Harris Down to +0.1% in WI in Latest RCP Average

If this holds up, it's a landslide.

Martin Gurri: I Refused to Vote in the Last Two Elections; Now I'm Voting for Trump

Gurri has written some really good stuff. (I tried to read his book, but it ostentatiously failed to grip me.)

   I think he's 100% right about this: the real danger is the CTRL-left (though he doesn't use the term).

Trump says a lot of incoherent and alarming-sounding stuff. And he was wildly out of bounds after he lost in 2020. But the totalitarian, Orwellian left is, by far, the bigger danger. Trump says stuff that might indicate authoritarian tendencies, but it's usually not clear what he's saying. Also, he doesn't do those things. The left is in the midst of a thus-far-successful campaign of radical leftist cultural domination. Down to the imposition of obvious falsehoods as official "truths."

   Like Gurri, I think the choice is clear, though, also like him, since I find both party-plus-candidate complexes unacceptable, I expect I'll be neither ecstatic nor despondent whatever the outcome.

Democrats Sue to Allow Noncitizens to Vote in VA

It's more complicated than that...but it's part of the motive, IMO.

They can, of course, say that they don't want citizens accidentally purged from the rolls--and I expect that's part of the motive.

My guess is that it comes down to perceived costs and benefits, as so many things do. Dems think that the cost of noncitizens voting is minimal compared to the benefits of making voting easier for minority citizens. Pubs think the opposite.

I side with the Republicans on this one--and always have. This isn't something I changed my mind about when I became more conservative / left (or was abandoned by) the blue team.

Fox News Harris Interview

From the beginning Harris was evasive and Baier was combative. One excuse for the latter goes like this: she got there late, cutting the interview short, and was excessively evasive, so he had to press her. Could be.

   Harris is completely full of shit about immigration, of course. She's got nothing--if you don't count lies, evasion and ORANGE MAN BAD. The Biden administration was a train wreck, and nowhere more than at the border. Responsibility for the border disaster lies squarely on the shoulders of the administration. And the party. And Harris...

   I almost don't blame her for lying and evading about this--she's got no rational defense.

   Baier, however, seemed overly combative to me. And I though the use of the clip of Jocelyn Nungaray's mother was questionable. I understand that there are good reasons to put a face on the statistics. OTOH, almost any policy is going to be a tragedy for someone. Administrations have to think in terms of the statistics--or so it seems to me. Either side in the Obamacare debate can, for example, probably produce stories about someone whom the other side's policies killed, crippled or immiserated. 

   Re: the "trans" surgeries for inmates, she really had nothing. She actually reverted to the boilerplate ad hominem: Trump is trying to scare people. Nonsense. The point is that your apparent policy preference is objectively surreal. The intention of the party informing people about your surreal policy preference is irrelevant.

Anyway.

   In general, I'd say that this was not a good interview for Harris. (Though I'm not neutral, of course.) Not so much because she's an empty suit but because she had to defend bad policies. She's not wily enough to give a rhetorically effective defense of such terrible policies. Few are. But she did what she had to do: she kept saying words. That's enough to keep her from losing support, and to maybe at least keep undecideds undecided.

   Her best line of attack continues to be the unfitness argument; it has the virtue of being sound.

   The "enemy within" argument is part of that strategy, though it seems to me to be more of the same sort of thing we've seen over and over: Trump says something incoherent, the left puts the worst interpretation on it. To repeat myself: they pretend he said something terrible even when he's on video saying the opposite--see e.g. the "very fine people" hoax. So, when he says something unclear--as he usually does--they have a field day. The left can take even the most innocuous utterance and produce a line of gibberish "proving" it to be racist. This is their forte. And Trump is such an inarticulate dumbass that he causes alarm even among reasonable people.

