Businessmen in Politics

There's multiple fallacies in comparing what a businessman has "accomplished" vs. what a politician has done in office, completely aside from the question of whether a politician is corruptly influenced.

Business and government are two different worlds. The aim of a business is to make money for the owner(s) of the business. That's it. A business owner may CHOOSE to be socially conscious, pay her employees more than the law or the market require, give to charitable organizations, CARE about the employees, but none of that is possible without turning a profit. The role of government is to provide services, or to provide security, not to be profitable. A business owner may discontinue a product or a division that is unprofitable, but you don't close down a government department because it's not bringing in enough cash. Even the most successful CEO necessarily has different goals than a government official. You can't criticize a legislator because he didn't "create jobs" and a business owner won't make a good Senator because he did.

Then there's the issue of accountability. CEOs of large companies are virtual dictators in their own companies. Of course in publicly held businesses there is a board of directors that theoretically has authority over the CEO and other management. In practice, however, as long as the CEO is presiding over increasing profits and there are no embarrassing public ethical lapses that they think may affect profits, the CEO has free reign. In private, or in family companies, the CEO is even more unaccountable.

Once a CEO becomes an elected official they are often in for a rude awakening. If she becomes a Senator or Representative, there is the shock of not being the ultimate authority and being part of a collegial body that only has authority as a body. If in an executive position, e.g. a state governor or the U.S. President, then they're in the unfamiliar position of having to work with a legislature to get anything done, and if the majority in the legislature is from the other party, then the job is that much harder. Both our governor, Pete Ricketts, and the President came to office thinking that they could just rule by fiat. Ricketts not as much as Trump, although Ricketts was shocked that some registered Republicans in the Unicameral did not automatically support his ideas. Trump seemed completely ignorant that Congress actually writes the laws and he cannot just do whatever he wants.

Finally, we now have the spectacle of someone who got into the White House by playing a successful businessman on television! Some of us have known all along, but the latest revelations about Trump's tax returns show that Trump was a horrible businessman. He consistently bankrupted his holdings, spent lavishly on investments that showed little potential for recouping that investment. He was only successful at convincing people that he was successful. And he took this ineptitude into the highest office in the land.

First Debate

I seriously doubt that anyone changed their mind based on this debate. After all, there were no shockers. Both candidates said the things that they have been saying all along. Trump interrupted, was rude and insulting and Biden initially tried to treat this as a normal debate...which it wasn't. So, what can we conclude from this?

Let's start with what we saw of Biden. 

Biden supporters (including me) were hoping that the former Vice President would avoid what are popularly called "gaffes" - what some of us just call "fuck-ups". The other issue was the concern that Biden would come across as confused or lost. Neither of these things happened. There were really only two moments when Biden lost control. One was his attempt to paint Trump as disrespectful to military men and women, bringing up his late son Beau, who served honorably in Iraq. He seemed completely flustered when Trump interrupted and turned it into an attack on Hunter Biden, reduced to repeating that what Trump was saying was untrue. He did rally, asserting that it wasn't about his family or Trump's family, but our families. The other moment was during a "Law & Order" discussion when Biden suggested that he had some support from law enforcement. Trump pounced, asking for Biden to name one law enforcement group that endorsed him. He was stumped and moved on. 

What did Biden do right? He was articulate and confident. There was no hint of mental decline or lack of acuity. He clearly laid out his priorities. For the most part he did not allow Trump to rattle him or shut him up when Trump interrupted him. He was not shy about labeling Trump a liar, repeatedly making the point that Trump couldn't be trusted. If this was any other president, it might be argued that Biden was out of line calling Trump a clown and a con and telling him to "shut up, man", but  conventional responses aren't appropriate against an unconventional opponent. 

How about Trump?

Nothing new from Debacle Donnie. He spewed his usual bullshit conspiracy theories, he repeatedly interrupted both Biden and the moderator. He dodged questions. Same old same old. When challenged on the shortcomings of his own record, his responses were variations on "You would have done much worse". He's still trying to run as an outsider, even though (obviously) he's running the government! When confronted with facts such as job creation being higher during Obama's last three years than Trump's first three, before the Covid-19 health crisis, he acted as if he hadn't heard the questions and simply repeated his talking point that he presided over the greatest economy and job creation the country had ever seen. 

