Who’s Behind This Mysterious Website?

The website LongRoom hosts a polling page that purports to “remove the bias in the polls,” which mostly has the effect of showing Donald Trump up in the presidential race, though most polls show Hillary Clinton leading him by a single-digit margin. The site just popped up with polls out of nowhere and the site’s “staff” has all the appearance of being fictitious. 

Websites with excellent records of forecasting everything from sports to politics like "FiveThirtyEight" polls-only forecast, which consolidates hundreds of polls, show Clinton winning the popular vote 48.9 percent to 41.5 percent if the election was held today. The forecast gives her an 86.3 percent chance of winning the election right now. According to the most recent check-in with LongRoom, Trump is leading Clinton by 0.6 percentage points. The site’s methodology page assures readers that “it is a mathematical certainty, that as the election approaches, all of the polls will begin to match the polls here on LongRoom.”

That's comforting and good to know. But there are questions.

Here's 538's take on all this:

“LongRoom claims to “unbias” the polls using “actual state voter registration data from the Secretary of State or Election Division of each state.” The website contends that almost every public poll is biased in favor of Clinton. Think about what that means: The website is saying that a large number of honest professional pollsters who make their living trying to provide accurate information — and have a good record of doing so — are all deliberately biasing the polls and aren’t correcting for it.  

I’d also point out that election offices from different states collect different data. Some states don’t have party registration; other states don’t collect data on a person’s race; some states collect data on neither. There are some companies that try to fill in missing data for each state, though it costs a lot to get that data. Isn’t it more plausible the people who get paid to know what they are doing are right, while some anonymous website on the internet with unclear methodology is wrong?”

In 2012, Dean Chambers did much the same thing, “unskewing” the polls that correctly showed Mitt Romney losing, only to admit after the election that he’d been misguided in his efforts — Chambers’s name was out in the press and to his credit, he publicly took stock of his mistakes after the fact. But LongRoom and whoever runs it has gone out of its way to obfuscate its identity. The site has an “about us” page which lists four people associated with the site, but they each seem to be without any semblance of an online paper trail, an odd thing in the age of the internet.

“Michael Ellis,” the man listed as LongRoom’s managing editor, is described in only the vaguest of terms as “an Internet Executive with over 23 years of experience, including general management of mid to large sized publications. He has been involved with internet community management his entire career.” The three other staff members have similarly indistinct bios, and rather than photographed headshots, the staff is depicted in sketches. None of the staff appears to have Twitter accounts, let alone follow the @LongRoomNews account. Searches for the staff on other social networking sites did not lead anywhere and there is no listed point of contact for any of the LongRoom staff members anywhere on the site. FiveThirtyEight reached out to the site’s only point of contact for comment — a support email address — and did not hear back. A public records search for LongRoom yielded no results for the business. 

But an analysis of the site’s IP address showed that in April 2015, LongRoom switched its registration to a domain that for a fee, allows registrants to keep their names private — Domains By Proxy, LLC. The last name associated with the website, as recently as January 2015, is Fred Waid, who listed the site’s associated organization as “American Separatist” based out of New Mexico.

My first thought when I saw the site a couple of days ago was that it was a college project, like one used as research for a dissertation. Now I'm not so sure.

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90 Days Out, It's Time To Get Back on Message

by DAVID CATRON

What did the political careers of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have in common? Many observers would respond to this question by shouting, “Absolutely nothing!” These people would be wrong. In reality, the careers of Reagan and Bush shared at least three important characteristics. They were both viciously assaulted by the “news” media on a daily basis. Neither allowed these transparently partisan attacks to distract them from the core messages of their campaigns. And, not coincidentally, they are the only Republicans who have served two full terms as President since Dwight Eisenhower left office.

There’s a lesson here, if Donald Trump is able to absorb it. Media bias in favor of Democrats is a fact of life. This is blindingly obvious to most serious observers of American politics, and it has been repeatedly confirmed by serious studies of journalistic trends. It is also an utter waste of time for a GOP presidential nominee to whine about it. Complaining about the partisan press is like complaining about the weather. It accomplishes nothing. Yet, instead of emulating the successful strategies of Reagan and Bush, Donald Trump has allowed himself to be tricked into squandering increasingly valuable campaign time bellyaching about media bias.

At his rallies, where he should be contrasting his positive vision for America with the dystopian nightmare into which Hillary Clinton’s distorted worldview will transform the nation, he moans about the media. Jeffrey Lord, who highlights the disgraceful mendacity of the media at NewsBusters, quotes one of these rants. “CNN is like all Trump all the time. All Trump all the time. You walk out of an interview and you say, ‘that was a good interview’ and then you get killed for the rest of the weekend. So they are so biased toward Crooked Hillary. You know they call it: CNN, Clinton News Network.” OK, but the election is not about CNN.

Even more self-defeating than Trump’s time-consuming digressions about the partisan press during his rallies is the opportunity he is missing in social media. Neither Reagan nor Bush possessed anything like the direct access to voters that he enjoys on Facebook and Twitter. He should be using his enormous social media presence to highlight his strengths and Clinton’s weaknesses. Instead, he uses it to preach to the choir. Saturday evening, for example, he fired off this querulous tweet: “I am not just running against Crooked Hillary Clinton, I am running against the very dishonest and totally biased media — but I will win!”

