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

Personal Savings

The personal savings rate is in free fall as a result of the expiration of Covid relief programs and inflation that has squeezed the household budgets of Americans.

The personal savings rate has never been lower.

Things were great two years ago as government checks filled bank accounts while no one had anywhere to spend the money due to lockdowns.

It is a different story today.

Personal savings of $4.85 billion was registered in 2020's second quarter. Last quarter the personal savings of Americans had dropped to only $685 million according to the Federal Reserve.

Personal savings has disappeared as real personal disposable income has gone negative like nothing we have seen.

How is the consumer still spending?

Credit cards to the rescue.

How long can this continue?

Home Sales

U.S. pending home sales are also in the midst of their biggest decline in over 20 years.

The declines have been faster and deeper than what was witnessed in the 2009-2011 financial crisis.

Credit: https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/us-pending-home-sales-plunge-biggest-annual-drop-ever

Unemployment

The unemployment rate has not nudged up yet but that might be about to change.

Challenger (an executive recruiting specialist) maintains a database that tracks job layoff announcements. This index typically is ahead of the actual unemployment claims that follow the layoffs.

The Challenger index is forecasting bad news over the next few months.

Credit: https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/continuing-jobless-claims-hit-10-month-highs-layoffs-exploded-november

In addition, the latest ADP jobs employment report shows that 100,000 manufacturing jobs were lost last month. Professional and business services lost another 77,000 jobs.

The good news is that there were a lot more bartenders, waitress and hotel hospitality jobs being filled.

All will be good for them until the credit cards max out.

Credit: https://twitter.com/DontWalkRUN/status/1597976685487738881

Overall net employment growth is slowing according to ADP.

Credit: https://twitter.com/CortesSteve/status/1598026014701268993

How long before it goes negative?

It's About the Environment?

In order to transition away from fossil fuels, and rely on solar, wind and electric vehicles, is going to require a tremendous amount of copper. This is a key resource in all of these so-called "green energy" initiatives.

For context, over the last 5,000 years, humans have mined 700 million tons of copper.

To meet the energy transition targets that have been established by the climate change lobby, it will require another 700 million tons of copper to be be mined over the next 22 years.

It also takes, on average, 16 years of lead time to open a copper mine in the United States considering regulatory and other issues.

Cobalt, graphite, lithium, nickel and vanadium are other metals that are required for green technologies.

Compare the requirements for these key minerals to known reserves.

It seems that something does not add up in all of this.

Credit: https://twitter.com/BrianGitt/status/1595063248092819456

I have no doubt that tremendous innovations and advancements will be made in the future.

More reserves will be found. Better extraction techniques will be discovered. Alternative metals will be utilized.

However, to have any government mandating the abolition of energy sources that work well today for things that are unproven is a recipe for disaster.

What is the greater potential disaster?

Climate change?

The response to perceived climate change?

Climate Change?

What is going on right now with temperatures around the world?

The United States.

These charts compare actual temperatures compared to averages (green/blue colder, orange, yellow warmer).

India.

Australia.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/30/australia-weather-second-wettest-spring-ever-coldest-in-decades

Remember that all of the alarm about climate change was originally supposed to be because increased carbon emissions were going to raise temperatures, melt the ice caps, flood coastal areas and cause droughts that would curtail food supplies.

Now these same charts are used by many to argue that climate change is occurring.

Yes it is. As it has since the dawn of time with man or without.

If you have not been paying attention lately a lot has changed with Covid.

Cases are soaring in China compared to what has been reported in the past.

Covid cases per million people in China are still a fraction of what is being seen in countries such as Australia, Germany, Japan and the United States.

However, the ability of China to maintain low case numbers has come at a tremendous loss of freedom to the Chinese people under the Zero Covid policies of the Chinese Communist Party.

The significant question to be answered over the next few weeks is whether China will be able to continue to pursue the lockdowns and mandates associated with its Zero Covid policies in the face of emerging protests by the masses.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/26/china/china-protests-xinjiang-fire-shanghai-intl-hnk

What is also interesting is that each of the biggest global adversaries of the United States (China, Russia and Iran) are embroiled in large protests by its citizens related to government policies.

These are authoritarian governments.

It takes real courage to take to the streets and protest what government leaders are doing. It literally could be the last thing that you do.

It shows the level of frustration and anger boiling beneath the surface with the people in these countries.

Could the United States find some way to take advantage of this situation and give these people some hope for freedom?

Color me less than optimistic with the current administration in charge.

In the meantime, in the United States, influenza and the respiratory virus RSV are much more prevalent after being almost undetectable for the better part of the last two years.

For example, hospitalizations for influenza for those age 65+ were almost non-existent for weeks 40-45 (red line in the chart below) in 2020 and 2021.

That is no longer the case. 

The traditional flu season is yet to come. However, flu cases are already exploding. Will this trend continue or is this season just early this year?

A similar pattern is seen in RSV hospitalizations.

There were very few hospitalizations in the 2020/2021 (blue dotted line) and 2021/2022 (thin green line) seasons but there has been an explosion in RSV thus far this season (bold green line)

Why?

Did viral interference with Covid outcompete these other viruses in the last two years and they have no come back with a vengeance?

Did Covid policies such as lockdowns, masking etc. result in immune suppression such that the immune systems of people are not as well primed to fight off the flu and RSV as before?

Did the Covid vaccines cause some type of immune suppression that is making vaccinated people more vulnerable to other diseases?

A Midwestern Doctor discusses the possibilities in a substack post that might be of interest.

While the flu and RSV are in a resurgent trend, Covid has thus far settled down in the United States compared to the last two years at this time.

If you look again at the chart above comparing cases in Australia, Japan and Germany you will also see that the United States case counts are much better than in these other counties.

It should be noted that all of these countries also have much higher vaccination rates than the United States.

That makes it difficult to argue that the lower case counts are due to vaccinations.

It seems much more likely that natural immunity has been more responsible for the decline.

New reported cases are now about 50% of what they were at this time last year and 25% of what they were two years ago.

Of course, cases surged in each of those years in December in the wake of Thanksgiving gatherings and colder weather causing more people to stay indoors.

Will we see a tripledemic of Covid, influenza and RSV in the coming months?

Dr. Fauci and Biden Covid Advisor Dr. Ashish Jha have hit the airwaves hard over the last week warning about a possible tripledemic this winter.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/27/white-house-fauci-jha-covid-vaccines

It seems that the only real advice they have is for everyone to get vaccinated with the new bivalent Covid booster and a flu shot. There is no vaccine for RSV.

To be fair, Dr. Fauci did tell everyone that they should take a Covid test before going to any Thanksgiving gatherings. How many of you did that?

Source: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/11/22/anthony-fauci-urges-americans-to-get-covid-tests-before-thanksgiving-everybody-should-be-vaccinated/

Of course, when Fauci says "everybody should be vaccinated" he is talking about the full five doses, including the new bivalent Covid booster, and this year's flu vaccine.

The American people don't seem to be buying what they are selling.

Only 11% of Americans have gotten the new Covid booster.

The number of flu doses administered is the lowest it has been in recent memory,

Only 42 million doses had been administered by the end of October according to the CDC. By comparison, 62 million doses of flu vaccine had been administered by that time in 2020.