Some big revelations that weren't really revelations: Trump, when given the opportunity, refused to speak against right-wing violence; he claimed that he paid "millions" in taxes in 2016 and 2017; and once again undermined the integrity of the upcoming election and all but came out and said he would only accept election results if he won. His rationale included not only unfounded allegations of election fraud, but the ridiculous claim that the Democrats didn't accept the results of the 2016 election

I can't really say that Biden "won" the debate in that he was unable to shut Trump up, but he was definitely the sane alternative.

Trump's Taxes

About 25 years ago I was heading to Indiana with two others for a class that we were taking. One of the individuals was self-employed. He sold some kind of cancer insurance as running an operation that looked a lot like a pyramid scheme. On our way home we stopped for dinner at a pizza restaurant - after we paid for our food, he asked for our receipts. When I asked why, he replied that he was going to "write them off" as a business expense. This was not legal.

There are two ways that expenses can be claimed in order to reduce your taxable income. One way is to itemize your expenses on your personal income tax return. Since the standard deduction increased to $24,800 for married couples filing jointly a household would have to have more than $24,800 in deductions in order to itemize. There are only certain expenses which can be deducted: 

* Medical & dental

* State & Local taxes

* Mortgage interest

* Charitable giving

*Casualty & theft

You can't deduct for things like haircuts or car repair, for example. The other way expenses can be deducted from your taxable income is if you own a business and those deductions are legitimate business expenses. For instance, if you buy a color printer - it's not a deductible expense if you use it for personal use, but if you buy it for your business, you can claim it as a legitimate business expense. Here's where dishonest people can commit fraud. My traveling companion from years ago was using not only his own non-work-related meals as a business expense, but expenses of other people. Federal tax returns do not require you to itemize your business expenses. You lump them together according to category: meals, supplies, car expenses, advertising, etc. Unless you're audited, no one knows that you've deducted things that were for purely personal use as business expenses. This appears to be what Trump did. Repeatedly.

Trump's business isn't just one company, it's at least 500 limited liability companies (LLCs). An LLC shields the owner or owners from personal liability if the company is sued and all profit "flows through" to the owners and is taxed on their personal income tax return. One example is certain tax credit programs which award credits based on expenditures on something that the government wants to encourage. If the tax incentive program awards a tax credit of 10% of expenditures, it is usually only looking at one LLC out of potentially dozens (or in Trump's case, hundreds) and ignoring all other LLCs owned by the same person. The main LLC can then pad their expenditures with payments to other LLCs owned by the same person. LLC-1 can pay LLC-2 a "consulting fee" of 20% of total expenditures - the IRS will treat LLC-1 and LLC-2 as separate entities even though they share ownership and the income from both flow through to the owner. So if the total expenditures are $1,000,000, including a $200,000 consulting fee to LLC-2, in this scenario where a 10% credit is awarded, LLC-1 receives $100,000 in tax credits which includes $20,000 for doing nothing but transferring money from one pocket to the other. This is also something that Trump appeared to do. Repeatedly. 

One thing that isn't a problem with Trump's taxes is depreciation. Depreciation is one of the most misunderstood parts of accounting. There's a movie that I've seen a few times (I forget the name) where a farmer is regaling his daughter and her friend about the wonders of depreciation. He explains that each year he deducts a percentage of what he paid for a piece of equipment and after a certain number of years, he has recouped the entire cost of the equipment. This is not how depreciation works! You do not receive, over a number of years, what you paid for a piece of equipment. Depreciation is the method by which you spread out the cost of an asset over several years (it varies depending on the type of asset) instead of claiming the expense at the time you purchased it. For example, if you bought a computer for your home business and paid $500 for it. If you "expensed" it, you would deduct $500 from your year's revenue as a business expense. However, by depreciating it, you would claim a depreciation expense of $100 in each of 5 years. (That's for 'straight-line' depreciation, there are other methods, and there are different timelines for different classes of assets). It's not a magic method of getting your money back, it's merely spreading out over time the tax deduction for the expense. 

Another thing that often gets misunderstood is the tax strategy of losing money to avoid paying taxes, or incurring expenses just to get the tax deduction. A frequent delusion is that a "write-off" means that something is free. Let's say your effective tax rate is 15%. You buy a piece of equipment for $1000, planning to use it for your business and deduct the expense. You don't get $1000 back! You get to reduce the amount of income that will be taxed by $1000. What you have saved is the tax, which in this case is $150. If you have made this purchase in order to save money on taxes, you actually have $850 less. 

