The Costs of Regret

I recently wrote about the authoritarian like vote percentages for Democrats at two college campuses in the midterm elections.

Arizona State    96% for Democrat Katie Hobbs

University of Michigan    94% for Democrat for Democrat 

How do you get results like this in places that are supposed to be beacons for diversity, debate and dissenting opinions?

I guess it is somewhat predictable for a bunch of 18-22 year old kids who really have not been exposed to the real world.

Unfortunately, once exposed to the echo chamber that colleges have become, where there is a repetitive mantra of progressive and liberal dogma, it is likely to shape one's views for a long, long time.

This is borne out in the exit polling data for the 2022 midterms.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/national-results/house

It appears the longer one is exposed to the echo chamber of what is supposed to be "education" the more likely one will vote Democrat.

Is that a coincidence?

In my earlier post I also singled out the repetitive messaging of mainstream media and social media. Their propaganda efforts seem in large part to be responsible for the disconnect in the electorate between reality, common sense and the votes in the midterm elections.

Is it also a coincidence that the "most regretted college major" is Journalism?

Source: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/blog/regret-free-college-majors/

Is the leftist, progressive bent of the media connected to the fact that many in the journalism field feel trapped in a profession that they regret getting into?

As a result, are those views shaping their leftist bias?

If you look at the list above, it is also probably true that Sociology, Liberal Arts, Communications and Education majors lean decidedly to the left on the political spectrum.

On the other hand, here are the 10 college majors that are the most regret-free.

Source: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/blog/regret-free-college-majors/

College graduates with these college majors would generally be considered to be to the right of those on the prior list.

It is also undoubtedly true that those who most regret their college majors are also likely to be the most vocal and politically driven in their belief that their student debt should be forgiven. 

Therefore, it follows that Joe Biden would tell young voters that he was forgiving up to $20,000 of their student debt though an executive order that was clearly a political ploy to drum up enthusiasm before the midterms.

Of course, that student loan debt forgiveness plan has now been declared invalid by a federal court.

Is it also a coincidence that the ruling came out just days after the midterm elections?

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/10/1135940851/student-debt-relief-biden-blocked-texas-district-court

 

President Biden's plan to erase federal student loan debts for tens of millions of borrowers hit a legal wall Thursday, when a U.S. District Court judge in Texas called it unlawful and vacated the debt relief program.

The federal government quickly appealed the decision, which came just weeks before student loan payments are set to resume in January. The program was already on hold while a federal appeals court in St. Louis considers a separate lawsuit by six states challenging it.

I expect we will not have a final decision on this issue until the Supreme Court rules.

That is not likely to happen soon and the current pause of student loan debt payment (which has now been in place for almost three years) is scheduled to expire in January.

That means money may soon have to be paid on those loans by those disgruntled Journalism and Sociology majors.

In the meantime, the entire legal foundation for the student loan pause and Biden's debt cancellation plan, is based on the fact that we are in a public health emergency due to Covid.

However, this week the Senate voted to end the Covid emergency on a 62-36 vote 

Interestingly, 12 Democrats voted with 50 Republicans to end the emergency.

Source: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3908703-senate-votes-to-end-covid-19-emergency-but-biden-threatens-to-veto-any-effort

The vote will probably be symbolic as it is doubtful that a 2/3 vote in both the Senate and House could be achieved to override Biden's veto. However, it shows how important that emergency declaration continues to be for student debt cancellation and other issues such as free Covid tests and vaccines.

The Senate vote also shows that it is getting harder for Democrats to defend the Covid emergency declaration. That is especially true for the 23 Democrats seeking reelection in 2024.

Of course, the major reason that Biden used the executive order route to attempt to cancel student debt remains.

He clearly did not think he could get it through Congress although Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.

It looks like it will be even more difficult in 2023 if the executive order is struck down by the courts.

It all means an even more depressing and regretful life for those Journalism majors in 2023.

Any hope for a nice vacation, a new smartphone or some drugs and alcohol to dim the regret from their choice of major and profession is narrowing.

A recent survey of student loan borrowers who planned to ask for the loan cancellation were asked how they would spend the money they saved by not paying off the debt.

73% of the student borrowers said they were likely to spend their extra money on non-essentials, including vacations, smartphone, drugs/alcohol.

This is a summary of the top spending categories from the survey as summarized by The Washington Examiner.

Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/students-plan-vacation-binge-with-biden-bailout-dough

Your tax dollars at work.

You work.

Journalists and other leftists push an agenda and want your tax dollars to fund their life.

Could it all have been avoided by simply selecting a better college major?