What has caused this change?

Could it be that our public health authorities have lost a substantial amount of credibility over the last two years with ineffective, and what turned out to be inaccurate statements, about our Covid response and the efficacy of the vaccines?

Will we see a tripledemic?

I have no doubt that we will see all three surge at some point this winter.

However, I doubt we will see all three peak at the same time. My belief is that viral interference will prevent all three from being dominant simultaneously.

An increasing number of epidemiologists subscribe to that view.

That was very much a minority view when I first advanced that theory as to why the seasonal flu had seemingly disappeared with the emergence of Covid in 2020.

You may recall that in October, 2020 Dr. Fauci was warning that we would be facing a twindemic in the 2020/2021 season caused by Covid and the flu.

I questioned that view based on the data I was seeing around the world, most particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, that was just coming out of its winter flu season. Flu had practically disappeared there while Covid was present.

I wrote the following on October 19, 2020 regarding viral interference.

It will also be interesting to see if we see a twindemic in the United States that Dr. Fauci and other experts are predicting.

This data indicates to me that Covid may be in some way blocking the flu virus from replicating in the population. It is almost as if Covid is bigger and stronger so that the flu cannot get established in the community when Covid is present.

As always, we will find out together what happens in China with Covid and the United States with any tripledemic.

I am not a betting man but I would not wager much on whether Dr. Fauci and friends are any better at predicting a tripledemic than they were a twindemic.

Or anything else that he was so famously wrong about over the last three years.

I wish Dr. Fauci a very happy and healthy retirement.

He says he is merely transitioning to another chapter in his career.

Perhaps he is thinking he can lend a hand to the Chinese.

It seems he might have had some experience in doing that previously.

Source: https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/nih-admits-us-funded-gain-of-function-in-wuhan-despite-faucis-repeated-denials/

The first Thanksgiving was held in 1621.

The Pilgrims had experienced an enormously challenging first year in the New World after landing at Plymouth Rock a year earlier.

In their first two months, half of the Pilgrims died during the harsh winter.

Their first year of farming (1621) was disappointing. Those that remained after that first year were just thankful to be alive at that first Thanksgiving.

The following year (1622) was not much better. There was stealing and hoarding among the ranks because the harvest was still meager.

Entering 1623, the leaders of the Pilgrims knew that the status quo would no longer suffice.

Major changes were necessary if they were to survive and succeed in their new home.

The Pilgrims had come to America with an agreement that they would function as what we would call today a "socialist commune". What they each produced individually was put into a common warehouse from which each family then took out their individual needs as determined by the Governor.

As you might expect, while everyone took what they needed, many did not do their fair share of work.

It was clear entering 1623 that changes had to made if the Pilgrims were going to survive and prosper.

As a result, in 1623, after two years of failure, the Pilgrims abandoned the status quo and went in another direction. 

The change in direction that the Pilgrims made is an interesting story if you were not aware of it before.

I first wrote about it in these pages back in 2013.

It is a more interesting story right now considering the parallels between 1622 and 2022 and the status quo election we have just experienced.

After two years of failures, the Pilgrims recognized that the status quo had to change 

In 2022, where we have just completed a status quo election after two years of failures that are hard to ignore, we apparently are on another path.

400 years later we know the Pilgrims made the right choice.

Will the same be said in the history books about the decisions that were made in 2022?

Pilgrims, Prosperity And Poverty

(originally published November 28, 2013)

I am thankful for many things.  My family. My friends. My job. I could go on and on. The list is very long.

I am most thankful I was born in the United States of America.  A country founded on the concept of individual rights and freedom.  A country that has embraced the idea of economic freedom, property rights, and capitalism.

Of course, I was born at a different time than where we seem to be today in our attitudes about some of these ideals. Will our young people be as thankful as I am about their country of birth?  I certainly hope so.  However, it amazes me how we fail to accept the reality of the failings and foibles of the human condition throughout history. As a result, the same mistakes and missteps plague us no matter how many times the history lesson is taught.

Look no further than Venezuela.  What was once the one of the most prosperous South American countries now languishes under a socialist regime despite rich natural resources.  Communist North Korea can't feed its own people while South Korea is giving a tablet computer to every school child. 

Taiwan flourished in freedom while Red China floundered for decades before it embraced capitalist-based economic reforms. The same was true for East and West Germany.  In all of these cases there was no difference in the people.  They were literally blood brothers and sisters.  It was the governmental system and philosophy that made the difference between prosperity and poverty for the nation's people.

Speaking of history, let's revisit the story of the Pilgrims and the origins of Thanksgiving Day. The story as I learned it in school was about a group of rugged individuals who set sail on The Mayflower in 1620 seeking religious freedom in America.  They encountered many hardships that first year but thanks to help from Indians and the Grace of God (I am sure this is no longer mentioned in the textbooks) they reaped a bountiful harvest in the following year and gave thanksgiving with a giant feast.

The First Thanksgiving At Plymouth, Jennie Augusta Brownscombe

The real story is much more enlightening.  It also shows that there is absolutely no question about which system works best to provide the most prosperity for the most people and limits poverty.  There should be no debate. There is absolutely no question.  It has been shown to be true over and over again. However, over and over, we see those who think there is a better, more humane, way to best provide for people in a society.

The real story of the Pilgrims was written by William Bradford who was the leader of the Plymouth Colony from 1621-1657.  He wrote "Of Plymouth Plantation" to chronicle the story of the Pilgrims and it is recognized today as the most complete authoritative source on the subject.

One of the best summaries I have read about the Pilgrim story was written by Dr. Judd W. Patton, "The Pilgrim Story: Vital Insights And Lessons For Today".

Let's start at the beginning.  When the Pilgrims decided to go to America they had a problem not uncommon to many of us. They did not have enough money. They lacked the funds to sail to America, equip and establish their colony.  As a result, they got financial help from some investors who financed New World adventures in return for a share of what the colonists made through farming, fishing, trade and other working endeavors.

The contract between the Adventurers (Investors) and the Pilgrims consisted of ten points. The most critical of which stated, “That all such persons as are of this colony are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock and goods of the said colony.” 

Today we would call this a socialist commune. In other words, the Pilgrims accepted the socialist principle, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Each person was to place his production into the common warehouse and receive back, through the Governor, only what he needed for himself or his family. The surplus after seven years was to be divided equally, along with the houses, lands, and chattels, “betwixt the Adventurers and Planters.” 

The first year after they set sail for America was particularly difficult.  The voyage itself took sixty-six days. They landed first on Cape Cod even though they had intended to reach the mouth of the Hudson River.  They spent another month sailing the coast of Cape Cod until they finally decided to settle in Plymouth at the site of an old Indian village on December 21, 1620.

Within two months, half of their numbers died. Of the 24 families who had set sail, only four were untouched by death that first year.  Four other families were wiped out completely.  Those that made it to that first Thanksgiving were thankful.  However, it wasn't necessarily because of a bountiful harvest. They were just happy to have survived.

