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OCTOBER 18,  2022

WE CAN DREAM, CAN'T WE?  There is a real chance that our fading state of New York will have a Republican governor.  From the New York Post: 

In politics, as in sports, underdogs are often the most interesting people. Modest except in ambition, they take nothing for granted while daring to dream that anything is possible.

Lee Zeldin is one of those people. Until recently, he was relatively unknown outside his Long Island congressional district, but he’s now on the cusp of playing David to Gov. Hochul’s Goliath.

A series of surveys in recent weeks has showed the race tightening, and a big jolt came Tuesday when the Quinnipiac poll put him behind by just four points.

Now there can be no doubt — the race is a toss-up.

It’s a stunning development in a state where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by 2-1 and no GOP candidate has won a statewide race in two decades. But independents favor Zeldin by 20 points, the poll finds, and it shows him getting 37% support in the city, double what recent GOP statewide candidates got.

As he and others have noted, a Republican has no chance of winning the state with less than 30% in the five boroughs.

If the numbers in the Q poll are right, and if Zeldin can hold the city support and add to his leads in the suburbs and upstate, he will pull off a remarkable upset.

One arrow in his quiver among suburban voters is that he opposes expensive congestion pricing in the city, which Hochul supports. It would take effect next year.

So the trend is his friend, and Zeldin knows it.

We have the momentum and we have the right issues,” he told me Tuesday. “We also have a clear sense of purpose.”

He describes that purpose succinctly: “To save our state,” and adds: “I have been busting my tail every day to save New York while Kathy Hochul is trying to save herself by crawling across the finish line.”

He’s not alone in questioning Hochul’s approach, which is best described as an extreme version of a Rose Garden strategy. Extreme as in she has hardly campaigned, limiting her public appearances mostly to government ribbon cuttings and bland speeches.

It’s the kind of strategy often employed by incumbents in good times. But these are far from good times for many New Yorkers, so even some pollsters are baffled about what she’s thinking.

“I have no idea, it makes zero sense,” one said.

It’s not that the governor doesn’t have a clear agenda — it’s that she doesn’t have an agenda at all, at least one she’s told voters about. She’s keeping to herself any plan for what she would do if elected to a full term after taking office when the disgraced Andrew Cuomo resigned. Nor does she have a roster of surrogates who speak for her.

COMMENT:  Ah, just the thought of an upset by Zeldin restores my morale and makes me young again.   We need help here in New York State, and Zeldin is that help.  He has the right ideas and the right spirit...but he's up against a powerful Democratic machine that largely depends on zombie voters who will pull the Democratic lever even if it meant voting for Dracula.

Zeldin must pour on extra heat in these next three weeks, and the GOP must have a superb get-out-the-vote system on election day.  This can be done.

October 18, 2022       Permalink

A VERY HOT CASE:  The Supreme Court will soon take up a case as controversial as Roe v. Wade.  Prepare for fireworks, possible street demonstrations, and virtue signaling on an industrial scale.  From College Fix: 

Ivy League universities have signaled support for Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the Supreme Court prepares to begin hearings on affirmative action cases against both universities on October 31. 

In a joint amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court for the case, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 15 prestigious universities joined together in support of Harvard’s admissions practices, including all seven other Ivy League institutions.

Other signers included the University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon University and Duke University.
“
[Harvard’s] experience has demonstrated that the optimal means of creating a diverse student body—and thereby achieving Amici’s educational objectives— involves a limited consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions,” according to the brief.

“As the district court concluded in the Harvard trial, the evidence before the court ‘convincingly establish[ed] that no workable race-neutral alternatives [would yield] the level of racial diversity … necessary’ to achieve Harvard’s educational goals,” according to the brief.

The race-neutral admissions policy proposed by Students for Fair Admissions “would lead to a near 33% reduction in the number of African American students admitted, absent other admissions policy changes,” the brief stated.

The lawsuits, filed by , contend white and Asian-Americans students are unlawfully discriminated against as the universities use so-called holistic admissions approaches that favor Black, Hispanic and Native American applicants because of their ethnicity.

Students for Fair Admissions is a “nonprofit membership group of more than 20,000 students, parents, and others who believe that racial classifications and preferences in college admissions are unfair, unnecessary, and unconstitutional,” according to its website.

The Fix reached out to representatives at each of the 15 schools listed as parties in the amicus brief for comment in early September and again in October to ask what outcomes they foresee and how their own schools address questions of racial discrimination in the  admissions process. It has not received a response.

Some legal scholars have argued that the Supreme Court should strike down the use of affirmative action for admissions. The New Criterion compiled responses for an issue on the topic.