Ship of Fooled

If there was one event that signaled to the world that we were facing a pandemic,  the likes of which we had not seen in 100 years, it was what we saw with the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan in February, 2020.

The Diamond Princess had arrived at its home port of Yokohama, Japan after leaving on a 15-day roundtrip cruise that included a stop in Hong Kong. It is there that an 80-year old passenger from Hong Kong disembarked the cruise after not feeling well for the first five days of the cruise. Upon seeking treatment he was given a Covid test and the rest is history.

The Diamond Princess ultimately returned to Yokohama on February 3, 2020 after 14 days (a day earlier than scheduled) with all of the passengers and a good portion of the crew quarantined in their cabins.

Passengers and crew were left quarantined on the ship in Yokohama Harbor for another two weeks days as tests were conducted daily to determine if they carried the virus which was then thought to have an incubation period as long as 14 days.

Ironically, I was on a ship in Yokohama harbor 18 months before for a day when there was fuel supply issue and we had to leave the dock and anchor for a day awaiting the dock opening so we could be refueled.

I can't imagine being quarantined in a ship cabin for that length of time but I can attest to the fact that the view from the cabin at night in Yokohama is spectacular.

This is the view from my cabin in October, 2018.

691 ultimately tested positive for the virus out of 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew on the Diamond Princess..

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7156812

There could not be a much better place to observe the effects of a highly transmissible virus than in the confines of a cruise ship.

There were many important lessons to be learned about the virus in those early days if anyone was paying attention.

Despite the close quarters, the attack rate of the virus was less than 20%. Why did some people avoid being infected?

That attack rate was later confirmed in other studies involving members of the same household.

More than half of the Covid positive tests involved asymptomatic cases.

Cases were more predominant in the older passengers (average age in the 70's) than the younger crew members.

Source: https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/diamond_cruise_cfr_estimates.html

Seven deaths were later attributed to the infection from Covid on the Diamond Princess.

All were over the age of 70.

Keep in mind that all of this was known a month before the first lockdowns in the United States in March, 2020.

Fast forward to news from Australia last week.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-63605824

This was after a 12-day round trip cruise that had sailed around New Zealand.

In accordance with Australian rules, all 4,600 passengers and crew were fully vaccinated. Almost all were boosted. All passengers had to have a negative Covid test before boarding.

Source: princess.com

The vast majority of the cases were among the 3,300 older passengers. Only a small number of the crew were infected.

There have been no reported deaths thus far.

What I find interesting is the attack rates of the virus between 2020 and 2022.

2020 Diamond Princess (no vaccinations) 18.6%

2022 Majestic Princess (all vaccinated) 17.4%

There is almost no difference and undoubtedly the Majestic Princess numbers are undercounted as all passengers were allowed to leave the ship upon arriving in Sydney. There will undoubtedly be more positive cases discovered.

I can't think of a better example to show the utter insanity of the Covid policies that were implemented, most particularly the vaccine mandates.

It is also interesting to look at the experience of Australia before and after vaccinations were introduced to its population.

Consider these charts on cumulative cases and deaths in Australia since the beginning of the pandemic.

Some would argue the rise in cases and deaths in Australia was due to the relaxation of harsh Covid lockdowns and mask rules.

However, isn't that in itself an admission that the Covid vaccines and mandates were totally useless to prevent infection and transmission?

There is also the issue of the excess deaths Australia is experiencing this year.

The graph below from an actuarial group in Australia compares the deaths in Australia for the first five months of 2022 compared to the previous seven years.

It shows that deaths in 2022 are running 12%-17% higher than previous years depending on the baseline   estimate that is used.

Source: https://www.actuaries.digital/2022/08/31/covid-19-excess-mortality-for-may-2022-at-similarly-high-levels-to-earlier-in-2022/

This is an enormous deviation from the norm.

To put how extraordinary that is, a 10% deviation would be considered three-sigma event and a once in 200 year event.

Only about 50% of the excess can be explained by reported deaths from Covid according to the actuaries.

What is causing the rest?

No one seems to want to know the answer at this point.

Just as the Diamond Princess provided a lot of answers early in the pandemic that seemed to have been ignored, perhaps one day we will find that there were also answers hiding in plain sight on what is causing these excess deaths in 2022.

Right now we continue to be sailing on the Ship of Fooled.

Fastening Chains To Their Own Ankles?

We were told during the Trump years we were becoming an authoritarian state.

We were told in the run up to last week's election that democracy was at stake.

On college campuses we are told how important it is to have diversity for the strength of our society.

Contrast these statements with the vote totals in the midterms on two college campuses that I have seen  reported.

At the University of Michigan reports are that 94% of students voted for Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.

