Rick Scott's Conservative Agenda Annotated

U.S. Senator Rick Scott, a conservative Republican, has released "an eleven point plan to rescue America" (with very polished typesetting and graphic design) that is pretty representative of the larger conservative movement, and urges a shift right from Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell. It offers insights into the current Republican mindset in America. 

What does Rick Scott think is wrong with America (in his own words, emphasis and statements in italics are mine)?

• Our government has created the highest debt in human history 

Mostly due to Republican policies to cut taxes with continuing to spend in defense and corporate welfare. 

• Americans are afraid to speak their minds for fear of being silenced and canceled by the woke elitists 

A society where racism and sexism and homophobia and xenophobia are socially unacceptable isn't a bad thing. The First Amendment is vigorously protecting unpopular speech from governmental interference. 

• Our children are being poisoned by a false political agenda in their schools 

Public schools mostly just have a reality based agenda, there isn't a "false political agenda" in schools. 

• Inflation is a tax placed on us by politicians who waste our money

Inflation can be caused by bad policies that politicians indirectly control and is sometimes equivalent to a tax. But it has very little to do with excessive federal government spending. 

• Our inept withdrawal from Afghanistan dishonored the sacrifices of thousands of Americans and encouraged our enemies 

Our withdrawal from Afghanistan was not well executed. But President Biden largely continued policies put in place by President Trump when he did so, and the collapse of the regime we put in place was a result of two decades of bipartisan failure at the task of state building, which the GOP actively opposed devoting resources to.

• Our porous southern border is a national crisis 

Undocumented immigration and the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are near record lows. Most undocumented immigration involves overstaying temporary visas. The claim that undocumented immigration harms native born Americans is mostly false. Undocumented immigration is not associated with higher levels of crime or a greater burden on government resources, and its labor market impact is quite modest.

• Our cities are overrun by theft, violence, and a 30% increase in murder 

While murder rates are up from a thirty-year record low, violent crime continues to fall and burglary is near record lows too. Other property crimes are stable at their near record lows or are up only modestly. 

• Our government is making us less energy independent and killing jobs 

The U.S. is currently a net exporter of petroleum, natural gas, and coal. It is energy independent. Government policies to reduce fossil fuel consumption through greater efficiency in energy use and a shift to renewables and natural gas are a key reason this is true, has created jobs, and has reduced pollution. 

• American war fighters are being indoctrinated with left-wing woke foolishness and kicked out of the military because of the ‘Big Brother’ vax mandate 

A military not full of extremist racists and misogynists is part and parcel of having a disciplined and effective force in a diverse society. The vax mandates are saving many military lives, making the force less prone to breakdown due to disease, and there is no legitimate reason to be opposed to COVID-19 vaccination.

• Our government is eroding our work ethic by paying people not to work

Strong unemployment benefits during a national crisis when people can't find jobs for reasons beyond their control is not bad policy. The work ethic is not being eroded. 

• We are allowing biological males to destroy women’s sports 

Turning transgender women into scapegoats is driven more by hate than it is due legitimate concern.

• Our kids are taught to hate America and divide each other by skin color

Teaching kids real history which includes negative realities is not hating America. Our kids are being taught to embrace diversity. 

• The FBI is spying on concerned parents who speak out at school board meetings 

The FBI is, as it should, investigating threats of violence directed at public school officials. The violent political tactics embraced by the American right are not acceptable in a democracy based on the rule of law. 

• Washington’s economy is growing, America’s economy is shrinking

America's economy is growing. Measured by factors such as federal government employment and government spending as a share of GDP, "Washington's economy" is has gotten smaller. 

• Lethal drugs are pouring into our country from China and our southern border

The war on drugs has been a failure. Demand and lack of effective treatment, and not supply, is the big problem. Countries like France and Portugal focused on treatment to end the opiate overdose crisis  that each of those nations experienced.

How does Rick Scott propose to address these issues (in his own words, with selective quotations below them with additional details about each point, emphasis and statements in italics are mine)?

1. Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them.

» Parents, not government, will choose the best schools for their kids. 

» We will enact equal opportunity in education (school choice) so no child will be sent to a failing school simply because of their zip code. 

» Kids in public schools will say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand for the National Anthem, and honor the American Flag. We must foster national unity. 

 It is settled law that mandating this is unconstitutional.

» We will open our schools to parents. Parents must have the right to know what their children are being taught, who is teaching them, and which organizations are receiving school contracts. 

» The FBI, DOJ, and all government entities will be expressly forbidden from intimidating parents who dare speak their minds at school board meetings. 

There is nothing wrong with investigating threats of violence against public officials from right wing extremists who are the main terrorist risk in the United States.

» Public schools will teach our children to love America because, while not perfect, it is exceptional, it is good, and it is a beacon of freedom in an often-dark world. 

History needs to include the good and the bad. A PRRI poll showed that 83% of Americans agreed, while 13% favored his view. 

» No child will be taught they are inherently racist because of the color of their skin, or that some Americans are oppressors and others are oppressed. 

» Teacher tenure at public schools must be eliminated because it protects inadequate teachers, not good teachers. 

» We will not allow political or social indoctrination in our schools. Teachers who refuse to comply will need to and new jobs. 

» No public school will be allowed to discriminate against voluntary prayer or force children to check their faith at the door. 

» We will close the federal Department of Education. Education is a state function. If Congress wants to spend money on education, they can cut out the middleman and send it directly to schools and parents. 

» It will be America’s goal to be number one in the world

Great. But your policies won't get us there. 

2. Government will never again ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government forms.

» We will stop dividing people by race, skin color, ethnicity, or country of origin, which is an immoral and corrosive habit of the woke crowd. 

» We will be a nation where people will be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. 

» Ban the Box. Government will not ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government form. 

» No government policy can be based on race or ethnicity. 

» Our military will engage in ZERO diversity training, teachings on critical race theory, or any woke ideological indoctrination that divides our troops. Our ghting force must be completely united and completely colorblind. 

» Military leadership that prioritizes racial politics over the security of our country must be relieved of their duties. 

» Colleges and universities that favor or discriminate against students based on race or ethnicity in the application process will be ineligible for federal funding and will lose their tax-exempt status. 

» Government will base hiring decisions on qualications, not quotas of any kind. 

» America will strive to provide equal opportunity for everyone but will not guarantee equal outcomes. 

» We simply do not give a damn what color anyone’s skin is. at’s the colorblind future America deserves 

3. The soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior will end. We will refund and respect the police because they, not the criminals, are the good guys.

» We will fund the police and stop all eorts to defund or “re-imagine” policing. 

» We will bring back respect for people who put their lives on the line to keep us safe. 

» We will support mandatory strict minimum sentences for all assaults involving serious injury to law enforcement officers. 

» We will strengthen qualified immunity and legal protections for law enforcement officers to protect them from frivolous lawsuits. 

» We will demand a nationwide crackdown on the and violent crime by imposing stiffer penalties so we can restore law and order to our city streets. 

» We will force prosecutors to prosecute. At present, many prosecutors in big cities are allowing criminals to go free with no justice, and they are doing it on purpose. 

» We will make it a federal crime for any prosecutor, including the US Department of Justice, to pursue prosecution based on political ideology. 

» We will eliminate no-knock warrants in any case that does not involve violent crime. 

» We will increase penalties for spousal abuse and failure to pay child support. 

» We will enact Marsy’s law which ensures victims of crimes have rights and constitutional protections equal to those who commit crimes. 

» We will oppose every attempt to deny our 2nd Amendment freedoms and will defend our gun rights always, at all costs. 

4. We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump.

» Countries have borders. We will control ours and secure it, once and for all. 

» No one will enter without our permission. We lock our doors at night, not because we hate the people on the outside, but because we love the people on the inside and want to keep them safe. 

» Many potential immigrants love America. Those who don’t will not be allowed to come here. is is our country, and no one has a “right” to come to America. 

» We will employ military assets on our borders as needed. Border security is not simply a matter of domestic policy, it’s also a matter of national security. 

» Immigrants will not be eligible to collect unemployment benefits or welfare for the first 7 years after arriving in the US. 

» We will stop incentivizing people to come to America to receive government benefits. We have plenty of welfare recipients – we need productive citizens instead. 

» We will strip all federal funding from “sanctuary cities” and prosecute any elected officials who flout our immigration laws. 

» We will oppose all “comprehensive” immigration reform measures until we stop the lawlessness on our border, and our border is secured. 

» We oppose cultural segregation. We believe in the ‘melting pot’, where people from many backgrounds go all-in on becoming Americans, “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” 

5. We will grow America’s economy, starve Washington’s economy, and stop Socialism.

» Socialism will be treated as a foreign combatant which aims to destroy our prosperity and freedom.

Democratic socialist economies are the most prosperous and most free in the world.

» Other than essential core functions, government should not be doing anything that the private sector can do better and cheaper. 

Rick Scott needs to read more Dilbert cartoons. The private sector does many things poorly, including prisons, health care, and education. 

