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OCTOBER 4,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE

WILL THIS BE THE DECISIVE ELECTION ISSUE?  FROM FOX BUSINESS:  American consumers should expect gasoline prices to keep surging as a result of various domestic and global factors, according to energy analysts who spoke with FOX Business.  Major petroleum refinery snags and policies disincentivizing more fossil fuel production or nationwide refinery capacity have contributed to the price uptick, the analysts said. In addition, the powerful Middle East oil cartel, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and Russia are expected to announce a massive production cut of up to 1-2 million barrels per day on Wednesday, Reuters reported.  "What OPEC might do very much could dictate where we go by the end of the year," Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told FOX Business in an interview.   "I had expected at least a good potential that the national average could fall under $3 a gallon, but I think OPEC just threw a bucket of cold water on that by signaling its intentions to be well ahead of any economic slowdown," he continued. "Global inventories for oil remain extremely tight and it's very clear that OPEC is growing addicted to triple digit oil."  Biden essentially destroyed American energy production on his first day as president, to appease the environmental fanatics who have a grip on his party.  This is the result.  When President Trump left office we were, as a result of his policies, energy-independent, and OPEC couldn't control us.  Those good days are gone.  Smart Republicans should make this one of the key issues of their campaign, hitting it every day until the election.  There will be victory.

October 4, 2022       Permalink   

TENTATIVE GOOD NEWS:  All poll results are tentative, but some are particularly delightful.  Why not have a pleasant day?  From the Washington Times:   

In the great political popularity derby, Republicans are winning by a nose at the moment — a factor not often covered by the news media.

“Americans’ views of the two major U.S. political parties remain more negative than positive, but the Republican Party’s favorability is now slightly better than the Democratic Party’s. Both parties’ images have shifted slightly since last year, with the GOP’s favorable rating edging up four percentage points to 44% and the Democratic Party’s rating slipping by the same amount, to 39%,” reports Megan Brenan, an analyst for Gallup, which has released the findings.

A certain demographic appears to be lagging in this race.

“More than eight in 10 rank-and-file Republicans (87%) and Democrats (84%) view their own parties favorably. While Republicans’ favorable rating of the GOP is essentially unchanged from last year, Democrats’ rating of their own party has fallen eight points to the lowest reading of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Ms. Brenan said.

Republicans are still viewed as the better political party to protect the nation from international terrorism and military threats — and also better able to keep the country prosperous, she also noted.

“Given that Americans have historically rated the Democratic Party more favorably than the Republican Party, this year’s opposite finding may be of particular concern to the Democrats, who are trying to hold on to their House majority in the upcoming midterm elections,” Ms. Brenan said, though she also stressed that party favorability ratings are not necessarily related to positive election outcomes for either side.

And then there's this,  from CNN:

Sometimes you see a polling result that jumps out from the page. That was the case when I saw a recently released Gallup poll on who Americans think can better handle the issue that is most important to them.

Put in a historical context, this poll potentially portends very good things for Republicans come November.

We're all used to polls that ask voters which issue is most important to them. Gallup puts the question to Americans open-ended, meaning a respondent can say anything from the mundane (e.g. inflation) to the inane (e.g. clowns).

Gallup, unlike other pollsters, has another twist on that question. They follow it up by pressing respondents to answer which party they think can better handle the issue that they just named as the most important.

Gallup's latest data shows that 48% of Americans believe the Republican Party is best equipped, while 37% believe it is the Democratic Party.

This 11-point Republican edge is one of the best they have ever had. Looking at 20 midterm elections since 1946 when this question was asked, only once has the Republican Party had a larger advantage on this question. That was in 1946 when Republicans had a 17 point lead on the Democrats.

Republicans had a net gain of 55 House seats in the 1946 election. And while the correlation is far from perfect (+0.7 on a scale of -1 to 1) between House seats won by the Republican Party and how they stood against the Democrats on the most important issue question, it is very much existent.

Take a look at all elections since 1946 in which there was a Democratic president.

