538 poll update; Military justice; MAGA injustice and bigoted hate; About Biden

Poll update from 538:

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Vice reports: 

An Army Officer Faced Jail Time for Spying on Girls. 

Then the Pentagon Stepped In. 

Lt. Col. Jacob Sweatland faced a year in jail until a civilian court gave his case to the DoD. An Army merely reprimanded him and now his court records are sealed. 

A special court martial handed down a reprimand to an Army lieutenant colonel who was caught putting cameras in the dressing room of a clothing store by a 16-year-old girl. The Lt. Col., who fled from police when caught, pleaded guilty but will serve no jail time.

The slap on the wrist comes after civilian prosecutors initially attempted to pursue a criminal conviction. The Army convinced the court to let it handle the matter internally, however, and the officer was instead prosecuted through the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (UCMJ). Further, Motherboard found while seeking records related to the case that the court documents have since been sealed.  

In September 2022, Sweatland left a key fob with a hidden camera in it at a PacSun in San Luis Obispo. A 16-year-old girl found the camera and turned it in, and the store called the cops.

The cops took a look at the camera and found it still contained images and video from other dressing rooms in the area. Sweatland later called the store asking if anyone had found his key fob. The clerk, who was working with police, told Sweatland that someone had found it and he could come and retrieve it. The cops were waiting at the scene.

It is time to cut the military budget.

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NBC reports that the radical authoritarian MAGA movement has locked onto female secret service agents. MAGA monsters are attacking and blaming DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) wokeness for female agents that are incompetent, weak and unfit for duty. As usual, social media is spreading MAGA lies, hate and poison. NBC writes:

Posts criticizing the female agents still spread widely. The account Libs of TikTok received more than 10 million views on a post criticizing the female agents and saying “DEI got someone killed.”

Chaya Raichik, who runs the account, declined to comment further and, in an email she posted on X, said that a reporter was “mentally challenged” for asking.

The pro-Republican account @grandoldmemes altered a photo of a female Secret Service agent to make her appear as if she’s washing dishes instead of protecting Trump. It received 1.5 million views in less than 24 hours after it was posted Sunday. And it received another 600,000 views when it was reshared by the influential conservative account @catturd2.

Neither @grandoldmemes nor @catturd2 responded to requests for comment.

The arguments weren’t only on X. On Instagram, a similar post received more than 1,000 likes arguing that female Secret Service agents would be better off “in the kitchen” making sandwiches. And on YouTube, a video from the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sky News Australia called out the “fumbling fumbelinas” protecting Trump. Neither of those outlets responded to requests for comment Tuesday.

The argument spread widely. By late Monday, a wave of conservative pundits on social media had weighed in against diversity in the Secret Service including Mike Cernovich, Christopher Rufo, Ian Miles Cheong, Matt Walsh, Jake Shields, Candace Owens, Benny Johnson and the account @EndWokeness.

Owens stood by her criticism in a statement sent through a spokesperson: “Women have literally no role in the physical protection of men. It’s that simple. It’s basic biology.”

Rufo elaborated in a column he published Monday, saying the female agents lacked the “poise, confidence, and strength” of their male colleagues.

Tesla CEO and billionaire X owner Elon Musk added fuel to the idea that Trump’s security detail was physically inadequate. Musk, who endorsed Trump immediately after the shooting, posted Monday on X that bodyguards could be men or women but that they should be “large enough to do the job.” He cited the fictional warrior Brienne of Tarth, made famous by the television series “Game of Thrones.” Many of the replies to Musk called for banning women entirely. X did not respond to a request for comment from Musk.

Nowadays, MAGA’s blind, irrational, fact- and logic-free hate, intolerance and bigotry are all right out in the open. The misogyny here is undeniable. This is what America’s authoritarian radical right wealth and power movement has led us into. 

But we can all rest assured that the wealth and power elites will not face much or any of the blind, irrational, fact-free hate, intolerance and bigotry they have forced on the rest of us. Those elites have something about as good as the secret service to protect themselves. They have wealth and power. They can buy their own secret service and make it all big gnarly men.

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The Independent reports:

President Joe Biden held a call with moderate Democrats that was “even worse than the debate” just an hour before the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on Saturday, it has been revealed.

