2020 Elections - Trump FIRED

[njbill]

I recently got a mail in ballot for the upcoming primary in New Jersey. A ballot, not an application. Unsolicited, as I didn’t ask for it.

Just to make Pete’s head explode, I am going to xerox it and submit it multiple times. Will let you know how that goes.

[RedFromMI]

Good editorial in WaPo today: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... pathy-gap/

Joe Biden gave a speech on Thursday in which he tore into President Trump over the legal brief his lawyers are expected to file in support of a lawsuit that would destroy the Affordable Care Act. Biden is getting attention for ripping Trump’s “whining and self pity” about criticism he’s endured the pandemic.

That’s lively stuff. But the more significant moment might have been when the presumptive Democratic nominee offered what may be the longest soliloquy yet in this campaign to the emotional hardships countless Americans are enduring due to the constraints of social distancing.

Biden said bluntly that we face a long struggle with coronavirus, and that we’ll have to “do both the simple things and the hard things to keep our families and everybody safe, to reopen our economy” and “put the pandemic behind us.” He then said this about mask-wearing and social distancing:

I know as Americans, it’s not something we’re used to. But it matters. All the evidence from all over the world tells us it just might be the single most effective thing we can do. We’re going to have to socially distance, like we are here today.
It’s not easy. It seems so strange to us. Not as Americans, but as human beings. We’re built to talk, to laugh, to hug, to gather with other people. I know I am, and I know you are. But for now, we’re going to have to socially distance. It matters.
We’re going to have to find a way to keep our economy running as we bring the number of cases down. The president wants us to believe there’s a choice between the economy and public health. Amazingly, he still hasn’t grasped the most basic fact of this crisis: To fix the economy, we have to get control over the virus.

Last month, when many lamented that Biden was stuck broadcasting from his basement, we suggested it might actually play well for him, because it showed Biden enduring in solidarity what so many other Americans were coping with at the time, while Trump resumed travel without masks or social distancing.

The Biden camp, we reported, was operating from the premise that Biden could show voters how a president should conduct himself amid such a trying crisis, by setting an example for conduct — at the time, remaining on lockdown — that, while emotionally grueling, would ultimately benefit us all.

This latest discussion of the hardships of social distancing seems like a continuation of that basic bet. Indeed, after Biden finished his speech, he put on his mask before heading offstage — a moment that seemed all about drawing this deeper contrast.

A Biden adviser told me he’s trying to strike a balance, emphasizing “the most effective ways to keep families safe and healthy” while also letting people know “on a human level” that “he personally understands how difficult some of those behaviors and strategies can be.”

Now contrast that with the bet that Trump has made — openly and proudly. Trump almost never wears a mask at public appearances — which is facilitated by special access to testing that he and his top advisers enjoy. He held a massive rally in Tulsa, even as his campaign had attendees sign a waiver in case they got sick.

When Trump discovered to his horror that the rally was sparsely attended, it demonstrated that his magical reality-warping powers couldn’t persuade even his own supporters that coronavirus doesn’t pose a threat when people are in close proximity without masks and social distancing.

This week’s New York Times/Siena College poll found that 54 percent of American voters say they always wear a mask when they expect to be close to others, while another 22 percent say they usually do, and only 22 percent say they rarely or never do.

Those numbers are likely an overstatement; surely many people tell pollsters they wear masks while leaving the mask at home here and there. But, plainly, majorities recognize that these precautions are the right thing to do, and don’t subscribe to the ideology — neo-Social Darwinism, dumbed-down dorm-room libertarianism, stylized pseudo-intellectual anti-science conservatism, whatever you call it — driving the supposed rebellion against mask-wearing, which continues to be a fringe position.

Standing vocally for wearing masks sends an important signal, too. As Zeynep Tufekci noted, masks indicate “solidarity” amid a time that is not “business as usual,” a recognition that crisis moments like this one “require us to change our behavior,” but “collectively,” which means that “knowing our fellow citizens are on board is important.”

It’s important because this is hard. And that’s why it’s also important for our leaders to be on board with it, while recognizing and speaking to the hardships it imposes.