   And this "enemy within" stuff...that's a phrase no one should want to get within a hundred miles of. Rather like "enemy of the people." It's objectively alarming. WTF does he mean by it? Some say he means illegal alien gangs, some say he's talking about radical rioters... I can't freaking tell. It sounded pretty bad to me. Also it's perfectly reasonable to think: no acceptable candidate repeatedly says unclear-and-possibly-authoritarian things. Say enough such things and the smart money says that you're an authoritarian...

   Anyway.

   I haven't watched the end of the interview yet. I can't deal with that much stupid right now.

Entire CNN Panel Has Never Heard of the Ferguson Effect, Refuses to Believe in Social Science

I've started at the relevant bit, but the whole segment is progressive cluelessness on parade:

Girdusky is incredulous that none of them has even heard of any of this.

Then they get down to utterly clueless accusations and abject misconstrual of everything he says. 

Harris/Walz, Panicked, Pander to Black Men With Free Money and Legal Weed

As somebody else (I can't remember who) said: now this is how you buy votes: $1,000,000 "fully forgivable" loans!

The Dems are done pussyfooting around with ordinary gibs. Now they're coming as close to just saying "We'll give you $$$" as they think the law will allow.

Oh and: legal weed!

Patronizing as hell.

Which is a generally-applicable description of progressive racial politics...

And this on top of free money to Millennials in the form of (illegal) loan forgiveness.

Throw in some free cats and box wine for that one other demographic and they might pull this out yet.

Trump: On Track to Win?

The Once and Future POTUS leads in all swing states other than Wisconsin, where RCP shows him with a 0.3% deficit. His lead has (unless I missed something) been growing in them all other than GA, where it's fallen slightly. He's up by 0.3% in PA and a whole percentage point in MI. The RCP betting markets averages stand at Trump 56.5 Harris 42.5 57.7-41.3. Polymarket says 56-39 58-38.

   It's still a tight race.

   And there's plenty of time for him to blow it.

   There are losing cues on the blue team. 

   But they seem to have switched to emphasizing the Trump's unfit to govern angle...which, IMO, is the only good angle they really have. And it's sufficiently powerful.

   Or would be.

   If the Democrats had not gone insane.

   Now it really doesn't matter so much that Trump's personally unfit to govern. He's basically sane, with basically sane policies, and a proven record of success and good governance. And there are lots of rails in place to keep him between the ditches. The Dems are just cracked. They've adopted the wrong values, a deranged worldview, and some unhinged philosophical ideas. They are now the Orwellian party. If Trump lives up to his promise, he'll do well. Should the Dems live up to their promise, it will be a disaster.

   But...

   The fitness argument is a powerful one, and it's certainly the one I'd lean hard on if I were the blues.

Violent Crime Rates Likely Still Increasing; FBI Stealth-Edits 2022 Numbers

John Lott

   Not from the Lott thing:

Violent crime rates shot up in 2020 as a result of the Ferguson Effect, police defunding, "decarceration," Soros DAs refusing to enforce laws (against nonwhites, anyway). The left, using its reality distortion powers, chose to believe that...somehow...it was COVID...

(Narrator: It was not COVID...)

   Now, with crime rates still higher, and Dems still pushing policies to keep it that way, crime reporting has become sketchy. The more reliable National Crime Victimization Survey numbers are unaffected, but those in the Uniform Crime Report are.

   Crime spiked so acutely in '20 that I wouldn't be surprised if it were dropping...but it doesn't seem to be.

   So weird.

   Stop enforcing the law and you get more crime...

   Reminds me of the (NYT? Atlantic?) headline, roughly: Despite drop in crime, prison populations remain high...

I&I: Noncitizens Will Vote in November; the Only Question Is: How Many?

Dems and the media are still mostly at the It's not happening stage of the now-familiar It's-not-happening-It's-happening-but-it's-a-good-thing-It's-happening-and-you're-a-racist-if-you-oppose-it cycle. Some leftier progressives think noncitizens should be able to vote--and have changed some state and local laws to allow it in some state and local elections. There's virtually no doubt that some have also started working for it at the national level. Nor is there much doubt that such folk would think it a good thing for noncitizens to vote illegally now in national elections.

