RandySF
RandySF's JournalBristol Palin was "Heavily Intoxicated" at house party brawl attended by her five year-old son.
Bristol, who the officer said "appeared heavily intoxicated and upset," told officers that the brawl started when her younger sister, Willow, said that a girl had hit her.
Matthew McKenna, who was attending the party, told officers he saw Bristol punch Korey Klingenmeyer, the owner of the house, "in the face six times and he just stood there" before a group of wives tackled her to the ground.
"McKenna went to Bristol, picked her up, and brought her from the yard to the street and put her down," the report said. "At that point, Todd and Sarah Palin were there asking what happened and he told them to leave. Nobody listened, and yet another fight started."
At one point, as police were interviewing witnesses, Todd Palin confronted Klingenmeyer and asked him if "he called his daughter a 'bitch.' " Willow then came up "also got involved flipping (Klingenmeyer) off and getting loud." Officer Ruth Adolf noted that "we eventually separated everyone, and the Palin family ended up leaving."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/09/sarah-palin-party-police-report-fighting-brawl/16983451/
Republican AG candidates says he would have defended laws agains interracial marriage.
Madison — Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel said he would have reluctantly defended a ban on interracial marriage had he been attorney general in the 1950s — a stance Democrats criticized Wednesday.
Schimel, a Republican, is running for attorney general in the Nov. 4 election against Jefferson County District Attorney Susan Happ, a Democrat.
For months, Schimel has said he would have defended the state's ban on gay marriage in court because the attorney general is obligated to uphold state laws and provisions in the state constitution.
As he discussed his stance on that issue last month on an Oshkosh cable access program, he was asked if it would have been his obligation to defend a ban on interracial marriage if he had been an attorney general in a state with such a law 60 years ago.
He sighed and said, "Yeah, it is."
"It might be distasteful to me ...but I've got to stay consistent with that — as the state's lawyer, it's not my job to pick and choose."
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 ruled Virginia's ban on interracial marriage was unconstitutional.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/democrats-hit-candidate-schimel-for-statement-on-interracial-marriage-b99367685z1-278580281.html
538 throws the Fox News polls out the window.
At about 6 p.m. Wednesday, a collective Democratic spit-take splattered computer screens around the country (at least that’s what I imagined happened). Fox News released new polls showing Republican candidates ahead by 4 percentage points in Alaska, 6 percentage points in Colorado, 5 percentage points in Kansas and 4 percentage points in Kentucky.
The polls look like a disaster for Democrats.
They’re not.
FiveThirtyEight’s Senate forecast has Republican chances of taking back the Senate at 56.4 percent — basically unchanged from the 56.5 percent we showed Tuesday.
The forecast barely budged because the Senate model doesn’t take polls at face value. Fox News polls throughout this election cycle have had a fairly strong pro-Republican house effect, a measure of how a pollster’s results compare to other polls. For instance, Fox News’s generic ballot has shown Republicans up by 7 percentage points among likely voters for two polls in a row, while the average pollster has shown Republicans up by 3 points. Looking at national and state data, Fox News currently has a +3.6 percentage-point pro-Republican house effect.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-dont-go-crazy/
Election Projection Update: Governor count gets bluer, House gets redder
I've been able to secure access to the website today and post new numbers. Three party switchers are on the board after adding the results of today's poll report in the projection calculations. They include two governorships, both of which have flipped from Weak GOP Gain to Weak DEM Hold, and one House race which represents a new projected GOP takeover.
In the 2014 Massachusetts governor election, Democratic nominee Martha Coakley reclaims the lead over Republican Charlie Baker on the strength of two polls this week giving her small leads of two and four points. The other gubernatorial flip also comes from New England where Incumbent Democrat Dan Malloy vaults back in front thanks to a Public Policy survey showing him up by 6 over Republican Tom Foley in the Connecticut governor election.
The lone party switcher in the House comes from the California CD-52 election. Republican Carl DeMaio polls ahead of incumbent Democratic incumbent Scott Peters in this competitive district by an average of 0.5%. The narrow advantage is enough to barely overcome a Democratic-leaning 0.4% generic polling adjustment. With this change, the GOP is projected to extend their majority by a net 5 seats in the current 2014 House election projections.
http://www.electionprojection.com/blog/archives/oct14/governor-count-gets-bluer-house-gets-redder-100814.php
Update on my mom.
A few days ago I wrote this post http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025625807 thinking I was about to lose my mom. Well, fate/the Gods/nature/whatever you want to put it on had other plans. She's a sick lady, but she's improving. Could be she's just too ornery to go quietly, not without watching her grandson grow up. So while she's not quite out of the woods, we're breathing a little easier and I just want to thank everyone here for their prayer, best wishes and good vibes. Thank you so much.
Land, Peters can’t agree on debate format
DETROIT (WOOD) – It appears the people of Michigan will not get a debate between the candidates for U.S. Senate.
Both U.S. Rep. Gary Peters and former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land have announced they’ve accepted invitations to a debate that would have been moderated by WOOD TV8 and WXYZ-TV in Detroit.
