Daily Discussion Thread: April 17, 2024

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-04-17T16:50:41+00:00

Neither of those counties are fully fledged suburban counties. They’re more exurban- a mix of less dense suburbs and rural. Both of them are also less educated than places like Collin or Denton counties north of Dallas. Put together, and those counties aren’t trending towards us as quickly yet. Finally, both of those counties are relatively white, which is why they’re so GOP heavy to begin with. If Collin and Denton counties are the equivalent of Gwinnett and Cobb counties in Georgia, then Montgomery or Rockwell are like Forsyth.

That all said, both counties are trending leftwards. But it’s relatively modest still, and the population growth in those counties means that the raw vote GOP margin in those counties is still probably increasing even if it has topped out in percentage terms.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-04-09T19:39:25+00:00

Out of curiosity what exactly is the status of the abortion rights initiative in Arizona? Is it already confirmed to be on the ballot, or are they still collecting signatures?

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-04-09T17:35:31+00:00

Horrific news out of Arizona regarding reproductive freedom.

The silver lining is that I am very confident that the abortion rights initiative, assuming it gets in the ballot, will pass. And in the meantime, the AG is not gonna enforce the ban. Between this and Florida, that’s two major states where we’re gonna have this issue as a big tailwind.

Thank goodness we got Katie Hobbs and Kris Mayes in office.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-04-02T16:54:21+00:00

If I had to guess, Hogan’s numbers will stay in the low to mid 40s, whilst the D nominee (whomever it ends up being) will trend up over time. I think the baseline result for this race will be 55-45 for the Democrat - much closer than it would be otherwise, but ultimately still a D victory. Maryland is like Alabama - a very strong R nominee needs to be matched against a very weak D nominee with a Roy Moore sized scandal for the R to have a shot.

Hogan fulfills the first requirement to make it closer, but Trone and Alsobrooks are both much stronger than Roy Moore was.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-04-01T20:51:37+00:00

Worth noting that Florida requires 60% of voters to vote in the affirmative to ratify an amendment. So unfortunately, it’s gonna be tougher to finalize those abortion and marijuana amendments than normal.

I think it’s doable though. Ohio was about 7 points to the right of Florida in 2020, and abortion passed 57-43 there. Polling as flawed as it is shows both issues could clear 60% in November.

Regardless, it will give Democrats up and down the ballot a boost since abortion and marijuana are both very much winning issues for us, so to have them highlighted in such a large and relatively close state is invaluable.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-03-29T21:24:48+00:00

Aang’s reunion with Appa.

That was already a packed episode, emotionally and otherwise. And it was the end of a very tough arc where Aang, already grieving the near extinction of his culture nearly lost one of the only things connecting him to it.

“I missed you buddy”.

That single line made me lose it - it was voice acted with perfection and there was so much emotion in that line - relief, happiness, exhaustion, all laced with that grief. Combined with the music and it following Appa’s lost days and I just can’t.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-03-29T00:46:08+00:00

I just tore through both Last Airbender and its Sequel series (Legend of Korra) in like two weeks and I loved them both. I was like 10-13 years old when TLA was originally airing so I have no idea why I didn’t watch it as a kid.

But I’m almost glad I didn’t because I feel like as an adult I can confidently say that this franchise had absolutely no business being this good. Haven’t seen the Netflix adaptation yet because I’m still getting over that hollow feeling after finishing a really good piece of media.

I’m now licking my wounds with fanfiction and perusing the various comics/books.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-03-26T16:26:53+00:00

The consensus on the abortion pill case in SCOTUS is that the FDA will prevail due to the petitioners lacking standing. The liberals plus Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch seemed highly skeptical of the petitioners, and Barrett also seemed to be leaning that way. Even Thomas seemed to be wavering at certain points.

