Am I wrong about the first debate?

 I called it a draw.  Tim Pool disagrees:

Presidential Debates Round1 - Draw

As much as I am in the MAGA camp, the best I can call the debate outcome was a draw.  Luckily, it's also the worst I can call it. Both men came across as unfriendly.  Yes it was kind of a brawl, but you can fight and still come across as likeable to the audience.  Neither man did that. Both scored some points with their base but likely not beyond that - be it with Independents or voters typically in favor of the other party.

It was a night of jabs, not haymakers, and perhaps that was by design. No one wanted to make a big mistake.  Joe Biden may have made some mistakes with his base but president Trump should not have stepped in to point it out because the left does not want to hear that from him. It effectively reduces the impact.  Another mistake on the president Trump side of the ledger was him interrupting Biden too frequently.  There were a few times that Biden looked like he had the rope to hang himself but Trump did not stand back and allow him to do so.

The strategy was clearly to rattle Biden with the interruptions, and that part appeared to work to some extent.  But the president did not allow the rattling to marinate and Biden to make mistakes.

All that aside, both sides probably proved their case to their bases, but not much more. Remember that Clinton eked out a first debate win over Trump in 2016 according to most of the media. This too may be more strategy.  Trump was better in the later debates and that may be the result of the decision to focus on rallies and face to face politicking.  And if the next two debates are more impactful for Trump, then a draw is perfectly fine. I'd expect to see a different president Trump in round 2.

First Trump-Biden debate goes tonight

I have only one prediction - Biden will be roundly declared the winner, regardless of his actual performance.

Idiot activist judge puts TikTok politics ahead of national security

Democrats caught cheating with absentee ballots

Can you imagine how big of a story this would be if it were Republican malfeasance in the election?  But it's not.  Project Veritas exposes more truth than CNN, NYT, Washington Post and Newsweek combined.  That's not hard though when the rest of those propaganda outlets expose next to nothing when it comes to truth.

State of the race - what I see

Taking a look at the RealClearPolitics average of polls in the battleground states, I am seeing results that are odds with their interpretation of who is leading the race for president in 2020. President Trump currently has 205 electoral college votes.  Joe Biden currently has 201 electoral college votes and there are 132 electoral college votes that have not yet been decided.*

In the swing states I'm seeing the following results based on the available RCP aggregation of polls: 

-- Texas has a total of 1 valid poll.  That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up. Trump has 52.7% and Biden has 47.3% of the weighted valid vote total. Trump leads by 5.4%. 

-- Florida has a total of 0 valid polls. That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up.

-- Pennsylvania has a total of 1 valid poll.  That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up. Trump has 50.1% and Biden has 49.9% of the weighted valid vote total. Trump leads by 0.1%. 

-- Ohio has a total of 2 valid polls. Trump has 52.3% and Biden has 47.7% of the weighted valid vote total. Trump leads by 4.6%. 

-- Georgia has a total of 2 valid polls. Trump has 50.3% and Biden has 49.7% of the weighted valid vote total. Trump leads by 0.6%. 

-- Michigan has a total of 2 valid polls. Trump has 49.4% and Biden has 50.6% of the weighted valid vote total. Biden leads by 1.1%. 

-- North Carolina has a total of 3 valid polls. Trump has 51.1% and Biden has 48.9% of the weighted valid vote total. Trump leads by 2.2%. 

-- Virginia has a total of 1 valid poll.  That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up. Trump has 49.4% and Biden has 50.6% of the weighted valid vote total. Biden leads by 1.2%. 

-- Arizona has a total of 0 valid polls. That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up. 

-- Wisconsin has a total of 0 valid polls. That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up. 

-- Minnesota has a total of 1 valid poll.  That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up. Trump has 48.8% and Biden has 51.2% of the weighted valid vote total. Biden leads by 2.4%. 

-- Colorado has a total of 0 valid polls. That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up.

-- Nevada has a total of 1 valid poll.  That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up. Trump has 43.8% and Biden has 56.2% of the weighted valid vote total. Biden leads by 12.3%. 

-- Iowa has a total of 0 valid polls. That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up.

-- New Mexico has a total of 0 valid polls. That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up.

-- New Hampshire has a total of 0 valid polls. That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up.

