I think that many Americans are increasingly apprehensive that their democracy, which has been creaking for more than a decade, might not operate this time. I suspect that this apprehension is one of the things that keeps Trump's position in the market stronger than his polling would indicate. If we do have President Biden we can only hope that a national effort is made to restore credibility to the electoral system, whether that involves undertaking the work that the Supreme Court said was needed to justify voter registration legislation, the impartiality and resources of vote counters, the allocation of ballot boxes, etc etc.
That's a good point. SCOTUS didn't say that the voter registration legislation couldn't happen did they? Just that it needs to be justified?
I think the GOP have gone out of their way to justify it. It should be possible for a Democrat majority Congress and President to pass legislation accordingly.
What SCOTUS said was that you couldn't justify voter registration legislation now on the basis that the system was clearly biased against minorities, especially blacks, 40 years ago. The legislation should either have achieved its objective by now, in which case it was no longer needed, or evidence should be found that the discrimination persists.
I have a real problem with SCOTUS using the constitution in this way to strike down legislation but the fact is that very little work seems to have been done to meet the criteria set. Of course motivated and partial State Officials who don't want to produce such evidence are a part of the problem.
It is a very bizarre ruling. The evidence might not exist precisely because the law prevents people changing the system and striking down the law gave the opportunity for the bias to be recreated.
It is like having a rule that you must not dump sewage into the water supply, because people keep getting poisoned, then years later saying the water supply is clean with no sewage in it, so striking down the rule that you can't leak sewage into it - at which point people start dumping sewage again.
This is the problem of government via re-interpretation of the Constitution. The politicians have abdicated they duty to make laws and move them forward.
As James Anthony Froude observed - "Constitutions are made for men, Men are not made for Constitutions."
Government by re-interpretation has fallen into the obvious trap - control the re-interpretation, control the law. So it comes down to how many middle aged ideologs of your own strip you can get on the Supreme Court.
The other day we were having a discussion about constitutions. Someone argued for the idea of the ultimate, unchangeable law that would protect, say minorities.
Constitutions don't really protect minorities - history is full of hideous dictatorships with constitutions stuffed fulled of magnificent freedoms. It's the courts that decide what they mean, and that is down, ultimately to who controls the courts.
Ultimately, a constitution works because people believe in it. The system believes in it. You see this in the US, with the First Amendment - there is muttering, sometimes, but it has universal support.
I would suggest a system like Switzerland, where the people can change the law (and constitution) to any damn thing they please, any time, has more constitutional protection from harm to minorities etc than the US. Because the Swiss constitution is an agreed set of laws, not a climbing frame for partisan judges.
You can suggest anything you like, but the US has the constitution it has. And amending it - particularly in so substantial a manner - is exceptionally difficult. And even the most far reaching amendments don’t always fare well at the hands of determined partisans, as the history of the 14th makes brutally clear.
The system is broken. The last, inevitable, stroke will be the packing of the Supreme Court - which will happen sooner or later.
Lawyers may love a system where they wield ultimate power - if they are the lawyers who control the court.
It is interesting to listen to my American relatives - a number of lawyers there. Progressives to a fault. Some of them have started to wonder about this - now that the system isn't heading their way.
The Supreme Court would be best reformed to work like the Senate with 1/3 of the judges being replaced every 4 years. That allows a decent term length of 12 years without allowing Presidents to arbritrarily cement their policies for decades simply because they happened to be in office when a justice snuffed it.
Deaths/resignations would have to be thought about but could probably be handled by recess appointments.
That would take a Constitutional amendment.
Yes, there is an argument that after x years you could have a Supreme Court Justice moved to retired-sc-justice with life time benefits. And that would satisfy the Constitutional stuff - but the arbiter of that being true would be....
I haven't been on this site for a week and surpirse surprise out of the first 6 posts 4 are from Scott with retweets criticising the Government. This site needs to change its name to Scotthatesboris.com
Scott seems to post 24/7 to which you have to question when does he ever sleep
S/he doesn't really post though does he/she. Generally just re-posts tweets from all over.
Farmer Tupac returns?
Or a bot running on an account?
Older readers may recall that Farmer Tupac derided Scott as Scott'n'Paste. They didn't sing from the same hymn sheet back in the day. Probably do now.
I don't use Twitter myself so the occasional retweet is a window into a parallel universe. But the problem is distinguishing between Tweeters Who Matter and everyone else.
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
I take it the Veep debate is still going ahead? I look forward to seeing Pence recoil in horror at a womenfolk of Gilead not stuck in the kitchen or nursing babies as he thinks they should be.
Yes, though Pence objects to the sensible precaution of a Perspex screen.
Precaution against what though? Presumably Pence and Harris will be tested before the event. I`m guessing that Pence feels the Dems are thinking about their own political advantage.
Tests can have false negatives. Much of POTUS's team were testing negative, until suddenly they weren't and the virus had already spread like wildfire.
If you want to avoid the virus then avoiding being exposed to anyone who has been near the White House in the last few weeks seems like a very good idea, lots of them have got it and few of them appear to be taking all the necessary precautions.
I take it the Veep debate is still going ahead? I look forward to seeing Pence recoil in horror at a womenfolk of Gilead not stuck in the kitchen or nursing babies as he thinks they should be.
Yes, though Pence objects to the sensible precaution of a Perspex screen.
Precaution against what though? Presumably Pence and Harris will be tested before the event. I`m guessing that Pence feels the Dems are thinking about their own political advantage.
Tests can have false negatives. Much of POTUS's team were testing negative, until suddenly they weren't and the virus had already spread like wildfire.
Of interest is the question of *which* tests they were using. Some of the quick tests are very inaccurate and prone to false negatives, IIRC. Which is why the medical community has blocked using many of them in this country, for the NHS.
I think that many Americans are increasingly apprehensive that their democracy, which has been creaking for more than a decade, might not operate this time. I suspect that this apprehension is one of the things that keeps Trump's position in the market stronger than his polling would indicate. If we do have President Biden we can only hope that a national effort is made to restore credibility to the electoral system, whether that involves undertaking the work that the Supreme Court said was needed to justify voter registration legislation, the impartiality and resources of vote counters, the allocation of ballot boxes, etc etc.
That's a good point. SCOTUS didn't say that the voter registration legislation couldn't happen did they? Just that it needs to be justified?
I think the GOP have gone out of their way to justify it. It should be possible for a Democrat majority Congress and President to pass legislation accordingly.
What SCOTUS said was that you couldn't justify voter registration legislation now on the basis that the system was clearly biased against minorities, especially blacks, 40 years ago. The legislation should either have achieved its objective by now, in which case it was no longer needed, or evidence should be found that the discrimination persists.
I have a real problem with SCOTUS using the constitution in this way to strike down legislation but the fact is that very little work seems to have been done to meet the criteria set. Of course motivated and partial State Officials who don't want to produce such evidence are a part of the problem.
It goes well beyond that. The Roberts court has refused to recognise even the most blatant gerrymandering as being unconstitutional. As this article lays out, that requires a deeply selective reading of the constitution (and is utterly inconsistent with his other judgments). https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/rucho-v-common-cause-occasion-sorrow/593227/ The Kagan dissent says it all, bearing in mind that she is the least emotive and most centrist of all the liberals on the court.
I agree but even playing the game on the SCOTUS terms it should have been reasonably easy to get up to date evidence that a lower percentage of Black or Hispanic voters who are eligible actually appear on the rolls and that a reason for that is unnecessary criteria which is designed to make registration more difficult rather than simple identification. All it required was the will to do so which was of course lacking at the State level and, under Trump, at the Federal level too.
In Sweden the antibody % is half in older people compared to working age. In Spain (and presumably UK) they figures are equal. Younger people have been allowed to build up immunity by getting on with their lives, albeit with some restrictions such as no standing at the bar.
See Unherd's latest lockdown interview.
Maybe it wouldn't work in UK because we don't obey common sense rules like the Swedes, but we should be discussing it more widely.
Discussing it more widely? Apart from the USA and Brazil I feel like I've heard about no other country in the world other than Sweden for months.
And often inaccurately, as people project their own fantasy covid policies. Post 16 education is online there for example, working from home a common response etc, and the economic slump much the same as everywhere else.
Most infuriatingly, it's also people who have done their level best for the whole of their lives in ensuring that the UK is as little like Sweden as possible in political terms.
In Sweden the political process is superior. They may have weathered the Covid storm better than the European average. Then again, they may not have: in my book, it's still early days.
But a cohesive consensus-based society, where political opinion is properly mediated, executive power is assigned on the basis of merit rather than where you went to school and who you married, and freedom of the press is a reality, is always going to have a better chance of getting these things right, or adjusting quickly when off-course.
