Tag: Blake

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Politics

Blake Masters warned to lift more money vs. Mark Kelly

Blake Masters warned to raise more cash vs. Mark Kelly

Republican US senatorial candidate Blake Masters speaks at a campaign event on the eve of the primary, on August 01, 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Republican leaders and megadonors are warning Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters to improve his fundraising or else be doomed in his bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in November’s election, according to people familiar with the matter.

Masters has received urgent private calls in recent weeks from GOP leaders like Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, these people explained. The NRSC is the official campaign arm for the Senate GOP, and has spent over $6 million taking on Masters’ rival Kelly, according to data from the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.

Kelly’s seat has long been considered a potential pickup opportunity for Republicans, as forecaster Cook Political Report labels the race a toss-up. Recent polling, however, suggests that Masters is falling behind. A Fox News poll taken in August shows Kelly leading Masters by 8 points, while an Arizona Republican pollster told NBC News that his own surveys showed Masters trailing Kelly by 10 points.

Longtime GOP megadonors, who want to help Masters overtake Kelly but have not heard from him since he won the party’s primary, have inundated the Republican candidate with calls, these people explained.

A person familiar with one of the recent calls to Masters said a veteran GOP financier “read him the riot act” and told him, in part, that he must start raising money from more wealthy Republican donors and stop relying on billionaire tech executive Peter Thiel , his longtime colleague and friend, to help him like he did in the primary. These people declined to be named in order to speak freely about private conversations.

Shortly after publication of this story, Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for the Masters campaign, denied that the candidate ever heard from a GOP megadonor who “read him the riot act.” Miller told CNBC in an email: “It didn’t happen.”

Kelly has massively outraised Masters, who won a Republican primary in Arizona this month. The incumbent’s campaign has amassed more than $54 million during the 2022 election cycle, compared with just over $4 million for Masters’ campaign, according to the latest Federal Election Commission data.

Thiel contributed $15 million during the primary to a pro-Masters super PAC, Saving Arizona, and he donated $1.5 million to the committee as recently as July. Masters was the chief operating officer at Thiel Capital, an investment firm founded by Thiel.

The calls to Masters come as even some Republican leaders seem to be questioning their Senate candidates. When asked about his predictions for the midterms, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said “candidate quality” has a lot to do with winning Senate elections. He added that he believes there will be an “extremely close Senate” after November’s elections.

The Senate is currently split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans.

In a statement to CNBC, NRSC spokesman Chris Hartline did not deny that Scott called Masters to urge him to improve his fundraising operation.

“Mark Kelly votes with Joe Biden almost 100% of the time. While he claims to be a moderate, he’s supported reckless Washington spending and done nothing to address the border crisis that’s raging in Arizona. The NRSC will continue to remind Arizona voters of Mark Kelly’s radical agenda and Blake Masters’ plans to fight for Arizona families,” Hartline said in response to questions about Scott’s contact with Masters.

Data from ad tracker AdImpact shows that the NRSC has booked just over $3.8 million in ads in Arizona for September, but nothing yet for October or November. The ad tracker also shows that Masters’ campaign has not yet booked airtime for the fall while Kelly’s team has reserved over $10 million in ad space from September through November.

AdImpact says it has not yet seen data showing the Thiel-backed Saving Arizona reserve airtime for the fall. The last spending it saw from the super PAC was on Aug. 2, the day of the Arizona Senate Republican primary. The super PAC spent over $10 million during the primary, including almost $8.5 million backing Masters, according to OpenSecrets.

Masters and his campaign did not return requests for comment. A spokesman for Saving Arizona did not return requests for comment. Thiel and his spokesman did not return requests for comment, including about whether the billionaire GOP donor plans to help Masters further.

The candidates and outside groups from both sides of the aisle have combined to spend over $90 million in the general election Senate race in Arizona. Yet Democratic organizations appear to be outspending their Republican rivals in the Grand Canyon State on ads in the coming months.

AdImpact’s data shows Democratic outside groups are reserving nearly $28 million worth of ad time in Arizona over the next three months. Republican committees have so far spent just over $16 million on ad buys within the same time span trying to help Masters overtake Kelly, according to the data.

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Entertainment

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton Are Formally Married

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton Are Officially Married

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton have officially tied the knot! According to People, the couple married Saturday at Blake’s Tishomingo Ranch in Oklahoma. Gwen and Blake previously sparked marriage rumors after Gwen also recently had an intimate bridal shower with family and friends on the 12th. The “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” singer also recently had an intimate bridal shower.

Gwen and Blake first met as trainers The voice in 2015 and began a romance following their respective divorces from Gavin Rossdale and Miranda Lambert. Gwen also shares three children with Gavin, 15-year-old Kingston, 12-year-old Zuma, and 7-year-old Apollo. Blake asked the question at their Oklahoma ranch in October 2020, and they’ve been going strong ever since. Ahead, see photos of Gwen’s glitzy new wedding ring.

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Business

Sexual Assault Allegations In opposition to Blake Bailey Halt Delivery of His Philip Roth Ebook

Sexual Assault Allegations Against Blake Bailey Halt Shipping of His Philip Roth Book

“I can assure you that I have never had consensual sex with anyone and when it comes to a point I will vigorously defend my reputation and livelihood,” he wrote in the email checked by The Times. “In the meantime, I appeal to your decency: I have a wife and a young daughter who love me and are dependent on me, and such a rumor, even if it is not true, would destroy them.”