In reality he is almost certainly going to lose if he doesn’t stop mumping about media bias and devote the next 90 days to convincing skeptical voters that he can be trusted with the keys to the White House. And, regardless of wishful thinking about an imaginary “monster vote” by pundits who admit that they aren’t polling experts, he is in real trouble.

What no Republican needs to do, however, is allow transparent media bias to distract him from the core message of his campaign. It is quite possible to beat the press at its own game.

Great Moments in History #21

Ms. Swanson went on to be an unprecedented 10 time winner.  
She also pursued a movie career in her spare time.  
_______________________________ 

To Liberals, Diversity Has Become Just Another Affirmative Action Program

Diversity is a thread that runs deep in the makeup of America. People of all colors and backgrounds have been given the opportunity thrive, to become successful and prosper. But like everything they clutch, liberals now insist on turning our natural self propelled natural diversity into a Affirmative Action Program.

CNN Host Called For U.S. Flag Bearer at Olympics 

to Step Aside for Muslim Fencer

PJM - The host of the CNN show "United Shades of America" called on Olympic champion swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, to forgo the honor of carrying the American flag at the head of the American delegation and allow a Muslim female fencer to carry it instead.

Kamau Bell penned a column on the CNN website saying that Phelps should withdraw in the name of "diversity."

“What I’m trying to say is that as far as America is concerned, you are a golden boy … literally. You getting the opportunity to carry the flag is like Michael Jordan getting a free pair of Nike sneakers.

You are both the living embodiment of the “honor” you are getting.

To put it another way, in the Make-Your-Own-Ice-Cream-Sundae-Bar of life, your sundae is lousy with hot fudge, butterscotch, strawberry sauce, whipped cream, nuts, sprinkles, extra scoops of ice cream, and so many Maraschino cherries that 5-year-old kids with mouthfuls of Maraschino cherries yell as you pass by, “THAT’S TOO MANY CHERRIES!” 

And that’s why I would be proud of you for giving up your position to Ibtihaj Muhammad. Muhammad carrying the flag would be much bigger than your one moment. 

It would be a symbol for our country in this moment when we are mostly known for one of the most contentious, controversial, scandal-ridden, hateful, xenophobic, jingoistic, and just generally unlikeable presidential elections in recent memory. This is at a time when we could use some more symbols of unity and togetherness.

Muhammad carrying the flag would be nearly a one-stop inclusion shop. Muhammad is an African-American, hijab-wearing Muslim woman who is also a world class fencer. Those are all groups that could always use some more love, acceptance, and respect from this country. (And yes, I'm including fencers in this group.)

If (when) Muhammad carries the flag, that moment (and Muhammad herself) would grow into legend. We're talking bigger than just the Olympics.

Trying to unravel the skein of idiocy that runs through the entire article is a task for which I'm not suited.

But how much fun would that be?

A Good Monday Morning

The Bride of Bill

The Very Essence of Refined Femininity.......Next to a Linebacker in a Strapless Cocktail Dress.

"It ain't easy making a cocktail dress out of the
seat covers from a pimp's BMW."

Barack Obama: The Aging Athlete

The White House's greatest athlete retreats from the physical intensity of basketball to the relative serenity of golf. 

As our wide-load First Lady drags the girls and Moms Robinson around the world vacationing on our dime, the leisure ordinated leader of the free world spends more and more of his time on the golf course. And now at the close of his administration, the major sports media reminiscently fawns over the athletic prowess of our boney ass  6'1 -175 pound president.     

It was a sign that Obama, a lifelong playground baller, was serious about his hoops.  When the Obama circus moved into the White House, he had a little  yard work done. The outdoor tennis court was refurbished to include a regulation-size basketball court, complete with fiberglass backboards and the White House seal on the stanchions. At one point, Obama even considered making a guest appearance on a team led by former Education Secretary Arne Duncan at the Goodman Summer League, a vaunted D.C. Pro-Am.

By all accounts, unlike his job of being President, Obama has gotten much better at golf in recent years. He approaches the game seriously, friends say, counting every swing and adhering closely to the rules. 

As his second term winds down, the semi-retired Obama has retreated from the physical intensity of basketball to the relative serenity of golf. The press corps have documented Obama playing a lot more golf, from about twice a month during his first five years in office to more than four times a month since then.   

Giving up basketball for golf is an acknowledgment that Obama is simply not as young as he used to be. According to a fawning  ESPN, Obama is arguably one of the nation's most fit presidents. Even as he has embraced golf as his main game, some things remain the same about Obama the athlete. As it was with basketball, he rarely uses golf as a social lubricant (okay bad choice of words), accept if there is primaries to rig, lies to be formed and impending indictments to squash. 

As basketball has receded from Obama’s most important agenda, the nation's greatest athlete has sought to replace it with the relative peace and tranquility found on the golf course. 

[ESPN]