[ggait]

I recently got a mail in ballot for the upcoming primary in New Jersey. A ballot, not an application. Unsolicited, as I didn’t ask for it.

Just to make Pete’s head explode, I am going to xerox it and submit it multiple times. Will let you know how that goes.

I have eight (!!!!) primary ballots sitting on my counter. For me, wife and two 20-somethings. Times two, since CO sends Indies a Dem and Rep ballot and let's you choose which primary to vote in. So I can vote eight times today, no copier required.

Just try to stop me Petey Gator Troll Boy.

[ggait]

So the forecasts are starting to come out.

Sam Wang/Princeton (who totally biffed 2016) doesn't do a win probability. Has Joe at 356 median EC votes.

Economist has Joe at 88% in the EC and 98% for the pop vote. 343 median EC votes.

JHK Forecast has Joe at 85%. 343 median EC votes

PluralVote has Joe at 74%. 335 median EC votes.

538 (the best from 2016) does not have their forecast out yet.

To rehash 2016, 538 had it 79/21 on 6/26/2016, and 71/29 on 2016 Election day. 29% is not that unlikely -- chance of getting a six on one roll of one die is 17%.

Looking back on 538's model in 2016, the striking thing was how variable/dynamic the race was. Trump was 34% early June, 20% late June, 50% end of July, 12% mid-August, 45% late September, 12% mid-October, 35% on November 5.

TBD if 2020 will be a much more stable race or not.


https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/20 ... -forecast/

[seacoaster]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-f ... ity-bunker

"On Thursday night, with America deep in a crisis that shows no sign of easing, Trump appeared at a Fox News “town hall” led by Hannity. It was a reassuringly safe space for the President. There was not a single mention of the terrifying spike of covid-19 cases in Texas or Arizona or anywhere else. No one so much as alluded to the hundred and twenty-five thousand or so Americans who have already died from the disease. And Hannity—Trump’s close friend and confidant, who has been called his shadow White House chief of staff—refrained from citing the recent wave of national polls, including one by Fox, that show Trump losing to Biden by double-digit percentage points. The audience of Trump superfans, many of whom wore pro-Trump “Make America Great Again” gear, obliged as well. When Hannity got around to taking questions from them, twenty-five minutes into the forty-three-minute broadcast, a woman named Linda asked Trump, “What do you think is your greatest accomplishment?”

Hannity’s latest in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign was perfectly predictable, of course. The TV host, who is paid twenty-five million dollars a year by Fox, is so reliable a wingman to the President that my colleague Jane Mayer reported that Trump bragged he was a ten out of ten on the loyalty scale. Before the 2018 midterms, the President had Hannity appear onstage at his big preëlection rally, a faux pas even for Fox that earned Hannity a reprimand from his bosses. Before Thursday’s event, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump hosted Hannity as his guest on Air Force One, and photographers snapped a picture of U.S. Marine guards saluting as Hannity walked on the tarmac to the plane’s steps. In a pre-town-hall interview, at a Wisconsin airplane hangar, the two looked like co-stars in a buddy movie; they were even dressed in matching long red ties and dark suits. When the show got going, Trump saluted Hannity as a “great journalist.” Hannity’s show is the Fox bunker that Trump retreats to when everything else is going wrong.

Not surprisingly, some of Trump’s most outrageous comments about the ongoing pandemic have been uttered on Hannity’s program. In early March, just a little over a week before he declared a national emergency and shut down the country, Trump told Hannity that the coronavirus was “very mild,” that it was similar to the annual flu, and that hundreds of thousands of people could recover from it while still going to work. On March 26th, the President touted the malaria treatment hydroxychloroquine as a miracle drug to combat the coronavirus. “This could be the big answer,” he told Hannity. On April 7th, Trump was back on the show, promoting himself and hydroxychloroquine. “We have millions of doses that I bought,” Trump said, before correcting himself, “that the country bought.” He added, “It’s not like it’s something unsafe.” A few weeks later, medical studies suggested that the drug was risky, and U.S. government health officials recommended it not be given to covid-19 patients. The general theme of all these conversations with Hannity—which are better characterized as rambling monologues by Trump in which Hannity occasionally figures—has been the President’s increasingly urgent need to tout his own brilliance at handling the pandemic. “We’re way under . . . in terms of death,” he told Hannity, in April. But it wasn’t true, then or now.

