Monthly Archives: July 2024

Getting into the rhythm of the … OUCH. Faceplant! Medic!

Observed While Wilding

Over the last couple of weeks it sure seems like mediocre or worse pollsters are putting out numerous polls compared to highly rated pollsters, which means high-quality information is scarce on the ground relative to low-quality information. It leads to thoughts concerning intellectually despicable attempts to influence the electorate by dispensing polls which do not reflect the information collected as honestly adjusted.

And, while so far it mostly seems to be right-wing pollsters, there’s nothing to stop left-wing pollsters, excepting, of course, concern about their reputations. On the left, they try harder to select for the most vulnerable Republican candidates during primary voting, so nobody’s hands are clean.

And what is the percentage of the electorate paying attention to polls, anyways?

And Then Came The News

• How influential might USA TODAY be? Virginia’s GOP candidate for the Senate, retired Navy Captain Hung Cao (R-VA), may have been caught in a fit of exaggeration, according to the national news source:
  

  The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia, a decorated Navy veteran, has made repeated references to becoming disabled after he was “blown up” in combat, and has stressed that he has scars from his military service while Democratic incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine got rich from the safety of Capitol Hill.

  Yet the Navy service record for Hung Cao, who won the GOP primary in June, does not show a Purple Heart award, the commendation given to troops who have suffered wounds from “direct or indirect result of enemy action” that required medical attention. Nor does his record indicate that he received the Navy’s Combat Action Ribbon, which requires that a sailor “must have rendered satisfactory performance under enemy fire while actively participating in ground or surface combat engagement.” USA TODAY obtained Cao’s record from the Navy.

  While I can see this excusing the claim as a bit of word play,

  The Navy designated him a “special operations explosive ordnance disposal/dive officer.”

  … this brings it all back into play, in Cao’s own words.

  “I’m 100% disabled, you know, because just from being blown up in combat many times and everything else, you know, knee, shoulders,” Cao said on April 22, 2022. “I’ve got more surgeries than you could possibly imagine.”

  Veterans in particular hate exaggeration and outright lying concerning military records, although I suspect the truth is more mundane: unfortunate minor incidents during training and the like, slightly amplified. But how many Virginia voters read USA TODAY? Or will other, more local news reporting sources pick this up?

• Much like Senator Tester (D-MT), Nevada’s Senator Rosen (D-NV) may benefit from a pro-choice initiative on the Nevada ballot:
  

  Supporters collected and submitted more than 200,000 signatures, Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom President Lindsey Harmon told reporters. Proponents need 102,000 valid signatures by June 26 to qualify for the ballot.

  This was achieved May 20 and I missed it.

• Torchlight Strategies doesn’t appear to be in FiveThirtyEight’s ratings list, but it has a poll finding Republican Tim Sheehy (R-MT) well ahead of Montana’s Senator Tester (D-MT) at 47%-41%. That the sponsor of the poll is Common Sense for America, which FiveThirtyEight lists as a Republican-aligned PAC, simply reinforces my notion that this poll is not worth considering by serious analysts and concerned citizens. Or, if you prefer, visualize a John Cleese silly walk, performed while the walker holds a placard with the Torchlight results on it, but the ink is dribbling into incoherence, and the walker’s pockets spill dollar bills.
• co/efficient (1.2) is giving Rep Kim (D-NJ) a 7 point lead over Republican Curtis Bashaw (R-NJ), 41%-34%, for Senator Menendez’s (I-NJ) seat in New Jersey. If the Senator is included in the poll then he picks up 3% of the voters, Kim loses 2 points, and Bashaw loses 1. co/efficient has a very low rating, but it remains interesting that Menendez doesn’t score well in this poll. If co/efficient leans Republican then Rep Kim seems a safe bet.
• In Michigan EPIC-MRA (2.0) is giving Rep Slotkin (D-MI) a two point edge over former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI), 44%-42%. With a margin of error of four points, it sounds like a dead heat, and a nail biter. It’s worth noting that in the last Michigan race for the US Senate, Peters (D) vs James (R) in 2020, the incumbent Peters beat the inexperienced James by less than two points. The Michigan non-dormant electorate is polarized, even if in the last election a lot of disgust was shown for the Republicans by electing Democrats to all the state-wide offices. The winner may be the candidate best able to wake up dormant voters, and Dobbs may do just that for Slotkin.
• We may be seeing deception in New Mexico, where 1892 Polling (1.4) is giving Senator Heinrich (D-NM) a mere four point lead, 46%-42%, over poll sponsor and Republican candidate Nella Domenici (R-NM). I report this poll not as an alarm signal, but as an instance of probable deception. Or it’s an example of the observer disturbing the observed to an unacceptable degree. The poll is probably not worth the time.
• Pennsylvania’s Senator Casey (D-PA) has a four point lead over challenger David McCormick (R-PA?), 46%-42%, according to Cygnal (2.1), an alarming measurement for Democrats, but notably out of line with other pollsters. I also notice the Cygnal press release was tootling its own horn: Cygnal, one of the nation’s fastest growing and most accurate private polling firms … I consider that to be a red flag, even if a 2.1 rating isn’t too bad. Another pollster, the unknown Bullfinch Group, gives Senator Casey a substantial 12 point lead, 48%-36%. This poll has a sponsor, Commonwealth Foundation, which may be Republican-aligned (“Defending Pennsylvania from Anti-Energy Policies” seems Republican to me), although I find that a bit puzzling, given the poll finding. Without a rating it’s not clear that any weight should be given to the Bullfinch Group’s poll.