Not every dollar of a loss for tax purposes means that money is actually lost. Some of that loss is on paper. A depreciation expense for a building that was purchased years ago and is increasing in value and can be sold for more than the purchase price and tax credits of various kinds. But it appears that many of Trump's properties are losing real money, shoveling out more in cash every year than they take in. So, what is Trump living on? The New York Times article pointed out an extremely large amount of debt. A mortgage taken out on Trump Tower and various other loans totaling over $400 million. That's what he's living on. Compare his situation to a person who is getting by by running up credit card debt, but has no real plan to pay it down. 

Trump apologists like to bring up how he donates his $400,00/year salary, but seldom acknowledge how his businesses have benefited from his visits as president. A president is certainly entitled to personal travel or vacation time, but for this president, the cost of housing Secret Service agents, renting golf carts and all of the myriad security arrangements go back into Trump's pocket. Something not touched upon was how much the Trump for President campaign pays for what will likely turn out to be personal expenses. 

Trump was elected partly by portraying himself as a successful businessman, while, as it turns out, he is an especially inept, businessman. Not only that, he has kept his house of cards standing by tax fraud. 

Anyone who has watched Trump over the decades is not surprised. Now we have the evidence. 

What Would YOU Do?

What would YOU do if someone was pounding on your door after midnight? I don't know what I would do, but I know what Kenneth Walker did. He grabbed his gun and headed for the front door just as the people who were pounding on the door burst through it by tearing the door off its hinges with a battering ram. In that dark room he saw two people with weapons drawn, so he fired his gun, hitting one of them. The two intruders began firing their guns, hitting, not Walker, but his unarmed girlfriend Breonna Taylor, as they retreated. Ms. Taylor soon died from her injuries. From where I'm sitting, Walker's actions were completely understandable. 

The actions of the two cops, once they broke into the apartment were also understandable. With a warrant that empowered them to break into the apartment without the permission of Ms. Taylor, they expected to find one unarmed woman. This is what their surveillance led them to believe. As they breached the door they were met with gunfire. I don't know if one shot qualifies as "gunfire", but there is no disagreement about who shot first - it was Walker. I suppose it must be police training to fire blindly when fired upon, because they managed to not hit Walker, but did hit Taylor 5 times. 

I say that once they broke into the apartment the cops' actions were understandable, but that doesn't mean that I think that their actions leading up to the break-in were understandable or right. I understand that they panicked when confronted with an armed man - but I believe that the situation should never have happened. 

There are differing accounts regarding whether the police announced themselves before breaking down the door. The police claim that they identified themselves, Walker says that they did not. Of 12 witnesses, only one claims that he heard the police yell "police", and that was after he had twice said that they had not. Eleven other witnesses said that they did not hear the police identify themselves. Walker goes so far as to say that he shouted out several times asking who was at the door and received no answer. 

Put yourself in the position of Walker and Taylor. Breonna Taylor was under suspicion by the police due to a previous relationship with a drug dealer, her former boyfriend. Walker knew about this ex-boyfriend and reported that he thought perhaps it was the ex-boyfriend pounding on the door. Imagine. You're sound asleep. It's after midnight. There's a pounding on the door. Maybe the person on the other side is hollering "police", maybe not. (It's been established that even with "knock first" warrants, the identification as police generally comes as the door is being battered open) Your girlfriend used to be involved with some shady characters. You have no idea who is trying to break down the door in the middle of the night. 

Several items give weight to Walker's version of events. He was licensed to carry a firearm. He had no criminal record, or for that matter, any negative contact with the police. After he fired one shot, and the two cops fled the apartment, he called 911. He told the operator that someone had broken in and shot his girlfriend. That doesn't sound like someone who purposely tried to kill a police officer. And the charge of attempted murder of va police officer was dropped. 

