Friday, October 28, 2022
Arizona Is on the Cusp of an ‘America First’ Wave
Arizona could be the new Ohio for Republicans.
Despite the sociopath Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pulling $18 million worth of TV ads from Arizona’s U.S. Senate race, all because he hates Blake Masters and America First, the reality on the ground in the state is a groundswell. What is actually taking place in the state where Republicans outnumber Democrats by 150,000 voters is an historic America First wave, which, to be clear, is far more important than any “red wave.”
Part of that is Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and other statewide candidates are outperforming expectations. Lake is now the clear favorite to win the governor’s race. Not only does one of the most accurate pollsters in the country, the Trafalgar Group, show her with a decisive lead, but even left-wing polling firms are reporting it; the far-left group Data for Progress has her leading Democrat Katie Hobbs by 4 percentage points. Lake has built this solid lead for herself by running on a Trump-endorsed, America First platform, combined with her effectively exposing Hobbs’ weaknesses as the far-left Democrat refuses to debate.
And the other major candidates for statewide office are polling even better than Lake. In late September, Trump-backed candidate in the crucial race for secretary of state, Mark Finchem—whose campaign emphasizes election integrity and cracking down on voter fraud—was ahead of his Democrat opponent by 6 points, according to Trafalgar. In the concurrent race for attorney general, Republican nominee Abraham Hamadeh, another Trump pick, holds a commanding 9-point lead, which is also well above the margin of error.
What does all this mean for the U.S. Senate race? With three other Republican statewide candidates running strongly ahead of their Democratic opponents, Masters is essentially “drafting” off of them: as Lake and Hamadeh have continued to have strong campaigns, the Republican Governors Association and Republican Attorney Generals Association have invested more money into the state. A rising tide lifts all boats, which, of course, lifts Masters.
Look at early voting: Lake and Masters are running almost dead even, despite polls showing Lake running 4-5 percentage points ahead of Masters. Nobody mistakes who Kari Lake is, and it’s highly unlikely there will be much ticket-splitting with Kari Lake/Mark Kelly votes. It seems like Republican voters are coming home. Lake continues her strong campaign, and her voters are coming with her to Masters.
There are other dynamics that many nationally have missed in Arizona. Thanks to the hard work of some, the redistricting process in Arizona was a triumph for Republicans. Because of that, it’s possible the Arizona U.S. House delegation will be 7-2 come January, and the Republicans could pick up three additional seats in the state house and the same in the state senate. Add to all of that a dynamic that is taking place in a lot of so-called battleground states: a surge in newly registered Republican voters. Republicans in Arizona have added 30,000 to their advantage over registered Democrats since 2020.
Arizona is also likely to experience the overall national red wave dynamic. The bottom is dropping out on Democrats coming down the homestretch as the 800-pound gorilla wearing cement boots sits on their collective back: Joe Biden. He is dragging Democrats into the electoral abyss. Tack on the proverbial albatross of inflation around their necks, and you’re telling me they will have a better-than-expected midterm? Spare me!
As reality gut punches Democrats and their corporate propagandists (and wait for their harpy screeches of horror when they realize what 2022 means for 2024), Republicans are surging in the generic ballot, up by as many as 5 percentage points in the most recent polls of likely voters.
But look at some history of generic ballots: in 2014, Republicans outperformed the final generic average by more than 3 points; almost 2 points in 2016; and in 2020, depending on how you look at it, Democrats either underperformed by more than 3 points or Republicans overperformed by 3 points. This all to say, if trends continue, we might see some generic polls at 6-7 points in the next week. Then tack on 2-3 points and that’s reality. If tsunami levels like that become clear on Election Night, it will build momentum from the East Coast results and move westward to Arizona.
If trends continue over the next few weeks, Arizona could be the new Ohio for Republicans; sort of battleground status for another election cycle or two, but then a solid red state that is no longer really competitive.
America’s Brilliant Political Orphans
If they can coalesce into a united movement, it would inevitably grow to rival America’s ruling elites in political power.
For the millions of Americans who over the years have been impressed with Tulsi Gabbard’s courage and authenticity, even if not in agreement with all of her positions on some important issues, her decision to denounce the Democratic Party was a welcome development.