-- Maine has a total of 1 valid poll.  That is not sufficient to make a prediction in the state. The state remains a toss up. Trump has 39.3% and Biden has 60.7% of the weighted valid vote total. Biden leads by 21.3%. 

As for electoral college wins: most are still toss-ups if you look at the validity of the state polls.

Texas (38) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Florida (29) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Pennsylvania (20) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Ohio (18) --Trump would get the electoral college votes.

Georgia (16) -- Trump would get the electoral college votes.

Michigan (16) -- Biden would get the electoral college votes.

North Carolina (15) -- Trump would get the electoral college votes.

Virginia (13) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Arizona (11) No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Wisconsin (10) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Minnesota (10) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Colorado (9) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Nevada (6) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Iowa (6) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

New Mexico (5) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

New Hampshire (4) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

Maine (4) -- No one currently is winning the electoral college vote.

*These results are based on the following parameters; polls taken in the last 14 days, with a sample size of at least 500 among likely voters, with a margin of error of less than 4.1%, among pollsters rated C+ or better, using the Pollster Tracking by FiveThirtyEight.com, and removing 538's allocated pollster bias and my calculated temporal pro-Clinton bias vs. actual election results from 2016. States must have at least 2 valid polls to be considered.

Realistically I think both Texas and Iowa belong in the Trump column, which would up his electoral college total to 249.  With that he still needs to hold Arizona, and either Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania to put him over the 270 needed to win.

The president is in good but not great shape electorally, according to the evidence offered by pollsters (which has been presented as very bad for the president).  The reality may be very different.  But even if the president is in great shape, there's a movement afoot to delegitimize his potential win if not outright steal the election for Biden.  Every vote matters, as long as it is a real vote.  And in addition, the Republicans need to hold the senate and win back congress in order to implement Trump's agenda to drain the swamp, stand up to China, and make America great again.

UPDATE:  In my map I have assumed Florida for president Trump, where elsewhere I have left it as no current winner.  I think Trump will win Florida but I cannot call it that way based on the evidence.  Given that, I would add Florida to the "realistically in Trump's column" paragraph but as a must hold.  Otherwise the analysis holds up. Barring this craziness.

Now is the time to #WalkAway

 
#Walkaway from the political party that is build on lies.

Kim Klacik for Congress

 How does this woman not win in November? Well, voter apathy and Democrat misinformation could do the trick.

That's why working together and supporting each other matters.  Good on Rand Paul for doing this:

Every little bit helps.

Sunday verse

 

Saturday Learning Series - Geography (Namibia)

 Today it's Namibia.

The flag info:

Friday Musical Interlude - Wild Nothing

 Dreampop or maybe mellow surf music, from Wild Nothing, "Nocturne" (2012):

The American Dream is real, this is cool

Hard work pays off.  This inspiring video led to an incredible series of events as seen in the follow up videos (below). 

Gary Lamb did a video thanking Tim Pool and applauding president Trump:

What happened next?  Take a look:

This is why work effort is better than grievance. The American Dream is real.

Trump: winning

I am seeing similar results to this using my polling adjustment factors, which I will share hopefully tomorrow if I have time:

Bribery? If it quacks like a duck

 Michael Bloomberg is trying to bribe Florida felons to vote for Joe Biden.

Are we doomed?

I sometimes wonder if I'm talking to the same 100 people all the time.  I'm pretty sure this blog has been shadow-banned, de-listed, whatever term you choose, by Google.  It's very rare that I see a spike in traffic.  There's no hubris in that statement, 10 years ago it used to happen. I'd get an occasional post with thousands of views.  Now?  Well it hasn't happened in about 5 years.  I get an occasional bump into several hundred more than normal, and that's it. 

I'm not going to turn this into a rant against Big Tech, who clearly have their thumb on the scale for Democrats and progressive liberal causes.  There's a reality that needs to be confronted, because Congress is not going to confront it.  Until there's a conservative version of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google, we are going to have an ever-shrinking voice in the public sphere.  We will be silenced.  It will be a death by 1000 cuts scenario, and we are only about 300 cuts into it.

I know there are alternatives that have developed like Parler instead of Twitter but they seem to be stuck below the critical mass needed to become an alternative.  Perhaps it requires a root level alternative, a counter to Google, which is a truly massive undertaking, probably beyond our capability.

So what do we do?