Michigan is a state that allows for same day voter registration.

A great number of these students registered and voted on Election Day.

At Arizona State University, 96% of the students voted for Democrat Katie Hobbs.

There was concern about an authoritarian state?

We were told democracy is at stake?

The vote totals on these college campuses indicate that is the case but it is not from Donald Trump or any Republicans.

I can fathom 60/40 or even 70/30 splits in the vote.

95%/5%?

You don't see vote totals that are this lopsided in authoritarian states like Russia, Venezuela and Iran.

In his last election, Vladimir Putin of Russia only garnered 77% of the vote.

Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela was only able to capture 68% of the vote for his reelection in 2018.

Ebrahim Raisi of Iran got 72% of the vote in 2021.

The vote totals on these college campuses are similar to what you might find in Syria (Bashar-al-Assad re-elected with 95% of the vote in 2021) which is ranked as the 5th most authoritarian regime in the world.

The fact is that the votes on these college campuses are not far from the 100% vote totals for the Communists (there is no other choice) in China, North Korea and Cuba.

However, these young voters did not have a gun to their heads.

There was no national police in place to intimidate them.

They did not risk being imprisoned for their views.

It seems to me that these vote totals are no reason for anyone to be celebrating.

It is evidence of a lack of critical thinking, diversity of opinion and a dangerous herd mentality on college campuses.

Aren't all of these the antithesis of everything colleges are supposed to be about?

All of this is apparently the result of an education system, mainstream and social media that have aligned with messaging that is equal to the best propaganda techniques.

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/brainwashing?page=1

It was proven long ago that people tend do believe what is repeated over and over, whether it is true or not.

This has long been the tool of propagandists.

Do these voting patterns with young voters not look like the result of brainwashing?

I know that is harsh but how else do you arrive at numbers like this in what is supposed to be a free and democratic society?

Whatever the reason, these students appear to have set a path for a very bleak future for themselves... and for the rest of the country.

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/brainwashing?page=1

George Orwell himself might have found himself surprised how far down that path we are on considering the youth vote in the midterms.

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/brainwashing?page=1

Reality and common sense are already apparently irrelevant to young voters.

If these are the people that we are counting on to lead the country forward and protect its great legacy, we are in deep, deep trouble.

The Status Quo Election

The November, 2022 midterms provides another lesson on why making predictions about how elections will turn out is dangerous.

That is why I try to avoid making any prognostications on what will be happen in any election.

If the pollsters can't get it right.

If those putting real money into the betting markets can miss so easily.

How can I believe that I know what people will do in the voting booth?

I look at facts and data and try to make conclusions that are rational and logical.

I am not a psychiatrist.

For example, look at this data from the midterm exit polling.

73% of voters in House races stated they were Angry (34%) or Dissatisfied (39%) with the way things are going in the U.S.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/national-results/house

76% of voters in the same poll stated that the economy was Poor (38%) or Not So Good (38%).

80% stated that their family's financial situation was Worse (47%) or About the Same (33%) than it was two years ago. Only 19% said it was Better.

Logic would say that these numbers would drive a call for change in the midterms.

If the status quo looks this poor, why would you not vote for change?

However, election results right now suggest that the House and Senate will not look much different in 2023 than it does today. 

The Democrats picked up one Senate seat in Pennsylvania (Fetterman over Oz) where Pat Toomey (R) is retiring. The Republicans look poised to win Nevada where Adam Laxalt is currently leading incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto by 2.5% points.

The House could possibly be in GOP hands by just a few seats just as the Democrats have been in a similar position the last two years.

Not one incumbent Governor lost.

As of now, the Democrats have won the governorships in deep blue Massachusetts and Maryland due to the retirement of Republican governors. However, it was an anomaly that the GOP controlled these seats in these liberal states in the first place. 

Arizona could yet flip to the Democrats but that race is still up in the air. Kari Lake (R) now trails Katie Hobbs (D) by about 13,000 votes but there are hundreds of thousands of votes that have not been counted.

Despite what the voters said about how they feel things are going in the country, and in their personal financial situation, they voted for the status quo.

Trying to make sense of it is a fool's errand.

Gretchen Whitmer (D) in Michigan, who presided over some of the most restrictive and authoritarian state Covid policies in the country won her reelection bid by just over 10 points.

Ron DeSantis (R) in Florida, who kept Florida open and free of most Covid restrictions, won by almost 20 points in a state that he won by just .4% four years ago.

Mike DeWine (R) in Ohio, which borders Michigan, who played Covid more as a centrist (strict early but more reasonable later) won reelection by 25 points.

