FMJRA 2.0: No Expansion This Year

Posted on | November 3, 2024 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: No Expansion This Year

Pete posted on the league Slack that nobody stepped up to take any of the four possible expansion teams, but a couple of the existing teams may get new owners since the existing owners have been excessively quiet lately. There’s also an AL team that wants to move to the NL, probably because of the designated hitter, which begins this year for us.
Put in six hours at the election balancing board yesterday, and most likely will be working Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week taking care of straggling mail-in ballots. We get Tuesday off because the County Clerk’s office is going to be too busy with actual election day voting to supervise us, and frankly, that’s okay with me. I still have quite a bit of continuing education for tax season to take care of.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Meanwhile in the front office…

The Schadenfreude Smorgasbord
American Salient
First Street Journal
The Daley Gator
EBL
357 Magnum

It’s Classical Allusions Day
The Daley Gator
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Preparing for the Winter Meetings
Daybreak Bulletin
EBL
357 Magnum

Rule 5 Sunday: Coffee, Please
Animal Magnetism
EBL

Probably Not Wearing a MAGA Hat
The Daley Gator
EBL

In The Mailbox: 10.28.24
EBL
357 Magnum

BOOM! We Are So #Winning!
The Daley Gator
Flappr
EBL
357 Magnum

Can We Stay Sane a Few More Days? (Also: Has Trump Always Been Winning?)
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 10.31.24
EBL
357 Magnum

Vote Trump, and the Media Will Die
The Daley Gator
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 11.01.24 (Afternoon Edition)
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 11.01.24 (Evening Edition)
EBL
357 Magnum

Top linkers for the week ending November 1:

EBL (12)
357 Magnum (10)
The Daley Gator (5)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Election 2024: Be Prepared for Anything

Posted on | November 3, 2024 | Comments Off on Election 2024: Be Prepared for Anything

The old Scout motto has always been wise advice, and as we brace ourselves for Election Day — to be followed by Election Night, and then perhaps Election Week or even Election Month — we ought to psychologically prepare ourselves for all possible contingencies.

We have now entered that phase of the campaign where there is nothing to be learned by checking Real Clear Politics for the latest poll data. Every major pollster has already released their final numbers and whatever predictive value polls may have is already incorporated into our expectations. About a week ago, a solid source passed along word that the Trump campaign’s internal polling showed them leading in Pennsylvania by three points — just shy of the four-point lead they would consider “safe” — and that in general the Trump team is “cautiously optimistic” about the election. Despite what Byron York calls the “final torrent of BS” in the past week, probably nothing has happened to alter that calculus, mostly because early voting is running so far ahead of any previous election year. What should we make of this report?

With just three days until the election, former President Donald Trump’s campaign remains unsettled about his prospects in North Carolina, a Sun Belt state that he’s claimed in two consecutive presidential elections.
When asked why, a Trump campaign official put it bluntly.
“If there’s one state that could bite you in the a–, it’s North Carolina,” the official said.
At the same time, Vice President Kamala Harris’ team, which less than two weeks ago feared the Tar Heel State was “a little bit slipping away,” is now seeing it as “very much in play,” a senior campaign official said.
Their dueling outlooks emerged as both campaigns landed in North Carolina, with the candidates rallying voters in a margin-of-error contest that’s raising the stakes in every battleground. Of late, Trump has deviated off course and into states like Virginia and New Mexico in the final days of the campaign, declaring he could expand his map.
Yet he’s made a plan of returning to North Carolina each day until the election.

My first thought: Head fake.

For weeks, I’ve been repeating the obvious: If Trump wins Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, that’s it, he’s the next president, and the outcomes in the other battleground states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada — would be moot, in terms of the Electoral College arithmetic. Anybody can look at the polls and see how solid Trump looks in Georgia now, which leaves North Carolina and Pennsylvania. As I said before, Team Trump feels pretty good about Pennsylvania and so they are devoting extra attention to North Carolina, just to make sure they don’t suffer a surprise loss in a state where the public polls have shown the race much closer than Georgia. And this move has the added benefit of encouraging the Harris campaign also to devote time, money and energy to North Carolina — if Trump’s worried about it, maybe she’s got a chance there — which means less of their attention is available to Pennsylvania, the state that will almost certainly decide the election.