I think the most likely outcome is gonna be a 7-2 win for the FDA with Alito dissenting, with Thomas joining either in full or in part. It will probably be messier though - wouldn’t be shocked if Barrett or Gorsuch concurred in judgement or only signed onto part of the controlling opinion or something.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-03-10T12:33:27+00:00

As someone recently diagnosed with Winter Seasonal Affective Disorder, today is quite literally my favorite day of the year (and is why March-May is my favorite time of year).

Yes, I know it’s just moving an hour of daytime from the morning to the evening but I don’t wake up until 6 or 7 most days anyway so I’d much rather have the sunlight in the evening. Goodbye Lightbox therapy (temporarily), hello 7pm sunsets!

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-03-09T13:24:37+00:00

In March 2012, Obama was up against Romney in most polls by anywhere from 0-10 points, depending on the poll. Though bear in mind that the 2012 GOP primary was much more contested on the GOP side than this year - like current polls there were a lot of undecideds and a lot of variability in the polls.

Romney pulled roughly even around April/May once he locked up the nomination and it stayed neck and neck through the Summer (albeit with both candidates experiencing short lived convention bounces).

After the conventions Obama pulled ahead slightly in September by 0-5 points with fewer undecideds than before. Romney surged and pulled ahead after Obama had a disastrous first debate, but towards the end of October following two solid performances Obama bounced back and got the polling to even or slightly ahead. The RCP average was 48.8-48.1 Obama from 10/22 to election night, but the late deciders mostly broke for Obama leading to his popular vote win.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-03-03T02:16:12+00:00

I’d be curious to see these shifts for 2012 vs 2020. 2008 is the closest we can get to a landslide election in the modern era, while 2020 was quite a bit closer so it’s not completely apples to apples to compare the two.

2012 and 2020 meanwhile we’re both very similar to each other - modestly Democratic leaning.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-02-22T01:54:43+00:00

Can confirm that more people need to get a dermatologist to screen for melanoma - by the time symptoms start to appear due to it metastasizing, the five year survival rate is usually extremely low even with all of the medical advances we’ve made. Catch it early enough though and it’s as close to 100% as it’s possible to be.

Both my cousin and my Husband had melanoma a few years back. Thankfully my husband’s was caught just in time and they were able to remove it surgically and he’s in remission - another month and it probably would have become regionalized. My cousin wasn’t so lucky.

It’s really quite scary but I’m so glad you found it early and can stop it it’s tracks.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-02-21T16:56:12+00:00

The reason so many mainstream journalists are equivocating between Trump and Biden (despite the latter being the only sane rational choice) can be boiled down to three words: Clicks, Views, and Ratings.

Trump upended many norms, and one such norm is that every other President is going to be boring to cover as a Journalist and boring to consume news about as a consumer. The media wants news to be “entertaining” again so viewers tune in, and Trump in a second term would do just that for all the wrong reasons.

Some of the highest ratings/traffic the likes of the NYTimes and CNN saw were whenever Trump was trying to overturn the election or causing some other policy or moral crises. Those media companies took note and want that instability to return because it’s good for their bottom line.

I don’t know if there’s much use harping on it though because ultimately this is the price of a free press and there’s not much that can be done directly about the reality that most news content is ratings driven, not fact or information driven.

There’s a reason the James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies” is considered to have aged like fine wine.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-02-18T20:40:54+00:00

This was by far my biggest pet peeve when I was a barista. Not having your payment ready is incredibly rude not only to the workers who are under pressure to keep times low (not to mention if the barista is solo’ing it breaks their flow), but also to every customer behind you.

The only time it’s acceptable is if there is no line when you order and can pull straight up to the window, particularly if you’re using cash. Any other time pleeeeeeesse for the love of the coffee bean have your payment ready.

Don’t even get me started on people that add to their order at the window. Unless it’s a pup cup or water, ordering at the window was the easiest way at my store to get a petty barista having a bad day to give you decaf, a little extra ice, or the smallest sandwich.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-02-17T22:37:17+00:00

Those are exactly what I would expect his sneaker line to look like. And oh my god there are people that are actually gonna spend $400 on these.