   I&I:

Yet just this weekend, ABC News ran a piece titled: “In South Texas, the myth of noncitizen voting takes center stage.”
But it’s the media that’s peddling the myth. Voter rolls are criminally outdated and error prone. Some states are so eager to register voters that they don’t put up needed safeguards. When election officials do bother to audit their registration rolls, they keep turning up thousands of noncitizens.
Consider these recent examples: 

• Virginia’s attorney general recently announced the state moved 6,303 noncitizens from its voter rolls in 2022 and 2023.
• Arizona admitted a massive error in its voter rolls resulted in 218,000 registered voters who lacked proof of U.S. citizenship.
• A suit filed in Nevada asserts that as many as 11,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in the state and nearly 4,000 of them voted in 2020.
• An Oregon audit found nearly 1,300 noncitizens registered to vote in that state.
• Ohio’s secretary of state found nearly 600 noncitizens registered to vote.

Meanwhile, a local news investigation found mailers sent to noncitizens by their union – LIUNA – urging them to “Stop the Steal” and vote for Kamala Harris in November.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project gathered video evidence of noncitizens in Arizona and Georgia admitting on camera that they are registered to vote. They also found fliers in an illegal immigrant staging area in Mexico urging them to vote in November.
Dozens of lawmakers are pressing Attorney General Merrick Garland about what he is doing to stop noncitizens from voting. “Clearly, there is a non-negligible amount of voter participation by noncitizens in federal elections,” they say, “which is not only a serious threat to the integrity of our elections and the democratic process they represent, but also has the potential to reduce Americans’ trust and confidence in election results.”
But the Biden-Harris Justice Department appears more interested in preventing states from cleaning their voter rolls of noncitizens.
Last week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued a statement:

“With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls.”

And Democrats blocked a bill – the SAVE Act – that would have simply required some proof of citizenship in order to vote.
It’s almost as if Democrats want to let noncitizens vote.

Bill Ackman: Why Support Trump?

A number of my good friends and family have been surprised about my decision to support @realDonaldTrump for president. They have been surprised because my political giving history has been mostly to Democrats, my voting registration has typically been Democrat (in NY, you must…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) October 11, 2024

DoJ Tells Four Police and Fire Departments That It's Racist to Expect Employees to Know Basic Math

We're going to get more of this from progressive bureaucrats no matter what...but way more of it if Harris wins.

*Science* Promotes Bogus Claims of Racial Discrimination in Academia

link

Joy Reid is Losing It

I mean...the little bit of it she has remaining...

Psychopath Who Tied Couple to Anchor and Drowned Them to Get Money for "Sex Change"...Gets a Taxpayer-Funded "Sex Change" in Prison

Behold, the left.

Conservatives Pounce! on: Kamala Harris Plagiarism. NYT: Only 500 Words! Not the Worst Kind of Plagiarism! Criticizing Plagiarism is Racist!!!!11

LOOOOOOL

My favorite part is about how it's not the bad kind of plagiarism! Because it...and here I want to emphasize that I'm not making this up...doesn't involve stealing somebody else's ideas...

   Now...this is a "rule" I've never heard before in my (broadly construed) forty years in academia.

Harris clearly plagiarized whole, huge passages from e.g. Wikipedia.

   Word for word.

   Now, people unconsciously pick up ideas here and there and eventually forget that they got it from somebody else. This happened e.g. to Thomas Nagel with respect to the central example of "What is it Like to Be a Bat," IIRC. Honestly, I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often.

   If there is a worst kind of plagiarism, it's the kind in Harris's book, word-for-word stealing of entire passages from elsewhere and misrepresenting them as your own.

   The New York Times is a gigantic piece of shit. It has pretensions of intellectual seriousness, but it is just making up bullshit rules about scholarly work to save its favored empty-suit candidate.

   Ripping off someone else's ideas might be more harmful to the wronged scholar, but it is Harris-style plagiarism that reflects most badly on the plagiarist--there's no excuse for it. It couldn't have been a mistake. It shows that you're a lying, stealing, lightweight jackass.