Although I have long despised Nate Silver, his recent criticism of “herding” by pollsters deserves consideration. Even while there is a 6-point spread between the “outliers” of national polls — WSJ has it Trump +3, while Morning Consult has it Harris +3 — the polls in most battleground states seem to be bunched up, as if predicting that Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc., will all be nearly tied. As I say, Trump’s looking strong in Georgia, but even there, a certain amount of “herding” seems to be happening, as if many pollsters are afraid of showing Trump ahead by more than a couple of points. The “herding” effect appears most evident in Pennsylvania, where pollsters seem reluctant to go out on a limb and say either Trump or Harris could win by more than two points. If it comes out 51%-48% either way, the polls will generally have underestimated the margin of victory, and several of them will be wrong about who wins, but none of them be off by more than a six-point margin, and the most wrong of them will be able to say they weren’t alone. Everybody’s cheating on the final exam.

But what if Pennsylvania turns into a comparative blowout? What if, instead of a one- or two-point margin, it opens up to a four- or five-point margin? What if it’s Trump 52% to Harris 47%, or vice-versa? In that case, the pollsters showing a two-point lead for the candidate who loses will be somewhat discredited, but not utterly disgraced, while the pollster who shows a one- or two-point lead for the ultimate winner will puff out his chest in pride of his vindication: “Nailed it!”

Given the problem of “herding,” is there any way we can discover auguries from these particular entails? Well, here’s just a tiny clue: In their poll published October 12, New York Times/Siena College had Harris +3 in Pennsylvania, leading 50% to 47%. The latest NYT/Siena poll came out this morning, and it’s Trump +1 — 48% to 47%.

The word for that is “YUGE.” First of all, it represents a net shift of 4 points toward Trump, and secondly, does anyone think the New York Times would publish its final poll showing Trump ahead in Pennsylvania — which everybody knows is the crucial battleground — if there was any chance of a Harris win there? No way. Stick a fork in her, she’s done.

If my interpretation of this is correct, it would explain why the Trump campaign has added extra stops in North Carolina — they’ve got Georgia and Pennsylvania locked up, and they just need to avoid a surprise in North Carolina to assure they’ve got 270 Electoral College votes. But then again, I could be completely wrong: “Be prepared.”

However this election turns out, I don’t think we’ll know the result on Tuesday night, and we might not know on Wednesday, either. “Too close to call” will be endlessly repeated by the TV talking heads, as they point to the results in various “bellwether” counties, talking about how many precincts have yet to report in Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit, etc. Even if Trump were to ultimately win a popular-vote majority and run the table in the battleground states — maybe even flipping New Hampshire, Virginia or New Mexico into the “red” column — such an outcome wouldn’t be conclusive enough for the media to call it a win on Election Night. Therefore, no matter how optimistic we may be, we must psychologically brace ourselves for disappointment. Even if it’s four years of President Kamala Harris, we can cope with it, somehow.

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Category: Donald Trump, Election, Kamala Harris, North Carolina, Pennsylvania

Election Fraud: Democrat Firm Identified as Source of Suspicious Voter Registration Forms in Four Pennsylvania Counties

Posted on | November 2, 2024 | 1 Comment

Francisco Heredia

Before we get to the connection between this Pennsylvania story and Arizona politician Francisco Heredia, let me first bring you up-to-date on how the story unfolded over the past several days:

Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams provided an update on Wednesday on her office’s investigation of approximately 2,500 fraudulent voter registration applications.
Adams said Lancaster County Detectives are continuing to review suspected fraudulent applications to determine who participated in completing and providing the fraudulent applications. . . .
Adams said her office believes that the fraudulent voter registrations are connected to large-scale canvassing operations for voter registrations dating back to June.
Election workers noticed irregularities while preparing to process the applications and immediately notified Adams’ office.
At a press conference held last week with the Elections Board, Adams announced that her investigators immediately found indicators of fraud, including incorrect and non-existent addresses, false personal identification information, as well as false names and incorrect social security information.
In other cases, Adams said, applications contained accurate voter identification information, but the application was determined to be forged.
Lancaster County Detectives worked through the weekend to review applications that were suspicious or unable to be confirmed by the voter registration office, Adams said.
In addition to finding hundreds of fraudulent voter applications, hundreds more were unable to be verified by detectives, meaning that none of the identification information provided on the application was able to be located (in any police or public source databases) and therefore unable to be verified.

