Atlanta shooter blanes 'addiction to sex' for actions.

Breaking via ABC on my phone.

Atlanta shooter was a 'nerdy' preacher's kid.

Long was described as a religious person by a former classmate at Sequoyah High. The 21-year-old graduated in 2017. The classmate said Long’s dad was a pastor, and he had seemed “innocent” and “nerdy.”

“He was very innocent seeming and wouldn’t even cuss,” the classmate told The Daily Beast. “He was sorta nerdy and didn’t seem violent from what I remember. He was a hunter and his father was a youth minister or pastor. He was big into religion.”

Social media posts from the Crabapple First Baptist Church show Long and his family had a lengthy history with the church. Long’s father is not listed as a pastor at the church. The elders of the church released a statement to Heavy.com, saying they were “grieved” and “heartbroken.”

“We are grieved to hear the tragic news about the multiple deaths in the Atlanta area. We are heartbroken for all involved,” the statement said. “We grieve for the victims and their families, and we continue to pray for them. Moreover, we are distraught for the Long family and continue to pray for them as well.”





https://heavy.com/news/robert-aaron-long/

Godzilla vs. Kong Study Finds the Majority of the US is in Godzilla's Corner

Godzilla vs. Kong will pit the two titans against each other, and a new map gathered from Twitter data determined the desired winner of the match by each U.S. state.

The map, developed by online gambling company BetOnline, used geotagged Twitter data to determine how many people in each state shared a post using #TeamGodzilla or #TeamKong. The website, which traditionally used its software to make sports-based maps, used the data to determine a winner by looking at the kaiju showdown like a primetime boxing match.

According to the map's gathered data, Godzilla was chosen as the preferred winner of the showdown in the U.S. by 41 states. Only citizens of Massachusetts, West Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi, Missouri, Kansas, Montana and Idaho voted for King Kong to win the epic fight. Godzilla dominated the vote despite the fact that trailers for the upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong portrayed King Kong as the sympathetic hero. Nonetheless, support for Godzilla in the impending throwdown is so high that another hashtag, #NeverKong, grew on Twitter in opposition to a King Kong victory. Director Adam Wingard has assured fans that there will be a clear winner after the final showdown and that he has known who the winner would be since the second grade.



https://www.cbr.com/godzilla-kong-us-geotag-map/

The Capitol Riot Pissed Off These People So Much They're Running for Office

Mizeur was hardly the only person having that conversation at her kitchen table in the dark days after Jan. 6, however. The riot and its aftermath have sparked a prodigious boom of would-be candidates for office, from Congress to state legislatures and city councils, largely consisting of liberals channeling their anger and angst over a near-death experience for American democracy into action to try to help it.

Seasoned political operatives say they’ve never seen anything like it. Amanda Litman, a top fundraising aide to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, founded the nonprofit group Run For Something in 2017 to give first-time candidates for local office the tools they need to launch a campaign.

In the last two months, said Litman, roughly 11,000 people have registered with Run For Something to express an interest in a campaign for public office. “We saw January 2021 turn into our best candidate recruitment month yet since launching on inauguration day in 2017,” she said. Their registration total for the first two months of 2021 matched their total for the entirety of 2018—a midterm election year that saw a surge in participation nationwide.

“To me, that in the first two months of 2021, more than 10,000 young people said, ‘Fuck this, I’m going to run for office,’ is quite telling,” said Litman. “We did not think there’d be such a surge in interest, we thought it’d stay at the same scale we were at in 2020.”

Litman also said there’s been an uptick in interest in running for election administration positions, like county clerks, given the “big lie” of a stolen election that swirled around Jan. 6. “We ask folks, what’s your story,” said Litman, “and we’ve seen a substantial number point to election administration or democracy writ large as an issue.”

