FOUR SEAT PICKUP IN THE SENATE FOR THE GOP?

 

10/27/22

As my loyal readers have doubtless noticed, I have not written on the blog for a long time.  However, both demand for my thoughts on the upcoming election and the sheer enjoyment yours truly derives from writing and opining dictates an election special as the mid-terms draw near.

 

Never to be one to avoid an opportunity to go out on a well-fortified limb, yours truly is calling for the GOP to pick up as many as four Senate seats on November 8.   According to my analysis, the Republicans will overcome the drag of, er, low quality candidates to pick up seats in

 

·         Georgia

·         Arizona, and

·         New Hampshire.

 

The GOP will also take advantage of having a good candidate to pick up the seat in play in

 

·         Nevada.

 

The GOP will hold onto four sharply contested states despite having mediocre candidates:

 

·         Ohio

·         Pennsylvania

·         Wisconsin

·         North Carolina

 

Recognizing that things often don’t go as we suppose they will and having gained at least a measure of humility in all my affairs, but perhaps especially in the calling of elections and markets, I will adjust this prediction downward by a seat and prognosticate that the Republicans will pick up “only” three seats, still enough to leave them in firm control of the Senate.  The outcome will most likely be contrary to my four seat expectations, if at all, in Arizona, where Mark Kelly is both popular and doing a good job of convincing people of his moderation, or in New Hampshire, which is the longest shot for the GOP and where Don Bolduc isn’t helping his own cause.   I was inclined to include North Carolina in this list, but I’m surprised at the lead the polls show Ted Budd holding, the largest lead of any candidate in all these very close states.   Perhaps the always hyper-informed electorate is confusing the last two letters of his name and is mistaking him for popular incumbent Richard Burr.   Despite my concession to humility, however, I am quite comfortable with my initial inclination toward the GOP’s running the table Tuesday night.

 

 

So why the GOP blowout?   Several reasons.

 

First, loyal readers will remember one of my most notable posts, published of a few days before election night of 2016, in which yours truly was among a very small group of observers calling for a Trump victory (TRUMP WILL WIN, AND WIN BIG, ON TUESDAY, 11/4/16).   In that post, I spoke of the “reverse Bradley effect,” which I had written of several months earlier.   This effect was the tendency of people who were going to vote for Mr. Trump to tell pollsters, friends, acquaintances, etc. otherwise.    While this phenomenon is common knowledge now, it wasn’t when yours truly expostulated on it extensively throughout much of 2016.    We are witnessing the same phenomenon in 2022, but now it has been extended to the entire Republican Party, to wit, people are now afraid to admit in polite company, especially in upper-middle class suburbs that used to be GOP bastions, like the one in which yours truly resides, that they plan to vote for what the Democrats and mainstream media are portraying as the dastardly, evil, Trump-worshiping, mega-MAGA, rights-grabbing, woman-hating, racist GOP.   Admittedly, there are some corners of the (hopefully) post-Trump GOP that have made the Democrats’ job of demonizing the GOP far easier than it should be, but one easily notices that it seems to be exceedingly difficult of late for many of our media estimables to get the words “Republican” or “GOP” out of their mouths without barely suppressing a gag.    But I digress.  The point is that there are a lot of people who plan to vote Republican next Tuesday who will not share this information with their friends who, ironically, may feel the same way.

Second, judging from their advertising and the tone of their campaigns, the Democrats have two major issues:  abortion and Donald Trump.   Both are powerful political issues that give the Democrats a boost, especially when the Dems have managed to convince much of the hyper-informed electorate that the Dem position on the former is the national consensus of “legal but regulated and, hopefully, rare” while the GOP’s position is a fervent desire for a return to the horrible days of rape victims’ being forced to carry to term and women being forced to back-alley butchers to terminate pregnancies.   

In any case, no one can reasonably deny that abortion is one of the issues that has given the Democrats whatever momentum, and whatever chance, they have in this election.   It will surely help the Dems in the suburban districts where these elections will be decided.   Incidentally, just remember this when you hear supposedly insightful and intelligent people ranting and raving about a “political” Supreme Court.   If the Supreme Court were truly political, it would have passed on hearing Dobbs and waited until after the election when another case challenging Roe would inevitably come before it.   The Justices are smart people who are not unacquainted with politics; thus, they surely realized what impact overturning Roe would have on the mid-terms.   If they were just a bunch of politicians in robes, as much of the Democratic story goes, why would the Justices give the Democrats such a valuable issue?   But I digress.

 

Donald Trump is another big plus for the Dems, especially, again, in the suburban areas in which these elections will be decided.   The Republicans have surely not done enough to distance themselves from the solipsistic Mr. Trump, often through lack of desire to do so, and Mr. Trump does not help his party by managing to inject himself into elections to sell himself, usually at inopportune times, while declining to put his proverbial money where his mouth is by providing more than token financial support to candidates he likes in areas in which he is popular.   Further, need I remind my readers that the GOP would not be fighting to regain control of the Senate were it not for Mr. Trump’s self-obsession that resulted in both Georgia seats going to the Dems in 2020?

