We have friends who own a brewery here on the Jersey Shore. They produced a limited edition stout called BLM and donate the proceeds to charity. My father in law loves stouts and was over tonight. We shared one with him and he loved it until we told him the name. He wasn't pleased but took it well.

Were you out of wet paint to watch dry? Hes unwatchable.

Can't have mob rule, but The Mob can rule, that's just fine. Got it.

That's hilarious.

Senior WH official:

My uncle is a doctor and told me the same thing in March

Well yeah, I believe that too, if this is going to end up a seasonal virus like the flu. The trick is to limit the number of infections before we get it under control through hands-on learning and finding a vaccine that we can give to people annually. It's not to let it run its course through the entire country in 8-10 months to maximize the number of deaths it can cause. If I get it, I hope it's in 2024 where it's nothing more than another strain of flu I have to deal with - not as a potential life-ender/changer that I can spread to others and could kill them.

Senator Rand Paul and his wife were surrounded by a BLM mob last night after leaving the Republican convention, shouting profanities, death threats and "Say her name!" in reference to the Breonna Taylor shooting. The irony lost on these imbeciles is that Rand Paul introduced the "Justice for Breonna Taylor Act" in the senate, prohibiting the use of "no knock" warrants.

Rand Paul is still an opportunistic idiot.

Also, if Rand Paul wants to talk about being "attacked"...just remind him of the time he actually DID get his ass kicked.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...ighbor-n839366

Well Trump got Jim Gaffigan of all people to go on a multi-tweet Twitter rant against the President. And it's glorious.

This is my fav:
https://twitter.com/JimGaffigan/stat...274011136?s=19

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Good for you Jim, but they still aren't going to listen.

Yup.

Jim is like so many of us.

We keep looking at that immovable 39% and we sort of know deep down that anything we do won't change them. But there's a part of you that thinks that if you keep screaming "The Sky is Blue!" at them enough, they might decide to look up and realize that it isn't Orange.

The only person who's public anti-Trump opinion might make a difference at this point is G.W. Bush, and I'm not even sure about that.

And, of course, never read the comments. The responses to him and the same part and parcel bs that always comes to a Tweet like this

SI

I think Jesus coming down from heaven himself wouldn't change people's minds at this point. It's that far gone.

This is fine. FDA ousts top spokesperson after 2 weeks - POLITICO

I dunno, this (mostly entertaining) blog argues that Trump may be the opposite:

(UPDATED) Could American Evangelicals Spot the Antichrist? Here Are the Biblical Predictions: - Benjamin L. Corey

SI

My wife like 90% believes that Trump is the Anti-Christ. She grew up heavily Southern Baptist and turned her back on the teachings of hate of others evident in that specific church. I think she is partially joking, mostly not. I'll have to share this.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/media...hes/index.html


LOL

Rand Paul is a pushy. These sacks of shit talk endless crap about people and then cry like a baby when someone dares do the same to them.

My wife is currently talking to her parents (in their mid-late 70s). They live in Jacksonville. MIL said they watched the RNC last night and all they did was rave about the fireworks. So... yeah. They are solid Trump voters anyway, but that was the big takeaway for them last night. He's got his hand on their pocket and dangling shiny crap in their faces to distract them. Yeesh.

I am far from a premillennialist, but from the time that I was (and I studied it heavily at one time), Trump is a good candidate for the Antichrist. Better than any I can think of.

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I don't believe in an anti-Christ, but if there were to be one, I think the Bible makes it clear that he'll trick believers. That's the warning, evil can be disguised in the ones that you follow closely. What's the point of saying, there will be an anti-Christ, but don't follow you'll be far too clever to be tricked by them?

dola

Everything's a con.

How that payroll tax break will work: IRS says companies have the responsibility to stop collecting some payroll taxes that would normally be due Sept. 1–Dec. 31. Then co’s must collect twice as much from workers’ paychecks early next year. @laurapdavisonhttps://t.co/ZmiIuRRR2a

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) August 28, 2020

Yes, that's the way it's designed to work - and Trump has said the only way you won't have to pay it back is to re-elect him because he's going to abolish the payroll tax next year. Which will also destroy social security, but who needs that?

Here's an interesting read on the "shy Trump voter" phenomenon. CloudResearch's study indicates that Republicans and independents are twice as likely as Democrats to say they would not give their true opinion in a telephone poll question about their preference for president in the 2020 election.

New Study Suggests Polls Are Missing Shy Trump Voters

That is interesting and actually equates to a margin of error close to how the election turned out from the polls.

