Headline of the Day

Trump hits new low in public opinion — but he's still beating Hillary Clinton

—Politico

And she's going on a book tour without an iota of self awareness.

What a completely unprecedented juxtaposition of events.

The Swedes are the Greatest People on the Face of the Earth

Swedish passenger operator MTR Express opened up a new line between Stockholm and Gothenburg, and they held an online contest to name it, the obvious happened, but unlike the killjoys at the Natural Environment Research Council, they decided to name the line Trainy McTrainface:

A Swedish rail operator has vowed to name one of its trains Trainy McTrainface after a public vote, saying it would bring joy to people disappointed when Britain rejected the name Boaty McBoatface for a polar research ship following a similar poll.

Trainy McTrainface won 49% of the votes in the naming competition, conducted online by train operator MTR Express and Swedish newspaper Metro, beating choices such as Hakan, Miriam and Poseidon.

“[This is] news that will be received with joy by many, not just in Sweden,” MTR wrote in a statement.

The train will run between the Swedish capital Stockholm and Gothenburg, the country’s second-biggest city.
………

MTR said another train had been voted to be named “Glenn”, an apparent tribute to an IFK Gothenburg soccer team of the 1980s that featured four players of that name – uncommon in Sweden – including Glenn Hysen, who later captained Liverpool.

This is so cool.

Some Context for the Comey Firing

Click for full size graph pop up

The New York Times had a very interesting analysis of the effects of Comey's "October Surprise" on the elections. The takeaway is that if you look at when the poll was taken, rather than when it was released, there appears to be little if any effect:

On Friday, Oct. 28, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, sent a letter to Congress about new evidence in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Politicians, analysts and journalists are still debating whether the letter cost Mrs. Clinton the presidency. It’s certainly possible. But I am not at all sure, in part because of the final Upshot/Siena College poll in Florida.

I had learned the results of our survey that morning. It showed Donald J. Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton in the state by four percentage points, 46 percent to 42 percent.

………

But it’s now clear that Mrs. Clinton was weaker heading into Oct. 28 than was understood at the time. Several other polls were conducted over the same period that showed Mr. Trump gaining quickly on Mrs. Clinton in the days ahead of the Comey letter. And the timing of these polls — particularly the gap between when they were taken and when they were released — has probably helped to exaggerate the effect of Mr. Comey’s letter on the presidential race.

………

But the Upshot/Siena poll of Florida is one of several surveys that challenge this interpretation. That poll was completed the night before the Comey letter, but it was not released until Sunday, two days later — a longer lag than usual, since Sunday is seen as a better day for news media coverage than Saturday.

Some analysts have used poll aggregators or forecasting models to measure the effect of the Comey letter, and they have implicitly treated this Upshot poll, and others conducted before the news but released after, as evidence of a Comey effect. But it can’t be; for example, none of the people we polled for our survey knew about the letter.

………

In retrospect, there is virtually no evidence to support the view that Mrs. Clinton really had a six-point lead by Oct. 28, even if it was a very reasonable interpretation of the polls that had been released to that point. She didn’t have a six-point lead in any of the 16 (sometimes low-quality) national surveys that went into the field on or after Oct. 23 and were completed before the Comey letter, including her steadily shrinking lead in the ABC/Washington Post tracker.

A new report from the American Association of Public Opinion Research on 2016 polling reached a similar conclusion.

Of course, I don't expect this to change the narrative being being promulgated by the Democratic Party establishment and the Clinton camp.

As Upton Sinclair once said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

I Want to Move to Iceland, Part XLII

In Iceland, the Pirate Party is leading the polls, and they have announced that they will not be in coalition with either of the current ruling parties:

Iceland’s Pirate Party (‘Píratar’) has issued an up-front refusal to work with either of the two current governing parties after the next elections – in a move unprecedented in Icelandic political history.

“These early elections have come about as a result of the corruption revealed to the world by the Panama Papers,” explains Pirate MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir. “Five ministers have been exposed as corrupt since the current government took power.”

“In some of the biggest protests in Icelandic history, the public expressed their desire for change,” she says.

In a press conference yesterday, the Pirates ruled out any possibility of entering a coalition with either of the current two governing parties, the centre-right Independence Party (‘Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn’) and the centrist Progressive Party (‘Framsóknarflokkurinn’).

Instead, the Pirates have sent a letter to a leaders of the three other opposition parties currently with MPs in the Icelandic Parliament (‘Alþingi’) and to the brand-new Regeneration (‘Viðreisn’) party, inviting them to pre-election coalition talks.

The may be aided in their goal by a surge in the polls by the Green Party:

A brand-new opinion poll now gives Iceland’s Left-Green party (‘Vinstrihreyfingin – Grænt framboð’) a 19.2% share of the vote – four points higher than in the previous similar poll.

The latest survey, conducted by Icelandic daily Fréttablaðið (link in Icelandic) and dated 17-18 October, puts the Left-Greens hot on the heels of the second-place Pirate Party (‘Píratar’).

Iceland is perhaps is the only nation on earth that has actually experienced meaningful and positive political change as a result of the financial crisis, as opposed to the rest of the world, which has given us, Nigel Farage, Marine le Pen, Gert Wilders, Frauke Petry, Donald Trump, and those of a similar ilk.

Ha Ha!

Notwithstanding the fact that the his Blairite opposition has settled on a single competitor to run against Jeremy Corbyn to head labour, but the current Labour leader still has a strong majority in polls:

Jeremy Corbyn is the overwhelming favourite to win the Labour leadership contest, according to the latest Opinium/Observer poll, which shows he has more than twice the level of support among party supporters as his challenger, Owen Smith.

The online poll finds that among those who say they back Labour, 54% support Corbyn against just 22% who would prefer Smith. Some 20% say they are undecided and 4% say they do not intend to vote.

The findings offer further proof that grassroots support for Corbyn remains firm despite weeks of bitter conflict between the leader and Labour MPs at Westminster, a large majority of whom backed a vote of no confidence in him after the EU referendum.

This is not a surprise.

What is also not a surprise is that Labour is not polling well, because they managed to appear more f%$#d up than the Tories, which is no small thing, considering that they just made Boris f%$#ing Johnson their foreign minister.

The Blairites are more than willing to destroy Labour to maintain their positions within the party.

Not a Surprise

The Military Times conducted a survey which showed that members of the military support Trump by a large margin:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Spokane, Wash., on May 7, 2016.(Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP)

In a new survey of American military personnel, Donald Trump emerged as active-duty service members' preference to become the next U.S. president, topping Hillary Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin. However, in the latest Military Times election survey, more than one in five troops said they’d rather not vote in November if they have to choose between just those two candidates.

But given only those choices, 21 percent of the service members surveyed said they would abstain from voting.More than 54 percent of the 951 troops Military Times surveyed said they would vote for Trump, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, over Clinton, the Democratic front-runner. Only about 25 percent said they would vote for Clinton in that matchup.

This is not surprising:

• The military trends conservative.
• Clinton is more likely to squander blood and treasure in an unnecessary war than anyone this side of Richard Bruce Cheney.

It's unlikely that the military vote will be decisive, but I gotta figure that they are sick and tired of useless and meaningless losing wars.

Predictably Depressing

It appears that the overwhelming majority of Americans now consider mass shootings to be a regular fact of life:

A new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that a whopping 71% of Americans surveyed believe the many shootings and other acts of mass violence in we've seen in 2015 are now a permanent part of life in our country.

That's compared with just 21 percent of Americans who think the violence this year -- from Charleston, S.C., and Oregon, to the terrorist shootings in San Bernardino, Calif. -- has been unusual and won't happen as often in the future. 

America is broken.

Not This Sh%$ AGain!

Once again, after seeing the continued popularity of Donald Trump amongst the Republican party base, the punditry reach into their bag, and pull out Willard Mitt Rmoney. Give me a f%$#ing break:

Huge congratulations to Suffolk University and the Boston Globe for crafting a poll in New Hampshire that actually offers an interesting bit of news. The story of the Republican primary in the state has largely been the same for months, with Donald Trump holding a steady and robust lead. In the Real Clear Politics polling average, he's up 15 points. In Suffolk's new poll, he's up 10 -- but with a healthy-sized number of undecideds.



But then Suffolk and the Globe added something to the mix. If we added Mitt Romney to the list, they asked, would you switch to him? For 30 percent of respondents, the answer was "yes." Romney leads all other Republicans by a two-to-one margin. Trump loses a third of his support.

Seriously, can we give this a rest?

Rmoney is popular because He is Not Running., and as soon as he joined the race, he would be forced to fall into lockstep with the batsh%$ insane wing of the party base, and we would be back to where we started.

The depressing thing about this is that on the other side of the aisle, the favored candidate of the pundit class, Hillary Clinton is the weakest candidate against "The Donald."  (Yes, the polling shows that O'Malley even though a cipher to most voters polls slightly better against Trump.)