Right-wingers should take this opportunity to think about the kind of society (insofar as they believe in it) they have created.
I haven't been on this site for a week and surpirse surprise out of the first 6 posts 4 are from Scott with retweets criticising the Government. This site needs to change its name to Scotthatesboris.com
To be fair to Scott he is given a vast ocean of topics which Shagger can be criticized for. And when so much of the abuse hurled in his direction seems to be coming from his own MPs these days its rather difficult to make the accusation this is pointless partisanship...
Scott is utterly obsessed with retweeting anything that is attacking Boris or brexit
How he can do this all through the day and night is the question.
Most people have to sleep
The funniest thing about it is that in devoting his life to retweeting guff about Boris all day, every day, he remains utterly convinced to the core of his soul that this activity proves it's the Prime Minister who's the loser...
I think that many Americans are increasingly apprehensive that their democracy, which has been creaking for more than a decade, might not operate this time. I suspect that this apprehension is one of the things that keeps Trump's position in the market stronger than his polling would indicate. If we do have President Biden we can only hope that a national effort is made to restore credibility to the electoral system, whether that involves undertaking the work that the Supreme Court said was needed to justify voter registration legislation, the impartiality and resources of vote counters, the allocation of ballot boxes, etc etc.
That's a good point. SCOTUS didn't say that the voter registration legislation couldn't happen did they? Just that it needs to be justified?
I think the GOP have gone out of their way to justify it. It should be possible for a Democrat majority Congress and President to pass legislation accordingly.
What SCOTUS said was that you couldn't justify voter registration legislation now on the basis that the system was clearly biased against minorities, especially blacks, 40 years ago. The legislation should either have achieved its objective by now, in which case it was no longer needed, or evidence should be found that the discrimination persists.
I have a real problem with SCOTUS using the constitution in this way to strike down legislation but the fact is that very little work seems to have been done to meet the criteria set. Of course motivated and partial State Officials who don't want to produce such evidence are a part of the problem.
It goes well beyond that. The Roberts court has refused to recognise even the most blatant gerrymandering as being unconstitutional. As this article lays out, that requires a deeply selective reading of the constitution (and is utterly inconsistent with his other judgments). https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/rucho-v-common-cause-occasion-sorrow/593227/ The Kagan dissent says it all, bearing in mind that she is the least emotive and most centrist of all the liberals on the court.
I agree but even playing the game on the SCOTUS terms it should have been reasonably easy to get up to date evidence that a lower percentage of Black or Hispanic voters who are eligible actually appear on the rolls and that a reason for that is unnecessary criteria which is designed to make registration more difficult rather than simple identification. All it required was the will to do so which was of course lacking at the State level and, under Trump, at the Federal level too.
Trouble is, there are state-defined confusing criteria, such as whether convicted felons can vote, what is a felon, and what happens when someone who can't vote in California moves to Florida. Or vice versa.
I take it the Veep debate is still going ahead? I look forward to seeing Pence recoil in horror at a womenfolk of Gilead not stuck in the kitchen or nursing babies as he thinks they should be.
Yes, though Pence objects to the sensible precaution of a Perspex screen.
Precaution against what though? Presumably Pence and Harris will be tested before the event. I`m guessing that Pence feels the Dems are thinking about their own political advantage.
Tests can have false negatives. Much of POTUS's team were testing negative, until suddenly they weren't and the virus had already spread like wildfire.
Of interest is the question of *which* tests they were using. Some of the quick tests are very inaccurate and prone to false negatives, IIRC. Which is why the medical community has blocked using many of them in this country, for the NHS.
I haven't been on this site for a week and surpirse surprise out of the first 6 posts 4 are from Scott with retweets criticising the Government. This site needs to change its name to Scotthatesboris.com
To be fair to Scott he is given a vast ocean of topics which Shagger can be criticized for. And when so much of the abuse hurled in his direction seems to be coming from his own MPs these days its rather difficult to make the accusation this is pointless partisanship...
Scott is utterly obsessed with retweeting anything that is attacking Boris or brexit
How he can do this all through the day and night is the question.
Most people have to sleep
The funniest thing about it is that in devoting his life to retweeting guff about Boris all day, every day, he remains utterly convinced to the core of his soul that this activity proves it's the Prime Minister who's the loser...
You think Tory MPs are talking "guff"? You and Scott have something in common then!
In Sweden the antibody % is half in older people compared to working age. In Spain (and presumably UK) they figures are equal. Younger people have been allowed to build up immunity by getting on with their lives, albeit with some restrictions such as no standing at the bar.
See Unherd's latest lockdown interview.
Maybe it wouldn't work in UK because we don't obey common sense rules like the Swedes, but we should be discussing it more widely.
Discussing it more widely? Apart from the USA and Brazil I feel like I've heard about no other country in the world other than Sweden for months.
And often inaccurately, as people project their own fantasy covid policies. Post 16 education is online there for example, working from home a common response etc, and the economic slump much the same as everywhere else.
Most infuriatingly, it's also people who have done their level best for the whole of their lives in ensuring that the UK is as little like Sweden as possible in political terms.
In Sweden the political process is superior. They may have weathered the Covid storm better than the European average. Then again, they may not have: in my book, it's still early days.
But a cohesive consensus-based society, where political opinion is properly mediated, executive power is assigned on the basis of merit rather than where you went to school and who you married, and freedom of the press is a reality, is always going to have a better chance of getting these things right, or adjusting quickly when off-course.
Right-wingers should take this opportunity to think about the kind of society (insofar as they believe in it) they have created.
They won't though.
The obsession with Sweden really doesn't make sense, given that Sweden has done almost as badly as us and far worse than its neighbours in terms of deaths, and has fared similarly badly economically.
Surely the place to learn from is Germany - a country of similar size and nature to our own that has done far better then either Sweden or us in dealing with the pandemic.
On the one hand: Scott finding pertinent, relevant tweets and posting them here where many people don't have the time to find them directly.
On the other: paragraphs and paragraphs of people saying how they could never support Boris but they support Boris and how they want him gone but want him to stay until he has done the thing they don't support him for.
I'll take the former.
This may be a complete non sequitur, but I value both Scott and Big_G.
Having Big_G and HYFUD on the site - a former and current prominent local Tory party activist - provides a fascinating real time picture of the evolution of the Conservative Party. It feels like a case study of the application of Gresham's Law to politics.
I'm looking to cover a narrow Trumpton EC win at good odds. Can anyone recommend a bookie? I tried Smarkets this morning but for some reason I couldn't get a bet on with them.
Having Big_G and HYFUD on the site - a former and current prominent local Tory party activist - provides a fascinating real time picture of the evolution of the Conservative Party. It feels like a case study of the application of Gresham's Law to politics.
We have to hope Tissue Price is able to return one day. One current trajectories, that may be sooner than he would like
I think that many Americans are increasingly apprehensive that their democracy, which has been creaking for more than a decade, might not operate this time. I suspect that this apprehension is one of the things that keeps Trump's position in the market stronger than his polling would indicate. If we do have President Biden we can only hope that a national effort is made to restore credibility to the electoral system, whether that involves undertaking the work that the Supreme Court said was needed to justify voter registration legislation, the impartiality and resources of vote counters, the allocation of ballot boxes, etc etc.
That's a good point. SCOTUS didn't say that the voter registration legislation couldn't happen did they? Just that it needs to be justified?
I think the GOP have gone out of their way to justify it. It should be possible for a Democrat majority Congress and President to pass legislation accordingly.
What SCOTUS said was that you couldn't justify voter registration legislation now on the basis that the system was clearly biased against minorities, especially blacks, 40 years ago. The legislation should either have achieved its objective by now, in which case it was no longer needed, or evidence should be found that the discrimination persists.
I have a real problem with SCOTUS using the constitution in this way to strike down legislation but the fact is that very little work seems to have been done to meet the criteria set. Of course motivated and partial State Officials who don't want to produce such evidence are a part of the problem.
It is a very bizarre ruling. The evidence might not exist precisely because the law prevents people changing the system and striking down the law gave the opportunity for the bias to be recreated.
It is like having a rule that you must not dump sewage into the water supply, because people keep getting poisoned, then years later saying the water supply is clean with no sewage in it, so striking down the rule that you can't leak sewage into it - at which point people start dumping sewage again.
This is the problem of government via re-interpretation of the Constitution. The politicians have abdicated they duty to make laws and move them forward.
As James Anthony Froude observed - "Constitutions are made for men, Men are not made for Constitutions."
