Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Fryolator:

A deep fryer (or deep fat fryer) is a kitchen appliance used to cook foods by full immersion in hot oil (“deep frying)”. The cooking oil (or fats) are typically between temperatures of 350 to 375 °F (177 to 191 °C).^[1]

Long common in commercial kitchens, household models now available have become increasingly prevalent.

Deep frying has become well known in the United States, from frying sticks of butter to Twinkies, but the method can be traced back to Roman times.

With fryolator being a synonym. Noted in “October 20, 2024,” Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American:

Today, in what apparently was designed to show Trump as relatable and to compete with the story that Vice President Harris worked at a McDonalds when she was in college, Trump did a photo op at a McDonalds in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where he took prepared fries out of the fryolator. It was an odd moment, for Trump has never portrayed himself as a man of the people so much as a man to lead the people, and the picture of him in a McDonald’s apron undercuts his image as a dominant leader.

But in any case, it was all staged: the restaurant was closed, the five “customers” were loyalists who had practiced their roles, and when Trump handed food through the drive-through window, he did not take money or make change.

“Now I have worked at McDonald’s,” he said afterward. “I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala.”

Halloween is coming. Have you bought your mouse ears?

Oh, AtlasIntel again!

Yes, I talked about AtlasIntel (2.7) here, and it’s that 2.7 (out of three in the FiveThirtyEight rating system) that deters me from discarding their polls, so they appear below. But the divergence I discussed before continues, so keep that in mind for AtlasIntel poll results: They appear to be a conservative-aligned pollster.

They Said, ‘Eat Dirt, Run Like Crazy!’ I So Worry About Them

• I’ve adored the pollster University of Massachusetts Lowell Center for Public Opinion (2.9) since the 2022 New Hampshire Senate race, when they picked Senator Hassan (D-NY) by ten late in the race, when all the other pollsters, mostly conservative leaning pollsters, were giving her challenger, Don Bolduc (R-NH), a small lead. She won by ten. Now they’ve teamed up with another big-time name, YouGov (2.9 also), and produced a measurement for Pennsylvania Senator Casey (D-PA) and David McCormick (R-PA?), showing the Senator with a substantial lead, 48%-39%. There may be almost two and a bit weeks to go, but I suspect the Senator is cruising to a victory at this point, despite what most other pollsters and news media are claiming.
  

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  But not so fast, if you believe AtlasIntel (2.7), which has McCormick ahead, 48%-47%.

• In Michigan, Mitchell Research & Communications (2.4) is giving Rep Slotkin (D-MI) a 45%-40% lead over former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI). Recall from the last update that Quinnipiac University (2.8) had this race even at 48%, so the pollsters are not really agreeing on the situation in Michigan. Senator and Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) wants to be part of the action, and to that end his super PAC Senate Leadership Fund is reportedly spending another $10.5 million in Michigan. And then there’s AtlasIntel (2.7), which has this race is in a statistical dead heat at 48%, with a small advantage to former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI). This is in direct contradiction to nearly all respectable polls, although Quinnipiac University (2.8) is the exception to that observation.
• The Nebraska regularly scheduled election has turned into a battle of candidate-sponsored polls, but Senator Fischer (R-NE) seems to be laboring under a handicap against challenger Dan Osborn (I-NE): her pollsters are consistently low-rated or not known at all to FiveThirtyEight, while Osborn’s polls are roughly half poorly rated pollsters and half highly rated. The latest example from the Senator is another weak riposte to Osborn’s use of SurveyUSA (2.8), and it comes from the unknown Torchlight Strategies, which the Senator has used repeatedly. It shows their sponsor, the Senator, leads the race, 51%-44%. Of course.
  

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  The indicators are a little contradictory. As I noted, Torchlight Strategies is unrated and unknown, so it may be willing to bend results to gain a sponsor’s favor; however, it is an “internal poll”, according to The Hill, and such are only of benefit if they’re honest; dishonest internal poll results, unless they’re doing double-entry polling, could result in angry lawsuits from the sponsor. But is this a leak from the Fischer campaign, meaning they just made shit up? For that matter, the condescension palpable in The Hill piece, a news source that I rather suspect leans Republican, smacks of conservative boilerplate, assembled from a playbook of stock phrases with hot glue, rather than a thoughtful report.

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  SurveyUSA’s results are also sponsored, but being rated highly at 2.8/3 should mean that they place honest results over pleasing the sponsor. If their rating moves down, it could mean lower prestige, lower demand for services, meaning less revenue, etc. Therefore, Fischer’s poll results are the most suspect, and have been all along, leaving me with the taste of their desperation in my mouth. This may be the upset of the season.

• YouGov (2.9) gives Texas Senator Cruz (R-TX) a commanding lead of 51%-44% over Rep Allred (D-TX). That’s in contrast with reports of Cruz’s panic in the previous update.
• In Montana Republican candidate Tim Sheehy (R-MT) has decided to resort to fear-based campaigning, as the Washington Examiner reports:
  

  Republican Tim Sheehy is warning voters in the final days before the election that his closely watched Montana Senate race has higher stakes than control of the upper chamber.

  The former Navy SEAL argued that reelecting Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) to a fourth term means not only that Donald Trump‘s agenda could possibly be thwarted but that the former president would also be impeached for a third time if he returns to the White House.

