Futures, Yields Tumble With Trump Set To Win Florida Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/03/2020 – 19:58
Recall all our previews said that Florida is a key state for Trump: without it, it was pretty much game over for the president. Well, it appears that despite galatic-szied brains such as Nate Silver giving Trump just 31% odds of winning Florida…
… Trump appears set to win Florida according to both PredictIt…
… and the NYT, which gives Trump >95% odds of winning.
As a result of Trump now appearing set to win Florida, futures wiped out all their overnight gains…
… and yields slumped fading all earlier upside.
… with the offshore Yuan suddenly tumbling.
In 2016, Florida was the harbinger of the greatest electoral upset ever. Is it about to do so again in 2020?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HVBkbD Tyler Durden
From Li v. Zeng, decided today by the Massachusetts Appeals Court:
As [Li’s] complaint acknowledges, she participated in the chat group through a pseudonym. Li does not allege that anyone in the chat group other than Zeng knew that zeber, the target of Zeng’s comments, was Li…. Because Li has not pleaded facts plausibly suggesting that Zeng made a statement “of and concerning her,” her complaint fails to include a necessary element of a defamation action…. [Li failed] to plead a plausible case that her own reputation in the community was diminished by Zeng’s statements about zeber….
[T]here may be situations where someone known by a pseudonym can bring a defamation action on behalf of the pseudonym. See Alexander vs. Falk (D. Nev. Aug. 30, 2017) (allowing defamation action by romance author and model to proceed through use of plaintiffs’ professional pseudonyms). In such a case, the plaintiff would be seeking damages for harm done to the pseudonym’s independent reputation in the community.
This, however, is not one of those situations. Nothing in Li’s complaint suggests that zeber had a legally cognizable independent reputation or that Li sued to protect such a reputation. Instead, Li brought her case in her own right based on the alleged harm caused to her own reputation.
Ant’s IPO Suspension Shows It’s Too Big To Fail Now Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/03/2020 – 19:45
By Ye Xie, Bloomberg macro commentator and analyst
The first shock on Election Day didn’t come from the U.S. Rather, it was the news that China suspended Ant Group’s $35 billion initial public offering.
It’s a PR nightmare for Beijing to call Ant’s IPO off on the eve of what would be the world’s largest public listing – especially after Ant spurned New York to list in Shanghai and Hong Kong. It came just days after co-founder Jack Ma criticized regulators for being out of touch and mocked banks as pawnshops. The financial impact was big enough to cause the Hong Kong dollar to fall Tuesday.
The direct trigger may be the recent moves by policy makers to tighten control over online lenders. On Monday, the banking regulator released draft rules that would force lenders to fund at least 30% of the loans they offer together with banks, compared with Ant’s 2% currently.
The timing may be unfortunate, but the message is clear: Safeguarding the financial system has become China’s policy priority again, now that Beijing has managed to put the economy back on its feet even as tensions with the U.S. stay elevated.
At its core, it’s a debate about whether fin-tech companies should be considered financial or tech companies. Regulators think Ant’s business model – using lending and leverage to make money – isn’t so different from traditional banks. Therefore, the company should be subject to similar supervision on leverage and capital requirements.
In other words, Ant needs to be closely watched because it is too big to fail. The numbers speak for itself. Ant’s platforms doled out 1.7 trillion yuan ($255 billion) of loans to about 500 million people in the year through June. It runs the world’s biggest digital payment system, and its Tianhong Yu’e Bao Money Market Fund is one of the world’s largest of its kind with about $173 billion in assets.
What’s next? It is likely that Ant gets the greenlight for listing soon after it achieves regulatory and disclosure compliance. Unwinding an IPO of that size, with subscriptions from the world’s sovereign wealth funds and Chinese pension funds, would be a disaster, as Krane Funds’ CIO Brendan Ahern put it. But it’s unlikely that Ant can get the same valuation now because its expansion has been called into question.
