Friday, August 31, 2018

California moves towards 100% carbon-free electricity after landmark vote | Energy Central

Fwd: Trump Eases US Methane Rules to save entire industry $1M/Yr.



Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Monty Bannerman <mbannerman@arcstarenergy.com>
Date: Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:03 PM
Subject: Trump Eases US Methane Rules to save entire industry $1M/Yr.
To: Monty Bannerman <mbannerman@tnag.net>


Thursday, August 30, 2018

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Trump thinks mercury just fine to inhale or ingest alongside your CO2 and NOX

DFINITY raises $102M from a16z and Polychain for a decentralised ‘Internet Computer’ to rival AWS



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DFINITY raises $102M from a16z and Polychain for a decentralised 'Internet Computer' to rival AWS // TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/29/dfinity/

Since blockchain technology appeared, there has been a persistent problem in its development: how to make it scale to billions of users. Bitcoin was famously never really designed for this, and today other platforms like Ethereum are also struggling. If you could crack this problem, the thinking goes, you'd end up with the hottest property in blockchain right now.

That, a very healthy dose of ambition, and a bench of strong computer science talent are some of the big reasons why investors are gathering around DFINITY, a startup based out of Zug, Switzerland and Palo Alto that is also a foundation, and has a very lofty goal to build what it calls the "Internet Computer": a blockchain-based, decentralised and non-proprietary network to run the next generation of mega-applications. DFINITY aims to launch an initial version of its public network — which it has also dubbed "Cloud 3.0" — towards the end of the year.

Today, DFINITY is announcing that it has raised $102 million in funding, in a round jointly led by Andreessen Horowitz (via its crypto fund a16z crypto) and Polychain Capital. Both were previous investors in a $61 million round DFINITY announced earlier this year — which has been a blockbuster for blockchain, with at least $1.3 billion being invested into the technology in the first half of 2018 alone. DFINITY has now raised just over $195 million to date since being founded in 2015.

Other investors in this latest round include SV Angel, Aspect Ventures, Village Global, Multicoin Capital, Scalar Capital, and Amino Capital, KR1, as well as DFINITY community members.

DFINITY's approach to the scalability problem is to resolve the dilemma between full decentralization (where every miner runs every instruction of every computation) versus delegating the mechanics to nodes or super nodes (so therefore more centralisation). DFINITY says it has tested its network to the point where it can finalize software computations in under 5 seconds, which is extremely fast. Bitcoin by contrast takes 3,600 seconds, and Ethereum 600 seconds.

DFINITY conducted an airdrop in May of 35 million Swiss Francs worth of tokens to DFINITY community members to help them become early users. Now DFINITY has followed the newer approach of raising a private sale for its token, without going to a public sale.

You can also watch a test demo of the network here:

While a lot of blockchain projects are tied up with currency (an area that DFINITY has also developed, as you can see), what's notable about what this startup is doing is that its wider focus is on building a platform that could be used across a significantly wider set of applications.

The Internet Computer, as described by founder and chief scientist Dominic Williams, "is a public infrastructure that aims to host the world's next generation of software and services." The belief is that by making it open source and non-proprietary, it's significantly more secure and less costly to maintain. DFINITY claims that R&D on such an architecture is 90 percent lower.

"We are excited to back DFINITY's Internet Computer and their vision to host the world's next generation of software and services on a public network," said Chris Dixon, Partner at a16z crypto. "The Internet Computer is on track to become a critical piece of the future technology stack. This is groundbreaking and a real testament to Dominic and the incredible team at DFINITY."

"Dfinity is exciting to a new decentralised world because it has the ability to solve the big issues of the day, including scaling and network security. It's perhaps one of the handful of new blockchain platform's that can achieve this. We were always impressed with Dominic and his conviction of their approach," added Keld Van Shreven, CEO of KR1.

In addition to Williams, that team is impressive indeed.