  “Make no mistake: If he does not have a Congress that’s supporting his actions, we saw last time what happened. He was impeached twice,” Sheehy told a small group of supporters gathered for a rally on Monday. “Oh, by the way, your senior senator, Jon Tester, voted to impeach him not once but twice. If Trump doesn’t have the Senate when he gets there, he will be impeached right away.”

  Small problem, though. Senators don’t impeach, as Steve Benen observes:

  What Sheehy apparently doesn’t know — but really should — is that the Senate doesn’t have impeachment authority and it can’t impeach presidents, even if a majority of members wanted to.

  The House impeaches, the entire Senate votes in the trial authorized by the impeachment, and requires a two thirds supermajority to convict and thus remove the President.

  ---

  Resorting to this class of tactics suggests to me that Mr Sheehy is running out of ways to spin his shortcomings. His business is dying, he doesn’t have Senator Tester’s experience and Montana-specific background as Mr Sheehy is from Minnesota, and he’s boxed in by the Republican Party tenets. Maybe his internal polls are not as sunny as the public polls. He might even be in a statistical dead heat.

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  Or worse.

• AtlasIntel (2.7) would like me to believe Arizona Rep Gallego (D-AZ) leads Republican Kari Lake (R-AZ) 50%-46%; I expect, perhaps wrongly, that Gallego’s margin will be in the double digits. Instead, this lead is nearly within the margin of error, which is ±3 points.
• AtlasIntel (2.7) has Wisconsin Senator Baldwin (D-WI) leading challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI) 49%-46%. It’s tempting to consider just how large the Senator’s lead is in reality if AtlasIntel’s results skew conservative, as I suspect.
• AtlasIntel (2.7) claims Nevada’s Senator Rosen (D-NV) leads Republican challenger Sam Brown (R-NV) 47%-43%; I expect, perhaps wrongly, that Rosen’s margin will be in the double digits. Instead, this lead is nearly within the margin of error, which is ±3 points.
• In Ohio, Senator Brown (D-OH) is seeing the same phenomenon as Vice President Harris (D) is seeing: backing from Republicans, in this case former Ohio Governor Bob Taft (R-OH). Challenger Bernie Moreno (R-OH) must be quite the extremist.

Pollster Ignored! (The one-night Broadway sensation!)

In the list of pollsters ignored in this update is The Bullfinch Group, Expedition Strategies (1.2), Morning Consult (1.9), and unknown, if prolific, ActiVote. Those pollsters who are unknown lack “(x.x)”.

I also discarded RMG Research (2.4) polls, despite their respectable rating, due to their admission they are working with Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports. The latter is listed on FiveThirtyEight in the section of pollsters who are so awful they are not rated. Rasmussen Reports is known to be Republican-aligned, but trying to adjust RMG Research poll results seemed to me a tiresome project, doomed to failure.

Naturally, those races seen as non-competitive were also not reported. Surprise results will change my judgment on such races, see Arizona, above.

This suit is causing a bit of an uproar: State of Missouri; State of Kansas; State of Idaho, Intervenor Plaintiffs, v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, et al. It starts out…

Women face severe, even life-threatening, harm because the federal government has disregarded their health and safety.

Defendant U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the statutory responsibility to protect the health, safety, and welfare of all Americans by putting commonsense safeguards on high-risk drugs.

But the FDA has failed in this responsibility by removing many of the safety standards it once provided to women using abortion drugs. Abortion drugs are dangerous—the FDA’s own label says that an estimated roughly one in 25 women who take abortion drugs will visit the emergency room.

But the FDA has enabled online abortion providers to mail FDA approved abortion drugs to women in states that regulate abortion—dispensing abortion drugs with no doctor care, no exam, and no in-person follow-up care. These dangerous drugs are now flooding states like Missouri and Idaho and sending women in these States to the emergency room. …

In rolling back safeguard after safeguard, the FDA has turned a blind eye to the known harms of abortion drugs to the detriment of women and girls.

And now they’re setup to enumerate the harms, in their minds, of abortion drugs, including this (pp 189-190):

These estimates also show the effect of the FDA’s decision to remove all in-person dispensing protections. When data is examined in a way that reflects sensitivity to expected birth rates, these estimates strikingly “do not show evidence of an increase in births to teenagers aged 15-19,” even in states with long driving distances despite the fact that “women aged 15-19 … are more responsive to driving distances to abortion facilities than older women.” The study thus concludes that “one explanation may be that younger women are more likely to navigate online abortion finders or websites ordering mail-order medication to self-manage abortions. This study thus suggests that remote dispensing of abortion drugs by mail, common carrier, and interactive computer service is depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers in Plaintiff States, even if other overall birth rates may have been lower than otherwise was projected.

A loss of potential population causes further injuries as well: the States subsequent “diminishment of political representation” and “loss of federal funds,” such as potentially “losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding if their populations are” reduced or their increase diminished. Dep’t of Com. v. New York, 588 U.S. 752, 766–67, (2019).

Or, in other words, they thought that most abortions were really optional and not worth pursuing, and they’re shocked that, no, abortions are necessary, medically or otherwise, in the eyes of the pregnant women. They demand that more women carry potentially dangerous pregnancies to term … so that they can have another Representative in Congress? Or lose funding?

The implicit reasoning that different States will have different outcomes if  mifepristone is banned at the federal level is, well, questionable.

Wonkette is outraged:

So not only are they claiming that they are harmed by not being able to force adult women to have babies they don’t want, they are also harmed by not being able to force teenage girls to have babies they don’t want.

