Update

We had a small earthquake last night. The other DrC and I were in opposite ends of the house and each heard a noise that we initially thought might be the other falling, and then realized it wasn't that at all.

Since we are maybe 100 miles from the Yellowstone basin, earthquakes are to be expected, we later learned there were two but we only noticed the larger one. The plot of the epicenters were about 2k and 4k from our house.

Thinking about the earthquake, no biggie for a couple of CA natives, I remembered Mama Cass Elliot singing "California Earthquake," in particular the line "They tell me the fault line runs right through here." It sort of fits.

A few minutes ago we were digesting our lunch on the screened back porch and listening to the song of the aspens. In today's gentle breeze, our quaking aspen forest makes a susurration like a creek over a stony bed. 

The sky is azure blue, and the temperature is perfect. We've yet to run our AC this year, it's 'tough' duty that we're happy to do.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Dimon Disses Democrats

The CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon belittles Democrats. See what the most powerful person in the financial industry told a foreign ministry event in Ireland.

I have a lot of friends who are Democrats, and they’re idiots. I always say they have big hearts and little brains. They do not understand how the real world works. Almost every single policy rolled out has failed.

They overdid DEI. We all were devoted to reaching out to the Black community, Hispanic, the LGBT community, the disabled — we do all of that. But the extent, they got to stop it. And they got to go back to being more practical. They’re very ideological.

Democrats are immensely unrealistic, and don't notice when their programs fail. What is important to them is that their intentions were good when starting the program.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's 

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Sickos Lean Left

The always readable Michael Barone quotes primo numbers guy Nate Silver who shares his amazement at data he's seen.

I was honestly surprised by how strong the relationship is. Among voters who report poor mental health, liberals outnumber conservatives 45 to 19 percent. Among those who report excellent mental health, conservatives outnumber liberals 51-20.

Not a new finding, to be sure, but one that keeps showing up. Maybe Kurt Schlichter is right to call conservatives "normals" meaning, by implication, that liberals are "abnormals," something many liberals self-report. 

Unintended Consequences

One of life’s guilty pleasures is when people with “influence and/or money” make public plans and those plans backfire and bite them on the bum. I’m wondering if Musk’s third party ploy won’t turn out to be one of those misbegotten plans?

If  Musk’s America Party does as Ross Perot’s third party did, it would take enough votes from Republicans to ensure Democrats win. History suggests that is the best they could do. 

However quite independent of Musk’s machinations, anti-semitic, socialist Zohran Mamdani has won the Democrat nomination for New York City’s mayor, making him the likely victor. The coincidental timing is propitious. 

AOC, Bernie and their claque will do their darnedest to make Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party. What if they succeed? This will turn off many less wild-eyed people who normally vote for Democrats. 

Suppose Musk manages to take more votes from unhappy Democrats than from unhappy Republicans? I’d say the probability of this outcome is greater than zero, and could be closer to 0.5. 

For example, Musk wins 10% of D votes and only 5% of R votes. That could swing some purple states our way. I don’t predict it, but it could happen.

They Screwed Up

The Trump administration has had a remarkable first six months, with many wins and excellent beginnings. Which is not to say that they have had no failures.

The string of administration successes makes the badly bungled Epstein matter stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. Their pronouncements on this issue have been all over the map, lots of build up and promises followed by embarrassed admissions that there is nothing to see. We are told the bad man kept no client lists, did no blackmailing, and really, actually did kill himself.

The Epstein fiasco is a bad look for a group otherwise notching a lot of wins. It’s no wonder some have called for AG Pam Bondi’s resignation. I figure she survives this one, but if it happens again, she is toast. 

FBI boss Patel doesn’t come out of this looking good either. The screwup could be the result of the administrative blob back-stabbing Trump’s appointees.

A problem all Republican administrations have is their appointees have to rely on civil servants for support. Nearly all such underlings are committed Democrats whose first instinct is to be anything but helpful and whose second instinct is to attempt to co-opt the new boss.

Image courtesy of News Ammo.

Later ... Apparently all the feds have is the passenger lists from the flight log on Epstein's plane. Accepting a ride doesn't equal shagging a minor, nor is it unlawful. 