It includes Timo Hanke as head of engineering, who is a former mathematics and cryptography professor who created AsicBoost to increase the efficiency of Bitcoin mining; Mahnush Movahedi, who joined as a senior researcher from Yale where he's worked on "scalable and fault-tolerant distributed algorithms for consensus and secure multi-party computation, secret sharing, and interactive communication over noisy channels"; ex-Googler Ben Lynn, who is the "L" from BLS cryptography, used in Threshold Relay to "generate randomness and achieve security, speed and scale in public networks"; and Adreas Rossberg, another ex-Googler who had co-designed the WebAssembly virtual machine, which is also used at DFINITY.

While Internet networks and the largest players online today are proprietary entities with their own commercial and strategic agendas, the vision behind DFINITY is that it can be used to run "autonomous software" that will run in a more independent way. These will exist as running open source software that updates itself using inbuilt governance that can provide hard guarantees to users in the form of "smart contracts" (computing and other transactions that can be made without third parties). These can cover how data might be used, or provide guarantees to startups wishing to build functionality without the precarious worry of a platform access getting revoked. You can read more about the technology in its white paper.

DFINITY has not disclosed its valuation with this round.


----

Read in my feedly.com
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

New LHC Discovery Advances Support for Standard Model of Particle Physics

Bullard: California's Energy Diet is Working | Bloomberg NEF

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Reuters: Liberal Democrat and Trump-backed Republican to face off for Florida governor

From Reuters News:

Liberal Democrat and Trump-backed Republican to face off for Florida governor
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election/liberal-democrat-and-trump-backed-republican-to-face-off-for-florida-governor-idUSKCN1LD0Z6

A liberal backed by Senator Bernie Sanders pulled off an upset in the Democratic primary for Florida governor on Tuesday, setting up a November showdown between the party's progressive wing and a Republican aligned with President Donald Trump.

This service is not intended to encourage spam. The details provided have been used for the sole purpose of facilitating this email communication and have not been retained by Thomson Reuters.
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

AP Mobile: Worldwide gun deaths reach 250,000 yearly; US ranks high

Worldwide gun deaths reach 250,000 yearly; US ranks high: https://apnews.com/ba913f00178346f8b90f66c9a55bba00

Shared via AP Mobile. Download the app now:
iOS - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ap-mobile/id284901416?mt=8
Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mnn.Android&referrer=utm_source=share_item&utm_medium=mail
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

AP Mobile: Trump takes on Google, alleges bias in searches now that they are weeding out his nazis and racists

Trump takes on Google, alleges bias in searches: https://apnews.com/303cecf1f4fc43c0a466955622c3ecb0

Shared via AP Mobile. Download the app now:
iOS - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ap-mobile/id284901416?mt=8
Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mnn.Android&referrer=utm_source=share_item&utm_medium=mail
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

Re: Top Trump Organization CFO flips! Best news I ever heard about this insane thug

If the condom fits...

Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

On Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 2:50 PM Charles Wassell <cwassell@arcstarenergy.com> wrote:
As an aside, how would you like to grow up with a name like Pecker?

Best regards,

Chick

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 5:12 PM, Monty Bannerman <mbannerman@arcstarenergy.com> wrote:
No downside here. This plus his pal  Pecker ratchets the pressure and the spawn of cohn is showing signs of cracking up.

Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:03 PM dsimpson@mgilp.com <dsimpson@mgilp.com> wrote:
Not clear that it's a complete "flip".  Sounds a little narrow. But hopeful.    The NY AG is laser-beamed on his "charity" - likely to lead to criminal charges of all kinds. And his smug sons are on the board and thus in the crosshairs

On Aug 24, 2018, at 3:05 PM, Monty Bannerman <mbannerman@arcstarenergy.com> wrote:




--
Charles S. "Chick" Wassell
Chairman
ArcStar Energy, LLC
P.O. Box 574
Helena, MT 59624
Work/Home:  406.449.1363
Mobile: 720.289.5619
Fax:     801.751.0977
www.arcstarenergy.com

CONFIDENTIALITY
AND PRIVILEGE NOTICE:  The information contained in this email message may be privileged, confidential and protected from disclosures.  If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this email message in error, please notify the sender via email or telephone. 

