william.scherk

It's a big day in Q-world.  Happy Anniversary of Hillary Clinton's looming arrest ...

On 9/24/2020 at 9:29 AM, william.scherk said:

On 9/17/2020 at 9:41 AM, william.scherk said:

What does Russia want? FBI Directory Wray has a few ideas ...

FBI Director Wray: "We certainly have seen very active, very active efforts by the Russians to influence our election in 2020...to both sow divisiveness and discord and...to denigrate Vice President Biden."

Today, another statement by the FBI director:

Christopher Wray: FBI has not seen evidence of national voter fraud effort by mail

"When I am re-elected, I will finally unveil my Health Care Plan, but before that, I am going to fire all the people I appointed who are Moderate Deep State." Said nobody.

But here is Swann and Treene of Axios with another 'sources said' item:  Scoop: Trump's post-election execution list.

This is an unexpected intervention: Putin rejects Donald Trump's criticism of Biden family business.

From the front porch of OL, a late comment on the face that launched a thousand gripes.

Sage advice, or slightly wrong, or what? This was just posted yesterday: 

Quote

In any debate, when one candidate has a more imposing physical presence and a greater ability to discuss issues, it makes little sense to interrupt and thereby lend sympathy to the flailing and the frail.

The nonstop advice that Trump is receiving, often from the very swing voters he needs to win over, is sound—be aggressive in pressing Biden for answers without being interruptive or rude; smile and relax; don’t grimace, eye roll or scowl. Trump knows what he must do because he did it well enough in the town hall, and saw Vice President Pence do it effectively against Kamala Harris—firmly demonstrate to the American people that Biden cannot honestly answer questions because to do so for him would either offend the Left or the majority of the American people.

On substance Trump need not recount all the litanies of injury suffered at the hands of the media/progressive party fusion. He has done so and earned our empathy. But that was then, and this is now—and now is the very future of the country.

From his frenetic pace on the campaign trail, Trump has mastered four-five minutes of reviewing his record. And it is one he can run on and win: expanding the economy, stopping most illegal immigration, empowering minorities economically in historic fashion, making superb judicial appointments, recalibrating U.S. foreign policy on Iran and the Middle East, confronting China, restoring the industrial heartland, and ending optional overseas interventions while increasing the military budget. And he can recount all this with “we” rather than “I” as he so often does on the campaign trail.

[...]

Trump should expect the moderator to be biased. But so what?  They all have been and most likely will always be.

Trump should now be ready for—and the American people are already bored by—the gotcha questions and the ‘when did you stop beating your wife’ monotonies. He need not get mad, but get even by rising above both. So when he debates both Biden and the moderator, he can laugh at their desperation in the Reagan fashion of “there you go again”.

On the scandals he need not go into the weeds of Mueller, China, Burisma, and the labyrinth of Clinton-Obama-Biden corruption. Most don’t want to hear the details.

[...]

Trump can frame his own exasperation with the Left’s assault on our institutions in a bipartisan appeal:

“Whatever your politics, join me in restoring our institutions. Americans, left or right, Republican or Democrat, cannot remain free if our traditional and social media are not independent and fair. None of us will have a future if our elite collude with China to further its interests over ours. Without the police, none of us are safe, in the inner city or the suburbs. And we all want Washington officials to serve Americans, not waste our precious resources trying to destroy them. Don’t help Joe Biden make America into something it never was and must never be.”

[...]

I believe that this debate tonight will be Trump's to lose. He doesn't have to do anything other than be in the moment. 

I think Biden may have over-prepared, to the point of having his mind bulging with set-pieces and statistics and other wonkish detail.  

I believe Trump knows how to show strength and iron will -- without rancor or belligerence.

-- the New York Times has a handy note for debate watchers. 

[Corrected "in Miami"]

On 8/6/2020 at 1:10 PM, william.scherk said:

On 8/6/2020 at 12:33 PM, Peter said:

I predict President Trump will be President until . . .  2024

I'll wait till the end of October (surprises?) before I post a final prediction. My last prediction was that Kamala Harris would not be chosen to be on the ticket with Biden ... 

I should mention again a neat interactive toy at the Cook Political Report website.  Here's a static screenshot of the tools on the page:

The five sliders allow slight or major adjustment to the prior assumptions about turnout differentials. In other words, given the assumptions of the Cool Political Report forecast, you can nudge up or down variables in their model. For example, just decreasing the number of "White non-college graduate" who may vote for Biden ... results in a Trump Electoral College victory.  

