Stuff reports:

New Zealand’s highest earners will pay almost 25 per cent of all income tax received by the Government under Labour’s proposed top tax rate.

Labour campaigned on a new top tax rate of 39 per cent for people earning more than $180,000. It said that this would raise an extra $550 million a year and affect only the top 2 per cent of earners.

At present, the 3 per cent of earners who receive more than $150,000 a year in income pay 23.5 per cent of all income tax, or $8.67 billion of $36.85b.

NZ Initiative chief economist Eric Crampton said that would increase to 24.7 per cent if the Government was able to claim the full $550m in extra tax.

Some won’t be happy until the 3% have been taxed so heavily they leave.

If this eventuates, then Biden will have won the Electoral College by the exact same margin Trump won in 2016 (which Trump of course called the greatest landslide ever etc).

Let’s look at the four main uncalled states:

• Nevada: Biden ahead by 22,000 votes or 1.8%. Around 9% of votes remaining to be counted. They are mainly from Clark County which is heavily blue leaning.
• Arizona: Biden ahead by 44,000 votes or 1.4%. Around 7% of votes remaining to be counted. Trump would need to win 60% of them to win.
• Pennsylvania: Biden ahead 9,000 votes or 0.1%. Around 5% of votes remaining to be counted. Trump would need to win 52% of them to win. They are mainly from Democratic-leaning counties (Bucks and Lehigh) or heavily Democratic areas (Philadelphia and Allegheny counties)
• Georgia: Biden ahead by 1,600 votes or under 0,1%, with only absentee, provisional and military ballots uncounted. Half the absentee ballots left are from Gwinnett County which is heavily Democratic

It is important to note the vote counts showing Biden ahead in states like Pennsylvania are all from votes received on or before election day. The ballots received after election day have not yet been included so Trump’s lawsuit in Pennsylvania won’t affect the outcome.

Also worth reflecting that the talk of candidates being ahead, and falling behind etc is a bit misleading. The actual number of votes has not changed in the past three days – just which ones have been counted so far. Some states count advance votes first (as we do in NZ) and some states count them last. If Pennsylvania had counted the advance votes first, then the vote count would have shown Biden leading the entire time.

It is not unusual for advance votes and on the day votes to vary. Take NZ for example. National got 30% of election day votes but only 25% of advance votes and 20% of special votes.

So there is no real chance Joseph Biden will not be the 46th President of the United States. It is just a matter of when those last four states are called. Biden wins with Arizona and Nevada alone.

A guest post by Bob McCoskrie of Family First:

Despite starting the campaign with a 36-point lead two years ago (according to Horizon Polling), the YES campaign lost the cannabis debate by 2.3 points (an incredible 38-point turnaround).

This was despite an avalanche of favourable media support which even experienced broadcasters observed as very bias – (“the prominence of the pro-campaigners in mainstream media, the lack of balance”, and “The media in general has featured, to my eye, favourable coverage of why we should be legalising the stuff, as opposed to why we shouldn’t”).

There was also a strong campaign by the Electoral Commission to enrol young voters using the enticement of being able to vote in the dope referendum – a group of voters more likely to vote yes.

And there were accusations of bias by the government. In a paper in the NZ Medical Journal, the academics described the claims in the government pamphlet delivered to all voters as “inflated”, “unrealistic”, and “unlikely to be achievable”.  The BERL report – which the government tried to hide – revealed that pot shops will be as noticeable in number as fast food outlets, and that usage will increase by almost 30%. And government advice – which the government also tried to hide and was forced to release by the Ombudsman – said that “there would almost certainly be unintended and unanticipated consequences of legalising cannabis for personal use”, and that “there is insufficient data to understand the medium- to long-term impacts”

So, with all the inertia behind the YES campaign, why did they still so spectacularly fail?