The political pundits are trying to explain why the big Red Wave did not materialize as the pollsters predicted.

A popular narrative is that it was Donald Trump's fault.

Source: https://twitter.com/JohnnyB48976846/status/1590428261133131776

I think this is being significantly overplayed by those who are anti-Trump.

Candidates who Trump endorsed in the GOP primaries (Vance-OH), (Budd-NC) won. That may also include Kari Lake in Arizona and Herschel Walker in Georgia before it is over.

Dr. Oz was endorsed by Trump in the GOP primary but Oz was the most centrist candidate in that race. He also had high name id, was highly media polished and a whole lot of things you want in a candidate that should be attractive to important swing suburban mothers. 

It did not matter. Oz lost to a man who wears almost nothing but a hoodie and is barely able to carry on a conversation.

One of the reasons Fetterman won is that he did not debate until over 800,000 early votes had already been cast in Pennsylvania. Of course, that debate was an absolute disaster for Fetterman. 

If Oz could not win in Pennsylvania, I don't know who would have done better for the GOP.

The same is true for Walker in Georgia. After all, two high profile Republicans lost in Georgia two years ago.

Who would have done better?

Herschel Walker got 48.7% of the vote on Tuesday. Kelly Loeffler, Warnock's opponent in 2020, got 49.0 % in the runoff race. David Perdue, received 49.4% of the vote against Joel Ossoff. There is not a 1% difference in the results. 

Walker also captured 87.8% of the total vote that Loeffler received in the runoff election two years ago. Warncok received only 85.0% of the votes he received in the 2020 runoff. That argues that Walker did not come up short because he was a poor candidate. Georgia is just a huge demographic challenge for Republicans today compared to a a decade ago.

Brian Kemp, the incumbent Republican Governor, did run about 4.5 points better than Walker in his rematch with Stacy Abrams but incumbency was obviously a big advantage in a status quo election.

What is also missing in the trashing of Trump is the bigger picture of what has transpired in other states that used to be called SWING states.

States like Florida, Ohio and Missouri were once considered purple. They are now solid Red states.

Trump had a lot to do with that electoral shift.

Trump's ability to draw working class voters also made states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania competitive compared to a decade or so ago.

Trump's current record on endorsements?

Despite all of that, Tuesday's results were not good for Trump in comparison to DeSantis.

It was a BIG night for DeSantis.

No one comes out looking better in either party than the Governor of Florida.

DeSantis benefited from a strong results-based incumbency record that made it easy for Florida voters to make it a status quo election. They were not in the mood to mess with anything that was working in that state.

His resounding win gives DeSantis a lot to build on if he chooses to run for President in 2024.

What is my best explanation for what appears to be an illogical result based on the stated views of the voters?

As I wrote about in the prelude to the midterms, turnout is always critical.

It appears that Democrats did a much better job of getting their voters to the polls than the GOP did.

Most of that advantage is in their use of mail-in and early voting.

Midterms never get the turnout that Presidential elections years get.

Turnout in midterm elections used to be a big problem for Democrats. Two of their key constituencies--young voters and minority voters---were much less likely to turnout for the midterms.

On the other hand, Republican voters (many who are older)  could be reliably counted to vote in both cycles.

The advent of  expanded mail-in voting and long early voting periods due to Covid have been highly advantageous to Democrats.

The Democrats have used the long voting periods to micro-target voters. This appears to have been particularly effective with disinterested voters who don't pay much attention to politics but may have one big issue they are passionate about. 

Consider this data on mail and early voting in Pennsylvania,

Democrats turned out 47% of the numbers in the midterms in early voting compared to what they did in 2020.

Republicans only turned out 40%.

Early and Mail-In Ballots in Pennsylvania
2018, 2020, 2022

Fetterman captured 77.5% of the votes that Biden got in 2020.

Oz only got 72.8% of the votes that Trump got two years ago.

Oz lost principally due to turnout.

If he would have gotten the same turnout that Fetterman did (77.5%) on Trump's 2020 results he would have gained 159,000 votes of the 181,000 that he is behind right now.

The exit poll data also indicates that Fetterman beat Oz with Independents 58%-38%--a 20 point margin. 

Trump did 12 points better with Independents against Biden in 2020.

It is hard to look at the numbers and say that Trump was a drag on these GOP candidates when he actually ran better than they did.

We don't have the final numbers but clearly the Democrats were also able to get the 18-29 age group to the polls in the midterms.

I published the chart below in 2014 to contrast the reliability of older voters with young voters in the lead up to the 2014 midterms.

Young voters put Obama in The White House in 2008 but didn't bother to show up in 2010 to defend Democrats in Congress.