Government by re-interpretation has fallen into the obvious trap - control the re-interpretation, control the law. So it comes down to how many middle aged ideologs of your own strip you can get on the Supreme Court.
The other day we were having a discussion about constitutions. Someone argued for the idea of the ultimate, unchangeable law that would protect, say minorities.
Constitutions don't really protect minorities - history is full of hideous dictatorships with constitutions stuffed fulled of magnificent freedoms. It's the courts that decide what they mean, and that is down, ultimately to who controls the courts.
Ultimately, a constitution works because people believe in it. The system believes in it. You see this in the US, with the First Amendment - there is muttering, sometimes, but it has universal support.
I would suggest a system like Switzerland, where the people can change the law (and constitution) to any damn thing they please, any time, has more constitutional protection from harm to minorities etc than the US. Because the Swiss constitution is an agreed set of laws, not a climbing frame for partisan judges.
You can suggest anything you like, but the US has the constitution it has. And amending it - particularly in so substantial a manner - is exceptionally difficult. And even the most far reaching amendments don’t always fare well at the hands of determined partisans, as the history of the 14th makes brutally clear.
It's very difficult to devise a system that is proof against unscrupulous leaders with popular support. Switzerland works well because there is a huge bloc of voters who recoil from anything that strikes them as unfair or OTT - they have extremists like everywhere else, but they find that they can only get anywhere if they make relatively mild proposals (communists getting a city multi-story car park ban, nationalists stopping further minarets), which encourages them to think about what they might like that's realistic.
Works in private life too. When I worked for Ciba-Geigy there, there was a move by Staff Association leaders to expel me because I was active in the trade union, on the basis that it was unreasonable to be in both as they competed at staff elections (I could sort of see their point, but the association wasn't just there for elections). A delegation of senior managers (all highly conservative types) went to the association leadership and told them that if they persisted in trying to tell me what I could belong to, they would ALL join the union. It wasn't that they had the slightest sympathy for unions or were personal friends of mine, but they felt that freedom of the individual mattered more. (Years later, when I declined to take action to exclude an environmental campaigner who had chosen to be a BNP member, I had their example in mind.)
But if you don't have a Swiss electorate, I can well imagine direct democracy being manipulated by the Trumps of this world. Possibly the Swiss got like that because they are directly consulted and gradually learned the responsbility that goes with power. But I'd think that takes time.
I think that many Americans are increasingly apprehensive that their democracy, which has been creaking for more than a decade, might not operate this time. I suspect that this apprehension is one of the things that keeps Trump's position in the market stronger than his polling would indicate. If we do have President Biden we can only hope that a national effort is made to restore credibility to the electoral system, whether that involves undertaking the work that the Supreme Court said was needed to justify voter registration legislation, the impartiality and resources of vote counters, the allocation of ballot boxes, etc etc.
That's a good point. SCOTUS didn't say that the voter registration legislation couldn't happen did they? Just that it needs to be justified?
I think the GOP have gone out of their way to justify it. It should be possible for a Democrat majority Congress and President to pass legislation accordingly.
What SCOTUS said was that you couldn't justify voter registration legislation now on the basis that the system was clearly biased against minorities, especially blacks, 40 years ago. The legislation should either have achieved its objective by now, in which case it was no longer needed, or evidence should be found that the discrimination persists.
I have a real problem with SCOTUS using the constitution in this way to strike down legislation but the fact is that very little work seems to have been done to meet the criteria set. Of course motivated and partial State Officials who don't want to produce such evidence are a part of the problem.
It is a very bizarre ruling. The evidence might not exist precisely because the law prevents people changing the system and striking down the law gave the opportunity for the bias to be recreated.
It is like having a rule that you must not dump sewage into the water supply, because people keep getting poisoned, then years later saying the water supply is clean with no sewage in it, so striking down the rule that you can't leak sewage into it - at which point people start dumping sewage again.
This is the problem of government via re-interpretation of the Constitution. The politicians have abdicated they duty to make laws and move them forward.
As James Anthony Froude observed - "Constitutions are made for men, Men are not made for Constitutions."
Government by re-interpretation has fallen into the obvious trap - control the re-interpretation, control the law. So it comes down to how many middle aged ideologs of your own strip you can get on the Supreme Court.
The other day we were having a discussion about constitutions. Someone argued for the idea of the ultimate, unchangeable law that would protect, say minorities.
Constitutions don't really protect minorities - history is full of hideous dictatorships with constitutions stuffed fulled of magnificent freedoms. It's the courts that decide what they mean, and that is down, ultimately to who controls the courts.
Ultimately, a constitution works because people believe in it. The system believes in it. You see this in the US, with the First Amendment - there is muttering, sometimes, but it has universal support.
I would suggest a system like Switzerland, where the people can change the law (and constitution) to any damn thing they please, any time, has more constitutional protection from harm to minorities etc than the US. Because the Swiss constitution is an agreed set of laws, not a climbing frame for partisan judges.
You can suggest anything you like, but the US has the constitution it has. And amending it - particularly in so substantial a manner - is exceptionally difficult. And even the most far reaching amendments don’t always fare well at the hands of determined partisans, as the history of the 14th makes brutally clear.
The system is broken. The last, inevitable, stroke will be the packing of the Supreme Court - which will happen sooner or later.
Lawyers may love a system where they wield ultimate power - if they are the lawyers who control the court.
It is interesting to listen to my American relatives - a number of lawyers there. Progressives to a fault. Some of them have started to wonder about this - now that the system isn't heading their way.
The Supreme Court would be best reformed to work like the Senate with 1/3 of the judges being replaced every 4 years. That allows a decent term length of 12 years without allowing Presidents to arbritrarily cement their policies for decades simply because they happened to be in office when a justice snuffed it.
Deaths/resignations would have to be thought about but could probably be handled by recess appointments.
I think that might make it worse; The basic problem is just that they're chosen by political parties in the hope that they'll advance that party's agenda. Changing them faster potentially makes that problem worse, because you're more likely to get one party being able to shift the balance over a couple of terms.
The best solution I can come up with is for the Senate to appoint two justices at a time, with one vote per senator. They then continue as a pair, and if one of them dies or retires, the other one is also retired. In practice this should mean at worst one hack GOP judge and one equal-and-opposite hack Dem judge, but hopefully the GOP and the Dems will both feel that once you take away the partisan advantage it's better to have non-hacks, and they'll make a deal where the GOP picks a non-hack in exchange for the Dems also picking a non-hack.
On the one hand: Scott finding pertinent, relevant tweets and posting them here where many people don't have the time to find them directly.
On the other: paragraphs and paragraphs of people saying how they could never support Boris but they support Boris and how they want him gone but want him to stay until he has done the thing they don't support him for.
I'll take the former.
This may be a complete non sequitur, but I value both Scott and Big_G.
Having Big_G and HYFUD on the site - a former and current prominent local Tory party activist - provides a fascinating real time picture of the evolution of the Conservative Party. It feels like a case study of the application of Gresham's Law to politics.
Evolution doesn't really feel like the right term for whatever it is the Conservative Party is doing
In Sweden the antibody % is half in older people compared to working age. In Spain (and presumably UK) they figures are equal. Younger people have been allowed to build up immunity by getting on with their lives, albeit with some restrictions such as no standing at the bar.
See Unherd's latest lockdown interview.
Maybe it wouldn't work in UK because we don't obey common sense rules like the Swedes, but we should be discussing it more widely.
Discussing it more widely? Apart from the USA and Brazil I feel like I've heard about no other country in the world other than Sweden for months.
And often inaccurately, as people project their own fantasy covid policies. Post 16 education is online there for example, working from home a common response etc, and the economic slump much the same as everywhere else.
Most infuriatingly, it's also people who have done their level best for the whole of their lives in ensuring that the UK is as little like Sweden as possible in political terms.
In Sweden the political process is superior. They may have weathered the Covid storm better than the European average. Then again, they may not have: in my book, it's still early days.
But a cohesive consensus-based society, where political opinion is properly mediated, executive power is assigned on the basis of merit rather than where you went to school and who you married, and freedom of the press is a reality, is always going to have a better chance of getting these things right, or adjusting quickly when off-course.
Right-wingers should take this opportunity to think about the kind of society (insofar as they believe in it) they have created.
They won't though.
The obsession with Sweden really doesn't make sense, given that Sweden has done almost as badly as us and far worse than its neighbours in terms of deaths, and has fared similarly badly economically.
Surely the place to learn from is Germany - a country of similar size and nature to our own that has done far better then either Sweden or us in dealing with the pandemic.
But all Germany has done is use their undoubted advantages in biotech to make a efficient test-trace-isolate system using existing structures.
