RandySF
RandySF's JournalStrong Philly Turnout Helped Swing PA Supreme Court Election
In Pennsylvania, another swing state that Democrats include in their 2016 map, the party celebrated a sweep of state Supreme Court elections. That was a break from tradition, of the party’s base staying home in sleepy off-year races. It was enabled by direct mail to Democrats featuring President Obama, a nationalization of the race — and a mirror image of Obama-centric ads that buried Democrats in Kentucky.
“The worry behind this election was that Philadelphia would not turn out, or produce a very low turnout,” said Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who made nearly a dozen campaign appearances for the Democratic candidates between Halloween and Election Day and who has endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for president. “As it turned out, Philly contributed more than 10 percent of the statewide vote. Hillary, who already has a very strong base, can look to that. Her potential in our state is strong because she’ll keep the Philly vote, do well in suburbs, and has a chance to exceed the president’s numbers in western Pennsylvania.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/off-year-elections-reveal-a-2016-map-with-sharper-borders/2015/11/04/31b834a8-831a-11e5-8ba6-cec48b74b2a7_story.html
Marco Rubio Would Like to Have a Beer With an Underage Teen
Today, Senator Marco Rubio held a Q&A for “young professionals” at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. That sounds very boring, and it probably mostly was, except that Rubio gave perhaps the most insane answer possible to the question, “Who would you like to have a beer with who is not a politician?”
His answer: Malala!!!
LOL.
Marco. My man.
This is hilarious on about 40,000 different levels, the first being that Malala is both a teenager and a practicing Muslim, which would prevent her from drinking alcohol twice over. There is also just the general image of Marco Rubio and Malala having a conversation at a bar at Marco Rubio’s insistence.
“I’ll have the IPA,” — Malala, as she sits down to drink a beer with Marco Rubio.
http://gawker.com/marco-rubio-would-like-to-have-a-beer-with-malala-a-mu-1740576645
‘My Body Was Not Mine, but the U.S. Military’s’
At night in the Songtan camptown outside Osan Air Base in South Korea, I wandered through streets that were getting louder and more crowded now that the sun had set. As the night progressed, hip-hop boomed out of bars along the main pedestrian mall and from second-floor clubs with neon-lit names like Club Woody’s, Pleasure World, Whisky a-Go-Go and the Hook Up Club. Many of the bars have stages with stripper poles for women to dance to the flash of stage lights and blasting music. In other bars, groups of mostly Filipina women in tight skirts and dresses talked to one another, leaning over the table as they shot pool. Some were chatting with a handful of GIs, young and old. Groups of younger GIs walked together through the red-light-district-meets-pedestrian-mall scene, peering into bars and considering their options. Bright signs for cheap hotels beckoned. Near a small food cart, a sign read, “man only massage prince hotel.”
For anyone in the U.S. military, it would have been a familiar sight. As long as armies have been fighting each other, and long before women were widely seen on the battlefield, female labor has been essential to the everyday operation of most militaries. But women haven’t just washed the laundry, cooked the food and nursed injured troops back to health. Women’s sex work has long been used to help keep male troops happy—or at least happy enough to keep working for the military. Today, commercial sex zones thrive in tandem with many U.S. bases around the world, from Baumholder in Germany to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Many look much the same, filled with liquor stores, fast-food outlets, tattoo parlors, bars and clubs, and prostitution in one form or another.
The problems associated with the sex trade are particularly pronounced in South Korea, where “camptowns” that surround U.S. bases have become deeply entrenched in the country’s economy, politics and culture. Dating to the 1945 U.S. occupation of Korea, when GIs casually bought sex with as little as a cigarette, these camptowns have been at the center of an exploitative and profoundly disturbing sex industry—one that both displays and reinforces the military’s attitudes about men, women, power and dominance. In recent years, exposés and other investigations have shown just how openly prostitution has operated around American bases, leading the U.S. government to ban solicitation in the military and the South Korean government to crack down on the industry. But prostitution has far from disappeared. It has only grown more secretive and creative in its subterfuge. If you want to know more about what’s at the root of the military’s struggles with sexual abuse, look no further than Songtan.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/sex-industry-military-bases-213311#ixzz3qa2h1S1w
Question: How would we transition from the ACA to Single Payer?
I applauded the passage of the ACA but, like many, I support the ultimate goal of single payer health care. But my honest question is how do we get from here to there without creating havoc in everyone's lives?
Kentucky health law repeal: Not so fast
Matt Bevin won the Kentucky governorship on a vow to dismantle Obamacare, but the obstacles he faces rolling back a law that covers nearly one in 10 Kentuckians offers a preview of the struggles that a Republican president would face living up to a “repeal and replace” pledge in 2017.
Even before the votes were cast, Bevin had started hedging his repeal bet, saying he would not take coverage away from people who have it. He can give the health law in his state a more conservative veneer. But he can’t scrap it completely.
“Vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act in some cases has been used as an effective political strategy, but it’s not a terribly effective governing strategy,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.
