Glad I didn't make my prediction that PSU would win public.
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Iowa is Lost
The gold standard Iowa poll conducted for the Des Moines Register by Selzer & Co, the last before Tuesday, has Trump +7.
BoJo Reimposes LoDo
England is going on another lockdown, this time for four weeks, as new coronavirus cases have threatened to overwhelm hospitals. Peem announced Saturday all non-essentials, schools and universities excepted, are to stay at home for a month. Previously he had shut down Manchester and Liverpool which pissed off peoplez there and didn’t contain the epidemic.
2020 sport will always have an * next to it, rightly so. How else do you explain:
Miami "Heat" NBA Finalists.
Aston Villa 7 Liverpool 2.
Rutgers winning at Michigan State
Michigan State winning at Michigan
Dino Swinney's #1 Clemson "Taggers" survived a near-death experience--in their own Death Valley too--against the Pigeons of Boston College 34-28. Does the absence of Trevor Lawrence, due to TrumPlague too, explain the closeness of the result? Not to me but who knows? And that's the point. College tackle football coaches have a built-in excuse for underperformance, rightly so. Their admins will be loathe to make changes with long-term implications based on results in such an aberrant year. A 1-6 record has landed Dabo Babers on the hot seat in Syracuse, rightly so, but I would be shocked if Syracuse fires him now and surprised if they do after the season.
It's similar in Pittsburgh. On the one hand Pitt has a better record, 3-4, than does the 'Cuse. On the other hand: Head Cat Pat Narduzzi has been at the helm longer, this is his sixth year, than has Babers (fifth year); has never had a ten, or even a nine-win season (Babers' team went 10-3 in 2018); expectations were high last season for Narduzzi (10-2, Orange Bowl) and were high this season; Narduzzi cannot recruit and thus there is little hope for improvement in the future; most importantly Narduzzi is signed through the 2024 season at 3.213M per. Both Babers and Narduzzi have lost their teams. The Panthers just quit last week against Notre Dame and have lost four straight; Syracuse has also lost four in a row, most damningly to Liberty, and the Arrange have not been close. Every loss has been by double digits, the closest at...Pitt by eleven. How can TrumPlague explain Syracuse and Pitt. To me, it can't, but who knows. Which, ditto. Pat Narduzzi will absolutely, positively, no-way-in-the-hell-of-a-steel-furnace can canned before season's end and close to no way after the season. In for a dime, in for $12.8M in Pittsburgh; presumably similar in Syracuse but there are no details of Babers' contract. No, Pat Narduzzi and Dabo Babers will not be fired at season's end. Each will have one more year, presuming it is normal, to prove his worth.
Uh Oh Dabo
3-2 Wake Forest went upstate today to tangle with Dabo Babers' 1-5 Arrangemen. Nobody really tangles with the Arrange no mo tho, they just beat 'em like a ass. So the Demons did today 38-14. Syracuse now
1
and
six.
Joe...?
Trump will be in four places in Pennsylvania today and his wife in a fifth. Biden and Barack Obama will be in Michigan.
Biden will be in Philadelphia Sunday. Trump will not be there.
Biden and Harris will be together at different stops in Pennsylvania Monday. Trump will be in the state also and in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
99,000, 1,030, 230,000
99,000 new Cases Oct 30.
1,030 new Deaths Oct. 30.
230,000 total Deaths through October 31.
99,000
But on the same day, [1,030 died] President Trump once again sought to play down the severity of the coronavirus. At a campaign rally in Michigan, he ridiculed a reporter for wearing a mask, claimed that “doctors get more money if somebody dies from Covid” and implied that deaths from the virus were artificially inflated [230,000 total dead].
99,000-"Covid, Covid, Covid"
U.S. Caps Its Worst Week With More Than 99,000 New Daily Cases, a Global Record
Fourteen states reported single-day records for new cases on Friday: Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Montana, Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oregon, Kansas, Ohio, Colorado and Maine. And three states hit record deaths: Tennessee, Montana and New Mexico.
Friday, October 30, 2020
The Plague of Trump
229,511 Killed since February 6.
971 Killed October 29; 991 Oct. 28; 986 Oct. 27.
2,948 Killed in last three days.
811 Killed per day in last seven days.
Killed up 16% in fourteen days.
88,521 new Cases October 29, 4,800 more than the next highest day.
77,865 new cases per day in last seven days.
Cases up 42% in fourteen days.
Trump Unmasked
"You take off your mask, which, in my mind, has become a signal to his core base of supporters that are willing to put themselves at risk and danger to show loyalty to him.”
Disruption would most likely begin on Election Day morning somewhere on the East Coast, where polls open first. Miami and Philadelphia ...would be likely locations. It could be anything, maybe violent, maybe not, started by anyone, or something planned and executed by any number of organizations, almost all of them on the right fringe, many adoring of Mr. Trump. The options are vast and test the imagination. Activists could stage protests at a few of the more crowded polling places and draw those in long lines into conflict.
A group could just directly attack a polling place, injuring poll workers of both parties...
...[Trump is] in an ongoing conversation — one to many, in a twisted e pluribus unum — with a vast population, which is in turn in conversations — many to many — among themselves. People are receiving messages, interpreting them and deciding to act, or not.
...If something goes wrong, the media will pick this up in early morning reports and it will spread quickly, increasing tension at polling places across the country, where the setup is ripe for conflict.
Conservative media could then say the election was being stolen, summoning others to activate, maybe violently...News of even a few incidents could summon a violent segment of Mr. Trump’s supporters into action, giving foreign actors even more to amplify and distribute...Groups from the left may engage as well, most likely as a counterpoint to those on the right. Those groups are less structured, more like an “ideology or movement,” as Mr. Wray described them...But, as a senior official told me, the numbers on the left are vast.
