This Week’s News
Another week another debate…another indication that the press has their collective thumb on the scale for the Democrats.
Coming into the debate the issue of “fact checking” was a big issue. During the presidential debate last month ABC News moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir were criticized by Republicans for fact checking Trump but not Harris.
I didn’t watch much of the Presidential Debate last month, but I saw enough to catch a couple of lies by Harris.
Whether you believe that the press was unfair to Trump or not, a decision was made not to fact check the VP candidates “instead leaving it up to the candidates to fact-check their opponents.” However, during a discussion of illegal immigrants Which led to this exchange:
JD Vance: Look, Margaret, first of all, the gross majority of what we need to do at the southern border is just empowering law enforcement to do their job. I've been to the southern border more than our Borders are, Kamala Harris has been. And it's actually heartbreaking because the Border Patrol Agents, they just want to be empowered to do their job. Of course, additional resources would help. But most of this is about the President and the Vice President empowering our law enforcement to say, "If you try to come across the border illegally, you've got to stay in Mexico, you've got to go back through proper channels." Now, Governor Walz brought up the community of Springfield, and he's very worried about the things that I've said in Springfield. Look, in Springfield, Ohio and in communities all across this country, you've got schools that are overwhelmed, you've got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes. The people that I'm most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris's open border. It is a disgrace, Tim. And I actually think, I agree with you. I think you want to solve this problem, but I don't think that Kamala Harris does.
Margaret Brennan: Senator, your time is up. Governor, you have 1 minute to respond.
Tim Walz: Yeah, well, it is law enforcement that asked for the bill. They helped craft it. They're the ones that supported it. It was… that's because they know we need to do this. Look, this issue of continuing to bring this up, of not dealing with it, of blaming migrants for everything. On housing, we could talk a little bit about Wall Street speculators buying up housing and making them less affordable, but it becomes a blame. Look, this bill also gives the money necessary to adjudicate. I agree. It should not take seven years for an asylum claim to be done. This bill gets it done in 90 days. Then you start to make a difference in this and you start to adhere to what we know. American principles. I don't talk about my faith a lot, but Matthew 25:40 talks about, "To the least amongst us, you do unto me." I think that's true of most Americans. They simply want order to it. This bill does it. It's funded, it's supported by the people who do it, and it lets us keep our dignity about how we treat other people.
MB: Thank you, Governor. And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status. Temporary protected status. Norah.
JDV: Well, Margaret, Margaret, I think it's important because…
MB: Thank you, senator. We have so much to get to.
Norah O'Donnell: We're going to turn out of the economy. Thank you.
JDV: Margaret. The rules were that you guys weren't going to fact check, and since you're fact checking me, I think it's important to say what's actually going on. So there's an application called the CBP One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. That is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for ten years.
While I think Vance was correct, that if the press is going to “clarify” then he should be allowed to give the full picture, the optics are not good. Here is one of the memes going around:
The press seems to have laid a brilliant trap, the only way to push back on them breaking their own rules is to make yourself look like a liar.
Vance wasn’t the only one who looked bad a times, here’s an exchange in which Walz does everything but answer the question that was asked:
MB: We have a lot to get to ahead, gentlemen, on many topics. But right now I want to talk about personal qualifications. The Vice President is often the last voice the President hears before making consequential decisions. We want to ask you about your leadership qualities, Governor Walz. You said you were in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protest in the spring of 1989. But Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets are reporting that you actually didn't travel to Asia until August of that year. Can you explain that discrepancy? You have two minutes.
TW: Yeah. Well, and to the folks out there who didn't get at the top of this, look, I grew up in small, rural Nebraska, town of 400. Town that you rode your bike with your buddies till the streetlights come on, and I'm proud of that service. I joined the National Guard at 17, worked on family farms, and then I used the GI bill to become a teacher. Passionate about it, a young teacher. My first year out, I got the opportunity in the summer of 89 to travel to China, 35 years ago, be able to do that. I came back home and then started a program to take young people there. We would take basketball teams, we would take baseball teams, we would take dancers, and we would go back and forth to China. The issue for that was, was to try and learn. Now, look, my community knows who I am. They saw where I was at. They, look, I will be the first to tell you I have poured my heart into my community. I've tried to do the best I can, but I've not been perfect. And I'm a knucklehead at times, but it's always been about that. Those same people elected me to Congress for twelve years. And in Congress I was one of the most bipartisan people. Working on things like farm bills that we got done, working on veterans benefits. And then the people of Minnesota were able to elect me to governor twice. So look, my commitment has been from the beginning, to make sure that I'm there for the people, to make sure that I get this right. I will say more than anything, many times, I will talk a lot. I will get caught up in the rhetoric. But being there, the impact it made, the difference it made in my life. I learned a lot about China. I hear the critiques of this. I would make the case that Donald Trump should have come on one of those trips with us. I guarantee you he wouldn't be praising Xi Jinping about COVID. And I guarantee you he wouldn't start a trade war that he ends up losing. So this is about trying to understand the world. It's about trying to do the best you can for your community, and then it's putting yourself out there and letting your folks understand what it is. My commitment, whether it be through teaching, which I was good at, or whether it was being a good soldier or was being a good member of Congress, those are the things that I think are the values that people care about.
MB: Governor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy?
TW: No. All I said on this was, is, I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just, that's what I've said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, went in, and from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.
That’s a lot of talking to answer the question, “were you in Tiananmen Square during the 1989 protests.”
What are the take aways from the debate? The press is dishonest (but we already knew that), politicians lie (but we already knew that), and when backed into a corner with a simple question politicians try to evade the question (lie by omission – but we already knew that). My answer is, we learned nothing.
Election Tracking
The betting/investing gap narrowed a little this week going from Harris +9 cents to Harris +7 cents. Current PredictIt leader board:
Harris -2 cents
Trump N/C
The gap in the odds to win also narrowed by 2.2% and now shows Harris leading by 0.8%:
Harris – 49.7 % 50.7 (-1.0%)
Trump – 48.9% 47.7 (+1.2%)
And in our final “doesn’t really matter” data point, the national aggregated polling, also narrowed with Trump gaining 0.2% and Harris losing 0.2%.
After two weeks of fluctuations, the Electoral College projection, the only thing that really matters in the end, has once more returned to what we’re used to, no change.
The AllSides.com Electoral College projection was also static remaining Harris 251, Trump 234 although the site did increase Harris’ odds of winning to 61% from last week’s 60%.
While the map has not changed there has been some interesting changes to the polling in some of the toss up states:
Arizona (11) – Trump 1.4% (-0.6%)
Georgia (16) – Trump 1.5% (N/C)
Michigan (15) – Harris 0.7% (-1.1%)
Minnesota (10) – Harris 4.7% (-0.8%)
Nebraska District 2 (1) – Harris 10% (-1%)
Nevada (6) – Harris 1.1% (-0.3%)
North Carolina (16) – Trump 0.6% (-0.6%)
Pennsylvania (19) – Tie (Harris -0.9%)
Wisconsin (10) – Harris 0.8% (-0.1%)
With the exception of Georgia which remained Trump +1.5% every other race has narrowed. Arguably the biggest change is that Pennsylvania is now tied. Should all states go to the candidate currently leading the results would be:
Harris – 257
Trump – 262
At the moment, whoever wins Pennsylvania wins the election. That said, the narrowing is favoring Trump as 6 of the 9 states moved in his favor.
Canadian Election Tracking
Do I see an election on the horizon?
Another week another failed non-confidence vote, this one “accused the government of failing Canadians on affordable housing, the cost of living, and crime.” The failure of the motion doesn’t come as a surprise as only two parties would benefit from an early election, the Conservatives and the Bloc. The Bloc Quebecois is trying to squeeze some legislation out of the government and has given the Liberals until Oct 29th to pass legislation increasing old-age security and bolstering Canada’s supply management system or it will begin talking to other parties about “toppling the government.”
The NDP, the only other party that could help bring down the government, tore up the “supply and confidence” agreement a few weeks ago but has little incentive to stop supporting the Liberals as current polls show them losing seats if an election were called today.
Polls
The popular vote projections saw the NDP increase to by 1% to 17% at the expense of the Liberals who fell to 23%. However once again seats count projections moved more:
Conservatives +1
Liberals -3
Bloc – N/C
NDP +2
Green – N/C
PPC – N/C
Source: https://338canada.com/federal.htm
The Nanos preferred Prime Minister poll shows:
Poilievre +0.6%
Trudeau -2.3%
Singh +0.5%
Unsure -0.9%
Others +2.2%
What I’m Reading
I’m weak. I can’t resist a good conspiracy story and so when I saw a story that Marjorie Taylor Greene was claiming that “they can control the weather”
I just had to read it. Do I regret it. Yes. Would I do it again. Yes. It’s like slowing down for a car accident, you just can’t look away. Although this may be along the lines of licking a 9-volt battery, so many of us have done it more than once.
Representative Greene (R-GA) – are you proud of what you’ve done Georgia? – is alleging that the weather control technology, for lack of a better term, is being used to target Republican areas in order to influence the November election. It’s unclear whether “they” are controlling Hurricane Helene or created it first and are now controlling it.
This isn’t the first time that Greene has waded into conspiracy theories. Following her election to Congress in 2020, Greene alleged that “the wildfires in California had been started by space lasers connected to the wealthy Rothschild family.”
Sorry, MTG, while these conspiracies are indeed tempting, “birds aren’t real” remains the only conspiracy theory for me.
Non-Political Item(s) of the Week
There’s a saying I use to hear in the navy about punctuality, “five minutes early is on time.” But what if you could leave the meeting before you even arrived? Researchers led by Daniela Angulo of the University of Toronto have revealed that photons, “can spend a negative amount of time zipping through a cloud of chilled atoms. In other words, photons can seem to exit a material before entering it” “revealing observational evidence of negative time.” Will this help us avoid being late, or even better leave before we even arrived? Nope, this is all quantum physics, actions that take place in the quantum realm.
No not the one with Ant Man:
The science one:
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
There were a few good podcasts this week but I’m going to limit my recommendations to just two:
Honestly with Bari Weiss – Megyn Kelly on Life After Mainstream Meda
I chose this one because it provides an insiders view into how the media behaves and how they go out of their way to favor one side over another.
The Michael Shermer Show – Matt Ridley, Steven Pinker, and Michael Shermer Challenge Conventional Narratives
I like this one because I’m a big fan of Steven Pinker but also because it sets the record straight on COVID (it was probably a lab leak) and pushes back on DEI (“the opposite of diversity is university”).
They’re both less than an hour. Enjoy.