“There is no basis for this immunity in the Constitution; it’s simply a doctrine made up out of whole judicial cloth because courts don’t want to hear these kinds of suits,” University of Tennessee College of Law Professor Glenn Reynolds wrote. “But eliminating it would place both elected and unelected officials under considerably more pressure to follow the Constitution and the law.”

University of California Berkeley law professor John Yoo provided a history of Supreme Court cases that ended racial discrimination and argued that the same should happen this term.

Yoo wrote that he hopes the Court’s “misbegotten acceptance of express racial preferences in higher education” will soon end. “The Court has steadily banned racial discrimination in almost every other part of public life,” Yoo wrote for the New Criterion. He listed a number of past rulings that the Court should look to in his opinion.

COMMENT:  There is no issue more divisive than affirmative action.  It fundamentally holds that, in order to achieve a desirable social objective, some racial discrimination must be permitted.  But racial discrimination is inherently unconstitutional.  And why is "diversity," which only seems to favor certain groups popular on the left, so important? 

This case gives us a chance for a national conversation on these issues.  But I doubt that the press, in its current state of leftist supremacy, will allow it.

October 18, 2022       Permalink

OCTOBER 16-17,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE

CULPRITS OF THE YEAR:  The Washington Free Beacon publishes its list of the Democratic Party's leading scapegoats, those who will be given the blame if things really go bad on election day.  Drumroll please.  They are 10) Vladimir Putin, 9) the Saudis, 8) the Federal Reserve, 7) the Lincoln Project, 6) President Biden, 5) white women, 4) the media, 3) "Hispanic white supremacists," 2) "Jim Crow 2.0," 1) the voters.  Please note that "us and our dumb ideas" never appears on the list.  Who would the next five Democratic scapeg oats be?  I would nominate 1) mothers, 2) people who fly Economy, 3) men who have Super Bowl parties, 4) gas station attendants, and 5) people who've read the Bill of Rights.  Any suggestions from readers?

October 16-17, 2022       Permalink

THE VOTERS:  We are three weeks from the midterms.  Polling organizations are churning out numbers, but they're also studying the electorate for trends.  And one trend that's been detected may have historic political significance.  Women appear to be drifting away from the Democratic Party.  From Fox: 

Economic concerns and "intense" disapproval of President Biden are giving Republicans an edge with independent voters in the  upcoming election, according to recent polling from The New York Times. 

A NYT/Siena College poll found independent female voters in particular swung dramatically to the right in the past month, despite Democrats' focus on abortion rights.  

"In September, they favored Democrats by 14 points. Now, independent women backed Republicans by 18 points— a striking swing given the polarization of the American electorate and how intensely Democrats have focused on that group and on the threat Republicans pose to abortion rights," the paper reported.

The Times noted that was because the economy was "a far more potent political issue in 2022 than abortion," and a majority of voters trusted Republicans to handle it.

Reinforcing this point, the Times talked to Democrat women who were voting Republican this fall. Mortgage loan officer Robin Ackerman, 37, said she was switching because she felt the GOP was "more geared towards business."

Despite strongly disagreeing with the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, she said it wasn't going to influence her vote.

"But that doesn’t really have a lot to do with my decision… I’m more worried about other things," she told the outlet.

Another Democrat, Gerard Lamoureux, is also looking to the GOP to solve her concerns about rising prices.

"It’s all about cost," the 51-year-old Democratic retiree in Newtown, Conn., told the paper. He added, "The price of gas and groceries are through the roof. And I want to eat healthy, but it’s cheaper for me to go to McDonald’s and get a little meal than it is to cook dinner." 

COMMENT:  That's good news, if true.  The "if" is important.  The sense we're getting is that most indicators are turning in favor of Republicans.  But remember that these are overall impressions.  Voters will actually be voting in individual races, where the attractiveness of the candidate may outweigh any issue.  Midterms often produce surprises.

Fight any signs of overconfidence.  We have vaccines against that.  Fight as if we're 20 points behind.

October 16-17, 2022     Permalink 

THE REAL COLLEGE SCANDAL:  Mediocrity, not lack of equity, is what will kill us.  From Alan Dershowitz in Newsweek: 

The decision of New York University not to renew the contract of one of the most distinguished professors of organic chemistry is a sign of the times. Academic standards in general have been consistently lowered over the past several decades. That should come as no surprise, because standards for admission to colleges and universities have been lowered as well. To the extent that meritocracy is replaced by other factors, such as identity politics, the standards will continue to diminish.

It is not surprising that universities will have to lower academic standards for performance if they lower academic standards for admission. It would be unfair to admit some students on lower academic admissions standards and then impose historic performance standards on them. That would make it difficult for them to compete against students who had to meet more rigorous standards for admission. This won't be as obvious in subjects like political science where all ideas are created equal and are judged as much by the identity of the student as by content.

