Given that I don't believe Trump is really personally pro-life, I find it interesting that out of the four major pairs of candidates only one of the eight is pro-life.

Have to be impressed by any president who is going to amend the Constitution in his first 100 days even though he's busy locking up his political opponents and suing all the women who came forward to say he sexually assaulted them. Plus he's going to be exacting revenge on the press for poisoning the minds of the public and getting rid of climate change spending so we can fix our own environment instead at the same time? You couldn't do all that without being presidential.

He must be upset about the Washington Post's coverage is him because he complained that Amazon doesn't post enough taxes, even though that makes them smart.

The Pettysburg Address may go down as one of the most presidential speeches ever.

Maybe the Khan family can help there:

This Khizr Khan ad for Hillary Clinton is incredibly powerful - The Washington Post

Speeches on Saturday afternoons with a limited audience don't move the needle.

Especially since the main thing that's come out of the speech is his desire to sue his accusers.

A lot of people will make the inside straight analogy for Trump, but it's quickly becoming more like a one or two outer (to continue the poker analogy). Trump has to win all of these states where he is tied or currently losing: Arizona, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Florida and Nevada. AND he needs to win one more of Pennsylvania, Colorado or Wisconsin, where he's really losing.

I played around with TwoDimes and the closest I could get to 538's current projection is AA vs KQ with no common suits.

Holdem Hi: 1712304 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ac Ad 1475740 86.18 230959 13.49 5605 0.33 0.863
Ks Qh 230959 13.49 1475740 86.18 5605 0.33 0.137

senior GOP Senate strategist: "Trump now tied in Indiana. down 11 in PA and 14 in NH. going down hard"

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) October 22, 2016

Thx to college football and a free Saturday, I'm watching some rare un-Tivo'd TV. Richard Burr and his Super PACs are running eleventy-billion more ads than Debra Ross.

I'm no political strategist, but maybe the Dems should consider actually trying to win the Senate.

Senate Update: The Last Week Has Been Very Kind To Democrats’ Hopes For A Majority | FiveThirtyEight

Senate has been shifting towards the Democrats.

So now the U.S. will pay for it and bill Mexico later. Of course Mexico will then treat us like one of Donald's contractors.

And even if it did it is now overshadowed by the 11th accuser, porn star Jessica Drake. She says Trump offered her $10k for sex.

Actually, I think this was a cogent display of what Trump's policy would be..

that being "Fuck you all"

Investors Business Daily poll shows Trump's lead up to two points. Strange result in light of other polls from a fairly reliable poll. I'm not sure this is over despite my desire for it to be.

The LATimes has it tied.

Meanwhile the ABC poll says Clinton +12.

I haven't seen anything about it, but I wonder if there's some fundamental issue between tracking and one off polling.

From the ABC poll

ABC poll finds declining R interest in voting. If that persists it represents the doomsday scenario for R down-ballot candidates

— Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) October 23, 2016

Today's CBS/YouGov polls have Clinton up 3 in Florida and Trump up 3 in Texas.

Abortion makes me puke.... But people are going to abort. Making it illegal puts the pregnant girl life in danger so possible to lose more than just the pregnancy. There are many people who know some girls are going to end pregnancy one way or the other. I don't think most believe in choice but aware of consequences if illegal. People of faith need to push for stricter rules on abortion instead of no abortion as that will never be overturned....... The main reason I would never vote for Hillary is her view on when abortions are fine. No respect for life and can't trust her on that than can't trust her on anything.

What about all the people afraid to say trump in a poll but going to vote trump? To get accurate poll is very difficult.

The idea that this exists has been shown to be a myth in all analytical data thus far.

I honestly don't understand this attitude. People vote Republican because they are anti-abortion. But, it has been a very long time since Republicans have really done anything to prevent abortions at the national level. Even when they had Congress, the Executive and Judicial branches all in their favor for part of W's presidency.

Didn't Jesus say something about the proof is in the pudding? For Republicans, it seems to serve as a wedge issue. Something that they can use to reliably get votes. Without having to actually do anything.

Found this from the poll to be pretty interesting re: the purpling of Texas.

