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Illinois primary is a couple months away? Who is the best choice for governor?

I heard the establishment likes J.B Pritzker. Who else is a front-runner.

Raw water is the latest health craze. Heres why drinking it may be a bad idea.

Hold your canteen under a natural spring and you'll come away with crystal clear water, potentially brimming with beneficial bacteria as well as minerals from the earth.

That's what proponents of the “raw water” movement are banking on — selling people on the idea of drinking water that contains the things they say nature intended without the chemicals, such as chlorine, often used in urban water treatment processes. In some areas of the country, including the West Coast, it has become a high-dollar commodity — water captured in glass bottles and sold straight to you.

By shunning recommended water safety practices, experts warn, raw water purveyors may also be selling things you don't want to drink — dangerous bacteria, viruses and parasites that can make you sick.


“We're glad people are so interested in water quality and the value they're placing in safe water,” said Vince R. Hill, who heads the Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But I think it's also important for people to know where their water comes from, what's in it, how it's delivered and whether it’s safe to drink.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/01/03/raw-water-is-the-latest-health-craze-heres-why-drinking-it-may-be-a-bad-idea/?utm_term=.23d724a94ff5

Meet Roy Moores Jewish attorney. He campaigned for his friend, Doug Jones.

Richard Jaffe, a prominent defense lawyer in Alabama, represented Senate candidate Roy Moore’s son Caleb in a drug-possession case in 2016.

But Jaffe wasn’t a part of the conservative firebrand’s Senate campaign. Nor is he close to the family. In fact, Jaffe campaigned for the Democrat in the race, Doug Jones, a close friend of his for 30 years.

So Jaffe, who is Jewish, didn’t know what to make of a defensive comment made by Moore’s wife, Kayla, the night before the state’s hotly contested special election in December, that “One of our attorneys is a Jew,” as an apparent response to accusations of anti-Semitism.

“My reaction to that, irrespective of who they were referring to, was rather shocked,” Jaffe said in a phone interview. “I was certainly disturbed. Not personally, but as a member of a minority.”

Jaffe wasn’t alone: The episode drew jeers and criticism from a wide range of observers as the campaign neared its final stretch.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/01/02/meet-roy-moores-jewish-attorney-he-campaigned-for-his-friend-doug-jones/?utm_term=.5332c7c6af3d

Tweet of the Day

At Least 35 LGBTQ People Running In Texas

With equality under attack by the Trump administration and the Texas Legislature, LGBTQ candidates across the state are lining up to fight back.

A record 35 openly LGBTQ people will run for public office in Texas in 2018, according to an extensive review by OutSmart. That’s roughly twice as many as in any previous election cycle in the state’s history.

The unprecedented field of LGBTQ candidates includes two for governor, one for Texas Supreme Court, two for Texas Senate, eight for Texas House, seven for U.S. Congress, and 12 for various judicial seats.

Nineteen of the LGBTQ candidates are female, and 16 are male. Five are transgender, three are African-American, and eight are Hispanic. Six are incumbents who are among the state’s 18 current LGBTQ elected and appointed officials.


http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2018/01/at-least-35-lgbtq-texans-are-running-for-office-in-2018/

For the first time in 25 years, Democrats are running in all of Texas 36 congressional districts.

In deep-red Texas, Republicans will have to fight for every congressional seat in next year's midterm elections. For the first time in 25 years, Democrats are running in all of Texas’ 36 congressional districts, according to documents filed with the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

Mark Jones, political science fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, says those filings set a record for the number of Democratic challengers in an era of Republican dominance, and are a departure from 2016 – when eight Republican-held congressional seats went uncontested by Democrats.

“We are seeing a groundswell of unusually high support and mobilization among progressive Democrats who are really angered by the Trump administration,” Jones said.

But, Democrats aren’t just gunning for congressional seats. According to preliminary numbers from the Texas Democratic Party, Democrats are running in 89 percent of the seats in the Texas House and 88 percent of the seats in the Texas Senate. Both are the highest percentages the party has mustered since at least 1992.

“We are seeing Democrats come out to run not only for the goal of challenging and doing something to voice their opposition to President Trump,” Jones said. “But we are seeing Democrats come out in several districts where, in the past, Democrats had no chance whatsoever and had difficult time recruiting top-quality candidates.”


http://kut.org/post/theres-democrat-running-every-texas-congressional-seat-next-year

Country Music Star Carrie Underwood Required More Than 40 Stitches in Her Face After She Fell Down

The country crooner shared with her fans in November that she had broken her wrist after taking a fall on the front steps of her home, and on Sunday she revealed that she sustained additional injuries from the incident.