 

So the Democrats have abortion and Trump, both strong issues.   But the average voter replies “Is that all ya got?”   Judging, again, from Democratic advertising and the tone of their campaigns, the answer is a resounding “No.”

 

Meanwhile, the Republicans have

 

·         The economy

·         Crime 

·         The border

·         Foreign policy

 

I am more sanguine about the prospects of avoiding recession than are most; unless we talk ourselves into a recession, or the seemingly maniacal and disengaged Jay Powell (a Trump appointee, by the way) drives us into one to prove his steely-eyed determination to fight a war for which he didn’t show up when he could have made a difference, we can avoid a recession.   However, both those conditions are longshots and it doesn’t matter what I think; most people think we are in, or are headed for, a recession.  Inflation, on the other hand, though I think past its peak, is an undeniable reality.   While the blame for inflation can be laid primarily at the door of Jay Powell, President Biden and the Democrats behind him are also culpable and, in any case, Jay Powell is not on the Tuesday’s ballot.     

 

Crime is more a state and local issue than it is a national issue, but the hyper-informed electorate does not know that, so the crime issue is also a big winner for the GOP.

 

The border is a national issue, but it is a state and local issue in Arizona, which is a big reason I feel confident in my assertion that the GOP will pick up a Senate seat in that state despite having Blake Masters as their candidate.

 

Foreign policy is always a national issue, and our foreign policy is a directionless mess.   Could anybody do worse than the Democrats on this front?    Since we are not at war, foreign policy will not be a huge issue this Fall, but it certainly favors the GOP.

 

On the issues that most people think are most important, the GOP holds all the cards; that is why they very well may run the table Tuesday.   Even if they fall short of a four seat pick-up, they will surely control the Senate next year.

 

 

ON THE HOUSE….

 

Doing an extensive analysis on the House is difficult due to the sheer numbers of seats involved, and such an analysis is nothing I am going to attempt at my hourly rate in such matters of zero dollars ($0.00).   It would, however, be neither unusual nor daring to predict a GOP pick-up of about twenty seats, far more than would be needed to gain control of the People’s House.   The pickup could easily be larger, but bear in mind that the Republicans picked up seats in 2020, which is unusual in years in which a party’s presidential candidate loses.   Perhaps some of the normally expected pickup in 2022 was carried forward to 2020.   In any case, though, the GOP will comfortably gain control of the House as a result of November 8’s election.

 

A FEW CAVEATS…

 

First, I am writing this earlier than my previous election specials, leaving more room for an October or, more likely given the lateness of the vote this year, early November surprise (e.g., a war, a candidate consorting with the proverbial dead woman or live boy, etc.) that could change things.   I doubt this, but such a surprise is always a possibility.

 

Second, a much stronger possibility is the political junky’s, and the electorate’s, nightmare of our not knowing the outcome for weeks after the November 8 election.   The pivotal Senate races are all close and all will involve a lot of absentee and mail-in ballots.

 

FINALLY, A WISH…

 

When the GOP takes control of Congress, I hope you will join yours truly in hoping, and praying, that the adults take control of the Party.   Alas, this wish for adult supervision is itself perhaps a longshot; after all, assuming control of the Congress, and the White House, had no such salubrious effect on the Democrats. 

 

 

A SERIES OF BRIEF, AND SEEMINGLY RANDOM, PIECES ON UVALDE, KEN GRIFFIN, AND THE GROWING DISMISSAL OF EVIL IN OUR SOCIETY

 

7/14/22

I wrote a piece exclusively for the blog today, but I still want to include my readers on letters I have written to the Wall Street Journal on various topics.   These letters, if I can say so myself, are the paragon of pithiness, though some of my readers may think that I am lisping in making that assessment.

 

On Uvalde…

6/4/22

 

In her brilliant 6/4/22 Opinion piece “The Uvalde Police Scandal,” Peggy Noonan sees “a decline in professionalism in America” and “a deterioration of our pride in concepts like rigor and excellence.”   In a society in which every kid gets a trophy and every task is considered successfully completed as long as even a pathetic degree of effort is expended, it is no surprise that we have come to this point.   We just needed somebody of Ms. Noonan’s insight to, figuratively, say it out loud.

 

Ms. Noonan writes further that we have become a “people who loves to talk, endlessly, about sensitivity, yet aren’t sensitive enough to save the children bleeding out the other side of the door.”   Again, this is the logical consequence of a society that encourages its children, and, saints preserve us, our adults to talk endlessly about their feelings.

 

Thanks, Peggy, for playing Cassandra in the Greek tragedy that is modern-day America.