I’d like to point out at this juncture that teen moms are significantly less likely than their peers to graduate from high school, and that teenage pregnancy is very closely related to poverty — two-thirds of teen moms who move out of their parents’ house live below the federal poverty level. Seventy-eight percent of children born to unwed teen moms live below the poverty level.

Now, sure — there are some success stories, girls who have kids and go on to college and do well for themselves. But it’s not a lot! These states are more or less saying that they are willing to condemn a significant portion of these girls and their children to poverty so that they don’t lose a vote in the Electoral College. That is truly sick.

In the wake of bad environmental news, from drought to excess hurricanes damaging North Carolina and Florida, it sometimes helps to have some good news, so here’s a bit. Earlier this year, dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon were opened, and positive results have been observed:

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. – For the first time in 114 years, biologists from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) have observed a fall-run Chinook salmon returning to spawning in the Klamath Basin in Oregon.

On October 16, the ODFW documented this bright, beautiful fish in a tributary to the Klamath River, Spencer Creek, above the former J.C. Boyle Dam.

This is the first anadromous fish — a fish that migrates up rivers to spawn — to return to the Klamath Basin in Oregon since 1912 when the first of four PacifiCorp hydroelectric dams was constructed, blocking migration to historic habitat, according to an announcement from the ODFW. Hopefully, we will see the return of coho salmon and steelhead to the upper watershed soon. [Dan Bacher, Daily Kos]

Chinook Salmon
Source: Wikipedia.

That the fish can return that quickly after a century of inability to reach the area on its own is quite encouraging. However, it still competes against an overpopulation of humanity, and humanity has a long ways to go to reduce its CO₂ and methane emissions, other air pollution, the mountains of garbage it produces, the discards which are not recycled, and all the other detritus it generates to the detriment of the balance of the environment in which humanity – and the fish! – live.

It’s well past time for humanity to roll its sleeves up and clean up after itself. After all, one of the victims of its irresponsibility is itself, from ages 1 to 100.

Pretending to be what you’re not:

They probably should have blurred out the giraffes’ faces. Bottoms. Tails.

Whatevers.

Obscurantist:

If you describe something as obscurantist, you mean that it is deliberately vague and difficult to understand, so that it prevents people from finding out the truth about it.
I think that a lot of poetry published today is obscurantist nonsense. [Collins Dictionary]

Ah. Noted in “The battle for George Orwell’s soul,” Ed West, The Wrong Side of History:

For Lynskey, Trump and Trumpism is the obvious analogy. The American Caesar meets most criteria of Orwell’s definition of fascism: ‘something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class… almost any English person would accept “bully” as a synonym for “Fascist”.’

A neat little article.

For those who still use televisions, it turns out there’s a security hole when you plug in your computer, according to NewScientist (5 October 2024, paywall):

Popular smart TV models can take multiple snapshots of what you are watching every second or upload audio snippets of viewed content – possibly even when they are being used as external displays for your laptop or video game console.

Smart TV manufacturers use these frequent screenshots or audio clips in their automatic content recognition systems, which track viewing habits in order to target people with specific advertising. But researchers showed this tracking by some of the world’s most popular smart TV brands – Samsung TVs can take screenshots every 500 milliseconds and LG TVs upload 10-millisecond audio samples of viewed content – can occur when people least expect it.

“When a user connects their laptop via HDMI just to browse stuff on their laptop on a bigger screen by using the TV as a ‘dumb’ display, they are unsuspecting of their activity being screenshotted,” says Yash Vekaria at the University of California, Davis. An LG spokesperson disputed this scenario, and Samsung did not respond to a request for comment. …

[Vekaria and his team] found the smart TVs did not appear to upload any screenshots or audio data when streaming from Netflix or other third-party apps, mirroring YouTube content streamed on a separate phone or laptop or when sitting idle. But the smart TVs did upload data when showing broadcasts from the TV antenna or content from an HDMI-connected device.

That’s an unpleasant thought. While sheer volume might slow passive security breaches, this is certainly something to keep in mind.

If you own a television.

Retcon:

Retroactive continuity is a literary device in which previously established information in a work of fiction is changed, ignored, or contradicted to suit the current story.

Called a “retcon” for short, it’s mostly seen in works of serial fiction, such as comics and television series. [TCK Publishing]

Noted in “Trump drops the pretense, labels Jan. 6 insurrectionists ‘we’,” Aaron Blake, WaPo:

Early voting, you’d think, would indicate one side or the other has enthused its voters to get out to the polls, or mail absentee ballots, as soon as possible to avoid the ooopsie-blues of forgetting to vote.

But what about this? Here’s right-wing pundit Erick Erickson:

… yesterday eclipsed a new record for early voting in Georgia with 300,000 people going to the polls. While it’s impossible to definitively extrapolate which candidate is in the lead, one thing is clear. All of the data says that Trump’s advantage comes from low-propensity voters who don’t vote consistently. If turnout remains high, this is a really good sign for Republicans.

On the other hand, the left is convinced early turnout will reflect voters for their side. Here’s a random selection from Daily Kos, mostly picked because it’s to hand and not because it’s convincing – it’s limp in that regard:

Just a quick happy note to say that in the 24 years I have lived here, I have never seen an early voting line as long as I did this morning at 10:30 am. If you don’t know Carrboro, NC we are adjacent to Chapel Hill and 90% Harris voters.

