The Frankish Reich

To the OP: Do not bring that football garbage here. This is a political forum

I am not an SNL producer. I imagine Lorne Michaels changed his mind, probably hoping to give Kamala a little "humanizing" boost. I imagine he suggested this to the NBC poohbahs, who then ran it by the lawyers. I imagine the lawyers advised that it was o.k. if it didn't involve an attack on Trump and if they also did the disclosure and waited to see if other candidates demand equal time. I imagine that they ran the segment. My thoughts, since you seem so interested in them.

Congrats, Hung Cao. Well played.

That BJ mouth is getting out of hand

As you guys are so fond of arguing: turnabout is fair play. https://money.cnn.com/2015/10/14/media/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-saturday-night-live-equal-time/index.html It's an FCC (not FEC) rule; my bad. And, as usual, there are lots of interpretations and exceptions to the so-called "equal time" rule. And there's a lot we don't know. Did they offer Trump and Jill Stein and whoever a chance to appear on NBC late night? Have those other candidates demanded it? If they don't demand it, then there's no violation. If they do, well, then maybe NBC will give Trump a free 90 second ad on Monday night. Who knows. At any rate, I see zero basis for suggesting it's a criminal violation, unlike Musk's situation where it may very well be one. So as far a slowing down a touch? Please take your own advice.

What's stupid about my comment? You guys are saying Kamala's appearance was a joke, a failure. So what are you so worried about? I have no idea what the FEC says about having a candidate on a comedy show. Perhaps you'd like to actually look up the law before saying it was illegal. NBC/Comcast has attorneys - good ones! expensive ones! - who apparently cleared it. Again ... show me the law that says it is. Now you've moved from "a violation of FEC rules" to "a crime" without so much as a cite.

With respect to health, the latter half of the 20th century was distinguished by one big thing: incredible success against infectious disease thanks to vaccines. Smallpox, polio, measles, tetanus, even chickenpox (as someone who had shingles much later in life, this one is particularly personal to me ... the youngest generation will never have to worry about that). And we're going to undo that? Based on junk science? Fluoride: I kind of agree. With fluoridated toothpastes, etc., I'm not sure this one is as important as it used to be. But in terms of tremendously reducing the cost (and pain) of dental work, particularly on children, any cost-benefit analysis would have to be positive. There's a study out there that shows that fluoride level double what the government recommends may be associated with lower IQ, but again: double ... may. We know for a fact that teeth are healthier than ever and the fluoridated water played a big part. I simply cannot understand where this nonsense comes from. It predated COVID, so don't give me that.

Ooh, Trumpies are worked up about Kamala doing a dumb skit! Someone's getting a little worried out there ... Actually, the earlier part of the skit was kind of good. The "say their names" or "remember their names" thing.

Donald has given us a new euphemism for *****. "Eating the Corndog."

Jesus sent him to save America.

Fantastic Ray Davis profile running on CBS where I live (Colorado). Look for it! We overdo the stuff about inspirational stories and overcoming adversity. But this one is real. Amazing young man, and I feel fortunate that he's on our team.

As I'm sure you know, that would be called deflation.

OK, so some of you Trump voters, please explain to me WTF this was supposed to be. His mic stand wasn't working so he pretended to blow it? Is he all right?

I don't know why. There were concerns not with vote counting but with what would be called "election access." But that wasn't me. The burden is on the proponent of the claim, and so far virtually no such claims have been borne out following investigation. If you want to argue that things like voting by aliens happens? Yes, that's true. It is a serious issue, and actually is a criminal offense (I've personally dealt with a few such cases over many many years.) There are also no doubt eligible voters who cannot vote because of undue restrictions. The Virginia case striking people from voter rolls in the run-up to this election is a good example. The state looked at people who identified themselves as citizens of another country on drivers license applications, some several years ago. If you're a permanent resident you are eligible to naturalize and become a citizen in 5 years, 2 if your green card is thru a U.S. citizen spouse. So you are striking some people from the rolls who naturalized in the ensuing years, without providing them adequate time to contest that decision. It's not perfect, but we know one thing (as attested to by Trump's own AG): any irregularities in 2020 were clearly insufficient to change the outcome of the election.

Still with the vaccine-autism crap. His running mate, gold digger Nicole Shanahan, is suggesting that her kid's autism is caused by vaccines. People suggested Barron Trump may be on the spectrum. I don't know. What's the most obvious explanation for both? OLD EGGS/OLD SPERM. But people don't want to face that harsh reality.

The "liberal media" includes, I guess, all those CNBC investment bank CEOs who brushed this aside as an "exogenous blip" To you guys, "liberal" means "interprets something that happened under Biden as good or neutral."

Half TDS is the ticket. That's where I continue to live.

Incompetence does bother me. I would like to see a more professional election staff in all states. You know who's pretty good? Mr. Raffensberger in Georgia. Seriously. The guy thinks like the engineer that he is, and he seems to have efficiency and accuracy in mind. In general I think the vast majority of mistakes are caught and corrected, and that they cancel each other out on the wider stage. With all the voter fraud talk, I always go back to the old maxim: Never assume malice where incompetence provides an adequate explanation.

Consider this my RSVP

Thank god for the cheating part

Why I'm guessing Trump will win: - state polling has been pretty unreliable, which is not surprising. You're usually dealing with a smaller sample of a smaller population so errors are compounded, so I don't have much faith in them. - somehow (I don't know how since response rates are awful since the landline died) national polling is still pretty good. I look to Silver's aggregate, which at least attempt to separate the good pollsters from the weak ones. He currently has Harris with something on the order of a 1.1 point lead. - the popular vote, of course, isn't what counts, but it correlates pretty well with electoral outcomes. And typically the tipping point has been about a 2.5% or better Harris popular vote win is what she needs to win the electoral vote. - 2016: Hillary wins the popular vote by 2 percent; loses the electoral college - 2020: Biden wins the popular vote by 4.5 percent; wins the electoral college Of course, differentially higher turnout on the Harris side could change things. But right now, Harris's polling lead looks a lot more like a 2016 result than a 2020 result.

Well, they may say the other things ... but #2 pretty obviously accounts for a good share of the drop.

We all know about that glance over the urinal divider guy ...

Learn about the possessive and the apostrophe! I'm (kinda) old so I remember working at a law firm where they made me dictate briefs. It's hard as hell to do at first. I was already used to using a laptop to write my own stuff. When you're dictating you have to say it like this: "The only garbage I see floating out there is Trump's supporter's [transcriber: that is "supporter apostrophe s] Joe should talk like that, just like the old, old days.

I may not be Arnold Palmer. But I'm not Donald Trump either.