Month: August 2016

Politics and Reality radio with Joshua Holland: Tomasky on Trump’s Meltdown; Locked-up Asylum Seekers on Hunger Strike; The Green Party

by Joshua Holland

This week, we welcome Daily Beast columnist Mike Tomasky back to the show to talk about how low Trump might go.

Then we’re joined by Adanjesus Marin, director of Make the Road PA, who will tell us about a group of mothers who fled violence for asylum in the U.S., only to find themselves pointlessly detained with their children in a for-profit facility in Pennsylvania.

Finally, we’ll speak with Truthout’s Candice Bernd, who attended the Green Party’s annual meeting in Texas last weekend.

Playlist:
The Civil Wars: “Billie Jean”
Fun Boy Three & Bananarama: “Ain’t What You Do”
Southern Culture on the Skids: “El Mysterioso”
Mike Post: “Theme from Hill Street Blues”

He’s winning! Really!

by digby

This exciting prediction is taking the wingnut fever swamp by storm:

Republican Donald Trump should win the presidency by a slim margin according to a model that has accurately predicted the popular vote since 1988.

Using several standards to make his prediction, Alan Abramowitz’s “Time for Change” model done for the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics “Crystal Ball” shows Trump winning 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent for Hillary Clinton.

He added that the model shows a 66 percent chance of a Trump victory.

“Based on a predicted vote share of 48.6 percent for the incumbent party, these results indicate that Trump should be a clear but not overwhelming favorite to defeat Clinton: There should be about a 66 percent chance of a Republican victory,” Abramowitz added.

So interesting! Except when you click through to the link you actually get something quite different. Yes, he does say that. But then there’s this:

The Time for Change forecasting model has correctly predicted the winner of the national popular vote in every presidential election since 1988. This model is based on three predictors — the incumbent president’s approval rating at midyear (late June or early July) in the Gallup Poll, the growth rate of real GDP in the second quarter of the election year, and whether the incumbent president’s party has held the White House for one term or more than one term. Using these three predictors, it is possible to forecast the incumbent party’s share of the major party vote with a high degree of accuracy around three months before Election Day.
[…]
Despite the excellent track record of the Time for Change model, there are good reasons to be skeptical about the 2016 forecast. For one thing, the overwhelming majority of national polls during the spring and summer of 2016 have shown Clinton leading Trump. National polls completed shortly before and after the national party conventions gave Clinton an average lead of about five percentage points, and Clinton is up by about eight points now. Beyond the poll results, the Time for Change forecasting model is based on two crucial assumptions — first, that both major parties will nominate mainstream candidates capable of unifying their parties and, second, that the candidates will conduct equally effective campaigns so that the overall outcome will closely reflect the “fundamentals” incorporated in the model.
[…]
The nomination of Trump by the Republican Party in 2016 appears to violate both of the Time for Change model’s key assumptions. Trump is clearly not a mainstream Republican and he does not appear to be running a competent campaign — he has lagged far behind Clinton in both fundraising and grassroots organizing in the swing states, and his rhetoric on the campaign trail has frequently brought sharp criticism from prominent Republicans as well as Democrats. In fact, there has never been a major party nominee like Trump — a reality TV star and wealthy businessman with no longstanding ties to the Republican Party, no political experience, and a penchant for insulting major voting groups. As a result, many prominent Republican leaders, including the last two Republican presidents, and the party’s 2012 nominee have refused to endorse Trump…

The question is how much the Republican Party’s nomination of Trump will move the needle away from its slight tilt toward the GOP based on the fundamentals in 2016. There is no way to answer this question until after the election. Based on the results of other recent presidential elections, however, as well as Trump’s extraordinary unpopularity, it appears very likely that the Republican vote share will fall several points below what would be expected if the GOP had nominated a mainstream candidate and that candidate had run a reasonably competent campaign. Therefore, despite the prediction of the Time for Change model, Clinton should probably be considered a strong favorite to win the 2016 presidential election as suggested by the results of recent national and state polls.

 Oops. They must not have room to include that part.

Unfortunately, these are the sort of articles that will lead some people to believe that Trump is winning and he can only lose if the election is stolen from him.

.

by digby

Trump, pimping civil unrest around the election:

Speaking in Altoona, Pa., Trump said it was “shocking” that Pennsylvania does not require photo identification to vote. The state’s voter ID law was struck down in 2014. 

“I hope you people can sort of not just vote on the 8th — go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that it’s 100 percent fine,” Trump told his supporters. 

He argued that he has strong momentum in the state and that, “the only way we can lose, in my opinion, I really mean this, Pennsylvania, is if cheating goes on.” 

