Tag: politics

Incorporating subjective elements as they do, the Keys to the White House are a less-than-perfect election predictor, but they’re certainly less imperfect than the Fake Polls by the Fake News:

Professor Alan Lichtman correctly predicted a Trump victory in 2016 using a model he developed in collaboration with a Soviet scientist who specialized in predicting earthquakes. The model is a true-or-false test on a list of 13 keys about the incumbent administration and the challenger. If five or fewer of the keys are false, the incumbent party wins.

The keys include factors like whether “after the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections.” For the 2020 election, this key is false, since Democrats gained seats in the House in November 2018. In 2020, Lichtman is predicting that Biden will win, but the prediction appears to be victim to a subjective judgment on two of the keys.

On key number 11, Lichtman rules that Trump has achieved no “major success in foreign or military affairs.” The assessment does not explain why the eradication of the ISIS caliphate and the withdrawal of troops from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq cannot be counted as major military successes. Lichtman likewise doesn’t explain why he discounted the Trump administration brokering the signing of the Abraham accords, arguably the biggest breakthrough toward peace in the Middle East in decades.

And on key number 12, Lichtman rules that Trump is not “charismatic or a national hero,” an assessment which would be hard to defend before the Republican party, where his approval has steadily held in the mid- to high- 80s.

With the charisma and foreign affairs keys flipped for Trump, the model would swing in favor of the president’s reelection.

As those who watched Darkstream 655 will know, I think Lichtman has coded five keys incorrectly. 

• The economy is not in recession during the electoral campaign. While successive negative GDP quarters indicate a technical recession, Q3 is going to set a record for the fastest annualized growth rate in post-WWII history.
• Prior to the Covid-19 shutdown, the Trump economy recorded higher average growth rates than the previous two terms of the Obama administration. So, again, it’s a question of whether you blindly apply the model or take the current situation into context. No one is blaming Trump for the shutdown or the subsequent consequences, to the contrary, he’s been criticized for trying to keep the economy open.
• The Trump administration has not been tainted by any scandals. Russia-Russia-Russia was an invention of his political opponents. Impeachment was so obviously political and irrelevant that Biden hasn’t even seen fit to mention it in his attack ads. The only scandal is the DC Swamp’s relentless campaign against him.
• Trump has enjoyed historic foreign policy success since Reagan. To claim that he has not had “a major foreign policy or military success” is crazy. He’s also kept the US out of war with China, Russia, Iran, and Syria, despite the best efforts of the neocons.
• Again, to claim Trump is not charismatic is insane. The fact that he might not personally appeal to Alan Lichtman is not the point, because Trump is obviously in the Reagan/Clinton mode of a charismatic leader.

“I’m running as a proud Democrat for the Senate.”

– Joe Biden

Seriously, it’s not a joke or a deep fake. It’s just dementia. The amusing thing is that The Economist is now predicting that the guy who doesn’t even know what office he is running for has a 91 percent of winning the Electoral College and a 99 percent chance of winning the popular vote.

 Andrew Sullivan is dreaming of a Creepy Joe landslide:

I know it’s tempting fate to mention the idea, foolish to entertain it, mad to expect it, but the possibility of a landslide is now real. There are about ten points between the two candidates with three weeks to go, and the momentum is overwhelmingly with the challenger. Among the likeliest scenarios in 538’s poll of polls is now a Biden Electoral College victory of over 400. Texas is in play. The Harris-Pence debate changed nothing, but firmly established Harris’ credentials as a possible president.

And all this changes a huge amount. A Biden win would be a reprieve for the country; a Biden landslide would be an American miracle. 

Unlike anything else, it would cauterize the wound of Trump, preventing further infection. It would say to posterity: we made this hideous mistake, for understandable reasons, but after four years, we saw what we did and decisively changed course. It would turn the Trump era of nihilism, tribalism and cruelty into a cautionary tale of extremism, illiberalism and, above all, failure. It would suggest, especially if older whites come round some more, that the future need not be one of spiraling racial polarization, but of multiracial support for liberal democracy, its norms, and practices. What you learn from studying the decline and collapse of republics is that illiberal precedents become the new baseline if they are not instantly repudiated and punished. A landslide loss for Trump would mitigate, if not remove, the deep damage he has done. 

It’s really astonishing to observe the lengths that people will go to deny reality. And I’m not talking about the election results: who can be expected to accurately predict anything on the basis of the folded, spindled, and mutilated polls? I’m talking about the idea that the spiraling racial polarization is the result of Trump’s presidency or the failure of older whites to support liberal democracy.

It is, to the contrary, the inevitable result of the 1965 Immigration Act and subsequent demographic dilution of the American nation. Since Sullivan is an immigrant himself, though, he is psychologically unable to even entertain the possibility that what made his preferred life possible is the cause of the problem he decries.

But Sullivan isn’t the only one. 538 currently assesses the chances of a Biden landslide at 36 percent, with an 86 percent chance of winning the electoral vote. Of course, at this time in 2016, 538 assessed Hillary Clinton’s chance of winning the Electoral College at 86.9 percent.

