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Open thread 3/1/24 — 38 Comments

  1. Early in the Democrat convention, in prime time, Biden will make a speech that he has decided not to run. It will be emotional and big on patriotism and love of country. This will be huge news and draw all eyes to the convention for the rest of the week.

    The Dems will appear to be in shock and “scramble” to put together a slate of candidates for delegates to vote on. This will consume at least one news cycle. Kamala Harris will be one of the candidates. She may, or may not declare that she does not wish to run (and later receive some pre-arranged sinecure that sets her and Doug up for life; Netflix deal, book deal, K Street gig…)

    Several days of the Convention will involve people lauding Joe and his Presidency and plumping for each of the candidates. The ratings will be massive. This DNC version of “The Apprentice” will be Y-U-G-E!

    After several ballots a candidate will be selected. He or she will be young-ish and accept the nomination with humility. He or she will have none of the baggage of the current administration; bad economy, bad immigration policy… “I come to heal, not divide, etc…”

    This all happens in August and after the RNC convention giving the Republicans little time to adjust.

    Game, set, match.

  2. Someone here (sorry, I forget whom) recently posted a link to this Kurt Schlichter OpEd: https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2024/02/15/with-friends-like-the-gop-establishment-ukraine-doesnt-need-enemies-n2635211

    Read the whole thing, but I will pull a blockquote below then comment on it in a separate comment.

    You know, the biggest foreign policy mistake America made in the last 30 years was not, remarkably, Iraq. It was the failure to bring Russia into the Western European fold. Russia was never going to be a close friend, but it didn’t have to be an enemy. It didn’t have to be in lockstep with Xi and the mullahs. But here we are. It didn’t help that the elite found Russia to be a useful punching bag. The conservative elite was comfortable with Russia as an enemy and the liberal elite found it domestically useful to attack Russia as part of its attack on Donald Trump. Remember how Hillary Clinton, who started the Russiagate lie, was also the halfwit who humiliated our country with that stupid reset button? You don’t have to make excuses for Russia to understand that Russians are historically paranoid and that expanding NATO around it was going to get a negative reaction. Yes, I know NATO was never going to invade Russia, but Russians don’t believe that. Russians are crazy, but they think what they think, and you need to be smart enough to understand that you don’t get to tell the enemy what it gets to think. What a disaster.

  3. RE: Biden

    I think Rufus + T + Firefly has it right.

    Though I think that before joke Bidet gives his “not running” speech at the convention, the powers that be will already have selected their new candidates for prez and VP. The usual, smoke filled, back room dealing away from the limelight.

    Yes, they will have a vote or two or three at the convention to “select” their slate of candidates, but it will be all for show, a charade to make it appear that the delegates actually have a say in the outcome.

    Recall that when Hillary ran against Trump, she and the Dems had rigged the primary system so that she would have – before the dem convention – the requisite delegate votes. It was all fixed in advance.
    This is the demokrat way.

    My guess is that Newsome will be the democrat nominee. I have no idea who they will choose for VP, but they more than likely will pick a black female, which opens the door, yet again, for the incredibly dumb and stupid Kamala Harris.

    Newsome’s horrible track record in Calif will not impact at all the 45 to 50% of the voters who will always vote for a democratic.

  4. Rufus+T. Firefly at 10:28 am,

    That sounds like a made for TV movie script. Which is roughly what our political environment has become. By intent and design.

  5. Obviously, what I am about to write is not a unique observation. Others have noted it as well, more or less . We are living thru a slow motion, Western Civilization version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile the Chinese government is waging asymmetric warfare on Western Civilization from within using social media, the press, political groups, environmental groups, etc. Partly due to internal changes within Western Civilization, Israel is loosing support. If this were a Venn Diagram, the “Book of Revelation ” would be heading towards the place that says ” You are here.”

  6. You can’t lead a Russian horse anywhere. You may not even be able to stop its drinking.

    It was the failure to bring Russia into the Western European fold.