In the past three months of the pandemic, Trump’s virus-spin cycle has become as familiar as it is mind-numbing, an endless loop of denial, magical thinking, blame-shifting, and fearmongering. Often, he seems to do all of this in the same day: We beat the invisible enemy. The country is transitioning to greatness. The virus is fading away. Cases are only going up because we are testing more. A miracle vaccine will be ready soon, probably, maybe, likely by the end of this year. People are wearing masks just because they want to hurt me politically and the media is lying to them. We did a great job. It’s the “kung flu.” It’s the “ChinaVirus.” These are all real points the President has made, just in the past few days.

The virus, however, does not care what Trump has to say about it. It’s a virus. It doesn’t watch Fox or care about ratings. “The virus is not going to disappear,” Anthony Fauci, the nation’s chief infectious-disease expert, said, at a congressional hearing on Tuesday. “We have a long way to go,” Admiral Brett Giroir, the Administration’s testing czar, said. The virus has “brought this nation to its knees,” Robert Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said.

On Wednesday, the U.S. set a record for new coronavirus cases, according to the covid Tracking Project, of 38,672. The previous record was set two months ago, on April 26th. American deaths from the virus are, by far, the most that have been recorded anywhere in the world, and are predicted to reach some two hundred thousand by October. The curve has not flattened. There is no summer respite. This awful spring, the Trump Administration declared that the country had “thirty days to stop the spread,” a chirpy slogan repeated by Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence, and the rest of the coronavirus task force back in March. But the thirty days ended and the spread did not. America failed.

No wonder Trump retreated to his Hannity bunker on Thursday, to talk about the border wall and Barack Obama’s “treason” and the deep state. About the “persecution” of Michael Flynn, and how much of a “disaster” his former Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was. About the “rioters” and “terrorists” destroying America’s cities in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. This is a week when even Trump ought to have a hard time denying the reality of the disaster the country is facing, and his own political predicament. The virus is spiking in Republican-led states, such as Arizona, South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas, which are must-wins for Trump in the fall. Texas alone reported six thousand new cases on Thursday, and its Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who had spent months aligned with Trump in downplaying the threat, is now urging state residents to shelter at home. On Thursday, he announced that he was pausing the state’s plans to reopen. So did the equally pro-Trump Republican governor of Florida. Not exactly on-message for their President.

Shortly after 6 p.m. on Thursday, Trump sent out a tweet promoting his conversation with Hannity, taped earlier that day in Wisconsin, where a new Times poll shows him trailing Biden by eleven points. Minutes after Trump’s tweet, Fox News released the results of its own new poll in key battleground states. It showed Trump behind Biden in every single one, including, for the first time in a Fox News poll, the Republican bastion of Texas. In the lead-up to Trump’s Hannity interview, Tucker Carlson’s show opened with this banner: “president trump may lose this election.”

All of this is why I can’t stop thinking about that catastrophic rally on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the heart of Trump country, when an anemic turnout left Trump ranting to thousands of empty seats at an event meant to mark his triumphant return to pre-pandemic politics as usual. The photograph of a dejected Trump as he left Air Force One on his return from Tulsa was an instant classic. There was the blustery salesman slumped over in defeat, tie off, head hanging, for once, not bothering to sell us his nonsense. One can only imagine the rage and fury that Trump had vented at his aides for the rally debacle.The photograph showed him as a cranky, exhausted septuagenarian coming home in the middle of the night after a terrible day on the job.

Did the picture mean that Trump knows what trouble he’s in? Was it a sign that he realizes his act is wearing thin, that his flimflammery might no longer be working? Is it possible that he might be a bit more reality-based than his ridiculous all-caps tweets and absurdist public discourse suggest? Several times in his conversation with Hannity on Thursday, Trump seemed to acknowledge that Biden might be beating him. “It’s so crazy, what’s happening,” the President said, at one point. Referring to Biden, he added, “Here’s a guy, doesn’t talk. Nobody hears him. Whenever he does talk, he can’t put two sentences together. I don’t want to be nice or un-nice. O.K.? But, I mean, the man can’t speak. And he’s going to be your President because some people don’t love me, maybe.”