Jack Ma’s nickname is Papa Ma for his vast wealth and influence. On Tuesday, however, it became clear who the real Big Daddy is.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32aTopD Tyler Durden
From Li v. Zeng, decided today by the Massachusetts Appeals Court:
As [Li’s] complaint acknowledges, she participated in the chat group through a pseudonym. Li does not allege that anyone in the chat group other than Zeng knew that zeber, the target of Zeng’s comments, was Li…. Because Li has not pleaded facts plausibly suggesting that Zeng made a statement “of and concerning her,” her complaint fails to include a necessary element of a defamation action…. [Li failed] to plead a plausible case that her own reputation in the community was diminished by Zeng’s statements about zeber….
[T]here may be situations where someone known by a pseudonym can bring a defamation action on behalf of the pseudonym. See Alexander vs. Falk (D. Nev. Aug. 30, 2017) (allowing defamation action by romance author and model to proceed through use of plaintiffs’ professional pseudonyms). In such a case, the plaintiff would be seeking damages for harm done to the pseudonym’s independent reputation in the community.
This, however, is not one of those situations. Nothing in Li’s complaint suggests that zeber had a legally cognizable independent reputation or that Li sued to protect such a reputation. Instead, Li brought her case in her own right based on the alleged harm caused to her own reputation.
Iran Mocks Washington “Pirates Of The Caribbean” For Selling Seized Fuel For $40 Million Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/03/2020 – 19:25
Not for the first time Iran has slammed the United States as “the pirates of the Caribbean” after the Department of Justice announcement late last week boasting that 1.1 million barrels in petroleum recently seized from four Iranian tankers bound for Venezuela were sold for $40 million.
The DOJ had alleged that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operatives were behind the clandestine shipments of fuel and weapons meant to circumvent sanctions. “We estimate that in excess of $40 million will be recouped by the United States related to the sale of petroleum from those four vessels,” acting US attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin the told reporters last week.
In response Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh tweeted: “The Pirates of the Caribbean openly boasting about their booty…” And he added: “No one civilized brags [about] stealing.”
Khatibzadeh attached the below headline images to the message while also claiming the fuel actually didn’t belong to Iran at the moment it was stolen.
“Only, as we said before: it wasn’t ours. But [somebody] else’s oil has certainly been stolen,” Khatibzadeh said further.
According to the AFP, the DOJ indicated much of the proceeds from the sale would go to a US fund for victims of “state-sponsored terrorism”. The report detailed:
US courts have ordered Iran’s clerical regime to pay damages over attacks, most recently in July when a judge told Tehran to pay $879.1 million over a 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 US airmen.
Iran denies responsibility and states it has no intention of paying, saying the United States should instead compensate for past episodes including its support of Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War.
Meanwhile there’s no doubt that leaders in Tehran will be watching the US presidential election with bated breath hoping for a Joe Biden victory.
A prior Iranian fuel tanker that had made it to Venezuela.
Biden has vowed to restore US participation in the 2015 nuclear deal brokered under the Obama-Biden administration, so long as Iran comes back into adhering to uranium enrichment caps and other conditions its recently broken in protest.
On the other hand the continuation of Trump and Pompeo’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign could mean war would eventually be on the horizon, and a smashed Iranian economy for years given the unprecedented sanctions regimen.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3emKA4C Tyler Durden
Under federal election law so-called “express advocacy” messages expressly advocate for candidate X. For example, if a famous celebrity publishes an advertisement that says “Please vote for John Doe,” he would have engaged in express advocacy. Any funding used to promote that message would be strictly regulated.
Now, let me modify the hypothetical. That same celebrity is a known supporter of John Doe. The celebrity has given the maximum contribution to John Doe, to John Doe’s political party, and to various advocacy groups that support John Doe. The celebrity has appeared at public rallies in support of John Doe and has hosted fundraisers for John Doe. More importantly, the celebrity has repeatedly criticized John Doe’s opponent. The night before the election, this celebrity sends a two word message to his millions of followers on social media: “Please vote.” The celebrity doesn’t mention the name of a candidate, or even what race he was referring to. He only tweets, “Please vote.”
This message would be clear to anyone who knows about the celebrity: he is urging people to vote for John Doe, with a wink and a nod. The celebrity is certainly not urging people to vote for John Doe’s opponent, who he has publicly criticized. Under federal election law, this message would not be “express advocacy” or “issue advocacy.”