   All the more so when you're plagiarizing Wikipedia and advertising brochures...my God...

Harris Plagiarized Extensive Parts of Her Book *Smart on Crime*

We can begin with a passage in which Harris discusses high school graduation rates. Here, she lifted verbatim language from an uncited AP/NBC News report: pic.twitter.com/pZv5mD3m5t

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024

Trump Babbles; James Carville and Jen Psaki: HE'S LITERALLY HITLER

Behold, our options.

The State of the Race

I'm pretty calm about it, largely because I dislike both options, but largely because I'm pretty confident that the less-bad one is going to win. There seems to be some loser-talk showing up in blue-team chatter, along with rumors of panic and bad internal polling data (and good data on the other side). The turbo-cringe Harris ads aimed at men seem to me to be destined for the American political loser hall of fame...alongside e.g. Dukakis in the tank. RCP puts Trump up by at least a little bit in all the battlegrounds except for Wisconsin.

   With a little luck we can soon go back to merely worrying about Trump. On the whole, a less-unsatisfactory state of affairs, IMO.

"White People are the Problem"

To whom to attribute this? Well, the post seems to be by Nia-Malika Henderson. I don't know whether people still generally write their own columns when they achieve a fair-to-middlin' state of notoriety--but either she wrote it or at least endorsed it by putting her name on it. But columnists, we're told, don't generally write their own headlines. So she may well not have written the sub-headline...which isn't even all that bad:

African American men aren’t the voters the former president should be worried about. It’s White men and White women.

Then there's a tweetquote from Wendell Peirce:

The party has to stop scapegoating Black men. Black men aren’t the problem. White men and White women are. No other group votes at 87-90% for Dems but Black folk.

Here's the two most important 'grafs from the body of the essay: 

As a candidate, this type of condescending approach to Black voters, who overwhelmingly backed him and still adore him, was a balm to White people, who saw in Obama a figure who could fix the problem that Black America has supposedly posed to the body politic. Columnist Jonathan Alter wrote in 2008 that Obama’s “most exciting potential for moral leadership could be in the African-American community.” Because, of course, Black Americans needed this the most. (Speaking of moral leadership, fast forward eight years to when the majority of White Americans would cast their ballots for Donald Trump, something they are poised to do again.) 

But as Harris, who has run a nearly flawless race in a compressed timeline, tries to take her turn at history, it is Black voters, specifically Black men, who are being scapegoated. Remember that in a state like Michigan in 2020, Black men were 5% of the electorate, and 88% of their ballots went to Joe Biden. White people were 80% of the electorate. Are there any lectures for them on racism or sexism from Obama? It’s true that Obama, at times, was speaking to all men, but he landed most harshly on Black men, the most pro-Kamala group and one of the smallest voting blocs of the electorates.

Now, I can't help but ridicule the bit about Harris running "a nearly flawless race." You've got to be deeply enchambered to even be able to type that sentence. And the compressed timeline is to her advantage. It's not some burden she is overcoming. Without it, she'd be in even worse shape.

   But the point I've been building up to is this: 

   It's not really clear how bad the claims of this essay are, nor who's really responsible for them. To some extent NMH, of course. To some extent someone else's tweet. To some extent an anonymous headline-writer.

   And Real Clear Politics shows its rightward lean (IMO) with its inflammatory headline: 

"Dear President Obama: White People are the Problem."

Nice work, RCP. Way to help calm everybody down.

   Not sure it's even worth moving on. But I will anyway.

   This is part of the whites suck and men suck projects of the left. The overlap ('intersection' being another handy word ruined by the left) of the two classes is a group they really love to hate...but to avoid stepping on their own faction's toes, they really want/need straight white men as the enemy. But NMH doesn't shoot for the trifecta here.

   The particular way we suck, according to this post, is: 

(a) We don't vote overwhelmingly for Democrats

(b) (Too) many of us are voting for Trump.

