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Pete1111

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    Can Democrats make America great again? And if so, how?

    in Politics

    Posted · Edited by Pete1111
    Fic

    The conservative piece refers to Deep State as a real threat.   I don't need to explore his opinions much beyond that, do I?

    Deep State was a conspiracy invented by Cambridge Analytica.

    To spend time discussing that POV gives credence to it.  Then why not give Q a fair shake?  Everyone deserves their opinion, right?  Let's give Q a seat at the table.  <--This is sarcasm.  But really, Republicans are already going there.

    Trump Calls US Soldiers "Losers"

    in Politics

    Posted · Edited by Pete1111
    fix

    23 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

    Speaking of which, Mayor Pete is on the transition team,  and he'll very likely be a Cabinet Secretary.

    Pete and Chasten are among the stars of 2020.  That makes me proud to be an American, too.

     

    Jim Clyburn's grandson Walter Clyburn Reed backed Pete's campaign and recently tweeted how Buttigieg would make a great chief of staff.   And though it is off topic, I must say Walter Clyburn Reed is cute AF. 

     

    It's official: Trump Is History, Says The Prediction Professor

    in Politics

    Posted · Edited by Pete1111
    Fix

    16 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

     

    I'm not really responding to your post @Pete1111.  But the specific states you cited dovetail with something I was going to post, anyway.  I thought this was a really good analysis relating to Lichtman's ideas about fundamental drivers.  It's a counterpoint to, "it's the economy, stupid."

    Why Has Minnesota Been Slow to Realign?

    The author makes a great argument that, at least in the Midwest, it's the geography, stupid.

    Iowa, for example, had the biggest Democratic lean of these seven Midwestern states he looks at back in 1988.  By 2016 it had the second biggest Republican lean.  (Indiana was # 1.)

    Why?  Here's what the author says:

    The easiest way to make his point is to just list the percentage of voters in these states that live in large cities:

    Illinois:  69 %

    Minnesota  63 %

    Michigan 55 %

    Ohio  51 %

    Indiana 48 %

    In the article he doesn't give a specific number for Wisconsin or Iowa.  And it's not 100 % clear how he defines "large cities".  But it is clear that he's including suburbs and exurbs.  To me, this dovetails with Rahm Emanuel's idea of "metropolitan alliances".  So you won't like this much, @tassojunior.  I'm throwing Rahm and suburban women into the melting pot together.  Watch out!

    The whole article is detailed and thorough.  His point about Minnesota is that the Republicans might be waiting a while.  Because despite being called The Land Of 10,000 Lakes, Minnesota is kind of The Land Of Twin Cities And Suburbs.  Mike Pence put on a good show up in The Iron Range.  But if The Iron Range becomes redder, and the suburbs become bluer, that's not good math for Republicans. 

    The 538 poll averages today show Biden with a 6 point lead in Minnesota, and President Toxic with a 2 point lead in Ohio.  As the author argues, the pattern is clear.  In 2016, Michigan was the cutting edge between winning and losing.  So far, at least, it looks like the pendulum is swinging to blue, not red.  But it's too early to tell.

    This other article from 538 covers a lot of the same ground as the article above, and presents a somewhat more optimistic picture for Republicans who want to take Minnesota.  I'm including it because the thing it adds is one possible driver:  the concentration of non-Hispanic Whites without bachelor's degrees.  This graphic from the 538 article sums it up nicely:

    userakich.MN-SWING.0831.png?w=575

    Arguably, you could also say "It's the education, stupid."  Having gone to a liberal arts college in Minnesota, this all makes sense to me.  Paul Wellstone won in 1990 because he could go up to the Iron Range and preach left-wing populism, and it worked.  As long as he went easy on the gun stuff.  Now there's more guns, and fewer jobs in the Iron Range.  So where the educated people are - the cities and suburbs - that where Democrats do well.  And it's about the only place they do really well these days. 

    2020 will be a test of whether, and how, economic fundamentals matter.  If Lichtman is right, President Toxic can't survive an election in which the economy and jobs have tanked.  Not to mention COVID-19 and all the other stuff.  That said, Barack Obama won re-election in 2012 on the backs of Blacks, who turned out at an even higher rate than 2008.  Despite the fact that the Black economy in particular was the slowest to recover from The Great Recession. 

