October 20, 2018

elephant give birth and calls herd to surround baby

https://twitter.com/_SJPeace_/status/1053332733571805184

October 20, 2018

Ted Cruz's wife wants some appreciation.. for putting up with husband earning only 174K

“I really feel mission-driven on what he’s accomplishing,” she clarified. But “it does take some supportiveness, you know. Six to seven years in it, with me being the primary breadwinner—it’s like, ‘Uh, yeah, this is when people say thank you. I’ll now take that appreciation.’” She laughed. “Yeah, we’re seven years into this, and we’re not buying a second home anytime soon.”

How much does she make? By Wall Street standards, her earnings at Goldman were merely good. On the Cruz’s joint tax return from 2010, it appears her salary was around $360,000. Cruz hasn’t released his 2013 or 2014 tax returns. His personal disclosure form has a line for salary for Heidi Cruz from Goldman Sachs, but doesn’t say what it is. But it is likely substantially higher. According to her LinkedIn profile, Heidi Cruz in 2013 was promoted to managing director—the final step on the ladder before becoming partner. According to Glassdoor.com, the typical managing director at Goldman has base salary of about $376,000 and total compensation –including bonus and stock – of about $600,000 per year.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/18/1805352/-Ted-Cruz-s-wife-complains-about-his-174K-salary-we-re-not-buying-a-second-home-anytime-soon

October 20, 2018

early voting surges. quadruples in Tennessee, up 10 times in IN over last midterm

Early Voting Is Surging, and That Could Help Democrats
The numbers are up – way up.


In Indiana and Tennessee, states with competitive Senate races, and Minnesota, a state with four competitive House races that could help determine if Democrats are able to flip the chamber, turnout is surging. On Wednesday, the first day of early voting in Tennessee, more than 120,000 people voted, which is nearly four times the number of people that voted on the first day of early voting in 2014 midterm, according to the Tennessean. That state is home to a tight race between former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen and Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn. Republicans hope to hold onto that seat as part of a firewall to protect their Senate majority.

n Hamilton County, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis, voters have cast ballots at a rate 10 times higher than four years ago and almost as high as during 2016 election, the Indianapolis Star reported. Voters there will decide whether to send Democrat Joe Donnelly back to the Senate or replace him with Republican Mike Braun. Donnelly has held a slight edge in recent polls, according to Real Clear Politics. In Minnesota, the number of ballots cast has surpassed the turnout at the same point in the 2016 general election, when the presidency was on the ballot.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-19/midterm-elections-2018

October 19, 2018

U.S. fertility rates collapse - historic declines across all races

Women are now having fewer babies and at older ages than in the past three decades, a change that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported this year, and which was confirmed this week with the release of additional data that shows that the trend holds across races and for both urban and rural areas.

The CDC said Wednesday that the total fertility rate — a theoretical figure that estimates the number of births a woman will have in her lifetime — fell by 18 percent from 2007 to 2017 in large metropolitan areas, 16 percent in smaller metro areas and 12 percent in rural areas. A similar downward trend holds for white, black and Hispanic women.



Theories — social, economic, scientific, environmental — about why fertility is falling so sharply in the United States abound. Many agree that cultural shifts, such as women getting married later and focusing on education or work, play a big role. But there’s considerable debate, some of it more political than evidence-based, about other possible causes.


Economist Lyman Stone has blamed the United States’ less-than-generous parental leave and pay policies. Human Life International, a missionary group, blames “pro-abortion population control groups like Planned Parenthood.” Tucker Carlson claims it has to do with immigration, arguing that immigrants drive wages down, which hurts the attractiveness of men as potential spouses — “thus reducing fertility.”

Some have even wondered whether the decline might be influenced by sperm quality. Recent medical journal publications have indicated that exposure to pollutants might be harming reproductive health, including the motility and quantity of sperm, which could delay childbearing and overall fertility.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2018/10/19/us-fertility-rates-collapse-finger-pointing-blame-follow/?utm_term=.1e6bb457123d

October 19, 2018

'There is no more Republican party': will California's Orange county swing Democratic?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/orange-county-turn-blue-republicans-democrats

Dan Ardell has been voting Republican all his life, but not this November.

In many ways he is a conservative from central casting: a churchgoing 77-year-old retired businessman from Orange county, the suburban expanse between Los Angeles and San Diego that was once said to be where good Republicans went to die.

Ardell voted for Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter, and George W Bush over Al Gore. But now he has had enough – enough of Donald Trump, certainly, but also enough of Dana Rohrabacher, the beguilingly soft-spoken but reliably out-there rightwing congressman who in 30 years on Capitol Hill has never previously faced a significant election challenge.

