tassojunior

Trafalgar was right because it's a pro-Republican poller. I don't worry much about it. And I sincerely doubt the #'s are right, especially Florida I'm afraid.. All I'm looking at now is the trend. ....Kamala chosen---2 days later Trump up 2 pts (3 in swing states) even though Biden gained in personal approval at DNC. Biden gains 4 pts in personal approval but Biden/Harris drops 3 pts in swing states....hmmm..Kenosha happens and Trump up 2 more and 3 more in swing states. Biden will have to come out now and give staged speeches...which are easy. Probably have to do staged "rallies" too. Doesn't mean he'll take secret questions or actually take any policy positions though. We'll see if Trump even got a 1 pt RNC bounce (I doubt it) and if the % stabilizes this week. 2 months is a long time in elections, even with early/mail voting.. and events will happen to affect the vote too. .

If Biden wins the Senate will probably turn blue. NC is a case of reverse coattails where the Dems for Gov and Senate are overwhelmingly popular but Biden is just tied. and several pts lower than nationally. It voted for Obama I but not II.

@stevenkesslar 1st you say you $ to Ossoff for GA Senate, then you say McBath in the same Congressional district he could not win but she did. She's a great Black candidate, he's an awful white one, in a white district more liberal than the state. He can get used to Georgia. Biden gained approval pts at DNC but no national poll pts. Why? BC Kamala's pick gained CA pts but they lost swingstate midwest votes. You should know from CA her approval peaks day 1 and goes down. She did indeed bring Wall Street, AIPAC and Silicon Valley big money. But Dems have more money than they can possibly spend already. Remember Bloomberg? Money only does so much. There's tremendous hatred of Trump but no enthusiasm for these 2. The enthusiasm is all with Trump, and that means a lot. I'm also scared because if this turns out close, and many votes will take over a month to count, there's going to be very little belief in the election. This could be Gore/Bush on steroids during an epidemic, with a meglomanic in power.

@stevenkesslar It's not just the 2 pts nationally twice. It's that they're in the battleground states, all that matters, and he's within 2pts in those states. Margin of error. By itself nationally wouldn't matter. Today Trump is in the disaster relief area, and he's headed to Kenosha while Biden is in his basement. Today Vegas dropped their odds from Biden 55/44 to Biden 52/48. Not many people believe in convention bumps anymore. I think it was Kenosha this week and the midwest poll drops moved Vegas a lot. 2 months is a long time of course.

The bad news today from SIlver is that Trump went up another 2%. Maybe "convention bumps" are back but I suspect it's Kenosha. Biden didn't get any poll bump from the DNC but he did a 4% personal approval bump. Kamala's pick had already dropped the Dem ticket a few points. There will be more polls tomorrow but the most worrying thing is both the Kamala dive and the Kenosha dive were heaviest in the midwest swing states. Wisconsin may be lost and Minnesota a tough get now. Worst is Biden's dropped a lot evidently in his "home" state of PA after Kamala and Kenosha. Still ahead but approaching margin-of-error. Not much word from Michigan yet. They have much bigger leads than 2016 margins in California and New York etc. which helps zero except for CA Dem coattails. With the huge amounts of money they have I would expect the Dems to go heavy in the midwest and a couple states like Florida, N. Carolina, and Arizona that could be flipped. (The Biden polls in FL surprise me but like CA, FL is an expensive state and Dem $$ may work)). Hopefully this is the low point for the Dems as +6 is still good. The scariest poll is that Trump is doing 2% better now than he was at this point in 2016 in the battleground states: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/trump-vs-biden-top-battleground-states-2020-vs-2016/