    So will Team Toxic not only turn out their base, but add to it with new voters that didn't vote in 2016?  Given what happened with Obama and Blacks in 2012, it's possible.  But Blacks knew that Obama did not cause The Great Recession.  So far it looks like Trump's America doesn't think he's to blame for anything going on in America in 2020.  I'll be fascinated to see how that plays out when people vote.  And to see which people vote.

    Ohio county tells story of the seismic shift of working-class voters toward GOP

    I'm including that article mostly for the headline.  If you read the whole story, the headline sounds better for Republicans than it is.  So in the county around Youngstown, Ohio, enthusiasm for President Toxic is high.  But the article also states that in suburban Columbus, Ohio, in 2018 a Democrat came within 4 points of tossing out a Republican in a district that was supposed to be totally safe for the GOP.  For me, it all keeps coming back to the bumper sticker "metropolitan alliances".  

    One question I have that 2020 will maybe help answer is whether there is anything that "The Establishment" can do that will make things right for these places like Youngstown.  I say "The Establishment" because one way of looking at it is that whether it's Jeb! or Hillary or good ole' Destroyer Joe, some Trumpians seem to be convinced they are all at best blood sucking swamp creatures, and at worst pedophiles who eat babies.  The other question is whether President Toxic can do anything that will convince his supporters that we're not really on the fast track to Greatness in 2020.  

    I'm going to close with a summary of all manufacturing jobs in Ohio and the trend going back to the 1990's.  I picked January of certain years because that's the month new Presidents were inaugurated.  So the assumption is that Presidents are somehow judged based on what actually happens while they have power.  Again, if Lichtman is right, and voters make judgments about how well incumbents governed, President Toxic should have real problems in Ohio.  And at least some polls show him behind.

    All Employees: Manufacturing in Ohio

    January 2001      992,900 manufacturing jobs

    January 2009      671,000 manufacturing jobs

    July 2009             609,700 manufacturing jobs

    January 2013      655,100 manufacturing jobs

    January 2017      689,900 manufacturing jobs

    January 2020      697,000 manufacturing jobs

    July 2020             657,200 manufacturing jobs

    The best way to get the picture of factory jobs in Ohio is to look at that long-term chart.  It's bleak.  Ohio lost about 300,000 factory jobs under W.  "Recovery" didn't get close to getting back to the 1 million + factory jobs Ohio had under Bill Clinton.  They never even got back to the 767,000 jobs they had in December 2007, when the Great Recession started.

    You can look at Obama/Biden a few ways.  If you start counting from July 2009, at the bottom of The Great Recession, Ohio gained about 80,000 jobs.  Again, that didn't even get them back to December 2007, let alone December 1999. If you count the 61,300 jobs lost in the first six months of Obama/Biden, that works out to a new gain of 20,000 manufacturing jobs after eight years of Obama/Biden.

    I don't think Ohio factory workers look at this FRED data every month.  But I do think what the numbers speak to - stagnation, crappy paying jobs, addiction - is what we keep reading about that led them to gamble on President Toxic.

    On an objective level, President Toxic has made it worse.  There's over 30,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in Ohio than when he took office.  Even if you count from January 2017 to January 2020, pre-COVID-19, the "best economy ever" produced a net gain of about 7,000 factory jobs in three years.

    If the question is whether President Toxic brought jobs back, the answer is no.  If the question is whether those rich "job creators" took their tax cuts and created factory jobs, the answer is no.

    President Toxic will replay 2016 and blame all this on NAFTA and Destroyer Joe.  But there is a difference.   Trump speaks as if he isn't really President.  And he never really made promises.  But he is President.  And he did makes promises.  And people are not better off. 

    Biden can at least say in 7 1/2 out of 8 years the recovery created tens of thousands of jobs, without having to fill the trough of the greedy millionaires and billionaires.  Even if you count before the plague, President Toxic just couldn't do that.

    Jobs and the economy are not the only issue driving this election.  But to the degree people in Ohio vote on the reality of their jobs and lives, as opposed to the Trump Reality TV Show, it's not clear to me that President Toxic can pull this off.  I don't believe he can simply make the same promises that Smartest Business Genius Ever Donald Trump did in 2016.

