Monday, October 26, 2020

8: EIGHT!

 

57 comments:

  1. Not Much of a Horse Race
    October 25, 2020 By Taegan Goddard

    David Wasserman (Cook Political Report): “A few days out, the picture of this race is pretty clear.”

    Biden’s lead (52% to 43%) is larger and more stable than Clinton’s in 2016.
    Far fewer undecided or third party voters than 2016.
    District-level polls (which showed big problems for Clinton in 2016) back up national and state polls.

    “If you’re looking for a horse race narrative right now, you’re not going to find it here. There was a time when it was easy to imagine this race going much differently. Eight days out, it’s much, much harder. I’ve seen…almost enough.”

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    1. Ohhh, make it so!!

      I know truly that, because we know more now than we did 4 years ago, and because our hopes are necessarily far higher this time, our need intense, we would fall that much further and harder this time.

      This. Must. Work. Out. !!!

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    2. Hmmm... Putting all eggs in one basket and counting chickens, folks. Don't tempt Fate.

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    3. Still, I wouldn't object to a gobsmacking victory for Biden/Harris.

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  2. October 25, 2020 Heather Cox Richardson
    PART 1:
    Recognizing that he is losing the demographics he needs to win reelection, Trump has clearly decided that his best bet is to spur his base to turn out in vast numbers and vote. To that end, he has given up any pretense of appealing to any but his base. At the same time, he and members of his administration are pretending the coronavirus pandemic is ending.

    Last night in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Trump held a rally not in front of an American flag, but in front of a thin blue line flag. This flag reflects the old saying that law enforcement officers constitute the boundary-- the thin blue line-- between chaos and order. It is a black and white American flag, with a blue stripe running across its middle. The creator of the new flag, Andrew Jacob, insists “the flag has no association with racism, hatred, bigotry…. It’s a flag to show support for law enforcement—no politics involved.” But white supremacists waved it at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and it has come to symbolize opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement. Its adherents talk about “socialism” and “law & order” and “illegals.” According to Jacob, “The black above represents citizens… and the black below represents criminals.”

    Flags matter. They are the tangible symbol of a people united for a cause. That Trump replaced the American flag with the Thin Blue Line flag as the centerpiece of his rally is a rejection of the nation itself in favor of his role as the leader of the alt-right. And it was not inadvertent: White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called attention to the prominence of the flag, tweeting: “The Thin Blue Line flag is flying HIGH at President [Trump’s] rally in Wisconsin!”

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  3. Part 2:
    The Trump administration is playing to his religious base, as well. Last Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar made the United States a co-sponsor of an international declaration opposing abortion. While United Nations human rights bodies, as well as most of our former allies, seek to protect access to reproductive rights including abortion, we have now signed onto the Geneva Consensus Declaration declaring that “there is no international right to abortion, nor any international obligation on the part of States to finance or facilitate abortion.” The declaration also reaffirms that “the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State,” a sentiment that appears to undermine same-sex couples.

    The declaration claims that the goal of the signers is to “Ensure the full enjoyment of all human rights and equal opportunity for women at all levels of political, economic, and public life; [and to] Improve and secure access to health and development gains for women, including sexual and reproductive health, which must always promote optimal health, the highest attainable standard of health, without including abortion.” But women’s rights and health are hardly a priority for the other sponsors, Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, and especially Uganda, where women die in high numbers from complications related to pregnancy and where gay sex is punishable by death. Saudi Arabia, where men can sue their daughters or wives for “disobedience,” also signed the declaration.

    The administration is also talking about identifying Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Oxfam—all groups that protect human rights—as anti-Semitic because they have criticized Israel’s policies toward Palestinians. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an evangelical who has used US support for Israel as a way to fire up evangelical support for the president, is backing the proposal, but career officials at the State Department and lawmakers from both parties are alarmed. Such a declaration would give authoritarian governments a way to ban the work of these human rights organizations.