Certainly, it’s a different moment for Trump from a couple of months ago, when the Washington Post reported that he had recoiled in outrage and disbelief when presented by his campaign with internal polls that showed him losing to Biden. Perhaps even more revealing was Trump’s answer when Hannity asked him what should have been an easy question for any candidate: What, exactly, does he plan to do in a second term if he wins? Sometimes, even propaganda can be unintentionally revelatory. Trump had nothing to say, no agenda to offer, only recriminations and some vague words about “experience”—and a reassurance that everything “will be really great.”

The weary post-Tulsa photograph of Trump shows the President as a man alone, a narcissist in trouble with no one to blame but himself. If Trump ultimately does lose to Biden this fall—and that is still a big “if”—I believe that we will look back on June as the month when it really began to unravel for him. The huckster showed Sean Hannity on Thursday night that he is still selling the same old, same old message of lies, hate, and division, but it may be that America is finally wising up to the con."

[CU77]

So the forecasts are starting to come out.

A relative newcomer to the forecasting game is Dr. Rachel Bitecofer, whose "negative partisianship" model correctly called the 2018 midterms to within one House seat.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/niskanen- ... redictions

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer

[njbill]

So the forecasts are starting to come out.

A relative newcomer to the forecasting game is Dr. Rachel Bitecofer, whose "negative partisianship" model correctly called the 2018 midterms to within one House seat.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/niskanen- ... redictions

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer

Cease and desist letter is in the mail.

[CU77]

Well this ought to improve Trump's poll numbers:

Trump Asks Supreme Court to Take Away Tens of Millions of Americans’ Health Coverage

The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to strike down what remains of Obamacare after waves of Republican legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, telling the court in a brief filed late Thursday that “the entire ACA must fall.” The move comes as hundreds of thousands of newly out-of-work Americans have used the Obama-era health care law to get coverage during the coronavirus pandemic. Dismantling the law, an obsession of Republican lawmakers for a full decade now, would leave more than 20 million people without health coverage. Despite having a decade to come up with an alternative to the law, and two years in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, Republicans have offered no viable alternative for how to make sure Americans can go to the doctor.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... t-aca.html

[ggait]

So the forecasts are starting to come out.

A relative newcomer to the forecasting game is Dr. Rachel Bitecofer, whose "negative partisianship" model correctly called the 2018 midterms to within one House seat.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/niskanen- ... redictions

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer

I've been watching her pretty closely since 2018. Her concept that voters vote more out of hate than love certainly applies to me!!

We'll see.

[CU88]

So the forecasts are starting to come out.

A relative newcomer to the forecasting game is Dr. Rachel Bitecofer, whose "negative partisianship" model correctly called the 2018 midterms to within one House seat.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/niskanen- ... redictions

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer

Cease and desist letter is in the mail.

[HooDat]

So the forecasts are starting to come out.

A relative newcomer to the forecasting game is Dr. Rachel Bitecofer, whose "negative partisianship" model correctly called the 2018 midterms to within one House seat.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/niskanen- ... redictions

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer

I've been watching her pretty closely since 2018. Her concept that voters vote more out of hate than love certainly applies to me!!

We'll see.

right - I mean when it comes to politicians, what is there to love?

[ggait]

New NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll:

Trump's approval rating sits at just 40% overall, while a record 58% disapprove. What's more, a whopping 49% of voters "strongly disapprove" of the job Trump is doing.

That kind of intensity of disapproval is a record never before seen for this president or any past one.

Trump is clearly exhausted from all of this winning. MAGA!

[youthathletics]

I recently got a mail in ballot for the upcoming primary in New Jersey. A ballot, not an application. Unsolicited, as I didn’t ask for it.

Just to make Pete’s head explode, I am going to xerox it and submit it multiple times. Will let you know how that goes.

I have eight (!!!!) primary ballots sitting on my counter. For me, wife and two 20-somethings. Times two, since CO sends Indies a Dem and Rep ballot and let's you choose which primary to vote in. So I can vote eight times today, no copier required.

