Don't buy into the hype that Joe Biden is necessarily the most electable Democrat

JOE BIDEN is losing in the polls! 
Only Corporate Media would tell you otherwise.

This is corporate propaganda.

He is another miserable candidate.

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Don't buy into the hype that Joe Biden is necessarily 

the most electable Democrat

• In recent weeks, former Vice President Joe Biden's team has doubled down and explicitly appealed to electability and framing Biden as the sole candidate who can feasibly beat President Donald Trump.
• Luckily for Biden, seniors and African-American voters - two core constituencies in the Democratic base - prioritize defeating Trump above all else.
• "Your candidate might be better on healthcare than Joe is, but you have to look at who is going to win this election," his wife Jill Biden said last weekend, citing general election match-up polls showing Biden beating Trump.
• There's just one problem: hypothetical general election polls haven't historically been a very good predictor of who actually wins elections.
• At this point in the 2016 election cycle - late August 2015 - head-to-head matchups showed, on average, Clinton beating Trump 50% to 39%.
• And in late 1991, Bill Clinton was 21 percentage points behind George H.W. Bush in general election match-ups but ended up defeating Bush by 5.6% in the popular vote.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is pitching his campaign for president on a single, resounding message: beating President Donald Trump, and restoring the kind of stability Americans experienced under the Obama administration.

But in recent weeks, Biden's team has doubled down and explicitly appealed to electability, framing Biden as the sole candidate who can feasibly beat Trump, as Biden's wife former Second Lady Jill Biden did at a recent event.

On the subject of healthcare, Jill didn't directly argue that Biden's healthcare plan to strengthen the Affordable Care Act and introduce a public option to compete with private insurance was a better idea on its merits than the type of government-run, Medicare for All healthcare system other candidates are proposing.

Instead, she acknowledged that even if Biden's plan isn't the best one and voters don't like it, they should hold their noses and vote for him anyway.

"Your candidate might be better on healthcare than Joe is, but you have to look at who is going to win this election, and maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say 'I personally like so-and-so better,' but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat Trump," she said.

And in Biden's first 60-second TV ad spot airing in Iowa this week, Biden explicitly appealed to his own electability, citing four hypothetical general election polls from this summer that show him defeating Trump by margins of nine to 13 percentage points.

Biden campaign's message is working because voters care about electability

Biden's presidential bid hasn't been all smooth sailing so far. Not only have his progressive rivals ripped apart policy stances on everything from healthcare to climate change and immigration as too moderate and incremental, but he's faced scrutiny over his long and controversial record in politics - especially his record on issues related to race.

The former vice president has also committed a series of cringeworthy gaffes on the trail, was criticized for being too touchy with women and girls, and found himself in hot water for fondly recalling the days of "civility" in the Senate when he maintained close relationships with notoriously pro-segregation Senators.

Throughout his missteps, however, Biden has not only remained the frontrunner but has stayed steady or improved his performance in Democratic primary polls - especially among voters who prize electability.

"Joe Biden isn't the frontrunner because he's first in the polls, it's because of who he's polling well with," Ford O'Connell, a veteran GOP campaign strategist andadjunct professor at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management, previously told Insider.

"Biden has the majority of support with African Americans, particularly African-American women and seniors. The reason why that matters is because those two groups traditionally turn out the most in Democratic primaries," he added.

Read more: Joe Biden has been a self-professed gaffe machine for decades but Democratic primary voters don't seem to care, yet

Older voters in particular, who turn out to vote at higher rates than younger ones, prioritize defeating Trump most of all.

In a Gallup poll from late June, 67% of voters aged 50-64 and 71% of voters 65+ said that they prioritized nominating the candidate most likely to beat Trump over the candidate with whom they agreed the most on policy, compared to just 43% of voters aged 18-29.

And luckily for Biden, Democratic primary voters - especially seniors and black voters - consistently rank him as the candidate with the highest chance of beating Trump. But he is at risk of losing his status as the most electable candidate soon.

As Bloomberg recently reported, the percentage of Democrats who think Biden could beat Trump in Economist/YouGov polling has remained steady all summer at 65%.