Republicans ended up with 230 seats on average in the five elections when they led on the question of who Americans trusted more on the issue most important to them. This included 1946 when they won 246 seats.

In the four elections when Republicans trailed on this question, they won an average of just 189 seats. This included both 1962 and 1998, which are the two elections in the polling era with a Democratic president when Republicans had a net gain of less than five seats.

Democrats need to keep Republicans to a net gain of less than five seats to maintain control of the House after November's elections.

We see this in Google searches as well. The number of Google searches for abortion in September was basically tied with the number of searches in April, before the May leak of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe. Searches in September were one-third of the level they were in May. They're one-fifth of the level they were in June, when Roe was overturned. They're less than half what they were in July.

This could be very bad news for Democrats. Polls show Democrats are more trusted than Republicans on abortion by double-digits. Republicans are more trusted by double-digits on the issues of inflation and the economy, which Americans were far more likely to say was important to them in the Monmouth poll.

COMMENT:  That's the good news.  But we note, not to ruin your day, but to be responsible, that we have five weeks to go before the election.  That's, oh, two lifetimes in politics.  I suspect the Dems will pull some kind of October surprise.  It may involve Trump.  Or maybe they'll try to arrest some major Republican.  They will stop at nothing to win, for they are now religious zealots, not simply practical politicians. 

October 4, 2022       Permalink

I WONDER HOW MUCH FEDERAL AID THEY GET.  FROM FOX: 

Maitland Jones Jr., a chemistry professor at New York University who also taught for four decades at Princeton, was fired in August after undergraduate students circulated a petition complaining that his course was too difficult. 

Dozens of the college students, many of them aspiring doctors, signed on to the petition in the spring. 

"We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class," the petition read, according to the New York Times. 

"We urge you to realize… that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students’ learning and well-being a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole."

Jones, 84, told the New York Times that he started seeing a loss of focus among students about a decade ago, but the problem was exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. 

"They weren’t coming to class, that’s for sure, because I can count the house," Jones told the newspaper. "They weren’t watching the videos, and they weren’t able to answer the questions."

A spokesperson for New York University disagreed with the way Jones' dismissal has been framed, saying that in addition to the petition, Jones' class also had a "very high rate of student withdrawals" and "evaluations scores that were by far the worst" across the school's undergraduate science courses. 

"In short, he was hired to teach, and wasn't successful," an NYU spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "NYU has lots of hard courses and lots of tough graders among the faculty – they don't end up with outcomes that raise questions about the quality and effectiveness of the teaching, as this class did."

Before lecturing at NYU, Jones pioneered a new way of teaching that emphasized problem-based learning over a "lecture-memorize-regurgitate facts" style, Princeton University's Dean of Faculty wrote. 

COMMENT:  Strange how Princeton never had a problem with this man, who is a legend in his field.  And couldn't any issues have been worked out quietly, without firing him?  This has all the earmarks of a left-wing hit job.  Jones placed excellence above inclusion, and we must not have that. 

October 4, 2022       Permalink

OCTOBER 3,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE

OUR PRESIDENT'S HERITAGE, FROM FOX:   President Biden visited Puerto Rico on Monday in an effort to express support for the island following the impacts of Hurricane Fiona, saying he was raised in the Puerto Rican community on the U.S mainland in a political context.  Biden surveyed the damage left by the storm, met with officials and spoke in Ponce where he pledged future support to the U.S. territory of 3.2 million people of $60 million in funding federal. "We have a very… large Puerto Rican population in Delaware," he said. "I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically. We came here for a long time as part of both business and pleasure. I'm committed to this island. And if there was a hurricane in Hawaii, he'd reminisce about how he got his first hula skirt at 16.

October 3, 2022     Permalink

AND IN THE REAL WORLD:  Isn't it incredible that our midterm election campaigns have barely touched on foreign policy?  Even with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has resulted in the largest ground war in Europe since World War II, and the Chinese threat to Taiwan, which could erupt into major combat in Asia, our politics seems focused, right now at least, on domestic issues.   We've made this mistake before.