Just try to stop me Petey Gator Troll Boy.

Looks like they caught you guys.

https://saraacarter.com/nj-politician-3 ... ssion=true

[njbill]

Nah, not me. I’m taking my multi-vote game across the river to Pennsylvania where my four or five Biden votes will mean something.

[6ftstick]

Nah, not me. I’m taking my multi-vote game across the river to Pennsylvania where my four or five Biden votes will mean something.

You think we think you're kidding?

More reason to vote for the tree stump.

Nearly two-thirds of the money the Biden Cancer Initiative spent since its founding in 2017 went toward staff compensation and six-figure salaries for top executives. The group spent far less on efforts to eradicate cancer.

One of several nonprofits Joe Biden created following his tenure in the White House, the Biden Cancer Initiative paid top executives lavishly, with salaries comprising nearly 65 percent of its total expenditures. That is well above the 25 percent charity watchdogs recommend nonprofits spend on administrative overhead and fundraising costs combined.

The nonprofit raised and spent $4.8 million over its two years in operation, its 2017 and 2018 tax forms show. Slightly more than $3 million of that amount went to salaries, compensation, and benefits. At the same time, the group spent just $1.7 million on all of its other expenses. A bulk of this cash—$740,000—was poured into conferences, conventions, and meetings. It did not cut a single grant to any other group or foundation during its two-year run.

An analysis of nonprofits by Charity Navigator, which rates charities for effectiveness, found that mid-to-large-sized nonprofits paid their chief executives an average salary of $126,000 per year—far less than what the Biden Cancer Initiative paid its president, Greg Simon, who pocketed $224,539 in 2017 and $429,850 in 2018. Charity Navigator's primary criterion for rating charities is whether they "spend at least 75% of their expenses directly on their programs."

The Biden cancer group's financial disclosures may raise new questions about whether the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee allowed associates to profit off their access to him.

[youthathletics]

I recently got a mail in ballot for the upcoming primary in New Jersey. A ballot, not an application. Unsolicited, as I didn’t ask for it.

Just to make Pete’s head explode, I am going to xerox it and submit it multiple times. Will let you know how that goes.

I have eight (!!!!) primary ballots sitting on my counter. For me, wife and two 20-somethings. Times two, since CO sends Indies a Dem and Rep ballot and let's you choose which primary to vote in. So I can vote eight times today, no copier required.

Just try to stop me Petey Gator Troll Boy.

Looks like they caught you guys.

https://saraacarter.com/nj-politician-3 ... ssion=true

Nah, not me. I’m taking my multi-vote game across the river to Pennsylvania where my four or five Biden votes will mean something.

Happy to read you agree mail in voting is fraudulent. Can you bring your R votes to MD...we need all the help we can to flip Red.

[Peter Brown]

Nah, not me. I’m taking my multi-vote game across the river to Pennsylvania where my four or five Biden votes will mean something.

You think we think you're kidding?

More reason to vote for the tree stump.

Nearly two-thirds of the money the Biden Cancer Initiative spent since its founding in 2017 went toward staff compensation and six-figure salaries for top executives. The group spent far less on efforts to eradicate cancer.

One of several nonprofits Joe Biden created following his tenure in the White House, the Biden Cancer Initiative paid top executives lavishly, with salaries comprising nearly 65 percent of its total expenditures. That is well above the 25 percent charity watchdogs recommend nonprofits spend on administrative overhead and fundraising costs combined.

The nonprofit raised and spent $4.8 million over its two years in operation, its 2017 and 2018 tax forms show. Slightly more than $3 million of that amount went to salaries, compensation, and benefits. At the same time, the group spent just $1.7 million on all of its other expenses. A bulk of this cash—$740,000—was poured into conferences, conventions, and meetings. It did not cut a single grant to any other group or foundation during its two-year run.

An analysis of nonprofits by Charity Navigator, which rates charities for effectiveness, found that mid-to-large-sized nonprofits paid their chief executives an average salary of $126,000 per year—far less than what the Biden Cancer Initiative paid its president, Greg Simon, who pocketed $224,539 in 2017 and $429,850 in 2018. Charity Navigator's primary criterion for rating charities is whether they "spend at least 75% of their expenses directly on their programs."