I think that many Americans are increasingly apprehensive that their democracy, which has been creaking for more than a decade, might not operate this time. I suspect that this apprehension is one of the things that keeps Trump's position in the market stronger than his polling would indicate. If we do have President Biden we can only hope that a national effort is made to restore credibility to the electoral system, whether that involves undertaking the work that the Supreme Court said was needed to justify voter registration legislation, the impartiality and resources of vote counters, the allocation of ballot boxes, etc etc.
That's a good point. SCOTUS didn't say that the voter registration legislation couldn't happen did they? Just that it needs to be justified?
I think the GOP have gone out of their way to justify it. It should be possible for a Democrat majority Congress and President to pass legislation accordingly.
What SCOTUS said was that you couldn't justify voter registration legislation now on the basis that the system was clearly biased against minorities, especially blacks, 40 years ago. The legislation should either have achieved its objective by now, in which case it was no longer needed, or evidence should be found that the discrimination persists.
I have a real problem with SCOTUS using the constitution in this way to strike down legislation but the fact is that very little work seems to have been done to meet the criteria set. Of course motivated and partial State Officials who don't want to produce such evidence are a part of the problem.
It goes well beyond that. The Roberts court has refused to recognise even the most blatant gerrymandering as being unconstitutional. As this article lays out, that requires a deeply selective reading of the constitution (and is utterly inconsistent with his other judgments). https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/rucho-v-common-cause-occasion-sorrow/593227/ The Kagan dissent says it all, bearing in mind that she is the least emotive and most centrist of all the liberals on the court.
I agree but even playing the game on the SCOTUS terms it should have been reasonably easy to get up to date evidence that a lower percentage of Black or Hispanic voters who are eligible actually appear on the rolls and that a reason for that is unnecessary criteria which is designed to make registration more difficult rather than simple identification. All it required was the will to do so which was of course lacking at the State level and, under Trump, at the Federal level too.
Trouble is, there are state-defined confusing criteria, such as whether convicted felons can vote, what is a felon, and what happens when someone who can't vote in California moves to Florida. Or vice versa.
It has always seemed very odd to me that States can determine who can vote in a Federal Election. I think it is a consequence of it being an indirect election, where the citizens of a state are voting for electors rather than straightforwardly for the President but it has had very unfortunate consequences throughout American history.
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
I’m a little surprised more play has not been made of this in the US.
Regeneron Position Statement on Stem Cell Research https://www.regeneron.com/sites/default/files/Regeneron-Position-Stem-Cell-Research.pdf As is the case with many other science-focused biotechnology companies, Regeneron uses a wide variety of research tools and technologies to help discover and develop new therapeutics. Stem cells are one such tool. The stem cells most commonly used at Regeneron are mouse embryonic stem cells and human blood stem cells. Currently, there are limited research efforts employing human-induced pluripotent stem cell lines derived from adult human cells and human embryonic stem cells that are approved for research use by the National Institutes of Health and created solely through in vitro fertilization. Research using such stem cells allows Regeneron to model complex diseases, test new drug candidates and can help unlock new scientific insights that ultimately could lead to the discovery of new treatments for people with serious diseases....
Ironically Trump's treatment uses human embryonic stem cells, while Trump's nominee is a life begins at conception extremist who is against that.
To be more accurate, Regeneron use HESCs in their research.
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
Consider the time period missing from that chart. It strongly suggests only Covid is beating Trump. The announcement of a vaccine would be expected to change everything.
On the one hand: Scott finding pertinent, relevant tweets and posting them here where many people don't have the time to find them directly.
On the other: paragraphs and paragraphs of people saying how they could never support Boris but they support Boris and how they want him gone but want him to stay until he has done the thing they don't support him for.
I'll take the former.
This may be a complete non sequitur, but I value both Scott and Big_G.
Having Big_G and HYFUD on the site - a former and current prominent local Tory party activist - provides a fascinating real time picture of the evolution of the Conservative Party. It feels like a case study of the application of Gresham's Law to politics.
One reason that this site is so good is the variety of political viewpoints represented, and by and large the civil nature of debate. That really is something quite unusual on the Internet and social media.
I quite like some of @Scott_P tweets, but his much rarer original author posts are very good indeed.
A bit of cooling off time is not such a bad thing though, hope @malcolmg has had his 3 match ban over soon.
I'm looking to cover a narrow Trumpton EC win at good odds. Can anyone recommend a bookie? I tried Smarkets this morning but for some reason I couldn't get a bet on with them.
I`ve been backing BF`s "Trump Electoral College Votes" range 270-299 - currently at 7.6
On the one hand: Scott finding pertinent, relevant tweets and posting them here where many people don't have the time to find them directly.
On the other: paragraphs and paragraphs of people saying how they could never support Boris but they support Boris and how they want him gone but want him to stay until he has done the thing they don't support him for.
I'll take the former.
This may be a complete non sequitur, but I value both Scott and Big_G.
Having Big_G and HYFUD on the site - a former and current prominent local Tory party activist - provides a fascinating real time picture of the evolution of the Conservative Party. It feels like a case study of the application of Gresham's Law to politics.
Evolution doesn't really feel like the right term for whatever it is the Conservative Party is doing
Don't forget, the tapeworm is the result of an evolutionary process.
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
Consider the time period missing from that chart. It strongly suggests only Covid is beating Trump. The announcement of a vaccine would be expected to change everything.
The pharma companies would be bonkers to give any such announcement ahead of 4 November. Having Trump 'manage' its distribution is a recipe for unmitigated project failure. If I were AZ, Modena and Pfizer, I'd keep my counsel until after polling day.
'George Galloway, the former Labour MP, and present leader of both the Alliance 4 Unity and the Workers Party of Britain, said he would consider standing in a by-election if Labour, the Conservatives and Lib Dems could not agree on a single candidate that had the best chance of defeating the SNP.
“The three main pro-Union parties better make a deal whereby they all stand aside for each other, starting with the by-election which MUST be called for Rutherglen and Hamilton West,” he tweeted. “Or they will all be facing me in that by-election (no matter who phones me . . .)” If Mr Galloway does follow this course of action, it would further split the unionist vote and is likely to pull votes away from Labour, the main challengers to the SNP in the seat.'
I'm looking to cover a narrow Trumpton EC win at good odds. Can anyone recommend a bookie? I tried Smarkets this morning but for some reason I couldn't get a bet on with them.
I`ve been backing BF`s "Trump Electoral College Votes" range 270-299 - currently at 7.6
I'm looking to cover a narrow Trumpton EC win at good odds. Can anyone recommend a bookie? I tried Smarkets this morning but for some reason I couldn't get a bet on with them.
I`ve been backing BF`s "Trump Electoral College Votes" range 270-299 - currently at 7.6
I’m a little surprised more play has not been made of this in the US.
Regeneron Position Statement on Stem Cell Research https://www.regeneron.com/sites/default/files/Regeneron-Position-Stem-Cell-Research.pdf As is the case with many other science-focused biotechnology companies, Regeneron uses a wide variety of research tools and technologies to help discover and develop new therapeutics. Stem cells are one such tool. The stem cells most commonly used at Regeneron are mouse embryonic stem cells and human blood stem cells. Currently, there are limited research efforts employing human-induced pluripotent stem cell lines derived from adult human cells and human embryonic stem cells that are approved for research use by the National Institutes of Health and created solely through in vitro fertilization. Research using such stem cells allows Regeneron to model complex diseases, test new drug candidates and can help unlock new scientific insights that ultimately could lead to the discovery of new treatments for people with serious diseases....
Ironically Trump's treatment uses human embryonic stem cells, while Trump's nominee is a life begins at conception extremist who is against that.
To be more accurate, Regeneron use HESCs in their research.
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
Consider the time period missing from that chart. It strongly suggests only Covid is beating Trump. The announcement of a vaccine would be expected to change everything.
The pharma companies would be bonkers to give any such announcement ahead of 4 November. Having Trump 'manage' its distribution is a recipe for unmitigated project failure. If I were AZ, Modena and Pfizer, I'd keep my counsel until after polling day.
If you had a vaccine that had been in Phase III trials since June, and by October 21st you had the statistical evidence on your desk that it was efficacious, would you really sit on those results for two weeks?
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
Consider the time period missing from that chart. It strongly suggests only Covid is beating Trump. The announcement of a vaccine would be expected to change everything.
The pharma companies would be bonkers to give any such announcement ahead of 4 November. Having Trump 'manage' its distribution is a recipe for unmitigated project failure. If I were AZ, Modena and Pfizer, I'd keep my counsel until after polling day.