Violence and conflict throughout that day at the polls would surely affect turnout, allowing Mr. Trump to claim that the in-person vote had been corrupted, if that suits his purposes. There’s no do-over for Election Day.
There are many scenarios that might unfold from here, nearly all of them entailing weeks or even months of conflict, and giving an advantage to the person who already runs the U.S. government....
...he could use all the help that he can summon to invalidate the in-person vote.
Senior intelligence officials are worried that a foreign power could finally manage a breach of the American voting architecture...There is also concern that malware attacks could cripple state governments and their electronic voter registration data, something that could make swaths of voters unable to vote...a breach or an appearance of a breach, in any state’s machinery, would, in a chaotic flow of events, be a well-timed gift to Mr. Trump.
No matter how the votes split, there’s an expectation among officials that Mr. Trump will claim some kind of victory on Nov. 4...
If the streets then fill with outraged people, he can easily summon, or prompt, or encourage troublemakers among his loyalists to turn a peaceful crowd into a sea of mayhem. They might improvise on their own in sparking violence, presuming it pleases their leader.
If the crowds are sufficiently large and volatile, he can claim to be justified in responding with federal powers to bring order.
A senior Pentagon official, though, laid out a back-door plan that he was worried about. It won’t start, he thinks, with a sweeping move to federalize the National Guard, which is within the President’s Article 2 powers; it’d be more of a state by state process. The head of the National Guard of some state “starts feeling uncomfortable with something and then calls up the Pentagon.”
...[Trump is] consolidating and activating his army of most ardent followers. They are loyal to him as a person, several officials pointed out, not as president. That army Trump can direct in the difficult days ahead and take with him, wherever he goes. He may activate it. He may bargain with it, depending on how the electoral chips fall. It’s his insurance policy.
The senior government official who discussed Mr. Trump’s amplifying of messages spoke with great clarity about these codes of loyalty. The official was raised in, and regularly visits, what is now a Trump stronghold.
“They’re the reason he took off the damned mask when he got to the White House” from Walter Reed, the official said. “Those people eat that up...you take off your mask, which, in my mind, has become a signal to his core base of supporters that are willing to put themselves at risk and danger to show loyalty to him.”
.....................................................
This piece was based on the writer's interviews with two dozen current and former Trump officials in intelligence, law enforcement, and the military. The interviewees are war gaming, thinking through and imagining worst case scenarios. That is their job. A few things struck me as discordant. First, it has never been Trump's stated intention to invalidate the in-person vote on election day. That is the only vote he will recognize he has stated time and again. Second, the interviewees jobs are to game plan worst cases. A legitimate Trump victory is not among them. Which means there is no "lying Trump voter," the polls are valid. Third, the interviewees, all in positions to accurately predict this, do not game plan how local, state, and national law enforcement will respond to Trump's calls to steal the election? Will they obey? The writer says local cops are "prepared". The vast majority of local cops are among those who have pledged loyalty to Trump. I don't see them stepping in to ensure a free and fair election; I see them stepping in to help steal the election for Trump. What will the national armed forces do?
Thursday, October 29, 2020
The “shy Trump voter” was a popular trope to explain why the polls showing an increasing Biden advantage are wrong. The shy Trump voter has been poked and prodded and kneaded and is now more popular piñata than trope. I mean, really: Boat parades for Trump, there was a motorcade in Manhattan last week, houses and lawns bedected with Trump flags and life-sized cutouts: WHAT shy?!
There is now a variation on the theme. The “lying Trump voter.” This evily brilliant variation comes courtesy of proud Left filmmaker Michael Moore, who has on his resume what almost no Democratic cognoscenti has: a correct prediction that Trump would win in 2016. Moore:
"Listen, don't believe these polls...Pollsters- when they actually call the Trump voter, the Trump voter is very suspicious of the 'Deep State' calling them and asking them who they're voting for."
Polls are "fake news" to Trump supporters.
Is that not evilly brilliant? The “lying Trump voter” trope gives a last, fatal whack to the shy Trump voter piñata and admixes the readily apparent enthusiasm gap exemplified in the Trump pda’s and the purple kool-aid “deep state,” “fake news,” “make the liberals cry,” “voting with our middle finger” that the Disgustings have been eagerly quaffing for four years. The lying Trump voter also absolves the polling firms of error. If voters lie to pollsters, are not shy but lie, the polling firms are beat. There is not a damn thing they can do about it. It’s just about a perfect trope. Just about. It does not explain why so many Trump voters don’t lie, why Trump has 43.8% support in the polls, but it would not take many lying Trump voters to turn still a close-ish election into a razor-thin result. Moore is not, or at least did not today on Hill TV, predict Trump’s reelection. Here are his own words:
"So it is not an accurate count. I think the safe thing to do, this is not scientific... whatever they're saying the Biden lead is, cut it in half, right now, in your head. Cut it in half, and now you're within the four-point margin of error. That's how close this is! That's how desperately close this is!"
Point made. Nightmares return.
Once in a Lifetime
Joe Has Mo, Trump No Mo
356 EV's for Biden today in RCP's no-tossup map. (This changes daily now.) Last night RCP FLipped Florida back to Joe. Two days ago they they FLipped it from Joe to Trump. Same with Jawja. Oct. 26 Biden to Trump; today, Trump to Biden. The margins are just razor thin, FL 1.4%, GA 0.4. But Joe has the mo (although Trump is up to 43.7%: people are deciding, that's why; Joe is up too, to 51.1%). In the six tippy-top most important battlegrounds (PA, FL, GA, NC, AZ, MN) Biden's advantage increased from yesterday and he doesn't trail in any. The two are tied today in Arizona which greatly surprises me and Joe's margin decreased today in Minnesota. In the second six (IA, WI, OH, MI, TX, NV) Biden's margin went up in two and down in two and Trump's lead in Texas is down--JOE MUST GO! Joe rose to a tie in Ohio. Texas is the lone (star) state of the twelve that Trump leads in.
