Thursday Open Thread

Filed in National by on July 1, 2010

Welcome to the Thursday edition of your open thread. It’s post-General Assembly bill-passing orgy day. Who attended the session? Could you stay for the whole thing?

Also, Happy Canada Day!

Greg Sargent at PlumLine takes a look at the lawsuit filed by Daily Kos against polling organization Research 2000 and summarizes the claims:

Among the news in the lawsuit, which was filed late yesterday in northern California:

1) The suit alleges that Research 2000 founder Del Ali repeatedly promised to volunteer to Kos the raw polling data behind the surveys, but never came through — potentially raising further suspicions. The suit quotes multiple emails from Ali to Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, vowing to share the data.

The suit quotes an email from Ali that seemed to ask for more time to furnish the data because of office computer malfunctions, prompting him to go to a Kinkos. “I am at a Kinkos computer because we cannot read any mail from our PCs,” Ali emailed to Moulitsas, according to the suit.

2) The suit alleges that Research 2000 had money problems, which could prompt further questions about the firm’s business practices. It alleges that Ali asked Moulitsas to make one lump-sum payment in advance, in exchange for some free polling, because it would provide “immense” help for cash flow reasons.

3) The suit alleges that Ali was infuriated when statistics guru Nate Silver recently rated the firm poorly. It says that when Kos reacted to the Silver analysis by terminating their relationship, Ali responded to Kos with a lengthy defense of his polling methods, lashing out at Silver as “nothing more than a fringe blogger.”

4) The suit says that there was no formal written contract between the two parties, claiming the deal was made verbally and by email.

Sargent also clarifies that the polls that Daily Kos alleges are fraudulent are the weekly tracking polls only, not the other polls. I think we’re all going to learn a lot about polling and polling methods from this lawsuit. I have to add that I thought the report commissioned by dkos on the polling was very compelling and I find the refusal of R2K to release the raw data suspicious.

The DNC has new ad called “On Their Side” detailing how Republicans side with corporations over the American people. Take a look and see what you think.

More like this, please.

Tags:

About the Author ()

Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (15)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. nemski says:

    Eric Violette, Canada’s 2nd most famous singer, will no longer be gracing our airwaves. Eric who? Oh, he’s the guy from the freecreditreport.com commercials. The company is searching for a new band.

  2. RSmitty says:

    Somehow this will be our fault for HuffPo posting this. As an aside, I think it is hilarious.

  3. LOL Smitty. Thanks for posting that link.

  4. anonone says:

    Killing more people and wasting billions more dollar is all part if THE REVEAL, delacrat. BTW, the GDP of Afghanistan is ~$25 billion, and we’re spending $33 billion to kill them.

    Bush’s War 2008 = Obomba’s War 2010

  5. jason330 says:

    Do not pretend to understand the REVEAL.

  6. RSmitty says:

    C’mon, DL…give it up for your boy!
    Clap! Clap! Clap! Umm…not insinuating he has the clap (I hope not, anyway), that’s genuine applause.

  7. Phil says:

    Six months until Obama nails the coffin lid down on the economy.

    Massive tax increases

  8. anon says:

    Actually, the law that will raise taxes in 2011 was signed by Bush in 2001. Obama had nothing to do with it.

  9. anonone says:

    Those who have ears to see and eyes to listen understand the REVEAL.

  10. Phil says:

    Because otherwise the bill would of been blocked by senate dems. It could be made permanent. Also, Obama said people earning under $250k wouldn’t see any taxes increased. I guess this is just another lie added to the long list that Obama is creating.

    It’s ok to admit you we’re duped. Obama is just bush on meth. Unless of course it is all explained in the reveal….

  11. RSmitty says:

    In regard to my link above, at 3:23, our own Delawarean is currently ranking #1 among the field. It appears to be tight competition with Beck, but since about 4PM, our Delawarean has opened just a slight-lead.

  12. anon says:

    Because otherwise the bill would of been blocked by senate dems. It could be made permanent.

    Good thing the hare-brained tax cut experiment was limited to ten years. The Bush tax cuts are responsible for most of the deficit, and clearly were ineffective at creating jobs. Why would anybody want to make the deficit and job losses permanent?

  13. Phil says:

    Actually, in 2002, the unemployment rate started a downward trend until the housing market crashed.

  14. anon says:

    Actually, in 2002, the unemployment rate started a downward trend until the housing market crashed.

    “The infusion of methamphetamine revived the patient, until his heart exploded.”