Re: Top Trump Organization CFO flips! Best news I ever heard about this insane thug

As an aside, how would you like to grow up with a name like Pecker?

Best regards,

Chick

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 5:12 PM, Monty Bannerman <mbannerman@arcstarenergy.com> wrote:
No downside here. This plus his pal  Pecker ratchets the pressure and the spawn of cohn is showing signs of cracking up.

Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:03 PM dsimpson@mgilp.com <dsimpson@mgilp.com> wrote:
Not clear that it's a complete "flip".  Sounds a little narrow. But hopeful.    The NY AG is laser-beamed on his "charity" - likely to lead to criminal charges of all kinds. And his smug sons are on the board and thus in the crosshairs

On Aug 24, 2018, at 3:05 PM, Monty Bannerman <mbannerman@arcstarenergy.com> wrote:




--
Charles S. "Chick" Wassell
Chairman
ArcStar Energy, LLC
P.O. Box 574
Helena, MT 59624
Work/Home:  406.449.1363
Mobile: 720.289.5619
Fax:     801.751.0977
www.arcstarenergy.com

CONFIDENTIALITY
AND PRIVILEGE NOTICE:  The information contained in this email message may be privileged, confidential and protected from disclosures.  If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this email message in error, please notify the sender via email or telephone. 

INFORMATION

Good Day
I am Brian, I have a private investment I will want us to discuss, please give me your most secure and private email with phone numbers asap for more details.

Regards,
Brian

Washington and a list of other states aligns against Trump coal power plan

Friday, August 24, 2018

Greentech Media News: New California Bill Pushes for Near-Term Boost in Solar and Wind, Plus More Geothermal

Greentech Media News: New California Bill Pushes for Near-Term Boost in Solar and Wind, Plus More Geothermal.
http://feeds.greentechmedia.com/~r/GreentechMedia/~3/1IK5PIJrY7A/new-california-bill-pushes-for-near-term-boost-in-solar-and-wind-geothermal
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

Re: Top Trump Organization CFO flips! Best news I ever heard about this insane thug

No downside here. This plus his pal  Pecker ratchets the pressure and the spawn of cohn is showing signs of cracking up.

Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 7:03 PM dsimpson@mgilp.com <dsimpson@mgilp.com> wrote:
Not clear that it's a complete "flip".  Sounds a little narrow. But hopeful.    The NY AG is laser-beamed on his "charity" - likely to lead to criminal charges of all kinds. And his smug sons are on the board and thus in the crosshairs

On Aug 24, 2018, at 3:05 PM, Monty Bannerman <mbannerman@arcstarenergy.com> wrote:

Re: Top Trump Organization CFO flips! Best news I ever heard about this insane thug

Not clear that it's a complete "flip".  Sounds a little narrow. But hopeful.    The NY AG is laser-beamed on his "charity" - likely to lead to criminal charges of all kinds. And his smug sons are on the board and thus in the crosshairs

On Aug 24, 2018, at 3:05 PM, Monty Bannerman <mbannerman@arcstarenergy.com> wrote:

Top Trump Organization CFO flips! Best news I ever heard about this insane thug

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

BBC News: Trump ends ex-CIA head John Brennan's security access

I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

Trump ends ex-CIA head John Brennan's security access - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45203277

* Disclaimer *

The BBC is not responsible for the content of this email, and anything written in this email does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the email address nor name of the sender have been verified.
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

I Never Thought I Would See That Here | Former Intelligence Chief

Hard core anti-trump PAC, but these interviews are real.

https://investigaterussia.org/video/i-never-thought-i-would-see-here
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

China Files WTO Challenge to US Tariffs on Solar Panels

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

BBC News: Google tracks users who turn off location history

I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

Google tracks users who turn off location history - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45183041