So, it's "insane" to  nominate Donald trump, but the only sane thing for the Democrats to do is nominate the candidate that he is most likely to beat.

Could the pundit class please go Cheney themselves?

There is Someone Less Popular than Barack Obama in Kansas

It's Kansas Governor Sam Brownback:

Only 18 percent of Kansans are "very" or "somewhat satisfied" with Gov. Sam Brownback's (R) job performance, according to a poll from Fort Hays State University released Friday.

In comparison, President Barack Obama (D) had a job approval rating 10 points higher in the deep red state than the Republican governor: 28 percent.

“This could be some of the lowest approval ratings of any Kansas governor in history,” Bob Beatty, a political scientist at Washburn University, told the Topeka Capital-Journal on Saturday.

It appears that the people of Kansas aren't evil, they are just kind of slow.

That's why it's taken 4 f%$#ing years for them to get the fact that they are dealing with a delusional psychopath.

Seriously, folks, what were you waiting for, for him to start carrying around a white Persian cat?

I am Amused

In the latest Fox News Poll, Donald Trump is the 2^nd most popular candidates in the Republican primaries:

There’s been a lineup change in the race for the GOP nomination, as businessman Donald Trump moves up after declaring his candidacy. He’s now second in the order after former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who also got an uptick in support after his formal announcement.

For Democrats, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still -- by far -- the team leader, according to a new Fox News national poll on the 2016 presidential election.

Bush tops the list of GOP contenders with 15 percent support among Republican primary voters. That’s up from 12 percent last month and his best showing yet. Support for Trump more than doubled since his announcement and that catapults him into the top tier at 11 percent. He’s followed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 10 percent. No one else receives double-digit backing.

Bush officially kicked off his campaign June 15 and Trump launched June 16. It’s common for candidates to see a bump in their numbers in the days following their formal announcement and the media coverage that comes with that.

The bad news for Trump is that only 29 percent of GOP primary voters consider him a serious candidate. More than twice that many -- 64 percent -- think he’s a side show. Among all registered voters, nearly 8 in 10 say Trump is a side show (77 percent).

This appears to mean that the "2^nd worst Donald on Earth,"^*Fox News, much to the chagrin of the voters, is trying to limit its debates to the "top 10" candidates, which has the effect of eliminating those at positions 11 and below from having a meaningful chance in Iowa or New Hampshire, and hence the primaries.

And it appears that the biggest joke in Presidential politics will get one of those seats at the table.

It so sucks to be a Republican right now.

Heh.

^*Larry Wilmore called Donald Rumsfeld, "The Only Donald Worse than Trump," and I wholeheartedly agree.

Quote of the Day, Fox News Makes You Stupid Edition

“There is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these [factual] questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.”

—Obsidian Wings, which linked to former Reagan administration official Bruce Bartlett, who in turn linked to Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll.

There is Hope for the Democrats in November

It appears that the more that people hate Congress, the more likely they are to vote:

Could voter disdain for Congress motivate more people to turn out this November? Could be.

A new Gallup study suggests that in recent elections, disapproval of Congress’ job performance meant higher turnout. Currently, Gallup’s congressional job approval is 13 percent, with 19 percent of registered voters saying members of Congress deserve re-election.

Voters may feel they can effect change, since in 1994, 2006 and 2010 control of the House of Representatives changed parties.

“There has been a clear pattern of turnout being on the higher end of the midterm year range when Americans were less approving of Congress,” said Gallup analyst Jeffrey Jones in the Gallup study.

If this is true, then the Dems will definitely hold onto the Senate, because high turnout favors Dems, and this Congress rates 100% voter turnout.

It Now Sucks Even More to be Mitch McConnell

Because the latest polling from the right leaning Rasmussen polls has him tied with Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is tied with his Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, at 42 percent each in a new poll by conservative-leaning firm Rasmussen Reports.

Six percent preferred neither of them, and 10 percent were undecided, according to the survey, which was released Monday.

Rasmussen's polls came under fire during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles for regularly overstating the standing of Republican candidates.

Note that undecideds tend to break for the challenger. (Happy dance!!)

If I were a Democratic political consultant right now, I would be using these numbers to push Matt Bevin, the teabagger running against McConnell in the primary.

What McConnell has going for him, both in the primary and the general, is the sense of inevitability that he intends to convey.

Drive a stake through its heart.

Guess Who is Seen as the Greatest Threat to World Peace in the World Today?

USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!:

US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize four years ago. Today, the country he leads is seen — according to a new poll — as the biggest threat to world peace.

The global survey, conducted by WIN/Gallup International, polled residents in 68 countries on everything from the global economy to politics and living conditions.

According to the poll, 24 percent of the surveyed countries ranked the United States as the greatest threat to world peace today, followed by Pakistan at 8 percent, China at 6 percent and four countries (Afghanistan, Iran, Israel and North Korea) tied at 5 percent.

Thirty-seven percent of Mexicans ranked their northern neighbor the top threat to the world.

We're Number One!!!!! We're Number One!!!!!

Gee, I wonder if the Swedes are feeling now about about giving President Drone Strike a f%$#ing Nobel f%$#ing Peace Prize.

What a Surprise

When Whites are asked about affirmative action in the context of Asian-Americans, suddenly they are much more supportive of affirmative action:

Critics of affirmative action generally argue that the country would be better off with a meritocracy, typically defined as an admissions system where high school grades and standardized test scores are the key factors, applied in the same way to applicants of all races and ethnicities.

But what if they think they favor meritocracy but at some level actually have a flexible definition, depending on which groups would be helped by certain policies? Frank L. Samson, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Miami, thinks his new research findings suggest that the definition of meritocracy used by white people is far more fluid than many would admit, and that this fluidity results in white people favoring certain policies (and groups) over others.

Specifically, he found, in a survey of white California adults, they generally favor admissions policies that place a high priority on high school grade-point averages and standardized test scores. But when these white people are focused on the success of Asian-American students, their views change.

As the saying goes, "Where you stand depends upon where you sit."

Consumer Sentiment Improves

It's a 3 month high, but it's still a crappy 72.4.

Meh.

Least Shocking News of the Day

Wall Street executives believes that their employees cannot succeed without breaking the law:

If the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes were to go out with his lantern in search of an honest man today, a survey of Wall Street executives on workplace conduct suggests he might have to look elsewhere.

A quarter of Wall Street executives see wrongdoing as a key to success, according to a survey by whistleblower law firm Labaton Sucharow released on Tuesday.

In a survey of 500 senior executives in the United States and the UK, 26 percent of respondents said they had observed or had firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace, while 24 percent said they believed financial services professionals may need to engage in unethical or illegal conduct to be successful.

Sixteen percent of respondents said they would commit insider trading if they could get away with it, according to Labaton Sucharow. And 30 percent said their compensation plans created pressure to compromise ethical standards or violate the law.

Truth be told, I'm surprised the number is so low.

The cynic in me says that most of the roughly ¾ who disagreed were lying because that's what they do.

The realist in me says that most of the roughly ¾ who disagreed able to deduce the purpose of the survey, and determine that their, and their companies' needs were, and then gave an answer that served those interests.

The optimist in me says that most of the roughly ¾ who disagreed have access to some really good drugs.

Rasmussen?

Rasmussen is a very Republican pollster.

Whenever you see their numbers, as Ed Kilgore observes, you probably want to move the dial around 5% toward the Republican side of the dial.

So the news that their latest poll has a  a majority of respondents supporting the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker,  52%-47%, it means that that weasel is in some serious trouble.

My only concern is about the primary to select his opponent.  It's beginning to look like Secretary of State Doug La Follette is working hard to form a circular firing squad.

Ha Ha!

The latest PPP (pp)polling, Rick Perry is in third place in Texas.

Normally, even in losing a Presidential primary contest, one tends to pick up a bit of stature both locally and nationally, in the case of Rick Perry, I think that it may very well have destroyed his future prospects in the state.

Rick Perry has three big problems: Collapsing poll numbers, worse debate performance than J. Danforth Quayle, and … let's see … I can't … The third one, I can't … Oops.

Karl Marx is Laughing

Because Congress is less popular than Communism:



There is a deeper message, which is that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell has managed to take an institution which already held in low esteem, and absolutely trash it.

While the "very serious people" in the Democratic Party think that this is a political advantage, they are wrong.

You see, the foundation of conservative electioneering is the idea that government does not work, and as much as they might damage themselves in the short term, they are, in the long term, undermining the very idea that government can regulate the banksters, keep the poor from starving, protect us in the work place, and provide healthcare for the rest of us.

While someone like John Boehner may be too gin soaked and stupid to consciously understand this, he, and His Evil Minions^™, do understand that constant gridlock and dysfunction plays to their strengths, and that it's a lot easier than doing something constructive.