But let's go beyond the panicked reaction of Walker being confronted by two armed men breaking in and the cops' panicked reaction to someone who shot at them. Why was there a no-knock warrant issued and why did it have to be executed after midnight? The local prosecutor suspected that Breonna was still involved with her former boyfriend and was storing drugs and cash at her apartment. Instead of questioning her they decided that they would scare the shit out of her in the middle of the night (the police did not realize that she wasn't alone). They were parked outside her home for hours that night. Why not intercept her before she went inside and open the door with a key? The way that this happened was a recipe for disaster. And once the shootout concluded they made no effort to determine whether anyone had been shot inside and in fact did not send in paramedics for Breonna until 20 minutes after she was shot and only because Kenneth had called 911. 

According to law as currently written, no one is responsible for Breonna Taylor's death. Granted, this death was accidental. No one went into that apartment looking to kill anyone, but the way it was carried out provoked a citizen to defend himself and his girlfriend, which in turn caused the police to return fire. How many of us would get fired from our jobs for "accidental" incidents that fell well short of someone dying?  This isn't an isolated case. 

Right wing police apologists are attempting to paint Taylor and Walker as the bad guys. Walker having shot first is being put forth as the reason Breonna is now dead, he has been called the reason she is dead. Breonna's past is being trotted out as an excuse for police action. But it's the broader circumstances that have to be looked at and questioned. Breonna Taylor, even though there was circumstantial indications that she may have still been involved with her ex-boyfriend's drug dealing, she had not been convicted of anything before the police had been given permission to break down her door. They didn't even have a shred of hard evidence that she had committed a crime - the warrant, which gave the police permission to break down the door of a citizen who had not been convicted of a crime, to look for evidence, which, as I have already stated, they didn't have, and as it turned out, didn't find in the apartment. What if Walker wasn't there? What was the plan, that is, what was the plan after destroying the door? Would Breonna have been thrown to the floor with her hands zip-tied behind her back while the police ransacked her apartment? The Fourth Amendment doesn't appear to be all that important. Once they found no evidence, who was going to repair the door? But they didn't have to worry about those little details, because, instead of a woman all alone in her apartment, they encountered a man exercising his First Amendment rights. 

Before you unthinkingly defend the police and demonize the citizen, think about what you would do in this situation.  

Supreme Court Facts

 The Supreme Court gaslighting has begun!

The Republicans are emphasizing that 

(1) The president has the authority and responsibility to nominate someone to fill any Supreme Court vacancy

(2) The Senate has the responsibility to vet the nominee and either confirm or deny the nomination

That much is true, but there is a lot of revisionist history going on. 

In 2016 Justice Antonin Scalia died and President Obama nominated Merrick Garland as his replacement. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley refused to even hold confirmation hearings, announcing that, since it was an election year, the American people should have a voice in this selection and that the next president should fill the vacancy on the court. 

This was unprecedented. While there were instances when nominees were rejected, no president was ever denied the right to eventually fill the opening. 

In addition to denying Obama the right to fill the seat, several Republican Senators vowed to block any Supreme nominations a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton might put forth. 

Now, with a vacancy occurring due to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's death less than 50 days before the election, the Republicans have reversed themselves, insisting that despite it being so close to the election they will bring Trump's nominee to the Senate floor for a vote, and presumably confirm that nominee. Their twisted rationale is that in 2016 the Senate was put in Republican hands to balance the "lame duck" Republican president, while in 2020 the Republican Senate was put in power to support the Republican president. 

Then there's the matter of the filibuster having been eliminated for Supreme Court conformations. Until early in Obama's first term, 60 Senate votes were needed to get virtually anything done. This was because any senator could prevent a vote by filibustering i.e. holding the floor until a cloture vote, stopping the filibuster, was held. A filibuster could only be ended with 60 votes, so effectively, it took 60 votes, not a majority of 51, to get bills passed. This meant there had to be at least some minority party support for any bill. When the Democrats still held a Senate majority they changed the Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster for federal judge appointments. they did this because then minority leader Mitch McConnell was holding up judicial appointment using the filibuster. Now, Lindsey Graham is claiming that this occurred "so that Obama could 'pack' the courts". Apparently, according to Graham, it's a legitimate exercise of presidential authority for a Republican to fill judicial vacancies, but it's an attempt to "pack" the judiciary when a Democrat exercises that same authority. 

The filibuster still existed for Supreme Court nominations until Trump's presidency. Democrats attempted to duplicate the Republican playbook and delay the confirmation of Trump's nominees, but McConnell's Republicans eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations. 

