K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: School Choice Moms’ Tipped the Governor’s Florida Race: DeSantis owes his win to unexpected support from minority women.

Believe it or not, Republican Ron DeSantis owes his victory in the Florida gubernatorial election to about 100,000 African-American women who unexpectedly chose him over the black Democratic candidate, Andrew Gillum.

Of the roughly 650,000 black women who voted in Florida, 18% chose Mr. DeSantis, according to CNN’s exit poll of 3,108 voters. This exceeded their support for GOP U.S. Senate candidate Rick Scott (9%), Mr. DeSantis’s performance among black men (8%) and the GOP’s national average among black women (7%).

To be sure, 18% of the black female vote in Florida is equal to less than 2% of the total electorate. But in an election decided by fewer than 40,000 votes, these 100,000 black women proved decisive. Their apparent ticket splitting helps to explain why the Florida governor’s race wasn’t as close as the Florida Senate race, though Mr. Gillum was widely expected to carry Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson to victory on his coattails.

What explains Mr. DeSantis’ surprising support from African-American women? Two words: school choice.

More than 100,000 low-income students in Florida participate in the Step Up For Students program, which grants tax-credit funded scholarships to attend private schools. Even more students are currently enrolled in the state’s 650 charter schools.

Most Step Up students are minorities whose mothers are registered Democrats. Yet many of these “school-choice moms” vote for gubernatorial candidates committed to protecting their ability to choose where their child goes to school.

Four years ago, Gov. Scott narrowly won re-election thanks to a spike in support from school-choice moms. In 2016 more than 10,000 scholarship recipients joined Martin Luther King III in Tallahassee to protest a lawsuit filed by the teachers union in America’s largest-ever school choice rally.

Regrettably, Mr. Gillum’s campaign chose to ignore signs that many minority voters view school choice as ‘’the civil rights issue of our time,” to quote Condoleezza Rice.

I don’t regret it all that much.

JIM MEIGS: Living on the Edge: Just as coastal communities must learn to live with hurricanes, communities that edge up against forests are going to have to learn to live with fire. “Building and zoning codes can be changed to make towns less fire prone. Homes that are built or retrofitted with fireproof materials—and landscaped to keep shrubbery away from structures—can usually survive typical wildfires. In new developments, homes can be clustered and surrounded by fire-resistant buffer zones, such as orchards. And, no matter how well designed, communities in fire zones need realistic evacuation plans and better emergency communications. (Poor communications and inadequate evacuation planning in the face of the speed a fire could move at were among the many failures in Paradise.)”

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: The Way Things Seem.

How much trouble would you go to for an inheritance? How much would it matter what your estranged and disliked step brother and family thought of you? How much would you allow the dead hand of your distant father to influence you? Would it matter how much money was involved? And what if in the end, nothing you thought important at the start mattered? What if everything you believed wasn’t the way it seemed. Not only in your personal world but the wider reality you thought you knew. Could you deal with that?

OF COURSE THEY DO:  H’Wood Sites Ignore Avenatti’s Actress Accuser.

SHOCKED, SHOCKED, SHOCKED:  Skid row voter fraud case raises questions about other kinds of voter fraud in California.

SO, STANDARD OBAMA OFF TELEPROMPTER?  Off-teleprompter Obama rambles, nearly incoherently attacking American global warming skeptics.

OUT OF CONTROL. SINCE THEY DERIVE THEIR POWER FROM THE US CONSTITUTION, WHICH PRESUPPOSES A COUNTRY WITH BORDERS AND THAT OUR BORDERS WILL BE DEFENDED, OUT OF ORDER TOO:  Thanks, Judge! Caravan migrants take judicial ruling as green light to enter the U.S. illegally.

NEXT UP? HUMAN SACRIFICE.  NO? WHY NOT?  Judge Bernard Friedman Strikes Down Federal Law On Female Genital Mutilation.

THAT ELECTION FRAUD:  Election Fraud? What Election Fraud?

DEATH SPIRAL: New York’s subway riders are going Galt.

There’s a sense that things are getting worse, so people are just voting with their feet at this point, taking Uber, their cars, maybe an illegal bus van, or else biking, scootering, or walking. Why put up with the smell, mess, crime, delay, and hassle? I’ve lived in New York and know that subways can work. But they can work only if there are strict rules, and those rules are strictly focused on the ultimate aim of ensuring the comfort of the paying customer along with reliability. Rule of law, in other words, is critical if a system wants to keep people riding.

In socialist New York, which is run by Mayor Bill de Blasio, the cops are the bad guys, and the quality of life problems are just “oh,” so nothing is ever going to get done. What’s worse, with zero enforcement of standards, the “broken window” theory takes hold, and the crimes accelerate, which is the trend we see now. Net result: People stay the heck away, and the cash no longer flows in.

What do we get? Approximately the same thing we see going on in Venezuela: the smothering love of the state suddenly becoming just smothering – and the money running out.

Yet amazingly, the left wants you to get out of your car and take one of these collective riding horrors.

Of course they do.

HMM: Professor Valentina Zharkova Breaks Her Silence and CONFIRMS “Super” Grand Solar Minimum.

Even if you believe the IPCC’s worst case scenario, Zharkova’s analysis blows any ‘warming’ out of the water.

Lee Wheelbarger sums it up: even if the IPCC’s worst case scenarios are seen, that’s only a 1.5 watts per square meter increase. Zharkova’s analysis shows a 8 watts per square meter decrease in TSI to the planet.

Forget the arguments, debates and attempts to win over AGW alarmists — and just prepare.

Assuming this is true — maybe it is — how would you prepare? We should be developing fast-growing and frost-tolerant strains of important food crops, suitable for short growing seasons, right? What else?

THEY DON’T GO BANG THAT WAY: Wyoming Bear Attack Glock had No Round in Chamber, Magazine & Pistol Separated.

AND AGAIN: Laura Loomer has said some horrible things, but she was suspended from Twitter for this?

OPEN THREAD: Tell us what you’re thankful for. I’m thankful for you, the delightful readers of InstaPundit.

SARAH HOYT: The World is in the Middle of a Reproducibility Crisis in the Sciences.

WHAT A MONSTER: Ajit Pai wants to raise rural broadband speeds from 10Mbps to 25Mbps.

PHYSICAL GRAFFITI: Russia Wants Bulgarians to Stop Painting Soviet Monuments To Look Like American Superheroes.

Click over for the photo, which is a hoot – a statue of Soviet soldiers in full-on “CHARGE!!!” mode painted up as Superman, Ronald McDonald, Santa Claus, Captain America, and the Joker.

IN THE MAIL: Class Dismissed: Why College Isn’t the Answer.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

● Shot: Thanksgiving: US northeast to experience one of the coldest ever November holidays — Snow and rain may hit the midwest region as well.

—Headline and subhead, the London Independent, today.

● Chaser: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.

—Headline, the London Independent, March 20, 2000.

WELL, EXCEPT FOR THE POLITICAL LEADERS IT WILL ENRICH, WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT: South Africa’s land grab will end in economic disaster. And it will satisfy the hatred of a useful bloc of voters who are too dumb, or too hate-filled, to think about the consequences.

AT AMAZON, Kids Edition Fire Tablets – Black Friday Sale.

Plus, Shop Amazon Devices – Save $15 on Fire TV Stick 4K.

Plus, Shop Amazon Exclusives–Unique Products.

HERE’S TO YOU, SISTER CECYLIA:  And to Instapundit readers:  You may be cool, but you will never be Sister Cecylia cool.

ASKING AND ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Should Women Be NFL Coaches? Feminists Have an Interesting Answer.

NOT EVEN SMOKEY CAN PUT OUT A DUMPSTER FIRE THIS BIG: Buzzfeed Smears Smokey The Bear. It Goes Horribly Wrong For Them.

WTF, P&G? Procter and Gamble wants to trademark ‘LOL,’ ‘WTF’ and other millennial friendly acronyms.

Procter and Gamble wants to trademark three-letter acronyms including ‘LOL’ and ‘WTF’ to use in an unlikely category: dishwashing detergents and soap.

P&G, owner of brands such as Febreze, Tide and Mr Clean, has applied to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to use ‘LOL’ (which stands for Laughing Out Loud), ‘WTF’ (What The F—), ‘NBD’ (No Big Deal) and ‘FML’ (F— My Life).

P&G has applied to use the four acronyms in liquid soap, dishwashing detergent, hard surface cleaners and air fresheners.

LOL, SMDH, res ipsa loquitur.