» We will apply the “Do It Better” Test: If American businesses can serve the American people better and cheaper than government, the work goes to them. 

» No government assistance unless you are disabled or aggressively seeking work. If you can work, but refuse to work, you cannot live off of the hard work and sweat of your fellow Americans. 

» We will require “truth in governing."

The GOP doesn't have a good track record in the "truth" department. 

” If government passes a law that does not achieve what it promised, the program will be shut down. 

» We will balance the federal budget. It can be done. States do it all the time. 

» If Congress does not pass a budget, the members of Congress do not get paid. Full stop. 

No problem with this one. 

» Other than disaster relief, the federal government must stop spending money on non-essential state and local projects until the budget is balanced. 

» Eliminate truly non-essential government employee positions, because they are non-essential. 

» Implement the line-item veto. It works in state capitols. It will work in Washington. 

» Expedite all federal permit applications to be granted or denied within 30 days. 

» All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax. 

Tax the poor is not a winning political agenda and doesn't make economic sense either. 

» Prohibit debt ceiling increases absent a declaration of war. 

Debt ceiling increases are a natural consequence of appropriations bills already passed by Congress and tax cuts passed by Congress. 

6. We will eliminate all federal programs that can be done locally, and enact term limits for federal bureaucrats and Congress.

» Enact term limits for the Washington ruling class – 12-year limits for Congress and government bureaucrats. (Exceptions for national security reasons only.) 

» Begin paying down debt. Debt = politicians stealing from our future and stealing from all of us right now with inflation.

The government is not the sole beneficiary of inflation which isn't primarily caused by government spending. The main causes of the deficit are GOP tax cuts, excessive defense spending, and COVID-19 related emergency measures.

» Forbid politicians from becoming lobbyists and “cashing-in” on their public service. 

Definitely. Good idea. 

» Eliminate federal programs that can be done locally. Any government function that can be handled locally should be.

How about regulation of cannabis and illegal drugs? 

» Move most Government agencies out of Washington and into the real world. 

» Sell off all non-essential government assets, buildings, and land, and use the proceeds to pay down our national debt. 

» All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again. 

» All government bids and contracts should be publicly available on the internet. 

» If government fails to comply with the law, citizens must have the right to sue to force them to comply. 

This is already possible in most areas, but law enforcement is allowed to flout the law too often. 

» No government employee can make more than 5 times the national median individual income. 

» We will bar the federal government from using your tax dollars for advertising campaigns. 

» We will drastically simplify the tax code, and eliminate the advantages of those who can afford tax lawyers and lobbyists. 

» We will immediately cut the IRS funding and workforce by 50%. 

Gutting tax collection resources will make the government's debt larger and will benefit only rich people who violate the law. 

» We will allow Veterans to choose how they access health care, either through the VA or private providers, whichever they prefer. 

» Force Congress to issue a report every year telling the public what they plan to do when Social Security and Medicare go bankrupt. 

The Executive branch already does this every single year. The Congressional Budget Office does something similar already too. Your inability to locate resources already available to everyone on the Internet is not evidence that we need new laws. 

7. We will protect the integrity of American Democracy and stop left-wing efforts to rig elections.

 » We will fight for maximum voter participation and zero percent voter fraud. 

We already have zero percent voter fraud. Time to increase voter participation which almost all of the other proposals are calculated to reduce in constituencies that don't vote for Republicans. 

 » Voter ID, requiring a voter to validate their identity, must be the law. Democrats support requiring ID to get a COVID test, vaccination card, or enter a restaurant. All arguments against Voter ID are in favor of fraud. 

There is no fraud. 

» ‘Ballot harvesting’, which the Democrats favor, and which allows political operatives and activists to collect and clone ballots from voters, must be banned. 

» Ballots can only be submitted to a polling location by a voter or the post office. No ballots that show up after election day will be counted, ever. 

» Many Democrats now advocate allowing non-citizens to vote in American elections. New York City now does this. is is too insane for words and must be stopped. 

Why shouldn't people who live in the U.S. have a say in making its laws? 

» The Democrats favor using your taxpayer money to finance political campaigns. No serious person would ever favor this. It must never happen.

In what way is private funding of political campaigns which leads to corruption better? 

» Counting of ballots must be done in full public view, expeditiously, and continue without pause until all votes have been tabulated. 

» There must be no same-day registration, as this does not allow election officials to verify the validity and accuracy of voter information. 

» No one should be automatically registered without their consent or knowledge, as this opens the way for multiple registrations by the same individual and registration of ineligible voters.

It doesn't actually do any of these things. 

» Unmanned or unmonitored ballot boxes in public areas to collect unlimited ballots must be prohibited. 

» No American citizen can be denied their sacred right to vote or be given special voting privileges based on race, religion, zip code, or ethnic origins. 

Wouldn't it be nice if Republicans acted like they believed this? 

8. We will protect, defend, and promote the American Family at all costs.

» No federal program or tax laws will reward people for being unmarried or discriminate against marriage. 

• Even though many single moms heroically do the job of raising a family (as my mom often had to) children need and deserve both parents – and government should not be shy about saying so. 

• Families are crucial in raising young men and women of character and responsible members of society. The best form of governing our society is not government, it is family. 

» Abortions are a tragedy. We must make adoption accessible and affordable. 

• We currently make it very expensive for prospective parents to adopt, even though many kids desperately need families. is is insane and we will change it. 

• We will help low income single women who are considering abortion choose life instead, by paying all costs associated with carrying the child to term and placing the child for adoption.

You are correct that abortion is a woman's choice. Making adoption cheaper would be great. 

• We will STOP Democrat Party efforts to discriminate against faith-based adoption agencies. We will do just the opposite. Most faith-based groups provide far superior service than government agencies do. We will utilize and empower them. 

» School administrators and teachers will work for parents. 

• Parents, not government, will choose which schools their kids attend. 

• We will end the Biden Administration policy of using the FBI to intimidate parents who speak up at school board meetings. 

» We must defend the American family from societal elements that erode it. 

Pornography is not an important source of our nation's woes. Rape has become less common, and legal action to fight sexual abuse by people in positions of trust have increased, at the same time that pornography has become more easily available. 

• We must enforce existing federal obscenity laws. Our society has almost given up on demanding decency, we must aim higher. 

• We must protect our children from the explosion of pornography and cyber predators. The FCC must hold online platforms and broadband providers accountable for not adequately providing tools for parents to keep this trash out of their homes.  

» We will make it impossible for deadbeat dads to avoid paying child support – beginning with paternity. They will either pay up or go to jail, with no other options. 

Lots of dads don't pay child support because they lack the income to do so, and wouldn't be able to pay meaningful amounts if paternity was established. Women who fail to name fathers aren't doing so to undermine their own economic well being. Sending people to jail is not a good way to improve debt collection - we learned this back in the 19th century when debtor's prisoners were abolished. 

9. Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science

Believing in science would be great. 

» Abortion kills human children. To deny that is to deny science.

This is not what science says. 

» Whether you believe in God or not, as a civilized people who accept science, we must protect babies, born and unborn, from all acts of violence.

Science says nothing of the sort. Protecting babies would be nice.  The GOP usually opposes protecting people who are actually born from violence. 

» All government policies will favor having more babies adopted, not aborted. 

The GOP consistently supports policies that do no such thing. 

» Humans are born male and female, there are two genders, and to deny that is to deny science. 

Science says that homosexuality and transgender identity are real. 

» No government forms will include questions about “gender identity” or “sexual preference.”

Ignorance doesn't change reality. 

» No doctor will be allowed to perform irreversible surgical or gender-altering procedures on any minor child. Once they become adults, they can do what they wish. 

Transgender identity is real and surgery is more effective when performed pre-puberty. 

» We will protect women’s sports by banning biological males from competing. It is hugely unfair and would erase many of the gains women have made in athletics over the last 50 years.

Admit that you hate trans people and don't think that they exist and want to persecute them despite the fact that they have done nothing to hurt you. Also transgender tolerance is not a national crisis.

10. Americans will be free to welcome God into all aspects of our lives

The First Amendment strikes a good balance as it is. 

» Americans will not be required to go against their core values and beliefs in order to conform to culture or government. 

» We will reject both the roots and the adherents of cancel culture in America. 

» Every American will be free to live out their religious convictions in the public square, not only in the home or a place of worship. 

» We will forbid government programs from discriminating against the 350,000 religious entities which operate schools, pregnancy resource centers, soup kitchens, drug addiction programs, homeless shelters, and adoption agencies. 

» All social media platforms that censor speech and cancel people will be treated like publishers and subject to legal action. 

» We will require big tech platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, to receive express consent (not as a condition of use) before using Americans’ personal information in any manner, and make it simple for users to opt out. 

» Big Tech platforms will also be required to obtain user consent to sell, share, or convey user data to a third-party entity. 

» No tax dollars will be used to pay for any diversity training or other woke indoctrination that is hostile to faith. 

