The Frankish Reich

It's ok to just admit that you were confused. The article you commented on is about prediction markets, not electoral projection models. I am thinking of changing my screen name to JD Hill Fans Are Not Mentally Fit.

You are mixing up apples and oranges. He is an advisor to Polymarket, which is a betting market. He is also a political prognosticator, in which role he has developed/refined a projection model based on independent polls. By the way, Nate's podcast with Maria Konnikova, Risky Business, is worth a (free) subscription. I confess to having a thing for Maria ...

Yes! Listen to me. See my first comment in this thread. We can argue about whether "takeover" is the correct word, but it is clear that we have newly imported Venezuelan gang crime here in the Denver area.

So Tenet has shut down. Evidently the fact that it was Russian funded is uncontested. The Tenet useful idiot commenters are not even claiming otherwise. The are simply protesting that they were, in fact, idiots for not figuring it out.

Is the point here that Putin is an unreformed communist? Because that's what I've been saying. So the opponents of Putin are anti-communists.

Why I don't put much credence in prediction markets: - most are not legal in the USA. (I don't agree with that, but that's the fact). This distorts the "sample" of participants. - even in a robust/legal prediction market, people would use these "bets" for different purposes. Back in the pre-app based sports betting days, I'd always buy a $50 or $100 "Bills Win the Super Bowl" long wager whenever I went to Nevada. This was largely a fan-based wager. The Bills weren't going to win the Super Bowl in 2014. But I still did it. Other savvy investors would use prediction markets as a hedge. For example: Let's say I think Trump is likely to win. I buy stock in the private companies that would likely benefit from his policies. Crypto currency markets; immigrant detention private providers (there's basically two of them); companies ready to invest heavily in fracking. You name it. But I think there's a good chance Harris will win. So I hedge by buying Harris "stock" on PredictIt or Polymarket. Over many millions of bets and billions of dollars, we'd expect an efficient market to emerge, and then have a true "wisdom of the crowd" effect. These markets are not there yet, and may never be. It's not really a "model" at all. It is the result of every bet placed on the major prediction markets. In general, we saw the prediction markets simply echoing the received MSM vision of a "red wave" in 2022 - a wave that never materialized. So the upshot isn't that prediction markets are useless; it's that at this time they are so strongly correlated with the prevailing wisdom (polls/pundits/etc) that they really don't provide independent information.

True. I disagree with the premise of this thread - "polls are useless." But I also disagree with the idea that polls like the ones we have today have significant predictive value. We are seeing what we've seen for quite some time - a popular vote favoring the Democratic candidate by a small margin, with the pro-Republican weighted electoral college favoring the Republican candidate by a small margin. In other words, what's happened in pretty much every election over the previous 7 cycles. https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/11/14/the-un-wisdom-of-crowds-prediction-markets-failed-their-midterm-exams/

Or breaking up a plot for a mass killing of Jews. Yes, using informants.

It is weird. I simply don't understand arguing with polls or models when you don't like what they're telling you. This thread started out with one of our more liberal commenters saying polls are useless. Then Kamala was substituted in, the polls reflected a gain for Democrats, and conservative commenters said they were garbage. Now they've settled in and analysts like Nate Silver say Trump has a small but significant electoral college edge and liberal commenters are angry with the polls/analysis again. Having said that, Polymarket and other prediction markets are in their infancy and are still very flawed. They are not "polls" and we really don't have a good data to suggest that they truly get at some kind of wisdom of the crowd effect when it comes to elections.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9194613/

How you managed to find an "essence" in that rambling drunken spiel is beyond me.

OMG, not Shabbos Kestenbaum! Not "Dr Nancy" (no last name or credential even mentioned in the story). Who the hell are these people? Who cares? This is not Dick Cheney, former Republican VP. Or even Tulsi Gabbard. These are ... nobodies.

It is a significant thing. When has a former Pres or VP endorsed a candidate from the opposite party? I'm guessing "never." We know Cheney would hate a lot of what Kamala has stood for. He's been a rock solid Republican since the Nixon Administration. That's how unfit he believes Trump is to serve as President.