This hypothetical, of course, is not a hypothetical. Countless celebrities have been urging people to “please vote.” The NBA and other sports leagues urge people to “please vote.” The message is persistent. None of these entities want people to vote for Trump. They all want people to vote for Joe Biden. It is painfully clear.
I am not urging any reforms to campaign finance laws. Much to the contrary. This hypothetical illustrates how easily these rules can be evaded, with a message as innocuous as “please vote.”
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via IFTTT
As dawn broke on the final day of voting in election 2020, Libertarian Party (L.P.) presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen was polling nationally at around 1.8 percent, and above the margin between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in five states: Ohio, Texas, Georgia, Iowa, and (in scant polling) Alaska.
That’s a far cry from 2016 Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson’s last pre-election polling average of 4.8 percent, or even the former New Mexico governor’s disappointing-to-many final tally of 3.28 percent.
“Beating Gary’s last numbers would be success,” Jorgensen told Reason‘s Eric Boehm one month ago, while also complaining about not being included in nearly as many polls this cycle. “I’m hoping to beat his second run. But, you know, put it this way: I will consider it not a success if I don’t at least his beat his numbers from his first run.”
Johnson’s 2012 exertions won him 0.99 percent of the national vote, or just a hair under the L.P.’s then-record haul of 1.06 percent in 1980, in a ticket headed by Ed Clark and financed by deep-pocketed vice presidential nominee David Koch (yes, that one). So what Jorgensen is saying that anything below 1 percent would be a disappointment.
Certainly, many Libertarians would consider even a 1.1 percent showing—just one-third of 2016!—to be a bummer, while many two-party voters (including not a small number of self-described small-l libertarians) would use it as an opportunity for ridicule, or at least critique of how the party always seems to squander its opportunities. Democrats and Republicans aren’t even talking about reducing government and expanding freedom anymore, in a country where those issues have resonated historically, and all you got was this lousy one percent?
But as the clock ticks toward the first poll-closings at 7 p.m. eastern, I would suggest at least entertaining another interpretation. Maybe 1.1 percent in this third-party-unfriendly environment would be an accomplishment, cementing the L.P.’s transformation over the past decade from a mostly non-podium performer that couldn’t win over even half of a percent of the electorate from 1984–2008, to the third party in the United States. (Yes, yes, insert “tallest dwarf” joke here.)
Consider: As of late October (per the indispensable Richard Winger), in the 32 states that register voters by party, there were 47.1 million Democrats, 35 million Republicans, and 33.7 independents. Libertarians, while a distant third at 652,000, towered above Greens (240,000), the Constitution Party (130,000), the New York–based Working Families (50,000), and the desiccated husk of Ross Perot’s Reform Party (9,000).
Jorgensen, with a fraction of the name recognition of 2008 Libertarian nominee Bob Barr (then an ex-GOP congressman who made his name in the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton), is polling ahead of all third-party and independent presidential candidates in every state except New York (where, after just two polls, she trailed independent Brock Pierce and Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins). This on the heels of Gary Johnson beating all third-party comers in all 50 states.
Barr, on the other hand, finished with just 0.4 percent of the vote, behind the 0.56 percent of four-time independent candidate Ralph Nader, who Barr beat in just six states.
When Jorgensen, the party’s vice presidential nominee in 1996 (Harry Browne won just 0.5 percent of the vote that year, behind both Nader and Perot), finishes in third place tonight, that will mark the third consecutive presidential bronze medal for the L.P.—something no political party has pulled off since the Socialists between 1916–1932.
Put another way, of all voters who selected neither a Democrat nor a Republican for president, 57 percent of them chose a Libertarian in both 2012 and 2016, the party’s highest-ever such share, topping Ron Paul’s 48 percent in 1988. Polling suggests that Jorgensen is likely to repeat that performance, even with such luminaries as Kanye West on some ballots. The dominant alternative to the political status quo is called “Libertarian.”
And contrary to a common critique, it’s not just about presidential elections. The party has more than 200 elected officials, mostly in state and local positions, though since April their ranks have included for the first time a sitting (if lame-duck) member of Congress, Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.). Elected Libertarians do useful stuff, like pass occupational licensing reform, remove ancient prohibitions from the books, and reform public-sector pensions.
That sound you hear is aggressive eye rolling from Democratic and Republican voters, who are busy battling the most important election in the history of mankind, and have no patience left for political LARPers. And fair enough—marginal blocs will always be treated marginally, at least until we’re needed to help push through the types of libertarian reforms that major-party politicians talk about but rarely accomplish: ending the drug war, bringing the troops home, reducing the size of government, protecting free speech, even helping improve infrastructure.
But the more that libertarians retain their own discrete political identity, rather than latching on like barnacles to the rusty tankers of the two major parties, the more likely that their affections will be solicited, rather than taken for granted. President Donald Trump is out there stressing anti-war themes to 2016 Johnson voters, and that’s not a bad outcome at all (if inferior to actually ending our Forever Wars).
The past week has featured many semi-prominent libertarian media personalities ripping each other’s faces off (rhetorically) in advance of the election. It will ever be thus—have you met libertarians? There is a powerful lure to be part of something that could be, if you squint at it just right, characterized as winning. It would be pretty to think that this Republican or that Democrat is gonna really do the libertarian things just as soon as he/she wins the next election.
In the face of those temptations, and the motivating negative polarization of seeing awful politicians and ideologies in or near power, it’s a wonder there’s much of any third-party juice left four years after a bitterly divided election. If in this context, a relative no-name candidate produces the party’s second-best-ever result, while beating all other third partiers in all 50 states, I’d call that an accomplishment.
Who knows if and when our 19th century political groupings will transmogrify into something new, or even perhaps stumble off into the sunset. When that day nears, people will be looking anew toward the next available alternative. Right now, for better and for worse, warts—so many warts!—and all, that alternative is called “Libertarian.” And will be on Wednesday, too.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/34Z8HDH
via IFTTT
Under federal election law so-called “express advocacy” messages expressly advocate for candidate X. For example, if a famous celebrity publishes an advertisement that says “Please vote for John Doe,” he would have engaged in express advocacy. Any funding used to promote that message would be strictly regulated.
Now, let me modify the hypothetical. That same celebrity is a known supporter of John Doe. The celebrity has given the maximum contribution to John Doe, to John Doe’s political party, and to various advocacy groups that support John Doe. The celebrity has appeared at public rallies in support of John Doe and has hosted fundraisers for John Doe. More importantly, the celebrity has repeatedly criticized John Doe’s opponent. The night before the election, this celebrity sends a two word message to his millions of followers on social media: “Please vote.” The celebrity doesn’t mention the name of a candidate, or even what race he was referring to. He only tweets, “Please vote.”
This message would be clear to anyone who knows about the celebrity: he is urging people to vote for John Doe, with a wink and a nod. The celebrity is certainly not urging people to vote for John Doe’s opponent, who he has publicly criticized. Under federal election law, this message would not be “express advocacy” or “issue advocacy.”
This hypothetical, of course, is not a hypothetical. Countless celebrities have been urging people to “please vote.” The NBA and other sports leagues urge people to “please vote.” The message is persistent. None of these entities want people to vote for Trump. They all want people to vote for Joe Biden. It is painfully clear.
I am not urging any reforms to campaign finance laws. Much to the contrary. This hypothetical illustrates how easily these rules can be evaded, with a message as innocuous as “please vote.”
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2TPzvQn
via IFTTT
As dawn broke on the final day of voting in election 2020, Libertarian Party (L.P.) presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen was polling nationally at around 1.8 percent, and above the margin between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in five states: Ohio, Texas, Georgia, Iowa, and (in scant polling) Alaska.
That’s a far cry from 2016 Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson’s last pre-election polling average of 4.8 percent, or even the former New Mexico governor’s disappointing-to-many final tally of 3.28 percent.
“Beating Gary’s last numbers would be success,” Jorgensen told Reason‘s Eric Boehm one month ago, while also complaining about not being included in nearly as many polls this cycle. “I’m hoping to beat his second run. But, you know, put it this way: I will consider it not a success if I don’t at least his beat his numbers from his first run.”