Everything seems to have been kept quite quiet about phase 3 results so far. In fact I don't think the US phase 3 trial has even restarted for the Oxford vaccine ! One wonders if that might be political (Against Trump) - it100% won't be (More to do with the hyper litigious culture in the US) but the delay there certainly doesn't help him.
I'm looking to cover a narrow Trumpton EC win at good odds. Can anyone recommend a bookie? I tried Smarkets this morning but for some reason I couldn't get a bet on with them.
I`ve been backing BF`s "Trump Electoral College Votes" range 270-299 - currently at 7.6
That's what I'm after – thanks – which bookie?
Betfair
Backed – thanks.
I'm going to have a look into the Biden markets in a few days. Just thought I'd take advantage of those odds now as Trump is quite possibly at his polling nadir currently.
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
Consider the time period missing from that chart. It strongly suggests only Covid is beating Trump. The announcement of a vaccine would be expected to change everything.
The pharma companies would be bonkers to give any such announcement ahead of 4 November. Having Trump 'manage' its distribution is a recipe for unmitigated project failure. If I were AZ, Modena and Pfizer, I'd keep my counsel until after polling day.
Everything seems to have been kept quite quiet about phase 3 results so far. In fact I don't think the US phase 3 trial has even restarted for the Oxford vaccine ! One wonders if that might be political (Against Trump) - it100% won't be (More to do with the hyper litigious culture in the US) but the delay there certainly doesn't help him.
I've been speculating about some potential October surprises and one of them was Trump saying there would have been a vaccine ready for distribution but the deep state/Faucci/Dems stopped it because they wanted to Trump to lose, then produce some. very flimsy (faked) evidence.
'George Galloway, the former Labour MP, and present leader of both the Alliance 4 Unity and the Workers Party of Britain, said he would consider standing in a by-election if Labour, the Conservatives and Lib Dems could not agree on a single candidate that had the best chance of defeating the SNP.
“The three main pro-Union parties better make a deal whereby they all stand aside for each other, starting with the by-election which MUST be called for Rutherglen and Hamilton West,” he tweeted. “Or they will all be facing me in that by-election (no matter who phones me . . .)” If Mr Galloway does follow this course of action, it would further split the unionist vote and is likely to pull votes away from Labour, the main challengers to the SNP in the seat.'
Not necessarily if Tories and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP and Galloway draws away some far left SNP voters protest votes
Smart of Biden to speak at Gettysburg. Shoring up support in a key swing state. But also a subtle reminder of what Trump has done to the party of Lincoln. I took the opportunity to re-read Lincoln's words. Bloody hell, gets me every time. Although for the full experience you have to read it carved on the wall of his Memorial. The greatest political leader the English-speaking world has produced.
'George Galloway, the former Labour MP, and present leader of both the Alliance 4 Unity and the Workers Party of Britain, said he would consider standing in a by-election if Labour, the Conservatives and Lib Dems could not agree on a single candidate that had the best chance of defeating the SNP.
“The three main pro-Union parties better make a deal whereby they all stand aside for each other, starting with the by-election which MUST be called for Rutherglen and Hamilton West,” he tweeted. “Or they will all be facing me in that by-election (no matter who phones me . . .)” If Mr Galloway does follow this course of action, it would further split the unionist vote and is likely to pull votes away from Labour, the main challengers to the SNP in the seat.'
Not necessarily if Tories and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP and Galloway draws away some far left SNP voters protest votes
Yep, GG's whole Alliance for Unity schtick is perfectly designed to appeal to 'far left SNP voters'
Meanwhile covid rips through the universities in the biggest controlled experiment in the history of ethically-iffy evidence based medicine - which may be a good thing, mebbe noes, but we'll know in a couple of weeks to what extent it is self-contained, and non-lethal/non-serious, in those particular petri dishes. Not sure why this has escaped comment in response to those complaining that we have given no thought to alternative strategies, risk segmentation and so on.
Smart of Biden to speak at Gettysburg. Shoring up support in a key swing state. But also a subtle reminder of what Trump has done to the party of Lincoln. I took the opportunity to re-read Lincoln's words. Bloody hell, gets me every time. Although for the full experience you have to read it carved on the wall of his Memorial. The greatest political leader the English-speaking world has produced.
A very good speech from, Biden, I thought. Noble and profound rhetoric can of course be empty - often is - but it's so much better to hear than the antediluvian gruntings we've come to expect and had to put up with for 4 years that feel like 20.
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
Consider the time period missing from that chart. It strongly suggests only Covid is beating Trump. The announcement of a vaccine would be expected to change everything.
The pharma companies would be bonkers to give any such announcement ahead of 4 November. Having Trump 'manage' its distribution is a recipe for unmitigated project failure. If I were AZ, Modena and Pfizer, I'd keep my counsel until after polling day.
If you had a vaccine that had been in Phase III trials since June, and by October 21st you had the statistical evidence on your desk that it was efficacious, would you really sit on those results for two weeks?
It won't be as simple as that, though. The independent monitoring board for the Pfizer vaccine will have an interim look at the results in the near term, but the chances are that any evidence for efficacy won't be as clearcut as you might want - and the issue which simply can't be rushed is the requirement for another couple of months to pass for the vaccine safety to be assessed.
The potential consequences in trying to rush out a partially effective vaccine could far outweigh any benefits - particularly as there are several other vaccines in late stage trials.
In Sweden the antibody % is half in older people compared to working age. In Spain (and presumably UK) they figures are equal. Younger people have been allowed to build up immunity by getting on with their lives, albeit with some restrictions such as no standing at the bar.
See Unherd's latest lockdown interview.
Maybe it wouldn't work in UK because we don't obey common sense rules like the Swedes, but we should be discussing it more widely.
Discussing it more widely? Apart from the USA and Brazil I feel like I've heard about no other country in the world other than Sweden for months.
And often inaccurately, as people project their own fantasy covid policies. Post 16 education is online there for example, working from home a common response etc, and the economic slump much the same as everywhere else.
Most infuriatingly, it's also people who have done their level best for the whole of their lives in ensuring that the UK is as little like Sweden as possible in political terms.
In Sweden the political process is superior. They may have weathered the Covid storm better than the European average. Then again, they may not have: in my book, it's still early days.
But a cohesive consensus-based society, where political opinion is properly mediated, executive power is assigned on the basis of merit rather than where you went to school and who you married, and freedom of the press is a reality, is always going to have a better chance of getting these things right, or adjusting quickly when off-course.
Right-wingers should take this opportunity to think about the kind of society (insofar as they believe in it) they have created.
They won't though.
The obsession with Sweden really doesn't make sense, given that Sweden has done almost as badly as us and far worse than its neighbours in terms of deaths, and has fared similarly badly economically.
Surely the place to learn from is Germany - a country of similar size and nature to our own that has done far better then either Sweden or us in dealing with the pandemic.
The obsession with Sweden is simply due to a fantasy Sweden where no restrictions were imposed and no-one died or had any economic damage being presented through the eloquent and ignorant in the media.
I know twitter voting anecdotes don't always stack up with reality (We'll ALWAYS see long Dem county lines due to a lack of polling places), but there seems to be more than 2,599 Ohio early voters out and about ?
FYI, one thing to look out for tonight will be the audience numbers for the VP debate. The first debate was down 13% from 2016. If there is a similar fall this time round, that suggests a general trend (cord-cutting, fewer people watching TV). However, if the VP TV ratings numbers show a significantly better trend than the first Presidential debate, then that suggests voters are thinking more about the two VP candidates as possible Presidents.
On the one hand: Scott finding pertinent, relevant tweets and posting them here where many people don't have the time to find them directly.
On the other: paragraphs and paragraphs of people saying how they could never support Boris but they support Boris and how they want him gone but want him to stay until he has done the thing they don't support him for.
I'll take the former.
This may be a complete non sequitur, but I value both Scott and Big_G.
Having Big_G and HYFUD on the site - a former and current prominent local Tory party activist - provides a fascinating real time picture of the evolution of the Conservative Party. It feels like a case study of the application of Gresham's Law to politics.
One reason that this site is so good is the variety of political viewpoints represented, and by and large the civil nature of debate. That really is something quite unusual on the Internet and social media.
I quite like some of @Scott_P tweets, but his much rarer original author posts are very good indeed.
A bit of cooling off time is not such a bad thing though, hope @malcolmg has had his 3 match ban over soon.
As if by magic I have been pardoned, I will be on my best behaviour.
Mr. Eek, it remains a monumentally stupid decision.
"Shall we simply stick with this legendary track that's produced countless fantastic races?" "We could. Or we could cut down a forest to make an identikit shitbag circuit." "Good idea!"