As a money manager, Epstein traveled in monied circles and offered rides to many who were wealthy potential clients. Some subset of these may have partaken of the too-young women with whom he surrounded himself. If he didn't keep records of those who indulged, except mentally, the memories died with him.

Longevity vs. Low Birth Rates

George Friedman, whose work I often cite, looks today at what is happening to populations in the developed world and notes the falling birth rates in nearly every country. This isn't news, we've noted it before.

He also notes another factor of interest that few are attending to, the fact that we are living longer than we formerly did. He believes this will force us to rethink how we deliver medical services and hints that in future people will work more years than at present.

Honestly, he is mostly noting trends and problems. He proposes darned few solutions beyond the suggestion that migrants from the third world will fill the vacancies created by less-than-replacement birth rates.

The New Zealand Accent

The DrsC have traveled in New Zealand twice - the first time in 1985 for two weeks, the second in 2001 for a month. Both times we rented a little motorhome and camped around the two main islands. It is very nice, we recommend it.

One of the things we noticed was the NZ accent, typified by a woman who ran a campground down near Invercargill at the south end of the South Island. She had a small dog and we asked its name, she replied with what sounded like the initials GC. 

That sounded odd so we asked how it was spelled and learned it was Jesse. Americans pronounce that name with the two syllables jess and ee.

Our observation was that NZ women, and teens of both genders, tended to pronounce the short e sound like a long e. Adult men, not so much.

There is a new-to-us crime drama streaming on Prime, set and filmed in EnZed, called Brokenwood Mysteries. In one of the early episodes a minor character is named Jesse. Sure enough, the series' female lead pronounced the name GC or Jeesee if you prefer. Some things don't change much.

Update

Two days ago the other DrC informed me she sees the wild asters blooming. Old WY wives' tales hold that when the asters bloom we will have another 8 weeks of summer. 

She has a photo at her website, and they are for sure in bloom. Given our altitude here (6300 ft.), 8 weeks more summer is about right. 

Technically summer is about 92 days long, or ca. 3 months. That's at sea level, we're 1.2 miles above sea level so what feels like summer is more like 2 months, but as she notes those are a wonderful two months. None finer that we know of - warm short sleeve days, cool nights for sound sleep, low humidity, and beautiful green fields and hillsides. 

Relocating twice a year from mountains to desert and back, we get a lot of that sort of weather. It is the "snow bird" life and we'll do it as long as we're able, realism suggests eventually it will be too much for us to handle. 

When that day arrives, it will be a sad milestone in long, and mostly happy lives. Alas, sad milestones become more frequent as we age.

Watching His Back

Austin Bay is a frequent writer on matters military. Today he predicts that China - which has caught the same empire rebuilding virus that affects Russia - is likely to want to invade Siberia, which it (a) covets and (b) believes for historical reasons is rightfully theirs.

If Putin goes all in on taking Ukraine he doesn't have sufficient reserve forces to protect Siberia against a bulked-up PLA. Col. Bay suggests Trump remind Putin of this vulnerability. 

Russia's inability to defeat much smaller Ukraine suggests their military is less formidable than previously thought. You can be sure Beijing has noticed this weakness.

Being "the leader who lost Siberia" isn't the historical sobriquet Putin craves for himself. I had this same insight four decades ago, as I noted in this post about a long ago game of Risk™.

Violence on the Left

Ed Driscoll posts at Instapundit a Byron York quote from the Washington Examiner, check it out.

Some Democrats are calling on their elected representatives to engage in violence against Trump’s policies. At the same time, groups that might be characterized as militant allies of the progressive Democratic movement are resorting to violence in an effort to obstruct the president’s enforcement of federal immigration law. 

Some radicals have committed politically motivated murder, for which they received support in some far-left circles. And it is all happening in the context of one of the two major political parties experiencing a sharp drop in the most basic measure of civic devotion: pride in being an American. It’s a troubling picture, and nothing on the immediate horizon suggests it will improve any time soon.

The last time this kind of lefty violence happened was in the 1960s, when the issue was Vietnam. It feels like here we go again.