    Forgotten that BHO told Medvedev that he would have more “flexibility” after the 2012 election. This is after the 2008 invasion and seizure of Crimea, f’en around with Georgia, and of course the 2014 flexibility frolics in eastern Ukraine.

    Yeah, the west is to blame for Russian aggression. It is what they are.

    Sorry Kurt.

  7. Re: The Michelle Factor

    Rufus et al:

    I still say she is a significant possibility. I’m not alone.
    _______________________________

    DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE ODDS

    Joe Biden 83.3%
    Michelle Obama 12.5%
    Gavin Newsom 4.0%
    Dean Phillips 2.4%
    Kamala Harris 2.3%
    Elizabeth Warren 1.2%

    ODDS TO WIN THE 2024 US ELECTION

    Donald Trump 54.5%
    Joe Biden 36.4%
    Michelle Obama 10.0%
    Nikki Haley 5.9%
    Gavin Newsom 3.8%
    Robert Kennedy Jr. 2.9%
    Kamala Harris 2.0%
    Elizabeth Warren 1.0%

    https://www.oddschecker.com/us/insight/specials/politics/20240202-is-michelle-obama-running-for-president-the-latest-odds
    _______________________________

    That sounds about right. When I hold out for the Michelle as a possibility, I’m not saying she’s a shoo-in, but a definite possibility. Notice how she crushes Newson in the candidate odds.

    Those who rule her out outright IMO are are being unnecessarily close-minded.

    Interesting that the odds folks put Trump at 54.5% for the win in November.

    Fingers crossed!

    PS. I’m not clear why those numbers sum > 100%.

  8. Hildabeast was mostly interested in $$$ she could get from the Reset with Russia BTW, a common theme with democrats. There was $$$$$$ to be made in Russia and its former colonies.

  9. I also think RTF has the correct prediction. And with that new, youngish candidate, the electorate will flock to that person over the “nasty Trump”. I so wish DeSantis hadn’t dropped out. He might have a chance against this drop in candidate. Trump will have none.

  10. Chat to the rescue:
    _______________________________________

    At oddschecker.com, and in the betting industry in general, the odds for different outcomes of an event can sum to greater than 100% due to the bookmakers’ overround or vigorish (vig). The overround is the built-in profit margin that bookmakers include in their odds to ensure they make a profit regardless of the event’s outcome.

    For example, if you have a simple event with two possible outcomes (like a coin toss), ideally, each outcome would have a 50% chance, and the total implied probability would be 100%. However, bookmakers might offer odds that imply a probability of 52% for heads and 52% for tails, summing to 104%. This extra 4% is the overround, which represents the bookmaker’s profit margin.

    In a competitive market, different bookmakers will have different overrounds, and odds comparison sites like oddschecker.com allow bettors to compare odds to find the best value. However, it’s common to see the total implied probabilities exceed 100% due to the inclusion of the overround in the odds.
    _______________________________________

    Beware the Overround, my son!
    The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

    _______________________________________

    And vig likely comes from Yiddish!
    _______________________________________

    The term “vigorish” or “vig” comes from the Russian word “vyigrysh,” which means “winnings” or “profit.” It was likely introduced into English through Yiddish-speaking communities, where the word “vig” became a slang term for the interest or fees charged by bookmakers and loan sharks on bets or loans.

  11. huxley:

    What about the Mayor from Indiana? He and the dress thief would be quite the ticket.

    Bandersnatch! Bandersnatch! It’s gaining on me!

  12. RE: Bud Light

    The local Kroger has a veritable mountain–piled higher than I’ve ever seen any other beer be piled–of cases of Bud Light stacked up, out in the very front of the beverage section.

    I hope they never sell any of these cases of Bud Light, and they end up in a landfill somewhere.

  13. why did 150,000 troop mass on the ukraine border, and let loose when the slattern in reserve, went over there to negotiate, why did the green men feel confident to shoot down an airliner in international air space, why did putin decapitate the polish cabinet at smolensk in 2009, with rarely a whimper
    that included kazynskis brother, all of that happened under our first black president, pbuh, Of course Russians are legendarily
    racist, it’s not an accident that David Duke crashed on some seedy moscow couch, until they said eventually ‘you go now’ so Putin would really feel like Bre’r rabbit if First Consort were the face of the regime, who would be in charge, whos in charge now,

  14. Nope. Jo Jo is the guy unless he is dead or too incapacitated to fake it. You wouldn’t have Mayorkas, Klobacher and his doctors all lying about his fitness in same week if he is going under the bus.

  15. now that silly, like thanos answer to the collector when he said ‘why would I lie’ its probably like breathing for you, Brolin is nearly as nasty in real life, as he is on film, (allegedly) mayorkas brokered EB 5 carvouts with mcauliffe, he built the tiger cages that ocasio cortez happened to see in action, yesterdays performance with the border patrol standing like terracotta dummies was nauseating, as much for the clapdoodle spoken, as the location, the safest part of the border in relative terms,

  16. The local Kroger has a veritable mountain–piled higher than I’ve ever seen any other beer be piled–of cases of Bud Light stacked up, out in the very front of the beverage section.

    Snow on Pine:

    Yesterday I saw a 5′ cube of Bud Lights, wrapped up in plastic, at my local Smith’s, a grocery store chain which is owned by Kroger.

  17. I read Steve Callahan’s book a long time ago. Amazing. Also convinced me that open-water sailing is not for the faint of heart.

  18. Many thanks, Rufus+T.+Firefly for that spine-tingling script, which more than justifies the pluses in your handle. TommyJay has it right. Shopping your thriller around Hollywood would get you multiple offers (because, let’s face it, they are completely out of juice).

  19. Russia was never going to be brought wholly into the “Western fold,” but it was folly to go on needlessly “poking the bear.”

  20. huxley,

    That explanation from Chat is interesting in that it’s wrong (I believe), but it does a truly impressive job of using jargon to appear like it is correct*.

    The concise answer to your question of why the odds sum to more than 1.00 is it is not parimutuel betting. I don’t know if it’s a federal law, but all horse tracks I know of use parimutuel betting. (As a Francophile you’ll be interested to know it originated in France, hence the French term to define it: https://www.britannica.com/topic/pari-mutuel)

    All bets on all horses are lumped into one pool. The house (the track in this instance) takes a percentage from the pool as a handling fee (the vigorish), and the odds are calculated according to the money wagered on each outcome (horse, in this example). This is also why you’ll see the odds change up until the post. As long as the house is taking money on the race the odds on each horse are in play. They are determined by the number of wagers on that horse to win, place or show. The more money wagered on a horse, the lower the odds.

    Most Vegas games are games of chance and there often is no vigorish, but the house offers slightly lower than perfect odds so it should end up making money by running the game. This is the 0 and 00 in roulette. In American roulette there are 36 numbered slots, half of those are colored red and half are black, and, naturally, half are also even numbers and half are also odd numbers AND, there are two additional, green slots 0 and 00 (neither red nor black nor even nor odd). If you bet $1 on a single number and win you get to keep your dollar and the house gives you $35 more. If you bet $1 on black and win you keep your dollar and the house gives you $1 more. However, in the first case you had a 1:38 chance of being correct; 36 numbered slots plus 0 plus 00. In the second case you had ~ 47.3% chance of winning; 18 black slots out of 38 possible (18 red and 2 green, the 0 and 00). So the house gives true odds as if the wheel had 36 slots but throws in 2 more slots to usually guarantee it makes money.

    You can now see one of the things Chat got wrong. In the case of the coin toss the house would offer LESS than 50% odds in order to make money. If it offer a 52% return on both odds and evens the house will lose money. A better example would be a 48% return, as in the roulette example with red and black, or odd and even.