Michael's Front Porch advice is in line with his general contentions about polling, but he asserts that 'polls in the fake news media' will get close to reality about one week out.

On 10/6/2020 at 10:30 AM, william.scherk said:

A strong position on polls from the Front Porch:

On 10/4/2020 at 9:06 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

All polls in the fake news media are wildly inaccurate, but they will get closer to reality starting about one week before the election.

That last week will be a month's worth of intense hoopla away.  I won't comment on "The Polls" until then, but leave a link to the 270toWin.com interactive Electoral College map.  

If the race is "tightening up" or  the lying fraudster pollster-industrial complex conspirators finally release 'true'-ish state-by-state survey results, you can get ahead of the curve and design a likely scenario.  This can serve two purposes -- helping to lessen any worries by giving a rational and reasonable model for what you should expect once the votes are in and counted -- and allowing a focus on the races ('swing' or battleground or 'toss-up') you think could be decisive. 

Examples from 270toWin:

A strong position on polls from the Front Porch:

On 10/4/2020 at 9:06 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

All polls in the fake news media are wildly inaccurate, but they will get closer to reality starting about one week before the election.

The reason is, before that one week period, they are not polls intended to reflect reality. They are, in practice (but not name), suppression polls. Their purpose is to manipulate public perception, thus alter their voting habits and choices.

A week out from election day, the fundamental nature of these polls changes. Suddenly correct types of people will be polled in the correct quantity and some of the polls will be published. These polls are, in practice (but not name), cover-your-ass polls.  

A polling company that is wrong about everything close to election day loses clients for the next go around.

There is one kind of poll that tends to be accurate (and, even then, not all the time). This is called an "internal poll" and is rarely published. This is only for insiders.

When you start seeing weird shit that looks like Hail Mary passes by one political party or another, that means the internal polls are looking like hell for their side and they are panicking. That's when a lot of "muh racists" campaigns start, for instance.

 

Discuss and argue about polls if you like. But it's the same thing as talking about a game show teams. One week out is the time to start talking about polls in relation to the actual election and be somewhere in the ball park of reality.

Michael

Set your "Now I Can Look At Polling" clocks for the week of October 25th. 

All Polls Are Wrong, but 'some just smell so sweet' ... a mention of a hopeful sign in polling on the President's Twitter account. 

I've been hiding my addiction to YouTube pundits perhaps not well, but I should mention a relatively-small account that I have been paying attention to for months. The guy producing the video below is still in high school and does not show obvious signs of communism, but is biased towards Biden (as may be much of his demographic). He doesn't have much if any impact on a larger discourse (ie, he's no million-subscriber presence like Tim Pool or David Pakman, has no invites from networks), but is such a wonk that he goes Harry-Enten-deep on every raft of polling that surges down the river ... and uploads fresh video at least twice a day.

Here he is after having fed the latest public opinion output into his maw. If you want a sample of how a left-leaning mini-pundit with Electoral OCD interprets the latest in context -- or how he misinterprets wildly-wrong estimations ...

The experimental studio club worked, but the sound quality was atrocious. For the next watch night I'll radically simplify my use of StreamYard -- without interposing my audio mixer or video mixer. 

The debate I watched last night was an ordeal, given that the moderator lost control of the format early on. The best part of the pre-debate coverage (FoxNews) for me was when the Trump clan came out to take their seats. 

Here is a dumb idea taking shape: 

At the link is your key to enter the Live backstage 'studio' at StreamYard. You will need a laptop or desktop and a Chromium-based browser (almost all browsers today are, but Chrome and Firefox are problem-free). You also need to agree to add your microphone and add yourself to the show. You can use a camera or not. It will not be recorded by StreamYard or me.

[Defunct link] https://streamyard.com/rf964nzp8p

Who would have thought that Kamala Harris became a prosecutor to protect victims of sexual abuse?

On 9/17/2020 at 9:41 AM, william.scherk said:

What does Russia want? FBI Directory Wray has a few ideas ...

FBI Director Wray: "We certainly have seen very active, very active efforts by the Russians to influence our election in 2020...to both sow divisiveness and discord and...to denigrate Vice President Biden."