So who’s right? I can better see the argument that voters outraged by Dobbs have gone to the polls early in order to vote against any Republicans they feel are responsible for restricting their abortion and other reproductive health choices. It’s existential, and that grabs the attention of voters, at least those that place their own lives above theological restraints – keeping in mind that many religions do not restrict abortion, or at least have reasonable restrictions.

Erickson doesn’t cite his source for All of the data says that Trump’s advantage comes from low-propensity voters who don’t vote consistently, nor is the causal chain of such a conclusion obvious, so my evaluation doesn’t lean that way.

I could be wrong, of course.

But, at least for some commentators, not necessarily those I quoted, there may be outright lying going on because a disheartened voter may transition to a non-voter. Why spend the time and put forth the effort in a spasm of futility? But the disheartened voter may not be justified in that transition; get every single one of them together, and victory might still be gained.

Or so the thinking goes.

We won’t know for sure until state-level returns come in, and even then it’ll depend on what’s reported.

Tuesday I had my Covid-19 booster, and Wednesday has been miserable. Here’s the previous campaign update, back when I was fun and memorable.

The Polling Frightens Me, Help!, Ctd

Just after publishing my last update, I ran across “18 Reasons To Be Bullish About The Election,” by GoodNewsRoundup on Daily Kos, and their third reason is “Ignore the red wave polling.” Yeah, doesn’t really work with their title, but the information is still good, even if it’s not new, excepting the specifics. I encourage you to read it, even if the style of the progressives grates on your nerves. Money quote:

[A]n example: Yesterday I saw a diary here about a poll from American Greatness.  It was a PA poll that showed Harris up 4 in registered voters but down 1.5 to trump in likely voters.

That is odd.

I wasn’t the only one who thought that.  Aaron Astor (a professor at Maryville College) looked into it and the poll all but removed Philadelphia from the LV totals.

Weird!

Maybe a mistake?

Daniel Nichanian. Editor-in-chief and founder of @BoltsMag contacted the pollster to let them know about the mistake and IT WASNT A MISTAKE.

They claim that nearly the entire sample of registered voters from Philadelphia were unlikely to vote. (Despite 75% of them saying they were “very likely to vote.”)

Keep your eye on the raw data and not the predigested pap. Like I said, go out and vote! Encourage friends and family to vote. And remember, to quote former Governor Ventura (I-MN), This isn’t a horse race! It doesn’t matter that you voted for the winner or the loser, there are no points for voting on that basis. Negative points for misunderstanding democracy, really. Pick out the person who has the best character, because this is a character election, and vote for them. That’s how to do your best to ensure Democracy continues.

If you really need more reassurance, you can try this, also on Daily Kos.

And In Orbit Around …

• Maryland’s former Governor Hogan (R-MD), now the Republican Senate candidate, may have a scandal holding him back, according to Time. The last respectable poll for Maryland’s race for the open Senate seat emptied by retirement gave his opponent, Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), an eleven point advantage. The tea leaves look soggy for Hogan. Maybe he can busy himself rebuilding the Republican Party.
• The New York Times/Siena College (3.0) is giving Senator Casey (R-PA) of Pennsylvania a four point lead over challenger David McCormick (D-PA), 48%-44%. Given this pollster’s divergence from other polls, even with their prestigious position atop the FiveThirtyEight rankings, I’m inclined to see Casey’s lead as being 2 to 4 points larger.
• Holy smokes, Mississippi has a poll! Too bad it was sponsored by the Democratic challenger, Ty Pinkins (D-MI), and it isn’t a prestigious pollster, but is instead Change Research (1.4). It’s hard to say what their measurement of a mere five point lead for Senator Wicker (R-MI), 47%-42%, actually means. That is, what is that measurement’s relation to reality? Is Mr Pinkins that close? Does he have a chance of upsetting Senator Wicker? Or is it all nonsense? The Next Day: The results have been corrected on FiveThirtyEight to show Senator Wicker’s lead is 48%-35%, a more believable 13 point gap. I also notice the result links differ. This might explain the change:
  

  Voter Awareness Boosts Pinkins’ Numbers

  The survey reveals Roger Wicker initially leading by 13 points over Ty Pinkins. However, Wicker’s broader unfavorability rate stands at 36%, surpassing his 26% favorability. Conversely, Pinkins, while lesser-known, achieves a positive net favorability, 12% favorability against a 9% unfavorability.

  After voters read candidate biographies, the electoral gap narrows. Wicker’s support slightly increases to 50%, while Pinkins gains ground at 40%, reducing the gap to 10 points. By the final ballot, the gap closes further to just a 5-point striking distance, with Wicker at 47% and Pinkins at 42%.

  The problem, of course, is that handing out biographies at voting booths is probably illegal and fruitless. Pinkins needs to communicate how he differs from Wicker now. I think I shall disregard this poll. There are too many unknowns and it doesn’t taste right.

• Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy (2.6) is giving Florida  Senator Scott (R-FL) a seven point lead over former Rep Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), 48%-41%. From the last Florida update, that puts Mason-Dixon solidly between a doubtful result from The New York Times/Siena College (3.0) of a nine point lead, and a result from equally prestigious Marist College (2.9) of a two point lead, or statistical dead heat, for the Senator. Who’s off and who’s on? Hard to say here. Everyone presumably has chops, so discarding the poll that is disliked isn’t really a viable option.
• Missouri challenger Lucas Kunce (D-MO) now has received the endorsement of both the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Kansas City Star, for whatever legacy media endorsements may be worth these days. Kunce’s campaign pulls back the paywall curtain on the former newspaper to quote the relevant editorial:
  

  … Hawley (who is running unopposed for the GOP nomination next month) adds to the reasons Missourians should help hold that line. From his political and personal culpability for the events of Jan. 6, 2021, to his insincere populist showboating on the Senate floor, to his outrageous recent defense of Christian nationalism, Hawley has been a frequently embarrassing senator for Missouri — and not an especially effective one. With recent polls showing Hawley with a single-digit lead over Kunce in a state Trump won by 16 points in 2020, Democrats may in fact have the opportunity for an upset here. They also have an opportunity to seat a senator the state could finally be proud of.

