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'Conflicted Congress': Key searchings for from Insider's five-month examination right into government legislators' individual financial resources

‘Conflicted Congress’: Key searchings for from Insider’s five-month examination right into government legislators’ individual financial resources

Rebecca Zisser/Insider From Left: Rep. Pat Fallon, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Jon Ossoff, Rep. Liz Cheney Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc through Getty Images; Hannah McKay-Pool/Getty Images; Liz Lynch/Getty Images; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Paras Griffin/Getty Images; David Hume Kennerly/Center for Creative…

[vinayv224]

The future of the Senate majority could hinge on two Georgia runoffs 

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, Rev. Raphael Warnock, Sen. David Perdue and Jon Ossoff. | Justin Sullivan; Jessica McGowan; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call; Paras Griffin via Getty Images

It will take about two more months to know which party controls the Senate.

The battle for control of the US Senate could come down to Georgia.

Both of Georgia’s Senate races will go to a runoff election to be held on January 5, 2021. With a small number of votes still to be counted in Georgia, particularly in the Democratic-leaning Atlanta suburbs, Republican Sen. David Perdue did not hit the 50 percent threshold he needed to avoid a runoff race with Democrat Jon Ossoff.

As of 7 pm ET on November 5, Perdue was sitting at 49.89 percent, compared to 47.80 percent for Ossoff, according to Decision Desk.

That’s runoff No. 2 for Georgia voters. That result has already been determined for the race between Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock in the special election for a Senate seat vacated in 2019 by retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson. That special election initially featured 20 candidates in an all-party “jungle primary,” so a runoff was all but guaranteed.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Sen. Kelly Loeffler speaks to her supporters in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 3.

Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

Rev. Raphael Warnock arrives at his campaign’s election night event in Atlanta on November 3.

At first glance, this might be a surprise for national political observers. Georgia has a long history of being conservative. Even though it has elected statewide Democrats more recently than some of its Southern peers, they were often conservative white Democratic men.

But Georgia has the potential to flip for former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, and now they have a shot at not one but two Democrats making competitive runs for the Senate.

“Democrats are going to be very excited in Georgia but also nationally,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock told Vox. “Ossoff and Warnock, any kind of resource or help they need, they’re going to get.”

Senate Democrats are still a few seats short of a Senate majority, but the fact that both Senate races in Georgia will go to a runoff means the battle for control of the Senate is not over just yet.

All eyes — and all fundraising dollars — are about to shift to Georgia for the next two months.

Why Georgia is so competitive this year

A traditionally Republican Southern state, Georgia has become more competitive for Democrats year after year.

“Counties and suburbs of Atlanta are moving at light speed away from Republicans,” said Cook Political Report Senate editor Jessica Taylor, who rates both Georgia races as toss-ups. “Trump has accelerated a more natural evolution, but that has made it hard.”

Atlanta’s diversifying suburbs were already worrisome for Republicans before 2020, but they appear to be the epicenter of Democratic strength this year. The GOP is also watching as existing trends are being hastened by a combination of white suburban voters moving away from Trump and increased turnout among Black voters.

The metro Atlanta area is booming, and a lot of people moving there are young and diverse. Increasingly, they’re voting Democratic.

Between 2010 and 2019, the area’s population grew from about 5.3 million people to more than 6 million, according to data from the US Census Bureau, reported by Curbed. That growth put the Atlanta metro area fourth in growth nationwide, behind Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix (Senate seats in Texas and Arizona were also considered Democratic targets this year).

“Every area in metro Atlanta is growing,” state Rep. Angelika Kausche, a Democrat, recently told Vox. “People come here for the education, for the schools, for the quality of life.” That has brought legions of diverse, younger voters to Atlanta’s metro area.

As the New York Times recently reported, “white residents now make up fewer than three in five voters in Georgia, and a wave of migration to the Atlanta area over the past decade has added roughly three quarters of a million people to the state’s major Democratic stronghold.”

Amid the influx to the Atlanta suburbs, political observers in Georgia have been watching elections get closer and closer. In the 2018 governor’s race, Democrat Stacey Abrams lost to then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp by a little more than 50,000 votes — a scare for Georgia Republicans. Still, Perdue’s campaign believes the Republican’s ability to draw more votes will boost him in the runoff.

“Perdue will finish this election in first place with substantially more votes than his Democrat opponent,” Perdue campaign manager Ben Fry said. “Currently, Perdue’s lead is double the margin of defeat that Stacey Abrams faced for governor just two years ago.”

John Bazemore/AP

Sen. David Perdue speaks to supporters in Atlanta on November 2.

Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

Jon Ossoff waves to supporters on November 3 in Atlanta.

The runoff could prove difficult for Democrats to win; the party’s strategy in Southern states like Georgia involved harnessing the large voter turnout that typically accompanies presidential elections. It could be hard for the candidates to muster the same level of enthusiasm for these runoff elections, which has often given Republicans the edge in past years.