 

 

On Ken Griffin’s much-overhyped departure from Chicago…

 

6/24/22

 

How upset can Governor J.B. Pritzker be about Ken Griffin’s moving Citadel’s headquarters out of Chicago?   (“Chicago Loses a Business Citadel,” Review and Outlook, 6/24/24) Mr. Griffin was always ready to fulsomely bankroll opposition to Mr. Pritzker and the initiatives the Governor backed, albeit with decidedly mixed results.   With Mr. Griffin moving to Florida, the likelihood of his spending scores of millions being a nuisance to Mr. Pritzker is very low.   And what matters more to a typical politician, the fate of the state he governs or his own political future?

 

 

On the growing, and disturbing tendency to label more and more crime as mental health incidents…

 

7/9/22

 

One would be a fool to argue with Peggy Noonan’s contention (“Why Crime is Scarier Now,” Opinion, 7/9-10/22) that a large number of our criminals are mentally ill.   However, while acknowledging and addressing that fact, we have to avoid the slippery slope, which we have apparently already mounted, that leads to the conclusion that all crimes are committed by the mentally ill, that there are no evil people, only mentally ill people in need of treatment rather than punishment.   

 

Evil does exist in the world and it appears to be getting the upper hand, largely because, by denying it or sugarcoating it, we have enabled it.

 

QUINN ON NAÏVE, OR SIMPLY DISHONEST, PUBLIC SERVANTS, CHICAGO’S ODD COUPLE, ILLINOIS’ ODD COUPLE, AND 1ST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT HISTORY

 

7/14/22

I also want to keep my readers posted on letters I have sent to the Sun-Times.   These are short and to the point; I wish my “blog exclusive” scribblings could be so concise…and doubtless so do you.

 

On some Chicago political history…

 

6/6/22

 

I can’t believe that the Sun-Times, in citing the notable politicians who have held Illinois’ 1^st Congressional District seat (“Big Shoes to Fill,” 6/6/22), failed to mention two whose impact on Chicago politics was immeasurable and remains to this day:  

 

• Big Bill Dawson, the undisputed political boss of Black Chicago in the middle of the last century and the man most responsible for putting Richard J. Daley in the Mayor’s office, and
• Ralph Metcalfe, Mr. Dawson’s successor, Harold Washington’s mentor, co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, and the first major Black officeholder in Chicago to break with the Daley Machine during the racial turbulence of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

 

Oscar DePriest, Harold Washington, and Bobby Rush were indeed notable holders of the seat, but one cannot discuss the 1^st Congressional District without mentioning Messrs. Dawson and Metcalfe.

 

 

 

 

On the naivete, or the primacy of posterior-covering, that prevails among many, or at least one, of our public servants…  (This one was published on 6/19/22)

 

6/16/22

 

State Senate GOP Leader Dan McConchie, referring to the widespread giveaways that somehow happen to be taking place during this election year, states (“Freebie Frenzy,” 6/16/22) that “Nobody will fall for this gamesmanship.”  

 

Nobody will fall for this gamesmanship?   I wish I lived in the fantasy world Mr. McConchie apparently inhabits.  In the world with the blue sky that we live in, broad swaths of the electorate routinely fall for the lies, stories, chicanery, and general carnival barking that constitutes modern politics.   Why else would politicians spend so much money on the big scale sleight-of-hand we call running for office?

 

 

 

 

On Mayor Lightfoot’s seeming attitude toward Alderman Ed Burke, to wit “(She) can’t live with him, (she) can’t live without him.”…

 

6/23/22

 

In this midst of the City Council histrionics over attempts to raise the threshold for speeding camera tickets, Mayor Lightfoot rolled out her all-purpose bogeyman, Alderman Ed Burke, even though the increasingly irrelevant Mr. Burke said little or nothing during the febrile “debate” on this issue.  (“Road Rage,” 6/23/22)

 

One wonders what a somehow re-elected Mayor Lightfoot would do if Mr. Burke were to fail in his attempts at re-election in the 14^th Ward.   Who would she cite as the diabolical, yet silent, force behind every attempt by the City Council to act as a legislative body rather than a lapdog of whomever sits on the Fifth Floor?   Perhaps one of your intrepid reporters should root around in the financial records of the Burke campaign to see if the Mayor is secretly one of the Alderman’s supporters.

 

 

 

 

On neither of the Illinois gubernatorial candidates’ reflecting voters’ views on abortion, but at least one of them lacking shame…

 

6/27/22

 

Darren Bailey argues (“GOP Gov Hopefuls:  Reversal of Roe Signals ‘Battle for Life…Moves Right Here to Illinois,’ 6/26/22) “Unfortunately, billionaire J.B. Pritzker is an abortion extremist out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Illinoisans.” 

