Final Model Prediction

This is my final forecast.

If you haven't followed this model over the years, it's done a pretty good job of calling the election. It has called every election correctly since 2000, one year even getting the electoral count precisely right as well. The model uses prediction (betting) markets state-by-state data, multiplying the odds of a candidate winning a state by the number of electoral votes available in that state, and then adding them all up.

So, for instance, if Trump has a 74% chance of winning Arizona, and Arizona has 11 electoral votes, Trump is allotted 8.14 electoral votes (11 x .74 = 8.14). This is a probability weighted outcome.

Right now, that model has Hillary winning 302 to 236.

However, candidates cannot win partial states (with the exception of Maine and Nebraska). As such, in the final forecast only, I force the model to allot votes in each state entirely to one candidate or the other.

Here is how the states break down:



So, the final prediction is 307 to 231 for Clinton. 

God help us.

What needs to happen for Trump to win? First, hold North Carolina, which I think he will. Then, he needs Florida, which has been trending away for a few days, but is also doable. That's 260. Then he could win both Nevada and New Hampshire, which is a bit of a stretch. Or Michigan and Colorado. Pennsylvania would do the trick, or Michigan plus New Hampshire. (Interestingly, several scenarios get you to a tie, which throws the election to the House, which means Trump wins.) Bottom line: while none of these paths is out of reach, they are still difficult. I wish I could say otherwise.

Here's where I feel obliged to note that while prediction markets tend to be the best way to predict political outcomes - better than polls - they are not perfect. Sometimes the wisdom of crowds blows it. Brexit is a great example, and there may be undercurrents in this election that are similar. Specifically, voting for Trump/Brexit is seen by elites as unsophisticated or rube-like. Poll respondents may be reluctant to admit to pollsters their views. If this is a two or three point effect, Trump wins. Prediction markets may be preferable to polls, but they are undoubtedly influenced by them.

The other thing that could cause polls to be off are turnout models. Republicans should be careful about this, because many thought that pollsters in 2012 were intentionally using biased turnout models. Well, they weren't, or they were and got lucky. But while pollsters are very good at predicting how people will vote, they are not that good at predicting how they will actually vote. Right now, most pollsters are assuming about 6% more self-identified Democrats will turn up than self-identified Republicans. Given the highly visible enthusiasm gap - we've all seen the contrasting images of Trump and Clinton rallies - this does seem like a reach. One wonders if all the disenfranchised, poorly educated, mostly white voters, who don't typically vote in high percentages, will turn out in surprising numbers. Anecdotally, it sure seems that way, and just like Brexit, pollsters might be missing it. On the other hand, I might be wishcasting (my new favorite word).

Go vote tomorrow.

When You Hate Both Candidates

What a situation. 

Neither candidate for president is even remotely suited for the office. And yet, one will occupy it.

Neither is temperamentally suited, and, let's face it, neither is a good person. Donald Trump is a deeply, deeply strange man, and Hillary Clinton should be in jail, among other things. I could argue, successfully, that while Trump's transgressions are predominantly things he's said, Hillary's are things she's actually done, and that's far worse, but let's put that debate aside. Let's stipulate that the candidates are equally awful. 

What to do?

Here's what. Get over the fact that both candidates are each their own brand of reprehensible and come to terms with the fact that one of them will be running the country. Focus on the one thing that no one seems to be talking about: policy. 

Policy is the tie breaker.

Choose the candidate that best fits your policy preferences. It shouldn't be hard, because they are miles apart.

Do you want an activist Supreme Court or one that upholds the Constitution? The next president will decide that one for at least a generation.

What kind of tax code do you want? Hillary wants higher rates and more complexity, Trump is the opposite. On death taxes alone, Hillary wants to go to a whopping 65%, while Trump wants to eliminate them. That's an incredible difference that no one's focusing on.

Do you want open borders or more rationalized, controlled immigration?

How about identity politics with transgender bathrooms and balkanized campuses? Want to double down on that or push back?

I could go on. There are huge policy differences between Trump and Clinton, bigger than in most presidential elections, and almost no one is even noticing. Everyone's caught up in the circus, including the media, who have been shameful. The debate moderators have been feeding into it as well. But policy-wise, we're talking about two very, very different paths forward.

So...

1. Ignore that bile in your throat
2. Read up on policy
3. Pick your candidate
4. Hold you nose and vote

Birth of an Industry - Only in America

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I’d like to depart from politics for a day.

