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January 2026
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  • Trump’s November Chances – 11aug24 update

    George Rebane

    This is a lament.  From his statements and recent – post Tim Walz – behavior it looks to me that Donald Trump has really gone off the rails and is headed for a massive defeat in November.  As the record of these pages confirms and given the available choices, I have been a qualified Trump supporter ever since he became the Republican nominee in 2016.  During the entire time I have been chagrined at his tendency for bombast, bravura, and exaggeration, especially when on the campaign trail.

    Today, when finally presented with an ideal pair of very vulnerable opponents, and eight years of experience under his belt in how his off-track shooting from the lip has been received, he still pays no mind to the harm he does to himself and the Republican party by continuing on the same path.  And he is doing it proudly as he has declared to his audiences that he has no intention of changing his gratuitous personal attacks on anyone that happens to cross his mind while on the podium.

    So now the country’s conservatives, capitalists, and small government devotees have to suffer through daily doses of free leftwing talking points served up to the lamestream media by Trump.  Their news stories and commentaries almost write themselves from the copy spouted by our former president.  Instead of focusing on the rich trove of Democrats’ lies and policy screw-ups from the Obama and Biden/Harris administrations, Trump continues to be the petulant third grader on the playground focusing on lurid descriptions of his opponents’ real and imagined personal shortcomings.

    Perhaps the most worrying aspect of his campaign is that he has no strong adult advisors in his inner circle who can tell him daily when he needs zip his lip.  It’s hard for me to believe he doesn’t have a cadre or even a small clutch of such people in his inner circle.  But it is clear that he is flying blind without the aid of such critical navigators.  Were such people to exist, we would by now have seen them resigning one-by-one as Trump continued to ignore their counsel.

    Given this ongoing travail, my own assessment of his probability of winning in November started with a paltry 0.45 and eked up to 0.48 (here) after the assassination attempt.  But taking into account what has happened since, my belief in his chances for regaining the White House has plummeted to 0.22, or a bit more than one in five.  This new assessment accurately represents the dour mood that the Trump campaign has me in.

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  • Scattershots – 4aug24

    George Rebane

    Kamala Harris is a DEI VP and now is a DEI candidate.  That was made clear when Joe Biden told the nation that his VP pick would be a “black woman”.  The lamestream media has now added that to their repertoire of Trump attacks for reminding the country of her qualifications for making Biden’s cut.  Of course, she was also a DEI office holder for all her previous positions before being anointed VP.  But now that progressive attribute has suddenly become tabu even as formerly compliant corporations are dropping DEI among their criteria for employment. The hypocrisy of the leftwing media is both unfathomable and unending.

    The Project 2025 policy book was composed by Heritage authors many of whom were Trump cabinet members and advisors.  It mostly contains policy recommendations that conservatives believe.  One of Trump’s recent bevy of mixed messages – another one of his lipshots – is that he rejects P2025 in toto.  That is plainly not true, but it is just more grist for the Democrats’ mill in mischaracterizing what Trump proposes and what the document contains.  For example, being purveyed on the lamestream is the report that ‘90% of Americans’ are opposed to it.  That is a specious argument instigated by the Left’s media mouthpieces.  Ninety percent of Americans don’t know what P2025 is and much less what it contains; they are again just mouthing what the lying liberal outlets are telling them.

    Vance’s cat lady remark – In a 2021 interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, then-Senate-candidate Vance complained that the U.S. was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too." (more here)  On its face the statement is true, and it’s also true upon deeper examination.  The lamestream’s actual attribution to Vance is that he claimed women and couples who have children are ‘worth more’ (to society) than those who are childless.  Well of course.  All other things being equal when comparing such cohorts, it’s not rocket science to acknowledge that our species would come to an end were it not for children being conceived, brought to term, and raised to adulthood, if for nothing else than to provide humankind continuity.  But such arguments are too deep to be pondered in the public square, and again advantage Left.

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  • Who Pays Taxes

    George Rebane

    Here is a tabular view of the earners from which the feds get their tax revenues.  As shown, these rates/shares are claimed by socialists to require adjustment (read ‘huge increases’) so that “the rich will pay their fair share”.  What numbers would you like to see changed?  (Click on figure)

    WhoPaysTaxes

    The figure below shows how the money is distributed across the spectrum of American households.  Even though this graphic is based on 2008 data, its fundamental shape has not changed.  This means that the overwhelming dollar wealth of the country is in the hands of the middle-class earners.  Any serious increase in federal tax revenues so as to fund more welfare or pay down our nation’s debt will have to overwhelmingly include the middle class.  The evil Democrats keep lying to their dimwitted constituents that putting the screws on just the rich will solve the country’s financial problems, the rest of the nebbishes will not have their taxes increased.WhereTheMoneyIsAll of this has been discussed before, but it’s good to revisit the data during this election season that is inundated with lies about who pays what.