Somebody wrote that the BBB authorizes 10k more border patrol agents, and that DHS will have difficulty hiring them. On the other hand, if Mamdani becomes mayor in NYC, maybe most of the NYPD will be available for hire, and they're already LEO-trained.

Maybe Not a Rhyme

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." This quote is often attributed to Mark Twain but a web search suggests psychoanalyst Theodor Reik is the earliest exponent of the precise notion.

I was musing on the Trump phenomenon this morning and its similarities to the reign of Amenhotep IV, later known as Akhenaten, the father of Tutankhamun. He was most famous for overturning the polytheistic religion of Egypt and imposing a monotheistic religion dedicated to Aten. 

When Akhenaten's reign ended, the Egyptians scrapped his changes and went back to their polytheistic faith. They dumped his new capital Akhenaten. known today as Amarna, returning the capital to its former location of Thebes. Egyptologists view the Akhenaten pharaohic period as an anomaly in Egyptian history, an outlier or aberration. 

What I wondered was if, looking back, the Trump second term will be similarly viewed, as an attempt at a new direction that, eventually, failed to overcome institutional and cultural inertia. I can imagine the media describing the four years as a national spasm or mental breakdown, from which we subsequently recovered fortunately.

Understand, this is not my preferred outcome. I like what Trump has done so far, and what he proposes to do. But a relatively large bloc don't like it a bit, and would love nothing better than a return to the status quo ante. Let's hope they are disappointed, I believe there is a good chance.

More Tuesday Snark

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics' Cartoons of the Week.

Another CA Screwup

This post has relevance for two themes we follow at COTTonLINE: National security and the decline of California. Writing at Townhall, Kevin McCullough reports California alone has opted out of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. He notes the JTTF is:

The primary engine for federal, state, and local cooperation in detecting and disrupting terrorism. And they did it proudly, in the name of “civil liberties.”

What makes this act more than political street theater is the very real possibility of Iranian sleeper cells. These may have infiltrated into the US in anticipation of the sort of action we just took on their nuclear weapon program. When activated, these would commit acts of terror and/or sabotage.

Expect such cells to be based in CA where the local authorities are committed to non-cooperation with federal law enforcement and counter-terrorism programs. Their refusal endangers not only Californians, it endangers us all, for it provides the moles a safe haven within which to plot their evil deeds, wherever in the country those may occur.

Tuesday Snark

Image courtesy of Politico's Wuerker.

‘Knowing’ the Unreal

Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media reminds us of a choice Ronald Reagan quote, which I share with you.

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

That is classic Reagan, gentle humor in service of political advantage. Mamdani is but the most recent example of Reagan’s enduring truism.

Problem Solved … Conceptually

Ana Marie Cox is an old lefty, but also a decent writer, and she writes about the TX hill country where she lives. She complains about the locals’ unwillingness to invest in alarm systems, similar to air raid warnings, to notify locals about frequent, disastrous floods.

What I don’t understand is why that would be necessary. Everybody these days has a cell phone, and the tech to send alerts via the cell network is used to send out so-called “Amber alerts” about abducted children. I’ve gotten several in recent years. 

One memorable time the DrsC were sitting in a restaurant when every phone in the place harshly rang simultaneously. It was an Amber Alert. The tech works.

If I can imagine a way to pinpoint cell towers on a topo map of the region and send the alert to all phones within their broadcast radius, the tech folk can program it so the NWS can use it. The cost should not be excessive as the hardware already exists. It should be a matter of writing code.

More Have High Income

Angry, hostile people (aka Democrats) will tell you our American middle class is shrinking, leaving you with the false impression many are falling downward out of the middle class. As Power Line's John Hinderaker writes, nothing could be farther from the truth.

The middle class is shrinking because more people than ever are making more than $100k a year, and by the way, the lower income group is shrinking too, albeit less dramatically. Check out this chart.

The changes you see are not attributable to inflation either. The chart plots constant dollars with inflation factored out. If the data are accurate, the American dream lives on.

