#hopium chronicles

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Democrat optimists are rare. This one is interesting. "Simon Rosenberg is a longtime Democratic political strategist, the author of the newsletter Hopium Chronicles and one of the few people who correctly predicted the Democrats’ strong performance in 2022. He argues that the Democratic Party is in a better position now than it has been for generations. In this conversation, we talk about why he isn’t worried about Biden’s polling numbers, how anti-MAGA sentiments have become a motivating force for many voters, what he thinks about the shifts in working-class support of the Democratic Party, why there’s such a huge gap between Biden’s economic track record and how voters perceive the economy right now, how Biden’s age is affecting the campaign, whether his foreign policy might alienate young voters and more."

[cherryblossomshadow]

[Image ID and source: Tweet from Simon Rosenberg (@/SimonWDC) reading: Red wave 2024 update:

70+ polls in the averages, 31 right-aligned groups have released polls since August

Polymarket, Elon 2024 escalations

Late last week they worked the natl polling average, moved it down, started spinning early vote hard 👇 1/

.

Part of their new efforts to drive the natl polling average down is addition of a TIPP daily tracking poll. Predictably, and perhaps comically, it showed the race - all of a sudden! - breaking to Trump after 6 weeks of a remarkably stable race and a bad media week for Trump 2/

/end ID]

.

More tweets from the thread:

Last Wed I did a polling roundup. Polling continued to be remarkably stable. 538 natl average actually ticked up for us that week. We were +4 and stable in Econ/YouGov, +5 in Marist, +4 in Morning Consult, NYT, +3 CBS, ABC. Steady as she goes. 3/

Yes, some state polls had moved a bit towards Trump. But things were all within margin of error, things bounce around and Rs had been pounding the state averages, particularly NC and PA. Majority of recent polls in those 2 states R-aligned 👇4/

Even after "movement towards Trump" here is the @/WashingtonPost battleground state polling averages this morning. The Post has a tighter screen on what polls they accept. It shows Harris at 270+ and winning. 5/

Then last Wed a switch turned on and right aligned polls started flooding the natl polling average - Emerson, Fox News, Quantas, RMG, TIPP's daily tracker. Senate Rs dropped a natl poll to help out, as did whatever ActiVote and Atlas are. 538 moved from 2.6 to 1.8 Harris. 6/

To be clear - the independent polls last week were +3 to +5 Harris. A steady, stable race. Then boom - red wavers dropped series of polls 2 to 5 points to the right of indep. polling and the averages moved.

This is exactly what they did in 2022. 7/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/us/politics/polling-election-2022-red-wave.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20240929092855/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/us/politics/polling-election-2022-red-wave.html

Since TIPP is now the tip of the red wave 2024 spear, let's take a look. "Talent on loan from God" - Rush Limbaugh's catchphrase. Here's a fun story from their site: "Harris’s Fiery Campaign of Rage Exposes Her Unpresidential Temperament" 8/

Some other recent TIPP goodies:

"The Left Is Still Obsessed With 2020 Election Deniers"

"U.S. Government Pushing Climate Lies On Schoolchildren"

"Night And Day: Trump’s Command Of Economy Exposes Harris’s Novice Approach" 9/

The American right hacked the polling averages in 2022 and are doing it again. 538 told us that even a bad PA TIPP poll should be included in the averages, and that it only moved PA 1/10th of a point. No biggie - except Rs have released 16 polls in PA this month. 10/

The simple fix is to create a new category of polls, R-aligned, and keep these polls separate from legit, independent polls.

Rs have exploited the "throw it in the averages" approach again - 70+ polls, 31 different orgs.

We have to do better 👇11/

Another explanation for flood of natl polls last week - Rs started seeing movement from Trump due to his deranged behavior.

When a bad video for Moreno dropped RMG rushed into OH with his best poll of the cycle.

They flooded NC in days leading up to Robinson implosion. 12/

Perhaps the most important point of all - Rs would not be spending so much time and effort working the polling averages if they believed they were winning. 13/

Could Rs really be doing this?

Rs have been lying about last election for 4 years

They tried to overturn the election in 2020-2021 and attacked the f-ing Capitol

Fox News is a right wing political org that has fraudulently pretended to be a news org for decades Yes /14

On cue, a high-quality independent poll drops this morning with data consistent with other recent independent polls, showing Harris ahead, no slippage, and far more likely to win. 15/

If you're wondering why polling averages are suddenly showing Trump winning despite all the bad news he's gotten lately- it might have something to do with this:

Basically, Republicans are ratfucking the polling averages by churning out huge numbers of partisan polls, and the polling aggregators/analysts like 538 aren't doing due diligence to compensate for it.

Now, what is the purpose of this?

Well, in the immediate-term, it creates a narrative that Trump is winning, boosting morale of his supporters while demoralizing support for Democrats and Harris.

Beyond that, if polling averages show that Trump is winning ahead of election day-which we can pretty much guarantee they will, because see above-then they will use that as "proof" of fraud if Democrats subsequently win.

