Thursday, May 26, 2016

Purple Strategies online poll is pure propaganda, calls people making between $30,000 and $75,000 "working class", says they'll vote for Hillary

Aside from online polls being a joke, this one from Purple Strategies for Bloomberg saying people making between $30,000 and $75,000 are "working class" is as phony as they get:

“If he [Trump] can’t improve his performance among these working-class voters, he may need to build a more conventional Republican coalition to win,” said pollster Doug Usher. 


Those are middle class people, not working class, and numbered about 54 million in 2014.

Working class people with whom Trump is wildly popular make up to $30,000 and numbered about 81 million in 2014.

This "poll" is trying to shape perceptions, not measure them.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Lawyers on strike over new taxes in Greece push backlog of cases to the year 2032

Reported here:

Athens lawyer Thanos Koussoulos says self-employed professionals like him will feel the most pain, as the new measures will increase monthly pension contributions, taxable income, and levies on services. "An average lawyer will lose half his income and won't be able to survive," he said, speaking in an empty courtroom. "Every part of society has been affected by these measures, including groups once considered to be privileged. I think it's a good thing they are demonstrating." ... Ironically, the lawyers' strike has added pressure on the government to seek a quick way to raise revenue, as tax cases challenged in court have been held up.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Goodbye libertarian moment, we hardly knew thee: "Man has a proclivity for safety, not liberty"

James E. Miller at Takimag, here:

Man has a proclivity for safety, not liberty. Human history is littered with war after war, conflict after conflict. Whatever liberty we eke out of our constant warring state is always in danger of being lost. As philosopher John Gray noted, “To think of humans as freedom-loving, you must be ready to view nearly all of history as a mistake.”

As the ancients maintained but we never seem to remember, even when we study them:


WAR IS THE FATHER OF EVERYTHING.

Hooah NRA! Hooah Donald Trump!


Rasmussen: Trump 42% to Clinton 37%


Trump earns 42% support to Clinton’s 37% when Likely U.S. Voters are asked whom they would vote for if the presidential election were held today. ...

Rasmussen Reports will update the Clinton-Trump White House Watch matchup numbers every Thursday morning from now until Election Day in November.

States so far where Trump was bested by McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012

McCain beat Trump in:

Idaho
Kentucky
Oregon
Vermont
DC
Arizona


Romney beat Trump in:

Vermont
DC
North Carolina
Nebraska
Kentucky
Texas
Utah


McCain's total vote in 2008 was 9.9 million.

Romney's total vote in 2012 was 9.8 million.

With six contests remaining in 2016 Trump is already pushing 11.2 million.

Yesterday Rush Limbaugh said Hillary's momentum was "plundering", or something like that

Evidently conflating "plunging" and "floundering".

But the transcript here has been cleaned up, indicating Rush said "plummeting" when that's not what he said.

For once his transcriptionist is covering for him.


Friday, May 20, 2016

With 7% of the vote still not counted, Oregon Republican turnout in 2016 bested 2012 by 26%, 2008 by only 3%

So far Donald Trump in 2016 was bested by John McCain in 2008 in the popular vote only in Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon, Vermont, DC and Arizona. With six contests to go Trump has 11.1 million popular votes versus 9.9 million total votes for McCain in 2008, the most recent analogous contest.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

I'd post on the total popular vote in Oregon, but 7% of it remains out on the Republican side two days since the primary

You probably didn't see it but voters prepare a ballot which is mailed to them ahead of time and then they drop it on election day in designated secure boxes all around the state.

How hard can that be to tally everything in a timely manner?

Maybe tomorrow, man.