Tonight's often wrong-always certain predictions (also subject to change): No faith in FL. Trump will win it. Joe will win PA (new poll today Joe +7), win Hairy Boner; I don't have an abiding conviction about Georgia; will lose North Carolina--so four of the top six; in the s.s. Joe will win Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada, and will lose Texas and Ohio. So in my prediction...Oh, I have to pick in Georgia, okay: Joe...So my Electoral College prediction tonight is Biden will win with 312 EV's to Trump's 226.
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
JOE MUST GO!
I drafted the nearly complete post at bottom off a Politico article a couple of hours ago but didn't publish it. I came to the conclusion that it was too late in Texas for anything Joe Biden did to make a difference. He has decided to make his stand in Pennsylvania and where he stands he may fall but he has no choice now. I then saw this in Cook:
Biden’s Path to 270 Widens, Trump’s Path Narrows, as Texas Moves to Toss Up
To win the election, Trump will need to win every state we currently have in the Toss Up column: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Maine's 2nd CD, as well as the newest addition, Texas...[and then] would need to win at least two of the seven states currently sitting in Lean Democrat: Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Hampshire.
I am now back to agreeing with the sentiments in the draft, agreeing with Beto O'Rourke, and am pissed at the Biden campaign: Joe Biden should go to Texas and go BIG.
“If Joe Biden would come here it would be catalytic,” he insisted. “There are millions of Texans who have not voted yet.” O’Rourke even had the speech written if Biden came.
Just like me. More:
“Here’s one story that I think is fucking —” he said, pausing and trying to settle down. “They are spending something close to a kajillion dollars in Pennsylvania. [T]he strategy seems like it’s focused on winning over disaffected white Dems...Maybe we get them back and maybe we don’t,” he said. “Good luck!”
He even talks like me! More:
Meanwhile, in Texas, he argued, an enormous and diverse electorate that more closely represents the new Democratic Party was turning out in massive numbers — one Austin area county had already exceeded its 2016 vote — and doing so in the face of the strictest voter laws in the country. All that may be needed to put Biden over the top was a visit from the candidate.
Okay, now I'm getting pissed lol:
O’Rourke has made the case to Jen O'Malley Dillon, his former campaign manager who now manages the Biden campaign. “Jen has been great,” he insisted, though others close to O’Rourke here in El Paso who make up his brain trust told me they have become deeply frustrated with her.
“It’s a cookie cutter campaign strategy,” said one top El Paso Democrat. “I feel like I’m reliving the Clinton campaign, like there’s a book, ‘Recipe for Presidential Campaigns,’ that’s just being followed.”
It really does feel to me like a cookie-cutter campaign, too.
Also like me! lol:
O’Rourke is one of the most passionate and excitable speakers in American politics. When he gets going about an idea he gets obsessed with it...
The flip side:
The Texas temptation is a familiar problem...
“You get those all the time,” said an adviser to Biden who has worked on several presidential campaigns. “‘We need the candidate to come here, there, or wherever.’ And they always put it in the language of it being in the interest of the candidate and usually it’s in the state politician’s interest.”
David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s top political adviser in 2008 and 2012, remembers two states that never lived up to the hype. “Missouri was always fool's gold for us,” he said. “Georgia was tempting.”
The Romney campaign in 2012 thought blue Minnesota was competitive. “We dumped some money in there late when some polls indicated some tightening,” Kevin Madden, who was a senior adviser to Romney, said in a text. “And of course it didn’t materialize on Election Day. ☹️”
In 2016, Hillary Clinton looked toward the Southwest and neglected the Midwest. “She went to Arizona,” said a top member of Clinton’s 2016 braintrust, who didn’t want to be named. “That didn't work out.”
The danger for Biden is hubris. Nobody on his campaign wants Texas to be what California was to Bush in 2000 or what Arizona was to Clinton in 2016. What if Biden spends one of the six remaining days of the campaign in Texas — then narrowly loses the race to Trump? The recriminations would be brutal: Instead of staying focused on winning 270 electoral votes, he got sucked into a state that Democrats haven’t won since 1976 in a vain attempt to run up the score.
With respect, more contempt though, that thinking is not sensibly cautious that is scared-of-the-shadows bullshit. They should not have made 22 charges up the hill toward the stone wall--in Pennsylvania. They should have charged into Texas earlier and then seen what happened with the polls. But they did make those charges in Pennsylvania and, in for a dime, in for a dollar, now they're just gonna have to make some more.
But O’Rourke is persuasive.
Biden’s weakness in the state is among Latino voters.
“Latinos still don’t know Joe Biden,” said [Chuck] Rocha [Democratic Congressional Campaign consultant]. “They know he was the vice president, but they don’t know him.” He said that Biden fares better once Latinos learn more about him, but earlier in the year, when Biden was broke coming out of the primary, Trump invested heavily in Spanish language media. “When Donald Trump went up with his first ads he wasn’t talking about how great he was, he was just talking about how much Joe Biden sucks.”
That's where I left off. The Biden campaign should charge into Texas. They have the money to be everywhere, including in Pennsylvania, and Joe Biden has got to pick up his travel schedule and go to three states in one day, including TEXAS.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
"We're voting with our middle finger."-John Baldwin, used car salesman, Trump supporter, Greenville, SC.
......................................
To put it in blunt terms, for many people, [Trump is] the only middle finger available — to brandish against the people who’ve assumed they have the whip hand in American culture.
This may not be a very good reason to vote for a president, and it doesn’t excuse Trump’s abysmal conduct and maladministration.
If Trump wins, though, this cultural element will be the subtext, and maybe just the text — he’d be, even more so than now, the president as affront, and he would be felt as such by all the woke progressives and fellow travelers who are accustomed to believing that they represent a steamroller of history.
..........................................................
Reymundo Torres is an Arizonian, a devout Roman Catholic, ethnically Mexican and a staunch supporter of this president.
"The thing that initially attracted me and keeps me tied to him is that he has taught Republicans how to not just win, but no longer throw our faces and bodies in front of every punch that the left is willing to throw," Torres said.
Nearly 70% of U.S. adults say the presidential election is a significant source of stress,
according to the American Psychological Association's Stress in America survey this month, a dramatic increase from the 2016 election when 52% of Americans said the same. While Democrats are more stressed than Republicans, majorities of both political parties say the [election]...is a significant stressor.
I really don't understand
Harris will be the highest-profile Biden surrogate to come to Texas in the general election yet, following visits in recent weeks by Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, and Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff. The campaign’s increased attention on Texas comes as polls continue to show a close race in the traditionally red state.
Harris’ visit is not the only notable activity by the Biden campaign this week in Texas. It is also launching a surrogate bus tour Wednesday, lasting three days and hitting 14 cities.
Trump has the Momentum
Tonight, less than one-half hour until the sixth day before the election Donald Trump has Killed 226,613 Americans, has infected 8,774,118, has given up on controlling the TrumPlague, and his Plague is consuming more Americans than it ever has since its onset Feb. 6.
And tonight, as in the previous 7-14 days Donald Trump unmistakably has the momentum for another come-from-behind victory on Nov. 3. It is a shocking contradiction but it is true. Joe Biden peaked at 375 Electoral Votes a couple of weeks ago in RCP's no-toss-up map. Biden has steadily bled Electoral Votes since and tonight with RCP's award of Florida's cache to Trump, Biden's no-toss-up Electoral count stands at 311. RCP tonight has Trump at 227, just 43 shy of reelection. Biden is 41 over the minimum 270. RCP's last four changes, all since Oct. 16, have gone to Trump: Ohio (18) on the 16th, Georgia (16) on the 26th, and tonight Florida (29) and ME CD-2 (1).
Joe Biden's lead nationally is down but a still daunting 7.9%, but still a whopping 4.9% ahead of where Hillary Clinton was at the same stage of her campaign against Trump in 2016. Trump's share of the vote is up to 43.5%, still well short of the King Number 46%. Biden's composite lead in the top six battleground states is down to 3.5%, still 0.7% more than Clinton's lead in 2016. The betting percentages are down slightly for Biden from 66% to 64%.
Trump now leads in three of the six top battlegrounds and in four of the twelve total. Biden is down but still leading in Pennsylvania and North Carolina and up and leading in second-tier Iowa and Arizona and leading but down in Nevada. Trump just took the lead in Florida tonight and so is up.
Trump's frenetic pace and personal visits have, it seems, fueled his comeback and Biden's more leisurely pace and small, responsibly social-distanced crowds have provided a pro-Trump contrast.
I detect, with extremely inadequate equipment, a shift by the Biden campaign from Pennsylvania uber alles to a Plan B of Georgia and Iowa. Michael Bloomberg's $50 million in Florida on Biden's behalf has resulted in Trump leading in the state. Bloomberg is now concentrating on Texas, long eschewed by the Biden camp, and on Ohio. It seems that the Biden's have concluded that putting all of one's eggs in the uncertainly constructed basket of Pennsylvania, which voted for Herbert Hoover in 1932 and for Trump in 2016, is not going to hold.
These intuitions may be incorrect but where the candidates are and where they are spending is a perfect metric for the states they feel are important now, and as importantly, the states they feel are not.
Then, the United States Supreme Court ruling today added more uncertainty to the Pennsylvania vote count and has set off frenetic scrambling by Democrats in Wisconsin to round up their votes.
It is a disquieting night and the trend is clearly ominous.
Q. David Bowers
Today this site is dedicated to Q. David Bowers, the greatest American numismatist of all time. In my high school years I used to get Bowers & Merena Galleries Rare Coin Review every Friday. It always came on Friday and was one of the reasons Friday's became my favorite day of the week. Happy 82nd birthday, Dave.
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
The campaign schedules are so flexible. Joe Biden Biden is making two stops in Georgia today. Trump is temporarily leaving Pennsylvania for Wisconsin, Michigan and Nebraska, that last no doubt to try to pry CD-2 from Biden. Biden would win the presidency with 270 Electoral Votes if he kept CD-2 even if he lost Pennsylvania. Meanwhile Michael Bloomberg is pouring money into Texas and Ohio on Biden’s behalf as he previously had Florida. Biden has many paths, backups to backups. Trump has only one: Pennsylvania.
Monday, October 26, 2020
Cucky Kushner with the Noted Trump Instinct for What’s “Really” Going on
[Trump can help] people in the Black community,
"break out of the problems that they're complaining [WHINERS!] about, but he can’t want them to be successful more than they want to be successful."
[a version of the successful “the cure can’t be worse than the disease” approach to nettlesome problems like when you’ve killed 225,000 people]
many people in the anti-police brutality and discrimination protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis were,
“just virtue signaling" – a term for empty gestures of outrage or anguish on social media.
"They go on Instagram and cry, [Wa! Wa!] or they would, you know, put a slogan on their jersey or write something on a basketball court," Kushner said, dismissing the expressions of outrage and solidarity that many made after video surfaced of Floyd being pinned with a police officer's knee on his neck. “Quite frankly, that was doing more to polarize the country than it was to bring people forward. You solve problems with solutions."
Plague of Trump
As Trump danced in Florida on Friday he also set a new one-day record in the number of people he infected with TrumPlague, 83,757. He killed 945. On Saturday, dancing in North Carolina, he sickened 83,718. He killed 914.