* Disclaimer *

The BBC is not responsible for the content of this email, and anything written in this email does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the email address nor name of the sender have been verified.
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

Fwd: California energy grid entering decade of disruption



Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: David <paxvobiscum50@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 12:41 AM
Subject: Fwd: California energy grid entering decade of disruption
To: Monty Bannerman <mbannerman@mgilp.com>


Fyi


Begin forwarded message:

From: Next 10 <info@next10.org>
Date: August 13, 2018 at 1:11:07 PM PDT
To: paxvobiscum50@gmail.com
Subject: California energy grid entering decade of disruption
Reply-To: info@next10.org

August 2018
Next 10 Launches Series of Five Briefs on the California Grid
California's grid is facing an era of rapid change as access to renewable energy grows. With the state legislature currently debating a number bills that could shape the future of our energy system, Next 10 has released a series of five briefs examining key issues facing the California grid.

The first in the series provides an overview of the state's energy system and shifting trends, and the second takes a fresh look at the pros and cons of creating a Western regional grid. Grid regionalization could change how and where renewables are built, bought and sold, with ramifications for energy markets in California and across the West. The remaining three briefs in the series take a deep dive into how the grid might be challenged or helped by the rise of electric vehicles; the increase in distributed energy resources (DERs), such as rooftop solar panels; and the growth of community choice aggregation (CCA), which allows cities and counties to join together to purchase electricity on behalf of their community members.

Ultimately, these rapidly advancing energy technologies could provide benefits to the power system, but the state will have to work to shape regulations that optimize benefits while reducing risks. Learn more about the full series below.
This brief, the first in the series and authored by Bentham Paulos of PaulosAnalysis, explains how the state's power system and grid work, lays out environmental and social issues, and provides visions of the future as the grid evolves in concert with economic and environmental trends. It acts as a primer on the California grid.
This brief, also authored by energy analyst Bentham Paulos, lays out the arguments for and against expanding the western electricity market through the formation of a regional independent system operator (ISO). Supporters say setting up a vast regional market would accelerate the scale-up of clean energy while reducing operating costs, enabling California to meet its climate goals even as energy bills come down. Detractors say that a Western RTO could reduce the state's control over clean energy and climate policies and shift construction jobs to other states.
Electrifying transportation is a key pathway for California's clean energy strategy. This brief, authored by Anand R. Gopal and Julia Szinai of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, finds that the California grid is well positioned to handle rapid growth in plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) but advance planning and smart policy can ease the transition for the state's power system. Energy demand is only modestly increasing as PEV sales surge, and while the growth of EVs in California will require upgrades to the energy system, the costs are likely to be low compared to the benefits. Further, managed charging could help with one key challenge of an increasingly renewables-heavy energy supply: avoiding curtailment. By 2030, managed EV charging could reduce annual renewable curtailment by up to 50 percent annually.
Distributed energy resources are small technologies—including rooftop solar, energy storage, microgrids, load control, energy efficiency, and communication and control technologies—that produce, store, manage, and reduce the use of energy. This brief, by Bentham Paulos of PaulosAnalysis, finds that California is a leader in both DER deployment and policy. Ninety percent of the nation's small-scale energy storage and nearly half of all U.S. large-scale storage is in California. There are also over 800,000 customers with rooftop solar systems, totaling over 6,500 MW of capacity. While DER utilization continues to grow in the state, the brief finds that California should be focusing on increased demand response, one of the several DERs analyzed.
County and city governments administer CCAs as local alternatives to investor-owned utilities (IOUs). Since 2010, CCAs have been forming at a rapid rate, with over half of them starting within the last two years. This brief, authored by JR DeShazo, Julien Gattaciecca, and Kelly Trumbull of UCLA's Luskin Center for Innovation, finds that the rise of CCAs has had both direct and indirect positive effects on overall renewable energy consumed in California, helping contribute to the state meeting its 2030 RPS targets approximately ten years in advance. Currently, CCAs are offering customers electricity with renewable energy content ranging from 37 percent to 100 percent, with an average of 52 percent, compared to the 32 to 44 percent renewable range offered by IOUs.
Next 10 | (415) 957-0202 | info@next10.org | www.next10.org
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Friday, August 10, 2018

Popular Mechanics: Where Are All the Hydrogen Cars?