“We haven’t had many general runoffs. The one constant has been Republicans won all of them,” Bullock told Vox. “Republicans have done a better job of getting their voters back to the polls.”

But, he added, “There being two high-profile runoffs, this may help Democrats get their voters out.”

Abrams’s group Fair Fight and other voting rights groups like the New Georgia Project have been putting a ton of effort into registering and turning out Black voters at high rates this year. The state has already hit record registration levels, with about 7.6 million voters registered. And since early voting started, more than 2.7 million voters have cast ballots — at least 1 million of whom were Black.

“Georgia has by far the largest percentage of Black voters of any battleground state,” Abrams told Vox in a recent email interview.

Where the battle for control of the Senate stands

Georgia represents the narrowest of paths for Democrats to flip the Senate, and it could still be a tricky feat to pull off.

The North Carolina Senate race between Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and his Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham has also not been called and likely won’t be before November 12, which is the final date for mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be received in that state. Votes are also still being counted in the Republican-leaning state of Alaska, which also has a contested Senate race (albeit one that Republicans are favored to win).

Democrats needed a net gain of three seats to flip the Senate to blue if Biden wins, which is looking more likely. The race for the Senate came down to 10 or so competitive races, but Republican incumbents won the vast majority of them.

As expected, Democrats lost Sen. Doug Jones’s seat in Alabama and flipped a Republican seat in Colorado. Democrats hung on to vulnerable incumbent Gary Peters’s seat in Michigan and are expected to flip another seat in Arizona, although Vox’s partner Decision Desk hasn’t yet called that race. Longtime Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) won her race for reelection, a major blow to Democrats’ hopes of flipping the majority.

Megan Varner/Getty Images

Georgia represents the narrowest of paths for Democrats to flip the Senate; it could be a very tricky feat to pull off.

Democrats can afford to lose North Carolina only if they flip both Georgia seats. But it’s worth repeating just how tough this could be. Throughout the year, Democrats saw North Carolina as more competitive for them than Georgia. Even though Perdue hasn’t avoided a runoff, he has more votes than Ossoff. And runoff elections historically have been worse for Democrats because turnout will likely be lower than a high-turnout presidential election.

“If overtime is required when all of the votes have been counted, we’re ready, and we will win,” Perdue campaign manager Fry said in a statement.

Ossoff’s campaign also released a defiant statement on Thursday.

“The votes are still being counted, but we are confident that Jon Ossoff’s historic performance in Georgia has forced Senator David Perdue to continue defending his indefensible record of unemployment, disease, and corruption,” Ossoff campaign manager Ellen Foster said.

The race in Georgia isn’t over yet.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/351Eh3z from Blogger https://ift.tt/351zVcu via IFTTT

[youngandhungryent]

GO!: Angela Rye Confirms She And Common Are No Longer An Item

Source: UNITED STATES – MARCH 1: Angela Rye, founder of Impact Strategies, poses in Washington on Friday, March 1, 2013. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) 

Celebrity relationships can either go amazingly well or crash and burn. Unfortunately one of our favorite duos did not make it.

Bossip is reporting that Angela Rye and Common are no longer dating. It has been rumored the two had stopped seeing each other for some time but neither had touched on the elephant in the room. On her recent “Kwanzaa Edition: 2019 Year in Review podcast” she finally spoke on the subject when responding to questions from her fans during her #AskAngela segment.

When asked “What happened with you and Common?! I just love to see black love!” the political analyst responded with a very detailed answer that gave insight on why the two went their separate ways.  “What I would say happened is we broke up. We were together for about a year this time and we broke up, I think it was September-ish maybe, because we just want different things” she revealed.

“This was right after the time that I realized I was going to take the second godson, the 9-year-old [Ryan], more often. I had told him about it the day before. We had been talking probably for two months about ‘Let’s see where things go’ because I’m leaning towards ‘I want kids’ and he was leaning towards ‘I don’t know,’ and I think when somebody tells you they don’t know they don’t really want that, they just don’t want to hurt you” she theorized”.

Rye went on to explain that it all boiled down to being at different stages of their respective lives. “For me, I was like, I’m clear, I’m getting clarity around what I want for myself…so the thing that I would say is he is more established in his career a we have a little bit of an age difference and he has a fully grown wonderful human daughter I love, Omoye, in law school so not wanting to start over is a thing.”

According to her they ended things on a good note citing they still will be friendly. ”I remember us having this conversation the day after we talked about Ryan and he said ‘I don’t know if I want to have kids,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know what else there is to talk about.’ I think it was an amicable parting of ways. But we’re very clear about the fact that we were not aligned in those interests. We will always be friends. He’s a really good person. I’m kind of glad you asked this, there’s so many stories about what happens.”

You can see her discuss Common and several other pivotal 2019 moments including the Trump impeachment, Gabrielle Union versus America’s Got Talent and more below.