Trump said: “We’re going to watch Pennsylvania. Go down to certain areas and watch and study make sure other people don’t come in and vote five times.”

Except, you know:

I’ve been tracking allegations of fraud for years now, including the fraud ID laws are designed to stop. In 2008, when the Supreme Court weighed in on voter ID, I looked at every single allegation put before the Court. And since then, I’ve been following reports wherever they crop up. 

To be clear, I’m not just talking about prosecutions. I track any specific, credible allegation that someone may have pretended to be someone else at the polls, in any way that an ID law could fix. 

So far, I’ve found about 31 different incidents (some of which involve multiple ballots) since 2000, anywhere in the country. If you want to check my work, you can read a comprehensive list of the incidents below. 

To put this in perspective, the 31 incidents below come in the context of general, primary, special, and municipal elections from 2000 through 2014. In general and primary elections alone, more than 1 billion ballots were cast in that period. 

Some of these 31 incidents have been thoroughly investigated (including some prosecutions). But many have not. Based on how other claims have turned out, I’d bet that some of the 31 will end up debunked: a problem with matching people from one big computer list to another, or a data entry error, or confusion between two different people with the same name, or someone signing in on the wrong line of a pollbook.

I’ve been writing about this vote suppression tactic (which is all “voter fraud” is) for many years on this blog. But I’m afraid it’s going to take some kind of a serious turn this time with a whole bunch of people from different directions screaming about the election being “rigged” and “stolen.” It’s worrying.

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And in non-Trump news…
by Tom Sullivan

Screen cap via Kurdistan24.

The GOP’s idiot vivant lied about something somewhere. This morning, Ross Douthat can have him.

Good news from Syria. US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) pushed ISIS out of the northern town of Manbij after a 73-day campaign. The town declared liberated on Friday was on an important ISIS supply route between the Turkish border and its stronghold of Raqqa. Reuters reports that Washington, which has lacked effective proxies in the fighting “has found its first strong allies in SDF.”

From the Independent:

Ecstatic Syrian civilians have been shaving off their beards, burning their burqas, smoking and dancing in the streets after being freed from Isis.

The jubilant celebrations were seen in the Syrian city of Manbij on Friday, where militants have been driven out after months of fighting by US-backed rebel groups.

Families ran through rubble-strewn streets, past the ruins of buildings destroyed in air strikes, carrying their babies and belongings.

Men jubilantly had their beards cut off as women ripped off their veils and set them on fire in an act of rebellion after years living under Isis’ brutal interpretation of Sharia law.

Reuters has video and photo spreads here and here.

Civilians used as human shields by retreating ISIS fighters

The Guardian reported on Friday:

“While withdrawing from a district of Manbij, Daesh [Isis] jihadis abducted around 2,000 civilians from al-Sirb neighbourhood,” said Darwish. “They used these civilians as human shields as they withdrew to Jarabulus, thus preventing us from targeting them.”

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on sources inside Syria to cover the war, gave a similar report, saying Isis forced about 2,000 civilians into cars it confiscated and headed for Jarabulus.

The jihadis, who have suffered a string of recent losses in Syria and Iraq, have often staged mass kidnappings in the two countries when they come under pressure to relinquish territory.

Al Jazeera reports that the civilians were freed on Saturday:

One of the key reasons for the success of the ground forces fighting ISIL in Manbij was the US-led coalition’s air support.

In confirming the capture of Manbij, US military officials said that during the operation the coalition launched 680 air strikes destroying more than 680 ISIL fighting positions and 150 ISIL vehicles and heavy weapons.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a monitoring group that records daily developments in Syria, said the fighting in Manbij claimed more than 1,700 lives, including more than 400 civilians.

The Sunday Telegraph profiles “a 29-year-old former currency trader from Oxfordshire” who traveled to Syria to fight other countrymen who had taken up arms for ISIS “to brutalise and terrorise the innocent people here.” Sometimes it is good to be reminded that Donald Trump and the United States are not the center of the universe.

A nothingburger

by digby

Love this:

from a friend in Hamburg@dandrezner pic.twitter.com/3fVQXlCmSo

— slt (@sarahlt__) August 12, 2016

Shut up and sing

by digby

In the wake of Trump saying President Obama is the founder of ISIS and his crowd’s shrieking “hang the bitch!” at the mention of Hillary Clinton’s name, I can’t help but recall this from a few years back:

The Dixie Chicks were performing at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire theater in London, England, as the kickoff to their international Top of the World Tour, in support of 2002’s multi-platinum selling album, Home. News was buzzing all over the globe about the United States’ impending invasion of Iraq, under the leadership of then-President George W. Bush. 