In addition to Lancaster County, similar bogus registration forms were reported in York, Monroe and Berks counties. These were not, as some mistakenly said, fake ballots, but rather voter registration forms which county officials detected as suspicious. Of course, when Donald Trump posted a social media rant about it, all the liberal news media jumped up to accuse him of spreading “misinformation.”

OK, but . . . here’s the real issue: We only know about these fraudulent registration forms because county officials caught them. Do you think election officials in Philadelphia are as scrupulous in processing registrations? If thousands of bogus applications were filed in Philadelphia, would officials catch them? Would the Philadelphia DA hold a press conference to announce an investigation? Doubtful. So while we know about dubious registration forms in four Republican-leaning counties, we’ve got no idea how many fake voters there might be on the rolls in Philadelphia, but I’ve got a hunch the number isn’t a small one.

Now, for the connection to Francisco Heredia:

An Arizona-based consulting firm that has taken a considerable amount of cash from national Democrats is under investigation for allegedly submitting fraudulent voter registration forms in Pennsylvania.
The Monroe County Board of Elections in Pennsylvania determined that several voter registration applications and mail-in ballot requests are fraudulent because they were not authorized by the people named on the documents, with at least one of the individuals in question being deceased, District Attorney Mike Mancuso announced on Wednesday. A subsidiary of FieldCorps, an Arizona-based consulting firm, was responsible for submitting the forms in question, according to Mancuso. FieldCorps has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Democratic political committees since 2018 for work such as get-out-the-vote operations and canvassing services, campaign finance records show.
Among the political organizations that paid out a total of roughly $430,000 to FieldCorps since 2018 are the Arizona Democratic Party, Mike Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential campaign and Democratic Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton, according to campaign finance filings.
York County, also located in Pennsylvania, is investigating forms submitted by the FieldCorps subsidiary, Greg Monskie, the county’s chief clerk, confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation. He disclosed that the forms were submitted on behalf of the Everybody Votes campaign. Of the 3,087 ballots the county received as part of a bulk delivery, only 47% were verified as legitimate, with the remainder either having incomplete information or being declined pending further review, according to a county press release.
The Everybody Votes campaign is a national left-of-center voter registration operation that received tens of millions in funding from the Soros family’s philanthropy network and Arabella Advisors‘ Democratic-aligned dark money network, according to public records. The organization focuses on turning out demographics that tend to support the Democratic Party. Everybody Votes did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Lancaster County, again in Pennsylvania, is also investigating potentially fraudulent registration materials from a “third-party organization” after receiving approximately 2,500 applications in two waves, Fox News Digital reported. It is unclear if FieldCorps submitted these materials as well.
FieldCorps’ ties to liberal organizations go even deeper.
The firm is owned by Francisco Heredia, a longtime progressive activist. Heredia, currently the vice mayor of Mesa, Arizona, was previously the national field director of Mi Familia Vota, a group that supports amnesty for illegal immigrants and opposes former President Donald Trump. Mi Familia Vota, like Everybody Votes, has also received funding from the Soros family and the Arabella Advisors network. Heredia has endorsed Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in Arizona’s upcoming Senate election as well.

So, non-profits funded by Soros hire a consulting firm owned by “a longtime progressive activist” to register voters in Pennsylvania and — just coincidentally — thousands of those registrations turn out to be fraudulent. But if you dare say Democrats are trying to steal the election, why, you’re a right-wing conspiracy theorist spreading misinformation!