Today, another statement by the FBI director:

Christopher Wray: FBI has not seen evidence of national voter fraud effort by mail

Quote

FBI Director Christopher Wray responded to a question on the security of mail-in voting to the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday by saying that the agency has "not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise."

Why it matters: President Trump has ramped up his claims, without evidence, that widespread mail-in voting would rig the 2020 election against him. On Wednesday, after declining to say whether he would commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses the election to Joe Biden, Trump said that "the ballots are out of control."

Via NBC:

That's not what notable election-security elitist Donald J Trump Junior thinks ...

Director Wray seems to be speaking directly to Junior ...

Insert C-SPAN video of Homeland Security committee hearing when/if it appears on the site.

Enough about the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. Today another very large set of reports is unleashed from the "FinCEN Files," based on leaks from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the US Treasury Department ...

From Reuters, caution and the view from the banks ...

Quote

Leaks from the U.S. financial intelligence unit will have a devastating effect on the trust and confidentiality that underpins the anti-money laundering (AML) profession, financial crime experts said. Businesses that file suspicious activity reports (SARs) will be deeply concerned about the exposure of their compulsory and legally protected filings, said sources with experience in both the private sector and law enforcement.

The U.S. Treasury’s anti-money laundering agency, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), has suffered a major security breach, with media outlets preparing to publish a raft of articles based on its sensitive data holdings. The work is being coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which was behind the Panama Papers and a number of other “data leak” projects.

FinCEN has said in a statement it was “aware that various media outlets intend to publish a series of articles based on unlawfully disclosed SARs, as well as other sensitive government documents, from several years ago”. ICIJ has not responded to requests for comment.

From Buzzfeed, the result of a deep dive into the links.

Quote

A huge trove of secret government documents reveals for the first time how the giants of Western banking move trillions of dollars in suspicious transactions, enriching themselves and their shareholders while facilitating the work of terrorists, kleptocrats, and drug kingpins.

And the US government, despite its vast powers, fails to stop it.

Today, the FinCEN Files — thousands of “suspicious activity reports” and other US government documents — offer an unprecedented view of global financial corruption, the banks enabling it, and the government agencies that watch as it flourishes. BuzzFeed News has shared these reports with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 news organizations in 88 countries.

These documents, compiled by banks, shared with the government, but kept from public view, expose the hollowness of banking safeguards, and the ease with which criminals have exploited them. Profits from deadly drug wars, fortunes embezzled from developing countries, and hard-earned savings stolen in a Ponzi scheme were all allowed to flow into and out of these financial institutions, despite warnings from the banks’ own employees.

Global financial corruption. Who woulda thunk it?  From Memeorandum ...

Spoiler

Jason Leopold / BuzzFeed News:

Deadly Terror Networks And Drug Cartels Use Huge Banks To Finance Their Crimes.  These Secret Documents Show How The Banks Profit.  —  A huge trove of secret government documents reveals for the first time how the giants of Western banking move trillions of dollars in suspicious transactions …

Discussion:

Will Fitzgibbon / ICIJ:   Unchecked by global banks, dirty cash destroys dreams and lives

RELATED:

NBC News:

Secret documents show how North Korea launders money through U.S. banks  —  WASHINGTON — North Korea carried out an elaborate money laundering scheme for years using a string of shell companies and help from Chinese firms, moving money through prominent banks in New York, according to confidential bank documents reviewed by NBC News.

Discussion:

Taegan Goddard / Political Wire:   Documents Show How North Korea Launders Money

Tom Warren / BuzzFeed News:

Documents Show Deutsche Bank's Top Executives Were Warned It Had A Dirty Money Problem.  Then A $10 Billion Scandal Broke.  —  When the $10 billion mirror trading scandal was exposed, little emerged about who its victims were or how much Deutsche's executives knew.  The FinCEN Files investigation shows how deep the rot went.

ICIJ:

Global banks defy U.S. crackdowns by serving oligarchs, criminals and terrorists  —  Secret U.S. government documents reveal that JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and other big banks have defied money laundering crackdowns by moving staggering sums of illicit cash for shadowy characters and criminal networks …

BuzzFeed News:

We Got Our Hands On Thousands Of Secret Documents.  Let's Break Them Down.  —  Twenty-two thousand pages of never-before-released government documents.  Hundreds of thousands of transactions.  More than $2 trillion.  A close accounting of BuzzFeed News' unprecedented trove.  —  Copy

Discussion:

Emilia Díaz-Struck / ICIJ:   Download FinCEN Files transaction data

more at Mediagazer »

13 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Wray is looking more and more like he will be replaced.

