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OCTOBER 30,  2022

WE SMILE, BUT CAUTIOUSLY:  Latest polling appears to show that independents are breaking late but decisively, and that Republicans are the beneficiaries.  From Breitbart: 

According to CBS/YouGov polling from October 12 to 14, independent voters preferred generic congressional Democrat candidates over Republican ones by 40 percent to 38 percent. However, in a second poll from October 26 to 28, independents said they preferred generic congressional Republican candidates over Democrat candidates by 49 percent to 33 percent.

This means that Republicans saw an 18-point swing in their favor among independent voters over a two-week period.

The CBS/YouGov web-based poll surveyed 1,000 Americans and has a +/- 3.5 percent margin of error.

The prospect of Republican victories in both the House and Senate is increasingly growing as likely voters say they are more concerned about issues such as the economy and inflation, which they tend to trust Republican candidates more to handle than Democrat candidates.

Furthermore, while Democrats have increased their campaign messaging to focus on abortion, only five percent of voters say that it is the most important problem facing the nation today, according to a mid-October New York Times/Sienna poll. In comparison, Republicans have focused their messaging on the nation’s suffering economy and high inflation, which a plurality of voters say is the most important issue to them.

In another recent survey, a Rasmussen poll found that Republicans enjoyed a seven-point advantage over Democrats on the generic congressional ballot (49 percent to 42 percent) among all voters. The survey also found that Republicans enjoyed an 18-point advantage over Democrats among likely independent voters.

COMMENT:  Certainly encouraging, but readers know that we still have nine days to go until the election.  There could be a last-minute surprise, or some planned bombshell in a leftist newspaper.  But I can't deny my pleasure at those polling results for independents.

October 30,  2022       Permalink

AND IN THE REAL WORLD:  Our election campaign isn't the only important thing happening.  The Supreme Court is at work, and about to tackle one of the most important, and controversial, issues of our time.  In significance, this is in the Roe v. Wade category.  From The Hill: 

The future of affirmative action in higher education hangs in the balance as the Supreme Court on Monday hears arguments over race-conscious admissions policies at two prestigious universities.

Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC) will be defending their use of race — as one of many admissions criteria — to attain the educational benefits of a diverse student body.

Their conservative-backed challengers, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), contend that the schools’ approach violates constitutional protections and federal law and want the court to prohibit admissions offices from considering an applicant’s race at all.

Ishan Bhabha, a partner at the law firm Jenner & Block, who filed an amicus brief on behalf of Ivy League and other elite schools, said that if the Supreme Court takes that dramatic step, the repercussions for higher education would be severe.

“If you don’t have a series of divergent viewpoints … then one of the most important priorities of institutions of higher education — which is to forward knowledge, to ask difficult questions, to explore unknown concepts and have one idea clash against another to try and figure out which one is correct or which one is defensible — that is significantly hampered,” said Bhabha, who co-leads his firm’s initiative on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

With the case coming on the heels of a Supreme Court term that saw conservative justices overturn landmark rulings including Roe v. Wade, many legal experts believe that longstanding affirmative action precedent is now on the chopping block.

“This is a court that I think has a solid six-justice majority that sees racial labeling or racial tagging, for any purpose whatsoever, as a constitutional evil,” said Steve Schwinn, a law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.

The challengers are asking the 6-3 conservative majority court to overrule its landmark 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which permits colleges to diversify their student populations by using race as one part of a holistic assessment of individual applicants.

COMMENT:  The Court will probably not hand down its decision until June, so rioters have many months to get their slogans together and their chants written. 

October 30, 2022       Permalink

OCTOBER 29,  2022

Geez, this is awful.  He's the president, and listen to him.  From Fox:

Conservatives on Twitter ripped into President Joe Biden’s latest gaffe from Friday night, in which he claimed that Democrats campaigned in "54 states" in 2018 to defend Obamacare.

During his Friday evening remarks at the "Pennsylvania Democratic Party Reception," Biden touted his party’s success in protecting the Affordable Care Act from being dismantled during former President Donald Trump’s term.

Trump had campaigned on replacing Obamacare, though as Biden claimed Friday, Democrats campaigned hard in 2018 to prevent that from happening. In his speech, he warned that the GOP will go after their health care if they gain the congressional majority.

