RandySF
RandySF's JournalFLIPPABLE: Tiffany Thomas for Houston City Council District F
Hi, I am Tiffany and I'm running for Houston City Council, District F and I'm asking for your vote on November 5, 2019.
I've lived in District F since 1995 when my parents decided to purchase their first home in Brays Village East a subdivision in Alief. The schools were strong, neighborhoods safe and we had access to retail and all of the major highways.
I was raised in a home by parents that were clear on our values - faith, family, self and community. I've demonstrated in previous roles that I will be ready day one to serve as your representative in City Hall. I attended Alief schools where I was introduced to leadership by many teachers and administrators. After completing my degree at Sam Houston State University I moved back home -- I never considered the idea of leaving my community.
I served my neighbors in District F and the greater Houston area in a variety of ways over the years through volunteering and leading organizations that allowed me to sharpen my knowledge on issues that mattered such as housing, public safety, workforce development, transportation, and education. In 2013, I tested my capacity to lead and ran for Alief ISD Trustee, position 7 and won, serving for four years with the best interests of the taxpayer, student, parent and business in mind.
http://tiffanydthomas.com/
FLIPPABLE: Sallie Alcorn for Houston City Council At-Large Seat 5
Sallie Alcorn is a mom, a wife, and a dedicated public servant who is running for Houston City Council to continue serving the city she loves.
Sallie and George, her husband of thirty years, raised their four kids, George, Maria, Janie, and Susie in Houston. She considers her kids her greatest achievement, and she is enormously proud of the terrific young adults they’ve become.
Sallie is no stranger to City Hall where she has earned a reputation for being a strong staff leader with sharp analytical skills and a keen political sense. Sallie has served three council members and the city’s flood recovery officer. She also held two positions in the city’s Department of Housing and Community Development. Her passion for public policy is well reflected in her work on a broad range of issues including city finances, infrastructure, transportation, housing, and economic development.
As chief of staff to the chair of the budget and fiscal affairs committee, Sallie became an expert in navigating the city’s $5.4 billion budget. She helped develop the city’s comprehensive financial policies and orchestrated five years of budget hearings. She was heavily involved in initial Harvey recovery efforts and obtained grant funding to advance green stormwater infrastructure initiatives. She assembled and managed a task force to tackle redevelopment and flooding policies, worked with council members to identify neighborhood drainage projects, and led the charge to bring Houston’s Adopt-A-Drain Program to life.
Sallie also worked to alleviate food deserts, led park clean ups, established an annual senior falls prevention event, and advocated for city policy to allow ride sharing companies like Uber and Lyft to operate in Houston. In her work at the housing department, she successfully resolved compliance issues with HUD so federal affordable housing funds were restored to the city. In addition to these accomplishments, Sallie spent her many days at City Hall researching council agenda items, preparing ordinance amendments and briefing materials, and most importantly, responding to constituents needing help with city-related matters.
Sallie’s long history of serving her community extends well beyond City Hall. Each week she works with offenders as a volunteer facilitator for Bridges to Life, a restorative justice prison program aimed at reducing recidivism rates. She is on the advisory board of the San Jose Clinic and has served on the boards of Holocaust Museum Houston and the Houston READ Commission. She has chaired events and raised funds for the Holocaust Museum, the Women’s Fund, the Children’s Museum, the READ Commission, and the Contemporary Arts Museum. She also served for many years as a parent volunteer at her children’s schools. She and George are active members of St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church.
Sallie moved to Houston in the seventh grade and attended Westchester High School. She graduated with a finance degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a masters in public administration from the University of Houston. In addition to her work at City Hall, Sallie served as district director for a Houston-area congressman, worked as a legal assistant at a large law firm, and was a credit analyst at a commercial bank.
In her spare time, Sallie enjoys hiking, running (doesn’t really enjoy, but she runs), yoga, comedy, college football, the Astros, books, movies, the beach, and traveling to visit her kids.
https://salliealcorn.com/
FLIPPABLE: Janaeya Carmouche for Houston City Council At-Large Seat 3
I am the embodied result of a large Houston family. My maternal grandmother prepared her largest meal every Sunday, so that we could call our neighbors to take food. We kids were the local Meals on Wheels... which was really meals on foot. She would dispatch us throughout the neighborhood with food and groceries for seniors and families in need. My paternal grandmother's sense of duty and standards guided her work as an academician. It extended as her passion after retirement through supporting young students in pursuing scholarship opportunities and volunteering endless hours of support to those in pursuit of their doctoral accreditation. My grandfathers passed along their ingenuity, entrepreneurial inclinations and boundless commitment to uplifting our local communities. These pillars, along with my parents, are why I have always pursued a career path that positively impacts the lives of Houstonians. Your vote would give me the continued honor to serve our communities.
My political life began in the early 1990’s on a drive through our neighborhood when my mother explained the role that government plays in our daily lives. Upon recognizing my sincere interest, she took me to town hall meetings and encouraged me to ask questions of our elected officials. This began my search to find solutions for what ailed our communities.
During my college years, I staffed on-campus voter registration efforts and debated hot-button issues with classmates that became lifelong friends. I've worked across decades to represent and hold space for communities seeking change, and have had the privilege of working with elected and appointed officials that worked tirelessly to create transformative change.
Service to our city is embedded in my DNA, and it is why I come before you today asking for your vote of confidence. I intend to bring the energy and optimism that has propelled me forward throughout my journey to realizing the Houston that's just over horizon. A city that is able to harness its raw talent, heart and ambition to create a global model of thoughtful progress and light a path forward as one of the most diverse collections of communities in America.
https://www.jcfor3.com
FLIPPABLE: Raj Salhotra Houston City Council At-Large Seat 1
My dad came to the United States as a 24-year-old with $42 in his pocket, and, as a 12-year-old, my mom immigrated here with my grandparents. Like many Houstonians, they came here to build a better life for their family. Through hard work, they lived their American Dream: my dad became a small business owner, and my mom became a professor at the University of Houston-Downtown. Beyond just determination, my family benefited from the help of community members like the professor who helped my mom secure her first job and the clients who helped my dad launch his business. My family’s story inspired me to believe that anything is possible with determination and that only with the help of others can we truly succeed.
This desire to serve and belief in our collective success has always been my life’s guiding light. While at Rice University, I became a tutor for low-income middle and high school students and then designed a reading program for elementary students. Building on these experiences, after graduating, I became a high school math teacher here in Houston. As a teacher, my students achieved the highest pre-calculus scores in the district, and we created our school’s first ever AP Statistics class. But teaching math alone is not enough; instead, we have to equip our students to succeed in college and the workforce. Therefore, after teaching, I co-founded SWAG To College, a mentorship organization that is helping 600 students get to and through college.
Teaching was and will always be the two greatest years of my life, but I was frustrated. Despite our best efforts, laws and policies outside education trapped my students in poverty. So, building on my previous experiences working on energy policy at Rice and researching budget policy while interning for the Obama administration, I decided to pursue law school at Harvard. While at Harvard, I researched housing and economic policy and worked on economic development policy with Mayor Turner. Upon graduation, my background and life story has compelled me to return to Houston and serve the city that has given so much to my family and me.
https://www.rajforhouston.com
Before Giuliani, Ukrainian official hired Trump-linked lobbyist to relay anti-Biden claim
Two months before a Ukrainian official's explosive claims about former Vice President Joe Biden were brought to President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, the since-disputed allegations about Biden corruptly trying to protect his son were pitched to a Washington lobbyist with ties to the Trump administration and U.S. Justice Department, according to the lobbyist himself.
"I've known about this stuff since September of 2018," the lobbyist, Bud Cummins, told ABC News in an interview. "I don't know when the president heard about it, but I bet it was a long time ago."
The outreach to Cummins marks the first known instance of the anti-Biden allegations coming to America. And it further explains how an apparent smear campaign hatched overseas ended up metastasizing inside America.
Cummins, a former federal prosecutor and practicing attorney, was hired in September 2018 to connect Ukraine's then-chief prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, with "high level" U.S. authorities -- whom Lutsenko hoped would review evidence he collected allegedly showing Biden's corruption as vice president, Cummins said.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/working-giuliani-ukrainian-official-hired-trump-linked-lobbyist/story?id=67273198
Hong Kong's pro-democracy parties sweeping aside pro-Beijing establishment in local elections.
HONG KONG — Early results from Hong Kong district council elections on Sunday showed a surge of support for pro-democracy parties on Monday in what appeared to be a significant endorsement of the protest movement and an indictment of the pro-Beijing establishment seen by many as responsible for months of unrest in the city.
Voters took to the polls in record numbers to cast ballots in the only fully democratic election in the Chinese territory, an early sign they wanted to send a strong message to their government and to the Communist Party in Beijing.
Early results compiled by the South China Morning Post showed pro-democracy parties taking 108 of the first 120 seats to be declared, and pro-Beijing parties taking just 12. Several prominent figures in the protest movement won; several pro-establishment figures were unseated.
The turnout — more than 69 percent of the 4.13 million eligible voters had cast ballots an hour before polls closed — was significantly higher than the 1.4 million who voted in local elections in 2015. Voter registration was also a record high, driven in part by 390,000 first-time voters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/record-turnout-in-hong-kong-election-seen-as-a-referendum-on-the-pro-democracy-protest-movement/2019/11/24/31804b00-0df5-11ea-8054-289aef6e38a3_story.html
DEVIN NUNES SPENT $57,000 ON FLIGHTS TO EUROPE TO ALLEGEDLY INVESTIGATE BIDENS
Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican member on the House Intelligence Committee, spent nearly $57,000 on a trip to Europe for him and his staff to allegedly investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, records show.