I attend these every 57 years and went down on my bike yesterday. The whole area was screened off for security and the lines to get into the mall around the Reflecting Pool were two or three blocks long (the bike couldn't have gone in anyway). I did just happen to see Al Sharpton come up with with Breanna Taylor's mother (and whole family?) . The group was wearing fluorescent blue and green t-shirts. Seeing Ms.Taylor was touching. You can tell since Brianna's murder she's been in shock. No one wants their 15 minutes of fame to be as the parent of a murdered child. The comparisons to when I was a kid in '63 are that the crowd then was 90% Black, while this year 90% of the crowd outside the steps were white. I remember Marian Anderson singing and the charisma of MLK from the 1963 one. The crowd then (as in 60's marches here) was closer to half a million. Probably because of DC's travel ban, the crowd this year was not as massive (while still large). 1963 was more labor union speakers (it was for Jobs and Justice) while 2020 was more police killings. The time I "missed" was 1939 when Marian Anderson brought 75,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial for the 1st real civil rights rally. Why she was so important in 1963. https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/music/marian-anderson-of-thee-we-sing/ video:

Flashback 1963- Gay hosts always invite the hottest guys.

@stevenkesslar Well, if you're forced to give Trump a pass on the corruption issue it hurts. I've seen the "mea culpa and let's make it illegal" work. Otherwise I would not be so sure that Trump isn't going to strike a blow with the issue on Biden, especially the China money. In fact I assume he will be the one bringing up corruption. That's when Biden can do the mea culpa, it's pervasive, Trump did it too but lies, let's make it illegal, or Biden can call it a conspiracy theory that never happened. His advisors have him always claiming conspiracy. Gets as old as Trump's gibberish.The Kool-Aid drinkers don't care on either side but normal people appreciate straight talk from the heart.

SK, we're discussing the election, polls, strategy, issues, etc. Not running a mini campaign on an escort discussion site. (You're in CA and I'm in DC so our votes count zero anyway). I'm saying as an issue corruption is an important one against Trump. Unfortunately this Dem ticket isn't a great one for that message. But I've seen campaigns like this where a Biden comes out strong for new anti-corruption laws and admits their own prior conduct could have appeared wrong. It totally reverses the actual history as a negative and gains points. It's a main weak spot of Trump. American political corruption is much worse than other 1st world countries. Whoever is in power it's a big issue. But unfortunately I have no doubt this campaign is too arrogant to turn the issue.

There were just so many race jokes and the thing is they weren't very good jokes. So they didn't make me feel guilty for laughing, they just made me uncomfortable why someone tries so hard to make race jokes. It's the condescending attitude I guess. If they were at least funny they'd have that redeeming value. ...... my 2 cents

Randy Rainbow made a LOT of very racist and transphobic shows and songs a few years back. He's trying to be "in fashion" again. On Biden, maybe the "cookie, what cookie?" routine worked for you. I found early that adults like humility and honesty and are very forgiving then. ..it gets points....at least a couple times. Bold face lies and even weak excuses infuriate people.....leave that to the other side. It's hard to ignore $1.5 Billion. That's a lot of money to a lot of people.

@stevenkesslar It's hard to have a fair objective discussion of strategy when you intentionally don't mention glaring facts but try to be a cheerleader for one side rationalizing what facts are important and which to omit. "China Joe" is such a problem because the Bidens , on an official government trip as the VP, who was in charge of China policy, brought back $1.5 Billion from China made out to the Biden's ("to invest") . That's not a minor thing nor something to think the other side won't mention (although the Trumps are hardly clean on that score). Then on Jan. 31 when Dummy blocked travel from China, Biden and half the Dems went out with a message that it was simply Trump's racism, nothing else. Then Biden immediately makes all those speeches, "Give me a break; China is our friend." Yes, the Republicans are stupid and 45 is the lowest of the IQ's. But you really think that won't be a factor and isn't a fact worth mentioning? https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/may/22/hunter-biden-and-china-sorting-through-murky-busin/. ( a pro-Democratic site). In truth, like many political families, if not most, the Bidens have a long history of getting "favors" in jobs and consulting from Bank of America/MBNA, who Biden got bankruptcy laws toughened for, from the government of Ukraine who got US taxpayer money from Biden and then "employed" his son (who never was in Ukraine), and finally, from China. Although the Bidens, with the brother holding the loot usually, were very good at it, and technically it was 100% "legal" in America (to our shame), don't just dismiss it as never having happened. Playing ostrich is usually a bad strategy. If it were me, I would make a speech on government corruption and admit and apologize that I might have benefited or appeared to from this and come out for a very strict ethics code for all government workers no matter how high an elected or appointed official. Ordinary people in both parties and no party are sick and tired of government corruption and eager for someone to take it on head first. A huge part of the appeal of the Bernie/Tulsi/Yang reformers besides the anti-war positions. But to continually say it's just a smear, a conspiracy theory, or like you, ignore that it's an issue, is a terrible tactic that just loses points when it can be used to gain points. I detest seeing Trump back in another 4 years but I have every confidence in the stupidity of the corporate Dems to blow this election again.