» Churches and faith-based groups will not be forced to hire employees who disagree with their tenets and convictions. 

» We will stop investing federal retirement dollars with ‘woke’ fund managers and companies that put left-wing politics ahead of profits. 

» Remember – the Second Amendment was established in order to protect the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. 

The Second Amendment has nothing to do with God and is a uniquely American suicide pact that should be repealed. 

11. We are Americans, not globalists.

» We will unapologetically lead the world by example. A world without American leadership would be a very dark world. 

In what way is this not globalist? 

» Adhere to the New Monroe Doctrine – America will not allow any global enemy, such as China, Russia, or Radical Islam, to grow their presence in our hemisphere. 

In what way is this not globalist? 

» No foreign aid to any country that habitually opposes us at the UN. 

There is exceedingly little foreign aid that this describes. 

» We will not pay any dues to the United Nations or any international organization that undermines the national interests of the USA.

My way or the highway isn't an effective foreign policy. 

» We will make our international allies pay their fair share for their own defense. We will not send our kids to do what their kids will not do. 

So, how about you even the scales by spending less on defense? 

» Our military will not be used as a peace-keeping force, it exists to protect us by intimidating or killing our enemies.

Examples please. 

» Nation-building does not work, we will not waste our treasure or troops doing it. 

The Afghanistan departure debacle was a direct result of failing to engage in nation-building. 

» We will always defend our allies, starting with Israel. 

In what way is this not globalist? 

» We will treat our enemies like enemies. 

» No adversarial foreign government or corporation controlled by an adversarial foreign government can purchase American land. 

» The weather is always changing. We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs. 

Apparently you don't really believe in science. 

» We will gradually end all imports from Communist China until a new regime honors basic human rights and freedoms. 

This is a good way to harm the American economy. 

» We will build supply chains that rely solely on American workers and allies. We will not be at the mercy of our enemies for medications or any essential commodities. 

Ending international trade is not good for the economy. 

» We will terminate any trade deal that takes away American jobs.

Every trade deal both creates and destroys jobs. The goal is to maximize net economic benefit from trade deals, not to prevent all jobs from being lost. Jobs are not a fixed resource.

» America will be energy independent. 

America is energy independent already.  

Walking Is Very Good For You (Up To Three To Four Miles A Day)

The body text of the meta-analysis cited below explains in language more clear than the abstract that:

Compared with adults in the lowest steps per day quartile, adults in the highest steps per day quartile had a 40% to 53% lower risk of mortality. Taking more steps per day was associated with a progressively lower risk of all-cause mortality, up to a level that was similar by sex but varied by age. There was progressively lower risk of mortality among adults aged 60 years and older until about 6000–8000 steps per day and among adults younger than 60 years until about 8000–10 000 steps per day. We found inconsistent evidence that step intensity was associated with risk of mortality beyond total volume of steps.

 

There are about 2500 steps per mile. So, for people under age sixty about three to four miles a day of walking is the most healthy (over age sixty three miles is the peak), and it doesn't matter much how fast one walks at a statistically significant level. 

At that level of walking the risk of death for a person under age sixty would be reduced by an impressive 47% compared to the risk of death for the lowest quartile of walking rates of significantly less than two miles a day. Significant health benefits, however, are available for most people from walking more, and especially for people who walk less than two miles a day.

Best fit values show that more than that much walking slightly increases your risk of death if you are under age 60, and is slightly health enhancing if you are over age 60. But, beyond the peak amounts of walking, the benefits or detriments aren't statistically significant, even in this very large sample of 47,471 adults pooled from 15 recent studies from Europe (4), Japan (1), Australia (1), the U.S. (8), and a study with data from 40 different countries.

The caveat, as always, is that correlation is not causation, even though statistically significant correlations in large samples generally have some cause. It could be that people who walk less do so because they suffer from a condition that simultaneously makes it harder to walk and increases their risk of death. 

The paper is:

Amanda E. Paluch, et al., "Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts" The Lancet (March 1, 2022) (open access) DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00302-9

Quote Of The Day

No fate but what we make.

from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).

We are morally responsible, collectively, for what happens in the world. There is no one else to blame. If we don't take action, the world we dream of probably won't happen.

The 2022 Election Preview

Going into the 2022 midterm Congressional and U.S. Senate elections, Democrats are at great risk of losing control of either the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate, although neither outcome is a foregone conclusion. 

This year will be close and big uncertainties, like how the outcome of the war in Ukraine and the potential of major conservative decisions in the U.S. Supreme Court (e.g. overturning Roe v. Wade) will impact voters only adds to the uncertainty.

