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OCTOBER 1-2,  2022

OH, WE HOPE, WE HOPE.  FROM THE NEW YORK SUN:

MAGA policies may be out, if you listen to President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, and every other Democrat — who are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on negative campaign ads aimed at Republican candidates — but, according to a recent eye-opening poll, those very same policies are very much in, as far as common-sense Americans are concerned.  

Hold on to your hats for this one: An ABC News/Washington Post poll of registered voters shows that Republicans are 21 points up against Democrats in battleground districts across the country. That’s right, 21 points. These aren’t even just likely voters — they are registered voters — and many key pollsters think Republican voters don’t even want to answer polling surveys because the FBI might take their cellphones away. 

Looking at just races rated at least somewhat competitive by ABC’s FiveThirtyEight model, voters favor GOP candidates 55 percent to 34 percent. Overall, by the way, the likely voter subheading showed a 51-46 Republican-Democratic split. 

Here’s the actual most important key message in this poll: The GOP is favored in three of the four issues rated most important by voters, the economy (considered important by 84 percent), education (77 percent), inflation (76 percent), and crime (69 percent). 

On the economy, the GOP is plus-16, on inflation plus-19, and on crime plus-14. Democrats have a plus-6 for education and schools, though frankly I don’t see how that's possible with the growing populist support for parental rights in their kids’ education.  

Historically, when a president’s approval is less than 50 percent — and Mr. Biden is way below that, actually 42 percent in the latest Rasmussen poll — his party has lost an average of 37 seats.  

These numbers put an even greater importance on the “Commitment to America” developed by Representative Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans. The “Commitment to America” lays out a roadmap that emphasizes lower federal spending to fight inflation, tax cuts and deregulation to grow the economy out of recession, and energy independence to increase fossil fracking permits, reduce reliance on foreign countries, and lower blackouts and gas and electricity costs.  

Under Mr. Biden’s radical war against fossil fuels, electricity costs have increased 22 percent and utilities and piped gas services 47 percent. Roughly 20 million households are behind on utility bills and 26 percent of Americans have been forced to reduce basic expenses like food and medicine in order to pay skyrocketing energy bills.  

Also in the “Commitment to America,” the roadmap emphasizes securing the border and combating illegal immigrants, reducing crime by hiring cops, and cracking down on crazy, woke prosecutors and DAs who favor criminals over victims. There’s also a section on criminalizing all forms of the scourge of fentanyl.  

The “Commitment to America” supports the parents’ bill of rights, parental choice in schools, and healthcare reform through transparency and competition. The roadmap aims to fight for free speech, protecting the lives of unborn children and their mothers, religious freedom, and safeguarding the Second Amendment. Also, there’s a strong commitment to rein in government abuse of power and corruption through tough resolutions of inquiry to guarantee proper oversight. 

COMMENT:  Please read the rest.  It's an optimistic report, not a bad thing to have these days.  But we caution, as we always do, that polls are snapshots in time and subject to change.  The only poll that will count will be the one on election day.  Turnout will be key to who wins that one.

October 2, 2022       Permalin

AN INADEQUATE VICE PRESIDENT, ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY:  Kamala Harris is a public embarrassment.  From Fox: 

Vice President Kamala Harris dodged a question asking her if she could explain what she meant when stating that the Biden administration would take "equity" into account when disbursing natural disaster relief.

Her comments came on Friday after Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm, and in South Carolina as a Category 1 storm. At least 47 people died in Florida after the hurricane made landfall. Harris made the comments at the Democratic National Committee's Women’s Leadership Forum.

"It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions," Harris said. "We have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity."

In a video obtained by Fox News Digital, when asked if she could clarify the comments, she didn't answer the question.

"Vice President, can you clarify what you meant about equity for hurricane relief," Harris was asked.

Christina Pushaw, rapid response director for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' campaign, said on Twitter that the comment by Harris is false.

"This is false. [Harris’] rhetoric is causing undue panic and must be clarified," said Pushaw. "FEMA Individual Assistance is already available to all Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian, regardless of race or background."

On Friday, the White House said that it's working with DeSantis and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide aid to individuals who were impacted by Hurricane Ian.

COMMENT:  This incident occurred the same week in which the vice president, in Asia, announced that the United States has an important alliance with "North Korea."  Of course, it's South Korea, but let's not be too touchy.  But let's also not have someone like Kamala Harris in that office again.

