US Politics: OBAMAGATE - An American Story

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Lol, now it's the head of the CDC, Dr. Redfield, who looks like he's headed for the firing squad. And apparently his long-time colleague, Dr. Birx, may be one of the movers behind the hit team. I've had a feeling for a long time that she has drunk the kool-aid.

I think Trump would like to fire Dr. Fauci as well, but he has protections as a civil servant that would make it complicated, like the grounds for firing being restricted and the rights of appeal.

Are you saying Birx has drunk the Trump Kool-Aid? Because everything I've read about Redfield indicates he's a political animal, a non-scientific crank with a religious agenda, and a post turtle and should never have been in that role. So if Birx is acting against him, I think that's good.

[IheartIheartTesla]

About a third of my city evacuated due to dam bursts (10000 people), which is probably not pleasant to many people in the midst of a COVID pandemic, but I did note that the President noted that our secretary of state sent out 7.7 million absentee ballots (although she just sent out applications rather than actual ballots).

Anyway, I dont know why he is working so hard to alienate Michigan voters. His tweet probably infuriated a bunch of people, not all Democrats.

[Maithanet]

Pretty good Quinnipiac poll came out today.

Quote

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump 50 - 39 percent in a head-to-head matchup in the election for president, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released today. That's up from the 49 - 41 percent lead Biden held in an April 8th national poll...

42 percent of voters approve of the job President Trump is doing, while 53 percent disapprove. That's compared to a 45 - 51 percent job approval rating he received in April, his highest ever.

11 point lead for Biden is a bit of an outlier (most other pollsters show a 3-7 point lead), but I'll take it.  Quinnipiac is a pretty good pollster as well (B+ according to 538). 

[sologdin]

The term "morbidly obese" is not automatically an insulting one. It was relevant and correct in this context. "Overweight" is a separate and distinct category, and using it to soften her words would have been inaccurate.

the only thing is that the BMI reported from his 2019 physical exam does not fit the morbid subcategory of obesity, so she may have the wrong nomenclature there.

[DMC]

18 minutes ago, Starkess said:

The term "morbidly obese" is not automatically an insulting one. It was relevant and correct in this context. "Overweight" is a separate and distinct category, and using it to soften her words would have been inaccurate.

I'm definitely sympathetic to those those saying Trump should be called much worse, and I don't personally give a shit either way.  However, even if it is technically accurate - and as solo said I believe Trump is technically obese, not morbidly obese (at least according to what's been made publicly available) - medical terminology can still serve to stigmatize groups.  That's why I'm also sympathetic to the argument it's not appropriate for a political leader to use that term when you can get the same point across using language that would be less offensive to others.

[Jace, Extat]

7 minutes ago, sologdin said:

The term "morbidly obese" is not automatically an insulting one. It was relevant and correct in this context. "Overweight" is a separate and distinct category, and using it to soften her words would have been inaccurate.

the only thing is that the BMI reported from his 2019 physical exam does not fit the morbid subcategory of obesity, so she may have the wrong nomenclature there.

I don't give half a tuna wrap about what documents that crook and his lackeys produce. He's fat, he's cruel, and he deserves cheap shots about the way he looks. Personally I'd focus more on the fact that he speaks like an infant born with a baseball bat in its skull, but as long as haters are hating I'm good.

[Paladin of Ice]

6 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

About a third of my city evacuated due to dam bursts (10000 people), which is probably not pleasant to many people in the midst of a COVID pandemic, but I did note that the President noted that our secretary of state sent out 7.7 million absentee ballots (although she just sent out applications rather than actual ballots).

Anyway, I dont know why he is working so hard to alienate Michigan voters. His tweet probably infuriated a bunch of people, not all Democrats.

I saw that news earlier today, sounds like the last thing anyone needs to deal with right now. I hope it’s not screwing with your life too badly.

Trump’s comments are about as big a red flag as I can imagine. Trump threatens to hold up federal funding for Michigan, Nevada, if they move ahead with plans to allow everyone to vote by mail.

Quote

President Trump on Wednesday threatened to “hold up” federal funds to Michigan and Nevada in response to the states’ planned use of absentee and mail-in ballots in upcoming elections as a means to mitigate risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

In morning tweets, Trump did not specify which funds he might withhold, and he has not always followed through with similar threats. But his message comes as many states grapple with how to safely proceed with elections.

Amid the pandemic, Trump has repeatedly railed against mail-in voting, claiming with scant evidence that it is subject to widespread fraud and has hurt Republicans in previous elections.
 

...

“Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” Trump wrote in his tweet, incorrectly describing the move to send applications for ballots. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!”

Trump tagged the Treasury Department among others in his tweet.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) responded to Trump with a tweet of her own, noting she has a name.

“It’s Jocelyn Benson,” she wrote. “And we sent applications, not ballots. Just like my GOP colleagues in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia.”

It’s a blatant attempt to threaten and intimidate purple states that he needs to win. Gee, why does it sound so familiar? *coughUkrainecough*

4 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Pretty good Quinnipiac poll came out today.

11 point lead for Biden is a bit of an outlier (most other pollsters show a 3-7 point lead), but I'll take it.  Quinnipiac is a pretty good pollster as well (B+ according to 538). 

They must have slipped. Pretty sure Quinnipiac had an A or A- rating until recently.

[Fragile Bird]

24 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Are you saying Birx has drunk the Trump Kool-Aid? Because everything I've read about Redfield indicates he's a political animal, a non-scientific crank with a religious agenda, and a post turtle and should never have been in that role. So if Birx is acting against him, I think that's good.

I have not been impressed with Redfield at all whatsoever, but it amuses me that yet another Trump appointee ("only the best people!") looks like he'll be getting the boot. He often looks like a critter in the headlights about to become roadkill.

Birx, on the other hand, strikes me as wholly supportive of Trump, which I have been taken aback by. I'm surprised that Trump doesn't call her Colonel Brix, her rank in the army. I assume that's where she knew Redfield from, since they both worked on AIDS for the military. Maybe that's why she's so deferential to Trump, he's the boss.

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, Fragile Bird said:

I have not been impressed with Redfield at all whatsoever, but it amuses me that yet another Trump appointee ("only the best people!") looks like he'll be getting the boot. He often looks like a critter in the headlights about to become roadkill.

Birx, on the other hand, strikes me as wholly supportive of Trump, which I have been taken aback by. I'm surprised that Trump doesn't call her Colonel Brix, her rank in the army. I assume that's where she knew Redfield from, since they both worked on AIDS for the military. Maybe that's why she's so deferential to Trump, he's the boss.

She's definitely been trying to appease her tyrannical moron boss. I'd normally extend people in her situation the benefit of the doubt but I think we have enough evidence over 3+ years that trying to appease Trump to save your career just leads to more fuckups and still tanks your career.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

42 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Pretty good Quinnipiac poll came out today.

11 point lead for Biden is a bit of an outlier (most other pollsters show a 3-7 point lead), but I'll take it.  Quinnipiac is a pretty good pollster as well (B+ according to 538). 

I'm curious, has polling changed this cycle in a way that addressed issues from 2016 (where Clinton looked like a sure win)? I think I've heard people mention something about this, but I can't remember. It'd be great if these polls were accurate, but I still worry about 2016.

[DMC]

25 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

They must have slipped. Pretty sure Quinnipiac had an A or A- rating until recently.

Yeah it was A- til they posted an update yesterday.

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

I'm curious, has polling changed this cycle in a way that addressed issues from 2016 (where Clinton looked like a sure win)? I think I've heard people mention something about this, but I can't remember. It'd be great if these polls were accurate, but I still worry about 2016.

Clinton was not a sure win according to most of the actual polls. Going into the election, there was a ~30% chance that Trump would win. People treated the idea that she was 70% likely to win as being the same thing as winning 70% of the vote, when everyone's really just fighting to get a plurality.

You can see Quinnipac's state polling from May 10, 2016 to see they saw a close race in a number of states, and according to Ballotopedia's archives in late May their poll said 45-41 in Clinton's favor, +/- 2.5%

Worth remembering, too, that she did win the popular vote. The arcane part of American elections has to do with the electoral math and how polling data needs to be analyzed in light of that.

[Maithanet]

6 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

I'm curious, has polling changed this cycle in a way that addressed issues from 2016 (where Clinton looked like a sure win)? I think I've heard people mention something about this, but I can't remember. It'd be great if these polls were accurate, but I still worry about 2016.

Sort of.  National level polling wasn't really that bad in 2016.  The final average of national polls was Clinton +3.5 or so.  She won by 2.1%.  Being off by a point and a half is pretty standard, and not a bad result for pollsters at all.  There were definitely some state level misses that were a lot worse, particularly in Michigan and Wisconsin.  But to some extent pollsters were taking the Clinton campaign at their word that Democrats did not have a turnout problem in those states, and would win comfortably, just as they did in 2012.  It wasn't that Trump "surged" in these states, it that Democrats didn't show up.  So yes, it was definitely a miss, but basing 2016 on the priors of 2012 is pretty much what pollsters are expected to do. 

Will they repeat that error in 2020?  It's possible, but there's no reason to expect it.  Pollsters adjust their priors with the new information, and the benchmark case will be 2016, not 2012.  Pollsters are just as likely to overadjust in favor of Trump to avoid a similar "miss" as last time. 

[DMC]

This has been covered on these threads numerous times, but the polling error in 2016 was pretty much your average polling error.

[Kalbear]

The problem was not the polls; it was the metapolling analysis which tended to be very, very statistically stupid. Taking several polls which all say something similar and saying 'see, this means that it's REALLY UNLIKELY they're all wrong' and throwing out all error variation when combining them was something most stats profs would have been ashamed about. 

And it made a pundit eat a bug, so we got something nice.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

The problem was not the polls; it was the metapolling analysis which tended to be very, very statistically stupid. Taking several polls which all say something similar and saying 'see, this means that it's REALLY UNLIKELY they're all wrong' and throwing out all error variation when combining them was something most stats profs would have been ashamed about.

Yeah, we saw a repeat of that in 2018 where Gillum was up by like 1-3 points in virtually every poll for FL governor.  Five polls showing a 2 point lead is better than just one poll, but multiple polls only reduce the margin of error a little bit. 

[Kalbear]

It also depends a lot on what is wrong.

If the sample is simply skewed because of specific respondents for some reason - like you found the one black woman in Georgia who is desperate to vote for Trump - then multiple polls will help.

If most of the polls are calibrated on the same kind of projected turnout by demographic, then all the polls will likely be wrong in virtually the same way. That's largely what happened with 2016, where voting patterns changed somewhat across the board while things were calibrated for Obama-level participation on the Dem side. Polling requires two things to be reasonably accurate - good broad sampling, and good modeling of what turnout looks like. Neither are perfect.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

Are you saying Birx has drunk the Trump Kool-Aid? Because everything I've read about Redfield indicates he's a political animal, a non-scientific crank with a religious agenda, and a post turtle and should never have been in that role. So if Birx is acting against him, I think that's good.

Birx has been pressuring the CDC to undercount COVID-19 deaths so regardless of whether she's working against Redfield, she's definitely not working for us.

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

throwing out all error variation when combining them was something most stats profs would have been ashamed about. 

Princeton's model cutting off the distribution tails was particularly egregious.  I still give try to give shit to my advisor who went there as much as possible.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Joe Biden is the Matt Cassel to Obama's Tom Brady.

This is just mean.