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  • Climate Change Liars Unrepentant

    George Rebane

    As part of its overall evil intents for the future of America, the Democratic Party is comprised of the copious material liars on our political landscape.  Almost every pronouncement by their minions is refuted by the government’s own statistics ranging from inflation, the economic impact of the recent tax cuts, to border security.  However, their lies about climate change, upon which to base adoption of their destructive public policies, are almost certainly the most harmfully impactive on our quality of life.

    In today’s WSJ internationally recognized climate researcher Bjorn Lomborg, of the Copenhagen Consensus and Stanford’s Hoover Institution, writes ‘Polar Bears, Dead Coral and Other Climate Fictions’ in which he outlines some of the major lies that persist in the public mind through the daily efforts of Democrats, their lamestream media, and progressives in general.  Some examples –

    • There is no extinction danger to polar bears. Since hunting them has stopped, their populations have surged.
    • Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is not being killed by rising temperatures, but instead has recovered itself to new record levels since the hurricane that damaged it in 2009.
    • Small Pacific islands are not being swamped by rising sea levels, but instead are increasing in area due to natural processes involving the dynamics of old coral.
    • “Killer heat wave” deaths are being misrepresented by a factor of 25. Their death rate has actually declined worldwide due to the rising prosperity provided by technology.  Cold kills 25 times more Americans, and that due mainly to our country’s climate policy boosted high energy costs.

    Activists do the world a massive disservice by refusing to acknowledge facts that challenge their intensely doom-ridden worldview. There is ample evidence that man-made emissions cause changes in climate, and climate economics generally finds that the costs of these effects outweigh the benefits. But the net result is nowhere near catastrophic. The costs of all the extreme policies campaigners push for are much worse. All told, politicians across the world are now spending more than $2 trillion annually—far more than the estimated cost from climate change that these policies prevent each year.

    Telling half-truths while piously pretending to “follow the science” benefits activists with their fundraising, generates clicks for media outlets, and helps climate-concerned politicians rally their bases. But it leaves all of us poorly informed and worse off.

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  • Sandbox – 31jul24

    [Have no idea why Trump has ‘buried’ the Project 2025 position paper generated by Heritage.  Its purpose was to elicit public discussion of conservative oriented policies, most of which Trump et al continue to endorse.  Such peremptory emotional eruptions by our former president continue to give me pause about his chances this November. (more here)  gjr]

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  • Trumps November Chances – 25jul24 update

    George Rebane

    Trump240725The Lip from the Hip has done it again.  With his 18jul24 convention acceptance speech he took a cinched November win and threw it back into a campaign maelstrom welcomed only by Kamala Harris and the Dems (and Putin and Xi).  My own immediate reaction to his convention performance was posted here, and since then literally every left and right commentator has agreed that Trump blew it.

    Trump’s self-declared return to a barroom brawl mode of campaigning has put his road to the White House back in play, even with the likes of an unaccomplished opponent and grifter like Kamala as his opponent.  WSJ’s Dan Henninger summarizes her chances in today’s paper (here).

    With a flawed candidate like Trump already problematic when he was running against Bumblebrain, on 15 June I did a little work in extracting my own assessment of Trump’s probability of winning in November (described here).  The result (0.45) was not promising.  Given all that has happened since – assassination attempt, enthusiastic Republican convention, reversion to rambling stump speeches, … – I redid my probability assessment, hoping against hope for a better outcome.  The resulting probability came in at slightly north of 0.48, not much of an improvement when considering the woulda/coulda/shouldas.

    Given her documented far left ideology and promised public policy initiatives a Kamala Harris presidency would be cataclysmic for our republic.  And Trump’s loose cannon tactics promise to make the interval to November a real nailbiter.  Is there no one on his team of advisors with the courage and gravitas who can tell him to stuff a sock in it and give acting presidential a try?

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  • Scattershots – 21jul24 (updated 22jul24)

    George Rebane

    Given the nature and extent of America’s ideological schism, all effective public policies should be made in the anticipation that this schism will endure.  Existentially we are no longer one nation.  Rebane Doctrine, 2024.

    The mentality of collectivists – progressives, liberals, wokes, socialists, communists, neo-Marxists, … – ranges within a space anchored by insanity, cynicism, and evil. The evidence continues to pour in.  Today we hear leftwing commentators on lamestream media attempting to foster doubt that there was an actual assassination attempt on Donald Trump.  Their cynical cum evil proposals to their ill-informed audiences are that the blood letting was staged and/or was caused by some mysterious shards of broken glass exploding out of somewhere.

    As expected, Bumblebrain is out and an even worse choice in Kamala Harris is now undemocratically foisted by the Dem elites as their new standard bearer. (more here)  But everyone knows Kamala will just be the next empty pipe to power for those who have been acting as the administration’s Star Chamber.  She will be a compliant conduit between the leftwing power brokers and the public policies they intend to implement, much like Joe Biden has been during his term.  From my perch I see the political landscape between now and November as a minefield for Republicans, especially Donald Trump.  There will be an opportunity to make countless politically destructive gaffs when shooting from the lip as the campaign really heats up.