Last week, I went to a large conference in San Diego, where my company had a booth. What's interesting is that it was for an industry that didn’t even exit three years ago. I mean nothing, zip, and now it’s huge. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, odds are you don’t even know it exists.

I’m talking about game streaming.

What, no idea what that is? Allow me to give you the brief history.

What if someone had come to you, say, four year ago, and said they had an awesome investment opportunity for you: they were starting a website where you could go and watch other people play video games live.

I’ll tell you what you would have said: move along. Next idea, please. I would have reacted the same.

Well, we all would have been wrong. Really wrong. A billion dollars wrong.

There is a company called Twitch that did exactly that. A year and a half ago they sold to Amazon for a cool billion. That turned out to be cheap, and over the last couple of years, an entire industry has grown up around the idea. It turns out that people, mostly young and male, love watching video games. Many of the more popular “streamers,” the people who send live streams of their games to Twitch, are minor celebrities and make six figures. I saw some of them at the conference, and people were lined up to get selfies with them. 

Nearby, there were endless rows of booths with specialty streamer products like microphones, chairs, and endless accessories. Shaq and Snoop were there, avec entourage, playing in a “celebrity vs. streamer” match.

The way it works is that “streamers” start playing a game of, say, Call of Duty, and upload the action in real time to Twitch. Viewers can watch and type in comments. The streamer can be seen and heard by everyone in a little box in the corner. It looks like this:

Viewers can also make spontaneous donations to the streamer, to which you no doubt say, pfft!, who would do that?

A lot of people, as it turns out. The largest donation to date is $45,000. What do you get? Nothing, really, except maybe a shout-out from the streamer. Seven seconds of derivative fame.

No one over maybe 35 can possibly get any of this. I don’t, and I’m in the industry. 

Here's how much I don't get it. I went to an “unboxing” of a new game, called Breakaway, in a huge theater where I watched as the game was “revealed.” Two thousand people shrieked and whooped around me with every detail. Two teams were introduced on stage, to much fanfair. They then competed in the first ever match, which played out on a huge screen. 

This was a good test because like me, none of the people in the theater were familiar with Breakaway. We were starting on equal footing, and I made a good faith effort to follow the action. Here’s what I saw: eight characters flitting around in all directions with light and objects flying everywhere faster than I think anyone could reasonably process. It was like watching chaos, and I could only follow small portions of the action, missing important developments elsewhere.

Well, apparently my visual processing is wanting, because the shrieking and whooping around me continued. Sometime it would reach audible crests when something happened that I invariably couldn't make out. I'm officially on the wrong side of the digital divide.

If you want to see the whole event, it’s here (the gameplay is towards the end): 

You’re probably wondering what the heck I have to do with any of this, so allow me to explain. If you’re not interested, now would be the time to move on to the Drudge Report.

My new company, LiquidSky (I am co-founder), does cloud computing. Specifically, we let you rent a high-performance Windows PC in the cloud which can be accessed from any device. Got a clunky old laptop? No need to replace it, we turn it into a badass computer with monster bandwidth. Simply use your clunker to connect to your “SkyComputer,” and we stream the experience to you fast enough such that you can’t detect any latency. It looks and feels like your own computer, but it’s not.

We think this will be a big deal, generally, because we’re breaking the model of buying a new machine every few year as your old one obsolesces. We let you keep everything up there, in the cloud, including your files and programs. It’s pretty cool, I gotta say.

But for gamers, it’s particularly cool. Every new game requires ever more demanding hardware specs, and gamers have trouble keeping up. A good gaming PC can run $2,000, but then it’s struggling to keep up a year later. With LiquidSky, gamers and others never need to update their hardware again. Heck, you can even play Call of Duty on a phone, if you get our app.

At our booth, we had two laptops, loaded with two different high-end games, which were connected to our nearest servers in San Jose, which was 500 miles away. The gaming experience was flawless, and most people had trouble believing it was possible. One even looked under the table, thinking we were hiding a server there.

Nope.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience. I’d call it a subculture, but that would be unfair. It’s too big. Gamers spent $91 billion last year. Did you know that more people watched the League of Legends Championship Match last year than the World Series?

Yup, it’s their world now.