Underwood revealed in a post to her fan club members that in addition to having surgery on her wrist, she required stitches on her face.

"There is also another part of the story that I haven’t been ready to talk about since I have still been living it and there has been much uncertainty as to how things will end up," she writes. "It’s crazy how a freak random accident can change your life."

Detailing the injuries, Underwood continues, "In addition to breaking my wrist, I somehow managed to injure my face as well. I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but when I came out of surgery the night of my fall, the doctor told [Underwood's husband] Mike [Fisher] that he had put between 40 and 50 stitches in."

After the fall, the 34-year-old artist canceled a benefit show in Nashville and Fisher returned home early from a hunting trip. In her recent post, Underwood says that seven weeks after the incident, she's healing but "not quite looking the same."


https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/carrie-underwood-required-more-than-40-stitches-in-her-face-after-recent-fall/ar-BBHKFqe?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

Random Predictions for 2018

1. Democrats will win the U.S. House of Representatives.

2. One member of the Trump family will either plead guilty or be indicted by Robert Mueller's grand jury.

3. The Muller investigation will snare at least one Member of Congress.

4. The stock market will burst sending it into a major correction.

5. Bitcoin will crash and burn.

6. Germany will win its second consecutive Soccer World Cup.

7. The New England Patriots will a second consecutive Super Bowl

8. The Golden State Warriors will win the NBA Championship.

9. "Avengers: Infinity War" be will 2018's highest grossing movie in the US.

10. "Lady Bird" will win Best Picture at the Oscars.

11. "Marvel's Black Panther" will be bomb at the box office after a strong alt.right boycott campaign due to the presence of strong black heroes. This will be the MCU's first financial bomb.

12. House Speaker Paul Ryan will lose his re-election campaign making it the biggest political upset of te year.

13. Trump will take some kind of military action against Iran or North Korea.

14. Trump supporters and their cohorts will try to carry out physical acts of violence against progressive leaders in the run-up to the 2018 elections.

15. A new bombshell related to Trump's serial sexual misconduct will wreck the Trump family.

Politico's Top 10 governors races of 2018

1. Illinois — Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is running for reelection.

Years of strife with Illinois Democrats has left Rauner in a weak position. A Morning Consult poll released in late October found Rauner’s approval rating at 30 percent, while a 55 percent majority said they disapproved of him — and the Democratic Governors Association has had a laser-like focus on Rauner for years ahead of his blue-state reelection run. One of the governor's strengths is his wealth, which Rauner has poured into advertising in Illinois. But billionaire Democrat J.B. Pritzker has emerged as the front-runner to face Rauner and will be able to match the governor in spending if he wins the nomination. It could be one of the most expensive state races ever.

2. New Mexico — Republican Gov. Susana Martinez is term-limited.

Martinez is term-limited in New Mexico, leaving an open gubernatorial race in a state that’s trending blue with a large Hispanic population. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham is the front-runner in a crowded, divided Democratic primary. She could face a House colleague in the general election: Republican Rep. Steve Pearce, who lost a previous bid for statewide office in 2008. Martinez’s approval ratings are underwater and Democrats see New Mexico, a state that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, as one of their best gubernatorial pickup opportunities in 2018.

3. Maine — Republican Gov. Paul LePage is term-limited.

There are nearly a dozen candidates in the Maine Democratic primary for governor, including state Attorney General Janet Mills, former state House Speaker Mark Eves, and attorney Adam Cote. Some Republicans were hoping Sen. Susan Collins, who floated running for governor, would jump into the primary. Collins decided not to run for governor in October, leaving a handful of lesser-known Republicans, including state Senate President Mike Thibodeau and former state Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew, to vie for the nomination. Democrats are eager to tie whoever emerges from the primary to the controversial LePage, whose disapproval rating is over 50 percent.

4. Connecticut — Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy is retiring.

Deep-blue Connecticut is actually one of Republicans' best opportunities in 2018. Malloy’s approval ratings were some of the worst among any governor in the country, and he decided not to run for a third term. But Republicans hope that environment in the state will clear the way for their candidate next fall. There are almost a dozen candidates running in the Republican primary and it’s unclear who will emerge as the nominee. A Tremont Public Advisors LLC poll conducted in mid-December found a generic Republican candidate beating a generic Democratic candidate — 35 percent to 23 percent, with 42 percent undecided — despite the fact that Connecticut has not voted Republican at the presidential level since 1988.