Johnson’s 2012 exertions won him 0.99 percent of the national vote, or just a hair under the L.P.’s then-record haul of 1.06 percent in 1980, in a ticket headed by Ed Clark and financed by deep-pocketed vice presidential nominee David Koch (yes, that one). So what Jorgensen is saying that anything below 1 percent would be a disappointment.
Certainly, many Libertarians would consider even a 1.1 percent showing—just one-third of 2016!—to be a bummer, while many two-party voters (including not a small number of self-described small-l libertarians) would use it as an opportunity for ridicule, or at least critique of how the party always seems to squander its opportunities. Democrats and Republicans aren’t even talking about reducing government and expanding freedom anymore, in a country where those issues have resonated historically, and all you got was this lousy one percent?
But as the clock ticks toward the first poll-closings at 7 p.m. eastern, I would suggest at least entertaining another interpretation. Maybe 1.1 percent in this third-party-unfriendly environment would be an accomplishment, cementing the L.P.’s transformation over the past decade from a mostly non-podium performer that couldn’t win over even half of a percent of the electorate from 1984–2008, to the third party in the United States. (Yes, yes, insert “tallest dwarf” joke here.)
Consider: As of late October (per the indispensable Richard Winger), in the 32 states that register voters by party, there were 47.1 million Democrats, 35 million Republicans, and 33.7 independents. Libertarians, while a distant third at 652,000, towered above Greens (240,000), the Constitution Party (130,000), the New York–based Working Families (50,000), and the desiccated husk of Ross Perot’s Reform Party (9,000).
Jorgensen, with a fraction of the name recognition of 2008 Libertarian nominee Bob Barr (then an ex-GOP congressman who made his name in the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton), is polling ahead of all third-party and independent presidential candidates in every state except New York (where, after just two polls, she trailed independent Brock Pierce and Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins). This on the heels of Gary Johnson beating all third-party comers in all 50 states.
Barr, on the other hand, finished with just 0.4 percent of the vote, behind the 0.56 percent of four-time independent candidate Ralph Nader, who Barr beat in just six states.
When Jorgensen, the party’s vice presidential nominee in 1996 (Harry Browne won just 0.5 percent of the vote that year, behind both Nader and Perot), finishes in third place tonight, that will mark the third consecutive presidential bronze medal for the L.P.—something no political party has pulled off since the Socialists between 1916–1932.
Put another way, of all voters who selected neither a Democrat nor a Republican for president, 57 percent of them chose a Libertarian in both 2012 and 2016, the party’s highest-ever such share, topping Ron Paul’s 48 percent in 1988. Polling suggests that Jorgensen is likely to repeat that performance, even with such luminaries as Kanye West on some ballots. The dominant alternative to the political status quo is called “Libertarian.”
And contrary to a common critique, it’s not just about presidential elections. The party has more than 200 elected officials, mostly in state and local positions, though since April their ranks have included for the first time a sitting (if lame-duck) member of Congress, Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.). Elected Libertarians do useful stuff, like pass occupational licensing reform, remove ancient prohibitions from the books, and reform public-sector pensions.
That sound you hear is aggressive eye rolling from Democratic and Republican voters, who are busy battling the most important election in the history of mankind, and have no patience left for political LARPers. And fair enough—marginal blocs will always be treated marginally, at least until we’re needed to help push through the types of libertarian reforms that major-party politicians talk about but rarely accomplish: ending the drug war, bringing the troops home, reducing the size of government, protecting free speech, even helping improve infrastructure.
But the more that libertarians retain their own discrete political identity, rather than latching on like barnacles to the rusty tankers of the two major parties, the more likely that their affections will be solicited, rather than taken for granted. President Donald Trump is out there stressing anti-war themes to 2016 Johnson voters, and that’s not a bad outcome at all (if inferior to actually ending our Forever Wars).
The past week has featured many semi-prominent libertarian media personalities ripping each other’s faces off (rhetorically) in advance of the election. It will ever be thus—have you met libertarians? There is a powerful lure to be part of something that could be, if you squint at it just right, characterized as winning. It would be pretty to think that this Republican or that Democrat is gonna really do the libertarian things just as soon as he/she wins the next election.