 

Older voters turned out in the same numbers each year.

The result was a loss of 63 Democrat House seats in 2010. The Democrats lost 13 House seats in 2014.

I don't have to look far to know that young voters had to show up in pretty significant numbers in 2022 when you compare the voting preferences by age in the exit poll.

It was a Red Wave but for the votes of 18-29 year olds.

More to the point, it was a Red Wave with everyone but single, 18-29 year old females.

Republicans won every other group---married men, married women and single men.

The abortion issue may partially explain this result. However, the percentage share of the vote (23%) and the Democratic preferences numbers (66%) were not materially different in the 2018 midterms when abortion was not a major issue for anyone.

How do you explain the huge divide by age?

My take is that young voters paid almost no attention to the economy or how things are going in the country with their vote.

Most were driven by some type of WOKE issue.

This a group that has known nothing but prosperity and low unemployment levels during their lifetimes.

None of these voters were even out of high school when the 2008 financial crisis hit.

They have seen the high gas and food prices but have bought into the narrative that this is just due to bad luck, Covid or Putin. It has nothing to do with policy choices.

They have not seen tough economic times. They have not seen any significant unemployment except when the government enforced the Covid lockdowns.

They believe that it is more important that someone uses the correct pronouns or is monitoring the gastric output coming from cattle ranches than the price of gasoline or the flood of illegals into the country.

They have been taught that the United States is a racist country and that most every problem is the result  of capitalism, climate change, a criminal justice system that is unfair or Christopher Columbus.

It has been said that people get the government they deserve.

It is also true that some lessons can only be learned the hard way.

Most people will abandon the status quo only when confronted with a significant emotional event that forces a change in their perspective of views.

Elephants are trained in the circus with a bracelet around a leg attached to a pole in the center of the ring that does not allow them to wander beyond the length of the chain.

Once trained, the chain is removed but the bracelet on the leg remains. However, the elephant has learned to not stray from the ring no matter the circumstances. Eventually the bracelet can be removed. They blindly accept the status quo.

It takes a fire in the tent and smoke reaching their nostrils to get the elephant to abandon the circus ring and the status quo they know.

This age group (and most particularly single women) voted for the status quo?

They saw nothing at all to think about voting for any change?

If this group did not move in 2022 I don't see them moving in the future without something that shakes them and their views to the core.

This does not portend a very optimistic future for any of us.

We are hurtling down the road for a rendezvous with history of our own making.  Two clearly marked paths were there for the choosing.  Choices were made.  We all will have to deal with where it leads.

My guess is more pain is on the way.

The status quo will not be an option with where we are headed.

Downhill and Over a Cliff

On the day that Joe Biden took office (January 20, 2021) I wrote a blog post entitled "It's All Downhill From Here".

I expected the United States to enter a downwards trajectory under Biden.

I finished that blog post this way.

The media narrative today shows Biden on top of the world while they portray Trump as a beaten man who has been kicked to the curb.

 I am interested to see how history looks at all of this in several years.

My advice to Joe Biden is to enjoy it while you can. I am betting it is all downhill from here.

I was not optimistic but in no way would I have predicted that the United States could fall so far and so fast.

This has not been a downhill slide. It is more like we have gone over a cliff.

It has taken less than two years.

In that blog post, I wrote down some objective economic measures as things stood on January 20, 2021.

Let's compare where we are today on these measures.

Dow Jones Industrial Average   32,430 (+4.8% since 1/19/21 but -11.4% since 1/1/22)

S&P 500    3,771 (-.1% since 1/19/21 but -21.4% since 1/1/22)

NASDAQ.  10,475. (-20.6% since 1/19/21 but -33.8% since 1/1/22)

10-year Treasury yield  4.163% (increase of over 3 percentage points)

30 year mortgage rate (average)  7.32%   (increase of 4.36 percentage points)

Gallon of gas (AAA national average for regular)  $3.80  ( 59% increase in price)

Natural gas per cf   $6.46.  ( 160% increase in price)

Current employment rate  3.7%  (There are actually fewer people working today than in February, 2020. Part of the reason the unemployment rate is low is because many people left the workforce during Covid.

Inflation rate for the last year  8.2%  (increase of 7 percentage points).

Real median household income  $70,784 at 12/31/21 (decrease of $1,002) (Real median household income  at 12/31/22 will be even lower in that real wages over the last 12 months are down 3%. This would equate to an additional decrease of $2,000 in real household income.)

Poverty rate overall was 10.5% for 2021 (22% increase since 2019)

Poverty rate for African Americans for 2021 was 19.5% (4% increase) 

Poverty rate for Hispanic Americans for 2021 was 17.1% (9% increase)

It is not a pretty picture and I doubt we have reached the bottom.