Talking to your neighbors, neighborhood grassroots organizations, and voting are part of the answer but not all of it. At some point that becomes the same as this blog - talking to each other and not spreading the word.  Our message needs to reach into areas that it does not currently reach. There are cities and states that are with 100% certainty, locked down by Democrats. They do not get exposed to a conservative message.

The one weapon we have right now is president Trump. He's not afraid to do the outreach that changing demographics dictate we must at least consider, if not address.  In 2016 Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania proved it.  But if president Trump loses (legitimately or otherwise) or if he's not replaced by a similar fighter who is willing to win over non-supporters we are in big trouble. Are we doomed?  Yeah, maybe.

Even with a Republican congress, senate and president after 2020, we are on borrowed time right now. In every arena, media, education, government beaurocracy (the CIA, IRS, and FBI to name a few), entertainment, sports, law, and Big Tech we are getting our asses handed to us. Even churches are losing their values and caving to the social justice mob. 

It's not over, but as I said, we are on borrowed time thanks to president Trump. We need to make the most of it.  We need a conservative network of support and promotion.  We need one that grows not only in political action committee efforts but to include all of the areas mentioned above.  We need an allegiance to conservative principles and a support system across every area of life.  Yes it sounds like Big Brother, but it's a fight-fire-with-fire situation.  We need to fight back and we need to do it no.  Short of cheating with vote-by-mail schemes like Democrats, we need to coalesce. We need to harden and we need to fight back a lot harder than we are doing.  The reason we aren't is because we can't. We are millions of voices but we are not in unison.  We won't always need to be so homogenous, but the only way to fight the ongoing onslaught by the Democratic hoard is to be an organized, coordinated  hoard on our side. Failing that we probably are doomed.

What Trump did and Democrats won't - decoupling

Democrats, step back for a moment.  Look at what has happened in the last 12 years. Most recently, President Trump has worked to stop endless wars. He's stopped ignoring minorities, stopped foregoing rust belt states as locked Democrat voters, he stopped ignoring the working class in favor of a globalist agenda under the guise of free trade. He's decoupled the GOP from having a blind eye on illegal immigration. In effect, he has decoupled the Republican party from it's recent historical agenda in a return to root conservative principles.  He's decoupled the Republican party from it's establishment agenda and tied it to a populist agenda that favors the middle class and the working class.  It's been genius despite all of the resistance from everyone both within the GOP establishment and from without (the Democrats, the media, educational institutions, the beaurocracy in Washington, etc.).  It will be brilliant if he manages to win re-election.

Brilliant because Democrats will not have learned from his example.  The old staid policy platforms of both parties were part of the reason for the logjam that had become Washington D.C. It's not that the positions were unimportant - some were, some were not - but rather that a healthy re-examination of them was not being done on either side.

It certainly was not done on the Democrat side in the eight years of president Obama.  Democrats doubled down on identity politics. Democrats pushed the accelerator on the things they thought got president Obama elected. You believed your own hyperbole not just on Obama but on your policy positions.  You got it wrong.

Now, if president Trump wins re-election, you Democrats will either have to do the same, or face the fact that it is common sense, not demographics, that informs destiny. But you either won't or can't decouple from tax the rich philosophy, so the rich move and Democrat states lose revenue, and eventually, power. You seem oddly unwilling to decouple from globalism, so voters move away from Democrats towards the party that seems to care about the working class and middle American jobs. You are tied to group politics and perhaps cannot decouple from the theory that you build your base on identity politics, as your tight grip on these groups continues to decay.  If the Democrats do not similarly decouple from your recent history as Republicans led by president Trump have done, you won't win. 

Do it now!

I'm not going to sugar coat this, Ruth Bader Gindsberg's seat on the Supreme Court should be filled on by a president Trump appointee ASAP. By ASAP I mean before the election, or at worst, in the lame duck session after the election.

There is zero reason to delay this, and I don't expect the president, nor the senate Republicans will do so.  Of course there may be some recalcitrant Republicans who are either in a precarious re-election battle (Susan Collins), wish-washy (Lisa Murkowski) or just plain spiteful (Mitt Romney) who might not vote to nominate a Trump appointee if it happens before the election.  But those are not show-stoppers.  The Republicans have 5 seats in the Senate and if they lose all three of those votes, the deciding vote is cast by VP Pence, so Trump's nominee will be confirmed.