Election Model Update

Trump has moved closer, for sure, but before Republicans get too excited, I would offer two caveats:

1. Trump is still only marginally ahead of his previous high point in late July.
2. The non-weighted, "simple" model still skews heavily to Hillary. In this model, all electoral votes in a state are awarded to a single candidate. So, for instance, HRC currently has a 54% chance of winning Florida. In the simple model, she wins all 29 electoral votes. In the weighted model, she only gets 13.3.

If probabilities remain where they are, and Clinton still has a greater number of vote-heavy states where she's north of 50%, it implies that things could more easily break her way on election day. Having said this, state probabilities tend to gravitate away from toss-ups as the day approaches.

Right now, the model has Clinton winning 290 to Trump's 248. You can see the progress Trump has made here:

On the other hand, the simple model has Clinton up 323 to 215. Here's the state-by-state breakdown:

Taking Down Jim Sleeper

So, I haven't posted in a while. Frankly, I've just been too busy doing real-world things. But when the New York Times Sunday Review takes a shot at you, it's time to carve out a few minutes. It won't take longer than that to dismiss Professor Sleeper.

It started with a New York Times front page article last month called, "College Students Protest, Alumni's Fondness Fades and Checks Shrink." The gist of it is in the title: that alums are getting wise to some of the full-on craziness going down on campuses. I was quoted a bit, saying, among other things, "this is not your daddy's liberalism," and "I don't think anything has damaged Yale's brand quite like that," referring to the widely-viewed video of "Shrieking Girl," which can only be properly appreciated by viewing it yourself:

Two weeks later, a Yale professor named Jim Sleeper wrote a piece for the Sunday Review called, "Political Correctness and its Real Enemies." He started out by repeating a few of my quotes...

NEW HAVEN — Last November, Scott C. Johnston, a 1982 Yale graduate, was attending a conference organized by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at his alma mater when student protesters disrupted it. Soon after, he watched an online video of a black Yale student hurling imprecations at a professor who headed her residential college for failing “to create a place of comfort and home.”

Such protests have prompted Mr. Johnston and other alumni to cease funding what they see as coddled children and weak-kneed administrators. “I don’t think anything has damaged Yale’s brand quite like that” video, he said. “This is not your daddy’s liberalism.”

The article, as you will see, is an incoherent mess. Had I tried to turn this in as a paper in high school, it would have been handed back dismissively with the word "rewrite" scrawled in red ink. I urge you to read it yourself to see if you can figure out what the hell he's trying to say.

But let me try.

Sleeper said...

"What the video didn’t show were the hundreds of white students having their first frank conversations about race with minority classmates."

First conversation about race? Seriously? Is anything else discussed on campus these days? Identity politics trumps all.

"A thousand students of all colors joined a vibrant campus “march of resilience” — I know, because I was on campus last fall."

Well, Sleeper, so was I. I was at that conference, the one progressives tried to shut down, the one Sleeper neglects to mention was a conference on free speech. Oh, and he also leaves out that as we were leaving, some of us were spit on. But he manages to get in that we were there for the Buckley Program. Read: it's just a bunch of crazy right-wingers, so discount anything they say. He goes on...

"Free speech and open inquiry are alive and well on campus."

Bwahhahahahahahahahaha.

(Sorry, can't help it.)

Sleeper, of course, is talking about colleges in general, not just Yale. So, why then would the University of Chicago feel the need to explicitly state that they won't ban speakers? Why is it that all speakers who are banned are conservative? Why is it that a friend, who has a son at Yale, recently told me that conservative undergrads have learned to keep their mouths shut? You see, Sleeper lives in a bubble where open debate consists of sparring shades of progessivism. He thinks debates between Code Pink and the Progressive Student Alliance on whether Donald Trump is the devil or merely evil constitutes "free speech and open inquiry."

"But it isn’t the protests per se that damaged open inquiry and expression, but the frenzied way they have been portrayed by the right."

Frenzied? Frenzied was Professor Christakos being surrounded by shouting students because they were upset about the mere concept of insensitive Halloween costumes (think Frito Bandito), and then being hounded out of Yale altogether. Frenzied was 200 students trying to physically break up a free speech conference and then spitting on attendees. (You can read my full account here.)

Frenzy is the default condition of the Left these days, having elevated the emotion of outrage to a virtue. The Right, on the other hand, is about as frenzied as a garden club meeting. We have day jobs.

"What motivates (conservatives) is not the defense of free speech, but an ideology that condemns “politically correct” activists and administrators and dubiously recommends “free markets” as the best guarantors of such rights."

