PA Special election winner Pam Iovino to the DLCC: You made this happen.

In an email sent today.

PA-12: Marc Friedenberg for Congress announces office openings (Special Election)

STATE COLLEGE -- Democratic candidate for Congress District 12, Marc Friedenberg, announced on Facebook that he will be opening two more offices to prepare for the May 21st Special Election. This is in addition to his location in Sunbury which opened earlier this month. The new offices will be located in Lemont and Williamsport, offering easy access for volunteers or any voter to gain information. The Williamsport office opening will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, March 25, 2019 at 328 W. Third Street. Speeches will start at 6:30 p.m. The Lemont office opening will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 26 at 908 Pike Street. Speeches will start at 7:30 p.m.

Friedenberg’s campaign is gearing up for the most competitive campaign in this district’s history, hoping to ride the Democratic wave of momentum that gave the party 40 new seats in Red Districts in 2018. Helping boost their numbers, the campaign is investing heavily into a grassroots-led field program.



PA Native and Field Director, Josh Levin said, “What we are seeing here is a tremendous amount of local activists ready and willing to do the work needed to win this election. By implementing grassroots organizing, we are empowering the community to raise their own voices and build a lasting movement to continue past this special election.”



“I am humbled and grateful for the outpouring of support coming into this District.” Friedenberg said, “We are going to do all that we can to speak to make the case for a better and smarter government.”



https://www.northcentralpa.com/news/marc-friedenberg-for-congress-announces-office-openings/article_4edbd1c4-4efb-11e9-86d2-53644a2e546b.html

TX-21: Wendy Davis eyeing run for Austin-area congressional seat

Former Democratic gubernatorial nominee and state Sen. Wendy Davis said on a podcast released Friday that she is considering a run for a congressional district that includes parts of Central and South Austin.

Speaking on “The Rabble: TX Politics for the Unruly Mob,” Davis said she is “looking very seriously at Congressional District 21.”

The district, which also includes the north side of San Antonio and six Hill Country counties, is represented by U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican who lives in Hays County just outside Austin. In November, Roy beat Democrat Joseph Kopser by 2.6 percentage points for the seat that had been held by U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, for more than three decades. Smith retired.

“Wendy Davis and her radical left Hollywood views are out-of-step with the Texas Hill Country values I am proud to represent. ... But if she wants to spend a lot of Democrat money to run, we’ll see her on the campaign trail,” Roy tweeted Friday.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, charged with electing Democrats to the U.S. House, is targeting the district among six in Texas that Republicans won by narrow margins in November.

Davis brings the ability to raise money, the experience of being in big races and has relatively high name recognition, said David Crockett, a political scientist at Trinity University in San Antonio.

But, he said, “she wouldn’t be my first choice if I was a Democrat trying to decapitate Roy. At its heart it’s a fairly red district. We’re talking about people who are pretty conservative, and when you can brand Wendy Davis as the one filibustering on abortion rules, you’ve practically lost half the district right there.”


https://www.statesman.com/news/20190405/wendy-davis-eyeing-run-for-austin-area-congressional-seat

Friendly suggestion: Postpone presdeintial donations and give to 2019 local and state candidates

We have a lot of important elections right in front of us that need our immediate attention.

'Virtual Caucuses' Could Skew Iowa's 2020 Electorate Even Older

Once it’s in place, Democratic voters will be able to cast ballots the week before the in-person meetings, with participants allowed to submit a list of as many as five candidates ranked by preference. In the past, they had to show up at school gymnasiums, fire stations, community centers and other gathering places to show their support for a presidential candidate. In 2020, there will be roughly 1,700 such precinct locations.

The Iowa chapter of AARP, the largest advocacy group in the U.S. for people 50 and older, is already preparing to train its members to participate in the virtual caucuses if they’re unable to attend in person. Four of the six scheduled voting sessions are during the day, with the remaining two at 7 p.m.

“I believe the real winners are seniors,” Anderson said. “Those are times that work really well for people who are older and retired.”

Anderson said he expects there will be 60,000 to 75,000 AARP members participating in the 2020 caucuses. The organization has about 370,000 members in Iowa and is one of the largest statewide organizations.

Those 50 and older already typically account for the majority of participants in Iowa, the first state to winnow the field. That age group accounted for 58 percent of Democratic caucus-goers in 2016, according to entrance polls, while 28 percent were 65 and older.