The report by Puck citing people on the Zoom call comes as House Democratic heavyweight and California Senate nominee Adam Schiff called on Biden to step aside on Wednesday.

Like in the debate, Biden is reported to have lost his train of thought during the Zoom call with moderate Democrats. One anonymous source told Puck that had the assassination attempt not taken place, as many as “50 people on that Zoom were ready to come out publicly against him.” 

One person who took part in the conversation [Adam Schiff] told the outlet, “The call was even worse than the debate. He was rambling – he’d start an answer then lose his train of thought, then would just say ‘whatever.’ I lost a ton of respect for him.”  

Schiff came out against the president running for re-election on Wednesday saying in a statement that Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history, and his lifetime of service as a Senator, a Vice President, and now as President has made our country better,” according to The Los Angeles Times.

If that reporting about Biden’s lack of coherence is correct, then it truly is time for him to step down. The Dem Party has lied to and betrayed us. The MSM failed to see through the lies and betrayal and thus the MSM failed us. I think now that Biden probably will step aside. We can only hope it isn’t too late.

But as bad as Biden’s mental situation is, DJT’s is much worse. In terms of (i) moral unfitness for office, (ii) his openly treasonous anti-democracy, pro-kleptocratic dictatorship temperament, and (iii) his staunch insistence on constantly lying to us to deceive, divide and distract us from what he really is and stands for, DJT still is the worse candidate. 

What a fracking mess.

Now what?

Well, it appears to be over for Joe.  I see the flood gates have officially opened, with all the top Dem brass in congress laying it on the line for him.  “We will lose the House and Senate if he stays in.”

He looked so frail going up those stairs in Vegas yesterday.  Covid again, and its effects show.  But, what a trooper!  Best wishes Mr. President. 

Yeah, now what?

Well, if they pass by Harris and go for someone else, that’s sure to piss off the Blacks and the women.  Bad, bad move.  That would be a suicide mission.

So, assuming it’s Harris who takes over the asylum, ‘er, I mean the reins, who will be her second?  

The floor is open for nominations.  Make yours below.

(by PrimalSoup)

More about polls and statistics; Aileen Cannon commentary

A post at r/fivethirtyeight discusses why some recent polls were wrong and why the election in 2024 is uncertain. The uncertainty mostly boils down to poll data indicating that 17.4% of poll respondents are still undecided or supporting 3rd party candidates. 

It was brought to my attention yesterday just how different the 2020 and 2024 presidential polling averages are.

On this day in 2020, Biden and Trump were polling nationally at 50.3% and 41.2% respectively, a 9.1 point difference. By comparison, today Trump is leading 42.5% to 40.1%, a 2.4 point difference.

What's most interesting to me are that at this point in 2020, only 8.5% of poll respondents were undecided or supporting 3rd party candidates, compared with 17.4% of poll respondents this cycle. In other words, more than twice as many respondents in 2024 haven't made up their minds yet with the vast majority of them seemingly up for grabs.

This introduces a large degree of uncertainty that I don't see getting discussed much all things considered. In fact, the high degree of undecideds/third party support closely mirrors that of the 2016 election, when Clinton was leading Trump 41% to 37.7%, a 3.3 point difference, with 21.3% of respondents undecided or supporting 3rd party candidates. Hell, even the number of poll respondents supporting the leading 3rd party candidates (Johnson in 2016 and RFK in 2024) are extremely similar at 9.3% and 9% respectively on July 16th. It's worth noting that in the end, Johnson only brought home 3.28% and 3rd party candidates altogether captured just 5.73% of votes cast.

It's also probably worth noting that Trump's top share of the vote in national polling in 2024 has been 43.1% (on March 29th) compared with 45.6% on March 6, 2020 and 38.3% on June 8, 2016. Obviously the biggest difference from 2020 is that Biden is polling at just 40.1% compared with 50.3% on this day in 2020, but it is interesting that this support hasn't gone to Trump, it's gone to undecideds and RFK, which means those votes are arguably up for grabs and/or that many might reluctantly return to Biden if or when he becomes the nominee. How that ~17% share of 3rd party/undecideds break over the next few months will 100% decide the election's outcome.