65+: Trump +22
45-64: Trump +14
30-44: Clinton +8
18-29: Clinton +21

RCP has moved both Georgia AND Texas to the "Toss Up" category on their electoral map. It's happening.

I think albion has posted about the Republicans master strategy on the state level. And on the state level you have seen a lot of legislation that chips away at Roe in various ways. The most notable was probably the Texas clinic legislation. It's not right to say that the judiciary was in the Republicans favor. Basically the same make-up of the Court upheld Roe in Casey and in other cases. So, if you buy that strategy to build from the bottom up, this becomes the threshold election for that strategy, as the Court may really hang in the balance. It probably is one reason why Trump can maintain 40% of the electorate.

Putin's trolling game is on point. Amid 'rigged' election charges, Russia wants to monitor U.S. vote

Huh? When Casey was heard, the court was made up of 8 Republican appointees and 1 Democrat. And the 1 Democrat (White) was one of the dissenters in the original Roe case. Of the 5 Reagan-Bush appointees, only 2 voted to overturn Roe. If they had just gone 3 for 5, then Roe would've been history.

Frank Luntz ‏@FrankLuntz 24h24 hours ago
Final @Gallup second-term POTUS approval rating before election

• Reagan: 51%
• Clinton: 57
• Bush: 25
• Obama: 57

I think that's the least mentioned story of this election. Tying Clinton to Obama only makes it more likely she'll win.

Good job good effort, Al Gore.

Trump has been running for the Republican nomination since June of last year. At no point has he opened his campaign up to appeal to a broader base. With his ego he just can't help but keep going back to what gets him cheers at his rallies.

If you want to count by party appointment sure, but the court was pretty much set as divided at that point with an O'Conner/Kennedy swing position.

By your count, you'd place Stevens on the conservative side.

Terry Tate is making America great again.

CJ Werleman on Twitter: "Terry Tate Makes America Great https://t.co/H8AXyPaEnM"

Must admit that I've reached that point in the election cycle where I'm less interested in who wins the presidency than I am in stocking up on popcorn and watching the nutbag* Trump supporters on my Facebook feed go nuts on election night. Nothing brings me more joy than watching people who aggressively wear their hearts on their sleeves, refuse to believe that any polls are valid, etc., etc., collectively realize that they've been punked by their echo chamber.


* I mean the serious nutbag ones here, not the people I think of as literate, thoughtful conservatives. You know, the one's who seem to have dropped out of spelling and grammar somewhere around the 4th grade and keep posting clickbait articles from fake news websites, not realizing or bothering to research that many of those sites were created to make conservatives look like idiots.

Actually, I misread your post. I thought you were talking about the court makeup during Casey, but looks like you meant the court makeup under W's presidency. Under W, it was a 7-2 Republican majority. So even if you're right that the court wasn't in their favor (a point I disagree with, especially after O'Connor left), it's their own fault. Souter, Stevens, O'Connor, and Kennedy were all misses by pro-life presidents. And I think that goes to the point of the post you were responding to. Voting for Republicans hasn't done much to stop Roe v. Wade. They even couldn't overturn it in 1992 when they had their best court makeup in decades.

As for the current makeup, I'm not entirely convinced that Roberts would cast that 5th vote to strike Roe down. And Trump is certainly no guarantee to appoint a pro-lifer to the bench.

See, I'm pro-choice, but I feel the same way. I would greatly prefer that all pregnancies be carried to term except in instances of unambiguous medical danger to the fetus, mother or both, but I'd also prefer the decision to unambiguously be that of the parents because, let's face it, it's an outrageously challenging decision.

Better to spend the time and money we spend on fighting over abortion creating the support and options necessary for people who find themselves in this position. And, you know, I think this is where Clinton is personally:


Source.

Ding ding ding. I've been saying this for a while.

You want to drastically reduce or eliminate abortion? Tackle poverty. Tackle teenage pregnancy - and by that I mean "teach kids how to protect themselves and their partners." Fund medical research to figure out how severe birth defects happen and how to prevent them. Identify the reasons why women feel the need to abort, and eliminate those reasons.

