Trump vs. Biden

[Z Buck McFate]

Biden ought to have at least one ad interviewing his church affiliations and asserting that he's regularly gone to church (for however long that's been the case), also pointing out that if Trump even goes regularly now it certainly wasn't the case before he needed the image for political reasons.

It might make the PC police lose their Goddamn minds, but it's not like it'll lose their vote. And it *might* throw a tiny wrench in the socialist hysteria.

 

[Jonny]

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Trump's popularity slips in latest Military Times poll — and more troops say they'll vote for Biden

I've not heard of Military Times before, but Alexander Vindman posted this. So that lends it some merit.

 

[The Cat]

 

[ceecee]

Trump's popularity slips in latest Military Times poll — and more troops say they'll vote for Biden

I've not heard of Military Times before, but Alexander Vindman posted this. So that lends it some merit.

Trump defunded/is defunding Stars and Strips and The Military Times took issue with that. They're a legit publication.

Pentagon funding cuts may silence Stars and Stripes

Support the troops indeed.

I hope people pay attention to what has happened to Voice of America as well.

VOA reporters say Trump appointee puts journalists at risk

 

[Virtual ghost]

358 has a new set of polls.



Arizona: Biden +10
Georgia: Biden +3
Michigan: Biden +10
Wisconsin: Biden +9
Colorado: Biden +10
Texas: Trump +1
Minnesota: Biden +7
Ohio: Trump +5
NC: Biden +2
Pennsylvania: Biden +4
Florida: Biden +2

 

[Red Memories]

I kinda appreciated fact checking my mother here again...

So she told me if Biden got elected, he intended a federal mask mandate.

to be honest, I am not sure I was against it to begin with for several reasons...
1. I feel a FEDERAL mandate could be handled better, with exception rules laid out consistently. Right now some allow exceptions for mental or physical conditions and others do not. Which is a lot of anxiety for me added to the mask anxiety over the fact I struggle to wear a real face covering. Or the fact my grandpa's doctor says he should not wear one due to his heart condition and the medicine he takes to treat it.
2. While stores mandated it here, many are lenient to people like me and the great majority of others who can actually choose to wear something without a lot of question. Anti-maskers for no reason besides I don't feel like it prove to be a minority here, despite the fact my state is very republican. Although the Bundy's are quite loud.

but also, Kamala stated there would not be punishments within the mandate. I have just felt like all these regulations would be handle with a federal mandate rather than a state or a grocery store deciding how to handle it, because then it is SO MUCH MORE ANXIETY because everything is inconsistent. I don't know which stores will handle me okay and which ones will harass me, I don't know what to expect from anywhere. I want structure in the situation and right now there is NONE. That is one thing someone not being a pussy and making mandates will do...create the order that we're actually crying out for.

 

[Totenkindly]

I don't see why there isn't one already. This is a pandemic. It doesn't respect borders or "states" or other arbitrary boundaries. Pretty much if one state runs out of control and people cross borders, it's going to spread to the other states. Trying to control it on a state by state basis when we have free travel between states is just irrational.

This is where a national leadership effort could actually be useful. It frames the situation, sets down basic rules to keep a consistent approach within a particular society (that has boundaries -- we can control a national boundary better than a state one), etc. it sets an example to live up to. Parents, teachers, others in authority positions understand how important spoken expectations and moral example is.

Basically the foundation laid in the first six months has been pretty cavalier -- "No one's gonna lay down rules, everyone does what they want, some of you will get sick and die as the cost of doing business, we will do less testing," and so on. Looking at what the national leader does, basically it's hold events without respecting any kind of masks, personal space boundaries, etc. So everyone has had to fend for themselves. That was the example.

