The Angry Bear

Le dénialité est trop cher. Denial isn’t specific to Americans, though we do seem to be better at it than most. We are now at least 30 years into severe climate change, yet 30-40% of Americans are in denial; assumedly, still looking for, waiting for, a return to normal. Not only are we not going back to the way it was 30 years ago; under the best of scenarios, no one of the next 5 generations will see the weather and climate of 1990 again. Under less than...

Administration Health Care Executive Order, Health Affairs Blog, Katie Keith, September 2020 Trump believes he took action on Healthcare with an Executive Order protecting people with pre-existing conditions and also by eliminating surprise billing. He did not.  On September 24, 2020, D.J. Trump issued a health care executive order (EO) focusing on protecting people with preexisting conditions and eliminating surprise medical bills. The Executive Order...

The COVID-19 pandemic is just what the Doctor ordered for American education. Well, it could be. First, we must, as is our wont, muddle for as long as possible. Plenty of time. What with students and teachers being quarantined one right after another, it’s going to be a long year. Time a plenty to fall for all that state propaganda about how classrooms are safe and kids need to be in the classroom just like before. You’d think we would learn. It’s been a...

In 2020, the “Blue Wall” is holding At 10 a.m. Eastern time we’ll get the JOLTS report for August. I plan on posting on that later today, but in the meantime here’s an update on the Midwest “Blue Wall” that failed in the 2016 election. Below are the smoothed poll results for Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin through yesterday: Figure 1 Despite the wide margins in all 4 States, Nate Silver gives Trump an 11% chance of winning...

I am one of those losers and suckers who was in the military from 1968 to 1974. As my wife of 49 years would tell you, I came out of the Corp nuts so bad I told her never to get back in bed with me unless you wake me up first. I lost friends like most of us did then. It still bothers me from time to time, I was not there for them. To have this president belittle the loss of them plagues me. They were good people. This is worth listening to and I hope you...

In economics we have the concept of “revealed preference” that simply states that you do not pay attention to what an individual claims to prefer. Rather, you pay attention to what they actually do. President Trump just elected to go to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment of his COVID-19 symptoms. He could have elected to go to any hospital in the country, but he choose to go to the most purely socialist medical center in the...

2020 Presidential and Senate polling nowcast through October 3: a partial rebound for Biden Here is my weekly update on the 2020 elections, based on State rather than national polling in the past 30 days, since that directly reflects what is likely to happen in the Electoral College. Remember that polls are really only nowcasts, not forecasts. They are snapshots of the present; there is no guarantee they will be identical or nearly identical in early...

[embedded content]Not a fan of Fox News. This clip of Senator Tom Cotton was easy to install. Briefly and you can listen to the clip, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo states three Repub Senators are fighting COVID-19 infections. Senator Cotton starts off with thanking Maria for the question and then states “I am doing fine” as if someone asked how he was feeling. This Senator is on the same plane as Ron Johnson for intelligence and which we will address...

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) by Robert Waldmann Friday, October 02, 2020 Constitutional Nit Picking I object to this sentence in this article by Paul Kane in the Washington Post “In such a scenario, deciding the presidency falls to the House of Representatives, but in a rare twist mandated by the 12th Amendment after the contested 1800 election, each state’s delegation counts as one vote. “ In fact, we can blame the delegates at...