September 22, 2026

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: No cheery time for election pollsters in run‑up to US midterms.

Pollsters approach this year’s midterm elections dogged by high-profile misfires in recent elections while facing challenges from brash rivals intent on reshaping the landscape of political forecasts.

There are no guarantees that polling’s troubles – and persistent popular skepticism about the dependability of election polls – will be alleviated anytime soon.

In fact, it hasn’t been very cheery for pollsters for the better part of 10 years, since Donald Trump confounded poll-based expectations to defeat Hillary Clinton for the U.S. presidency in 2016.

In 2020, pollsters turned in their worst collective performance in 40 years by overestimating margins of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. It’s an outcome I discuss in “Lost in a Gallup,” my book about polling failure.

Polling in the 2022 midterms was more spotty than spectacular. In 2024, pollsters overall underestimated Trump’s popular support — for the third successive election. That outcome prompted The Atlantic to describe the 2024 polls as “quietly still bad.”

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 2:23 pm by Ed Driscoll

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN:

The idea behind that saying is that when it comes time to compete for a 1-star promotion, you need a sponsor, and having a sponsor who sits on the promotion board matters, greatly.

That’s how we get politicized generals who support racist, anti-American nonsense like DEI.

This is a great, great step in replacing politics with merit at our senior ranks.

This is what a revolution in military personnel affairs looks like.

Indeed.

Posted at 2:01 pm by Stephen Green

FASTER, PLEASE: The Pentagon asked industry how fast it could make more weapons. The numbers remain private.

The memo identified 16 critical programs under consideration for accelerated production or increased procurement. The responses were intended to inform the department’s fiscal 2028 budget request.

The request came as the use of U.S. weapons during the Iran war put pressure on stocks of air-defense interceptors and other precision munitions.

U.S. inventories of Patriot interceptors had fallen from about 2,330 before the war to between 759 and 827 by the end of July, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis. THAAD stocks had fallen from 452 to between 234 and 278.

CSIS estimated production timelines of about 42 months for PAC-3 MSE interceptors and 53 months for THAAD interceptors.

That’s the depletion rate against a third- or fourth-rate power like Iran.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Stephen Green

FASTER, PLEASE:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

WELL, WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT…:

Point 7 stands out for its implications toward a broader peace: “Proxy network shattered. Hezbollah and Hamas heavily degraded. Houthi political leadership taking direct Israeli strikes. The ‘Axis of Resistance’ and ‘ring of fire’ are now more slogans than real threats.”

Posted at 1:29 pm by Stephen Green

JOHN FRANKENHEIMER DIDN’T INTEND FOR SEVEN DAYS IN MAY TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE: This Poll of Liberals Is Absolutely Terrifying.

Ask a Democrat how far he or she would go to get rid of President Donald Trump, and the honest answer, according to a new poll of self-identified liberals by the Center for Strategic Politics, is further than anyone should be comfortable admitting out loud.

But let’s start with the numbers that shouldn’t shock anyone.

As you might expect, 87% said they’d feel positive if Trump were impeached, convicted by both houses of Congress, and removed from office. Another 84% said they’d feel positive if Trump’s Cabinet invoked the 25th Amendment and forced him out, with 70% landing on very positive. Fine. That’s politics.

But it gets worse from there. So much worse.

According to the poll, 55% said they’d feel positive if Trump simply died in his sleep, compared with only 17% who’d feel negative and 28% who were neutral. The poll also found that 59% of liberals, a majority, said they’d feel positive if U.S. military leaders removed Trump from power and took control of the country, and 43% of them landed on very positive about a literal military takeover of the United States government.

More here: Poll: 59% of Dems support military coup against Trump, 32% support assassination.

Republicans have spent the last week calling a fellow Republican racist because he thinks there are too many Indians in Texas.

Let’s see what the Democrats are thinking about in the meantime:

Oh.

Here’s one Democrat reaction to the news:

Oh.

The pollsters framed the military coup option as one that would “safeguard the Constitution,” because nothing says constitutional order like tanks in D.C.!

With Trump sitting at 32% approval, are we really surprised that even more liberals want him dead now than before?

As for the rest, here’s Glenn’s 2016 paper on military coups in the United States.

 

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

GENOCIDE, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG:

Posted at 12:27 pm by Stephen Green

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Newsom Donors Scrutinized Over China Contacts.

A wealthy California family that gave more than $4.4 million to political causes and campaigns supporting Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and other politicians is facing new scrutiny over alleged past links to suspected Chinese spy Fang Fang and contacts with Chinese government officials.

The Yin family made millions operating McDonald’s franchises in California and became prolific political donors.

Newly released FBI files and Chinese government records are now shining a light on the family’s connections, though neither C.C. Yin nor his brother Henry Yin has been accused by U.S. law enforcement of acting as a foreign agent or working against American interests.

State and federal campaign records show the family, including through C.C. Yin’s McDonald’s franchise business, gave nearly $3 million to California political causes and $1.46 million to federal campaigns, CBS News reported.

That’s big money. Wonder what they got for it.

Posted at 11:41 am by Stephen Green

MAYBE WE OUGHT TO APPLY “PROOF OF HUMAN” TO THE CANDIDATES:

Posted at 11:25 am by Stephen Green

I WAS TOO DEAD FROM SARS TO EVEN NOTICE WHEN I DIED FROM TAX CUTS:

“The issue is never the issue — the issue is always the revolution.”

Posted at 10:54 am by Stephen Green

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster arrives at pad ahead of first orbital Starship launch.

SpaceX placed a Super Heavy booster on the launch pad at Starbase in Texas Monday, as it continues testing and preparations for the first planned orbital flight of Starship, scheduled for launch as soon as Sept. 28, pending final approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The Super Heavy booster, with the tail number B21, departed its assembly building shortly before midnight local time and was placed on the launch mount at Pad 2, roughly two hours later. The stainless-steel booster stands 236 feet tall (72 meters) and boasts a diameter of 9 m (29.5 ft). By comparison, a Falcon 9 rocket has a diameter of 3.7 m (12 ft). The downcomer pipe that carries methane fuel down the center of the Super Heavy Booster’s liquid oxygen tank to the Raptor engines at its base is roughly the size of an entire Falcon 9 rocket.

I’m expecting an Earth-shattering kaboom, but hopefully only the kind that gets muffled a bit by the launch pad’s water deluge system.

Posted at 10:39 am by Stephen Green

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Hollywood Is Dying — And These People Killed It.

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll