officials asked the US Supreme Court to allow the state to implement the voter removal program anyway.
• We’ll stay tuned on that.
• And now, The Weather: “Mom Built an Altar in the Backyard” by Finnish Postcard
• From the Sports Desk… tonight is Game 3 of the World Series. Los Angeles has a 2-0 lead over New York.
• After the first two games in LA, the Dodgers will be visiting the Yankees tonight in the 2-3-2 series format. And despite his apparent shoulder injury on Saturday, superstar Shohei Ohtani is expected to be in the lineup.
• Today in history… Beijing is officially designated the capital of the Ming dynasty when the Forbidden City is completed (1420). Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba on his first voyage to the New World, surmising that it is Japan (1492). Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Pacific Ocean (1520). The Massachusetts Bay Colony votes to establish a theological college, which would later become Harvard University (1636). Jonathan Swift’s novel 'Gulliver's Travels’ is published (1726). US president Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty (1886). The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January (1919). Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government (1922). The Cuban Missile Crisis ends and Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba (1962). US President Barack Obama signs the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009). 
• October 28 is the birthday of philosopher Erasmus (1466), businessman Eliphalet Remington (1793), costume designer Edith Head (1897), author Evelyn Waugh (1903), biologist Jonas Salk (1914), actor Jack Soo (1917), businessman Bowie Kuhn (1926), singer/keyboarist Graham Bond (1937), NBA player/coach Lenny Wilkins (1937), singer/guitarist Hank Marvin (1941), actor Dennie Franz (1944), athlete Caitlyn Jenner (1949), actress Annie Potts (1952), businessman/philanthropist Bill Gates (1955), drummer Stephen Morris (1957), actress Jami Gertz (1965), NFL player Steve Atwater (1966), TV host Andy Richter (1966), singer-songwriter/guitarist Ben Harper (1969), singer-songwriter/guitarist Brad Paisley (1972), singer-songwriter/rapper Frank Ocean (1987), and DJ/producer Jamie xx (1988).

And there you have it. I have a particularly busy morning work-wise, but then things should ease up a bit. That’s fine. Enjoy your day.

Random News: October 27, 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 October 27, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. I slept in a bit — which for me means until 7:30am — and now have a fresh cup of coffee and am ready to see what’s going on in the world, and share it with you.

• Let’s start with a timely question, nine days from Election Day.
• Beyond the usual party-based players, who is influencing your opinions on the 2024 election by using disinformation?
• Russia is the most active and sophisticated nation working to manipulate the U.S. election, using fake websites, state-controlled media, and unwitting Americans to spread misleading and polarizing content aimed at undermining confidence in elections.
• The Kremlin’s disinformation apparatus focuses on contentious topics like immigration, crime, the economy, and disaster relief.
• Russian disinformation — often AI-generated — is used to smear Dumpy’s Democratic opponent. Dump has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested cutting funds to Ukraine and repeatedly criticized the NATO military alliance.
• So it’s very much in Putin’s best interest for Dump to win, and they are trying hard in that regard.
• Who else? China seems to be taking a more equal-opportunity stance, and is targeting candidates from both parties based on their positions on issues of key importance to Beijing, including support for Taiwan.
• China operates a sophisticated hacking operation targeting all manners of Western life and industry that goes well beyond election influence.
• On Friday, news broke that Chinese hackers — as part of a much broader espionage effort — had targeted cellphones used by Dump, Vance, as well as people associated with Harris’s campaign.
• Many — or all — other countries know that the coming election in nine days will have a huge impact on not only the USA but the world.
• And some will do what they can to influence the outcome that best favors them, as opposed to benefitting the people of the USA.
• Let’s talk about not talking about polling.
• The last time we had polls that perfectly predicted the outcome was in 1984, when a double-digit blowout White House race had Reagan coasting to victory by winning 49 out of 50 states against Democratic challenger Walter Mondale.
• Elections have been closer ever since, including the races in 2000 and 2016 where the Democrat won the popular vote but fell short in the Electoral College.
• And in recent years, there’s a hyper-competitive media landscape who put out dubious polls,  and now in 2024 a whole-ass cottage industry of pollsters, pundits, and even gamblers who seek to give each side a preview of what will happen. 
• We’ve all seen the models be way off in the past few elections. In the 2012 election, Romney was predicted to beat Obama. In 2016, Clinton was supposed to easily defeat Dump. Even in 2020, many wanna-be polling firms undercounted Dump’s performance heading into the election.
• And another thing: in previous elections, events like Joe Biden's summertime exit, persistent economic woes, Harris's historic bid, and two alleged assassination attempts against Dump would have cause huge swings in surveyed opinions.
• But not this time. The partisan and ideological polarization has kept the results hovering around 50-50 despite everything else going on.
• So I’ll close this section by saying the only person who matters in the election at this stage is you. You, and your choice to vote.
• And now, the news.
• Kamala Harris’s special guest at her rally in Michigan yesterday was former first lady Michelle Obama, who challenged men to support Harris's bid to be America's first female president.
• She also warned that women's lives would be at risk if Ol’ Dumpy returned to the White House.
• Obama described the assault on abortion rights as the harbinger of dangerous limitations on healthcare for women. "If we don't get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage. So are you as men prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them you supported this assault on our safety?"
• Valid point. 
• While Harris was with Obama in Michigan, President Biden visited the Laborers' International Union of North America in Pittsburgh. He mentioned that Harris once walked a picket line with the United Auto Workers while Dump has undermined organized labor.
• “It's in labor's interest to defeat Donald Trump, more than any other race you've been in,” said Joe, and then, referring again to Dumples the Clone, said, "I'm just gonna say straight up, he's a loser as a man."
• I support this message.
• A reminder: your cost of living will skyrocket under a Dump presidency due to his promise to add massive tariffs to imported goods. He’s threatened to raise tariffs anywhere from 20% to 2000%.
• That’s a tax on the American people. The tariffs are not paid by other countries. They’re paid by US businesses who have to pass the cost on to you, the consumer.
• Under a Kamala Harris presidency, no one making under $400,000/year will see a tax increase. If you are making over that amount, I congratulate you and I know you can afford to pay more.
• Today, Harris is in West Philadelphia, delivering remarks at a Black church, followed by a visit to a barbershop. She'll also visit a Puerto Rican restaurant and meet families at a youth basketball center.
• Let’s move on.
• You know how I’m always cheering efforts to stop Republican states from suppressing your vote? Do you assume I’m only addressing Democratic voter disenfranchisement?
• No. I’m talking about all voters.
• For instance, Dennis Henson of Lynchburg, VA has been a registered voter his entire adult life.
• So he wasn’t expecting the letter that told him his voter registration would expire because he had been identified as a noncitizen.
• What happened? He thinks he accidentally forgot to mark his citizenship status on the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles form when he renewed his driver’s license in July. 
• Failing to check that citizenship box triggers a process in which the DMV notifies the Department of Elections, which then notifies the local registrar’s office, which then sends a warning letter to the resident to tell them their registration is about to be canceled. The resident is given 14 days to respond
• And Henson is a big MAGA. White guy. Born in the USA. Wears the red hat. Has “Let’s Go Brandon” stickers on his truck.
• These laws are in effect to protect ALL voters, and every American should support them. And I’ll remind you that actual instances of non-citizen voting attempts are extremely rare.
• The risk of stopping a legitimate American from voting due to silly clerical errors is much, much higher than preventing any sort of voter fraud.
• Moving on.
• I’m only mentioning this next item out of spitefulness and a hatred of hypocrisy.
• South African-born Elon Musk worked illegally in the United States as he launched his entrepreneurial career after ditching a graduate studies program in California.
• This same man today has amplified Dump’s claims that “open borders” and undocumented immigrants are destroying America.
• But Musk himself did not have the legal right to work while building the company that became Zip2, which sold for about $300 million in 1999.
• That was his steppingstone to buy Tesla and the other ventures that have made him the world’s wealthiest person — and America’s most successful illegal immigrant.
• I am aware that most people who speak out strongly against illegal immigration think that all immigrants are brown-skinned and don’t speak English. But a lot of them are more like Elon.
• More than 22 million people live in a U.S. household where at least one occupant is in the country without authorization. That represents nearly 5% of households across the country. Many of them are now older folks who moved here decades ago and have families with kids and grandkids who were born in the USA and are American citizens.
• Dump has vowed to force all of them out of the USA in mass deportation plans.
• In other news…
• Remember earlier this week when I mentioned that the U.S. Army was going to release the report from a controversial August incident between the Dump campaign team and an Army staff member working at Arlington National Cemetery?
• Well, they did, on Friday… and nearly the entire document is redacted. The details are completely blacked out on the page.
• The release does identify the incident as “simple assault,” in which the Dump campaign staffer made contact with the Army cemetery official “with both hands.”
