Kamala Harris issues a statement on the death of Chadwick Boseman

Why the Lightning's Amalie Arena probably won't be a polling place

Several weeks ago, the Lightning reached out to Hillsborough County’s elections office to offer up Amalie Arena as a polling place.

The Lightning thought, based on current happenings around the country, their large building — which is owned by the county and operated by the team — could be of use.

Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer said in a statement that his office has spoken to the Lightning and hasn’t ruled anything out. He noted that large arenas work well as “super sites,” with large numbers of voters from multiple precincts able to cast ballots at the site.

Florida statutes require polling places to be located within the voters’ precinct or a contiguous precinct, which would mean that, under current law and absent an executive order from the governor, only the precincts around Amalie Arena could use the site.



https://www.tampabay.com/sports/lightning/2020/08/28/why-the-lightnings-amalie-arena-probably-wont-be-a-polling-place/

Discussions underway to create polling place at Amway Center (Orlando) following NBA agreement

ORLANDO, Fla. —
Discussions are underway to try to create a voting location inside the Amway Center as part of the settlement of a player strike inside the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World.

One of the commitments that made players comfortable continuing with the season was a promise that owners who also control their arena property will work with local officials to turn the building into a voting location for the 2020 general election to allow for safe, in-person voting.

The strike was prompted by the Milwaukee Bucks' decision to boycott game five of the playoffs against the Orlando Magic following the police killing of a Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.

Sources tell WESH 2 News that discussions have just begun.

In a statement from the city of Orlando's Samantha Holsten, who works in the office of Mayor Buddy Dyer, she said "Amway Center, which is owned and operated by the City of Orlando, has a use agreement with WWE through Oct. 30. We are aware of the recent NBA & NBPA initiatives and will continue to explore the possibility of using the arena as a voting location."

Orange County Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said the discussions are just beginning and no further details are available.



https://www.wesh.com/article/this-day-in-history-martin-luther-king-jr-gives-iconic-i-have-a-dream-speech/28846459

Extra Bonus Tweet of the Day

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CO-03: Pork sliders sold by Republican House candidate gave customers bloody diarrhea.

Lauren Boebert, supporter of the QAnon "deep state" conspiracy theory movement and newly-minted Colorado Republican congressional candidate, has put her restaurant front and center in her campaign.

Shooters Grill, which Boebert co-owns with her husband in Rifle, Colo., has a schtick. Wait staff are required to wear holstered and loaded guns as they serve customers. (For years, they were not required to take training courses.)

t keeps that feeling of the old West alive," Boebert told local TV news station FOX31 in 2019. "The customers have their jokes with the waitresses: 'If I don't tip are you going to hurt me?'"

But three years ago, Boebert's food apparently posed a greater risk to customers than untrained staff after her pork sliders allegedly poisoned dozens of people at a local rodeo, making them nauseous and sending some home with bloody diarrhea, The Daily Beast first reported.





https://www.salon.com/2020/07/14/pork-sliders-sold-by-republican-house-candidate-who-supports-qanon-gave-customers-diarrhea-records/

MN-01: Hagedorn deflects questions, terminates interview

Rep. Jim Hagedorn avoided answering the majority of questions put to him Friday by Rochester-area media about his office's expenditures on printing and mailings that ethics experts have said should be the subject of a House ethics investigation.

"We got an internal review that I started putting together by someone who understands all these complicated rules," Hagedorn said at a public appearance at Channel One Food Bank in Rochester. "We're going to issue that review. And at that time, we'll talk about the whole nine yards."

The Republican congressman rebuffed questions for the next 2-1/2 minutes, then terminated the interview with a "have a good day," and walked away from the media group to his car.

Hagedorn has been embroiled in an ethics controversy since it was reported last week that Hagedorn's office paid $60,000 of his taxpayer-funded House allowance to a Texas-based company that was owned or partly owned by John Sample, a part-time staffer in Hagedorn's congressional office.




https://www.postbulletin.com/news/government-and-politics/6638536-Hagedorn-deflects-questions-terminates-interview#.X0mpcJLrh3Q.twitter

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IA-01: The bigger problem behind Rep. Ashley Hinson's plagiarism

State Rep. Ashley Hinson, Republican candidate for the U.S. House in Iowa’s First District, is a plagiarist.

According to the New York Times digital edition on July 20, 2020, Hinson’s campaign against incumbent Abby Finkenauer “has lifted verbatim sentences on her campaign website and in published op-eds more than a dozen times since her campaign began last year.”

The key problem seems to have been the failure to give credit to the sources of those texts, but the campaign’s plagiarism problem may be a symptom of a deeper problem.

According to the Times’ report, Hinson was credited with — and, therefore responsible for — having written a policy essay, a set of op-eds, and a policy statement — all of which were copied from other sources. In the same story, the Times reported that, “Ms. Hinson’s website also borrowed exact passages from the Des Moines Register and from The Hill, an outlet that covers Washington; in op-eds, she has taken phrases from CNBC; and her platform on veterans issues uses near-identical language to Ms. Finkenauer, her Democratic opponent, among other instances.”

At the journalism school where I teach, we emphasize attributing news content to the sources used in news stories. Given that information, the reader should, hypothetically, be able to re-report the same story using the same sources of facts. As a rule, we take a dim view of inattentive citation errors and an even dimmer view of the active theft of language and ideas.

In an interview with news anchor Ron Steele of KWWL-TV posted on YouTube on July 21, Hinson acknowledged her responsibility for the plagiarized pieces. She explained that the work had been done by D.C.-area political consulting firm, FP1 Strategies. (Who cribs Web material and expects to get away with it? Maybe by the intern?)

Here’s what I think may be the larger issue behind this problem: While it is not unusual for political candidates to hire outside writers, it seems that Hinson needs a staff that reads, too. If her staff had been tracking her issues via the state and national press, they might have avoided the whole problem of plagiarism. But apparently, they weren’t on the job.




https://www.thegazette.com/subject/opinion/guest-columnist/the-bigger-problem-behind-rep-ashley-hinsons-plagiarism-20200801

OH-01: Chabot's sister slams him on Facebook for being 'intertwined' with Donald Trump.

Maryanne Trump Barry apparently isn't the only person who's fed up with her prominent Republican brother.

Steve Chabot's younger sister blasted the long-time Congressman from Cincinnati's West Side after he voted against funding for the postal service last weekend – even inviting his Democrat opponent to put a campaign sign in her yard.

In a Facebook post last Sunday, West Price Hill resident Carol Del Prince said her brother has "lost your way" for being "intertwined with (Donald) Trump and his corrupt administration."

"Enough is enough," Del Prince also wrote in the six-paragraph rant on her brother. She added: "Our country is worth saving, even if it requires hard personal choices like country over family. I wish you wellness and a happy retirement this November." (See Del Prince's full post below.)
Del Prince, 60, declined to discuss specifics about why she publicly criticized Chabot when I reached out to her.

Asked to characterize her relationship with Chabot and whether she's supported him in the past, Del Prince said: "Our family was always very politically diverse. Steve and our dad were the staunch conservatives. That’s it for now."



https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/columnists/politics-extra/2020/08/27/2020-election-gop-congressmans-sister-unleashes-facebook-rant-him/5642660002/