What really struck me is these comments from a commenter to that post:

Again, I think this introduces a high degree of uncertainty that many aren't taking into account. Keep in mind, this is the exact same reason why the polls were so off in 2016.

By election day 2016, Trump was down by 3.9% nationally with 13.5% of poll respondents still undecided or supporting 3rd party candidates. Trump picked up 4.3% of them and Clinton 2.5%, bringing Clinton's popular vote margin down to just 2.1%, which wasn't enough to put her over the finish line.

And yet, we have models this cycle suggesting that Trump has a more than 80% chance of winning 3.5 months from election day, because he's up by a little over 2 points nationally with more than 17% undecided/3rd party.

Sure doesn't feel like many pollsters and pundits learned the right lessons from 2016.

That strikes me as good news for Biden or whoever winds up running against DJT. The daily analysis at The Hill currently has DJT with a 56% chance of winning, but that would probably increase if the assassination attempt gives him more sympathy and support. We won't know that for a few more days as polling starts to reflect what effect, if any, the deranged nutjob with a gun is going to have on the outcome.

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That subreddit posted a ranking of the top 277 polling sources, plus a slew of others below those at the top. What surprised me was that Gallup ranked 35th and Pew Research Center ranked 40th. The top 11 are shown below.

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The Atlantic published an opinion about the judge that dismissed the Mar-A-Lago case in Florida against DJT:

Judge Cannon Has Gotten It Completely Wrong

In dismissing the classified-documents case, she is ignoring both practical history and legal precedent

Judge Aileen Cannon, a Donald Trump appointee, has dismissed the criminal charges against the former president. On the merits, her opinion is a poor one, ignoring history and precedent. It will almost certainly be reversed on appeal. Even so, her actions will surely delay Trump’s trial and may even prevent it completely, should Trump return to power and dismiss the case before a verdict is reached. For these reasons alone, her decision is certainly notable.

But Cannon’s opinion is even more significant for what it says systematically about the American judiciary and its increasing hubris. Donald Trump is famous for saying that he “alone can fix” the nation. Judges now routinely say that they “alone” know what the law is or should be. Cannon is just the latest, perhaps most egregious, example.

The legal issue in question was the validity of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment by the attorney general. Cannon determined that the appointment was invalid because, in her view, no statutory authority existed for the attorney general to create such an officer. According to her, Smith was an “inferior officer” whose appointment could be approved only if there was specific statutory authority; absent that authority (as she characterized it), the appointment was unconstitutional.

One could write a volume about how wrong Cannon’s analysis is, and no doubt many will do so (including Smith on his inevitable appeal to the Eleventh Circuit). On the statutory merits, for example, the law allows the “Attorney General [to] appoint officials … to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States [and] to conduct such other investigations regarding official matters under the control of the Department of Justice and the Department of State as may be directed by the Attorney General.” This clear language is discarded by Cannon on the borderline-frivolous ground that Smith is sometimes called an “officer” of the Justice Department rather than an “official.”

As to precedent, during the investigation of Richard Nixon, the Supreme Court explicitly acknowledged the power of the attorney general: “Under the authority of Art. II, § 2, Congress has vested in the Attorney General the power to conduct the criminal litigation of the United States Government … It has also vested in him the power to appoint subordinate officers to assist him in the discharge of his duties.”

Cannon casually tosses that off as dicta—statements of the Court not necessary to the Court’s decision. She’s wrong; the special prosecutor’s authority to subpoena Nixon was at issue, and the authority was dependent on prosecutors’ very existence. But even if she were correct, it takes significant hubris to disregard the Supreme Court when you are a lower-court judge.

Maybe what Cannon did has little or nothing to do with hubris. With hubris, you don’t realize your own failings. But in my humble opinion, Cannon knows exactly what she is doing. She consistently throws out existing precedent whenever it serves Trump. She has an agenda to delay, delay delay. When the law or precedent is against that agenda, she rules against against it. 

Cannon used the Mar-A-Lago stolen documents case to block other judges from scheduling proceedings in other Trump cases. That slowed everything by months. Maybe she wants to be removed from the case because she does not have the experience to actually try it, but that imputes good faith. I do not believe she governs** in good faith. Maybe she tread water until it was a good time for her to do something that would get her removed in a way that was good for her and DJT. But at this point, I am unsure if she will be removed from the case or whether it will even matter. If DJT is re-elected he will order the DoJ to drop the case about as soon as he is sworn into office. That will be the end of it.

