Kevin Williamson on Voting for Trump: Hell, No
The whole thing is worth reading but I will excerpt a few choice lines for you:
The case against Trump in 2020 is a lot like the case against Trump in 2016 but bolstered by the accumulation of evidence and experience. . . . . [T]he Trump administration has succeeded most where Trump has the least to do with it.
. . . .
Which brings me to the practical case against Trump: He stinks at his job.
This also brings me to a lie that needs to be addressed — and it is not a misunderstanding but a lie, circulated with malice aforethought: that the conservative objection to Trump is only a matter of style, his boorishness bumptiousness and boobishness on Twitter, his gooftastical manner of speaking, his preening, his vanity, his habitual and often dishonest boasting in matters both small and great, etc. These things matter, of course, because manners and morals matter, and they matter more in a free society than they do in an unfree one, because free men govern themselves.
Trump’s low character is not only an abstract ethical concern but a public menace that has introduced elements of chaos and unpredictability in U.S. government activity ranging from national defense to managing the coronavirus epidemic. Trump’s character problems are practical concerns, not metaphysical ones. Trump is frequently wrong on important policy questions (including trade, foreign policy, entitlements, health care, and many others) and frequently incompetent even when trying to advance a good policy. His vanity and paranoia have made it very difficult for him to keep good people in top positions, and this imposes real costs both politically and as a matter of practical governance. Trump’s problem is not etiquette: It is dishonesty, stupidity, and incompetence, magnified by the self-dealing and cowardice of the cabal of enablers and sycophants who have a stake in pretending that this unsalted s*** sandwich is filet mignon.
Given all this, Kevin explains what he will not do: hold his nose and vote for Trump anyway:
So, now that I am a swing-state conservative, am I going to hold my nose and pull the “R” lever if only to put up a roadblock in front of the Democrats?
Hell, no.
There’s more to citizenship than voting, and partisanship is not patriotism. If casting a vote is all you have in you, then, fine — by all means, do what you believe to be best. But consider the possibility that the duty of the patriot in these times is not to choose one pack of jackals because it looks a little less hungry and vicious than the other pack of jackals but to oppose these jackals — these demagogues, profiteers, and hangers-on, these greasy little salesmen trying to sell you something that is already yours — and to insist that the free and self-governing men and women of this struggling republic deserve better than what is on offer. We can have better than what we have had because we can be better than what we have been.
Kevin doesn’t specifically say what he will be doing instead, but this passage to me suggests he is going to take a pass on the whole thing. I have my own different thoughts about that topic and hopefully you’ll read them sometime this week, somewhere.
Maybe here. Maybe elsewhere.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/27/2020 @ 8:47 amLooks like a protest vote for Mr. Williamson. I know exactly where he’s at. Great piece, written with clarity and reason.
Paul Montagu (cbbfc4) — 10/27/2020 @ 8:57 amIt would good if you got a nice column up somewhere.
I thought a lot about voting for Biden. I think refusing to vote for poor candidates, either of them, is a smart, principled thing to do. Everyone here knows I am more passionately angry at what Trump is doing to my country, what I believe Putin is doing to the world, so to me, voting against Biden violates that principle for a good reason. It’s twice as effective as abstaining from my normal Team R vote, it sends the GOP a louder message.
But a lot of calmer, wiser folks will just decline to support bad candidates from now on. If things didn’t seem so urgent I would find that commendable but I really just find it overly optimistic.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 8:57 amOff topic, but-
Justice Dept. Blocked in Bid to Shield Trump From Rape Defamation Suit
……
But Judge (Lewis A.) Kaplan …….ruled against the department’s maneuver, saying Mr. Trump was not acting in his official capacity when he denied the accusation.
“His comments concerned an alleged sexual assault that took place several decades before he took office, and the allegations have no relationship to the official business of the United States,” the judge wrote.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 9:14 am……
Kamala’s selection for VP gave me a brief pause, but you don’t protest a toilet, you flush it, and Biden is the only flush lever.
nk (1d9030) — 10/27/2020 @ 9:18 amIt’s interesting that while Williamson mentions Andrew McCarthy’s ‘Case for Trump’ for which his column provides the opposite view, that he fails to provide a link to it, very strange especially since it’s also at the NR.
Here’s a link:
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/11/02/trump%E2%80%88yes/
Like Williamson, I also did not vote for Trump (not in 2016, nor this time on my early ballot), but I certainly think that Biden/Harris are dangerous enough to consider the view that voting them in will be catastrophe.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/27/2020 @ 9:35 am_
I think Biden will be a poor president, Harkin. Claims he will be a catastrophe don’t seem justified. That seems like the same stuff Jerry Falwell Jr and the crooked NRA say about any democrat. It’s always a damn emergency. Even in the middle of a Republican catastrophe, where the president got away with working with Putin because he could thwart the investigation.
It’s like ignoring a real catastrophe to imagine one.
The intensity of Trump support combined with denial of Trump support is incredibly tedious. Anyone saying Biden will be a catastrophe is a Trump supporter, because that statement is an intense incident of Trump support. Yet we’re seeing so many Trump supporters deny they ever were.
There’s a reason smart people won’t admit they supported Trump.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 9:48 amAll of this:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/the-only-middle-finger-available/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first
The juicy part:
whembly (c30c83) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:03 amIf he wins, it will be despite all that. An enormous factor would be that Trump is the only way for his voters to say to the cultural Left, “No, sorry, you’ve gone too far.”
And if he loses, Whembly? Do we agree that also says something?
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:12 am@9 Of course.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:18 am@8, That article seems so insulting to me. It’s a wordy way of saying; “They love him because he hates the people they hate.”
If it were applied to me I would resent the accusation that I was motivated primarily by malice and resentment at my own lack of cultural relevance.
I shared it with a friend who loves Trump. He liked it also and felt like I was lying when i said the reverse didn’t describe why I was voting for Biden.
I think we’re all talking past each other a lot.
Time123 (6e0727) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:19 amTwo more pretty good ads from the Lincoln project.
This one is gauzy and focuses on Biden’s decency and bringing the country out of these dark times: Biden’s Moment
This one (a joint effort with a veterans group) is very tough and focuses on Trump’s indecency: Brave Women
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:19 am(Language warning: plays the recorded words of the president of the United States)
When the QAnon Apocalypse Doesn’t Come
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:20 amCool! Your writing deserves a larger audience.
Time123 (6e0727) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:20 am@11 I don’t understand why you think it’s insulting.
You’re not of the woke left losing-their-ever-loving-bloody-minds over all things Trump.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:23 am@8 – The rank-and-file democrats already put the far left in its place by nominating Biden to begin with. The idea that a Biden loss would somehow signal to them they’ve gone too far is utterly disconnected from reality.
(Not That) Bill O'Reilly (6bb12a) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:24 am@16 I disagree. There’s near unanimous agreement that the left (hell AOC admitted this publicly) would be able to pull Biden even further left than the Obama administration.
whembly (c30c83) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:25 amAmong the people on Twitter we’re supposed to be perpetually scared of? So what?
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:31 amYou shouldn’t be using big words you clearly don’t understand. If Biden were so prone to being pulled left he would have done it already, and the AOCs of the world wouldn’t be so publicly trying to make moves to force his hand.