@AdamSmith @stevenkesslar (sorry if I don't quote, trying to save bandwidth and page scroll). It's obvious only the pro-war John Bolton crowd is coming over to help their NeoLib brethren in the Democratic party. No decent people are welcome. And no, it's not just that you take your allies where you find them in an election; these NeoCons share the middle east pro-war, pro-genocide aspirations of their NeoLib buddies. The only good _____ is a dead ____. Where are the moderate or anti-war Republicans being welcomed in the Democratic Party? Anti-war Justin Amash isn't welcome. Anti-war Tulsi is practically expelled. Bernie's not jumping in the party (not that he'd be welcome). There isn't a single moderate welcome because they're not pro-war enough. The Lincoln Project is led by Bill Kristol and Steve Schmit , servants of John Bolton, and Steven, you may want to google your guy Kasich on Syria and Iraq to find he was adamantly opposed to the Iraq deal and to the stopping of bombing of Syria. Colin Powell lied under oath (forget this "misled" baloney) in order to get 1,000,000 people exterminated and Iraq destroyed. Thousands of 4 and 5 year olds were dragged out by American troops and bullets put in their heads while Powell, Biden, Bolton and Clinton cheered on. Kristol, Schmitt and Kasich had pom-poms waving too. To them genocide is a necessary military tactic. Along with new star Kamala, these Democrats and Republicans are toadies of the pro-invasion of Iran right-wing AIPAC, whatever banal qualifiers they may insert to appear "liberal". Conservative vs liberal doesn't mean anything anymore, and neither do Democratic or Republican on genocide. The Neo's are really one side and the anti-war/populist people are the other. Unfortunately the Neo's are all regrouped on the Democratic Party side of the oligarchy now. If the party really wanted Hillary or Biden elected they would embrace the anti-war half of their voters with Bernie (or a substitute like Tulsi or Yang) as a VP. Instead it was an immediate "Fuck you, get out of our party, we don't want you or your voters. Fuck you" from KHive , the good old Goldwater/Dukakis strategies. Jimmy Carter will probably be dead next election and he's the elder statesman of the party. Whatever failure he was in the economic collapse, he's respected and loved by the American people now. Bill Clinton, Jeffery Epstein's serial pedophile buddy, not so much. But AIPAC loves Clinton and hates Carter. So guess who's front and center as nighttime speaker vs. who gets a 2-minute tape about Biden at 3pm? And the excuse that the reformers would be sliced and diced as socialists by the Republicans is comical. Whoever the Democrats put up is always campaigned against as a socialist by the Republicans. It's just a silly script the two sides of the oligarchy play. What is clear is that Trumpism fits in with how the world has gone recently. Total rejection of the rich, the establishment and the elite. Trump himself may be a comical figure to be leading that movement, but somehow he does by default because there's no populist left on the November ballot. And I don't know of a single country that has voted to toss out the populist right to bring back in the establishment elite "liberals". (Italy's complicated). I do know that plenty of people I heard from in 2016 who are poor white were torn equally between Bernie and Trump (but didn't have to choose, thanks DNC). And I know that many of those people who vote for Trump hate Wall Street and the rich elite more than the New Democrats do. In other countries the populists (left or right) support what we call socialism and the poor. Boris Johnson in the UK had as a top advisor Steve Bannon and his home secretary is just as right wing as Johnson and Bannon are. But Johnson campaigned on vastly expanding money to the single-payer national health service and more free college (even though many suspect Johnson ultimately wants to privatize the NHS). Liberal elite Macron is hanging on in France by a thread while Marie LePen the racist right-winger supports more welfare programs. Putin is the hero of the poor in Russia. Establishment liberal capitalism is gone. Steven, I was in the 80's politics too and I know exactly what you mean about the consensus-building and the "friendliness" between "opponents". But it's a totally different world now in every aspect. It's a shark tank of dog-eat-dog among competitors for the favors of the same Wall Street and Silicon Valley powers, no matter what the party label. But it's the same elite running the country with either party, just some window dressing one way or the other. And 50% of our economy, our discretionary budget, is devoted to the war machine. Genocide is good business. Actually it's tremendous for business.

