Notes for October 13, 2020

Columbus Day Isn't Real. Voter Fraud.

Oct 13, 2020

I am a Columbus Day denier. I don't think it exists. I have never celebrated it, and this "holiday" has never benefited me in any way. I saw no celebrations yesterday. Can anyone prove it is real beyond Twitter arguments?

“You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Great column by Jonah Golberg

Voter Fraud is blown out of proportion. Here is our explainer. If you can’t watch, then get the notes here. This infrequent act is being used to justify actual voter fraud.

California GOP installed unofficial ballot drop-off boxes. State officials say they’re illegal.

“Operating unofficial ballot drop boxes — especially those misrepresented as official drop boxes — is not just misleading to voters, it’s a violation of state law,” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat, told The Post in an email. “My office is coordinating with local officials to address the multiple reports of unauthorized ballot drop boxes. Californians should only use official ballot drop boxes that have been deployed and secured by their county elections office."
The California Republican Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post on Sunday night, but the party defended its drop-off boxes on Twitter.

I am seeing more of this logic.

The Supreme Court deal is done

The necessary and compelling reason to vote for President Trump in 2016, for many white evangelicals and other conservative Republicans, was the Supreme Court. That reason is now gone.

A prudent temperance, then, is more likely than greedy overreach to secure the pending victory Barrett's confirmation signifies. Having gotten what they wanted from him, declining to re-elect Trump may be the best strategic move conservative SCOTUS voters can make. They should content themselves with the bird they have in hand — if they reach for more, they may find a viper in the bush.

Trump’s children brought Secret Service money to the family business with their visits, records show

That’s because when Trump’s adult children visited Trump properties, Trump’s company charged the Secret Service for agents to come along. The president’s company billed the U.S. government hundreds, or thousands, of dollars for rooms agents used on each trip, as the agency sometimes booked multiple rooms or a multiroom rental cottage on the property
Many of Trump’s marquee properties, such as his Doral resort in Florida and his hotel in Washington, have struggled in recent years, weighed down by Trump’s divisive politics. Last week, the New York Times reported that Trump’s tax returns show that his businesses lost millions of dollars in recent years — even before the pandemic, which slammed the travel business and caused widespread closures and layoffs at Trump properties.
For those lucky enough to be in a position to stay at home, please, please, do so,” Ivanka Trump said, in a video she posted to Instagram on March 29. “Each and every one of us plays a role in slowing the spread.”
Between mid-March and mid-June, the Secret Service records show 13 trips to Bedminster by Ivanka Trump or her husband, Jared Kushner, plus three others by Trump family members whose names were redacted. For most of that time, D.C. and New Jersey were asking residents to stay home if possible to avoid spreading the coronavirus. A spokesman for Kushner did not respond to a request for comment.
During this period, the Trump golf club charged the Secret Service even more than usual for rooms at Bedminster. The typical rate, during past visits by Trump family members, was $567 per night for agents to stay at a four-room cottage at the club.
“Touchdown Scotland. @EricTrump and 32 of our members from @TrumpCharlotte have arrived at @TrumpScotland for the first day of the 2019 @TrumpGolf Ultimate Links Tour!” the Trump Organization posted on Instagram on May 16, 2019. The photo showed Eric Trump posing at Trump’s golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, with visiting members from the Trump golf club outside Charlotte.
Trump’s company charged the Secret Service about $3,800 for rooms at Trump’s Aberdeenshire, Scotland, course that day. Then it charged $8,500 for rooms at Turnberry — Trump’s other Scottish club — days later, Secret Service records show. The records do not say what rate the service was charged per room.”

The Gamble

To be successful, this ‘thread the needle’ re-election strategy required four main elements:
A united, enthusiastic and engaged GOP base
A deeply flawed opponent
Decent support among independent voters (Even as Trump ran up the score among his base in 2016, he also carried independent voters by 2-points.)
Third-party candidates siphoning off enough votes to allow Trump to win key states with a plurality as he did in 2016
Oh, and of course, it would also help to have a good economy, and not have a majority of Americans think that you have mismanaged a major health crisis.
Right now, only #1 is there for him. Even that rock-solid support from his base is looking shaky in the wake of his disastrous debate performance and COVID diagnosis.
4) At this point in the 2016 election, 14 percent of registered voters in a Pew poll said they planned to vote for a third-party candidate.
—
In the end, the non-Clinton/Trump vote was six percent. The most recent Pew poll (Sept. 30-Oct. 5) finds just five percent of voters choosing a third-party candidate. As such, we should expect that third-party candidates will comprise a much smaller percentage of the electorate this year — probably around 3 percent. The lower the third party vote, the harder it will be to carry a state with less than 50 percent. In 2016, Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Florida with less than 49 percent of the vote.
As important, however, is the fact that those 2016 third- party voters and voters who didn’t vote in 2016, lean heavily to Biden now. According to the most recent Pew survey, Biden leads among 2016 third party voters 49 percent to 26 percent (23 points). Biden leads among those who didn’t vote in 2016, 54 percent to 38 percent.

Early Vote Analysis for Sunday, Oct. 11

Early Voting Continues at Record Pace with 9.3 million voted. Four years ago at this same time before the November election, I was tracking 1.4 million people voted.
The voting pace is truly remarkable, with five states already reaching 20% or greater than their 2016 total vote

Funny Trump is Back

President Trump Wanted to Wear a Superman Shirt When He Left Hospital

According to a report from the New York Times on Saturday, “In several phone calls last weekend from the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Mr. Trump shared an idea he was considering: When he left the hospital, he wanted to appear frail at first when people saw him, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. But underneath his button-down dress shirt, he would wear a Superman T-shirt, which he would reveal as a symbol of strength when he ripped open the top layer.”