Two-thirds of the way through his address, Biden said, "And, of course, they’re going try for their 499th time, or whatever the number is — they’re still determined to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. And, by the way, if they do, that means — not a joke, everybody."

Then he made his latest viral statement. He said, "That’s why we defeated it in 2018 when they tried to do it. We went to 54 states."

He added, "The reason is people didn’t realize that the only reason anybody who has a pre-existing condition can get health care is because of that Affordable Care Act," and warned that "these protections will be gone as well if Republicans get their way."

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Co., blasted Biden for the apparent gaffe, tweeting, "Joe Biden now says there are 54 states. I guess if you count the states of denial, confusion, delusion and disaster that his Regime has caused he just might be on to something."

RealClearPolitics president Tom Bevan mocked Biden and former President Obama – who once claimed there were "57 states" in a speech – in his tweet, stating, "Looks like we've lost 3 states since 2008!"

Actor and Hollywood conservative Rob Schneider tweeted, "Biden says there are 54 states in America. Next speech he will explain the 81 million votes…"

COMMENT:  Maybe sometimes we'll laugh, but this isn't funny.  We've concentrated recently on the cognitive abilities of a Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania.  Yes, that's important, but the president is vastly more important.  He has his hand on the nuclear trigger.  He may have to make life-or-death decisions in the middle of the night.  He may have to ask precise questions of military advisers, and become confused in the process.

This is just not acceptable except, apparently, in the Democratic Party.  We need a national, bipartisan, high-level medical panel to screen every candidate for the presidency and vice presidency.  Donald Trump took a cognitive test while in the White House, and passed it.  It should be a requirement by law. 

We don't have royalty in America.  The president is chief of state.  We routinely examine a presidential candidate's tax returns.  How about his brain?

October 29, 2022       Permalink

A CALL TO ACTION IN EDUCATION BY MIKE BLOOMBERG:  My own sense is that education will grow into the most potent national issue, and that both school choice and standards may well be the decisive issues of the 2024 election.  From Bloomberg: 

The crisis in US K-12 public education continues to deepen, and decisions by many colleges and universities to abandon SAT and ACT scores are making it worse. Instead of demanding more accountability from high schools, colleges are expecting less.

In the latest dismal signs for students, scores on the ACT college entrance exam have fallen to the lowest level in 30 years, while fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (often called the nation’s report card) show devastating declines. Taken together, these results underscore the urgency of K-12 interventions and the necessity of reinstating testing standards for college applicants.

It’s true that remote learning during the pandemic was disastrous for students of all ages. But systemic declines in student performance began before the onset of the pandemic.

Average ACT scores have declined every year since 2018, while the share of students failing to meet college readiness standards in any of its four subject areas — English, math, reading and science — has increased by 7 percentage points. With the exception of Asian students, teens of every race perform worse now than they did five years ago.

Someone should look into why Asian kids do so well.  But it won't be the mainstream media, which has always seen Asian accomplishment as something polite leftists don't discuss.

For 2022 high school grads, the average ACT composite score was 19.8 out of a maximum of 36, the first time since 1991 that the overall score dropped below 20. Only 22% of students met college readiness benchmarks in each of the four subject areas. The share of test takers who met none of the benchmarks rose to 42% from 38% in the past year.

In elementary and middle school, too, declines in student performance began before the pandemic — and are now deepening. This year’s NAEP scores show that students in fourth and eighth grades suffered the largest declines ever recorded in math. Only about one-quarter of eighth-graders scored at a proficiency level in math, down from one-third three years ago. The decline in reading scores, while not as dramatic, was no less troubling.

The fact is: The US public school system is failing to prepare most students for college and careers, and the problem is getting worse. Yet colleges and universities are pretending not to notice. Since 2020, the number of schools that have stopped requiring applicants to submit ACT or SAT scores has nearly doubled to more than 1,800, including many of the country’s most selective colleges. As a result, fewer students are bothering to sit for the exams at all. Since 2018, the number of seniors taking the ACT has dropped by nearly 30%, even as overall college applications increased.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's excellent.  I'm struck by the fact that it was written by Mike Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City.  I've wondered whether Bloomberg, who tried to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and failed, will re-enter politics in another way, possibly by forming a third party.  If the Democrats do poorly a week from Tuesday, I'd imagine he'd think about it.  This piece on education could be his first step back into action.

October 29, 2022       Permalink