Thursday, November 01, 2018
New Poll Verifies The Senate Race In Texas Is Close
This chart reflects the results of the new University of Texas at Tyler Poll -- done between October 15th and 28th of 1,033 registered Texas voters (905 likely voters). The margin of error for the registered voters is 3.03 points and for the likely voters is 3.26 points.
It shows the difference between Cruz and O'Rourke is lies than 5 points among both registered and likely voters.
Making these numbers more interesting is the fact that significantly more Republicans and Trump voters were questioned than Democrats and Clinton voters. It looks like some Republicans are crossing over and voting against Cruz.
Behavior of Republicans And Democrats Are NOT The Same
That is a ludicrous idea. It equates yelling at a politician in a restaurant with sending mail bombs, shooting random Black people, and executing Jews as they pray. But those acts are not equal. While some Democratic politicians may be promoting incivility, Republicans (especially Trump) are engaging in hate speech, and emboldening terrorists to carry out vicious acts that kill people.
Here is how Paul Krugman (pictured) describes this in his New York Times column:
In America 2018, whataboutism is the last refuge of scoundrels, and bothsidesism is the last refuge of cowards.
In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in the midst of a wave of hate crimes. Just in the past few days, bombs were mailed to a number of prominent Democrats, plus CNN. Then, a gunman massacred 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Meanwhile, another gunman killed two African-Americans at a Louisville supermarket, after first trying unsuccessfully to break into a black church — if he had gotten there an hour earlier, we would probably have had another mass murder.
All of these hate crimes seem clearly linked to the climate of paranoia and racism deliberately fostered by Donald Trump and his allies in Congress and the media.
Killing black people is an old American tradition, but it is experiencing a revival in the Trump era.
When the bombs were discovered, many on the right immediately claimed that they were fake news or a false flag operation by liberals. But the F.B.I. quickly tracked down the apparent source of the explosive devices: A fanatical Trump supporter, whom many are already calling the MAGABomber. His targets were people and a news organization Trump has attacked in many speeches. (Since the bombings, Trump has continued to attack the news media as the “enemy of the people.”)
The man arrested at the Tree of Life synagogue has been critical of Trump, who he apparently believes isn’t anti-Semitic enough. But his rage seems to have been fueled by a conspiracy theory being systematically spread by Trump supporters — the claim that Jewish financiers are bringing brown people into America to displace whites.
This conspiracy theory is, it turns out, a staple of neo-Nazis in Europe. It’s what our own neo-Nazis — whom Trump calls “very fine people” — were talking about in Charlottesville last year, when they chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”
It’s also the barely veiled subtext of the manufactured hysteria over the caravan of would-be migrants from Central America. The fearmongers aren’t just portraying a small group of frightened, hungry people still far from the United States border as a looming invasion. They have also been systematically implying that Jews are somehow behind the whole thing. There’s a straight line from Fox News coverage of the caravan to the Tree of Life massacre.
So how are Trump apologists dealing with this ugly picture? Partly through denial, pretending not to see any link between hateful rhetoric and hate crimes. But also through attempts to spread the blame by claiming that Democrats are just as bad if not worse. Trump supporters try to kill his critics? Well, some Trump opponents have yelled at politicians in restaurants! . . .
Trump supporters aren’t the only people trying to pretend that he’s only doing what everyone does, that Democrats are just as bad and equally liable for the explosion of hatred.
False equivalence, portraying the parties as symmetric even when they clearly aren’t, has long been the norm among self-proclaimed centrists and some influential media figures. It’s a stance that has hugely benefited the GOP, as it has increasingly become the party of right-wing extremists.
You might have thought that the horrifying events of recent days would finally break through that norm. But you would have been wrong. Bothsidesism is, it turns out, a fanatical cult impervious to evidence. Trump famously boasted that his supporters would stick with him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue; what he didn’t point out was that pundits would piously attribute the shooting to “incivility,” and that Sunday talk shows would feature Fifth-Avenue-shooting advocates and give them a respectful hearing.
This needs to stop, and those who keep practicing bothsidesism need to be shamed. At this point, pretending that both sides are equally to blame, or attributing political violence to spreading hatred without identifying who’s responsible for that spread, is a form of deep cowardice.
The fact is that one side of the political spectrum is peddling hatred, while the other isn’t. And refusing to point that out for fear of sounding partisan is, in effect, lending aid and comfort to the people poisoning our politics. Yes, hate is on the ballot next week.
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Democratic Lead Increasing As Election Gets Closer
The chart above is from the USC Dornsife / Los Angeles Times Poll. They questioned 2,350 likely voters between October 21st and 27th, and the poll has a margin of error of 2 points. It shows that the Democratic lead seems to be growing as the election nears. Democrats currently have a 17 point lead (Democrats 57% to Republicans 40%).
