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.