Contrary to legend the harvests were extremely poor in 1621 and 1622. It was normal to be hungry. Governor Bradford referred to 1621 as the “the small harvest” year.  Yet he notes that in “the summer there was no want.” Thankful for what God had given them, Governor Bradford declared a three-day feast for the purpose of prayer and celebration. We all know it as the first New England Thanksgiving – apparently observed in late summer.

Things were marginally better in 1622. The harvest was a little better but many Pilgrims held back and did not work as hard as others.  There was stealing and hoarding. Bradford and the other Pilgrim leaders recognized that this would continue unless they changed the system.  What could they do to prevent another poor harvest?

This is how Governor Bradford tells it in "Of Plymouth Plantation".

“So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go on in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land…This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise…The women now went willingly into the field, and took the little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”

The socialist system was discarded and replaced with a system that was built on individual property rights and that put the trust in individual initiative to take care of the common good of the colony.

How did that work out?

In 1621, the Pilgrims planted only 26 acres. Sixty acres were planted in 1622.  But in 1623, spurred on by individual enterprise, 184 acres were planted!  Somehow those who alleged weakness and inability became healthy and strong. It’s amazing what incentive will do to improve bad attitudes!

However, the Pilgrims still had their challenges. The summer of 1623 was hot and dry. For almost two months there was no rain. Their crops were in jeopardy. Governor Bradford did not lose faith.

Governor Bradford then set a “solemn day of humiliation (fasting) to seek the Lord by humble and fervent prayer in this great distress.” Their prayers were answered. By evening it began to rain. It revived the corn and other fruits. Even the Indians were astonished. The soft showers continued along with beautiful fair weather. The result was a “fruitful and liberal harvest …for which mercy they also set apart a day of thanksgiving.”

By the fall of 1624, the colonists were able to export a full boat load of corn! And the Pilgrims settled with the Adventurers. They purchased the Adventurers stock in the colony and completed the transition to private property and free markets.

The rest is history.  The experience of the Pilgrims went a long way to forming the values and principles upon which our Founding Fathers created a new nation unlike anything the world had ever seen before. It came to be the most prosperous and powerful country ever known to mankind. For that I am forever thankful to the Pilgrims and the others who endured trials and tribulations to give me the life I have today.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving it is useful to remember the Pilgrims and what their experience can teach us.  I think Dr. Patton summarizes the lessons pretty well.

The Pilgrim experience dating from 1623 was and is yet a prototype for the United States of America.  They learned the hard way that: (1) Socialism does not work; it diminishes individual initiative and enterprise; (2) Socialism is not a Godly economic system; and (3) Famine and drought can be used by God to humble a people and set them on a proper course.  The Pilgrims responded.  The real question today is:  Can Americans learn these vital insights from the Pilgrims or must we too face famine and drought in the coming years?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sir Isaac Newton is credited with formulating the law of gravity after watching an apple fall from a tree.

He asked why the apple had fallen straight down rather than sideways, or even upwards?

The law of gravity encompasses apples on a tree to satellites shot into space.

What goes up eventually comes down.

We have witnessed the same general rule with great empires, powerful corporations and economic conditions.

It is difficult to continue to ascend or to maintain a high standing over time.

Gravity eventually rules.

Look no further than what we have witnessed with cryptocurrency company FTX in the last week or so.

Its FTT crypto token has lost over 98% of its "value" in a little over a year. It is essentially trading where it was when it was introduced.

It is estimated that investors have lost BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars.

It has been reported that the top 50 customers of FTX alone have lost over $3 billion. 

Gravity at work.

As we are about to start another year how much will the law of gravity apply to other issues that might be important to us?

A couple of charts to suggest that the forces of gravity may come into play.

The ratio of US housing costs to income.

If we do not see incomes rise substantially or lower mortgage rates, housing prices will be falling in 2023.

Mortgage demand has already fallen to the lowest level since 1997.

Credit card and other consumer debt have expanded massively over the last year.

This indicates that the consumer is under a great deal of pressure and consumer spending may have to tighten considerably in 2023.

Consumers loans (blue line) and personal saving (red line).

To make matters worse, the average interest rate on credit card debt has risen to the highest level since this measure was first tracked beginning in 1994.

In the meantime, retail inventories have grown substantially (up over 20%+) over the last year as supply chain issues improved. Retailers have a glut of inventory just as consumers are starting to come under pressure.

This may mean more holiday sales than last year as retailers try to turn that inventory to cash.

Source: https://www.axios.com/2022/11/18/holiday-shopping-sales-discounts-supply-chains

Further good news is that unemployment is near the lower end of historical averages.

However, this is partially due to changes in the workforce which is seeing thousands of older baby boomers retire and a lack of younger workers filling the labor force gap.

Consider the growth in the labor force over the decades.

The civilian labor force in the 2020's is growing on average at only .3% per year.

This is a mere fraction of the 2.6% it was growing at in the 1970's.

The large increase in the 1970's was caused by baby boomers entering the workforce.

The small increase in the labor supply in the 2020's is due to those same baby boomers retiring.

Declining birth rates over the last 50 years are the reason.

There is another country that is going to see huge impacts on its workforce in the future due to declining birth rates.

China has quickly become a demographic disaster.

Births have dropped by over 40% in the last five years. 

This is AFTER China abandoned its one-child policy and already in deep demographic trouble due to an imbalance between young men and women.

Source: https://twitter.com/simongerman600/status/1590088023064154113/photo/1

You have to wonder how long it will be before the Communists in China are in the bedrooms of its citizens forcing them to procreate?

Where else do I see a threat of the law of gravity in the United States in 2023?

I suggest keeping a close eye on layoffs at the major social media/internet companies.

They went on a hiring binge over the last decade and it intensified when the Covid pandemic and lockdowns greatly benefitted their business models.

Meta (formerly Facebook) would have to layoff over half of its current workforce to get back to 2018 employment levels. That is 36,000 employees.

Credit: https://twitter.com/eladgil/status/1589271330255699972

Alphabet (formerly Google) would have to reduce employment by almost 58,000 employees to get back to 2018 levels.

Credit: https://twitter.com/eladgil/status/1589271330255699972

Layoffs have already started at Amazon.

Its employment at the end of 2021 had doubled in the two years of Covid from 800,000 to 1,600,000 employees.

Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/7581/amazons-global-workforce/

Of course, Elon Musk has already started to lay people off at Twitter.

50% of its employees were laid off in the first couple of weeks after Elon acquired the company.

Twitter had about 7.500 employees before the layoffs began.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-exec-says-50-employees-lost-jobs-following-acquisition-2022-11-04/

I don't know where the law of gravity will have the largest impact in 2023.

However, you can expect that it will.

It may be wise to keep a parachute close by should you need it.

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?

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.

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.

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

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

There are so many problems in the United States right now.

I don't need to enumerate them.

A recent CBS poll released this week found that 79% of likely voters feel things in the U.S. are out of control.

That probably says it all.

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-republicans-lead-house-2022-10-30/

Why do so many feel this way?

One reason could be that with all the problems that we have Joe Biden found time last week to hold a press conference claiming that it is somehow racist for airlines to charge extra for seats with more legroom towards the front of the plane.

How many would list this issue as a priority right now?

Source: https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1585293597796360194

People of color and marginalized Americans do not understand that you have to pay more for Business Class or Comfort Class?

