Author: Andrew Bradford

Proud progressive journalist and political adviser living behind enemy lines in Red America.

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Donald Trump Elections Joe Biden

Election Predictor Who’s Only Been Wrong Once Since 1984 Has Bad News For Donald Trump

Alan Lichtman is a history professor at American University who has correctly predicted the winner of all but one presidential election since 1984, and he has some bad news for failed former president Donald Trump: You’re about to lose back-to-back bids for the White House.

According to The Guardian, Lichtman believes “a lot would have to go wrong” before November for President Joe Biden to not win a second term in office.

Here’s how Lichtman makes his determination of who will win: He uses 13 true or false questions. If six or more go against the White House party, it will lose. If fewer than six are against them, the party in power will win.

What are the 13 criteria?

1. Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.

2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.

3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.

4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Oh, and for those readers who think Lichtman is anti-Trump, he correctly predicted Donald would win in 2016 and then lose in 2020.

How did Lichtman correctly call the 2016 race for Trump when nearly every poll showed Hillary Clinton ahead?

“The critical sixth key was the contest key: Bernie Sanders’s contest against Clinton. It was an open seat so you lost the incumbency key. The Democrats had done poorly in 2014 so you lost that key. There was no big domestic accomplishment following the Affordable Care Act in the previous term, and no big foreign policy splashy success following the killing of Bin Laden in the first term, so there were just enough keys. It was not an easy call.”

Trump lost in 2020 due in large part to his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, Lichtman notes.

“The pandemic is what did him in. He congratulated me for predicting him but he didn’t understand the keys. The message of the keys is it’s governance not campaigning that counts and instead of dealing substantively with the pandemic, as we know, he thought he could talk his way out of it and that sank him.”

But perhaps most notable is that Lichtman discounts polling, suggesting it simply doesn’t consider enough factors and only succeeds in providing a snapshot of the overall horserace that’s rarely correct.

“Not only are polls a snapshot but they are not predictors. They don’t predict anything and there’s no such thing as, ‘if the election were held today’. That’s a meaningless statement.”

And what might happen if Trump is convicted of a crime?

“It’s always possible there could be a cataclysmic enough event outside the scope of the keys that could affect the election and here we do have, for the first time, not just a former president but a major party candidate sitting in a trial and who knows if he’s convicted – and there’s a good chance he will be – how that might scramble things.”

So what are we to make of a poll released last week that shows Trump leading Biden by six points? Based on history and how wrong the polls have been and how right Professor Lichtman has outperformed them, it’s safe to say those numbers will be wrong yet again and Lichtman will add another feather to his cap.

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Elections Eric Trump Joe Biden WTF?!

Eric Trump Whines He Can’t Buy ‘Skin Lotion’ In New York – And It’s All Joe Biden’s Fault

According to Eric Trump, it’s almost impossible to buy “skin lotion” and other toiletries in New York due to crime, and it’s all the fault of President Joe Biden.

Eric made his patently absurd remarks during an appearance on “Sunday Morning Futures,” telling host Maria Bartiromo that his old man, disgraced ex-president Donald Trump, is “feeling great” despite being on trial in Manhattan for allegedly paying hush money and interfering with the 2016 election, which he won.

“His fundraising numbers are off the chart. The love out there is incredible.”

“It’s the exact reason that they’re trying to tie my father up in a courtroom every single day between now and [the election],” he continued. “They know that [Biden] doesn’t stand a chance. No one believes him.”

That’s when the former president’s son began attacking New York, which he said was “failing.”

“They’re going after a guy for a $130,000 payment. Every day, they close the courtroom. You know, they close the streets around the court. It costs 20 times that. Every time they shut down the FDR drive, it costs 50 times that. No one believes it.”

“All while in New York, you can’t go into Duane Reade,” Trump added. “You can’t go into CVS and buy skin lotion because it has to be locked behind Plexiglas because theft is so high.”

The entire matter, he asserted, can be laid at Biden’s feet.

“The country does not believe it. But this guy’s not going to make it. He can’t.”

“He can’t get down a pair of stairs,” he said. “He can’t finish a sentence. He can’t read off a teleprompter without some kind of gaffe.”

Biden’s not going to make it? What about Eric’s pathetic father, who is falling asleep in court every five minutes and makes claims so wild that some have suggested he’s suffering from Alzheimer’s?

Nice projection, Eric, but no one believes anything your daddy or his spawn have to say. You’ve lied too damn much and the American people are sick of your bullshit.

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Donald Trump

Shocking New Photos Of Trump Tower Show It Almost Empty And Badly In Need Of Repairs

Despite his constant bragging over the decades that he’s a great businessman who is respected as a real estate mogul, Donald Trump is actually as massive failure who inherited millions and then managed to waste most of his inheritance taking risky bets on building projects that later failed miserably.

Trump’s beloved tower that bears his name in Midtown Manhattan is a perfect case in point of just what a failure Donald has been everywhere except in his own badly addled mind.

And now we have photographic evidence that the disgraced ex-president may indeed be on the verge of financial collapse, with the photos showing that Trump Tower is currently on the verge of being empty and in desperate need of repairs.

Nell Scovell of The Daily Beast recently stopped by Trump Tower and was stunned by what she saw, reporting, “With the owner and former president back in residence, you might think they’d spruce up the abutting commercial and retail space. You’d be wrong.”

Just how bad are things going for Trump, who is spending most of his free time at Trump Tower since he’s required in a Manhattan court four or five days a week for his hush money trial? So bad that Scovell suggests the building could easily be considered the “saddest” in all of New York.

“One of the most notable features of Trump Tower is the breath-taking 60-foot waterfall embellishing the eastern wall of the building,” Scovell notes. “Today, it’s notable that there’s no water in the waterfall. And a waterfall without water is just a wall.”

The Trump Cafe is also closed, bearing a sign that reads, “Pardon our appearance.” Plans are for it reopen sometime in May, though a security guard admitted that’s not exactly guaranteed.

Or consider the terraces.

“Both public terraces appear to be permanently closed to the public. The lack of public outdoor spaces may be in violation of a deal with the city which traded additional square footage for these gardens. In the smaller exterior space, what’s visible through the window looks sparse and untended,” Scovell writes, adding, “The large glass doors which once opened up to a second, grander terrace are now mirrored over and locked.”

Oh, and there’s also the trash. And no, that doesn’t mean Trump himself, though he’s certainly among the trashiest human beings to ever trod the planet.

On Tuesday, Trump posted “It was my great honor to welcome former Japanese Prime Minister Tarō Asō—at Trump Tower this evening!”

The backdrop of the marble and brass confers class to the image. Meanwhile, that same day, in another part of Trump Tower, even marble and brass couldn’t hide the trash.

You can see all of Nell Scovell’s Trump Tower photos here.

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Donald Trump GOP Trump Supporters

WATCH A Trump Supporter Try (And Fail) To Find The Word ‘God’ In The Constitution

A Trump supporter made a complete fool of herself — on national TV, no less — when she insisted that the name of “God” can be found in the U.S. Constitution when challenged on the issue by a CNN correspondent.

Julian Lightfoot was being interviewed by CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan when she remarked, “The job of the journalist is to ask the questions, allow the person to speak and just report the facts. What was spoken. Would you like for me to pull up the definition of journalists?”

O’Sullivan: “That’s okay, but thank you, Julie.”

The woman then added, “Okay. I have a God-given right to speak my own truth.”

“But there are facts, right?” O’Sullivan inquired.

That’s when Lightfoot began spouting conspiracy theories and lies.

“The facts have shown that the election was stolen. Whether you’re willing to look at that and accept that and really show what’s going on, that’s your issue, not ours.”
“We want the God-Given freedom that our Constitution and our Bill of Rights is based on.”

O’Sullivan: “God-given constitutional rights.”

“Yes,” Lightfoot replied.

 “They’re two different things, right?” O’Sullivan asked.

“No, sir, they’re not! Read. R-E-A-D the Constitution. Read it out loud to yourself so that you hear what the words of the Constitution say.”

“God isn’t mentioned in the Constitution,” O’Sullivan rightly informed the woman.

Lightfoot: “Sir!”

Pulling out her cell phone and bringing up the text of the Constitution on the device, Lightfoot began to read. She could not find “God” in the document. Why? Because it isn’t there and never has been.

As O’Sullivan later told CNN host Jake Tapper, “We found out that God is not mentioned in the Constitution. There’s this conflation between the United States and between the land of the Bible, and it’s because of that that a lot of these folks who are also convinced that the election was stolen, they now view this as a kind of Biblical crusade to steal it back and to save America. So it’s misinformation on top of a very perverse view of patriotism and Christianity.”

Much like the man they worship like a demigod, supporters of Donald Trump aren’t fond of reading. Why? Because most of them are intellectually lazy and would rather be misinformed than have to admit they’re wrong, just like Trump himself.

Categories
Elections GOP WTF?!

Kristi Noem Brags She Executed Her Family’s Puppy Because It Was ‘Worthless’

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) is widely considered to be on Donald Trump’s shortlist as his 2024 running mate, but a new book Noem has written may have put the kibosh on her chances of ever being anything more than a GOP footnote.

The book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, Newsweek reports, features a section in which Noem admits she executed the family’s puppy, Cricket, because the dog didn’t obey her commands.

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem reportedly wrote, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.

She wrote that she took Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs to calm the animal and help it learn how to behave. But on the hunt, Cricket went “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.”

Noem said she tried to control Cricket by using an electronic collar, but the dog didn’t respond to the training, so she gunned it down in cold blood.

Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.” This made the chickens’ owner cry and Noem financially renumerated them and helped them clean the mess the dog had made.

“At that moment,” Noem said, “I realized I had to put her down.”

Noem even gives a blow by blow description of how she killed the helpless animal.

The excerpt from Noem’s book set off a wave of anger and revulsion on social media, where she was excoriated as “an utterly callous and despicable woman.”