 

The irony here is comical; Mr. Bailey could have been writing about himself.  On this issue, neither the rabidly pro-choice Mr. Pritzker nor the doggedly pro-life Mr. Bailey is in touch with the “overwhelming majority of Illinoisans.”   The consensus on abortion, both in Illinois and in the country as a whole, long has been, and continues to be, that abortion should be legal but restricted.   That is highly unlikely to change, even, perhaps especially, in the post-Roe world despite the febrile efforts of the camps of Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Bailey.

 

 

MAYBE THE FED SHOULD STOP TIGHTENING. WHAT…ME UNCONVENTIONAL?

 

7/14/22

 

There used to be, and there still may be, a school of thought, of which yours truly was an admittedly not-at-all prominent member, that held that commodity prices should be the guide to monetary policy.    If commodity prices were rising, money was too loose and the Fed should tighten.   If commodity prices were falling, money was too tight and the Fed should loosen.   For a number of reasons, this perfectly logical line of thinking was derided.   Among those reasons were

 

·         This approach was an updated approach to the gold standard, and adherents of the gold standard are generally thrust into the same category as those who consult pig entrails.   That the commodity- based approach was effectively an acknowledgement of the shortcomings of the gold standard didn’t matter; its proponents had to be kooks because there remained a tenuous connection to that ancient object of kingly desire (i.e., gold, not the late and beautiful Grace Kelly).

·         The commodities-based approach to monetary policy was simple.   Economists don’t like simple, even though the “science” to which they have devoted their professional lives is little more than common sense put to numbers.

·         The approach got politicized, as has just about everything else in economics over the last 40 or so years.    It would appear that the modern economist is a generally bright person who really wanted to be a political scientist but who figured out that eating was preferable to starvation and hence decided, about halfway through undergrad school, to drop his or her poly-sci major in favor of economics, a field in which there are actual jobs.  But I digress.

·         The prices of the commodities contained in the products we buy are not substantial components of the price we pay for those products; labor and transportation costs are usually more substantial.   This is a decent argument, but commodities are bought and sold as hedges by users, suppliers, and speculators and hence give an idea of where the market thinks prices are going.   Their role in the cost structure is, in this sense, irrelevant.

 

At any rate, despite the derision commodities based monetary policy suffered from some quarters and the near deification in which it basked from other quarters, as an objective way of looking at monetary policy, it seemed to work.   Such an approach to monetary policy probably would have achieved far better results than the “do whatever the Administration wants so we can keep our really nice jobs”  (See SOON THE FED WILL LEARN TO SIT UP AND BEG from May of this year.) approach the Fed and many of its fellow central banks have pursued for most of my professional lifetime.   Certainly, a commodity aware Fed would have tightened monetary policy much sooner in this go-around (probably at least in mid-2021) and would have avoided many of the inflationary travails that threaten to run our economy off the rails.

 

I bring this up to point out that, despite the orthodoxy that seems to prevail everywhere, perhaps the Fed should be less gung-ho about continuing to raise rates and shrink its balance sheet.   Note that commodity prices have been taking a beating of late.   Here are the price changes of the most active futures contracts on the following commodities and commodity indices since their highs, just about all of which were hit in early June, except for the agricultural commodities, the highs for which were reached in the Spring:

 

West Texas crude                             -23%

Gasoline                                              -24%

Copper                                                 -33%

Corn                                                      -26%

Wheat                                                  -35%

Lumber                                                -47%

Soybeans                                            -22%

Gold                                                      -14%

Silver                                                     -30%

CRB                                                        -15%

S&P GSCI                                             -16%

 

For those of us who think commodity prices are important, this doesn’t seem to be a good time to be tightening money.   Yes, that 9.1% June CPI number was bone-chilling, and the 11.3% PPI number was even more angina-inducing.    However, much of the aforementioned drop in commodity prices has taken place since the end of June.  And, yes, commodity prices, except for the metals, are still up as much from their lows as they are down from their highs.   However, in economics, as in much of life, it is what happened most recently that matters most, i.e., life takes place at the margin.

 

There is another good reason that Fed should re-examine the course into which it has apparently locked itself, and I am not talking about avoidance of recession.    Yours truly, being of a certain age, has never understood the horror with which the markets, much of the economics profession, and apparently the world recoils at the notion of a recession.   As I wrote long ago in a post I can no longer locate, recessions are part of the economic cycle and have a salubrious effect on the long-term economy by squeezing out excesses and laying a firmer foundation for further growth.   Efforts to avoid these normal economics phases have led to many of the excesses, bubbles, and the like that have done grave damage to our economy.   Perhaps this utter terror at the very notion of recession results from the perspective of most practicing economists and market participants.   The only recessions that these youngsters remember are real doozies, like 2008.   They don’t remember the mild, and ultimately eupeptic, recessions yours truly, and most of you, have experienced.   So maybe one can’t blame them for cowering under their proverbial desks at the very thought of a recession.   The rest of us suffer from their resultant policy prescriptions, but that is life.   At any rate, if we are headed toward a recession, and the Fed seems bound and determined to induce one if we are not, this will be one of the strangest recessions in yours truly’s lifetime, with tight labor markets, continuing spending on the usual frivolous baubles and other silliness by the wealthy or those who want to appear to be wealthy, and the only recently developing, and halting, resistance to outrageous prices for things that we could easily do without with only a little bit of effort.   But I digress.