Look at this:
That's from just a couple of days ago. Dancing to YMCA on the day he sickened a one-day record. the day before his Chief of Staff stated "We're not going to control the pandemic. Dancing on the graves of 225,000 he has killed.
It's the same dance. On the day he through a party with pal Jeffrey Epstein in attendance in Mar-a-Lago in 1992.
Tuesday, when Joe Biden is back on the campaign trail, he goes to Georgia. Good idea. Friday, Kamala Harris campaigns in Texas...(?) Okay, no, that is precisely backasswards. Kamala would do good in Georgia, maybe better than Joe. Joe would do as much good as can be done the Friday before the election in Texas, much moreso than Kamala. Look: You don't send your B-team to fucking Texas. Especially not four days before the election. That is just insulting to Texans. Why do you even bother? If you're going to go in Texas you have to GO! Big money, many visits. By the top of the ticket. Taken as a pair this is absolutely bone-headed by the Biden campaign.
“There will never be a peaceful transition of power under Donald J. Trump,” Cohen told MSNBC on Sunday, adding that Trump is desperate to retain the immunities he enjoys from ongoing legal threats, including possible prosecution for tax crimes.
The undersigned wishes to point out, agayne, that he was among the very first to foretell this.
On the Eighth Day He Rested
Joe Biden is taking the day off. Kamala Harris is off the campaign trail too in Washington for the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation vote. Meanwhile, Trump is spending the day all over Pennsylvania, three stops in one day, and Pence is in Minnesota. Egregious, inexplicable by the Biden campaign with eight days left.
James!
When a sports writer begins a write-up with a paean to the losing coach, you know what's coming. When two sports pencils do it independent of one another, well...
There’s so much to like about what James Franklin has done at Penn State. He’s rebuilt the program from the throes of NCAA probation, turned the Nittany Lions into a consistent College Football Playoff contender and brought a sense of football normalcy to a town and program that desperately needed it.
Franklin is one of the sport’s top-10 coaches...
(Pete Thamel, Yahoo)
James Franklin is a very good coach. He’s an excellent recruiter and talent developer.
...
Franklin has elevated Penn State. He has led the program back into the national conversation. It has won 11 games three of the previous four years.
(Zach Braziller NY Post)
I didn't pay any attention to this game Saturday night. Indiana beat PSU 36-35. Indiana's not bad. The game was in Bloomington. This is a weird year. So, I didn't know.
So Yahoo's headline was no paean:
How James Franklin botched Penn State's heartbreaking opener
@WillBrinson
Are people letting James Franklin off the hook at all here? That is the worst coaching decision of the last 10-15 years. He could have kneed out.
9:32 PM · Oct 24, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
The Posties headline was no paean:
James Franklin’s maddening blunder costs Penn State again
What Did You Do James? Again.
Well, it seems PSU was up 21-20 with 1:46 left in the game, first down on the Indians 14 yard-line, holding three timeouts to UI's une. Now to us wet-behind-the-ears-in-the-cheap-seats types it might seem you take your time, mosey on up to the line of scrimmage, run three run plays against a desperate defense and if you score, fine, and if you don't, fine too, Indiana will have next to no time to go the length of the field to tie. AND if yinz are fortunate enough to score making the score 27-20 you eschew the auto extra-point with a two-point try which if successful would put you up 29-20, a two-possession game for Indiana and absolutely, positively put the last nail in the "Hoosiers" coffin.
UI head guy Tom Allen thought this all through. UPS football chair Deez Nutz did not. So on first-and-ten from the UI 14 Tom Allen had his defense stand up. Didn't defend. UPS QB Devyn Ford saw the green, green artificial turf of home and victory before him and burst through. Harkening momentarily to the wiser football angel on his shoulder young Devyn hesitated at the one yard-line-"Oh wait"-before carrying through his master's dictum and covering the last three feet to paydirt. 27-20 PSU.
James kicked the auto extra. 28-20.
andthenindianascoredandmadethetwopointconversion. And won it in OT.
"What we wanted to do is get as much as you can and get down," Deez-Nutz said after game. "That's that situation. We've covered it, we went through it during the game, but, again, it was a bunch of situations that came up."
Young Devyn Ford got as much as he could! He was "down", clock stopped, when he crossed the plane of the goal line. James fucked up. Take three knees in the protective "victory formation" and this class is over.
Football aficionados covered Deez-Nutz in something resembling chocolate.
Will Brinson@WillBrinson
Are people letting James Franklin off the hook at all here? That is the worst coaching decision of the last 10-15 years. He could have kneed out.
9:32 PM · Oct 24, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
CFBBlueprint
@CFBBluePrint
Look at the score and time left, Penn St could down the ball out, Indiana only had 1 timeout . Just awful coaching by James Franklin
John Feinstein
@JFeinsteinBooks
Never has a coach deserved a loss more than James Franklin tonight. Gets the ball back w/1"43 left, Indiana out of TO's. Three KNEEL DOWNS and game is over. He allows a handoff, kid is allowed to score. Tom ALlen SMARTER and bolder (two pt try) team. Win deserved; Loss DESERVED
7:41 PM · Oct 24, 2020·Twitter Web App
Isaac
@WorldofIsaac
James Franklin should be fired. I'm not joking. That was egregious coaching at the end of the game.
7:41 PM · Oct 24, 2020·TweetDeck
And Etc. The End.
Sunday, October 25, 2020
Demi Lovato's Genius
The supreme wordsmith will write to our mind's ear.
The poet especially.
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay! "
The songwriter puts actual sound to the words.
Commander in Chief. Strong! That is a strong term, two strong words hooked together by a small word: one strong, powerful term.
COMMANDER(!)
CHIEF(!)
One who commands. The CHIEF commander. He wills it; others must obey!
It is an awkward term, five syllables, unmelodious; it looks jerry-rigged. An unlikely term to be put to song, and repeated over and over in verse after verse. Has it ever been?