• It comes amid fresh scrutiny over Dump’s horrific treatment of veterans, including comments by former chief of staff John Kelly, who said the former president disparaged wounded and fallen troops.
• Having his male staff physically push a female Army official out of the way to take a thumbs-up picture over a dead soldier is very much on-brand for Dump.
• One more election note…
• The record-breaking early voting in Georgia, a key battleground state, has already brought in more than half of 2020’s total turnout since it began last week.
• As of yesterday morning, more than 2.6 million people in the Peach State have already voted. In 2020, just under 5 million voters total cast their ballots in the state. 
• That’s exciting.
• And now, The Weather: “one way route (feat. viscera corps)” by frans asthma
• From the Sports Desk… last night’s Game 2 of the 2024 World Series didn’t feature quite as dramatic an ending as Game 1 — how could it? — but it still came down to the bottom of the ninth inning for the Dodgers to rack up a 4-2 win over the Yankees, taking a 2-0 lead in the series.
• Again, both teams engaged in a battle of tough pitching performances. It was the Dodgers bats — home runs by Edman, Hernandez, and once again Freddie Freeman — that were key to the victory, along with the outstanding pitching of Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
• The Yankees left three men stranded in a bases-loaded heartbreak as the game ended. Game 3 is tomorrow in New York.
• One note of obvious concern: superstar Shohei Ohtani partially dislocated his left shoulder during the seventh inning of Game 2 while trying steal second base. His status for Game 3 is unclear.
• Today in history… Æthelstan, the first king of all England, dies and is succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund I — my 34th great-grandfather (939). Founding of the city of Amsterdam (1275). Philadelphia is founded in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1682). United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida (1810). The first underground New York City Subway line opens, later designated as the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (1904). Mrs Wallis Simpson obtains her divorce, which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (1936). Ecological disaster in Donora, Pennsylvania (1948). NASA tests the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1 (1961). By refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, Vasily Arkhipov averts nuclear war (1962). The Democratic Republic of the Congo is renamed Zaire (1971). United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is murdered by shipmate Terry M. Helvey for being gay (1992). A gunman opens fire on a Pittsburgh synagogue killing 11 and injuring six, including four police officers (2018).
• October 27 is the birthday of writer Mary Sidney (1561), composer Niccolò Paganini (1782), businessman Isaac Singer (1811), US president Theodore Roosevelt (1858), poet Dylan Thomas (1914), actress Nanette Fabray (1920), artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923), Watergate lawyer H. R. Haldeman (1926), poet Sylvia Plath (1932), singer/pianist Floyd Kramer (1933), actor John Cleese (1939), mob boss John Gotti (1940), race car driver Dick Trickle (1941), actress Carrie Snodgress (1945), bass player Garry Tallent (1949), guitarist/songwriter K. K. Downing (1951), actor Roberto Benigni (1952), actor Robert Picardo (1953), singer-songwriter Simon Le Bon (1958), NBA player Yi Jianlian (1984), NFL player Brady Quinn (1984), NBA player Andrew Bynum (1987), and NBA player Lonzo Ball (1997).

Beyond relaxing and getting my energy up for another busy upcoming week, I am doing some long-overdue cleaning and rearranging in various parts of my house. My last word: stay optimistic about the future while doing your part to actively make the world a better place in which to live. You can do it. I believe in you. Enjoy your day.

Random News: October 26, 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 October 26, 2024, and it’s a Saturday. It feels damn good just to be relaxing and sipping coffee in my robe at home right now.

• As I mentioned far too often, I was on vacation last weekend and then had a hellacious work week afterwards.
• And I am one of those people who’s learned to appreciate normalcy and calm. I have nothing right now. Lucky me.
• Let’s do some news.
• In perhaps her most highly visible event yet, Kamala Harris enlisted Beyoncé to help ignite a Houston rally with a double-barreled argument against Dumpy last night.
• There wasn’t a single empty seat at the 20,000+ seat Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, TX, the site of Harris’s rally with Beyonce. Why rally in reliably-Republican Texas?
• Because Harris and Beyoncé were there to help stop the erosion of women’s rights, highlighting the growing medical fallout from the state’s strict abortion ban. It’s a message that resonates to all 50 states for the election that happens in 10 days.
• As horrible as it’s been, the fall of Roe v. Wade as commanded by Donald J. Trump remains one of the key issue that will spur voters to turn out to support Harris’s quest for the presidency.