Russia is the immediate question.  Vladimir Putin is threatening to use nuclear weapons.  We must assume the threat is real.  Russia's advanced weapons are on the move.  From Fox: 

A top-of-the-line Russian nuclear-powered submarine has gone missing from its harbor in the Arctic along with its rumored "doomsday weapon," according to multiple reports.
NATO has reportedly warned members that Russia's Belgorod submarine no longer appeared to be operating out of its White Sea base, where it has been active since July.

Officials warned that Russia may plan to test Belgorod's "Poseidon" weapons system, a drone equipped with a nuclear bomb that Russia has claimed is capable of creating a "radioactive tsunami," according to Italian media.

The drone can be deployed from the submarine at any time and detonated at a depth of 1 kilometer near a coastal city. Russian state media has claimed the device can create a 1,600-ft. wave that smashes into the coast and irradiates it.

The 600-ft. submarine was delivered to the Russian Navy in July as part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top-secret program that aims to develop and operate a series of a new class of "super weapons."

Rebekah Koffler, a strategic intelligence expert and author of "Putin’s Playbook," warned that Russia's use of such a weapon would only come as a last resort "in the event that Russia and the U.S. are in a direct kinetic war and Russia is losing."

Koffler said the device is likely not to be operational until 2027, but Putin may be testing it as a means to intimidate both Ukraine and its NATO allies in the West. Putin has warned that Russia's potential use of nuclear weapons is "not a bluff."

Belgorod's location remains publicly unknown as of Monday, a situation that is not particularly surprising to Koffler. Russian submarines have some of the best stealth capabilities in the world and have even entered U.S. waters undetected in the past, according to Koffler.

COMMENT:  Nice, huh? They're playing with exotic weapons, and we won't even seal our borders. Maybe we haven't really learned the lessons of World War II.  Maybe some leftists in the Democratic Party really don't care.

October 3, 2022       Permalink

IMPORTANT FLORIDA:  Our news about Florida in the last week has been defined by a major hurricane.  But Florida will also play a major role in the midterm elections that are now five weeks away.  We don't yet know how the damage done will affect turnout.  That could be critical to who will control the U.S. Senate, and even the presidency.  Senator Marco Rubio is up for re-election, and Governor Ron DeSantis will be the guy to beat for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, should Trump bow out.  Both men are up for re-election.  From The Blaze: 

A Spectrum News/Siena College poll of likely Florida voters found that incumbent Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis leads Democratic challenger Charlie Crist 49% to 41%, while incumbent GOP Sen. Marco Rubio leads Democratic Rep. Val Demings 48% to 41%.

The poll was conducted September 18-25, which was before Hurricane Ian wreaked havoc in the state last week.

While 39% indicated that they would prefer that the upcoming congressional contests in the country result in a U.S. Congress controlled by the GOP, 31% indicated that they would prefer for the two congressional chambers to be controlled by the Democrats, and 21% favored a scenario in which the chambers would be split between the two parties.

Given a list of issues, 39% selected economic matters as being the most important when they decide who they will back during the election, while "threats to our democracy" came in a distant second place at just 16%.

The poll found that 22% strongly approve of President Joe Biden's job performance, while 21% somewhat approve, 46% strongly disapprove, and and 8% somewhat disapprove.

DeSantis entered office in 2019 and is currently running for reelection during the Sunshine State's 2022 gubernatorial contest. Rubio took office in 2011 and is currently running for a third term.

Crist previously served as Florida governor from 2007 to 2011 after getting elected to the post as a Republican. He lost a 2010 U.S. Senate race to Rubio while running as an independent. He lost the 2014 gubernatorial race to then-Gov. Rick Scott while running as a Democrat. Crist won election to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat in 2016, and went on to serve from 2017 until he stepped down from that role at the end of August 2022.

COMMENT:  Florida ranks third in population among American states.  Its population has been growing dramatically in recent years, thanks in large measure to the successful governorship of Ron DeSantis.  Florida is considered a "must win" by both parties in a presidential contest.  Thus, we pay it considerable attention.

October 3, 2022       Permalink