Something nobody ever seems to ask: Whence this recent mania about the urgent need to register new voters? Why are tax-exempt “philanthropic” organizations spending money on such efforts? It’s not difficult to register to vote. Most people get registered automatically when they sign up for their driver’s license, but otherwise, anybody can do a quick Google search to locate the county election office and go fill out a registration form. Doesn’t cost anything, and only takes a few minutes. And yet, for some reason, you have these organizations running around doing these voter-registration drives — for whom? Who are all these would-be voters who can’t be bothered to go down to the county courthouse or whevever local voter registration normally takes place?

Never an explanation for this, because nobody even asks. We’re just supposed to take it for granted that there are all these people out there who want to vote, but for some reason, never registered to vote. And therefore George Soros pours out money like water to pay for voter registration projects that seem to be registering “voters” who don’t actually exist. But there’s nothing suspicious about this.

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Category: Corruption, Democrats, Election, Pennsylvania

In The Mailbox: 11.01.24 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | November 2, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 11.01.24 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts, even if I do have to work with the election board tomorrow.
A Farewell To Horror
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: When the Press Hate Freedom of the Press
EBL: Yankees Meltdown
Twitchy: Star Wars Author Has Epic Response To Claims Star Wars Is Progressive, Powerful Closing Message From The Trump Campaign – All We Have To Do Is Vote! and SJSU’s Own Assistant Volleyball Coach Files Title IX Complaint Over Trans Nonsense
Louder With Crowder: JD Vance unloads on hacks like Bill Gates “getting rich off climate change and public health”
Vox Popoli: Dedollarization Proceeds, That Would Wake You, You Know It’s Going Well, Strategic Dissipation, and Men are Reading…of Rome
According To Hoyt: A Tide of Fraud, Assumptions and Projections, and Burn The Boats
Monster Hunter Nation: An Unexpected Hero, also, Graveyard of Demons Up for Preorder!
Defending The Wood Perilous: Gypsy Princess Effie’s Diary Entry #17
Stoic Observations: Trolley Dodgers

