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Targeting Dunleavy, Democratic Governors Association injects $500K into Alaska race

With the election just a week away, get ready for a last-minute wave of those dark-and-stormy attack ads in the Alaska governor's race.

The Democratic Governors Association injected $500,000 into the effort to defeat Republican candidate Mike Dunleavy, according to a 24-hour report filed today. Like the Republican Governors Association — which has reported spending more than $2.7 million in support of Dunleavy as of Oct. 8 — the DGA is an independent expenditure group.

Independent expenditure groups can receive unlimited donations from groups and individuals to target the Alaska race. In any given election cycle, they are often the source of the sharpest attack ads, slamming the opposition party candidate while allowing the group's favored candidate to take the messaging high road if they so choose.

Here's an example of the DGA ad, claiming Dunleavy votes put "criminals on the street." And the RGA money, funneled through a group called Families for Alaska's Future, is helping to pay for ads like this one that portrayed Begich and Gov. Bill Walker as tax-happy job killers.

Read more: https://www.adn.com/politics/the-trail/2018/10/30/targeting-dunleavy-democratic-governors-association-injects-500k-into-alaska-race/

Hawaii Supreme Court upholds permit for giant telescope

HONOLULU -- Hawaii's Supreme Court upheld a decision to grant a construction permit for an embattled, international giant telescope project planned for a mountain Native Hawaiians consider sacred.

The court ruling Tuesday is a victory for the contentious Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii's tallest mountain, Mauna Kea. Opponents say the telescope will desecrate sacred land on the Big Island. Supporters say it will bring educational and economic opportunities to the state.

Opponents and supporters have been awaiting the ruling because it was expected to help determine whether the project is built in Hawaii or moves to a backup location in Spain's Canary Islands that's less desirable to scientists hoping to use the instrument for groundbreaking discoveries.

Plans for the project date to 2009, when scientists selected Mauna Kea after a five-year, around-the-world campaign to find the ideal site for what telescope officials said "will likely revolutionize our understanding of the universe."

Read more: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article220861130.html

Feed plant to pay $2.4 million to settle lawsuit for poisoning 49 horses in Clovis

Western Milling will pay $2.4 million to settle a Fresno Superior Court lawsuit for selling tainted feed that killed or severely injured 49 horse at a horse ranch in Clovis in September 2015.

Fresno attorney Warren Paboojian said Monday that Black Fence Farms in Clovis, as well as a number of other plaintiffs, will benefit from the settlement.

Western Milling in Goshen manufactured and distributed Western Blend Hose Fee, Lot 5251. The horse feed killed 21 horses and severely sickened 28 others, said Paboojian and co-counsel Adam Stirrup.

A lawsuit says Western Milling was well aware of contamination in its feed products. Between December 2009 and July 2010, the lawsuit alleged, the United States Food and Drug Administration found “impermissibly high” samples of monensin in feed samples produced by the company.

Read more: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article220815710.html

White supremacist signs posted on two Burlington campuses

Posters reading “It’s okay to be white” that are part of a national white supremacist campaign were placed on the University of Vermont and Champlain College campuses in Burlington over the weekend.

Last November, posters with the same message were displayed at UVM. Student-led demonstrations called attention to racial justice issues at the university last year, and UVM’s Board of Trustees passed a resolution over the weekend to remove former UVM President Guy Bailey’s name from the school’s library because of his involvement in the racist eugenics movement.

UVM removed the posters, citing its posting policy.

“To the extent that the signs are intended to promote a white nationalist ideology, as news reports have suggested, we condemn the activity in the strongest possible terms, as it is completely antithetical to our core University values,” the university said in a statement.

Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2018/10/29/white-supremacist-signs-posted-two-burlington-campuses/

Sanders and GOP challenger Zupan square off in only one-on-one debate

In his first debate this election cycle, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., faced off Monday against Lawrence Zupan, a Republican real estate agent making a long shot bid to unseat him.

The debate, hosted by Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS, was characterized by fiery exchanges between the two candidates. While Zupan accused Sanders of “promoting socialism over American principles” the senator tried to draw comparisons between Zupan and national Republicans, including President Donald Trump.

Zupan, a Manchester-based businessman who has never held public office, is running on a platform focused on cutting taxes and promoting a business friendly environment by removing regulations. Both Zupan and Sanders were born and raised in New York City.

During the debate, hosted by VPR’s Jane Lindholm, Zupan compared Sanders’ progressive policy agenda to authoritarian regimes such as those in Venezuela and North Korea.

Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2018/10/29/sanders-gop-challenger-zupan-square-off-one-one-debate/

UC Irvine College Republicans say administrators putting up roadblocks to Milo Yiannopoulos talk

Members of the College Republicans club at UC Irvine are looking forward to another on-campus appearance by controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos – but they’ve hit some snags with the administration and say the school is using bureaucracy to squelch their First Amendment rights to free speech.

Last month, UCI officials denied the group’s request to use a ballroom that can seat 800 people to host the tickets-only Yiannopoulos speech in the fall, and a separate winter event with conservative talk-radio host Dennis Prager, according to Kimo Gandall, president of the school’s College Republicans club. School officials also told the group that both events must take place before 5 p.m., Gandall said.

A UCI spokesman said the university offered alternative locations and plans to meet with the student group to discuss details.

“We welcome further discussions with the College Republicans to find a suitable place and time for their event. We will address these issues with them when we meet,” spokesman Tom Vasich said Thursday.

Read more: https://www.ocregister.com/2018/10/04/uci-college-republicans-say-administrators-putting-up-roadblocks-to-milo-yiannopoulos-talk/

California House races see record levels of outside spending, and Democratic groups are on top

With a week to go before election day, California’s highly competitive congressional races have attracted an unprecedented deluge of outside spending from big-money groups around the country, with independent organizations blanketing the airwaves and shaking up races around the state.

An eye-popping $16.4 million was pumped into the state’s six most competitive Congressional races in the last week alone, according to an analysis Monday of Federal Election Commission data by the Bay Area News Group.

Democratic groups have outspent Republican groups $45.3 million to $27.6 million in the top districts over the course of the general election campaign, the analysis found, giving Democrats a significant boost in their quest to knock off GOP incumbents and win back control of the House of Representatives.

In all, outside groups have spent $79.6 million on all California House races this election cycle. That’s more than the total spent during any two-year election period in at least the last decade and the highest since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the doors for this kind of massive independent funding in 2010.

Read more: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/30/california-house-races-outside-spending-michael-bloomberg/

Golden State Warriors must pay off $40 million Oracle Arena debt

OAKLAND — The Golden State Warriors can’t leave for the City without paying the Town, an arbitrator ruled Monday.

When the team crosses the bay next season for its gleaming, new $1 billion arena in San Francisco, it will still be on the hook for about $40 million to retire the debt for renovation costs at its current home, Oracle Arena.

Arbitrator Rebecca Westerfield’s ruling settled an argument between the Warriors and the city of Oakland and Alameda County, which own the arena, over language in a 1996 contract.

“This was an after-the-fact attempt by the Warriors to rewrite the parties’ deal, and it would have left the people of Oakland and Alameda County holding the bag,” said Daniel Purcell, a partner Keker, Van Nest & Peters, which represented the city and county. “We are grateful that the arbitrator saw it our way.”

Read more: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/29/aribrator-golden-state-warriors-must-pay-off-oracle-arena-debt/

Cross-posted in the Sports Group.