Isn't this an incredibly racist statement by itself?

The extra charge for more leg room hits people of color hardest?

Why is that? Is Biden assuming that people of color are taller so they need more legroom?

Does he think that every person of color is in the NBA?

Perhaps Biden is not aware of the average heights of people in the United States by race?

Biden claimed that this was part of his efforts to fight inflation.

Today, my administration is announcing new actions to lower the cost of everyday living for American families, to put more money in the pockets of middle-income and working-class Americans, to hold big corporations accountable.”

Really?

Yes, really! 

Will Joe Biden's legacy be that he successfully eliminated Comfort Class fees in air travel?

If this occurred, what would be the result?

Everyone would likely be crammed into coach seats and everyone (except for those who paid extra for more room) would pay more to make up for the lost revenue the airlines get for charging for the 6 inches of extra legroom.

As for those CEO's of big companies that Biden likes to criticize.

They don't seem to be any more confident about the way things look than the voters in the CBS poll.

CEO confidence in the prospects for the economy is the lowest it has been since this survey was first initiated almost 40 years ago.

Can it be said that anyone is in Comfort Class right now?

I was in central Idaho this past weekend.

The first snowfall of the season was apparent at higher elevations in the mountains.

A couple of days later my 2nd grade grandson was excited to tell me that his teacher had told him the earth was warming.

I told him that some people believed that but there was a lot of evidence and data that suggested that was not true.

He seemed crestfallen that something that he was told was a fact may not be altogether true.

If he was a little older I might have suggested he take the data below from the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University to his teacher and ask if the planet is warming how could it be that Winter Northern Hemisphere Snow Extent has been increasing over the last 55 years?

Source: https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=namgnld&ui_season=1

The same is true for Eurasia.

Source: https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=eurasia&ui_season=1

The trend is even more obvious in looking at North America alone.

Source: https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=namgnld&ui_season=1

I don't necessarily fault my grandson's teacher.

She is undoubtedly just repeating the narrative that she hears everyday in the mainstream media and elsewhere.

For example, here is the headline of a story from The New York Times this week voicing concern about snow disappearing.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/us/northwest-snowpack-climate.html

However, the narrative about global warming and the propaganda that flows from it that is specifically directed at young people through our educational systems is dangerous.

Many of them actually believe that the world is going to end within 10 years if climate change is not addressed.

Remember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez repeating this over and over almost four years ago as far left liberals  pushed for their "Green New Deal" legislation?

Source: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/426353-ocasio-cortez-the-world-will-end-in-12-years-if-we-dont-address/

They have decided that mankind and its use of fossil fuels and carbon emissions are the culprit behind any climate change.

However, it seems their concerns in this regard only extend to Western countries

They all are conspicuously silent in calling out China on its rising carbon emissions.

It is as if China is on another planet.

It is the same thing we see with Joe Biden as we are dealing with rising energy costs.

He is begging Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to produce more oil at the same time he is trying to put American oil and gas companies out of the business of producing fossil fuels.

It makes absolutely no sense.

All of this propaganda has created millions of young people in particular who have become unhinged in believing that they are going to die from rising seas and searing heat.

The latest manifestation of this is young people defacing works of art and using super glue to glue themselves to walls or floors.

These two climate activists threw tomato soup on a Van Gogh painting.

Mashed potatoes were used to attack a Monet painting in Germany.

In New York City this week climate activists attacked the corporate offices of BlackRock because it invests in fossil fuels. Their cool antic was to pour coal down the escalators in the building.

We are seeing these extremist actions despite the fact that the Democrat Congress passed, and Joe Biden recently signed,  a law that will spend $369 billion on "climate solutions and environmental justice" as laid out in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

Source: https://earthjustice.org/brief/2022/what-the-inflation-reduction-act-means-for-climate#:~:text=President%20Joe%20Biden%20has%20signed,action%20on%20the%20global%20stage.

Weren't we told exactly two years ago that the craziness would end once Donald Trump was defeated and the Democrats had control?  

The extremists would no longer have any reason to vent their frustrations with public policy once the evil, racist, war monger, climate denier Trump was gone.

The craziest thing I have seen are these two young Aussies (or Kiwis) telling everybody that farming has to stop because it is the biggest single driver of climate change.

Source: https://twitter.com/elenaevdokimov7/status/1583078013427601408

I wonder how that will turn out for humanity if we followed that plan?

All of this should be a cautionary tale of what results when we promote opinions and ideology as scientific facts.

Should we be surprised that we have produced a couple of generations of people who are all too willing to do crazy stuff after we have spent the last thirty years filling their brains with crazy stuff?

In 2013, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was claiming that her South Florida Congressional District would be under water in a few short years.

Nearly a decade later aren't we beyond a "few short years"?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.), who represents the Miami area, warned that unless climate change is addressed “in a few short years,” rising sea levels will force her to represent areas more than two hundred miles away.

“I will eventually represent Orlando if we don’t do something about making sure we can reduce global warming,” she said on Fox News this morning. Wasserman Schultz’s current residence, Weston, Fla., is 224 miles away from Orlando.

Her district is still high and dry and there is still no beachfront property in Orlando.

23rd Florida Congressional District (purple in black outline) Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz

I wrote the following over nine years ago right after Wasserman Schultz was telling everyone she would soon be representing Orlando because Miami would be under water.

Only in a liberal mind does it make sense to...

shut down your most cost-effective energy generating source,


shut-off your most abundant energy resource,


raise electricity costs on all Americans,


and risk losing hundreds of thousand of jobs in the process.


In an attempt to solve a problem...


that we are not even sure we have,


and if we do, we are not sure we can do anything about it,


because of natural or external forces that we cannot control, 

The protests that are occurring in Iran offer some hope that the autocratic, repressive rule of the mullahs in Iran may be threatened.

Source: https://irannewsupdate.com/news/insider/iran-students-resume-day-40-of-protests/

What is interesting to me is that the current protests were sparked by the death of a 22-year old woman in police custody who had  been jailed for "improperly" wearing her hijab. Reports are that she was repeatedly beaten by the authorities.

Source: womensvoicesnow.org

I have been interested for some time as to why Middle Eastern Muslim countries over the last 40-50 years became more conservative and less tolerant and Judeo-Christian Western countries became more liberal and tolerant.

It is a puzzling paradox as conventional thinking suggests that as societies age and mature they tend to become more progressive. For example, they advance from a primitive, barbaric system of justice to a system that recognizes individual rights and equal justice. They become less authoritarian and more flexible.

Why did Islam move towards the 10th century but in the West we even see Christian institutions "progressing" so far that it is hard to recognize the existence of any traditional or core values at all?

I have written before of the stunning transformation of countries like Iran, Afghanistan and Egypt over my lifetime. In years past, we looked like we were living in the same world. That is certainly not the case today. 

For example, this is a picture of a female soldier in the Iranian Army in 1979.

Credit: Pakistan Defence

These are female soldiers in the Iranian Army in 2011.

Credit: Pakistan Defence

These are Afghanistan women in the 1950's compared to 2014.

These are Egyptian students at Cairo University.

1959

2012

A related question is what causes a young man to strap on a suicide vest or take an automatic weapon into an opera house or office building with the intent to kill or maim shouting "Allahu Akbar"?

