Archives for July 2016

Ephesians 6:5
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.

Discuss.

Colbert: Political week in review.

Young Turks: GOP loses it over Tim Kaine’s lapel pin.

Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship.

Glass Ceiling Broken:

• Stephen: Hillary breaks the glass ceiling.
• Daily Show: The DNC’s rocky start.
• Seth Meyers: A Closer Look at DNC Day 2:

• Stephen: an herstoric achievement–240 years in the making.
• James Corden: First Lady Obama wins the DNC opening night.
• Susie Sampson: Drump’s Campaign Manager on Donald Trump’s Penis
• The Late Show “Fight Song” feat.
• Songify Hillary’s historic night.
• Stephen: Obama, Biden and Kaine speak on night 3 of the DNC
• Maddow: Obama speech ‘politically priceless’ for Clinton
• Thom: Drumpf gets his talking points from Storm Front
• Trevor: Hillary’s acceptance speech.
• Bill Maher: New Rule — The notorious HRC
• Young Turks: Obama’s speech was so good even conservatives liked it.
• Stephen: The last O’Malley supporter
• Young Turks: Best lines from Hillary’s speech.
• ONN Lesser DNC Speeches: Walking in on Hillary and Bill
• Stephen: Clinton overcomes insurgent “fart-in,” accepts Democratic nomination:

• Hasan Minhaj: Why Hillary Clinton needs to beat Donald Drumpf
• Hillary prepares for her acceptance speech.
• Stephen Colbert and John Oliver Chat about Tim Kaine
• Daily Show: DNC Wrap-up
• Sam Seder: Michael Bloomberg rips Drumpf to shreds.
• Jimmy Kimmel: Bill’s sexy DNC speech
• PsychoSuperMom: “I’m With her”
• James Corden’s Glass ceiling and tip of the day for Bill-O-the-Clown
• Seth Meyers: A Closer Look at Hillary Accepting
• Stephen: Cartoon Hillary answers Republican questions.
• Mark Fiore: The Kremlin Convention
• Stephen: Hillary’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

The actor that every politician needs at rallies.

Mental Floss: 39 facts about the middle ages.

How a city’s economy depends on airports.

Young Turks: Republicans go BONKERS over Bradley Cooper (Sniper) at DNC.

What FAUX News aired Instead of the speech by fallen Muslim soldier’s father.

White House: West Wing Week.

Kimmel: Trump and Clinton puppets.

The Drumpfsputin Affair:

• Stephen: A question about Drumpf
• Seth knows why Drumpf won’t release his tax returns.
• Samantha Bee: Midnight in America.
• David Pakman: Drumpf takes 5 positions on minimum wage in 45 seconds.
• Maddow: Drumpf is a “unique and present danger”…
• Young Turks: Father of fallen American soldier delivers powerful speech against Drumpf
• Sam Seder: Drumpf wants to “hit [DNC] speakers so hard”.
• Thom: If Drumpf can’t handle a mean tweet, should he have the nuclear codes?
• Donald Drumpf is not allowed in America…according to Donald Drumpf.
• Young Turks: Drumpf’s response to DNC is classic PROJECTION
• Swagasaurus: Fuckboy Drumpf.:

• David Pakman: Drumpf defends serial harasser Roger Ailes.
• Thom: Pence may be more dangerous than Drumpf
• Young Turks: Drumpf asks Russia to commit crime against political opponent
• Sam Seder: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Drumpf burn is beautiful.
• David Pakman: Hundreds say Drumpf doesn’t pay his bills
• Nightly Show: Backstage with Drumpf.
• Young Turks: Drumpf is not in favor of freedom of the press
• Slate: Counting arbitrary things in Drumpf’s speech
• Kimmel: Drunk Donald Trumpf on napping.
• Trevor: Drumpf’s shady ties to Russia
• Samantha Bee: Fear mongering
• Young Turks: What is the best way to attach Drumpf?
• David Pakman: Drumpf denies meeting Putin after bragging about meeting Putin
• Try on a Drumpf hat and tell us how it feels.
• YG and Nipsey Hussle: “Fuck Donald Trump”
• Young Turks: Dumbshit Drumpf takes a swing at Tim Kaine (D), hits Tom Kean (R)
• Bad Lip Reading: Cruz talks Drumpf.
• Kimmel: The Troompa Loompas on hacking
• Young Turks: DNC speeches gave Drumpf a Twittergasm

Seth Meyers with Lenny Kravits on the Clintons.