In another gaslighting attempt, Ronna Romney McDaniel, Republican Party spokesperson tweeted a collection of Democratic  politicians calling for the seat to be filled in 2016, as if it was the same thing. 

Look for more gaslighting and naked power grabs in the weeks to come.  

What Did You Expect?

This weekend's sad news that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader died brought to the fore an issue that doesn't often receive attention. Even if Donald Trump is defeated in November, if the Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, still hold a majority in the Senate then we are in for another few years of obstruction. 

Four years ago McConnell, aided by Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, refused to even hold a confirmation hearing for President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. His suspect rationale at the time was that we were close to an election (9 months) and that "the people" should have a voice in the selection by letting the next president fill the vacancy. Then, after Donald Trump was elected, McConnell eliminated the filibuster in the case of Supreme Court confirmations, which effectively required 60 votes to confirm, a Senate rule that ensured that nominees would need some bipartisan support. (During Obama's presidency, before losing control of the Senate, the Democrats eliminated the filibuster for federal judgeships, since the minority Republicans were using the filibuster to prevent Obama from filling court vacancies.) Now, even though we are even closer to the election (less than 50 days), the rationale is that it's different this time. In 2016, according to McConnell, the voters in the 2014 midterms gave Republicans the Senate majority in order to check a "lame duck" president, while in 2020, the voters supposedly wanted the Senate to support the Republican president so they increased the Republican Senate majority. (Conveniently ignoring that more people voted for Democratic candidates than Republicans, and only because our system gives voters in smaller states  disproportionally greater influence did the Senate remain in Republican hands.) 

The unprecedented denial of presidential prerogative wasn't unique. While McConnell was still the Senate minority leader his stated goal was to deny Obama a second term. He ramped up the obstruction when he became majority leader, frustrating Obama's attempts to fill judicial vacancies or to accomplish anything legislatively.  This allowed Trump to fill hundreds of federal court judgeships (not sure if it's a record, but it's on pace to hit 300 by the end of the year) in addition to the seat on the Supreme Court that should have been Merrick Garland's. 

[What-if Tangent: Before Justice Scalia died the Liberal-Conservative balance was 4-4 with Justice Kennedy a "swing vote. Garland would have made it 5-3 + one swing vote. Assuming that Kennedy would have still resigned under this scenario, a Trump justice would have made the balance 5-4 with no swing (unless you count Roberts). With Trump replacing Ginsberg, it would have been 4-5. But imagine if Clinton had won. Merrick Garland, or some other liberal or centrist would have made the balance 5-3 + 1 swing. If Kennedy still resigned it would be 6-3. Replacing Ginsberg it would have been 7-2. What a difference, for decades to come, one presidential election made]

McConnell has made it plain that his first, if not his only, priority is to convert the federal judiciary to a more conservative ideology. He realizes that, with lifetime appointments, conservatives in the courts are much more important that presidential and legislative elections in the long run. Since the House of Representatives majority was won by the Democrats in 2018 he has virtually shut down Senate business  except for confirming judicial nominations. McConnell has made it plain that he will do whatever it takes to implement his agenda. He will shut down legislative action in the Senate, he will obstruct sitting presidents, he will abet a completely incompetent and criminal president, as long as he can continue to stuff the federal bench with right-wing ideologues. He cannot be shamed with contradictory quotes from four years ago, he doesn't care if everyone in the nation is calling him a liar and a hypocrite, as long as he gets his way.

This win and hold power by any means and at any cost mindset by Republicans is not unique to Trump and McConnell. It has become the de facto Republican strategy. Throughout the country Republican governors and legislatures are doing whatever they can to hamstring Democrats. Two states' Republican legislatures, after the voters elected a Democrat as governor, voted to restrict the governor's authority. A Republican-majority legislature waited until their Democratic colleagues were attending a 9-11 memorial to override the Democratic governor's veto of the budget, knowing that they could not a achieve a 2/3 majority if the Democrats were present. They did this after assuring the Democrats that no legislative business would be conducted while they were at the memorial service. Several Republican legislatures took actions that negated the effects of voter-approved measures. One example is the law re-enfranchising felons after they served their terms. The legislature and governor effectively neutered the law by requiring that all fines and other financial liabilities be paid before they could vote. In our own state of Nebraska the governor slow-walked voter-approved Medicaid expansion and instructed the state Department of Health and Human Services agency to institute roadblocks and hoops to jump through, taking over two years to implement. Republican-sponsored lawsuits removed a medical marijuana petition from the ballot. In many states voters are purged from registration rolls, voting sites are closed in areas likely to vote Democratic and ID requirements are skewed against low-income voters who are likely to vote Democratic. Trump has been ranting about how the election will have been rigged against him if he loses and has been undermining efforts to expand mail-in and early voting. 