(Not That) Bill O'Reilly (6bb12a) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:32 amGiven all this, DCSCA explains what he will do: hold his laughter and vote for Trump anyway:
Helsinki aside, relegating the likes of Mr. Williamson and his weak, hollowed, out dated, ideological conservatism into irrelevancy is the goal. And it collapsed quickly. The tail no longer wags the dog; the rise and return of what is essentially ‘Rockefeller Republicanism’ to party control is the broader domestic triumph of Trump. And the bitter ideologues, now on the bottom of the deck, still get their SCOTUS as a consolation prize. Sweeping out the staid Reagan/Goldwater deadwood is a dirty job and took a dirty S.O.B. New Yorker to do it. Bless you, Donald. You’ve been Bill Buckley’d out of the way, Mr. Williamson; welcome to 1964, Kevin.
Glorious.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:32 amTrue. Very very few people are. Most of us are just patriotic Americans who want fair dealing and morality. A lot of us aren’t even on the left. We just call them like we see them. Trump’s obviously a bad guy. I’m not happy to see his fans upset about what’s happening. I want them to be like harkin… start saying they do not support Trump as president.
Like Harkin, I do not support Trump for president. no one should.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:33 amDCSCA, we have very different understandings of glory!
So far Trump did OK in one debate, hid from one debate, scream-sabotaged one debate. And all he had to do was show up and let Biden be Biden to win all three. Trump’s whole life has been clumsily snuffing any chance of glory or success out.
Just imagine if Trump had handled the coronavirus like a long term thinking business tycoon. He would be cruising to re-election.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:35 am@22.we have very different understandings of glory
Said the tail to the dog. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:41 am@17 The sole policy accomplishment of Obama’s two terms was the ACA, which Trump has been promising a more tremendous and stupendous version of for five years…
Trump, through his ignorance and incompetence, has left the country in a position where a record majority of voters say the government should do more, not less. We are suffering the equivalent of two 9/11 scale mass casualty events per week and we’re closing in on the equivalent of our fourth Vietnam war death toll since March.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:41 amBravo, my fellow Lubbockite Kevin Williamson! West Texans may not all write as well as he does but he speaks for many of us.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:43 amYou misunderstood, I think it’s an insulting view of Trump supporters.
Time123 (6e0727) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:46 amRight-wing hoaxers Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman hit with felony charges in Cleveland tied to multi-state voter robocall campaign
…..
Wohl, 22, of Riverside, California, and Burman, 54, of Arlington, Virginia, are indicted on eight counts of telecommunications fraud and seven counts of bribery in connection with more than 8,000 calls that were placed to residents of Cleveland and East Cleveland.
Wohl and Burkman already face similar criminal charges in Michigan and a civil lawsuit in New York City connected to the same scheme. They have denied involvement.
…..
Wohl and Burkman have risen to notoriety in recent years as they blundered their way through a series of public announcements of scandals later discredited.
Wohl earlier this year began circulating what he said was a copy of a lab report showing that Biden had contracted COVID-19 and had 30 days to live. Biden and his campaign dismissed the report as fraudulent.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:47 am…..
Win or Lose, It’s Donald Trump’s Republican Party
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:48 amO.M.G.
Biden in Warm Springs, GA, where FDR died, talking about… Covid death.
Doom! Doom! Doom!
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:49 amFormer U.S. attorneys — all Republicans — back Biden, saying Trump threatens ‘the rule of law’
Just looking out for their adrenochrome supply, right Trumpers?
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:53 amMaybe The Atlantic will give Williamson his gig back.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:53 am“I want them to be like harkin… start saying they do not support Trump as president.”
_
You’re wrong so often in your statements about me it’s comical.
I have said that I DO support Trump as President the same way I supported the catastrophe Obama, I want them to do what’s best for the country.
Once again, please copy and paste one time I said I voted for Trump or said people should vote for him.
You can’t and yet you continue to talk out your backside.
Now, back to reality;
Please tell everyone why they should NOT use the Democratic governance of Seattle, Chicago, Portland, Minneapolis, California, Illinois, New York etc. as a predictor of what the Democratic version of “fair dealing and morality“ we will see if people who vote for them to get control of the Executive Branch.
Those who say installing Biden/Harris is the solution to Trump are idiots. They turn comedian when they say any damage done by a future Biden/Harris administration will be Trump’s fault.
IOW – If you vote Biden/Harris you own Biden/Harris.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:53 am_
Trump is a threat to the rule of prosecutors.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:55 amDoom! Doom! Doom!
Yeah, because the COVID death rate has improved so much.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:57 amIt was a joke. Lighten up man. Maybe get off facebook and twitter and you will be a little happier. It’s really funny how many Trump fans are telling me they do not really support Trump, and it’s funny to take them at their word. if you want Trump to be president, you support him. If you don’t support him you don’t want him to be president.
Pretty funny!
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:58 amCriminals love him.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:59 amRip Murdock,
My very Texan number has been getting robocalls from Trump himself. I have received countless texts, but the actual calls started this week.
It is very off-putting to hear Trump screaming into my phone about Kamala Harris. But there’s no doubt, that’s Trump talking, this isn’t a dirty trick. Trump’s campaign is concerned about losing Texas. And he should be. If Biden hadn’t admitted holding awful views on energy I would be more confident, but I doubt Trump loses here. I just like to see him squirm.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:01 am“Pretty funny“
_
What’s funny is people voting for what they used to ridicule and decry.
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:02 am_
O.M.G. Lyin’ Biden just told America FDR, in his last hours, spent his time working on a speech.
No Joe.
He was having his portrait painted and was spending those ‘last hours’ w/his mistress, Lucy Rutherfurd.
Idiot.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:04 amI don’t know that anyone who didn’t ‘know’ that is an idiot, DCSCA. I think the notion of praising work ethic is refreshing in this administration climate of gold and golf and ‘i take no responsibility, maybe a miracle’s coming’.
I think Biden’s wise to look at FDR, hopefully to see his errors. We are in tough times again.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:06 amThe ones he let out of prison to commit murder, or the ones working for him that he kept out of prison?
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:07 am@34. Doom! Doom! Doom! :
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:09 am“They’re rioting in Africa./ They’re starving in Spain./ There’s hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain. / The whole world is festering with unhappy souls./ The French hate the Germans./ The Germans hate the Poles./Italians hate Yugoslavs./South Africans hate the Dutch./ And I don’t like anybody very much.” – ‘Merry Minuet’ – The Kingston Trio
So, now that I am a swing-state conservative, am I going to hold my nose and pull the “R” lever if only to put up a roadblock in front of the Democrats?
Good Heavens, if Texas is now a swing-state then Trump is going to be buried in the electoral college, unless he somehow grabs Minnesota, Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire to partially offset the loss of Texas.
JVW (ee64e4) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:10 amIt is funny. I think it’s interesting how I nod my head at the notion of refusing to vote for Biden or Trump, and then I very happily voted for Biden, slept like a baby. Biden could be bad and I’ll still be certain that was the best choice. A high price, but Trump has gotta go.
I guess I was right in 2016 about what happens if Trump wins. DCSCA can tell you all about it. Trump ain’t helping the right.
I also think it’s funny how upset Trump’s most intense and time intense supporters get when taken at their word that they don’t want Trump to be president. you for example, do not want Trump to be a president.
