This and That---February 21, 2025 Edition

A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world.

Airplane Accidents

My last blog post was focused on the importance of distinguishing between our perception and the reality of what is going on in the world.

There is no better example of this than the recent reporting by the media and reactions by Democrats to recent airplane accidents.

The intent is clearly to mislead the public and create anti-Trump animus.

Here is an example by Senate Democrat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Trump's massive layoffs at the FAA? They involved less than 400 employees out of a workforce of 45,000 most of which were on probationary status.

Another example by Eric Swalwell (D-CA).

The only problem with Swalwell's statement is that it is not true.

There were almost twice as many airplane accidents in Biden's first month.

The CAROL database can be found here.

And Chuck Schumer also claims that Democrats are fighting to protect the flying public?

Where were they last year?

If that is not enough, here is CNN with a report that January had a record low number of airplane accidents.

Source: https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2025/02/19/cnn-january-had-a-record-low-number-of-airplane-accidents-n3799989

From the CNN reporting.

Take a look at January’s preliminary data from the National Transportation Safety Board.

It appears that last month there was a record low number of airplane accidents nationwide, when combining private and commercial airline flights. Most of the 62 total airplane accidents were on private flights, and that total number was 18 less than the 80 recorded in January 2024.

In fact, if the preliminary numbers hold, January 2025 will surpass the previous record for the lowest number of total accidents, with eight fewer than the prior record low of 70 from January 2012.

 

Credit: https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1892417944983867653

Facts can be very inconvenient when it comes to perceptions.

Elon Musk Is Going To Invade Your Privacy

Another narrative that is being pushed by the media and Democrats is that Elon Musk and his DOGE team are going to somehow steal your personal information stored in government systems like the Social Security System or Internal Revenue Service records.

This is an example in a tweet from a Democrat Congressman from New York.

However, in 2023 during the Biden administration, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration disclosed that almost 1,000 individuals had access to unmasked IRS data.

That included 239 contractors, 73 federal employees who were not working at the IRS and 20 unpaid outsider researchers or student volunteers who were not even on the payroll of the federal government.

Credit: https://x.com/johnkartch/status/1891501183438578138

Who is a bigger risk to your personal data?

Elon Musk and his DOGE team who are operating under a media and political microscope or 1,000 anonymous individuals where their motives are completely unknown?

Where were all of the privacy concerns in 2023?

Another example of perception and reality.

Is There Anyone Left to Turn Off The Lights?

An interesting graphic on where Fortune 500 companies were relocating between 2018-2023.

California lost 8 companies. Texas gained 10.

Note that all of the states that lost large companies are deep blue voting states.

Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-where-fortune-500-companies-are-relocating-in-the-u-s/

Is this just a coincidence?

How Far Could California Go Alone?

Lately we are hearing liberals in California argue that they should secede from the United States.

They might want to consider the following data before they do.

California has the largest international trade deficit of any state--- a negative trade balance of $281 billion.

On the other hand, Texas has a trade surplus of $52 billion.

Source: https://brilliantmaps.com/balance-of-trade-us-states/

What is a big takeaway from this chart?

States that can export oil, gas and food have the most favorable trade balances.

Those that are most reliant on China imports have the worst trade balances.

Don't Sleep On It

I never knew that there was such a wide variation in the amount of sleep that various animals required.

Sharks almost never sleep. I guess they are alway hungry.

No wonder cows don't mind being milked at 4am.

We knew that they are busy most of the time.

There is obviously a large variation in the amount of sleep for the human species.

President Trump and Elon Musk seem to hardly sleep at all.

On the other hand, we wondered for four years whether Joe Biden was ever awake?

When they are not hooting, owls are sleeping quite a bit.

Dogs spend a lot of time sleeping when not trying to get your attention.

Of course, cats spend most of their time sleeping.

And it seems the bigger the cat the more they sleep.

The king of sleep in the animal kingdom is an animal I have never even heard of.

For the complete video of all animals go here.

Don't sleep on any of this information.

Armed with this data you can be the king or queen of small talk at the next cocktail party you attend!

Perception and Reality

Let's take a trip back to February, 2021 and February, 2022.

It was a world caught up in Covid hysteria.

Schools were using remote learning. Millions working from home. Empty restaurants and stores.

Many elective medical procedures and surgeries were cancelled to not overload the hospitals.

Loved ones were not allowed to visit relatives in hospitals and nursing homes.

People were not allowed to gather in churches or at funerals.

Masks and social distancing were the standards of everyday life.

Trillions of federal dollars printed and handed out for Americans whose lives had been disrupted by the pandemic.

Media stories day and night about Covid and the toll it was taking on every aspect of our lives.

Death counters on the evening news.

Daily statistics on the numbers in the hospital due to Covid.

This is a graph by the CDC of the weekly hospitalizations from Covid since March 14, 2020 which is the week we first heard the infamous words "15 Days to Slow the Spread"

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitalization-network

Interestingly, the highest levels of hospitalizations were incurred over one year after the "safe and effective" Covid vaccines were first administered.

That was also almost one year after Dr. Tony Fauci claimed that the vaccines were extraordinarily effective in preventing both hospitalizations and deaths.

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/vaccine-covid-fauci-deaths-b1808878.html

“The J&J data that just came out – when you have advanced critical disease, there were no hospitalisations and no deaths. That’s good news,” Dr Fauci said in an interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan.

Of course, the J&J vaccine that Fauci was so highly touting in 2021 was pulled from the market in 2023 due to concerns about serious blood clotting issues in some recipients.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12174791/J-Js-COVID-vaccine-taken-19-MILLION-Americans-pulled-FDA-plummeting-demand.html

I provide this historical context as I have recently been following CDC data regarding the prevalence of influenza and other respiratory illnesses in the United States this flu season.

One interesting data point is that the percentage of outpatient visits for respiratory illnesses (influenza, SARS-Cov-2 (Covid-19 and other coronaviruses) and RSV is at the highest level it has been in the last 5 years.

This includes all of the Covid pandemic years.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/fluview/surveillance/2025-week-06.html

This is even more astounding to me as you would think that total outpatient visits for other medical conditions (the denominator in this equation) would have been depressed during the Covid years.

How much have you seen or heard much of anything about the current flu pandemic?

Have there been any calls for any mitigation efforts against the flu this year?

It is not much different when you look at the data on hospitalizations from the flu.

In Week 5 of this flu season (week ending February 1, 2025) the hospitalization rate for influenza in the U.S population was 12.8/100,000. There were another 2.8/100,000 hospitalized with Covid.

That totals 15.6/100,000 for Covid + flu.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/fluview/surveillance/2025-week-06.html

To get an accurate representation on hospitalizations over the last five years for respiratory illness it is necessary to add flu cases together with Covid cases.

This is due to the fact that during the heights of the Covid pandemic flu cases practically disappeared.

( I wrote about this mystery early in the pandemic (October, 2020). The best explanation I have seen is one of "viral interference" in that Covid in some way blocked the flu virus from replicating in the population. It is almost as if Covid was bigger and stronger so that the flu could not get firmly established in the community when Covid was present.

The other possible explanation is that a lot of flu cases ended up being misidentified as Covid.)

If you take that 15.6/100,000 number for 2025 and compare it to the comparable number of hospitalizations on the same Week 5 data for Covid and the flu in 2021, 2022 and 2023 you get these numbers.

Incredibly, there were more people in the hospital with Covid or the flu the first week of February, 2025 than there was during the same week in any of the years of the pandemic.

However, there is almost no mention of this in the media or by any public health authorities?

Considering this data I could not help thinking about the old thought experiment involving the tree that falls in a forest with no one around.

Is there a sound if no one can hear it?

Credit: https://custom-writing.org/blog/if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest

What is reality and what is perception?

Looking back, was the Covid pandemic more about perception than reality?

What can be said about what is going on right now with flu cases in the United States?

Are we ignoring the reality because the perception is different?

Interesting questions to consider.

Of course, it should be clear today that perception rather than reality permeated almost everything about the Covid pandemic

That includes the public health response to it.

Almost everything was done based on perception rather than reality.

There was no science to support that wearing surgical and cloth masks offered any real protection against the virus.

There was no science behind the 6 foot social distancing recommendation.

These were both pushed by Fauci and the public health establishment to provide the perception to the public that something was being done for their protection. It was not based on science or reality.

The "15 Days To Slow The Spread" campaign was also all about perception.

Dr. Deborah Birx wrote in her book that "15 days to slow the spread " was just the term they used to convince Trump to approve the initial lockdown. They all knew that it was just the start and they wanted to lockdown much longer

Source: https://www.independentsentinel.com/dr-birx-admits-they-lied-about-the-15-days-to-flatten-the-curve/

Dr. Birx is now confessing that the Covid vaccines were not designed to prevent transmission or infections and should not have been pushed on the younger population.

Link: https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1891690382779470104

It should be noted that while Dr. Birx is now admitting the reality of the Covid vaccines, I wrote about it in these pages two months before they were first released.

How did I, a non-Doctor, know that the Covid vaccines were not designed to be effective against infection and transmission before the vaccines were even released?

 

I did research regarding the vaccines in development and cited a Harvard Medical School professor who had followed the clinical research studies closely.

Here is what I wrote in "What You Should Know About The Covid Vaccine" in October, 2020.

Prevention of infection is the normal critical end point goal for any vaccine trial. The vaccine should be effective at preventing infection and stopping the spread of the virus. This is particularly important at this time when we have a virus that has caused a pandemic.

However, that is not the stated goal of the Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines that are currently in late stage trials with the expectation they will be ready for widespread distribution within several months.

Haseltine points out that in none of the vaccine trial protocols for any of these vaccines is the prevention of infection considered a criterion of success.

The vaccines are to be considered a success merely if they reduce the severity of the symptoms of someone who is infected with Covid.

Of course, the Covid vaccines were not just pushed on younger people, they were MANDATED.

People were told that they would be protected from the virus and it would protect others around them.

Millions and millions of people were affected.

Nurses and other medical professionals were fired for not taking the vaccine.

Military personnel were discharged.

College students were not allowed to enroll in college.

Foreign visitors and legal immigrants were barred from the country if they had not been fully vaccinated against Covid. (Of course, this rule was not applied to illegal immigrants).

Many employers who believed they were following the reality of "the science" put their own mandates in place and fired employees who would not comply.

All of this was done to create a perception of protection that did not exist in reality.

In fact, most everything was based on misinformation, disinformation and outright lies.

The sad reality is it was those who tried to point out reality were the ones who were censored and maligned.

There is an important lesson here.

There is a difference between perception and reality.

Much of what you are exposed to in the media today is designed to influence your perception of reality rather than the actual reality of a situation.

At BeeLine, my goal is to always analyze the data and facts to find reality.

I provide the receipts wherever I can so you can do your own research and form your own opinions.

Please expose a few friends to my work so that more people understand the difference between perception and reality

It can be a lonely path . However, it is the only route to find real truth.

A Frenetic Four Weeks

It has been four weeks since Donald Trump was inaugurated as President for his second term.

What a four weeks it has been.

It has been like nothing I have ever seen or could have imagined.

The pace and scope of the Trump agenda is beyond anything most anyone expected.

A prime example has been Trump's cabinet nominations.

When Trump first named his cabinet nominees the consensus was that he would have a difficult time getting all of them confirmed.

Many believed that Pete Hegseth, RFK, Jr,, Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel and Pam Bondi would especially face a lot of opposition in the Senate.

There was even talk that Trump might have had to take the extraordinary measure of recessing Congress and using the recess appointment process to get these names approved.

Trump is currently on the brink of getting all of his key nominees confirmed with the Patel vote scheduled to take place this week.

In addition, in his first four weeks he has embarked on an all out assault on the government bureaucracy with DOGE audits.

He has ICE rounding up and deporting illegal aliens.

He is declassifying files on the JFK and RFK assassinations, the Jeffrey Epstein files, Covid 19 origins and UFO's.

Trump has imposed tariffs to assist in leveling the playing field with foreign competitors and take pressure off of the federal income tax.

He has gotten American citizens that were imprisoned in Venezuela and Russia released.

Trump has announced a plan to rebuild Gaza.

Federal employees have been ordered to return to work at their offices and those with probationary status have been terminated.

Men have been banned from participating in women's sports.

Hospitals that perform transgender procedures on minors will not be eligible to receive any federal funding.

Trump seems to have had more interactions with the press in four weeks than Biden had in four years.

Trump is involved on so many fronts and at such a frenetic pace it has been challenging for the Democrats to forcefully challenge him on anything.

The Democrats seem to have decided that the best chance they have is to attack Trump's ties with Elon Musk, argue that nobody voted for what Trump is doing and argue that Trump is fomenting a constitutional crisis with his actions.

However, those arguments do not seem to be carrying much weight with voters.

The four most recent polls on Trump's approval rating have him at an average net score of +6.

Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating

Trump's approval rating is higher now than when he was elected. It is also higher than it has ever been since he entered politics.

An ABC poll on Trump's key agenda issues shows strong support among voters.

70% of voters in a CNN poll agree that Trump is doing exactly what he promised he would do.

Link: https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1888954522459869675

That result in the CNN poll was reinforced by a focus group conducted with swing voters in Arizona by Axios (a left leaning news website) that found that every voter in the group approved of Trump's actions thus far and most approved of Musk's efforts.

Credit: https://x.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/1890380812471701741

The bottom line from that focus group is that swing voters are delighted with what Trump and Musk are doing to bring more accountability from government.

The moderator of the focus group said "Democrats should be scared to death" based on the views of these swing voters.

Credit: https://x.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/1890380812471701741

The most interesting polling I have seen lately is the recent survey from Rasmussen Reports which found that for the first time in over 20 years more voters believed the nation was on the right track compared to the wrong track.

47% right track vs. 46% wrong track.

For perspective, last August only 26% of voters believed the United States was on the right track compared to 65% who believed it was on the wrong track.

Source: RealClearPolitics.com

That is a huge change in attitudes in a very short period of time.

It is all due to Donald J. Trump.

Of course, Donald Trump could not be doing anything so ambitious without the approval and support that he has from the American people.

The only reason that Trump has been able to get all of his cabinet nominees through the Senate is the strong popular support that he has. That support has only gotten stronger since the election and as voters have seen Trump following through on his campaign promises.

I believe the DOGE findings have done a lot to reinforce voters support of Trump's agenda to show how far off track the federal bureaucracy is.

Any Republican choosing to oppose Trump's cabinet nominees and his agenda right now is effectively saying that they have no interest in continuing their political career (e.g., Mitch McConnell).

Voters are saying they have Trump's back and they expect the Senate and House to do the same.

A simple truth is also revealed in what we are seeing with Trump right now.

The people are sovereign in our system. Their power is absolute.  Unfortunately, too many people don't believe it. The simple fact is that politicians have no power unless the people provide it.

Laws that do not have public backing do not survive over the long term. Lawmakers who make laws that people do not support do not stay in office very long. Politicians who do not do the will of the people soon need to find other employment.

Presidents who have popular support can accomplish a great deal. Trump is proving that right now.

Trump won on a platform of common sense proposals with a simple message that resonated with voters-Make America Great Again. He understands that he has a limited amount of time to implement his agenda which explains the frenetic pace.

However, popular support can be fleeting. The expectations of voters are often not met with corresponding results. 

Barack Obama was sitting at 69% approval shortly after taking office only to see the Democrats lose a Senate seat in Massachusetts in less than a year.

George H.W. Bush had overwhelming support as he rallied the United States and the world against the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. Bush's 89% approval rating in 1991 did not help the next year when he lost to Bill Clinton.

Donald Trump understands all of this.

That is why I think we will continue to see a frenetic pace matched with a fearless, ferocious and focused effort to turn his campaign promises into successes.

How far can Trump go in transforming America?

Trump will only go as far as the people of America are willing to stay the course and continuing supporting him

The first four weeks are always easiest on that score.

Sustaining the momentum for the full four years is where it will become very difficult.

However, if Trump can succeed he will become one of the most transformative Presidents in history.

That success could also mean that the Democrat party might also have to totally transform itself to remain relevant.

It promises to be an interesting four years.

Running Out Of Oxygen

NGO's, or non-governmental organizations, have received a lot of attention in the wake of the investigation by Elon Musk and his DOGE team on governmental inefficiency and waste.

A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an entity that operates independently from government control, often focusing on humanitarian, social, environmental, or developmental issues. In that they are typically involved in "charitable" activities they are not subject to income taxes as non-profits.

However, as we are finding out with the DOGE audit, while it can be argued that these NGO's are operating independently from government control, many are heavily dependent on government funding to operate.

Does that really make them independent of government control and influence?

A recent study estimated that 35,000 nonprofits—about a third of government grantees—rely on grants for more than 50% of their total revenue. 

That study also found that larger NGO's are more likely to be reliant on government grants than smaller non-profits. 55% of organizations with budgets of $5 million or more receive at least one government grant annually.

Let's look at a couple examples of NGO's that have been in the spotlight recently.

The Democrats and media have been attempting to create a narrative that the pause in funding to USAID resulted in a woman dying because of Trump and Musk.

She supposedly died after she was discharged from a healthcare facility in Myanmar that was operated by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) which is a U.S. based NGO.

In fiscal year 2023, IRC had $1.4 billion in revenues. However, almost $1 billion of those revenues were in the form of government grants and contracts (72% of the total).

Only $251 million of IRC's revenues came from contributions. Even then, contributions were down over 40% from the prior year. 

If you can rely on government money to fund your organization why work hard at raising your own charitable contributions?

This is a screenshot from the 2023 annual report (the most recent available) of the International Rescue Committee.

Source: https://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/PO2404_Annual%20Report%202023_No%20Donors-DIGITAL-Spreads.pdf

You can also see how the annual revenues of the IRC increased by over $500 million in the Biden years as summarized by Charity Navigator.

The IRC also reported having over $230 million in cash and savings investments and over $125 million in security investments as of its last Form 990 filing with the federal government.

Source: https://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/IRC%20Inc.%20Form%20990-FY2022_0.pdf

The executives of IRC also appear to be well compensated as a result of that government money.

Source: https://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/PO2404_Annual%20Report%202023_No%20Donors-DIGITAL-Spreads.pdf

The CEO is earning almost $1.2 million annually.

The Co-Chairs of the Board of Directors of the International Rescue Committee are Timothy Geithner, Former U.S. Secretary of Treasury under Barack Obama and Sally Susman who is Executive VIce President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of Pfizer. She leads Pfizer's lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C. and is also a major Democrat fundraiser and donor.

The IRC fails to supply oxygen to a 71-year woman in Myanmar and the Democrats and media want to blame Trump and Musk despite the fact that the IRC has hundreds of millions of dollars of liquid assets and its CEO is making $1+ million?

Is all the hysteria about a woman not getting the oxygen she needs in Myanmar really about concern about that woman or is it really about NGO's being cut off from the government money (oxygen) which is keeping their livelihoods intact?

Sir Walter Scott described what is going on here rather accurately a long time ago.

Another NGO that DOGE has highlighted is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

This is how the NED describes its mission on its website.

Source: https://www.ned.org/about/

The NED is even more reliant on government funding than the IRC.

According to its most recent published financial statements, 99.7% of its revenue comes from the U.S. government.

Source: https://www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/National-Endowment-for-Democracy_23-FS_Final.pdf

How can this be considered a non-governmental organization?

Many, including journalist Glenn Greenwald, see NED as a CIA front to meddle in foreign elections.

Elon Musk is asking the $3+ billion question (the amount that the U.S. had poured into NED over the last decade).

I don't know many who would say that it is not a worthwhile endeavor to help fund healthcare facilities in Myanmar or promote democracy around the world.

However, the fact is that the United States has over $36 billion in federal debt and the annual deficit is running at over $2 trillion per year.

For the first four months of the fiscal year that began October 1, 2024, the federal deficit was $840 billion compared to $530 billion for the same period a year ago.

This appears to have been driven in part by the Biden administration throwing federal money at almost everything they could in their waning days.

As an example, newly Trump appointed EPA administrator Lee Zeldin found that Biden's EPA had sent $20 billion to be parked at external financial institutions in January with the intent of later distributing the money to left wing climate change NGO's.

Zeldin compared it as being akin to throwing gold bars overboard as the Titanic sunk.

Link: https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1889850987520696554

We are at a point that tough financial decisions have to be made.

Perhaps none of what has been uncovered by DOGE is outright fraud, money laundering or payoffs to political friends. 

Maybe all of it was well-intentioned and not intended to support a leftist or globalist point of view.

However, are we going to attempt to save the rest of the world or is it more important to save ourselves?

It is an important question.

For if we cannot save ourselves, the rest of the world has very little hope.

What are the words that we hear in the safety instructions every time we step on an airplane?

No one wants to see a 71 year old woman in Myanmar not receive the oxygen she needed.

However, what happens if the United States is not able to help anyone---most particularly its own citizens---because we did not recognize we are in the midst of a fiscal emergency and in danger of running out of our own oxygen?