Yesterday was very nice for the clematis.

And then a bonus moth. Or butterfly. Painted lady?

So, considering the latest conservative wing of SCOTUS‘ attempt at, you know, actually thinking, I derive this suddenly probable scenario:

1. Your next autocratic President takes offense at some ruling of SCOTUS. Or, if you prefer, President Biden takes offense.
2. He marches over to see SCOTUS, currently in session.
3. He uses his handy-dandy Glock to shoot Chief Justice Roberts right between the eyes.
4. He proclaims it an official act – Correcting the judgment of the Chief Justice, as I recall the news networks later reporting. He is thus immunized from the consequences of his actions.
5. He returns to work in the Oval Office. Some reports had him grinning with glee.

A few years ago, Chief Justice Roberts proclaimed the Federal judiciary as politics free. It would appear that SCOTUS has now submitted to the conservative game plan. The Chief Justice’s place in history will not be hallowed, I fear. Rather, it’ll be covered in bullet holes.

This is where awareness of confirmation bias must play into how one reads a post, as DoctorBeast68 on Daily Kos writes about the aftermath of the Presidential debate of last Thursday:

Amid all the handwringing and gnashing of teeth, something remarkable is happening in this country this week. While the MSM [Main street media, aka traditional media sources] all but coronated Trump following CNN’s televised Trump rally (aka “the debate”), their narrative is rapidly falling apart and they have no idea how to handle it. Post debate polls show Biden GAINING support while TFG is dropping. There are reports that Trump is furious over these post debate polls. Could it be that 90 minutes of deranged hyperbolic ugliness and utter nonsense spewed by Trump actually reminded Americans why we came to despise this convicted felon four years ago?

Written in typical Daily Kos patois, it’s a red flag that this sort of thing should be verified by the reader. But no links are provided to relevant polls. Now, I can believe what the writer is saying, and readers shouldn’t be surprised, given what I said Friday. But I’m wary.

And, yes, I know links may be provided in comments. I’ve read Daily Kos comments, though, and they generally just irritate me. And then I wonder how many are written by saboteurs and infiltrators.

But it’s telling that Erick Erickson doesn’t lead off his latest column with an attack on Biden concerning the debate. Oh, he gets to it, eventually, but the lead-off is basically him telling his fellow conservatives to … give up the self-delusion schtick:

Here’s my frustration with the state of conservative media and online punditry. You can conjure the most outlandish theories and never have to say you’re sorry. And you can conjure those theories while connecting dots to lead you out of the theory you know isn’t true and everyone just shrugs. And it is far easier to go with the herd than say what you know to be true.

I knew CNN would do a fine debate. Tapper and Bash are professionals. There was no delay in the feed. They were not going to edit Joe Biden both because they would not and it would be technically impossible while also distributing a live feed to other networks. But much of the conservative online space wanted to believe. It was far easier to attack CNN pre-emptively than say the truth. And even now, there’ll be those who defensively insist telling the truth was wrong, a lie, or only a lucky guess.

When truth and honesty are no longer the currency of the conservatives, this is what you’re going to see. This is why I don’t go to web sites with a reputation for conservatism very often, because whether it’s Alex Jones or Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson, I know they will put no value on honest evaluations.

For all I know, Erickson may be the exception to the rule, but, in addition to often simply being wrong, he’ll nastily stretch a point. In this case, as with many others that I’ve noticed, he’s trying to keep the herd together by smearing various Democrats and, of course, President Biden:

But beyond everything above, if Biden leaves office where does he go? Does he go home to his two drug-addicted children with a dog that bites while his wife resents him for giving up the presidency? Biden would be sitting at home on election night watching a historically unpopular Kamala Harris lose every traditional swing state and put places like Virginia, Minnesota, and Colorado in play.

Stretching reality to convince citizens to remain in the conservative circle runs the risk of distorting their grasp on reality beyond control – and your own grasp on reality.

But who doesn’t get the time of day from Erickson in this message? Mr. Trump. Just an oversight? Off in another message? Or is Mr. Trump’s slipping grasp on honesty and truth so unpalatable that Erickson doesn’t dare go near it? I mean this quite literally, as Erickson has a stock story about being implicitly threatened with one or more guns when he didn’t initially support Mr Trump back in 2015 or 2016. Maybe he has worries about the safety of his family. From his own people.

Tells you why most Republicans qualify as fourth-raters.