Political Roundtable Part XXXI

[Zonkerbl]

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dirtbag

[Zonkerbl]

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[Zonkerbl]

The church where Dr. Tiller was murdered 13 years ago served as a polling place last night for Kansans

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[payitforward]

Amen. May his name be spoken as a blessing among the righteous.

[Pointgod]

Forced birth constitutional amendment in Kansas roundly thumped 58%-41%, a crushing defeat with polls (44% for, 47% against) much closer than the final tally, indicating planned parenthood was able to mobilize a huge turnout from the Democrats.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-abortion-vote-in-kansas-looks-like-its-going-to-be-close/

Having shot themselves in the foot by publicly beheading the Roe v. Wade hostage, the Republicans' go to "minority rule" tactic, to get one issue voters motivated to turn out, should be turned against them at least until the abortion rule is reversed. A large majority of this country does not want to be ruled by policies from the 1860s. I predict the House and Senate will stay in Dem hands and the Dems will gain enough seats in the Senate to potentially overturn the filibuster and stuff the court. I don't think they will though, so it'll be interesting to see if the Dems' disdain for their base ends up backfiring on them in 2024. Now is not the time to be cowardly. Biden is our Neville Chamberlain. Weak, appeasing, fearful, his cowardice will end up encouraging the bullies to push harder. Democracy only works if you take courageous steps to stand up to the bullies in your country. If you cower and snivel they will take over.

There’s something definitely shifting to point where you have perpetual cold water throwers like Nate Silver sitting up and taking notice.

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[Zonkerbl]

I mean, there are weather prognosticators who pore over data and models and stuff... I just pay attention to what's going on outside my window.

For decades forced birthers have been motivated by not having what they want. Observation one.

Observation two: Americans REALLY REALLY don't like having things taken away - look at social security, medicare

Observation three: Republicans arrogantly and cruelly and stupidly yanked away rights that two thirds of America took for granted

Now instead of a minority of right wing radicals being the wronged underdogs, a two thirds majority are the wronged party fighting to get back what was taken from them.

Why would this NOT have a noticeable effect? If I were Nate Silver I would be like "I'm waiting for the statistics to show us what the size of the Dobbs backlash is going to be"

not

"oh looky here turns out the Dobbs decision is having a statistically significant effect, who could have known"

I'm starting to understand why pollsters have gotten the last several elections so incredibly wrong.

On top of that, even though the forced birthers are motivated by hate, and it's relatively easy to get people riled up, let's face it - they got what they want. They're the dog that caught the car. Now what? It's going to be harder to motivate them to turn out to vote now. That's a double whammy. And it's going to be true for as long as the Dobbs decision remains the law of the land. If I'm a super devious Dem strategist I try to milk that for as much as I can, say "well that's a long run issue, what we have to focus on in the short run is winning local elections and undoing Republican gerrymandering" I would try to put off packing the court for as long as we can milk the political advantage Dobbs gives us. The statistics show our health system is up to the task of keeping women from dying from idiotic forced birth laws - just enough horror stories about near misses to keep the media machine spinning but not enough to actually have to do anything about it. Nevermind all the homeless deaths... which we never cared about anyway. Ick. I hate that I can think like a politician now.

We've been saying for a few decades that demographics are going to make the Republican party obsolete, but it looks like it's Republican overreaching that's going to undo all the advantages they gained over the last forty years.

Well, we'll see. The world is a chaotic place, who knows what's going to happen two years from now, much less ten or twenty.

[Zonkerbl]

Well this is interesting:

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[Zonkerbl]

In my brief stint as a consultant I worked for a guy who made himself a millionaire by playing the commodities markets with the help of an economic model he built himself. He didn't rely on the model very much though -- he mainly used it as an accounting device to make sure he didn't forget about anything like exchange rate effects and other general equilibrium effects. He would gather data from the market himself and tell the model what he thought was going to happen and the model would spit out the kind of investments he should make.

There are two kinds of financial economists, technical guys - guys making super sophisticated econometric models to detect arbitrage opportunities - and kremlinologists, who read the news and use their holistic understanding of what's going on in the world to inform their bets. I think you need a little of both, like my former boss did, but like 75% kremlinology. If you're in the business of making policy or investment recommendations, you have to be aware of the context. You can't rely exclusively on scientific polling. You have to use your gut at least a little. It's why being a scientist and an economist is so hard. You're part of the experiment and you'll never be able to make recommendations based off of pure data. I sympathize with Nate (our Nate, that is) a little in this respect - that's obviously what he's trying to do. He lets his bias color all the conclusions he reaches. It's a feature, not a bug - it's how you outperform the market. I bet he performs above average as an investment advisor. Relying exclusively on objective facts might make you reach correct conclusions about how awful the world actually is, but it doesn't help you make better predictions.