I agree with you. Trump shouldn’t be the president anymore. LOL.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:11 amWe are in tough times again
No. We’re not.
This isn’t the Civil War; this isn’t the Great Depression; this isn’t WW II; this isn’t 1968.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:12 amIs the U.S. Already in a New Civil War?
……
The signs of a coming conflict are everywhere. Political polarization is up, gun and ammunition sales have spiked, killers such as Kyle Rittenhouse are being lauded by their political allies, and protests are widespread in American cities. Police kill unarmed people in the street, the government is polarized and corrupt, and our institutions are failing. Armed militias patrol U.S. streets and groups like the Atomwaffen Division and the Base plot to start a larger conflict. Mass shootings, sometimes ideologically motivated and other times not, occur frequently. Poverty and unemployment are widespread as mass evictions loom and Congress stalls to help those in need.
……
……An insurgency is more likely—a period of sustained and distributed conflict where non-state actors carry out violence to achieve a political goal. Several said they believe we’re already in the early stages of one, a period before large-scale political violence the CIA defines as an “incipient insurgency.”
“A conflict in the pre-insurgency stage is difficult to detect because most activities are underground and the insurgency has yet to make its presence felt through the use of violence,” the CIA Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency says in its definition of the incipient insurgency phase. “Moreover, actions conducted in the open can easily be dismissed as nonviolent political activity. During this stage, an insurgent movement is beginning to organize: leadership is emerging, and the insurgents are establishing a grievance and a group identity, beginning to recruit and train members, and stockpiling arms and supplies.”
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:21 am…….
Rich Man’s Spiritual
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:23 amGordon Lightfoot
@46. No. It’s not. =mike drop=
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:26 amBravo, my fellow Lubbockite Kevin Williamson! West Texans may not all write as well as he does but he speaks for many of us.
This calls for re-link of “The Chili Judge”, DRJ.
nk (1d9030) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:29 am“Trump is frequently wrong on important policy questions (including trade, foreign policy, entitlements, health care, and many others) and frequently incompetent even when trying to advance a good policy. ”
Williamson is spot on regarding trade and entitlements. I’ll be interested to know what aspect of health care policy he feels Trump is wrong on. On foreign policy, I tend to support less interventionism, so to an extent I concur with some of what the Trump administration’s policies, while disagreeing with just about everything else(Trump’s penchant for acting impulsively in a ham fisted manner, trying to cozy up to rogue dictators, among many other things). Kevin is spot on in tying character to policymaking and governing. And I agree, it looks like he will take a pass on both Trump and Biden. That sums up how I’ll be voting.
HCI (92ea66) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:31 amTrump kept his promise on judges but how many more openings will the next President be likely to fill? Judges mattered in 2016 but not 2020. What matters now is that Trump failed to keep his other big promises — repeal ObamaCare, fix immigration/build a Wall — and he isn’t even pretending to do those things now.
Republicans love Trump because he is a entertainer who knows how to fight the culture war. Like too many Democrats, it is easier to care about feelings and culture than addressing substantive issues. That strikes me as short-sighted but it is much easier to deal with culture/feelings than self-government.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:32 amFBI Sits on Report Detailing White-Supremacist Terror Threat
The FBI has failed to produce a legally required report detailing the scope of white supremacist and other domestic terrorism, despite mounting concerns that the upcoming election could spark far-right violence.
……..
In June, the bureau was supposed to release a report compiling a wealth of currently unavailable data on domestic terrorism, a category that includes white supremacist violence. The most recent National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requires the FBI, in accord with Department of Homeland Security and consultation with the Office of Director of National Intelligence, specify not only known acts of domestic terrorism, but “ideologies relating to domestic terrorism,” and what the FBI and its partners are doing to combat it all.
Yet the FBI is over four months late. While President Trump falsely portrays left-wing property damage as terrorism, suspicion is building that the FBI, whose director Christopher Wray is on the outs with Trump, will keep the public from seeing the scope of its premier terror threat before an election that may feature violence emerging from it.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:34 am…….
Now a score of national security veterans are sounding alarms about the potential for election-timed violence from those elements, particularly as they feed on a steady diet of incitement from the president falsely claiming the Democrats plan on stealing the election. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and senior Pentagon official who now represents a Michigan district where three of the militiamen lived, expects unrest. “I don’t think we’ll see widespread violence, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw limited skirmishes,” said Slotkin, a Democrat. Even a long-delayed and equivalence-laden DHS report—one accused by a whistleblower of deliberately downplaying white extremism—said that “campaign-associated mass gatherings, polling places, and voter registration events” were the “most likely flashpoints” for election-timed violence.
……
……Partial statistics, contained in the DHS report, show that in 2018 and 2019, white supremacists committed half of the 16 violent attacks attributed to all domestic extremists and killed 39 of the 48 people slain in all those events.
…….
I hate it when Obama is right:
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:37 amKeith Williamson:
They matter yes, and it is something more than style – there’s a significant amount of incompetence, which Trump is saved from, and it is perhaps lowering the quality of the debate, although a lot of other people have to go wrong there to affect things – they matter, but do they matter more than anything else? And it’s not like the style and the truthfulness on the other side is something to cheer about.
Keith Williamson is by and large satisfied with most of what happened, or not too dissatisfied even if what he finds good s OK because Trump is not paying too much attention to those things.
Now there’s an argument that when both sides are bad, but on different matters, you get the best results by alternating them.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:38 amColorado chili, nk? For shame! Texas is the real home of chili and chili cookoffs.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:42 amOn Covid, Trump is better.
But he’ll have at least 12 more weeks to handle that and get out the antibodies and the vaccines. There might be too much momentum for Biden to stop it.
It is important for Trump personally to get one or the other out, because his immunity is going to wear off around January 20. If it’=’s the vaccine he needs to take his first shot by December 1. If, that is, the vaccine works with someone who has neutralizing antibodies in his bloodstream. The antibodies are more important.
Of course Trump might still be important enough for Regerneron to supply him again with antibodies, which will be more generally distributed by then, if he gets infected again after January 20.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:46 amMy bad, DRJ.
nk (1d9030) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:47 am39. https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.24204300/?st=text
There was indeed a speech scheduled to be delivered the next day.
How much he needed to work on it s another story. Didn’t he have speechwriters?
Anyway, this says he worked on it April 11th.
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/daybyday/event/april-1945-4
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:55 amKidding! That was good, nk.
And RIP Jerry Jeff Walker, a New Yorker by birth but Texan by choice. I went to school when he and the Lost Gonzos were playing in Austin (before Austin was “Austin”). Good times. Better even than a Terlingua chili cookoff.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:02 pmTo protect our brave Secret Service agents (who signed up to take a bullet for their protectees, but not to take a bullet *from* their protectees) and their families, until the pandemic is over Biden should – after one warning in writing – withdraw the protective detail from anyone who violates local public health orders or does not wear a mask in public.
It’s common sense.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:06 pmTime123 (6e0727) — 10/27/2020 @ 10:19 am
I think your friend is right. Maybe not about you specifically but there are certainly people that applies too. I’m in that boat with some people I know.