Once you sweep those pieces off the board, resistance to limiting access to the procedure goes down. If you want to undermine "pro-choice," create a world where women with vulnerable pregnancies *have* choices.

I'm pro-choice, but that should never be read as "I'm in favor of killing babies."

Instead, it's because I recognize that a) not every woman who finds herself pregnant comes from the same socioeconomic background, has the same support structure, or even the same options before her, and b) a government that's pro-life for the 9 months of gestation but which consistently undermines the positions of live children in poverty is not a government I trust to have the best interests of a vulnerable, pregnant woman at heart.

Tackle poverty. Make contraception readily available so that women can control their own fertility. Approach teenage pregnancy from the perspective of "protection" instead of "teenagers awash in hormones will always make the right decision about sex even though it's patently obvious that teenagers en masse don't make good decisions about virtually anything." Create and sustain a support structure for vulnerable women so that abortion doesn't look like the only option. I will cheerfully support all of those things. I will support any politician whose approach to "pro life" is "what can the government do to encourage life" instead of "ban ban ban ban."

Once we've built that world, I'm willing to have a conversation about abortion restrictions. That, to me, is the definition of "safe, legal, and rare."

So you're saying that poor people are too dumb to make good choices on their own?

There's a big difference between "dumb" and "poorly informed". Nice troll attempt though.

I was informed when I went to public schooling 30 years ago. Are you saying poor people aren't being informed today?

Actually, you'd be a correct troll. Mos schools, especially in the south, are not allowed to teach about contraception and other issues because abstinence-only education is the law. Never mind the fact that numbers show time and time again that abstinence-only areas have higher rates of teen and unwanted pregnancies.

As I said in an earlier post, this whole pro-life thing is a great way to get religious people to either vote against their self-interest because LIFE, or get them to the polls without actually doing anything that is pro-life. I've never met a pro-choice person who loves abortions and thinks they should be done regularly. The idea of abortion makes me upset. But so does the fact that people want to ban it but then reduce funding for adoptions, childhood healthcare (Medicaid), and other low-income services because "entitlement spending is out of control". Once again, look at Colorado as to how they reduced STD and teen pregnancy below the national averages.

So no, poor people are not too dumb...just like rich people they make bad choices. They just don't have access to the resources that get them through the situations.

Hey, Trump got a major newspaper endorsement, the Vegas Review-Journal.

As a sidenote, the Trump hotel on the strip is a really good value if you don't need a casino in your hotel. I wonder how this campaign has impacted their business, if at all. I think I'd feel a little dirty staying there now, but if I could save a bunch of money and have a great room - shit, I've felt dirtier in Vegas before.

Of course its major Republican donor/supporter Sheldon Addison who owns that paper...but yeah Trump I guess.

Here is part of the problem (and I think this whole abortion debate has been a bit simplistic in terms of single issue voters), this used to be part of the abortion debate. However, the Democratic party has mostly gotten rid of the pro-life Democrats, by some instances by ostracizing them out of the party. By pro-life Dems, I don't mean like Tim Kaine, who is personally pro-life, but publicaly pro-choice. I mean folks like Bob Casey from Pennsylvania who were pro-life but also felt that meant to support and help mothers and families. Basically, the official Catholic position.

I don't think folks on the left should look to patronizing toward the abortion single issue voters, because I know of some gay voters, for instance would vote for a Republican for marriage equality (yes, they exist) over a Democrat who was against marriage equality (yes, they exist) - regardless of what that may mean for control of Congress, etc.

FWIW: https://valerietarico.com/2015/04/26...st-pro-choice/

I don't think her personal stance is exactly heartless, which is what most usually associate with a "pro-abortion" stance.

I thought this sketch was brilliant...

Holy crap that was hilarious and ridiculously intelligent at the same time. Who knew you still had this in you, SNL?

That sketch was a winner.

Hanks has always been one of the best SNL hosts and he's key to making that sketch work. He plays the Trump supporter with dignity, whereas many others would've played it in a more mocking fashion.

Thanks for posting that larry. That was damn good.

PredictIt markets have drifted upwards a bit... Trump/GOP/Pence/nonwoman now selling at around 22-23c.