Popular Mechanics: Where Are All the Hydrogen Cars?.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-electric/a22688627/hydrogen-fuel-cell-cars/
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

Reuters: Fossil Energy executives lament Trump tariffs as costs rise on pipeline projects

From Reuters News:

Energy executives lament Trump tariffs as costs rise on pipeline projects
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-steel-pipeline/energy-executives-lament-trump-tariffs-as-costs-rise-on-pipeline-projects-idUSKBN1KV28C

U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to double tariffs on steel and aluminum from Turkey could push up costs even further for domestic oil and gas pipeline projects, as energy executives said they were already struggling from earlier tariff rises.

This service is not intended to encourage spam. The details provided have been used for the sole purpose of facilitating this email communication and have not been retained by Thomson Reuters.
Monty Bannerman
ArcStar Energy
Tel: +1 646-402-5076
www.arcstarenergy.com

Environmental Regulations Drove Steep and Verified Declines in US Factory Pollution. What will happen now that they are being gutted?

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

UPDATE: ACWA unseats Fotowatio's reported lowest bid in Egypt’s 200 MW tender – pv magazine International

Fwd: She’s Running: Here’s how much women killed it last night

Women rising up?

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: VICE News <info@vice.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 8, 2018, 2:54 PM
Subject: She's Running: Here's how much women killed it last night
To: <Mbannerman@tnag.net>


View this email in your browser

More women than ever are running for political office. Sign up for our newsletter following them.

We're hurtling into the home stretch of primaries. Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington all had primaries Tuesday, leading women to make history in races across the country. Now, there's just 90 days left before the Nov. 6 midterms.

  • At least 23 women won nominations to the U.S. House, bringing the total number of women's nominations up to 185, according to Gender Watch 2018. (That includes two non-incumbent women of color.) In 2016, a then-record-setting 167 women were nominated to the House.

  • A historic 11 women, including eight Democrats and three Republicans, have now been nominated for governor's mansions.

  • Twenty-five Congressional races for the House and the Senate will now feature all women, which is — you guessed it — also a record.

Kansas

  • Sharice Davids took another step toward becoming the first Native American congresswoman. She limped to a victory in the 3rd District over progressive Brent Welder — who was backed by the Left's breakout star, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — by just over 2,000 votes. If Davids, who's endorsed by EMILY's List, wins the general election, she'd become one of the few openly gay lawmakers in Congress (and the first openly gay member of Kansas' congressional delegation).

  • State Sen. Laura Kelly took home a Democratic nomination for governor. But it's still unclear who she'll face in November. The outcome of the race between Republicans Jeff Colyer and Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a favorite of President Donald Trump and a voter fraud hardliner, likely won't be settled for days.

Michigan

  • Ex-state senator Gretchen Whitmer won the Democratic nomination for governor. Polls consistently predicted a win for Whitmer, and she didn't disappoint (even though Ocasio-Cortez campaigned for Whitmer's more progressive opponent Abdul El-Sayed, who was fighting to become the country's first Muslim governor).

  • Rashida Tlaib is set to become the first Muslim congresswoman. The former state representative triumphed over opponent Brenda Jones in the Democratic primary by about 2,500 votes. She's now running unopposed in the general election for the bright-blue 13th Congressional District, which includes parts of Detroit.

FYI: Ocasio-Cortez campaigned, hard, for several underdog progressive candidates. But many of her picks lost.

Missouri

  • McCaskill squashed the competition in her primary. After picking up more than 80 percent of the vote, incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill is now off to fight Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley in the general, which is shaping up to be the fight of her political life.