 

No, it is not recession that I fear.   I fear the strength of the dollar.    Here are the increases in the value of the dollar against the following currencies year to date:

 

Euro                                       13%

Canadian dollar                 2%

Yen                                        19%

British pound                     14%

Mexican peso                    1%

 

Note that the peso is a commodity-based currency and may hence be receiving a shellacking in the near future.   The Canadian dollar is perceived to be a commodity-based currency and hence may be in for the same fate.   But I digress.  The important thing is that the value of the dollar has gone through the proverbial roof and now trades, for the first time since the dawn of this millennium, at greater than one euro.

 

Why is the strong dollar a bad thing?   Not for the reasons involving “terms of trade” that you were taught in economics class.  A strong dollar, combined with increasing interest rates, makes servicing dollar denominated debts onerous, and in some cases impossible, for “emerging market” countries.   This debilitating debt service burden, along with the increases in the price of food in these countries born largely of Mr. Putin’s barbarism in Ukraine (Yes, the aforementioned drops in commodity prices will help here, but they haven’t yet and may take some time to do so.), are making life miserable in much of the developing world.   Sri Lanka, in which rioters occupied the homes of both the President and Prime Minister, may be only the first in a series of manifestations of unrest overseas born of the increasingly onerous burdens of debt service and food prices.   This has human consequences, of course, but also has financial consequences.   An outbreak of effective bankruptcies overseas would not be good for the world’s financial system.    Should the Fed be making developing countries’ debt burdens worse directly by increasing interest rates and indirectly by increasing the value of the currency in which these debts are settled?   

 

I will write something here I rarely wrote, or said, when I was younger and obviously far smarter than I am now:   I could be wrong.   Maybe we are seeing, at best, a temporary reprieve in inflation.   Maybe commodity prices don’t matter and are only so much nonsense as more enlightened thinkers tell us.    But if I were in charge at the Fed right now, I might be a little less gung-ho about bearing down on the money supply in an environment characterized by crashing commodity prices and a dollar so strong that it could lead to a worldwide financial crisis.  

 

SOON THE FED WILL LEARN TO SIT UP AND BEG

 

5/26/22

 

Andy Kessler wrote one of his typically insightful pieces for the Wall Street Journal on 5/16/22 and, again, while I generally agree with his argument, he made a statement regarding the Fed that floored me.   Why the Fed grew so lax in managing monetary policy is crystal clear, to wit, the Fed has become little more than an arm of the administration in power.   Perhaps I should have been kinder to my description of the Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell Feds, but why?    This letter also was not published.

 

 

5/16/22

 

In his 5/16/22 Opinion piece (“When Will the Selling Stop?”), Andy Kessler states “Why the Fed overstayed its welcome at zero is a mystery, but rising interest rates have ended the party.”

 

There is no mystery to the Fed’s having conducted an expansionary monetary policy long after doing so may have been warranted.   Since at least the 2009 “housing” crisis, the Fed has become little more than an arm of the Administration in power.   Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden all demanded an expansionary monetary policy to prop up the economy and/or the market and the Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell Feds responded like the lapdogs they were and are.   Now that inflation is becoming a problem for the Biden administration, the Fed has begun tightening.

 

We should end the charade that monetary policy has been for at least the last thirteen years.   Either Congress should explicitly re-establish the Fed’s independence or the Fed should be made another Cabinet Department.  Heaven help us if we choose the latter.

UNLIKE, SAY, GRISWOLD, ROE WILL NEVER “BE REMOVED” AS A NATIONAL ISSUE

 

5/26/22

 

I wrote the following letter to the Wall Street Journal earlier this month in response to Peggy Noonan’s observation that “the end of Roe will be good for America.”   I am largely sympathetic to her argument, but she made a statement that made no sense, and I felt obligated to respond.   Hey, if you see something, say something, right?  The letter wasn’t published.

 

5/7/22

 

One of the problems with Peggy Noonan’s reasoning (“The End of Roe Will be Good for America,” Opinion, 5/7-5/8/22) is that she assumes that, should Roe be overturned “…as a national matter, the abortion issue (will be) removed…”   Even if Roe is overturned, the abortion issue would not be removed on any level.  The real action will be, as Ms. Noonan implies, at the state level, but we are already seeing efforts to codify Roe on the national level.   The issue is just too rich politically for either party to let fade.  

 

In fact, one could argue that the posturing on abortion would be more vociferous at the national level in a post-Roe world.  The votes taken in state legislatures would have real impact on people’s lives rather than being largely meaningless votes designed to throw red meat to those who can write campaign checks and marshal great numbers of voters.    On the other hand, the posturing at the national level would continue to be the political freebie it has long been in an abortion landscape overshadowed by Roe.

UVALDE: LESS RED MEAT, MORE SERIOUS THOUGHT AND, HOPEFULLY, BUT NOT PROBABLY, ACTION

 

5/26/22

 

Unlike many of my GOP colleagues, I will readily admit that guns are part of the problem; the reflexive statement that "Guns aren't the problem; people are the problem" just ignores the facts and common sense.   So I would go along with some common-sense gun control laws, especially enhanced background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and psychos and prolonged waiting periods for gun purchases to stop the most impulsive of shootings.  I would also consider limits on the firepower of guns sold to civilians beyond what is in place now.  However, I would only do so as part of a comprehensive package of measures because there are so many other things at work, including:

 

·         broken homes with disposable children

·         parents who don't give a damn (I guess this is nearly the same as #1)

·         video games and movies in which victims, though made to look like people, are inanimate objects and killing has no consequences beyond getting rewarded by moving to the next "level."

·         the decline of churches and the belittling of religion in the popular culture

·         mental health services that are either not provided or ignored by those who most need them.

·         a nihilistic, solipsistic culture that leads to nowhere but disenchantment, resentment, and, in some cases, violence.

·         media that insist on giving sick, evil, and deranged people the attention they’ve always craved by publishing their names. Why do we have to know the names of these killers?   Why not deny them the imagined immortality they seek by simply referring to, in this case, an 18-year-old male who lived in the area”?  (I might substitute terms like “misfit,” “thug,” or “soulless, malevolent monster” for “male” in that description, but I’ll take what I can get.)

·         schools being the softest of targets due to a reluctance of some educators to have stepped up, armed security of some sort.  I’m not willing to sacrifice children in service to somebody’s utopian vision of the way the world ought to be.  Admittedly, armed security didn’t help much in Uvalde, but better trained and equipped security may have made all the difference. 

 

No, I don't know what to do in the political realm about the aforementioned items, except for the last one.  These are problems in society that can't be addressed by more federal action, more money, or the like.   These are problems that call for a great awakening of sorts.

 

I would be willing, even eager, to discuss the role of the ready availability of guns to solve this utter insanity, but we would be better served, and have a chance to solve the problem, by engaging in more universal conversation and action.

 

Such an approach will not happen any time soon, though, because the true believers in the GOP won’t discuss guns and the true believers in the Democratic Party will only discuss guns.   Is there anybody in the sensible middle anymore?   Silly question, I know.

 

Finally, two comments, not to infuriate both ends of the debate but, perhaps, to show my good faith and at least relative impartiality and genuine desire to stop this carnage:

 

·         Governor Greg Abbott was right to point out that 18-year-olds have been able to buy long guns in Texas for 60 years, but mass shootings like Uvalde are much more recent phenomena.  Yes, the University of Texas tower rampage took place 56 years ago, and, on the horror barometer, was as bad as just about anything we have seen of late, but that was nearly a one-off event compared to what we have been seeing over the last ten years or so.

·         President Joe Biden’s speech in the immediate wake of the shooting was terrific.   The responses from Fox News, et. al., would be comical if we weren’t dealing with something so tragic, but were utterly predictable.

 

DO A DISTINGUISHED AND HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSMAN AND A BULLDOG OF AN ALDERMAN KNOW THAT THEY ARE “NOBODY”?

 

5/4/22

 

I sent this letter to the Chicago Sun-Times editor two days ago.   Since the Sun-Times published a letter on the very next day responding to the same Laura Washington column, it is highly unlikely that the Sun-Times will publish mine, so, rather than delay, I decided to share my note immediately rather than delay as I did with my last letter to the Sun-Times:

 

5/2/22

 

I agree with Laura Washington that you can’t beat somebody with nobody (“Critics Want Lightfoot gone, but you can’t beat somebody with nobody,” Opinion, 5/2/22), but neither of Mayor Lightfoot’s two declared opponents, Willie Wilson and Ray Lopez, is a nobody.  Mr. Wilson ran an impressive campaign in 2019, carrying thirteen wards in the first round of voting, more than any other candidate, and his appeal is increasing due to his gas giveaways and hard line on crime.  Mr. Lopez is a bulldog of an alderman who has seized on the crime issue by personally confronting gangbangers and thugs in his ward.   Both men, one Black and one Hispanic and gay, have a degree of appeal to those who insist on casting their votes based on such characteristics.

 

It is far too early to declare that Mayor Lightfoot will be a one-term mayor, but it is foolish and insulting to declare either of her two so-far declared opponents to be “nobody.”  