But as Sen. Elizabeth Warren has surged in Democratic primary polls, the percentage of respondents who believe Warren could defeat Trump has increased 14 percentage points from 43% to 57% in the same timeframe.

"What is it going to take for Joe Biden to lose the nomination? It's very simple. Either the Democratic electorate has to believe that he can't go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump or someone else has to prove that they can. Until that happens, he's going to be the nominee," O'Connell told Insider.

There's just one problem - Biden might not actually be the most electable candidate

Democratic strategist Jess McIntosh, the former communications outreach director for Clinton's 2016 campaign, argued on CNN Tuesday afternoon that Jill Biden's comments on Biden's electability were misguided "because we are terrible at predicting who is electable."

McIntosh pointed out that when it came to previous presidential nominees like Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump, the conventional wisdom was "wrong on every single one."

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were largely unknown on the national political scene and started out as underdogs at the back of the pack when they began their presidential campaigns, but both won two terms each by inspiring Democratic voters with unique and compelling campaign messages.

Read more: Obama told Biden advisers not to let the former Veep 'damage his legacy' in his 2020 presidential run

And in 2016, Republican primary voters similarly rejected the conventional wisdom that Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz would be the safest and most electable choices, and went with their gut to nominate Trump, someone who had never held elected office, held positions that broke with the conservative orthodoxy, and had a controversial and scandalous personal history.

As political scientist Seth Masket pointed out, hypothetical Quinnipiac University general election polls from February 2016 showed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton handily defeating Trump by five percentage points, tied with Sen. Ted Cruz, and losing to Sen. Marco Rubio by seven percentage points. But Republicans nominated Trump anyway, and won.

"Everyone who was supposed to win lost, and everyone who was supposed to lose won," McIntosh argued on CNN, adding that, "telling someone to ignore their gut and vote for the candidate who will win instead of the one they like is telling them to throw the primary, because we have no idea who can win."

Head-to-head general election polls have historically been a bad predictor of the actual outcome

In her argument for why Democratic primary voters should pick Biden over other candidates, Jill Biden cited the head-to-polling showing Biden leading Trump as the main reason undecided primary voters should back him over other candidates.

"You've got to look at the polls ... and if they're consistent and they're consistently saying the same thing, I think you can't dismiss that ... if your goal is to beat Donald Trump, we have to have someone who can beat him," she said.

Not only has the conventional wisdom on electability been wrong many times before, but hypothetical general election polls, like the ones Biden's camp is relying on, haven't historically been a very good predictor of who actually wins elections, as FiveThirtyEight's Perry Bacon Jr. pointed out in June.

Read more: Nearly one-third of Democratic primary voters fear their party could blow it in 2020 if they're not moderate enough. Nearly the same amount of Democrats fear they'll lose if they're not progressive enough

At this point in the 2016 election - late August 2015 - head-to-head matchups showed, on average, Clinton beating Trump 50% to 39%, a margin of victory of 11 percentage points. In the end, Clinton defeated Trump 48% to 46% in the popular vote and lost the electoral college.

In 2016, FiveThirtyEight also conducted a broader analysis of general election matchup polls from every presidential election from 1944 to 2012. They found head-to-head matchup polls conducted a year before presidential elections were, on average, 11 percentage points off the final result.

For example, former President Bill Clinton hardly seemed electable in the later months of 1991 when he was 21 percentage points behind George H.W. Bush in the polls, but ended up beating Bush by 5.6% in the popular vote after the US went into a recession.

"Aside from the logic, telling us to settle now is way too early," McIntosh added. "There is no need to settle."

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Trump jeopardizes National Security, International Security

Karl J Martin

"Gather round, kids.

Mr. Trump tweeted out a high-resolution image of an Iranian missile test. For a good three or four minutes I was literally reduced to whimpering. A former Air Force Office of Special Investigations friend told me in lieu of drinking heavily he was curled up in a fetal position on the couch. Another friend who served in an allied intelligence service -- well, we'll get into his feelings in a bit: let's just say they're not positive. There seems to be a lot of people losing their heads over this. Brett Johnson wants to know why.

Let me start by saying that it's a completely reasonable question. Anybody who wants to mock him for asking why needs to do it somewhere other than here. The problem with this completely reasonable question is that wow, really, where to begin, there is so much terrible here to choose from.