5. Nevada — Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval is term-limited.

Sandoval is leaving the Nevada governor’s mansion as one of the most popular governors in the country, and the Republican front-runner to replace him is state Attorney General Adam Laxalt. But Laxalt, a rising star in national Republican circles who has clashed with Sandoval in the past, still faces a tough road ahead in 2018. Nevada has been getting more Democratic, and operatives from both parties say the state Democratic Party is one of the most organized in the country. They are hoping to ride momentum from electing a Democratic senator and carrying the state for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Either Clark County Commission Chair Steve Sisolak or Vice Chair Chris Giunchigliani could prove formidable in the general election after a 2018 primary.

6. Florida — Republican Gov. Rick Scott is term-limited.

Crowded primaries on both the Democratic and Republican sides in a state that often elects politicians by narrow margins makes Florida difficult to predict. Most polling of the Republican gubernatorial primary has shown state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam leading the field, but President Donald Trump may have scrambled the field by tweeting support for Rep. Ron DeSantis just before Christmas. Since Trump's tweet, DeSantis has won the support of a number of billionaire Republican donors, calling into question just how strong a hold Putnam has on the primary field. The Democratic primary is even hazier, with former Rep. Gwen Graham and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum are often mentioned as top tier candidates. Most head-to-head matchups between Putnam and one of the four Democrats running in the primaries have shown a single-digit race, and Democrats are bullish about winning the governor's race for the first time in two decades given the political environment.

7. Alaska — Independent Gov. Bill Walker is running for reelection.

Walker is an independent, which means he doesn’t enjoy the support of either the Republican Governors Association or the Democratic Governors Association. No Democrat has jumped into the race to challenge Walker from that side, although former Sen. Mark Begich’s name has been floated. On the Republican side, the RGA and a trio of declared GOP gubernatorial candidates — former state House Speaker Mike Chenault, businessman Scott Hawkins and former state Senate President Charlie Huggins — are eager to unseat Walker. The Alaska Republican primary is late, on Aug. 21, so the field could get bigger or change before then. But the bottom line is that Alaska is a reliably Republican state, and the GOP likes its odds against one of the more unusual governors in the country.

8. Michigan — Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is term-limited.

Democrats are eager to paint whoever emerges out of the Republican primary as a carbon copy of the term-limited Snyder. Polling has shown former state Senate Democratic leader Gretchen Whitmer leading the Democratic primary field over Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and favorite of the progressive left, and engineer Shri Thanedar. On the Republican side, state Attorney General Bill Schuette is running against Lt. Gov Brian Calley and state Rep. Patrick Colbeck. Trump has already endorsed Schuette, and polling has shown him with a comfortable lead over the Republican primary field. General-election polls show tight races between the major candidates.

9. Ohio — Republican Gov. John Kasich is term-limited.

A late entrance by former CFPB Director Richard Cordray into the primary has added a Democrat with a national profile to the list of about five candidates competing for the nomination. But Republicans in Ohio for months have been gearing up for an aggressive primary and general election to succeed Kasich. State Attorney General Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Jon Husted have united under one ticket, while Rep. Jim Renacci, a former businessman first elected to the House in 2010, is running as a Trumpian outsider. Cordray’s presence in the race has already attracted the support of high profile Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who endorsed Cordray shortly after he jumped into the race.

9. Ohio — Republican Gov. John Kasich is term-limited.

A late entrance by former CFPB Director Richard Cordray into the primary has added a Democrat with a national profile to the list of about five candidates competing for the nomination. But Republicans in Ohio for months have been gearing up for an aggressive primary and general election to succeed Kasich. State Attorney General Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Jon Husted have united under one ticket, while Rep. Jim Renacci, a former businessman first elected to the House in 2010, is running as a Trumpian outsider. Cordray’s presence in the race has already attracted the support of high profile Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who endorsed Cordray shortly after he jumped into the race.

10. Maryland — Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is running for reelection.

Hogan has remained popular and kept his distance from Trump in deep-blue Maryland. But a crowded Democratic primary with progressive energy in a Democratic leaning state likely heralds a difficult reelection battle for Hogan. No clear front-runner has emerged from the primary which includes former NAACP President Ben Jealous, Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker and former State Department official Alec Ross. Polling has shown Hogan with low-double digit leads against a generic Democrat, but that’s before an actual nominee has been picked.


https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/31/top-ten-governors-races-to-watch-2018-255823