People would take it more seriously if there was consistent messaging from the top that actually protected the public trust. Public mores actually do set ground rules down that exist even when not enforced and it helps people know what to expect; one thing the current administration has shown is that they don't care about the unspoken rules that have governed society in the past. None of them mean anything. There was this really stupid quote from Thundercats (by Tigra, who constantly moralizes on the show) that I made fun of, because it was so obvious and thus never seemed helpful: "Laws only work if people choose to obey them." I never knew that it would actually become a point of actual debate in actual society, in terms of leadership throwing aside rules and standards openly that they found inconvenient.

 

[Jonny]

A continuation on my last post about conditional win probabilities. If you check the FiveThirtyEight Data page, you can download some of the unseen model output. One such group of data are conditional probabilities. For example, according to the model, Biden's chance of winning the electoral college if he wins Florida is 97%, but only 28% of he loses Florida.

From this data, I was able to create a graphical representation of these probabilities.

X-Axis: The conditional probability of a Biden electoral college win if he wins a particular state. The further to the right, the more definitive a statewide victory would be for Biden's electoral college chances.
Y-Axis: The conditional probability of a Biden electoral college win if he loses a particular state. The further to the bottom, the more definitive a statewide loss would be for Biden's electoral college chances.
Font Color: The more uncertain (i.e. closer to 50/50) a Biden win or loss is, the darker the font. The idea here is, some states might be particularly definitive on one axis, but they are so certain that they can't really be relied upon to be a canary in the coal mine, so to speak.
Font Size: Proportional to electoral college votes.

So, looking at the graph below, the three states in the bottom right, Florida, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are pretty explanatory in whatever direction they move. If Trump wins, it means his EC victory is likely. If he loses, it means Biden's EC victory is likely. Then, there are some states that are pretty explanatory in one direction. For example, If Trump wins Michigan he's a 95%+ favorite to win the EC, but if he loses, Biden is only a 80-85% favorite. Similarly, if Biden win's Ohio he's almost guaranteed to win the EC, but if he loses he's only a 50/50 shot.

 

[The Cat]

I'm really hoping he wins Florida....

 

[Virtual ghost]

I'm really hoping he wins Florida....

Well, pretty much everyone does out of people who want him to win. With blue Florida he basically wins almost by default.

 

[Virtual ghost]

After a month and the half there is new poll for the senate seat in Alaska. Result: Tie


While even on presidential level polls are showing that the state is competitive, average of more recent polls is only about +3 for Red.

 

[ceecee]

I love that Donald Trump's entire re-election strategy at this point is pretending that he's not the current President.

 

[The Cat]

I love that Donald Trump's entire re-election strategy at this point is pretending that he's not the current President.

 

[Jaguar]

Exclusive: Bloomberg group warns Trump will appear to win big on election night - Axios

A top Democratic data and analytics firm told "Axios on HBO:

It's highly likely that President Trump will appear to have won — potentially in a landslide — on election night, even if he ultimately loses when all the votes are counted.

Why this matters: Way more Democrats will vote by mail than Republicans, due to fears of the coronavirus, and it will take days if not weeks to tally these. This means Trump, thanks to Republicans doing almost all of their voting in person, could hold big electoral college and popular vote leads on election night.

Imagine America, with its polarization and misinformation, if the vote tally swings wildly toward Joe Biden and Trump loses days later as the mail ballots are counted.
That is what this group, Hawkfish, which is funded by Michael Bloomberg and also does work for the Democratic National Committee and pro-Biden Super PACs, is warning is a very real, if not foreordained, outcome.

What they're saying: Hawkfish CEO Josh Mendelsohn calls the scenario a "red mirage."

"We are sounding an alarm and saying that this is a very real possibility, that the data is going to show on election night an incredible victory for Donald Trump," he said.
"When every legitimate vote is tallied and we get to that final day, which will be some day after Election Day, it will in fact show that what happened on election night was exactly that, a mirage," Mendelsohn said. "It looked like Donald Trump was in the lead and he fundamentally was not when every ballot gets counted."