What’s not to like in this statement?
I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.
Gabbard characterized the Democratic Party as standing for “a government of, by, and for the powerful elite.” Gabbard is now a political orphan, and she’s not alone.
An emerging group of politicians and public intellectuals agree on key economic and social issues, yet cannot find a home in either major political party. Their ideology, while embracing a kind of libertarian ideal of limited government, stops short of embracing the Libertarian Party as an alternative.
Another example of a rising politician and well-established intellectual who fits this profile is Michael Shellenberger, a Californian who has twice run for governor and is the author of two important books. Shellenberger’s Apocalypse Never, published in 2020, makes a strong case that there is not a climate “crisis,” and that policies supposedly designed to mitigate it are doing more harm than good. San Fransicko, published a year later, indicts progressive politicians for choosing policies that have only aggravated the homeless crisis.
Shellenberger offers comprehensive research and commentary on both woke politics and climate politics. He reports on the growing catastrophe caused by systematic divestment out of conventional energy—natural gas, oil, and nuclear—at the same time as he has produced valuable investigations into the destructive impact of homeless policies that don’t recognize and treat pervasive mental illness but instead sink billions of dollars into providing expensive housing with no behavioral conditions for occupancy.
One of Shellenberger’s most recent essays, published at Substack, is called “The Quiet Desperation of Woke Fanatics.” It is a convincing and unflattering description of the psychology of climate activists and woke activists. Citing Eric Hoffer’s 1951 classic The True Believer, Shellenberger describes the mentality of the woke and the climate activists:
They are frustrated, needy, and lonely. They are in the grip of nihilism and wounded, narcissistically. They are spiritual seekers and creative failures. They have both a strong need to feel special, and powerful, but also to lose themselves in the group. They are people who desperately want to get away from having to deal with themselves and the confrontation with inner demons required for personal growth.
These emotionally unstable fanatics are the people being opportunistically used to drive the agenda of Democrats and Republicans alike. This alienated minority has been mainstreamed and legitimized by every established American institution to further the agenda of what Gabbard so aptly describes as “a government of, by, and for the powerful elite.” Catering to their intricate demands requires new laws and regulations which cause small businesses to fail, enable corporate consolidation, raise the cost of living, and undermine social cohesion. No wonder so many people have lost trust in American institutions. No wonder we have so many political orphans.
Another political orphan is Joel Kotkin, a prolific writer who has quietly leveraged his expertise on urban geography and demographics to become a respected analyst covering global political and economic trends. Kotkin, who like Shellenberger and Gabbard was once a Democrat, claims that “our society is being reduced to a feudal state.” In his 2020 book The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, he warns “the middle-class is becoming one of property-less serfs, while the ‘expert’ class of the clerisy and the tech oligarchs take over.”
While Kotkin was one of the first to describe what’s coming as “feudal,” a critical differentiating issue for him concerns urban planning. Kotkin, along with economist Randal O’Toole (the “Anti-Planner”), correctly identifies environmentalist inspired “urban containment,” where “greenbelts” or “urban service boundaries” are imposed to limit the expansion of cities, as a primary reason for a housing shortage and unaffordable homes.
America’s Kaleidoscopic, Multiethnic Political Orphanage
Ruy Teixeira is an American political scientist who made a name for himself in 2002 with a book he co-wrote with John B. Judis called The Emerging Democratic Majority. An accurate summary of Teixeira’s argument reduces to this: Republicans are racist against nonwhites, who are demographically destined to become a voting majority, therefore Democrats inevitably will become the dominant political party in America. Twenty years later, Democrats cling to Teixeira’s theory more than ever, which is why, according to Gabbard (herself of Samoan descent), they “racialize every issue and stoke anti-white racism.”
A dazzling repudiation of Teixeria’s condescending prediction is found in Vivek Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old Ohio native of Indian descent who has made a fortune as founder of several successful technology and biotech companies. Turning to politics, Ramaswamy’s two most recent books have self-explanatory titles: Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, published in 2021, and Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence, published this year.