In the face of those temptations, and the motivating negative polarization of seeing awful politicians and ideologies in or near power, it’s a wonder there’s much of any third-party juice left four years after a bitterly divided election. If in this context, a relative no-name candidate produces the party’s second-best-ever result, while beating all other third partiers in all 50 states, I’d call that an accomplishment.
Who knows if and when our 19th century political groupings will transmogrify into something new, or even perhaps stumble off into the sunset. When that day nears, people will be looking anew toward the next available alternative. Right now, for better and for worse, warts—so many warts!—and all, that alternative is called “Libertarian.” And will be on Wednesday, too.
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Watch Election 2020 Live: Trump Or Biden… There Can Be Only One! Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/03/2020 – 19:00
…and this is for all the marbles.
A blue wave, a red wave, Biden landslide, mirages, Trump landslide, more status quo, or will Kanye surprise?
As Victor Davis Hanson notes, the 2020 election is not just about Joe Biden sitting on a perceived lead and trying to run out the clock against barnstorming incumbent President Trump. It is really a choice between changing rules when they are deemed inconvenient and respecting constitutional norms and long-held traditions that have served America well for many years.
Axios reports when each state official has said we can expect unofficial election results:
Arizona: Early ballots will have to have the signatures verified, and there’s no way to know how many voters will turn those in on Election Day, according to Sophia Solis, spokesperson for the office of Arizona’s secretary of state.
Florida: Election night results will not be released at the state level until 8 pm Eastern, according to a spokesperson for the Florida Department of State. The spokesperson declined to provide any other projections for the timing of results.
Georgia: Results are expected late Tuesday for non-close races. Even in the close races, Walter Jones, spokesperson for the Secretary of State office said, they will probably have it sorted out by Wednesday.
Michigan: TheSecretary of State’s office expects it to take until roughly Friday to process and count all the ballots, according to spokesperson Tracy Wimmer.
Minnesota: “We expect that all or substantially all of in-person election day votes and absentee votes will reported election night or soon after,” said Peter Bartz-Gallagher, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office.
North Carolina: “Results reported by the end of election night will include 97 percent or more of all ballots cast in North Carolina in the 2020 general election,” according to the Board of Elections.
Ohio: “We expect results from Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning,” said Maggie Sheehan, press secretary for the Ohio Secretary of State’s office.
Pennsylvania: Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said in a recent interviewthat she expects the “overwhelming majority” of votes will be counted by Friday, Nov 6.
Texas: The Texas secretary of state’s office declined to provide any expected timeline given the large size of the state and that elections are run on a county-by-county-basis.
Wisconsin: “In some bigger cities, especially where they count absentee ballots at a central location instead of the polling place, we might not see all the results until the next morning,” said Reid Magney, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
On election night itself, Michael Snyder saysthe most important state to focus on will be Florida. As I discussed in a previous article, Florida is one of the states that allows mail-in ballots to be counted in advance, and we should have a really good idea of what the results are going to look like in the state by the end of the night.
If Biden is declared the winner in Florida on election night, that is going to be a really, really bad sign for Trump. There really isn’t a path to 270 electoral votes for Trump without Florida.
If Trump wins Florida, or if the vote is too close to call, then Pennsylvania becomes crucially important.
Unfortunately, Pennsylvania is one of the states that does not allow mail-in ballots to be counted in advance, and they are going to have millions of them to count.
‘These are unprecedented times. Because of the coronavirus, there were millions of votes cast by mail so it may take longer than usual to count every vote,’ he says in a new ad for the nonpartisan group, The Voter Project.
‘The folks in our election offices – your neighbors, family and friends are working hard ensuring every single vote is counted,’ he says.
Pennsylvania is supposed to have every vote counted by Friday, but we are deeply skeptical.
Interestingly, and not exactly confidence-inspiring, Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon reportedly said this afternoon that:
“We continue to have multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes” says they can win 270 even without PA and FL,”according to Time’s Charlotte Alter.
* * *
Or follow along with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper as they drink and comment on the state-by-state counts (but definitely do not declare any victory).
