All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Tami]

Asked whether the summary firing of LTC Alexander Vindman was justified Graham says Vindman was part of broader plot against President Trump by FBI Agents, CIA Agents and DOJ Lawyers.

Twitter Link with Video

[JCAll]

Sure...

That said, is giving them really great raw material to do it with sensible?

Could it eventually play a role in digging a hole that you are going to have a tough time getting out of?

It's just odd to see that this sort of stuff created problems last time out, and what folks got out of it feels like "There's No Plan That Can Deal With Twitter Users Looking For A Target To Hate..."

You don't need a brilliant plan not to walk right into the same punch a second time.

Trying to predict what Twitter is going to be mad about and live your life accordingly is a useless endeavor. They're not going to be mad about what she does, they're going to be mad NO MATTER what she does. There's no plan for that, no roadmap, she's been part of a targeted harassment campaign for years. The people mad on Twitter are always mad on Twitter, personally I wouldn't even justify their actions with a response.

[JCAll]

Twitter Link with Video

Lindsey Graham 100% has some kind of alien brain parasite.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

History and clips like that need to be kept so future generations can see the type of utter scum that allowed Trump out. I would hope Graham is alive when people openly point and mock him to his face as he cries on Fox News how people are saying he's absolute **** repeatedly.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Twitter Link with Video

Jesus! Lapdog Lindsey should've been wearing a tinfoil hat when he spewed that bullshit.

[Tami]

Jesus! Lapdog Lindsey should've been wearing a tinfoil hat when he spewed that bullshit.

It's insane. I can't imagine anyone with his level fo eductaion actually believing what he said, but there in lies to questions:

A) Does he actually believe what he's saying?
B) If not, then why the *Bleep* is he saying it out loud and in public?
C) What do his constituents back in his home state think about this?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

It's insane. I can't imagine anyone with his level fo eductaion actually believing what he said, but there in lies to questions:

A) Does he actually believe what he's saying?
B) If not, then why the *Bleep* is he saying it out loud and in public?
C) What do his constituents back in his home state think about this?

If Graham has to publicly humiliate himself and sound like a complete kneeknocking moron in order to stay Trump's good graces, then that's his problem. And to think that before 2016, Graham was one of Trump's biggest critics, now he's one of his fiercest attack dogs. Proof positive that Caramel Caligula has something highly incriminating on him. As for Graham's constituents, if they vote Republican, chances are they're just as brain dead as he is.

[Zauriel]

New Hampshire primary is going to end in a couple of days. I'd wait and see if the DNC is trying to stop Bernie Sanders from winning NH primary.

[AnakinFlair]

Biden jokingly calls voter a 'lying dog-faced pony soldier' at New Hampshire event



At this point, I'm starting to wonder if Biden is just staying in the race to distract Trump from the other candidates.

[4saken1]

Twitter Link with Video

Saw this one in the comments:

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Truer words were never spoken!

[Kirby101]

New Hampshire primary is going to end in a couple of days. I'd wait and see if the DNC is trying to stop Bernie Sanders from winning NH primary.

The NH primary is a straight forward vote. How will the DNC "try to stop him"? It's the other Party that suppresses the vote.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The NH primary is a straight forward vote. How will the DNC "try to stop him"? It's the other Party that suppresses the vote.

And, unless I'm mistaken, that's Sanders' own backyard. if he loses there, he'll have no one to blame but himself.

[Kirby101]

And, unless I'm mistaken, that's Sanders' own backyard. if he loses there, he'll have no one to blame but himself.

NH should be between him and Warren from Mass.

[Tami]

CPAC Chair: Mitt Romney’s ‘Physical Safety’ Would Be At Risk At Conference

The chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference warned in an interview Sunday that he would be “afraid” for the “physical safety” of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) if he attempts to attend this month’s annual convention in Maryland.

The ominous warning follows Chairman Matt Schlapp’s Twitter attack on the senator last month after Romney went against the party line to call for witnesses in Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial. Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president, subsequently voted last week to convict Trump of abuse of power, the sole member of the GOP to do so. The senator cited his oath to God and the dictates of his religion to do “my duty.”

Schlapp’s tweet notified Romney that he was “not invited” to CPAC — though it was unclear if the senator ever planned to attend. The tweet included an unflattering, almost frightening, image of Romney.

[Tami]

An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter

Bitecofer, a 42-year-old professor at Christopher Newport University in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, was little known in the extremely online, extremely male-dominated world of political forecasting until November 2018. That’s when she nailed almost to the number the nature and size of the Democrats’ win in the House, even as other forecasters went wobbly in the race’s final days. Not only that, but she put out her forecast back in July, and then stuck by it while polling shifted throughout the summer and fall.

And today her model tells her the Democrats are a near lock for the presidency in 2020, and are likely to gain House seats and have a decent shot at retaking the Senate. If she’s right, we are now in a post-economy, post-incumbency, post record-while-in-office era of politics. Her analysis, as Bitecofer puts it with characteristic immodesty, amounts to nothing less than “flipping giant paradigms of electoral theory upside down.”

Bitecofer’s theory, when you boil it down, is that modern American elections are rarely shaped by voters changing their minds, but rather by shifts in who decides to vote in the first place. To her critics, she’s an extreme apostle of the old saw that “turnout explains everything,” taking a long victory lap after getting lucky one time. She sees things slightly differently: That the last few elections show that American politics really has changed, and other experts have been slow to process what it means.

If she’s right, it wouldn’t just blow up the conventional wisdom; it would mean that much of the lucrative cottage industry of political experts—the consultants and pollsters and (ahem) the reporters—is superfluous, an army of bit players with little influence over the outcome. Actually, worse than superfluous: That whole industry of experts is generally wrong.

I majored in Political Science for 1 year before switching majors in college. This makes me wish I had stayed a Poly Sci major.