If you'd asked me yesterday if the group making over $100k was bigger than the group making between $35k and $100k or the group making less than $35k, I would have said no, reflexively. And I would have been wrong. 

To be sure, there are households making over $100k which have trouble making ends meet, spendthrifts we will always have with us. Still, when folk tell you times are tough, what they are really saying is that they, or those they care about, are having a tough time. However good the “times” are, there are still individuals experiencing difficulties.

Sunday Snark

Image courtesy of News Ammo.

Not Chickens

The high-volume Joel Kotkin seems to produce a long article a day, so does Victor Davis Hanson, I'm envious. I have to wonder if each is literally a factory, like those of famous renaissance painters and sculptors, where the scut work is done by anonymous apprentices and the great man merely contributes finishing touches, and takes the credit? 

Today Kotkin's subject is our failure to produce as much housing as needed, the median person not being able to afford the median home. This is a problem because: 

Homeowners are not only more affluent than renters – they are also physically and mentally healthier, vote more often and their children achieve higher levels of education.

These are truths urban planners choose to ignore. They prefer high density, high rise housing clustered around public transport lines.  

Think of egg factory hens, living in wire cages, producing egg after egg which roll away, while food and water are provided mechanically and their waste falls through onto a conveyor belt. The urban planner's ideal incorporates much of that ethos for us humans, ignoring that we are not caged chickens.

Rutte Optimistic on NATO and Trump

Power Line's John Hinderaker reprints large portions of an interview of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, conducted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro for the New York Times. It is clear she came to the interview with an agenda, with which Rutte would not cooperate. 

She does her darnedest to get Rutte to criticize President Trump, and repeatedly fails. Navarro was merely posing what she knew were Times readers' preconceived notions to get Rutte's reactions thereto.

I give the Times credit for publishing a transcript of the interview, when it was clear Rutte didn't say what they wanted to hear. Hinderaker's frustrated conclusion: "At the Times, ignorance is invincible." Considering he got Rutte's responses from the Times' pages, I think he is being a little harsh. 

Centrist Trump

Writing at the New York Post, Julian Epstein delivers an idea amazing in its simplicity - with no one noticing, Trump has become a centrist. I like Epstein's conclusion.

Trump slowly claims the centrist lane of American politics. Think of it — abortion (12-week ban), closed borders, balanced budgets, equal opportunity (not equal results) and anti-bigotry on campuses, peace through strength on the global stage, education reform.

Trump is claiming the political center as the Democrats fulminate in a morality cartoon most Americans don’t recognize.

Indeed. 

Friday Snark, 2 Days Late

Images courtesy of Politico's 

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Requiem

The other DrC and I went to a funeral today, the deceased was the 21 year old daughter of long-time friends of ours. Her death is beyond sad, she was a really nice person, we've known her all her life.

She was killed in an accident just over a week ago. She would have been a senior at the University of Wyoming this fall, had she lived. 

She is survived by her family and so many friends who loved her. It felt like the entire town turned out for her last rites. We miss her.

Nothing Is Free

Lucy Biggers, a 35 year old mother of two, writes for The Free Press that she helped AOC get elected the first time in 2018. She has since grown up. Here is my favorite quote from Biggers' column, concerning AOC and now Mamdani.

I no longer think that giving the government more of our money to run “free programs” for us is the right way to do things. Just spend time at the DMV and tell me if you want a government-run grocery store, as Mamdani is proposing.

Programs offering “free” everything have to be paid for—and nothing is free. The policies they promote will lead to a more centralized government with more power, higher taxes, and a higher cost of living.

Precisely. The only thing "free" is air, and that only because it isn't in limited supply. In Musk's Mars colony, air will have a definite cost as it will have to be "produced" and managed.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

U-Hauls

Often times a very good way to convey serious truth is with humor. This morning brings a example of this truism, the title of a column by PJ Media's Stephen Kruiser.

The Second American Civil War Will Be Fought Mostly by U-Hauls

See what I mean? It's a funny way of describing a very real phenomenon, ongoing right now. People are moving to places where the vibe is simpatico, where the governing philosophy is to their liking. 