The ongoing protests in Iran, and the specific focus on wearing of the hijab, may indicate that the radical Islamists are losing their grip on the Iranian people.

A few years I came across an interesting paper by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, "The Cause of Jihadist Terrorism and How to Combat It" in a publication by the Air Force Research Laboratory (credit to Viable Opposition for pointing me to this) that attempts to explain this question.

Dr. Hamid knows something about this subject because at one time he was an Islamic extremist himself in his native Egypt.

The radical Islam we see today has its roots in what is called the "Salafi Movement" within Islam. Its followers believe in taking a very fundamental approach to Islam. They believe that Islam has strayed from its roots and has become decadent over the years. They reject any religious innovation and support the implementation of sharia law. One of the key signs of spreading Salafism is for the women to wear the hijab, a key part in the imposition of sharia law.

Interestingly, Hamid sees the wearing of the hijab as an important indicator of increased radicalism in a Muslim community. This is how he describes how this takes hold.

The process begins with the propagation of Salafi jihadist ideology within a community. Increasing numbers of women begin to wear the hijab, which is both a symptom of Salafi proliferation and a catalyst for Islamism (see, e.g.,Mahmood, 2005). In turn, the proliferation of militant Salafism and the hijab contribute to the idea of passive terrorism, which occurs when moderate segments of the population decline to speak against or actively resist terrorism. 

The chart below shows the process of radicalization as well as the reinforcing cycle that continues to make the problem worse as times goes on. Hamid makes the point that while only a small percentage of Muslims become active terrorists, there are a very large number of what he calls "passive terrorists" who support the ideals of the cause but will never become violent.

However, it is a numbers game. The more adherents of Islam who follow the fundamentalist view of Salafism, the greater chance that a few more will become violent extremists. The first step in combating jihadist terrorism is to reduce the number of "passive terrorists" as Hamid calls them.

The solution to all of this is exceedingly complex. "No single, magical solution for defeating Islamism" exists according to Hamid.

However, Hamid sees a critical first step that can be taken is to weaken what he calls the "hijab phenomenon" .

Weakening the hijab phenomenon is pivotal to stopping the growth of Islamism at the ideological level. Wearing the hijab is discussed as a cultural phenomenon, rather than an individual choice, as many Muslim women are peaceful people (Hamid, 2007, pp.120-121). I have observed that, over the last few decades, terrorism was preceded by an increase in the prevalence of the hijab. In Sunni Muslim areas such as Kurdistan in Iraq, most women did not wear the hijab; these areas experienced fewer acts of terrorism than areas where the hijab was common, such as Al-Anbar Province.  

If more hijabs start coming off there may be hope in Iran and elsewhere.

I still am looking for an explanation of why Islam has become the retrograde force that it is today at the same time that Christianity has become so liberal and tolerant that calling it progressive is using a term that is much too mild.

However, I have a better understanding of why all of the hijabs have appeared over the last 50 years...and what it tells us.

And the Iranian protests that began with a woman who was jailed because of the hijab provides hope that we may have reached a turning point where radical Islam may soon be in retreat.

A short compilation of "then and now" items to provide context to the world we are living in at present  compared to the past.

Covid

Then.

Now.

For those who argue that Covid deaths are the better metric.

And there is this to show how The Washington Post reported it then and now.

Financial Conditions

Source: https://twitter.com/MacroAlf/status/1583855770705465345/photo/1

Source: https://twitter.com/JunkScience/status/1583638205018296320

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-polar-bears-extinct-by-2100/

Al Gore made the plight of the polar bears a part of his movie "An Inconvenient Truth" where he showed an image like this of a forlorn polar bear in desperate straits due to melting Arctic ice.

Credit: Gerard Van der Leun

However, the facts are far different.

There are actually many, many more polar bears today in the Arctic than existed when Al Gore was in high school.

Then     5,000-10,000  polar bears

Now     26,000

Source: https://financialpost.com/opinion/bjorn-lomborg-suppressing-good-news-is-scaring-our-kids-witless

Florida Governor

Two weeks before the Florida election for Governor in 2018 a CNN poll had Democrat Andrew Gillum leading Republican Ron DeSantis by 12 points. 

Source: https://t witter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1583623854785957889/photo/1

DeSantis went on to win that race by a mere 32,000 votes out of 8.1 million votes cast.

DeSantis has led Florida to so much success in navigating Florida over the last four years that he is considered a prime Presidential candidate.

Gillum was found in a Miami Beach hotel in 2020 with a male prostitute who had overdosed on meth. Gillum, married with three children, was so intoxicated he could not answer any questions to the responding police officers. He later came out and stated he was bisexual.

Source: https://www.metroweekly.com/2020/03/former-florida-governor-candidate-andrew-gillum-found-in-hotel-room-with-gay-escort-who-allegedly-overdosed/

Earlier this year Gillum was also charged in a 21-count federal indictment for conspiracy, wire fraud and making false statements regarding fund raising and the misuse of campaign funds.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndfl/pr/former-tallahassee-mayor-and-gubernatorial-candidate-and-associate-charged-conspiracy

A trial is set for next April in which Gillum faces 20 years in federal prison.

It is hard to imagine how different Florida would look today but for that slim vote margin four years ago.

Has any state's residents ever come this close to disaster by a factor of .4% of votes cast?

A reminder that every vote really does count.

It is also a reminder that the election day votes count, not the polls.

Conflicts and wars do not end until one side accepts their fate.

Peace is not achieved until one side realizes the balance of power is such that it is futile to continue the conflict.

The costs of continuing the conflict are finally determined to be greater than the hope that any benefit is going to be gained.

There are times that both sides come to that conclusion, each accepts their fate, and an uneasy truce is the result.

However, true peace is generally only achieved when one side effectively admits that their cause is lost and ceases putting up a fight.

This was the case with Germany and Japan in World War II and it was the case with the Confederacy in the Civil War. 

In politics, it manifests itself in a little different way. One side becomes effectively marginalized and has limited power when they are on the losing side of a big issue. 

This was the case with Democrats who opposed the abolition of slavery in the name of states' rights in the 1860's. As a result, Republicans took control of the levers of power in the U.S. Congress and the Democrats lost their central issue based on  the will of the American people.

Republicans more or less controlled Congress for much of the next 70 years.

The speed of change in political affiliation coming out of the Civil War was mind boggling.

Democrats controlled almost 70% of Senate seats in 1857. By 1864, They had less than 20% of the seats in the U.S. Senate.

You can see that in this chart that shows control of the Senate and House from 1855-2022.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses

The same was true for Republicans as they argued against the expanded use of federal powers beginning with The New Deal. They lost the argument to the American people and were in a period of irrelevancy in Congress for over 60 years.

However, since 1996 neither party has been able to attain a significant majority of seats in either the House of Senate so as to be considered dominant. We have been in an era of political division that continues to manifest itself in every aspect of life today in the United States.

It should also not go unnoticed that both of these crisis periods in American history acted as a catalyst for one party to become dominant with the American voters. One party was judged to be with the mainstream of American voters. The other essentially became irrelevant.

All of this is worth considering as we examine the events going on in the United States right now.