It is true that Joe Biden had to deal with Covid.

However, he is also the guy would said he was going to shutdown the virus and not shutdown the country and the economy.

Trump dealt with the virus for about 10 months with no vaccines available until his last month in office.

Biden had the vaccines at his disposal since he took office.

What do the measures look like on Covid?

Covid cases under Biden (measured as cases per month) have actually been 41% higher than they were under Trump.

As you look at the chart above also remember that Biden and the Democrats mandated that tens of millions get vaccinated or lose their jobs based on the premise that the vaccines prevented Covid and stopped transmission. These assertions have now been thoroughly discredited.

Covid deaths have come down but almost all of that improvement has been seen this year.

In Biden's first year Covid deaths per month averaged very close to the same numbers under Trump.

However, this was WITH the vaccines.

Did the reduction in deaths have anything to do with Biden's response or was it due to a weaker Omicron variant or natural immunity gained by so many infections?

If it is argued it was due to the vaccines, why was there almost no effect in 2021?

We have also seen where the southern border of the United States has gone from stability to chaos since the Democrats gained control.

Compare apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol during the 2020 fiscal year under Trump with 2021 and 2022 under Biden.

It is unfathomable.

This also only includes illegal aliens which were encountered by the Border Patrol. Most were released into the country.

It does not include illegals that snuck in undetected.

Finally, let's consider what has transpired in the rest of the world over the last two years.

We have seen the humiliating U.S.withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan.

The peace efforts in the Middle East that Trump orchestrated, that saw new bridges being built between Israel and a number of Arab countries, has disintegrated under Biden.

North Korea is once again firing missiles over South Korea and Japan that had ceased when Trump was President.

Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in war for almost nine months.

The United States (and many European countries) have provided tens of billions dollars of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.

I would provide an exact amount of U.S. aid provided to Ukraine but it seems that it is nowhere to be found after numerous Google search attempts.

I am not the only one having a problem.

Noted investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson is having similar problems.

I wish it were true that lawmakers would not blindly give money away with no public accounting. 

I see no evidence of it.

The financial tab from what I can find is at least $65 billion and probably much more.

Interestingly, until 2021 the Department of State was required to publish an annual list of arms sales to foreign countries.

Is it a coincidence that "Section 5114(b)(4) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 repealed the 1994 statutory provision that required the Department of State to publish an edition of  World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT) every year." ?

I doubt it.

The closing argument in the midterms by Biden and the Democrats seems to be that democracy itself is at risk in this election.

I agree.

I don't know that there has ever been a better contrast in comparing where we were to where we are now.

Everything cited above is not opinion.

These are objective facts.

They are the result of policy decisions by our political leaders.

On government spending. Covid. Border enforcement. Foreign affairs.

I could have also cited crime statistics and contrasted it with the calls to "Defund the Police" and the"no cash bail" policies that are popular with Democrats these days.

Policies do matter. 

Who leads us matters.

It has also come about in less than two years.

These are the times that the process of democracy is intended for the people to let their voices rise via their votes and say "ENOUGH".

The way I see it, considering all of the above,  if the voters do not hold those in office accountable for taking us downhill and over a cliff so rapidly, democracy won't be at risk...it will have failed us.

Never Mind!

Comedian Gilda Radner popularized the character Emily Litella on Saturday Night Live in the 1970's.

Litella was a character who appeared on the Weekend News Update segment on the show in which she gave a spirited opinion on a subject that she had misheard or misunderstood. 

When anchor Chevy Chase (or Jane Curtin) stepped in and pointed our her misunderstanding she hesitated a second, said "that's different" or "I'm sorry" and then closed with the famous line..

Never mind. 

Gilda Radner as Emily Litella.

Click here if the video does not play in your browser.

I can't help but think of Emily Litella as I see a lot of what is going on today.

For example. Economics Professor Emily Oster of Brown University recently wrote an article for The Atlantic is which she states that we need to declare a "pandemic amnesty", forgive and forget the missteps of the public health response, and move on.

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/covid-response-forgiveness/671879/

She argues that many of the recommendations (masking outdoors, closing schools, closing beaches and parks, delaying medical treatments) were wrong but nobody could have known that at the time.

Oster says we just need to just move on rather than trying to keep score now of who was right and who was wrong.

It sounds a little like a Emily Litella moment, "Never Mind".

However, it is not accompanied by anything close to "I'm sorry" or "That's different".