The difference I see in 2016, it could have been an unwillingness to admit they were going to vote Trump, where now, I could see people doing it intentionally. Either to skew polls or because they think Trump voters are trying to be identified as part of some bizarre conspiracy.

Overall polling and statistical models such as 538's have also changed since 2016 and the polls were about 2.5 points off in the GOP's favor during the 2018 midterms.

As I've mentioned, I don't doubt the shy Trump voter exists, I just doubt that it exists in a way that isn't largely captured by things such as turnout estimates that pollsters use. Polling doesn't stay the same from election to election. It changes as the electorate shifts and post 2016 changes were made to better capture the non-college educated white voter.

It's been stated a million times, but overall polling wasn't any further off in 2016 than it was in other elections. Polling was off at the state level for both Clinton and Trump in different ways. Clinton outperformed with non-whites and those with college degrees while Trump outperformed with whites without college degrees. This favored Trump in the electoral college as the close states ended up going his way. A similar scenario played out in Obama's favor in 2012, but it's never mentioned because Obama would have won anyway without the close states breaking his way.

The conservative movement is totally lost. There's no way I go back to this crap, Trump or no Trump.

ASU student group College Republicans United is raising funds for Kenosha protest shooter Kyle Rittenhouse. The group told an @azcentral reporter “they do not speak to journalists with pronouns on their Twitter page" and to "get a real job.” https://t.co/U87WUCvqC3

— Rachel Leingang �� (@rachelleingang) August 29, 2020

The Director of National Intelligence isn't going to do any more in-person briefings to congress regarding election security.

The L.A. Times has a story of the USPS cutting off mail delivery for a public housing complex in L.A.

Authoritarianism here we come!

So I've seen a couple articles talking about Trump's payroll tax exemption order as if it's a real thing that will happen and take effect as planned and on time, but seemingly every state ignored the $300 unemployment insurance boost order entirely....what's the difference?

Early reports are that someone has been shot in Portland as a group/rally of counter-protestors engaged with the protestors in downtown near the justice center.

Updated to shot and killed according to local news:

Rally, counterprotest turns deadly after shooting; investigation underway | KOIN.com

According to Twitter reports there was a rally of Trump supporters that drove downtown and engaged protestors, including shooting paintballs and pepper spray from their vehicles at protestors.

https://twitter.com/ByMikeBaker/stat...08467457622016

Edit/update: it appears the deceased was wearing a Patriot Prayer cap. This is going to be a fucking mess.

Quite honestly, I am surprised it took this long to happen in Portland. with the worst of both extremes, that city is sitting on a powder keg.

It looks like the deceased and his friend bear or pepper sprayed the shooter just before the shooting. Not sure if this counts as self defense but the shooter fled so at least they'll be able to charge him with something at least. Too many guns and these stand your ground laws are a terrible combination.

I'm not a big Facebook user but earlier this week a friend from high school shared a series of memes making fun of the shooting victims in Kenosha. I reported it, unfriended, and forgot about it. I got a notification this morning that my report was declined and no action taken. I guess it's ok to glorify violence on Facebook with memes that include graphic, bloody pictures. Feels like we're screwed as a country.

I've not used FB in a while but I do sympathize with FB. Regardless of whatever they use (AI, a bunch of folks in India etc.), there's going to be much in the grey area or subjective or get into disagreement about fundamental 1A rights (although not government related).

Maybe implement a PG or R rating? Someone that posts explicit pictures, posts BLM stuff, posts militia stuff etc. Heck I don't even know how something like that could be implemented.

Or just tell people to unfriend where you don't like the poster's content, or some sort of anonymous rating to help with the PG or R rating.

The less people on the right denounce acts of vigilantism the more we are going to see of it.

This. Once they took them out of the home, it became impossible to control. What do you do if you see a shooter when trying to stop them may result in a justifiable homicide? What are police supposed to do when armed people are shooting "legally"?

Watch these Trumper Trucks! pic.twitter.com/PEE0Ttl1n9

— Just Vent (@JustVent6) August 30, 2020

I may create a fake Twitter account for a made up pollster showing Trump is up by 8 points and see if I can get him to retweet it.

Would calling it "rASSmussen Polls" be too on the nose?

SI

A Pew Research Center poll published earlier this month demonstrates what's going on quite well. The poll had Biden up by 8 points over Trump, very similar to the average and the Ipsos poll discussed earlier.

Yet, the same poll found that Americans believed by a 51% to 46% margin that Trump would defeat Biden in the election. (Among voters, it was a tighter 50% to 48% spread in favor of Trump.)

The poll indicates that voters either believe the race will shift back to Trump or that the polling is wrong.

Interestingly, the poll was self administered via the internet without live interviewers, so it's not like the voters who said they were voting for Biden had reason to give what they might perceive as the more socially desirable answer (i.e. not voting for Trump).

Despite this, some voters think the polling is off.

Another question getting at the idea of potentially hidden Trump voters shows something similar to the Pew poll. By a 5-point margin, voters in an August Fox News poll said they thought more of their neighbors were voting for Trump over Biden. Biden was ahead in the horserace by 7 points in the poll.

Trump continues to break the polling

That doesn't prove your point at all. There's a ton of residual fear from 2016 and that fear is being amplified by every Biden supporter that says, don't trust the polls. Without much more depth of questioning it's impossible to say what percentage of the gap in your numbers is shy Trump voters or what I'll call fear of 2016.

One of my problems with the idea that there are a large number of shy Trump voters is that we aren't seeing that reflected in other polling, not approval ratings, not issue polling, not GOP candidate polling. Then, when you look at 2018 there isn't evidence of there being big numbers of Trump supporters that weren't polled either.

Maybe it's happening, but right now the evidence for it is very thin.

As Enten says in your link:

Isn't a shy Trump voter an oxymoron?

What it seems to show is
1) People don't trust polls after they were "burned" in 2016
2) People are not quite sure how to quantify the increased voter suppression

SI

You mean the ones who only show their balls in private FB groups or in public to women or slightly built men? No, I think it's right on the nose.

So now the "blockbuster" information (according to Clay Travis) about Covid actually causing only 6% of deaths is the newest "plandemic" argument. Meanwhile, anyone with half a brain understands that most people are dying with co-morbidities, and that Covid had clearly resulted in many people dying months/years before they would have without Covid. This has clearly been the baseline understanding for those who want to understand it. Just look at excess deaths and it's clear there is a cause-and-effect impact from Covid even if it's not the sole cause of death.

I just can't take the willful ignorance anymore.

I think a lot of people are just assuming Trump will rig it and win somehow.

This is how we've been trained. Nothing matters, there's no consequences, Trump can do what he wants, nobody else can or wants to stop him.

The most concise way to say it that I've seen.

See, the thing about 2018 was that although the polls as a whole were more accurate, they still were overly favorable to Democrats in key states such as Michigan and Florida. The idea of shy Trump voters and accuracy of polling really only matters in those few key states, and those were states that polling got wrong in 2016 and 2018 (and show Trump behind again in 2020).

I expected the news of the Portland to take off like ugly wildfire today, and have been kind of surprised by the relatively muted national coverage, compared to Kenosha (though I'm certainly not complaining).

At least in FL, the polling was no worse than an average year, it's just that we don't talk about the 4% margin because most years it doesn't change the winner. I don't think anyone has suggested that there's a reason why FL and MI polls would be more incorrect or biased than other state-level polling.

I expect there will be a number of surprises with this election. Turnout is going to be very hard to predict. Mail-in voting is hard to predict. The GOP has been telling us they plan to have an unprecedented voter suppression campaign. But none of that means there's evidence of a 4 or 5 or 6 point Trump effect hidden from view. Again, maybe there is, but there isn't evidence to suggest that.

Polling also was too favorable for the GOP in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Nevada in 2018. In a normal year these things cancel themselves out.

I've been pretty securely in the "practically all the indicators point to Trump getting his ass kicked handily" camp for pretty much the past two years, but I hate to admit that all the chaos & open suppression has certainly dulled my confidence in just the past few weeks.

JFC.

I don't want to get into a shooting war with the Russians, but they way they keep fucking with our military has to merit some sort of response. A few days ago there were injuries in a collision with a Russian APC, today Russian jets boxed in a B-52. In previous encounters Russian ships have nearly rammed US ships and Russian jets have radar locked US planes.

To my knowledge, the WH hasn't said a thing. Eventually one of these encounters is going to get seriously out of hand.

The President retweeted another Nazi today. Like real dress up as a Nazi and have a flag on the wall type. I feel like the press is grading Biden and Trump on different curves here.

Airborn intercepts are completely common. Both sides do it regularly and have been for over 40 years. I don't really see much to fear from the Russian bear militarily. Sure they can kill tons of people, but one to one they are no match. You're right about them provoking, but none of this behavior should be marked down as surprising.

They've done a lot lately including causing injuries. That incident by itself could have been really ugly if deaths were involved. They need to be told to stop before anything serious happens and we end up in some sort of conflict by mistake. The Russians can take over the U.S., but they can cause a lot of problems.