     

    I'm not really responding to your post either other than to admit that my Miss Cleo comment is a stretch.  She wasn't really Jamaican, just played one on TV, and she left planet earth in 2016, so unless someone can reach her in the hereafter it wouldn't be prudent to compare the perfessor's predictions to her's at this juncture.  

    That said, I don't see his methods taking into account inferior campaigning ability, eg the post that reminded 'tis better to protect votes from being flipped.   Hillary discovered too late that Wisconson, etc. were being flipped.  Worst of all, effects of how fake news was weaponized against Hillary on social media, and how similar initiatives are underway now, is beyond his methodology.

    Back to Minnesota, CNN interviewd a blond female 2016 Trump voter from the MPLS suburbs on the news last night.  She discussed her concern that Biden has lost a few steps mentally and is not fit for the Oval Office.  Shitty unbalanced reporting, I thought.  Yet there are lots of folk like her thereabouts.  Minnesota is not a slam dunk for Biden, in my uneducated opinion.

     

    fargo-wood-chipper.jpg

    It's official: Trump Is History, Says The Prediction Professor

    in Politics

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

    Thanks for the clarification.  I think we're both right.

    I did misunderstand you at first.  I thought you were agreeing with O'Donnell's point about Democrats and deficits.  I just watched the clip you posted.  The context about what Mayor Pete said that O'Donnell was pissed about was not clear to me.  So I won't comment on whatever that was between O'Donnell and Mayor Pete.  But I think the point O'Donnell made about Democrats and deficits was important, and true.  I also think it's probably relevant to why Biden will win, and what happens after he wins.

    When Carter was President I was a kid.  My Dad, a lifelong Republican who'd occasionally split tickets and voted for moderate Democrats, used to have a rant about "the god damn Democrats and their deficit spending".   I'm a Clinton/Kasich deficit hawk.  And in that sense, I am very much my father's son. 

    So in a very brief history of what happened since Carter, there is Dick Cheney, who famously said that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.  There is that 1993 vote, that at the time Republicans argued would raise the deficit and destroy millions of jobs.  Bill Clinton still jokes that the Republicans were wrong by like 10 million jobs.  Many Republicans still argue that we has a budget surplus despite, rather than because of, Clinton.  Except for Republicans like Kasich, or Dole, who I think based on what I've read are actually among the Republicans who cut the deals with Clinton that got us where we were at the turn of the century.

    Obama inherited a trillion dollar + annual deficit, and cut it by about half.  After a few year's of President Toxic's "best economy ever", we were back to $1 trillion + deficits.  Which in the awful era of COVID-19 now looks modest, of course.

    I watch MSNBC a lot.  The progressive part of me gets that true Berniecrats think MSNBC has become the mouthpiece for former Republicans like Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt - who arguably created the problems that led to President Toxic.  That's a very long discussion I'll mostly jump over.  Other than to mention that the words "deficit" and "conservative" keep coming up. 

    So this week you have Morning Joe, a former GOP House member, going off repeatedly about how "conservative" used to mean you were for small government and surpluses and NATO.  Former GOP guru Stuart Stevens was on the Daily Show last night.   This is a very interesting conversation that tangents on all these points about Lichtman and Kasich and Meacham.

    STUART STEVENS - THE LINCOLN PROJECT AND "IT WAS ALL A LIE"

    I don't recall Stevens getting into the deficit specifically.  But he has one of the bleakest views I've heard so far of any Lincoln Project type about the future of the Republican Party.  His guess is that we'll have three parties in the future:  the Sanders Democrats (which maybe should be called progressives or progressive Independents), the Biden Democrats, and the Republicans.  increasingly, many Republicans like Stevens and Scarborough call themselves Independents.

    As a political proposition for 2020, these are just more very big nails and very big hammers in the coffin of President Toxic.  As a Democrat, I can't say I'm depressed about this.