Trump Wants To Alter The Constitution By Executive Order
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees citizenship to any person born in the United States. It's commonly called "birthright citizenship". Donald Trump doesn't like it, and he thinks he can change that by issuing an executive order.
In an interview with Axios on HBO, Trump said the following:
"It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't."
"You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order."
"We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States ... with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end."
"It's in the process. It'll happen ... with an executive order."
He's wrong. Congress cannot change the Constitution by passing a law, and a president cannot change it by issuing an executive order. All laws passed by Congress must agree with the Constitution as written, and so must all presidential executive orders. If they do not, then they will be nullified by the Supreme Court.
Trump is also wrong about the United States being the only country that has birthright citizenship. (See below for other countries that offer it).
Maybe Trump thinks the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will back his effort to change the Constitution by executive order. I doubt it though. I think most of those conservative justices would support a literal reading of the Fourteenth Amendment (which is very clear about birthright citizenship).
More likely is that this is just more red meat for his racist and xenophobic base -- to get them out to vote in this congressional election (like his demonization of immigrants and refugees).
Other countries with birthright citizenship:
1.Antigua and Barbuda
2. Argentina
3. Barbados
4. Belize
5. Bolivia
6. Brazil
7. Canada
8. Chad
9. Chile
10. Costa Rica
11. Cuba
12. Dominica
13. Ecuador
14. El Salvador
15. Fiji
16. Grenada
17. Guatamala
18.Guyana
19. Honduras
20. Jamaica
21. Lesotho
22. Mexico
23. Nicaragua
24. Pakistan
25. Panama
26. Paraguay
27. Peru
28. Saint Kitts and Navia
29. Saint Lucia
30. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
31. Tanzania
32. Trinidad and Tobago
33. Tuvalu
34. Uruguay
35. Venezuela
New Poll Shows Senate Race In Texas Is Close
The chart above reflects the results of the latest Quinnipiac University Poll on the Senate race in Texas. The poll questioned 1,078 likely voters between October 22nd and 28th, and has a margin of error of 3.5 points.
The poll has incumbent Republican Ted Cruz with a 5 point lead over Democrat Beto O'Rourke. Don't let that discourage you if you're a Democrat, or keep you from voting. The poll is a "likely voter" model -- and the huge turnout this year may well show that model to be wrong.
This race is close, and it will be won by the candidate that does the best job of getting his voters to the polls. That would be men, Whites, and Republicans for Cruz -- and it would be women, Blacks, Hispanics, Independents, and Democrats for O'Rourke.
Trump (& Ivanka, Eric, Don Jr.) Accused Of Financial Scams
The following is just a part of an excellent article about Trump (and three of his children) engaging in financial scams to use the Trump name to bilk people out of their hard-earned money. It is shameful (and probably criminal) behavior. The article was written for The New York Times by Maggie Haberman and Benjamin Weiser.
A new lawsuit accuses President Trump, his company and three of his children of using the Trump name to entice vulnerable people to invest in sham business opportunities.
Filed in federal court in Manhattan on Monday, the lawsuit comes just days before the midterm elections, raising questions about whether its timing is politically motivated. It is being underwritten by a nonprofit whose chairman has been a donor to Democratic candidates.
The allegations take aim at the heart of Mr. Trump’s personal narrative that he is a successful deal-maker who built a durable business, charging he and his family lent their name to a series of scams.
The 160-page complaint alleges that Mr. Trump and his family received secret payments from three business entities in exchange for promoting them as legitimate opportunities, when in reality they were get-rich-quick schemes that harmed investors, many of whom were unsophisticated and struggling financially.
Those business entities were ACN, a telecommunications marketing company that paid Mr. Trump millions of dollars to endorse its products; the Trump Network, a vitamin marketing enterprise; and the Trump Institute, which the suit said offered “extravagantly priced multiday training seminars” on Mr. Trump’s real estate “secrets.”
The four plaintiffs, who were identified only with pseudonyms like Jane Doe, depict the Trump Organization as a racketeering enterprise that defrauded thousands of people for years as the president turned from construction to licensing his name for profit. The suit also names Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump as defendants.
Those business entities were ACN, a telecommunications marketing company that paid Mr. Trump millions of dollars to endorse its products; the Trump Network, a vitamin marketing enterprise; and the Trump Institute, which the suit said offered “extravagantly priced multiday training seminars” on Mr. Trump’s real estate “secrets.”
The four plaintiffs, who were identified only with pseudonyms like Jane Doe, depict the Trump Organization as a racketeering enterprise that defrauded thousands of people for years as the president turned from construction to licensing his name for profit. The suit also names Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump as defendants.
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