One of Ramaswamy’s biggest targets of late is the ESG criteria (environmental, social, governance) that is impelling corporations to incorporate woke ideology and climate activism into their products, their marketing, and their investments. Critical of everything from internal “racial equity audits” to external divestment in combustible fuels, Ramaswamy maintains that the ESG movement is the opposite of the “free market” it purports to merely harness, and sees it instead as an authoritarian power grab.
Recently, Teixeira published a new essay titled “A Three Point Plan To Fix the Democrats and Their Coalition.” Perhaps finally recognizing that even industrial scale race baiting isn’t turning out to be enough to turn America into a one-party state, Teixeira’s three points are 1) move to the center on cultural issues, 2) promote an abundance agenda, and 3) embrace patriotism and liberal nationalism. These are good suggestions, but the Democrats will never be able to fulfill them in ways that voters will find meaningful.
Consider the most prohibitively difficult of Teixeira’s three points, to “promote an abundance agenda.” It is impossible to achieve that goal without recognizing that “renewables” are at least 50 years away from replacing coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectric, and nuclear power. To reiterate a cold fact that never loses its potency, if everyone on earth consumed half as much energy, per capita, as Americans consume, global energy production would have to more than double. Wind and solar power today provides less than three percent of total energy produced worldwide. So-called renewable energy production cannot be expanded quickly enough to meet the legitimate demands of nations around the world whose citizens aspire to prosperity, and even if it ever could achieve the necessary scale, it would cause environmental havoc.
A proponent of fossil fuel, who just published a book aptly named Fossil Future, is writer and philosopher Alex Epstein. Beginning with the premise that fossil fuels are a nonnegotiable necessity, Epstein argues that fossil fuels have provided the abundant and affordable energy that has enabled civilization to thrive, and that more fossil fuel development is necessary to ensure “human flourishing” into the future.
Epstein is right. Along with a growing number of climate and energy realists—Judith Curry, Kenneth Haapala, Bjorn Lomborg, Steve Milloy, Jo Nova, Anthony Watts, Gregory Wrightstone, to name a few—Epstein argues that “the media’s designated experts have made wildly wrong predictions about fossil fuels, climate, and renewables for the last fifty years,” and “the benefits of fossil fuels will continue to far outweigh their side effects—including climate impacts—for generations to come.”
These noteworthy individuals, along with thousands of other politicians and intellectuals, and millions of American voters, have become alienated from the Democratic Party. But what about the Republicans? Couldn’t the GOP offer these people a home?
The answer is, unfortunately, not yet. First, the Republican Party has to be purged of RINOs like Mitt Romney. Matt Taibbi, an investigative journalist of extraordinary integrity who has evolved, like Shellenberger, from a progressive idealist to a political orphan, aptly described Romney in his 2012 expose for Rolling Stone titled “Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.” If the story of the Democrats is how they moved from a center-left party of the working man to a party controlled by neolibs and neocons, the story of the Romney Republicans is that they have been neolibs and neocons all along.
Mitt Romney, and every other Republican politician of his ilk, never saw an ESG rule they didn’t like, nor a climate emergency mandate they didn’t support. Until the Romney Republicans are either gone or are reduced to a compliant minority in a party that has decisively overcome these anti-human, corporatist creeds, that are written and enforced to benefit a powerful elite, RINO Republicans will only create more political orphans, not attract them.
Which brings us to Trump, and Trumpism, or MAGA, a phenomenon bigger than Trump himself. Tom Klingenstein, chairman of the Claremont Institute, delivered a speech in August titled “Trump’s Virtues.” In his remarks, he states, “you cannot fight a war until you know you are in one,” and gives Trump credit for making that clear to Americans.
Klingenstein’s speech defending Trump deserves careful scrutiny by any political orphan afraid of America’s drift towards authoritarianism camouflaged with woke and climate emergency rhetoric. The civil war in the Republican Party between the Romney RINOs and the MAGA movement is one in which both contenders may alienate America’s brilliant political orphans, but it is not something for them to watch with indifference. The premises of the MAGA movement share too much with the premises they also support to be dismissed.