October 2, 2022       Permalink

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE:

WHAT A WONDERFUL SET OF PRIORITIES.  FROM, YES, BLABBERBUZZ:   Virgin Atlantic is an airline that sees many passengers complain about rising prices.  However, instead of focusing on that, they've found something else to spend their mental energy on. So, what's the priority?.  According to The Daily Mail, "Staff including plane crew and pilots will be able to choose which uniform they wear: the company's 'red' option, previously most commonly worn by female flight attendants, or the 'burgundy' option, previously worn by male flight attendants."
The Daily Mail continues, "This includes allowing men to wear skirts and women to wear trousers, as well as increasing the uniform options available to non-binary staff members."  They're also going to introduce pronoun badges to be more inclusive. Virgin has made a significant effort to facilitate this. According to the Daily Mail states, Virgin Atlantic is working with Michelle Visage, RuPaul's Drag Race star, in a bid to "reflect the diversity of its workforce."  "The airline wants to offer its staff a fluid approach to its red and burgundy uniforms, meaning LGBTQ+ colleagues will be able to choose either the red or the burgundy uniform, depending on which best reflects themselves." The Daily Mail stated.  "Ladies and gentlemen, and others beyond the binary, we're at 30,000 feet and we have a problem with one of our engines.  Let me just slip into my nightie and we'll start to fix it."  No, no.

October 1, 2022       Permalink

MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS FINALLY NOTICING – AMERICANS ARE SUFFERING AND SCARED.  From USA TODAY: 

A dollar doesn't go as far as it used to.

Americans are paying higher prices for everything from groceries to gas. The consumer price index, which measures what consumers spend on goods and services, rose 8.3% in August from a year ago.

With wages lagging surging inflation, household budgets are being stretched thinner than a rubber band. More than one-third of Americans said it was somewhat or very difficult to pay for household expenses, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau survey.

Savings are dwindling and credit card debt is mounting. To get by, people are cutting back on meat for dinner and on nights out. Even kids are going without new shoes or supplies for school.

USA TODAY talked with families from California to Georgia and from Arkansas to Ohio about how they are coping with their new economic reality. These are the faces of inflation.

When Sonja Smith retired from her job as a Georgia state government employee in 2018, she planned to volunteer and work part-time as an insurance agent.

Last year, Smith, 55, was forced out of retirement when she could no longer pay her bills.

“I thought my pension would be enough,” she said, especially since she’d moved out of a market-rate apartment in a nice neighborhood to low-income “tax credit” housing in a not-so-safe part of town.

Smith’s top priority was to stay in the city of Atlanta so her 15-year-old daughter could continue to attend the city charter school.

But thanks to record high inflation, her rent increased from $950 per month in 2019 to $1,113 in 2020. The cost of food, gas and auto insurance also jumped. Her auto insurance went from $200 a month to $300 a month since she was living in a “high crime” area, she says.

Smith gets about $2,300 per month in pension.

“We ate a lot of salads and beans because I just couldn't afford the meat,” she says.
Last year, she went back to work full-time.

Smith is a human resource specialist with the Clayton County School District and makes about $42,000 a year. This year, she received a pay raise of 3%.

Last year, differences in year-over-year wage growth rates between private sector and state and local government doubled to the highest levels in nearly four decades, according to Pew Research.

“Our pay increases have not kept up with inflation and it is hurting us,” says Smith. “That’s why we are having teacher shortages. It’s the wages.”

When she reported her additional income, her rent increased to the market rate rent – $1,450. Her current lease ends in December and she's worried her new rent could jump up to $1,650.

"That's the going market rate," she says.

She briefly considered moving back to her old neighborhood in hopes of saving on auto insurance. But the sticker shock stopped her: The rent there now is $1,900. Now, between her pension and her new job, she makes about the same amount as her previous full-time job.

“I’m barely making it,” she says.

COMMENT:  Please read the rest.  This is good journalism – reporters actually going out and talking to real people who don't work in either Washington or New York.  The country is hurting.  It's going to get worse, as the coming recession deepens.  We need the kind of shoe-leather reporting that Salena Zito and a few others practice.  I'm glad to see USA Today doing this piece.  Real people.  Real numbers.  Not theories or leftist interpretations.  When Americans see their actual lives reflected in their newspaper, their trust in the press increases. 