   No doubt these are in addition to our other myriad flaws.

   Now, the obvious response is that it is a matter of some disagreement, and less than perfect clarity, whether (a) and (b) are bad or good. I think that the preponderance of evidence indicates that (a) and (b) are good...

   And imagine that I wrote a piece for a national opinion outlet titled something like: White women, black men and black women are the problem.

   That'd go over great.

   I don't like that kind of shit, but I do have to admit that, if I'm right about our current cultural and political strife...well...white dudes would get credit for voting mainly for the lesser evil. If we're eligible for blame here we should also be eligible for credit. Though I'd rather we not play that game.

   To repeat myself: Trump doesn't belong anywhere near the Oval Office.

   But Trump, together with his agenda, is a lesser evil than the progressive/Democrat agenda together with whoever their candidate is. Harris is largely irrelevant, IMO...though she is a bit of an extra negative given that she seems to be (a) a hard-core lefty at heart and (b) a minimally competent DEI candidate at best. (Though one could argue that she's better than a much-diminished Biden, I suppose.)

   Finally, Obama's alleged concern--that black men not voting for Harris is caused by sexism--well, bullshit. There are clear and cogent reasons for not wanting to vote for the Democrat ticket. Those are sufficient to explain such a decision. Undoubtedly some people are motivated by racism and sexism...some people are motivated by just about any motive you can think of. But there's no reason to take the left seriously about this anymore, given that it's boilerplate for them now: anyone who disagrees with them about anything is motivated by one or more components of the Standard Litany of -isms and -"phobias". It's a joke at this point. It was a joke 40 years ago when this nonsense was mostly limited to academia. If you're still taking them seriously, that's on you, bud.

   And probably Obama's just trying to apply rhetorical pressure to get more votes for Dems. Does he really believe that sexism is a significant factor? Maybe. I don't know. But it's at least as likely to be campaign-season bullshit as it is to be a serious claim. I still have certain fond feelings for Obama. And to some extent I want to excuse him thusly: don't hate the player, hate the game.

Obama Speaks to Black Men re: Kamala, and: Two Leftist Pathologies: (a) No One Disagrees with Them for Good Reasons; (b) Obsession with and Fabrication of Hidden Motives

link

Well, like the title says.

   The postpostmodern left thinks that it's impossible to reasonably disagree with them. This meshes well with their obsession with the fabrication of hidden motives--if you do disagree with them, no matter how cogent your arguments, it must be because of some hidden prejudice (here insert The Standard Litany of -isms and -"phobias").

   This tendency to freestyle speculation about motives may be partially grounded in Freud--a hero of recent Continental philosophy. That's always been my guess, but I really don't know.

   It's not quite true...but it's almost true...that they only have one argument: You're a ____ist/phobe.* They simply repeat the same nonsense over and over and over... It shouldn't work, but it does. We've turned things like racism etc. into such horrible moral crimes that people are terrified to be accused of them, no matter how preposterously. As long as this remains true, they'll keep making ungrounded accusations, and they'll keep winning.

* The incidental joke there is, of course, that that isn't even an argument...

Big WSJ Poll Pretty Good For Harris

Not great news.

Kamala Harris's Disastrous Town Hall

I've only seen some clips...but they are catastrophic

E.g. her answer to the guy who was skeptical about the process by which KH became the Democrat nominee.

I almost could not believe what I was hearing.

It's like the Republicans got ahold of her teleprompter controls and set out to make her sound as dumb as possible.

Oh and: did she use a teleprompter?

Dunno. 

Of course the wingnut echo chamber goes from zero to religious conviction about such nonsense in like a minute and a half...

Oh and: now she's saying that she was "working class..." Middle class was one thing...that term is used very broadly. But now her Stanford academician/scientist parents were "working class"...

She actually makes Trump look good.

Which, antecedently, I would have thought impossible.

Christopher Steele Still Believes

link

And a fair number of true believers on the left agree, actually.