I think that many Americans are increasingly apprehensive that their democracy, which has been creaking for more than a decade, might not operate this time. I suspect that this apprehension is one of the things that keeps Trump's position in the market stronger than his polling would indicate. If we do have President Biden we can only hope that a national effort is made to restore credibility to the electoral system, whether that involves undertaking the work that the Supreme Court said was needed to justify voter registration legislation, the impartiality and resources of vote counters, the allocation of ballot boxes, etc etc.
That's a good point. SCOTUS didn't say that the voter registration legislation couldn't happen did they? Just that it needs to be justified?
I think the GOP have gone out of their way to justify it. It should be possible for a Democrat majority Congress and President to pass legislation accordingly.
What SCOTUS said was that you couldn't justify voter registration legislation now on the basis that the system was clearly biased against minorities, especially blacks, 40 years ago. The legislation should either have achieved its objective by now, in which case it was no longer needed, or evidence should be found that the discrimination persists.
I have a real problem with SCOTUS using the constitution in this way to strike down legislation but the fact is that very little work seems to have been done to meet the criteria set. Of course motivated and partial State Officials who don't want to produce such evidence are a part of the problem.
It goes well beyond that. The Roberts court has refused to recognise even the most blatant gerrymandering as being unconstitutional. As this article lays out, that requires a deeply selective reading of the constitution (and is utterly inconsistent with his other judgments). https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/rucho-v-common-cause-occasion-sorrow/593227/ The Kagan dissent says it all, bearing in mind that she is the least emotive and most centrist of all the liberals on the court.
I agree but even playing the game on the SCOTUS terms it should have been reasonably easy to get up to date evidence that a lower percentage of Black or Hispanic voters who are eligible actually appear on the rolls and that a reason for that is unnecessary criteria which is designed to make registration more difficult rather than simple identification. All it required was the will to do so which was of course lacking at the State level and, under Trump, at the Federal level too.
It was masterful chicanery by the GOP.
Roberts said, if you repass the law then we will accept it as constitutional again. The GOP controlled House and Senate obviously did not pass the law. When the Dems took back the house in 2016 they immediately passed a reauthorisation of the VRA and McConnell didn't even bring it forward for a vote.
It basically will take a super majority for it to be reauthorised.
'George Galloway, the former Labour MP, and present leader of both the Alliance 4 Unity and the Workers Party of Britain, said he would consider standing in a by-election if Labour, the Conservatives and Lib Dems could not agree on a single candidate that had the best chance of defeating the SNP.
“The three main pro-Union parties better make a deal whereby they all stand aside for each other, starting with the by-election which MUST be called for Rutherglen and Hamilton West,” he tweeted. “Or they will all be facing me in that by-election (no matter who phones me . . .)” If Mr Galloway does follow this course of action, it would further split the unionist vote and is likely to pull votes away from Labour, the main challengers to the SNP in the seat.'
Not necessarily if Tories and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP and Galloway draws away some far left SNP voters protest votes
Yep, GG's whole Alliance for Unity schtick is perfectly designed to appeal to 'far left SNP voters'
Given the behaviour of the SNP MP some may fancy a protest vote, Galloway's party is only standing on the list for Holyrood as a Unionist party
Paying people to sit on their arses and do nothing is bad for productivity you say?
I spent 3 weeks on full time furlough - was great! Where it went wrong was that my company decided to cut its way back to growth and it didn't work (sounds familiar from something to do with politics...).
I then was furloughed 3 days a week, as were various other colleagues, not in a co-ordinated way. Our ability to function as a business floundered and the big man refused to listen to his management team regardless of evidence.
At least now I am working 5 days a week, with the start of the new job taking up the time furloughed from the old job. And my departure date has been moved up to the end of next week so not much more of this stupidity to tolerate.
This is the problem, isn't it? The app needs to be sensitive (in the sense of triggering for the vast majority of people who are in fact infected due to close contact) to be effective in limiting spread, but that likely implies - unless the algorithms discriminate spectacularly well - a low specificity (lots of triggers for people who have not in fact been infected). As people start to notice and report this on Twitter and the like, support for the app and use of it will likely fall, even if it is doing a good job at reducing infections overall.
To maintain support, there needs to be some analysis - and publicity - of how much the app is helping to reduce infections.
I know twitter voting anecdotes don't always stack up with reality (We'll ALWAYS see long Dem county lines due to a lack of polling places), but there seems to be more than 2,599 Ohio early voters out and about ?
As far as I can make out, mail ballots were posted out on the Monday, so it's impressive to have any returned by end Tuesday, and the page you link to is only for mail ballots, not the in-person early voting.
I believe that the actual, full poll is 51% Biden.
The 21% lead stuff comes from cherry picking the data from after the Trump Covid diagnosis - it was a five day poll.
I haven't seen more detail yet, but that sounds close to people taking un-adjusted sub-samples from raw polling data, to me.
What is the Trump score in the full poll?
Must still be a large lead for Biden.
51-37
Would guess that Trump would recover many of the don't know/third-party votes that implies.
Right, but even if he gets 2/3rds of the undecided that's still a 55-45 Biden lead
When I wrote that comment I'd assumed that the change in the after Covid sample was due to Trump voters moving to undecided, in which case you might expect more of them to come back if he survives. But I was wrong.
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
Consider the time period missing from that chart. It strongly suggests only Covid is beating Trump. The announcement of a vaccine would be expected to change everything.
Not necessarily. It looks to me like it shows Trump benefiting from a brief rally round the leader effect when the Covid crisis started hitting mid march to beginning April - as did most heads of government. Prior to that it shows Biden with a better chance - but that was when Sanders was still running.
Plus any decent model will have more uncertainty the further away you are from the election - so if things stay the same Biden's lead will equal a greater and greater likelihood of him winning as we get closer to the election.
Plus I'm not sure which chart you are using - it doesn't seem to be the 538 once quoted above.
If you look at approval ratings you probably get a more consistent picture over time, which doesn't depend on the Dem's nomination process, decreasing uncertainty as we get closer to the election, or temporary effect of the Covid rally round the leader. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ Shows Trump doing about the same now as before the end-March Covid rally. If anything his approval ratings are slightly better now than before Covid.
I believe that the actual, full poll is 51% Biden.
The 21% lead stuff comes from cherry picking the data from after the Trump Covid diagnosis - it was a five day poll.
I haven't seen more detail yet, but that sounds close to people taking un-adjusted sub-samples from raw polling data, to me.
You're probably right in that.
The Boston Herald says: "In two days of polling before Trump got COVID, the president trailed Biden by just a 46%-41% margin. In the three days of polling after the coronavirus diagnosis, Biden held a 55%-34% lead. That means Biden’s lead grew by a whopping 16 points from pre-COVID to post-COVID. Among all the 1,003 registered, likely voters in the nationwide Franklin Pierce-Herald poll, Biden now holds a 51%-37% lead over Trump less than a month before Election Day."
However, the splitting of polling data shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. In the distant past. I have seen Anthony Wells run threads with heavy caveats that breaking down YouGov polling when it spans a major event, so it's not entirely spurious when analysed carefully (unlike the way the Boston Herald reported it mind). The sub-samples won't be properly weighted so there will be an extra element of randomness in there. The 16% difference here is so marked that you shouldn't disregard the strong likelihood that there was some change, even if it may have been small. The fact that the samples are reasonably balanced (40% and 60%) before and after Trump fessed up to having Covid also helps.
So I think it's reasonable to conclude that a poll showing Biden with a 14% lead contains compelling evidence that the lead would most likely have been a bit larger if the poll had been conducted to the same methodology with the same full sample to a slightly later timeframe.
'George Galloway, the former Labour MP, and present leader of both the Alliance 4 Unity and the Workers Party of Britain, said he would consider standing in a by-election if Labour, the Conservatives and Lib Dems could not agree on a single candidate that had the best chance of defeating the SNP.
“The three main pro-Union parties better make a deal whereby they all stand aside for each other, starting with the by-election which MUST be called for Rutherglen and Hamilton West,” he tweeted. “Or they will all be facing me in that by-election (no matter who phones me . . .)” If Mr Galloway does follow this course of action, it would further split the unionist vote and is likely to pull votes away from Labour, the main challengers to the SNP in the seat.'
Not necessarily if Tories and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP and Galloway draws away some far left SNP voters protest votes
Yep, GG's whole Alliance for Unity schtick is perfectly designed to appeal to 'far left SNP voters'
Given the behaviour of the SNP MP some may fancy a protest vote, Galloway's party is only standing on the list for Holyrood as a Unionist party
Far left SNP voters would prefer an unambiguously Unionist party for their protest vote? Talk me through that one?
