CNN Poll: Biden’s lead persists post-conventions

After two political conventions unlike any the United States had seen before (conducted with little live participation), Joe Biden maintains an advantage over Donald Trump in the race for the presidency, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.

Among registered voters, 51% back Biden, 43% Trump. The difference in each candidate’s support when compared with a CNN poll conducted pre-conventions is within the poll’s margin of sampling error.

Both candidates boosted the share of their supporters who say they are voting more for their chosen candidate than against his opponent, though that figure is still higher for Trump than it is for Biden. For Biden, it’s up to 45%, from 38% pre-conventions, and for Trump, it’s now at 77%, up from 67% before the conventions.

Other polling organizations have shown similar results. The Economist/YouGov Poll also completed September 1 shows a 51% to 40% Biden lead. The IBD/TIPP also completed September 1 indicated a Biden lead 49% to Trump’s 41%.

Of course things can change between now and November 3. An October announcement of a COVID-19 vaccine could be a game changer. Even higher numbers of COVID-19 deaths could also be a game changer. Or perhaps something else that is not on anyone’s radar.

Hubris and the Wizard of Oz

The word is a noun meaning Excessive pride or self-confidence. Used in a sentence: Hubris leads to the downfall of many celebrities and politicians.

That is what we saw at the RNC displayed by Donald Trump. His words four years ago, “I alone can fix it” is still his opinion of himself.

His supporters are blindly supporting his view of himself.

“Empires always have the hubris to think they are indestructible, when in fact they are always unsustainable.” Marianne Williamson, former presidential candidate

“The silent killer of all great men and women of achievement – particularly men, I don’t know why, maybe it’s the testosterone – I think it’s narcissism. Even more than hubris. And for women, too. Narcissism is the killer.” Conservative James Woods, actor, producer of both movie and television programs

“Incumbent White House parties have won 10 of the last 18 presidential elections; the odds are tight, but they favor Obama in 2012. And so gloomy Democrats, check your despair; gleeful Republicans, watch the hubris.” Jon Meacham, author and former Newsweek editor

“We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets hubris.” Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize winning American conservative journalist, editor, and columnist.

The Wizard of Oz was not all powerful nor is Donald Trump. Trump has not fixed violent rioters in Portland, Oregon or Kenosha, Wisconsin. The corona virus continues to spread with about 900 new deaths daily. The economy is in shambles with 1 million new unemployment claims weekly. “Justice for all” has become a slogan not a reality.

The president is a blustering bully similar to the Wizard.

The five dumbest Republican arguments for Trump

Summary of Jennifer Rubin’s opinion piece in today’s Washington Post.

None of Republicans’ commonly deployed arguments for reelecting President Trump are tethered to reality. The paucity of logic and factual support for their rationales suggests many on the right, even “respectable” columnists and elected officials, actually support him for reasons they’re loath to admit, whether it’s because they share his apocalyptic view of crime encroaching on the suburbs or are eager to see a country purged of immigrants.

He will give us law and order: No wonder Trump loves to highlight any domestic scene of disorder, mayhem and looting he can to frighten White Americans, arguing that if law enforcement “dominates the streets,” we will have public order. This is preposterous. We cannot go to war with millions of demonstrators.

He has vanquished the pandemic: The level of delusion necessary to sustain the fiction that Trump has handled the pandemic well is unfathomable. We have more deaths due to the disease than any other country on the planet, many more deaths per capita than many advanced countries and no national testing-and-tracing program. We remain cloistered at home and children cannot attend school in person in most places after weeks of shutdowns, largely because Trumped egged officials into reopening prematurely. He has hawked dangerous and unproven remedies and pressured government health experts to weaken or change guidelines to minimize dangers and restrictions on activities. As he did Thursday night, he gathers large crowds without masks and social distancing, creating his very own potential superspreading events.

He has been great for the economy: Multiple fact-checkers have repeatedly demonstrated that the economy under President Barack Obama’s was stronger by multiple measures than the economy under Trump. (GDP growth under Obama was 2.4% and 2.5% under Trump). This disparity was due in part to tariffs Trump imposed, which amount to a tax hike for U.S. consumers. If Trump falsely thinks he inherited a rotten economy, it’s inarguable that it got worse even before he crashed it by attempting to ignore a pandemic.

Joe Biden is a socialist: Not even the Republicans have the nerve to make that argument. Instead, they argue that Biden will be tricked or led around by the nose by forces on the left. This is entirely speculative and ignores Biden’s decades-long record in office (remember the 1994 crime bill?) and policy choices during the campaign, among them his opposition to Medicare-for-all.

“Life”: One can respect those deeply opposed to abortion in evaluating the candidates, but by the same token, a president who prioritizes the economy over preventing a pandemic, rips children from the arms of their mothers, refuses to denounce killings of unarmed Black Americans and willfully declines to protect the lives of our troops on whose heads Russia placed bounties is not respectful of human life in any meaningful sense.

We Deserve Total Honesty from our President

First Lady Melania Trump delivered a speech supporting her husband’s re-election from the Rose Garden at the White House. It was a very well prepared speech that was non-confrontational. The speech was meant to sooth concerns about her husband and to that extent it was a success.

She offered sympathies for those hit hardest from the COVID-19 pandemic, briefly stressed the need for unity amid racial conflict, the need to remove the stigma around drug addiction.

“…honesty is what we as citizens deserve from our president. Whether you like it or not, you always know what he’s thinking, and that is because he’s an authentic person who loves this country and its people and wants to continue to make it better.”

What? Better for who?

Donald Trump has been a continuous liar.

- He has told us that Covid 19 will magically disappear.

- He has promoted Hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the virus.

- He renegotiated NAFTA with another agreement with a new USMCA that is no more than an update of NAFTA.

- He has worked diligently to destroy the Affordable Care Act with a non-existent replacement.

- He has made the countries that were are friends into enemies.

- He has treated immigrants as unwanted parasites.

- He has conducted a war against everyone who is not a WASP.

- He has tried to reverse California’s regulations on car emissions.

- He has claimed to have absolute power over everything in the government base upon the constitution’s Article 2.

- He is now talking about a third and fourth term in office even though the constitution limits him to two terms.

- And these actions are just the tip of the iceberg.

Former President Barack Obama was correct when he said at the DNC

“So I am also asking you to believe in your own ability — to embrace your own responsibility as citizens — to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure.

Because that’s what at stake right now. Our democracy.

“This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win.”

The Milkman is Back!

By Janey M. Rifkin

You’d have to have lived a long time to remember when the morning milk delivery was on your doorstep. But what’s that saying? – “If you milk delivery was on your doorstep. But what’s that saying? – “If you live long enough, everything old is new again.”

So, back in Bridgeport, Connecticut and probably elsewhere as well, COVID has rekindled delivery of the dairy! Doug Wade, Jr., President of Wade’s Dairy in Connecticut, inherited the business from his father, who home delivered milk in glass bottles for near a century.

It just got to be too old fashioned; customers had dwindled, wooed by grocery stores offering cheaper milk that kept longer. Women had gone off to work, leaving no one home to accept deliveries.

By 1992, Wade Dairy shut down home delivery. Now the coronavirus has resurrected that last issue. Everyone is home now. Meanwhile, many of the clients that Wade’s had pivoted to serve – restaurants, schools, corporate dining facilities – are closed.

“Never in a million years would I have thought home delivery would come back like this,” said Doug Wade Jr., age 66. Time to get creative, he thought, and indeed he did. In April, he started a service that charges a $10 fee in exchange for crates filled with everything from eggs to cheese to yogurt placed on doorsteps. More than 250 customers from 25 towns signed up.

“At its peak, the dairy had more than 3,000 home delivery customers,” Wade commented. But by the end of the 20th century, the dairy had evolved into a processing plant, pasteurizing milk from local farms, managing innovations, 80 employees, including 40 drivers. “The pandemic urely jolted the businesses back into action,” said Wade. Wade worries about how restaurant customers will survive. His delivery business model could expire when normal life returns. But he is driven by nostalgia too. He recently purchased a vintage hand-cranked cream separator. And despite his age and asthma, he can’t keep away from his office.

“I probably shouldn’t be coming into work, but you know, this is my life,” he said. I’m a milkman!

—

Janey Rifkin is a syndicated writer. This article appeared in the Warner Center News. A community paper in the West San Fernando Valley, California.

Barack Obama Brings the Blowtorch at Day Three of the Democratic National Convention

This was one of the most important speeches ever given in the life of Barack Obama. It’s unlikely to be the theme of the Joe Biden campaign. Combined with the many Republicans who have appeared at the Democratic Party convention, the message could not be clearer.

Dear Red States… We’ve Decided We’re Leaving!

DEAR RED STATES… WE’VE DECIDED WE’RE LEAVING.

Dear Red States…

We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren’t aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Washington D.C.

We also get Costco and Boeing

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.

We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy League and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

By the way, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Oh, and you can have all the new Coronavirus cases since you’re too dumb and self-centered to wear a mask.

Peace out, we are the people

Blue States
Thank you

Author unknown

Democrat’s Convention Night One – Michelle Obama

This political convention offered little in new thoughts. We all know the Democratic Party’s objective is to make Donald Trump a one term president. That is a daunting task. The last time it happened was Bill Clinton’s defeat of George H.W. Bush in 1993.

The highlight of the evening was the the presentation by former first lady Michelle Obama.

If you don’t want to watch her entire presentation read these words. “If you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this,’ she said, with deadly seriousness. ‘If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can and they will if we don’t make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”