Okay, I confess I have no idea what Sleeper is talking about here. Free markets are great, but he seems to conflate them with free speech. Hey Professor, they're both good, they're both necessary, but they're not the same.
  
"If anything, the real threat to free inquiry isn’t students, but that same market imperative that First Amendment defenders claim to hold dear. Most university leaders serve not politically correct pieties but pressures to satisfy student “customers” and to avoid negative publicity, liability and losses in “brand” or “market share” — terms that belong in corporate suites but appear, increasingly, in deans’ offices."

This is where Sleeper really leaves the rails. He's (apparently) saying that the threat to free speech isn't from the students who specifically want to place limitations on it, but from we evil people on which the university relies for donations. Here, he's seizing on my use of the word "brand," implying that somehow those of us who work in, and support, market economies are somehow subverting universities' missions of free inquiry.

You see, those of us who are the most vocal about free speech on campus are really, deep down, the ones trying to subvert it, all to feed our corporate agenda. Got that? Professor Sleeper: I could just as easily have said "reputation" instead of "brand." Might that have spared us the tortured logic?

"Today wealthy donors back groups like the Intercollegiate Studies Institute: the Bradley Foundation, the Scaife family foundations and the Koch brothers’ DonorsTrust ( for donors who don’t want to go public) that funnel money to, among others, the David Horowitz Freedom Center... and Campus Watch..."

When you're starting to lose even your leftie audience, shout "Koch brothers!" It's Pavlovian. Follow Sleeper's logic here: there are people - Kochs! - who give money to universities who also give money to conservative causes, and therefore college administrators dance to their tune.

For anyone paying the faintest attention to campus politics these days, the notion that administrators are doing anything - anything at all - conservative, is risible. If there were truth in this, things would be a whole lot different, starting with the status of Professor Sleeper's tenure.

"(Conservative's) selectively legalistic “free speech” strategy helps turn collegial contentions into rhetorical battlefields by hyping and even provoking progressive offenders."

So, by defending free speech, it is we who are the bad guys, not Shrieking Girl and her friends. Sleeper thinks we need to be more sensitive...

"...freedom requires self-restraint and respect for others."

Translation: we need more safe spaces, trigger warnings, micro-aggression training, and banning of insensitive conservative speakers. (I am getting good at translating from the liberal.)

"The reason is that conservatives’ yearning for ordered liberty is being debased not by liberals but by the casino-like financing and predatory lending and marketing of a “dynamic capitalist economy.'"

Whaaaaaat? Stop, please just stop, before you teach again.

"If collegiate civil societies are lurching into ditches as often now as the “free speech” campaign claims, that’s partly because the larger society is, too. Yes, some students are as intemperate as the Republican presidential nominee, and some deans accommodate them. Their behavior may not be your daddy’s liberalism, but what their outraged critics are selling isn’t his conservatism, either."

And, yes, there it is kind readers. In a singular act of logical gymnastics, Sleeper's big close manages to wedge in Donald Trump, ignoring the fact that all the "intemperate" students, like "Shrieking Girl" and the would-be expectorators, are on Sleeper's side of the aisle.

The New York Times should be embarrassed that they run pieces like this, but it's what we've come to expect.

Has Clinton Left Herself Open to Extortion?

 

"I know everything."

The news this week that hackers released a trove of DNC emails has the media world atwitter, but they're missing the big picture. Their focus has been on the specific content of this particular batch of emails, and that it reveals a primary-rigging party infrastructure, headed by the loathsome Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Okay, true enough. That's a legit story, particularly on the eve of the Democrat convention. 

Wasserman? Gone, although now comfortably ensconced in the big-money machinery of the Clinton campaign, her payday assured. But Wasserman's a sideshow.

The bigger picture here is who hacked these emails, and why? Democrats, having dismissed any concerns about state-sponsored hacking during Hillary's server scandal, are now pointing their fingers at the Russians. They think that Trump is coordinating the attack with Putin, which is flat-out comedy gold.

But, they may be half right. There's a decent chance the Russians are behind the hack. There is a huge hacker culture in Russia, and their government is known to employ it for their own ends. If that's the case, and they easily hacked the DNC, is there even the slightest chance they didn't hack a lone server in Hillary's basement? Let's face it, there's a decent probability the Russians have all those tens of thousands of emails that Hillary went to such great lengths to conceal.

