Election Polling & ‘Political Science’

This is a cross section of U.S political polling in this ongoing election year.  The numbers provided below are at the time of this publication, and will change over time.  Only eligible and ‘likely’ voters are seriously polled.

Question that never gets asked:

“Do you approve of government secret services being able to unlock your cell phone and search all your data, at will?”

U.S. citizens are supposed to have constitutional rights, and it is the president’s sworn oath to defend the Constitution.

Question that gets asked instead:

“Should Apple unlock the iPhones of suspected terrorists for the FBI?”

Poll results: 61% Yes; 39% No   [1]

James Comey FBI Director

Question that never gets asked:

“Should those running the Federal Reserve be arrested & prosecuted for economic war crimes against humanity?”

The likely answer is 80-90-% Yes

Question that gets asked instead:

“Should the Federal Reserve Bank be Audited by Congress?”

Poll results: 78% Yes; 22% No  [2]

This is a worthless question, as congress is also part of this criminal conspiracy against the working people of the world.

Greenspan,_Alan_(Whitehouse)

Question that never gets asked:

“Would you be in favor of continuing the dirty CIA wars in Syria & Ukraine, at the risk of nuclear war with Russia?”

To ask, is to answer it.

Question that gets asked instead:

“Should the U.S. overthrow President Assad of Syria?”

Poll results: 63% No; 37% Yes    [3]

This gets the warheads closer to their goal of total war.

Ashton_Carter: U.S. Secretary of Defense

In ‘political science’ it’s how you frame the issue.

NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Breedlove listens to a question during a news conference in Ottawa

Question that never gets asked:

“Are the U.S. provocations towards North Korea & China worth risking a confrontation with a nuclear power?”

Ditto Russia.

Question that gets asked instead:

“Should the U.S. conduct military strikes against North Korea in order to destroy their long-range missile and nuclear weapons capabilities?”

Poll results: 73% No; 27% Yes  [4]

Most voters don’t approve of new U.S. wars of aggression, despite the constant barrage of propaganda– but there remains a hardcore militarist/fascist element.

Iraq War

Question that never gets asked:

“Global warming– are we going to do anything about it, because it’s only getting worse?” 

Capitalism has no serious answer to this fundamental question of human survival.

Question that gets asked instead:

“Should the government increase environmental regulations to prevent global warming?”

Poll results: 62% Yes; 38% No   [5]

Another worthless question, as every capitalist government, led by the U.S. is part of this vast crime against nature & humanity.

change-the-politics

Question that never gets asked:

“Are you in favor of huge cuts in the military budget, in return for a massive investment in good civilian jobs for working people?”

Sounds reasonable to most.

Question that gets asked instead:

“Should the military allow women to serve in combat roles?”

Poll results: 85% Yes: 15% No    [6]

Kind of a loaded (and wrong) question to ask, don’t you think?

Question that never gets asked:

“Should the wealth created by working people and then stolen by bankers, hedge fund investors, and other financial parasites be returned?”

Goldman Sachs JPMorgan

That brings up the question of political & economic revolution, so it is not allowed.

Question that gets asked instead:

“Should the government increase the tax rate on profits earned from the sale of stocks, bonds, and real estate?”

Poll results: 70% No; 30% Yes  [7]

The truth is the U.S government is a plutocracy, so no fundamental class truths are allowed to be spoken officially, hence the confusion among many voters.

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ESPN & Sports Broadcasting: Bias & Cost

ESPN is head-quartered in Bristol, Connecticut and owned by Disney.

espn-disney-abc

Grantland was an in-depth blog arm of ESPN online, and it’s founder & editor Bill Simmons was dumped by ESPN management in May 2015.

Bill Simmons ESPN

Simmons was also the brains behind ESPN’s 30 for 30 film series. He has since taken an assignment with HBO, and most of the remaining talent at Grantland went with him– or somewhere else. How does destroying such a popular site and alienating its valuable assets add value to their company? [1]

ESPN Grantland 2011-15 RIP

‘Tanking in MLB’ has been a leitmotif all 2015-16 off-season, with every hack writer producing a piece on the subject, most barely readable.