There are many reasons not to delay:

• it's seen as decisive action by Republicans, delivering on one of the most important issues for conservative voters.
• there's no guarantee Republicans will be able to pass a Trump appointee after the election if either Trump loses the election or Republicans lose control of the senate in November
• most importantly, there is no reason to care if the left sees Republicans as holding a double standard after Mitch McConnell refused to hold hearings on president Obama's nominee Merrick Garland when Obama had less than a year left in his term because Democrats would have no compunction about doing it if the roles were reverse.  We must not be held to the standards they want  because Republicans are in power and avoiding the use of that power to achieve conservative goals ensures that they will never be achieved.

Don't sweat the risks of this.  Yes, there are downsides like firing up the Democrat base, but they are pretty fired up already.  Fire up our base by showing them results.

While you are at it, replace the role of the justice you are nominating with another conservative justice at the same time.  Do it.  Do it now!

Sunday verse

 

Saturday Learning Series - Geography (Myanmar)

 The geography of Myanmar, the flag, and some bonus content:

Friday Musical Interlude - Sixto Rodriguez

 I Wonder from 1970, a sadly overlooked song.

We'll be right back

I am experiencing an unusually hectic day with my day job, so the posts I had planned to work on this morning have been postponed.  Nonsensible Shoes will return shortly.

 

Drudge is off the rails and why it matters

 For years the Drudge Report was the place for news minus the mainstream media skew.  Conservatives held it in high esteem.  For the last year I have not been using the Drudge Report at all because it has gone off the rails.  It's just like the New York Times now.  It's useless, anti-Trump, orange man bad, kool-aid drinking Trump-derangement syndrome crazy.

It's not just me seeing this.

If you are a conservative and have been relying on Drudge without realizing the change that has happened, please stop using it as a source.

The problem with being a conservative and having so few news sources and pundits on our side (relatively speaking) is that progressive know this.  They can attempt to destroy our voices like they tried with James O'Keefe and Project Veritas (and many others) or they can  subvert or convert the voices on our side like with Fox News or Matt Drudge.  Either way it is a big blow to our voice, our side.  Each voice silenced is a big blow to our message, unlike CNN faltering on the left there are hundreds of other voices that can step into the void.  What hinders liberals is that they step in and keep making the same mistakes so liberal messaging is hemorrhaging across the board.  That's what is keeping our side afloat, not our own strength of voice.

I hate to say it but what the right needs is a little less competition and a little more cooperation.  We see that happening but not enough.  Conservative voices are still seedlings and not mighty oaks.  Outside of Fox News, Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh there are a few next tier voices that matter but with Fox and Drudge titling leftward now, only Rush Limbaugh remains as a steadfast top tier reliably conservative voice.  As much as I love Rush and have been listening since 1989 or 1990, we cannot have him remain our lone voice, even as strong as his voice is.

We must become a network of supporting members, as fraught with peril in the long run as that becomes.  We do not want to become the same problem the liberal media can become.  While we are capable avoiding that, and must be mindful of it, we do need to create an environment where conservative voices can flourish.  It's a strategic imperative for the right. 

Conform or be cast out - NFL edition

I have to confess, I've lost a lot of respect for the NFL and their efforts at wokeness.  They have done so much to turn off their fans, including me, that this could be the inflection point for the league - either realize the damage you are doing to your reputation and stop it, or go full force woke, and learn to live with a fraction of your former audience ( and the commensurate decline in TV revenue, merchandise sales etc.).  I was not planning on supporting the NFL this season.  But despite that my curiosity got to me. Brady and Gronkowski going to New England?  Other high profile players switching teams?  The Raiders in Las Vegas? Nope, nope and nope.  The sad state of the game was my driving curiosity.

I wanted to see the Washington Redskins' Football Team's new helmets.  No logo, just the players' numbers on the side of the helmet.  Just like Canada's popular "No Name" (generic) brand of grocery products, the homogeneity of the Washington Football team inspires blandness.  It inspires conformity.  To a generation bent on being true to themselves and their unique identity by getting the same sort of tattoos, body piercings, fad clothing and haircuts as everyone else, conformity should be anathema.