Sure, lots of conservatives are moving to Texas, Florida, Idaho, Tennessee. But there are also liberals moving to Colorado, Oregon, Washington and North Carolina.

What all of these have in common is a desire to flee California, New York, Illinois, and maybe New Jersey. Places where taxes, crime, homelessness and home prices are too much, even for progressives. As Kruiser writes, we are sorting ourselves out into less diverse populations, if ideological differences constitute diversity. 

One hopes the end result will be extreme federalism, with many things decided at the state level. Given current levels of hostility, it is hard to imagine both red and blue states coexisting within a single federation long term, when even foreign policy choices are different. With apologies to Frankie Laine.

Moving, moving, moving
'Cause they're disapproving
Keep them voters moving,
U-Haul

Round 'em up, pack 'em out, pack 'em out, round 'em up,
Round 'em up, pack 'em out, U-Haul

Drive 'em out, move 'em in, move 'em in, drive 'em out,
Drive 'em out, move 'em in, U-Haul (whipcrack)

Happy Birthday, USA

Happy Birthday, beloved Nation. Today begins our 250th year as a declared nation. I wish you 250 more years of greatness, recognizing there will also be troubles and strife along the way.

The DrsC have visited every US state and several territories, mostly before we retired, and found things to admire in each. Were there parts we like better, and those not so much? Absolutely, why wouldn’t there be?

We have also visited well over 100 other countries, mostly since we retired. We’ve seen much to admire in places we’ve visited. We have yet to see another nation that has to offer a better package of delights and freedoms than ours or nearly as much scenic variety. 

So again, Happy Birthday, America. You're the best.

A Lumpenbourgeoisie

Scott Greer writes opinion at Highly Respected, today about the main group supporting Zohran Mamdani for NYC's mayor. He calls them the "lumpenbourgeoisie," which he defines thus. 

These are middle-class types who feel thwarted in some way. Some may have decent jobs, but still struggle to pay rent living in NYC or another big city. Others are NEETs (not in employment, education, or training) who live with their parents and have no job at all. They think they will not obtain the level of security as their parents, and they don’t see much of a path to advance. They may have a college degree, but it’s no ticket to the American dream.

We have overproduced college graduates, presuming there would always be a market for all of them. Our presumption was incorrect, and current developments in artificial intelligence (AI) will only make the situation worse.

Thousands major in the arts where there will be, at best, hundreds of jobs, and that only in a good year.  Tens of thousands more major in psychology, a field in which there are zero jobs for baccalaureate holders. Ditto sociology and anthropology. All are interesting, none have a bachelors career track.

Greer concludes:

The Left can count on the nothing to lose types to rally to its causes. Most lumpenbourgeoisie aren’t deranged enough to join Antifa. They’re simply young, middle-class Americans who feel the American dream is denied to them. If any kind of revolution happens in America, they will be its vanguard.

I may have unwittingly been a contributor to the overproduction of college grads, although when I retired most of my students got white collar jobs, many with good firms. Hat tip to Zero Hedge for the link.

Photo Alert

We've been here in WY maybe a month and a half and there have been deer in the back yard the whole time ... adult deer, that is. For some unknown reason, no fawns. 

A couple of days ago, a fawn finally appeared, with mama, of course. The other DrC has photos at her website, they're a bit blurry but still cute. She reports the little guy (or gal) has springs in it legs.

I suppose there is some deer hunting hereabouts but the real prize is an elk, there is serious meat in one of those. Elk don't hang out in the valley during the time we're here, when the snow melts they head for the hills ... literally. The deer seem to be here pretty much year round.

Later ... A day later another mama shows up, this one with twins. They're like twice as cute.

Musings

Today is the first day of the seventh month of 2025, we are halfway through this year. I am of two minds concerning it.

On the one hand, it has gone by quickly, seemingly as I get older time passes quicker. At my advanced age I likely don’t have decades of life left. 

On the other hand, with an activist President in office, there has been so much happening that it paradoxically feels like time as slowed down. Trump just packs a lot of action in every fortnight. 

As an avid news reader, I like a busy time as there is more to marvel at and ponder. One thing is for sure, I’m not bored. 