Example: ESPN & MLB writers have suggested the SDP & CWS are ‘tanking’ because the didn’t bite on declining, stone-gloved free agent SS Ian Desmond.

Ian Desmond CWS Troll

Many of these stories are plants, with MLB staff writers shilling for players’ agents– to create interest in their clients in hopes of landing a mega-contract.

Matt Kemp 1st Cycle

The ‘DH in the NL’ discussion is clearly being pushed by MLBPA interests, who always seek to reward veteran players, for whom the designated hitter rule favors.  Senior circuit fans have clearly said “NO!” to the DH in NL parks.

ESPN East Coast Bias MLB

Ticker Bias: Following MLB on ESPN in an east-coast market, means an online schedule ticker that often excludes SDP, ARI, COL, OAK & SEA– especially when they’re playing each other.

West Coast Bias

FOX is an unwatchable baseball broadcast, which means the Saturday Game of the Week, the All-Star Game, and the post-season through the World Series are all ruined by Joe Buck, a cast of knuckleheads, exploding graphics, star searching, useless information, and endless promotion–  with too many ads, rotating scoreboards, and beer commercials.

Joe Buck

ESPN today is Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith and Lindsay Czarniak, the former representing black & white male obnoxiousness.

Smith & Bayless

It’s moderated by a beautiful woman who lobs softballs, panders with a smile, and knows when to shut up– or kick it to a commercial.  All this is carefully researched & choreographed by experts.

lindsay-czarniak-sportscenter-espn

Note:  ESPN has nothing to report about MLB’s refusal to lift its archaic blackout restrictions for streaming ‘in-area’ games.  The ever-increasing number of cord cutters are left to follow the home team mainly through online box scores, highlights and interactive media. [2]

mlb_blackout_areas

MLB consumers will wait for À la carte for live games, as they aren’t going back to cable.

2016 Media

All these broadcast deals, from the $8.35B disaster with the LA Dodgers to the Regional Sports Networks which are owned by Comcast, FOX, or the teams themselves (ex: BAL, BOS, NYM & WASH), cost over $1/month per subscription.

Time Warner Cable

Some networks such as Time-Warner w/ the LAD, are demanding $5/month. DirecTV & Comcast said no to that deal, so around 70% of the LA market can’t watch a Dodger game on television. The Dodgers lead the world in attendance every year, but what’s the point in having a good team if two-thirds of the hometown fans can’t watch them on television? [3]

Cable Cost1
Two-thirds of pay TV customers (mostly women & gay men) don’t watch ESPN or any sports, yet are made to subsidize them. ESPN with Disney’s clout behind them, is the 800-pound gorilla that can buy up the rights to every sport, and control how the content is presented, if at all.

WSOP on ESPN

ESPN is partners with all the major sports, and broadcasts their live games which are the heart of sports TV ratings.

ESPN NBA

This creates conflict-of-interest issues, leading to ESPN’s (mostly) lazy journalistic investigations into the dark underbelly of sports.  PEDs, concussions, player safety, retirement health & financial solvency are all broad scandals that are kept off the front pages– as much as possible.

Czarniak & Smith ESPN

Deflated balls, social media cat-fights, and press conference faux pas are the preferred narratives of professional league & media executives.

NFL ESPN Chris Mortensen

The rest is money, hype and advertising.

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Presidential Debates: Are You Kidding Me?

The political side-show circus, funded by an unlimited supply of super PAC money, stops in South Carolina on Saturday, February 13– with only the Republicans on prime-time TV this time.  Anyone tuning in, hopeful of gaining a clearer sense of the serious political issues our world is facing today, will only be repulsed & disgusted by what they see & hear.

President Obama just submitted his last budget to congress.  Two-thirds of discretionary spending is for military & policing, with huge increases in their budgets. Virtually nothing is left for education, environmental, infrastructure, or any other social service. [1]

Obama's 2017 Budget to Congress

“There is no money” is the lie that pours out of the mouths of pleading liberal Democrats & foul-mouthed Republicans, over & over.  The corporate media ‘moderators’ and party supporter-packed audiences put on a show for their viewers, dazzling them with insults & sensationalism– no serious discussion is allowed on any topic.

global-warming-denialists

The mainstream media pretends it has no clue as to why Donald Trump is leading the Republican nomination process; as if they never considered the effect of allowing a reactionary bigot to openly propose building a wall between the US & Mexico, or denying religious freedom to Muslims, or condoning known forms of torture (and worse), with audiences that enthusiastically applaud every misanthropic statement.  Every hardcore racist, socio-path, and brain-dead narcissist loves the guy.

Trump Supporters

Trump has been aided-and-abetted the whole way by a vested corporate media, which never criticizes him for what he actually is– a fascist.  He & his supporters may look silly & harmless on the surface, but underneath they are the toxic elements of fear, hatred and ignorance. Youth & working people everywhere need to rise up and meet this dangerous tendency with merciless opposition.  Supporters of this filth need to be exposed, shouted down, and when necessary– beaten down.  This tendency can not be allowed to seize power.

Joseph_Goebbels

A Marxist understanding of the current political situation is that this is war, with survival for humanity at stake.  Fake socialist Bernie Sanders will insist fascism can be tempered and restrained– with soothing language and a spirit of compromise.  He is a fool who knows better, the latest in a long line of political dead-ends for those still willing to cling to the liberal illusions of the Democratic party.

It’s up to youth & working people to now organize themselves and take action towards building an independent political voice that listens to and serves their interests.  Democrats & Republicans are both bribed by the super-rich, the class enemy of the workers.  The only viable solution is throwing off the straitjacket of the two -party system, and building a revolutionary socialist party that unites the workers of the world in the fight against capitalism.  The alternative is the fascist jackboot.

hitler and supporters

We deserve better than this.

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Trump & Sanders: Fascism & Liberalism

Donald Trump skipped the last televised debate before the Iowa caucus, because he objected to FOX moderator Megyn Kelly, whose questioning had angered him in a debate months earlier.  Thus the final debate in Iowa was an ‘event’ absent the figure who had dominated the media coverage of the Republican race for months.

Megyn-Kelly-GOP-Debate

“I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct,” Trump tweeted. “Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!”

Donald Trump

On February 1, Iowa caucusers supported Ted Cruz 27.6%, Trump 24.3%, Marco Rubio 23.1%.  Significantly, Jeb Bush finished sixth (behind Rand Paul & Ben Carson), with only 2.8% of the vote, despite spending $15 million on TV ads. His $2,888/vote showing in Iowa isn’t fiscally sustainable, but it is a measure of the super PAC support he receives. [1]

Donald Trump doesn’t take super PAC money, because he is the 0.0001%, through ruthlessness & cunning, he is one of the richest men in the world. His face is botoxed to hide the fact that he is a reactionary, foul-mouthed, lying coward– an aggrandizement of everything artificial & rotten in our society.

People who say, “I hope Trump wins the Republican nomination, because he’ll lose to any Democrat,” are supporting fascism through ignorance.  When historical events force the hand of the ruling class, everything swings to the right.  After Bush v. Gore (2000), a blatantly stolen election in which Al Gore & the Democratic party were complicit– meekly submitting to Dick Cheney and his hard-line conservative cohorts, it became 9/11– which remains unexplained to the American public.  Ever since then, the U.S. has increasingly become a police state under the slogan of “War on Terror.”

9-11 Reuters

There’s also been a global economic meltdown beginning in 2007-08, which has plunged 80-90% of the world’s population into economic distress. This collapse was the direct result of U.S. ruling class criminality in banking, investing, and insurance industries in the housing market.

Today’s crisis in commodities, with oil always primary, is led by those same criminals, who were neither named nor punished. They weren’t even removed from their jobs, in fact they were handed bailouts & bonuses. This criminal class is doing quite well today, and plans on maintaining that status quo, with super PAC contributions, manipulated media, rigged voting, etc…

When that no longer holds the masses back, police-state fascism becomes the method of choice for the ruling class.

