A history professor whose
formula has successfully predicted the outcome of all but one
presidential election since 1984 has indicated that President Joe Biden is tracking to win in 2024.
Allan Lichtman, who has been teaching at American University for five decades, uses a system of 13 “keys” to the White House to make his call.
In a recent interview with the Guardian,
Lichtman noted that Biden has already got two keys under his belt: the
incumbency key, and the contest key, after he faced no serious
contenders for the incumbent party nomination.
“That’s
two keys off the top. That means six more keys would have to fall to
predict his defeat. A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose,”
Lichtman said.
He will likely make his final prediction in August, according to the Guardian.
The
other keys, which are structured as true or false questions, include
whether or not the incumbent candidate has been tainted by a major
scandal, whether there has been social unrest during the term, whether
the incumbent has achieved major military successes or failures, and
whether or not the challenging candidate is charismatic or a national
hero.
The only blemish on Lichtman’s record is in 2000, when he predicted that Al Gore would defeat George W. Bush.
But
Lichtman claims that call was nonetheless correct, since Gore won the
popular vote. He contends that Gore would have won the election was he
not wronged in Florida, which Bush won by a razor thin margin, prompting
a recount dispute and highly controversial Supreme Court decision.
He was among a select few who predicted former President Donald Trump’s win in 2016...
As with polls six months out from an election, take this with more than a ton of salt, and keep doing the necessary hard work to win (volunteer, donate, vote). But, let's face it: he does have a better record than any polling outfit we've ever seen.
“I’m profoundly disturbed about the apparent direction of the court,”
J. Michael Luttig told me. “I now believe that it is unlikely Trump
will ever be tried for the crimes he committed in attempting to overturn
the 2020 election.”
I called Luttig, a former federal judge with extensive
conservative credentials, to solicit his reaction to this week’s Supreme
Court hearing
over Donald Trump’s demand for absolute immunity from prosecution for
any crimes related to his insurrection attempt. On Thursday, Luttig posted a thread
critiquing the right-wing justices for their apparent openness to
Trump’s arguments—but that thread was legalistic and formal, so I
figured Luttig had a lot more to say.
And did
he ever. Luttig lacerated the right-wing justices for harboring a
“radical vision” of the American presidency, and pronounced himself
“gravely” worried that Trump will never face accountability for alleged
crimes committed in attempting to destroy U.S. democracy through
extensive procedural corruption and the naked incitement of mob
violence.
Luttig’s
fear that Trump may very well skate centers on the lines of questioning
from the court’s right-wing majority about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s
ongoing prosecution of Trump. As many observers noted,
those justices appeared largely uninterested in the question before
them—whether Trump’s alleged crimes related to the insurrection
constituted official presidential acts that are immune from prosecution
after leaving office.
Instead, the justices dwelled on the
supposed future consequences of prosecuting presidents for crimes, and
seemed to want to place some limits on that eventuality. That suggests
the justices will kick the case back to lower courts to determine
whether some definition of official presidential acts must be protected
(and whether Trump’s specific acts qualify).
The corrupt Republican Supreme Court already showed its hand by accepting an appeal on what was a slam-dunk finding by the appeals court, then dragging out hearings until the end of its term in April. That they appear at best to be headed toward a mixed bag of opinions and possibly remanding it back to the trial court means more delay and judicial obfuscation in service to one Malignant Loser.
Dueling
demonstrations on the UCLA campus Sunday resulted in skirmishes between
groups showing support for an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters
and counter-protesters rallying around the university's Jewish students.
A
group of demonstrators "breached a barrier that the university had
established separating two groups of protestors on our campus, resulting
in physical altercations," according to a statement from Mary Osako,
vice chancellor of UCLA strategic communications. "UCLA has a long
history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken
about the violence that broke out."
The
Westwood campus protests followed similar demonstrations on the campus
at the University of Southern California, amid a controversy over the
school's decision to cancel the valedictorian's speech. The USC protests
also experienced some minor clashes in the crowd, along with dozens of
arrests.
It's unclear
if anybody was arrested at UCLA on Sunday. Video showed most of the
confrontations involved pushing and yelling. Some minor injuries were
reported...
When legitimate protests turn violent, the reaction is for police to be called in and start cracking heads. That serves no one except some police who like to beat up people and some people who like being beat up for the cameras. All that is needed is for someone, somewhere to be seriously injured or killed and the fat will be in the fire. The evil Hamas terrorist attack and Netanyahu's unrestrained response now have consequences that have washed up on our shores.