    It will have big implications for what happens after 2020 with President Biden, or maybe someday President Harris.  Part of the reason I posted this is that Stevens says that in the future the important decisions will be made by Biden Democrats and Sanders Democrats.  The Republicans will gradually become less and less relevant.  I suspect part of the deal that is being cut, in effect, is that Kasich and Stevens want a place at the table when those deals are cut.  Stevens notes that eventually, the US will have universal health insurance of some form, like every other Western capitalist nation.  Kasich may be a Cabinet member on Team Biden come January.  We'll be paying for this plague for decades to come.  But if the Kasichs of the world want to be at the table, and they plan to do what they did in the 90's and argue for getting to surpluses again, I welcome them to speak up and be at the table.  Like I said, I am my father's son. 

    I can't tell for sure, but sometimes it at least sounds like Sanders and AOC (but not Warren, also a former Republican) believe that deficits don't matter.  In that regard, if I'm correct, they agree with Dick Cheney.  How weird is that?

    None of this - deficits, universal health care, Republicans like Stevens bailing on his former party - are directly measured by Lichtman's keys.  But I think they all come in through the back door - via his keys involving how people feel about the candidates, or whether they got important policy done, and  how that all impacted the overall economy.  Like Lichtman, I sense it's all more nails and hammers in President Toxic's coffin.

     

    Me, I was raised thinking that a huge deficit leads to inflation and worse.  And really, when some people in my town pay $1,000,000 for a 1800 square foot home, while other people live along the river because housing is too expensive, perhaps the point has already been proven, how the cost of housing and many other things has gone sky high.

    That said, as long as the rest of the world believes our currency is the best currency (Trump still hasn't fucked that up) then perhaps we can continue to party like it's 1999.

     

    What O'Donnell was getting at was the equivalent of click bait by twisting the facts.

    In the end,  Mayor Pete would probably agree with you. 

     

     

     

     

    6a1c7a7d-5890-4bbb-9bc7-062d8749f8e7-Thu

     

    It's official: Trump Is History, Says The Prediction Professor

    in Politics

    Posted · Edited by Pete1111
    Grammar

    5 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

    I mostly agree with you about Kasich.  Everything you said is why I would never vote for him.  I'm a Democrat.  In the context of 2020, I'd call myself a Warren Democrat.  

    That said, I'd make the same caveat I did already.  If the Democrats had elected, or ever elect, a "homegrown Mussolini", I hope I'd have the courage to do what Kasich is doing right now.  If you are right, and he is as conservative as you think he is, speaking up for "Socialist Radical Wannabe/But Senile Now" Joe Biden has to be painful.  Not to mention "Even Crazier Radical We're Conservative And White And We Say She's An Extremist And Not Really Black" Kamala Harris.  Ugh!  Poor Kasich.

    (By the way, just how racist can White conservatives get?  Is there no bottom?  Do they not realize that Whites were supposed to be out of the business of telling Blacks who they think is Black a very long time ago?  Really?  White conservatives are saying let's forget slavery ever happened, because it just doesn't matter in 2020.  Except for that part about Whites deciding who is Black.  Because that part was really cool, for Whites at least!  So we've decided Kamala is not Black.  Really?  Really?)

    I've started kind of a voodoo thread here.  It's about predictions and "keys" which can easily be dismissed as bullshit.  And I've elevated the voodoo element of it by speculating about what this election might be like on an alternative Earth with no COVID-19.

    So while I was watering my plants another question popped into my mind which I think is worth thinking about.  At least to me, it helps me think about what's moving the dial in 2020.  

    So if you want to play, here's your homework question.  Think about this:

    What would America be like right now if John Kasich was nominated by the Republicans in 2016 and won?  What if he was now President Kasich, and running for re-election?  And would he win, based on Lichtman's keys?

    I'll tell you some things I thing would be very different relating to both the recent past and near future.  And in all of this I'm just going to assume that all Lichtman's key are correct. I'm also going to intentionally mention some things that are small picture and personal and anecdotal, and some that are big picture and totally political.  My point in doing so is that this national shit show is affecting everybody in different ways.  On a personal level, it is tearing many families and friendships apart.

    First, Kasich would have won in 2016.  When Lichtman, a Democrat, called it for President Toxic in September 2016, he got a lot of shit from other Democrats.  He actually built in a caveat.  He said that his system predicts the incumbent party will lose, in a close race, based on fundamentals. So any Republican is likely to win, he said.  But he also said Trump could thwart his keys.  Because he is so unprecedented, and so divisive, that Clinton might win even though history is kind of stacked against her.   Kasich would likely have just made the predicted Republican victory a bit easier, I think.  

    I'm going to go with you, @tassojunior, and assume that that what Kasich did in Ohio after winning is a good model for what he would have done with a Republican House and Senate.  Which is to say, he would have taken some key "conservative" pieces - like he did with Right To Work in Ohio - and run with them.  So one thing for sure:  similarly conservative judges. 

    The interesting question is:  which "conservative" legislative pieces?  I put the word "conservative" in quotations because it's not clear to me that running up a $1 trillion annual deficit in good times is "conservative".    I'm not sure whether @pete1111 was supporting Laurence O'Donnell or scolding him for going after Mayor Pete for being wrong about Democrats and deficits.  But what O'Donnell said in a clip posted above is 100 % true.  He was there.  In 1993 the Democrats unilaterally passed a bill that set the course for a budget surplus in the late 90's.  And as O'Donnell said, several Congressional Democrats lost their jobs over that vote.  In my alternative Earth, it would be interesting to see whether President Kasich would have showed courage when wealthy Republican donors asked for their payback in the form of huge tax cuts that once again ran up a $1 trillion deficit - in what was supposedly "the best economy ever".

    You mentioned Medicaid, @tassojunior.  So I'll go with that on my alternative history, as well.  Which is to say, President Kasich would not have gone to court to kill Obamacare and inflame things even more,  so that nothing actually happened in the end.  He very likely would have tried to cut a deal from the center.  Whether that's because he's more Christian than President Toxic, or he has different political radar, who knows?  But if Kasich did the same thing as President that he did in Ohio, he would have pushed his party to compromise with Democrats and the voters on a very popular health care program.  What President Biden ends up doing if he has a Senate majority won't actually be all that different.  It will move the dial significantly, like Kasich did in Ohio.  But not nearly as much as Bernie or AOC want.

    On a personal level, I would probably have more Republican friends.  I recall a very fun dinner in Spring 2016 with two Republicans I was quite close to.  They said, not at all surprisingly, they wish their party would nominate Kasich - which was clearly not going to happen by that point.  I said that if you told me Hillary was going to lose, but I could pick which Republican she lost to, I'd pick Kasich in a heartbeat.  A year later we had a very similar fun get-together on the day that happened to be Gorsuch's confirmation hearing.  Both my former friends were surprised how mild and civil my reaction was.  And I was surprised they were surprised.  Like after 15 years, you don't think I know you are Republicans?  You don't think I know this is a Holy Grail for Republicans?  You don't think I know that Donald Trump is no Dwight Eisenhower, so he won't be appointing a William Brennan?

    The real nails in the coffin had nothing to with Bernie Sanders, or AOC, or Elizabeth Warren.  I get that Republicans tend to despise those types.  Nor did it have to do with my inability to tolerative conservatism, or principled conservatives like Gorsuch. 

    The nails for me were when Republican friends started telling that "RINOs" like John McCain and Jeff Flake and John Kasich and Susan Collins (on Obamacare) had to shut the fuck up and fall in line, or get out of the way.  Right or wrong, I became convinced - based on the exact words coming out of these people's mouths - that they decided Trump was right, winning mattered at all costs, winning was certainly more important than compromise or unity, and the ends justified almost any means.  It didn't help that one of these awful "RINO" attacks happened right after McCain and Collins and Murkowski "saved" Obamacare.  Obamacare (Covered California) is my health care plan.  And it has had a huge positive impact on poverty and health care affordability for millions.  The idea that the ends justify the means is even more distasteful when the end itself seems just plain cruel.  Which is pretty much who President Toxic is.  Just plain cruel, I think.  These are the things that gradually moved the dial from respect to contempt.