Photo: Axelle / Bauer-Griffin / FilmMagic

source https://hiphopwired.com/833622/angela-rye-common/

[techbotic]

Former NASA administrator says Lunar Gateway is “a stupid architecture”

Enlarge / Michael Griffin, under secretary of defense for research and engineering, testifies during a House Armed Services Committee in April. (credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

In recent weeks, NASA officials have been running a charm offensive on their proposed "Gateway" in lunar space, which would serve as a space station in a distant orbit around the Moon. The agency has proposed this interim step in lieu of returning directly to the lunar surface with humans. The agency has even started talking about the Gateway as a "spaceship," presumably because this sounds more exciting than a "station."

Public criticism of the proposal has been limited to date, in part because so much of the aerospace community has the potential to earn contracts by either helping to build the lunar space station or supply it with consumables once it is up and running in the mid-2020s. (We spoke to a few of the public critics for a feature published in September.)

However, during a meeting of the National Space Council Users' Advisory Group on Thursday, some of the criticism we've heard privately spilled into public view. One of the committee's members, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, declared that, "I'm quite opposed to the Gateway."

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Former NASA administrator says Lunar Gateway is “a stupid architecture” published first on https://medium.com/@CPUCHamp

[digicrunchpage]

Former NASA administrator says Lunar Gateway is “a stupid architecture”

Enlarge / Michael Griffin, under secretary of defense for research and engineering, testifies during a House Armed Services Committee in April. (credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

In recent weeks, NASA officials have been running a charm offensive on their proposed "Gateway" in lunar space, which would serve as a space station in a distant orbit around the Moon. The agency has proposed this interim step in lieu of returning directly to the lunar surface with humans. The agency has even started talking about the Gateway as a "spaceship," presumably because this sounds more exciting than a "station."

Public criticism of the proposal has been limited to date, in part because so much of the aerospace community has the potential to earn contracts by either helping to build the lunar space station or supply it with consumables once it is up and running in the mid-2020s. (We spoke to a few of the public critics for a feature published in September.)

However, during a meeting of the National Space Council Users' Advisory Group on Thursday, some of the criticism we've heard privately spilled into public view. One of the committee's members, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, declared that, "I'm quite opposed to the Gateway."

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Former NASA administrator says Lunar Gateway is “a stupid architecture” published first on https://medium.com/@HDDMagReview

[crazy-queen-winx]

[waltersew-blog]

Sorry this took so long to get to Rob

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nfl jerseys Sorry this took so long to get to Rob. In some ways Im excited to see what tomorrow has to bring, but do often reminisce. I remember waiting for Saturdays with baited breath, getting up at 5:00am so you could see the morning cartoons, or doing everything you could to get your chores done so you could go outside and play because that is where your friends were nfl jerseys.

[vinayv224]

Why Georgia was so competitive for Democrats this year

Fulton County Elections Director Richard Barron speaks to reporters about the ballot count in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 4. | Brynn Anderson/AP

How Georgia became a swing state in 2020.

Georgia could be on track to vote for its first Democratic presidential candidate since 1992. With about 98 percent of the vote counted Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden is only about 0.07 percentage points behind President Donald Trump — and the remaining ballots are expected to favor the Democrat.

It’s striking that this traditionally conservative state appears poised to elect Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, but the result is also notable given the state will be the site of two competitive runoff elections — featuring Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock — that could decide which party controls the US Senate.

It’s also a result that defies conventional wisdom.

About a month ago, I talked to Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who predicted that even with the rapid demographic change taking place in reliably Republican-leaning Sun Belt states, it would take at least one more political cycle to turn Texas and Georgia into true swing states.

Ayres’s prediction turned out to be true for Texas, where Republicans had a good night on Tuesday. But it seems there could be a surprising result in Georgia.

John Bazemore/AP

Supporters of President Trump demonstrate outside the State Farm Arena, where Fulton County has its vote-counting operation, on November 5.

John Bazemore/AP

Democratic and Republican representatives review absentee ballots at the Fulton County Election preparation Center in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 4.

A traditionally Republican Southern state, Georgia has been growing more competitive for Democrats year after year, buoyed by the growing Atlanta metro area. Just 5 percentage points — or about 211,000 votes — separated Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 election. In 2018, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams came within less than 55,000 votes of winning the governor’s mansion.

There’s a simple explanation, according to University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock, a Georgia politics expert: In Georgia, there are conservative rural voters and there more diverse Democratic urban and suburban voters, who are becoming more reliably Democratic with time.

“Urban areas are growing, and as they grow, Democrats inch closer and closer to getting 50 percent,” Bullock said.

The political influence of Atlanta’s suburbs, explained

The pockets of blue visible below on Georgia’s 2020 electoral map are around its major cities of Atlanta, Savannah, Columbus, and Augusta. But political observers say there’s no question Atlanta wields the most political power.

There are 10 suburban counties in the metro Atlanta area that are all blue.

Vox/Decision Desk

Some of these counties are where much of the outstanding vote in 2020 is concentrated; they’re a large part of the reason Biden is doing so well, and why Senate Democratic candidates also had relatively good nights in Georgia.