Unless Democrats lose no more than four House seats and gain at least two Senate seats in 2022, we can expect two more years of legislative gridlock in Washington. If both houses are lost, there will be plenty of vetoes of Republican legislation from President Biden. If only one house is lost, it will look more like the status quo, but with less ambitious budget measures.

In a best case scenario, Democrats could gain as many as five Senate seats and about twenty House seats, which would give the Democrats and President Biden a comfortable governing majority and the two years that follow could be truly transformative politically. But this outcome would take a significant shift in the national political barometer (i.e. a shift towards Democrats of several percentage points in support) against the Republican party compared to where we stand today. 

A worst case scenario, in which Democrats lose at least one net Senate seat and at least five House seats, leaving Republicans in control of both Houses of Congress under a moderate Democratic President is very possible as well, although not as inevitable as doomsayers convinced that the incumbent President's midterm election curse is sure to doom them would have you think.

So far, President Biden has announced an intent to run for re-election in 2024, a decision that has only lukewarm support from the party faithful.  But the outcome of the midterms could influence whether that actually happens, as could factors like Biden's health. I believe that he would be the oldest Presidential nominee of all time in the U.S. if he ran. 

Nancy Pelosi, the current Speaker of the House from a safe Democratic district in San Francisco, and also one of the oldest persons to hold that post of all time, is also running for re-election and hasn't disavowed the possibility of holding onto the Speakership if Democrats can hold onto a majority in the House.

Top Colorado Races

The new, open seat in the 8th Congressional District in Colorado is the hottest race in the state (Cook's political report thinks it leans Republican) and will be one of the most closely fought in the nation.

Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet, and a Democratic nominee in the open 7th Congressional District race are likely to be won by Democrats. 

Colorado's gadfly Republican incumbent in the 3rd Congressional District is vulnerable, but much more so to a Republican primary challenger than to a Democrat.

Democrats are likely to hold on to control of both Houses of the Colorado General Assembly with the new districts, as well as to the statewide elective offices in play this year. The new 8th Congressional District will inject some uncertainty into control of the CU-Regents and the state school board which are also elected statewide.

It is early yet, but no major statewide ballot initiatives are making headlines yet this year.

The 2022 House Races

According to Cook's Political Report: All but six U.S. states have their 2022 Congressional maps in place. The laggards are: FL, LA, MO, NH, OH and WI remain. 

The states with enacted maps lean 193D and 170R (with 13 of the Democratic seats and 7 of the Republican ones rated as "toss ups"). This would involve Democrats picking up four seats (three in New York and one in Illinois, three of which are open seats) that lean Democratic but are held by Republicans, and losing five seats (two in Arizona, one in Michigan, one in New Jersey, and one in Texas, three of which are open seats) that lean Republican and are held by Democrats.

But 72 districts remain to be drawn in the six remaining states. Democrats need 25 of the remaining 72 seats to retain a majority in the U.S. House (assuming Cook's Political Report is, on average, correct in its predictions for the other races). Realistically, six to ten of those remains seats will be competitive.

Those six states had 25 Democrats in Congress in 2020 (FL-11, LA-1, MO-2, NH-2, OH-4, WI-3), which, if Democrats repeated that performance in 2022 would leave Democrats with the narrowest possible majority in the U.S. House.

Those five of those six states (FL, LA, MO, OH and WI) are states where there have been efforts to gerrymander further against Democrats and this is what is delaying the process of enacting new maps. The outcome of the redistricting fights in these five states could easily dictate the final outcome of the 2022 Congressional contests.

Historically, the incumbent President has tended to lose support in the House in midterm elections. Democrats currently hold 222 seats to 211 Republican seats in the House with 2 seats currently vacant (both previously held by Republicans, on in CA and one in MN). So, while the Democrats don't have to hold every single seat, they can only afford to lose 4 seats out of 222 in the 2022 midterms in order to maintain a majority.

On the other hand, midterm losses are typically associated with lost "coattail" seats in the previous Presidential election, and it is hard to say with confidence that President Biden had any Congressional coattails in 2020, so midterm losses can be expected to be below average in 2022.

At a minimum Biden's coattails were the weakest in 60 years according to the Washington Post, a conclusion with which the Wall Street Journal agreed concluding that Biden had none, i.e. that Democrats did no better in federal legislative races than they would have without Biden running a narrowly winning Presidential race.