Basically, they are engineering a pretext for their next coup attempt in front of us.

The only numbers that decide anything are actual votes. So ignore the polls, and VOTE.

[qqueenofhades]

do you have any suggestions for organizations or groups or something that are doing any kind of voting campaign/vote dem campaign? i remember in 2020 there was a huge push to do phone banking in swing states, but im seeing almost none of that now, and its making me a bit nervous about the outcome of the election

Sure! Here are some ideas:

Find your state Democratic party for specific networking/volunteering/connecting opportunities in your city or region:

Or volunteer for the national party:

Volunteer for the Biden-Harris campaign! Apparently, regardless of whatever media bullshit it set off, the debate DID result in a huge surge of campaign volunteers in swing states especially, so this is a great time to sign up:

Write postcards for Democratic voters!

Or postcards especially for Democratic voters in swing states:

Have the spoons to make phone calls for Democrats? Do it here:

Read Hopium Chronicles: it is a much-needed antidote to media doomerism and it gives lots of daily volunteering/donating/action tips to Do More, Worry Less:

Give money to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris:

Give to 12 Democrats running in highly flippable House races:

Give or volunteer for a Democratic Senate (ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT if we're going to flip SCOTUS and the map is very hairy this year):

Doing even a bit of this will help you feel better than sitting and worrying. Good luck and go get 'em!

[arpov-blog-blog]

SIMON ROSENBERG

JUN 25, 2024

Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg

The Economic Madness of Donald, The Success of President Biden A few weeks back we shared with you an analysis from our good friend Dr. Rob Shapiro of the economic impact of Trump’s mass deportation plans:

Trump’s plans for mass deportation would be an economic disaster. Besides being cruel, deporting 11 million unauthorized immigrants would cause labor shortages and slash national wage and salary income, likely triggering a recession and reigniting inflation

A few days ago Dr. Shapiro released an analysis of Trump’s plans to increase tariffs and cut the income tax:

Trump’s tax-by-tariff plan would enrich the wealthy, cripple the economy, and send inflation soaring. The latest crackpot idea from the presumptive Republican nominee would throw us back to the federal revenue model from the Gilded Age

So, is it really possible, that Trump is intending to spike inflation, cause massive labor shortages, throw the economy into recession and do enormous harm to the global economic system that has driven prosperity here and around the world?

Well, yes. That’s what he wants to do if he gets into the White House next year.

In Trump January Trump said he hoped the economy would crash:

Former President Donald Trump predicted the US economy would “crash,” saying he hoped it would do so within the next year – before he would assume the Oval Office should he win a second term in November. “When there’s a crash, I hope it’s going to be during this next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover. The one president – I just don’t want to be Herbert Hoover,” Trump said in an interview that aired Monday on the right-wing platform Lindell TV. The US stock market crashed during former President Herbert Hoover’s first year in office in 1929, which signaled the beginning of the Great Depression.

[sataniccapitalist]

"It May Be Useless to Try to Do Something" Once Amazon Tipping Point Is Crossed: Ecologist

In today's straight-ahead hopium-free Chronicle of the Collapse slice of straight-ahead Sunday morning Doomer porn, we let the New York Times bring us up to date about how irrevocably fucked what's left of the Amazon "Rain" Forest is as 2024 flares into a raging inferno. Here is a link to the article:

https://news.yahoo.com/rains-scarce-a...

If you would like to become a Patron of Collapse Chronicles, here is a link to my Patreon page:

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=16077447

[garudabluffs]

With Democrats Things Get Better - Hope You Will Watch My Presentation This Month

This month's live presentation is this Thursday, 4/13 at 1pm EST

"...watching Simon Rosenberg's presentation this Thursday, April 13th at 1pm EST, "With Democrats Things Get Better" (https://simonwdc.substack.com/p/with-democrats-things-get-better-539?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email)

Simon's push these days is to have us all become info warriors, to let Republicans and others know what a fantastic job Democrats do in regard to our economy, even though, strangely enough, the Republican party is the one who is thought of as being much better at handling the economy. Once you watch this 30 minute presentation you will be telling an entirely different story. I suggest you RSVP, even if you can't attend, so you will be sent the link to the show to watch at your leisure. And to share with everyone you know, no matter their political affiliation.

Finally, Simon says we all have to become extremely loud, being hat info warrior, with telling people what a great job Biden is doing, the contents of the above video, and what horrible things the Republicans are doing. And he says we need to get every election result to be 55% in our favor, which we do by working hard to get the younger generations registered to vote. Want more from him? Go to Hopium Chronicles on Substack at https://simonwdc.substack.com/.

I was in Ukraine for almost a month. It was a life-altering and affirming experience.

10,000 Pinocchio's for ^^^THAT^^^ whopper.

[urrrrrrrrt]

Songs I will never skip.

Rihanna - Stay ft. Mikky Ekko The runs in this song make me feel like some type of diva star. It’s one of my favourite songs to belt out in the car alone or with someone that I’ve forced to duet with me (I will obviously always be Rihanna).

Hopium - Dreamers ft. Phoebe Lou I went through a really tough time when I first started uni and this song felt like it really understood me and how I was feeling. I felt like the vibe wasn’t completely sad, so I was able to listen to it on repeat without sinking further into darkness. It really got me through.

Yeo - Secret Powers ft. Yule Post I remember voting for this for one of the Hottest 100s. I was so proud that it wasn’t one of the PRE-ENTERED songs. Look how indie I am, I have to enter my song, that I discovered, because no-one else knows about it, I’m so fucking hip.. But then that train of thought was abruptly halted by a moment of clarity. I realised how pretentious and douchey I sounded. That moment of true self-awareness will always stick in my head and this song with it. (It’s also a ridiculously catchy song with a killer sax solo).

Architecture in Helsinki - Contact High Not only does this song have bombass riff, it reminds me of when my partner and I were first getting to know each other. I remember it vividly; this song pumping in the background, a camping trip where he was first meeting all my friends, and them giving him their approval. That night we also went skinny dipping and gazed at the milky way. I could feel myself falling in love.

Purity Ring - Fineshrine and The Bloody Beetroots & Greta Svabo Bech - Chronicles of a Fallen Love I’m the type of person who will fall in love with a few songs, deeply. There will be 3-4 songs in my playlist and I will literally listen to nothing but those on repeat. I’m like a commercial radio station. These two songs were in my playlist when I first moved out of home. It was the background for when I packed, unpacked and felt the crushing pain of saying goodbye to my best friend.

Bagraiders - Sunlight and Bagraiders - Shooting Stars It was one of our first ‘cuddle’ dates and my partner had put on music to create an atmosphere. He was the type of person to buy albums and listen to all the songs in order. I was surprised he liked this type of music as he looks like the type to not like this type of music. It was a reminder to me to be less judgmental and made me want to learn everything about him. Six and half years later, I’m still keen on learning more.

One DIrection - Clouds I went on a road trip with my sister and she had just become infatuated with One Direction. They were the sound track to our adventure. There was a 1D t-shirt contest that we spent days designing logos and artwork. They were the soundtrack to our late nights. Every time I listen to One Direction it brings back so many memories with my sister that make my heart swell. This song in particular was the opening song to their On The Road Again concert which also happened to be my first concert. It was such a great night spent with one of my favourites and I will never forget how amped we got when this song started playing. I will always be a directioner.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Democrat Tom Souzzi wins in NY 3rd congressional district.

Tom Souzzi won the NY 3rd congressional district election to replace disgraced GOP ex-member of the House, George Santos. While Santos won by 7 percentage points in 2022, Souzzi won by approximately 8 percentage points in 2024—a swing of 15 points. By all measures, the outcome is a positive signal for Democratic prospects in November. But—on cue—talking heads are already explaining away Souzzi’s victory and predicting tough headwinds for Joe Biden. Don’t believe them.

Major media thrives on the counter-narrative, i.e., predictions of doom and gloom that seek to turn good news into bad and bad news into catastrophe. Here is a case in point: On Monday, CNN ran an article on the upcoming election in NY 3rd congressional district entitled, New York Democrats are worried about Tuesday’s special election. They have good reason to be.

The CNN article included the sub-headline “Democrats on the brink, and Republicans on the rise,” and predicted that the election would serve as a litmus test for Democratic prospects in November:

“The outcome (of the race) will be a measure of how the Democratic brand can affect races all over the country,” [Larry ] Levy [of Hofstra University] said. “If Suozzi can’t withstand the damage the Democratic Party has sustained over inflation, Israel and immigration, then I’m not sure who could.” [¶] Though no single contest . . . can claim to foretell what comes next in national politics, “Suozzi vs. Mazi” (it rhymes) comes awfully close.

CNN, which has recently turned Trump-curious, undoubtedly regrets claiming that the NY 3rd congressional election “comes awfully close” to predicting “what comes next in national politics.”

There is some truth in CNN’s statement. Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP vice-presidential nominee in-waiting Elise Stefanik campaigned hard for Suozzi’s opponent, hammering on immigration. Both Johnson and Stefanik should be rethinking their approach to immigration today.

We cannot become complacent because of Suozzi’s victory. Rather, the lesson is that we must replicate the enormous effort that went into securing Suozzi’s victory. Even CNN recognized that an army of grassroots volunteers helped Suozzi:

Grassroots progressive groups like Engage Long Island, which is part of the Indivisible network, have been feverishly knocking on doors – taking their case directly to like-minded neighbors. And Suozzi has massively outraised Pilip, taking in $4.5 million to her $1.3 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings that cover the beginning of October through January 24 of this year.

Tonight, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the grassroots volunteers at Indivisible, PostCardsToVoters (sent 202,236 fully handwritten postcards to Democrats in NY-03), Markers for Democracy, Swing Left, and dozens of other groups that did the hard work of getting out the vote to ensure victory! You are all heroes!

There will be much analysis of what this victory means, but none will be more reliable and salient than that of Simon Rosenberg at Hopium Chronicles. Simon played a key role in motivating grassroots volunteers to join the effort to elect Suozzi. I recommend that you check out Simon’s Substack blog on Wednesday. See Simon Rosenberg, Hopium Chronicles.

But the last word goes to the Biden Campaign, which released this statement:

Donald Trump lost again tonight. When Republicans run on Trump’s extreme agenda – even in a Republican-held seat—voters reject them. As we saw in 2020, 2022, . . . .

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[silviajburke]

Here Come the Big Spenders — Fiscal Bloodbath Dead Ahead

This post Here Come the Big Spenders — Fiscal Bloodbath Dead Ahead appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

[Urgent Note: The nation’s future hangs in the balance as Trump approaches his first 100 days. That’s why I’m on a mission to send my new book TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… and How to Bring It Back to every American who responds, absolutely free. Click here for more details.]

Donald Trump is an utterly accidental President who has fine aspirations to make America great again, but no semblance of a program that can accomplish that goal. And no prospect that the ruling elites will permit him to govern.

In fact, they will thwart him at every turn — as should have been more than evident by the hysterical campaign about Russian hacking that was waged against Donald Trump during the final weeks of the campaign, and then with almost frenzied malice after his shocking victory on November 8.

There can be no doubt whatsoever that the Deep State was attempting to delegitimize his Presidency from Day One, and that it will intensify the mobilization of its vast resources, and the tools and shills it controls in the mainstream media, now that he has taken office.

So do not expect the kind of honeymoon period of goodwill and deference that has been granted to every President in modern times. Instead, within weeks the Trump White House will be engulfed bitter partisan conflict and crisis.

On the Neil Cavuto Show Wednesday I summed up my outlook for the incoming Trump Administration: Lots of hope, zero faith.

That is, the stinging defeat Donald Trump administered to the ruling elites on November 8th was surely the single most hopeful political event of this still young century, and may well even eclipse Ronald Reagan’s shocking victory in 1980. I sure hope Trump drains the Swamp. I wish him all the best. But I’ve seen this movie before — and even had a bit part in it.

And the plain truth is that if Ronald Reagan couldn’t drain the Swamp way back then, how in the world after 36-years of relentless self-aggrandizement by the Imperial City can Donald Trump do it now?

In fact, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the military-industrial-intelligence-homeland security-veterans complex is 2X bigger than it was in 1980 and total entitlement spending is 4X greater (from $700 billion to $2.6 trillion in constant dollars).

In fact, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the military-industrial-intelligence-homeland security-veterans complex is 2X bigger than it was in 1980 and total entitlement spending is 4X greater (from $700 billion to $2.6 trillion in constant dollars).

The problem, of course, is that Donald Trump wants to spend more on the former and give a free pass to the latter.

Likewise, he has said hardly an intelligent word — or any other kind — about how he intends to defuse the ticking time bomb of $20 trillion in public debt he will inherit, which is objectively $30 trillion based on built-in policy through the next decade.

And that’s before Trump borrows a single dime to fund his Mexican Wall, defense build-up, tax cuts, infrastructure boondoggles, veterans benefits and border enforcement initiatives.

Ronald Reagan was at least willing to tilt at windmills in the entitlements arena and hated fiscal profligacy and public debt. To be sure, he ended up an accidental Keynesian who presided over a massive spree of red ink stimulus the likes of which had never been seen in prior peacetime history, but that was a consequence of beltway politics, not philosophical belief.

As I have chronicled in the Triumph of Politics, the Kemp-Roth supply-side tax rate cut was targeted at 3.5% of GDP but ended up at more than 6% of GDP due to a bidding frenzy on Capitol Hill among business groups and special interest lobbies ranging from real estate developers (like Donald Trump was then) to oil royalty owners and wood-burning stove manufacturers.

Likewise, he pledged 5% real growth in defense spending during the campaign and ended-up with a 10% real growth rate once the military-industrial-Congressional complex got through with his build-up by adding one of everything to the Pentagon’s swelling budget — needed or not — in Noah’s Ark fashion.

Reagan even got a mini-infrastructure program in the area of fixing local potholes and funding bus and mass transit lines when he had promised to turn those functions back to state and local government in proper Federalist fashion.

At the same time, what began as an all-out rhetorical assault on the domestic welfare state on the campaign trail ended-up as a few incidental nicks in the night when it was all over. Not a single significant Federal agency was eliminated. By his second term total spending for domestic function amounted to 15.5% of GDP — only a hair under the 15.9% average under the purportedly big spending Jimmy Carter.

Needless to say, it didn’t add up — not by a country mile. In fact, the $930 billion of public debt Ronald Reagan inherited had erupted to $2.7 trillion by the time he left office. Stated differently, the $1.8 trillion Reagan added to the debt was nearly double that incurred by all of his 39 predecessors during the first 190 years of the Republic.

Republican cheerleaders have pronounced the 1980s to have been a supply side miracle of growth and resurgent capitalist vigor. But it was actually nothing remarkable except for a three-year boom of 4-6% real GDP growth in the mid-1980s fueled by the greatest Keynesian deficit stimulus ever imagined before that time. At the peak, red ink exceeded 6% of GDP compared, for instance, to LBJ’s infamous “guns and butter” deficits which barely amounted to 2% of GDP.

More importantly, the GOP lost its fiscal virginity during the Reagan red ink spree and thereafter became the tool of the K-Street tax (cutting) lobbies rather than the sentinel of fiscal rectitude it had functioned as historically. Dick Cheney pronounced the benediction, as it were, on the old time fiscal religion early in the George W. Bush Administration when he pronounced that “deficits don’t matter.”

But that’s exactly why Donald Trump has a monumental fiscal problem and can never be the second coming of Ronald Reagan that the sell-side stock peddlers have now “priced-in.”

After the Gipper sent the public debt soaring, there ensued a free lunch competition between the two parties that at length raised the public debt by 20X from where in February 1981. At the time, Reagan begged the Congress for a debt ceiling increase to $1 trillion in order to fund Jimmy Carter’s deficits.

He said he would never ask again and that the budget would be balanced by 1984, at the latest. The rest is history, of course.

The implications for the Great Disruptor taking the oath today could not be any clearer. His predecessors have entirely used up the nation’s public balance sheet. Whereas the Gipper inherited a debt equal to just 30% of GDP and had wide-open fiscal spaces to stumble into the political accident of the giant Reagan deficits, Donald Trump has no running room at all with a public debt at 106% of GDP.

Donald Trump has no running room at all with a public debt at 106% of GDP.

Moreover, unlike the Gipper, Donald Trump self-evidently has an affinity for debt and lots of it, and a program that by design is in many way more fiscally irresponsible than Reagan’s was, at least on paper.

On top of that, Trump is fixing to unleash political forces from the Imperial City’s vasty deep that will strangle and paralyze the process of governance within six months.

We refer here to “repeal and replace” on Obamacare, restoring America’s military strength, the corporate tax cut and reform, the infrastructure program, the turn toward protectionism and his nativist promises to close off the borders and expel millions of illegals.

The truth is, our splinted and checks-and-balances ridden Madison system of government serves the nation well most of the time because it quells the natural impulses of elected politicians to intervene, meddle and spend.

But when you are sitting on a ticking time bomb of entitlements and public debt and possessed with a program to make it worse, you are asking for a legislative train wreck.

In the days ahead we could be seeing the Great Conflagration — which is likely to be Trump’s legacy.

Trump will likely lose control of the fiscal equitation nearly from Day One — and most especially after the debt ceiling holiday expires on March 15 and the countdown to a thundering debt ceiling crisis begins.

Yet Wall Street has ignored the obvious Fiscal Bloodbath dead ahead and has been stampeded straight into fantasyland on the hopium that Trump will make growth great again with 3-4% GDP gains and soaring corporate profits.

It’s not going to happen, and beginning today the world will begin to find out exactly why.

In fact, buckle your seat belts because the Swamp is about to get a lot deeper. Donald Trump has assembled a team of war hawks, protectionists, tax cutters, spenders, crony capitalists, border control militants and naïve outsiders.

The chances that anything other than a fiscal bloodbath results from this posse of amateurs and irreconcilables is somewhere between slim and none.

Not that Donald Trump doesn’t have admirable intentions to operate the machinery of government in behalf of Flyover America rather than the establishment elites, beltway racketeers and the permanent bureaucracy.

But Uncle Sam is so broke after three decades of borrowing, spending and money printing that there is little that Trump can do to provide economic relief — even tax cuts — to the voters who elected him.

At the same, he has mistakenly taken policy positions which provide an opening for the swamp creatures to eat him alive, and from the very inside of his own government.

Regards,

David Stockman for The Daily Reckoning

The post Here Come the Big Spenders — Fiscal Bloodbath Dead Ahead appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

This is getting ridiculous!

September 25, 2023

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

          Geez! This is getting ridiculous! Trump calls for the execution of the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and the Washington Post performs a botched poll that is so bad the Post acknowledges it is “an outlier.” Guess which one leads the news on Sunday? Hint: It is not the story that calls for the killing of a perceived political opponent by the leading candidate for the GOP 2024 nomination.

          Let’s get the WaPo/ABC poll out of the way, first. The results were simply implausible. They were so bad that Post included this disclaimer:

[A]lthough the sizable margin of Trump’s lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat. The difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump’s and Biden’s coalitions in this survey, suggest it is probably an outlier.

          If you were alarmed by the headlines about the WaPo/ABC poll, the most important thing you can do is read Simon Rosenberg’s post in Hopium Chronicles, The WaPo-ABC Poll Is A Clear Outlier. Dems Are Having A Very Good 2023. As Simon explains, the results are so wacky (my word, not his), the Post should have tossed the poll. But the Post spent the money on the poll, so it published a poll it did not believe. That makes perfect sense because . . . .?