“Counties and suburbs of Atlanta are moving at light speed away from Republicans,” said Cook Political Report Senate editor Jessica Taylor, who rated both Georgia races as toss-ups. “Trump has accelerated a more natural evolution, but that has made it hard.”

Atlanta’s diversifying suburbs were already worrisome for Republicans before 2020, but they appear to be the epicenter of Democratic strength this year. The GOP is also watching as existing trends are being hastened by a combination of white suburban voters moving away from Trump and increased turnout among Black voters.

The metro Atlanta area is booming, and a lot of people moving there are young and diverse. Increasingly, they’re voting Democratic.

Analysis of the Black youth vote from Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement found that 90 percent of Black voters ages 18 to 29 cast ballots for Biden in Georgia, compared to just 33 percent of young white voters in that state. The center also found that Biden did significantly better in Georgia counties with a higher concentration of young Black voters.

Between 2010 and 2019, the area’s population shot up from about 5.3 million people to over 6 million, according to data from the US Census, reported by Curbed. That growth put the Atlanta metro area fourth in growth nationwide, behind Houston and Dallas, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona (Senate seats in Texas and Arizona were also considered Democratic targets this year).

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

Rev. Raphael Warnock, Democratic candidate for Georgia Senate, and Stacey Abrams campaign on November 3. Abrams’s group Fair Fight and other voting rights groups have been putting a lot of effort into registering Black voters at high rates this year.

“Every area in metro Atlanta is growing,” state Rep. Angelika Kausche, a Democrat, recently told Vox. “People come here for the education, for the schools, for the quality of life.” That has brought legions of diverse, younger voters to Atlanta’s metro area. As the New York Times recently reported, “white residents now make up fewer than three in five voters in Georgia.”

Abrams’s group Fair Fight and other voting rights groups like the New Georgia Project have been putting a ton of effort into registering and turning out Black voters at high rates this year. And those efforts have been successful. The state has already hit record registration levels, with about 7.6 million voters registered. And since early voting started, more than 2.7 million voters have cast ballots — at least 1 million of whom were Black.

Those results are a reminder, as Abrams told Vox in a recent email interview, that “Georgia has by far the largest percentage of Black voters of any battleground state.”

“We’re going to have record turnout,” Abrams told Vox. “There is tremendous enthusiasm, particularly on the Democratic side, and Black voters and voters of color writ large have been hit hard by the pandemic and economic crises that Donald Trump has so badly mishandled.”

Georgia will take center stage in national politics for the next few months

All eyes — and fundraising dollars — are about to shift to Georgia for the next two months.

It’s now increasingly likely that both of Georgia’s Senate races will go to a runoff election, set for January 5, 2021. With votes still to be counted in Georgia, particularly in the Democratic-leaning Atlanta suburbs, it Republican Sen. David Perdue has not hit the 50 percent threshold he needed to avoid a runoff race with Democrat Jon Ossoff.

The prolonged Ossoff/Perdue matchup will be runoff No. 2 for Georgia voters. Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock are also headed to a runoff in the special election for a Senate seat vacated in 2019 by retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson. That special election initially featured 20 candidates in an all-party “jungle primary,” and with the vote set to be split between so many candidates, it was all but guaranteed it would go to a runoff.

Justin Sullivan; Jessica McGowan; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call; Paras Griffin via Getty Images

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, Rev. Raphael Warnock, Sen. David Perdue, and Jon Ossoff.

The runoffs are a direct result of population growth — particularly amid the influx to the Atlanta suburbs, political observers in Georgia have been watching elections get closer and closer. The 2018 governor’s race, for example, was a scare for Georgia Republicans. And Georgia provided congressional Democrats some good news during an otherwise dismal night; House Democrats appear to be on track to flip the state’s Seventh Congressional District, and the potential runoffs are the only ray of hope Senate Democrats have left to win back a majority.

That said, the Senate runoffs could become difficult for Democrats: The party’s strategy in Southern states like Georgia has generally involved harnessing the large voter turnout that typically accompanies presidential elections. It could be hard for the candidates to muster the same level of enthusiasm for these runoff elections, a difficulty that has often given Republicans the edge in past years.

“We haven’t had many general election runoffs. The one constant has been Republicans won all of them,” Bullock told Vox. “Republicans have done a better job of getting their voters back to the polls.”

But, he added: “There being two high-profile runoffs this year may help Democrats get their voters out.”

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/32ixEbh from Blogger https://ift.tt/2IdBD1t via IFTTT

[theconservativebrief]

‘We will fight for the soul of this nation…’

Elizabeth Warren/IMAGE: MSNBC via YouTube

(Maria Mendez, CQ-Roll Call) Chants of “Hell no, Kavanaugh” clashed with “Roe has got to go” outside the Supreme Court on Monday night, moments after President Donald Trump announced Judge Brett Kavanaugh as his pick.

As hundreds of protesters, waving signs and megaphones, gathered in front of the court, Sen. Elizabeth Warren struggled to be heard over the shouts.

“Donald Trump is not a king. No one makes it to the Supreme Court without a majority in the Senate,” the Massachusetts senator told the crowd.