It also completely ignores the fact that those who questioned the policy recommendations were called "misinformation spreaders and most of their views were censored by the mainstream media and most social media companies.

Oster also suggests those who were right were just "lucky".

All those who suggested that the lockdowns, school closures and mandates were ill-advised were "lucky"?

BeeLine was lucky when I warned that the vaccines would not stop transmission and infections ?

No.

I read the fine print in the clinical trials of the Covid vaccines.

I first warned in October, 2020 (two month before the vaccines were introduced) that there was nothing in the clinical data that suggested that the vaccines prevented infection or stopped transmission.

In a blog post written in January, 2021, "Are You Going To Get the Vaccine", I wrote this.

The biggest misconception I see in people regarding the vaccine is that they believe it will prevent them from being infected with Covid or if loved ones are vaccinated it will prevent the transmission of the virus to them. This would seem to be an obvious assumption and a primary reason to get the vaccine.

Incredibly, there is no evidence that any of the Covid vaccines will prevent transmission of the virus.

As I wrote when these vaccines were under development, that was never a stated objective or goal of the vaccines. They merely were intended to minimize the symptoms if you get the infection.

There was absolutely nothing in the clinical data or science that suggested that vaccine mandates were warranted in order to protect public health.

There was absolutely no reason for people to be fired from their jobs, threatened and ostracized from society for making a personal choice to reject the vaccines.

However, that is exactly what The Atlantic and scores of other people did.

Source: https://twitter.com/MsMistyMarie/status/1587914133235793927/photo/1

Even worse, Dr. Tony Fauci and others like him are now pretending that they never had anything to do with any of it.

Source: https://www.theepochtimes.com/fauci-claims-he-never-recommended-covid-19-lockdowns_4625763.html

Source: https://fee.org/articles/fauci-claims-he-had-nothing-to-do-with-school-closures-his-own-statements-suggest-otherwise/

Another example of "Never Mind".

However, Fauci won't even admit his role in all of this.

At least, Emily Litella was honest.

Joe Biden is another one who seems unwilling to admit to have forgotten a lot in a couple of years.

Two years ago Joe Biden was going to get rid of fossil fuels.

Source: https://www.atr.org/joe-biden-we-are-going-get-rid-fossil-fuels/?amp

Biden stated he wanted to put oil executives in jail.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7837265/We-jail-Biden-wants-prosecute-fossil-fuel-executives-environment-damage.html

Biden is now complaining because the oil companies are not drilling enough to increase the supply of oil.

He has begged Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to produce more oil.

Never mind.

And then there is this. Consider that this is the reason that Biden and others want to get rid of fossil fuels.

The New York Times was reporting in 1995 that some experts were saying "most of the beaches on the East Coast would be gone in 25 years."

Credit: https://realclimatescience.com/2022/10/herding-the-climate-sheep/

 

That should mean that those beaches would have disappeared by 2020.

And who are a few who own waterfront properties on the East Coast in 2022?

Barack Obama is one.

Source: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a30169311/barack-michelle-obama-buy-marthas-vineyard-house/

Joe Biden also owns a beach property in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware steps away from the ocean.

Here he is this past summer on the beach near his home that should already be gone.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/13/politics/climate-change-biden-vacation-house-invs

Never mind.

Why should these people have any credibility left?

Give me Emily Litella.

How Red Will It Be?

The midterm elections are next week.

I am increasingly being asked what I think will be the result of the election.

Most political pundits seem to agree that the Republicans are poised to pick up enough seats to assume the majority party in the House.

Control of the Senate is a bigger question.

Let's take a BeeLine look at the political landscape heading towards the midterms.

Midterm elections are traditionally challenging for the incumbent President's party.

Joe Biden's current approval ratings suggest that is even truer this year.

Most surveys show Biden's job approval rating at around 40%. 

Biden's approval rating is undoubtedly not helpful for Democrat candidates this year.

In the last 21 midterm elections (dating back to 1938) there have only been two times that the incumbent party gained House seats (1998 and 2002). The average loss of House seats in a midterm election is 33.

However, the last two times there was a Democrat elected (Clinton and Obama) in their first mid-term election after taking office (Clinton 1994 and Obama 2010), the Democrats lost 53 and 63 House seats, respectively.

There is a suggestion in that data to me that voters reacted negatively when they saw that the country was being governed on a much more liberal basis than what was promised during the election.

Might that also be the case in 2022?

There have only been four times in the last 80 years that the President's party has picked up midterm seats in the Senate. The average loss of seats in the Senate over the other 16 midterm election cycles has been 5.5.

History suggests that it will be difficult for Democrats to avoid losses in the midterm elections. If these historical averages are to hold in 2022, the GOP would find themselves in the majority in both the House and Senate. 