• Large screens at the event were flashing messages that say “Reproductive Freedom,” “Vote,” “Trust Women,” “Freedom,” and “Vote for Reproductive Freedom.”

• Before the rally, Harris addressed Dump's comment that America has become a "garbage can" and "dumping ground" for migrants from around the world.
• ”You know, it's just another example of how he really belittles our country," Harris said. "This is someone who is a former president of the United States, who has a bully pulpit, and this is how he uses it, to tell the rest of the world that somehow the United States of America is trash."
• She added, ”And I think, again, the president of the United States should be someone who elevates discourse and talks about the best of who we are and invest in the best of who we are, not someone like Donald Trump, who is constantly demeaning and belittling who the American people are.”
• I agree. Let’s fucking go.
• What was Dumpy doing at the same moment? Well, after appearing on Joe Rogan’s show, the fat orange-hued dictator wannabe’s plane did not leave Austin until not long before his scheduled rally in Michigan was set to start.
• As is typical for this uncaring piece of shit, he left his little MAGA fans standing around waiting for hours and hours in the cold. Many left before Dumpy finally arrived over three hours late.
• What’s on Harris’s schedule today?
• The Veep is in Kalamazoo, MI, hanging with Michelle Obama for a “Get Out the Vote” rally.
• Tim Walz is out west. He’s in Window Rock, AZ, delivering remarks at a Native Americans for Harris-Walz rally. Then Tim will travel to Phoenix for a general campaign rally.
• Let’s move on to some international news.
• Israel carried out a series of overnight air attacks against Iran in retaliation for Tehran's barrage of missile strikes against Israel earlier this month.
• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said aircraft struck military sites including air defense batteries and missile manufacturing facilities, adding that it considers its response completed.
• This is highly concerning, obviously. It’s in no one’s best interest for a widespread open war to be kicking off in the Middle East.
• I will say, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it has a responsibility to defend itself, but added that the country "recognizes its responsibilities towards regional peace and security.” That is hopefully a good sign.
• Back in the USA, a statistic for you.
• As of 4:30pm ET yesterday, more than 35 million Americans had voted early, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
• Of the votes cast, 16,080,81 were in-person early votes and 18,959,123 were mail-in ballots.
• This means that more than 20 million people have voted this week alone.
• That’s very good. I’m not even talking about who these people are voting for. The fact that we’re seeing engagement and enthusiasm with the populace being active in our election process is always a good sign.
• To that end…
• A federal judge ruled yesterday that a voter removal program in Virginia illegally purged registered voters from the state’s rolls too close to this fall’s election.
• Various states — all Republican governed, I should add — keep trying this shit, and keep failing.
• U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ordered the state to put removed voters back on the state’s registration list, and blocked Virginia from “continuing any systematic program intended to remove the names of ineligible voters” through Election Day.
• It’s the second time this month a federal court has blocked voter purging efforts by a Republican-led state for violating the National Voter Registration Act.
• That act, passed in 1993, bans most states from systematically removing registered voters within the 90 days before a federal election.
• Of course, Virginia is mad that they can’t stop you from voting.
• “Virginia will immediately petition the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and, if necessary, the U.S. Supreme Court, for an emergency stay of the injunction,” said Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
• And Dumpy was bigly mad too, calling the ruling, “a totally unacceptable travesty.”
• Finally, one more note in voting fuckery news.
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday seeking an order that forces Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to remove his name from the ballot.
• The Michigan Supreme Court said RFK Jr. could not remove himself.
• A response from the state is due Monday at 4pm.
• RFK Jr., aka, “the brain worm guy,” wants to be off the ballot in red states and swing states where he would siphon votes away from Dump. He also has taken legal action to try and remain on the ballot in solidly blue states, hoping it will impact Harris’s tally.
• I think we need some laws to address this scam in future elections.
• And I actually have another early-voting story for you.
• You know how I tell you not to wear campaign apparel or swag to polling locations?
• Some fucking douchebag in Texas named Jesse Lutzenberger punched a poll worker at an early voting site after he was asked to remove his fucking MAGA cap.
• Lutzenberger, 63, was arrested Thursday and charged with injury to an elderly person. He initially complied when asked by the 69-year-old early voting clerk to remove his cap while at the early voting site in Bexar County.
• But after putting the cap back on, the elderly clerk moved to escort Lutzenberger out, which is when Lutzenberger started punching the old man in the face. He was booked into the Bexar County jail on injury to an elderly person, a third-degree felony.
• Anyway, don’t wear campaign shit to vote, everyone.
