Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it’s a trap.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

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Archives for October 2018

No Jury Would Convict

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I mean, seriously:

Sergey Savitsky, an engineer [at Bellingshausen Station, a Russian research station in the South Shetland Islands in Antarctica], is accused of stabbing welder Oleg Beloguzov in the chest, the Sun* reports.

So far, so good — just one more incident in the human carnival, albeit in chillier conditions than most.  But wait! What could possibly have driven Savitsky to his savage act?

The alleged attack was said to be the result of an argument between the two over Beloguzov’s habit of spoiling the endings of books that he’d read from the remote outpost’s library.

Welp.

That changes the matter.

I mean — these guys are stuck together for year-long-stretches.  Serial spoiling is no mere prank, and not even simply provocation: it’s an assault on all that’s right and holy!

After all:  who among us hasn’t felt the urge, and been saved from the evil impulse only by the fact that we can leave the house and read something else…

No jury would convict.

Amirite?

Oh, and btw:

Some reports suggest that alcohol was involved.

Ya think?

PS:  the good news:

Beloguzov was evacuated to Chile for medical treatment, and his life is reportedly not in danger.

So anyway. I figured we needed a little respite today, and here it is.  Open thread.

*Yeah. I know.

Image: Johann Hamza, The Reader, before 1928

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Vocal Fried (Open Thread)

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Meghan the Lesser tries a gotcha question on Stacey Abrams, invoking the specter of a black woman coming for Georgians’ shootin’ arns. It doesn’t go so well for her:

The contrast between McCain’s tiresome MillennialCon shtick and Abrams’ warmth and humor could not be more stark. I loved Abrams’ line about hunting: “I don’t hunt because I mostly eat chicken, and that just seems mean.”

I’m 150 miles or so from Georgia, but I’ll throw a week-long party if Abrams wins. The latest poll has Abrams edging Cheato Kemp — who is outrageously still presiding over an election in which he’s running, like the Banana Republican he is — by a point. Go Stacey, go!

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A few dollars more

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When I read Dave Wasserman and Nate Cohn on twitter, there’s a constant message that there are districts no one is paying attention to that could be pick-ups for Democrats. A lot of these don’t have much money being spent on them. Readers have been asking me to raise some money in such races. So I’m doing one last fundraiser. I’m starting with five candidates suggested by reader KVP — they’re all from Florida, which I like cos it’s swinging Democrat this year and some candidates here are very low in terms of cash on hand. I’ll add anyone to this list that you want as long as that candidate hasn’t been on a previous fundraiser. I’m looking especially for low cash-on-hand candidates that could use the money. We’ve spent on 87 races so far, but the playing field is probably a lot larger than that, so this seems like a good idea to me.

Goal Thermometer

By the way, it’s not that these longshots will only come in if Dems run the table elsewhere. A longshot could come in that swings control of the House. This is an unpredictable environment.

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Disinformation Operation Incoming!!!!!!! Special Counsel Edition

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This is pretty clearly a coordinated disinformation operation intended to both shift the news cycle going into the last weekend before the election and to influence attitudes in advance of, as well as set the conditions to diminish and negate the next round of indictments that everyone expects the Special Counsel’s Office to bring shortly after the mid-term elections. You have your pick of who is involved, let alone bankrolling this insanity. Charles Johnson of LGF has been wondering what his sociopathic namesake and stalker, popularly known as the Rage Furby, has been up to recently as he’s been very quiet. This is the type of thing he’d be involved in. Especially if someone was paying him!

I also am in complete agreement with Rick Wilson, the GOP campaign strategist and campaign communication specialist who is one of the leading NeverTrumpers.

Updated at 1:40 PM (hat tip to Cheryl Rofer in the comments)

Natasha Bertrand is reporting that the Special Counsel’s Office has already reported this to the FBI for investigation.