• they used Helen Clark as the front person. Prime Ministers who have been voted out can express their opinion, but not lead controversial campaigns – especially when they’ve already annoyed people opposing charity concerts being held
• they used Green MP Chloe Swarbrick who comes across as condescending and lectures people. Labelling the opposition as ‘juvenile’ ‘fear-mongering’ and not being mature in their attitude alienates thinking voters. It also reminded people of the extremism of the Greens (which many voters tactically voted to reduce their influence)
• the YES campaign slogans “On our terms” (because it hasn’t worked anywhere else?), “We Do” (sounds like a debate about marriage), “Make it legal” (make what legal?), were vague and boring and didn’t even include the key word ‘”Yes”. The YES campaign was disjointed with no unity and clear messaging – compared to the NO campaign which was clever, clear and edgy – “Too precious to be wasted”, “Say Nope To Dope” (in our humble opinion). 
• the NZ Drug Foundation’s ‘nuclear’ $300k campaign before the official campaign period annoyed the hell out of people – especially when the YES campaign was accusing the NO campaign of having ‘deep pockets’. Labelling NO voters as needing to ‘get mature’ also annoyed people.
• the YES campaign spent more time and energy attacking the ‘messenger’ rather than the ‘message’
• nobody believed the claims that the NO campaign was somehow being bankrolled by American interests – which of course they weren’t 
• the NO campaign peaked at just the right time (when advance voting was about to begin). YES campaigners like Helen Clark were delivering pamphlets after most people had made up their mind
• the majority of voters didn’t believe the narrative that legalisation would reduce harm (it will increase harm), or that it would get rid of the gangs (it won’t), or that young people would be less likely to want to use it (despite adults being able to legally grow and consume it far more freely).
• the “it will make lots of tax money” argument simply didn’t add up – because voters recognised the excess social harms and fiscal costs already experienced with alcohol and tobacco
• arguing that “lots of people doing it justifies changing the law” didn’t work. Otherwise we would need to liberalise the laws around child abuse, family violence, assault, fraud, meth (P) use, drunk driving, shoplifting & sexual assault
• arguing that the “law was racist” didn’t work. Most thinking people realised that bias and racism is a far bigger issue than saying that allowing people the legal right to get wasted & suffer addiction harms will solve the problem. Telling people that if they vote no they’re racist also didn’t help.

• the attempt to legalise smoking cannabis directly contradicted the successful SmokeFree2025 messaging and campaigning
• the YES campaign supporters tried to bring alcohol into the debate, but that actually reinforced the concerns people had about big corporates exploiting communities for profit and addiction, not health 
• neutral voters who tried to engage with YES voters on Facebook were treated like imbeciles and dismissed 

• YES voters trolled the NO campaign pages but, through their commenting style, actually reinforced the perception that cannabis use was not good for the intellect! Threats made against the NO campaign also didn’t help.
• The Patrick Gower documentaries and the movie “Toke” (conveniently timed to air just before the referendum) simply reinforced stereotypes of an unrelatable subculture which turned middle New Zealanders off.

The one thing the YES campaign did get right? 

They used medicinal marijuana as a smokescreen – which fooled a lot of people into voting yes. Exit polling showed that 60% of Yes voters voted in order to make cannabis available for medicinal purposes such as pain relief. This is despite the fact that medicinal cannabis has already been legalised, and the Government clearly spelt out on the official referendum website that “Medicinal cannabis is not included in the proposed law that will be voted on in the referendum.” The silence by the media and YES campaigners around the private members bill of Dr Shane Reti which was drawn just before the election confirms that the YES campaign was keen to use the medicinal aspect to increase the yes vote.

But overall, the YES campaign still blew it.

Some big changes:

• Labour gains one List MP
• National loses two List MPs
• Maori Party gains a List MP
• National loses Northland, Whangarei and Maungakiekie
• Matt King and Denise Lee out of Parliament
• Shane Reti now a List MP
• Maureen Pugh and Nick Smith safe, due to King and Lee losing
• Cannabis referendum lost
• Euthanasia referendum passed

UPDATE:Gerry Brownlee has announced he is stepping down as Deputy Leader of the National Party. So caucus will elect a new Deputy Leader on Tuesday.

Stuff reported:

High-profile runner Anthony Van Dyck has been euthanised after failing to complete the course in the Melbourne Cup.

One of the favourites to give trainer Aidan O’Brien his first Melbourne Cup victory, Anthony Van Dyck was injured during the race.

“It is with sadness that we confirm that Anthony Van Dyck had to be humanely euthanised after sustaining a fractured fetlock during the running of the Melbourne Cup at Flemington,” Racing Victoria’s Jamie Steir said.

In the last eight Melbourne Cups, seven horses have died. Is this humane?