  That’s more or less a slap upside the head of Senator Hawley (R-MO). But it doesn’t mean Kunce will win. That’s up to the Missouri citizens.

• In Texas Senator Cruz (R-TX) is continuing to maintain his small lead, according to the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs (2.2), 50%-46% over Rep Allred (D-TX).
  

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  Presumably, this pollster doesn’t skew results, so Rep Allred needs to continue to get his message out there.

• On the last update, I noted Nebraska’s Senator Fischer (R-NE) and challenger Dan Osborn (I-NE) had pulled out competing polls by dubious pollsters and swung them at each other. It turns out Mr Osborn had another poll in his back pocket, and this measurement is far more impressive: SurveyUSA (2.8) is giving Osborn a 50%-44% lead, which is beyond the margin of error, or would be if SurveyUSA provided that detail.
  

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  I’m finding these details interesting:

  Candidate	Republicans	Democrats	Independents
  Fischer	72%	4%	23%
  Osborn	22%	94%	69%

  Fischer has sprung leaks among both her fellow Republicans and the Independents, and Osborn is leading in both men and women with 50% of each, while Fischer is only getting 41% of women, and 47% of men. It appears Dobbs is having an effect in this race, although perhaps not of the magnitude I was generally hoping for.

• On the other hand, SurveyUSA (2.8) also surveyed for the Nebraska Senate special election, featuring appointed Senator Ricketts (R-NE) and challenger Preston Love, Jr (D-NE), and the Senator continues to lead, 53%-37%, by 16 points. The saddest part is that this is an improvement for Mr Love of two points.
• More evidence that Senator Cruz’s (R-TX) overall strategy of being an asshole isn’t working out for him comes from Steve Benen of Maddowblog:
  

  Public polling generally shows the GOP incumbent with small but steady leads over Rep. Colin Allred, a well-liked Texas Democrat and former NFL star. But private polling is causing fresh anxieties for Cruz and his party: Politico reported this week that the latest round of polling from the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate Republicans’ top super PAC, found Cruz’s advantage over Allred “slipping … from 3 points in mid-September to 1 point in October.”

  “Most hated member of the Senate” is a paraphrased quote I’ve run across numerous times over the years in relationship to Senator Cruz. Both sides may cheer if he’s replaced. Albeit in a muted way.

I Put A Conclusion Down And Now I Can’t Find It

I have started discarding polls, because I hope readers now understand that some don’t deserve to exist. Such pollsters as ActiVote, SoCal Strategies, Patriot Polling (1.1), Trafalgar Group (0.7!), and Redfield & Wilton Strategies were on the list.

We’re now less than three weeks out on the terminus of the Senate campaigns, and I continue to have hopes. Senator Fischer’s (R-NE) looming disaster in Nebraska has been a complete surprise; if Mr Kunce can pressure Senator Hawley (R-MO), perhaps beating him, that would rival the shocker in Nebraska. The Florida and Texas races, despite the shock expressed by the longtime media, is less surprising, given the abrasiveness and darker qualities of the incumbents. And Montana? The willingness to throw away a competent and respected member of the Senate in favor of a businessman whose business is failing, and has multiple scandals, would be a shocking commentary on the Montana electorate. If that happens. Pollster reputations are on the line in Montana.

That blasted cat brought in a mouse, now I have to wonder where it went. Until next time…

In this thread on the company represented by stock symbol DJT, my last look showed a company on its way off the cliff, but now it’s a company that’s been rescued – by the invisible hand of someone. Last time I discussed this, DJT’s price/sh was around $14. That was around September 20. Now?

Just short of a double. A reward for the inveterate risk taker and for those willing to bet on the invisible hand of President Putin and others in his league, looking to buy Mr Trump’s favor, should he win the Presidential race, by pumping up the price of something Mr Trump owns, and lots of: DJT stock.

Over on Daily Kos, tjlord wonders if he does still own it:

If you’re concerned about election board chaos in Georgia, here’s Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney:

I took these pictures before we cut most of the ornamental grass for the season on Saturday.

Hey, don’t look to me for some fabulous, fantastical answer.

But it’s the most important question in the world.

The whole thing is premised on faith. On a belief about how the world works.
— David Stockman, businessman, Republican U.S. Represenative, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1981–1985) on supply side economics.

But “thing” can represent any proposed social plan, from how to organize your church to how to run a baseball stadium.

Anything.

It’s the most important unspoken question in the world.

Nootropic:

The term “nootropics” first referred to chemicals that met very specific criteria. But now it’s used to refer to any natural or synthetic substance that may have a positive impact on mental skills. In general, nootropics fall into three general categories: dietary supplements, synthetic compounds, and prescription drugs. [WebMD]

Ah. Noted in “The Science Behind Nootropics – Do They Actually Work?” Gabe Allen, Discover:

Nootropic supplement companies pitch an attractive solution. What if you could take a pill (or powder or gummy candy) that would make your brain function better in our technology-mediated world? Something that would help you focus on what is important, remember the right details and block out the noise. The nootropic industry is already worth more than $2 billion and is expected to double in size in the next decade, according to one report.