          It doesn’t make sense. If there is anything good to come out of the WaPo/ABC poll, it seals the case that presidential “horse-race” polling is irretrievably broken, counterproductive, and misleading. And yet in the dozen articles I read about the poll on Sunday, all of them treated the poll as a legitimate exercise in polling. It is not. Indeed, the notion that multiple news organizations are conducting presidential horse-race polls more than a year before the election is a sign that they view politics as entertainment—just like sports scores, the daily horoscope, and advice columns. Pathetic.

          Folks, they are trying to mess with our heads. Don’t let them. Reject their infotaintmentization of politics. Ignore the polls. If you can’t ignore the polls, tell irresponsible media outlets what you think by posting comments on offending articles, write letters to the editor, and send emails to the journalists. Ignoring the polls is a reasonable approach to preserving your sanity. But ignoring the polls may give outlets a “free pass” on their irresponsible journalism. The Post’s poll is going to be added to Five-Thirty-Eight.com’s aggregation of polls and will affect the narrative of Biden’s prospects for winning. That is why it is irresponsible and dangerous for news outlets to conduct meaningless and misleading polls.

          The 2024 presidential election features two candidates who are surrogates for different visions of America: Democracy versus autocracy; liberty versus tyranny; dignity versus bigotry; science versus disinformation; personal autonomy versus subservience to Christian nationalism; sustainability versus ecological disaster; safety versus gun violence; global stability versus confrontational isolationism. All of that—and much more—is on the ballot in 2024. The WaPo/ABC “horse-race” poll captures none of that.

          Turning to the real story that should be the only thing any media outlet is discussing is Trump's not-so-veiled threat to execute General Mark Milley. As usual, Trump made the threat on his vanity social media platform and used oblique references to provide deniability that he made the threat. Trump's use of Mafia-style threats is so common that the comparison is becoming stale, but it is the equivalent of mobsters telling a small business owner, “Nice place you got here; it would be a shame if it burned down.”

          In the waning days of the Trump administration, the US intercepted intelligence indicating that the Chinese government believed the US might attack China. In military-to-military talks that are commonplace to avoid accidental conflicts, General Milley assured his counterpart in the Chinese military that the US was not planning to attack China.

Per the book Peril by Bob Woodward and Bob Costa, Milley said the following during the call with his counterpart:

General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable, and everything is going to be okay. We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you. General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise . . . If there was a war or some kind of kinetic action between the United States and China, there’s going to be a buildup, just like there has been always in history.

          That call was approved in advance by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Trump now claims that effort at “deconfliction amounted to treason. Trump wrote:

This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!

See The Independent, Trump suggests Mark Milley should be executed in possible breach of pre-trial release conditions.

          There are two problems with Trump's statement: It is a veiled threat on the life of General Milley and it violates his pretrial release in the two felony prosecutions in DC and Florida.

          For those who believe I am engaging in hyperbole regarding Trump's threat against the life of General Milley, recall what happened in response to this Tweet:

Big protest in D.C. on January 6th!  Be there, will be wild!

          Trump has a feral instinct for urging his followers to action without directly telling them to do so. As his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress,

[H]e doesn’t give you orders. He speaks in a code.

          The response of the media—thus far—has been a collective yawn. Their listless response is due in part to Trump's exhaustive, daily threats against foes (real and imagined) that normalize his incendiary rhetoric to the point of background noise. It is not—as his January 6 incitement reminds us. The political press should be talking of nothing else until Republicans condemn and disavow the first major party presidential candidate to threaten a senior military officer with death.

          Recognizing that the media would rather cover a botched poll than a death threat, another avenue of accountability is for either Judge Chutkan or Cannon to revoke Trump's pretrial release or impose a gag order on him. Yes, a gag order. Trump is already the subject of a motion by the prosecution in the January 6 prosecution to refrain from intimidating witnesses. As the government said in its brief:

“The defendant continues these attacks on individuals precisely because he knows that in doing so, he is able to roil the public and marshal and prompt his supporters.”

          Trump obviously doesn’t care; he never has. He has crossed a line—another one. It is time for federal judges charged with the responsibility of protecting witnesses and jurors to act. Before it is too late.

[arpov-blog-blog]

Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg

Great New Biden Ad, Biden Leads in 4 New Polls, Gov. Newsom Helps Celebrate Hopium's 1st Birthday!

SIMON ROSENBERG MAR 9, 2024

Great New Biden Ad, “For You” - The 1st Biden ad of the general election dropped this morning and it is just great. Strong, warm, funny. A really start to the general. Do watch fellow info warriors and share this through your networks and organizations this weekend. We need as many people to see it as possible.