Stuff reports:

Liquidator Damien Grant has been given another chance to make his case to be allowed to continue his insolvency career. …

In a judgment released on Tuesday, the High Court in Auckland overturned the Ritanz decision and required it to be reconsidered.

Grant has credit card convictions from the late 1980s and a fraud conviction from when he was 26 in 1994, for his part in a share-dealing scam. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and served 16. …

Muir said the Ritanz panel had applied an incorrect test when “weighing up” the past convictions against his present career.

All of its significant doubts had a retrospective focus, Muir said.

“At no stage did the panel say that it had significant, or even any, doubts Mr Grant has truly moved on from his criminal past…. The danger, as I see it, in the panel’s approach is that in the case of serious dishonesty offending … a balancing approach may leave the scales permanently weighted against admission. That is not to say that the nature of the offending is not important. Conspicuously it is.

“[If] the door cannot be considered permanently closed to Grant and he is free to apply again in the future, the question must inevitably arise, if not now, when? Is 35 or 40 years of honest commercial and media endeavour really any different in this sense to 27 years?”

I’m very pleased Grant got the decision over-turned. It was an appaling decision.

The court ruling is here, and worth a read. A key point the Judge made is RITANZ seemed to ignore that Grant wasn’t someone trying to become a liquidator, but he had been a highly successful one for the last 12 years. He has been appointed to over 800 insolvencies, and has a staff of 20.

The Judge also pointed out that RITANZ focused hugely on whether having a member with a 27 year old fraud conviction would lower the reputation of the profession, and ignored the possibility having Grant as a member would heighten their reputation, by showing how people can turn their lives around.

RITANZ now has to consider a new application by Grant. I hope they do the right thing this time around.

One of my all time favourite actors died this week, Sir Sean Connery. Hard to believe he was 90.

Not only was he the iconic James Bond, but I loved him in The Untouchables, The Hunt for Red October, Robin Hood etc. He had such presence.

My ranking of the James Bond actors is:

1. Sean Connery
2. Daniel Craig
3. George Lazenby
4. Roger Moore
5. Pierce Brosnan
6. Timothy Dalton

Unemployment is up to 5.3%. This is lower than many expected, but of course still very hard on the families who have lost their income from work.

Some key data:

• 31,000 fewer jobs than six months ago
• 31,000 more unemployed
• 33,000 more not in the labour force (not working but not looking for a job)
• NZ has gone from 7th lowest to 17th lowest unemployment rate in OECD. So now at around the median.
• Public sector wages up 2.5% from a year ago but private sector only up 1.6%
• Average FT salary in public sector $84,343 and private sector $62,617

In my post of the ten best things about Trump, I said the most powerful was his standing up as a cultural warrior against the woke cancel culture etc.

It would be interesting to try and get data to look into Tabarrok’s theory.

The Herald reports:

Transport experts did not believe a new road connection to ease congestion on the ageing Harbour Bridge would be needed until mid to late 2040 – 10 years after the rail tunnel.

So at least 20 more years of massive congestion.

Biden now has a lead in some key states, but it remains very close. He is now at 70% to win in the betting markets.

Fox News has Biden at 238 and Trump at 213. The uncalled states are:

• Alaska (3) – Trump expected to win
• Georgia (16) – Trump ahead 2.1% with 6% uncounted
• Maine CD1 (1) – Trump expected to win
• Michigan (16) – Biden ahead 1.3% with 4% uncounted
• Nevada (6) – Biden ahead 0.8% with 33% uncounted
• North Carolina (15) – Trump ahead 1.4% with 6% uncounted
• Pennsylvania (20) – Trump ahead 5.9% with 16% uncounted
• Wisconsin (10) – Biden ahead 0.6% with 5% uncounted

If the leader of each state goes on to win it, then you have Biden 274 and Trump 266.

But states like Georgia and Pennsylvania may still change. The votes remaining to be counted come from areas which heavily favour Biden. How much they favour Biden will determine the outcome in those states. If it is just say 2:1 he won’t pull back the lead by if it is 3:1 he will.

Also note the estimated of uncounted votes are estimates. In Wisconsin it is suggested there are actually only two small towns with 600 population to report.