Young Turks: Voter ID laws struck down.

Stephen: What’s the nicest thing you can say about your opposing party’s candidate.

How did the U.S. end up with a 2-party system?

Young Turks: All cops walk in Freddie Gray case.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Capt. Khan’s parents remember their son

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Clinton	Trump
97.8% probability of winning	2.2% probability of winning
Mean of 312 electoral votes	Mean of 226 electoral votes

Since the previous analysis, ten new polls have been released. Additionally, I fixed the Vermont poll that had Sec. Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s numbers reversed. As it happens a more current poll for Vermont was released.

Only a couple of the new polls were still in the field this week, but many of them were in the field last week, so lets call this the Post-RNC, Pre-DNC benchmark.

After 100,000 simulated elections, Clinton wins 97,843 times and Trump wins 2,157 times (including the 223 ties). Clinton received (on average) 312 to Trump’s 226 electoral votes. The results suggest that, in an election held now, Clinton would have a 97.8% probability of winning and Trump would have a 2.2% probability of winning.

Little has changed from the previous analysis. The most noticeable is Florida, which has decreased from a 56% chance for Clinton to a 37% chance. This reflects two older polls “aging out” and one new poll added. Trump leads in two of the three current polls. Here is the polling history, which makes Trump’s lead seem plausible:

The other noticeable change is New Hampshire’s shift from blue to red. An older ARG poll “aged out” and a new NH Journal poll has been added. The NH Journal poll has a surprisingly large +9.4% for Trump. The state has been close, but perhaps something about Trump has strongly resonated with NH voters. The polling history suggests this new poll is an outlier–Trump has not led in any of the previous 26 polls in NH, and suddenly he is up by nearly double digits.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]

Man, the last 2 days of the convention were also pretty great. Obama doing a greatest hits. Clinton doing a lot from her stump speech, but also some smart funny anti-Trump stuff. I thought listening to it that “No Donald, you don’t” was her in grandmother mode.

… I guess I should have checked the home page before I started writing the open thread. Oh well.

History will be made tonight, so talk about it….

6:02: Washington delegation has been raising hell all week

More WA delegates protest TPP and other causes on night of @HillaryClinton acceptance speech pic.twitter.com/U7Lt8dAOJH

— Jim Brunner (@Jim_Brunner) July 29, 2016

Tell me again how we need to keep violent people out of the US https://t.co/NARjdXMQI1

— Lee Rosenberg (@Lee_Rosenberg) July 29, 2016

It seems like a good idea for Ds to welcome Rs and conservatives who are willing to step up and admit the GOP nominee is a madman.

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) July 29, 2016

Abdul-Jabbar: “I’m Michael Jordan and I’m with Hillary…I said that of course because I know Donald Trump couldn’t tell the difference"

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 29, 2016

Read about Rev. William Barber, who just finished speaking at the #DemConvention: https://t.co/cUURDlTfFu https://t.co/rRTKFd5u0d

— POLITICO (@politico) July 29, 2016

Powerful speech by Captain Khan. Most scathing indictment of Trump.

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) July 29, 2016

Omigod, what a devastating critique of Trump from Khizr Khan, father of fallen Muslim veteran. #DemsInPhilly

— (((Goldy))) (@GoldyHA) July 29, 2016

6:28: Man…General Allen could be a voice-over actor for any general anywhere!

Comparing the two conventions, it's clear that Democrats are now the party of patriotic America, the future America, the real America

— Markos Moulitsas (@markos) July 29, 2016

7:30: Huh…Did you notice Hillary DIDN’T lightly grope her daughter?

7:39: “He has taken ” the GOP ” a long way, from ‘Morning in America’ to ‘Midnight in America’.”

She's never going to be as soaring an orator as BHO or as intimate as BC, but she's killing it, imo

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) July 29, 2016

"I accept your nomination for president of the United States!” —Hillary https://t.co/3Ffpf7W4Vz

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 29, 2016

Clinton: "Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again – well, he could start by actually making things in America again."

— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) July 29, 2016

“Imagine him in the Oval Office…a man you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons."

— Mike Warren (@MichaelRWarren) July 29, 2016

Looks like admitted lair and alleged campaign fraudster Tim “Biggest Lie of My Life” Eyman is going to get a close-n-personal tour of our criminal justice system:

Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Wednesday asked a Snohomish County Superior Court judge to hold Tim Eyman and his political committees in contempt for failing to turn over documents in as part of an investigation into the initiative promoter’s campaign finance practices.

Ferguson said he was also seeking a similar ruling from a Thurston County judge against signature gathering firm Citizen Solutions, saying that both Eyman and his committees have failed to meet a court-ordered deadline for disclosing the documents.

“Despite a subpoena and a court order, Tim Eyman continues to impede this investigation,” Ferguson said. “That’s unacceptable.”

Or…at least be fined $2000/day for every day he doesn’t turn over the subpoenaed documents.

I don’t know about you, but I’d settle for knocking a week or two off his sentence if he agreed to be frogmarched in his Darth Vader getup.

Have you been enjoying the Democratic convention? I think it has been pretty good. I’ve never been a big Bill Clinton fan, but you have to say when his speech was the most boring, it’s been a good couple nights.

Even in a couple days of stand outs, Michelle Obama’s speech was probably the best. I was only half listening to it while doing other things, but when she talked about waking up in a house built by slaves, my spine stood bolt up. I can’t imagine the feeling for decedents of slaves listening to it. I’m very proud to be a Democrat, and to keep pushing forward.

Clinton	Trump
97.1% probability of winning	2.9% probability of winning
Mean of 314 electoral votes	Mean of 224 electoral votes

The previous analysis consisted of almost entirely pre-RNC polls, and the Monte Carlo analysis, based only on polls, suggested that Donald Trump would have no chance of winning an election held then. We now have a half dozen new post-RNC polls, including polls in NC, OH, and NV. As you might expect, the post-RNC polls show Trump, now the G.O.P. nominee, doing better against the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

A change in this analysis is that I’ve tightened the “current poll” window from polls taken in the past three months to polls taken within the past month. This has two possible effects for each state. First, it makes the polling data more current, which is particularly important for an accurate portrayal of Trump’s performance. His image among Republicans has dramatically changed over the past 6 months, and we can expect he will start polling better now that he is the nominee. Additionally, the smaller “current poll” window will increase the uncertainty for many states just because there are fewer polled individuals included. Thus, we see some states turn from solid in the previous analysis to strong in this analysis.

Now, after 100,000 simulated elections, Clinton wins 97,074 times and Trump wins 2,926 times (including the 205 ties). Clinton received (on average) 314 to Trump’s 224 electoral votes. In an election held now, Clinton would have a 97.1% probability of winning and Trump would have a 2.9% probability of winning.

Update: Yes…Vermont is the wrong color on account of a data entry error for one VT poll. This has been corrected for the next analysis.

Did Trump get a convention bump? It appears so.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]

A week ago during a convention’s prime-time broadcast we heard from the Duck Dynasty guy and Scott Baio. At a different convention a week later, we heard from Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Warren. One of the conventions seems serious. Please join us tonight for an evening of political pontification and convention chatter at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. We start at 8:00pm.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. Tonight, the Tri-Cities chapter meets. On Wednesday, the Burien and the North Spokane chapters meet. The Kent and Woodinville chapters meet on Thursday. And next Monday, the Yakima and South Bellevue chapters meet.

There are 184 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.

This is going to be pretty specific, and even if it’s not, it’s about a comic that ended its run in 2008, so feel free to just ignore me here, and jump right into calling each other names in the comments, or whatever goes on there.

I just finished Y The Last Man. It was so good, although I didn’t love the denouement. It was well plotted, and I kept being like I’ll just read one more chapter. Oh, just one more. Until, I finished all of the books as quickly as being a library user can. I mentioned a while ago that I’m still pretty new to comics, but that was by far the best I’ve read since starting up again.

Senate Democrats*	Senate Republicans
11.4% probability of a majority	88.6% probability of a majority
Mean of 48 seats	Mean of 52 seats

Control of the Senate is up for grabs this fall. My previous analysis showed Democrats with a average of 49 seats and Republicans with 51 seats, putting the Democrats in range to flip the Senate. That was over a half year ago, so it is time to update the analysis using a plethora of new polls released since then.

After 100,000 simulated elections, Democrats have a Senate majority 1,914 times, (and there were 9,521 ties), and Republicans control the Senate 88,565 times. If the election was now, Democrats would have an 11.4% probability of controlling the Senate and Republicans an 88.6% probability of controlling the Senate. Of course, if Republicans end up in the White House, the ties would go to them.

Here is the distribution of Senate seats from the simulations:^*

The most likely outcome is a 52 to 48 split with Republicans in charge. Here are some state-by-state comments.

Florida: Without question, the return of Marco Rubio to the Senate race has changed the likely outcome. Democrat Patrick Murphy has a fight on his hands. Polls occasionally favor Murphy, but the most likely outcome is a victory for Rubio (assuming they both come out on top in the August 30 primary).

[Read more…]

Exodus 35:2
For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.

Discuss

Political conventions are stupid.

Mental Floss: 26 Things that Inspired Movies.

James Corden with Michelle Obama: Carpool Karaoke:

Young Turks: Koch brothers cut funding of disobedient Republicans.

Farron Cousins: Rep. Steve King goes full “Grand Wizard” on MSNBC.

Sam Waterson: Important convention history

The 2016 Drumpf Shit Show:

• Trevor: “Make America Fear Again”
• Stephen catches Brett Baier hording Mustard at the RNC. #Mustardgate
• Slate: Melania’s OTHER bit of plagiarism.
• Dangerous President.
• Drumpf lightly gropes his daughter Ivanka.
• Nightly Show: The Kiss
• Stephen: The RNC finally got exciting.
• Samantha Bee: Born again in the USA
• Roy Zimmerman: TrumpPence (Feed the Birds):

• Stephen checks in with the African American delegate.
• Miserable Liberal: Donald Drumpf quotes give strength to those who most need it
• Trevor: It’s official…Drumpf nominee. And Ted.
• Everything will kill you according to the RNC
• Behind the scenes of Drumpf’s Twitter
• Stephen: So much Day 1 drama….
• The GOP freak show in two minutes
• Daily Show: When was America last great?
• James Corden: Taking a page from Melania’s book
• Stephen: Who is Mike Pence again?
• Samantha Bee: Not ready for prime time
• David Pakman: Unhinged underwear model at RNC, “I believe Obama is a Muslim”
• Young Turks: Drumpf advisor calls for the execution of Hillary
• James Corden welcomes Mike Pence and Scott Baio to the GOP spotlight.
• Jonathan Mann: The T is doing the P:

• Slate: some of the weirder swag at the Drumpf convention.
• Young Turks: Recap of Drumpf’s acceptance speech.
• Colbert with The Word: “Trumpiness.”
• Stephen does Hungry for Power Games at RNC
• Sam Seder: Drumpf “has sociopathic tendencies” says Art Of the Deal ghostwriter
• Seth Meyers: A Closer Look at the rough start
• Trevor: Make America Hate Again, staring Chris Christie
• Mike Pence has been a disaster for Indiana.
• Slate: How to impersonate Donald Drumpf
• Drumpf and Pence together on 60 minutes
• David Pakman The woman who took the fall for Melania’s plagiarized speech
• Thom: Drumpf is a scam…. G.O.P voters are actually voting for Pence
• Stephen: The RNC is like Christmas in July
• Kimmel on plagiarizing speeches
• Seth Meyers: A Closer Look at Mike Pence
• Slate: Every time the Drumpf campaign lied about Melania’s speech
• Seth Meyers: Republicans focus on attacking Hillary…a closer look
• Farron Cousins: FL AG Bondi and Drumpf sued in “pay to play” scheme.
• Stephen: Melania did not plagiarize her speech.
• Jimmy Dore interviews delegates on the floor.
• James Corden: Recapping opening night
• Samantha Bee: RNCinCLE check-in day 1
• Samantha Bee: RNCinCLE check-in day 2
• James Corden: The odd day 3
• David Pakman: Trump ends RNC with lying scam speech that KKK leader loved
• Stephen with Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “He sounded like a two-bit dictator”
• Drumpf throws down
• The Republican freak show
• Stephen: Drumpf accepts.
• Seth Meyers: Drumpf accepts…a closer look
• Obama debunks Drumpf’s convention speech.
• Roy Zimmerman: “Speechless”
• Jon returns to take down GOP bullshit:

• Slate: What did you think when Melania said….
• Dangerous President
• Stephen and Keegan-Michael Key on Drumpf, “His mind is free.”
• MoJo asks Drumpf supporters How should Clinton be punished for her alleged transgressions.
• Stephen sure knows how to make an entrance.

Jimmy Dore: Political jokes of the week.

Farron Cousins: Right wing voting laws getting killed in the courts.

Minute physics: Hitting the sun is hard.

White House: West Wing Week.

The party of Jebus meets a Muslim.

Young Turks are interrupted on their set by Alex Jones and Rodger Stone.

Young Turks: The Post-Alex debriefing.

Climate Change: 2016 is hottest year on record.

Blue on Black Violence:

• Young Turks: Unarmed submissive black man shot by cops.
• Trevor: Breaking the cycle of police violence.
• Young Turks: Cop assaults woman and explains, “blacks have violent tendencies.”
• David Pakman: Another unarmed black man shot…while laying on the ground with his hand up

Young Turks: KKKer David “Douchebag” Duke to run for Senate.

Stephen Colbert with Lewis Black.

The climate change ad that FAUX News didn’t want viewers to see.

John Oliver with some Endorsements.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Looks like more cost overruns and delays for the downtown tunnel.

We seem to be a lot better at making rail tunnels than car ones. So I say we should just make a commitment now to put rail in there. Then things will start to go swimmingly. It can be like the Gerorge Benson Streetcar, but without the view or most of the stops.

Clinton	Trump
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 338 electoral votes	Mean of 200 electoral votes

The day of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech is a good time for another poll analysis, I figure. There are 121 new polls added since the previous analysis. A handful of them are newly-discovered older polls, but the majority are newly-released polls. Fifty one of the polls come from a 50-state + D.C. Morning Consult series that was conducted over the preceding three months. The data are newly released, but are not necessarily the most current.

I should mention that only a few polls include surveys conducted this week, and none of them fully cover the G.O.P. convention. So think of this as the pre-conventions baseline analysis. Subsequent analyses will gradually include polls taken after the Republican National Convention. Of course, the same thing will happen following the Democratic National Convention early next month.

As with the previous analysis, a batch of 100,000 simulated elections has Clinton winning 100,000 times and Trump winning 0 times. Clinton received (on average) 338 to Trump’s 200 electoral votes. In an election held now, Clinton would have a 100.0% probability of winning.

Notice, however, that Clinton’s average electoral vote total has dropped a bit from a mean of 354. We should expect at least some improvement for Trump as Republican voters accept and, in many cases, embrace him as the G.O.P. nominee.

There are two striking things about this analysis compared to the previous. First, many of the “outlier” states have “fallen in line” with expectations from recent elections: Nevada has gone from Red to Blue, Arizona from Blue to Red, Colorado from Red to Blue, Kansas from Blue to Red, Missouri from Blue to Red, Mississippi from Blue to Red and Kansas from Blue to red.

The second thing is that many states have become more polarized in the direction expected. You can look at the current map and the previous map to see this easily. For instance, many traditionally blue states have become “bluer”: e.g. OR, WA, MN, WI, MA and NJ. And many traditionally red states have gotten redder: TX, AR, LA, GA, UT, and ND are examples.

In other words, the states are falling into line as we would expect from previous elections. This suggests to me that this will be a conventional election with the battlelines coming down to the battleground states of recent elections. For the moment, Clinton leads in most of those battleground states in the East (PA, VA, NC, FL), Midwest (IA, WI, MI, OH), and West (CO, NM, NV). Of these, IA is very close, but trending toward Trump in the most recent polls, and Florida shows a slight trend in Trump’s direction.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]