But, unlike prescription nootropics like Adderall or Ritalin, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t highly regulate nootropic supplements. In many cases, American consumers must rely on the companies they buy from for information.

Rep MT Greene (R-GA) puts out an apparently outrageous tweet:

Yes they can control the weather.

It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) October 4, 2024

Yes they can control the weather.

It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.

Yes, very silly. But her own Party’s response helps reveal an unspoken nuance:

Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez, for example, issued a statement online this week, suggesting that Greene and those who agree with her need “to have their head examined.”

He’s not alone. Axios spoke to several other GOP lawmakers, one of whom said Greene’s beliefs on the subject are “loony tunes.” The same member told the outlet that “disgust with her recent comments is widespread among House Republicans.” [Maddowblog]

Both sides are taking her seriously, without realizing that neither is the intended audience. That audience is … the electorate.

An electorate that should terrify the GOP. They and their allies have spent decades denying that anthropogenic climate change can occur, and that capitalism is a prime contributor. If that message fails, they, at a minimum, may lose to regulation an economic system at the core of their beings; and it’s not impossible that angry mobs might toss them into the ocean, or worse.

So what’s going on here?

Greene is simply finding a new way to deny it. Much like talking to the Divine, she’s pointing at a mysterious “them” who are controlling the weather, a hypothesis that, much like the Divine, cannot easily be falsified.

In other words, Greene is fighting for her political survival. Unlike her colleagues, she’s willing to go to any length, and play it as strong as necessary, to save that career.

This could get more intriguing, not to mention silly, before the election.

The Colossus
Francisco de Goya

As the giants strolled by, Francisco de Goya frantically painted them, but he painted so quickly the friction of his brushes caused almost all the paintings to catch fire and burn up.

This is why oil painting is dangerous.

The Polling Frightens Me, Help!

Yes, depending on who you are and, inversely, how little you know about poll accuracy and trustability, polls can be frightening. A writer using the dubious handle (I’ve been in social media since the early ’80s, so’s I gets to say “dubious handle”) gingytheelephantboy has an article out on Daily Kos that, again, is either reassuring or even more terrifying. Important points:

A special election was held to fill George Santos’ seat. The polls showed a toss-up. The Democrat won by 8 points. The last special election of the season was held in New Jersey last month. The seat was safely Blue and turnout was very small. The Democrat took 80 percent as compared to 75 the last time around. Yesterday in Fairbanks, a +14 Trump city, the Democrat won the mayoral election by 15 percent [sic]. Are we seeing a pattern here?

So why do I continue this series? I’m trying, as a non-specialist, to convey how to evaluate a campaign in terms of anticipating winners and losers during a campaign. I dare to say that my qualifications are the qualifications of most of the electorate, except I’m now (sigh) 60+ years old, and having 40 years in social media suggests I’ve had more experience watching and participating in arguments about politics and how the world works than most. I’ve seen a lot of weirdness, from the current absurdly blasphemous surrealism of Christian Nationalism to the assertion that America was about to experience a revolution because, at the time, the homeless in Denver were upset.

But to get back to the point, I try to share my thinking and evaluation methods so readers can get a leg up on not being 60+ years. I report polls, but I do not necessarily buy into them. Pollsters will tell you data collection has become more and more difficult. Progressives claim the youth vote, leaning Democratic, is undercounted. I’ve nearly been incessant in insisting the Dobbs decision is the most important factor in this election, and I do not expect to see that fade until the existential edge of reproductive health is once again dealt with in an adult manner – and not religious zealots screaming and running in circles.

Here’s the money quote from gingytheelephantboy:

Here is what I see. Democrats and pro-choice have been outperforming the polls by 5% or more in election after election for two years. And that is where we are today. By the way this doesn’t bother me a bit. If it motivates our voters to turn out like their lives depend upon it, then it is all good.

So the big question is why is this happening. My answer is that the polls are missing something important and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what it is. They are just not polling enough women, particularly young women, a group notorious for not voting. And they are the very people who have been registering in droves. Of course they are not being polled, they don’t fit the old models.

Keep the above points in mind when evaluating campaigns, stay a bit skeptical of even top rank pollsters – and when choosing for whom to vote. You weren’t going to skip for despair, were you?

What’s this The Washington Post poll, And Why Is It Unrated?

Looking at one of the polls, WaPo doesn’t call out someone else doing, or sharing, the work, and all of FiveThirtyEight’s ratings of WaPo involved its partnering with someone else. Therefore, in the absence of a partner, they are unrated. Fortunately, they only appear once.

Biff! Pop! Pow! Aw, Adam West Escaped — Again!

• CNN/Politics has an article on Pennsylvania Senate challenger David McCormick’s (R-PA) former life as a hedge-fund manager. The article’s headline?
  

  Senate candidate Dave McCormick led hedge fund that bet against some of Pennsylvania’s most iconic companies

  The first couple of paragraphs are all that is necessary.

  In the years that Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick led one of the world’s largest hedge funds, the firm bet millions of dollars against some of the state’s biggest and most iconic companies, financial filings show.

  Under McCormick’s leadership, Bridgewater Associates shorted the stocks of nearly 50 companies headquartered in Pennsylvania, including The Hershey Company and US Steel, a CNN review of records from the US Department of Labor found.