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  4. PART 3:
    And then, of course, there is the confirmation of Trump’s appointee to the Supreme Court to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Nominee Amy Coney Barrett is an originalist who excites evangelicals because of her expressed opposition to abortion rights and excites corporate leaders by her views on the limits of federal power, including her likely opposition to the Affordable Care Act. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is rushing her confirmation through. In a rare Sunday session this afternoon, after the Senate voted to limit debate on the nomination, McConnell noted: “A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come.” Tomorrow, the Senate is expected to confirm Barrett’s elevation to the Supreme Court.

    While the administration is working to fire up Trump’s base, it is also working to downplay the coronavirus, even as infections continue to rip across the nation. Daily infection numbers are the highest they have ever been during this crisis, with 78,702 new cases reported on Saturday and more than 20 states at record levels of infection. We have had more than 8.5 million infections in the country and have lost almost 225,000 Americans in the official count to Covid-19. Wisconsin has opened a field hospital; Utah is so overwhelmed it is preparing to ration care.

    We learned last night that at least five people on the staff of Vice President Mike Pence have tested positive for the coronavirus, including Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short. Nonetheless, the vice president is not going to quarantine; he is going to continue to campaign. According to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Pence can travel because he is working and he is “essential personnel.” According to other officials, Meadows was hoping to keep the outbreak out of the news.

    Today, Meadows told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the administration was “not going to control the pandemic.” Instead, "What we need to do is make sure that we have the proper mitigation factors, whether it's therapies or vaccines or treatments to make sure that people don't die from this."

    Other countries have managed to bring their numbers of infection and death downward, but the White House plan seems to be simply to let the disease take its course. South Korea, with 55 million people, got the disease at the same time we did. It has had fewer than 500 deaths. With our population of about six times theirs-- 331 million— we have almost 225,000.

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  5. PART 4:
    But Trump is trying to demonstrate that all is well by rejecting mask use, holding rallies, and telling people, “It is going away.” He has held nearly three dozen rallies since August, usually at airport hangars, appearing to revel in speaking before crowds. In an investigation, USA Today discovered that, in at least five counties, Covid-19 cases rose after Trump’s rallies. “We are coming around, we’re rounding the turn, we have the vaccines, we have everything,” Trump said in New Hampshire on Sunday. “Even without the vaccines, we’re rounding the turn. It’s going to be over.”

    The staunchly conservative New Hampshire Union Leader, from Manchester, New Hampshire, isn’t buying it. Objecting to the president’s dramatic expansion of the national debt by more than “7 TRILLION dollars” (their capital letters), as well as his weaponizing of social media, the editors note that “We may be turning a corner with this virus, but the corner we turned is down a dark alley of record infections and deaths.”

    The Union Leader is backing Joe Biden. “We have found Mr. Biden to be a caring, compassionate and professional public servant. He has repeatedly expressed his desire to be a president for all of America, and we take him at his word. Joe Biden may not be the president we want, but in 2020 he is the president we desperately need. He will be a president to bring people together and right the ship of state.”

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    1. Wow! Now, *that's* an impressive endorsement!

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  6. Heather Cox Richardson's Research LINKS:

    Aaron Rupar @atrupar
    Trump will deliver a pandemic speech (that makes a mockery of public health precautions) in front of a thin blue line flag in Waukesha, Wisconsin, tonight October 25th 2020

    https://harpers.org/archive/2018/07/a-flag-for-trumps-america/

    https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/06/08/the-short-fraught-history-of-the-thin-blue-line-american-flag

    https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/geneva-consensus-declaration-english.pdf

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/10/22/trump-geneva-consensus-abortion-family/

    https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/saudi-arabia#

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-admin-considers-branding-amnesty-international-other-human-rights-groups-n1244335

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

    https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/10/25/with-coronavirus-cases/

    https://www.vox.com/2020/10/25/21532815/mike-pence-coronavirus-exposure-marc-short-campaigning

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/25/politics/mark-meadows-controlling-coronavirus-pandemic-cnntv/index.html

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/25/trump-covid-campaign-final-days-432354

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/10/22/trumps-campaign-made-stops-nationwide-then-coronavirus-cases-surged/3679534001/

    South Korea rates: Wolf Blitzer @wolfblitzer
    I just checked. While the U.S. and South Korea had their first Covid-19 cases and deaths in February, more than 225,000 Americans have died from the virus since then. South Korea, a country of 55 million, has had fewer than 500 deaths. They controlled the virus. The U.S. didn't. October 25th 2020

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-coronavirus-outbreak/2020/10/25/923bb382-16d5-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html

    Nicholas Fandos @npfandos
    McConnell, just after the Senate votes to limit debate on Amy Coney Barrett: "A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come." October 25th 2020

    https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/editorials/our-choice-is-joe-biden/article_e2053388-cc66-59f4-9e7f-8e01a1ea11df.html

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  7. "They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come."