I always check in with Clay Travis before I talk to a doctor.

A guy has a heart attack while driving, loses control of the car, crashes and dies from injuries sustained in the accident.

Travis would be pissed if the cause of death was listed as a heart attack.

And I guess there's never been an AIDS death.

I've read our submarines also play games. Think I read it after reading one of Clancy's books.

The "AIDS" thing I pointed out to someone on my FB, crickets.

This is a person I formerly considered smart.

What is going on anymore. I don't know.

"But we've had a significantly increase in cases TB, PCP, and KS. Weird"

SI

Herman's Cain twitter account posting that COVID isn't as deadly as the MSM said is maybe the peak of modern conservative thought.

It appears Q is none other than Jim Watkins, owner of 8 Chan, Daily Stormer, and GAB (right wing Twitter knock off), and also a known pedophile supporter.

Edit: this has been the rumor for a long time, but it looks like someone was able to connect the website dots back him.

Joe Kennedy III is going to spend the day before the election deflecting over running an ad with Worcester mis-spelled.

I don't know how to spearat this, but I already thought Markey's authentic workig class accent was a huge part of his appeal. Having an ad team that can't spell MA cities surely won't help Kennedy cnvince people he's the real Masshole.

Maybe, maybe not. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if its him though:

Who Is QAnon? Was the Poster's Identity Revealed This Week?

Stop by a rural gas station/general store out at a pretty busy crossroads. It is a popular site, with two how meal type take out resistants inside. 20-30 people inside and coming in and out. Not a single mask, other than mine. Not on a customer or employee.
I wonder why Georgia is failing at getting this under control.

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It's circumstantial evidence that it's him, but it more or less destroys the notion that it's a military intelligence team.

Unfortunately, it doesn't change anything. Watkins could come out and admit it's him and his believers would call him a deep state plant.

Very true

Is "the hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths directly attributable to Trump's gross incompetence could be classified differently" really the slam dunk argument that his people think it is?

The en banc panel rejects Flynn's petition 9-2, so it goes back to Judge Sullivan.

When 40%+ of the population is consistently fed a narrative that science and facts are not to be believed, you get the US in 2020.

At this point, COVID in the states has zero chance of getting under control and even when a vaccine comes you'll have all the anti-vaxx folks still susceptible.

As a legal matter, I am glad that the DC Circuit got this right.

As a practical matter, I think that J. Sullivan ends up granting the dismissal.

As a political matter, anyone who cares enough to be following the ins and outs of the Flynn case has already picked a side and made up their mind and is not going to have their vote swayed by the ins and outs of the Flynn case.

The number of tweets I'm reading today about multiple doctored videos related to Biden being released/retweeted/supported by Trump, his campaign or other Republicans is astounding.

While the entire GOP sticks their fingers in their ears and yells, I can't hear you!

dola

I'm sure this is okay, too.

His employees were tweeting stuff like that while he was hooked up to a ventilator in a hospital too. Just galaxy brain shit.

A lot of the people he's talking to, and some of those he's not, are still in the camp of believing more deaths were caused by the restrictions. I think the issue is politically he has too many supporters that would be turned off by the pro-shutdown POV, and that leaves him with only one note to play.

I think a lot of the people he is talking to do not believe that there are "hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths". The great majority of those deaths are folks who would be dead anyway because people die every day in this country... even before Covid.

This is a tremendous argument against healthcare.

Fox News top story right now

"WHAT ABOUT ANTIFA?
Biden condemns rioting, blasts Trump in fiery speech, but doesn’t mention radical violent leftists"

(in my head)
Fox News editor: "Remember when Trump got in trouble for not condemning the Neo Nazis in Charlottesville? That stuck on him better than a lot of attacks. Let's turn it back around on Biden."

I think this also goes back to the idea of "Biden needs to be able to make this a policing problem not a law and order problem". There's no way to actually spin stuff when one news network that is the main outlet for /a lot/ of people takes their talking points from the administration.

SI

It's like the right wing boogeyman.

If those are the people he is talking to, then I think he is wasting his time.

Anyone who thinks that COVID isn't a problem is probably already a Trump supporter and already pretty motivated to vote.

He should be trying to reach out to the people who think it is a big problem but are open to different ideas about how best to handle it.

Trump defends Rittenhouse and the Portland caravan.

He's doing a good job of turning the looting into a negative for himself. There is no great plan, Trump just lashes out.

That would require ideas and a plan. Beyond herd immunity, which is basically a plan for when you've done nothing for 6 months.