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Forgiveness?
American Conservative: The Next President Needs a Foreign Policy Reality Check , Harris and Walz Declare War on America, and Do I Look Like a Russian Propagandist?
American Greatness: White House Press Office Doctored Transcript of Joe Biden Calling Trump Supporters ‘Garbage’ Over Stenographer’s Objections, Douglas Emhoff and the Double Standards of the #Metoo Movement, Trump’s Momentum vs. Kamala the Phony, More States Join Fight Against Biden-Harris Lawsuit Preventing Removal of Non-citizen Voters, and America’s Adversaries are Rooting for Kamala Harris
American Thinker: The Un-American Socialist Dream, also, Does Georgia’s Algorithm-Assisted Massive Documented Election Fraud Rise to the Level of a Treasonous Coup d’État?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday, Animal’s Daily Early Voting News, Animal’s Hump Day News, Animal’s Red Thursday News, and Rule Five And Under The Bus She Goes Friday
Babalu Blog: Milei fires his Foreign Minister after she votes against US Cuba embargo at UN, Cubans whose homes were damaged or destroyed by hurricane Oscar will have to buy rebuilding supplies from government, Norway sends $400,000 to Cuba so its dictatorship can sell relief supplies to hurricane victims, and More major blackouts loom in Cuba, says energy minister
BattleSwarm: Texas Buys More Land To Build Border Wall, Don’t Stick Your Dick In Commie, Inside Ukraine’s Drone Units, Insane Clown Posse Endorses Harris, and LinkSwarm For November 1
Behind The Black: European Commission finally awards contract to build its government Starlink-type constellation, Hypersonic engine manufacturer Reaction Engines goes bankrupt, North Korea launches test ballistic missile for the 1st time in almost a year, Scientists use Hubble and Webb to confirm there are as yet no planets forming in Vega’s accretion disk, and Boeing finally shuts down its DEI division
Cafe Hayek: Are Americans Today Enduring Unprecedented Economic Disruption? More on Tariffs and 19th-Century American Industrialization, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Industrial Policy, Phil Gramm and I Respond to Robert Lighthizer, and Are American Living Standards in Decline?
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: Why Maricopa Matters, Halloween, Candy, and Confiscatory Fiscal Policy, and Justice to Monitor Voting Rights Compliance in Swing States
Da Tech Guy: All Saints Day and 8 Easy Plenary Indulgence Chances, The most appalling political horror story you will ever read, The Left’s #Election2024 Steal or No Steal Conundrum, My Response to Jeff Bezos on the Credibility of the Washington Post, and Five Assorted Thoughts Expressed via Tweets & Replies Under the Fedora
Dana Loesch: The 2024 Election Shenanigans Have Begun,
Don Surber: Biden did her in
First Street Journal: He will do it again, There’s no threat quite like an empty threat, and I voted!
Gates Of Vienna: There’s No Braking the Budget, Another Day, Another Culture-Enriching Gang Rape in Turin, Ammonia on my Mind, A Cornucopia of October Cultural Enrichment, and Will the AfD be Prosecuted for Their Campaign Video?
The Geller Report: Kentucky Voting Machines REFUSING to Let Voters Select Donald Trump’s Name, Automatically Selecting Kamala Harris Instead, also, Judge Rules Democrat Secretary of State MUST Immediately Release the List of 218,000 Voters With No Proof of US Citizenship
Hollywood In Toto: Discarded Breakfast of Champions Gets a Second Chance, Comedians Against Comedy: Goldberg, Colbert, Maron and More, and PolitiFact Challenges Comic for Fake Rogan-Harris Video
The Lid: Latest Jobs Report a MASSIVE Miss, White House Illegally Edits Biden’s Republicans are ‘Garbage’ Quote in Official Records, Kamala Harris Campaign Donated Hundreds of Thousands to Defund the Police Groups, and JEWS: VOTE FOR TRUMP!
Legal Insurrection: R.I.P. – Jazz Shaw, Blogger for Hot Air, a Gentleman and a Friend, Liz Cheney Threat Hoax: Media “Just Outright Lying” And “Just Making Stuff Up”, Private Sector Lost 28,000 Jobs in October 2024, Polling Guru Nate Silver Accuses Pollsters of Cheating, Herding to Make Race Appear Tight, and PA Fraudulent Voter Forms Connected to Company Linked to Democrats
Nebraska Energy Observer: Skipping Across the Pond, I did the research, A Week to Go, What??? What was that??? and Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Greg Sankey Says SEC To Fine And Suspend Coaches For Obvious Faking Of Injuries; Full Memo Obtained, Army Unveils The Coolest Helmets In College Football, Aaron Rodgers Seems To Take Shot At LeBron James’ Kamala Harris Endorsement, The Los Angeles Dodgers Had To Wait 36 Years For A World Series Parade. Today’s Made Up For Lost Time, and Rep. Nancy Mace’s Costume Was A Talker, FSU Cowgirl Jenn Sterger Is A Doll & Giving Up Sex To Win The Election
Power Line: Behind deep garbage, Hugh Hewitt takes a hike, The Stenographers Object, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Rick Scott’s Team Calls Hillary’s Florida Trip “Fantastic News”
Shot In The Dark: Remembering What Pepperidge Farm Doesn’t, Never Forget, The Cycle, Heavy Is The Crown, and Hey Mankato!
The Political Hat: Techniques of Propaganda, Make Mine Freedom, Our Manichean Political World, Happy Halloween! (2024), and Free to Choose Friday, Revisited (Part 10)
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, Recruit Medical Waivers Waived, Washington Post: Donald Trump as the military’s ‘enemy from within’, Boeing again, and Where is his Chain of Command?
Transterrestrial Musings: After The Election, Thoughts On Social Trust, DEI at Boeing, and Safety Insanity
Victory Girls: The Firing Squad LIE About Donald Trump And Liz Cheney
Watts Up With That: Grid Companies Bracing For Power Cuts, The Better Path In Energy, Rising Electricity Rates under Biden (Texas wholesale up 200%), and Ed Miliband’s Net Zero Department Given 22% More Cash to Waste on Green Energy Unicorns
The Federalist: If Trump Wins, He Should Arrest And Prosecute Jimmy Kimmel, Leftist Group Threatens Michigan Voters: ‘We Will Be Reviewing’ Your Voting Record, Why The Biden-Harris Administration’s Attempt To Keep Noncitizens On Virginia’s Voter Rolls Was Legally Ridiculous, Leftist Groups Turn To Threats To Get Out The Vote, and What’s Behind Kamala Harris’ Connection To A Mass Murdering Cult Leader?
Mark Steyn: Halloween Horrors, A Modification in the Official Lie, Hope Your Beeper Doesn’t Go Off, Live Around the Planet – Closing Garbage, and Pure Spirits: The Uninvited and the Ghost Story