Possibly. I’ve also noticed a lot of people are simply lying to themselves. That makes it hard to have a conversation, especially if both people are doing it. That’s the easiest way for both sides to think the other simply isn’t listening.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:09 pmHe’s also still whining that he didn’t get as much adulation for a Nobel Prize nomination as Obama did for winning the prize. It’s true that Obama’s prize was a joke (and I suspect that Obama may have been a bit embarrassed about it), but it’s more farcical that Trump has claimed that he himself got the prize – then admits quietly that maybe it was just a nomination, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” And when he says “I don’t know,” it’s generally not a confession of ignorance, but some kind of deflection or coverup.
Radegunda (20775b) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:13 pmI think you have to insist that in order to sleep at night after voting for Trump. Things are actually tough. Lots of folks need work and are giving up. Putin is attacking the entire world’s primary method of staying peaceful (trusting democracy). Don’t get me started on illness and medicine or the state or how the internet is radicalizing people.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:14 pmColorado chili, nk? For shame! Texas is the real home of chili and chili cookoffs.
You Texans do fine by your red chili, but the best green chile found anywhere is in Southern Colorado.
JVW (ee64e4) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:16 pmThings are actually tough. Lots of folks need work and are giving up. Putin is attacking the entire world’s primary method of staying peaceful (trusting democracy). Don’t get me started on illness and medicine or the state or how the internet is radicalizing people.
The problem is, Dustin, that even though Trump has largely failed in so many aspects of these issues, I don’t see Biden and a Democrat Congress doing any better.
I think at this point the best possible outcome is a Biden win with the GOP maintaining hold on the Senate by maybe 2 or 3 votes to give them some wiggle room. It will mean two years of very little getting accomplished, but given the stakes I think that’s much better than giving the Democrats two years to cause great mischief.
JVW (ee64e4) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:21 pmDon’t let New Mexicans see that, JVW.
I like green chiles more than reds, and they can be used as chili seasonings. I like green chile enchiladas more than Whataburgers, although it is a close call. But don’t fool yourself: green chiles aren’t chili.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:23 pmGood thing there aren’t any serious problems urgently needing to be solved.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:24 pmRip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:34 am
39 over a 2 year period? Is that the correct way to read that?
As of June the Floyd protests by themselves are associated with 19 and we’re giving them a pass on any COVID spread. We’re not counting any for antifa because they’re just an idea. We especially don’t count Reinoehl. Last night BLM ran over a bunch of cops with a car and of course it’s ridiculous to say there are good people on both sides of that one. The good people there are the ones running people over.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:24 pmBiden isn’t the cure, but Trump is destabilizing the world and undermining faith in progress.
I fear undivided Team D power, which could include packing the court and ruinous energy policy. Trump may be the ‘reason’ other people made things worse.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:26 pmDon’t let New Mexicans see that, JVW.
New Mexicans put potatoes in their green chile. I just can’t countenance that, despite the many fine other things they do with their harvest.
JVW (ee64e4) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:35 pmGood thing there aren’t any serious problems urgently needing to be solved.
Serious problems will always require a solution and Congress will inevitably step-up, even if haphazardly so, but the divided Congress would prevent court packing, crazy tax schemes, poorly-conceived green energy initiatives, irresponsible state government bailouts, addition of new states, and all the other awful things the Democrats have promised their most rabid partisans.
JVW (ee64e4) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:38 pmTo me, divided government is needed especially when we face urgent problems, because it keeps partisans from rushing to “do something.” A little more time to think about big problems is good.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:42 pmWhich brings me to the practical case against Trump: He stinks at his job.
It is really hard to argue with that. He also stinks at being a person, stinks at tact, decorum, manners and keeping sh1t off his heel.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:44 pmAccording to the NM SecState’s office, my ballot (voting for Libertarian Jo Jorgensen and every Republican down-ticket) was received on 10/22.
Now I’m just a spectator.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:50 pmSaid the tail to the dog.
I think the tail is talking to the closest part of the dog.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:56 pm@63. Things are actually tough.
No. Actually, they’re not.
But if you feel that way, remember: when the going gets tough; the tough get going. Accordingly; ideological conservatives cannot lead; will not follow- so they either get out of the way– or get run over. Welcome to 1964.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 12:58 pm77. LOLOLOLOL No kidding; the ‘business end’ – and getting sh!t on. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:00 pmWin or Lose, It’s Donald Trump’s Republican Party
Yeah I saw that a few days ago. How the F would the NYT know a thing about the Republican Party? They don’t even know any Republicans.
In 1974 they were saying that it was Nixon’s GOP, and Watergate, massive regulatory agencies, wage & price controls, etc, did not live in the party much past 1976 — Reagan almost won the nomination then against a sitting president.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:00 pmI do think it’s unfortunate than no one had the cojones that Reagan did in 1976 and took it to Trump and made the RNC open up the contest.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:01 pmTwenty former U.S. attorneys — all of them Republicans — on Tuesday publicly called President Trump “a threat to the rule of law in our country,” and urged that he be replaced in November with his Democratic opponent, former vice president Joe Biden.
Why weren’t they joined by some Democrats?
That “all of them Republicans” thing is just asswipe. It doesn’t mean that all Republican USAs are for Biden, nor does it mean that all USAs that are for Biden are Republican. It doesn’t even mean that all those speaking today are Republican, just that they were appointed by same.
It just means that they know there are a lot of gullible people who don’t pay all that much attention to what they read.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:05 pmOnce again there is NO lesser of two evils. I have a choice of a party I totally disagree with and one that is led by willing accomplices to a corrupt, incompetent, morally depraved imbecile. I’ll simply abstain from participating in this circus thank you.
Knickerbocker Slobberknocker (27d313) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:06 pmRepublicans love Trump because he is a entertainer who knows how to fight the culture war. Like too many Democrats, it is easier to care about feelings and culture than addressing substantive issues. That strikes me as short-sighted but it is much easier to deal with culture/feelings than self-government.
Shorter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYeNuISN4Dc
Reaganoptics.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:06 pm@83. … and Putin smiled.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:07 pmAn insurgency is more likely—a period of sustained and distributed conflict where non-state actors carry out violence to achieve a political goal. Several said they believe we’re already in the early stages of one, a period before large-scale political violence the CIA defines as an “incipient insurgency.”
Hang Trump first.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:09 pmI hate it when Obama is right:
Really, Dave? You’ve basically sided with the Democrats on everything for the last year or two. Why is this any different?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:11 pmthis isn’t 1968.
It might not be those other things, but having lived through 1968, this is about one assassination short, and I’m not sure which way that works.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:13 pmReagan almost won the nomination then against a sitting president.
Reagan had a hat in the ring in ’68, too. But The Big Dick won the nom. And what was Buckley’s famed quip– ‘So it’s Nixon. What’s all the fuss about.” He’d tell you today to stay w/t party, support the nominee and work from within.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:13 pmGood thing there aren’t any serious problems urgently needing to be solved.
Well there are, of course, but that was true with Trump, too. I see no indication that any of the proposed Democrat solutions (other than Biden’s brainstorm of giving everyone a COVID vaccine) will solve a thing and might easily make them worse (God knows Trump did).
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:16 pm@88. As did I; from the unique perspective of both inside and outside the United States.
And this is no where close to 1968.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:17 pmReagan had a hat in the ring in ’68, too.
As a Favorite Son candidate to control the delegation, not as a real candidate. I don’t think he ran in any primary outside CA. In ’76 he came within a handful of votes from winning, and that mostly because he missed some early primaries..