Natalie Maines said to the audience: 

“Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”

You’ll remember what happened:

Country stations across the United States have pulled the Chicks from playlists following reports that lead singer Natalie Maines said in a concert in London earlier this week that she was “ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”

Station managers said their decisions were prompted by calls from irate listeners who thought criticism of the president was unpatriotic.

The group, which got its start in Texas, was one of the darlings of this year’s Grammy Awards. The three-woman band that blends blue grass and pop hooks has spawned legions of fans who embrace the ideals of strong women celebrated in some of the trio’s songs.

One station in Kansas City, Missouri held a Dixie “chicken toss” party Friday morning, where Chick critics were encouraged to dump the group’s tapes, CDs and concert tickets into trash cans.

Houston country station KILT pulled the band’s records from its playlist — at least temporarily — after 77 percent of people polled on its Web site said they supported the move.

“We’ve got them off the air for right now,” said Jeff Garrison, program director at KILT, which is owned by Viacom’s Infinity Broadcasting Corp.

“People are shocked. They cannot believe Texas’ own have attacked the state and the president,” Garrison said.

Their careers were never the same.

And I’m going to guess that the people who issued death threats against them are the same people who are voting for Trump today.

“Not Ready To Make Nice”

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price
And I’ll keep paying

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I know you said
Can’t you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

What it is you think I should

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

You talkin’ to me?

by digby

Award winning actor Robert De Niro on Saturday compared Donald Trump to his mentally unstable character Travis Bickle in the 1976 movie “Taxi Driver,” calling the Republican nominee “totally nuts.”

“But I think now they are really starting to push back, the media … finally they are starting to say: Come on Donald, this is ridiculous, this is nuts, this is insane,” said De Niro at the Sarajevo Film Festival, according to Reuters. 

“What he has been saying is totally crazy, ridiculous, stuff that shouldn’t be even … he is totally nuts.” 

“I don’t know, it’s crazy that people like Donald Trump … he shouldn’t even be where he is, so God help us,” De Niro said as the Sarajevo National Theater erupted in applause.

The movie festival also marked the 40th anniversary of “Taxi Driver,” where De Niro played the main character Bickle.  

“One of the things to me was just the irony at the end, he (Bickle) is back driving a cab, celebrated, which is kind of relevant in some way today too,” De Niro added, according to the Associated Press.

I’ve been seeing a vigilante fantasy in Trump for a while (as has Rick Perlstein.) Law and order is only for the kind of folks who live in Ferguson.

On the stump last week-end, Donald Trump entertained his followers in the wake of the massacre in Oregon with colorful fantasies of him walking down the street, pulling a gun on a would-be assailant and taking him out right there on the sidewalk. He said, “I have a license to carry in New York, can you believe that? Somebody attacks me, they’re gonna be shocked,” at which point he mimes a quick draw:

As the crowd applauds and cheers, he goes on to say “somebody attacks me, oh they’re gonna be shocked. Can you imagine? Somebody says, oh there’s Trump, he’s easy pickins…” And then he pantomimes the quick draw again:

Everybody laughs. And then Trump talks about an old Charles Bronson vigilante movie and they all chanted the name “Death Wish” together. Keep in mind that this sophomoric nonsense took place just two days after a disturbed man went into a classroom and shot 17 people.

Taxi Driver fits in nicely.

.

The Congressional Budget Office has released its long-term fiscal outlook, and the news is incredibly bad, though unsurprising for anyone who has been paying attention: 

First, and most important, we have a very important admission from CBO that the long-run issue of ever-rising red ink is completely the result of spending growing too fast 

As it has been for years. The federal government takes in gobs of tax dollars — and the take is projected to get even bigger in the years to come. But spending is growing even faster, and the primary culprit is…entitlements: 

Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and other government health entitlements are projected to consume ever-larger chunks of economic output. 

This should come as no surprise, either. Nor should the idea that Obamacare has utterly failed to curtail the rise in health care costs.
The fiscal mess is compunded by the political class — of both parties, and all persuasions — that seems utterly unable, and unwilling, to curb spending. Doing this isn’t just politically difficult. It’s often professionally suicidal. No member of Congress wants to be seen as a perpetual Grinch who refuses to throw money at the problem of the moment in order to avoid the fiscal reckoning that will come some day. 

That, many electeds believe, will be someone else’s problem. Let them fix it. 

Far better if we insisted on fixing problems now — even a little bit would be a great start.