John Nichols at The Nation is Whistling Past the Graveyard

I don't understand how Democrats can be comfortably smug given the current shape of the race...but here we are...

Dems Eyeing The Panic Button?

I mean, could be.

There's chatter that both the Dems' and the Pubs' internal polling has Trump winning. 

Silver says that there's always chatter about internal polling...and, like most chatter, it's unreliable.

RCP Rolling Average: Trump Up in Michigan

This apparent lead in MI has been percolating its way through the rolling average for awhile.

It does seem that the tide is turning in Trump's direction.

Walz: Eliminate Electoral College

A catastrophically bad idea.

The Devibing of the Joyous Brat

link

Prediction: Trump FTW

I'm pretty calm about the election. Which is a measure of my belief that the worst outcome will be avoided.

I.e.: Trump will win.

I can worry about that, the second-worst outcome, later.

Right now I just want the devil we know back in the White House, appointing judges, enforcing the border, purging some Demo/bureau-crats, lowering taxes and trying to stamp out DEI.

Oh and: maybe...just maybe...abolishing the Department of Education...

How did we end up in a fix such that an election-denying reality TV conman is the preferable candidate?

I dunno, man, but here we are...

Evan Barker Shouldn't Have Raised Money for the Dems; They're Harming the Country

This is apparently published under various titles; the one I use above is a kind of synthesis.

Anyway...yeah.
I'd read it all, but here are some highlights/lowlights:

During the summer of 2020, I worked as a consultant for multiple progressive DA candidates backed by George Soros and his foundation. In the places where they won, these DAs have since done immeasurable damage to the local communities. They failed to prosecute offenders, especially surrounding drug use and distribution, and allowed crime to run rampant, hurting communities of color the most—the very people they were supposedly trying to help.

...
Unfortunately, the Soroses are just the tip of the iceberg.
...
I spent years fundraising for Democrats. I raised millions of dollars. And in the process, I routinely saw and heard about inappropriate relationships between donors and candidates that would bust anyone's bubble about the independence of our leaders. There is an entire donor ecosystem working against the interests of regular Americans—and it's the one top Democrats are swimming in.
...
Consider the long-time friendship between Kamala Harris and billionaire donor Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs. The New York Times described the women as being so close that they've gone on vacation together and consider each other family. Powell Jobs sat in Harris' exclusive friends and family suite at the DNC last month. She was also instrumental in getting Biden to step down to clear the way for Harris; one of her top aides circulated a polling memo to other key influential donors that allegedly showed Biden's inability to win.
...
Another name I've seen pop up many times in my years fundraising for progressive candidates is the San Francisco based Democratic donor and influencer Steve Phillips. Phillips has written books that focus heavily on the importance of race in politics, with titles like Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority and How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good. [My emphasis] [Note that those are two separate crazy titles, not one really long crazy title.]

Damning as this all is, of course it doesn't do us all that much good without knowing what things look like on the side of the red team for comparison... My guess is: bad...but not as bad. That's sort of the background state of the two major parties, so far as I can tell. The center of crazy has shifted way to the blue end of the spectrum. There doesn't, for example, seem to be any analog of George Soros...nor of his son...

Is Dough Emhoff a Sexist Jackass?

Maybe.

Accusations are cheap.

The left is a nonstop firehose of such bullshit...I give it no credence anymore. But...when the accusations are flying leftward...I do take them a little bit more seriously.

The left seems to have a substantial supply of crazy cat ladies (e.g. C. Blasey Ford, E. Jean Carroll) who will make such accusations at important Republicans. And, hey, why not? It might be painful if the accusations were true...but not if they're not. And they'll get fame and adulation (and money) from our cultural overlords...

But, when the accusations are made against a powerful (or at least strategically valuable) lefty...well...again, I'm a little less skeptical.

"The Republicans are Drowning in Donald Trump's Lies"

I agree--though this article is pretty unimpressive on the subject.

That dude barely even tries to approximate the truth. We don't even expect it from him.