  • Ferguson activist Cori Bush lost — by a lot. She campaigned alongside Ocasio Cortez for the 1st District's Democratic primary, but that wasn't enough to defeat incumbent William Lacy Clay.

Washington

  • It's a woman vs. woman Senate race this year. Democratic incumbent Sen. Maria Cantwell will officially face off against former Washington state Republican Party Chair Susan Hutchison. In Washington, the top two vote-getters in the primary head to the general, no matter their party.

  • The No. 4 Republican in the House, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, should be worried. Democrat Lisa Brown was just 525 votes away from beating "powerhouse" McMorris Rodgers in the 5th District. Both candidates will advance to the general, and the numbers indicate that Democrats may be able to flip the district come November.

Here's how much female candidates are crushing it: Even before Tuesday, the women running for office this year were winning. About two-thirds had already gone through their first elections — and around half had triumphed.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is paying for Al Franken's resignation. After eight women accused Franken, the former Minnesota Democratic senator, of sexual misconduct, Gillibrand was the first to call for his resignation. Now, several major donors in the Democratic Party refuse to support Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, in her upcoming re-election campaign, the Huffington Post reported last week. Billionaire George Soros, for example, told the Washington Post that he blames Gillibrand for pushing Franken out "in order to improve her chances" in the 2020 presidential contest.

Yes, technically, Gillibrand was the first to call for Franken's resignation — but 17 other senators chimed in with demands for his head within 90 minutes. Plus, it's likely that Gillibrand, a longtime advocate for sexual assault survivors, would also now be facing criticism if she didn't stand up against Franken, as HuffPost notes.

FYI: Franken hasn't ruled out running for public office again one day, according to an interview he gave to ABC News last week.

The battle for Paul Ryan's old seat isn't over yet. "Ironstache" Randy Bryce grabbed the nation, and its pocketbooks, with a viral ad challenging House Speaker Paul Ryan. Bryce was hailed as Democrats' best chance to capture the white, working class voters who'd fled the party for Trump — a narrative that frustrated local leaders, who argued that the press and the national party were unfairly ignoring progressive Cathy Myers.

Now, Myers is refusing to just let Bryce walk off with the Aug. 14 primary. There's been no independent polling of the election, according to Mother Jones, but Myers' $1.2 million in fundraising is clearly keeping her in the race. But she's dealing with another curveball: an ethics scandal.

To make a years-long legal battle short, Myers' then-boyfriend represented her now-campaign manager in a 2015 lawsuit to force a Wisconsin school district to release records. At the time, Myers sat on the school board. According to her critics, that gave Myers the opportunity to improperly side against the board and give her boyfriend insider info. But Myers maintains she did nothing wrong.

Trump and Feinstein are now feuding about Chinese spies. After weeks of reports that California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein once employed a Chinese spy, Trump decided to blow the situation up big-league (or bigly; I'm still unclear on that one). At a rally Saturday night, Trump told the crowd, "I like Dianne Feinstein, I have to tell you, but I don't like the fact that she had a Chinese spy driving her, and she didn't know it."

Feinstein used Trump's favorite medium to fire back: She confirmed on Twitter that she had indeed forced a staffer to leave after the FBI informed her that the staffer could be a spy for China. But the staffer, Feinstein said, had "no access to sensitive information." The FBI also concluded that the staffer hadn't passed any important info back to China, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Though the 85-year-old, 26-year veteran of the Senate will almost certainly win her re-election bid, she's having a tough time lately. Former President Barack Obama released his 2018 list of endorsements last week, and Feinstein's name wasn't on it, even though a majority of his 81 picks were women. She also recently failed to land the support of the California Democratic Party.

