Crowley Edges Out Hong In A Race Many Thought Was Settled Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeated state Assemblywoman Francesca Hong in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, according to the source article citing CNN. Hong, 37, had been widely expected to face Republican nominee Tom Tiffany in the general election, but the vote count did not follow the script. The latest results cited in the report showed Crowley ahead by roughly 3,000 votes, less than half a percentage point. Crowley had support from much of the Democratic establishment, including outgoing Gov. Tony Evers, while Hong was seen as a more left-wing option. Political consultants may now need a fresh batch of “inevitable nominee” stickers, since the old ones aged about as well as gas station sushi. https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/2087456894642196584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Milwaukee’s Late USB Problem Raises Eyebrows The closest part of the story came from Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest city and Crowley’s home turf. Hours before the race was called, Milwaukee officials announced that 5 of 9 USB drives were missing election results, delaying the count for roughly 15,000 absentee ballots. Officials blamed “human error” and said workers had put audit data on the drives instead of the actual vote data for those absentee ballots.…

Rand Paul Takes the Fort Knox Tour Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky went to Fort Knox in northern Kentucky on Monday to inspect America’s gold, a sentence that sounds simple until you remember this is Washington’s money vault, not a neighborhood coin jar. According to the U.S. Mint, the last full audit of America’s gold reserves stored at Fort Knox took place in 1953, with a partial audit in 1974. That long gap has helped fuel rumors over the years, including claims that the gold had somehow been swapped for gold-plated tungsten. Paul went underground to see the gold for himself and said the visit was also about a larger issue: what happened to the dollar after the United States separated it from gold in 1971. The Message Before He Went Underground Paul said the country has about 147 million ounces of gold, with about half of it stored at Fort Knox. Before heading down, he said he wanted to talk about what happened to the dollar after 1971, arguing that more than 85 percent of its value has been lost since the dollar was de-linked from gold. He also took aim at the polite modern phrase “affordability,” saying the…