Oh? That's kind of a passive construction.  When will he be replaced, by your reckoning?  And why would he be replaced?

12 hours ago, tmj said:

Exactly how do you denigrate a touchy feely, senile , racist skinflint?

This doesn't appear to say anything about Russian goals.  Please try to stay on topic.

What does Russia want? FBI Directory Wray has a few ideas ...

Some Q-Watchers have well-developed senses of humour.  Martin Geddes is one of the most entertaining of front-bench Q-whisperers.

Vice President Pence is dismissive of Q ... After Trump praise, Pence decries QAnon 'conspiracy theory'

"I don’t know anything about QAnon, and I dismiss it out of hand."

Quote

 Vice President Mike Pence is dismissing QAnon as a “conspiracy theory,” drawing a line of distinction between himself and President Donald Trump, who earlier this week suggested he appreciated supporters of the theory backing his candidacy.

“We dismiss conspiracy theories around here out of hand,” Pence said Friday on CNN's “New Day," saying he had heard Trump's comments and subsequently decrying the media that “chases after shiny objects.”

Asked on CBS' “CBS This Morning” if he was inflaming attention on the group by not going on the record to oppose it, Pence decried “spending time on a major network to talk about some conspiracy online theory,” later adding, "I don’t know anything about QAnon, and I dismiss it out of hand." [...]

What does the current actor performing Q have to say?  Not much.

On 11/30/2018 at 4:05 AM, Jonathan said:

On 11/29/2018 at 4:52 PM, william.scherk said:

What is QAnon?

No. I didn't ask that.

On 11/29/2018 at 4:52 PM, william.scherk said:

Jon Letendre touts QAnon here on OL as a true believer.

Ah. So, you're interested in discussing Jon, not Q. Why not do so? That might be interesting.

On 11/29/2018 at 4:52 PM, william.scherk said:

Jon Letendre touts QAnon here on OL as a true believer.  In terms of "passion for Q,"  I can't beat that devotion. If somebody says that they do not understand why I find the gap between Objectivist epistemology and QAnon whoopee interesting or notable, that's not a problem for me.

Blank-out, as they say.

Hahaha. Wow, that was so smooth, Billy! Seamless! I didn't even see what happened. No one did.

Believing in bullshit (or not applying a coherent realist/small-O epistemology) is not an Objectivist virtue. In my opinion, Q is a fraud and a distraction with all the trappings of a cult movement. It boggles my mind that Objectivish people accept either the soft or hard version of the Q lore, or find the foundational premises of Q captivating in themselves.

On 11/30/2018 at 4:10 AM, Jonathan said:

Billy, one more suggestion. Aim higher. Go bigger. You're very bright, and can bite off and chew much more.

Yeah, about that. Since my first posting of this topic, rational takes on the phenomena have skidded off the runway, and the rotten epistemology has proliferated. Yesterday, a most cynical day, the President put his finger on the problem, the skid of reason. Since the tut-tut pat on the head above, realism and objective epistemology is on its way to the ditch.

3 hours ago, Peter said:

From The Heritage Foundation. Types of Voter Fraud.

We have a topic that dates back to 2016 ...

As well ...

3 hours ago, Peter said:

What if election day comes and goes but Americans are are still waiting for the absentee ballots to come in and be counted? That is not good. And there is a greater chance of fraud.

Mail your absentee ballot as soon as possible in your jurisdiction if you prefer to vote by mail, or take advantage of early voting.

(The US Postal Service has warned 46 states that all their ballots are not likely to be processed and delivered to the counting sites in time.  Why is that?)

Quote

Voting Information for Maryland Voters

Vote by Mail Anyone registered to vote in Maryland can vote a mail-in ballot. Just submit a request for a ballot, and we’ll send it to you. After you vote your ballot, you must return it to your local election office by mail, by dropping it in a drop-off box, or by taking it to your local election office. You can mail your voted ballot or take it to your local election office at any time. A list of designated drop off locations will be included with your ballot. If you request a mail-in ballot and decide to vote in person, you will have to vote a provisional ballot.

Voting federally in Canada is dead simple. You get one vote for your local candidate. That's it. Paper ballots, handmarked. Put in a box and opened under the scrutiny of party or independent designates. Counting supervised by the independent-of-government body, Elections Canada. Every single competent adult citizen is eligible -- except for the head and deputy at Elections Canada.