But in a twisted perversion of identity, sameness is celebrated by a society too dumb to realize they have been duped.   All people of 'all genders' are the same.  Men and women are the same, conform to the notion that Black Lives Matter is purity or else be cast out.  The NFL is not immune to any of this, and indeed seems to have embraced it.  The Washington Football Team's no logo is the epitome of that notion.  Dolphins are endangered,  let's change their logo to the Miami Football Club, so as not to be confused with the Washington Football Team. Ridiculous.

But it extends beyond the team formerly known as the Redskins.  Stadiums were mostly completely empty because of COVID. I wanted to see the teams pump in crowd noise.  It was sad.  The players kneeling for the anthem or the playing of both the national anthem and “Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing,” commonly known as the Black national anthem.  They seem to think that is a smart, and inclusive move when it is at its core segregationist.  A separate national anthem?  How does that bring people together?  Answer - it doesn't, it does the opposite.  It places people in different camps.

Let's not forget the COVID fear inspired no training camps.  A lot of the stuff I saw on the field looked like many of the players were just not ready enough.  It looked like preseason in many places.

I still love football. What I don't love is where the NFL is at right now, and I won't be watching  any games in week 2.  Sure, I'll ready the scores, maybe watch a few highlights.  But sports, formerly the last refuge from political correctness and enforced conformity has lost it's luster for me.  Liberals have managed to destroy yet another thing they have touched.  The NFL may have just experienced their own #MeToo moment after being mauled by liberal ideology.

Sunday verse

 

Saturday Learning Series - Geography (Mozambique)

 Returning the Saturday Learning Series to geography, let's check out Mozambique.

And the flag:

Will president Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize? No.

President Trump brokered a peace deal and normalized relations between The United Arab Emirates and Israel.  Were that president Obama he would have won his second Nobel Peace Prize, this time actually having earned it rather than getting it for his 'potential'.  But Trump got crickets.  Or rather he got nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, but it affected little fanfare in America.  Now president Obama has brokered a peace deal and normalized relations between Bahrain and Israel.

Wow. WOW!    Obama didn't accomplish that, or either president Bush or Bill Clinton.  Impressive, right? Well yes, but he won't be heralded in America because the media cannot laud their mortal enemy weeks before his possible re-election.  

And he won't win the Nobel Prize either, even though this merits it.  And he probably has more of these peace accords between Arab nations and Israel pending too.  But just like the United Nations, the Nobel Foundation has a globalist view.  Their unwarranted peace prize to then president Obama proves it is an agenda driven organization.  So no, president Trump will win the peace prize.  Corruption and agendas will see to it.

Friday Musical Interlude - Never Forget

 Fleetwood Mac's song Never Forget from the 1979 album Tusk. 

We have not forgotten

If you lost loved ones in 9-11, my deepest sympathies are with you.  America needs to be more than just a shining city on a hill, it must be a safe shining city on a hill.  For the most part it is, but we must never forget that there are those who would exploit America's vulnerabilities for evil reasons.  It harms America and it harms real people when it succeeds. If we forget, we risk more harm.  Never Forget.

 

ACLU goes after kid

 If you thought the ALCU was for liberty, you were wrong.  They have an agenda and if you are against it, they feel free to ruin your life. Apparently Nick Sandmann can't go to college if tehy ACLU have their way.

Another look - why the polls don't scare me

Intuitively everyone on the right understands that Clinton was crushing president Trump in the polls in 2016 and still lost.  I've been looking at the polls in 2016 by month. After filtering for likely voter polls in the RealClearPolitics polls for September 2016, and comparing those results to the final outcome of the presidential election there is a consistent bias in the results towards Clinton.  Looking state by state you can see the bias in the polling leaning heavily towards Hillary Clinton:

As you can see there were 13 states in September that exhibited a polling bias towards Clinton, two that exhibited no bias and two that exhibited a bias, or error, towards president Trump. Some of the bias was pretty dramatic at this point in the race.

Some of these states had the bias tighten later in the race.  Some did not.  The point is the polls now are either biased or inaccurate compared to what they will like like the day before the election.  One counter-argument could be that the voters' choices changed during that time as well.  Fair enough - there was all of that James Comey garbage of the email investigation back and forth going on.

But if you look back at this point in the race there was a media exuberance that Clinton was going to win 350+ electoral college votes.  Remember this?

Isn't that fun to watch in retrospect?

Even if the pollsters have made adjustments and accounted for 75% of those biases (which is a stretch since there is little evidence that is the case), there's still a swing of a couple of points towards president Trump and that impacts his chances of re-election pretty significantly.

