Pattericos Pontifications

Time 2020-11-05 12:03:21

Web Name: Pattericos Pontifications

WebSite: http://patterico.com

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UPDATE 2:32 pm: A little bit of needed levity:Even the looters don’t know what to do now. Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) November 4, 2020UPDATE 2:15 pm: Michigan has been called for Joe Biden. We re closing in on a final result, barring a switch in Arizona, or if Nevada ends up in the Trump column.UPDATE 12:20 pm: Maine s Second District has been called for Trump, giving him one more electoral vote. My hopes of a 269-269 tie with Trump winning NV and MI and Biden winning WI, PA, and AZ are dashed. Drat. Back to the drawing board. So, I woke up today and was flabbergasted. Trump cruises in Ohio but loses Arizona? Imagine the irony if it is the state of John McCain and John Kyl Jeff Flake that denies him a second term (and yes, I ve read the part about how the GOP expects to win by 30,000 votes once the counting is done).Nevada, which I had earlier written off as a service union-dominated blue state, is still in play? I think that might be due to the COVID shutdowns absolutely hammering Las Vegas. The unionized hotel and casino workers might be otherwise inclined to vote for Biden, but when he s out there talking about extending shutdowns while Trump seems to be prioritizing re-openings, well, all politics is local I suppose.And of course the pollsters or at least 95% of them should all be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. The breaking news is from Maine where Sara Giddeon has conceded the Senate race to Susan Collins. Incredible. Exactly zero pollsters on the Real Clear Politics list had Senator Collins retaining her seat, yet she s going to end up winning with an 8% margin of victory:Literally not a single poll in the RCP average had Susan Collins winning Maine.Quinnipiac had Gideon at +12 pic.twitter.com/I9tOfqPtGr Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 4, 2020Another epic failure from our media elites, who no longer deserve even the smallest bit of deference to their myopic punditry.Discuss what you would like. I am still crossing my fingers that John James pulls off the upset of the evening and beats Gary Peters for the Senate seat in Michigan. Having 53 Republican Senators would be a very welcome check on President Joe Biden. JVW The Failing New York Times says things still look positive for Biden:Even though victory remained far from certain on Wednesday morning, those states began to come to life for him, one by one, like lights flickering back on under the power of a backup generator. By around 9:10 a.m. Eastern time, Mr. Biden was leading in enough states that, if he won them, would give him 270 electoral votes.I can t say I m optimistic. I can easily see the generator sputtering and dying. It might have something to do with the experts having assured us that Biden was crushing Trump nationwide by ten points or so.Meanwhile, Trump gonna be Trump:With no winner declared in the 2020 presidential race, President Trump appeared in the White House just after 2 a.m. on Wednesday to brazenly claim he had already won the election — and to insist that votes stop being counted even though the ballots of millions of Americans had yet to be tallied.Speaking with a mix of defiance, anger and wonder that the election had not yet been called in his favor, the president recounted his standing in an array of battleground states before falsely declaring: “Frankly, we did win this election.” No news organizations declared a winner between Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr., and a number of closely contested states still had millions of mail-in ballots to count, in part because state and local Republican officials had insisted that they not be counted until Election Day.Mr. Trump said, without offering any explanation, that “we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court,” and added: “We want all voting to stop.”Um, OK.Meanwhile, it looks like I will have a new boss. So: the nation has failed to repudiate Trump, but my county repudiated the best choice for District Attorney.God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . .Happy Wednesday!P.S. If Biden pulls this off, it may mean that only one of my predictions will come true: that in coming days and weeks, there will be a test of loyalty: are you willing to loudly declare that Donald Trump was defrauded out of the presidency? I m seeing hints of it already. [guest post by JVW]Election Day is upon us; time to make your predictions.1. Final tally in the House2. Final tally in the Senate3. Biggest Congressional upset4. Congressional race that is expected to be close but won t be5. Brightest star emerging from this election6. Career that is pretty much over after this election7. Final electoral college tally8. Earliest date that the winner of the Presidential contest will be accurately declared and by whomFeel free to add any other bold or mundane predictions along with the picks to these questions. Remember that my picks are nearly always wrong. JVWUPDATE BY PATTERICO: I ll lay down my marker. I think Biden takes Texas and the result is announced tonight. Nothing else will matter after that. Dems gain seats in the House and take the Senate.Whatever happens, your vote is your choice. I might criticize someone s reasons for voting a certain way, but I will never criticize the simple fact that you voted for person x, y, or z. Go in peace. Whatever happens happens.If you re in Los Angeles, vote for Jackie Lacey. It will probably be your most consequential vote.UPDATE x2: I also predict a landslide for Biden, and that Trump will fight it and that in coming days and weeks, there will be a test of loyalty: are you willing to loudly declare that Donald Trump was defrauded out of the presidency?UPDATE x3 FROM PATTERICO: Obviously, consider this your Election Open Thread. [guest post by Dana]Here s an interesting look at Trump gearing up for election day, and his shift between combativeness and grievance. But this is what stood out to me: Seldom far from Mr. Trump’s thoughts, however, is the possibility of defeat—and the potential consequences of being ejected from the White House. In unguarded moments, Mr. Trump has for weeks told advisers that he expects to face intensifying scrutiny from prosecutors if he loses. He is concerned not only about existing investigations in New York, but the potential for new federal probes as well, according to people who have spoken with him.Consider: Trump has famously survived one impeachment, two divorces, six bankruptcies, twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct, and an estimated four thousand lawsuits. Few people have evaded consequences more cunningly. That run of good luck may well end, perhaps brutally, if Joe Biden wins. Even if Trump wins, grave legal and financial threats will loom over his second term Trump’s legal expenses alone are likely to be daunting. (By the time Bill Clinton left the White House, he’d racked up more than ten million dollars in legal fees.) And Trump’s finances are already under growing strain. During the next four years, according to a stunning recent Times report, Trump—whether reëlected or not—must meet payment deadlines for more than three hundred million dollars in loans that he has personally guaranteed; much of this debt is owed to such foreign creditors as Deutsche Bank. Unless he can refinance with the lenders, he will be on the hook.So, maybe underneath it all, he wasn t just thinking about losing to Joe Biden here. Maybe he was thinking about something terrible finally catching up to him, and that something could be very damaging, long-lasting, and with a potentially disastrous outcome for the President or former president: “I shouldn’t joke because you know what? Running against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics puts pressure on me. Could you imagine if I lose? My whole life, what am I going to do? I’m going to say ‘I lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics.’ I’m not going to feel so good. “Maybe I’ll have to leave the country? I don’t know.” Trump added. Dana The prospect of this man unbounded by the reality of facing of another election is terrifying.TRUMP: You turn on the news, ‘Covid, covid, covid, covid.’ CROWD: Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!TRUMP: Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait til a little bit after the election. pic.twitter.com/qOT0OZnJUE Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) November 2, 2020 He follows up the suggestion by saying Fauci has been wrong about a lot of things, like wearing masks early on. Trump firing Fauci for initially suggesting Americans need not wear masks would be like Trump firing James Comey for having treated Hillary Clinton unfairly. It does not quite pass the smell test, does it? Keep in mind that, as Dana recently noted, Trump continues to characterize mask-wearing as politically correct and we all know what he and his followers think of political correctness.That kind of attitude kills people.Speaking of which . . .Meanwhile, a Stanford study estimates that Trump s recent rallies may have killed 700 people:A group of Stanford University economists who created a statistical model estimate that there have been at least 30,000 coronavirus infections and 700 deaths as a result of 18 campaign rallies President Trump held from June to September.The numbers, which will surely reignite accusations from Democratic leaders and public health officials that the president is putting voters at risk for political gain, are not based on individual cases traced directly to particular campaign events.Instead, the Stanford researchers, led by Professor B. Douglas Bernheim, the chairman of the university’s economics department, conducted a regression analysis. They compared the 18 counties where Mr. Trump held rallies with as many as 200 counties with similar demographics and similar trajectories of confirmed Covid-19 cases before the rally date.Trump s path to victory is very narrow. He cannot afford to kill more of his supporters.I filled out my ballot for Joe Biden yesterday. We ll walk them to a dropoff point today or tomorrow. I had opportunities to research the Republicans running for state and federal offices. My criterion: have they said they support Donald Trump? Both had.Neither got my vote. I left those races blank. This is a story of two sides behaving badly, and two sides driving unreasonably, leading to a thankfully minor collision on a Texas highway. However, it is being falsely portrayed by Big Media as a situation where evil Trump fans deliberately tried to run some poor innocent Biden supporters off the road. That narrative is false, based on the evidence available to date.I will first lay out the Big Media narrative, and then painstakingly explain what happened, with all of the available video evidence of which I am aware. I will say at the outset just as I said when I first discussed this with people yesterday that additional information can always change my conclusion. In fact, I have learned additional information since yesterday morning that solidifies a suspicion I had that the Trump fan acted unreasonably to a degree. However, I continue to believe that the Biden staffers likely bear primary responsibility for the collision, although it is impossible to know this with certainty. As we will see, the local police agree with me that the Biden vehicle was likely the at-fault vehicle.First, the Big Media narrative. The New York Times headline reads: Vehicles flying Trump flags try to force a Biden-Harris campaign bus off a highway in Texas.Multiple vehicles bearing Trump flags and signs surrounded a Biden-Harris campaign bus heading from San Antonio to Austin on Friday, forcing campaign officials to scrap two campaign events, according to reports by Democratic officials on Saturday.The vehicles surrounded the bus on busy Interstate 35 and appeared to be attempting to slow it down and force it to the side of the road, according to social media posts from witnesses and accounts by party activists. In one instance, the vehicles pulled in front of the bus and tried to stop in the middle of the highway.Katie Naranjo, chair of the Travis County Democratic Party, tweeted that Trump supporters also “ran into a person’s car, yelling curse words and threats.” The bus was occupied by campaign staff workers, who notified local law enforcement, which assisted the vehicle in reaching its destination, party officials said.I have read multiple articles about the incident and have yet to see a scrap of video evidence supporting the notion that anyone tried to force the bus to the side of the road, but I am open to the idea that such video exists. I have seen nothing showing cars trying to stop the bus on the highway, but again I am open to such video evidence existing.What I am concentrating on in this post is the allegation that Trump supporters ran into a person s car. This is based on Big Media s uncritical acceptance of a tweet from Travis County Democratic Party Chair Katie Naranjo:Today, @realDonaldTrump supporters followed the Biden bus throughout central Texas to intimidate Biden supporters. They ran into a person s car, yelling curse words and threats. Don t let bullies win, vote. pic.twitter.com/CIyEWwbvqU Katie Naranjo (@KatieNaranjo) October 30, 2020 Here is the Daily Mail s wholly fictitious account:At one point in her video, a white car, later identified as belonging to a Biden staffer, can be seen colliding with a black truck that was closely tailing the Biden bus. Video shows the truck pushing against the white car, forcing it over the lane line. As we will see, the white car was already over the lane line. The Daily Mail version suggests that the black truck swooped up next to a white SUV that was totally in its own lane, and pushed it out of the lane over a line. Even though I had people telling me with a straight face on Twitter yesterday that this is what happened, it is not remotely true.I have seen the one video of which I am aware showing the collision, and several related videos showing surrounding context. While both drivers act unreasonably, I believe the SUV is primarily at fault, as it persists in encroaching into a lane fully occupied by the truck bearing Trump flags, just before the collision.Most of the analysis begins and ends with this video:These tactics have no place in Texas, my home state, and no place in America.Please vote. Please volunteer this weekend. The future of our democracy is at stake. pic.twitter.com/G0O4yg2vnJ Dr. Eric Cervini (@ericcervini) October 31, 2020 Especially if you watch it only once, you could easily come away with the impression that the truck is trying to ram the SUV. The more you watch it, the less certain you become and the more videos you watch, the more it ends up looking like two very stubborn road-ragey type drivers, with primary fault going to the white SUV that insisted on occupying two lanes even when there was a vehicle fully within its own lane just inches away.Here is my summary reply:https://t.co/yzss5eOzNF Patterico (@Patterico) October 31, 2020 But let s back up and look at the whole event in full context. This was a caravan of loud and proud Trump supporters. They were there in force ahead of time, waiting on the side of the highway:I flew down to Texas to help with the Biden/Harris bus tour, intended to drum up enthusiasm at polling locations. Instead, I ended up spending the afternoon calling 911. 1/ pic.twitter.com/gKAjv7gv85 Dr. Eric Cervini (@ericcervini) October 31, 2020 Their intention appears to have been, at a minimum, to aggressively escort the Biden/Harris bus out of town, or to put it less charitably (and more in line with the way the activist themselves characterize it), to run the bus out of town to run his ass out of there : pic.twitter.com/ii9zRxIFjY PrinceOfDarknessHat (@Popehat) November 1, 2020 Riding them out of Texas is the way the lady who videotaped the collision described it, and while she found it hilarious I think it is not cool and I do not support these people in any way.The next video shows a white SUV apparently containing Biden staffers straddling lanes behind the bus, which is not legal. It appears to drift left, perhaps into its own lane, as a black truck with Trump flags drives up in its own lane behind the bus. The white SUV resumes straddling lanes with the black truck just inches away:There appears to be plenty of space. The white SUV merged into the left lane, the truck moved up, and for some reason the SUV tried to force itself over. pic.twitter.com/DoY1dkVWTn American Jane (@AmericanJane) November 1, 2020 At this point, we know that the white SUV, filled with Biden staffers, was straddling lanes. That is unreasonable. You are not allowed to drive down a highway straddling lanes. You may move from one lane to the next, but it is unreasonable to persistently occupy two lanes at once.Then the black truck with Trump flags pulls next to the SUV while in its own lane. The black truck is tailgating the bus, as is the white SUV. Both acts of tailgating are dangerous and unreasonable. (Dangerously close tailgating, by the way, is much more common on Texas highways than on Los Angeles freeways. Take it from someone who has driven both quite a bit.) The white SUV resumes its illegal act of straddling lanes, with the black truck inches away.I believe both vehicles are acting unreasonably here, likely both operating under mental conditions of road rage mixed with politics. Under normal circumstances, the truck is perfectly entitled to drive in its own lane. But if someone is straddling lanes in front of you, I believe it is unreasonable to drive up right next to that vehicle. But it is completely 100% unreasonable for the white SUV to refuse to stop straddling lanes, and to veer over towards the black truck, which is fully within its own lane. You don t get to drive down a freeway straddling lanes while there is a vehicle right next to you in one of the lanes you are straddling.Given that the white SUV was now acting very unreasonably, the black truck acted unreasonably in bullheadedly continuing on at the same speed, with a dangerously driven SUV inches to its left. You could try to argue that the black truck was within its rights to drive within its lane, but a) it s tailgating the bus (as is the SUV) and b) your primary responsibility is to drive reasonably and safely. The black truck should have slowed down. But the driver was on a mission. (Some allege that the driver is a fella who has had his issues with lefty protesters before but I don t see how he could have caught up with the bus given this video, so I think the driver of the truck may have been someone else.)Now, the collision. Here is the video again.These tactics have no place in Texas, my home state, and no place in America.Please vote. Please volunteer this weekend. The future of our democracy is at stake. pic.twitter.com/G0O4yg2vnJ Dr. Eric Cervini (@ericcervini) October 31, 2020 The following screenshots are from my tweet above, but I want to blow them up for you so you can see how badly the white SUV is encroaching into the black truck s lane. First is a screenshot from the very beginning of the video:This is from about 16 seconds in, just before (or at?) the point of first contact. You can see how far the white SUV is over the lane line:Followed by these two screenshots:These are to show you how far over the line the SUV was during this whole time.Another view of the time immediately before the collision can be seen here. To me, this video is less instructive but I intend this post to be as completist as possible. LMAO

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