Afaik Alliance For Unity isn't yet a registered party so Georgie Boy better get his finger out of wherever it's been stuck in.
I believe that the actual, full poll is 51% Biden.
The 21% lead stuff comes from cherry picking the data from after the Trump Covid diagnosis - it was a five day poll.
I haven't seen more detail yet, but that sounds close to people taking un-adjusted sub-samples from raw polling data, to me.
You're probably right in that.
The Boston Herald says: "In two days of polling before Trump got COVID, the president trailed Biden by just a 46%-41% margin. In the three days of polling after the coronavirus diagnosis, Biden held a 55%-34% lead. That means Biden’s lead grew by a whopping 16 points from pre-COVID to post-COVID. Among all the 1,003 registered, likely voters in the nationwide Franklin Pierce-Herald poll, Biden now holds a 51%-37% lead over Trump less than a month before Election Day."
However, the splitting of polling data shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. In the distant past. I have seen Anthony Wells run threads with heavy caveats that breaking down YouGov polling when it spans a major event, so it's not entirely spurious when analysed carefully (unlike the way the Boston Herald reported it mind). The sub-samples won't be properly weighted so there will be an extra element of randomness in there. The 16% difference here is so marked that you shouldn't disregard the strong likelihood that there was some change, even if it may have been small. The fact that the samples are reasonably balanced (40% and 60%) before and after Trump fessed up to having Covid also helps.
So I think it's reasonable to conclude that a poll showing Biden with a 14% lead contains compelling evidence that the lead would most likely have been a bit larger if the poll had been conducted to the same methodology with the same full sample to a slightly later timeframe.
I believe that the actual, full poll is 51% Biden.
The 21% lead stuff comes from cherry picking the data from after the Trump Covid diagnosis - it was a five day poll.
I haven't seen more detail yet, but that sounds close to people taking un-adjusted sub-samples from raw polling data, to me.
You're probably right in that.
The Boston Herald says: "In two days of polling before Trump got COVID, the president trailed Biden by just a 46%-41% margin. In the three days of polling after the coronavirus diagnosis, Biden held a 55%-34% lead. That means Biden’s lead grew by a whopping 16 points from pre-COVID to post-COVID. Among all the 1,003 registered, likely voters in the nationwide Franklin Pierce-Herald poll, Biden now holds a 51%-37% lead over Trump less than a month before Election Day."
However, the splitting of polling data shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. In the distant past. I have seen Anthony Wells run threads with heavy caveats that breaking down YouGov polling when it spans a major event, so it's not entirely spurious when analysed carefully (unlike the way the Boston Herald reported it mind). The sub-samples won't be properly weighted so there will be an extra element of randomness in there. The 16% difference here is so marked that you shouldn't disregard the strong likelihood that there was some change, even if it may have been small. The fact that the samples are reasonably balanced (40% and 60%) before and after Trump fessed up to having Covid also helps.
So I think it's reasonable to conclude that a poll showing Biden with a 14% lead contains compelling evidence that the lead would most likely have been a bit larger if the poll had been conducted to the same methodology with the same full sample to a slightly later timeframe.
Saying there are indication that the lead might have been bigger if the polling was all after the event is one thing.
Putting up a headline say 21% is going too far, I think.
Stuart always struck me as the only one of the Vote Leave crowd who wasn't unambiguously a total scumbag. Now it turns out she is too. Sad!
I find her odd. I think she may have a history of trying to prove her "Britishness" a little too much.
I suspect it's simple Europhobia (or specifically EU-phobia), which is definitely a phenomenon among some older continental Europeans living in the UK, in my experience. My parents have old friends - the guy is half-Italian and his wife is French, and their son lives in Germany - who voted Leave out of dislike for the EU. Of course they get to keep their EU passports and so do their kids, so it's a fairly costless position for them to take. My folks have found their position pretty frustrating I think. Mind you I think a few of their friends have gone a bit potty in old age, it seems to be a thing with the boomers.
I believe that the actual, full poll is 51% Biden.
The 21% lead stuff comes from cherry picking the data from after the Trump Covid diagnosis - it was a five day poll.
I haven't seen more detail yet, but that sounds close to people taking un-adjusted sub-samples from raw polling data, to me.
You're probably right in that.
The Boston Herald says: "In two days of polling before Trump got COVID, the president trailed Biden by just a 46%-41% margin. In the three days of polling after the coronavirus diagnosis, Biden held a 55%-34% lead. That means Biden’s lead grew by a whopping 16 points from pre-COVID to post-COVID. Among all the 1,003 registered, likely voters in the nationwide Franklin Pierce-Herald poll, Biden now holds a 51%-37% lead over Trump less than a month before Election Day."
However, the splitting of polling data shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. In the distant past. I have seen Anthony Wells run threads with heavy caveats that breaking down YouGov polling when it spans a major event, so it's not entirely spurious when analysed carefully (unlike the way the Boston Herald reported it mind). The sub-samples won't be properly weighted so there will be an extra element of randomness in there. The 16% difference here is so marked that you shouldn't disregard the strong likelihood that there was some change, even if it may have been small. The fact that the samples are reasonably balanced (40% and 60%) before and after Trump fessed up to having Covid also helps.
So I think it's reasonable to conclude that a poll showing Biden with a 14% lead contains compelling evidence that the lead would most likely have been a bit larger if the poll had been conducted to the same methodology with the same full sample to a slightly later timeframe.
I believe that the actual, full poll is 51% Biden.
The 21% lead stuff comes from cherry picking the data from after the Trump Covid diagnosis - it was a five day poll.
I haven't seen more detail yet, but that sounds close to people taking un-adjusted sub-samples from raw polling data, to me.
You're probably right in that.
The Boston Herald says: "In two days of polling before Trump got COVID, the president trailed Biden by just a 46%-41% margin. In the three days of polling after the coronavirus diagnosis, Biden held a 55%-34% lead. That means Biden’s lead grew by a whopping 16 points from pre-COVID to post-COVID. Among all the 1,003 registered, likely voters in the nationwide Franklin Pierce-Herald poll, Biden now holds a 51%-37% lead over Trump less than a month before Election Day."
However, the splitting of polling data shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. In the distant past. I have seen Anthony Wells run threads with heavy caveats that breaking down YouGov polling when it spans a major event, so it's not entirely spurious when analysed carefully (unlike the way the Boston Herald reported it mind). The sub-samples won't be properly weighted so there will be an extra element of randomness in there. The 16% difference here is so marked that you shouldn't disregard the strong likelihood that there was some change, even if it may have been small. The fact that the samples are reasonably balanced (40% and 60%) before and after Trump fessed up to having Covid also helps.
So I think it's reasonable to conclude that a poll showing Biden with a 14% lead contains compelling evidence that the lead would most likely have been a bit larger if the poll had been conducted to the same methodology with the same full sample to a slightly later timeframe.
Saying there are indication that the lead might have been bigger if the polling was all after the event is one thing.
Putting up a headline say 21% is going too far, I think.
As 2016 proved the national popular vote is irrelevant anyway, it is key swing states like PA that matter and Biden now down to a 4% lead there with Emerson today
This is the problem, isn't it? The app needs to be sensitive (in the sense of triggering for the vast majority of people who are in fact infected due to close contact) to be effective in limiting spread, but that likely implies - unless the algorithms discriminate spectacularly well - a low specificity (lots of triggers for people who have not in fact been infected). As people start to notice and report this on Twitter and the like, support for the app and use of it will likely fall, even if it is doing a good job at reducing infections overall.
To maintain support, there needs to be some analysis - and publicity - of how much the app is helping to reduce infections.
I don't think there is anywhere that the adoption of the "app" is high enough to produce enough problems for it to become a pain in the bum for many people.
Compare and contrast 538 2016 - 2020. Not quite the same vibe.
To me these are the key charts. Clinton's support always looked soft, with wildly oscillating poll leads. Biden's lead looks like it is built on far firmer foundations. Americans were willing to give Trump a chance in 2016, frequently against their better judgement. In 2020 I think minds are firmly made up.
Consider the time period missing from that chart. It strongly suggests only Covid is beating Trump. The announcement of a vaccine would be expected to change everything.
The pharma companies would be bonkers to give any such announcement ahead of 4 November. Having Trump 'manage' its distribution is a recipe for unmitigated project failure. If I were AZ, Modena and Pfizer, I'd keep my counsel until after polling day.
If you had a vaccine that had been in Phase III trials since June, and by October 21st you had the statistical evidence on your desk that it was efficacious, would you really sit on those results for two weeks?