But it will be obvious in courses like organic chemistry where identity politics play no role in grading. That is why some—but by no means most—of Professor Maitland Jones Jr.'s students petitioned against him, and why his contract was not renewed.

By that criteria Nobel prize winning scientists would not be hired if they demanded high performance from their students.

But what about the students who can't meet the high standards of the most accomplished teachers? Should they be prevented from being admitted to medical school by receiving B- or C+ in a hard course? Perhaps there should be two sections of organic chemistry: one that is highly demanding; and one less so. In that way the best students would not suffer from a reduction in standards, while the less qualified ones would get their B+ and A- grades. But medical schools would know which section the applicant chose and would prefer the student from the more demanding section. That is as it should be. We want doctors who have excelled by the hardest standards.

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  It's well worth it.  Dershowitz is one of our leading public intellectuals.  A liberal, he has taken substantial abuse for calling out the excesses of the left.  During his academic career he was often labeled "the smartest man at Harvard," and for good reason.

It is time for a serious national conversation about education, how we define it and what we expect from educational institutions and students.  We've had such national discussions in the past, and they've been useful.  Right now, strangled by wokeness, America's educational establishment is heading for disaster.

October 16-17, 2022       Permalink

THE ECONOMIC REALITY:  Inflation plus recession are hitting Americans hard.  The proof is there.  From the New York Post: 

Have you taken a peek at the balance in your 401(k) retirement accounts lately? Here’s our advice: Don’t bother. It will ruin your whole day, week and month.

Here’s why: We’ve now had seven straight months of 8%+ inflation. A year ago we were assured by the White House economic wizards that these rapid price increases in everything from groceries, to rental cars, to gasoline at the pump, to health insurance, were merely “transitory.” Whoops.

The most immediate sticker shock from Bidenflation, of course, has been to shrink real take-home paychecks of workers. We have calculated that over the past 20 months, this rise in consumer prices over wages means that the average family in America has lost nearly $6,000 in purchasing power. This from the Lunch Bucket Joe president who promised to help boost the incomes of the middle class. When, exactly?

But this pay-cut effect on family incomes is only part of the curse of runaway inflation.

We’ve just completed an analysis of how the highest inflation rate in almost 40 years has impacted the retirement funds of ordinary Americans. Here is what we found.

Not surprisingly, since President Biden took office, monthly savings have collapsed, falling 83%. (We could never understand how Biden could say with a straight face that Americans are saving more. His “transformation” of the US economy has had just the opposite effect.) Many millions of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck just don’t have the money after paying the inflated bills to save much.

But to add insult to injury, even what has been already saved and invested by older Americans over past years and even over several decades has been erased from these accounts.

Thanks to the thief of inflation.

COMMENT:  And if we go into a full recession, things can get much worse.  People can turn desperate, leading to an ugly, tense, and even more violent society. 

Three weeks from today, Americans will decide which party in Congress they prefer in this difficult time.

October 16-17, 2022       Permalink

IRAN HEATS THINGS UP:  A dangerous step, possibly timed to coincide with our midterms, when American eyes are turned inward.  From AFP:

Iran is planning to ship missiles and drones to boost Russia’s dwindling supplies amid their invasion of Ukraine, according to a US media report on Sunday.

Citing two unnamed officials from a US-allied country who had been briefed on the matter, The Washington Post reported that Iran is preparing its first delivery of short-range ballistic missiles to Russia during the war, which will include Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar missiles, capable of reaching targets 300 and 700 kilometers away, respectively.

Iran is also getting ready to supply additional unmanned aerial vehicles, including “dozens” of Mohajer-6s, and “kamikaze” drones known as the Shahed-136, which carry explosives and crash into targets at a distance of up to 2,400 kilometers.

The briefing was shared with US and Ukrainian officials, according to the newspaper. US intelligence agencies, Iran and Russia did not comment on the report.

The same sources told The Washington Post in August that Iran was beginning to provide the Mohajer-6 and Shahed-136 to Russia.

Since then, Ukraine has provided evidence that Iranian-made drones — which appeared to be repainted and given Russian names — have been used in strikes across the country by Russia. US defense officials have also publicly confirmed the use of Iranian drones by Russia, and that Ukrainian forces have successfully shot down some of the UAVs.

COMMENT:  Obviously, a significant escalation.  It's hard to see how Washington can avoid increasing American aid to Ukraine, and other nations may well join in.  Nothing is moving the region toward peace.  We worry that we can drift into unintended combat.

Biden should be addressing the nation, or even a joint session of Congress, before we get in any deeper.  He needs public opinion behind him on this.

October 16-17, 2022     Permalink