Phonetically it is com-man-der in chief but is so familiar to Americans that we say it without any emphasis, CommanderInChief.
Demi Lovato keeps the emphasis on the "man" (even stronger!) syllable, slows the term down, draws it out and sings it as,
man
Com der in
chief
She drops it! She sings a strong, familiar, three-word, five-syllable term into weakness!
Commander in Chief, honestly
If I did the things you do
I couldn't sleep, seriously
...
Commander in Chief, how does it feel to still
Be able to breathe?
...
Won't give up, stand our ground
We'll be in the streets while you're bunkering down
Loud and proud, best believe
We'll still take a knee while you're
[Chorus]
Commander in Chief...
Chorus! She makes that awkward term the CHORUS!
I try to picture the moment of creation, Demi Lovato, perhaps sitting at her piano, pecking, trying sounds, and I cannot get a credible mental image of a songwriter having a Eureka! moment over commander in chief. But she did.
What Demi Lovato does in Commander in Chief is the work of genius.
Don Winslow films. An illegal immigrant child watching her mother being arrested. Trump has lost 545 children he separated from their parents.
I have had an image seared into me for years. I was still living married. We just had our son then. It was late at night, my wife was asleep, I was laying on the couch smoking my pipe and I read a reviewer write that reading a John Berryman poem he had an image of Berryman as a child, standing in the rain all alone in the middle of a street, crying. I stared at the page and broke out into a cold sweat. I felt nauseous. I got up and walked unsteadily to the kitchen trash can and threw the magazine away.
Shhh!
Asked today why the White House didn’t tell the nation Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said, “We’re not going to control the pandemic.”
The Pittsburgh Renaissance
Boy oh boy. The Pittsburgh "Steelers" are having a renaissance season. So boringly good-not-great recently, still boringly with Ben Roethlisberger, the "Steelers" are 5-0 and are right now playing at similarly undefeated Tennessee. The "Steelers" lead 24-7 at half-time. Boy oh boy.
Saturday, October 24, 2020
In the EPL West Ham and Man City drew 1-1 at Hammerhead Park. The amazingly androgynous Phil Foden had the goal for City.
Man United and Swine Chelsea drew nil-nil at Old Trafford
and Sheffield United (!) hold a 1-0 edge on Liverpool in the 34’ at Fenway Park.
Signs of these crazy times: In scholarly tackle football Syracuse trailed #1 by Clemson only 27-21 with 2’+ left in the 3Q and then went on to lose 47-21.
Looking on the bright side, Syracuse.com’s headline was
Syracuse football plays well, covers historic spread in 47-21 loss at Clemson
Dabo Babers is now 1-5 after the loss to Dumbo Swinney’s “Tagers.”
Nebraska took a 7-0 lead on #5 The Ohio State University and the two were tied 14-14 half way through the 1H. “Buckears” cornholed ‘em after that 38-3. 52-17 the finale.
Friday, October 23, 2020
LP Porn Stars! Times Square!!
😆😂 It’s the Nine Exterminations of accountability. Trump and Trumpism must be CRUSHED and that means EVERYBODY associated with them, especially “the most disgusting family ever to disgrace the White House.”
THIS
Is
The
LINCOLN PROJECT!
223,866 Killed by TrumPlague
856 killed by Trump yesterday.
Carmen my Ex-Cuban Concubine called me yesterday. We are both afficianados of so-bad-it's-good spam email and she got a good one she wanted to tell me about. Hours later:
I forgot to ask if u r happy with your Medicare plan
(i didn’t sign up for one😐)
Well, are you going to? Now it’s the time. It ends Dec 7. I see ads that say they can help you chois the best plan for you. Humana invests thousands in ads every year
I need one that covers mortuary services.
That’s free. You don’t pay for it.😂😂But seriously they have plans that cover dental, vision, etc etc. You should call one of those places
You’re right and I’m glad you told me they’re open till Dec 7. I honestly thought I had missed it because of my avoidance of doing anything responsible. They have dental and vision, too? Wow.
Humana sends you free info. When I watch tv I’ll get you a couple numbers
I’ll bet they do, “Hello dear, I am the widow of Dr Sedgewick Mead from Uganda.”
Lol
I don't understand how people felt intimated by those emails.
You mean the Iranian Proud Boys? I was insulted I didn't get one. Cuz I'm an old white guy,I know; they figure I'm going to vote for Trump. I WANT MY PROUD BOYS EMAIL!
Thursday, October 22, 2020
There are three New York Times reporters listed as the writers of this report.
...Russia...in recent days has hacked into state and local computer networks in breaches that could allow Moscow broader access to American voting infrastructure.
...American intelligence agencies, infiltrating Russian networks themselves, have pieced together details of what they believe are Russia’s plans to interfere in the presidential race in its final days or immediately after the election on Nov. 3. Officials did not make clear what Russia planned to do, but they said its operations would be intended to help President Trump...
So far, there is no evidence that the Russians have changed any vote tallies or voter registration information, officials said...
...American officials expect that if the presidential race is not called on election night, Russian groups could use their knowledge of the local computer systems to deface websites, release nonpublic information or take similar steps that could sow chaos and doubts about the integrity of the results...
...
Officials say Russia’s ability to change vote tallies nationwide would be difficult, given how disparate American elections are. The graver concern is the potential effect of any attack on a few key precincts in battleground states.
[77,000 "strategically placed votes" gave the 2016 election to PuppeTrump.]
...
“You can’t just ‘hit the election’,” said Eric Chien, a cybersecurity director at Symantec, now part of Broadcom, which was among the first to detail the Stuxnet attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran’s nuclear program a decade ago. “The soft targets are really the state and local election committees, local websites that provide information about polling places and hold voter registration data.”
...