The Democratic Party is far from perfect and in a perfect world would be more progressive, but the Republican Party has, without exaggerating, become a party dedicated to one-party rule and dictatorship. There is no negotiating with the Republicans, no "reaching across the aisle", not for a long time to come. They have taken advantage of many Democrats' tendency to want to do just that, the naïve belief that consensus and compromise can be reached for the good of the country. 

It's not going to happen. 

 

Two Months to Go

 

We've got about two months to go until the November 3rd Presidential election. 

Can Trump win? Is it probable?

Let's look at polls:

A common refrain that you hear regarding polls is that they were all wrong in 2016. But were they? national polls showed Secretary Clinton ahead by 2-4%. That's what happened. Of course we don't elect presidents based on the total number of votes, but on the electoral votes. This is an oversimplification, but the election would have gone the other way if three states' majorities had voted for Clinton instead of Trump. These states were Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, a total of 46 electoral votes. If these states had voted for Clinton the electoral result would have been 273-258 instead of 304-227 for Trump. Each of these states showed Clinton ahead by around 2% - which was within the margin of error. Trump won these states by a combined total of less than 80,000 votes. The problem wasn't with the polling, it was the conclusions that people drew from the polling. One site devoted to analyzing polls, FiveThirtyEight, estimated the odds of Clinton winning at over 90%, which was ridiculous. 

Biden is currently polling nationally at 7-10% better than Trump. Other than Pennsylvania, where his lead averages at 4%, Biden's lead in Wisconsin and Michigan mirrors the national lead. 

So, there's justification for optimism.

BUT

There is a big push by Trump, Barr and the whole Republican Party to throw up roadblocks to Democratic voters:

* Eliminating polling places

* Attempts to undermine confidence in voting-by-mail

* Hobbling the Post Office's ability to handle large numbers of mail-in ballots

* State level hurdles for voter registration

The only poll that means anything is the one on Election Day. We need to, not only beat Trump, but beat him decisively, in a landslide. We need to, not only beat Trump, but take control of the Senate and retain control of the House of Representatives. 

Complacency is our enemy. 

We've got about two months to go until the November 3rd Presidential election. 

Can Trump win? Is it probable?

Let's look at polls:

A common refrain that you hear regarding polls is that they were all wrong in 2016. But were they? national polls showed Secretary Clinton ahead by 2-4%. That's what happened. Of course we don't elect presidents based on the total number of votes, but on the electoral votes. This is an oversimplification, but the election would have gone the other way if three states' majorities had voted for Clinton instead of Trump. These states were Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, a total of 46 electoral votes. If these states had voted for Clinton the electoral result would have been 273-258 instead of 304-227 for Trump. Each of these states showed Clinton ahead by around 2% - which was within the margin of error. Trump won these states by a combined total of less than 80,000 votes. The problem wasn't with the polling, it was the conclusions that people drew from the polling. One site devoted to analyzing polls, FiveThirtyEight, estimated the odds of Clinton winning at over 90%, which was ridiculous. 

Biden is currently polling nationally at 7-10% better than Trump. Other than Pennsylvania, where his lead averages at 4%, Biden's lead in Wisconsin and Michigan mirrors the national lead. 

So, there's justification for optimism.

BUT

There is a big push by Trump, Barr and the whole Republican Party to throw up roadblocks to Democratic voters:

* Eliminating polling places

* Attempts to undermine confidence in voting-by-mail

* Hobbling the Post Office's ability to handle large numbers of mail-in ballots

* State level hurdles for voter registration

The only poll that means anything is the one on Election Day. We need to, not only beat Trump, but beat him decisively, in a landslide. We need to, not only beat Trump, but take control of the Senate and retain control of the House of Representatives. 

Complacency is our enemy.