PEOPLE LIKE EXCITEMENT. ALSO THERE’S PHARMA MONEY. The Problem of Cheerleading in Medical Science: Academic leaders cheerleading marginal studies seems like a bad idea.

Related problem: There are lots of marginal studies.

LARRY O’CONNOR: Why I’m Still Not Buying the Blue Tsunami.

When I look at that map, I see a path to a Democrat majority. I’m considerably less persuaded by the path to a landslide.

The Senate requires its own analysis. Some of the Democratic breakthroughs being forecast would require substantial shifts in states with established Republican voting patterns.

I want convincing evidence of what has changed in those states. Who is switching sides? Which voters are staying home? What turnout assumptions produce the projected result? The larger the departure from recent voting history, the more closely those questions deserve examination.

Then there are the polls.

In three consecutive presidential elections, polling underestimated Republican support relative to Democratic support. Polls performed considerably better in the 2018 and 2022 midterms. That belongs in the discussion, and I take it seriously.

Nobody knows. But you can add a little certainty just by voting.

Related item from Andrew Stiles: Brace for Impact. “A Democratic rout would mean the polls were basically right. That would be genuinely shocking. If they’re wrong, and Republicans do better than expected—retaining control of the Senate while narrowly losing the House, for instance—Democrats will struggle to maintain their composure. They might start to question the sanctity of our democracy. If they fail to capture either chamber, the meltdown will be extraordinary.”

It would also be well-financed and planned well in advance.

I DON’T KNOW ART, BUT I KNOW WHAT I LIKE:

Wake up! Sean Parnell is writing bangers wrapped in Americana:

“Build propensity, the desire to serve, and create proximity, a military close enough to the American people that the desire turns into a decision.

There's a photo that says this better than I can. A little boy,… https://t.co/SFFYI9yP3i

— InfantryDort (@infantrydort) November 3, 2026

CDR SALAMANDER: Liddell Hart – Now More Than Ever.

US AID TO ISRAEL: Now that President Donald Trump has announced the end of U.S. military aide to Israel, all kinds of conjecture is blowing up on Social Media on the backstory. But Richard Pollock’s is one of the few sane voices and he provides the needed context that points to the continued strong relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

A VERY SPECIAL EDITION OF VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™: Races to Watch on Election Day. “Ballots go out weeks in advance to where you live, where you used to live, where someone said you lived, where your second cousin once removed thought you lived, and nobody — zero people — checks.”

IT’S OUT TODAY: Kurt Schlichter’s American Warlord. I read it, I blurbed it, I recommend it.

TELL ME AGAIN ABOUT THOSE LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT-CHECKERS BECAUSE THAT ONE NEVER GETS OLD:

The @nytimes, in a desperate bid to help El-Sayed's image, published a supposed list of Jewish leaders endorsing him.

It includes a dead guy, an obvious fake pun name, and people who only go by a first name and last initial. https://t.co/piyyT3eOtA

— Sunny (@sunnyright) November 3, 2026

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Why is my A student failing algebra?

Adriana Aviles’ son was an A student in math in New York City K-8 schools, she tells David Spector of the New York Post. He got into a top high school. But her honor-roll student is failing algebra.

She tried to help him study. “He stared blankly at the page, completely puzzled by the material. He was completely thrown off by equations that contained fractions.” He scored a 10 out of 100 on the test.

Her son now spends four lunch periods a week getting math tutoring to learn the skills he didn’t learn in elementary school. Aviles bought “math review books intended for first- through fourth-graders so I can see how much he actually knows, and in which grade he stopped learning.”

If you think that’s bad, wait’ll you see what’s happened to high school vocab:

I am speechless. Thomas Aquinas College just dropped a study on the rigor of the new SAT.

It compares the 1980/87 test with 2026. The findings should terrify every parent and teacher…

Vocabulary has collapsed.

Old SAT: 70.6% of questions tested vocab.
New SAT: 15%.

The old… https://t.co/wBknccE4aV pic.twitter.com/9hEVGh5KTH

— Jeremy Wayne Tate (@JeremyTate41) October 29, 2026

“If you believe that kids should develop rigorous vocabulary, be capable of sustained reading, and possess background knowledge, I have bad news for you. The SAT no longer measures these.”

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ON SABBATICAL:

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: DECOY Dan Sullivan's direct neighbors here in Alaska absolutely RIP him for attempting to DUPE Alaskans by pretending to be a Republican

"He's ALWAYS been a Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris supporter!"

"He could probably make money off this if he did a movie. He… pic.twitter.com/fNQeGTvRDi

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) November 3, 2026

ONE MORE REMINDER: Americans, If You Love Freedom, Get Out and Vote Against Democrats.

PROTECT YOUR SKIN: Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream Skin Protectant. #CommissionEarned

EVERY TIME I’M CONVINCED WE’RE IN AN AI BUBBLE, ALONG COMES A STORY LIKE THIS ONE: Palantir reports booming U.S. commercial revenue growth, topping government for first time.

Revenue nearly doubled from a year ago and blew past $2 billion for the first time ever, Palantir said. Net income more than doubled to $1.13 billion, or 44 cents per share, from about $476 million, or 18 cents per share.

“I don’t believe anyone’s had consistent results like this in the history of software AI, ever,” CEO Alex Karp told CNBC’s Seema Mody in an interview, adding that the business is succeeding without salespeople.

Palantir has long been known for its strength in the government sector, but its commercial segment caught up in Q3.

Anthropic just reported a solid quarter, too.

STANDING UP AGAINST RACISM, DISCRIMINATION, AND HATE: Justice Department to review Duke medical school for allegedly discriminating against white, Asian students.

I DON’T KNOW IF I NEED A LUNAR ROVER…:

Need a lunar/planetary rover? @GeorgiaTech just open-sourced one.

NOVA is a four-wheel, independently steered research rover designed and built in the AstroX Lab for testing planetary autonomy on their lunar-analog testbed. Everything needed to build one — CAD, bill of…

— Stephen Fleming (@StephenFleming) November 2, 2026

…and there would certainly be some discussion with my wife over where to put it.

But hats off to Georgia Tech AstroX Lab for open-sourcing one.

DISPATCHES FROM THE OCCUPIED ZONES: Mamdani’s Massive Real Estate Swindle Just Took a Huge Step Forward. “New York City’s Commie-Islamie Mayor Zohran Mamdani imposed a rent freeze earlier this year, and now the nation’s two biggest mortgage backers just made it ‘impossible or extremely difficult for landlords to get financing.’ If your first response isn’t to laugh at this news with a hearty ‘Gooder and harder, NYC!’ you might not want to read the rest of this column — but we have some serious stuff to cover, too. So stick around.”

DIVERSITY PROBLEM: 98.5% of political donations from Northeastern University faculty members went to left-wing candidates.

Repeating: How can such an utterly partisan industry expect across-the-board support from voters?

PRIORITIES:

NIH gave grants to Chinese labs to make super-viruses but won't give a grant to a leading scientist because he was falsely accused of sexual misconduct. https://t.co/zh55VlrGIN

— Ashley Rindsberg (@AshleyRindsberg) October 29, 2026

WHICH WAY, CALIFORNIA? Billionaire tax puts California’s economic future before midterm voters. “Proponents of the billionaire tax argue that it would bring in about $100 billion in revenue from the roughly $2.3 trillion in wealth held by the state’s billionaires in mid-2026, though a recent analysis suggests the tax could permanently shrink the state’s tax base over the long-term and with losses exceeding near-term revenue gains.”

WELL PUT:

A cult is not defined by what happens when you join. A cult is defined by what happens when you try to leave. https://t.co/FZlgj46jjS

— Kira (@Kiradavis) November 2, 2026

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dems Will ‘Protest’ Anyway, So Let’s Give Them a Good Reason To. “We live in an ever-changing world, but one reliable constant is that the Democrats will always be on their worst behavior. I remarked many times during the God-awful Biden puppet presidency that the Democrats never once acted like they got everything that they wanted in the 2020 election.”

ROBERT STACY MCCAIN: The End of Polls and Predictions.

Election Day 2026 has finally arrived, bringing with it the merciful end of polls and predictions being presented as “news.” Back in the late 1990s, when I was an assistant national editor at The Washington Times, I sort of assigned myself to be the weekly poll aggregator during election season. This was before Real Clear Politics had become the one-stop source for election polls. It was also pre-Google, when scouring the Internet was done with search engines like Dogpile and others whose names I can’t recall. Each week, using the crude tools available, I would gather up every relevant poll I could find online and compile the results for a graphic that would run in the main news section.

Having been an accumulator of polling data through multiple election cycles, I learned a lot about the variation in quality, and became quite skeptical of polls in general. The fact that deliberate frauds have recently been revealed in the polling racket should serve as an exclamation mark on warnings about the reliability of these numbers. The best way to respond to any election prediction is always, “We’ll see.”

It’s amazing to me that there are people all over X/Twitter giving their analysis of the election before a single vote has been counted: “Trump is to blame for this disaster” is a typical reaction based on a Republican Doomsday reading of the polls, which might be valid, but we don’t know yet.

Vote.

BEYOND CENSURE: I Saw Slotkin Threaten GOP Staff. She Deserves An Ethics Probe.

While free speech is absolutely an American bedrock, our society and law have long recognized that threats of harassment and other potentially illegal behavior do not constitute free speech. Here is what I would like to see instead of censure that would protect these basic free speech norms forbidding government intimidation of law-abiding citizens.

First, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics should open a preliminary inquiry based on the complaints of myself, the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) formal filing, and anyone else who has come forward about this threat.

Second, Sen. Slotkin should publicly answer these three questions: Was the purpose of the “deterrence message” to discourage young people from taking lawful jobs in the executive branch? Does she believe a senator may use investigations, or the threat of them, for that purpose? Would she say the same if a Republican senator said it about staffers in a Democratic administration?

Third, the committee should reach a clear determination based on the facts presented. If the committee concludes Sen. Slotkin did not breach the Ethics Manual, it should say so and explain why. Make the line explicit for senators and citizens alike.

Sounds great. Won’t happen.

IT’S BEEN A PROBLEM FOR MOST OF MY LIFE: Jarrett Stepman: Democrats Put Patriotism Last. That’s a Problem for America.

CONSERVING CONSERVATISM MOST CONSERVATIVELY…:

"SpaceX isn’t a tech company. It’s an aerospace and communications company. It is vital to America’s national security and it must be brought to heel and aligned with America’s interests."https://t.co/0CyFiky1bH

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) November 3, 2026

…by nationalizing the assets of those who have fallen out of political favor.