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 11.01.24 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | November 1, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 11.01.24 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Good news: knocked off work at the county elections board at 4 today. Bad news: have to be in at 9 AM tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone who bought stuff through my Amazon links in October. Your contributions to the Ice Tea & Gruel Fund are very much appreciated!
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Unfortunately this is probably true.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: What If You Called 911 and It Took 12 Minutes for Someone to Answer Your Call?
EBL: Biden Trashes Trump Supporters – Calls Them Garbage, Trump Does Press Conference From A Garbage Truck, Biden Harris Halloween , and Joe Rogan with J.D. Vance
Twitchy: This Lefty Political Fever Dream Ad Is The Craziest Thing You’ll See Today, NBC Virginia Affiliate Finds The One Resident Affected By Non-Citizen Voter Purge, and Making Halloween Great Again!
Louder With Crowder: Donald Trump holds a press conference in a garbage truck, and the media is in full-on meltdown mode, also, Marco Rubio interrupts Trump speech with breaking news of insult Biden just called half of America
Vox Popoli: A Reason to Vote, A New Tome of Treasure, Knock, Knock, Knock, Neil, Racist SFWA Removes Black Board Member, and Who Were the Honeypots?
Ammo.com: How Many Guns In The U.S.?
Gab: Urgent Update On Gab’s Stand Against German Censorship
Upstream Reviews: Independent Authors’ Books At The Library & How You Can Get Them There, also, Let Sleeping Gods Lie
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: The News From Japan
Stoic Observations: The Civilization State

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: NATO Needs To Fix Its German Problem, also, Diversity Thursday
Dana Loesch: Biden Calls Trump Supporters Garbage, Schrödinger’s Apostrophe, Election Pregame, GOP Future, & What Happens After Nov. 5, Are Democrats’ Awkward Gaming Schemes Enough To Lure Actual Gamers? Ballot Harvesting Or Postal Delivery?,
Don Surber: End income tax, starve the beast, also, Israel is the October surprise
Protein Wisdom Reborn: Humpday Shrapnel,
STUMP: Research Fraud, Alzheimer’s & Mortality Trends, RIP Teri Garr – Some Stats On Multiple Sclerosis Mortality, Movember 2024 – In Memory Of Stu,

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Category: Linkagery

Vote Trump, and the Media Will Die

Posted on | November 1, 2024 | 1 Comment

Did you just orgasm? Or was that me?

We’re all kinda sticky after reading this quote:

“If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form. And the question is what does it look like after.”

STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS WITH THIS!

There is no better argument for electing Trump again — to announce, in no uncertain terms, that “the mainstream media is dead.”

Jake Tapper, Jim Acosta, Joe Scarborough, Norah O’Donnell, David Muir — tens of millions of Americans waving their middle fingers in the faces of all those pompous TV douchebags — VOTE TRUMP!

But here comes Byron York to urinate in our cornflakes, with a column reminding us that the election is actually very close and, as much as it boggles our minds, Kamala might actually win it:

There are some political races in which, if you go to a few rallies by each candidate, you get a pretty good idea of who is going to win. This presidential race is not like that. If you go to former President Donald Trump‘s rallies and Vice President Kamala Harris‘s rallies, you’ll have wildly different experiences, but you’re also going to find large crowds of highly enthusiastic voters who just love their candidate. The race is not only tied in the polls but is tied in the impressions of intensity and strength that each candidate’s events leave with an outside observer.
In the Real Clear Politics average of national polls, six of the nine most recent polls are tied, or the candidates are separated by a single percentage point. The results in the swing states are similar. In five of the seven swing states, including here in Pennsylvania, the two candidates are separated by 1 point or less. So, the poll numbers of a tied race confirm one’s observations and vice versa.
A lot of Republicans would not buy that argument. . . . [M]any Republicans believe Trump has the election in the bag and that it might not even be close. . . .

