#I have lived in Modesto for most of the last 40 years and

[remembertheplunge]

[chubby-bearded-nerd]

1-45

1: What’s the most annoying thing about your best friend/s? The fact that she lives in California. The fact that I havent seen her in about 6 six years. 

2: Least favorite TV shows? Bachlorette or whatever its spelled. Or the great house wife shows OR Chrisley knows best

3: Favorite moment with your best friend/s? Almost any concert we have been too is great moments.

4: What’s one quality you would like to have? Hmm not too sure about that. All the qualities, good or bad are what make me me.

5: Name three people of your same sex you would: marry,kiss and fuck Marvel Super Hero Edition

Marry Ironman Kiss Thor Fuck Captain America (AMERICAS ASS COME ON!)

6: Do you like your full name? Nope. Usually only used when I am in trouble

7: Tell me your most embarrasing memory Probably jumping a pool at a friends house and losing my shorts. The girl that I liked was at the party as well as a majority of my senior class. Luckily i just chalked it up to drunken stupidity.

8: Favorite color to wear? Blacks or Grays 9: Favorite restaurant? Texas Roadhouse 10: What would be a good first date for you? I like the typical movie dinner date but I have also done the drive out to the middle of nowhere and have a picnic in the back of the truck. Depends on the girl.

11: Are you a good wrestler? Ummm not really 12: Are you allergic to something? Nope 13: Would you be a good singer? Not anymore, its why I play guitar 14: Who’s the last person you told “I love you” to? My daughter 15: What car would you buy if you had enough money? 2020 F150 Raptor 16: Favorite cover of a song? Ohhhh now this is a fucked up question since I have a have a huge thing for cover songs. Currently I have been listening to Fireflies - Make Way For Man 17: What was your last conversation about? A friends personal life

18: Where were you born? Good ol’ Modesto California!

19: Least favorite app? This one! 20: Tell me two facts about your country of birth Uh its expensive Politics suck! 21: Do you like wearing sunglasses? No but I have to 22: When it’s a good moment for a first kiss? Surprise me or random so its not expected 23: What are your nationalities? Euro mutt (mainly irish) 24: What would make you drop college/university? Getting an amazing job 25: A crossover between two shows (any shows) you would like to see? 911 and the resident. Two of my favorite shows right now 26: Long or short hair? Short

27:A character from a book/TV show/movie that shouldn’t have died? 

28: Favorite movie scene? TV Scene... when Joffery Dies

29:Do you ship more fiction people or more real people? Uhhh not sure 30: Favorite country song? Again hard to pick Chris Lane - I dont know about you Brantley Gilbert - Bottoms Up Anything Garth Brooks Blake Shelton - God’s Country Just the recent ones Ive been listening to

31: Favorite John Green book? Never heard 32: Least favorite Ed Sheeran song? All of them? 33: Favorite ship? The Event Horizon, The Prometheus or The Covenant 34: How do you deal with sexual tension? *makes jerk off motion* 35: Name a celebrity who died that you miss Robin Williams 36: Favorite Harry Potter spell? Its LeviOsa not LevioSA

37: Something you are scared of losing? My daughter 38: Someone you regret meeting? My ex-bestfriend 39: Have you ever been hurt by someone you thought he/she was your friend? Yes hence the above response 40: Do you easily open up to people? Not too much anymore. I have to know you a little bit. 41: What is a gift you love receiving? Homemade jam from my mom 42: What is something you could leave easily? The state of Colorado. I really miss oceans 43: Rant about that’s eating you up Oooo not right now. I am actually in a good mood and when I rant that shit gets to me. 44: If you could make one phone call to anyone right now, who would it be and what would you say? My sister. I miss you and wish you were still here. Your daughter is growing up amazing and we all love and miss you dearly.

45:Are you easy to love? I think so? I am really easy going so I try to not make anything difficult.

Thanks anon... you suck btw. LOL. I had to login to the actual website to do this because no way in hell was I typing this on my phone.... i lied you dont suck and appreciate the asks always!

[capstagesweat]

Reading, PA Makes the News

The following is the New York Times article that Lynn credits with bringing the town of Reading to her attention. It ran in the Times on September 27, 2011:

Reading, Pa., Knew It Was Poor. Now It Knows Just How Poor. - Sabrina Tavernise

The exhausted mothers who come to the Second Street Learning Center here — a day care provider for mostly low-income families — speak of low wages, hard jobs and an economy gone bad.

Ashley Kelleher supports her family on the $900 a month she earns as a waitress at an International House of Pancakes. Louri Williams packs cakes and pies all night for $8 an hour, takes morning classes, and picks up her children in the afternoon. Teresa Santiago takes complaints from building supply customers for $10 an hour, not enough to cover her $1,900 in monthly bills.

These are common stories in Reading, a struggling city of 88,000 that has earned the unwelcome distinction of having the largest share of its residents living in poverty, barely edging out Flint, Mich., according to new Census Bureau data. The count includes only cities with populations of 65,000 or more, and has a margin of error that makes it difficult to declare a winner — or, perhaps more to the point, a loser.

Reading began the last decade at No. 32. But it broke into the top 10 in 2007, joining other places known for their high rates of poverty like Flint, Camden, N.J., and Brownsville, Tex., according to an analysis of the data for The New York Times by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College.

Now it is No. 1, a ranking that the mothers at the day care center here say does not surprise them, given their first-hand knowledge of poverty-line wages, which for a parent and two children is now $18,530.

The city had been limping for most of the past decade, since the plants that sustained it — including Lucent Technologies and the Dana Corporation, a car parts manufacturer — withered. But the past few years delivered more closings and layoffs, sending the city’s poverty rate up to 41.3 percent.

Jon Scott, president of the Berks Economic Partnership, which helps businesses looking to stay in the area or move here, said that some of the city’s job losses were in fact furloughs, and that many businesses were considering opening in Reading, including an industrial laundry company at the former Dana site. 

According to Mr. Beveridge, employment in the city dropped by about 10 percent between 2000 and 2010. 

One of Reading’s more entrenched problems is education. Just 8 percent of its residents have a bachelor’s degree, far below the national average of 28 percent. 

“Without a bachelor’s degree, forget it,” said Ms. Williams, 28, who is taking classes to earn her G.E.D.. Only about 63 percent of Reading’s residents have a high school diploma, compared with more than 85 percent nationally. 

Lower education generally means higher poverty. About a fifth of people ages 25 to 34 with only a high school diploma in the United States were poor last year, compared with just 5 percent of college graduates, said Yiyoon Chung, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. For those without a high school diploma, the rate was 40 percent.

Ms. Santiago, 36, has an associate’s degree from a local community college, but said that employers wanted to see more from job candidates. She lost her last full- time job in 2007, and has worked in low wage jobs without benefits through a temporary agency ever since.