Warren, whose name has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate for 2020, called on her Democratic colleagues in the chamber to stand firm in the coming fight to block Kavanaugh, a conservative currently serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

She and others worry that Kavanaugh will eliminate the legal right for women to terminate their unborn babies by upending the Roe v. Wade precedent that affirmed the right to an abortion in 1973.

Earlier Monday, Warren tweeted a video warning that the commander-in-chief’s pick could endanger the rights of “marginalized groups” and urging people to join her.

“If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines, now is the time to jump in,” Warren said in the video.

Sens. Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker  also spoke at the rally, which was organized by the leftist Center for American Progress.

Sanders was greeted with cheers and asked the crowd if they were ready for a battle.

“This is a tough fight, but if we stand together we’re going to win,” the Vermont Democrat said.

Cory Booker/IMAGE: ABC via YouTube

Booker urged people not to give up.

“We’ve got challenges ahead but we cannot grow weary,” the New Jersey Democrat said.

Republicans set the most recent precedent for blocking Supreme Court justice nominations when they refused to confirm President Barack Obama’s pick.

Some Democrats have vowed to stall Trump’s nominee, though their options for doing so have dwindled.

As pro-choice members of the crowd jostled with anti-abortion protesters who had to turned out to support Trump’s nominee, leaders of liberal groups took their turn at the microphone to voice their disdain for Kavanaugh and the administration.

“We must do our constitutional duty and reject this nominee,” said Chad Griffin, president of the LGBT agenda advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.

Christin Battle, director of YP4, reminded the crowd of the high stakes of a lifelong appointment, saying young people will suffer the most from Trump’s pick.

Warren amped up the rhetoric.

With her fist raised, Warren prompted the crowd to get ready for this fight.

“We will fight for the soul of this nation,” she said.

[embedded content]

©2018 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Liberty Headlines editor Paul Chesser contributed.

Original Source -> Sen. Pocohontas Rants w/ the Left on Supreme Court Steps

via The Conservative Brief

[thepuppytrainingtips]

Roll Call After Dog Dies On United Airlines Flight Sen. John Kennedy Proposes Bill Roll Call Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., will propose legislation to prevent airlines from putting animals in overhead storage bins. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call). Griffin Connoll… https://t.co/4POI5fIXeL https://t.co/ClisGacAl9 http://twitter.com/puppy_training_/status/974330453443440640

[omcik-blog]

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/rough-year-for-hedge-funds-only-two-managers-topped-1-billion/

Rough year for hedge funds: Only two managers topped $1 billion

In a year where investors flocked from hedge funds, it’s probably not a surprise that the biggest names in the business weren’t quite as big as they were in the past.

Don’t weep too much for the $3 trillion industry’s magnates: there were still plenty of billions to go around.

But 2016 marked the worst year since 2005 for the 25 managers who made the most money, as ranked in the annual Rich List from Institutional Investor’s Alpha.

Combined, the group made a paltry $9.4 billion, barely half what it pulled down three years ago and less even than the financial crisis low point in 2008, when they made $11.6 billion. Moreover, the $130 million needed to make the list was the lowest minimum since 2011.

The landscape was difficult last year, with the industry underperforming the market amid low volatility and dispersion. Hedge funds overall, as gauged by the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index, returned just 5.5 percent compared with the S&P 500’s total return of just below 12 percent.

Assets edged over $3 trillion for the first time, despite $70.1 billion in redemptions. Because of the positive returns, total capital increased $121 billion.

There were just two billion-dollar earners on the Rich List: James Simons, of Renaissance Technologies, who made $1.6 billion; and Ray Dalio, the Bridgewater Associates head who runs the biggest fund in the world and made $1.4 billion. Simons tied for first last year and is the only manager to make the list each of the 16 years.

For the list of all 25 managers on the Rich List, .

This is the top 10:

1. James Simons

2. Ray Dalio

3 (tie). John Overdeck, Two Sigma, $750 million.

3 (tie). David Siegel, Two Sigma, $750 million.

5. David Tepper, Appaloosa Management, $700 million.

6. Kenneth Griffin, Citadel, $600 million.

7. Paul Singer, Elliott Management, $590 million.

8. Michael Hintze, CQS, $450 million.

9. David Shaw, D.E. Shaw Group, $415 million.

10. Israel (Izzy) Englander, Millennium Management, $410 million.

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New Post has been published on douggjohnson

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DeRozan, Raptors overcome Griffin's triple-double

TORONTO (AP) DeMar DeRozan had 31 points and the Toronto Raptors overcame a triple-double from Blake Griffin to beat the Los Angeles Clippers 118-109 on Monday night.

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Fulton County Elections Director Richard Barron speaks to reporters about the ballot count in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 4. | Brynn Anderson/AP

How Georgia became a swing state in 2020.

Georgia could be on track to vote for its first Democratic presidential candidate since 1992. With about 98 percent of the vote counted Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden is only about 0.07 percentage points behind President Donald Trump — and the remaining ballots are expected to favor the Democrat.

