Election 2016
gregladen | September 27, 2016The US is already behind in its agreed to commitment to clean power
A study just out in Nature climate Change suggests that the US is already behind in its commitments to reduce the use of fossil fuel as an energy source, and the concomitant release of climate-warming greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
The paper, by Jeffery Greenblatt and Max Wei, says:
Current intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs)are insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature change to between 1.5 and 2.0◦C above pre-industrial levels, so the effectiveness of existing INDCs will…
gregladen | September 27, 2016It was a tossup, but in a rather complicated way.
Even the regular commenters with major network news, and PBS, clearly indicated that Hillary Clinton won this debate. And she did. She not only had better answers, but actual answers. Trump acted very poorly and Clinton acted presidential. Trump got caught in several lies, and made several more lies that were to be caught later. He made a fool of himself and Clinton did very well.
Therefore, it was a tossup. It was a tossup because a couple percent of the populous are former Bernie Sanders supporters with so much butt hurt that they will not…
gregladen | September 22, 2016This is it. Don't mess this up.
It isn't that common that a single event can have a cascading effect on so many things. And if it does, such an event would not be that likely to have an entirely negative effect on all it touches. But, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States would be such an event.
Therefore, in turn and in opposition, your vote this November 8th matters as much as his presidency would matter. So, you must vote. (And please remember to NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP. That's the point. Do not vote for Trump.)
Also please, make sure that if you intend to vote for a…
gregladen | September 21, 2016Sciencedebate.org has managed a seemingly impossible task. They developed 20 distinct (but often interrelated) questions about science policy, based on vast amounts of public input, and then got all four presidential candidates to address them. Congratulations to Sciencedebate.org. This is important, and I know that was not easy to do. The questions, and answers, are here.
Here are my reactions to the candidates responses for some of the questions.
1. Innovation. Science and engineering have been responsible for over half of the growth of the U.S. economy since WWII. But some reports…
gregladen | September 16, 2016"After years of peddling a false conspiracy theory that President Obama wasn't born in the United States, Donald Trump — just 53 days before Election Day — now says he believes the president was born in the U.S.
"President Obama was born in the United States. Period," Trump said at a campaign event in a ballroom in his new hotel in Washington. "Now, we want to get back to ... (bla bla bla)."
That's from NPR.
This is clearly going to hurt Donald Trump with his base. The accusation to begin with wad deplorable, after all.
That was today, a few minutes ago.
But yesterday ...
Start about…
gregladen | September 14, 2016Ignorant hateful white men who worship a rising fascist dictator look like this.
gregladen | September 14, 2016Following up on one of the issues addressed in "How The Press Created FrankenTrump and Ruined Civilization", we have this:
gregladen | September 13, 2016ScienceDebate.org is an organization that, for years now, has been pushing to get the candidates running for President of the United States to engage in a debate over science policy, just as they debate foreign policy, or economic policy, etc.
And, ScienceDebate.org has had some success. Some of the candidates, at the primary level, have engaged in such a debate, and at the national level, some of the candidates have contributed written answers to citizen-generated questions about science policy.
And now, they've done it again.
The four main candidates (two actual main candidates and two…
gregladen | September 12, 2016I have to say, first, that when I hear the term "Basket of Deplorables" I think right away of Edward Gorey, for some reason. Do you?
Anyway, I've seen and hear a lot of whining and bellyaching about this term, and Secretary Clinton's statement.
But most people have only heard the statement, and not the discussion that led up to it. That, folks, is the real story. So spend two minutes and edumicate yourself:
Personally, I can't see how one would support Trump unless one was fully deplorable, or a basket case, or both. Secretary Clinton underestimated with that 50% thumbsuck guess.
gregladen | August 10, 2016Several dozen nonpartisan organizations have joined together to ask for a Science Debate in the current campaign. The debate would address major issues in science, engineering, health and the environment
This is part of an effort that has been going on for several election cycles, with a certain degree of success.
More than 10 million scientists and engineers are represented by the organizations that have joined in this effort. They have provided a list of twenty major issues, and are encouraging journalists and voters to press the candidates on them during the 2016 U.S. Presidential…
gregladen | June 11, 2016Since 1968, about 17 candidates ran in Democratic primary races and earned enough votes (above about 20% all told) to count as having been contenders.
Of those, one was murdered, one was shot but lived, one was eliminated from competition by GOP dirty tricks, and one left the race because of insufficient support but would probably have been exposed as having two families (that would have been a scandal) had he stayed in the race.
Putting this another way, there is about a 24% chance that a Democrat running in a primary will be taken out of the race for extrinsic reasons.
Given the stakes…
gregladen | May 21, 2016As you know, I’ve been running a model to predict the outcomes of upcoming Democratic Primary contests. The model has change over time, as described below, but has always been pretty accurate. Here, I present the final, last, ultimate version of the model, covering the final contests coming up in June.
Why predict primaries and caucuses?
Predicting primaries and caucuses is annoying to some people. Why not just let people vote? Polls predict primaries and caucuses, and people get annoyed at polls.
But there are good reasons to make these predictions. Campaign managers might want to have…
gregladen | May 17, 2016I have not updated my model for predicting primary outcomes in the Democratic contest, but since the last few predictions were very accurate, I don't feel the need to do so. However, I will before the California primary, just in case.
Meanwhile, my model suggests the following for today's primaries.
Kentucky should be nearly a tie, though my model suggests that Sanders will get one more delegate than Clinton (Clinton: 27, Sanders: 28).
The model also suggests that Sanders will win in Oregon, Clinton: 24 and Sanders: 37.
There is very little polling in Kentucky, but the latest poll from…
gregladen | May 16, 2016First, Sanders lost Nevada because Hillary Clinton won the caucus.
Then, the Sanders campaign put their ground game into effect, in an effort to overtake Clinton during the nearly-unique-to-Nevada process that allows for changes in pledged delegates at later caucuses. But he didn't get enough delegates to achieve that. The Sanders campaign does get credit for getting more delegates than they had before, of course.
Then, at the State Convention, Sanders had enough delegates in place to gain a couple of more delegates and possibly tie with Clinton in the end. But the organizers for the Sanders…
gregladen | May 7, 2016Bernie does not want his people to disrupt speeches. He's OK with outside protests. He wants to do everything he can to stop Trump.
gregladen | May 6, 2016I've seen it said again and again that the Trump nomination will be a debacle for the Republicans. The Republican party will fall apart, become small, become insignificant. Clinton will easily crush trump. We're done. Ding dong.
But this is all wrong.
The Republican Party is in power in more state houses than ever, and in most cases, are solid in those state houses.
There are more Republican governors than Democratic governors, and this is a recent phenomenon never seen before. Most are pretty solid. Even the much maligned Walker of Wisconsin could not be gotten rid of when he messed with…
gregladen | May 4, 2016Donald Trump is now the presumed Republican candidate for President of the United States. Prior to Cruz and Kasich dropping out of the race, it was not 100% clear that Trump would achieve enough delegates to "lock" the convention, but he was vey close. I am not sure if Trump will be the only candidate on the ballot for the remaining GOP primaries. Had Cruz and Kasich remained in the race, my estimate was that Trump would be about six delegates short of a lock, but even if those candidates are still listed on some future ballots, it seems likely now that Trump will win enough delegates to go…
gregladen | April 21, 2016We hear a lot about how the system is rigged against Sanders and in favor of Clinton. Such yammering is normal for a political campaign, but if you believe it, I'd love to sell you a nice bridge down near New York City.
There are two things you need to know.
First, the Sanders campaign, according to senior Sanders campaign advisor Ted Devine, does not regard the system as rigged against them. Here's what he said (see below for full video):
I don't think there is. Unlike the Republicans Trump in particular, we are not going around saying everything is rigged. The rules are as the are. We may…
gregladen | April 20, 2016UPDATE May 26th 2016
Moments ago, Donald Trump's delegate count effectively went above the number needed to guarantee the nomination at this summer's Republican National Convention.
As reported by NBC, "Donald Trump now has the support of 1,238 delegates — just a hair above the 1,237 threshold needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination"
UPDATED
The update includes adding actual delegate counts for races so far, recognizing that for Pennsylvania this means only 17 delegates out of 54, even though he won there, because Pennsylvania is strange. Also, some other revisions.
This…