The Daily Moth 2-4-2020
Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Tuesday, February 4. Ready for news?
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Iowa caucuses delays spark controversy
Last night was the Iowa caucuses, which is the first voting of the 2020 presidential election season. We’ve covered the ASL satellite caucus in Des Moines last night in a separate video.
The Iowa caucuses had a lot of drama and controversy because the results were supposed to arrive last night, but they didn’t.
The Iowa Democratic Party had a major delay due to what they said were issues that came up with their new way of reporting voting totals and complications with a new app.
The IDP finally released 62% of the precinct totals this afternoon, and at the time of signing, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are head-to-head in the state delegate equivalents. Pete has 26.9% to Bernie’s 25.1%. Elizabeth Warren is in third place with 18.3% and Joe Biden is in fourth with 15.6%. In fifth place is Amy Klobuchar with 12.6%.
I reached out to Gretchen Newman, the Permanent Caucus Chair who led the ASL Satellite Caucus last night, and asked her to share what she knew about the delay.
She said the major issue was that Iowa was to release three sets of data — the first alignment, the final alignment, and the state delegate equivalent. In the past the IDP only released the state delegate equivalent, which is based on a mathematical formula.
She also explained that with the new app, she had to apply for access to it but did get access to it until Monday afternoon — the day of the caucuses. The app’s purpose is to do the math. She said it was in a “test mode” until right before the caucuses started. She said the app was pretty simple and accessible, but that she thinks there were many “older” caucus leaders who might be uncomfortable with it and chose to use phone calls to report the totals, and the phone lines were flooded and was on hold for hours.
Newman said the media went crazy with this story but that they do have a “paper trail” that can accurately count the votes.
Thank you for explaining. She also sent me a vox.com article that she said was helpful to understand the Iowa caucus counting process.
President Trump and top Republicans seized on the Iowa delay to cast Democrats as disorganized and incompetent to run the country.
There were Iowa Republican caucuses last night as well. President Trump won 97% of the vote and 39 out of 40 delegates. He easily obliterated Republican challengers Bill Weld and Joe Walsh.
Back to the Democratic candidates — we’ll have to wait to see the results of the other 38% of precincts to see if Pete and Bernie will maintain their lead or if the other candidates will surge forward.
The Nevada Democratic Party announced they will not use the app that the IDP used — the app was developed by Shadow, Inc. Nevada’s caucus is on February 22.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-wins-gop-iowa-caucus
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/state/iowa?xid=ec_crm_iowa_d
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/04/politics/iowa-caucus-app-issues/index.html
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Shannen Doherty reveals Stage 4 cancer diagnosis
Actress Shannen Doherty, known for her roles on Beverly Hills 90210 and Charmed, revealed that she received a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis. She has kept it from going out in the public for over a year, but is coming out now because it will be revealed in lawsuit documents over a complaint about State Farm’s coverage of damage to her home in Malibu from the 2018 Woolsey fire.
Doherty had breast cancer that went in remission in 2015 and it’s coming back.
She said she is “pretty scared.” She also said she found out about her Stage 4 cancer diagnosis before fellow actor Luke Perry passed away last March.
https://deadline.com/2020/02/shannen-doherty-reveals-stage-4-cancer-diagnosis-in-gma-interview-1202850826/
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Two high school cross country runners killed by truck
In Moore, Oklahoma, two female high school cross country runners were killed after they were struck by a pickup truck while they were running in a group.
17-year-old senior Rachel Freeman died yesterday and today a sophomore named Yuridia Martinez died from her injuries.
The group had six runners in total from Moore High School. The superintendent said the students were on the sidewalk when they were hit and that over 150 students witnessed the incident.
One runner had a broken arm and leg, two others are still hospitalized, and a fourth runner had a broken leg and a broken ankle.
The driver was a 57-year-old man named Max Townsend and he was driving a large red Ford truck with a metal grille. He is now in custody and is charged with manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident involving an injury.
Police said it seems like the driver was going over the speed limit, which was 25 mph. Police also said Townsend’s 29-year-old son died on Sunday after he rear-ended another vehicle.
https://ktul.com/news/local/gallery/2nd-student-dies-after-truck-hits-oklahoma-runners#photo-1
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That is all for today. Be sure to check out DPAN.TV’s coverage of President Trump’s State of the Union address tonight. They will be providing live interpreters and I’ll do some commentary before and after the speech. You can watch it on DPAN.TV or on Facebook/DPANTV.
Stay with the light!