FiveThirtyEight has rated various pollsters as having a bias towards Democrats or Republicans or neither, but that is a more generic bias and understates the bias I have found.  It's possible both biases apply.  Most of the FiveThirtyEight polls seem to have benefited Democrats.  While there is potentially some overlap between their identified biases and my 2016 pollster biases, the overall impact is to Trump's benefit and potentially more than my cautious view of granting pollsters a 75% correction this time around.  The polls don't scare me.

Dinesh D'Souza summarizes The Atlantic's latest hit piece on Trump

Dinesh D'Souza summarizes why you shouldn't believe the hit piece in the Atlantic on president Trump.  In the process of watching you'll come to the realization of the reason why people have stopped believing the mainstream media and their anonymous source; it's because they have been proven wrong SO MANY TIMES already.  I guess maybe if you're a progressive leftist or a member of that same mainstream media, you may not actually come to that realization just yet, and I'm fine with that because you've made yourself into a joke.

Stemming the final push of the woke

Wokeness and China-ness are killing the NBA. Politics over product produces a paucity of people.

Via Tim Pool (more below the video).

If athletes, some of the most successful people in America thanks to their skill, believe that America keeps people of color oppressed, so be it.  It's blindness, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions. If they want that to be the stamp on their sport so be it too.  But don't expect everyone to fall in line with it.  The Harris poll shows that to be true.  

America is a damn successful country and it enables success for everyone, albeit quite imperfectly (there's definitely room for improvement).   Because it is so successful, people need an escape,  a respite from the day to day grind of putting food on the table.  When they want that escape, they don't want to be preached to about being uncaring scumbags who support cruelty and inequity.  That's not who they are, they don't deserve that and they don't want to watch someone telling them to be woke.  They want to see a three point shot or an amazing dunk.

Yet the growing omnipresence of the social justice agenda and messaging is slowly tearing away the fabric of America, the world's only true exercise in people first. Progressives clearly want to take that away, or are unaware how badly they are damaging it.  And the omnipresence is real.  It was news media, education, the entertainment industry and the government (everything from the FBI to the IRS).  That was destructive enough. It's now moved beyond that to the remaining refuge of sports and video games. Even knitting for God's sake. It's even infiltrating religion.  It's a weed that needs to be eradicated.

I'm not talking about anything nefarious.  I'm talking about really waking up to what is happening and pushing back.  Voting for conservative principles.  Eschewing companies that support radical agendas.  Going to PTA meetings to have some control over what your children are learning and not learning.  If you are so inclined, go to your church regularly and speak up about what it should be doing - volunteerism not advocacy.  And boycott sports that boycott their own business in favor of wokeness.  Start your own community organizations aimed at positive change towards American values.  Just voting for president Trump is not enough.  It's stemmed the bleeding but not solved the problem.

There's a war going on and you are losing the battle for the soul of your country and many of you are not even paying attention to it.  The one good thing about this massive progressive push is that has been a red alert for a lot of people.  The slow crawl to wards socialism was working because people would just grumble about these minor incremental changes but accept them.  With Obama there came this "fierce urgency of now" that led so many on the woke, progressive Left to believe they were so close to the finish line, that Trump was just a one time aberration that requires a massive ramp-up of the push towards socialism.  A final push of wokeness, they believe is all that is need to quash resistance to their collectivist socialism.  

But it's finally alerted many people to the danger they pose to America, to liberty, to individuality, to creativity, to entertainment, to religion, to life and to individualism.  They may have harmed their own cause irreparably. That remains to be seen. Everyone needs to play a part in the future of the country.  That starts at home, in your own community and goes all the way up to every vote you ever cast locally, statewide and federally.  Look at who you are voting for.  Understand what values they stand behind and their positions on issues.  Democrats vote in a block and cannot be trusted to vote what they claim.  But many Republicans are establishment types who espouse, if only secretly, the same positions as the Democrats.  Know who they all really are, and act and vote accordingly.  It is incumbent upon you, not just now, always.  Because this is not the final push of the woke, even if they believe it is.

With personal freedom comes personal responsibility, and that includes your RESPONSIBILITY to vote, and vote with understanding and knowledge.