We all know what's in those emails, too, even if we don't yet have access to the smoking gun. It ain't yoga. The Clintons put the State Department up for sale, exchanging favors for either large money transfers into the Clinton Foundation or bogus speaking fees. Bill and Hillary are two grifters whose ambitions took the con to heights never before seen.

So, if you're Vladmir Putin, what do you do with such a bounty? One option is do undermine Hillary's chances for election, preferring instead to deal with Trump, who would presumably be of more help in staving off the mutual threat of radical Islam. The first email dump might have been a shot across the bow.


But a second, perhaps more compelling, option exists: extortion. In this scenario, Putin holds back from here, hoping Hillary actually gets elected. After that, he makes it known to Hillary through surrogates exactly what he has, and how he can easily feed it all to that dependable lackey, Julian Assange. 

Given Hillary's highly developed instincts for self-preservation, there's no question that such a development could alter the world's geo-political map. Or maybe Russia plays it more subtly, instead opting for small wins, like snapping up the odd strategic mine here and there.

Either way, it's chilling.

I'm not big on conspiracy theories. Emphatically not. But let's review what we know:

1. The DNC was successfully hacked by someone who is using the information for political advantage
2. Many believe, including the DNC itself, that the Russians were behind the attack
3. James Comey stated that it was "likely" that foreign governments tried to hack Hillary's personal server, although the FBI couldn't prove it
4. The Russians (or Chinese) would certainly have hacked Hillary's server if possible
5. Hillary's server had far fewer security safeguards, undoubtedly, than the DNC's

Right now my model says Hillary is likely to win. We may have the first president since JFK to leave themselves open to extortion. 

That's the real story.

It's That Time - Re-Introducing the Election Forecast Model

In 2004, I introduced a model I built to predict presidential elections. More specifically, it predicts the outcome of the electoral college, which is all that matters, after all. So far, the model has worked out pretty damn well: in 2004, it hit the electoral count on the nose, and in 2008 2012 it got the winner right, missing the actual count by only 21 votes both times, or roughly the value of an Arizona swinging from one candidate to the other.

The model is built on "prediction markets," where real-world betting happens on each state's outcome. Betting is continuous, and from it we may infer each state's real time probability. I then multiply this probability times the number of electoral votes available in that state for the probablity-weighted outcome. It is understood that one cannot win part of a delegation, it's all-or-none (excepting Maine and Nebraska). Still, for predictive purposes, you don't want to hand 100% of, say, California's electoral votes to Hillary just because she has a 95% chance of winning those votes. You give her 95%. It's effectively a small hedge against something dramatically unexpected happening.

It's time to roll out the 2016 model. Right now, it has Hillary winning a somewhat tight election, 299 to 239. In 2012, Obama won 332 to 206.

 

State	Electors	Percentage	Repub margin	current betting	weighted expected
		of Electors	2016	market odds	electoral votes
Alabama	9	1.67%	23	100	9.00
Alaska	3	0.56%	15	100	3.00
Arizona	11	1.86%	9	70	7.70
Arkansas	6	1.12%	24	100	6.00
California	55	10.22%	-33	6.5	3.58
Colorado	9	1.67%	-7	21	1.89
Connecticut	7	1.30%	-17	0	0.00
Delaware	3	0.56%	-19	0	0.00
Dist. of Columbia	3	0.56%	-87	0	0.00
Florida	29	5.02%	-1	40	11.60
Georgia	16	2.79%	8	78	12.48
Hawaii	4	0.74%	-43	0	0.00
Idaho	4	0.74%	21	100	4.00
Illinois	20	3.90%	-17	7	1.40
Indiana	11	2.04%	10	85	9.35
Iowa	6	1.30%	-6	43	2.58
Kansas	6	1.12%	20	100	6.00
Kentucky	8	1.49%	23	100	8.00
Louisiana	8	1.67%	17	100	8.00
Maine	4	0.74%	-15	0	0.00
Maryland	10	1.86%	-26	4.5	0.45
Massachusetts	11	2.23%	-24	7	0.77
Michigan	16	3.16%	-9	22.5	3.60
Minnesota	10	1.86%	-8	17	1.70
Mississippi	6	1.12%	11	100	6.00
Missouri	10	2.04%	10	81	8.10
Montana	3	0.56%	13	100	3.00
Nebraska	5	0.93%	21	100	5.00
Nevada	6	0.93%	-6	34	2.04
New Hampshire	4	0.74%	-6	33	1.32
New Jersey	14	2.79%	-17	9	1.26
New Mexico	5	0.93%	-10	0	0.00
New York	29	5.76%	-28	8.5	2.47
North Carolina	15	2.79%	-2	51	7.65
North Dakota	3	0.56%	20	100	3.00
Ohio	18	3.72%	-3	42	7.56
Oklahoma	7	1.30%	34	100	7.00
Oregon	7	1.30%	-8	0	0.00
Pennsylvania	20	3.90%	-6	34	6.80
Rhode Island	4	0.74%	-28	0	0.00
South Carolina	9	1.49%	11	100	9.00
South Dakota	3	0.56%	18	100	3.00
Tennessee	11	2.04%	20	95.5	10.51
Texas	38	6.32%	16	91.5	34.77
Utah	6	0.93%	48	84.5	5.07
Vermont	3	0.56%	-36	0	0.00
Virginia	13	2.42%	-4	22.5	2.93
Washington	12	2.04%	-15	8	0.96
West Virginia	5	0.93%	26	100	5.00
Wisconsin	10	1.86%	-6	21	2.10
Wyoming	3	0.56%	40	100	3.00
Totals	538	100.00%
red = swing state (odds between 30 and 70)
		270 needed to win		Republican	238.6
				Democrat	299.4