Russian hackers recently obtained access “in a couple limited cases, to election jurisdiction, an election-related network,”... But...the breaches had “nothing to do with the casting and counting” of votes.
The hackers, believed to be operating at the behest of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the F.S.B. — the successor agency to the Soviet-era K.G.B. — infiltrated dozens of state and local computer networks in recent weeks, according to officials and researchers. But Mr. Krebs said the attacks appeared to be “opportunistic” in nature, a scattershot break-in of vulnerable systems rather than an attempt to zero in on key battleground states.
...
The officials fear that Russia could change, delete or freeze voter registration or pollbook data, making it harder for voters to cast ballots, invalidating mail-in ballots or creating enough uncertainty to undermine results.
...
...officials and researchers believe the Russian attacks would not necessarily change vote tallies but could make voter data inaccessible, or delete or change voters’ registration data, to disenfranchise voters or cause the kind of confusion and delays that would undermine American confidence in the election.
[Query: If you're disenfranchising voters aren't you changing vote tallies?]
46
I only watched a couple minutes more of the debate, at the end, less than one-third. The less than one-third was certainly more civil, more presidential, than the DebacleDebate where Trump so badly hurt himself. The micsilencer was a masterstroke by the Commission on Presidential Debates. I don't know what the voting public's take on tonight's is going to be but going into, Trump is in so deep a hole with so little time remaining, nothing can get him out. My new favorite, one-stop, number: 46. No one has ever won a two-person race for the White House with less than 46% of the vote. The numbers:
42.8: Trump's share of the vote per RCP's averaging of polls.
50.7. Biden's share of the vote.
357: Electoral Votes RCP projects Biden to win when all votes are counted.
7.9: Biden's percent margin over Trump (up).
4.1: Biden's percent margin in RCP's top six battleground states (down).
66.3: Percent of bettors who are now putting their money on a Biden victory. That may be Biden's high.
3.3: I always have trouble phrasing this: Nationally, Biden is running 3.3% better against Trump than HRC did in 2016
0.3: Same awkward phraseology in the six top battlegrounds.
2: The number of battleground states (12 in all) that Trump leads in (Ohio and Texas).
Plague of Trump
"222,977 Dead!" "Forlorn years! Forlorn years!"
Trump will be at 223k before the debate's half over.
Hurtin' for Certain
My word. Reported Deaths to Johns Hopkins from TrumPlague Oct. 21 were 1,124. We'll have about 1k new Deaths today. In the fourteen days ending Oct. 21 the New York Times reports a 9% increase over the previous period. At post time there are an all-time 222,766 reported Deaths. When you look at Hopkins Deaths graph you can clearly see the wave-like structure. Caution: This is the product of voluntary reporting. The striking periodicity of the ripples, which effects the look of the waves, is down to reporting lag on Sunday's and Monday's.
The Johns Hopkins reported Cases graph (same caution applies):
Here we see a new crest. It is getting almost as high as the Big One in July. (Deaths lag Cases by two-four weeks). Hopkins records 62,735 on Oct. 21, 69,156 on Oct. 16, the most recent high. All-time the high is 77,632 on July 16. The Times reports a 32% increase in the last two-week period. We will see ~60k cases again today, Oct. 22, and on Friday and Saturday as well before the reporting drops.
COVID-19 is a bitch. Even states, like New York, and countries, like Belgium, who have invested leaders have seen the bitch come back. When you have a MIA leader, like Trump, the bitch never did go away. "Don't call it a comeback, 'cause I been here before!"
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Folks, We're in Bad Shape
The "third wave" of TrumPlague is really kicking our butts. So far today, October 21, 935 Dead have been reported to Johns Hopkins. Yesterday, for an entire 24, 933. The total since Feb. 6 by the end of today will be 222k. It's 221,987 with over two hours left. The Times' 14-day average up 7%, the 7-day average up to 743. Over 60k new Cases yesterday, the Times' 14-day average up 36%, the 7-day up to 60,160--per day! every day Oct 14-20.
We're sick and tired. Exhaustion is a perfect environment for sickness to flourish. Fatigue makes cowards of us all, we don't fight it as we once did and we're getting sicker and sicker. 222,000 lamps already have gone out forever all over America and the lamp-snuffer will be at it again tomorrow morning and the morning after that and the morning after that...
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Donald Trump has a path through that thicket of trees. The polls tell us Trump is too close to Joe Biden in most of the swingiest swing states. But there is one tree that stands out in that forest of statistics.
Nationally Trump has 42.5% of the vote per RCP today, and that's per RCP and any other damn service you consult and on any damn day. And this is the tree that stands out: In two-way races no one has ever won the presidency with less than 46% of the popular vote.
This is really deliciously well-done by NYT. Trump got irritated with Leslie Stahl’s 60 Minutes interview and walked out. Afterwards he tweeted about “Electoral Intrusion!” etc. On this note the Times ended their article:
Mr. Biden taped his interview with the “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell on Monday. He has not yet tweeted about it.
😂
U.S. Under Attack from Russia
There are reports of two separate, ongoing Russian attacks on the United States in this evening's New York Times. Trump has ignored both; in one, Trump has had Pompeo refuse to give Congress the report report he, Pompeo, commissioned and will not mention Russia as the perp
Prosecutors said the suspects were from the same unit that helped distribute stolen Democratic emails in the 2016 election.