THE LEAKED DRAFT ROE v WADE OPINION: LITTLE CHANGES BUT THE INTENSITY OF THE POSTURING

 

5/3/22

Even if the leaked Alito draft opinion striking down Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey turns out to be the final opinion (highly unlikely) or part of a process of deliberation that will ultimately lead to those two decisions being struck down (more likely but far from certain), those in favor of ready access to abortion should tone down their vituperation and those who are opposed to abortion should moderate their celebration.   Nothing substantive is going to change regarding the availability of abortion if Roe is overturned.

 

If Roe is overturned, decisions regarding the availability, and the legality, of abortion will be in the hands of the states, where they should have been all along.   Once in the hands of the states, it is quite clear that laws regarding abortion will reflect the general consensus this country reached long ago on abortion, i.e., that abortion should be legal but restricted.    Nothing will change in that regard.   Yes, the degree of restrictions will vary from state to state, as it does now and as it should.   Some states will ban abortion outright.   Some of the more hysterical among those who insist on wider availability of abortion are predicting that half the states will outlaw abortion.   Some cooler heads in both camps are predicting that the number of such states will be in the teens.   Yours truly thinks that the number will be more like ten, or even fewer.   Regardless of their number, states’ outlawing abortion will present problems for women who live in such states and wish to terminate their pregnancies.   Even now, though, organizations and people strongly in favor of keeping abortion legal and widely available are making, and, in some states, executing plans to provide transport to women who cannot obtain abortions in their state of residence.   Having to provide such services will provide those in favor of readily available abortion a chance to put their proverbial money where their mouths are, and one should have little doubt that such plans will come to fruition and thus that women anywhere in this country who want abortions in the still hypothetical post-Roe era will be able to terminate their pregnancies with only relatively minor degrees of inconvenience.   Talk of “back-alley abortions” and a “return to the days of the coat-hanger” is so much hyper-ventilation.  

 

What is even sillier, but at least as predictable, is politicians grandstanding on the issue, with the likes of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker of and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot piously proclaiming that abortion will remain legal and readily available even if Roe is overturned.    They might as well proclaim that water will remain wet.  Does anybody who is not barren of grey matter and/or overcome by the alarmism of the moment think for even three seconds that, in a post-Roe world, abortion will be outlawed in Illinois?  Or, for that matter, in New York, California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington, Oregon, et. multa al.?    But the facts, and/or or reasoned conclusions, don’t matter when emotions overrule intellect, which seems to be happening with increasing frequency in this country on matters far beyond abortion rights, but I digress.  Such emoting rather than thinking is why, by the way, an overturning of Roe will turn out to be a big positive politically for the Democrats in 2022 and 2024.   Whether it will be enough for them to hold onto Congress and the White House is grist for a later mill, but an overturned Roe will be a positive for the Dems.    So look for the crocodile tears in the eyes of Democratic pols wailing and gnashing their teeth in the wake of this SCOTUS leak.

 

One more thing…

 

I have been around long enough to have experienced many “world-changing” developments that don’t change the world much at all.   Overturning of Roe, if it happens, will turn out to be one of them.

LET HE WHO IS WITHOUT INFLATIONARY SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE

 

4/27/22

 

I wrote the following letter to the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago and, given the passage of time, it will not be published, so I will no longer delay sharing it with my readers.

 

Incidentally, these letters to the Journal were written, as are all letters to that paper, in response to specific articles in its Opinion section.  However, the reader did not have to have read the original article to get the point I am making, or at least I hope not.

 

4/13/22

 

The Wall Street Journal is correct in asserting that “This Isn’t Putin’s Inflation (Review and Outlook, 4/13/22),” but isn’t only Joe Biden’s inflation, either.   As the Journal points out, President Trump “signed onto an unnecessary $900 billion Covid relief bill,” but that fiscal outrage was exceptional for Mr. Trump only in degree.  Further, Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized Jay Powell, his own selection for Fed Chair, for, laughably, being too tight on monetary policy.   Neither of Mr. Trump’s immediate predecessors could be described as a fiscal or monetary hawk, either.

 

For those of us of a traditionalist bent in our approach to economics, the most salient question regarding the current bout of inflation is why it took so long to arrive.

LATE WORD ON WILL SMITH AND CHRIS ROCK: WHO GIVES A DAMN?

 

4/27/22

 

I wrote the following letter to the Chicago Sun-Times almost a month ago.   While I generally wait awhile before posting these letters to the blog in order to see if they get published, I have given this one too much time.  For that, I apologize to you, my readers.  I pledge to post these sooner, when they are more timely, but, I might add, no more relevant.

 

By the way, I have long been a believer in Shakespeare’s adage that “Brevity is the soul of wit,” more in theory than in practice.   This post, and today’s other post, are examples of actually putting those wise words into practice.   Regular readers, however, know better than to count on this newfound brevity continuing:

 

 

3/31/22

 

All the attention that has been paid to the Chris Rock/Will Smith shenanigans at this year’s Oscars, and to the Oscars in general, over the last week has provided further evidence for what is by now glaringly obvious:   We are a silly, silly people consumed with trivia and gorging itself on a steady diet of cotton candy for the mind.