The Chinese supposedly considered the wish “May you live in interesting times” a curse. Maybe for some, but I love it a lot. 

Speaking of our President, his bombing Iran certainly added credibility to the threats he uses to juice his negotiating technique. When he says “get serious” those across the table had best listen up. Notice how nobody is saying TACO lately?

Harvard’s Offense

Writing for Power Line, Scott Johnson appends a copy of the government’s letter to Harvard in which it finds the university guilty of discrimination against Jewish students and Israelis. Here is a key paragraph from that letter.

Harvard’s inaction in the face of these civil rights violations is a clear example of the demographic hierarchy that has taken hold of the University. Equal defense of the law demands that all groups, regardless of race or national origin, are protected. Harvard’s commitment to racial hierarchies — where individuals are sorted and judged according to their membership in an oppressed group identity and not individual merit — has enabled anti-Semitism to fester on Harvard’s campus and has led a once great institution to humiliation, offering remedial math and forcing Jewish students to hide their identities and ancestral stories.

That is how to describe the woke/DEI obsession in goverment legalese.

Pride in America

Gallup has dropped their latest annual survey of the extent to which Americans are proud of our country. Hat tip to RealClearPolitics for the link.

A record-low 58% of U.S. adults say they are “extremely” (41%) or “very” (17%) proud to be an American, down nine percentage points from last year and five points below the prior low from 2020.

Democrats are mostly responsible for the drop in U.S. pride this year, with 36% saying they are extremely or very proud, down from 62% a year ago. [emphasis added]

Political independents’ pride has also reached a low point, with 53% expressing a great deal of pride, down seven points from last year, which had been the previous low for this group. Independents’ pride has been declining since the early 2000s, dropping below 80% for the first time in 2005, then below 70% in 2019 and below 60% this year.

Republicans' level of national pride has been much steadier, typically registering above 90%, including 92% this year, up from 85% in 2024.

Democrats tell themselves they represent what is best in America. When the electorate hands them a clear-cut vote of no confidence, as it did in 2024, I'd expect what Gallup found. Namely, a shared disappointment in our nation. A majority of us did not want what the Dems offered. 

Speaking of pride in our nation, I need to go put out our Stars and Stripes to show the DrsC are proud.

Mamdani’s Background

Two quotes from a post by Instapundit Reynolds, about the background of Zohran Mamdani. I wonder if they are accurate?

Mamdani’s mother is a world-famous, Academy Award-nominated Bollywood director worth tens of millions of dollars. His father is a chaired professor at Columbia.

He says he “grew up in the third world” but he was living in the United States attending private school since he was 7 years old—that’s not “code switching,” that’s lying.

In current slang, Mamdani is a nepo baby from a privileged background trying to claim “victim” status he clearly doesn’t deserve. It explains why he is so at ease and charming, however. He resembles AOC, only much more so.

Editorial Note

Two days ago on Saturday I wrote that I would no longer be considering meme contributions made by readers of Power Line’s The Week in Pictures, as the process had become too onerous. Today PL notes the following concerning comments.

As of today, through the continued efforts of our publisher, I believe that up to 500 comments will be visible to all readers on each post and images posted in comments should be accessible without the necessity of a click.

That sounds like they’ve solved the issue that concerned me. On Saturday we will see the next Week in Pictures; we’ll learn if “onerous” no longer describes the process.  If that’s the case, we’ll revert to our prior model and include contributions from the Comments section. I am hopeful.

Dying Influencers

Just a quick post about something I've noticed. A lot of influencers are dying young, I see the announcements as I scan the Internet news. Their deaths are news because they had many followers.

Many are in their 20s, some are even younger. Is it drug abuse or other risky behavior? The stress of being constantly "on?" Are people already in some kind of difficulties - emotional or physical - more likely to become influencers? How many are suicides?

In their teens and twenties people should be at their absolute healthiest ever. Someone ought to look into this phenomenon.

To Tenure, or Not to Tenure

Once upon a time, a university was a collection of scholars who decided to do some ancillary activities in concert.  The dons/scholars/professors made group decisions and some few of their number sacrificed themselves administering those ancillary activities part-time. Those days are long gone, at least in the US.

