There’s a strong case for ignoring the predictions… unlike weather events, presidential elections are not genuine “repeat” events. Facebook didn’t play a major role in elections until probably 2012. Twitter, without which Mr. Trump thinks he might not have won, wasn’t even founded until 2006. How much does an election in 1972, conducted when a few broadcast channels dominated the public sphere, tell us about what might happen in 2020?

All the election models are bullish on Biden, but they are united in that a Trump win is still plausible despite his seemingly steep deficit in polls…when I say that there are certain things outside the scope of the model — well, the truth is a little bit messier than that. One reason that we make relatively conservative assumptions, such as by using fat-tailed distributions, is to account for “unknown unknowns.”

2020 doesn’t have the same capacity for last-minute Democratic horror, because there aren’t nearly as many undecided voters. Fewer undecided voters means less volatility and a smaller chance of last-minute surprises that actually move votes.

President Trump has failed the test of leadership. His bid for reelection is foundering. And his only solution has been to launch an all-out, multimillion-dollar effort to disenfranchise voters — first by seeking to block state laws to ease voting during the pandemic, and now, in the final stages of the campaign, by challenging the ballots of individual voters unlikely to support him. This is as un-American as it gets.

Current polls show Biden leading in all six states. But his leads are narrower in the fast-counting states than in the slow-counting states, so if Trump does moderately better than polls currently suggest, he could win the fast-counting states on election night and wage battle in the courts to try to prevent the slow-counting ones from fully tallying their votes.

…the Republican National Committee has invested over $20 million and launched an unprecedented effort to protect the vote. We could not stand idly by and let Democrats strip away every ballot safeguard. Through our commitment to election integrity, we secured numerous victories.

…ultimately, it’s the right that beats people up on street corners… This knowledge isn’t hidden from the right, which is ashamed of its violence and inability to overcome it. Playing the victim has an element of violence as it shunts aside the real victim, Yitzhak Rabin, the leader of the left.

Over two-thirds (70%) of Israelis thought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is subject to incitement to a major extent, and a majority of Israelis of all political affiliations agreed with that statement, with 84% of the Right, 65% of the Center and 52% of the Left saying he is a target to a “considerable” or “very large” extent.

As always with Netanyahu, it was all about him. He has never apologized for the right-wing incitement by the Likud and other parties that led to the Rabin assassination… With Netanyahu, the end always justifies the means, and when things go wrong, he simply denies any involvement.

Corbyn’s suspension is not enough. As the report reveals, anti-Semitism has trickled down through the party’s institutions, and if it wants to shake off Corbyn’s problematic legacy it will have to clean house. The party must get rid of the anti-Semitism in its ranks, and neutralize all the mechanisms that allowed for discrimination and racism disguised as “criticism of Israel…”

American Jews have a lot to learn from their British relatives. As the UK Labour Party antisemitism scandal came to a close this week, the lesson from across the pond was clear: If Jews call antisemitism by its name, others will follow their lead. If they do not, Jews will be left behind. History helps those who fight for themselves.

There were no reasonable grounds for suspending Jeremy Corbyn. His response to the report was understated and mild — so much so that it had not even produced much criticism from a notoriously hostile press. Certainly, nothing in its content could be deemed antisemitic. The suspension itself was botched, circumventing the party’s own systems, which do not flag Jeremy Corbyn as having been suspended.

“The LGBT issue is like a sharp knife that slices the Orthodox public in two, but it’s a symptom of a community that’s seeking its way. On the one hand, the religious Zionist-community is connected to the Israeli way of life in every way. On the other, this community is worried about the next generation, hoping their children won’t leave Orthodoxy. The question is, what’s the price of openness?”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was able to identify 10 Orthodox-ordained rabbis who have performed or said they were open to officiating religious wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples. Though small, that number represents a remarkable change in the Orthodox community, which is defined by its strict adherence to religious law and in which a decade ago it was impossible to find a single rabbi willing to do so.

A prominent Orthodox rabbi in Israel has insisted that Jewish law does not ban same-sex couples from building families and having children together… He admitted that “no acceptable solution” had been found to the question of same-sex marriage with an Orthodox Jewish religious framework, but noted that “the desire to inform the world that we have chosen to live in a marital partnership is an understandable desire” which should not be ignored.

…the Kardashian hologram, like other recent holograms that have caused a stir, are only extreme expressions of the dangers and limits of technology. Even at its best, technology can easily delude us into forgetting what we love most. Those digital connections are wonderful, even miraculous, but we know, deep down, they can never compare to the real thing.

The video shows the late Kardashian patriarch in full holographic form, addressing Kim directly and sending his love from the afterlife. He reminisces over old memories — he even sings and dances to one of their favorite songs, “Who Put the Bomp” by Barry Mann — praises her efforts to become a lawyer, and tells her that he is proud of her. It’s all very touching. Strange, but touching nonetheless.

…in a world where “death tech” is becoming increasingly popular, and where people are thinking more and more about the digital legacies they leave behind, Kim and Kanye may have prompted a technological ethics discussion about whether we need tighter rules – even if it is currently only for the super-rich.