“They even want a degree to be a secretary,” said Ms. Santiago, picking up her 8- year-old son at the center.This city has had a large influx of Hispanics over the past decade. They moved from New York and other large cities, drawn by cheaper rent and the promise of a better life. That raised the flagging population, but also reinforced the city’s already acute problems with education: Just 18 percent of Hispanics in Reading had some college education last year, compared with 30 percent of the city’s whites. Only 44 percent of Hispanics had a high school diploma.

Young men have been particularly hard hit. Because they are having trouble competing for jobs, they are dropping out of the labor force, leaving women to support the children. 

Ms. Kelleher, 23, said she had been supporting her three children as well as the father of two of them. She would not be able to survive, she said, without the $636 a month she gets in food stamps. 

“For the past five years, it has been me paying the bills,” she said at the day care center, still in her waitress uniform. She wants to get married someday, she said, but only to a partner who is financially stable. 

Sixty-two percent of young fathers in the United States earned less than $20,000 in 2002, according to Timothy Smeeding, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, citing the most recent data available from the National Survey of Family Growth.

Even for young people with a bachelor’s degree, the economy is making life difficult. Vickie Moll, who runs the day care center, said the number of applications from teachers who have lost their jobs had grown as the waves of budget cuts washed over the state. “We have people in here with bachelor’s degrees making $8 an hour,” she said.

Social services feel the effects, too. The Greater Berks Food Bank — Reading is the Berks County seat — is on track to distribute six million pounds of food this year, up from three and a half million pounds in 2007, said Doug Long, manager of marketing.

Pat Giles, a senior vice president at the United Way of Berks County, said: “It has really started to snowball. We have a growing population of younger, less educated, less skilled people. On top of that you have the economy going upside down.”

Modesto Fiume, president of Opportunity House, the organization that runs the day care center, as well as a homeless shelter and a transitional living facility, said the number of first-time families in the shelter was up sharply: of 23 new entries in June and July, 18 were homeless for the first time

“People are here because they honestly and truly can’t find work,” said Delia McLendon, who runs the shelters. “It didn’t used to be that way.“

In the mid-1990s, welfare reform resulted in more women joining the work force. At the time, jobs were plentiful, but now work is scarce and low-income families’ lives have become hectic balancing acts to keep the few benefits they have.

Ms. Santiago loses her subsidized day care if she is out of work for more than 13 days, she said. The loss would take months to reinstate, so she hurries to find any work, whatever it pays, every time her temp job ends. Earning more than $10 an hour means losing health insurance, she said, though her children remain covered through Medicaid.

And jobs just seem to pay less. Ms. Santiago recently took a temporary job at a candy factory where she had worked more than eight years ago, when she was still in her 20s, before she had completed her associate’s degree. At the time she was making $10.50 an hour. In her most recent stint, her hourly wage was $9.25. 

“Eight years ago I said, ‘I don’t want to do this, I have to further my education,’ ” she said. “And now here I am, still packing candy, and making less.”

[murilloautumn]

insurance companies in fresno

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[kacydeneen]

Candidate Roots, Trump at Issue in Calif. Farm Country Race

In California's 10th Congressional District, a sprawling patchwork of farms and small cities west of San Francisco, a tight congressional race is coming down to the wire.

Democrat Josh Harder, a 31-year-old former venture capitalist, is running to represent his native district after making millions through Silicon Valley. He is challenging Republican Jeff Denham, a local farmer and Iraq War veteran who has spent most of his life in the district's Central Valley.

Our House: Inside the Battles for Control of Congress

The two are vying for a district, made up of rural Stanislaus County and parts of San Joaquin County, that has voted for Denham to represent them since 2010, but went for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by 2 points in the 2016 presidential election.

"This race is representative of what we're seeing all over the country," said Melinda Jackson, a political science professor at San Jose State University. "Elections will hinge on voter turnout, specifically whether Democrats are motivated to push back against President Trump."

Nothing Certain on Eve of First Trump-Era Elections

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report puts the race as a toss-up. A few public polls have shown Harder with a slight edge over Denham. The Democrat raised over $2.5 million more than his opponent and spent about $3 million more, according to federal election data from mid-October.

The race is asking tougher questions than just opinions on policy, said Thomas Reeves, a nonpartisan spokesman for the city of Modesto, the district's largest city. He said residents will have to decide whether to side with Denham's GOP, whose rhetoric on immigration, health care and the environment has become increasingly abrasive under Trump's leadership, or take a chance with Harder, who lived until recently out of the district.

Rihanna, Axl Rose Slam Trump's Use of Their Music at Rallies

"How do you balance the larger politics of the nation with the realities of California?" Reeves said.

This article, part 10 in a series, examines one of the key battleground races for control of the House of Representatives in the Nov. 6 midterm elections. Carried by grassroots momentum, Democrats must take 23 seats from Republicans to win the balance of power. They are contending with Republicans' experience and organization, and an outspoken but polarizing president.

Who Knows the District? The Denham campaign has tried to make the election about who really knows the district and its needs. Denham has attacked Harder for his ties to Silicon Valley, claiming that Harder is only interested in flipping the district for Democrats rather than helping the district itself.

"This is a local campaign," Denham told The Associated Press. "This is the fifth time they've moved somebody into this district to run against me."

Denham was not available for an interview with NBC in the last few days of the campaign, but Denham's campaign manager, Joshua Whitfield, said the race boils down to "who is local and who is not."

Less than 3 percent of Harder's campaign donations have come from inside the district, compared to about 18 percent of Denham's, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Harder countered that his family "settled in this district over 180 years ago, I was born here and graduated from the public school system here."

He pointed to Denham's voting record, which aligned with Trump's almost 98 percent of the time, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis. To Harder, that shows that Denham is content with siding with his party over his constituents.

"If you really want to show you understand a community, you've got to make sure you fight for it not only when it's convenient, but when it actually matters," Harder said.

A Diverse District Immigration is an integral issue for California's 10th District, where immigrants make up a large portion of the district's farm workers and over 40 percent of the population is Hispanic.

Reeves said the communities in the district are often proud to have such a diverse population, and local support for immigrants' rights and protections is driven by necessity.

"Our district sees workers that come from all parts of the world. That is a population that we absolutely rely on," he said.

Fluent in Spanish and with a wife of Mexican heritage, Denham has been outspoken in his support for "Dreamers," people brought to the country illegally as young children who are pushing for citizenship, and protections for immigrants. He has repeatedly nudged Congress to find pathways to citizenship for immigrants with efforts such as his ENLIST Act, which would allow "Dreamers" to gain lawful resident status by serving in the military. (The bill, cosponsored by many Democrats, has yet to receive a vote.)

Denham's efforts often clash with the anti-immigration sentiments of Trump and many others in the Republican party. Days before the election, Trump said he plans to issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship for those born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents, despite that right being enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

For Denham and his campaign, there is little room for these attitudes. Being pro-immigrant is "simply a matter of right and wrong," Whitfield said.

On this front, Harder agrees.

"I think this district is divided by political party, but we are also united on whether or not we should be protecting immigrants and 'Dreamers' that attend our school system," Harder said.