** I used govern intentionally, instead of judging. She is a radical authoritarian Republican partisan, not a judge.

About statistics in opinion polls

Over at r/fivethirtyeight, there is an explanation of statistics in poll data. There will be a quiz .

So I feel like some people have been using the concept of the "margin of error" in polling quite the wrong way. Namely some people have started to simply treat any result within the margin of error as functionally equivalent. That Trump+3 and Biden+3 are both the same if the margin of error is 3.46.

Now I honestly think this is a totally understandable mistake to make, both because American statistics education isn't great but also unhelpful words like "statistical ties" give people the wrong impression. 

What the margin of error actually allows us to do is estimate the probability distribution of the true values - that is to say what the "actual number" should be. To illustrate this, I've created two visualizations:

Here is the probability of the "True Numbers" if Biden lead 40-37

And here is the probability of the "True Numbers" if Trump lead 40-37

Notice the substantial difference between these distributions. The overlapping areas represent the chance that the candidate who's behind in the poll might actually be leading in reality. The non-overlapping areas show the likelihood that the poll leader is truly ahead.

In the both of the polls the overlapping area is about 30%. This means that saying "Trump+3 and Biden+3 are both within the 3.46% margin of error, so they're basically 50/50 in both polls" is incorrect.

A more accurate interpretation would be: If the poll shows Biden+3, there's about a 70% chance Biden is truly ahead. If it shows Trump+3, there's only about a 30% chance Biden is actually leading. This demonstrates how even small leads within the margin of error can still be quite meaningful.

A peanut in the gallery commented:

A more accurate interpretation would be: If the poll shows Biden+3, there’s about a 70% chance Biden is truly ahead. If it shows Trump+3, there’s only about a 30% chance Biden is actually leading. This demonstrates how even small leads within the margin of error can still be quite meaningful.

Yeah, but only if the sample population is reflective of the total population. One of the biggest issues with political polling is actually getting a representative sample since we don’t know with 100% certainty what population will actually show up on Election Day. I suppose that’s a bit pedantic but the margin of error doesn’t really account for an inaccurate sample population, which is more likely to be where the source of error in political polling is coming from.

Got it? Me neither. Quiz time!

The election is a horse race.

He fell in the butter…

My Dutch husband tells me that’s a saying in Holland:

meaning, someone is just that lucky. Everything tends to go his way.

I can’t help but think of Trump in exactly that way.  Off the top of my head, take a look at what’s happened of late:

• $454 million bond case has been temporarily reduced on appeal to $175 million
• Supreme Court gives immunity to former presidents for “official acts”
• Biden “loses it” at a highly publicized debate, coming across as a doddering old man on the verge of senility, putting the Dem Party in crisis mode
• Guilty verdict in Trump’s Hush Money trial gets delayed punishment (so-called in September, but don’t hold your breath)
• Trump survives an assassination attempt by one-inch
• Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Trump Classified Documents case
• Republicans get first crack at showcasing their convention, with cheering and adoring crowds
• Flip-flopper J.D. "Trump is America's Hitler" Vance gets the VP nod

What am I forgetting?

Yes, the butter is coming fast and furious these days, for one Mr. Trump.

Question: Have you ever seen a luckier sob than DJT?  Or is he deserving of his butter-coating? What is it about Trump that people find attractive?  Explain it to me like I’m a 5-year-old.  Because I(really)DGI.

(by Primal “TDS” Soup)

Effectiveness of the big lie; Social media impacts; Trump judge protects Trump; Initial fallout

Some authoritarians are quite intelligent and insightful about human nature. Consider this quote, for example:

All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.

That is probably at least part of why the big lie works so well for DJT.

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Especially since DJT came on the scene in 2015-2016, the toxic influence of social media on politics and democracy has been increasingly researched. This Q&A came out of ongoing curiosity about the current state of research about social media dark arts. Perplexity describes it like this.  

Q: On balance is American social media more politically divisive and disinforming than uniting and informing?

A: American social media appears to be more politically divisive and disinforming than uniting and informing. Here are the key points supporting this conclusion:

1. The United States is an outlier in its negative perception of social media's impact on democracy. Only 34% of U.S. adults think social media has been good for democracy, while 64% say it has had a bad impact.