Joe Biden ran on a promise of being a uniter rather than a divider.

Biden has not united anything because he made a choice to align himself with most of the far-left tendencies of his party. 

As a result, the country remains more divided than ever.

Will this division continue or could we be entering a period where one political party becomes marginalized because they are judged to be out of step with the mainstream?

That is a big question leading up to this year's mid-term elections.

In recent years the Democrat party has been increasingly controlled by those on the far left of the political spectrum who want to reform and remake what they see as an evil and flawed country.

Democrats who run for office and do not cater to this constituency have limited prospects because they know that if they do they risk losing a small (<30%) but critical portion of their base of support. 

This puts Democrats in a very tough position. They cannot afford to lose the support of the radical left in their party. However, they also cannot afford to lose any more traditional working class voters. They also have to appease the radicals while trying to convince suburban women (a gender that Democrats are not even willing to define) that they are really not going to defund the police, support no bail policies and allow Antifa and BLM radicals to start storming and threatening suburban neighborhoods.

The 2020 mid-term election also looks like it will test whether the Democrats are able to retain the Hispanic vote which has traditionally been an important voting bloc for the party.

The Latino vote went heavily for Democrats in 2008, 2012 and 2016.

In 2020, Trump got about 38% of the Hispanic vote---a 10 point increase from four years before.

A Rasmussen poll this week about a hypothetical matchup between Trump and Biden in 2024 indicates that Trump would carry Hispanics by 12 points. 

That is a 46 POINT improvement compared to two years ago.

That is also DOUBLE the margin that Trump had over Biden in the poll with White voters!

If this poll is only half right, the Democrats are in deep, deep trouble.

If you look again at the charts above, the country has shifted more Republican than Democrat over the last 25 years. The 2008 election of Obama and the Democrats gaining control of the House and Senate was an anomaly due to the 2008 financial crisis.  That move to the Democrats was quickly reversed when they tried to govern with a much more liberal platform than they ran on.

This resulted in the enormous gains that the GOP made in subsequent elections and ultimately led to Donald Trump winning the Presidency.

For example, this chart shows how Republicans have come to dominate state legislatures since 1994.

Source: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1589260955254004648/2067408791901872812

However, what stands out in looking at the makeup of Congress over the last 25 years is how evenly divided it has been compared to other periods since the Civil War.

Will this continue? 

History suggests that our divided government will come to end soon.

And right now the Republicans look to be better positioned to be the dominant national political party..

The voters in the country still lean center right. This Gallup survey shows that the number of voters who describe themselves as conservative or moderate outnumber self-described liberals by three to one.

At the same time, half of Democrats now refer to themselves as liberal. 

In 1994, only 25% of Democrats considered themselves liberal. That is the same percentage of Democrats who identified as conservative in 1994.

This has meant that Democrats who consider themselves conservative or moderate have fled the party.

Is is just a coincidence that the success of Democrats at the ballot box has declined as the influence of liberalism has increased in the Democrat party?

You can see how far outside the mainstream views the average Democrat is when looking at this poll question posed by FoxNews last week.

The biggest question in the upcoming mid-term election is whether significant majorities of Hispanics and Independents are going to stand by and endorse what Biden and the Democrats have done to the country in less than two short years.

Women who are Independents are particularly important in this regard. 

A New York Times/Siena College poll this week showed Independents favoring Republicans by 10 points and Independent Women by 18 points in the generic Congressional ballot.

In a little over two weeks we will find out whether the polls are right or wrong.

What we know for certain is that in the United States system, the voters can get any type of government they want.

They can completely remake the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate in two years. Two-thirds of the Senate and the Presidency can be overhauled in four years. The entire national electoral body can be undone in six years.

It has been done before.

Look again at the graphs above on what happened in the wake of the Civil War and Great Depression. 

I believe the only way out out of the mess we are in right now is to send a loud and convincing message to Democrats that they are on the wrong path.

I also don't see how the Democrats survive long term as a viable party longer term without the working class, rural voters, Independents and Hispanics.

How successful can you be as a national party that primarily appeals to Blacks, urban dweller, single women and college-educated voters?

If the Democrats take a beating at the polls in a couple of weeks you can be sure they will be looking for someone to blame.

They will be unlikely to blame their policies. Most likely it will be Joe Biden (and his son Hunter) that will be singled out for their failures.

However, ignoring the will of the voters for long is sure to guarantee that you are soon on the outside looking in when it comes to political power.

A huge red wave should also end any talk that Biden will run in 2024.  With few in his own party willing to stand up for him, he may face a very difficult time in his remaining term.

2024 will likely be the real test as to whether the Democrats maintain relevancy as a national party. 

It will be a Presidential election year.

There are also 23 Democrat Senate seats that must be defended out of 33 seats up for election.

As always polls do not matter.

The only thing that matters are the votes of the people.

In the end, the people get the government they deserve---good or bad.

It is also absolutely true that politicians who do not heed the will of the voters do not retain their power for very long.

We will know a lot more about whether our political divisions may have a chance at receding in a few short weeks.

If you doubt the influence that Big Pharma has on the FDA and CDC pay attention to any decision the CDC makes on adding the Covid vaccines to the standard childhood immunization schedule.

The CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee is scheduled to hold a meeting today and tomorrow (October 19 and 20) in which it may vote to add the Covid vaccines to the childhood immunization schedule.

Why would this be done?

After all, almost three years into the pandemic it would seem to almost everyone that children are at almost no serious risks of severe illness or death from Covid.

There have only been about 1,300 deaths attributed to Covid from children age 0-17 in the last three years.

That works out to less than 500 deaths per year in a population of over 73 million.

For perspective, there are about 900 drowning deaths in children each year.

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/

You can also barely see the number of hospitalizations for Covid among children in this CDC chart.

Source: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/covid19_5.html

Children 0-17 have made up less than 3% of total Covid hospitalizations even though that age demographic represents about 22% of the total U.S. population.

Despite a massive advertising campaign and immense pressure from public health authorities, it appears most parents have determined that any benefits of the Covid vaccine for the their children is not worth the potential risks of the injections.

Only 2.6% of children less than 5 years old have been fully vaccinated with the initial two doses.

Less than one-third of those ages 5-11 have been fully vaccinated.

60% in the 12-17 age group are fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile in Denmark the Covid vaccine is now banned for anyone under age 18.

It has been determined that the risks outweigh the benefits except in rare circumstances.

In Norway, Covid vaccines are only recommended for those over 16 years of age.

It took more than seven years after the polio vaccine was first administered in trials before that vaccine was recommended for use by children.

Considering that the Covid vaccines have been authorized for children 11 years and under for less than one year, and the extremely low probability of severe disease in children, what could be the reason to add this vaccine to the standard childhood immunization schedule?

You might be interested to know Pharma companies only receive liability protection for vaccines if they are authorized under an "emergency use" authorization or the vaccines are on the CDC's childhood immunization schedule.

We are still officially under a "public health emergency" that has been in effect since January, 20202. The PHE order was recently extended through January 11, 2023.

As things now stand, it might be hard to justify another extension after that date.

That would then mean that any liability protection for the vaccine makers would expire at that time.