    So if there were a President Kasich, none of this would have happened - if we use what he did in Ohio as our guide.  Like I said, he likely would have cut some deal with the Democrats that put the health care issue to bed, at least for a while.  Like in the real world in Ohio, it would have been something very popular with voters.  That is exactly the kind of major policy that helps win elections, according to Lichtman.  Which is, of course, part of what Kasich might have had in mind.  On a personal level, I never would have had nails being pounded into the coffin of my friendships with Republicans.  Because Kasich, based on performance, is not a "win at all costs, because the ends justify the means" kind of guy.  

    You can of course argue that someone who is pro-abortion like Kasich is isn't exactly "unifying".  But you are dead wrong about this part of what you said above: 

    Actually, Kasich lost on right to work because the voters overturned the law he signed.  So it hardly made him "so popular". Here's what Wikipedia says:

    At the very end of his second term, he also said this: 

    First, let me make the most cynical interpretation.  Kasich conceded on principle after he got his ass kicked.  But he didn't change, really.  That may actually be true.  He is a conservative.  But he at least knew when when to stop the bleeding - including the political bleeding that could destroy him.  President Toxic doesn't play it that way.

    I think you can make a fair apples to apples with Kasich on Right To Work and President Toxic on The Wall.  And specifically the shutdown with Pelosi.  She absolutely kicked his ass.  It was very easy to guess she would win.  Because The Wall was wildly unpopular by early 2019.  And the programs affected by the shutdown were wildly popular, and badly needed by millions of people.  Pelosi actually got President Toxic to say, on camera, that fighting for The Wall was worth shutting down all those programs.  That it was his idea.

    So imagine Donald Trump saying this, to paraphrase Kasich, after he lost on the shutdown and The Wall:  "It's clear the people need these programs operating.  I heard their voices.  I understand the pain this has caused.  And frankly, I read the polls and respect what the people have to say about this."  A President Kasich would never have divided America over The Wall to start with.  But I can imagine him saying something like that as President, since he did say it as Governor.  President Toxic?  Give me a fucking break.

    The final substantive comparison I'll make is the most important one, in terms of speculating about whether an imaginary President Kasich could avoid the fate of President Toxic and actually be on path to win re-election - at least based on Lichtman's keys.

    Part of why I think there is a God, and she has a sense of gallows humor, and justice, is that President Toxic did this to himself.  China reports that their GDP grew by 3.2 % in the second quarter of 2020.  Even if they are lying, independent data from outside China seems to confirm economic growth there, not contraction.  Germany is having a rebound of COVID-19.  But their unemployment rate went from 5.1 % in March to 6.2 % in June.  In the US unemployment went from 4.4 % in March to 10.2 % in June, hitting a peak of 14.7 % along the way.  I don't think it's reasonable to think the US could have been just like China, or Germany.  But I also don't think it had to play out this badly in the US, either.

    Anything more I say about how Kasich might have handled COVID-19, and the economic impact, would be wild ass speculation.  But my strong guess is that Kasich would have been much more like Maryland's Larry Hogan, than like President Toxic.  As I said above, Republican Hogan still has 75 % approval on his handling of COVID-19 in Maryland.  President Toxic has 32 % approval in the US.  Kasich's protege, Mike DeWine, fell from 81 % approval on COVID-19 in late March - the best rating of any Governor - to 58 % in late July.  Even so, President Toxic would kill to have approval ratings like that.  On anything.  Which he has never had.  And never will.

    Would Kasich have been able to keep the economy out of recession, and stop the turning of these two economic keys that Lichtman says are the final nails in the Republican coffin?  Who knows.  But I do feel I know for sure that Republicans would be in a much better political position today under a President Kasich than under a President Toxic.  Even with COVID-19. 

    Lichtman would also point out that after impeachment, President Toxic needed to lose two more keys, for a total of six.  He has lost three more.  Kasich would never have been impeached.  So even if there were a minor recession, if he was perceived as being as competent as someone like Hogan, you can make a good case that Kasich might have been able to limit the pain of recession and the number of deaths, and survive politically.  He would have had more much more political wiggle room than President Toxic, I think.

    And on the subject of impeachment and ethics, I'll end my diatribe with one other example of the likely difference between President Toxic and President Kasich. 

    This one goes back to something very personal and anecdotal.  I've been having some pretty surprising heart to hearts with one of my escort buddies.  It's surprising because he's about 90 % less political than me, at least most of the time.  So the way it has worked for years is I'll go off and rant.  And he'll be kind enough to listen to my rant.  But now he's doing a lot of the ranting.  He's having a very difficult time with a sibling who he has been very close to, and who strongly supports Trump.