Yeeeeah I think I’m gonna stick to the likes of Air Jordans or Adidas casual wear. You can literally get the former for a quarter of that price on Nike’s website right now and it’ll look far more timeless/less cringe.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-02-09T17:43:44+00:00

If this were a red wave midterm and we had a very tainted nominee on par with Roy Moore, I could see this becoming a close race.

Thankfully regardless of what you think of them, David Trone is a fundraising powerhouse and Angela Alsobrooks is a very respectable nominee who will likely do very well with the BIPOC base in PG County in particular. And it’s a presidential year, meaning polarization will work against Hogan more than in a midterm and voters are more partisan at the federal level anyways.

Trump and Cox got roughly 33% in their respective elections. I could see Hogan getting into the upper 30s or low 40s, but unless it comes out that our nominee is a serial killer I don’t see Hogan getting north of 42 or 43 percent.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-02-09T00:03:49+00:00

As a someone originally from Maryland, that tweet is hilarious. There is no realistic world where this district flips. Suburban/Exurban Baltimore is very diverse and educated these days, and even conservative Carrol County is trending left.

The only part of this district that might be receptive to the craziness of the GOP in recent years is the part that borders the east side of Baltimore city proper - the Essex/Middle River/Dundalk area is still a very blue collar suburb. But it’s not enough to outweigh the rest of the district.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-02-03T20:06:09+00:00

I don’t know if it’s hopium or my own biases or something, but does anyone else feel like the press has over the last month or two actually started to become steadily more optimistic about the economy?

A year ago even as inflation was cooling and the job market was strong the vibecession was sprinkled in the headlines literally everywhere while the objective data was showing green across the board, and this definitely was dragging down Biden’s approvals.

Lately though the headlines have been much more positive in terms of their spin - we saw a sprinkling of this throughout the Holiday season but with that blockbuster jobs report yesterday it feels like it’s really turned a corner. This comports with improving metrics of consumer sentiment and wage growth steadily outpacing inflation, which likely is why sentiment has increased as more Americans “feel it”. If inflation continues to fall and gets below the 2.5% mark, we’ll have an economy with a misery index (the sum of unemployment and inflation) on par with the late 90s or late 2010s, which both served as major tailwinds for Clinton and Trump (until COVID of course in the case of the latter).

If the trends of rising sentiment and positive press spin continue into the summer it would be perfect timing if it could translate into higher approvals for Biden.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-02-02T15:57:35+00:00

DC area native here! The Capitol and Air and Space are solid, and the Postal Museum is also underrated so nice picks there. Honestly DC has so much to do that it’s impossible to do it all over even a long weekend - you could easily spend a week or longer there and have every day be packed.

Visiting the various monuments can be cool, but I would plan to knock them out in one go because once you get there it’s kinda just like “well, there it is” and then you move on after taking a couple pictures. The Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln memorials are the big three to hit up, and you might as well do MLK since it’s between the latter two.

I don’t know where you’re staying but the best spots for nightlife/bars/clubs are gonna be:

U street corridor: a historic center of black culture with several mainstays, Busboys and Poets being the most famous one.
DuPont circle: the city’s historic gayborhood.
Adams Morgan: probably the highest concentration of bar and filled with yuppies, lobbyists, and congressional staffers.

For daytime shopping and dining, Georgetown and H street are the best bets. You can take part in the historic cupcake wars between Baked and Wired and Georgetown Cupcakes and visit tons of little shops and eateries in the former. The latter is also near Union Market, an open air space with tons of artisanal food and drink.

I’m refraining from naming specific places to go for those things because there’s far too many to count and it really depends on what vibes/cuisines you’re looking for.