Unless the vaccines are added to the childhood immunization schedule before them.

That liability protection then extends to any of the vaccines that are also given to adults.

Therefore, if the vaccines are added to the childhood schedule you have to ask whether it is being done more to protect Big Pharma than our children?

Instead of providing protection for our children might we actually be about to use them as a shield for Big Pharma?

Could it also be that the move might be done to help the lagging current vaccine efforts where we are already seeing the latest bivalent booster uptake to have flatlined?

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends

It might also be because 75% of the FDA's drug division budget is funded by the pharmaceutical companies it regulates.

The CDC is also known to have taken millions of dollars of funding from Big Pharma through the CDC Foundation that was conditional and specifically earmarked for promotion of the contributing company's products.

In any other sphere of life these potential conflicts of interest would be reason alone to question the integrity of the decisions and guidance being offered.

Will we hear any questions asked of the CDC and FDA if the Covid vaccines somehow end up on the childhood vaccine schedule by the end of the week?

Put me down as saying that is extremely unlikely.

 Last month Kamala Harris said that the the border of the United States was secure.

Source: https://thetexan.news/vice-president-harris-calls-southern-border-secure-under-biden-administration/

It is just one example where Democrats either have to outright lie or turn themselves into a pretzel attempting to justify what is transpiring on the southern border of the United States.

Do these numbers suggest that the border is secure? 

Mind you that these are just the numbers of illegals that were apprehended and released into the country.

It does not include those that snuck in undetected.

The Biden administration is on track to allow 5 million illegal immigrants to enter the country in two years.

It is all being done in direct contravention of the laws of the United States of America.

These numbers also do not account for the massive amounts of drugs being smuggled into the country across that border. This includes Fentanyl which is primarily manufactured in small labs in Mexico from raw materials sourced in China.

Fentanyl now accounts for the vast majority of U.S. drug overdose deaths.

Credit: https://www.statista.com/chart/18744/the-number-of-drug-overdose-deaths-in-the-us/

Those are sad, sad statistics.

On the other hand, what is amusing is seeing the reactions of the people and politicians in Democrat strongholds such as Martha's Vineyard, New York City, Washington, DC and Chicago when they have to deal with illegal immigrants showing up in their areas.

In these areas it is not uncommon to see this sign in someone's yard or apartment window.

Martha's Vineyard, which saw 50 illegal immigrants flown into the liberal enclave by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, mades sure that the illegals were removed within one day.

Source: https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/illegal-immigrants-get-the-boot-after-one-day-on-marthas-vineyard/

The locals stated that they simply did not have the room to house the illegals.

However, you have to wonder how they expect Del Rio, Texas to be better equipped to handle the onslaught of illegals by the Biden administration's failure to enforce the nation's immigration laws?

It goes without saying that New York City, Washington, DC and Chicago are in a better position to deal with illegals than Martha's Vineyard but we are also hearing nothing but complaints from them as well.

Each of these cities has also proudly stated they are "sanctuary" cities.

Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/sanctuary-cities

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has declared a "state of emergency" due to 17,000 illegals showing up in his city.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nyc-mayor-adams-declares-state-emergency-17000-migrants-spark-shelter-crisis

Washington, DC Muriel Bowser declared a "public health emergency" in the nation's capital last month as the illegals arrived from Texas.

Source: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/09/texas-busing-migrants-dc-emergency/

Mayor Lori Lightfoot stated that she welcomed the migrants but then turned around and started sending the illegals to hotels in suburban areas outside of the city of Chicago.

Source: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/chicago-welcomes-texas-migrants-then-sends-them-to-suburbs/

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to defend the illegal immigration and take a shot at Governor DeSantis by claiming that there was a labor shortage and the immigrants were needed to pick crops in Florida and elsewhere in the South.

The only problem with that is that it is AGAINST THE LAW for anyone in the United States to employ an illegal alien.

Anyone hiring an illegal immigrant is in violation of Title 8 U.S.C. Section 1324.

Source: https://jsberrylaw.com/blog/is-it-a-crime-to-employ-undocumented-immigrants/

Does Nancy Pelosi not know that or is she encouraging employers to break the law?

It just goes to show how the Democrats are attempting to defend that which is indefensible.

Is there any hope that this will change?

The only solution I see is for the voters to send a strong message to the Democrats in the November mid-term elections.

If Republicans make significant gains in Congress and the Biden administration still does not take actions to enforce the immigration laws it may be necessary to consider impeachment efforts for those who have violated their oath of office. That would logically begin with Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas.

I do not want that to be the case but something has to be done for the Democrats to get the message.

We have no country if we have no borders.

We also have no country if our leaders do not enforce our laws.

There is no doubt we need reform of our immigration laws.

However, any immigration reform law needs to have strict limits about who gets in and how many are allowed in.

Right now the Democrats seem unwilling to accept any limits.

Therefore, why would they sign off on any legislation that would require strict limits they would have to honor when there are effectively no limits now?

That is why they ignore the laws with impunity in furtherance of what they apparently believe is beneficial to their political objectives.

Democrats need to be disabused of the notion that we will simply let our leaders ignore our laws.

That is why the only solution to the chaos on the southern border appears to be to curtail the power of Democrats in Congress until they come to their senses.

The September CPI report was bad news for Joe Biden.

It was worse for the rest of us.

Source: https://apnews.com/

Consumer prices actually accelerated between August and September.

Prices were up .4% month to month in September.

They were up only .1% in August.

It all added up to an 8.2% annual inflation rate over the last year.

Core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, increased .6% in the last month and 6.6% over the last year. That is the highest core inflation rate in over 40 years.

However, the cost of items that have the greatest impact on the daily lives of most people are food, gasoline and home energy costs.

Each has gone up well above the 8.2% headline number over the last year.

Food at home    +13.2%

Gasoline            +18.2%

Electricity.         +15.5%

Nat Gas              +33.1%

Fuel Oil              +58.1%

This is the full list of CPI increases by major expenditure category in the September, 2022 report.

Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf

Shelter costs are still only showing a 6.6% annual increase in the CPI numbers but this is due to the peculiar manner in which home costs and rental prices are calculated for purposes of the index. There is a significant lag between rises in these costs and when they are reflected in the index.

As I explained in an earlier blog post, this number is sure to rise in future months as the index calculation catches up with reality.

House prices rose almost 20% in 2021 and rents were up over 10% in calendar 2021 (per Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies)  but shelter in the CPI index was only +4.1% in the calculation for that year. Shelter also accounts for the largest factor in the CPI calculation--almost one-third of the total.

Source: https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/rents-and-home-prices

House prices and rents may begin to soften but the CPI shelter calculation undercounts as prices rise and overcounts as prices decline. 

Yesterday's CPI report was also bad news for interest rates.

It appears that the interest rate increases that the Federal Reserve has initiated have done little to tame inflation.

More interest rate increases can be expected if the Fed is serious about bringing down inflation to anywhere near its 2% target.

Of course, 30 year mortgage rates have already more than doubled this year alone.

Credit: https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/mortgage-rates/30-year-fixed

When I googled 30-year mortgage rates this is what came up for Ohio.

7.7%!

And this data was before the new CPI report.