The Biden cancer group's financial disclosures may raise new questions about whether the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee allowed associates to profit off their access to him.

Democrats make cr@p businesspeople so they tend to abuse the charity game far more than normal Americans. Good catch. Maybe Joe will be arrested. You’d be if you did the same.

[Peter Brown]

I recently got a mail in ballot for the upcoming primary in New Jersey. A ballot, not an application. Unsolicited, as I didn’t ask for it.

Just to make Pete’s head explode, I am going to xerox it and submit it multiple times. Will let you know how that goes.

I have eight (!!!!) primary ballots sitting on my counter. For me, wife and two 20-somethings. Times two, since CO sends Indies a Dem and Rep ballot and let's you choose which primary to vote in. So I can vote eight times today, no copier required.

Just try to stop me Petey Gator Troll Boy.

Looks like they caught you guys.

https://saraacarter.com/nj-politician-3 ... ssion=true

Nah, not me. I’m taking my multi-vote game across the river to Pennsylvania where my four or five Biden votes will mean something.

Happy to read you agree mail in voting is fraudulent. Can you bring your R votes to MD...we need all the help we can to flip Red.

Democrats are the worlds dumbest when it comes to the law of unintended consequences.

[njbill]

Happy to read you agree mail in voting is fraudulent. Can you bring your R votes to MD...we need all the help we can to flip Red.

The only “red” youse guys in Md. are going to see is on Terp unis.

Here’s the prescription for a fair election. For every vote suppressed by the Republicans, the Dems get an extra mail in ballot.

[njbill]

Nah, not me. I’m taking my multi-vote game across the river to Pennsylvania where my four or five Biden votes will mean something.

You think we think you're kidding?

More reason to vote for the tree stump.

Nearly two-thirds of the money the Biden Cancer Initiative spent since its founding in 2017 went toward staff compensation and six-figure salaries for top executives. The group spent far less on efforts to eradicate cancer.

One of several nonprofits Joe Biden created following his tenure in the White House, the Biden Cancer Initiative paid top executives lavishly, with salaries comprising nearly 65 percent of its total expenditures. That is well above the 25 percent charity watchdogs recommend nonprofits spend on administrative overhead and fundraising costs combined.

The nonprofit raised and spent $4.8 million over its two years in operation, its 2017 and 2018 tax forms show. Slightly more than $3 million of that amount went to salaries, compensation, and benefits. At the same time, the group spent just $1.7 million on all of its other expenses. A bulk of this cash—$740,000—was poured into conferences, conventions, and meetings. It did not cut a single grant to any other group or foundation during its two-year run.

An analysis of nonprofits by Charity Navigator, which rates charities for effectiveness, found that mid-to-large-sized nonprofits paid their chief executives an average salary of $126,000 per year—far less than what the Biden Cancer Initiative paid its president, Greg Simon, who pocketed $224,539 in 2017 and $429,850 in 2018. Charity Navigator's primary criterion for rating charities is whether they "spend at least 75% of their expenses directly on their programs."

The Biden cancer group's financial disclosures may raise new questions about whether the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee allowed associates to profit off their access to him.

Hmm. Interesting that you didn’t disclose your source for that is Fox News.

Just like other attempts by Trump to attack Joe, this one is dumb as a rock.

Do you really think Trump wants to go toe to toe with Joe over charities? You may recall that the Trump “charity” was ordered dissolved by the court for fraudulent activity. His children, who were officers of the charity, have been ordered to stay out of charitable ventures for a period of time. About the only thing of significance the Trump “charity” did with its funds was buy a portrait of His Holiness and try to pay off the Florida AG so she would stop investigating the “charity.”

Reminds you of the “health” issue Trump tried to raise about Biden. That is, until Trump couldn’t walk down that slick, icy, steep-as-Mount Everest ramp and needed a second hand to drink a glass of water.

And we don’t hear much more about “Basement Joe” after Trump became Bunker Boy.