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) Y’know, I like Byron York. Always enjoyed bumping into him out on the campaign trail in Iowa or South Carolina or wherever, back in the day where sometimes we’d be the only two conservatives in the squad of journalists covering an event. So I respect Byron’s instinct here, his sense that it’s important to bring some balance to the story, so that his conservative readers — most of whom have made it a habit to ignore the mainstream media — are not unaware of the possibility that Kamala could somehow win this thing.

Byron’s column describes a Harris event in Pennsylvania:

The Democrats who turned out on a weekday afternoon really loved Harris. As we waited for the rally to begin, I asked a dozen women — there was a definite gender gap in the crowd — what they liked best about Harris. They all gave glowing answers: “Her positive energy.” “Her willingness to include everyone in the conversation and the party.” “She’s brilliant and kind, and I really do think she cares about the people.” “I like the joy she brought.” “Her respect for institutions.” “She represents modern America — it’s been centuries and centuries of the same people, and it’s time to change.” “She protects access to women’s own bodies and bodily autonomy.” “She’s a reasonable person and is going to protect democracy.” “Her inclusivity and representation for all.” “She’s honest.” “Her character.” “Her decency and honesty.”
And so on. Nearly all of the answers focused on what the voters saw as Harris’s attributes, as opposed to any specific campaign pledge she has made. And, of course, many of those same voters might have had no opinion of Harris six months ago. But even if their newfound love for the Democratic candidate is just a measure of temporary partisanship, it’s still a positive for Harris.

There were between 4,000 and 5,000 people at this rally on Wednesday in Harrisburg, which is the Pennsylvania state capital. Gosh, who has time on a Wednesday afternoon to attend a Kamala Harris rally? Were these government employees, perhaps? Byron apparently didn’t think to ask the people at the rally what they did for a living, but it would make sense that a lot of them were clerks from state bureaucracies or legislative staffers. Harrisburg is in Dauphin County, which has gone for Democrats in the past four Presidential election, albeit by narrow margins. My point is that it’s not at all surprising that the Harris campaign was able to get as many as 5,000 people at a rally in Pennsylvania’s state capital, but when I inform you that Dauphin County has a population of 289,234, you can see why such a crowd isn’t really impressive, size-wise.

The vagueness of the reasons for why these people support Kamala, which they shared with Byron York, are indicative of the basic problem with the Harris campaign, i.e., its essential negativity, the fact that Harris expects to win simply by virtue of being Not Donald Trump.

Why do Democrats think that will be enough to win? Because it’s basically how Biden won four years ago (allegedly, I hasten to add). Nobody voted for Biden because they were wowed by the cleverness of his policy proposals, or his personal charisma. No, a vote for Biden was a vote against Trump, and that was all that mattered. That’s why Democrats thought they could get away with this ridiculous campaign — switching out candidates in July, and foisting upon the electorate a nominee who never got a single vote for president in any primary, running on a platform of . . . Well, what, exactly?

Nobody has a clue what Kamala Harris stands for, policy-wise, and the kind of people who turn out for a Harris rally don’t care. All they care about is that she gives them a chance to vote against Orange Hitler.

This worked for Biden in 2020, but will it work for Harris? Excuse me for being deeply skeptical of that proposition. And please, Byron — no more doomfest columns like this, OK? Our people need hope.

VOTE TRUMP AND THE MEDIA WILL DIE!

That’s a winning message, I think.