Sunday verse

 

Saturday Learning Series - Dropping the philosophy due to wokeness

Crash Course has several series of videos of various topics.  I've been sharing the crash course series on philosophy over the past few months for my Saturday Learning Series.  It's pretty good as an introductory exercise.  I was willing to overlook some of the minor things I'd had issue with like it's treatment of the arguments for God was a little weak compared to the arguments against the existence of God.  But if that were to damage my faith I'd be a pretty fragile Christian.  So I kept going with the series.

That is until I saw a link to a a PBS Voices video, which I will share below.  Either Crash Course has gotten 'woke', or always has been, or is simply naive.  I'm not in favor of racism, but this video says that American heritage is a history of rape, bondage, slaughter and hate.  No more Crash Course videos. If you have been watching the series on my blog, and you want to continue watching, you can find Crash Course on YouTube.  I'm done supporting those who support the notion that everything America is, is bad.  

In that vein, I am also stopping shopping at Target as a result of seeing this video) which should be easy for me because they wasted something like $5 billion in Canada (where I live) before closing all of their Canadian stores in abject failure.  They couldn't even compete with Walmart on price anyway - at least not here. As for PBS, I gave up on them years ago.  I can find my history, science and programs of that ilk elsewhere.

In case you are wondering what video they linked to in their community tab that ruined the channel for me I've included it below:

Next week Saturday Learning Series will return with a continuation of the Geography topic.

The Trump recovery, 2.0

Labor participation rate is up.  Long term unemployed (U6) has dropped.  And the unemployment rate recovery has been incredible.  Compare the Trump recovery to the Obama 'recovery' by just looking at this Bureau of Labor Statistics chart below:

The Trump recovery has been astounding.  The Obama recovery took 6 years to level off at 5%.  President Trump took that recovery further - to historic lows for unemployment in fact.  But look at his second recovery. A far worse unemployment impact due to COVID-19, but the rate of recovery has been practically supersonic. 

Clearly the president has threaded the needle on the recovery and public safety.  He's done it about as close to perfectly as could have been imagined.  He did it once, he's doing it again now.  How can Americans NOT vote for this guy?

Facebook steps back from political ads this political season

Facebook has decided not to carry any political ads prior to the coming November elections.  It brings to mind several questions.  What do they mean? Why are they doing it?  What does it mean for the campaigns?

Characterization

Firstly, the ban is actually not the full run-up to the election.  It's only the last seven days before election day.

How do they define a political advertisement?  Does a meme post count?  Does it count if they deem it was created by a political operative?  How do they then define a political operative?  Do they exclude political discussion among Facebook users?  How does Facebook define a political ad? 

CNN had this to say (after getting in a jab that Trump's posts are what it calls lies):

CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would not accept new political ads in the final week of the 2020 election campaign. The company will remove posts that claim that people will get Covid-19 if they take part in voting, and it will label misinformation about the election and voting.

In another potential loophole, Facebook (FB) will continue to allow campaigns to run ads bought before the final week. Those ads can still run through Election Day. And Zuckerberg made no indication that Facebook would change its policy of allowing politicians to lie in targeted ads, meaning political candidates will be able to run false ads on the platform up until election day.

So it appears, if CNN is not fake news on these details, that this will freeze out PACs and Super PAC and other third party ads. Great, no Soros interference.  But who does that really benefit most?

According to OpenSecrets.org, as of September 3rd, Trump supporting Super PACs have raised $67 million, Biden supporting Super PACs have raised $97 million.  So far, Biden is hurt more.  Leadership PACs have seen Republicans out-raising Democrats $21 million to  $19 million.  That's relatively even.  When you look at the top PACs, one PAC, ActBlue has raised and spent over $2 billion.  The PAC is of course a liberal PAC, and it has raised and spent more than the rest of the list of the top PACs combined.  So Facebook appears to be helping conservatives based on the raw numbers.

Of course that all depends on how it defines things and it can be skewed.  For example - COVID safety can be considered a public interest advertisement and without actually saying president Trump it can try to blame the administration and swing the election.  Can you see an add that says "call your congressperson and demand they keep the lockdown going.  Our safety matters."? It's clearly political but on the surface, it's not.

Intent

President Trump has proven to be a social media expert.  If he posts something does it count as a political ad? Is Facebook's intent to hurt president Trump?  Less and less I believe so. For reasons I will outline below.