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:17 pmAgreed but it isn’t happening. If Trump loses then it is likely he takes the Senate with him.
Yes, and 2022 still has a lot more Rs than Ds up, but they could take it back in a wave. Which is what happened in both both houses in 2010 and in the Senate again in 2014. And then to Trump in the House in 2018.
I think the best case is that Biden actually governs from the middle, with a working coalition of non-fringe members of both parties. I don’t expect it, since there are so many axes in so many hands, but it is the best case.
I think the likely case is that there is no moderation, the Democrats pass something truly terrible, and they lose their majorities in the House in 2022, the Senate in 2024, and the WH that year, too.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:27 pm@ Dustin, #4:
I agree. The problem is that, at least in my jurisdiction, all the third-party and independent candidates are ALSO poor, in the sense that none of them is qualified to be president in any but the most strictly constitutional terms. At least last time, I could tell myself that if my chosen candidates somehow managed to get into office, they were both former governors who had (between them) almost a decade and a half of experience at the state executive level.
This has left me with the choice of not voting at all, or pulling the lever for the least ridiculous candidate on my ballot. So I’m going for Jo Jorgensen until and unless she changes my mind.
Demosthenes (fdb2d4) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:43 pmBallrooms, candles and luxury cottages: During Trump’s term, millions of government and GOP dollars have flowed to his properties
……
Since his first month in office, Trump has used his power to direct millions from U.S. taxpayers — and from his political supporters — into his own businesses. The Washington Post has sought to compile examples of this spending through open records requests and a lawsuit.
In all, he has received at least $8.1 million from these two sources since he took office, those documents and publicly available records show.
……
Since 2017, Trump’s company has charged taxpayers for hotel rooms, ballrooms, cottages, rental houses, golf carts, votive candles, floating candles, candelabras, furniture moving, resort fees, decorative palm trees, strip steak, chocolate cake, breakfast buffets, $88 bottles of wine and $1,000 worth of liquor for White House aides. And water.
In addition, Trump’s campaign and fundraising committee paid $5.6 million to his companies since his inauguration in January 2017. Those payments — turning campaign donations into private revenue — continued even this year, as Trump fell behind in polls and his campaign ran short of money.
……
“If I win, I may never see my property — I may never see these places again,” Trump said on the campaign trail then. “Because I’m going to be working for you, I’m not going to have time to go play golf. Believe me.”
……
Much spending remains hidden, because some federal agencies — including the State Department, and the White House itself — have declined to release records……..
…….
…….When Trump visited with Xi Jinping of China in April 2017, the club had started charging for flowers, and $50 per palm for decorative palm trees.
That same weekend, a group of White House staffers gathered in a Mar-a-Lago bar adorned with a large portrait of Trump wearing tennis whites. They kicked out the bartender “so they could speak confidentially,” according to an email Mar-a-Lago’s catering director sent to the State Department later.
The group then helped themselves to the contents of the bar: 26 servings of Patron and Don Julio tequila, 22 Chopin vodkas, and 6 glasses of Woodford Reserve bourbon, documents show.
The bill to the government: $1,005.60, including service charge. The State Department refused to pay, emails show. But ProPublica — which first revealed this bill — reported that the White House eventually did. (The White House has not responded to questions asking how much it has paid Trump’s clubs out of its own budget).
……
When Trump visited Mar-a-Lago for two weeks at Christmas last year, for example, the club charged the Secret Service $32,400 for guest rooms.
In addition, Trump’s adult children have brought their father’s company another $260,000 in taxpayer revenue on their own, records show, by taking solo trips to Trump properties with their own Secret Service agents in tow.
And, in some cases, Trump’s properties even got paid on days when no Trumps were present at all.
In Bedminster, N.J., for instance, Trump’s club has charged the Secret Service $17,000 per month to rent a cottage from May to November — even on days when the family is absent. That’s an unusually high rate for the area, but a former Trump administration official said they had to pay it — to be ready, if Trump suddenly decided to visit.
Defense Department records recently obtained by The Post show a similar pattern of $17,000 payments to Trump’s club in Bedminster in recent years. Pentagon officials declined to answer questions about whether they have a cottage there, too.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:43 pm……..
And on and on and on and on and on-grifters are going to grift.
Or, my hope: With a weak Biden as President, he accomplishes little of substance in the first two years while the various factions in his Party fight to control him.
DRJ (aede82) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:44 pmLOL I almost did that so I know the feeling.
We all need to take the first step of realizing most of us are voting against something. Harkin, BNP, Haiku, NJRob, Whembly, they aren’t bad people or anything. They see what’s wrong with Biden. I see what’s wrong with Trump. You and Kevin see what’s wrong with both of them. They just want us picking at eachother so we don’t fix this scam.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:54 pmThe most cogent criticism her is that Trump is unaware of the problems.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/19/trump-therapeutics-vaccines
As for everyone else, they don’t even seem to think the slowness is a problem, and is not necessary. . The idea of antibodies is not something new.
People are dying in the meantime.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/27/2020 @ 2:17 pm94. Demosthenes (fdb2d4) — 10/27/2020 @ 1:43 pm
It is almost like Russia.
Except achieved without Putin.
(In Russia, Putin no longer relies on that)
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/27/2020 @ 2:26 pmIn Russia, in several presidential elections, Vladimir Putin made sure that all the candidates besides him were ridiculous or unacceptable..
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/27/2020 @ 2:34 pmO.M.G.
Biden is in Atlanta.
Talking about the dead.
And death.
And the carny.
And gonna ‘shutdown the virus.’
Big Oil, too, eh Joe?
That’s right, Joe. ‘The boys are thirsty in Atlanta… and there’s beer in Texarkana. And you’ll bring it back no matter what it takes.’ Right, Joe? ‘East bound and down, medded up and cluckin’, you’re gonna do what they say can’t be done. You’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there. You’re east bound, so watch ol’ Joey run.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 2:56 pmO.M.G.
Again Joe said he’d be he first president w/o an Ivy League degree. Joe, per ABC News, ‘while the Ivy League universities boast over a dozen presidents, including John Adams, the second president of the United States, more than 25 other presidents, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, didn’t receive an Ivy League degree.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 3:03 pmI can’t believe you guys are arguing about chili.
My uncle Buddy was a hard truck-driving man. He became a long haul truck driver at the age of sixteen to help support his family. He smoked Camel cigarettes without a filter. His idea of barbequing a steak was to throw it on the grill, flip it over, then eat it raw. Honestly, as a child, it was kind of scary to watch him eat meat. There would be blood dripping out the sides of his mouth.
Anyway, here is his recipe for 3 Alarm Chili:
3 lbs brisket or steak, cut into 1 inch pieces
3 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp salt or garlic salt
1 tbsp ground red pepper
1 tbsp tabasco sauce
2 medium or 1 large onion (chopped)
2 8 oz cans tomato sauce
3 or 4 dried jalapeno chili pods
Sautee meat until grayish color. Add water and tomato sauce, and other ingredients. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Skin fat off. Add 1 tbsp flour to thiken. Cook an additional 15 minutes.
That’s real Texas chili. Myself, I prefer Carroll Shelby’s chili mix, made with ground sirloin, chopped onions and cheddar cheese. But that’s neither here nor there.