“Rohrabacher is of the same caliber as Trump,” Ardell said. “They’re low-level, relatively unintelligent people. Trump has no civility, no common sense. He can’t even spell the word nuance.”
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Harley Rouda, the real estate magnate turned Democratic party challenger to Rohrabacher, is a former Republican. So are many of the locally hired staff and volunteers on his campaign team. The number of registered Republicans in the district is steadily diminishing, down to around 40% now compared with 44% four years ago, while the number of registered Democrats and those designated “no party preference” is steadily increasing.

“There’s a cultural shift,” said Katherine Amoukhteh, an engineer who has been a registered Republican for 20 years but is supporting Rouda. “The party has changed a lot ... and that’s left us with one of two choices. Either we say, to hell with you guys and become Democrats or independents. Or we stay on the team and say, I may be a Republican but I don’t have to vote Republican up and down the ballot.”

Amoukhteh hated the way Trump talked about women on the campaign trail and refused to vote for him. Then she looked at Rohrabacher and found she could not abide him either. “My litmus test was Roe v Wade,” she said. “How can we still be talking about whether women have abortion rights? I have a teenage daughter. I want to be able to look her in the eye and say, ‘I did the best I could.’”

As is common in many affluent suburban districts, it is Republican women who are leading the charge. Two of them, both now Rouda supporters, told the Guardian of the existence of secret wives’ clubs in Newport Beach whose members loathe Trump but have not dared tell or confront their husbands. These women meet in each other’s homes – many of them in the desirable Port streets overlooking Newport Bay – to talk politics, but won’t be seen together in public and won’t canvas or phone-bank for Rouda for fear of being found out.

October 18, 2018

Grumpy owl rescued in Woodside after getting entangled in kite string

Grumpy owl rescued in Woodside after getting entangled in kite string



A great horned owl found itself in an unfortunate position Monday, when the tip of its wing became ensnared in kite string Monday in Woodside — dangling the poor bird above the ground.

An alert resident noticed the bird and notified the Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA. The group worked with the Woodside Fire Protection District and the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office to help rescue the owl.

Using the fire crew's ladder, rescuers cut the string to free the owl while Peninsula Humane Society workers caught the bird below. They found the bird to be unharmed, and Peninsula Humane Society Communications Manager Buffy Martin Tarbox said the rescue itself took only 20 minutes.

"Had that person not seen her, she certainly would have not made it, because she could not have untangled herself from that," Tarbox said to SFGATE.

"She probably would have perished," she added.

https://www.sfgate.com/pets/article/Great-horned-owl-kite-string-Humane-Society-SPCA-13315882.php

October 18, 2018

Billionaire Tom Steyer to donate another $2 million to Andrew Gillum in Florida governor's race

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/17/politics/steyer-donation-andrew-gillum/index.html

Billionaire philanthropist turned political activist Tom Steyer has already made a big investment in the 2018 election, but in the closing days of the campaign, Steyer has picked his favorite candidate and is pulling out all the stops.

Steyer is personally donating $2 million to Andrew Gillum's campaign for governor of Florida and through his organization, "Need to Impeach," he is directing a massive direct mail pitch to 300,000 Florida voters that have signed up to support his effort to impeach President Donald Trump. The mail piece makes specific reference to Gillum's support of impeachment.


Another organization funded by Steyer, NextGen America, has already spent more than $5 million on efforts to get Gillum elected.

"If you were going to choose a single race that has the most national significance, it would be the governor's race in Florida," Steyer said.

October 18, 2018

driver sees barefoot man. stops and gives him the new shoes he is wearing

https://twitter.com/_SJPeace_/status/1052746539544846336

October 18, 2018

Janz waiting to debate Devin Nunes

I'm here ready to debate Nunes and he's nowhere to be found. If he's not going to talk to his constituents, I will. #CA22

:large

October 18, 2018

Super PAC My Ride to vote, Voto Latino and Lyft crowdfund to provide free rides to polls

https://www.voteriders.org/news_item/how-to-get-a-free-ride-to-the-polls/

The super PAC My Ride to Vote, Voto Latino and Lyft have teamed up to provide people across the nation with rides so they can vote between Tuesday and Election Day.

“With this campaign, we aim to help underrepresented voters exercise their rights as citizens,” Anna Soellner, co-founder of My Ride to Vote said in a statement. "For people who are under immense family, work or financial pressure, having a convenient ride to the polls can mean the difference between voting and staying at home. Our mission is to assist those in greatest need to exercise their sacred, civic duty."

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That’s where My Ride to Vote comes in. The super PAC has launched a crowdfunding campaign to try and raise $100,000 to fund rides to the polls for people who have previously signed up for Lyft or are otherwise ineligible but still want the free ride.

Reeves estimates that $100,000 will provide rides for approximately 20,000 people. The crowdfunding campaign has already raised $18,000 toward their goal.

“We’re really trying to reach as far and wide as possible,” Reeves said.