Who has more advertisements in the pipeline prior to that span of time?  For example is Biden advertising now whereas president Trump was planning on a last minute blitz? I'm not saying that's the case, but you can see how the impact could have an uneven effect on one campaign or the other.

Facebook based on the dollar amounts above seem to be hurting Democrats more than Republicans on the surface.  But here's the reality.  They are only banning the ads for the final week of the campaign. And they do not include ad buys made for that time period, prior to that time period.  That means do not want to forego the advertising income. They are simply shifting the income stream to prior to the last week.  There's two impacts from that, but only one relevant to Facebook - the timing of their stream.  In reality they are not giving up much income with this proclamation.

So why do it?  I'd argue it's optics.  Mark Zuckerberg was taken to task this year by Republicans for political bias.  It would appear that they want to look like, to the lawmakers at least, that they are taking actions to be fair and unbiased.  They don't want senate or congressional committees coming after them.  They don't care if the left comes after them (CNN has clearly already started, as noted above).  They don't mention how they will handle political posts by individuals, or items put up that are not ad buys from PACs, just posts.  And lastly, they don't want to be part of any October Surprise.  It might reflect badly on them after the election.  Facebook is being driven by self-preservation.

Impact

The money not being spent of Facebook as a result of this will end up being spent elsewhere.  TV.  Other social media.  But other social media are small fish in what is basically Facebook's big pond.

According to Statistica, Facebook and it's properties (Instagram and Messenger) dwarf the social media competition. The other two biggies are Twitter and Pinterest. 

Twitter is a leftist swamp itself and it probably won't change any minds if more ads are bought there.  It may serve as a get-out-the-vote tool.  Pinterest is a predominantly female-used engine.  Maybe an infusion of ads there will help Democrats get out hatred for Trump among women and then get out the votes.  These sort of social media sites could be swamped with ads in the last week.  Especially if candidates have unspent funds in the final days.

I'm not sure there is going to be a significant impact from the Facebook decision with respect to the elections.  But there may be some long term impacts to Facebook itself, especially if liberals feel cheated by the decision, or if Republicans win big, or both.  Facebook may be forced to move to the center as a result.  That's not a bad thing.  Should Democrats win, Mark Zuckerberg may have to make a pilgrimage to Washington D.C. to explain in public that he was just trying to be impartial and then in the back room pay homage to the new overlords.  

Friday Musical Interlude - Ride Captain Ride

The Blues Image, Ride Captain Ride from 1970.

Clueless in one form or another

Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam suggest that in order combat COVIDF-19, people wear masks during sex.  Let that sink in. If you are deciding to have sex with someone who is not a part of your household (i.e. an existing partner), shouldn't the recommendation be to know somebody for more than a few weeks before engaging in sex, rather than wear a mask?

Furthermore, people are foolish enough to have sex with people they don't really know already.  Do you think they are going to throw on a mask if they don't engage in safe sex already? 

Liberals are really clueless, even if they are well educated.

In Case You Missed It - Pelosi Duplicity

Do as Nancy says, not as she does.  You are so commanded.

How the Boomers screwed The West (part 3)

Part 3 in a mostly video analysis of how the Baby Boomers screwed the West. Part 1 here, and Part 2, here.  The purpose of this series is not to denigrate the Baby Boomers but to show what they got wrong, and why they got it wrong in the hope that future generations do not fall into the same trap.  It's like trying to avoid the inevitable but if we can reduce the frequency of the erroneous behaviors that lead to societal faltering, then we can still consider that a win.

To preface, Salon is a liberal organization they come at this with a liberal slant.  The author of the book A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America is also clearly a liberal.  Heck he even looks like Al Franken.  And there is plenty to critique in his book, but Bruce Cannon Gibney also gets a lot right.  He's not a Boomer himself, having been born in 1976.  I myself am also a Gen Xer and I have  a lot of respect for the generation prior to the Boomers, and for many Boomers for that matter.  I just don't want to see their mistakes repeated, even though it may be too late - one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch they say.  It seems to paraphrase Ronald Reagan , we're always one generation away from the extinction of freedom, as well as other important qualities in a society.

The Gaslighting of president Trump

The media has been ignoring what president Trump has been saying about condemning the violence for weeks and weeks and when Joe Biden says it, they applaud him and join in the call for president Trump to do the same.