An alleged scheme to pay off women to fabricate sexual assault allegations against Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been referred to the FBI for further investigation, according to a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, Peter Carr. “When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the Special Counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation,” Carr said in a statement on Tuesday.

The special counsel’s attention to this scheme—which was brought to the office by a woman claiming she herself had been offered money to make up sexual harassment claims against Mueller—and its decision to release a rare statement about it to reporters indicates the seriousness with which the office is taking the purported scheme to discredit Mueller in the middle of an ongoing investigation.

The special counsel’s office confirmed that the scheme was brought to its attention by several journalists who were told about it by a woman alleging  that she herself had been offered roughly $20,000 by a GOP activist named Jack Burkman “to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller.” The woman told journalists that she had worked for Mueller as a paralegal at the Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro law firm in 1974. The firm has not returned a request for comment about whether the woman actually worked there.

He “offered to pay off all of my credit card debt, plus bring me a check for $20,000 if I would do one thing,” the woman wrote to the journalists in an email, a copy of which I obtained. “In more of an effort to get him to go away than anything else, I asked him what in the hell he wanted me to do. He said that we could not talk about it on the phone, and he asked me to download an app on my phone called Signal, which he said was more secure. Reluctantly, I downloaded the app and he called me on that app a few minutes later. He said (and I will never forget exactly what it was) ‘I want you to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller, and I want you to sign a sworn affidavit to that effect.’”

The woman was not willing to speak to the reporters by phone, so portions of her story have gone uncorroborated.  Around the time that the journalists began receiving the email, Burkman released a video on his Facebook page claiming, without evidence, that Mueller “has a whole lifetime history of harassing women.”  On Tuesday, the day the special counsel revealed that it had referred the woman’s claims to the FBI,  Burkman tweeted a similar allegation.In a statement, Burkman denied knowing the woman who originally alerted journalists to the alleged scheme. But he told me in an email that “on Thursday 1200 NOON ROSSYLN HOLIDAY INN  we will present a very credible witness who will allege that Mr. Mueller committed against her a sexual assault.” Mueller’s spokesman reiterated that the claims are false. Burkman, a conservative radio host, is known for spreading conspiracy theories. He launched his own private investigation into the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, and earlier this year offered $25,000 to FBI whistleblowers for any information exposing wrongdoing during the 2016 election.

Updated at 1:55 PM EDT (hat tip to Cheryl Rofer in the comments)

Updated at 3:55 PM EDT (hat tip to germy in the comments)

Forewarned is forearmed!

Open thread!

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Here’s some numbers, text them maybe

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Maze Dancer emailed to say that PostCardPatriots has moved onto texting voters, since it’s too late to send more postcards. Here’s what else she said:

Pat yourselves on the back, Balloon-Juice. If your wrist isn’t too sore.

We sent out 12,000 PostCards over 27 days.

Have to say, I have been in Advertising for decades. Have helped launch businesses and new products global, national, and local.

Never seen anything like those skyrocket-in-flight results. (Little DougJ homage using a lyrical reference.)

Democrats are sizzling hot, determined, will not be stopped.

If for some unknown reason – cheating, lying, voter interference to name three – we do not prevail, it won’t be from not trying.

And now – texting!

What’s better for people who like to write PostCards than texting to voters? (Well, possibly, phone banking because only 1 in 20 people ever answer their phone.)

PostCardPatriots.com has been retooled with links to text for Beto, Claire, Florida Dems, and across the nation. We’re declaring every Dem a BJ Candidate now.

We also have some phone banking links.

You do not have to use your own phone number. And it’s all really easy.

And after the election, we have some ideas about how to keep the Power of PostCards going.

But for now, well done, Balloon-Juicers, well done!

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GOP Closing Argument: Vote For White Power

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Axios, continuing its chipping away at our republic, has an exclusive from President Trump. He wants to end birthright citizenship and believes he can do it with an executive order. Of course, some of the lawyers I follow on Twitter are saying, birthright citizenship is a part of the Fourteenth Amendment and cannot be nullified by an executive order. But Trump could issue such an order (written by Steven Miller, of course) and set up a confrontation that would go to the now-packed Supreme Court. Anyone want to bet how Brett Kavanaugh would vote find?