I think we're past the point now, at least for me, that the more incompetent Trump is the better. As much as you'd like to think otherwhise, there are still undecided people out there and the more reasons they have to vote for someone else the better. Spose in the end it doesn't matter that much because if Trump were to get elected again - well the country would deserve what it gets.

Yeah, hopefully it costs him some voters. Looks like Trump got a little bounce from the convention and the lead is down to 7. I'd like to see it get back to 9-10. I just dont know how you could still be undecided after 4 years of this.

If you live in the middle of a red state like I do, and you listen to your neighbors, and you watch the sorts of YouTube videos that I do (and you read the comments)...I don't think that many people are undecided.

Everyone I know who in real life isn't a quiet, rural Democrat or independent -- and there are a vanishingly small number around me once I step off the university campus where I work -- is 100% convinced that Trump is going to win in a landslide.

Polls are wrong. (Much like people with COVID, they don't know anyone personally who's ever been polled, so chances are the numbers are just made up.) Democrats are a small crowd of vocal extremists and socialists who are trying to steal the election through fearmongering and media liars.

They believe they're winning by a large margin, and anything less is going to be a fraud.

Are you talking about the way you think things actually are, or the people around you think they are? I'm a little confused so some clarification would help.

Oh, I think Biden wins (all other things remaining equal between now and election day) and probably by a more substantial margin than my worry about it leads me to believe. Sorry, my post was kind of meandering. I've probably had a beer or two too many tonight to be completely coherent.

I'm talking about the conservative communities I travel in. They're the ones who are convinced Trump is going to win in a landslide. They can't seem to believe that there are people outside of college socialists and the mainstream media (and the deep state and the power elites, blah, blah) who would actually vote Democrat.

Understand that I live in a county where even the Democrats run as Republicans because that's the only way to get any votes.

Strangely enough, I also live in a community that has one of the largest, most active Pride organizations in the Midwest. It's not that they particularly like the gays...but these gays are our local kids, and we support our local kids in the things that are important to them, goddammit.

It gets his base riled up which is what matters. Republicans understand turnout matters and exciting the base does that. Democrats are still trying to convince the 6 never Trumpers to vote for Biden.

Trump has to expand his voters from 2016.

This isn't doing that.

His base seems more locked in than they were in 2016. There's a ceiling of course but I think he hits it.

He also leads with independents. Dems can win because they have a massive party ID advantage but they haven't realized that in awhile.

Fox News' lead headline is Trump's story about many people dressed in black with gear on a plane that an RNC attendee told him about coming to do big damage to DC. OK.

You can't even wear a belly shirt on a plane without getting kicked off, but sure, I believe there was a plane full of people in "gear" that raised no alarms at all.

At this point, Trump is doing all he can to scare people that I'm half-expecting during the debates that he's going to be like, "They are coming for you. In fact, I just saw one creep behind you, Mr. and Mrs. White People watching on TV... PROTECT YOURSELVES! THEY'RE IN YOUR HOUSE!"

You are way too fixated on one poll. I don't know if you're worried Biden will lose or hoping he will. Trump can win. He's the incumbent, and that gives him a huge advantage. But, right now, all the data we have says Biden is ahead narrowly to comfortably. Trump has less support now than in 2016. Trump's approval rating has never been positive. There are far fewer undecideds at this point than in 2016 and the gap between Biden and Trump is starting to be greater than the number of undecideds.

This isn't 2016.

Psychologically, I think there's a few things going on.

1) About 10 years ago, I was driving, and a guy straight up ran a red light and t-boned the right side of my car. For about 5 years after that, I instinctively had a mini-freakout every time a car approached me from the right side. On the one hand, I know that it is pretty rare for someone to just slam into you. On the other, the brain's ability to overreact to getting hurt is pretty impressive.

2) As 538 has pointed out for the last 3.75 years, Clinton's lead was never that big. People thought of it as bigger than it was b/c of this general sense that Trump could never win. But, in hindsight, I think that we all feel like the polls showed Clinton up by 10 on November 1st.

3) The Electoral College advantage that Trump has causes us to feel like any Biden lead <4 is basically losing.

4) Natural polling errors cause us to feel like any lead under 3 (after taking away the 4 above) is basically a toss-up.

5) Ron DeSantis will have a lot to do with deciding who wins Florida.

6) Anything short of a Biden blowout will likely lead to months of riots and lawsuits as the GOP refuses to concede.

So, putting all that together, it feels like any poll showing Biden leading by less than 13 nationally and less than 7 in swing states is a good poll for Trump.

Rational? Not totally. But that's where it's coming from.