    I figure that with control of the Senate, the House, and the WH, they could undo a great deal of it within two or three months if they put their minds to it.

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    1. I took the reference to be to the Supreme Court confirmation. Not much can be done about that, except perhaps a threat of court packing/expansion. It occurs to me to wonder, though, if that would work nowadays. The world and especially the Supreme Court isn't as civilized as in FDR's day.

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    2. The Rethuglicans have been packing the court; the Dems can balance, restore and expand it.

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    3. I am all for increasing the number on the Court to 11. They always have too much work to do anyway. I'll gladly donate toward them redecorating to make room for two more seats.

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  8. New Battleground State Polls
    October 26, 2020 at 8:02 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

    From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
    GEORGIA: Biden 47%, Trump 46%
    From YouGov:
    MICHIGAN: Biden 52%, Trump 42%
    PENNSYLVANIA: Biden 52%, Trump 44%
    WISCONSIN: Biden 53%, Trump 43%

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    1. Most recent Texas likely voter polls:
      Quinnipiac 10/16-10/19: Trump 47, Biden 47
      Dallas Morning News/Univ. TX: 10/13-10/19: Trump 45, Biden 48

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    2. The important thing about the three YouGov polls is that not only are the margins outside the boundaries of statistical uncertainty but apparently exceed the number of undecided/third party voters. As the article I published a few days ago mentioned, one of the reasons polls were off in 2016 is that an unexpected number of undecided voters broke for Trump

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  9. Three Texas Counties Already Surpass 2016 Vote Totals
    October 26, 2020 at 10:08 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

    Two Texas counties, Denton in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs and Williamson in the Austin suburbs, have now surpassed their total 2016 turnout with early voting, according to David Wasserman [of Cook Political Report]. Hays County, south of Austin, passed that distinction two days ago.

    And there’s still a week of voting left.

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  10. Per politicalwire.com: A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of voters aged 18 to 24 years finds 63% of respondents indicated they will “definitely be voting,” which remains consistent with the turnout measured in the September 2020 survey, and in contrast to 47% during this same time in 2016. Young voters prefer Joe Biden over Donald Trump by a large margin, 63% to 25%.

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  11. Replies
    1. Business wants stability. That's something Trump has conspicuously failed to provide.

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  12. OHIO: COVID cases 200,231 and 5,217 deaths.

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  13. Here's something interesting. At the end of his daily mini-concert today, Neil Sedaka made a statement. He prefaced it by saying, "I'm not a political person," and went on to make a quiet,gentle but I thought rather moving plea for everyone to vote. I have a sneaking suspicion who he supports, but he was careful to keep it nonpartisan. This is yet another manifestation of the extraordinary voting awareness, GOTV effort this year. I can only hope it works, that habitual non-voters exercise their most precious right as Americans.

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    1. I believe there are very few states where it is still possible to register to vote.

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    2. Not voting simply does not compute for me; it is a basic social responsibility. My father failed to vote once--the day his first son was born (11/5/1940); I don't know if absentee voting was available in those days. I have not yet failed to vote since I turned 21.

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    3. Wendell Wilkie had some things to be said for him, and Alf Landon was good man--but 1936 wasn't the time to change horses. I note with interest that Vermont went for both Landon and Wilkie.

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  14. VT: 2083 (+10)
    58 deaths (89 days)
    291 active cases
    Recovered 1741 (+8)
    In Hospital 3 (0)
    Tests 186,058 (+451)

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  15. We had our first snow of the season today. It failed to stick and later changed to rain. Today is also the day my ballot will be postmarked. It was put in the mailbox Saturday but after the noon pick-up. As expected, I skipped the 53 judicial retention votes as well as the dozen or so people running unopposed for judicial office. The difficulty of filling out a mail ballot discourages voting for more offices than are truly necessary.