Let's start with the image itself. It was released via tweet and the President's personal account, which is already troubling. The President's account is, to put it lightly, uncensored. It does not get vetted through official channels. It is the President's stream-of-consciousness outlet to the world. This already should give people concern in the, 'wait, was this image vetted by the intelligence community?' sense.

In fact, there is evidence it was not.

The next thing you'll notice about the image is there's a bright spot in the center. Thanks to a gloriously misspent life, I can tell you that's probably a cellphone camera flash off a projection screen. (Probably. If the image were higher-resolution I might be able to tell you if the cellphone model is consistent with the President's cellphone model.) This is not a normal way of getting copies of classified material. If you talk to people who have had the responsibility of protecting classified material and ask them, 'what would you do if someone in a classified briefing broke out a cell phone and started taking pictures of the slides?' the answer would very possibly involve a body tackle and holding the person on the ground until security arrived. The cell phone would never leave the briefing facility. The person's career would immediately end. You may think I'm kidding: I am not.

Generally speaking, the only time someone is alone in a briefing room with a classified slide deck is when they're the person delivering the presentation and they're setting up for it. The person(s) delivering this briefing didn't need to take a photo of it: they already have the images. That photograph was taken by a briefing attendee, using a cellphone camera, with flash. There is no way other people in the room did not know what was going on. Whoever was in the room knew something was wrong, and they were unable to prevent it from happening.

Put it together and what you get is a pretty good circumstantial case that Mr. Trump took his cell phone into a classified briefing room and, in the middle of the presentation, took a flash photograph of a slide he liked. Whoever was in the room likely tried to persuade him not to, likely explained the massive violations of White House policy and guidelines for handling classified information, and was unable to persuade Mr. Trump to simply _not take a photograph of a classified briefing._

I can't believe I'm typing those words.

They couldn't persuade him to leave his cell phone at the door. They couldn't persuade him not take a photograph of a classified briefing.

The next question is whether what he released was national security information. One person commented -- quite foolishly -- that 'obviously' the intelligence community signed off on the release. I'm unaware of any evidence for that. I see what looks like it could have been a classification marking in the upper left hand corner, which is now obscured by a blackout bar. But that's not how documents are declassified. When documents are declassified it's either because enough time has passed for them to be automatically declassified, or because an appropriate authority has declassified them. In the former case, you'll see markings like 'Classified Until' and a date. In the latter case you'll see markings like, 'Declassified on [date], by [person].' We don't see those markings here. We know it's declassified, because Mr. Trump assures us it's declassified. But it sure wasn't declassified through the normal process.

So far here's what we have strong circumstantial evidence to believe: that Mr. Trump took his cell phone into a classified briefing, that he took a photograph of a slide, he bypassed normal declassification channels, and posted it to Twitter.

So that's the first problem, Brett. His defenders will claim nothing he did was illegal, and that's true: the President stands superior to all policies regarding classified materials. He has unlimited discretion to violate those policies as he wishes. But with that power must come accountability, in the form of Congressional hearings for the *abuse* of that power.

So let's see if his use of power was responsible. Let's start by looking at our international partners.

The intelligence community has an analogue to NATO. It's called the Five Eyes, and is as close as you'll find to a league of gentlemen among the heartless bastards of the intelligence community. The Five Eyes are the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The United States is the big bruiser of the Five Eyes, with capabilities the others can't match -- but at the same time, never underestimate the ability of these other nations to get human assets in interesting places because they're *not* Americans. A few years ago when there was an Al Qaeda plot to pack bombs in printer toner cartridges and load them onto airlines, we managed to foil those murderous intentions because Great Britain had a guy on the inside tipping us off. We give a lot to the Five Eyes. We also get an awful lot back. It is fair trade in the best sense of the word: everybody is better off as a result of the information sharing among the Five Eyes.

Right now the United Kingdom is having a massive dust-up with Iran. Iran has been seizing British ships on the high seas. The British Navy has about two dozen warships. They're superb warships with superb crews, but they only have about two dozen. They cannot be everywhere in the world they need to be, and they are massively dependent on good intelligence to let them know where they need to be. The United States has all kinds of surveillance assets operating in the Middle East right now: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan. And I will bet my bottom dollar that we are giving our friends in Great Britain priority access to Iranian surveillance, in order to help them find their seized ships, keep track of Iranian Navy operations, and more.