It’s striking that this traditionally conservative state appears poised to elect Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, but the result is also notable given the state will be the site of two competitive runoff elections — featuring Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock — that could decide which party controls the US Senate.

It’s also a result that defies conventional wisdom.

About a month ago, I talked to Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who predicted that even with the rapid demographic change taking place in reliably Republican-leaning Sun Belt states, it would take at least one more political cycle to turn Texas and Georgia into true swing states.

Ayres’s prediction turned out to be true for Texas, where Republicans had a good night on Tuesday. But it seems there could be a surprising result in Georgia.

John Bazemore/AP

Supporters of President Trump demonstrate outside the State Farm Arena, where Fulton County has its vote-counting operation, on November 5.

John Bazemore/AP

Democratic and Republican representatives review absentee ballots at the Fulton County Election preparation Center in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 4.

A traditionally Republican Southern state, Georgia has been growing more competitive for Democrats year after year, buoyed by the growing Atlanta metro area. Just 5 percentage points — or about 211,000 votes — separated Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 election. In 2018, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams came within less than 55,000 votes of winning the governor’s mansion.

There’s a simple explanation, according to University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock, a Georgia politics expert: In Georgia, there are conservative rural voters and there more diverse Democratic urban and suburban voters, who are becoming more reliably Democratic with time.

“Urban areas are growing, and as they grow, Democrats inch closer and closer to getting 50 percent,” Bullock said.

The political influence of Atlanta’s suburbs, explained

The pockets of blue visible below on Georgia’s 2020 electoral map are around its major cities of Atlanta, Savannah, Columbus, and Augusta. But political observers say there’s no question Atlanta wields the most political power.

There are 10 suburban counties in the metro Atlanta area that are all blue.

Vox/Decision Desk

Some of these counties are where much of the outstanding vote in 2020 is concentrated; they’re a large part of the reason Biden is doing so well, and why Senate Democratic candidates also had relatively good nights in Georgia.

“Counties and suburbs of Atlanta are moving at light speed away from Republicans,” said Cook Political Report Senate editor Jessica Taylor, who rated both Georgia races as toss-ups. “Trump has accelerated a more natural evolution, but that has made it hard.”

Atlanta’s diversifying suburbs were already worrisome for Republicans before 2020, but they appear to be the epicenter of Democratic strength this year. The GOP is also watching as existing trends are being hastened by a combination of white suburban voters moving away from Trump and increased turnout among Black voters.

The metro Atlanta area is booming, and a lot of people moving there are young and diverse. Increasingly, they’re voting Democratic.

Analysis of the Black youth vote from Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement found that 90 percent of Black voters ages 18 to 29 cast ballots for Biden in Georgia, compared to just 33 percent of young white voters in that state. The center also found that Biden did significantly better in Georgia counties with a higher concentration of young Black voters.

Between 2010 and 2019, the area’s population shot up from about 5.3 million people to over 6 million, according to data from the US Census, reported by Curbed. That growth put the Atlanta metro area fourth in growth nationwide, behind Houston and Dallas, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona (Senate seats in Texas and Arizona were also considered Democratic targets this year).

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

Rev. Raphael Warnock, Democratic candidate for Georgia Senate, and Stacey Abrams campaign on November 3. Abrams’s group Fair Fight and other voting rights groups have been putting a lot of effort into registering Black voters at high rates this year.

“Every area in metro Atlanta is growing,” state Rep. Angelika Kausche, a Democrat, recently told Vox. “People come here for the education, for the schools, for the quality of life.” That has brought legions of diverse, younger voters to Atlanta’s metro area. As the New York Times recently reported, “white residents now make up fewer than three in five voters in Georgia.”

Abrams’s group Fair Fight and other voting rights groups like the New Georgia Project have been putting a ton of effort into registering and turning out Black voters at high rates this year. And those efforts have been successful. The state has already hit record registration levels, with about 7.6 million voters registered. And since early voting started, more than 2.7 million voters have cast ballots — at least 1 million of whom were Black.

Those results are a reminder, as Abrams told Vox in a recent email interview, that “Georgia has by far the largest percentage of Black voters of any battleground state.”

“We’re going to have record turnout,” Abrams told Vox. “There is tremendous enthusiasm, particularly on the Democratic side, and Black voters and voters of color writ large have been hit hard by the pandemic and economic crises that Donald Trump has so badly mishandled.”

Georgia will take center stage in national politics for the next few months

All eyes — and fundraising dollars — are about to shift to Georgia for the next two months.

It’s now increasingly likely that both of Georgia’s Senate races will go to a runoff election, set for January 5, 2021. With votes still to be counted in Georgia, particularly in the Democratic-leaning Atlanta suburbs, it Republican Sen. David Perdue has not hit the 50 percent threshold he needed to avoid a runoff race with Democrat Jon Ossoff.