    His sibling has always been more conservative than him, and voted for President Toxic in 2016.  So none of this is new.  But like with me, he's experienced this as a slow and painful downward spiral. And, sorry, Richard Grenell.  What particularly agitates this escort buddy, who is actually pay for Gay (as opposed to Gay for pay) is his strong feeling that President Toxic gives LGBTQ folks lip service, and then stabs us in the back regularly.  His sibling and him have always been close.  And being Gay and also an escort has always been okay.  But this is causing a serious and deepening rift between them.  

    The first line of a draft email he wrote his sibling that he read to me started with this line:  "I have lost all respect for you."  Happily, before he read me the draft email or sent a final version he already decided to edit that line out.  Most of the email was a very thoughtful explanation of why he thinks President Toxic sucks.  Most of the reply was a thoughtful explanation of why his sibling thinks Trump is a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of undeserved shit just because he really wants to make America great again.

    I spent pretty much all of 2017 and 2018 avoiding saying to Republican friends, "I have lost all respect for you."  So I certainly get why my friend felt like saying that.  What struck both of us about the response was the complete absence of any awareness that President Toxic is .............. well, toxic.  Or divisive.  Or unethical.  Or mean.  Or that he was impeached.  Or that most of the people he's been closest to, who guided or greased his rise to power - Bannon, Manafort, Stone, Cohen - have been convicted of federal crimes (or in Bannon's case is accused of committing them).  This email argued that President Toxic is just a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of shit he doesn't deserve.  Meanwhile, my friend feels strongly that Trump is throwing Gays like him - who aren't rich and aren't conservative - right under the bus.

    So this is far worse than watching a political shit show between President Toxic and Biden and Pelosi.  It's ending friendships and tearing families apart - or threatening to - in ways I've never seen or experienced in my adult lifetime.  I'm someone who has spent my whole adult life working closely with Republicans - including getting them to front bipartisan amendments, or jumping in bed with them as an escort.  This really hasn't happened to me before President Toxic.  I'm even more surprised with people like my buddy, who has never been particularly political. 

    My interpretation of reality is this:  when you elect a President who only knows how to win by dividing, you should expect that there is going to be unprecedented division.

    One of my former friends actually fell into a rant about how he doesn't like having to hear all this loud noise about Trump back in Spring 2017, when we were going out to dinner one night.  Since we were going out to dinner, I really didn't want to point out that he voted for President Toxic, so he can just blame himself for the mess.  But I did ask him one question, which was something like this:  "When you voted for him, what did you actually expect?"  I think the answer was something like.  "Not this."  I let it pass, and we had a nice dinner.  But that is a question for the historians.  What did the base that elected President Toxic expect?  What do they expect now?

    I really can't imagine what I just described happening with my friend and his sibling playing out the same way under a President Kasich.  I would argue that, like Joe Biden, Kaich has been just slightly ahead of his party on most LGBTQ issues.  Which is not saying much, for either Kasich or Biden.  Here's an old (I think 2016) HRC fact sheet on Kasich if anyone wants the details.  Like with Biden, if you judge what they said or did in the 1990's based on the standards of what we've won, and what we are fighting for in 2020, it all sounds very bad.  I'd argue that Kasich on LGBTQ issues is very much like Kasich on Right To Work.  He knows when he has lost.  And he deals with it by trying to find a way to move on.  Hopefully, in a somewhat unifying manner.  The word "unify" is basic to his vocabulary.

    President Toxic, of course, does not know how to do that.  Or maybe he can't do it, because his base won't tolerate it.  The key point I try to always remember is he is symptom, not cause.  If President Toxic wasn't constantly playing to his base, would they vote for him, or give him money? 

    So on LGBTQ matters here is a June 2020 comprehensive list from HRC on all the ways President Toxic is throwing our community under the bus.  I doubt there will be a similar list in 2021 when Joe Biden is President.  Sorry, Richard Grenell.  Take your purse from your skit with Don, Jr. and shove it up your ass.

    If we had a President Kasich rather than a President Toxic, I think a lot of the worst parts of the last 3+ years might never have happened.  I don't think we'd be in worse shape with COVID-19.  Or with the economy.  I think there is very good reason to think we'd be in better shape on both counts.  I definitely think the nation would be less divided.  There would be much less tearing apart of friendships and families.  And for all these reasons, my guess is that Lichtman would be at least somewhat less likely to have already concluded that the incumbent Republican administration is headed toward defeat in November.

     

     

     

     

    I was scolding MSNBC's Lawrence O. 

    Buttigieg was stating a fact that Dems weren't talking about deficits.  O'Donnel tried to build a case against the comment and Buttigieg.  But O'Donnell had twisted the facts.  No candidate was talking about deficits.  That O'Donnell went after Pete was BS and seemed contrived.  That was near the end of my watching MSNBC and NBC.  They ought to do a better job of at least appearing agenda-free.  It's insulting.

     

    As far as Lichtman, I am not convinced his methodology is the perfect predictor of who will end up in the WH, for example Gore v Bush, he picked Gore.  Michael Moore also predicted a Trump win.  His methodology was entirely different than Lichtman and up until COVID he warned Trump might win again.  I'm worried too.

    Favorite Book as a Child

    in The Beer Bar

    Posted

    Back in the previous century we had something called encyclopedias.  My family had a set of World Book encyclopedias, and would also receive something called a Year Book covering the highlights of news, science, sports and so on that occurred during the prior year.  We also had a room with maps on the wall, our home state, the United States and the World maps.  I would spend time looking at the maps and then research in our encyclopedias about various places.   Back then we also had what was called an Almanac, with more facts and figures one could research.  

    As far as regular books, I recall a few that my aunt gave us but I was not a huge reader of fiction until I got a job at the public library during high school. 

    I do recall a favorite book on weather phenomenon, such as famous lightning, tornado, and flood events. 

    Of course that was well before weather and storm chasing became such a widespread

     hobby.

    dd1a2a8ff1d9b8255158d89cb5836ac5.jpg  

    It's official: Trump Is History, Says The Prediction Professor

    in Politics

    Posted · Edited by Pete1111
    grammar

    18 hours ago, TotallyOz said:

    It blows my mind. But, how many also believe in imaginary people and places? It is easy to convince someone who does not use logic or science as a basis for thinking.

    I have friends who are highly educated and post one conspiracy theory after another one. It blows my mind!

    For the 40% that love Trump, yes it is difficult to believe so many, including friends and coworkers, support the man, until I  remind myself that these people read Breitbart and worse, and watch Fox news and the newer channels that are even further to the right of Fox.

     

    I also have those types of acquaintances that believe in conspiracy theories.  

    I even find myself slipping into beliefs of conspiracy, that we are groomed by the media to believe a certain Dem candidate is anointed as having the right stuff, where certain segments of the media are willing to shoot form the hip to vilify anyone that steps out of line.  Example below.  

    But for now, all must do the right things to defeat Trump.  Anyone willing to continually trash Biden or Harris is suspect, IMO.

     

    Kamala Harris Vice President

    in Politics

    Posted

    4 hours ago, Latbear4blk said:

    Did you read their reading of a 5 days convention after one day? Pure bitterness and resentment. They are clearly playing for Trump team. It will be remembered. I always hated the inability to make editions here, but these days I AM LOVIN'IT. 

    A liberal use of that contemptuous term for a blacks posted from that account does not fool, no matter if referring to the cuisine at Cracker Barrel or quoting a previous president, the agenda is not too clever, and is not appreciated.  I wish it would stop, personally,  

     

    Besides, one can find audio of Nixon saying worse.   

    Kamala Harris Vice President

    in Politics

    Posted

    41 minutes ago, JKane said:

    daK3FoA.png

     

     

     

    Don't mean to interrupt TassJ arguments against Harris but could I quickly mention.....

     

    Yesterday COVID deaths:   

    France: 18

    Australia: 14

    Spain: 12

    UK: 11

    Japan: 10

    Germany: 8

    Canada: 5

    USA: 1,120

     

    Just so we're mindful of priorities and ..........agendas?

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