Water More than 23 million California residents are experiencing drought, about two-thirds of the state's population, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System. In Stanislaus County, the largest county in the district, the land is "abnormally dry."

Both Denham and Harder oppose a proposal by California's State Water Board regionally known as the "water grab," which would redirect some of the district's water into the ocean to boost fishing stocks along the way.

The district had more than 7,000 farm operators and close to 5,000 farms as of 2012, according to the Department of Agriculture. If the water grab is enacted, the Modesto Irrigation District forecasts losses of $1.6 billion in output, $167 million in revenue, $330 million in labor income and 6,576 jobs.

Denham has endeared himself to the district as a farmer who leads on water issues, according to the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau, which endorsed the congressman.

Legislation Denham wrote making it easier to fund water storage in the region was part of America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, signed into law last month.

"Water is the lifeblood of our agricultural community," Whitfield said.

Harder's understanding of the water crisis comes from his family's roots in the farming community, he wrote in an August op-ed in the Modesto Bee. Harder stressed the importance of building "water security" through long-term water conservation and sustainability plans.

Health Care Health care has been a point of contention in the race for the 10th District, as it has been in many close races across the country. Health care was the issue most voters called important in a Gallup poll released Friday, and more Democrats thought it was important than Republicans.

Denham's vote for the American Health Care Act in 2017, the nearly successful effort to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, could be a deciding factor in how residents of the district vote.

Harder believes in Medicare for all, pledges to fight for lower health care prices, and pointed out that more than 50 percent of the district is on Medicaid. He said that when Denham voted for the AHCA, he voted to gut Medicaid, potentially leaving over 100,000 constituents without affordable health care.

"Every person in this community has a loved one that would be hurt by that bill, by that vote, by our member of Congress," Harder said.

Denham said he is proud of his votes and has spoken of different ways to improve health care for the district, such as increasing access to doctors through expanded medical residency training programs. In a September debate with Harder, Denham asked how Harder plans on paying for a Medicare-for-all system and portrayed Harder as having "Bay Area" plans for a rural district.

"When you talk about Bay Area principles, this is one of their biggest principles," he said.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Candidate Roots, Trump at Issue in Calif. Farm Country Race published first on Miami News

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

TURLOCK, Calif. — By most accounts, Rep. Jeff Denham is a strong incumbent. He has represented California’s Central Valley for four terms in Congress. His campaign signs line dusty street corners and the almond fields here in the state’s socially conservative agricultural region. He has raised nearly 3.5 million dollars this campaign season1, about double the average raised by House members this year. In the primaries, 52 percent of his district’s vote went to Republican candidates.

If only his campaign could escape national politics.

For a variety of reasons, local elections are increasingly a referendum on what’s happening in Washington. As the number of media outlets shrinks, more news coverage is national. Partisanship is increasingly what drives people to the polls, and people vote in House races according to how they feel about whoever is in the White House. Incumbents have less of an advantage than they did in prior decades, and voters care less about experience than they used to.

All that — and a historically unpopular president — is making life harder for Republicans this midterm season. Denham held onto his seat in 2016, but his district went for Hillary Clinton (both he and Clinton won the region by 3 percentage points, and his district is less than 1 point more Republican-leaning than the nation as a whole2). He is not alone: 21 House Republicans are running for re-election in districts Clinton won in 2016,3 and 16 of those races are rated as toss-ups or are leaning toward Democrats, according to FiveThirtyEight’s model.

Can Republicans defend these vulnerable seats?

FiveThirtyEight forecast ratings (as of Sept. 12) for Republican-held House districts that Clinton won in 2016

2016 vote margin District GOP Incumbent Clinton Incumbent SPREAD 538 rating TX-32 Pete Sessions* D+2 R+71 73 Likely R FL-27 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen** D+20 R+10 29 Solid D CA-21 David Valadao D+16 R+13 29 Lean R FL-26 Carlos Curbelo D+16 R+12 28 Toss-Up IL-06 Peter Roskam D+7 R+18 25 Lean R NY-24 John Katko D+4 R+21 25 Likely R WA-08 Dave Reichert** D+3 R+20 23 Toss-Up MN-03 Erik Paulsen D+9 R+14 23 Likely D CA-39 Ed Royce** D+9 R+14 23 Toss-Up CA-45 Mimi Walters D+5 R+17 23 Lean D AZ-02 Martha McSally** D+5 R+14 19 Likely D CA-48 Dana Rohrabacher D+2 R+17 18 Lean D CO-06 Mike Coffman D+9 R+8 17 Likely D VA-10 Barbara Comstock D+10 R+6 16 Likely D TX-07 John Culberson D+1 R+12 14 Toss-Up CA-25 Stephen Knight D+7 R+6 13 Likely D NJ-07 Leonard Lance D+1 R+11 12 Lean D KS-03 Kevin Yoder D+1 R+11 12 Lean R CA-49 Darrell Issa** D+8 R+1 8 Likely D CA-10 Jeff Denham D+3 R+3 6 Lean D TX-23 Will Hurd D+3 R+1 5 Toss-Up

*No Democratic opponent in 2016 **Not running for re-election

Source: DailyKos Elections, Individual state elections offices

For Denham and others, the question may be: Can they can keep voters’ frustrations with national politics out of their local elections?

The answer to that question could have particularly dramatic effects in California. Of the Golden State’s 53 congressional seats, just 14 are held by Republicans. But half of those Republican-led districts voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. President Trump’s approval in the state has also gone from bad to worse since he was sworn into office. “The negative baggage that comes with being associated with [Trump’s] party, if it’s going to be felt anywhere, I think it’s going to be felt here,” said Gary Jacobson, an emeritus professor at the University of California, San Diego.

Republicans in the area have been trying to keep the election local in a variety of ways. For starters, they’ve cast Denham’s opponent, Democrat Josh Harder, as an outsider — not only to politics, but also to the area. They’ve criticized the time he spent at Stanford University and Harvard, as well as his early career working for a venture capital firm, where he ultimately rose to vice president. “[Denham’s] running against some Bay Area liberal, and I don’t think that guy can win,” said Jim DeMartini, the chairman of the Republican Party of Stanislaus County, which is in Denham’s 10th district, and a member of the county’s board of supervisors.

Harder says he’s no carpetbagger. He was born and raised in Turlock, a city of 74,000 in the 10th district, and he says his family still lives there. He frequently starts campaign speeches by explaining how his great-great-grandfather stopped 50 miles short of the gold he came looking for in the 1840s, becoming a peach farmer in Manteca instead. Since Harder moved home to run for office, he’s been teaching business at Modesto Junior College.

In campaign emails, Denham has also sought to bolster his war chest by highlighting the major source of Harder’s campaign funds: individuals living in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. (Harder’s campaign counters that the lion’s share of Denham’s campaign money, over 50 percent, comes from PACs, setting up a strange competition of which is more shadowy: liberal elites or big political money?)

And then there’s one of the most pressing local issues: water. The Central Valley, the state’s low-lying agricultural region, has an ongoing debate with more liberal, coastal parts of the state over how much water should go where. Water is essential to the area’s economy, but the precious commodity is constantly debated in this parched state. The Denham campaign also frequently invokes Harder’s absence from a recent rally at the state capitol as a sign that he doesn’t understand the needs of the area. “The day Josh Harder lost this election was the day state Democrats moved forward in a push to steal 40 percent of our water,” said Josh Whitfield, Denham’s campaign manager. Harder, meanwhile, contends that Denham’s vote to prohibit judicial review on a plan that would make it easier to deliver water from northern California to souther parts of the state helped other GOP-controlled districts at the expense of Denham’s own.

As much as Denham may want to make the race about local issues, national politics will still influence voters. That fact holds both promise and pitfalls for Denham and Harder. Republicans and centrist Democrats have long ruled the Central Valley, and Harder’s progressive agenda, which includes Medicare For All and comprehensive immigration reform, is a sharp departure from local politics of yore. Some lifelong Democrats think the shift is a positive one. “He’s encouraging young people and listening to their ideas. I think that’s good for the party!” said Pat Howell, the 74-year-old treasurer of a local Democratic Club, over the din of a crowded campaign event at an American Legion Hall. But others worry it’s a step too far; an audience member expressed skepticism at the potential cost of a Medicare For All system, asking Harder to explain what he saw in the plan.

But even if Harder’s positions may be too liberal for some, Denham’s voting record doesn’t show him to be ideologically distinct from a Republican Party that’s losing favor in the area. He’s voted in line with Trump 97.8 percent of the time according to FiveThirtyEight’s vote tracker, a much larger share than anticipated given how his district voted in 2016. In 2017, he voted to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in a district where an estimated 50,000 people would have lost coverage if the bill had passed. And though he has publicly taken a moderate stance on immigration, he led and then gave up on an effort to force a House vote on several immigration bills after promising he had the votes to get a package through.

Democrats, meanwhile, are relying on what’s happening in Washington to bring unexpected voters to the polls. Frustration with national politics could galvanize a historically disorganized base, said Juan Vazquez, a former farmworker from the Modesto area who now commutes to work at a Tesla plant in the East Bay. Vazquez says he considered himself a Republican and even liked Trump until the then-candidate referred to Mexicans as rapists at the beginning of his campaign. “He’s talking about me. I am from Mexico. My whole family is. We came to the United States to work in the fields, to work in agriculture,” he said. He’s since become politically active, and is a member of the Stanislaus County Democratic Central Committee.

But many Central Valley Latinos, a group that tends to lean Democrat, haven’t voted in the past. That may be connected to their history — some are immigrants who came from areas with corrupt governments where voting didn’t seem to matter — or they may not have voted because they felt like outsiders who shouldn’t participate, said Julissa Ruiz Ramirez, a college student at California State University, Stanislaus in Turlock who came to the U.S. when she was 4 and became a U.S. citizen last year. That was the sense she got from family and friends growing up, but she has decided to take a different route, majoring in political science and spending her free time campaigning for immigrants’ rights. She’s also a volunteer for the Harder campaign.

California’s 10th district is one of seven in the state that voted for Clinton in 2016 but is currently represented by a Republican in Congress. Each district has its own local issues that animate it, but they all have one thing in common: When you factor in fundraising, historical trends and the generic ballot, the Republican incumbents look like they are on much shakier ground than they would have been in previous elections. This midterm election, no House race is taking place in a vacuum.

[democratsunited-blog]

Democrats hope health care vote will hurt Denham's re-election

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=4009

Democrats hope health care vote will hurt Denham's re-election

Democrats know they’ll need more than President Donald Trump to defeat an incumbent like Jeff Denham.

To understand the party’s real plan of attack in this Central Valley California district, go back to April 2017, to a town hall meeting teeming with a thousand angry activists. The now 50-year-old Denham, built like a hockey player and wearing a microphone clipped to his sport coat, was trying to explain his position on a GOP health care bill that would partially repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The event was contentious. Audience members who interrupted him — and they interrupted him frequently — held pieces of paper with their zip code written on it, to prove they were constituents, not out-of-town agitators.

After several minutes of explanation, Denham gave an answer they wanted to hear: “I have expressed to leadership that I am a ‘no’ on the health care vote until it is responsive to my community.”

Seventeen days later, he voted for the bill.

This — not Trump — is how Democrats plan to win in November.

“This is the center of the resistance because this is a district where that vote was really felt,” Josh Harder, Denham’s Democratic challenger, told me a week after he had won the de-facto June 5 Democratic primary here.

To win the House majority, Democratic Party leaders need to defeat battle-tested Republican members such as Denham. They’ve fallen short in recent elections — against Republicans such as Mike Coffman in Colorado and Barbara Comstock in Virginia — races in which GOP incumbents have convinced voters that they are independent enough to act as moderating voices in Trump’s Washington.

But GOP votes for Obamacare repeal make Democrats think they have a message that will stick in 2018 in California’s 10th district and 11 others like it across the country, seats where the party faces uncommonly strong incumbents.

“We’re going to make sure as many people as possible there know that Denham owns that health care bill,” said Charlie Kelly, executive director of the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC. “He voted to jack up costs and take away coverage. Good luck explaining that.”

The 10th district, located nearly a hundred miles east of San Francisco, isn’t part of the suburban backlash to Trump: the area is blue collar, with relatively high unemployment and a dependency on agro-business. It has a large Latino population (roughly 40 percent) and voters here supported both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2012, even as Denham was winning their support for re-election. It’s one of 25 districts held by a Republican that Clinton won in 2016 — two fewer than the number of seats Democrats must win to claim a majority.

“There is zero way that Democrats take back the House without taking back this district,” Harder said. “There is no way you can draw the map where we take back 23 seats and don’t take back this one.”

***

Denham was in a jail when he started talking about Tucker Carlson. The congressman had driven 10 minutes south of downtown Modesto to this new Stanislaus County detention center, to drop off a box of used books from the Library of Congress. His appearance this April day didn’t have much of an audience apart from the local sheriff and a pair of reporters: The facility did not yet house inmates.

Denham had just put the books down when he was asked about his recent tense appearance on the Fox News host’s show, in which the two men sparred over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA, that protected from deportation young people brought illegally to America by their parents.

Related stories from McClatchy DC

Denham supports DACA; Carlson does not, and the Fox commentator is not shy about telling the California Republican that he’s on the wrong side of that dispute. (One chyron from Denham’s appearance read, “Tucker takes on pro-amnesty Republican.”)

“He’s a tough interviewer,” Denham said while walking out of the detention center, suggesting the dispute was nothing more than a good-faith argument between two men who simply see an issue differently.

That may be, but it doesn’t make Denham’s behavior normal: Republican congressmen don’t pick many fights with leading media personalities such as Carlson, much less send a press release afterward touting the appearance. (Denham even returned to the show a month later.)

But for Denham, unabashed advocacy for policies such as DACA is how he tries to separate himself from his party — something his team knows is a necessity in a district like this. Just in the last few weeks he led an effort, against the wishes of party leadership, to force a House vote on DACA.

And just a few hours before his visit to this detention center, in fact, his office — in a video it posted to Facebook — announced it had helped to locate and process a local high school student’s DACA paperwork.

“If you have a challenge with the United States government that we can help you out with … we hope you’ll let us work for you as well,” Denham said in the video.

Denham isn’t some kind of remarkable maverick within the Republican Party: He supported Trump in 2016, if reluctantly; he voted for the Obamacare repeal and the GOP tax cut bill; and even on a subject such as immigration, he talks as much about securing the border as he does making sure that the DACA kids (who are now young adults) are allowed to stay.

But he has deliberately pursued a course this year that strays from the path Trump has paved and that most Republicans are following. He’s trading his party’s sharp-edged cultural agenda for a more traditionally Republican, live-and-let-live approach.

“He’s not a bomb-thrower on the right or the left,” said Mike Lynch, a Democrat consultant from the district. “And he does his homework. Generally, when you talk to him about an issue, he knows what he’s talking about.”

When Lynch and I had lunch in Modesto, he showed me a picture on his phone of his front yard in 2016, which held yards signs for both Clinton and Denhan. A self-described moderate Democrat, Lynch was the chief of staff for former Democratic Rep. Gary Condit. He says he has voted for a Republican because, in part, he sees Denham as one of the few members of his party making a genuine effort for immigration reform.

Denham has successfully distinguished himself from Republican leaders in the past, winning his district by about 3.5 points in 2016 while Trump lost it by 3 points.

By every indication, he’ll need to repeat the feat in 2018: A poll commissioned last summer by pro-Democratic Super PAC California 7 Project found that Trump had just a 44 percent approval rating in the district.

And the poll estimated that of the persuadable voters in the district — people who might back either party — 43 percent of them were neither Republican nor Democrat.

Denham speaks Spanish (his wife’s father is from Mexico), and aides say he likes to converse with constituents who tell him they don’t speak English, only to find the congressman shift into his second language.

One of Denham’s former Democratic opponents, the Spanish-speaking Virginia Madueno, rated Denham’s Spanish a “B minus.”

“He can hold his own,” said Madueno, who has known the congressman for years. “He can definitely hold his own.”

Madueno — at the time still running to replace him in office — criticized Denham’s health care vote and said he was in the grip of wealthy special interests. But she acknowledged that, in her view, the congressman was also “charismatic.”

“A lot of people like Jeff Denham,” she said.

Latino outreach isn��t Denham’s only move to the middle of the electorate. Any conversation with the congressman about electoral priorities includes a lengthy discussion of water, an issue of special importance in the drought-stricken state. And a discussion about water soon segues to talk about the need for pragmatic representation focused not in Washington but here in the district.

“All things local,” Denham said. “You know, a lot of people here aren’t focused on what the national message is, or what the next Tweet was that came out. More people are focused on what are you doing right here in home and are you working with your local electeds.”

***

It gets repetitive to talk to Democratic strategists in Washington and across country when the conversation turns to November’s races and the message they want their candidates to emphasize. Nearly every assessment is the same: Avoid Trump, talk about health care.

They think this way for two reasons: First, the relentless attention paid to the president means people are hyper-aware of just about everything he does, so voters gain little from the extra information in a campaign ad.

Second, criticism of Trump tends to emphasize his personal shortcomings; voters care more about the status of their pocketbooks. It’s always the economy, especially in a blue-collar district like the 10th.

That’s why Denham’s opponent, Harder, is fixating on healthcare. In April, he and the rest of the then-Democratic field visited a modest church outside of Modesto, where the urban landscape of the city gives way to sprawling farmland and orchards. They were there for a bilingual candidate forum, where Harder — seated behind a table — would give answers that were immediately translated into Spanish for the 150 mostly Hispanic men and women in attendance.

It’s a key voter bloc in a district where about one-quarter of the electorate might be Latino.

Even here, however, Harder wanted to talk about health care, telling the crowd the story of his little brother, born premature and with a pre-existing condition, and how many like him wouldn’t have been able to receive care if the GOP’s bill had become law.

When I talked to him after June 5, Harder said his pre-primary ads featured so much talk about health care that they even began to worry his family.

“Health care was pounded again and again and to the point where my mom said, ‘Josh, people think all you care about is health care,’” Harder said. “And I said, ‘That’s OK!”

Harder is 31 years old, educated at Stanford University before receiving an M.B.A. from Harvard, and used to be a venture capitalist before teaching business classes at Modesto Junior College. Clean-shaven with short dark hair, he looks even younger than his age, though he promises that voters won’t hold that against him.

In the run up to June’s primary, Denham aides plainly wanted Harder to become the Democrats’ pick because of the contrast in experience.

They’ll accuse Harder of being more at home in San Francisco than Modesto, a potentially brutal criticism in an area that sees its coastal neighbor drawing ever more money, attention and resources at its perceived expense.

And they’ll push back on criticism that the health care bill would have been a disaster. Denham repeats endlessly that the problem with healthcare in the district is rooted in the unavailability of doctors, especially those who will accept patients on Medi-Cal. (California’s version of Medicaid.)

Local Democrats add that the push from some in-state liberals for a massive single-payer healthcare system could further complicate Harder’s criticism.

But, if it seems unlikely that a newcomer could defeat a strong Republican incumbent with a reputation for independence, recent political history suggests otherwise. Just eight years ago, in the summer of 2010, Democrats had convinced themselves that many of their incumbents could survive the coming storm even though they too had voted for a controversial health care bill, Obamacare.

They were wrong.

“It was a very high-profile vote that allowed my independent representation of North Dakota to be called into question,” said Earl Pomeroy, a Democrat who voted for Obamacare in 2010 and lost in November of that year.

Pomeroy had served in Congress for 18 years, overcoming the state’s strong Republican lean by crafting an image as an independent lawmaker. One vote, and he lost re-election by more than a dozen points. He sees the parallels in California’s 10th district, and the risk to Denham.

“In a Hillary district, an incumbent that voted to repeal the ACA better hope the voters are thinking about something else,” Pomeroy said.

***

As much as both Denham and Harder both want to minimize Trump’s role in this race, they won’t be able to block the Trump effect fully. What voters think about the president will shape the midterm elections, from who turns out to vote to how people regard the GOP’s legislative accomplishments.

“So many of the constituents feel he has aligned himself with Trump, although he’ll never quite say it,” said Rebecca Harrington, a Democrat and member of the local Hispanic community who attended a meeting with the Small Business Administration that Denham helped organize. “Yet when it comes down to voting and how things are addressed, his policies seem to align with Trump. And that is the problem and that is what’s caused so many people to be in an uproar.”

In 2016, Denham called then-candidate Trump’s words “disturbing,” “inappropriate” and “outlandish.”

In 2018, he’s more circumspect. After I asked Denham what criticism he would offer of the president, he stood in silence for 20 seconds, his mouth slightly agape as he searched for the right response.

“I wouldn’t say it’s much of a criticism, but it’s certainly a challenge that when he does Tweet out his ideas, they take us by surprise sometimes,” Denham said, breaking the silence.

“But if it’s his style, I’m willing to work with it.”

Read full story here

[unsolved100701]

The Zodiac Killer

On December the 20th 1968, in Benicia California, two high school students Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday were shot and killed. The couple were on their first date and planned to attend a concert at Hogan High School, close to Jensen’s home, but the couple instead visited a friend before stopping at a local restaraunt and then driving and stopping on Lake Herman Road. Witnesses noticed the young couple huddled together in the front seat of Faraday's car between around 10:15 and 11:00 p.m. Nothing about the couple seemed unusual to those who saw them, but shortly after 11pm, their bodies were found by a local who lived nearby. Betty Lou had died from five gunshot wounds in her back. David had been shot at close range in the head, and was still breathing when found, only to die shortly later on route to the hospital.

A man named Bill Crow and his girlfriend told detectives that 45 minutes earlier, they were driving around the same place as Jensen and Faraday were. They reported that they were followed in their car by a white Chevy, but managed to lose it after making a sharp right turn at an intersection. Two hunters also reported seeing this white Chevy parked on Lake Herman road, where the two teenagers were later shot. Robert Graysmith, a political cartoonist and true crime author, made use of available forensic data at the scene. He theorised that around 11pm, the killer parked their beside Faraday’s car and most likely shot Faraday first, then Jensen as she was trying to run away. The killer then drove off. The police were left with no leads.

On the 4th of July 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Micheal Mageau were parked at the Blue Rock Springs Golf Course in Benicia (four miles from the Lake Herman Road murder site) at around 12pm. A car then parked behind Ferrin’s car, and the driver got out, carrying a flashlight and a luger pistol. As the stranger approached, he immidiately began shooting at the couple, shooting them both. When authorities arrived, both Ferrin and Mageau were still alive, but Ferrin died before being able to reach the nearest hospital. Mageau, however, survived and was able to give a description of the attacked to the authorities; he was a white man, 26-30 years old, short, heavyset, about 5’8” and 195-200 lbs with short light brown curly hair.  

The next morning at 12:40 am, an unidentified man phoned the Vallejo Police Department to report and claim responsibility for the attack (as well as the murders of Jensen and Faraday months earlier). Police traced the call to a phone booth at a gas station less than a mile from Ferrin’s home and just blocks from the police department itself.

"I wish to report a double murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to a public park, you will find the kids in a brown car. They have been shot by a nine-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good-bye” - Caller

Around a month later on the 1st of August, the Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner recieved letters from someone claiming to be the killer. The letters were nearly identical, and they all claimed to have been responsible for the shootings at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs. Each letter also included one-third of a mysterious cryptogram which the killer claimed contained his identity. The writer demanded that the letters be published on the front page of every newspaper, otherwise they would go on a “kill rampage”. All three parts were eventually published by the papers, and fortunately, the threats were not carried out. Police investigators stated publicly that they had doubts about the legitimacy of the letters.

"I want you to print this cipher on the front page of your paper. In this cipher is my idenity. If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry.1st of Aug 69, I will go on a kill ram-Page Fry. night.” - First letter to the San Francisco Chronicle

3 days later, a second letter was recieved by the San Francisco Examiner from the self-proclaimed killer. It began with, “Dear editor, this is the Zodiac speaking…”, the first time the writer used the name ‘Zodiac’ (a word commonly associated with astrology). The ‘Zodiac’ included details about the murders that had not yet been released to the public, proving his involvement in the crime. It also stated that when the authorities cracked his code, his identity would be revealed and “they will have me”. The letter was signed with a black cross-circle symbol.

"On the 4th of July: I did not open the car door, The window was rolled down all ready. The boy was origionaly sitting in the front seat when I began fireing."

On August the 8th, the code was cracked by a couple in Salinas, CA. It read:

"I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forrest because man is the most dangeroue anamal of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling experence it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of it is thae when I die I will be reborn in paradice and thei have killed will become my slaves I will not give you my name because you will try to sloi down or atop my collectiog of slaves for my afterlife ebeorietemethhpiti”.

The next confirmed Zodiac killing was on the 27th of September in Napa, California. College students Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell were having a picnic at Lake Berryessa. A fisherman later discovered the couple tied up with stab wounds, and so he immediately called the police. They were both still alive when medical help arrived just over an hour later (due to their remote location). Although Shepard unfortunately died after lapsing into a coma two days later, Hartnell survived and was able to give police a detailed account of the events as well a description of the attacker.

He told police that they were approached by a white man, about 5’11”, weighing more than 170lbs with combed greasy brown hair, wearing a black executioner’s-type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes, carrying a semiautomatic pistol. He claimed to be an escaped convict from a Montana prison, and demanded their car and their money in order to escape capture by fleeing to Mexico. The couple did not hesitate to give him their carkeys and their money. He then instructed Shepard to tie up Bartnell, and provided her with precut pieces of a clothesline in order to do this. Bartnell did this, to then be tied up herself by the man. He then proceeded to stab Hartnell six times and Shepard ten times. The man then walked casually back to Hartnell’s car where he wrote, "Vallejo/12-20-68/7-4-69/Sept 27-69-6:30/by knife”, along with the cross-circle symbol of the ‘Zodiac’. These were the details of the three (first) confirmed 'Zodiac’ Killer attacks. At 7.40pm that evening, an unidentified caller contacted the Napa Country Police Department from a pay telephone, just a few blocks away (as in the Vallejo case). The caller identified themselves as the killer, telling officer David Slight in a low, monotone voice, “I’m the one who did it”. Detectives located the exact phone used minutes later, still off the hook, but with no suspect to be seen. They were, however, able to lift a palm print from the surface of the telephone but were unable to match it with any current suspects.

Two weeks later, on the 11th of October 1969, San Francisco cab driver Paul Stine picked up a customer at at the intersection of Mason and Geary Streets requesting to be taken to Washington and Maple Streets in Presidio Hights. Shortly after beginning his journey, Stine was shot in the head by the passanger, killing him. The killer then preceded to steal his carkeys, wallet, and to tear off a section of his bloodstained shirt. This was all observed by three pedestrians across the street at 9.55pm, who immidiately called the police. They described the killer as a white male, 25-30 years old, with stocky build and a crew cut. There was a large search conducted, but somehow there was a mistake made as to the killer’s race and the police were searching for a black male. It has never been reported how this mistake was made. It was later determined that two blocks away from the crime scene, the police drove past a man matching the pedestrians’ original description, but they thought they were looking for a black male, they did not consider him a suspect. The three witnesses worked with a police artist to produce a composite sketch of Stine’s killer. The San Francisco Police Department investigated an estimated 2,500 suspects over a period of years.