The prolonged Ossoff/Perdue matchup will be runoff No. 2 for Georgia voters. Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock are also headed to a runoff in the special election for a Senate seat vacated in 2019 by retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson. That special election initially featured 20 candidates in an all-party “jungle primary,” and with the vote set to be split between so many candidates, it was all but guaranteed it would go to a runoff.

Justin Sullivan; Jessica McGowan; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call; Paras Griffin via Getty Images

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, Rev. Raphael Warnock, Sen. David Perdue, and Jon Ossoff.

The runoffs are a direct result of population growth — particularly amid the influx to the Atlanta suburbs, political observers in Georgia have been watching elections get closer and closer. The 2018 governor’s race, for example, was a scare for Georgia Republicans. And Georgia provided congressional Democrats some good news during an otherwise dismal night; House Democrats appear to be on track to flip the state’s Seventh Congressional District, and the potential runoffs are the only ray of hope Senate Democrats have left to win back a majority.

That said, the Senate runoffs could become difficult for Democrats: The party’s strategy in Southern states like Georgia has generally involved harnessing the large voter turnout that typically accompanies presidential elections. It could be hard for the candidates to muster the same level of enthusiasm for these runoff elections, a difficulty that has often given Republicans the edge in past years.

“We haven’t had many general election runoffs. The one constant has been Republicans won all of them,” Bullock told Vox. “Republicans have done a better job of getting their voters back to the polls.”

But, he added: “There being two high-profile runoffs this year may help Democrats get their voters out.”

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[vinayv224]

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, Rev. Raphael Warnock, Sen. David Perdue and Jon Ossoff. | Justin Sullivan; Jessica McGowan; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call; Paras Griffin via Getty Images

It will take about two more months to know which party controls the Senate.

The battle for control of the US Senate could come down to Georgia.

Both of Georgia’s Senate races will go to a runoff election to be held on January 5, 2021. With a small number of votes still to be counted in Georgia, particularly in the Democratic-leaning Atlanta suburbs, Republican Sen. David Perdue did not hit the 50 percent threshold he needed to avoid a runoff race with Democrat Jon Ossoff.

As of 7 pm ET on November 5, Perdue was sitting at 49.89 percent, compared to 47.80 percent for Ossoff, according to Decision Desk.

That’s runoff No. 2 for Georgia voters. That result has already been determined for the race between Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock in the special election for a Senate seat vacated in 2019 by retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson. That special election initially featured 20 candidates in an all-party “jungle primary,” so a runoff was all but guaranteed.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Sen. Kelly Loeffler speaks to her supporters in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 3.

Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

Rev. Raphael Warnock arrives at his campaign’s election night event in Atlanta on November 3.

At first glance, this might be a surprise for national political observers. Georgia has a long history of being conservative. Even though it has elected statewide Democrats more recently than some of its Southern peers, they were often conservative white Democratic men.

But Georgia has the potential to flip for former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, and now they have a shot at not one but two Democrats making competitive runs for the Senate.

“Democrats are going to be very excited in Georgia but also nationally,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock told Vox. “Ossoff and Warnock, any kind of resource or help they need, they’re going to get.”

Senate Democrats are still a few seats short of a Senate majority, but the fact that both Senate races in Georgia will go to a runoff means the battle for control of the Senate is not over just yet.

All eyes — and all fundraising dollars — are about to shift to Georgia for the next two months.

Why Georgia is so competitive this year

A traditionally Republican Southern state, Georgia has become more competitive for Democrats year after year.

“Counties and suburbs of Atlanta are moving at light speed away from Republicans,” said Cook Political Report Senate editor Jessica Taylor, who rates both Georgia races as toss-ups. “Trump has accelerated a more natural evolution, but that has made it hard.”

Atlanta’s diversifying suburbs were already worrisome for Republicans before 2020, but they appear to be the epicenter of Democratic strength this year. The GOP is also watching as existing trends are being hastened by a combination of white suburban voters moving away from Trump and increased turnout among Black voters.

The metro Atlanta area is booming, and a lot of people moving there are young and diverse. Increasingly, they’re voting Democratic.

Between 2010 and 2019, the area’s population grew from about 5.3 million people to more than 6 million, according to data from the US Census Bureau, reported by Curbed. That growth put the Atlanta metro area fourth in growth nationwide, behind Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix (Senate seats in Texas and Arizona were also considered Democratic targets this year).

“Every area in metro Atlanta is growing,” state Rep. Angelika Kausche, a Democrat, recently told Vox. “People come here for the education, for the schools, for the quality of life.” That has brought legions of diverse, younger voters to Atlanta’s metro area.

As the New York Times recently reported, “white residents now make up fewer than three in five voters in Georgia, and a wave of migration to the Atlanta area over the past decade has added roughly three quarters of a million people to the state’s major Democratic stronghold.”

Amid the influx to the Atlanta suburbs, political observers in Georgia have been watching elections get closer and closer. In the 2018 governor’s race, Democrat Stacey Abrams lost to then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp by a little more than 50,000 votes — a scare for Georgia Republicans. Still, Perdue’s campaign believes the Republican’s ability to draw more votes will boost him in the runoff.