 

[ceecee]

 

[Jonny]

Exclusive: Bloomberg group warns Trump will appear to win big on election night - Axios

A top Democratic data and analytics firm told "Axios on HBO:

It's highly likely that President Trump will appear to have won — potentially in a landslide — on election night, even if he ultimately loses when all the votes are counted.

Why this matters: Way more Democrats will vote by mail than Republicans, due to fears of the coronavirus, and it will take days if not weeks to tally these. This means Trump, thanks to Republicans doing almost all of their voting in person, could hold big electoral college and popular vote leads on election night.

Imagine America, with its polarization and misinformation, if the vote tally swings wildly toward Joe Biden and Trump loses days later as the mail ballots are counted.
That is what this group, Hawkfish, which is funded by Michael Bloomberg and also does work for the Democratic National Committee and pro-Biden Super PACs, is warning is a very real, if not foreordained, outcome.

What they're saying: Hawkfish CEO Josh Mendelsohn calls the scenario a "red mirage."

"We are sounding an alarm and saying that this is a very real possibility, that the data is going to show on election night an incredible victory for Donald Trump," he said.
"When every legitimate vote is tallied and we get to that final day, which will be some day after Election Day, it will in fact show that what happened on election night was exactly that, a mirage," Mendelsohn said. "It looked like Donald Trump was in the lead and he fundamentally was not when every ballot gets counted."

Yeah, this is horrifying.

 

[Jaguar]

Yeah, this is horrifying.

I don't know if you watched Trump's reaction to the Arizona election between Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Krysten Sinema but this type of behavior is probably what you're going to see in the general election:

While McSally’s vote deficit grew, Republicans took aim at the election process. In a statement Saturday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee attacked Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, saying he "has been using his position to cook the books for Kyrsten Sinema."

As uncounted ballots dwindle, Kyrsten Sinema's lead grows again

You can see as the votes were counted and the Republican began to lose, the shit hit the fan. That wasn't even Trump's election but he was screaming about it every damn day they were counting, as if to say the routine task of counting votes itself was corrupt, simply because they began losing. I still recall him yelling "How are her votes going down?!!!!" As if to question how rain can fall from the sky, and claim that is corrupt as well.

 

[Jonny]

I don't know if you watched Trump's reaction to the Arizona election between Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Krysten Sinema but this type of behavior is probably what you're going to see in the general election:

While McSally’s vote deficit grew, Republicans took aim at the election process. In a statement Saturday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee attacked Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, saying he "has been using his position to cook the books for Kyrsten Sinema."

As uncounted ballots dwindle, Kyrsten Sinema's lead grows again

You can see as the votes were counted and the Republican began to lose, the shit hit the fan. That wasn't even Trump's election but he was screaming about it every damn day they were counting, as if to say the routine task of counting votes itself was corrupt, simply because they began losing. I still recall him yelling "How are her votes going down?!!!!" As if to question how rain can fall from the sky, and claim that is corrupt as well.

Yeah, I remember that. And since then, Trump has been laying the groundwork for invalidating mail in ballots. Given that the Supreme Court once ordered (re)counting to stop in Florida, it isn't unfathomable that something impedes the counting of mail in ballots after election day.

This isn't what our country needs this year. I have actually never voted in person, but I will do so this year because the alternative is to have my vote not counted.

 

[Totenkindly]

See, this is when a real leader would see the potential confusion on election day and push for a standard of mail voting (for example) due to the pandemic, so that there wouldn't be a huge party imbalance of later-counted votes. A real leader would be talking about this ahead of time, and how having a probable winner on the night of the election (as in the past) would be unrealistic in these circumstances, so everyone should not jump to conclusions and instead give time for the vote to be counted.

This leader would actually be more concerned about preserving the integrity of the vote, keeping the country stable, and minimizing conflict that could arise amid confusion.

Didn't we used to have leaders who used to be more concerned about the country's stability and well-being, regardless of who they selected to lead them? Whatever happened to servant leadership?