Dems Fear Harris Failing to Break Through With "Working Class"

Ya don't say...

   Here's one thing I noticed when I moved from the real world to academia: the real people back home would sometimes speak of "the workin' man." Only in academia (and the media) did I hear people say "the working class." Or, worse: "the workers." LOL. Why not "the proletariat"?

   Most "working class" people I knew considered themselves middle class. Middle class is a broad category in the U.S.--though I hear less so e.g. in the UK.

   Anyway.

   Trump, for all his myriad failings, seems like a normal person.

   Harris...not so much.

   I mean, look: you're not going to be hanging out with her. You don't have to like her. And if she had good policies and record of competence and accomplishment, I'd vote for her despite her odd demeanor.

   But, yeah, it's surprising that anyone would find it surprising that she's not exactly resonating with regular people.

Democrat Abortion Lies

It's just a torrent of lies from them on the subject. Even when they get called on 'em, they just keep lying 'em.

Gotta keep farming those low-information lefties and the abortion hysteriacs.

I'm still basically a meataxe libertarian on the issue...so I guess not all that far from the current progressive extremism. But I have little confidence in my position, such as it is, and am not happy with it.

Probably just one of the many things I'm wrong about.

RCP Betting Average Shifts Significantly in Trump's Favor

So, y'know, good and/or bad.

Trump/Harris: RCP Betting Market Average Tied

Seems to me that things have been shifting Trumpward for some time.

I've heard speculation that the blue team has been gaming the markets...but I have no idea.

They shifted Harrisward after the debate, but only recently started to new polling. Well, seemingly, anyway.

A lot of the optimism on the red team is based on Trump's historical overperformance in polls. On the one hand, you'd think that pollsters would have corrected for that by now. OTOH, I'm sure there are still "shy" Trump voters--that is, voters who refuse to tell a stranger (or anyone else for that matter) that they're voting for Trump. That can mean the end of your job, your career, and/or your personal life.

I'm still trying not to care much. But I do remain reasonably confident that Trump will win, hence we'll end up with the bad outcome rather than the terrible outcome.

Keep yr fingers crossed!

10/7 One Year On

That's all.

Coleman Hughes on Ta-Nehisi Coates

I used to like TNC. But that was some time ago now.

I haven't read his new book. I'd never even consider spending/wasting the time.

Coleman Hughes read it so you don't have to.

Turley: Jack Smith's "October Surprise" Wasn't That Surprising...And That's The Problem

I gave up long ago trying to sort through the details of every aspect of the anti-Trump jihad.

A failing on my part, without doubt.

But I just don't have the requisite time, energy, or understanding of the law.

Now, to be honest, I basically just try to see the big picture.

Which kinda sorta looks like this:

A wacky, crackpot con man who's probably guilty of something or other...but who is right about a lot of things...

vs.

A massive and deranged, well-oiled machine that operates across almost all of our major institutions to destroy him by just about any means necessary...

...because he really, truly, should not be anywhere near the levers of power.

Though also because he opposes their hegemony...and that they just cannot abide.

Not bending the knee to them is an affront.

They will not tolerate it.

Am I going to dig into the details of the latest salvo from the machine?

I am not.

To switch metaphors yet again: I guess I've already picked my poison.

On the bright side, I have absolutely no power to influence the  outcome.

So, no matter what happens, I'll have recourse to the favorite defense of incompetents everywhere:

It's not my fault!

Wingnuts Freak Out Over WNC and Helene

Jeez, these people.

The number one conspiracy theory in the fever swamps right now seems to be that the feds are going to use eminent domain to seize huge chunks of Western North Carolina to get at large lithium deposits there. Slightly conspiracy-er theories say that the government seeded clouds to make Helene worse to facilitate the plan.

It's like these people are on a hair trigger. They just love this stuff and jump at the chance to accept it and assert it as indisputable fact.