First good news of 2020. This should help a lot with travel, work, (hook-ups). Antigen test. News just hit Reuters, @Riobard ? The portable test is about the size of a credit card, requires no additional equipment to operate, and can be conducted using a less invasive nasal swab than traditional lab tests, Abbott executives said on a call with reporters. Abbott expects to ship tens of millions of tests in September, ramping to 50 million tests a month from the beginning of October. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-abbott/abbott-wins-u-s-authorization-for-5-rapid-covid-19-antigen-test-idUSKBN25M2WE

@stevenkesslar Yes I want anti-genocide people of any party or none to vote and have influence together. So anti-war Republicans coming over are fine. But the Democrats are only bringing over the NeoCon Republicans who are pissed Trump hasn't invaded Iran yet and stopped bombing Syria. It makes me wonder what understanding they have.

@stevenkesslar But always remember that it is the establishment and the majority that will always have the greater ability to "cancel" opponents and minorities. And it's victims get a lot of sympathy. Free speech is always the best hope of dissenters.

@stevenkesslar Steven there are plenty of exit polls and they all showed both in 2016 and 2020 that Bernie had a very high % of independents. He is an independent. The biggest knock against him was that his supporters were independents and Republicans as much as Democrats. You can't have it both ways. Here's one: and here's a good summary on how Latinx voters overwhelmingly polled for Sanders with Biden only holding a decent share among old Latinx. They were treated very poorly at the DNC also , with even Castro not given a minute, and they know it. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/04/811942583/who-different-groups-supported-on-super-tuesday

no,no,no,no,no ! Canceling someone as a person without any rights for life can be used against gays or straights, against black, white, Latino, anyone. And it can be used by either side. And usually it's used by the pro-government side and against political minorities. Maybe 14 yr old Nick would have become a radical reformer in college like most do if he had not been nationally defamed as a violent bigot for smiling at a grown man physically assaulting him as the case turned out. The St Louis couple are morons and bigots but stay away from destroying children just to have a nightly story to fit the current "narrative". (And btw, how does Bill Clinton's spotlight at the DNC figure into the MeToo narrative after it turns out he went with Epstein 26 times to fuck female children Epstein kept and 2 days after a UK paper published photos of him with one of Epstein's young girls?..... no one sees any problems there at all because it doesn't fit the current narrative. The Queen even disowned her son over this but the DNC couldn't leave Bill off?) Here in DC last night by my house we had an incident where an all-white march claiming to support "BLM" attacked a pregnant woman of color at an outdoor cafe because she didn't raise a fist when told to . The ironies are really sad: When we lose the freedom of speech racial and political minorities will be the ones hurt most. And this type thing gets many many more votes for Trump than he can ever get for himself. Think.