UPDATE: Biden now at 77% in betting markets. GOP hold on Senate looks likely with Collins winning. Dems have held House. Some outlets have called Wisconsin for Biden. Trump has picked up Maine’s 2nd District.

UPDATE2: Biden now at 264 in called states. Just needs one of Nevada, Georgia or Pennsylvania. If he gets them all he gets 306 EVs.

Biden now at 86% in betting markets.

The winner won’t be known for at least a day or more, but it is clear it is a far tighter race than projected as once again Trump has exceeded the polls in at least some states. It is unclear if this is due to local issues (large increase in support from Cuban Americans in Florida) or is more across the board.

I thought it would be useful to look at the states declared, and see how these have impacted the projected chance of victory for Trump in the 538 model.

• Start of night: Trump 10%
• Trump retains Florida: 33%
• Trump retains Iowa: 37%
• Trump retains Ohio: 42%
• Trump retains Texas: 44%
• Biden flips Arizona: 20%
• Biden retains Minnesota: 15%

Trump was well ahead in Georgia and North Carolina. But it has tightened The NYT has Trump at 82% to win North Carolina and only 36% for Georgia.

If Trump wins North Carolina his odds move to 19% and Georgia to 21%.

If he wins Michigan his odds hit 89%. Or Wisconsin takes him to 83%. Or Pennsylvania to 54%.

Biden has three paths to victory:

1. Win Michigan and Wisconsin
2. Win Pennsylvania and one of Michigan or Wisconsin
3. Win Georgia and one of Michigan or Wisconsin

A lot of the votes not yet counted are early votes, and are thought to favour Biden. So just because Trump leads in the four states above at present, it doesn’t mean he is sure to win them because the votes counted to date are not representative of all votes. He may, but we simply won’t know until all the votes are counted.

Trump, as expected, is claiming it is stealing the election to count votes after tonight. That is mad. These are votes cast and received before the polls closed. There is a legitimate debate about whether votes that get received after election day should or should not be counted (some states say they have to arrive by election day, others that they must be postmarked by election day) but you don’t throw out early or advance votes just because they take longer to count and tabulate.

The chance of an electoral college tie is non trivial. It is as high as 6% based on states won to date. If that happens, then the election would go to the new Congress.

The House would elect the President and the Senate the Vice-President. It is possibly you could end up with a Biden-Pence or Trump-Harris administration which would be sort of hilarious.

The Senate is looking quite good for the GOP to retain control. Not certain, but fairly good. If the Senate is tied 50-50, the VP Pence would be the deciding vote if they have to elect a VP.

The House will overall be controlled by Democrats again but in the event of electing a President they vote by congressional delegation. All 50 delegations get a vote, and you need a majority to win.

The current House is:

• Republican majority delegations: 26
• Democrat majority delegations: 23
• Tied delegations: 1

So Trump would be elected by the current House but if just two delegations flip then Biden would win in the House.

Anyway unlikely the House decides, but one worth keeping an eye on.

We’ll see where the key remaining states go tomorrow, or later this week.

Use this post to comment on the US election results as they come in. I’ve embedded my twitter feed below, as I’ll be tweeting data and analysis as I get it.

I’ve compiled this table showing the polling averages and projections for five aggregators. For the two most well known, I have also shown the margins in key states on congressional districts.

All have Biden ahead in the popular vote by between 4% and 8%. A 4% margin could see Trump win. An 8% margin almost certainly won’t.

Those who do a probability forecast have Trump at between 4% and 23% to win.

The electoral college forecasts range from 319 to 350 for Biden. You need 270.

In terms of the states Trump is ahead in Texas, Iowa and Ohio.

The aggregators disagree (different methodologies) on Georgia and North Carolina.

If Trump wins those, he also needs to Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania. In that last state he is only behind by 2.5% according to RCP or 4.9% according to 538.

The two states I’ll be most interested in are Florida and Pennsylvania.

If Trump loses Florida, he almost certainly loses the election. So if we get a decisive Florida result for Biden early on, then it may be a less suspenseful night.

If Biden loses Pennsylvania, he is in trouble. He still have alternative paths to victory, but not easy ones. I’d say Trump would be the favourite (but not certain) if he wins Pennsylvania. However unlike Florida, we are unlikely to get a clear result on election day due to their rules on counting early ballots.