There are caveats.

First, since the election is four months out, the data is pretty thin (i.e. the state-by-state markets are very thinly traded right now - some haven't even traded at all, in which case I relied on the closing data from 2016).

Second, when I cited the model's accuracy, what I was really referring to was the last snapshot before each election. During the months-long run-up, there will be plenty of fluctuation, but it will still tend to be the best indicator at any point in time. Obviously, as circumstances change, so does the forecast.

Why does this work better than polls? Because it's real people betting real money, not people answering polls on the phone where their responses could be shaded for any number of reasons - particularly this year!
 
I will start to graph all this and post more frequent updates as the election draws nearer.

Naked Dollar readers with good memories will also remember I have another model that shows directional movement for both campaigns. I'll get to that shortly. 

The Democrats' Dilemma

Hello, operator? I'd like to make a collect call to Debbie Wasserman Schultz...

As Naked Dollar readers know, I am a big fan of prediction markets, where real people bet real money on political (and other) outcomes. They aren't fool proof, but they're better than polls, and they offer the best probabilistic look at the future based on the current fact set. And sometimes, they offer fascinating insights.

Take this one.

Right now, there is a an 86% chance that Hillary will win the nomination, meaning there's a 14% chance that she won't. (Interesting, given that she's already declared herself the winner.) But there's also a 34% chance that she will be indicted before the end of the year. That means, math fans, that there's a 29% chance (.86 x .34) that the Democrats will nominate someone who will then fall under indictment, or they will knowingly nominate someone who's already under indictment.

When they say there's never been a cycle like this one, they aren't kidding.

Solving Harvard's Club Problem

Sometimes, it's amusing to watch when the insane logic of today's liberalism trips up on itself, which is often. This Dixon Diaz cartoon offers a nice example:

Sometimes, a simple cartoon says as much as any 1,000 word editorial, doesn't it?

And now we have the progressive fiasco at Harvard, where President Drew Faust has decided that sexual assault is a huge problem. 

(Never mind that the rise in campus assault is directly correlated to the broadening of the definition of the word itself to include things like "unwanted staring.")

Her culprit? The final clubs, which tend to be all male. 

(Never mind that 75% of the "assaults" happened in dorms.)

Her solution? As much as she'd like to just ban the clubs, they are not officially part of Harvard, and they are not on college property. So, she has banned any member of said clubs from holding a leadership position on campus and will deny members recommendations for prestigious scholarships like the Rhodes. 

(Never mind that the clubs don't publish their member lists, so the school will have to rely on snitches. Holy Stasi, Batman! Modern liberalism requires a lot of never-minding, doesn't it?)

So, my Harvard friends, many of whom were in these evil clubs (along with two of my brothers), I have the solution. Actually, this comes from an old friend, who also attended:

Each club should have one member volunteer to identify as a woman.

This is bullet proof. Liberalism has decreed that you are what you feel, especially when it comes to gender. Just watch this video to see just how far this notion has spread on the typical college campus:

So, if a member of, say, the Porcellian Club says they're a chick, it can't be questioned. Presto, the whole club is off the hook.