The very recent ascendancy of political orphans like Gabbard, Shellenberger, Kotkin, Ramaswamy, and Epstein, is something to be encouraged. They are speaking for what is indeed a silent majority of Americans, silenced by the media, by their professors and teachers, by a saturation bombardment of woke corporate messaging, and by politicians that are either completely in the grip of woke ideology and climate activism, or too cowardly to resist. These rising stars and countless others who will join them will not be silenced, and they will channel the sentiments and answer the prayers of Americans who have had no voice and no champions.
How America’s movement of political orphans grows, what shape it will take, and who or what it will align itself with, shall be most interesting. If they coalesce into a united movement, it will inevitably grow to rival America’s ruling elites in political power.
Cancer death rates continue to decrease as diagnoses hold steady, doctors explain why
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/cancer-death-rates-continue-decrease-153009361.html
Even though the number of people diagnosed with cancer each year remains roughly the same, recent medical advances mean that more people are surviving, and thriving, after being diagnosed.
A new study published on Thursday in the journal Cancer finds that overall cancer death rates decreased by 2.1% each year from 2015 to 2019, the fastest it has decreased over the last two decades. This continues over a two-decade trend of decreased cancer deaths in the U.S.
Yet, rates of new cancer diagnoses have remained approximately the same from 2014 to 2018, the report said. Among some groups, however, like women and young adults aged 15-39, as well as for certain types of cancers, the rate of new cancer diagnoses has actually increased.
"Improved treatments increase survival and can cure patients, leading to fewer cancer deaths even as more people are being diagnosed," lead study author, Dr. Kathy Cronin of the National Cancer Institute, told ABC News.
Researchers said more people are surviving after a cancer diagnosis because of earlier detection and improved treatments.
However, some cancers continue to threaten patients at high rates. Those include cancers like female breast, kidney, pancreas, myeloma and others that are closely tied to medical conditions like obesity, diabetes, and general inactivity, all of which have continued to rise in the U.S., according to data cited in the study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The decrease in cancer deaths was driven largely by the steep decline in lung cancer deaths, the study said. Far fewer people are smoking today than they did in decades past. Meanwhile, screening and treatments for lung cancer have improved. However, despite the progress, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S, according to the study.
Notable strides have also been made in other cancers including kidney, ovary, and liver cancers, the study said. Significant disparities remain, particularly for African American women in uterine cancer and breast cancer. Cancer death is the highest among Black Americans, according to the study. Rates of new cancer diagnoses are highest among American Indian and Alaska Native people.
"We are making progress," Dr. William Dahut, cancer physician and chief scientific officer of the American Cancer Society, told ABC News.
"This does show that prevention, screening, and better treatment can make a difference, but more work is needed," Dahut said.
Democrat Internal Provides Flashing Red Light That the Red Wave Cometh
The last few weeks of any election cycle are always the dumbest, and 2022 has been no exception. Despite the fundamentals and the generic ballot average favoring Republicans, Democrats have clung to a few outlier polls and misleading, incomplete early voting data to once again try to proclaim a rebound.
It’s become absolutely mind-numbing, and I’ve done myself a favor by staying away from the daily swings over the last week. Why? Because there is no reason to believe Republicans aren’t going to win this election. I don’t care if a YouGov poll with a D+13 sample once against shows an improbable D+5 result. It just doesn’t matter, and that becomes obvious when you look around at what’s actually happening on the ground.
The key indicators are where the money is being spent and where Democrats are trying to triage seats. In a positive environment for them, they wouldn’t be in a position to lose a seat Biden won by double digits in 2020. Yet, that’s the story out of California, where incumbent Democrat Rep. Julia Brownley is only up one point, not according to some random poll, but according to her own internals.
That tidbit was buried in a recent Politico piece that’s worth paying attention to.
In the exurbs of greater Los Angeles, Brownley is also getting spooked. Though her district went for Biden by 20 points, she’s been dialing up fellow California delegation members seeking more financial help, according to several people familiar with the conversations. Her team was rattled by a recent internal poll that showed her up by only 1 point, those people said.