As Matt Taibbi writes, in life, as in cult sci-fi/adventure thrillers starring Geneva’s own Christopher Lambert, winner takes all:
Unfortunately, there are good reasons to doubt we’ll see anyone’s head fully lopped off this evening. The enormous number of mail-in votes, coupled with a slate of conflicting state rules about when such votes are counted – added to a high likelihood of unpredictable logistical difficulties associated with the pandemic – make a delayed conclusion to the Trump-Biden electoral contest very possible.
Usually, high in-person turnout favors Democrats. This year, because so many Democrats voted early (and Republicans have been warned away from mail ballots), the situation will likely be reversed. This means we could very well have early results that look confusing, maybe even like a wipeout for Trump, when what we’re actually seeing is just in-person votes being counted faster than mail votes. We also could see opposite scenarios.
Overall, the likelihood is that Joe Biden will win, and comfortably, but the issue is when that result comes in. Imagine the chaos of the Iowa Democratic caucus, with all the attendant scarcely-believable explanations coming from officials and vote-counters, expanded to presidential scale. That’s the horror-movie scenario for this evening.
Because of the fear both sides have about the results, the quantity of media spin tonight is likely to be, as rule 7 below notes, “unprecedented.” Partisans from both red and blue camps will be prepping audiences for bad news in ways that deflect blame from their own consultant pals, and also planting seeds for arguments likely to be made in contested-result scenarios. Expect Republicans to tell tales of trucks of fake ballots shipped over the Rio Grande in burlap sacks, while Democrats might counter with photos of wheelchair-bound minority voters invited to exercise their democratic covenant at ad-hoc ballot stations re-located to the top of hundred-foot climbing walls.
DRINKING GAME RULES
The main rule is implied: just start drinking and don’t stop for the next few years.
As for tonight specifically, here goes:
Drink for EVERY MENTION of:
1) “Red mirage”;
2) “Blue mirage”;
3) “Path to victory” or “route to victory”;
4) “Most important election of our lifetime”;
5) “Still too close to call”;
6) “Shy Trump supporter”;
7) “Unprecedented”;
8) “Firewall.” Double if this is accompanied by an awkward effort by an anchor to inoffensively characterize the minority voting bloc to which they’re ascribing monolithic voting tendencies;
9) “Neck and neck”;
10) “Broward County” or “Miami-Dade”;
11) “It could be a big night for (whatever)”;
12) “It all comes down to Pennyslvania.”
Drink EVERY TIME:
13) A commentator says “(something) is on the ballot tonight,” and that something is not the name of a candidate;
14) John King looks visibly aroused on the way to the Magic Wall;
15) A member of the media uses the word “we” to describe Democratic Party results;
16) A Republican accuses Democrats of stuffing ballots. Double if the alleged plot involves use of undocumented immigrants as sham voters;
17) A Democrat mentions voter suppression. Double if this is accompanied by a warning that this is the “only way” Trump could win;
18) Any commentator suggests Trump will not give up power if he loses;
19) Someone reports the possibility of results-delaying litigation over a new set of voting irregularities detected today;
20) A commentator reacts to a result by seriously wondering aloud if Russians are meddling;
21) There is video of Melania Trump looking a little too happy that her husband is losing;
22) Trump ups the ante on an outrageous lie about his opponents at the 11th hour, like that Biden has already written an executive order canceling free enterprise, or has decided to grant American citizenship to everyone in Bangladesh;
23) Biden says something incomprehensible, dozes off, or forgets whom he’s talking with in a TV appearance;
24) Someone cuts to: shot of boarded-up windows. Double when windows are actually broken.
25) Someone cries on set as results come in. Or, alternatively, does the political version of the Bill Simmons fist pump:
Finally, we fall back to Buckminster Fuller’s infamous quote for some context tonight:
If you take all the machinery in the world and dump it in the ocean, within months more than half of all humanity will die and within another six months they’d almost all be gone; if you took all the politicians in the world, put them in a rocket, and sent them to the moon, everyone would get along fine.
Stay safe and remember that politics is all about subverting you emotionally and then reaping your production. The rest are details.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3jX220G Tyler Durden