On top of everything else, it's the dogmatism that's stunning. Concern about voter fraud isn't enough--it's proven! that the election of 2020 was stolen. Skepticism about the vax isn't enough--FDA and CDC know that it's a killer and are...for some reason...hiding it. The stuff about Helene hasn't seemed to reach that level yet. But it may well get there before all is said and done.

I guess the left did the same with Katrina...but I'd say to a much lesser extent. The theory didn't seem to extend beyond: The Bush admin dragged its feet to make sure that as many blacks as possible died. That's insane, of course...but it doesn't rise to the level of, e.g., Congresswoman Space Laser contending that Democrats control the weather.

Oh and: it's "ridiculous" to say they can't...

Though Katrina happened before the full-blown cultural freakout that is "social media"...so hard to compare.

Helene and WNC

The scenes and footage from e.g. Asheville and Castle Rock are just unbelievable. I really had no idea how bad it was. Parts of I-40 are just gone, and one estimate I heard from an informed source was that it might take a year to reopen.

One of (the?) major E-W interstate could take a year to reopen.

In the USA.

Not Uzbekistan...not Venezuela...

Amazing.

Some of the footage I saw actually made me think If they can fix that in a year, they're wizards...

Hundreds (or so I've read) sections of other roads are closed.

Again, hearsay from a local news snipped: Expect to have power again in about four months.

We've got two very off-road-capable vehicles...but a lot of the roads I saw footage of...no chance. Neither of them would stand any chance of getting through.

UNCA disaster relief donation page

I'm trusting that they'll use this buy stuff like water and not to put on drag shows and stuff...but...with UNCA you can never tell...

Y'know what? On second thought:

NCgov donation page

NCDPS page

Doug Emhoff, Mr. Kamala Harris, Accused of Slapping Ex-GF

So he allegedly had an affair with the nanny, allegedly impregnated her, and she allegedly got an abortion...now he allegedly slapped another gf at the Cannes film festival.

   Maybe true. Maybe false. Obviously I don't know.

   But if this were a Republican, it'd be all hands on deck in the MSM...

   Also, there's been a lot of slobbering coverage about him allegedly "redefining masculinity" by...[checks notes]...supporting his wife?

   Really?

   Who thinks that's some notable thing?

   Who the hell doesn't support his wife?

   Are we living in the 1950s?

   They're not talking about financial support, incidentally, but...psychological (or whatever) support.

   But also they keep talking about him "offering a softer masculinity" and shit.

   Listen, uh...that's no compliment, blue team...

   Though, NGL, the guy does seem like a wimp.

   So, among other things, the kind of guy who might just hit a woman...

   Anyway, gotta say, I'd laugh my ass off if these allegations turned out to be true after the bizarro tongue bath the lefty media has been lavishing on him.

   Jen Psaki's interview of him was positively nauseating.

Vance Still Won't Admit Trump Lost

*%&#@?~%!@#&*ing dipshits.

Let alone Trump admitting it.

That's just beyond the pale at this point.

I don't blame anyone who won't vote for these jackasses.

Vance/Walz

Didn't watch it. Needed to sleep. Knew I wouldn't if I watched it.

I gather that the mods cheated again, breaking their own no "fact"-checking rule to try to undermine Vance...but it sounds like he turned it around on them pretty deftly. I saw the clip and that seems like a fair assessment. But the whole video might show something different.

Dunno.

Kerry: The First Amendment is Getting in the Way of Censorship; If Dems Win Elections, They Can Change That

I voted for this guy and contributed a lot of money to him.

This should be sufficient reason to never listen to me about politics.

Trafalgar: Trump +3 in PA?

Big if true.

Vance/Walz Debate

Seems kinda no-win to me.

For Vance, that is.

Nobody thinks Walz is Vance's intellectual peer--do they?

Vance trounces him, so what?

Walz holds his own--win!

Vance is capable of what Trump isn't--sticking to the point and hammering it home.

Of course we know what we'll get from the moderators--all kitty-eatin' all the time...

Now, that's Vance's stupid fault...but it's a tiny drop in the bucket of this nutso election.