  I don’t think most voters will care. Shorting is not an option generally known to the non-investing public, but it’s not an exotic or illicit investment strategy, no matter how much some amateur investors hop up and down in outrage. I have never used it, as gains are limited to roughly 100%, while potential for loss is unlimited; it’s a tool of the confident professionals. Who sometimes go broke using it, just like us long investors.

  This strikes me as a scare article.

  ---

  On the other hand, this article on a ham-handed visit by Mr McCormick to Philadelphia is not in the least surprising.

  ---

  In other, more numerical news, highly respected Quinnipiac University (2.8) gives Senator Casey (R-PA) a 51%-43% lead over McCormick, a thoroughly reasonable lead, with a margin of error of ±2.6 points. Emerson College (2.9) gives the Senator a 48%-46% lead, which is within Emerson College’s ±3 point credibility interval. As with many Emerson College polls, it seems sometimes more rightward-leaning than many pollsters are measuring. TIPP Insights (1.8), working for Republican-aligned American Greatness, gives the Senator a 47%-43% lead with likely voters and a 48%-40% lead with registered voters. The big gap between likely and registered voters seems unlikely, but I’m not sure what it implies.

• In Maryland the University of Maryland Baltimore County Institute of Politics, an unknown pollster, gives Democrat Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) a 48%-39% lead over former Governor Hogan (R-MD). This is in the neighborhood of a poll from a reputable pollster in the last report. Additionally, I know Maryland is a bastion of the Democratic Party, and the weight of an unknown pollster is difficult to measure, but this observation reinforces a point I made above:
  

  Maryland voters are poised to enshrine the right to abortion access in the state constitution, with 69% of voters saying they will support it and just 21% opposed, according to a poll released Wednesday.

  It’s certainly possible that abortion amendments on the ballot of conservative States may sway many voters to favor not only the amendment, but the liberal minority who put it on the ballot.

• Highly respected Quinnipiac University (2.8) has somehow found the Michigan Senate race to be even at 48%. This is certainly mysterious, as other respected pollsters have had Rep Slotkin (D-MI) up by ten or more points. Every pollster can have a blunder, I suppose. For comparison, Emerson College (2.9) has Rep Slotkin leading former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI) 49%-44%. Emerson College has something called a ... credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error, of ±3.1 points, which I take to mean Slotkin’s lead could be two points, or eight points. Then again, InsiderAdvantage (2.0) has more of a QU result of Rep Slotkin leading only 46%-45% – a statistical dead heat. However, InsiderAdvantage seems to lean to the conservatives – see that link for some right-wing speculation.
• Quinnipiac University (2.8) has Wisconsin’s Senator Baldwin (D-WI) up by four points, 50%-46%, over challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI), which feels a bit small. Still, the margin of error is ±3.0 points. Emerson College (2.9) has the Senator’s lead also at 50%-46%, with a credibility interval of ±3.0 points. Coincidence? Two converging pollsters? But InsiderAdvantage (2.0) has Baldwin’s advantage at only 48%-47%, or a statistical dead heat. But if InsiderAdvantage is right-leaning?
• In Florida we see discord between two prominent pollsters. The New York Times/Siena College (3.0) sees the Florida race as solidly Senator Scott’s (R-FL) at 49%-40%. Marist College (2.9) also sees the lead as the Senator’s, but only two points at 50%-48%., which is probably within the margin of error, but that is not listed. The former has had some other questionable results, while the latter’s result is more congruent with other recent results.The Marist College poll also notes:
  

  37% have a positive impression of Mucarsel-Powell. 23% have a negative view of her. A notable 40% have either never heard of her or are unsure how to rate Mucarsel-Powell.

  Much like Democratic challenger Rep Allred (D-TX) in Texas, Mucarsel-Powell making herself known to Florida voters may reap big benefits.

• Texas, like Florida, has been polled by The New York Times/Siena College (3.0) and Marist College (2.9), but in this case their results appear to be close, as the former gives Senator Cruz (R-TX) a 48%-44% lead over Rep Allred (D-TX), while the latter gives the Senator a 51%-46% lead. Allred’s chronic problem/opportunity continues, according to Marist:
  

  39% have a favorable opinion of Allred. 36% have an unfavorable impression of him, and 25% have either never heard of Allred or are unsure how to rate him.

  Allred must reach those 25% who don’t know he exists.

• Ohio gets its own paired of polls, but this time Marist College (2.9) is paired with WaPo Poll (unknown), and they both believe the race is within the margin of error, whatever that might be, with the former having Senator Brown (D-OH) leading challenger Bernie Moreno (R-OH), 50%-48%, while the latter has the Senator leading by 48%-47%.
• While I didn’t plan to mention Arizona again, Emerson College (2.9) is giving Rep Gallego (D-AZ) a small seven point lead over election denier Kari Lake (R-AZ), 50%-43%. The pollster comments,
  

  Since last month, Gallego’s support increased two points while Lake’s support held at 43%.

  So perhaps momentum is with Gallego. David Weigel has an interesting differential analysis of Mr. Gallego and Vice President Harris in Semafor here.