Here’s the releases from the campaign:

In “For You” President Biden Touts His Historic Record, Points Out Trump’s Lack Thereof   In “For You” President Biden discusses how his wisdom, experience, and—yes, even age—have been critical to getting big things done for the American people in his first term, and the choice Americans will face this November between Joe Biden’s experienced and effective leadership versus Donald Trump and his assault on Americans’ rights and democracy. The six-week ad flight will air on national cable and local broadcast and cable television in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. The ad campaign will target audiences in the key markets of Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Phoenix, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Raleigh, with a focus on voters of color and young voters. The ad will air on popular entertainment and sports programming on stations like ESPN, TNT, FX, Adult Swim, and Comedy Central and during high-viewership moments like the NCAA March Madness Tournament. It will also run digitally across platforms – with a heavy emphasis on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. The following is a statement from Biden-Harris Campaign Communications Director Michael Tyler: “Y'all want to talk about age? Let's talk about age. At 77, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. At 78, he led us through the COVID crisis, put us on a path to creating nearly 15 million new jobs since the day he took office, and passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to repair our roads and bridges and expand access to broadband internet to every community. At 79, he got us the most significant gun safety legislation in a generation and became the first president to beat Big Pharma and cap the cost of insulin at $35 for seniors. At the same time, he made the single largest investment in history to combat climate change – all before his 80th birthday. Meanwhile, the only helpful thing Donald Trump did for the American people in four years was lose the 2020 election to Joe Biden – and it’s the one thing he won’t take credit for.” “Now, Joe Biden is 81 and he's going to beat Donald Trump again because he wakes up every single day fighting for the American people while Trump wages a campaign of revenge and retribution focused on himself. Trump may be four years younger than Joe Biden, but his ideas are old as hell and they've already been rejected by the American people. Joe Biden is running to make sure we reject them for good.”

The general election is here my friends. Make sure you sign up for the Biden-Harris campaign today. Give whatever you can - $5, $10 or more - to get going. As we discussed yesterday, Joe Biden has made it clear he is fighting for us. Now we need to go fight for him!

Biden Leads in 4 New National Polls - Even before his powerful State of The Union speech, the President has had his best week of polling in some time. Four new, national polls show him leading. He made meaningful gains in all of them, and all 4 had more interviews than the most recent NYT poll (you can find the polls at 538). Here they are, Biden-Trump:

47%-44% Kaiser Family Foundation (7 pt Biden gain since last poll)

51%-49% Emerson (3 pt Biden gain since last poll)

44%-43% Morning Consult (5 pt Biden gain over past month)

43%-42% TIPP (3 pt Biden gain since last poll)

A central reason I’ve been so optimistic about us winning in November is that I always believed that when it became clear to voters that it was Biden vs Trump, and the Biden campaign began in earnest, a big chunk of our wandering coalition would come home. Biden would then gain 3-4 points and open up a small but meaningful lead in national polling. It’s possible that is what we we’re seeing now. It’s what Morning Consult found in their polling this week:

Biden retakes lead from Trump: Biden leads Trump, the likeliest Republican presidential nominee for 2024, by 1 percentage point (44% to 43%) in our latest national tracking survey. It’s Biden’s first lead over Trump since early January, and is driven by coalescence among the voters who backed him last time around: 85% of Biden 2020 voters say they’d vote for him if the election were today, the largest share since early September.

We begin the general election with the race close and competitive. Trump does not lead, nor he is favored. As I wrote recently, there are serious warning signs about ongoing Trump/Republican struggles and underperformance right now for those who want to see them. Yes, we have work to do to win this election and get to 55. But it is doable work, work that we can do, whereas their job of selling a more dangerous and extreme MAGA to a country which has rejected it in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023 is far, far harder.

[arpov-blog-blog]

Hopium Chronicles

More Encouraging Inflation Data, Joe Biden Is A Good President, Trump Is The Most Unfit Candidate in American History

Key Inflation Measure, PCE, Comes In Where Fed, WH Wants It To:

The last inflation snapshot of 2023 provided some further encouraging news for Americans and the Federal Reserve: This painful period of sharp price increases may be nearing its end.

Commerce Department data released Friday showed that although the Federal Reserve’s preferred price gauge didn’t budge from its 2.6% annual rate seen a month before, a closely watched measurement of underlying inflation dropped to its lowest level since March 2021.

Additionally, the American household closed out 2023 on strong footing: Incomes and wages were up considerably from the year before, and consumers continued to spend heartily to keep the economy growing and casting aside recession fears.

“The American household continues to demonstrate resilience in light of these shocks,” said Joe Brusuelas, principal and chief economist at RSM US. “One can’t help but be somewhat optimistic about the American economy going forward, given the fact that we are at the doorstep of price stability, and the inflation fight has essentially ended.”