THE GOP SHOULD HAVE A GREAT YEAR IN 2022, BUT…

 

4/2/22

 

I sent this letter to the Wall Street Journal on 3/24 and the paper published it on 3/30.  I want to see the GOP pick up at least one, and, hopefully, both Houses later this year, but the Republicans have shown an enormous capacity to blow elections that hare handed to them.  Here is the original letter:

 

3/24/22

 

While it is hard to argue with Karl Rove’s conclusion (“Mid-Term Strategy Pulls Democrats Apart,” Opinion, 3/24/22) that the Democrats will “pay a fearsome price” in the mid-terms for their mistakes that transcend mere messaging, never underestimate the ability of the GOP to seize defeat from the proverbial jaws of victory.    

 

Rather than focus on the softballs the Democrats are tossing them in the form of an inflation rate not seen since 1982, a failed foreign policy, and skyrocketing crime rates, GOP candidates concentrate on issues that matter to their Party’s far right, such as hyper-restrictive abortion laws served up by GOP legislatures and governors, and to Donald Trump, most notably the allegedly stolen 2020 election.  Further, as I write this, some of the GOP’s supposedly brightest lights see the Jackson Supreme Court nomination hearings as an opportunity to grandstand, cater to the far right, and harass a largely sympathetic candidate whose nomination is assured.  None of this is going to endear the GOP to the suburban voters who tossed Trump out of office in 2020 and who just might keep the Democrats in control of both houses if the Republicans continue to ignore what matters to them in order to curry the favor of the Trump wing of the GOP.

 

Mark M. Quinn

 

 

THE HAPLESS ILLINOIS GOP, THE MEDIA’S SUDDEN INTEREST IN THE HUNTER BIDEN STORY, AND THE MISHANDLING OF THE KATANJI BROWN HEARINGS

 

4/2/22

 

I just sent a response to an e-mail that a good friend of mine sent to a small group of our mutual friends who are interested in politics and not uniform in our political beliefs.   I thought, especially given that I haven’t posted on this blog for a long, long time, that my readers might enjoy this redacted version of my response e-mail, which is of a sufficiently general nature that I can’t see any of the group objecting to my publishing it:

 

 

 

On (Aurora Mayor and GOP gubernatorial aspirant) Richard Irvin, I suspect (financial guru, billionaire, and bankroller of GOP candidates) Ken Griffin looked at the demographics, and only the demographics, and then decided which horse he would back, making Irvin the instant front-runner.   Irvin has plenty of flaws that the Dems will be all over during a general election should Irvin win the primary, which isn't a forgone conclusion because I can't see any genuine conservative, let alone any Trumpite, backing the guy.   As far as alternatives, none is formidable, a few are crazy.   Art Laffer, or at least some of Art Laffer’s people, is backing Gary Rabine; for me, that certainly is a big positive for Rabine.  Further, I love Rabine's comment, in the wake of WTTW's investigation of the "pay-to-play" policies under Irvin, which may turn out to be nothing, by the way, that "The last thing Illinois needs is another governor in jail."  Overwrought, perhaps, but still hysterical.   This appears to be one of those elections in which I will either vote for myself or, more responsibly, ask my politically active and astute nephew who is knowledgeable on many, many things and a genuine conservative if there ever was one, whom I should support; he has never steered me wrong before. 

 

 

I wonder if the media's sudden, but possibly fleeting, interest in the years-old sordid machinations of Hunter Biden, possibly involving the "big guy," results from the media's desire for a good story regardless of the politics involved or from a desire to help shove Joe aside for Kamala, who is probably more to their liking.   This is another instance of being careful what one wishes for.

 

 

I still think the Republicans, including Lindsey Graham, hurt themselves in the Katanji Brown hearings.   Among other things, the GOPers seemed to be confused regarding what the role of a defense lawyer is.   Graham had his choice, a slightly less liberal judge from South Carolina, and was disappointed that Joe didn't select her.  I, on the other hand, would have been shocked if Joe did select her.   What is in it for Joe if he does any kind of feint to the right, or, more properly, away from the leftist elements of his party?   The GOP is going to hate the guy and ridicule the guy no matter what he does and the left wing of the Democratic Party, which is so large that it is severely unbalancing the airplane, would be infuriated with Biden.   At any rate, this was one nomination that looked from the beginning like it was going to go through, and accepting that and being gracious would have helped the GOP in the mid-terms and provided further ammunition for the GOP when the Dems savage the next SCOTUS nominee from a future Republican president, which they will inevitably do.   Under this circumstance, the GOP could point out "We were gentlemen (er, sorry, gentle people) when you nominated a candidate we didn't like ideologically, but you have shown no such grace for our nominee..."   That could go a long way politically.