It won't be as simple as that, though. The independent monitoring board for the Pfizer vaccine will have an interim look at the results in the near term, but the chances are that any evidence for efficacy won't be as clearcut as you might want - and the issue which simply can't be rushed is the requirement for another couple of months to pass for the vaccine safety to be assessed.
The potential consequences in trying to rush out a partially effective vaccine could far outweigh any benefits - particularly as there are several other vaccines in late stage trials.
Depends what you think about Big Pharma. I don't understand US healthcare, but there is surely a possible world where Trump says to BigPharmaCo "Hey, you announce an all-American 100% sterilising immunity-conferring, penis-enlarging, ace-tasting vaccine ready to go on November 1st and I'll see you right on drug pricing in my second term."
Comments
Yes, there is an argument that after x years you could have a Supreme Court Justice moved to retired-sc-justice with life time benefits. And that would satisfy the Constitutional stuff - but the arbiter of that being true would be....
The Supreme Court
I strongly suspect he will not end up 9% ahead. Alternatively, he is piling up votes in lost causes and/or safe states, away from the marginals.
I don't use Twitter myself so the occasional retweet is a window into a parallel universe. But the problem is distinguishing between Tweeters Who Matter and everyone else.
https://twitter.com/Lawrence/status/1313684992208191488
The 21% lead stuff comes from cherry picking the data from after the Trump Covid diagnosis - it was a five day poll.
I haven't seen more detail yet, but that sounds close to people taking un-adjusted sub-samples from raw polling data, to me.
Surely the place to learn from is Germany - a country of similar size and nature to our own that has done far better then either Sweden or us in dealing with the pandemic.
Works in private life too. When I worked for Ciba-Geigy there, there was a move by Staff Association leaders to expel me because I was active in the trade union, on the basis that it was unreasonable to be in both as they competed at staff elections (I could sort of see their point, but the association wasn't just there for elections). A delegation of senior managers (all highly conservative types) went to the association leadership and told them that if they persisted in trying to tell me what I could belong to, they would ALL join the union. It wasn't that they had the slightest sympathy for unions or were personal friends of mine, but they felt that freedom of the individual mattered more. (Years later, when I declined to take action to exclude an environmental campaigner who had chosen to be a BNP member, I had their example in mind.)
But if you don't have a Swiss electorate, I can well imagine direct democracy being manipulated by the Trumps of this world. Possibly the Swiss got like that because they are directly consulted and gradually learned the responsbility that goes with power. But I'd think that takes time.
The best solution I can come up with is for the Senate to appoint two justices at a time, with one vote per senator. They then continue as a pair, and if one of them dies or retires, the other one is also retired. In practice this should mean at worst one hack GOP judge and one equal-and-opposite hack Dem judge, but hopefully the GOP and the Dems will both feel that once you take away the partisan advantage it's better to have non-hacks, and they'll make a deal where the GOP picks a non-hack in exchange for the Dems also picking a non-hack.
Where's the excitement and va va voom in that?
I hadn't thought of comparing their Manhattans. Hmm.
The particular antibodies we're talking about here, like all their others in development, are generated in mice (with engrafted human immune genes):
https://www.pharmafocusasia.com/clinical-trials/human-antibody-discovery
I quite like some of @Scott_P tweets, but his much rarer original author posts are very good indeed.
A bit of cooling off time is not such a bad thing though, hope @malcolmg has had his 3 match ban over soon.
Yup – (non-Scottish) subsample klaxon methinks.
Would be interesting to know whether there is a disconnect between the UK and US markets.
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1313638241686482950?s=20
https://twitter.com/magnusllewellin/status/1313715512086589440?s=20
George, proving that there is an 'I' in unity.
'George Galloway, the former Labour MP, and present leader of both the Alliance 4 Unity and the Workers Party of Britain, said he would consider standing in a by-election if Labour, the Conservatives and Lib Dems could not agree on a single candidate that had the best chance of defeating the SNP.
“The three main pro-Union parties better make a deal whereby they all stand aside for each other, starting with the by-election which MUST be called for Rutherglen and Hamilton West,” he tweeted. “Or they will all be facing me in that by-election (no matter who phones me . . .)” If Mr Galloway does follow this course of action, it would further split the unionist vote and is likely to pull votes away from Labour, the main challengers to the SNP in the seat.'
That's what I'm after – thanks – which bookie?
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1313753468755210241
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1313754522884468736
One wonders if that might be political (Against Trump) - it100% won't be (More to do with the hyper litigious culture in the US) but the delay there certainly doesn't help him.
I'm going to have a look into the Biden markets in a few days. Just thought I'd take advantage of those odds now as Trump is quite possibly at his polling nadir currently.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/labourproductivity/articles/ukproductivityintroduction/apriltojune2020
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/vatican-cash-used-to-buy-luxury-bags-kxhlp9lwd and
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/bullies-and-sex-pests-rule-at-hague-court-cp0bjgxx9.
https://twitter.com/cliodiaspora/status/1313252154472308736
They're axing Interlagos.
Instead, they're going to cut down part of the Brazilian rainforest to make a new circuit.
Fucking idiots.
Must still be a large lead for Biden.
Would guess that Trump would recover many of the don't know/third-party votes that implies.
The independent monitoring board for the Pfizer vaccine will have an interim look at the results in the near term, but the chances are that any evidence for efficacy won't be as clearcut as you might want - and the issue which simply can't be rushed is the requirement for another couple of months to pass for the vaccine safety to be assessed.
The potential consequences in trying to rush out a partially effective vaccine could far outweigh any benefits - particularly as there are several other vaccines in late stage trials.
https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html
"Shall we simply stick with this legendary track that's produced countless fantastic races?"
"We could. Or we could cut down a forest to make an identikit shitbag circuit."
"Good idea!"
Roberts said, if you repass the law then we will accept it as constitutional again. The GOP controlled House and Senate obviously did not pass the law. When the Dems took back the house in 2016 they immediately passed a reauthorisation of the VRA and McConnell didn't even bring it forward for a vote.
It basically will take a super majority for it to be reauthorised.
https://twitter.com/YiannisBab/status/1313764346451890179?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1313638241686482950?s=20
I then was furloughed 3 days a week, as were various other colleagues, not in a co-ordinated way. Our ability to function as a business floundered and the big man refused to listen to his management team regardless of evidence.
At least now I am working 5 days a week, with the start of the new job taking up the time furloughed from the old job. And my departure date has been moved up to the end of next week so not much more of this stupidity to tolerate.
To maintain support, there needs to be some analysis - and publicity - of how much the app is helping to reduce infections.
See, for example, https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/state/2020/10/06/early-voting-starts-ohio-donald-trump-cancels-ads-joe-biden-expands-them-democrats-target-black-vote/5879334002/
Plus any decent model will have more uncertainty the further away you are from the election - so if things stay the same Biden's lead will equal a greater and greater likelihood of him winning as we get closer to the election.
Plus I'm not sure which chart you are using - it doesn't seem to be the 538 once quoted above.
If you look at approval ratings you probably get a more consistent picture over time, which doesn't depend on the Dem's nomination process, decreasing uncertainty as we get closer to the election, or temporary effect of the Covid rally round the leader.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
Shows Trump doing about the same now as before the end-March Covid rally. If anything his approval ratings are slightly better now than before Covid.
The Boston Herald says:
"In two days of polling before Trump got COVID, the president trailed Biden by just a 46%-41% margin. In the three days of polling after the coronavirus diagnosis, Biden held a 55%-34% lead. That means Biden’s lead grew by a whopping 16 points from pre-COVID to post-COVID. Among all the 1,003 registered, likely voters in the nationwide Franklin Pierce-Herald poll, Biden now holds a 51%-37% lead over Trump less than a month before Election Day."
However, the splitting of polling data shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. In the distant past. I have seen Anthony Wells run threads with heavy caveats that breaking down YouGov polling when it spans a major event, so it's not entirely spurious when analysed carefully (unlike the way the Boston Herald reported it mind). The sub-samples won't be properly weighted so there will be an extra element of randomness in there. The 16% difference here is so marked that you shouldn't disregard the strong likelihood that there was some change, even if it may have been small. The fact that the samples are reasonably balanced (40% and 60%) before and after Trump fessed up to having Covid also helps.
So I think it's reasonable to conclude that a poll showing Biden with a 14% lead contains compelling evidence that the lead would most likely have been a bit larger if the poll had been conducted to the same methodology with the same full sample to a slightly later timeframe.
Afaik Alliance For Unity isn't yet a registered party so Georgie Boy better get his finger out of wherever it's been stuck in.
Putting up a headline say 21% is going too far, I think.
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1313638241686482950?s=20