538 has updates from Ohio and Wisconsin's redistricting and generally speaking, makes the case that:

redistricting has created 11 more Democratic-leaning seats nationally, six fewer Republican-leaning seats and six fewer highly competitive seats. This is due to aggressive map-drawing by Democrats in states such as New York as well as court decisions overturning Republican gerrymanders in Ohio and North Carolina.

After accounting for incumbency, however, Democrats’ gains should be smaller: Democrats will likely flip around two or three seats in 2022 due to redistricting. In addition, Republicans have helped their own cause by converting light-red districts into safer seats in states like Texas.

However, there are still a few unknowns that could change these topline takeaways. Most notably, the ultimate map in Florida — where 28 congressional seats are at stake — could be worth multiple extra seats for one party or the other. Courts may also still throw out some of the maps that are currently in place, such as Ohio’s. The Buckeye State’s latest map is not much fairer than the one that was previously struck down.

The 2022 Senate Races

In the U.S. Senate there are currently 48 Democrats, 2 independents who caucus with Democrats, and 50 Republicans. There are 35 U.S. Senate elections in 2022, of which 14 are seats held by Democrats and 21 are seats currently held by Republicans. 

Three seats held by Democrats (AZ, GA, NV) and two seats held by Republicans (PA, WI) are considered toss-ups, all of which except the PA seat, have incumbents running for re-election who are generally favored however slightly.

There is also one seat (NH) that has a Democratic incumbent running for re-election, and leans Democratic but is vulnerable. There are three seats (FL, NC and OH) that have a Republican incumbent and lean Republican but are vulnerable, with only FL's incumbent running for re-election. The NC and OH Senate seats are open races.

Of the other twenty-six Senate races, nine are solid Democratic seats, one (CO) is a "likely Democratic" seat, and sixteen are "solid" Republican seats.

Democrats need to win three toss up seats and NH to hold their 50-50 majority in the Senate (it is a majority because the Vice President is a Democrat and casts tie votes). But, Democrats need to expand their Senate majority by one or two seats to have a functional majority, because two of the members of their caucus are conservative Democrats (from WV and AZ respectively, neither of whom have to seek re-election in 2022) who have thwarted the Democratic agenda on filibuster reform, packing the Supreme Court, and partially on major fiscal bills backed by the House and the President.

Historically, the incumbent President have tended to lose support in the Senate in midterm elections. Even a single seat lost by the Democrats, however, would flip the U.S. Senate to the Republicans, and their caucus is more united than the Democratic caucus in the Senate.

Unless Democrats gain two more Senate seats and hold onto a U.S. House majority, which is possible but unlikely, the nation will be stuck with two more years of political gridlock in Washington.

Land Value Taxes Are Naive

Vox has recently posted a long interpretive journalism piece about Land Value Taxes, which are taxes on the value of the land that property is built upon that ignores the value of its improvements.

The basic theory is that a land value tax will encourage development by not disincentivizing property owners from improving their land more fully, and thus, will encourage desirable investments in things like higher density housing that addresses housing shortages.

Often, idealist economists will push Land Value Taxes as alternatives to income taxation or sales taxation, rather than, as this article does, largely conceptualizing it as a property tax alternative.

There are problems with the theory, however.

One is that it builds its intuition, in part, on the idea that the supply of land is constant, which, while not 100% (see the Netherlands), is close enough to true to be a reasonable assumption for these purposes, and that therefore, the aggregate amount of land value (controlling for inflation) should also be constant. But this is not a sound assumption.

Aggregate land value is not constant, even when aggregate land supply is constant. 

Aggregate land value goes down when land is subject to restrictive land use regulations, even though restrictive land use regulations often make the value of existing homes in the area that is downzoned more valuable, because the neighborhood is more exclusive.

Land value per square foot for a particular parcel of land tends to go up, however, based upon the extent to which neighboring parcels of land are improved.

Aggregate land value goes up when populations rise because more people need it, and fall when people find more land efficient ways to achieve something. Generally speaking, land value taxes tend to rise at precisely the same moment that people who need to use real property are being squeezed by rising property values and rents already.

Land is worth more per square foot in Denver's central business district, which is full of skyscrapers, or Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood, the highest density residential neighborhood in the mountain west region, than it is in Bear Creek, a neighborhood in the far Southwest corner of Denver where they built suburban style single family detached homes on largish suburban lots, primary to satisfy the desires of city employees who were required at the time to live within the city limits as a condition of employment but wanted a suburban lifestyle, like many police officers (earning the neighborhood the unofficial sobriquet "cop town").

So, land value indirectly taxes improvements to land, because land values are a function of improvements on neighboring parcels.