• In the shock of the day, The New York Times/Siena College (3.0) sees Montana Republican challenger Tim Sheehy (R-MT) leading Senator Tester (D-MT), 52%-44%. Public Opinion Strategies (1.6), sponsored by the Montana Republican Party, gives Sheehy the lead as well, 51%-45%, but the combination of a weak pollster and a partisan sponsor casts a pall over the credibility of that result.
• Envision two Vikings, whacking away at each other with foam light sabers: Nebraska Senator Fischer (R-NE) and challenger Dan Osborn (I-NE) each hired a pollster, ran a poll, and are advertising their results, thus the whacking reference. Senator Fischer’s pick is hardly that of the litter, as for reasons unknown and mysterious she selected unknown pollster Torchlight Strategies, a repeated action on her campaign’s part, and they’ve obligingly found her having the lead over Mr Osborn, 48%-42%.
  

  ---

  Mr Osborn’s pollster is Change Research, which at least has a rating, but it’s a deeply unimpressive 1.4. Nor do they do much published work. They are giving Mr Osborn the lead, 46%-43%. Of course.

  ---

  So how to evaluate this? It’s almost impossible to say, except maybe Don’t evaluate it. I’m going to recognize this as dueling propaganda. Both sides are trying to convince their partisans that the race is still winnable, so come on out and vote. The implied message is entirely honorable.

  ---

  But if I were Nebraskan, I might be irritable. I dislike manipulation, and that’s the essence of this, to my mind.

• In case you wonder about Virginia, Republican challenger Hung Cao (R-VA), who seems to be a Democratic plant, is profiled here by Marc Fisher. If Cao is not a plant, then his approach to winning the seat is puzzling. Does he think a revolution will happen and put him in the seat? That a Trump victory is imminent and he’ll ride the coattails? Or is this a more devious strategy of gaining an objective by losing the race? I am puzzled.

Roll The Credits!

Nyah, too tired. Crank broke. Wife needs attention. Cat needs food.

Have a good weekend, folks.

In The Dash

Toxic narcissism is true not only for Mr Trump, but many of his followers as well:

The latest national NBC News poll found Donald Trump trailing Kamala Harris by 21 points among women voters. The good news for Republicans is that the former president is well aware of the gender gap. The bad news for Republicans is that he doesn’t know what to do about it. [Steve Benen, Maddowblog]

A twenty one point gap for the women voters – and that may be an underestimate. And it should be a red-light message to all the conservatives who still consider themselves good people and plan to vote Republican – a lot of people look at Trump and his associates and are repelled.

Oh, And This …

YouGov Oct. 6-7

49% Harris
45% Trump
1% Stein
0% West

Redfield & Wilton Strategies Oct. 6

48% Harris
46% Trump
1% Oliver
1% Stein

Pew Research Center Sept. 30-Oct. 6

48% Harris
47% Trump
2% Kennedy
1% Oliver
1% Stein
0% West

West is Independent Cornel West, Stein is Jill Stein of the Green Party, Oliver is Chase Oliver of the Libertarians. It doesn’t appear the et al will impact this election much. Data from here.

Proroguing:

Prorogation in the Westminster system of government is the action of proroguing, or interrupting, a parliament, or the discontinuance of meetings for a given period of time, without a dissolution of parliament. The term is also used for the period of such a discontinuance between two legislative sessions of a legislative body. [Wikipedia]

Or maybe suspension? Noted in “Boris Johnson just published his political memoir. It’s unbelievable.” William Booth, WaPo:

Given how Mr Trump dribbles out lies at every opportunity, I’ve come up with this:

Mendacity Machine.

“Tell me, do you really want me to vote for the Mendacity Machine? Will you be voting for the Mendacity Machine? Do your parents approve of voting for the Mendacity Machine.”

Playwrights are coached to use the name of a character thrice in order to implant it in the consciousness of the audience, and I’m pleased to note that three was easily achieved in the above passage.

Feel free to use it, folks.

Following along in the wake of Republican governors thanking President Biden for Federal assistance with Hurricane Helene is Rep Chuck Edwards (R-NC) and a praiseworthy press release, from which I extract the following (and mess up the numbering, apologies):

1. FEMA is NOT going to run out of money.
   1. FEMA officials have repeatedly affirmed that the agency has enough money for immediate response and recovery needs over the next few months.
      1. Secretary Mayorkas’ statement indicating otherwise was an irresponsible attempt to politicize a tragedy for personal gain.
   2. In the coming months, Western North Carolina is going to need more disaster relief funding than is currently available to assist with recovery efforts.
      1. I’m confident that supplemental disaster relief funding, which I am already involved in the process of creating, will be considered in the House once we return to session in mid-November.

There’s a lot of other good stuff. No, I do not know the story about any statement by Secretary Mayorkas, and how it’d be for personal gain. Frankly, the Republicans have tried to victimize the Secretary for his entire term, for no honest reason I can discern, and this may simply be another go at it.

But I could be wrong.

I went to bed last night with that feeling of a relentless tragedy about to happen, that everything is changing, as it does when close relatives pass away. Still got it this morning.

Is this what every hurricane season will be like in the future? Savage storms, the like of which have been unseen by humanity until now?

Maybe Milton will turn out to be a dud. I’d go with that.

From Julie Szego:

Hence, a fascinating, irreconcilable dispute, impossibly named Tickle v Giggle.

I wonder if we’re about to see a tidal wave of case names where the litigant names have been carefully chosen to be amusing.

Sounds totally frivolous.

My, the silt has accumulated quickly.

“I Didn’t Mean It When I Said …”

WaPo has a report on an unsurprising, but risky, change in Republican strategy for some House members, a change that can be anticipated to appear in Senate races, and in fact already has …