• Moving on.
• Following the terrible lead of The Los Angeles Times earlier this week, The Washington Post announced yesterday would not endorse a presidential candidate in this year’s election… or in the future.
• What the actual fuck? WaPo’s tagline is literally “Democracy Dies In Darkness.” And then they chose darkness as their position in this crucial election year.
• Who owns that paper? Oh yeah, billionaire Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon. Bezos has so far declined to comment on the situation, even as his own paper’s journalists reported that it was him who ultimately spiked the planned endorsement.
• Sources say that an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris had been drafted before it was squashed. In the last 24 hours, at least one editor has resigned, and high-profile Post staffers have publicly expressed their dismay as many in the paper’s Opinion section are furious over how the situation was handled.
• Fucking self-serving cowards, both Bezos and the other billionaire asshole who owns the LA Times.
• Let’s move on.
• I know a lot of you want to look at and talk about polls.
• We will not do that here. On a general overall basis, yes… every single poll out there in places that will impact the election seem to show a dead heat. Even tie. Straight down the middle.
• And to all that, I say… just vote. Vote like it’s the only thing that matters. Listen to your inner voice and vote for the better person and better leader. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.
• No one knows what I’ll be writing here two weeks from today. No one. So do your part, vote, and let’s imagine that report of my Random News will be a very happy one that day.
• And now, The Weather: “Sky Baby” by hemlock
• A huge and personal rest in peace going out to Phil Lesh, a classically trained violinist and jazz trumpeter who found his true calling reinventing the role of rock bass guitar as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. He died yesterday at age 84.
• Phil had been the oldest and one of the longest surviving members of the band that came to define the psychedelic, funky, acid rock sound emanating from San Francisco in the 1960s.
• I started going to Dead shows in the early 80s and continued up until the point of Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995. Phil Lesh was massively influential to me as a musician and composer. Plus, he was a funny and articulate guy who was a huge part of that band’s sound.
• Another RIP going out to television scriptwriter and producer Jeri Taylor, who died at 86.
• Taylor wrote many episodes of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ and was the show runner and main writer for ‘Star Trek: Voyager’. She was 86.\
• She joined The Next Generation staff at the beginning of the fourth season. After two years, Taylor became co-executive producer.
• From the Sports Desk… last night’s Game 1 of the 2024 World Series was a classic for the ages.
• After a brutal pitching battle that had the Yankees up by a run in extra innings, in the bottom of the 10th, Freddie Freeman steps up with two outs, bases loaded… and dings the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history.
• Mind blown. My LA-area neighborhood was in pandemonium in the moments following. Final score: Dodgers 6, Yankees 3.
• The Dodgers actually do walk-offs well in big games. It was the third walk-off homer in the World Series in franchise history, along with Max Muncy (Game 3 in 2018) and famously Kirk Gibson (Game 1 in 1988).
• There were huge similarities, by the way, between Gibson’s and Freeman’s walk-offs. Both guys had been fighting injuries, both were in Game 1 at home, both happened at 8:37pm local time, and the broadcast call for both — purposeful or otherwise — was almost identical.
• But still, a grand slam in the 10th in the World Series? Holy fuck. That’s the scenario you pretend when you’re a kid swinging a bat in the backyard. That’s the stuff of legends.
• Today in history… The First Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia (1774). Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday participate in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona (1881). The first electric generator at Hoover Dam goes into full operation (1936). The Battle of Leyte Gulf in WWII ends with an overwhelming American victory (1944). Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris (1958). The Australian government returns ownership of Uluru to the local Pitjantjatjara Aboriginals (1985). The United States passes the USA PATRIOT Act into law (2001). 
• October 26 is the birthday of composer Hans Buchner (1483), composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685), businessman C. W. Post (1854), businessman Benjamin Guggenheim (1865), philanthropist/MoMA founder Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1874), politician François Mitterrand (1916), actor Bob Hoskins (1942), politician Hillary Clinton (1947), singer-songwriter/bass player Bootsy Collins (1951), singer-songwriter/producer David Was (1952), guitarist/songwriter Keith Strickland (1953), actress Rita Wilson (1956), actor Dylan McDermott (1961), actor Cary Elwes (1962), singer-songwriter/pianist Natalie Merchant (1963), actor/producer Seth MacFarlane (1973), wrestler CM Punk (1978), actor Sam Brown (1981), and figure skater Greg Zuerlein (1988).

That’s all for now, folks. Enjoy your day.