Joe Biden Is A Good President, The Country Is Far Better Off Today - The months and months of encouraging economic news continued this week with q4 GDP coming in at 3.3% and the PCE index coming at 2.6%. Let’s recap what we know about the US economy right now:

Best job market since the 1960s, stock market setting records (401Ks are happy), best recovery in the G7, consumer sentiment rising

The inflation fueled by COVID/supply chain disruptions, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and OPEC price hikes has ended, and we are now in a place much closer to historic norms. Prices for many items are falling including groceries, rents and mortgage rates

Historically elevated wage growth, new business formation and prime-age worker participation rates. In the last few months we’ve seen some of the most robust real wage growth we’ve seen in decades, and Americans at all income levels have seen sizeable increases in their overall net worth

Lowest uninsured rate in history, record ACA signups this year

Renewable and domestic oil production set records in 2023, US more energy independent than its been in decades. In 2023 the US produced more oil than any country has in any year in history

The investments Biden has made will creating prosperity for America and opportunities for American workers for decades to come

The annual deficit is trillions less than when Biden came to office

For young people the job market is the best since the 1960s; more young people have health insurance today than ever before; the President has forgiven more than $130b in student debt; by some measure home ownership rates are higher for Gen Z than Gen X and Millennials at this point in their lives; and rising minimum wages in states and cities across the US have created higher floors for new and entry-level workers than in many years

Crime and murder rates plummeted across the US in 2023, and remain a fraction of what they were 30 years ago.

Joe Biden has a very strong case for re-election. He promised us in 2020 he could get all of us to the other side of COVID, and he has, spectacularly. He delivered on his central 2020 promise, and America is far better off today due to his able stewardship of the nation in a time of enormous challenge. Need to be loud and proud about it all - loud and proud!"

[arpov-blog-blog]

Hopium Chronicles

The Contrast Between Strong, Sturdy, Successful Biden and Weak, Extreme, Diminished Trump Grows

SIMON ROSENBERG JAN 26, 2024

I’ve spent a lot of time these last few weeks talking about how truly awful Trump is, how much weaker he now than in 2020, how he’s the most unfit man to run for President in our history, and what a risk Republicans are taking by rallying behind him. I talked about it in our January gathering this week, in a major post on Monday, my recent MSNBC op-ed and Morning Joe appearance, in a new Ezra Klein NYT podcast, The Stongest Democratic Party Any Of Us Has Ever Seen, and in this clip from my discussion with Lawrence on MSNBC Wednesday night:

That’s what they want. That’s what they are running on. That’s why we need to beat them in 2024, get to 55 and make this election a clear repudiation of this terrible, terrible politics.

[arpov-blog-blog]

Hopium Chronicles 

Joe Biden Is A Good President, The Rs Are Struggling

SIMON ROSENBERG JAN 25, 2024

The post-Dobbs dynamic of Dem overperformance/Republican struggle is showing up now in early 2024 as it did in 2022 and 2023. Turnout in Iowa was way below expectations and Trump only won 56,000 votes from the almost 750,000 registered Republicans in the state. Trump ran 10 points below pre-election polling in New Hampshire, and about half of those who voted in IA/NH voted against him. In both states entrance/exit polling found more than 30% of Republican voters having really serious problems with Trump if he’s convicted of a crime, and in Iowa more Haley voters said they would vote for Biden than Trump in the general election. It’s a willingness to cross over and support the other party I am not sure we’ve seen in the last 40-50 years of Presidential polling.

I am beginning to believe that something broke inside the Republican Party when Roe ended. Republican extremism and ugliness just became too much for too many Republican voters, and the party and MAGA have had serious performance issues ever since. In 2022 Trumpy candidate in the battleground states could not bring their party together after their contentious primary, and lost. Based on this early data it is very likely Trump is going to have that same struggle to bring along non-MAGAs into his coalition, and like the 2022 MAGAs will lose in the battlegrounds where the Presidential race will be decided.

These questions about broad possible defections from Trump if convicted of a crime may be the most worrisome data of all for Republicans, for juries and courts have already found that he committed extraordinary misdeeds, and there is no question about what he has done:

A jury of his peers found that he raped E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room

A court has determined he committed massive, decades-long financial fraud, and the State of New York has asked for $380m in fines and penalties

The Colorado Supreme Court has determined that he led an insurrection against the United States, and may still get barred from running in this election. Of course Trump has promised to end American democracy if he somehow ends up in the White House next year, confirming the gravity of these historic and unprecedented political crimes and why disqualification has to be a serious option

He stole America’s secrets, lied to the FBI about it, and shared those secrets with others. It is may be the single greatest betrayal of the country in our history

He and his family have taken billions of dollars from foreign governments, putting all sorts of foreign governments first and Americans last and establishing a norm of corruption that has no parallel in modern American history

All of these things are facts. They have already happened; and we know from polling that large numbers of Republicans - 20%-30%-40%- would consider them disqualifying. As a matter of messaging we should stop talking about “91 indictments” and “if he is convicted” and talk bluntly and forcefully about the crimes themselves, and the judgments courts and juries HAVE ALREADY rendered. For we can say now, without hesitation, that Donald Trump is a rapist, a fraudster, an insurrectionist; that he is the most corrupt politician in modern history and has serially betrayed the country. None of this information was available to voters in 2020. It is all new. And when we share it in the months ahead there is a lot of data suggesting it will be devastating for him and Republicans more broadly."