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Category: Donald Trump, Media Bias

In The Mailbox: 10.31.24

Posted on | October 31, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.31.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I guess the drive back from Vegas was a little too leisurely; I was hoping to squeeze two posts in today, but no luck.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Occasional Cortex Sez ‘Plenty of People’ Not Happy About Kamala Harris Campaigning with Liz Cheney, also, Salem’s Lot
Twitchy: BANG! ZOOM! Right To The Ratio! Packers Running Back A,J, Dillon Endorses Trump, and James Woods Points To Kamala’s Day 1 Priorities As Proof She Hopes Everyone Is Stupid
Louder With Crowder: Kamala Harris brings out doctors to promote abortion…who look confused during a medical emergency, “Women’s lives are LITERALLY at risk if Trump wins”, and Kamala Almost Touches Sharp Silicon at Semiconductor Factory After Getting Distracted: “It’s Shiny”
Vox Popoli: Why We Thought We Had to go to College, No Foreign Wars, For Future Reference, The End of the Banking System, and Unprecedented Gaslighting
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: They Are Actually Serious
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CDR Salamander: Serious Nations Do Serious Things, While Unserious Nations Waste Their Inheritance
Dana Loesch: Last Week In Legal – The Cannon Conundrum Edition
Don Surber: Capitalism can save newspapers
Mickey Kaus: Kamala’s Hail Mary

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Can We Stay Sane a Few More Days? (Also: Has Trump Always Been Winning?)

Posted on | October 31, 2024 | 1 Comment

Craziness is breaking out everywhere — ballots burned in Oregon, fake GOTV operations, voter suppression in Pennsylvania. For weeks I’ve been warning against getting too emotionally involved in all the election hype. Go vote, do whatever you can to help, but don’t let it drive you insane. Even as Democrats are struggling with existential dread of Orange Hitler, a lot of Republicans are paranoid about another stolen election.

“A few more days for to tote the weary load,” as the song says. Just do whatever it takes to maintain your grip on sanity, and maybe by this time next week, it will all be over, one way or the other. Either we endure another four years of Democrat blundering, or we’ll be laughing at the tears of MSNBC hosts and CNN panelists. Of course, we know which outcome we’d prefer, but I’m confident we can deal with whatever.

Maintaining my pose of sanguine optimism, then, what about this latest Quinnipiac Poll of Pennsylvania, with Trump 49% and Harris 47%?

A mere six weeks ago, Quinnipiac had Harris leading Trump in Pennsylvania by five points, 51% to 46%. Has there really been a net seven-point swing toward Trump since mid-September or — as I rather strongly suspect — has Trump actually been leading Harris in Pennsylvania the whole time? Political junkies are overdosing on poll numbers, clicking onto Real Clear Politics several times a day to see if there are any new polls to satisfy their sick craving for data.

While the data-addicted let the zig-zagging numbers send their moods swinging from manic hope to depressive gloom, it might all be an illusion. My gut hunch is that the vast majority of voters made up their minds which way they’d vote long ago. It seems evident that, after Democrats dumped Biden and subbed in Harris — remember when it was a “right-wing conspiracy theory” to suggest they were planning such a switch? — Democrats got a temporary boost, as some of their core voters were more enthusiastic about Kamala than they had been about Joe. But was this boost really enough to shift the entire dynamic of the election?

If you were watching the polls, you saw Kamala zoom ahead of Trump by mid-September, when the RCP national average had her leading by a solid two points, and there were two polls (Morning Consult and Reuters/Ipsos) that had her six points ahead, as well as others (NBC News and Susquehanna) with Harris +5. Really? C’mon, really?

Here we are now, at the end of October, and the current RCP national average has Trump ahead by a fraction and, of the 14 polls comprising this average, six have Trump leading, four have Harris ahead, and four show an exact tie. That’s the national vote, mind you, but we know that the election will actually be decided by a handful of battleground states. Right now, RCP shows Trump with more or less decisive leads in both Georgia and Arizona, two states Biden (allegedly) won four years ago. Harris leads slightly in Wisconsin and Michigan, while Trump leads by one point or less in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada.

We don’t know what the final outcome will be, but if Trump does win, we’ll have to look back at those September polls and ask, “Was that real? Was Kamala ever actually ahead? Or are pollsters just playing the old game of shifting their numbers in late October, to avoid looking like fools for their ridiculous pro-Democrat slant?”

Five more days. Stay sane, my friends.

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Category: Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Polls

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