Trump’s “populism” doesn’t seem to have taken hold in the conservative movement which will still be here long after he’s retreated to Mar A Lago to hole up in his room to eat Haagen Dasz and listen in on his guest’s phone calls.

QOTD: Katrina Pierson

by digby

Pierson with her bullet necklace

Trump surrogate Katrina Pierson:

“Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time. Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.”

The host followed up:

“You’re saying Barack Obama took the country into Afghanistan post-2009?” Pierson said, “That was Obama’s war, yes.” 

Watch it here.

Good night and good luck, Don
by Tom Sullivan

NC Coordinated Campaign office opening in Asheville on Thursday.
Photo by Anna Hitrova via Facebook.

At Political Animal, Nancy LeTourneau observes that with all the focus in the press on rallies and polling numbers, there aren’t many stories on the Clinton and Trump ground games. In Ohio, for example, Daily Kos blogger “mt41w” attended the Wednesday opening of a Clinton field office in Mason, Ohio just northeast of Cincinnati in southern Ohio:

In the room where I stood and sweated — the A/C was overwhelmed — I counted 35 people, including the Channel 12 CBS Local News crew and cameraman. And I was in the smaller of six rooms in this converted house on Mason’s Main Street. I could see more people outside on the porch and sidewalk unwilling or unable to brave the crowded rooms, so I’d take a guess of perhaps 100-125 people in attendance.

It was one of seven Clinton field offices opening in Ohio on Wednesday, according to the post. Just east of there, another Clinton field office opened in Chillicothe. (I dropped in for the opening of the Clinton/NC Coordinated Campaign office here on Thursday. North Carolina is another battleground state.)

A report out of Cincinnati cites a Trump spokesperson saying he plans 25 “Victory Centers” in Ohio, but:

With the presidential election 90 days away, the Donald Trump campaign is scrambling to set up the basics of a campaign in Hamilton County, a key county in a swing state crucial to a Republican victory, a recent internal email obtained by The Enquirer shows.

The campaign has yet to find or appoint key local leaders or open a campaign office in the county and isn’t yet sure which Hamilton County Republican party’s central committee members are allied with the Republican presidential nominee.

“If they are against us, we just need to know,” wrote Missy Mae Walters, Southwest Ohio regional coordinator for the campaign.

New York magazine reports that at present:

Donald Trump has one field office in Florida, a state of 65 million square miles and 29 electoral votes. Which is to say, the GOP nominee barely has a campaign in a state he needs to win to have any real shot at the White House. And yet Trump would like the Republican National Committee to devote its limited resources to funding a get-out-the-vote operation for him in Hawaii.

Clinton has fourteen field offices open in Florida, according to the Miami Herald.

Politico reports:

The Trump campaign has asked the RNC to open offices in all 50 states, a move one party aide told Daniel is a “complete waste of resources.” For example, why boost resources in a state like Idaho, which is going to vote for Trump, or states like Hawaii or Massachusetts that certainly will not? An RNC source said it was a “fool’s errand” and more for Trump’s “ego” and for “bragging” purposes, instead of deft campaign strategy. The source said it was a “personal request” by Trump to have offices in all 50 states.

This is classic rookie thinking. Novice candidates (and cheap ones) sometimes believe that the party exists to raise their money and run their campaigns for them. Uh, no. The party assists with GOTV efforts. Candidates run their own campaigns and raise and spend their own money. And if they cannot manage that, how can they be expected to manage anything else?

From an NBC News report on Friday:

“These are supposed to be battleground states, but right now, they don’t look that way,” says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

Indeed, if Clinton ultimately wins all four, Trump has no realistic path to getting the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. And even if Trump is able to win in Florida and its 29 electoral votes, he has to run the table in the other battlegrounds, including in Pennsylvania.

Donald Trump seems to think unsubstantiated allegations of cheating before the fact are all it will take to get voters to the polls in the battleground state of Pennsylvania where one poll show him trailing by 11 points and Clinton running the table in others.

In another report, Politico quotes an Iowa Republican on the state of Trump’s efforts:

“While it’s true that previous candidates have come back from greater deficits to win, it won’t happen in 2016. The electorate is far more base-driven, with fewer persuadables,” said an Iowa Republican. “Trump is underperforming so comprehensively across states and demographics it would take video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of ‘Death to America!’ But in 2016, stranger things have happened.”

Clinton has both money and a field campaign. Trump has money he won’t spend and a campaign based on rallies where he can be surrounded by admirers. Good luck with that.

Update: Corrected to clarify who is “running the table” in battleground states.