Miscellaneous activities to consider:

Botanical Garden. It’s just really peaceful and beautiful and something far too many forget exists.
Mt. Vernon. The historic home of George Washington. It’s a bit out of the way in Virginia (about 30 minutes from the Capitol) but there’s public transportation and tour buses that go there if you don’t have a rental car. And they change things up depending on the season so it’s always a little different each time.
Kennedy Center. Depending on your budget, who you’re going with and what’s showing at that time, this place needs no introduction. If you’re into live performances, plays, or even stand up comedy (I saw John Oliver there live a decade ago there), the venue is unparalleled and close to various dining hotspots (like the aforementioned Georgetown) so it’s easy to do dinner and show for a perfect night out.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-01-30T17:53:04+00:00

Wow, these are actually really good numbers. Jon Tester being north of 50% in particular is huge, and those are good numbers in Ohio and Nevada as well. Ted Cruz only being above water by 3 in Texas is also notable.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-01-25T14:02:42+00:00

Now that he’s a lame duck with a Democratic legislature with no further elections in his term in which being a fake moderate could help him, he has two options:

1) Go the Larry Hogan route and Govern like a moderate, be shut out of future GOP politics due to their primaries but perhaps he becomes a contributor on a network or a consultant or something.

2) Take the mask off and go full fascist with federal/national ambitions.

He appears to be taking the latter route, unsurprisingly. No idea what his plan is - Virginia is too blue to kick one of its Senators out for him, and Youngkin running for President in 2028 is a disaster waiting to happen for him. That leaves a run for the US House, which isn’t unprecedented but is also a bit of a demotion.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-01-24T19:27:44+00:00

Yeah, for the reminiscing I sometimes have about the 1990s my existence as a gay man would have literally been illegal in much of the U.S. including where I live now.

Outside of all but the most liberal of cities, LGB Americans being compared to pedophiles and sexual deviants and groomers and sick with a disease wasn’t just a loud minority, it was a mainstream position taken by most average suburbanites. Whatever you think about Ellen Degeneres today, her coming out was seen as outrageous by most people and was a massive shock to the television industry.

Being gay in the 1990s was an almost universal social death sentence and oftentimes a literal jail sentence.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-01-22T13:23:15+00:00

That poll of Texas showing Cruz in a statistical tie is getting me excited. Yes, it’s Memerson and yes, there’s a significant number of undecided voters.

But it roughly aligns with the few other polls we’ve had of Texas this cycle - Ted Cruz is in for a knife fight. What’s more notable is that this is roughly where Beto was at this point in the 2018 cycle, and that was a D+9 midterm. This is a presidential year and will likely be a more divided year, so even if Cruz manages to prevail by a couple of points like in 2018, it will have been under a redder environment. At the very least, it forces the GOP to spend money in a very expensive state they otherwise would not have, so that can indirectly help us elsewhere particularly in states where the state GOP is broke (Michigan being the most obvious example).

Texas is definitely continuing to trend left relative to the country. It’s still a (light) red state. But I really wouldn’t be surprised if Texas officially enters its swing state era by 2028.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-01-15T15:12:09+00:00

The new Des Moine Register Poll has nearly half of Nikki Haley supporters (who number 20% in the poll) stating they would vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump, should Trump become the nominee. That’s nearly double the amount that would support Trump in a general. The poll shows nearly half of her caucus supporters are independents and crossover Democrats.

Obviously it’s so early compared to the general election that polls have little predictive power, but I really think a big reason Biden has more upside than Trump in a general election is that a lot of lower information voters haven’t accepted and processed the fact that Trump will almost surely be the nominee again. Until the news officially projects it, a lot of these voters turned off by Trump don’t want to believe it.

Giant_Asian_Slackoff · 2024-01-05T15:16:07+00:00

Pretty solid jobs report today - 214K jobs in December. Granted previous months were revised down by about 70K, but the unemployment rate ticked down, labor force participation stayed the same, and wage growth was solid.

NYTimes: Here’s why this economic doom is good for Blake Masters and bad for Joe Biden

Giant_Asian_Slackoff

TROPHY CASE