So that's one. Compared to the "petulant child" [Is this a dream?] Russian, excuse me, the actions of the other attack are Evil Geniuses. Do you recollect the bizarre, unexplained, unattributed illness/injury caused to our embassy staff in Havana, Cuba a few years back? Headaches, ringing in the ears, disorientation, memory loss? Ring any bells in your ears? At the time, in the absence of a better idea, i.e. one that didn't point the finger at Rus, the baffling incidents were explained by State as "mass hysteria" caused by "stress." Well, the stress done spread. To embassy personnel in China and in Russia itself. Detail I was not aware of: This has Russia's fingerprints all over it, the Rooskis like inflicting brain damage. Seriously. Also, the weapon of choice here, microwave beams, was the same one they used against the U.S. embassy in Moscow--undetected for twenty-four years! In the 1953-1976 "Moscow Signal" attack the Russians didn't have too good microwaves, couldn't even make your Jiffy Pop. Rooski improve! There is now independent confirmation (the University of Pennsylvania) that "Havana Syndrome" was not mass hysteria, the victims suffered physical brain damage.
Trump was soft on China:
U.S. Charges Russian Intelligence Officers in Major Cyberattacks
Prosecutors said the suspects hacked elections in France, the electricity grid in Ukraine and the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
"...six Russian military intelligence officers" have been indicted in charges unsealed today.
Justice Department officials played down the timing of the announcement two weeks before the presidential election...
The prosecutors focused on seven breaches that together showed how Russia sought in recent years to use its hacking abilities to undermine democratic institutions and ideals, retaliate against enemies and destroy rival economies.
...
In a startling parallel description John C. Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security.
said,
“Their cyberattack combined the emotional maturity of a petulant child with the resources of a nation-state.”
[Which, I do not know if I am actually alive or not.]
The Russian response was also strikingly familiar:
“It is absolutely obvious that such news breaks have no bearing on reality and are aimed at...launching a ‘witch hunt’...
[Rooski, you missed "Fake News".]
One of the suspects charged in the newly unsealed indictments, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, was indicted two years ago on charges announced by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, over the 2016 election hacks.
[So? NO COLLUSION!]
The new charges did not address 2020 election interference; American intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia is trying to influence the vote in November.
The charges also showed the limits of the United States’ power to deter Russia. Many of the breaches occurred after the United States imposed sanctions and publicly rebuked Russia over its 2016 election sabotage...
[OR!]
...
Mr. Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official, took direct aim at President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who made an unusual appeal for a cyber “reset” with the United States last month.
Mr. Demers said the indictments were “a cold reminder of why its proposal is nothing more than dishonest rhetoric and cynical and cheap propaganda.”
.........................................................................................
U.S. Diplomats and Spies Battle Trump Administration Over Suspected Attacks
American officials in China, Cuba and Russia say U.S. agencies are concealing the true extent of the episodes, leaving colleagues vulnerable to hostile actions abroad.
Trump...withdrew most of its staff members from the embassy...issued a travel warning...said U.S. diplomats had experienced “targeted attacks."...Trump expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from Washington and started an independent review, though Cuba denied any involvement. [And convincingly denied, I might add.]
The Russian aim: Chaos.Drive wedges between the U.S. and Cuba, the U.S. and China, just make everybody suspicious of one another.]
Despite China Syndrome being “very similar and entirely consistent” with the syndrome in Cuba. The administration evacuated more than a dozen federal employees and some of their family members.
The State Department soon retreated, labeling what happened in China as “health incidents.” While the officers in Cuba were placed on administrative leave for rehabilitation, those in China initially had to use sick days and unpaid leave...And the State Department did not open an investigation into what happened in China.
The administration has said little about the events in China and played down the idea that a hostile power could be responsible. But similar episodes have been reported by senior C.I.A. officers who visited the agency’s stations overseas
That includes Moscow, where...a C.I.A. officer who helped run clandestine operations in Russia and Europe, experienced what he believes was an attack in December 2017. [He] who was 48 at the time, suffered severe vertigo in his hotel room in Moscow and later developed debilitating migraine headaches that forced him to retire.
The cases involving C.I.A. officers, none of which have been publicly reported, are adding to suspicions that Russia carried out the attacks worldwide. Some senior Russia analysts in the C.I.A., officials at the State Department and outside scientists, as well as several of the victims, see Russia as the most likely culprit given its history with weapons that cause brain injuries and its interest in fracturing Washington’s relations with Beijing and Havana.
The C.I.A. director remains unconvinced, and State Department leaders say they have not settled on a cause.
...disparities in how the officers were treated stemmed from diplomatic and political considerations, including the president’s desire to strengthen relations with Russia and win a trade deal with China.
According to half a dozen American officials, State Department leaders realized that pursuing a similar course of action as they had in Cuba — including evacuating missions in China — could cripple diplomatic and economic relationships.
[Better to cripple American people!]
The battles [between victims and Trump] have complicated their recovery and prompted government retaliation that might have permanently damaged their careers, according to interviews with more than 30 government officials, lawyers and doctors.
U.S. lawmakers have criticized what they call secrecy and inaction from the State Department and are pressing the agency to release a study it received in August from the National Academies of Sciences, which examined potential causes of the episodes.
...
“This is a deliberate, high-level cover-up,” Mr. Lenzi [one of the victims] said.
...American officials and scientists still debate whether the symptoms resulted from an attack.
Many diplomats, C.I.A. officers and scientists suspect a weapon producing microwave radiation damaged the victims’ brains. But some scientists and government officials argue it was a psychological illness that spread in the stressful environment of foreign missions. Some point to chemical agents, like pesticides.
The Trump administration has not clarified its view or said exactly how many people were affected.
At least 44 people in Cuba and 15 in China were evaluated or treated at the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania....Doctors at [Penn]...dismissed the idea of a psychological illness, saying the patients they treated had sustained a brain injury from an external source.
...
Some top American officials insist on seeing more evidence before accusing Russia. Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, has acknowledged that Moscow had the intent to harm operatives, but she is not convinced it was responsible or that attacks occurred, two American officials said.
...
Top officials “know exactly which country” was responsible, Mr. Lenzi said, adding that it was not Cuba or China but another country “which the secretary of state and president do not want to confront.”
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