Real average weekly earnings (earnings adjusted for the effect of inflation) have decreased by 3.8% over the last year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is a deterioration from last month's decrease of 3.4%.

It is further proof that the average American is getting further and further behind due to inflation.

Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.t01.htm

What was Joe Biden doing in the aftermath of the CPI report?

He was in California extolling the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

He was also on Twitter claiming that a key reason he ran for President was because Americans were being squeezed by high costs.

Yes, really.

This was from the press release from The White House as Biden was on his way to the West Coast.

Over the next three days, the President will participate in events in Colorado, California, and Oregon highlighting the progress we have made from passing a historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which will lower prescription drug costs.

You can judge for yourself how Biden is doing on keeping the costs of living down for Americans compared to the 2017-2020 period.

What are Democrats in Congress doing?

They are holding another hearing on January 6th.

I dare say that the threat of inflation is many, many times more dangerous to the people of the United States, our way of life and our democracy than anything that occurred on January 6th.

Would this not be a good time to focus more on fixing inflation than worrying about something that happened two years ago?

After all, didn't Hillary Clinton even once say this when questioned about something that happened a couple years earlier?

Never mind.

Much is said by politicians.

However, when all is said and done, much more is always said than done.

On this date (October 12) in 1492 Christopher Columbus landed in what he thought were the East Indies near mainland China.

Although he made three subsequent voyages before his death, he never set foot on the North American continent nor did he know that he had discovered the Western Hemisphere.

October 12 was never associated with Columbus until 1792 (300 years after the landing) when a New York City political organization, the Sons St. Tammany, held an event in New York City to commemorate the event and honor Columbus.

Ironically, that political organization later became knows as Tammany Hall and was the primary political machine of the Democrat party in New York City whose base of voters were primarily immigrants from Ireland and Italy.

Columbus Day did not get any federal government recognition until the 1930's when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (another Democrat) issued a proclamation officially designating October 12 to recognize Columbus but it did not become an official federal holiday until 1971 (approved by a majority Democrat Congress and signed into law by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson). At that time, Columbus Day was designated as the second Monday in October.

However, beginning in the early 1990's a narrative began to be advanced by liberal Democrats that Columbus was a bad guy. He was responsible for opening up the Americas to European settlement that resulted in all the ills that subsequently beset the indigenous people of the Americas.

I wrote about this trend six years ago in these pages when only a handful of liberal cities and states had officially recognized " Indigenous People's Day".

The city of Berkeley, California (is this a surprise?) was the first to recognize an Indigenous People's Day in 1992 "to protest the historical conquest of North America by Europeans, and to call attention to the losses suffered by the Native American peoples and their cultures through diseases, warfare, massacres, and forced assimilation." 

I predicted in that blog post that the trend to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day would likely continue. 

In fact, I wrote this.

Enjoy Columbus Day. It might not be here much longer.

How right I appear to have been with that prediction. 

October 12. On this day in 1492 Christopher Columbus is credited with discovering America.

Christopher Columbus

The first landing in the New World by Columbus is generally considered to be on the Bahamian island of San Salvador. Columbus ultimately set sail for the New World three more times over the remainder of his life. However, he never understood that he had discovered the Western Hemisphere. Until his death in 1506 he always believed that he was navigating among the East Indies close to the Asian continent.

Ironically, despite the fact that Columbus is credited with discovering America in most school textbooks, he never set foot on any of what is now the United States of America.

This map shows the paths of the four voyages of Christopher Columbus.

The voyages of Christopher Columbus Credit: Wikipedia

Amerigo Vespucci is generally credited as the first person to correctly speculate that the places he and Columbus had sailed to were actually part of a new continent previously unknown to Eurasians. His reward was to have his name placed on the two major continents. I guess we are all fortunate that the name was based on his first, rather than last name.

The Columbus name got very little mention and credit for his discoveries for over two hundred years until the American colonists were looking for a hero to celebrate other than someone associated with Great Britain. Wikipedia provides some background.

Historically, the British had downplayed Columbus and emphasized the role of the Venetian John Cabot as a pioneer explorer, but for the emerging United States, Cabot made for a poor national hero. Veneration of Columbus in America dates back to colonial times. The name Columbia for "America" first appeared in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament.[104] The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations and the use of the word "Columbia", or simply the name "Columbus", spread rapidly after the American Revolution. Columbus's name was given to the federal capital of the United States (District of Columbia), the capital cities of two U.S. states (Ohio and South Carolina), and the Columbia River

Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1937. However, the latest trend rejects Columbus Day and replaces it with what is referred to as Indigenous People's Day. Columbus is viewed as an evil man rather than someone who paved the path for the advancement of mankind. It is also argued that Columbus did not discover the Americas because people were already living here. Further, they point to the fact that other Europeans (the Scandanavians) had also previously landed on the Western Hemisphere. Therefore, there is no real reason to honor Columbus anyway.

The city of Berkeley, California (is this a surprise?) was the first to recognize an Indigenous People's Day in 1992 "to protest the historical conquest of North America by Europeans, and to call attention to the losses suffered by the Native American peoples and their cultures through diseases, warfare, massacres, and forced assimilation." I could not find any information on the full composition of the Berkeley City Council in 1992. However, the mayor's name was Loni Hancock. That does not sound like a indigenous person's surname. In fact, it is an English surname. It makes you wonder how and why Loni Hancock was in Berkeley, California and not back in England in the first place considering her views.

The Indigenous People's Day movement has picked up considerable momentum in the last couple of years. The state of Vermont and Alaska both joined the movement this year. These are cities or universities who now also celebrate that day, many in place of Columbus Day. Note that many of the cities that have joined the movement are college towns.


- Denver and Boulder, Colorado

- Evanston, Illinois

- Cambridge, Amherst and Northhampton, Massachusetts

- Ann Arbor, East Lansing and Grand Rapids, Michigan

- St. Paula and Cook County, Minnesota

- Lincoln, Nebraska

- Albuquerque and Sante Fe, New Mexico

- Asheville, North Carolina

- Eugene, Oregon

- Spokane, Washington

- Seattle, Washington

- Brown University

- Cornell University Student Assembly


The city of Cincinnati, Ohio failed to approve the replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day by one vote. That vote was 4 votes for...and 5 abstentions!  The political courage of most politicians is really something to behold isn't it? And people wonder why Donald Trump was able to gain the GOP nomination?

We have so many pressing problems today at all levels of government and yet our politicians have time to spend on things like this? I guess if you can't make education better, fix the roads, fund underfunded pension plans or fight crime, you work on major issues like this.

Enjoy Columbus Day. It might not be here much longer.

Of course, do most people even care?

I never had a job where I got Columbus Day off as a paid holiday. It is much different for government workers, educators, students and bankers among others.

Do they care about who they are honoring? I dare say they do not. What they care about is the day off with pay.

I think our politicians ought to really get serious about this if they really care. Here is a suggestion to really put some substance behind the day.

Let's eliminate Columbus Day as a paid holiday and replace it with Indigenous People's Day. However, everyone will work that day to show their solidarity and gratitude to indigenous people and all earnings on that day will be taxed at 100% and donated as reparations to their heirs.

How many votes would that get in Berkeley, California let alone anywhere else?