The figures seem to confirm allegations made by Lev Parnas—a Ukrainian-born American who worked as a "fixer" for Rudy Giuliani before being indicted on criminal charges—who said that he helped Nunes arrange meetings with various Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on Biden.
Parnas said he met Nunes in a secretive trip to Vienna, Austria, between November and December 2018, and put him in touch with former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin—the lawyer who was ousted from his position in 2016 after pressure from Western leaders, including Biden, who said he was not doing enough to combat corruption.
Reports filed with the Office of the Clerk for the House of Representatives show that Nunes claimed expenses for a four-day trip to Europe at the time in question between November 30 and December 3. Four entries for "commercial airfare" were claimed for Scott Glabe, George Pappas, Derek Harvey and Nunes himself.
https://www.newsweek.com/devin-nunes-spent-57000-flights-europe-allegedly-investigate-bidens-1473765
Another K-pop star found dead after apparent suicide.
South Korean K-pop star Goo Hara was found dead in her home in Seoul on Sunday, saddening fans of the 28-year-old musician and actress around the world.
Police say the cause of death is under investigation, and have not yet filed an official report about her passing.
Goo was hospitalized in May after what has been reported as an alleged suicide attempt. Last year, she was involved in a high-profile legal battle with an ex-boyfriend who she claimed had threatened her with revenge porn. The case was covered closely by the tabloid press and resulted in harsh public criticism directed at Goo online.
Goo was a former member of the enormously popular K-pop group Kara, one of the first such groups to break through to international audiences.
Her death comes a little more than a month after the suspected death by suicide of 25-year-old K-pop star Sulli, who was a close friend of Goo’s.
On Saturday she posted a photo of herself on Instagram lying in bed with the caption “good night.”
https://www.vox.com/2019/11/24/20980363/k-pop-star-goo-hara
What We Know About Tulsi Gabbard's Base
So what do we know about Gabbard’s base? For one thing, it’s overwhelmingly male —according to The Economist’s polling with YouGov, her support among men is in the mid-single digits, while her support among women is practically nonexistent.
This trend is evident in other recent polls as well. Last week’s Quinnipiac poll of Iowa found Gabbard at 5 percent among men and 1 percent among women, and Quinnipiac’s new survey of New Hampshire found her at 9 percent among men and 4 percent among women. A late October national poll from Suffolk University found her at 6 percent among men and 2 percent among women.
Her predominantly male support shows up in other ways, too. An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics found that only 24 percent of Gabbard’s itemized contributions had come from female donors,1 the smallest percentage of any candidate in the race. And while she doesn’t lead on the prediction markets, which tend to skew heavily young and male, as of publication, bettors do give her a slightly better chance of winning the Democratic nomination than Sen. Kamala Harris on PredictIt, though still not better than internet favorite Andrew Yang.
Gabbard’s supporters are also likely to fall outside of traditional Democratic circles. Her supporters, for instance, are more likely to have backed President Trump in 2016, hold conservative views or identify as Republican compared to voters backing the other candidates. An early November poll from The Economist/YouGov found that 24 percent of Democratic primary voters who voted for Trump in 2016 backed Gabbard. By comparison, 12 percent of these voters backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 11 percent backed Biden and 10 percent backed Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Primary voters who identified as conservative also overwhelmingly backed Gabbard in that poll (16 percent) — only Biden and Harris enjoyed more support from this group (27 percent and 17 percent, respectively).
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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-we-know-about-tulsi-gabbards-base/
UK: Labour MPs free to campaign for either Brexit or Remain if second referendum happens
Labour MPs and members of a Jeremy Corbyn government will be free to campaign on either side in the EU referendum which the party plans for June 2020 if it wins next month’s general election, John McDonnell has revealed.
The party has previously said that it will hold a special conference in the spring to decide which side Labour will back in the referendum, but the shadow chancellor’s comments reveal that MPs will not be required to campaign in line with that decision.
The move echoes former prime minister Harold Wilson’s decision to allow his MPs to campaign on both sides of the original referendum on Common Market membership in 1975, and sets the scene for large numbers of Labour members – probably including senior figures like McDonnell, Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry – to fight for Remain against whatever deal Mr Corbyn manages to obtain.
Mt Corbyn announced on Friday that he will remain “neutral” between Remain and Leave in any referendum, which would take place after a Labour-led government renegotiated the Brexit deal with Brussels.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-brexit-second-referendum-corbyn-mcdonnell-general-election-a9215486.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1574587260
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