    [22jul24 update]  POTUS is NOT the hardest job in the world as any casual perusal of history will confirm.  In fact, POTUS may be the most fault tolerant job ever.  For how else do people with no executive experience and a woefully limited knowledge base perform more or less adequately – i.e. they didn’t start WW3?  Almost anyone who reads English can assume the position and make it through with on-the-job training that is amply available to a president.  Since FDR, consider the tenures of Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Obama, and now Biden.

    PJ Media is not a credible source of news and information due to its conservative outlook – so again posits one of our leftwing commenters after I cited it above in reference to the ‘undemocratic’ way that the Dems have hoisted Kamala to be their standard bearer.  What I always ask these liberal critics is for the evidence they have to support their assertion.  They can never provide any such backing for their gratuitous conclusion.  This is in opposition to conservatives dunning liberal outlets like NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, PBS as willing shills of the Democratic Party publishing years of unrecanted lies to their audiences.  As evidence just consider their years of ongoing reporting on the Russian election interference, that the border is secure, onset of inflation, Trump instigating insurrection, FBI doctoring FISA evidence, Hunter’s laptop as Russian disinformation, Hillary’s paying for generating the infamous Trump memo, and on and on.  And now we know that the whole cadre of the country’s Left has been covering up and lying about the cognitive breakdown of Joe Biden which has been obvious to Americans during his entire term as POTUS.

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  • Trump’s Speech – Barely a Base Hit

    George Rebane

    We were all hoping after surviving the assassination attempt that former President Trump would hit it out of the park.  That was not to be.  His keynote speech accepting the nomination at last night’s Republican convention came in lackluster, long, and lame.  There was a noteworthy part at the beginning where he described last Saturday’s events, praised his Secret Service detail, remembered the fallen fireman and wounded, and thanked the Lord.  From there on I thought he was going to walk instead of eking out what charitably could be described as a base hit.  As he droned on, freely departing from the script, you could hear him stray out of his appointed lane and attack Biden by name, decry once more the 2020 election, and continue circling the barn and its various outhouses reprising the slings and arrows he has suffered over the last eight years.  In short, it was the best speech the Democrats could have hoped for.  November cannot arrive too soon.  Given the months remaining, my fear is that his mouth will again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

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  • Square Root Algo (more added)

    George Rebane

    Regular RR readers know of my interest in numeracy and promoting the practice of mental math to derive usable approximations without the use of calculators.  I argue that such skills are required by educated lay people so that they can quickly understand and vet claims made by politicians and pundits that involve the torrents of numbers with which we our public policies are delivered.

    One useful tool is the ability to calculate the square root of any number to within a percent or so.  For example, when you hear that a wildfire has burned a 45 square mile area, how big is that really?  Numerous other problems that require a quick estimate of square roots are encountered daily by people whose desire to understand only penetrates the surface of (or bounces off) reports they hear.  So here’s a square root algo (algorithm to the purists) that I developed some time ago and have taught my numeracy students and shared with colleagues.

    (more…)

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  • Assassin’s Bullet Grazes Former President Trump

    George Rebane

    ‘Political violence has no place in America’ was professed by tens of media mavens and history-light politicians immediately after Republican candidate Donald Trump almost bought the farm in Butler, Pennsylvania this afternoon.  Bumblebrain even went on the air to state that such an act was “unprecedented” and “totally unacceptable” in American history.  Au contraire.

    Trump survived the event and was defiant with his fist in the air as he was rushed off the podium and into his waiting SUV.  Two rally visitors were not so lucky – one was killed in the ensuing exchange of fire between the assassin and the Secret Service, and another attendee was wounded and is in serious condition.  The assassin was brought down quickly by pre-positioned counter-sniper fire.

    But to be clear about the historical precedents – violence is a long and well-established practice on the country’s political scene.  The number of successful assassinations over the centuries are many, and the number of thwarted attempts are countless.  This is not unusual in relatively free countries where people have access to firearms and other weapons, and is a price we pay for having the Second Amendment.  In tightly controlled autocracies where people are kept unarmed, assassinations still occur at a good clip, but it is the tyrant and his thugs who do the killing of undesirable political opponents, uncooperative journalists, and recalcitrant intellectuals.

    Tonight most of America is thankful that President Trump escaped with his life.  Many of us have had trepidations over the last years about his open campaigning style which has continued to invite such attempts on his life, attempts that are nigh well impossible to guard against.  (In this incident the ‘secured boundary’ from beyond which the assassin fired was less than 200 yards from the podium.)  We will learn more about all this in the coming days.  But I venture to say that Trump’s chances for returning to the Oval Office increased significantly tonight.  Thank God he’s OK, and long may he wave.

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288 comments on Trump’s November Chances – 11aug24 update