Also of interest will be the Senate races. Control of the Senate will be highly consequential. Unlike the House, the Senate has to confirm all senior government and judicial nominees.

The latest and almost final 538 forecast gives Trump a 10% chance of winning. Nate Silver has an excellent piece on how a 10% chance is not zero. It is around the chance of it raining on a particular day. Silver’s key points are:

• The Electoral College gives Trump a 3% to 4% advantage. Only if Biden has a greater than 5% lead in popular vote does his chances of winning the Electoral College exceed 90%
• Biden only leads by 4.7% in Pennsylvania, the most likely tipping point state
• Biden only leads by 2.1% in Florida
• There may be polling errors, as occured in 2016, despite pollsters having tried to fix them
• There may be more spoiled ballots due to greater postal voting
• Trump appears to be picking up support from Hispanic voters, who may be under-represented in some polls

This is not to say that Trump is likely to win. It is to say Trump can win.

Here’s when we should start to get results from the US elections for key swing states, as in the polls close for them:

• 12 pm – Florida, Georgia, South Carolina,
• 12.30 pm – North Carolina, Ohio
• 1 pm – Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas
• 2 pm – Minnesota, Wisconsin
• 3 pm – Iowa

Also some exit poll data will become available from around 10 am.

Almost all the experts say it is improbable we will know today who has won the election. The reason is that many of the key swing states don’t allow early processing or counting of the postal ballots, so the final results for those states could take a further one to three days – or longer.

This will mean that data on election night, for some states, will mainly reflect those who voted on the day, and not the much larger number who voted early. So it may be difficult to get a clear picture.

I’d be very wary of any claims by politicians they they are winning or have won. You don’t get to declare yourself the winner. The election authorities do. The major TV networks have said they will only project a winner in a state when they are 99.5% confident in the outcome.

A guest post by Stephen Russell:

As election day nears, observers of the US political scene probably hoped for increasing clarity about what’s happening there. What we’ve gotten is perhaps the opposite. 

Fivethirtyeight.com’s log now shows national election polls from 44 (!) different pollsters conducted in the last sixteen days of October, and some of those have produced multiple polls.  During this period, Joe Biden’s lead has fallen. Since reaching a peak of +10.3 in the Realclearpolitics.com (RCP) polling average on October 11, Biden has slipped to +6.5 though it is bouncing around quite a bit.  Biden likewise peaked in the Fivethirtyeight.com (538) average on Oct 16-19 at +10.7 and has since slipped to +8.3.  But detailed study shows several interesting points.

Firstly, the decline in Biden’s position may be partly a change of measurement rather than what is being measured. Each new pollster throwing their result into the pot changes the average. But each pollster has their own technique. They may be measuring exactly the same reality, but getting different results because of their different measuring sticks. That doesn’t mean Biden hasn’t slipped, just that the reality is less certain than it appears.

What do the repeat pollsters say? Cursory investigation shows mixed results. On the one hand, the results from USC Dornsife (which reports rolling averages) show no substantive change in opinion since the start of the month. YouGov has Biden increasing his lead from +9 to +11. On the other hand, Rasmussen has gone from reporting Biden +12 in the first week of October to Trump +1 in their October 25-27 survey (and back up to Biden +3 for Oct 27-29 then down to B+1 for Oct 28-Nov1).  IBD has gone up and down like a yo-yo. Ipsos shows no change.  SurveyMonkey shows a drop of about 2 points.      

Secondly, we are now probably seeing a herd effect. Mostly, pollsters can say whatever they like and we’ll never know for sure if they were right. But on election day they face the acid test. This creates a great temptation for pollsters to tweak (or even suppress) their final poll results to make them closer to the apparent average. That (they hope) will minimise the chances of them looking stupid when the result is known.

Third, a significant gap has opened up between the 538 and RCP averages. Why? 538’s average has usually been a little more friendly to Joe Biden than RCP’s: typically by about half a point. But lately the difference has been larger, and at one stage hit a full three points. And why did RCP’s figure start going down while 538’s was still going up?

