Pun Salad

Our 2% PredictWise inclusion criterion demands no changes in the makeup of our phony poll. Ted Cruz moves up to third place, dropping the hapless Bernie Sanders to fourth:

In another week of horrible news, a lot of phoniness was committed by non-candidates: President Obama, New York Times editorialists, etc. They really sucked the phony air out of the room. But that's for a separate post, should I work up the energy/intelligence to say something insightful. So let's go with what we know:

• Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight website has an amusing phony interview between (real) Nate, a phony "Democratic-leaning political scientist", PhDemocrat, and a phony die-hard Trump fan named “Trumpfan1959". The latter "drawing inspiration from the many Tweets and Facebook comments" sent to FiveThirtyEight. Ladies and gents, I give you "Big Phony And Loser Nate Silver Can’t Even See Donald Trump Is A Winner! What A Joke!".

  Nate's thesis, ably defended against his phony opponents, is that historical Trump-like candidates (e.g., Steve Forbes, Herman Cain) do not win, and do not come close to winning. But what about the polls?

  natesilver: Dude, this isn’t complicated. Go back and look at past polling frontrunners at this stage of the campaign. They have a poor track record. By contrast, go back and look at who was leading in general elections in late October. They have a very good track record.

  The point of being empirical isn’t that you love polls. It’s that you learn from experience, and our experience tells us that polls aren’t reliable predictors at this stage of the race.

  It's not that Trump has zero chance of getting the GOP nomination, Nate argues, but his chances are far less than even betting markets say (PredictWise, as I type: 24%.)

• I'm relatively certain that most Pun Salad readers are looking for clues about which candidate radical Anarchist and Millennial Marshall Harford III is supporting. The answer: "Hillary, Not Phony Socialist Bernie, Is The True Choice For Radicals".

  Why not Bernie?

  Lesser minds at reactionary, rightwing publications like Jacobin and Pravda have fallen head-over-heels for Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed “socialist” candidate. However, as a true radical Marxist, I can tell you that Bernie is no socialist at all. He supports Israeli apartheid, drone bombings, and the network of prison camps for children known as public schools. He promises a guaranteed minimum income administered by the state — the very thing we’re supposed to be smashing! He even says he wants to make America more like Denmark (Nazi sympathizers). Clearly, the fauxialist Bernie Sanders is somewhere to the right of General Franco, and his fascist Presidency would make us pine for the days of George W. Bush.

  Well … OK, but Hillary?

  Hillary Clinton, despite being a center-right corporatist, has my endorsement for the Presidency. With her experience she can effectively manage the American Empire and thus heighten the contradictions of capitalism, something that will ultimately bring about the violent revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat we need. We may have to wait through one or two terms of a Clinton Presidency for the conditions to be right, but I’m confident that by 2023 at the latest, most major cities will be under the control of worker’s councils directed by Millennials.

  Thanks for clearing that up, Marshall. Readers, more of Marshall's wisdom at the link.

• Right here in New Hampshire, a bright young woman (specifically, Allie Nault, Miss America’s Outstanding Teen 2016) asked Hillary about her specific plans about the national debt:

  Hillary launched into typical partisan blather, about the fiscal nirvana we were in from 1992-2000, and how, yea and alas, 'twas spoilt by the evil Dubya. But as far as what she proposed to do, the key quote was: "And if you want to know the kinds of things I will do, please go to website, HillaryClinton.com."

  PowerLine bravely took Hillary's suggestion and…

  The Clinton campaign website features an issues section. It lists 24 of them. The debt is not included.

  There is a section on the economy, but it doesn’t include a discussion of the national debt. In fact, the word “debt” appears only in connection with student debt (twice).

  Most candidates would have been satisfied for ignoring the request for specificity. Extra phony points to Hillary this week for simply lying about her website. She didn't have to do that, but at her age lying is probably a reflex by now.