There is no way my uncle, or my grandfather, would have voted for Trump. And they were lifelong Republicans. For some strange reason which I will never understand, my mother loved Trump. So does my brother. I didn’t and can’t discuss politics with either one of them.
Texas is in play. Biden is campaigning around the Great Lakes, which is smart. He’s not repeating the mistake Clinton made. He’s also campaigning in Pennsylvania and Florida, which is also smart. And he’s campaigning in Texas, which is competitive.
I don’t like Biden, but I will vote for him because Trump has got to go. The entire Republican party needs to be excoriated for electing him in the first place.
It’s the down ballot Republicans, not just in Congress but in governorships and state legislatures as well, that ought to be worried.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 10/27/2020 @ 3:50 pmFollowing the lead of the sociopath in White House, the GOP ‘has been wrong on a lot of things.
Impeachment? True.
COVID? True.
Opposing police brutality, rioting, and white supremacists while supporting peaceful protests? True.
Kavanaugh? False.
Barrett? False.
(I think it will likely further poison the political environment to exhibit such heavy-handed hypocrisy on Barrett after Garland; but I agree with the GOP’s 2020 position, not the 2016 antithesis of it).
I can’t think of an issue where I’ve taken a position significantly different than Romney’s.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 4:04 pmOf course Romney hasn’t said that he’s voting for Biden, but he *has* said he isn’t voting for Trump.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 4:10 pmMake Orwell Fiction Again:
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 4:14 pmI can’t believe you guys are arguing about chili.
Listen, there are lots of things more important than which corrupt, senile old geezer gets to use the White House stationery for the next four years.
Thanks for that chili recipe. I’ve copied it down and will file away for future use. I only make red chili maybe once every two years, and when I do my recipe is very similar to your uncle’s, though I generally use a mixture of ground beef and pork instead of real steak. I guess I’ll try it his way next time.
Someday I’ll share my green chile recipe with everyone, but not just yet. Not just yet.
JVW (ee64e4) — 10/27/2020 @ 4:50 pmGoing a little off-topic, I saw this Tim Murtaugh character on Chris Cuomo last night and it was combative, to put it mildly (Part I and Part II). Cuomo confronted every falsehood and disingenuous comment, and Murtaugh was skillful enough to talk over a talk-overer like Cuomo. It was a mess.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/27/2020 @ 5:15 pmThis morning I saw Murtaugh on FoxNews, and the lady would ask a question and he would talk uninterrupted for a couple minutes, then she would ask another question, rinse and repeat. It sounded more like an campaign commercial than a news segment.
This is why it’s good to watch both sides, just to see the chasm of differences in how they cover what’s going on.
Trump’s campaign website hacked by cryptocurrency scammers
President Trump’s campaign website was briefly and partially hacked Tuesday afternoon as unknown adversaries took over the “About” page and replaced it with what appeared to be a scam to collect cryptocurrency. There is no indication, despite the hackers’ claims, that “full access to trump and relatives” was achieved or “most internal and secret conversations strictly classified information” were exposed.
The hack seemingly took place shortly after 4 PM Pacific time. The culprits likely gained access to the donaldjtrump.com web server backend and replaced the “About” page with a long stretch of obfuscated javascript producing a parody of the FBI “this site has been seized” message.
“the world has had enough of the fake-news spreaded daily by president donald j trump,” the new site read. “it is time to allow the world to know truth.”
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/27/2020 @ 5:21 pm……..
How appropriate-one grifter to another.
I generally use a mixture of ground beef and pork instead of real steak.
I’m with you. Chili meat is ground or chopped. Cubes are beef stew. Yeah, yeah, if Greeks can put cinnamon, allspice and bay leaves in their beef stew, you can put chili powder, tabasco, and peppers in yours, and it’s still beef stew.
But you don’t need to settle for ready-ground meat. You can buy whole cuts, trim them and wash them, and grind them yourself with one of these, which is what my mother would do.
nk (1d9030) — 10/27/2020 @ 5:29 pm108. Remdisivir very effective? Trump himself said that remdisivir was not that useful.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/10/09/mega-maga-the-largest-radio-rally-in-history
But it is not true what Chris Cuomo said that it is only useful in extremis – it was approved for people in extremis. That is because drug companies try to get approval for something and then doctors can use it off label for anything. Remdisivir is useful in the middle game – it interferes with already infected cells churning out more virus.
They were both wrong in places. The whole exchange, on both sides, is littered with errors.
I notice that Joe Biden’s defense about opposing the restrictions (it never was a complete ban) on travel from China is that he didn’t oppose it – he only opposed the way Donald Trump talked about it. Possibly a half truth. This is one place Chris Cuomo shouldn’t have given him the point.
It is true that Biden in the last debate talked about doing some things that weren’t being done. They are both impossible and mostly unnecessary, and everything about schools is said to satisfy the teacher;s union which wants impossible conditions for in person learning. Biden also wants testing that doesn’t exist, and what may over-protection for businesses to re-open, which at the same time may not be enough if your goal is zero cases.
And Cuomo’s claim that lockdowns are needed because something else wasn’t done? What something else? Masks?? Cleaning supplies?
By the way, I am wary of giving a vaccine to vulnerable people because they might be vulnerable also to reactions. A vaccine isn’t a cure – it’s prevention, and whether there are enough doses to halt the epidemic depends on the time period in question. The Trump administration claims it can get this out faster and further than other projections being made.
The reason a ventilator shortage never materialized is not because Trump arranged for the manufacture of many ventilators, which he did, but because it became evident – and doctors and the CDC were much too slow to pick up on this – that ventilators were being used incorrectly and unnecessarily, and actually hurt the patient’s chances of survival. Also maybe cases did plateau.
They’re both wrong!
And there’s something wrong with these statistics, I don’t know what, about nursing homers o deaths in New York State, In fact, Governor Cuomo won’t allow statistics to be published that show the true number of nursing home related deaths.
The original sin there, of course, was excluding faamilies from viditing people in nursing homes./
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/27/2020 @ 6:28 pmTrump is not the boy who cried wolf – he is the boy who cried sheepdog.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/27/2020 @ 6:31 pmParaphrasing George Orwell, not voting is objectively pro-Biden. If that’s what Kevin wants he should say so. It’s fantasy pretending that’s not the impact of his vote though.
Lazlo Toth (ea6f05) — 10/27/2020 @ 6:58 pm@85
Trump wasn’t elected in 2016 he was PUTIN office
Knickerbocker Slobberknocker (27d313) — 10/27/2020 @ 7:38 pm@30. You realize the operative word in that header is ‘former.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 8:59 pmPfizer C.E.O. All but Rules Out Vaccine Before Election Day
Rip Murdock (305171) — 10/27/2020 @ 9:28 pmAfter weeks of dangling the possibility of coronavirus vaccine results by October, Pfizer’s chief executive said on Tuesday that would now be nearly impossible.
……..
Dr. (Albert) Bourla had repeatedly predicted that the initial analysis — which is conducted by an outside board of scientific experts — would come by the end of October. But on Tuesday, he said those 32 cases of Covid-19 had not yet occurred, a sign that the trial is progressing more slowly than the company had estimated. He also said the outside panel would need at least a week to analyze any results, making an answer before the election unlikely. Dr. Bourla said the company would report results if the outside board found the vaccine was either effective or not, but not if there is no definitive conclusion either way.
……
Even if early results come over the next few weeks, most Americans are not likely to get the vaccine anytime soon. Under guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration, coronavirus vaccine developers must turn in at least two months of safety data after half of the trial’s participants have received the second dose of the vaccine, which Pfizer has said will not happen until at least the third week of November.
……..
No miracle is coming.
Rich Galen
@richgalen
·
At a time when most stores are getting the Christmas Decs out, in Donald Trump’s Washington, it’s plywood.
_ _
tsar becket adams
harkin (7fb4c9) — 10/27/2020 @ 9:39 pm@BecketAdams
·
yeah the plywood is definitely because of trump and trump supporters.
_
BTW, over 1,000 more Americans died today from CV19, and there were over 75,000 more cases (link).
In a major “say what?!!” moment, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy declared victory.
Here’s one of the science office team members.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 10/27/2020 @ 9:53 pm@116/@118. BTW: 330 million Americans survive pandemic today. LA Dodgers win first World Series in 32 years. Mideast peace breaks out. Water discovered in sunlit portions of the Moon,
“Malarkey!” “No miracle is coming.” – Joe Biden
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:04 pmDoubleplusgood!
Dave (1bb933) — 10/27/2020 @ 11:34 pmI went back to look at the fivethirtyeight model from 2016.
Last time Election Day was November 8, so the Tuesday before was November 1.
Clinton’s estimated win probability was near a record (87.3%) at the time of the last debate on October 19, with a national polling average lead of 6.9%.
By November 1, one week before Election Day, Clinton’s national polling lead was down to 3.9%, and her estimated chance of winning was down to 71.2%. This was almost exactly how things stood on the morning of Election Day, too.
This year, Biden’s biggest lead in the national average was 10.7% on October 17 and 19. His estimated chance of winning the election on those days was 87% and 88%, respectively.
In ten days, the average has tightened by a point and a half, to 9.2% today. His estimated winning chance (which is mainly based on state polls) has not changed.
In 2016, Clinton was at 48.8% nationally a week before the election. When the votes were counted, she received 48.53%, almost exactly as predicted. The national polling error was a shift of Trump’s percentage from 44.9% predicted on November 1 to 46.4% received on Election Day.
This year Biden is at 51.9% a week before the election.
No miracle is coming.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/28/2020 @ 12:08 amI have finally decided how I’m going to vote tomorrow: Jo Jorgensen for President, and Republicans in down-ticket races.
To vote against Republicans not named Trump is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’s ridiculous to punish them for “going along with” Trump. Trump won, and had political capital he could have unleashed on them. If they had spoken out against Trump, they would have been primaried by true Trumpkins, who would have gone on either to win the general election or lose to a Democrat. It’s better that they held their tongues in order to accomplish some of their agenda, rather than commit political suicide and obtain none of their agenda.
A Republican Senate or House makes a nice firewall against any harebrained ideas from Biden’s cohorts.
norcal (a5428a) — 10/28/2020 @ 12:34 amTrump is boasting about the billions in public money that his administration is giving to farmers hurt by his tariffs:
“In fact, some people say our farmers do better now than they did when they actually had a farm.”
See, we’ve gotta vote Trump to save us from socialism!
Radegunda (20775b) — 10/28/2020 @ 1:43 amTrump makes his closing argument to women:
Dave (1bb933) — 10/28/2020 @ 2:11 amThe report helps show why Trump is doing so much worse among his the people that supported him in 2016. Trump die hards can post out of context lists of puffed up accomplishments. But people know when their lives have improved.
If you like data, the entire article is worth a read.
Time123 (b4d075) — 10/28/2020 @ 5:42 amAngela Merkal is telling people we have a problem. Christmas is important and here are the things we need to do between now and then so we can celebrate Christmas more as we’d like.
Trump is complaining that we talk abut Covid too much and telling people we’re rounding the corner and that it will all just go away soon.
The German response is what it looks like when you take a problem seriously and want to solve it.
The Trump response shows denial and weakness.
I don’t know if the steps in Germany are needed or not. Some of them look like things our culture would reject if mandated because they violate personal liberty. But they could be pushed as a strong suggestion if someone wanted to rally the country around them. There are things that can be done between Nothing, and Government Mandate. Trump is doing none of them competently and people are faulting him for that.
Time123 (d1bf33) — 10/28/2020 @ 5:49 amAnd the word is “NO!”, Fascists!
nk (1d9030) — 10/28/2020 @ 6:07 amInteresting article, Time123. In a sense I guess these politicians are a reflection of the people, but they also lead the people. I expect after this year a lot of people are tired of saying ‘no’ to visits and ready to get together. It could lead to a lot of hardship.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/28/2020 @ 6:23 am@66
Hatch Green Chili Enchiladas. Pancake style, not rolled, over-easy egg on top with a dollop of sour cream.
In second place is the use of red chili sauce. But either way NM style enchiladas are a little slice of heaven.
My favorite cookbook is a green chili cookbook put out by my alma mater. NMSU. Go Aggies.
Marci (405d43) — 10/28/2020 @ 6:46 amAll these people feeling sorry for the Dodgers player being pulled from the final game because he tested positive but not upset that nursing home visits and hospital visits are still shut down in some states. Oh boo-hoo.
Marci (405d43) — 10/28/2020 @ 6:54 am“There go my people. I am their leader so I must go with them.” is a real thing.
But look at how AM is approaching this.
We have a change in the situation; Covid is getting worse.
It impacts a shared goal; Celebrate Christmas
Here are things we need to do to achieve our shared goal; See list
Here is how we can know if we’re on track or not; need to keep cases from going up.
I’m sure there are people in German who want to fight about those. Number may be small but there’s going to be at least a few that question the data, question the goal, question the steps.
But anyone can see that AM is trying to make sure CV doesn’t impact Christmas celebrations 2 month before the Holiday itself. I think in the US people will give her some credit for that alone.
Contrast that with Trump and you have a real example of what he could be doing, but isn’t.
Time123 (b4d075) — 10/28/2020 @ 6:56 amI guess they think it’s as good as done, and that’s what they’ll have to say in one year. Especially if the vaccine and the antibody treatment will be approved by January 19.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/28/2020 @ 7:15 am@122 norcal
Nonsense! “Partisanship isn’t Patriotism” as Kevin Williamson said. If you vote these accomplices to the dumpster fire we are experiencing out you aren’t burning the party down. That was the original idea of Trump and his troglodyte minions back in 2016. THEY are the ones who burnt the party down. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED !
Knickerbocker Slobberknocker (27d313) — 10/28/2020 @ 7:16 amI mean that, although they’re getting a little ahead of themselves, there’s a basis for saying that
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/28/2020 @ 7:37 amSammy, I think all Trump’s administration has been concerned about with COVID is Trump’s personal benefit. Financial, since he has a lot invested in tourism, and re-election, since it may be the only way he obstructs justice.
Ironically, he would be getting reelected next Tuesday if he had taken that tough fighter’s ‘no miracle coming, roll up your sleeves America’ attitude we’re seeing from Time123’s article about Germany. By putting something good on the horizon, recognizing the value to families, people can do better. It’s leadership. I think back to that time Princess Nepotism Ivanka was seated next to Merkel, and no matter what Biden does, there is something fundamentally ignorant about our people and our political parties that is undermining our country. It is fun to joke this is idiocracy happening, but it’s really our enemies developing a powerful strategy.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/28/2020 @ 7:41 amHah!
