All Politics -- Nothing About The Bakken -- February 23, 2020

Quick: what was the big story exactly eleven days ago? Answer below.

Nevada: I woke up early to see the "final" Nevada caucus results.

After going to bed last night (or early this morning) about 1:30 a.m. with about 50% of precincts reporting and only a handful of delegates awarded, nothing had changed at 7:30 a.m. Central Time. Only 50% of precincts had reported. The big story is in. Which means that fifty percent of those voting in Nevada had no effect on the outcome. There was no reason for them to even show up. Not being reported. [At 8:06 a.m., I see that the percent of reporting precincts had risen to 60 percent.] [At 11:07 a.m. CT, reporting precincts unchanged, at 60%., only 13 of 36 delegates awarded; MSNBC says 50% of precincts have reported.]

Nevada: no discussion of how many folks actually showed up to vote.

Rules: anyone can register on same day of voting in the caucuses. IDs mostly likely not checked, or huge leeway if any doubt. Whatever. I have not seen the big board that shows how many voted overall, but the "crawlers" provide that information. Easiest way to do this: Pocahontas received 10% of the vote; she received 773 votes with 60% of the precincts voting. That translates to 7,730 votes overall. With 60% precincts reporting, assuming that precincts are about similar size, about 13,000 folks voted in the Nevada caucus. Compare with 10,000 in 2008, Hillary vs Barack.

• that's fewer than generally show up to a Trump rally, which is always a local event, not a statewide event
• people are willing to camp outside a Trump venue for up to 48 hours to get a chance of getting inside
• population of Las Vegas, huge majority Democrats: 642,000 (and yet maybe 13, 000 voted)
• population of Nevada: 3 million (and maybe 13,000 voted -- or maybe 0.4% of the population actually voted)

Nevada, primary caucus, 2008, link here:

• Hillary: 5,459 votes
• Barack: 4,844 votes
• Total: 10,303 votes

Trump; love him or hate him, brilliant politician. If one is going to do something really audacious, like:

• "interfere" with the judicial process (think: Roger Stone);
• pardon some folks that will generate huge stories for the opposition;
• fire the DNI, and replace the acting DNI with another acting DNI (requires no confirmation)
• fire the DNI, and replace with someone the opposition really, really dislikes

.... when should he do that?

Answer: In the middle of the news cycle -- in this case, just when the attention will be focused on the Nevada, and then the South Carolina, primaries.

The Roger Stone story had legs until it didn't. Brian Williams kept trying to return to the "resignation of the four prosecutors." That lasted all of four days and that story is dead.

This is the playbook:

• some really, really potentially harmful story for Trump is reported by the mainstream media;
• Trump does not wait; immediately pounces; important to get his "facts" out quickly; his tweets become the story; Trump becomes the story, not the story itself;
• keep the pressure on the mainstream media until something more "fantastic" arises -- and that generally happens within 48 to 72 hours. 

I follow the news pretty closely and had I not kept notes, I would have already forgotten about the resignation of the four prosecutors.

The big story exactly eleven days ago: one of two, both of which are now buried in the Nevada landslide:

• the New Hampshire primary (proof that you have forgotten: how many delegates did Bernie get?)
• the resignation of the four Roger Stone prosecutors (proof that you've forgotten: name one other "fact" about this case: the name of the judge; the name of any of the prosecutors; etc)

The blog: last evening, watching the Nevada primary, I mentioned that MSNBC Hillary supporters were in disbelief. I see that The Daily Caller has reported that same story. They call it an MSNBC meltdown.

The blog: one theme I hammered early was the delay in getting the results of the Nevada primary; NPR noted the same thing. Only because the results were so lopsided this was a non-story, but it appears the Nevada caucuses were about as chaotic as the Iowa caucuses. The race was called with 4% of the precincts. That must be some kind of record.

Others:

• Bernie: the coronavirus of the Democrat party;
• Bernie all the way;
• Pocahontas did not accept Super Pac money until she did; not true; she always accepted Super Pac money;
• Vote count problems persist;

The caucus way of doing things is dead.

Coronavirus: the other headline story on CNN this morning is the coronavirus and South Korea.

Antarctica: not melting. It can't.

For the record, the average annual temperature in the interior of the continent is -70 degrees Fahrenheit. You don’t need to worry about melting; not from ambient temperatures, anyway. I said that years ago. Ice melts at 32° F.

Germany and global warming. A reader sent me this, I'll post the link later:

Germany’s onshore wind tenders slumped back into undersubscription

territory when a February round for 900MW drew bids of just 527MW, said the country's federal network agency BNetzA.

The latest shortfall echoes a string of flops in German onshore auctions last year as the sector grapples with permitting and other negative regulatory issues.

That trend looked like it may be ending in December when 686MW of bids for 500MW marked the first oversubscribed tender of 2019, when a total of just 1.8GW out of 3.6GW offered was awarded across six separate onshore wind auctions, according to WindEurope figures.

But the latest auction marked a reverse, confirmed BNetzA, with 523MW actually accepted from 66 projects.

Reader's comments:  66 project totaling 527 MW awarded. So approximately 8 MW per project is 2-4 windmills per project depending on rating operating at 30% capacity factor = why bother? My prediction for 2021 is that more onshore German wind will be de-commissioned than commissioned.

My comments: In other words, these were not major wind farms onshore/offshore but simply mom-and-pop local niche projects, the kind your neighborhood college might put us as a science experiment.

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