And that’s the reality facing the GOP contenders for the White House in 2016. A new president can undermine Obamacare by halting outreach and advocacy, rewriting the rules and starving it of funds. But that’s still a far cry from yanking the whole law up by its roots.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/kentucky-health-law-repeal-not-so-fast-215513#ixzz3qa5Y9Zao
Hillary leading by 56% in South Carolina
ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA – Likely Democratic voters in South Carolina overwhelmingly support Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee to become the 45th president, according to the latest Winthrop Poll.
Seventy-one percent of those surveyed said they were leaning toward voting for the former Secretary of State. Of the African-Americans contacted, she had even higher numbers, at 80%. The other two candidates running in the primary received significantly lower support – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, 15%, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, 2%.
South Carolina is important in the presidential process because it is the first primary in the South and because it is the first time presidential candidates can be vetted by large numbers of African-American voters. Winthrop Poll Director Scott Huffmon noted, "African Americans constitute one of the most important constituencies for the Democratic Party. African Americans can make up over 50% of the Democratic Presidential Primary vote in South Carolina, which is a much larger portion than you'll see in the Iowa Caucus or New Hampshire primary."
Of the Clinton supporters polled, 72% said she is a solid choice. A little more than a third of all respondents said they might change their mind. Sanders comes up as a second choice by 37% of respondents, but a fourth of respondents said they are undecided.
According to Huffmon, "At 71% support of likely voters, a choice that is 'solid' among more than 7 in 10 of those supporters, and a 79/10 favorable/unfavorable rating, South Carolina is currently Clinton country. While Sanders has drawn large and boisterous crowds - including here at Winthrop - it appears that those crowds might not have significant overlap with likely primary voters. Sanders must convert campaign excitement into long-term voter commitment to begin to close the gap."
http://www.winthrop.edu/winthroppoll/default.aspx?id=9804
Hillary leading by 18 points in latest Quinnipiac Poll
Clinton gets 53 percent of Democrats, with 35 percent for Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, with 9 percent undecided and 44 percent who might change their mind.
Only 8 percent of Democrats say they “would definitely not support” Clinton.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us11042015_xsq33a.pdf
SF: Aaron Peskin wins!!!!!!!
With 100% reporting, former SF Supervisor Aaron Peskin will be returning to his old seat to finish the term vacated by David Chiu. The means the Board swing back to progressive placing a check on Mayor Ed Lee. At least I got a silver lining out a mostly bad night.
Hennessy defeats scandal-plagued Mirkarimi in S.F. sheriff race
Former Chief Deputy Sheriff Vicki Hennessy won her bid Tuesday to unseat Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who cast himself as an innovator in the hidebound law enforcement community but was dragged down by a series of personal and professional controversies.
In the race to lead the agency, whose primary role is overseeing San Francisco’s jails, Hennessy ran a low-key campaign that drew support from the deputies’ union and nearly every politician at City Hall. She called herself an effective manager. Mirkarimi claimed she was too much of an insider to push through needed reforms.
With 42 percent of precincts counted, Hennessy had 63 percent of the votes, with Mirkarimi trailing at 31 percent. John Robinson, a former lieutenant in the Sheriff’s Department, was picking up 6 percent of the votes.
The outcome matched expectations as many doubted whether Mirkarimi could come back from the litany of controversies that emerged from the department under his leadership, as well as from his personal missteps.
Before he was even sworn in as sheriff, his standing in City Hall was shaken when he was charged in connection with bruising his wife’s arm in 2012. Hennessy was appointed interim sheriff as Mayor Ed Lee fought to remove Mirkarimi from office, making him political poison from almost the beginning of his term.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Hennessy-leads-Mirkarimi-in-S-F-sheriff-race-6609175.php?cmpid=brknow
Early returns for District 3 race — slight lead for Peskin
Former Supervisor Aaron Peskin was narrowly leading the race to reclaim his District Three seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday night, edging out Supervisor Julie Christensen, who was appointed to the seat by Mayor Ed Lee in January.
With some of the mail-in vote counted, Peskin had 49.1 percent of the vote while Christensen had 46.5 percent. Perennial candidate Wilma Pang was trailing with 4.2 percent.
The race is subject to the city’s ranked-choice voting system in which the third-place finisher, expected to be Pang, will be dropped and her second-place votes distributed to the two main contenders. That had not happened as of early Tuesday night, though Pang had told her supporters to pick Christensen as their backup choice.
With no big-name competition challenging Lee, the race to represent North Beach, Chinatown, Telegraph Hill and the Financial District was viewed as a referendum on the economic boom and resulting affordability crisis that have dramatically reshaped San Francisco during Lee’s five-year tenure.
The winner will determine the political direction of the board, with a Peskin win tipping it to a 6-5 majority in favor of the progressive bloc and a Christensen win preserving the current moderate majority.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Peskin-leads-Christensen-in-early-returns-for-6609177.php
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Gender: MaleHometown: Detroit Area, MI
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