Leftwing groups are already going on the air to try to save Brownley in what was supposed to be a safe seat. Being up only one point in an internal poll, as a representative in the Los Angeles area, is a flashing red light for Democrats. It means something far bigger is coming than just the neutral environment they’ve been suggesting could exist.
The math is simple here. If Democrats are struggling in formerly safe seats in places like Oregon, Rhode Island, and blue areas of California, that means there are a lot of toss-up seats that are going to swing hard toward Republicans in the end. The House environment typically operates in a linear fashion. Yes, you’ll get some surprises, but if D+15 seats are within the margin of error, then a lot of D+5 seats are going to fall to the GOP.
That’s one of the things that continues to give me confidence in what we’ll see on election day despite all the noise and deflections going on. Counting on history to be completely defied is a bad strategy for Democrats, and political parties don’t put their money in races that are safe. The fact that so many heavy blue seats are having to be rescued while the GOP has shored up its and is on the offensive side tells you everything you need to about where things actually stand.
New Video Confirms Woke Mess Elon Musk Needs to Clean up at Twitter
Elon Musk waltzed into Twitter headquarters on Wednesday, carrying a sink and reveling in his triumph at finally closing his deal to buy Twitter after months of drama.
Musk also changed his profile to say “Chief Twit,” showing that humor that is now likely to influence Twitter.
There were reports that Musk might ax up to 75 percent of the employees in an effort to make Twitter run more efficiently. That seems like a lot, but given how biased the site has been, they all probably should be re-evaluated, if the idea is that Twitter operates like the “town square” — Elon’s aim. He said that he wants the site to be “warm and welcoming to all.”
As we noted, the employees are flipping out and making demands of him before he even came in, showing how completely clueless they are as to real business. Ironically, they claimed that firing 75 percent of them would hurt the “public conversation” when they have been doing all they can to control the public conversation, suppressing facts and opinions that they don’t like.
What’s funny is opinions like this blue-check CEO Zack Kanter.
Um, Zack? It would be better for the site if they went if Musk truly wants to remake the site. Plus, this is no doubt like the threats of Democrats running to Canada if they lose in elections. They say it and then never do it, it’s all about whining.
One of the things Musk has to take on is what a mess the company is now, and how much money they have been throwing away with how badly they have been run. Talk about a liberal, cushy, privileged existence, that’s the life of Twitter employees. Check out this video that Libs of TikTok found and you can see what I’m talking about. No wonder their company is in economic trouble and the employees are disconnected from the lives of most Americans. This is something else — it borders on a spa, with yoga rooms, luxury food, and red wine on tap, with a rooftop game and relaxation area.
How much work did that employee do in the day? It didn’t sound like very much and I’m guessing almost any other American has a much tougher schedule than this, without the red wine or the cushy meals. They’re also getting paid very well for this plush existence, according to Entrepreneur.
In a recent analysis of visas given to H-1B workers in Q2 2022 from Insider, Twitter salaries listed ranged from $122,000 to $332,000, spanning roles from IT engineers to senior software engineers.
Musk had a conversation with some of the employees while he was there.
But there were still employees who think that they can be obnoxious to the boss because of the coddled existence they’ve had, as our friends at Twitchy found.
“Hey @elonmusk thanks for visiting @TwitterSF. Hope you enjoyed your coffee at The Perch! Just one question: was it fun to look at the faces of the people you said you’d be laying off?” Stephanie Guevara declared.
Here’s her profile, which says it all.
If that list in the Insider is accurate about salaries, she’s making in the range of $271,130 to $332,000 and she’s probably not going to make that kind of money elsewhere. But apparently, a big salary and a cushy job mean to her she can insult the boss. When she was told that she was likely treading on thin ice with that approach, she mouthed off and blocked people from being able to view her tweets.
It’s hilarious that a Twitter engineer thinks having a reliable employee that doesn’t insult you is “censoring” but booting people off Twitter is something to celebrate. It shows how truly twisted some of the folks there are.
Musk can’t clean house soon enough.
UPDATE:
How it started How it’s going pic.twitter.com/7cAnRKqPT1
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 28, 2022