    For a sports book, like NFL games or predicting winners of Presidential elections, an odds maker “makes” the odds. It’s not like roulette or blackjack with purely mechanical outcomes so someone has to calculate them. “What are the odds the San Francisco 49’ers will win the Superbowl?” This is likely *what’s happening with the Presidential election pool you cite.

    The sports book’s goal is volume. It’s going to skim a percentage off each bet, the vig, so it wants to get as much money as possible on both sides. If it’s an election with only two candidates and one is favored much more than another (the action), then you’ll have to offer higher odds on the less favored candidate to attract an equal amount of bets on his or her side. Just as one team “gives” points to another in sports odds. If MAGA Republicans are more likely to gamble and feel strongly about their candidate the house will offer better odds to Biden supporters to draw them out and get them to vote. Regardless of whom the house actually believes will win. The house will skim its vig from the winners and losers alike, so the more bets, the better the house does.

    *This is very interesting. We all know people who are skilled at appearing they are knowledgeable when discussing subjects they do not understand properly. Picture a guy in a bar trying to impress people with talk of practicing a martial art. It seems like Chat is trying to appear informed by using vocabulary related to the topic at hand without having the slightest idea what the words actually mean.

    **There are also parimutuel pools for things like elections, where the house takes a percent off the top of all wagers and just adjusts the odds offered based on how much is wagered on each candidate. Since the odds in your example totals to more than 1.00 it cannot, by definition, be a parimutuel pool.

  21. huxley,

    After reading your comment I scrolled down and noticed my browser had auto-filled the pluses in the “Name *” box in the “Leave a Reply” section. I removed them and it appears they are now gone when I post.

  22. Kate, yes!!, another reason I’m happy to be in FL. Now, there has to be a push to generally reduce higher ed administration by 70 %.

  23. Thanks for notes, Rufus, on both odds and the + which my browser memory added back in, but I removed it a couple days ago.

    I’m not sure yours odds talk is right. What does it mean to say Biden’s odds to be Dem candidate is 83.3%? My guess is that they pay you $1000 if you win and bet $833. Or, if you want to win $10.00 betting on a Trump Nov. win, you have to bet $5.45.
    But can’t check at 1am, tho it’s interesting.
    Also your scenario on no Biden in Nov, as I’ve thought for months.

    This is a different way of talking than horse racing, where they tell you the payout of a $1 bet. I recall $1.10 for a race where Secretariat was the big favorite and did win (Belmont?), decades ago.

  24. (The follow on comment I promised in my 10:59am comment.)

    It’s impossible to replay U.S. Russian policy since 1989 in a different order to see if a different result can be obtained, but I agree with Schlichter that many U.S. politicians and members of state agencies continued to use fear of the Soviets as a political tool long after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why did we treat them so much differently than China? Is Russia really that much worse? Is it more of a threat to the U.S.? China has done a lot of awful things since the fall of the Berlin Wall and it has its share of kleptocrats, yet China has mostly felt like the U.S. was its partner and friend.

    Did the U.S. miss an opportunity to deescalate fear and paranoia of the West from Russian diplomacy?

  25. Re: Chat / vig

    Rufus T. Firefly:

    I got lost in the weeds pretty fast with your comprehensive comment. So I asked Chat to summarize:
    ____________________________________________

    Your friend’s response provides a detailed explanation of different types of betting and how odds are determined. Here’s a summary:

    Parimutuel Betting: This system, originating in France, is commonly used in horse racing. All bets are pooled together, and the house (track) takes a percentage as a fee (vigorish). The odds are determined by the amount wagered on each outcome and can change as more bets are placed. The more money wagered on a horse, the lower the odds.

    Games of Chance: In games like roulette, the house doesn’t take a vigorish but instead offers slightly lower odds to ensure profit. For example, in American roulette, there are 38 slots, but payouts are calculated as if there are only 36, giving the house an edge.

    Sports Books and Election Betting: Odds are made by odds makers based on various factors. The goal is to attract equal amounts of money on both sides of a bet to ensure profit through the vigorish. The house may adjust odds to balance the bets, regardless of the actual likelihood of an outcome.