In the post-ideological age, a nominal affiliation with ideas does not serve as an accurate indication of genuine loyalties. Republican elder Bob Dole reveals that the debate commission is 100 percent anti-Trump despite half of them being Republicans:

The Commission on Presidential Debates is supposedly bipartisan w/ an equal number of Rs and Ds. I know all of the Republicans and most are friends of mine.  I am concerned that none of them support @realDonaldTrump. A biased Debate Commission is unfair.

You are living in a post-ideological age. Understand this. Accept this. It is time to stop thinking in terms of Left and Right, of Liberal and Conservative, of Democrat and Republican, and think in terms of identity instead.

“In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.” 

—Lee Kuan Yew 

We’re rapidly approaching the week when the media will most heavily exaggerate the polls before having to dial them back on the final stretch into the election. Consider the polls from the week of October 19-24 and the reported lead for Hillary Clinton:

• 10 CNBC
• 12 Greenberg
• 13 Associated Press
• 10 USA Today
• 12 ABC News

I didn’t see it. But perhaps you did. Discuss amongst yourselves.

CNN: Harris 59, Pence 38

Drudge: Pence 71, Harris 29

Translation: Pence won handily.

Red October appears to be in session:

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!
– President Donald Trump

Meanwhile, Facebook has gone to unprecedented lengths to dismiss QAnon because it is obviously nothing more than a silly LARP.

Facebook said Tuesday that it is banning all QAnon accounts from its platforms, a significant escalation over its previous actions and one of the broadest rules the social media giant has put in place in its history.

It’s long past time for the elected representatives of the People to make it abundantly clear to the intelligence agencies that they do not have the right or the responsibility to refuse to disclose any information requested by the President, the Senate, or the House of Representatives.

Two top House Republicans issued a rallying call on Sunday to combat resistance from intelligence agencies to disclose classified information that they argue will blow wide open a controversy surrounding Russia’s role in disrupting the 2016 election.

Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, went so far as to raise the possibility of an overhaul of the U.S. intelligence community if leaders are not more forthcoming with their findings, even as national security experts warn of sources and methods being put at risk and Democrats charge Republicans with pushing Russian disinformation to boost President Trump ahead of the 2020 election.

“We want every damn bit of evidence that every intelligence agency has, or it’s maybe time to shut those agencies down,” the California Republican said on the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures. “Because, at the end of the day … our liberties are more important than anything else we have in this country. And they have been stampeded over by these dirty cops.”

Nunes and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, another California Republican who also appeared on the show hosted by Maria Bartiromo, both confirmed they have seen underlying evidence to a letter released last week from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe that said in late July 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies received “insight” into a Russian intelligence analysis alleging that Hillary Clinton, then a candidate for president, approved a campaign plan to “stir up a scandal” against Trump tying him to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

“Every member of Congress should read the underlying information behind this,” McCarthy said. “This is really a bombshell of what we have wasted so much time on, that it was created by Hillary Clinton.”

The only “national security” threat more dire than that of a rogue intelligence agency is a rogue military. And given how far out of control these agencies are, and how questionable their loyalties are, shutting them down would be a lot less risky than permitting them to continue to operate without effective oversight.

Not content with attacking the 1st Amendment, Neopalestinians in Congress are now seeking to give Israel a veto over U.S. arms sales:

A bipartisan bill introduced in the House of Representatives would enhance protections for Israel’s qualitative military edge to include an effective Israeli veto on US arms sales to the Middle East.

The bill “would require the President to consult with the Israeli government to ensure [qualitative military edge] concerns are settled” when it comes to arms sales to Middle Eastern countries, said the news release Friday announcing its introduction the previous day. The release came from the office of the bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill.

Existing law already guarantees Israel a qualitative military edge in the Middle East, but Congress — not Israel — is the arbiter of whether an arms sale meets QME standards.

Do they not truly understand that this sort of machination is going to fill the average American with the hitherto undiscovered desire to sell nukes to Hamas and Iran? Or is it that they do not care?

The stupidity and short-sightedness is relentless.

The way the Daily Mail described the U.S. presidential debate makes it clear to everyone that Trump crushed Biden in the debate:

Donald Trump and Joe Biden shout over each other and insult each other as Fox News anchor Chris Wallace loses control of ‘dumpster fire’ that was the first US Presidential debate

Joe Biden asked Donald Trump to shut up during their contentious first presidential debate Tuesday night

The Democratic nominee later called the president a ‘clown’  

The president tried to command the stage from out of the box, interrupting his rival repeatedly to make his point, counter Biden, and push himself into the conversation 

It happened so many times that moderate Chris Wallace stepped in, asking the president to let Biden finish his answer

The 90-minute show down between the presidential contenders proved early on that it would a be a knock-out, drag-down match 

Trump wouldn’t say when he will finally make his personal taxes public as he has long promised, but claimed he paid ‘millions of dollars in taxes’ 

Biden called Trump a ‘racist’ when the two men debated race relations and said he is ‘the worst president America has ever had’

Trump brought up a Senate Republican report that claimed Hunter got $3.5 million from the wealthy wife of the former Mayor of Moscow 

When asked if he would condemn white supremacist groups, Trump attempted to skirt the question 

He finally said, ‘Proud Boys — Stand back, stand by, but I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not right-wing problem….. This is a left wing problem’ 

When the media attempts to minimize the event rather than attack the more right-wing individual, that tells you everything you need to know about what happened.