October 1, 2022     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022

THE WORLD RUMBLES:   We are five and a half weeks away from the election, and it's understandable that we're focused on that, and the hurricane that is still assaulting us.

But it's distressing that we're running an election campaign with hardly a mention of foreign policy.  At one time, within our lifetime, that would have been impossible.  Americans had established a maturity forced on them by Depression and war.  Today, too many Americans have lost sight of the fact that what happens in Asia may result in the drafting of a boy in Des Moines. 

So I hope you will consider that parts of Iran are in revolt, with more than 80 dead.  The administration seems little interested.  They act almost as if the Iranian nation's wish for liberation is an annoyance, a distraction from the more important work of finishing the nuclear agreement with Iran so billions of dollars can be given to the Iranian regime, an enemy of the United States.  Who is behind this twisted notion?  Where will it take this nation?

And note that Russia, a mortal enemy, has just annexed a chunk of Ukraine.  While Washington and its allies have declared the annexation invalid, the war there, the largest ground war in Europe since World War II, grinds on, with Ukraine far from a top priority in polls of Americans.  Are we seeing a repeat of the indifference that left us so unprepared to fight Hitler?  NATO members in Eastern Europe fear they will be next if Russia decides to go to all-out warfare. 

Silence in our campaigns.  Silence from the national leadership.  We're presumably not supposed to care any longer. 

China, the ultimate enemy, must be amused.  The Chinese leaders crave Taiwan, and they are probably calculating whether this is the time to try to take it.  We certainly don't look very fierce, with Field Marshal Biden and Private Harris in charge of the United States.  When you flash weakness, the chances of a major war increase.

Oh, and North Korea is testing a new generation of advanced missiles.  Remember North Korea?

September 30, 2022       Permalink

CORRECTING A HUGE MISTAKE.  The mistake, made by conservatives, was ignoring local elections, especially school board elections.  As a nation, we paid the price, watching leftist school boards, even in conservative communities, impose their will on our children.  But conservatives, led by irate mothers, are correcting the mistake.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Conservative candidates campaigning to flip dozens of school board seats across the country are hoping a trend that began last year continues through the November elections.

In the midst of an off-year election cycle last year that saw Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) defeat his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, on a campaign platform that heavily emphasized parental rights, Ryan Girdusky's 1776 Project PAC helped several dozen conservative school board candidates defeat liberal incumbents in multiple states.

Now, as the calendar nears the 2022 midterm elections, candidates backed by Girdusky's unique political action committee have continued to rack up victories all over the country, and the political activist sees more on the horizon.

"A lot of Republican voters are parents and grandparents, and they are concerned with the state of public education and where it's going," Girdusky told the Washington Examiner, noting that the politicization of education is serving as a motivator to voters.

"These people have to get up, and they have to go vote," he said. "In a lot of these areas, we struck record-breaking turnout for conservative candidates for school board because they wanted to make sure their children are not being force-fed liberal indoctrination."

The group announced a new slate of endorsements on Tuesday, with the PAC supporting candidates in races in Michigan, Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Arkansas, and elsewhere.

The group's efforts garnered significant attention in August after a number of candidates in Florida supported by the PAC won school board elections all across the state. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) took the unusual step of endorsing a cohort of candidates himself, many of whom were also supported by the committee. In the aftermath of those victories, Girdusky said his PAC was inundated with requests from over 300 school board candidates seeking an endorsement.

The wave of endorsement applications was far more than the PAC could handle, Girdusky said, noting there's "a lot of time and attention and energy that goes into these races, and we just don't have the bandwidth."

With the successes in Florida, Girdusky and others want to see more high-profile politicians follow DeSantis's lead and weigh in on school board races.

"I'd like to see them get involved. I'd like to see them have a long-term vision on public education," Girdusky said, noting that Youngkin has reportedly mused endorsing school board candidates.

Laura Zorc, a former member of the Florida-based Indian River County School Board and the director of education reform at Building Education for Students Together, which trains school board candidates, said high-profile endorsements give candidates an added layer of legitimacy in races that are often overlooked by voters.

COMMENT:  Please read the rest.  This is the way to do it.  Our side must win as many school board seats as possible to reverse the tragic decline of our schools.  But be on guard.  It won't be long before the left, and that includes the teachers' unions, realize what's happening.  Then, look for attempts to pass legislation restricting the power of the boards.  To the left, everything is about power.  The good of the children is of no significance.

September 30, 2022       Permalink