The reason is largely in the deluge of new polls. Many (though not all) of the new polls feeding into 538 are more Biden-friendly, and that has kept the 538 average up. RCP’s average is based on a tight group of around ten of the most recent polls. A single new poll, especially if it is an outlier, can have a big effect on the average. And some major Biden-friendly polls (eg CNN, NBC, YouGov and USC Dornsife) are excluded because they are a week old. This procedure means RCP will usually reveal a change in a candidate’s popularity well before the 538 average shows it. However, the price for that sensitivity is volatility. It jumps around a lot and the changes it shows have often proved to be statistical blips from rogue polls and the randomness of which polls come out in what sequence.

Fourthly – and this is the most curious thing of all – is the distribution of results. Nationally, we have seen results from Biden +19 to Trump +1. There are double digit  spreads in many state polls too. In just one week polls came out showing a Biden lead of +10 in Pennsylvania and a Trump lead of +3. In Florida results ranged from Biden +7 to Trump +5.  In Wisconsin the range was Biden +1 to Biden +17.

If polling were as simple as pulling a handful of jellybeans out of a jar to sample the composition within, you would expect multiple polls to produce something close to what statisticians call a “normal distribution”: a cluster of results around a point which is probably close to reality, and a tail of more wayward results either side: a bell curve.

Unfortunately, humans are not jellybeans. Many refuse to come out of the jar. Some don’t know what colour they are. Some change colour every time they eat pork chops, and some tell fibs. Pollsters have many techniques to try and compensate for the uncertainty this creates. There is much debate about how that is best done. In theory, these uncertainties should have a simple effect: increasing the standard deviation of the bell curve to make it fatter.

And here is the curious thing: when you examine the actual results pollsters are producing, what you see is not a fat bell. It is a drunken bell, leaning to one side. Or possibly a two-humped camel. While it has become closer to normal in the last few days, that may be the herd effect at work.

The October 22 (NZT) RCP polls provide an illustration. There were ten polls making up the average, and Biden had a lead of 7.6 points. They fell into two clusters: a small group (of three) giving Biden a lead of around 3% (given the tilt in the Electoral College, that would make for a knife-edge election); and a larger cluster of seven polls giving Biden a lead averaging 9.6%. There was a distinct gap between the clusters. The mean, median and mode of the results had become misaligned, with the later two measures much more favourable to Biden.

This is not normal statistical variation, and comes from a disagreement over how to measure the reality of voter opinion that mirrors the polarisation of the two camps’ political beliefs. Each group denounces members of the other as fools or frauds.

Robert Calhally of Trafalgar Group and Jim Lee of Susquehanna Research are both predicting a Trump win and have denounced other pollsters for failing to see huge numbers of shy Trump voters. Lee has called some other polls “garbage”. 

On the other hand, Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult’s chief research officer has said his company has looked hard for these voters, and couldn’t find them. Nate Silver complains “there’s no f***ing evidence for it!” He cites cross-data with party identification that he says ought to show it up if it exists, but doesn’t; and also evidence from polling and results for Trumpy politicians in other countries.

If either cluster were just a couple of outliers we could dismiss them as nuts and ignore them. But there are too many. The Trump-friendly cluster seems to include Trafalgar, Susquehanna, Rasmussen, Harvard-Harris, Spry Strategies, Zogby, Insider Advantage, CardinalGPS; and (arguably) HarrisX, IBD, and Emerson. Some on that list are new. The Biden-friendly group includes Opinium, USC Dornsife, Morning Consult, JL Partners, YouGov, Ipsos, CNN, Data for Progress, Quinnipiac, Siena/NYT, Fox News and a whole lot more with less familiar names. There are pollsters giving results in the middle, but oddly few of them, given that this is where the average lies.

Some Trump enthusiasts have claimed that good polls for Biden are part of a conspiracy to suppress Republican turnout, or provide justification for a post-election claim of fraud when Trump has won. Democrats might equally claim that pro-Trump polls are part of a conspiracy to provide justification for a post-election claim of fraud when Biden has won.  Trump himself has often claimed that the only way he can lose is by massive vote fraud.

Now it might be that the pollsters of Cluster A are right and those of Cluster B are wrong. Or the reverse. But the average of them all is a result that almost no-one is picking! Of course, it is possible that both groups are wrong in opposite directions, and each by just the right amount to make the overall average accurate. But how likely is that? 

More likely is that a big group of pollsters are allowing politics to dictate the results they are producing. Which means that there is an enhanced probability that one group or the other is going to be proven spectacularly wrong, and even the polling average wrong by a historically unusual amount.  One way or another, there is going to be a lot of egg on face. And if it proves that one group is essentially right and the other group on another planet, the losers will be positively drowning in it.

A number of readers asked me to do a ten best and worst things about Joe Biden also. So here they are. In one post, as time is running out.

The worst

1. He seems to stand for nothing. He drifts to wherever the middle of the Democratic Party is. It is hard to know what he really believes or would fight for. In 1974 he opposed Roe vs Wade and in 1981 voted for a constitutional amendment to overturn it. Today he treats it as holy writ.
2. His record on race is patchy. He delivered a eulogy for former segregationist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond and opposed school integration.
3. Biden will hike taxes by $3.3 trillion over a decade
4. He has a history of not just gaffes, but massive exaggerations and plagiarism
5. He turned a blind eye to his son Hunter obviously trading on his family name to get a $600,000 a year board appointment
6. He has not ruled out packing the Supreme Court with additional Justices
7. He’s institutionalised in Washington. He has been there 48 years.
8. There are real doubts over his mental agility as he would be the oldest person ever elected President
9. He has a history of being too handsy with women
10. He is highly likely to increase spending, driving the US debt even higher

The best

1. His history of personal tragedy has made him someone of huge empathy, who genuinely cares for others.
2. He is kind and decent, as seen by what he did for Brayden Harrington
3. He is not one of those politicians that encourages people to hate the other side. In fact he has a long record of working with Republicans, and if anyone can work across party lines, it is Biden.
4. He is instinctively far removed from the woke activists who are pushing cancel culture etc.
5. He is vastly experienced in Government, both as a Senator and VP. He may not inspire, but he will be competent.
6. He is down to earth. For 36 years he spent three hours on the train every day just so he could be at home with his boys. Even as a presidential candidate he was often on the train.
7. He believes in a rules based international system, and will have the US join the TPP and stop trying to destroy the WTO.
8. He will stand up to Russian aggression in Europe, and elsewhere
9. He is a good negotiator, skilled at the art of compromise
10. He will show the Democrats the best route to success is not extremism, but moderation.

That’s my ten worst and best. Feel free to add more in comments.

Both the best and the worst are pretty mild. For me there’s nothing particularly exciting or repelling. He’s a typical Democratic politician of his age and era.

But the one thing that does stand out is how his personal tragedies have shaped him. As the father of an almost four year old and almost one year old, I can’t even fathom how you recover from losing a one year old in a car accident. Add to that losing your wife and suddenly at age 30 being a widower and the sole parent to two young boys. And if that isn’t enough having you eldest son die of brain cancer at age 46. That is more suffering than anyone should have to endure, but it has helped shape who he is. This article today shows that.

The BBC reports:

At least one person has been killed and several more are feared dead after a shooting in central Vienna, according to the city’s police.

Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said he believed the incident was an “apparent terror attack”.

A number of suspects armed with rifles launched the assault in six locations, police said. Among the injured was a police officer.

One attacker was shot dead by officers during a large-scale security incident. …

One of the locations of the shooting was reportedly on a street near a synagogue.

Jewish community leader Oskar Deutsch tweeted that it was unclear if the Vienna synagogue was targeted in the attack as it was closed at the time.

“It sounded like firecrackers, then we realised it was shots,” said one eyewitness quoted by public broadcaster ORF, according to AFP news agency.

An officer guarding the synagogue was injured, reported newspaper Kronen Zeitung.

Vienna is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Incredibly sad that they had had this terror attack.

It is especially poignant for me. I’ve been to the synagogue which may have been attacked. It was the only synagogue to surive the Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass as it was a block of buildings and can’t be burnt down without burning the entire block.

When I visited it, it was just to look for at the holocaust memorial wall. But to my delight, I discovered they had masses of genealogical records for my family, back to the 1600s and 1700s. They had my father’s birth certificate, my grandparents marriage certificate etc.

The staff there were so helpful. They were actually closed when we visited but as we were from NZ, allowed us in and the archivist showed us around. When he heard my grandmother’s maiden name was Mandl, he was very excited as it turned out the Mandls were quite famous.

So my heart broke a bit when I saw the headlines that the synagogue may have been a target. It is the strongest link I have to my family’s former life in Vienna.