Indecision 2024

[jimbob]

Nice song from politicsjoe

https://youtube.com/shorts/t3DvVQRGkrw? ... 9RujJe53z3

[dyqik]

This week in Republican politics: why cancer and shooting puppies are good things

[Stranger Mouse]

From Harry Litman on Twitter

TRUMP GUILTY OF 8 COUNTS OF CONTEMPT: DA meets burden as to 2 of first 3; and all of next 6. So imposes 8 penalties of $1k each.
Very notably soft-spoken, low-key undramatic about it. No tongue-wagging at all. no addressing of Trump.
He has entered a written order.

[jimbob]

This week in Republican politics: why cancer and shooting puppies are good things

I know the shooting puppies thing.

What is the cancer one?

[FlammableFlower]

This week in Republican politics: why cancer and shooting puppies are good things

I know the shooting puppies thing.

What is the cancer one?

The GOP have pulled the rug from under Biden's bipartisan anti-cancer "moonshot" funding plan.

Basically, a bit like the border policy, they are refusing to engage with anything that might give kudos to Biden and the Dems, even if it might achieve something they (or everyone for that matter) might want...

[IvanV]

BF Borgers, auditor to Trump Media, has just been closed down by the SEC for being a "sham audit mill".

Probably Trump Media would be unable to employ a reputable auditor even if it wanted to. But even a sham audit mill was unable to decorate make the 15:1 expenditure:income ratio revealed in the recent Trump Media SEC filings required consequent on going public.

[Stranger Mouse]

Steve Bannon much closer but not quite in jail

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 43011.html

[Woodchopper]

About six months out and the 538 national polling average has Trump on 41.2% and Biden on 40.3%.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/po ... /national/

As for the key swing states, the latest NYT/ sienna poll suggests that:

The surveys by The New York Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer found that Mr. Trump was ahead among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup against Mr. Biden in five of six key states: Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden led among registered voters in only one battleground state, Wisconsin.

The race was closer among likely voters. Mr. Trump led in five states as well, but Mr. Biden edged ahead in Michigan while trailing only narrowly in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. While Mr. Biden won all six of those states in 2020, victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin would be enough for him to win re-election, provided he won everywhere else he did four years ago.

The results were similar in a hypothetical matchup that included minor-party candidates and the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who won an average of 10 percent of the vote across the six states and drew roughly equally from the two major-party candidates.

The findings are mostly unchanged since the last series of Times/Siena polls in battleground states in November.

[...]

The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country and serious doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver major improvements to American life. A majority of voters still desire the return to normalcy promised by Mr. Biden in the last campaign, but voters in battleground states remain particularly anxious, unsettled and itching for change. Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely.

Only a sliver of Mr. Biden’s supporters — just 13 percent — believe that the president would bring major changes in his second term, while even many of those who dislike Mr. Trump grudgingly acknowledge that he would shake up an unsatisfying status quo.

The sense that Mr. Biden would do little to improve the nation’s fortunes has helped erode his standing among young, Black and Hispanic voters, who usually represent the foundation of any Democratic path to the presidency. The Times/Siena polls found that the three groups wanted fundamental changes to American society, not just a return to normalcy, and few believed that Mr. Biden would make even minor changes that would be good for the country.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden are essentially tied among 18-to-29-year-olds and Hispanic voters, even though each group gave Mr. Biden more than 60 percent of their vote in 2020. Mr. Trump also wins more than 20 percent of Black voters — a tally that would be the highest level of Black support for any Republican presidential candidate since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The polls suggest that Mr. Trump’s strength among young and nonwhite voters has at least temporarily upended the electoral map, with Mr. Trump surging to a significant lead in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — relatively diverse Sun Belt states where Black and Hispanic voters propelled Mr. Biden to signature victories in the 2020 election.

Mr. Biden nonetheless remains within striking distance. He has maintained most of his support among older and white voters, who are much less likely to demand fundamental changes to the system and far likelier to say that democracy is the most important issue for their vote. As a result, Mr. Biden is more competitive in the three relatively white Northern swing states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

[...]

Mr. Biden’s losses are concentrated among moderate and conservative Democratic-leaning voters, who nonetheless think that the system needs major changes or to be torn down altogether. Mr. Trump wins just 2 percent of Mr. Biden’s “very liberal” 2020 voters who think the system at least needs major changes, compared with 16 percent of those who are moderate or conservative.

One exception is Israel’s war in Gaza, an issue on which most of Mr. Biden’s challenge appears to come from his left. Around 13 percent of the voters who say they voted for Mr. Biden last time, but do not plan to do so again, said that his foreign policy or the war in Gaza was the most important issue to their vote. Just 17 percent of those voters reported sympathizing with Israel over the Palestinians.

[...]

Mr. Trump’s trial in Manhattan, on charges that he falsified business records related to a hush-money payment to cover up an affair with the adult film star Stormy Daniels, was already underway when the polls began in late April. However, the survey offered little indication that the trial had damaged the former president’s political fortunes, at least so far. Just 29 percent of voters in battleground states said that they were paying “a lot” of attention to Mr. Trump’s legal woes, and 35 percent thought that the trial was likely to end in a conviction.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/us/p ... -poll.html

[dyqik]

Again, there are massive issues with polling in the US, and until those running the polls start acknowledging those issues, you should ignore them. And polls are not yet using "likely voter" screens.

For example, this latest NY Times poll has a plurality of Trump supporters opposing Israel's actions in Gaza, and a majority opposing restrictions on abortion. Both of which are diametrically opposite Trump's policies.

It also has 20% of "likely voters" having not voted in the past 6 years.

This all looks like either unusual people taking the poll, or contamination by people trying to mess with the poll results as a form of activism.

Oh, and the NY Times is not trustworthy on an editorial level - the editor has explicitly said that they are creating their coverage to appeal to both Trump and Biden supporters, regardless of objectivity.

[IvanV]

The Economist poll of polls has Trump 44% Biden 43% but with very wide range of uncertainty. The NYT is not wrong when it says what matters above all is the voting in the marginal states, rather than national averages. The Economist had an article some weeks ago suggesting that, as the NYT says, it does look like Trump is doing better than the averages suggest in the marginal states, as NYT says.

Opinion polling in the US does seem to be vexed. Even the Economist suggests that you can hardly deduce anything from them until the end of the summer. There were articles popping up in my searches just yesterday saying Biden was actually comfortably ahead. But the search engines know your biases and give you what they think you'll like, and I had no reason to believe those links over others saying the opposite.

[lpm]

Back in the day, when 538 was the coolest out there, they used to say pre convention polling was pretty worthless.

But Biden needs to be around +4.5 nationally to give an EC win. 2020 was 51.3-46.8. The current Trump +1 means Biden needs to improve by at least 5 and inevitably shows Trump ahead in the marginals.

Biden should close the gap via ground game, higher $ resources, incumbency and campaigning. Or maybe he won't do because of a health crisis.

Rewriting opinion polls is not very comforting. It is clear from polls that Biden is getting more women than 2020 but Trump is getting more men - including Hispanic and African-American men. Misogyny is pretty popular in the US and Trump is raking in those votes by the million.

[Woodchopper]

Back in the day, when 538 was the coolest out there, they used to say pre convention polling was pretty worthless.

This is a unique election though. Voters already know exactly what they’ll be getting. A convention isn’t going to introduce the candidate. It won’t change peoples’ minds.

[Stranger Mouse]

Giuliani has been taunting the authorities about them not being able to find him to serve him.

Then

IMG_0735.jpeg (495.25 KiB) Viewed 2097 times

[Grumble]

Giuliani has been taunting the authorities about them not being able to find him to serve him.

ThenIMG_0735.jpeg

Less than an hour between the two

[jimbob]

Giuliani has been taunting the authorities about them not being able to find him to serve him.

ThenIMG_0735.jpeg

Less than an hour between the two

I did see someone saying that is such a Giuliani thing to do

[dyqik]

Giuliani has been taunting the authorities about them not being able to find him to serve him.

ThenIMG_0735.jpeg

Less than an hour between the two

I did see someone saying that is such a Giuliani thing to do

The only more Giuliani thing it could be is him turning up to an Arizona police station that shares a name with his birthday party venue.

[Stranger Mouse]

People on Elon Musk’s ShitTwitter are posting videos of people singing happy birthday to Giuliani and identifying various individuals singing as the person who served him.i don’t know if any are correct but it will be a great scene in the movie.

[dyqik]

Trump seems to be suggesting that he's interested in allowing states to regulate and ban birth control as well as abortion.

https://twitter.com/KateSullivanDC/stat ... AI2Gw&s=19

This has always been the right's next target after abortion.

[IvanV]

A youtube video (30mins) on how Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida is being very helpful to Trump in delaying the documents case to the never never. Put simply, Trump has filed numerous motions to dismiss, etc, on dubious grounds, and Cannon instead of just dismissing them all as nonsense, is taking them one by one, allowing all sorts of exchanges over them, taking her time, and then slowly dismissing them. So that, by the designated trial date of 21 May, the trial had to be postponed indefinitely as there are still several of these motions. Moreover, Trump can still appeal various of those motions to the higher court and then to the supreme court. The judge also tried to write one of Trump's more outrageous legal arguments into the assumptions of the trial that will be an instruction to the jury, and get him automatically acquitted. That's the "declassification by theft" argument, that anything Trump takes is automatically his personal or private record and so declassified at moment of theft. Of course, that won't stand up, but the prosecutor has to fight to get it taken away.

Coincidentally, yesterday's Economist has an article on how it is true that the legal process is distorted by political interference, just as Trump claims. But of course such distortion comes (at least as much) from conservative legal officers. The case they cite has the Governor of Texas pardoning a murderer, claiming that the murderer was wrongly found guilty because of political interference by a legal officers in a locality with a liberal jurisdiction - there are actually some of these in Texas. There's an article in the Guardian on the case if you are interested. The Governor is not wrong that facts similar to those frequently result in murderers being found not guilty in places with a conservative jurisdiction. But if you only exchange who got shot and who shot them, and the same facts would undeniably lead to a guilty verdict in any jurisdiction.

[Stranger Mouse]

A youtube video (30mins) on how Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida is being very helpful to Trump in delaying the documents case to the never never. Put simply, Trump has filed numerous motions to dismiss, etc, on dubious grounds, and Cannon instead of just dismissing them all as nonsense, is taking them one by one, allowing all sorts of exchanges over them, taking her time, and then slowly dismissing them. So that, by the designated trial date of 21 May, the trial had to be postponed indefinitely as there are still several of these motions. Moreover, Trump can still appeal various of those motions to the higher court and then to the supreme court. The judge also tried to write one of Trump's more outrageous legal arguments into the assumptions of the trial that will be an instruction to the jury, and get him automatically acquitted. That's the "declassification by theft" argument, that anything Trump takes is automatically his personal or private record and so declassified at moment of theft. Of course, that won't stand up, but the prosecutor has to fight to get it taken away.

Coincidentally, yesterday's Economist has an article on how it is true that the legal process is distorted by political interference, just as Trump claims. But of course such distortion comes (at least as much) from conservative legal officers. The case they cite has the Governor of Texas pardoning a murderer, claiming that the murderer was wrongly found guilty because of political interference by a legal officers in a locality with a liberal jurisdiction - there are actually some of these in Texas. There's an article in the Guardian on the case if you are interested. The Governor is not wrong that facts similar to those frequently result in murderers being found not guilty in places with a conservative jurisdiction. But if you only exchange who got shot and who shot them, and the same facts would undeniably lead to a guilty verdict in any jurisdiction.

Thanks for that YouTube link. I spend far too much of my time following this stuff but that’s a really good refresher

[lpm]

After following the trial and careful consideration, I think I might be inclined to find him guilty.

[monkey]

After following the trial and careful consideration, I think I might be inclined to find him guilty.

I thought he was guilty before it was cool.

[Grumble]

To paraphrase Pratchett, if you were to say he were innocent I would ask of what?

[dyqik]

After following the trial and careful consideration, I think I might be inclined to find him guilty.

I thought he was guilty before it was cool.

Are you actually that old?

[IvanV]

I thought this was potentially a rather important instruction the judge gave to the jurors. As paraphrased by the BBC in this live thread at 15:45. I hope the prosecutors have presented suitable belt and braces to handle it. Hopefully in explicit fashion.

Under the law, Michael Cohen is considered an accomplice because he participated in some of the crimes alleged here in this trial.

While the jury can consider his testimony, there is a specific instruction at play.

The judge tells them that “you may not convict a defendant solely upon his testimony" unless they find it is corroborated by other evidence.