LOL...I'm close. I, literally, can't afford to work due to taxes.

It's a joke and an insult to anybody who understands basic math. They're playing to the prole shlub...like arguing about which chair to move first on the deck of the Titanic. It's a joke. We'll eventually default...But, not before trying to use the only method of payoff that's not political suicide for incumbents...inflation.

You nailed it. I had a pension check coming in. 10% was just removed by health premium. Who's to say that won't happen every year? Nobody. It will happen. It's easy money. Theft. Per longstanding Federal law they cannot alter/reduce a "defined benefit" pension.....except for this, apparently. They found the loophole and now they'll take it...

I'm very much appreciative of the effort you've spent to bring this information to the Gulch, TheRealBill.

We're supposed to stay rational over feelings here in the Gulch, but I have this nagging feeling there's more to the fact that the electorate is so evenly divided between the two parties. As in why so close to 50/50 and not say 60/40 or even 70/30? Individual issues, like illegal immigration, can have splits of 80/20 yet the party votes are still nearly 50/50.

Give 'em an orange and a loin cloth. Yaarrrh!

I wonder how much of the electorate figures it's coming to the time where the tools of production are thrown down in pure defeat and they go on the dole by voting D.

I just watched a video about the degradation of South Africa in the past 15 years. Atlas Shrugged on steroids. Although White people are outnumbered 10 to 1 they are still blamed for all the country's problems, not the socialist/communist government or the tribal habits of the populace. The Zimbabwe example obviously didn't take. I'm watching NYC for an American version taking shape.

The health insurance premiums for my wife and I have gone up over 60% since the blessing of Obummer-care. It is covered through her retirement check and is now over 50% of that! At the recent rate hikes over the past few years it won't be long until the premiums eat the whole check! Then what?!

Think it really just reduces soap and heat.

Yeah definitely the most debt in history. Interest payments alone are approaching twice the military budget. When you combine social spending with interest ("mandatory budget") you get 75% of the spend today. All that quibbling the Congress does every few months about the budget is arguing about the remaining 25%.

So- the Ozone technology reduces water usage?
I can see how that would be important, out on the middle of the ocean...
(insert icon of smiley face rolling his eyes in disgust...)

On the media lies and people believing them:
From Wizard's First Rule - "People believe a lie for one of two reasons: they fear it to be true or they want it to be true."

My corollary: Those that fear it to be true will try to disprove it; those that want it to be true will defend it.

And to Robert of Nero: "You voted for this" and yet you expect access to that lever of power - again with historical ignorance.

We're probably seeing the end of a once-great nation. There is no out for smart voters who want peace, freedom and prosperity. The "lesser of two evils" is starting to look like "to evils" on the ballot. That said, the midterms may end up being the biggest political bloodbath in my lifetime. Do we get open borders, undocumented violent sexual predators, and the most debt in human history? Or, do we get to fight wars for Israel until the last American is dead, the most debt in human history, and government-backed global pedophile rings running wild?

On more local levels....Notice how everything is backwards now? Homelessness is taking over the nation. Every quarter mile or so on busy roads there's somebody waving their arms around having an argument with the air. We don't remove the worst criminals from society, but eagerly push them back out to make more victims. Rather than kill Obamacare, we just hamstrung it, kept the corporate interests in it and recently saddled the working American with the biggest increase in premiums in the history of the western hemisphere. Absolutely nothing is going right in public/government education. After Musk uncovers unprecedented theft of tax revenues he's fired and nobody goes to jail. At this point...I'm shocked that Swalwell was attacked for raping those drunk female coworkers...political expediency I guess...

And, here I sit. Sending checks to the government that are close to my salary back when I stared my career.

More so outside of the US. I dropped a post in Economics talking about the WTI last week. Among it's takeaways is that gas prices in the US are not directly because we can't get oil. In fact they are high because American oil is valued higher and has higher demand. That "20% of the worlds" oil the Brent index, and really it means "20% of the world's oil if we don't count the US"

I didn't have room for this extra info on how this national view hides the reality of elections being local events. So I put it in this "addendum."

The article above examines national favorability numbers for both parties. But midterm elections are not national events. They are 435 separate House races and 35 Senate contests, and the bilateral disgust dynamic plays out very differently depending on whether a seat is competitive or safe.

Ballotpedia currently tracks about 43 House districts as battlegrounds, roughly 10 percent of the chamber. Democrats hold 23 of those seats, Republicans hold 20. The remaining 392 seats are solidly held by one party or the other, meaning the incumbent or their party's nominee will win regardless of what national favorability numbers say. In those seats, the bilateral disgust is politically inert; a Republican at 32 percent national favorability wins a solid-red district just as easily as a Democrat at 28 percent wins a solid-blue one.