However, both candidates accepted on different debate terms; the Land camp and the Peters camp haven’t been able to agree on a debate format.
As a result, the debate will not take place at this time.
http://woodtv.com/2014/10/08/land-peters-cant-agree-on-debate-format/
Latest Iowa absentee ballot numbers (as of October 7)
More than a quarter of a million Iowans have requested absentee ballots, and nearly 100,000 have already returned early ballots to their county auditor. The latest tables showing absentee ballots requested and returned in all four Congressional districts are after the jump. The data come from the Iowa Secretary of State's Office.
Click here for previous tables, which make it easier to spot trends in the numbers. For the first time since September 22, the statewide Democratic lead in absentee ballot requests has dipped below 30,000.
http://www.bleedingheartland.com/diary/7160/latest-iowa-absentee-ballot-numbers-as-of-october-7
Nate Silver: Senate Update: What’s The Matter With South Dakota?
Last month, the battle for Senate control was shaken up when the Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out of the race in Kansas, clearing way for a contest between the center-left independent Greg Orman and the unpopular Republican incumbent Pat Roberts. Although Orman, who has led or tied Roberts in all subsequent polls, is not certain to caucus with Democrats even if he wins the race, this is nevertheless a major burden for the GOP. Were Republicans sure winners in Kansas, their chances of keeping the Senate would be 66 percent — instead of 56.5 percent, as it is in Tuesday’s FiveThirtyEight forecast. That’s the difference between being clearly favored and having odds just barely better than a coin flip.
But could Republicans have another problem on their hands — in another prairie state?
South Dakota’s senate race also features an independent candidate: Larry Pressler, the former three-term Republican Senator. In contrast to Orman, who had run a slick campaign even before he’d begun to receive national media attention, Pressler’s bid seemed more quixotic. He’d raised only $107,000 through June 30, has a website that looks more like a personal blog, and had even joked that he “might demand a recount” if he won.
Three-way races are nevertheless quite volatile. So our forecast model had been accounting for some possibility that Pressler could give the frontrunner, the former Republican Gov. Mike Rounds, some trouble — either by winning the race himself or by splitting the vote enough to throw the contest to Democrat Rick Weiland. When it launched last month, the FiveThirtyEight forecast had given Rounds a 86 percent chance of winning — reasonably good, but not quite a sure thing.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-whats-the-matter-with-south-dakota/
Iowa absentee ballot update from Bleeding Heartland
The latest early voting numbers from the Iowa Secretary of State's Office show Republicans continuing to gain ground. Statewide, the Democratic lead in absentee ballot requests has fallen to about 32,000. For the first time this year, Republicans have a small lead in absentee ballots requested in the fourth Congressional district (where the party has a voter registration edge of more than 55,000).
The latest tables showing absentee ballots requested and returned in all four Congressional districts is after the jump. Click here for previous tables, which make it easier to spot trends in the numbers.
The big unanswered question remains: which party is mobilizing more voters who otherwise would not participate in a midterm election? A Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee official told Philip Rucker of the Washington Post that among the Iowans who had requested absentee ballots by October 2, about 30 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of no-party voters did not vote in 2010. The Secretary of State's Office declined to independently verify that claim. If accurate, it works out to about roughly 30,000 of the Democrats and 20,000 of the no-party voters who had requested ballots by October 2.
http://www.bleedingheartland.com/diary/7157/latest-iowa-absentee-ballot-numbers-as-of-october-6
Daily Beast: Why Is Nate Silver So Afraid of Sam Wang?
Here’s my guess at the reasons why. First, Silver fears Wang. In 2012, Wang’s model did a better job predicting the presidential election. Wang called not only Obama’s electoral college total of 332 votes, which Silver matched, but he also nailed the popular vote almost perfectly. Wang’s model also picked the winner in every single Senate race in 2012. It’s not good for business if Silver keeps coming up second-best.
But more importantly, Wang is the only one predicting Democrats will win. This represents a huge risk for Silver. If every forecaster had Republicans taking the Senate, then they’d all be either right or wrong in November; no one would have a better headline the next morning than Silver. There might be differences in the accuracy of predictions for each seat, but there’d be little embarrassment for Silver even if someone else happened to hit closer to the mark in a few races.
Yet with Wang in the picture, that’s not the case. If the Democrats hold the Senate, then Wang will stand alone; Silver will just be another one of the many who got it wrong. As of this writing, Silver’s own forecast says there’s a 41 percent chance this will happen. Imagine that -- a 41 percent chance that the whole empire comes crashing down.
This is why Silver hasn't spent much time dissing The Washington Post. Last week, the newspaper gave the Republicans a 77percent chance of winning; for Silver it was 58 percent, and for Wang it was 42 percent. That’s right -- the gap between Silver’s forecast and the Post’s was even wider than his gap with Wang. The big difference was that the Post posed no threat to Silver if Republicans won; he would have been right as well.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/06/why-is-nate-silver-so-afraid-of-sam-wang.html
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