I do not envy Americans this election season.  The amount of misinformation is mounting and coming from all sides. If ever there was a time to rely on Objectivist epistemology, it is this season.  Just for making sense of the exaggerated nonsense and spin and BS.

To check in on the vulnerabilities of the particular electronic/paper balloting in your state/county, please consult VerifiedVoting.com. It's been updated for 2020. You can start just about anywhere on that site, but here is a map overview to match and compare your own state rules and procedures to other responsible entities (direct link https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#mode/navigate/map/ppEquip/mapType/normal/year/2020 ) :

[Edited for clarity and spelling 2:06 Pacific]

Harry Enten is a hell of a wonk. Since he has left 538 for CNN, his analyses have been what you might expect ... Biden is holding a lead. Why? Emphasis added.

Quote

[...] But perhaps more importantly is why the polls simply haven't moved very much during this campaign.
 

Both candidates are very well known. When asked whether they had a favorable or unfavorable view of Trump, well north of 70% of voters have either a strongly positive (favorable) or negative (unfavorable) opinion of him -- the highest on record by far. More than 50% say the same for Biden in an average of polls, which is the highest on record for a challenger.
 

When I pointed out the phenomenon of two well known candidates in early May, Biden's lead was 6 points nationally. Biden has received a small bump in the polls since that time, though one is very small by historical standards.
 

Indeed, there isn't a whole lot about this race that isn't historic. From Biden's lead to the candidates not being able to go out and campaign as usual, the 2020 election has been surreal. We'll have to see if it has another surprise or two left in it.

Harry's old gang at 538 has released its 2020 Forecast. One reason you might want to make note of this forecast today ... it will come in handy as a locus of scorn and schadenfreude if election results don't bear much relation to their model.

Might as well keep this open as a place to post insanely-wrong, weird, and unusually-stupid takes on Harris.

Birtherism, anybody?.

This lady most likely will take a seat in the House come January.

Great, a QAnon DF and a 9/11 Truther.  She's the total package.

On 8/6/2020 at 1:10 PM, william.scherk said:

My last prediction was that Kamala Harris would not be chosen to be on the ticket with Biden ... this should be known in a few days.  I am currently stocking metaphorical "crow" ...

I usually get these things wrong.

In any case, here's a fun headline from Nate Silver of all people ...

It’s Way Too Soon To Count Trump Out

Quote

[...]

While the polls have been stable so far this year, it’s still only August. The debates and the conventions have yet to occur. Biden only named his running mate yesterday. And the campaign is being conducted amidst a pandemic the likes of which the United States has not seen in more than 100 years, which is also causing an unprecedented and volatile economy.

Nor has it been that uncommon, historically, for polls to shift fairly radically from mid-August until Election Day. Furthermore, there are some reasons to think the election will tighten, and President Trump is likely to have an advantage in a close election because of the Electoral College.

On 6/30/2020 at 3:02 PM, william.scherk said:

Many leading lights of the QAnon movement just got together for a "pre-launch virtual live-stream" -- if I understand correctly, this will be the first of more "Virtual Conventions." Click the image or this link to visit: https://qcon.live

The next scheduled virtual convention is coming up soon -- according to the website Chemtrail J and I visit on occasion.

More kerfufflage re QAnon fanciers running for the GOP ... ignoring Mr Chemtrail Whoopee

Trump congratulates QAnon conspiracy theorist on GOP runoff win

Quote

Why it matters: The president's approval illustrates how the once-fringe conspiracy theory has gained ground within the GOP. Greene is among the at least 11 GOP candidates for Congress who have openly supported or defended the QAnon movement or some of its tenets, per Axios' Jacob Knutson.

What he's saying: "Congratulations to future Republican Star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big Congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent. Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up - a real WINNER!" Trump tweeted.

How it works: QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory that purports without proof that posts by an anonymous internet user from within the federal government are alluding to a secret war that the "deep state" is waging against President Trump.

• Its growing influence is sowing fear and confusion around some of today's most important issues, such as election integrity and the coronavirus pandemic, write Axios' Stef Kight and Sara Fischer.
• The FBI identified QAnon and other fringe conspiracy theories as domestic terrorist threats in 2019, according to Yahoo News.