October 31, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
There are dozens of reasons why conservatives and moderates should vote for President Trump. One reason that has received virtually no attention is education, an issue as central as any to America’s future. President Trump has tried to combat the rot in higher education. As Stanley Kurtz points out, Trump’s popular Executive Order on Campus Free Speech was followed by an Executive Order banning the use of Critical Race Theory,
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October 30, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this year, in the response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Oregon Legislature established a $62 million relief fund that’s only available to individuals and business owners who “self-identify as Black.” These public funds are not available to Hispanic, Asian-American, Native American, or White business owners or individuals. This blatant racially discriminatory scheme cried out to be challenged as unconstitutional. Sure enough, it is now being challenged. The plaintiff is
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October 30, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Last night, in discussing the state of the race to control the Senate, I cited an analysis by FiveThirtyEight. That analysis gives the GOP the edge in picking up a seat in Alabama, but the edge to Democrats in capturing seats in Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, Maine, and Iowa. These results would give the Dems a 51-49 margin in the Senate. I also noted that the Democrats could get to
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October 30, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
A new poll by SurveyUSA finds the Maine Senate race between Sen. Susan Collins and Sarah Giddeon to be a dead heat. Gideon, who once held a clear lead, is ahead by a statistically insignificant one point margin, 46-45. The poll was conducted from October 23-27. Maine uses a ranked-choice voting system. Votes for third party candidates, of which there are two this year, will be distributed to the Democrat
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October 29, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
John says we will be making election predictions on our VIP Live program tomorrow night (8:00 p.m. Eastern Time), and he runs the show. Therefore, I figured I should bone up on the Senate races, in case John goes there. FiveThirtyEight failed to predict Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, but has a decent record of forecasting Senate races. Its analysis of the polls finds that the election will probably put
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October 29, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Islamist violence in France that John describes in his post below is the bloody tip of the spear of the Islamic world’s reaction to President Macron’s attempt to defeat terrorism. Turkey’s president, the deplorable thug Erdogan, attacked Macron’s response to the beheading of that teacher in a Paris suburb, claiming that Macron “needs treatment on a mental level.” The Washington Post described Macron’s response as “a crackdown on Muslim
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October 29, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
This summer, Christopher Eisgruber, the president of Princeton University, admitted that the institution he has run for years is plagued by “systemic racism.” He also admitted that racist assumptions “remain embedded in structures of the University itself.” U.S. law bars colleges and universities that receive federal money from subjecting students to discrimination on the basis of race. Princeton receives lots of federal money. Accordingly, the U.S. Department of Education, which
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October 28, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports on “the racial undercurrents of city politics” that loom over the upcoming city council election in Washington, D.C. The city is no longer majority Black due to the influx of young Whites and, says the Post, this development threatens the hold of Black establishment politicians. That’s a normal development. However, the ideological consequences of this demographic shift might be surprising to those who haven’t been paying
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October 28, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I long railed on Power Line against the formulaic use of relief pitchers that was followed pretty much universally when we started our blog in 2002, and for many years thereafter. The formula was that the team’s “closer” would be used only in the ninth inning of games in which his team had a lead of one to three runs. The closer would always start the ninth inning; he would
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October 28, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
What is the shape of the Supreme Court now that Amy Coney Barrett is a member? Three articles consider the question. Jason Richwine argues that the new court is best viewed, not as one in which Justice Barrett has replaced Justice Ginsburg, but as one in which Justice Kavanaugh has replaced Chief Justice Roberts as the key vote. I agree. Assuming no court packing, the question then becomes how much
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October 27, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) has filed a motion to intervene in the Department of Justice’s suit against Yale. The DOJ’s suit alleges discrimination by Yale against Whites and Asians/Asian Americans in undergraduate admissions. You can read SFFA’s motion and proposed complaint here. If SFFA is permitted to intervene — and I can think of no reason why it won’t be — this will mean the case can go
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October 27, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Democrats want to portray the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett as a raw power play that was antithetical to our democracy. Yet, public opinion polls tell us that, had Justice Barrett’s nomination been put to a vote by the American people, she would have been confirmed by a margin comparable to or greater than the one provided by the Senate. The Senate confirmed Barrett by a vote of 52-48. A
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October 26, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Senate has voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court Justice. She will be sworn in tonight, probably around the time I finish writing this post. It’s remarkable to me how quickly Mitch McConnell was able to drive this nomination through. I’m also surprised that only one Republican Senator (the embattled Susan Collins) voted against confirming Judge Barrett. President Trump is said by some to be a
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October 26, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The case that Joe Biden will defeat President Trump rests mainly on the polls. The case that Trump will win rests at least in part on the fact that the polls got the 2016 race wrong. But differences in the ground rules of the two elections suggest that Hillary Clinton might have defeated Trump in 2016 under this year’s conditions. First, consider all of the early voting this year. In
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October 26, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump’s victory in 2016 was based on his wins in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. How does this year’s race stand in these three states? If you take polls seriously, it doesn’t look good for Trump in any of them. In Pennsylvania, every poll taken since late August shows Joe Biden in the lead. The late August poll that didn’t show this had the two candidates tied. The current RCP
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October 25, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I watched my first World Series game in 1956 at a friend’s house and have watched at least part of almost every Series game since 1958, when my parents broke down and bought a television set. The best Series game I’ve ever seen was Game 6 in 1975, between Boston and Cincinnati. The most dramatic was Game 7 in 1960, between Pittsburgh and the New York Yankees. Yesterday’s Game 4
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October 24, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Lisa Murkowski has announced that she will vote in favor of confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. It now appears that Susan Collins will be the only Republican Senator not to support Barrett’s confirmation. Initially, Murkowski was opposed to confirming Barrett. Her gripe, she said, was with the process. That is, she opposed confirming a Supreme Court Justice, no matter how well qualified, in a presidential election year
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