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    1. I have never used one of those computerized or semi-computerized voting machines; they seem pretty iffy to me. The old fashioned single-strip hand-marked ballots were simple, and I liked the Votomatic. The last iteration of the Votomatic used a stylus that cut a piece out of a plain card, and addressed the hanging chad problem; but it never caught on.

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    2. Those great big old lever voting machines like the used back East were still in use when I was young; I don't remember how it was done, but it was possible to alter their tallies.

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    3. Yes, if other election judges were willing to turn a blind eye you could take the back off a lever voting machine and flip switches change the totals.
      Hand-marked paper ballots aren't too bad. They still call for a magnifier in one hand and a stylus in the other, but at least the print is larger than on a mail ballot and the ballot is supported while you mark it. But I still like the idea of having the print large enough to read without a magnifier.

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    4. At the very least, that should be available as an option, I should think. Do the modern computerized voting machines do that, Bill?

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    5. Are you asking about hand-marked vs. touch-screen voting? That differs totally from state to state. Currently in Illinois you can choose to hand-mark a paper ballot or to use a touch-screen to create a paper ballot that is fed into the counting machine. It is the counting machine that is subject to hacking, of course, whether it is in the precinct or the County Clerk's office. As the lever machines demonstrate, that has always been true.
      Previously in Illinois the touch-screen machine recorded the vote on a data card but also created a backup paper ballot that was used if the vote went to a recount.

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  16. I just spoke with our dear puddleriver. She wants you all to know that she reads the blog here every day, but Google won't let her post! Google dumped her out of her account and won't let her back in (even as Anonymous) because she doesn't have Javascript. Do you all have Javascript? I don't think I do, but I really don't know. How does one find out?

    Anyone have any idears for puddle about how to get back in to post? She misses everyone.

    To add insult to injury, she happened to spill coffee on her keyboard and is waiting for a new one to arrive. She hopes to be back in the saddle by the weekend.

    Send her some positive Venus-in-Retrograde vibes! She could surely use a kind word or two.

    Thinking of YOU, puddle! Hoping we can get you restored here somehow!!!

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    1. I think that is some sort of accessory program that goes along with the browser. Not sure, though. Not too far off:
      Wikipedia: JavaScript [Click]
      Beyond that, I can't give any technical help.

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    2. On a Windows 10 machine you go to Settings then to Apps & Features. That gives you a list of all your programs. Yes, I see I have Java, although every time I install a Java update it tells me I haven't used the program and suggests I delete it.

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    3. I believe Java and JavaScript are two different beasts. But I believe a lot of things.

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    4. I've just checked and you're right. But Javascript is a programming language and Wikipedia says that most major browsers have an engine to run it. Maybe puddle needs to try a different browser? I'm starting to use Chrome as my default because so many sites claim not to work with SeaMonkey or Internet Explorer.

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  17. Replies
    1. Gee, you don't have a lot of time to improve on that. . .

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  18. Schumer Says GOP Will Regret Rushing Confirmation [Click]
    Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaking about the Republican rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court: “You will regret this, and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.”
    He added: “Monday, October 26, 2020. It will go down as one of the darkest days in the 231-year history of the United States Senate.”

    Whack 'em good for me, Chuck!

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  19. Replies
    1. It's important to note that the first article was talking about two judges' concurring opinion, not the majority opinion.

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  20. Texas neck-and-neck with California for most COVID-19 cases [Click]
    California population: 40 million
    Texas population: 29 million

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  21. “After talking with him I came away with the sense that Trump is not just toast, but burnt toast. [Click] Click through to the underlying interview in Vanity Fair; it’s a good read. Here’s the money quote:

    Bottom line?
    “Trump would need to win all of the states that are really close in the polls right now: Florida, Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina. Those are prerequisites for a Trump victory. And then he’s gotta break through in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Arizona to have a pathway to replicating his success in 2016. And right now that’s just very hard to see.”

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