Genius.

 

Republican Sophisticates: Time to Get Over Yourselves

"I could never vote for Trump."

I hear this a lot. I'm not talking about Democrats here, but Republicans, particularly of the educated, northeastern, country club variety. The sort that like Kasich. For this genus, voting for Trump is declasse, a lowbrow act. And they would rather see Hillary Clinton be the next President of the United States than have their sophistication be questioned.

I have one thing to say to these people, many of whom are my friends: get over yourselves.

Let me say first that at no point in the primary process did I support Trump. In fact, he wasn't even in my top ten. I am also well familiar with all the issues surrounding him. He's ideologically vacant. He cheats at golf. He's said a lot of awful things about women. He's a bombastic cartoon character. I know these things. But sometimes elections are the lesser of evils, and the alternative is far, far worse:

Here's what your pride will get you, my snobby friends:

• the Supreme Court, lost for a generation
• Obamacare, with us for good, with "fixes" that will cost even more
• Obama's executive orders, untouched
• higher and ever more complicated taxes
• a continued growing of the state

I could go on, but do I need to? The first bullet point alone should stop you in your tracks. Hillary has suggested these two people would make just excellent Supreme Court justices:

But what will Trump do? Interestingly, he has provided more clarity than most give him credit for...

Taxes.  His tax plan is pretty damn good. Four brackets, maxing out at 25%. No Alternative Minimum Tax or marriage penalty. 15% business taxes. No more death tax. If Trump did nothing other than institute this plan, his presidency would be a success. Will he make it a priority? Hell if I know.

Obama's Egregious Executive Orders.  He's promised to rescind them.

Immigration.  We all know this one, but Trump's right, something needs to be done. My local school is being inundated with illegal children who don't speak English, and I live in the New York suburbs, not El Paso. I don't know of a single Republican who opposes robust legal immigration, but we're all tired of being called racists for opposing the illegal variety. Will a wall work? I don't know, maybe not, but it's for damn sure the entire issue will be addressed.

Obamacare.  He says he'll repeal it. Hopefully, he means it. Hillary will only double down as the scope of the disaster becomes clear.

Trade.  I don't like Trump on trade, not one bit. Nobody wins in a trade war. A few years ago, I would have taken Hillary on this one, but like on so many things, she's shifted positions, and now she's about where Trump is...No winning on this one.

Entitlements.  Here's another one where I think Trump is nuts. He says he won't touch Medicare or Social Security. Well, someone will have to, because they're going to be insolvent. Problem is, Hillary will be even worse on this one.

Foreign Policy.  Trump seems to be following Cruz's lead here: intervene only when there is a critical national interest at stake. No more nation building. Seems fairly sensible. Hillary, on the other hand, will likely follow left's instincts of late, which is to intervene only when there isn't a national interest at stake.

The trick here is figuring out what Trump will make a priority, other than immigration. I'm not sure even he knows. But, on balance, there's some good stuff. He could - could - make a good president. What are the odds? Certainly less than 50%, but Hillary is 100% guaranteed to be a disaster, and not simply on policy grounds. There's the sheer weight of her corruption, the personal and professional conflicts, the shrillness, the...oh, you know, Clintonness. 

She said this a couple of days ago to an out-of-work coal minor, who brought up her promise to eviscerate the coal mining industry and the jobs that go with it:

"What I said was totally out of context from what I meant."

Only a Clinton could dream up a phrase like that. What does it even mean? Taking something out-of-context is something other people do to you; you don't do it to yourself! The sheer national exhaustion that will ensue as the months roll by of a Hillary administration is depressing to contemplate.

I don't know how we got here, either. This was supposed to be the year that conservatives won their party back. Instead, nationalism trumped conservatism. (See what I did there?) Part of me is pleased to see that it's possible in modern America for a non-politician - in particular, a businessman - to become president. But did it have to be this particular guy?

No matter, this is the choice we have, and sorry, there's no sitting it out because that's half a vote for Hillary. So, my erudite friends, suck it up and pull the lever. 

You can tell us all you held your nose.

UPDATE: Trump just said he want to raise taxes and raise the minimum wage, reversing earlier statements and undermining the tax plan that's actually on his website. Not promising, but, again, Hillary will do both those things too. Also note that a GOP Congress will never agree.