Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and Florida, according to new Times/Siena polls taken after the first debate.
Biden leads in Pennsylvania, 49 to 42 percent among likely voters. He leads in Florida, 47 to

In an analysis of interviews conducted yesterday, including in Arizona (where a poll is ongoing), there was modest evidence of a shift in Joe Biden's direction after Trump's COVID diagnosis. That said, one day of interviews is not nearly enough to reach any firm conclusions

The shift, though, would be material if confirmed and it was statistically significant, controlling for the demographic and political variables used in weighting. That said, it's still just one day of interviews. We'll have to wait and see here.

Of the two results, the biggest surprise was probably Florida, where we found Biden+5 with a R+4 sample. This is a fully updated voter file that reflects some meaningful GOP registration gains in the states.

It's just a subsample, so big MoEs here, but we found no evidence of the big Trump gains among Hispanic voters in Florida or in Miami-Dade County. Biden even narrowly led a (very small) sample of Cuban voters; they were R 47-28 by registration. Again, small samples but...

1/ There are plenty of Euros smugly turning up their nose at America's "election chaos" who don't understand a number of key things about the USA. Almost all European countries (in fact, most countries) have mandatory government registration of all residents.

2/ Anytime you move, you must notify government authorities of your new address. Europeans, who have lived with strong centralized states for centuries, simply accept this and have a hard time imagining how it could be different. And it's easy to keep these records in small

3/ countries with small populations. So in Germany, when elections happen, the government sends a vote authorization notice to your address, which you then take to the polls along with your national ID card. This indeed makes for simple elections, since the state

4/ already knows who you are & where you live. In the United States, however, citizens are not obliged to register their address with the government as a general duty. There is no centralized register in the US of where every citizen lives. Americans are much more

5/ skeptical of gov't in this regard than Europeans are. They would never accept a duty to constantly inform the state where they live. Nor is there any national ID card in the US. The closest thing is a driver's license, but if you don't drive, it's quite possible you'll simply

"Multiple European security officials told Insider that President Donald Trump appeared to have tacit support among US federal agencies responsible for securing the Capitol complex in Wednesday's coup

"Today I am briefing my government that we believe with a reasonable level of certainty that Donald Trump attempted a coup that failed when the system did not buckle." - NATO Intelligence official

Yikes on bikes.

"The French police official said they believed that an investigation would find that someone interfered with the deployment of additional federal law-enforcement officials on the perimeter of the Capitol complex...

"...the official has direct knowledge of the proper procedures for security of the facility."

We know that:

1) Sund told Representatives that he had requested additional National Guard back-up. That did not happen.
2) National Guard was deployed for "traffic control" at...

...the Capitol perimeter. Though this was a fairly small number of Guard troops, none were deployed to help inside the perimeter.
3) Additional Guard support was delayed by Sec. of Army Ryan McCarthy, Sec. Def. Christopher Collins, and allegedly by Trump himself for 90 minutes.

I am sick of hearing from the left, right and media, "but people fear him because 70 million people voted for him."

Guess what?

The loser of every election has people vote for them, too. That's why they're elections. But the continued weak kneed deflection to perpetuate that trope serves no purpose but to further enable Trump, while people use it as a shield for their inaction and political cowardice.

There's nothing magical about Trump or his voyers. Furthermore, while he may have gotten 70 million, Biden still got 80 million under some of the harshest, most adversarial voter suppression conditions ever, save the times when the nation has been involved in actual shooting war.

Therefore, anyone who defers to the weakness of invoking Trump and his voters to insulate and indemnify themselves against political repercussions, criticism, or as an excuse to perpetuate partisan paralasis, must have their careers ended.

And, those media outlets engages in those terror tactics in any way must be out out of existence. The first amendment makes no space for lies, propaganda, information warfare, or the promotion of fear and domestic terrorism.

Trump lost, he lost badly, and it's just that serious.

🛑🛑🛑 BREAKING: DNI Ratcliffe confirms foreign interference in elections; deep state desperate to DELAY the report, Dec. 18th deadline will be missed

⭕️⭕️⭕️Critical developments

DNI John Ratcliffe has now publicly confirmed that the 2020 election experienced significant

1. “foreign interference” from China and Iran, and possibly other nations, which fulfills the necessary conditions for Trump to trigger his 2018 executive order on foreign interference.

This EO allows Trump’s Treasury Dept. to seize all assets of any corporation or person who

2. was engaged in supporting acts of foreign interference that targeted US elections infrastructure or election results. All the Big Tech corporations as well as left-wing media organizations have been complicit in aiding and abetting foreign interference in US elections.

3. John Ratcliffe knows China was involved in election theft, and he’s about to unleash this fact upon the world… with huge ramifications for the ongoing allegations of widespread vote fraud and election rigging in the Nov. 3rd election.
Now, the deep state elements who report

4. to DNI John Ratcliffe are working overtime to delay this crucial report which is due Friday, Dec. 18th. They are trying to bury the truth about foreign interference and delay Trump’s ability to act on this information.
👉 Via the ODNI:

"This afternoon the DNI was notified by

1)Absolute proof of voter fraud in Georgia via #ProjectVeritas ...

1. Woke up this afternoon to see countless Liberal Bourgeois around the world getting their knickers in a twist about what USA has been promoting in other countries around the world for generations, and insulting the great tradition of Historical Anarchism while they are at it.

2. Some more of the same nonsense

3. Same in the UK a few years ago

4. The USA has been promoting this kind of so-called "Anarchy" for decades!
This has nothing to do with Anarchism of course, which is a completely rational philosophical & political movement (despite worthy yet sometimes misguided actions of certain brave acolytes over the years)

5. Why will there never be a coup d’etat in Washington? … Because there is no American embassy there!

"Lofgren asked whether Capitol police had enough officers to handle the capacity, and if they had the National Guard on standby and available to quickly help if needed.

"Sund insisted, yes, they had both bases covered, Lofgren said."

I have

Sund told Tim Ryan the same thing, BUT:

"In fact, three days earlier, Capitol police had told the Pentagon that it was not requesting National Guard support for the event, according to defense officials."

So either Sund was lying about requesting support or DoD is lying.

Both are plausible given everything that happened the day of. But either the Capitol Police Chief or the Department of Defense lied about whether Capitol Police had requested National Guard back-up.

We do know DoD hamstrung Guard units' ability to respond to rioting.

So there was a designated protest zone on the Capitol grounds, but when folks left the rally and marched toward the Capitol, no one was directing them toward the designated protest zone? There was nothing ensuring they went there and not...wherever they wanted?

"A seeming fortress from a distance, the Capitol contains more than 400 separate doors, entryways and ground-level windows."

I hope limiting entry points is one of the first major steps they take to preventing something like this again.

✔️ We have begun. It's Day 4 of the Trump Impeachment Trial 2.0. The defense is putting on their case. The first lawyer is Van Der Veen.

1/

Already this is wackadoodle. Seems like the defense is trying to tell us not to believe what we saw. This lawyer has the audacity to say that the people assembled at Trump's speech were peaceful patriots

2/

This lawyer is claiming that Trump's speech on the ellipse on January 6th was was a policy speech about "turning out strong in the next primaries" and how this was about working on voting law reform.

A mere civics lesson.

3/

The lawyer is lying. The Clinton campaign never "declared that the election was stolen by Russia."

Also, this Trump lawyer is trying to claim that democrats objecting to some of the electoral votes is equivalent to Trump's incitement of violence.

4/

As we expected, Trump's lawyers are not going to address the merits. Instead this is what-about-ism

5/

"these people are not going to take it any longer..
do not want to see our election victory stolen by a bold and radical left Democrats.
We will never concede.. when there's theft involved...had enough. We will not take it anymore, and that is what this is all about."
1/

"We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen.

Not going to let it happen.

CROWD: Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump.
TRUMP: Thank you."
2/

"those tens of thousands of people ..
..the military, the Secret Service and we want to thank you and law enforcement ..you're doing a great job..
..but I would love it if they could be allowed to come up with us. Is that possible? Can you just let them, please?"
3/

"if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.
..he has the absolute right to do it..States want to revote, the states got defrauded..they want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president"
4/

"I actually I just spoke to Mike. I said, Mike, that doesn't take courage, what takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage, and then we are stuck .. and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen. "
5/

17 January 2020 #MAGAanalsis #Overturn

Will He Or Won't He, That Is The Question

We'll begin and end today's contemplations with J.E. Dyer
@OptimisticCon's recent work. If you haven't yet, please head over and read her fantastic analysis,

Fighting Ourselves When We Should Be Fighting Them

In support of Jimi Agbaje during the 2015 elections, I produced 2 jingles as my contribution. I wanted him to win.

So, through the assistance of a friend of mine who is a PDP stalwart, we were directed to handover the CDs to a PDP Chieftain in Lagos. The PDP Chieftain asked us to meet him at a club house around Palmgrove. It was a Sunday evening.

When we arrived, we passed through security checks. The club house was guarded by mobile policemen. On entering, the PDP Chieftain was seated with company. Right opposite him was a friend with company also. All of them were having drinks.

They were the only people in the club house-apart from the stewards- and my friend and I. The club house was shut to others and we could only come in because our names had been dropped with the mobile policemen who were on guard. Music blared from speakers in the club house.

We were invited to have drinks. We respectfully declined. No be wetin we come do be that. I handed over the two CDs. The first CD was played. It was a dance-along, sing-along, gyrate kind of jingle. The friend of the PDP Chieftain jumped up and started dancing.

White people are storming the Capitol Building to support a white nationalist president and many people are saying: “If Black people did that...”

Not me, though.

I know.

A thread

Here’s what happened to them when these “patriots” attacked the CAPITAL OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT for—and I can’t stress this enough—SOMETHING THAT DID NOT HAPPEN

Here’s what happened when I covered the George Floyd protests where four officers WERE ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH MURDER

Here’s what happened when they stormed the capital in Michigan

Kyle Rittenpeacefully protesting after Eric Garner was choked to death

Happy New Year, y'all -
And let's start with an election litigation update for the Gohmertian Goofiness.

As of 3 minutes ago no reply brief from Gohmert but some other updates have appeared.

(No, the judge won't ignore his filing if it's a little late.)

AND IT GETS BETTER -
I just looked for an update. Found one. They're asking for another hour because the dog ate their homework.

Seriously, they've been using Google Docs for their serious work and are having problems making that work with Word to produce the final version of this filing.

That filing, by the way, can be up to 50 pages long but, given the strong hint in the motion granting permission for the overlength filing, should address everything not just in Pence's brief but also in the House Amicus and the proposed intervenor's motion to dismiss.

Meanwhile, the treasonweasel cosplayers from Michigan want to intervene as plaintiffs.

Not only do they want to intervene, they want to do so in their "official capacities as Presidential Electors for the State of Michigan."

Note: They are not Presidential Electors. Anywhere.

Hey, fun fact, threatening an elections official with criminal prosecution unless he rigs an election in your favor is not just impeachable but a federal crime

1/ Many federal criminal statutes could come into play here, but here's one: 52 U.S.C § 20511 punishes by up to 5 years in prison "attempting to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process by the procurement or tabulation...

2/ "...of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held." When the chief elections official of the State of Georgia tells you the votes you want him to "find" would be fictitious...

3/ ...and you persist in not just urging him but threatening him to "find" those "votes" and give them to you, federal law does not allow you to be *willfully ignorant* of the fact that you are urging fictitious votes to be added to the State of Georgia's legally certified tally.

4/ But it's even worse than this for Trump, as he explicitly tells the chief elections official for Georgia that he only "needs" enough votes to win—which is an acknowledgment that he doesn't have a specific actionable complaint but is merely trying to *rig* the election outcome.

President Trump speaking momentarily.

The purpose of this thread will be to transcribe his remarks live to the extent possible.

View of the crowd.

Photos

God be with you all.

@Garrett_Archer Let me suggest something, in love.

Earlier, you said and I agreed with you, that the Trump side should be looking to poke holes in their case. It would only make it stronger. I wanted you to be a part of the hearings here.

Now, I think you need to do the same.

I'd like to see you approach the state's case--that there's no fraud--with the ferver of a full Tumper.

Earlier you admitted that, yes, if 35,000 votes were programmed as a baseline in Pima, it would be possible if 35,000 paper ballots were inserted there.

That wouldn't . . .

be hard to do. In fact, while I agree with you that it would be almost impossible to do it statewide, it would NOT be impossible to do it in several select locations. When a few thousand votes decide an election, this would do it.

So I challenge you to start again.

Start with the eyes of someone who sees fraud (cuz is sure as HELL looks that way). For example, pollsters are wrong. But Richard Baris is rarely wrong. When he misses, it's by a half a point.

His AZ poll was "off" by over 4. Maybe he just erred. Maybe not.

Give it a try.

Show everyone that indeed you ARE the AZ Data Guru and mount the most substantive case you can for fraud before you set to knocking it down.

I think both sides should be represented before the full AZ legislature, under oath, questioned by both sides (NOT ACCUSED but questioned)