“We took this claim very seriously. We were aware that the allegation had also been forwarded to two people at Mr. Bailey’s former employer and a reporter at the New York Times, a news organization well equipped to investigate them, ”said a Norton spokeswoman . “We took steps, including questioning Mr. Bailey about the allegations, which he categorically denied, and we were aware of the sender’s request for a guarantee of anonymity.”

Former students remember him as a charismatic role model who treated them as intellectual peers. But he also created an atmosphere of intimacy that could cross the line, such as encouraging students to write about romantic relationships in magazines they brought him for comment. “There was an environment full of dirty jokes and permissiveness,” said Elizabeth Gross, a former student who now teaches at Tulane University. Some students said his utterances and behavior were attempts to “groom” them for sexual encounters years later.

Eve Peyton, 40, a former student who now works in public relations at a New Orleans high school, said Mr Bailey raped her when she was a graduate student. When she was his student, he treated her as “one of his special girls,” she said, attention that felt flattering and empowering at the time.

She was a PhD student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in June 2003 and engaged to be married. She and Mr. Bailey were both visiting New Orleans at the same time and having a drink. After that, he invited her back to the place where he lived, where he kissed her, initiated oral sex, and when she squirmed he put her to the bed and forcibly had sex with her, she said. He finally stopped when she told him she wasn’t using birth control, she remembered.

After driving her to her father’s house where she lived, Mr. Bailey said he had “wanted her” since the day they met when she was 12, Ms. Peyton said.

She told two friends about the attack shortly after it happened but didn’t go to the police, partly because she was overwhelmed and wanted to get on with her life, she said. She later saw a therapist experienced in counseling on sexual assault.

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Business

S. Prestley Blake, a Founding father of Pleasant’s, Dies at 106

S. Prestley Blake, a Founder of Friendly’s, Dies at 106

Stewart Prestley Blake was born on November 26, 1914 in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Herbert Prestley Blake and Ethel (Stewart) Blake. He grew up in Springfield, where his father worked for the watch manufacturer Standard Electric Time Company. His mother was an automobile enthusiast who encouraged her sons to be fascinated by cars. When he was 16, he bought a Type T Ford using the revenue from a newspaper route. (Another brother, Hollis, died at the age of 2.)

Mr Blake attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut for a year before returning to Springfield to start his ice cream parlor with his brother Curtis.

The Blake brothers closed the shop during World War II to join the war effort. Mr. Blake worked for what is now Westinghouse Electric Corporation, locating elusive electronic equipment and shipping it to wartime manufacturers. (Curtis Blake served in the Army Air Forces in the UK.)

After selling Friendly in the 1970s, Mr Blake toured the world on sailboats and Concorde jets, adding to his collection of vintage cars, culminating in about two dozen Rolls-Royces. One of them, he wrote, appeared in the Liza Minnelli film “Tell Me You Love Me, Junie Moon” (1970), in which he appeared as a chauffeur as a cameo.

Mr. Blake celebrated his 100th birthday in 2014 with the construction of a modernized replica of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia plantation, in Somers, Connecticut. The mansion cost nearly $ 8 million to build and was auctioned for around $ 2.1 million in 2016.

His first two marriages to Della Deming and Setsu Matsukata ended in divorce.

Mr Blake died in a hospital in Stuart where he lived. In addition to his son, his wife Helen survived Blake; a sister, Betsy Melvin; one daughter, Nancy Yanakakis; several stepchildren; 16 grandchildren and stepchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.

“I started small, worked hard and succeeded beyond my wildest dreams,” said Mr. Blake at the end of his memoir. “I got out of the ice cream shop and sat nicely until I had to get off the couch and get back into the fray. This fight is over. I’m 96 and officially retired. May be.”

Categories
Politics

George Blake, British Spy Who Betrayed the West, Dies at 98

George Blake, British Spy Who Betrayed the West, Dies at 98

He was born as George Behar on November 11, 1922 in Rotterdam. His mother was a Dutch Protestant; His father Albert was a Turkish born Spanish Jew who fought against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. He was wounded, charged with gallantry, and received British citizenship. He settled in the Netherlands as a businessman.

When his father died in 1934, George went to Cairo to live with relatives, including a cousin, Henri Curiel, who became an Egyptian communist leader. He was visiting the Netherlands when World War II broke out in 1939. His mother and two sisters fled to England, but he joined the Dutch resistance, spreading news and collecting information for two years.

He retired to Britain, changed his last name to Blake, joined the Royal Navy, trained in submarines and was hired as a freshman by British intelligence during the war. He spoke fluent Dutch, German, Arabic and Hebrew as well as English, translated German documents and interrogated German prisoners.

After the war, he studied Russian at Cambridge – by then Philby, Burgess and Maclean had completed their espionage trade – and his teacher, who came from pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, inspired him to love the Russian language and culture, a step in his conversion . He was then sent to Germany to build a network of British spies in Berlin and Hamburg. With the envelope of a naval attaché he recruited numerous agents.

Shortly before the start of the Korean War in 1950, Mr Blake was sent to Seoul, South Korea’s capital, under diplomatic cover to organize another espionage network. But he was captured by invading North Korean forces. He was detained in North Korea for three years and subjected to communist indoctrination.

He later denied that this affected his conversion, insisting that the American bombing of North Korea was the main factor. “The relentless bombing of small Korean villages by giant American flying forts,” killing “women, children and the elderly” appalled him, he said. “I was ashamed,” he added. “I felt obliged to the wrong side.”

Mr Blake said he met with a KGB officer in North Korea, agreed to become a Soviet agent, and immediately started disclosing secrets. He did not want payment and, to avoid suspicion, insisted on not being granted privileges and being released with other captured diplomats. When the Korean War ended in 1953, he was returned to Great Britain and received as a national hero.