Operation Garden Plot

Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State during the Obama presidency, as has been an accomplice in this criminality. She is rightly seen by many Democratic supporters as a poor nominee. This is a first lady who was cuckolded by her husband, and stayed with him for political convenience. She was unable to secure the party’s nomination in 2008, despite being a heavy early favorite, and was quickly consumed by the Obama campaign machine.

Sanders & Clinton 2016

The same situation appears to be happening in 2016, as Bernie Sanders finished a narrow second to Hillary Clinton in Iowa, a virtual dead-heat at 49.9% to 49.6%. The Clinton campaign spent $9.4M, and the Sanders campaign $7.4 on television ads on Iowa.  Many within the Democratic party see Hillary as a loser, despite being married to one of the most powerful figures in the party. She has limited-to-no appeal to men & younger voters.  If she manages to secure the Democratic nomination, she will likely lose to Trump (or any other Republican), either by hook or crook.

Note: Clinton’s daughter Chelsea and Trump’s daughter Ivanka (pictured below), are best friends, which again proves the primacy of class roots over partisan politics.

Ivanka Trump & Chelsea Clinton

The ruling class is somewhat put off by Bernie Sanders, and his talk of “democratic socialism”– a term his supporters use, but none can really define. He most definitely serves a purpose, as leftist rhetorical veneer.  Sanders is another dying wheeze of liberalism, which has been made a dead letter by Barack Obama, who came to the U.S. presidency in 2008 as a beacon of liberalism.

In 2016, Obama’s blackness of skin doesn’t speak nearly as loudly as his class perspective.  President Obama has supported & extended the criminal Bush/Cheney policies, at home & abroad, including: wars of aggression, torture, indiscriminate drone strikes, trigger-happy policing, and other war crimes being committed in the name of America, which most Americans strongly oppose. The problem for most Americans is there’s no political, economic or social outlet for their frustrations.

Bernie Sanders

Therefore, liberalism is called upon to deceive the masses one more time, until fascism can gather its forces and smash the workers, in order to seize power for itself. Once that happens, world war become increasingly inevitable, unless the working masses intercede under the banner of revolutionary socialism, which is now the only viable option for humanity’s survival.

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Tennis: Sport of Kings & Queens

On January 31, Novak Djokovic (SER) defeated No. 2 Andy Murray (GBR) 6-1, 7-5, 7-6 (3) in Melbourne, capturing a record sixth Australian Open title, and tying Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg with his 11th Grand Slam title.

Novak Djokovic

Djokovic, now 5th all-time in career Slams, was completely disrespected by the American sports media led by ESPN, SI, etc… when he wasn’t named Sportsperson-(or at least Co-Sportsperson)-of-the Year, in 2015.  Serena Williams is amazing, but so is Novak Djokovic, and what he does is tougher– playing on the ATP. [1]

Djokovic 2

This is the current career men’s singles tennis Grand Slam top 8 list:

Player                     Career Slams    AUST   FRENCH   WIMBLEDON  USO

1  Roger Federer SUI     17                       4              1                 7                   5
2  Rafael Nadal ESP       14                       1             9                  2                  2
2  Pete Sampras USA    14                       2             0                  7                  5
4  Roy Emerson AUS     12                       6             2                  2                  2
5  Novak Djokovic SER  11                       6             0                  3                  2
=  Björn Borg SWE          11                       0             6                  5                  0
=  Rod Laver AUS           11                       3             2                  4                  2
8  Bill Tilden USA             10                       0             0                  3                  7

Roger Federer

On the women’s side, Serena Williams came to Australia as the favorite, and she lived up to it, until she ran into No. 7 Angelique Kerber (GER) in the finals. Kerber raised her game & persevered 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to win her first major title. Afterwards Williams said she’s “not a robot”, and she may be attempting to live up to an impossible standard, at age 34. She’s still pretty good. Here’s the current all-time women’s singles top 8 list:

Player                     Career Slams    AUST   FRENCH   WIMBLEDON  USO

1  Margaret Court AUS         24              11            5                   3                 5
2  Steffi Graf GER                 22              4              6                   7                 5
3  Serena Williams USA        21              6              3                  6                 6
4  Helen Wills USA                19              0              4                  8                  7
5  Martina Navratilova USA  18               3              2                  9                 4
=  Chris Evert USA               18               2              7                  3                 6
7  Billie Jean King USA         12               1              1                  6                 4
8  Monica Seles YUG/USA    9               4              3                  0                 2

Serena Williams

The biggest asterisk on the women’s career list relates to one of the ugliest incidents in the history of modern professional sports. On April 30, 1993, Monica Seles was the victim of an on-court attack in Hamburg. Günter Parche, an obsessed fan of Steffi Graf, ran from the middle of the crowd to the edge of the court during a break between games, and stabbed Seles with a boning knife between her shoulder blades.

German authorities quickly ruled out political motivation for the attack, even though Seles was known to have received death threats in relation to the ongoing conflict in her native Yugoslavia. Parche was charged but never jailed for the public stabbing.  He was found to be ‘psychologically abnormal’, and was sentenced to two years’ probation and psychological treatment.

Monica Seles was 19 years old at the time of the assault, and had already won 8 Grand Slams. Steffi Graf, age 24 had already won 11 Grand Slams, but had clearly been surpassed by Seles. Monica Seles rejoined the WTA in 1995, and added a fourth Australian Open title in 1996, but was never the same player again.

Monica Seles spoke about the incident years later, “From the time I was stabbed, I think the security hasn’t changed. What people seem to be forgetting is that this man stabbed me intentionally, and he did not serve any sort of punishment for it.”  Seles has not played tennis in Germany since. “I would not feel comfortable going back. I don’t foresee that happening.” [2]

Monica Seles 1991

For some unknown reason, no one pays much attention to professional doubles, even though it’s the version of tennis that most recreational players enjoy.  On the men’s side in the 2016 Australian Open doubles finals, Bruno Soares (BRA) and Jamie Murray (GBR) beat Daniel Nestor (CAN) and Radek Stepanek (CZH) 2-6, 6-4, 7-5.

Jamie Murray & Bruno Soares2

The Bryan brothers don’t win majors anymore, but they were the best ever, and they’re still active.  Best men’s Grand Slam doubles tandem (open era)

16    Bob Bryan & Mike Bryan USA
11    Todd Woodbridge & Mark Woodforde AUS
7      John Newcombe &  Tony Roche  AUS
=      Peter Fleming &  John McEnroe USA

Mike & Bob Bryan

In the women doubles final, Martina Hingis (SUI) and Sania Mirza (IND) beat the Czech pair of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka 7-6 (1), 6-3 to extend their winning streak to 36 matches, on the way to their third major doubles title as a team.

Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza

Venus (age 35) & Serena Williams don’t play doubles at majors anymore. [3]

venus-and-serena-williams-at-Wimbledon

Here are the top women Grand Slam tandems of all-time:

20  Martina Navratilova & Pam Shriver  USA
14  Gigi Fernández & Natasha Zvereva  USA/USSR
13  Venus Williams & Serena Williams   USA
8    Virginia Ruano Pascual & Paola Suárez  ESP/ARG

Martina Navratilova & Pam Shriver

The No. 1 priority now in professional tennis (ATP & WTA), is to clean up the match-fixing. Evidence of throwing matches needs to be thoroughly investigated, then made public; with those responsible named & punished appropriately. The same goes for PEDs. Tennis is a great game, and a superb alternative to American football & soccer, for those athletes looking to avoid concussion risks, but its competition must be clean & fair at its highest levels to attract young players. Therefore organized crime, gambling elements and dangerous chemical enhancements need to be kept outside of the sport.

Nikolay Davydenko-ATP

All the best tennis players want the integrity of their sport maintained, as a gentlemen’s/women’s game– the “Sport of Kings.” This means clean, hard-nosed competition, with respectful etiquette always observed on the court– win or lose.

Nadal Federer 2

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