Putin mandates face masks as Russia combats second COVID-19 wave
If Trump criticizes mask-wearing now, it would be tantamount to criticizing Putin.
Unpossible!
Dave (1bb933) — 10/28/2020 @ 8:22 am135. Dustin (4237e0) — 10/28/2020 @ 7:41 am
I think it’s mainly re-election, but his thinking was this:
Shutdowns could harm the economy and if the economy goes bad, he could lose because supposedly the economy determines whether a president is re-elected or not.
That’s why he was so concerned about keeping things open. He helped close things down anyway, but he didn’t want to, and he was anxious to re-open and have people re-open as soon as possible.
His thinking has now changed – he realizes coronavirus is an issue onto itself, and also polls show people still give him credit for a good economy and think he would be better for it than Biden. They even say they are better off now than four years ago!
But, to remind people, he keeps on talking up his economic record, or the record of his time in office to 2019 (which is merely the continuation of a trend – maybe he can take credit for not wrecking things, even if he did some things to make things moderately worse but it only impacted a small minority.)
I don’t think his personal financial shape was a factor: He’s surely not following things day to day; it probably hasn’t hit him yet that all this is impacting badly most of his lines of business; and his personal wealth is big enough, combined with the possibility of making money through his celebrity, that he’s not worried it could impact his standard of living.
Yes, he doesn’t like to pay taxes, or spend money, but that’s not because he is dependent on that money.
That wouldn’t have helped too much except to the extent to the extent it prevented him from occasionally sounding like Baghdad Bob. What would have helped is to argue that a miracle is coming but the Democrats oppose it, and the whole system of drug approval is wrong, and I think he would win that argument if he could make it.
But he’d have to understand things to do that, and he really doesn’t understand how bad and intolerable it is.
He would have to say the “Right to Try” bill passed in 2018 was not enough, instead of just praising it.
https://endpts.com/trump-signs-right-to-try-bill-says-voluntary-drug-price-cuts-coming-in-two-weeks
He hardly even noticed what the bill he signed was supposed to do.
It’s too limited, and too much is dependent on the drug companies who are still afraid of the FDA and who worry that making things available could spoil double blind clinical drug trials that use placebos.
Back in 2009 Congress also made approvals in epidemics easier, but still far from enough. This is no science. This is, at best, an attempt to protect against stupidity, and it doesn’t accomplish that 100% while killing many good medical ideas in their cradle. And it’s based on the idea that you cannot use logic, you cannot use scientific reasoning, and you cannot take shortcuts but you must treat every drug as if the mechanism of action is unknown and unknowable, and treat side effects as if their cause cannot be figured out.
And they don’t want to public to realize the way things truly work.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/28/2020 @ 8:26 amThe very thesis of my upcoming piece.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/28/2020 @ 8:31 amI think angela Merkel is rezcting to protests and what he proposes won’t do all that much. (and thete’s less evidence for masks etc than for some therapeutics, or even for mouthwash.
The protests have gotten pretty big.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53959552
Anti-vaccine campaigner Robert F. Kennedy was there:
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/28/2020 @ 8:32 ama
No doubt, shutdowns hurt the economy badly. No doubt.
We still paid for it. And Trump shrieked ‘LIBERATE VIRGINIA’ Jared told us we can’t have our ventilators, and the culmination of Putin’s argument via bots, that our elections are a lie, was riots everywhere.
Shutdowns done confidently by a people who are led for a common purpose would result in a better long term outcome. Instead, next year won’t be a peach.
No doubt, Putin is undermining France, Germany, the UK, the same way he’s doing it here. It’s the most important issue, bigger than the virus or Trump or guns or abortion. It needs to be solved.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/28/2020 @ 8:37 amA thought experiment: Considering that Donald Trump still has chances to win, how many other GOP candidates would be leading right now?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/28/2020 @ 10:14 amit sends the GOP a louder message.
I disagree. A 12% showing from Jo Jorgensen would send a MUCH louder message, and much clearer.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/28/2020 @ 10:15 amRoss Perot was very clear, and resulted in a balanced budget shortly thereafter. Which W busted.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/28/2020 @ 10:17 amDonald Trump will be the GOP’s Jimmy Carter, but the chances of Donald building houses in the third world are small. Maybe hotels, but that’s not the same thing.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/28/2020 @ 10:25 amInteresting point.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/28/2020 @ 10:35 amAll these people feeling sorry for the Dodgers player being pulled from the final game because he tested positive
If anything, I was upset that he was mugging for the camera with the other players after the game. Since this was supposed to be in a “bubble”, I wonder what rule he broke to get exposed. I hope the league takes a look at that and fines him.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/28/2020 @ 10:35 amI think the reason that Romney, or such, has not called for an organized vote for a different candidate (and did not in 2016, either) is that they still want to avoid a complete rupture of the GOP. Some of the Trump partisans (not the same as Trump voters) are GOP regulars who were just frustrated with the slow pace the party had set. These will return to the GOP so long as they do not feel ostracized. The drive-by Republicans who supported Trump might or might not.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/28/2020 @ 10:39 am143. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/28/2020 @ 10:17 am
None of Ross Perot’s plan was followed!
The budget was balanced because of economic growth.
Bill Clinton threw out his pre-election economic plan, and substituted a mild tax increase, which Republicans said would wreck the economy, which it didn’t and shouldn’t have been expected to if the Republicans actually knew how things worked. Bill Clinton did, but he didn’t want anyone else to know.
Bill Clinton maneuvered things so that his 1993 budget bill, to which he intended to attribute the coming economic growth and lower deficit, passed by one vote both in the House and the Senate. He wanted to argue the Republicans were more partisan because none of them voted for it, but some Democrats voted against it.
But the public understood, both because of that and the health care plan, which was so bad that it was killed in committee, (Clinton would accept no alternatives so nothing else came out of committee) that it was the Democrats who were more partisan, and the reason all Republicans were against it was that it was bad legislation and not that they were all partisan, and the reason the Democrats had some dissenters was that they were not all rubber stamps. (also of course Clinton avoided making deals to get any Republican votes)
Many people were afraid too many Democrats could become rubber stamps, and they elected a Republican Congress in 1994, winning the House for the first time in 42 years.
The economy grew throughput the remainder of the 1990s because of low enough interest rates, and Clinton kept trying not to acknowledge the budget was heading to a surplus and persistently under predicted economic growth. I think this was because it is easier to write legislation in a back room when there is must past legislation as there is when there is a budget crisis.
One consequence of Clinton’s economcic forecasts was that California underestimated electricity use in the year 2000, resulting in brownouts because of the “market” it set up.
Gore came out for a Social Security lockbox, as if that were possible.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 10/28/2020 @ 10:59 ambut the GOP was scared into the Contract with America. They seemed to have mostly stuck with it until 9/11. Ya know, that day Trump announced on national TV he has the tallest building now, like the most tone-deaf idiot in history.*
*apparently a lot of people liked that.
Dustin (4237e0) — 10/28/2020 @ 11:07 amNone of Ross Perot’s plan was followed!
The budget was balanced because of economic growth.
Perhaps, but the SOP is to increase spending with economic growth, and maintain a deficit.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/28/2020 @ 11:32 am