We're not done with primaries yet this week. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat who represents Hawaii's 2nd District and the first Hindu elected to Congress, is expected to cruise through her state's primary on Aug. 11, despite facing two challengers. Gabbard's popularity in the deeply Democratic state is surprising, the New Yorker's Kelefa Sanneh wrote late last year, given that the Iraq veteran espoused some distinctly conservative ideals when she started out in Hawaiian politics. Sanneh writes:

"When Gabbard entered politics, she was only twenty-one, and in those early years she was a social conservative, pro-life, and active in the fight against same-sex marriage. She is now pro-choice and pro-same-sex-marriage: On these and other issues, she has evolved enough to be almost — but not quite — at home in the contemporary Democratic Party, which is increasingly progressive, particularly on issues of gender and sexual orientation. The exact nature and extent of Gabbard's political evolution is not easy to apprehend, especially since Hawaii is not known for political centrism."

FYI: Andria Tupola, a Native Hawaiian and Samoan state lawmaker, is running for governor as a Republican. She's outstripped her GOP opponents in fundraising, which is a good sign for her primary chances.

Not only are more women running, more women are voting Democrat. It's no secret that women tend to vote Democrat at higher rates than men. The phenomenon even has a catchy name: the "gender gap." But the gender gap between male and female voters in this year's congressional elections may be at its widest since 1992, according to FiveThirtyEight.

A YouGov survey out last week found that female voters preferred a Democratic candidate by about 15 percentage points, while male voters liked a Republican candidate by 9 points. That's on top of two other recent polls that found a gender gap of more than 24 points, FiveThirtyEight pointed out.

The findings rival the gulf between male and female voters in the 2016 election, when women tended to vote for Hillary Clinton by 13 percentage points and men for Trump by 11.

"I was in New Orleans in December, and I was on a panel. And some people came up to me afterwards and they asked about Randy ["Ironstache" Bryce], which is awesome. But we have a primary, you know. I feel like we should be talking about the primary."

— Gina Walkington, a Democrat who's running for office for the first time and hoping to win Wisconsin's 61st Assembly District. She's unopposed in her primary, but Walkington's opponent in the general election, Republican Samantha Kerkman, is the longest-serving Republican in the state Assembly.

Walkington called Bryce and Myers "both great candidates." But all the national attention to the race for the 1st Congressional District is "a little bit of a mixed bag," she said.

"The frustration is people not realizing that there's a primary maybe, people thinking that there was only one candidate," Walkington told me in late July, when she attended a Planned Parenthood convention in Detroit. "I think primaries can be really healthy."

More than 400 LGTBQ people are running for office this year (which is, yes, another record-breaking number). But right now, very few elected officials identify as LGTBQ — and even fewer are LGBTQ women.

People who openly identify as LGBTQ hold only 559 of the almost 520,000 elected positions available in the United States, according to a recent report by the Victory Institute, which supports LGBTQ people who want to run for office or work in the public sector. That's just .1 percent of the all elected positions in the United States.

Of those 559 people, 210 are cisgender women. Another nine are transgender women. Three more are genderqueer, gender non-conforming, or two-spirit.

"The Year of the Woman 2.0" might not just lead to an extraordinary number of women running for office — it may actually lead to an extraordinary number of women winning office. VICE News Tonight correspondent Allison McCann breaks down the numbers.

This week, progressives flocked to New Orleans for Netroots Nation, a crucial stop for Democratic candidates hoping to snag a presidential nomination. This year, as VICE News' Alex Thompson outlines, the conference's theme was clear: Talk about race.

"We shouldn't just be thanking women of color for electing progressive leaders," California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris said at the event. "In 2018, we should be electing women of color as those leaders."

Whispers started cropping up as early as May that Democrats may have made a mistake by betting so heavily on the Wisconsin mystique of "Ironstache" and ignoring Myers. Thompson and VICE News Tonight correspondent Evan McMorris-Santoro dove into the fight for the votes Ryan is leaving behind.

That's all for this week, but if you want to say hi — or send any tips — email me here. You can also find me on Twitter at @carter_sherman. Thanks to Leslie Xia for the design.

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