Recent decades have seen rampant growth in administrative overhead, and a corresponding diminution in the ranks of tenure track faculty. DEI hires made this trend worse. "Tenure track" includes both tenured faculty and those in junior positions where one is must either get promoted and earn tenure or leave.

Of course, when there are fewer tenure track faculty, the classes they would have taught are taught by the non-tenure track instructional staff, variously called adjuncts, instructors, visitors, locums, teaching fellows, contract faculty, and part-timers. 

These often don't know from term to term if they'll be reemployed. Typically, gig faculty teach lower division introductory and general education courses and supervise labs. They aren't paid especially well and many part-timers don't get health insurance.

Some campuses have experimented with giving faculty 5 year renewable contracts in lieu of tenure. The renewal decision comes in the fourth year so someone not renewed has time to make future arrangements while still employed.

Today I saw an article in the RealClearPolicy list with this title: "Tenure Track in Higher Ed Is Going Extinct," published in The American Mind, a Claremont Institute publication. Assuming the trend line doesn't reach an inflection point, the predicted extinction is a distinct possibility.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about tenure. I had it, was glad I did, and relied upon it to keep my job open while I took a couple of leaves to do "growth" things. Yet I saw examples of the harm it can do to both students and the institution. 

In the business school faculty (n = 50+) from which I retired we had one tenured faculty member who spent an inordinate amount of class time obsessing about nuclear disarmament and another who routinely told his students they were pathetic losers who would amount to nothing. 

We never succeeded in getting rid of either, although we tried. A couple more were not quite as bad, but most of us did our jobs acceptably and behaved. The ratio was similar in the other DrC's college. 

I have to admit the ratio was even worse among administrators. They could be fired, and some were. I remember a woman dean who was a drunk, and a Vice President who sexually harassed female staff. Both moved on eventually, possibly under threat but not actually fired.

Poll: No Popular Democrats

Since President Trump is in his second-and-last constitutionally permitted term, it isn't too early to begin thinking about who will run in 2028. A firm named Political Polls surveyed both Democrats and Republicans about their support for the people who've been talked about as contenders. Breitbart's John Nolte has the findings:

The Democrats are butt-hurt, see their 'preferiti' with the percentage favoring each.

> Buttigieg 16%
> Harris 13%
> Newsom 12%
> Shapiro 7%
> AOC 7%
> Sanders 5%

I summed those percentages and they total 60%. Something like a third don't like any of these, and might stay home. Meanwhile the leading Republicans are in better shape, see the percentage favoring each.

> Vance 46%
> Rubio 12%.
> DeSantis 9%

Nolte concludes a Republican would be favored to win if you were betting now, he dreams of a Vance/Rubio ticket.

The Trump Magic

Every two years following the national election, Pew does a poll - the Validated Voter Survey - highly esteemed because it polls only individuals whom state voting rolls show actually voted in the recent election. Those findings just dropped for 2024, and they are very good indeed.

Republicans and GOP-leaning independents were 51% of the total electorate in 2024, up from 47% in 2020. Democrats and their affiliated indies dropped from 50% in 2020 to 48% in 2024. That 6-point shift in the partisan balance precisely mirrors Trump’s 6-point improvement in his popular vote margin.

In other words, Trump didn’t win because he got disaffected Democrats and independents to vote for him; he won because he got those people to switch parties entirely. [emphasis added]

Those who changed parties - to the MAGA GOP - are likely to keep voting GOP, absent some major screw-up or catastrophe. The D brand is becoming toxic to a majority of actual voters, excellent news. 

Editorial Note

My Saturday Snark normally ends with "Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures and its Comments section." Today, and going forward, I will no longer include material from the Comments, much of which was good.

Since last week Power Line has implemented a new internal structure. In order to view comments the reader must tediously open each reader contribution individually, this was not formerly the case. 

I don't have the patience to do what is now required. If you must see them, they are there for you to laboriously dig through. I will make my selections from the Power Line post and leave the Comments unread.

Satirday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures.