Archive for January 16, 2024

Five After Iowa Caucus Thoughts Under the Fedora: No Bust, Stalking Horses, The 50% Solution, Two Ignored Historic Firsts and the Scythe in the room.

Posted: January 16, 2024 by datechguy in election 2024, elections, elections, politics, primaries
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Well the Nikki Haley boom turned out to be a bust. Did the MSM and Bill Kristol really think their (Temporary) support would carry her over the top in Iowa? The real question is how long will she remain a stalking horse to make sure that moderates who don’t want President Trump as their nominee have someplace other to go than DeSantis? I suspect Trump will want her in through Super Tuesday although a poor showing in South Carolina should finish her off.

I hoped to see a better finish by DeSantis but 2nd will do for now. Given the size of Trump’s victory the real question will be how long there are 2 alternatives to Trump rather than three. The squish republicans in NH don’t want Trump but I suspect they hate DeSantis more because he has the potential to be trouble for a lot longer and as he has proved as Governor of Florida, he really means it.

That why Gov Sununu will likely decide to die on Haley hill.

President Trump drawing 50% in the caucus is significant for several reasons:

  1. It indicates that he is the preferred candidate of a majority of Iowa republicans.
  2. It indicates that a majority of the GOP in Iowa approved of his performance as President
  3. It indicates that neither the rantings of the media have no effect on the majority of GOP voters
  4. It indicates that at the very least a majority of GOP voter don’t give a fig for the “interesting” charges against him

If the President keeps up with 20 or 30 point wins in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina this primary will be finished before we reach the first of the court cases against him.

There are two historic bits concerning yesterday’s primaries that would have gotten a whole lot more play if it had not been for the unprecedented and despicable tactics being used in an attempt to drag Trump off the national stage.

The first is that Donald Trump is the first ex president in over a century to appear on a primary ballot against members of his own party.

It’s a big difference from the last time President Trump won in Iowa when he was an incumbent running unopposed or the first time he ran in Iowa in 2016 when he was simply a businessman and one could only speculate has to how he would govern as president.

His victory in those circumstances would have been a great story even without the frantic (and highly satisfying) cries of the left and the relentless attempt of the left to eliminate him as a candidate.

The 2nd Historic event or lack thereof was the absence of a Democrat primary. This was a step taken to protect Biden from any primary challenge in a state that might have been iffy for him. While it’s not all that unusual for a party to make sure the slate is clear Biden’s record even among Democrats is not all that secure and a caucus would have been an excellent and useful test of his strength among the party.

That the party did all it could to chase away folks even driving RFK Jr. away from the democrat primaries to run as an independent speaks volumes as to how they percieve Joe Biden as a candidate.

Presuming he is the candidate that is.

Finally nobody is talking about what is normally called the Elephant in the room but in this case is the scythe in the room.

Donald Trump is 77, Joe Biden is 81. Most men their age…are dead.

Now it’s true that Donald Trump is a very vigorous 77 and Joe Biden is a comparatively frail 81 but no matter how you slice it if either one dropped dead tomorrow it would not be a gigantic shock, though perhaps it might be a bit of a surprise in Trump’s case.

The life expectancy of a man born in 1946 is under 66 years. In fact according to the CDC if you were a man born in 2015 your total life expectancy is less than Donald Trump’s age today.

People can say 60 is the new 40 but the reality is 60 is still sixty, 70 is still seventy and Bill Belichick interview not withstanding very few men of their age are generally hired to do a job of such responsibility.

Of course given the mechanisms of the dishonorable deep state left to try to disqualify Donald Trump from the ballot and the hints that Joe Biden might be replaced by a candidate who doesn’t need to face voters age might be a moot point but in the end all the scheming and shenanigans are nothing if the call that all men face demands an answer.

Crusading for cursive writing

Posted: January 16, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Pennsylvania—like 28 other states—does not require students to write in cursive lettering.

Fortunately, at least one Pennsylvania politician is mounting a campaign to force students to learn how to write in cursive.

State Rep. Joe Adams, a Republican representing an area near Scranton, thinks it should be mandated and has proposed legislation to do so.

A former school superintendent, Adams said he believes it is important enough to find time to teach it, and he said so do experts in education, neurology, and psychology who offer up brain science and historical reasons to support the idea. He also gave some practical reasons.

“You can’t open a bank account without signing your name. You can’t buy a property or get a credit card without having to be able to sign your name,” Adams said. He added that a person’s signature can be a unique identifier that could be one thing artificial intelligence cannot reproduce.
“All those things pointed me to saying, this makes great sense,” Adams said.

Pennsylvania’s Education Secretary Khalid Mumin doesn’t consider cursive instruction to be vital.

“Secretary Mumin encourages schools to determine the best paths for their students to learn to communicate effectively in writing and achieve success, regardless of the mode of writing used to get there,” Education Department spokesman Taj Magruder Adams told PennLive.com.

Cumberland Valley, located in southern Pennsylvania near the Maryland border, decided to reintroduce cursive writing into the curriculum.

Robyn Euker, Cumberland Valley’s director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, said the district chose to require cursive instruction after noticing an increasing number of students with poor handwriting in the upper grades.

When the district was looking to adopt a new literacy curriculum, she said, it decided to buy the cursive writing supplement to address the handwriting concern.

Two years later, Euker said the feedback she had received was positive.

“I think it’s a little bit of a creative outlet for students,” she said.
Euker also said it seems beneficial for students with reading and writing issues. Writing in cursive has fewer starts and stops than in print. Words appear as one block instead of a series of separate letters, which can help students with dyslexia.

Given the benefits, including allowing students to read handwritten cards from older relatives, Euker said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more states require it.”

After all, it’s not an instruction that needs to be taught repeatedly. Once students learn it, the neuropathways allow them to associate a manuscript letter with how it looks in cursive and understand what is written, said Lynn Baynum, chair of Shippensburg University’s Teacher Education Department.

“When we first began teaching cursive a hundred years ago, we didn’t understand it was a pattern of associations we were doing to create a literate society,” Baynum said. “It’s also why keyboarding is important to teach, too, because we don’t want students slowing down their ability to communicate because they have to find a letter on the keyboard.”

Teaching cursive is a no-brainer to me.