Shortly after, another letter from the ‘Zodiac’ was received by the Chronicle containing a section of Stine’s shirt as proof that he was the killer. It also contained a threat about killing schoolchildren on a school bus. On the 8th and 9th of November, the Chronicle received another two letters from the ‘Zodiac’. The first contained another cryptogram (which has never been decoded to this day), and the second was 7 pages long and also contained a section of Stine’s shirt. The ‘Zodiac’ stated that two policemen stopped and actually spoke to him, around 3 minutes after he shot Stine.

On the 22nd of March 1970, eight-months pregnant Kathleen Johns was driving to meet with her mother with her 10-month-old daughter. A car behind her began honking its horn and flashing its headlights on Highway 132 near Modesto. When she pulled over, a man got out of the car and informed Johns that her wheel was loose on her car. He offered to help tighten the lug nuts, but instead loosened them, so when Johns pulled forward to re-enter the highway the wheel came off completely. The man came back and offered Johns a ride to the nearest gas station in hope of fixing the wheel. Johns accepted, but began to become anxious during the journey when the man drove past several nearby gas stations. Johns described the drive as “silent, aimless driving around” in which the man would change the subject when she inquired about why they were not stopping. Her and her daughter were able to escape when the car stopped at an intersection; they jumped out of the car and hid in a nearby field. She then received help from a local who helped her get to a police station in Paterson. Whilst there, she saw a ‘wanted’ poster of the ‘Zodiac’ killer, and by looking at the police composite Sketch (that was produced after the murder of Paul Stine), she was able to identify the man who kidnapped them as the 'Zodiac’. Later, her car was found gutted and burned. This is the last confirmed sighting of the ‘Zodiac’. However, throughout the years, Johns’ account of that night has changed from her original statement, and this has led people to question the legitimacy of what she has told the authorities. For example, in the report that she made to the police she stated that after they ran into the field the man did not leave his vehicle. But in her account to Paul Avery of the Chronicle, she stated that her abductor left his car and searcher for her with a flashlight, saying he wouldn’t hurt her.  

The ‘Zodiac’ continued to communicate with the authorities throughout 1970 via letters to the press. On April the 20th, the ‘Zodiac’ sent a letter to the Chronicle which included the words “My name is…”, followed by a 13-character cipher. He stated that he was not responsible for a recent bombing of a police station in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. On the 28th of April, he wrote another letter to the Chronicle, threatening to bomb a bus if the paper didn’t publish his writings. He also stated that he wanted to see people wearing “some nice Zodiac buttons”. Around 3 months later on the 26th of June, he wrote another letter expressing his upset at the fact that he had not seen people wearing Zodiac buttons. He also took credit for another shooting in this letter - "I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38.” - possibly refering to the murder of Sgt. Richard Radetich on the 19th of June, as he was found shot in the head with a 38-caliber pistol. The San Francisco Police Department denies the Zodiac was involved in this shooting, but it remains unsolved. A month later, on the 24th of July, the ‘Zodiac’ took responsibility for the abduction of Kathleen Johns and her daughter (how four months later).

Around 3 months later on the 27th of October, Paul Avery (the key reporter in the Zodiac case for the Chronicle), received a Halloween card with the words, “you are doomed”. It was signed with a letter ‘Z’ and the Zodiac’s cross-circle symbol. Later, he recieved another letter urging him to investigate the similarities between the known Zodiac murders and the murder of college student Cheri Jo Bates years earlier, in 1966. On October 30th of that year, Bates was studying at the Riverside City College library until it closed at 9pm. Neighbours reported to hearing a scream at around 10:30pm, and she was found dead the next morning. She was found between two abandoned houses nearby, brutally beaten and stabbed to death. Her car was parked at the library and this had been damaged, with the distributer coil and the condenser pulled out. At the scene they found a man’s Timex watch displaying the time 12:24pm, a size 10 heel-print, fingerprints and a palm print, skin tissue underneath the victims fingernails and hair and blood in her hands. Then, 6 months later, Bates’ father and the Riverside Police Department all received handwritten letters that were nearly identical. They read, “she had to die there will be more”, signed with the letter “Z”.

In 1974, several years later, the last letter from the Zodiac was received by ‘The Chronicle’. The Zodiac concluded the letter with a new score, “Me=37, SFPD = 0”.

The case remains open in some jurisdictions, but the San Francisco Police Department has designated it unsolved an inactive. More than 2,5000 suspects have been investigated, yet nobody has been charged. Detectives continue to receive phone calls regarding theories and speculation, but with all leads eventually going cold. There are several popular theories as to who the Zodiac could be:

In 2014, a man named Gary Stewart published the book ‘The Most Dangerous Animal of All’, in which he proclaimed his father, Earl Van Best Jr was the Zodiac. Stewart pointed out that he was similar to the Zodiac’s physical description, and claims that a scar on his finger matches that in a fingerprint left at a Zodiac crime scene. A man named Chris Harris responded to this by claiming that he saw Best at a diner in 1969, near the site of one of the killings. According to Harris, Best turned to him and said, "you have no idea what it’s like to have to kill”.

The second popular suspect is Richard Gaikowsi, a newspaper journalist and filmmaker. He was involved in the running of the ‘Good Times’ newspaper at the same time as the infamous Bay Area murders. The main operations day of the Good Times newspaper, when its staff were on heightened workload, was the only day of the week the Zodiac Killer failed to mail a letter to authorities. That day was Wednesday. Richard Gaikowski trained as a medic when he was in the army prior to working at the newspaper. After the brutal murder of taxicab driver Paul Stine in Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969, the killer tore off a neat, rectangular tailpiece of the victims shirt. This was a practice medical personnel were taught in the field, especially during war, when bandages and tourniquets were at a premium and not a practice that would have been familiar outside of this field. He resembles closely the famous composite sketch of the Zodiac killer, and upon hearing his voice in later years Nancy Slover, the police dispatcher who took a call from the killer at 12.40 am on July 5th 1969, approximately 40 minutes after the murder of Darlene Ferrin and attempted murder of Michael Mageau at Blue Rock Springs Park, said that it was the same voice that had spoken to her way back in 1969. 

A third popular suspect is Laurence Kane. He was involved in a car accident in 1962, which resulted in serious brain damage, influencing his behaviour. His alleged involvement in the abduction of Kathleen Johns, who managed to escape the Zodiac with her infant daughter across a field. She later identified her attacker as the same man portrayed in a composite sketch from the Presidio Heights murder, which hung on the wall of the police station in Patterson. She claimed it was none other than Lawrence Kane, chosen from a six picture line up. The letters ‘Kane’ can also be seen in a Zodiac’s cipher, staring with “my name is…”. Also in that cipher are three number 8’s, 3 times 8 is 24, and Kane was born in 1924. When Kane’s handwriting was tested against the Zodiac’s, the tests came back inconcluive.

The main suspect in the case, however, is Arthur Leigh Allen. Robert Graysmith (a political cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle) wrote two books on the case, heavily implying that the killer was Allen. He had been reported in the vicinity of the Lake Beryessa attack in September 1969, but claimed he was scuba diving on the day of the attacks, despite the fact that his family claimed he returned to home covered in blood with a bloody knife in his car. He came to police attention again when his friend Donald Cheney reported to police that Allen had often spoken of his desire to kill people, under the name ‘Zodiac’. In light of this information, the police decided to interview Allen. In the interview, Allen claimed his favourite book was ’The Most Dangerous Game’; a book about a man who hunted humans, and a book referenced by the Zodiac in his first letter. Allen also wore a Zodiac brand wristwatch. When searching his home, the police discovered a ‘Royal typewriter with an Elite type’, the same brand used by the Zodiac for his typed letters. In 1974, Allen was convicted of child molestation, for which he spent 3 years in jail. It just so happens that during these 3 years, no Zodiac letters were received by anyone. In 1987, a San Jose jail inmate named Ralph Spinelli claimed that Allen admitted to him that he was the murderer of Paul Stine. When Mike Mageau (who survived the second Zodiac killing) was interviewed by detectives, claimed (after seeing a photograph) that it was Allen who shot him. In 1992, Allen was found at home, dead from a suspected heart attack. His DNA was compared against the 2002 DNA extracted from stamp saliva on several Zodiac letters; it was not a match. However, it should be noted that Allen favoured having other people lick his stamps for him, providing a possible reason for the lack of DNA evidence to convict Allen. Additionally, when the police took his fingerprints when they searched his home, they did not match the bloody prints recovered from the Paul Stine crime scene. They also had Allen undergo handwriting analysis, but this was inconclusive.

Personally, with no suspect being 100% compatible with what we know about the Zodiac, it is hard to say that there was only one killer; it suggests there were several copycat killers. With the case being broadcasted so widely in the media, many in the area knew lots about the Zodiac, and so it would be easy for a stranger to copy the killer by adopting his mannerisms. However, Allen and Kane seem to have the most evidence against them, making them very significant in the question of, ‘who was the Zodiac killer?’.

[lakenonakw]

Here Are 2017’s Best and Worst Cities to Retire

We work hard during our careers to enjoy a comfortable retirement, and for many of us, that means settling down someplace where our nest eggs can go the furthest. But for some folks, finding an affordable place to retire is a matter of basic survival. More than 40% of households aged 56 to 64 have no retirement savings to show for, or so states the Economic Policy Institute. And even among older workers who are saving, confidence about retiring comfortably is declining. With that in mind, WalletHub recently did a review of the top cities to retire in this year, as well as the least desirable cities for retirees. Here's what they came up with.

What makes for a happy retirement?

Though money isn't everything when it comes to retirement, it's a big factor to consider. Even if your tastes are modest, and you're naturally not such a big spender, you're bound to encounter certain expenses outside your control. Take healthcare, for example, which, according to recent projections, could cost the average healthy 65-year-old couple today over $400,000 in retirement. It therefore stands to reason that finding a city with a relatively low cost of living can be crucial to your overall happiness as a senior. But while #affordability is one of the metrics WalletHub reviewed in its recent study, it's not the only one. Factors such as recreation, senior services and population, hospital systems, and even climate were all considered in compiling this list. So which cities offer the best overall quality of life for retirees? Among the 150 cities reviewed by WalletHub, here are the top 10:

Rank: Best Overall City 1 #Orlando, FL 2 Tampa, FL 3 Miami, FL 4 Scottsdale, AZ 5 Atlanta, GA 6 Salt Lake City, UT 7 Honolulu, HI 8 Denver, CO 9 Austin, TX 10 Las Vegas, NV

DATA SOURCE: WALLETHUB. Keep in mind that these 10 cities aren't necessarily the most affordable. In fact, some, like Honolulu and Denver, scored relatively low on affordability alone. If a low cost of living is paramount in your mind, here are the top 10 cities you might consider as a retiree:

Rank: Most Affordable City 1 Laredo, TX 2 Brownsville, TX 3 St. Petersburg, FL 4 Montgomery, AL 5 San Antonio, TX 6 Memphis, TN 7 Tampa, FL 8 Orlando, FL 9 Lubbock, TX 10 Knoxville, TN

DATA SOURCE: WALLETHUB. Of course, what you gain in affordability, you might forgo elsewhere. Take Laredo, Texas, the cheapest city for retirees. Though you might snag housing and groceries on the cheap, Laredo scored pretty low with regard to activities and amenities, and it came in nearly last on healthcare. So which cities might you try to avoid as a senior? Here's what the list of the 10 worst retiree states looks like:

Rank: Worst Overall City 1 Newark, NJ 2 Providence, RI 3 San Bernardino, CA 4 Worcester, MA 5 Detroit, MI 6 Fresno, CA 7 Stockton, CA 8 Modesto, CA 9 Fontana, CA 10 Rancho Cucamonga, CA

DATA SOURCE: WALLETHUB. Most of the cities on this list scored relatively low in terms of affordability, and all landed at the bottom of the heap with regard to healthcare. Interestingly, none of the cities with the highest cost of living, including New York, New York; San Jose, California; and San Francisco, California, came even close to making the bottom 10 overall, which goes to show that money shouldn't be the only factor to consider when determining where to live as a senior.

Finding the right place for your senior years

Clearly, the place you spend your days in retirement will have an impact on not just your budget but your everyday quality of life. If you're not sure where to go once you stop working, try asking yourself the following questions:

How much do I want to spend on housing, transportation, and essentials? The more you fork over to cover your basic costs, the less cash you'll have available for leisure. On the other hand, if you choose a city that offers much in the way of free entertainment, it might be worth the higher rent or mortgage. Furthermore, don't just consider how much you want to spend but also what you can afford to spend. You might dream of retiring in Honolulu, but if your nest egg won't hold up there, you'll need to pick someplace with a lower cost of living.

How's my health? Though having good access to healthcare is important for all retirees, if you have a known medical issue, you'll need to pay even closer attention to how local hospitals and doctors are ranked. The last thing you want as a senior is to have to travel long distances to receive quality medical care.

How important is it for me to live near family? Your family might serve as a key social outlet and support system in retirement, so be sure to factor in proximity to children, siblings, and grandkids when deciding where to live. If you're not willing to relocate to get closer (say, your family lives in an expensive city or someplace whose climate isn't ideal), consider the cost of traveling from your city of choice to where your loved ones live, because you don't want to grapple with perpetually pricey air fares when you're stuck on a fixed income.

Choosing the right place to retire is crucial to your overall happiness. The more thought you put into where you retire, the more content you're likely to be down the line.

Here Are 2017’s Best and Worst Cities to Retire was first published to http://www.weknownona.com