Tweet of the Day

AZ-SEN: Democrat Mark Kelly out-fundraising incumbent Martha McSally

Queens District Attorney: Katz Declares Victory After Recount

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — Melinda Katz has declared victory over public defender Tiffany Cabán in the race for the Democratic nomination for Queens district attorney after a recount in the roller-caster race concluded Thursday. Her opponent is not going away quietly though.

The manual recount of more than 90,000 votes in New York City ended exactly one month after the June 25 primary in the race to succeed longtime district attorney Richard Brown, who died in May.

“Now that every valid vote has been counted and recounted, the results confirm once again that the people of Queens have chosen Melinda Katz as the Democratic nominee for district attorney,” the Katz campaign said in a statement.

Cabán said her campaign is now taking the election results to court, arguing too many write-in ballots were invalidated by the city’s Board of Elections.

“We are going to continue to fight to make sure that every single valid vote is counted. Up to this point, hundreds of ballots cast by eligible and registered Queens Democrats that were wrongly invalidated,” the public defender claimed.

The New York City Board of Elections did not announce the results of the recount on Thursday, but is expected to certify the results within days.



https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/07/25/queens-da-katz-recount-caban/

IA: Kim Reynolds thumbed her nose at ISU students for nothing

Democrat Ross Wilburn will be unopposed in the August 6 special election to represent Iowa House district 46. The deadline to file nominating papers was on July 12 at 5:00 pm, and Wilburn is the only name on the Iowa Secretary of State’s candidate list.

A spokesperson for the Republican Party of Iowa told the Des Moines Register’s Stephen Gruber-Miller that the GOP would not field a candidate for the special election, but did not indicate why. The Libertarian Party of Iowa also declined to compete for this district; Libertarians have occasionally nominated candidates in House district 45, covering other Ames neighborhoods.

In all likelihood, Wilburn would have won this election regardless of the timing or the competition, given the political layout of House district 46. The strongest potential GOP candidate, Ames City Council member Tim Gartin, took himself out of the running early, and several Democratic presidential candidates have either headlined events for Wilburn or had their staff help knock doors for him.

If Republicans weren’t planning to play for this seat, it was exceptionally foolish for Governor Kim Reynolds to set the election on the first Tuesday allowed under state law. She could have scheduled the vote for late August or September, when most Iowa State University students would be back in Ames.

All Reynolds accomplished by picking August 6 was reinforcing the narrative that she doesn’t care about constituents who don’t politically align with her. She could have shown her commitment to fair play by picking a day that would give more House district 46 residents a voice. Instead, she used the levers of power to depress Democratic turnout–for nothing.



https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2019/07/12/kim-reynolds-thumbed-her-nose-at-isu-students-for-nothing/

Kathryn Dodge, Democrat for Mayor of Fairbanks, Alaska

Hi! My name is Kathryn Dodge, and I'm running for City Mayor. I came to Fairbanks in 1973, a young woman looking for a new community. I fell in love with the people that make up this golden heart community and found opportunity to learn a trade and support myself. This allowed me to work in technology along the pipeline and on the north slope. Since then I’ve earned graduate degrees in organization management and spent 15 years working in economic development in our community. This taught me how our economy, the private sector, and local government works. I’ve also served six years on the Borough Assembly where I earned a reputation for listening, negotiating, and finding solutions.

I’m running for City Mayor because I believe our community is stalled out and that we need new energy and leadership to get us moving forward. I will pull together the many groups that make up our community and develop a 20 year business plan for Fairbanks that reflects what we want to be and how we are going to get there. I hope you’ll join us!

Of course, we also have to make sure that we have a balanced budget, our fire and police are fully staffed and as diverse as our community. I look forward to working with the community, city council and city staff to move Fairbanks towards our vision of a vibrant, quirky community with a great quality of life.






https://alaskansfordodge.com/

Tweet of the Day

Hurricane Camille Remembered on Storm's 50th Anniversary

There’s a lot to remember about events in 1969: Woodstock; the Beatles’ last album, Abbey Road; Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon; and the creation of a draft lottery to raise soldiers for the Vietnam war. This year, local memories are focused on recognizing the devastation of Hurricane Camille, when the population in Nelson County was reduced by 1% by lives lost in the devastating flood.

Camille, a Category 5 hurricane, hit the Mississippi Coast causing widespread damage, but limited, according to the Weather Bureau, to the Gulf Coast area where warnings were issued. No one expected the storm to come so far inland and hit Central Virginia so hard.

During the night of August 19, Nelson County was in the path of this devastating disaster, which brought a deluge to the Blue Ridge mountains without warning. The Virginia Department of Historical Resources Highway Marker states: “A rainfall in excess of 25 inches within a 5-hour period, swept away or buried many miles of road, over 100 bridges, and over 900 buildings. 114 people died and 37 remain missing. The damage totaled more than $100,000, 000 and Virginia was declared a disaster area.”

The 50th anniversary of Camille has been recognized by the Nelson County Historical Society and Oakland Museum in a series of events throughout the year. On Saturday, June 15, Jimmy Fortune & Friends presented A Concert for Camille at Rockfish Valley Community Center. Jimmy Fortune, now of Statler Brothers, recognized in the Country Music Hall of Fame, along with Bennie Dodd, and Joey Davis, told stories and sang songs about Camille. An opening song by Benny Dodd described how Route 29, then known as the “Lovingston Bypass” served as a landing place for helicopter rescues after the flood. Songwriters Emily Moxley and James Raleigh Satterwhite were recognized for their song the trio performed called “Prevailing Rain,” with lyrics telling of “the rain kept falling, the water did rise high, the mountains did crumble and the people did cry.”

Fortune told the audience of learning to play his banjo as a young man and losing the instrument in the flood. Worst of all was losing Mitchell, one of the former band members who disappeared at Davis Creek. This tale was followed by a song he wrote, “You’re Not Forgotten,” which tells the story of August 19-20 in lyrics including, “Storm was coming without warning, rain came down with a mighty roaring sound …”



https://www.crozetgazette.com/2019/07/05/hurricane-camille-remembered-on-storms-50th-anniversary/

Sharon Tate's sister wept at Margot Robbie's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood portrayal

Debra Tate, the sister of the late actress Sharon Tate, has given her approval of her sibling’s depiction in Quentin Tarantino’s just-released film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Sharon Tate was killed by members of the Manson family in 1969, the year in which Tarantino’s movie is set. In the film, Sharon Tate is played by I, Tonya actress Margot Robbie. The film also stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a fictional actor named Rick Dalton and Brad Pitt as his stunt double, Cliff Booth.

“When I read the whole script, I knew that the real meat of the story was going to be Leo and Brad Pitt’s characters,” Debra Tate said in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. “I mean, I really wish that Quentin Tarantino would do the Sharon Tate story, and I would love to see Margot play [that]… But that was not the movie that Quentin had written, and I knew it and I understood it. And it was his vision. I’m not going to tell anybody that has done such a wonderful job, and a respectful job at honoring a particular situation, that they have to do my version of a story. Although I really wish he would’ve.”

In the interview, Debra Tate also recalled being greatly affected by seeing, and in particular hearing, Robbie play her sister when she visited the set of the film.

“She made me cry because she sounded just like Sharon,” she said. “The tone in her voice was completely Sharon, and it just touched me so much that big tears [started falling]. The front of my shirt was wet. I actually got to see my sister again… nearly 50 years later.”




https://ew.com/movies/2019/07/26/once-upon-a-time-hollywood-sharon-tate-sister-debra/

Tweet of the Day

Uh Oh