Imagine you're a Secret Intelligence Service (what was formerly called 'MI6') analyst who just turned on the BBC.

The American President has just told Iran just how good our surveillance is. And that's going to affect the calculus for how Great Britain protects *its* national interests, because now the Iranians know what level of coverage the British are likely getting.

Mr. Trump didn't just reveal *our* capabilities when he tweeted that improperly-taken, improperly-declassified picture.

He revealed *the Five Eyes' capabilities*.

I promise you, the nations of Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand are all having the screaming heebie-jeebies over this.

But wait, it gets worse.

This isn't the first time Mr. Trump has jeopardized the safety of our allies. Do you remember two years ago when some murderous lunatic detonated a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert in London? Their Security Service ('MI5') immediately shared with us highly confidential photographs of the crime scene. The FBI gave the Security Service assurances that we would protect it. We had to, because if those photographs were to be leaked it would have jeopardized Great Britain's ability to prosecute the perpetrator in court. (UK law is pretty strict about pre-trial publicity: unnecessary public disclosure of evidence creates massive problems for the Crown Prosecutorial Service.)

And yet somehow those photographs appeared in the _New York Times_. Jeopardized the prosecution of terrorism suspects, and why? Because someone in the White House (we do not know it was Mr. Trump) could not be bothered to properly care for confidential documents shared by an ally.

Two years ago we violated the UK's ability to prosecute a terrorist. Today Mr. Trump has announced to the world exactly how good a view on the world the UK is getting from us.

I am terrified, Brett -- I am genuinely terrified -- that the next time Great Britain discovers an Al Qaeda plot to stuff plastique into printer toner cartridges and put them on 747s, they'll say, 'we should wait, let's not share this with the Americans just yet unless it's absolutely necessary, you know how their President tweets things.'

_And that will get Americans killed._

Some people will say, 'wow, Rob cares an awful lot about allied intelligence capabilities,' as if I somehow shouldn't care about them. Yes, I care about our connections with allied intelligence agencies, _because it keeps Americans alive._ These intelligence sharing agreements _keep Americans alive_ and Mr. Trump is jeopardizing them.

I don't know what kind of storm is brewing within the Five Eyes over this. I couldn't begin to imagine. But there is absolutely no reason to think this was announced to our partners in advance, or that we asked their opinion on whether publishing this would jeopardize their national security interests, or anything else.

This tweet will get Americans killed.

And let's not even get into Australia. Australia's living in a bad neighborhood. You've got an expansionist China, a North Korea that's throwing rockets off every which way, there's...good grief. Now all of Australia's adversaries are studying the Iranian missile site and thinking, 'mmhmm, so _that's_ the quality of intelligence Sydney is receiving.'

Brett, you said that you thought Iran already knew our capabilities. Maybe, maybe not. But do you think China knew them? China and North Korea? China and North Korea and Cuba? China and North Korea and Cuba and Syria? China and North Korean and Cuba and Syria and Russia? China and North Korea and Cuba and Syria and Russia and every other place that thinks the West needs to be taught a lesson?

Mr. Trump gave valuable information about our surveillance capabilities to _all of them._

_At once._

Words fail me.

Brett, this is bad. This is really, really bad. And even with as many words as I've written here, I've only scratched the surface of why it's bad.

Why is it bad?

Because it shows that Mr. Trump cannot be persuaded to follow standard policies on the handling of national security information.

Because it shows that he's not listening to his advisors who shriek in horror when he breaks out a cell phone in a briefing.

Because it shows that he hasn't learned from his administration's past mistakes with releasing confidential photographs belonging to Her Majesty's government.

Because it shows that he doesn't think.

Because every time he does this he's inflicting a terrible wound on the international cooperation that keeps Americans safe.

Because it shows he doesn't know or care how it's going to impact our allies.

Because he's going to get Americans killed.

That's why it's bad.

That's why when I saw this photograph I wanted to drink heavily.

Now, if you'll pardon me, my Scotch awaits."