This chart from Gallup summarizes some of the key indicators that played into recent midterm election results in the House.

If you look at the four key indicators this year, they are all near historically low values. 

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/404414/gop-political-winds-back-2022.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication

If history is any guide, the Republicans should expect to gain at least 20-25 seats in the House based on these factors alone.

I consider it unlikely the GOP would gain more than 35 seats under the best of circumstances considering the fact that the prior large Red wave elections came about when the Republicans were starting with much lower total numbers in the House.

For context, a gain of 34 seats by the Republicans in the 2022 midterms would give the GOP the most seats they have held in the House since 1928.

As for the Senate, the Democrats are fortunate to have to only defend 14 seats in 2022 compared to the 21 seats that Republicans have to defend.

These numbers alone make it unlikely that we will see a swing close to the average 5 seat swing for mid-term elections in the Senate.

If the Republicans are able to pick up a net 3 seats this year I would consider it a major victory for the GOP.

Anything above that is going to require a massive Red wave.

If you are looking for a signal that we might see that, pay attention to the New Hampshire Senate on election night. If former General Don Bolduc is beating current incumber Democrat Senator Maggie Hassan it bodes well for the GOP.

Even if the Democrats can retain the current 50-50 split in the Senate, they face a brutal map in 2024 in which they need to defend 23 states while Republicans only have to defend 10 states in that cycle.

In addition, there are 36 races involving Governor seats as well as substantial numbers of state legislative seats up for grabs in the midterms.

I have followed politics for a long time and if I have learned anything it is difficult to make firm predictions about anything.

For example, in 1994 I saw the Speaker of the House, Tom Foley, lose to a political newcomer. That had not occurred to any other Speaker since the Civil War. No one predicted that outcome,

Of course, I also witnessed the election of Donald Trump that we were told was impossible.

This graph shows how Trump's prospects looked on a chart during the 2016 election. He was given a 15% chance on Election Da by the New York Times election forecast..

Source: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/forecast_incentives3.pdf

Momentum is a big factor in deciding elections and that does seem to favor Republicans right now.

Most polls have shown Republican candidates gaining support recently.

I am old enough to also remember Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter being in what was called a toss-up race going into Election Day, 1980. Reagan ended up winning in a landslide.

Reagan had all of the momentum after the final debate and it carried him to victory.

Trump also had it in the last two weeks in 2016.

Obama defeated Romney in 2012 with a boost of momentum he got after the response to Hurricane Sandy.

The most critical factor in elections is turnout.

To win, the voters most likely to support your party have to cast ballots. You also have to hope that potential voters of your opponent stay home.

The Republicans have traditionally had more support from older voters and it is a general rule that older age demographics are more likely to vote than younger ages.

Will older voters continue to turnout and will they favor Republicans?

Younger voters have usually voted in large numbers in Presidential years but have been less likely to vote in the midterms.

Turnout among young voters surged in 2018 and 2020 but still significantly lags the percentage of older voters.

In 2020, 75% of those age 65+ voted. Barely 50% of those age 18-24.

Source: https://about.bgov.com/brief/election-demographics-and-voter-turnout/

In the 2018 midterms, 66% of age 65+ voted. Less than a one-third of age 18-24 voted. In 2014, only 17% of this age demographic voted.

Source: https://about.bgov.com/brief/election-demographics-and-voter-turnout/

Democrats need young voters to continue to turn out and support their candidates.

Will they continue to close the voting gap with older voters as they did the last two elections?

This article from Politico suggests that they are not turning out thus far in the early voting efforts.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/28/young-voters-dem-early-00063929

Democrats also absolutely need to retain the support of Blacks and Hispanics in addition to young voters.

However, there is no group that Biden has seen his approval erode more than with Hispanics.

I cited this Quinnipiac poll several months ago that shows how far underwater Biden was with both young voters and Hispanics. Biden's overall approval rating is a better now than it was in June but this is a big hole to climb out of.

Source: https://nypost.com/2022/06/09/biden-approval-at-22-among-young-adults-24-among-hispanics-poll/

Will the loss in approval for Biden inure to the benefit of the GOP in the down ballot midterms races?

How RED will it be next week?

I would call it Red Victory if the GOP wins the House by any margin and keeps the Senate at 50-50.

It would become a Red Wave if the Republicans gained 20 seats in the House and took the majority in the Senate.

I would call if a Red Tsunami if we saw 30 seats flip to the Republicans in the House and 3 in the Senate.

It will depend on the answer to all of the questions above.

And it is the American people alone who will answer those questions in less than a week.