Troops to the border to stop a caravan of brown people who are 1000 miles away, and now this. It’s quite clear who Trump thinks make up the Republican base. So if you haven’t voted already, vote straight Democratic. The Republicans are a danger to the country.

Plus more, but Davidson is clearly so angry that he gets a little incoherent.

Daniel Drezner is a bit more sanguine:

There’s a fair bit of media criticism too.

This all has shoved Trump’s plan to return us to the nuclear fears of the 1980s and his followers’ attempts at murder to the back burner, at least for the few hours until he comes up with something else. But some good news.

It’s possible that the open racism will push people toward the Democrats. Get your friends to the polls!

And open thread.

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The Give a Damn Factor and Enrollment

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Paul Shafer, Erika Franklin-Fowler, Laura Baum and Sarah Gollust *, **have a new paper out that evaluates the change in information seeking-behavior when Kentucky went from a state government and governor that strongly supported the ACA to a governor and state government that strongly opposed the ACA. Governar Beshear wanted to make the ACA work and local advertising was part of that. Governor Bevins did not want the ACA to work, and as soon as he took power, he directed that all advertising for kynect was to be cut-off.

Colloquially, it measures the Give a Damn factor of elite support for expanded health insurance coverage. How much does supportive local messaging change enrollment?

The marginal effects of kynect advertising during open enrollment are positive and significant for page views, visits, and unique visitors. Specifically, each additional kynect ad airing per week during open enrollment was associated with approximately 8000 additional page views (7972.9, P=.001), 400 additional visits (390.2, P=.003), and 400 additional unique visitors (387.5, P<.001) to the kynect website. There is no evidence of a dose-response effect for advertising by healthcare.gov, insurance companies, and insurance agencies for these outcomes (all marginal effects are not statistically significant for these sponsor types). In contrast, advertising by nonprofits seemed to drive traffic away from kynect resources (calls: −197.6, P=.02; page views: −30,061.5, P=.03). Advertising by other state governments was associated with increased calls (215.9, P<.001) to kynect but no change in Web traffic.

Kynect was trusted. The ACA was not well supported and Obamacare was hated. Advertising drove people to Kynect where quite a few were found to be Medicaid eligible. Healthcare.gov advertising that leaked over the border from all of the surrounding states was indifferent in effect.

Elite political support mattered.  The manifestation of that support in advertising a trusted, local brand drove action towards enrollment.  Elite political opposition mattered.  The cut-off of advertising decreased enrollment action.  This is a good way to look at isolating the incremental impact of elite leadership giving or not giving a damn.

We’ve looked at that before in a cruder manner.  Over at the Health Affairs Blog, Andrew Sprung and I looked at enrollment on-Exchange between California and Healthcare.gov states during the 2018 Open Enrollment period.  We assumed California was operating at the frontier of elite giving a damn about covering people while Healthcare.gov in 2018 was far from that frontier.  Using our crude analysis, we believe that giving a damn led to a 6% change in enrollment.

Shafer, Fowler-Franklin, Baum and Gollust show in a different context that giving a damn as manifested by advertising or not advertising also led to changes in behavior.

Remember this next Tuesday.

 

 

 

 

* Shafer PR, Fowler EF, Baum L, Gollust SE. Television Advertising and Health Insurance Marketplace Consumer Engagement in Kentucky: A Natural Experiment (Preprint) 2018. doi:10.2196/preprints.10872.

** I am collaborating with Paul on a forthcoming paper that uses the Obama/Trump transition to look at the same type of question on a national scale without incorporating the advertising data.  I am collaborating with this entire crew (and others) on advertising behavior papers (abstract submitted for NHPC-2019)

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