The House majority turns on what happens in those 43 districts. Republicans currently hold a 220-212 majority with three vacancies. Democrats need a net gain of three seats. Republicans can lose at most two. The margin is so thin that the national topline is almost meaningless; what matters is whether individual incumbents in individual districts have done enough to insulate themselves from the headwinds affecting their party.

The Senate map tells a similar story with its own structural wrinkle. Of the 35 seats up for election (33 regular plus special elections in Florida and Ohio), analysts are tracking roughly 9-12 as competitive. The rest are safe. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take the majority, a tall order under any conditions. Their best offensive targets are Maine (Susan Collins), North Carolina (open seat), and possibly Ohio (special election). But they are simultaneously defending Georgia (Jon Ossoff) and Michigan (open seat after Gary Peters retired), both in states Trump carried in 2024.

This is where the bilateral disgust asymmetry from the article has concrete consequences. In the competitive Senate races, Democrats need to persuade voters who dislike both parties to show up and choose the Democratic candidate. But those voters, as the CNN data shows, dislike Democrats primarily for being passive and unfocused. That complaint becomes harder to overcome when the specific Democratic candidate has to explain what the party stands for while 67 percent of the party's own voters say there is no consensus on that question. Republican candidates in competitive races face their own liabilities, but their party's higher internal cohesion gives them a more stable base to build from.

The commentary that treats Trump's 35 percent approval as a uniform national headwind for Republicans is conflating a national number with 435 distinct local races. In the roughly 390 safe seats, approval doesn't matter because the outcome is predetermined. In the roughly 43 competitive House seats and 9-12 competitive Senate races where it theoretically could matter, the bilateral disgust dynamic means the expected Democratic advantage from presidential unpopularity is partially offset by the opposition's own unfavorability, priority misalignment, and internal division. The midterms will be decided in those few dozen races by factors that no national poll measures: candidate quality, local issue salience, ground-game execution, and whether each party can give voters in those specific districts a reason to choose them rather than merely a reason to reject the other side.

Now, care to guess what kind of polling isn't being done, or at least isn't being talked about?

Glad you found it useful. I've been building up some thoughts along these lines as I've taken a break from my home economics newsletter and a discussion with a new friend helped crystallize some thoughts around my issues with polling, I figured a good first-pass for others would be best here where I find most to be thoughtful and actually think about things. About to post one about POTUS approval polls building on this one. :)

Some Memes never go stale

Ships are pouring into the Gulf of America to "fill 'er up" on sweet American oil and LNG.
Now if we can only get The Peoples Republic of Taxachusetts to allow a natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania through their Commie, Woke state (of confusion) so the rest of New England can have plentiful, cheap gas.....
The issue compounding this supply is a 100-year-old-law that doesn't allow non-US registered ships to ferry goods from one part of America to the other. This was to protect American shipping. Great!... except, we haven't built and registered a LNG tanker in the country for 60 years.
New England is forced to buy LNG from overseas! This is insane.
All because of the stupid Watermelon crowd.
You know, watermelon: Green on the outside, Red on the inside.

Thanks for the link - looks to be an impressive individual. Know someone in the AF and they say the change between admin's is VERY stark. They would not have been able to do what has been done in the Mideast without the change. And the force shaping that is going on - he said they are going to lose some good desk people due to the reinforcing of physical requirements but all in all it is a very good thing.

Look up Jason Potter, ASN/RDA now. I knew him previously as a Congressional staffer. He is a GREAT guy, trying to do the right thing, drive efficiency and expediency. No arrogance, soft spoken, Totally unusual for a political role like this.

https://www.secnav.navy.mil/rda/Docum...

Good to know, and glad to hear!

Nicely expressed! Almost everything our modern infrastructure relies on comes out of an oil well or coal mine.

Your sentiments of what Trump could say or do mirrors my own thoughts. However, I don't think Trump will go that route because he will not telegraph a punch (or a feint punch) to the enemy. I figure he is drawing lines in the sand and not showing the enemy where they all are, but will provide painful feedback when required. He's the type that would hide a spiked mace behind his back and taunt the fool irritating him to come in nice and close.

Good Grief. I knew it was in the laundry but did not see anywhere that it was due to ozone based systems. Thanks for the post!

👍 Excellent rational action.

Late to respond, just got this batch today, April 14. They were well worth waiting for🤣

That definitely happens. It is why we use a crappy 57mm POS pop gun, while every other Navy uses the 76mm. BAE politics. Ridiculous. We offered the 76 for the same price and it fit in the same space. It has a guided munition that has a 26 mile range. Politics.
The HED decision was a douche 2-star trying to make a point. He did, and cost the navy $100M's and capability. His douche name is VADM (later) McCoy. He is an arrogant puke, and should have his retirement forfeit.