    Your friend also corrects a misunderstanding about coin toss odds, stating that the house would offer less than 50% odds to make a profit, not more.

  26. certainly ‘shock therapy’ pursued by sachs and summers, certainly appeared like a hostile act, ymmv

  27. We all know people who are skilled at appearing they are knowledgeable when discussing subjects they do not understand properly.

    Rufus T. Firefly:

    Quite so. Chat does not really understand things as we do, or at least as we think we do. It is performing a statistical analysis based on vast amounts of training data, in which signals which work are amplified by being fed back into earlier stages and those which don’t, aren’t.

    This is an oversimplification.

    Chat doesn’t really make stuff up. It is averaging stuff it knows to get to what it doesn’t, which doesn’t always work.

    I’ve gotten “corrects a misunderstanding” a lot with Chat, when I’ve corrected it. My correction becomes part of its training data and it doesn’t make that mistake again.

  28. DEI disappearing at U of F. Good!
    Now do Univ. of Central FL!!

    When I went to UF, it had about 49,000 students.
    UCF (Orlando) now has about 70,000.

  29. Rufus T., your plot for replacing Biden is at least plausible. And it has an emotional trick that might work on many voters.

    I have a different take. It is – no matter who the Dems run; the GOP can win. How, you ask? Instead of wasting money on campaign ads, rallies, and TV spots. (Everyone knows Trump and his policies, and have their minds made up.) Instead, spend the money hiring lawyers and activists to work the important precincts in the swing states. True the voter rolls, harvest ballots where legal, ensure vigorous get out the vote efforts, and make sure the vote counting is observed by both parties with no exceptions.

    With the open border and the economic pain of Bidenomics the GOP should win going away. However, the most important factor will be to do the grass-roots groundwork in the swing states. Beat the Dems at their own game.

  30. Amen, J.J. From your keyboard to Ronna McDaniels’ ears! (Oh, wait…)

    I do agree with you, that it’s necessary. I’m just highly doubtful the GOP can organize an effective effort. And, if they do, it guarantees the election results will be tied up in courts for weeks, likely months; which gives the DNC and media plenty of ammo to say, “Here Trump goes again, just like J6…” Just because they’ll cheat and lie doesn’t mean the GOP shouldn’t do everything possible to ensure a fair election, but the odds are heavily stacked against success.

    If you remember the last election (and others) there were shenanigans in populous, urban Dem strongholds (power failures, election overseers told counters were taking a break and sent home, only to return the next morning and find “counting” hadn’t stopped, mysterious tubs of ballots pulled from under tables with no explanation…). When overseers called out these tactics they had no ability to gain traction because the Dem machine owns these precincts and everyone in them, including law enforcement. And, every red state with an electoral vote count that matters has at least one of these Dem machine, populous regions; Detroit, Philly, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Madison. Even Arizona was not immune.

    Do you know about the Chicago White Sox and the 1919 World Series? There was a lot of telling evidence that players were rigging the outcome of the games going on in front of the eyes of tens of thousands. Well, Chicago was (is) corrupt and taking the issue to court was pointless. The prosecution put on a good case, the defense didn’t, but none of that mattered. The judge and jury were in the pocket of the gamblers who rigged the series.

    Even if you have election overseers who witness fraud that favors the Democrats how do you get a fair hearing on the matter in Detroit or Philadelphia? Remember the video footage of the New Black Panther thugs intimidating voters right outside a polling place in Philly? “Nothing to see her.”

  31. Another very relevant point from the Schlichter piece:

    The majority of the Republican Party today is not composed of know-nothing isolationists. It’s composed of know-far-too-much Jacksonians. They saw far too many of their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brought home in boxes because of the gross incompetence of our elite over the last three decades. The suspicion normal Republicans feel toward traditional Republican Party foreign policy is a direct result of the total failure of the people behind the Republicans’ foreign policy. Stop being offended that Republican voters have noticed that you have failed, and if you want to earn their trust again, stop failing.

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