[Pointgod]

I mean, there are weather prognosticators who pore over data and models and stuff... I just pay attention to what's going on outside my window.

For decades forced birthers have been motivated by not having what they want. Observation one.

Observation two: Americans REALLY REALLY don't like having things taken away - look at social security, medicare

Observation three: Republicans arrogantly and cruelly and stupidly yanked away rights that two thirds of America took for granted

Now instead of a minority of right wing radicals being the wronged underdogs, a two thirds majority are the wronged party fighting to get back what was taken from them.

Why would this NOT have a noticeable effect? If I were Nate Silver I would be like "I'm waiting for the statistics to show us what the size of the Dobbs backlash is going to be"

not

"oh looky here turns out the Dobbs decision is having a statistically significant effect, who could have known"

I'm starting to understand why pollsters have gotten the last several elections so incredibly wrong.

On top of that, even though the forced birthers are motivated by hate, and it's relatively easy to get people riled up, let's face it - they got what they want. They're the dog that caught the car. Now what? It's going to be harder to motivate them to turn out to vote now. That's a double whammy. And it's going to be true for as long as the Dobbs decision remains the law of the land. If I'm a super devious Dem strategist I try to milk that for as much as I can, say "well that's a long run issue, what we have to focus on in the short run is winning local elections and undoing Republican gerrymandering" I would try to put off packing the court for as long as we can milk the political advantage Dobbs gives us. The statistics show our health system is up to the task of keeping women from dying from idiotic forced birth laws - just enough horror stories about near misses to keep the media machine spinning but not enough to actually have to do anything about it. Nevermind all the homeless deaths... which we never cared about anyway. Ick. I hate that I can think like a politician now.

We've been saying for a few decades that demographics are going to make the Republican party obsolete, but it looks like it's Republican overreaching that's going to undo all the advantages they gained over the last forty years.

Well, we'll see. The world is a chaotic place, who knows what's going to happen two years from now, much less ten or twenty.

This just goes to show you that the majority of Americans don’t support the Republican positions. Democrats need to figure out how to tap into this and get over the disconnect in the minds of voters. Republicans have to be exposed for their extremism and toxicity.

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[JWizmentality]

If there is a hell, may Alex Jones rot and suffer there forever. POS human being. Same goes for all his enablers and supporters.

[doclinkin]

Yeah seems unlikely his attorneys 'accidentally' sent damning information on this walking colostomy bag. I'd expect he got on the nerves of everyone in that office. Some paralegal or secretary might get fired, but still felt like it is worth it if it helps nail his hide to the wall.

[Pointgod]

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[Kanyewest]

:-?

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wtf

Dude just resorted to a talking point. I'm surprised people in West Virginia still support him.

[dobrojim]

Well this is interesting:

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It was a bad day yesterday for AJ. Good people across the country have something to smile about.
Jones has been a plague on our country for years. What a way to make a living (there's one born
every minute).

It was also a bad day for TFG with Cippilone getting a DOJ subpoena which he will not be able
to dodge with claims of executive privilege. The Committee was happy to just get him to talk a little.
DoJ is likely to be more ambitious in their efforts.

All hail Kansas voters.

[dobrojim]

Yeah seems unlikely his attorneys 'accidentally' sent damning information on this walking colostomy bag. I'd expect he got on the nerves of everyone in that office. Some paralegal or secretary might get fired, but still felt like it is worth it if it helps nail his hide to the wall.

What I found surprising was that his attorney failed to respond to the notification
that s/he had effed up. Apparently they only needed to say "whoops, that was a mistake.
Please destroy the portions that were not requested". But they didn't.

[dobrojim]

Speaking of bad days, Jackie Walorski, a GOP congresswoman from IND, had the worst day.

Killed in a car accident. Very sad. I know nothing about her politics.
Learned a little from the link below.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/us/politics/jackie-walorski.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20220803&instance_id=68371&nl=updates-from-the-newsroom&regi_id=110875984&segment_id=100361&te=1&user_id=fe295128b5cded618b6567d5581ae80c

According to the above, she was a pretty typical GOP congresswoman. Pelosi managed to say
she was known for her personal kindness. Flags at Capital will fly at half mast for a couple days.
Condolences to the families/friends.

[Zonkerbl]

Copaganda expert Alek Karakatsanis, who was on Trevor Noah's show last night:

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The whole thread is illuminating reading

Also:

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I don't think I'm *quite* as die hard as Alek is, because there is that one rather nuanced study from NPR that I think is the gold standard. But he makes a good point about the cops not being the good guys.

[Wizardspride]

:-?

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wtf

Dude just resorted to a talking point. I'm surprised people in West Virginia still support him.

I'm not.

[Pointgod]

I don’t want to have hope but these are at least positive signs for Democrats. And horrible for Republicans.

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[Wizardspride]

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