- Rob Hansen

West Virginia state Sen. Mike Maroney - REPUBLICAN: West Virginia state senator charged with prostitution

West Virginia state Sen. Mike Maroney - REPUBLICAN

YUK!

He's a MEDICAL DOCTOR???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Maroney

"...Authorities found used condoms, uncapped hypodermic needles and "an unimaginable amount" of human feces and urine throughout Clark's house...."

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia state Sen. Mike Maroney has been charged with soliciting a prostitute.

The Republican lawmaker turned himself in and was arraigned Wednesday morning, a Marshall County court clerk said. He has pleaded not guilty and paid a $4,500 bond.

Maroney exchanged text messages to discuss prices and set up meetings with a woman who has acknowledged being a prostitute, according to a criminal complaint. He also sent her a picture of himself smiling along with a message reading "now can I stop by" after she said she wouldn't meet without a photo of him.

Police have been investigating the woman, Cortnie Clark, and say two people have already pleaded guilty to soliciting her for sex. She has been criminally charged and has told police she became a prostitute so she could buy heroin, according to the complaint. Her attorney didn't immediately return a message left at his office.

Authorities found used condoms, uncapped hypodermic needles and "an unimaginable amount" of human feces and urine throughout Clark's house. Before one of their meetings, she told Maroney her house was messy and he replied he didn't care about a mess, the complaint said.

Maroney, 51, did not return a voicemail left on his cellphone. His lawyer, Paul Harris, didn't immediately return a message left at his office.

West Virginia Senate President Mitch Carmichael issued a statement saying the allegations are "deeply disturbing" and that further statements would be released as the case continues.

Belinda Biafore, the chairwoman of the state Democratic party, is calling for Maroney to be removed from the Senate.

Maroney is the chairman of the Senate committee on health and human resources.

really nothing new with the/that tRumpCult…. bunch religious whoes

About this website

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West Virginia state senator charged with 

prostitution

West Virginia state Sen. Mike Maroney has been charged with soliciting a prostitute. The Republican lawmaker turned himself in and was arraigned 

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Fascist and Antifascists

Black Cat Worker Collective

This and that....

Zad Sangrea

A little louder for the people in the back

Timmy Dalrymple

Timmy Dalrymple

Timmy Dalrymple

Timmy Dalrymple

Time/MAGA

Timmy Dalrymple

The DNC Doesn’t Want a Climate Debate for a Reason

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JACOBINMAG.COM

The DNC Doesn’t Want a Climate Debate for a Reason

LINK

 “The Democratic National Committee voted over the weekend not to hold a climate debate. Actually, it’s worse than that: they voted not to allow candidates to participate in such a debate. The move signaled that the party leadership is not serious about the most urgent matter facing humanity, and is out of touch with its own grassroots base, which is open to left ideas and increasingly worried about the burning planet.

Bay Area journalist Christopher Cook described the scene at the DNC meeting in a report for 48 Hills, an independent local paper: while the leadership killed the debate and gave lip service to the issue, young activists chanted “We Can’t Wait” and “The Whole World Is Watching.”

The Sunrise Movement and other youth climate groups like US Youth Climate Strike had been pushing for the climate debate. The New Republic and other organizations had planned one earlier this summer, but don’t get me started on the ridiculous plutocratic, pearl-clutching imbroglio that sunk that event (actually, I wrote about it here on this website).

While tech money is important, the biggest donors to the DNC in the 2020 cycle are overwhelmingly financial companies, whether hedge funds, private equity, or more traditional investment management. Obviously, most of these firms want to be able to continue to invest in fossil fuels as well as in companies looting the Amazon. Such companies are run by — and depend on the continued existence of — the very rich, our planet’s biggest liability. (Not only do they create immense pollution through private jets and multiple homes, the rich also support such lifestyles through immensely planet-ravaging investments.) The finance class does not want to hear plain talk about solutions to climate change; in many cases, they are getting rich from destroying the planet and do not wish to stop doing this. That’s probably why DNC head Tom Perez called the idea of a climate debate “dangerous.”

The DNC also seems to be trying to avoid two likely outcomes of a climate debate: Joe Biden looking bad and Bernie Sanders looking good.”