“Perdue will finish this election in first place with substantially more votes than his Democrat opponent,” Perdue campaign manager Ben Fry said. “Currently, Perdue’s lead is double the margin of defeat that Stacey Abrams faced for governor just two years ago.”

John Bazemore/AP

Sen. David Perdue speaks to supporters in Atlanta on November 2.

Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

Jon Ossoff waves to supporters on November 3 in Atlanta.

The runoff could prove difficult for Democrats to win; the party’s strategy in Southern states like Georgia involved harnessing the large voter turnout that typically accompanies presidential elections. It could be hard for the candidates to muster the same level of enthusiasm for these runoff elections, which has often given Republicans the edge in past years.

“We haven’t had many general runoffs. The one constant has been Republicans won all of them,” Bullock told Vox. “Republicans have done a better job of getting their voters back to the polls.”

But, he added, “There being two high-profile runoffs, this may help Democrats get their voters out.”

Abrams’s group Fair Fight and other voting rights groups like the New Georgia Project have been putting a ton of effort into registering and turning out Black voters at high rates this year. The state has already hit record registration levels, with about 7.6 million voters registered. And since early voting started, more than 2.7 million voters have cast ballots — at least 1 million of whom were Black.

“Georgia has by far the largest percentage of Black voters of any battleground state,” Abrams told Vox in a recent email interview.

Where the battle for control of the Senate stands

Georgia represents the narrowest of paths for Democrats to flip the Senate, and it could still be a tricky feat to pull off.

The North Carolina Senate race between Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and his Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham has also not been called and likely won’t be before November 12, which is the final date for mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be received in that state. Votes are also still being counted in the Republican-leaning state of Alaska, which also has a contested Senate race (albeit one that Republicans are favored to win).

Democrats needed a net gain of three seats to flip the Senate to blue if Biden wins, which is looking more likely. The race for the Senate came down to 10 or so competitive races, but Republican incumbents won the vast majority of them.

As expected, Democrats lost Sen. Doug Jones’s seat in Alabama and flipped a Republican seat in Colorado. Democrats hung on to vulnerable incumbent Gary Peters’s seat in Michigan and are expected to flip another seat in Arizona, although Vox’s partner Decision Desk hasn’t yet called that race. Longtime Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) won her race for reelection, a major blow to Democrats’ hopes of flipping the majority.

Megan Varner/Getty Images

Georgia represents the narrowest of paths for Democrats to flip the Senate; it could be a very tricky feat to pull off.

Democrats can afford to lose North Carolina only if they flip both Georgia seats. But it’s worth repeating just how tough this could be. Throughout the year, Democrats saw North Carolina as more competitive for them than Georgia. Even though Perdue hasn’t avoided a runoff, he has more votes than Ossoff. And runoff elections historically have been worse for Democrats because turnout will likely be lower than a high-turnout presidential election.

“If overtime is required when all of the votes have been counted, we’re ready, and we will win,” Perdue campaign manager Fry said in a statement.

Ossoff’s campaign also released a defiant statement on Thursday.

“The votes are still being counted, but we are confident that Jon Ossoff’s historic performance in Georgia has forced Senator David Perdue to continue defending his indefensible record of unemployment, disease, and corruption,” Ossoff campaign manager Ellen Foster said.

The race in Georgia isn’t over yet.

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[theconservativebrief]

LAWYER: ‘What’s being asked of Special Agent Strzok is to participate in what anyone can recognize as a trap…’

Peter Strzok/IMAGE: Fox Business via YouTube

(Griffin Connolly, CQ-Roll Call) FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok will testify before the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees July 10, the first time the embattled Justice Department official will speak in a public forum about his involvement in the 2016 investigations into possible ties between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia and Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Republicans in Congress have railed against Strzok for months after an extensive series of texts from 2016 between Strzok and his mistress, lawyer Lisa Page, emerged in which the FBI agent said “we’ll stop” a Trump presidency.

Strzok was heavily involved in both the Trump campaign and Clinton email investigations.

The Department of Justice Inspector General concluded in a report released earlier this month that officials at the DOJ committed numerous indiscretions over the course of the 2016 Trump campaign investigation.

But DOJ IG Michael Horowitz “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected those specific investigative decisions,” he told the committee June 19.

Strzok faced questions from the Judiciary Committee behind closed doors last week.

Strzok and his legal team are furious at Republicans on the committee for leaking the contents of his testimony to the press, saying lawmakers twisted and framed his words to make him sound guilty of wrongdoing, CNN reported Monday.

**MORE COVERAGE OF PETER STRZOK at LibertyHeadlines.com**

“Having sharpened their knives behind closed doors, the committee would now like to drag back Special Agent Strzok and have him testify in public — a request that we originally made and the committee denied,” Aitan Goelman, Strzok’s lawyer said. “What’s being asked of Special Agent Strzok is to participate in what anyone can recognize as a trap.”

©2018 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Original Source -> FBI Lovebird Strzok to Testify Before 2 House Committees

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