Sanders only received 26 percent of the 65 and older Iowa vote in 2016, while Hillary Clinton was backed by 69 percent of those in that age group. Sanders did much better among younger voters, securing 84 percent from those 17 to 29 (people who are 17 can participate if they turn 18 by Election Day the following November). But they only represented 18 percent of the electorate.

Overall, Sanders nearly tied Clinton in the 2016 caucuses, and he is looking to improve on that performance to break away from other 2020 Democrats. Sanders, like other candidates next year, will have to adjust his strategy to target voters participating in person as well as those taking advantage of the virtual caucus system.

Dave Nagle, a former congressman who also served as chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said he expects both older and younger voters to most heavily take advantage of the new option. “You might see it on the ends of the spectrum,” he said.



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-03/-virtual-caucuses-could-skew-iowa-s-2020-electorate-even-older

Looks like ⁦@TimRyan⁩ may have snagged the ⁦Cardi B⁩ vote!

Jane Castor could make history as Tampa's first openly gay mayor

TAMPA — Jane Castor would be the first out mayor in the city’s history and the first gay woman to lead a major Florida city if she’s elected April 23.

Those facts were celebrated Thursday — two days before the Tampa Pride parade — by a coalition of state and federal LGBTQ advocacy groups who endorsed her candidacy at a Ybor City news conference.

The 59-year-old is already the first woman and first gay woman to have served as Tampa’s police chief. Castor is poised to achieve another first as the only lesbian to become mayor of a major city in the Southeast, advocates say, highlighting the historic implications of her campaign.

That significance was one reason a national equality organization, the Human Rights Campaign, decided to endorse a local candidate — something it normally doesn’t do, said national field director Marty Rouse. The group says it has 3 million members nationwide and 16,000 in Tampa.



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tampabay.com/tampa/jane-castor-could-make-history-as-tampa-bays-first-openly-gay-mayor-20190328/%3ftemplate=amp

'Leave no trace' has become 'hide the evidence': Reno residents sick of being Burning Man base camp

The way to know that garbage came from Burning Man, says Bryan Heller, the assistant director of Reno Public Works, is to probe its surface. If the trash is covered in chalky white dust, you can be darn sure it spent seven days on the alkali sands of Black Rock City, where the annual Burning Man event is held.

The dust isn't so much of an issue for Reno residents, though there are rumors that it's led to clogged hotel plumbing and busted washing machines. What really mellows the cool of the Nevada town's citizenry is the garbage itself. Burning Man attendees — returned from a week of self-discovery and partying on the "playa" — have the propensity to dump trash illegally around the city upon return to civilization.

"Take a drive around Reno in the days following Burning Man, and you will easily see illegally dumped trash just about everywhere," said Reno resident Garrett York. "It'll be covered in playa dust."

Public works has seen "everything from coolers and bicycles to RVs" dumped in Reno after Burning Man. Heller estimates about half-a-dozen camping vehicles get ditched each year in the city. His guys sometimes pick up enough garbage to fill six 30-yard dumpsters.
That's about 400 curbside garbage bins of trash.

Kristen Rothe O'Donnell said the Whole Foods parking lot "looks like a football tailgate" post-Burning Man. "Every trash bin will be overflowing."




https://www.sfgate.com/travel/burningman/article/Burning-Man-garbage-reno-dumping-leave-no-trace-13186812.php?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Pro-Trump Man Charged With Threatening to Kill Rep. Ilhan Omar

The upstate New York man who was arrested on Friday for allegedly threatening to assassinate Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, phoned her office last month and called her “a fucking terrorist,” according to a criminal complaint released on Saturday.

Patrick W. Carlineo, the complaint alleges, called Omar’s office on March 21 and asked a staffer if they worked for the Muslim Brotherhood, vowing “I’ll put a bullet in her fucking skull” before spelling his name and leaving his contact information including his cell phone number. The call was immediately referred to United States Capitol Police who reached out to the FBI.

When being interviewed by the FBI one week later, the 55-year-old Carlineo was defiant, the complaint states, telling a federal investigator that “if our forefathers were still alive, they’d put a bullet in her head.”

“Carlineo stated that he was a patriot, that he loves the President, and that he hates radical Muslims in our government,” the complaint reads.

The FBI found that Carlineo possessed two firearms in his Addison, New York home.



https://www.thedailybeast.com/rep-ilhan-omar-pro-trump-man-patrick-carlineo-charged-with-threatening-to-kill-congresswoman

I would not encourage this.