While Run For Something assists the thousands of young people now interested in local positions, on the congressional level, a wave of Democrats have emerged to challenge the GOP lawmakers most associated with Trump’s election conspiracies and Jan. 6.



https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-capitol-riot-pissed-off-these-people-so-much-theyre-running-for-office

Warnock win unleashes flood of Black candidates

Raphael Warnock’s Senate victory in Georgia has opened the floodgates to a surge of African American Senate candidates, raising the prospect that the 2022 midterm elections could dramatically alter the face of a chamber that is currently 89 percent white.

While it’s too early in the election cycle to know exactly how many Black candidates will run for the Senate, a growing number have either launched formal bids or are seriously considering running in at least a half-dozen states. Many are state legislators or local elected officials who might have been dissuaded from running in the past, or viewed a statewide victory as implausible.

Fueling the burst is an unusually fluid Senate map that already features five open seat races. But prospective candidates and political strategists point to other catalytic factors — foremost among them, Warnock’s upset victory in January in a red, Deep South state that had never elected an African American to the Senate.

“I think this idea that Black candidates can’t win statewide and young candidates can’t win statewide in difficult races was just disproven in Georgia,” said Malcolm Kenyatta, a 30-year-old Black state representative who is running in Pennsylvania. “We have the Senate majority because a young guy and a Black guy helped us take the two seats we needed.”

Warnock is more than just an inspiration for some of these candidates — he’s also served as a mentor and a clearinghouse of information on running for the Senate. The senator confirmed that he has spoken with several prospective African American congressional candidates about potential bids, saying the chamber “does not suffer from an overwhelming amount of diversity.”




https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/16/raphael-warnock-2022-black-candidates-476306

AZ-02: Anne Kirkpatrick will not seek re-election

Harry Potter Actor Was Told to Deny Receiving Racist Attacks

Katie Leung, the actor behind the Harry Potter series' Cho Chang, revealed that during her time in the role, she experienced racist attacks from fans, yet was told to deny any such treatment.

Leung was cast in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as a romantic interest for Daniel Radcliffe's Harry Potter. Soon after, as she explained on Chinese Chippy Girl, she began noticing abuse from fans online. "I was Googling myself at one point, and I was on this website, which was kind of dedicated to the Harry Potter fandom," she said. "I remember reading all the comments. And, yeah, it was a lot of racist shit."

The actor, who was 16 at the time, recalled being told by her publicist to keep quiet about seeing the racist remarks. "I remember them saying to me, 'Oh, look Katie, we haven't seen these, these websites that people are talking about. And you know, if you get asked that, just say it's not true. Say it's not happening,'" she said. At the time, Leung agreed to go along with the request and did not broach the subject.

According to Variety, Warner Bros. Pictures declined to comment on the claims, although it remains unclear how involved the studio was, as it wasn't made apparent who the publicist worked for.



https://www.cbr.com/harry-potter-cho-chang-deny-racist-attacks/

Moby - Harbour

Bonus Tweet of the Day

Orange County (CA) Democrats County Board seat in special election.

Orange County Democrats scored a significant win Tuesday, after Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley captured 44.42% of the vote to beat four other candidates to claim a seat on the O.C. Board of Supervisors.

The Orange County Registrar of Voters showed Foley winning the race with 42,280 votes over former state Sen. John Moorlach, who earned 30.91% of the vote with 29,425 ballots cast.

Newport Beach Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Muldoon came in third with 10,652 ballots cast, or 11% of the vote, while Fountain Valley Mayor Michael Vo had earned 8,576 votes and Corona del Mar international tax attorney and political newcomer Janet Rappaport secured 4,259 votes.

Totals posted by the Orange County Registrar of Voters just before 10 p.m. Tuesday did not include 7,802 ballots that remain to be added into the official count, but Foley had surpassed Moorlach by a greater number of votes.

Although county supervisor seats are nonpartisan, the political stakes of the race have been high as the board’s makeup before former District 2 Supervisor Michelle Steel’s Jan. 3 departure placed conservatives at a 4-1 advantage over Democrats, whose numbers on the county panel have been historically slim.

With Foley’s win, that majority narrows to 3-2.



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/story/2021-03-09/katrina-foley-wins-race-to-replace-steel-on-orange-county-board-of-supervisors%3f_amp=true