@stevenkesslar Here's a good vid from CBS on the horrors of cancel culture. In the case of the 14 yr old who had a huge lie spread about him, by name, on national media, he deserves the huge defamation award he got from WaPo. Defamation has serious consequences for victims and I doubt many progressives support this horror. It's worse than McCarthyism even. https://www.cbs.com/shows/cbsn-originals/video/JsqwSZCOA8PXGZBOMqs5B34j7gVBvR59/cbsn-originals-presents-speaking-frankly-cancel-culture-/

Steven, You do realize that the largest part of Bernie's support (and Tulsi's and Yang's) were independents and Republicans, not even Democrats. There's a broad anti-war alliance across party lines against American genocide and against corruption that is frustrated with both party's morals. Rich suburban women don't want "Democratic taxes", but they don't want genocide in their name either. Poll after poll showed those 3 polling better with Republicans, and certainly with independents, than the DLC crooks/warmongers. This oldtimer strategy dating back to the 70's that Republicans and independents are more likely to cross over to vote for a "Democrat who's almost a Republican" is just nonsense in places other than maybe West Virginia or Louisiana. People will cross over for moral and ethical reasons and patriotism. That ain't Biden/Harris and the assumption they'll cross over to vote for the other party's crooks over their own is logic only these morans get. (and yes, I have to deal and listen to Hilary Rosen and Buttigieg's crowd here spout this strategy baloney constantly.) These Clintonistas are dumb. Why they don't argue from intelligence, just brute power. They think Republicans, women mostly, will make up in numbers for expelling the reformers and anti-war crowd from the party. 5% ain't gonna do it saps. You just killed your party. (Which to them is still better than reformers taking it over.) It is really hard to lose to an obnoxious moran like Trump but the DNC figured out how to do it in 2016 and can do it again. (and btw--Cori Bush was a strong Bernie supporter the Democratic Party worked hard to keep from winning her primary and I heard a comment from one of her workers on the ticket too nasty to print.)

Did you really just say that ? Without an lol? LBJ who had to go on tv sobbing to agree not to run for reelection because there were millions of people (Democrats) in the streets marching and rioting over his genocide policies in Vietnam? Do you read anything not "published by DNC"? Have the revisionist historians already started fucking with 1968 while we're alive? Are you pretending to be too young to remember 1968? I remember it like the back of my hand and there was nothing but hate for LBJ. My professors got me out to independent study at Santa Cruz because it was one of the few campuses open in the country for three years. Every year my home campus would open, students would riot and burn buildings, students would get tear gassed and shot, and campus would close for the year. In three years I was in jail 8 times, bit by a police dog twice, and tear gassed dozens of times. Only France was closer to full-scale popular revolution against the government than the US. And it was all hate for LBJ.

Steven, more people register as independents than Republicans OR Democrats. People with minds don't have to have a party tell them what to think. And I was wrong about you and Kasich. It's Clinton, Obama and Biden you have a seriously romantic view of. You repeat the partyline rationalization of why they were ok in their time if minor flawed. They were crooks and mass murderers. If you accept what they did and what they supported as just normal then you lose the ability to advocate as a reformer or any sort of progressive. We were immersed in the 80s as this stuff being ok because its our side doing it. It was never ok and we look like fools defending it while trying to stop others from doing it. Maybe we'll have revisionist historians wipe out mention of the horrible evil those three (and others) did, but hypocites like them are nothing to look up to. And that's why most people don't care enough about American government to vote anymore. It's evil bullshit vs evil bullshit. Its too speculative as to who's more evil. It's best to break with the past and start new and clean and moral but we're trapped in this evil system. Most people, especially younger and poor, are sick of the establishment, Republican and Democratic. I'm versed well in normal politics but sometimes morals have to count. I refuse to defend those three while trying to advocate for good. I like and respect you but don't be a captive rationalizer of evil things just because it's "us" doing it.

You think Krystal reads Boytoy?

If Lichtman's so good he should be rich. Vegas has Biden 55 to 44. In 2016 Clinton was 5 to 1 and one bettor made $2.5 million. 2016: https://fortune.com/2016/11/09/donald-trump-president-gamble/ Today: