If you’re having heartburn today about polling & punditry, this thread should buck you up.

“I did a rough calculation of national polls released since Monday, October 14th:

•Independent Polls - Harris +2.7
•Right-aligned polls - Trump +1”

hopiumchronicles.com/p/the-vps-to-d… “Right-aligned polls ran 3-4 points more Republican than the independent polls in 2022, and are doing so again this time.

“Something remarkable and unprecedented is about to happen in America. According to the main postcard groups, 80 million handwritten postcards are going to be flying into the battlegrounds and doing their part for our democracy, for our freedoms and our future.” hopiumchronicles.com/p/80-million-p… “Let us mark this important milestone, say a little prayer, grab a glass of wine for so many of you have worked so hard for this moment.

@politicalwire recommends waiting until after Labor Day before paying too much attention to the polls. Here’s his advice on what to make of the polls now. politicalwire.com/2024/09/03/now… “Don’t make too much of individual polls and follow the polling averages instead. The best polling aggregators are Nate Silver … natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-…

Sad news for trump. Very sad.

“The political world is buzzing, not only over Harris’s momentum but the coming announcement of her choice of running mate. “Undecided voters are learning about impressive, capable, and normal Democrats all over the country—from Gov. Andy Beshear to Gov. Josh Shapiro to Gov. Tim Walz.

An interview with the chief author of the American intelligence community’s report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

rollingstone.com/politics/polit… “The unclassified version of the intelligence report concluded that Putin had ‘ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,’ had ‘developed a clear preference for [Trump],’ and ‘aspired to help [Trump’s] election chances when possible.’

Thanks to @NastyOldWomyn for flagging this article.

“Superficial analyses of why certain tech billionaires are aligning with Trump tend to fixate on issues like taxes & regulations, but that’s only part of the story. “Tech plutocrats like Thiel & Elon Musk already have money. Now they want power—as much as money can buy.” newrepublic.com/article/183971…

From @JoyceWhiteVance

“For the first time in eight years, the Republican Party has a platform. It’s not written in Sharpie, but it might as well be.”

The twenty point platform can be seen in all its majesty in the article.
open.substack.com/pub/joycevance… “It’s all in caps, like they’re shouting at us. The content and the form are high-schoolish. It reads as though someone who lacks substance tried to write bumper stickers or poster slogans that sound good but are empty—

From the @ProjectLincoln podcast today.

Research shows 15% of voting age Americans lack the ID they’ll need to vote.

The problem Voter ID laws is designed to prevent- illegal voting - is as rare as pink elephants.

Now is the time to get proper ID. Voteriders can help. From The Lincoln Project: Every Vote Counts with Lauren Kunis, Jul 4, 2024

This material may be protected by copyright.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

Tales of RFK, Jr., the manchild “with a pathological need for attention”, as told by his family and friends.

“Twenty years ago Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared in an HBO documentary about the dangers of a nuclear plant on the Hudson River.” apple.news/AxLFAA6lFRYe1s… “Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable, directed by his sister Rory Kennedy, pits the crusading Kennedys, pictured flying in a helicopter over the nuclear facility, against Entergy, the power company.

“THIS WEEK’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS is barely making headlines: On Tuesday, it was revealed that a federal judge found over a year ago that there is sufficient evidence, if believed by a jury, … to find that Donald J. Trump committed numerous federal crimes in connection with his alleged theft of classified documents and obstruction of the FBI’s attempts to get them back.” thebulwark.com/p/judge-outlin…

“If you want to publicly speak and rant about the pressing and controversial issues of the day, which is all this letter was, do not accept a federal judgeship. It really is that simple.” dorfonlaw.org/2024/05/federa… I urge you to read this article to see what the American Bar Association used to call “lack of a judicial temperament”, a disqualifying factor for a federal judge.

We could lose the thing that matters most — a future for our kids.

“‘We’re Not Selling Hysteria’: Inside the Cold Calculation and Unyielding Optimism of the Biden Brain Trust” vanityfair.com/news/story/ins… “In Wilmington, Joe Biden’s reelection team is tackling stubborn polls, Gaza protests, and third-party threats as it assembles a sophisticated machine to defeat Donald Trump.

The crackdowns at universities is excessive & inexcusable, but the actions of the protestors do nothing to further their cause. Fringe anarchism & mindless destruction lead ordinary Americans to reject the cause of students’ righteous anger.

Thanks for sharing, @NastyOldWomyn

https://twitter.com/jackmirkinson/status/1785672164894523403

This is not a strong movement.

The students aren’t being punished for having the audacity to highlight the injustices suffered by the Palestinian populace.

The police response is disproportionate, but they’re responding to the protestors’ childish antics, not their beliefs.

This statement by professor Douglas Laycock rings true.

“‘Lots of Americans on all sides are deeply committed to protecting liberty for themselves and the people they agree with, and unconcerned with or affirmatively hostile to liberty for the folks they disagree with.’” From a long, well written article that @HCandler shared. ncronline.org/news/william-b…

GIFT ARTICLE: A live stream of proceedings in trump’s criminal trial.

“Conroy says Trump violated the gag order when on Truth Social, he quoted the Fox News commentator Jesse Watters denigrating prospective jurors as ‘undercover liberal activists.’”

nytimes.com/live/2024/04/2… “Prosecutors have flagged this as the most serious of the violations and Conroy does so again, calling it ‘very troubling.’”

This sounds like a great project, helping survivors of war heal their lingering emotional wounds & providing a new perspective on war for the rest of us.moralinjuriesofwar.org/about “Weaving together the voices of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, Moral Injuries of War is a visionary production that brings the untold stories of war to the American public.

An excellent article about the mifepristone hearing today. slate.com/news-and-polit… “Even Justices Neil Gorsuch & Amy Coney Barrett & Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to be embarrassed with the slurry of bad plaintiffs & worse evidence that Hawley paraded before them as a serious legal challenge.

Read the excerpts from an insightful article alongside this hilariously biting thread from @ElieNYC

https://twitter.com/halmarshall2309/status/1772807927998386644

There’s a dark message in the article:

@Dahlialithwick and @mjs_DC predict SCOTUS will look for another case to ban mifepristone. We must win and win big in November so that the Comstock Act can be repealed Supreme Court can be reformed.
slate.com/news-and-polit…

“[H]ow do journalists seeking to engage the public on the ways in which Trump poses a direct and existential threat not just to democracy, but also to the rule of law, make this argument in ways that feel salient and urgent and not, well, political?” slate.com/news-and-polit… “One possibility lies in Khardori’s surprising findings around the Supreme Court. His recent polling shows that although voters aren’t quite certain what to make of Trump’s legal troubles, …

GIFT ARTICLE: “NBC facing on-air ‘insurrection’ over hiring of Ronna McDaniel” wapo.st/4czd0pK “Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and other top hosts raised objections during their MSNBC shows Monday, saying the former Republican National Committee chair’s past support of baseless 2020 election-fraud claims should disqualify her as a paid pundit”

March Madness, House GOP style:

“It was the last vote for Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., the conservative hardliner who was all but banished from the party after he insisted that its leaders stop spreading lies about the 2020 election & accept that former President Donald Trump lost. “He resigned from Congress on Friday, leaving his seat empty for now.” nbcnews.com/politics/congr…