2. Americans are consistently among the most negative in their assessments of how social media has affected politics and society. For example, 79% of Americans believe social media has made people more divided in their political opinions, the highest percentage among 19 countries surveyed.

3. 69% of Americans say social media has made people less civil in how they talk about politics, again the highest share among the nations studied.

4. Experts have concluded that the use of social media contributes to partisan animosity in the U.S. A group of 15 researchers summarized the scholarly consensus, stating that social media companies have played an influential role in political discourse, intensifying political sectarianism.

5. While social media may not be the main driver of polarization, researchers posit that it is often a key facilitator.

6. Social media algorithms and business models have been shown to exacerbate outrage and anger, and social media has been found to help recruit and provide platforms to extremists.

However, it's important to note that the research on this topic is not entirely conclusive:

1. Some studies have found that staying off social media platforms like Facebook can reduce polarization on policy issues, but not necessarily on party identity.

2. Recent landmark studies involving tens of thousands of Facebook and Instagram accounts found that social media algorithms did not affect users' polarization.

3. The problem may not be social media alone, but the country's entire media system. A literature review found that media in general was likely increasing ideological and affective polarization.

4. Most Americans do not use social media to discuss politics, as politics is a very incidental part of life for many people.

In conclusion, while the evidence suggests that American social media tends to be more politically divisive and disinforming, the issue is complex and multifaceted. Social media's role in polarization should be considered alongside other factors contributing to the current political climate in the United States.

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Trump judge Aileen Cannon, a/k/a/ Loose Cannon  Aileen, has dismissed the entire Mar-A-Lago stolen documents federal lawsuit against DJT. The dismissal was not on immunity grounds, but instead on grounds of Jack Smith as special prosecutor being unconstitutionally funded. His investigation and prosecution now simply vanishes into thin air. We have to wait for another year or two while appeals play out. DJT has been protected by his corrupt judge.   

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday tossed former President Trump’s criminal charges accusing him of mishandling classified information, ruling that special counsel Jack Smith was not lawfully appointed.

The ruling hands a major victory to Trump, marking the first time one of his four criminal cases has been dismissed entirely.

Cannon ruled that no federal law authorized Smith’s appointment.

“The bottom line is this: The Appointments Clause is a critical constitutional restriction stemming from the separation of powers, and it gives to Congress a considered role in determining the propriety of vesting appointment power for inferior officers,” Cannon wrote in a 93-page ruling.

“The Special Counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a Head of Department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers.”

Cannon said that, after “careful study,” she determined that no legal statute grants an attorney general authority to appoint a federal officer with the “kind of prosecutorial power wielded by Special Counsel Smith.”

The rule of law takes another major hit from American radical right authoritarians. The enemy is in our midst, not some foreign invaders like Mexican rapists and drug dealers. The enemy is the kleptocratic dictator DJT, and his kleptocratic, authoritarian, Republican Party. Both are thoroughly morally rotted.

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A bit of initial fallout from the assassination attempt: Trump’s chances of winning have spiked to roughly 70 percent from 60 percent before the shooting attempt at betting site Polymarket. 

Poll analyst Nate Silver comments: 

It’s fine to say “I refuse to speculate” — but does that mean you think the consensus is misguided? Personally, I have no basis to think the consensus is wrong here. You can get cute if you like and try to draw historical analogies, like to the assassination attempts against Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 or Ronald Reagan in 1981 (which produced a sharp but short-lived boost in his approval ratings). But I think that’s barking somewhat up the wrong tree. In the present moment, this at the very least makes Trump much more sympathetic and undermines the implicit premise of the Biden campaign to restore order and stability to America,

There are, however, two major sources of uncertainty. One is whether the Trump campaign will take the high road or the low road. In rare possession of the moral highground, will Trump ask the nation to come together? Or, like one of his potential VP picks, Senator J.D.Vance of Ohio, will he plunge us further into darkness, blaming his political opponents for the attempt on his life? The high road is probably the more electorally rewarding course, believe it or not, especially given that Trump was winning to begin with. But candidates with authoritarian tendencies can obviously seize on moments like these also.