Allow me rephrase: do I believe that politicians are sincere? That one's easy.

Kamala got her "convention" bump when Biden withdrew and she immediately cleared the field and became prospective nominee. Although Americans knew who she is, she was kind of an unknown quantity as a Presidential nominee. She was the sought-after "generic Democrat" who always beats Trump in the polls. So they started chipping away at that, going negative bigly against her. And yes, that has an effect. She is now a real and (and like everyone) flawed candidate. Obviously less flawed than Biden, but flawed. People on this board and those who consume right or left wing social media and TV are not like most Americans. We are the weird ones. Most people barely pay attention. That's why they're fickle.

Yeah, we don't want people getting a safe and effective vaccine.

Funny how both of them knew Jeffrey Epstein really well.

I guess you're saying that the arsonist is gay himself. OK, let's go with that. Think about it: - Arsonist A hates Jews, thinks they shouldn't be alive, sets synagogue on fire. Rabbi and congregation staff killed. Domestic terrorism? Sure. - Arsonist B is a Jew, has a grudge against Rabbi who won't grant him a customary divorce, sets synagogue on fire, Rabbi and staffers killed. Domestic terrorism? No. But both are guilty of arson and murder. The law does take motive into account.

I fear you're correct. It also fits the current mood. Why defend Ukraine against fascist-communist (Putin, who fits both descriptions to various degrees) aggression? In fact, in retrospect wouldn't we have been better off making our peace with Hitler? The United States didn't have a dog in that fight. It was an internal European matter.

Yes! Except it's not "just" to get anything. It's to get elected President of the United States of America! To get elected the District Attorney of San Francisco, or the Attorney General of California, or the (then) Junior Senator from California, you have to appeal to an electorates that aren't that similar to those of the median American voter. Or more to the point, to the median voter of one of the few swing states that will determine who is the next President. Not to criticize Trump here, but just to draw a comparison: in 2016, he was a blank slate. He'd said a lot of things over the years, but he never held elected office. He could be stridently anti-abortion when he needed to win the Republican Primaries in places like Iowa. He could continue to do that in 2020 because everyone knew that whatever he said would run into a judicial veto in the form of Roe v. Wade. Then guess what? His strategy worked! Roe was overturned. And guess what after that? He's now trying to stake out a middle position on abortion. Same with Tim Walz. Represented a purple district in Congress and was kind of the last of the conservative(ish) Democrats. Became Governor of a liberal state and started fitting his positions into the profile of the median Minnesota governor. Now he's running for nationwide office and I'd expect him to sound a lot more like the Congress guy. This is not an awful thing. We like our Presidents to have some core beliefs, and usually they do. You're not gonna find Kamala advocating for a mass deportations scheme, and you're not gonna find Trump advocating for an increase in tax rates. So those things stay constant. Bill Clinton was a very successful President because he "triangulated" as they said, a silly euphemism for "compromising and moving closer to the center." I am quite frankly bored with the "you're a flip flopper!" arguments. I don't want a President who is unresponsive to where the median voter is. It's a feature of our nationwide elections, not a bug.

Oops, I missed this. Seems like B-Man agrees that Hitler was just misunderstood.

Funny how even our biggest Tucker shills here aren't pumping up this one. Could it be that they have some tiny shred of conscience left? (Wait for them to prove me wrong and talk about how the Hitler apologist made some good points that have been buried by commies like Churchill)

I have no choice but to quote myself here, because I just became aware that Tucker Carlson's latest guest - a pop "historian" - thinks Churchill was actually a greater villain than Hitler. I stand corrected. #Can'tMakeThisShitUp

Are you mentally fit, JDHIllFan? You seem a little discombobulated. Here it seems that Chris Cilizza was somehow able to divine what Kamala's positions today are. That's how he's able to list how she's, you know, changed her positions. Including on that pivotal plastic straw issue. Yet you seem mystified.

Well, look at that. Trump held a "press conference" in which he drunkenly (I know he doesn't drink, so what explains it?) rambled on about being persecuted. And then took no questions. Kamala can't do that! Thank God.