Land value taxes also do less to create the desired incentives when they are local, which is the way that existing institutions for the taxation of land value and property value are set up. Each locality meets its spending needs from its own tax base, and the land value tax is just one of many ways of allocating tax burdens within that locality. But land value taxes don't necessarily or even generally lead to arbitrage and the proper incentives between development in localities where land values are low, and development in localities where land values are high, because tax rates are based upon local spending requirements.

Locally imposed land value tax rates would be lowest in places with a low demand for government services, and a high aggregate land valuation tax base, like ski resorts and incorporated localities that are mostly business parks, while they would be highest in places with a high demand for government services, and a low aggregate land valuation tax base, like low income suburbs and rural small town.

Another problem with a land value tax is that it has multiple features that make it unattractive as a revenue source.

* Land value taxes are harder to set values for accurately than property taxes, since it depends upon distinguishing total property value from land value in a model dependent manner, and all models have flaws. To the extent that models are based upon sales of vacant land, the models have much smaller sample sizes that are unrepresentative of land that has already been developed. To the extent that models are based upon total property value reduced by construction costs, they are basically adopting a Marxist labor theory of value that ignores the value created by using inputs into production where they are more valuable than they would be if used elsewhere, a distinction which is the foundation  of modern capitalist economies.

* Land values are inherently less stable than the value of land plus improvements.

* Land value taxes tend to force high rates of foreclosure for taxes on property with significant development value like vacant lots, parking lots, and farm land, if it isn't held by a tax exempt owner like a government or a church. But while individually it can be a good idea to encourage owners of land with development value to develop it, not all undeveloped land can be developed all at once, and a land value tax tends to force the other property to cycle through tax sales. 

* Yet, taxation is the art of getting the most revenue from the people able to pay it with the least complaint. It makes more sense to structure taxes in a way that more inherently establish that the people taxes will be able to afford the tax and have the liquidity to do so. This is why we usually tax wealth from appreciation in property values for income tax purposes when gains are realized upon the sale of the property, rather than on a mark to market method. Taxes that don't track the true factors of production of economic value will also tend to distort economic decisions.

* Land value taxes create incentives for land owners to decrease the value of their land, for example, by having it downzoned, exactly the opposite of their intended consequence. 

* Similarly, it encourages people who own open space that currently want to use it for that purpose, to subject that land to conservation easements locking in the use and limiting the market value of the land, rather than holding it open for now but developing it if future circumstances make development of the property make more sense.

* Another bit of gamesmanship that already exists would surge if there was a land value tax. High rise apartment buildings and skyscrapers frequently have an ownership structure in which the land is owned by a non-profit that is exempt from property taxes and income taxes, while the building has private owners who pay a fair market value land lease rent to the non-profit land owners. This reduces property taxes as land values rise when the neighborhood develops further, muting property value tax increases for the owners of the improvements, and also allows the owners of the improvements to take depreciation deductions on 100% of their investments (since land value is not depreciable, but improvements to real property can be depreciated).

* Yet another dubious incentive that a land value tax creates is to encourage mobile businesses like food trucks, which can be stored on low value land when not in use, and parked on public land or untaxed parking spaces, relative to brick and mortar fixed site businesses like restaurants.

* Land value taxes are based upon a smaller tax base than property taxes, which means that to fund the activities currently funded with property taxes, land value tax millage rates must be much higher than property taxes.

* Land value taxes are more regressive, because they tax people who can afford expensive houses more relative to the value of what they own, than people who can only afford a less expensive house.

* Land value tax advocated overestimate the extent to which property taxes simply aren't an important incentive driving the economics of transactions because other factors predominate over tax rates on real property in providing incentives to property owners because they are larger in magnitude.

Property Taxes As Taxes In Lieu Of Income Taxes On Impute Income

There are also more theoretical reasons to disfavor land value taxes. In the case of "use property" like a residence with is owned by the occupant, property taxes serve as a tax in lieu of an income tax on the imputed economic benefit that the property owner receives from owning it, equalizing tax policy between people who own investment assets and used the income produced by investment assets to pay for their living expenses, and people who own use property.

For landlord owned residential property, property taxes that are passed onto tenants by the owners of the property, and the tenants are effectively taxed on the use value of their leases, which is also a property interest being used for consumption rather than further production.

This same analysis also helps to explain why almost every jurisdiction provides tax breaks for agricultural property, which is an investment whose economic benefit to the owner is fully captured through the owner's income tax.

Property taxes effectively double tax commercial property tenants to whom commercial property landlords pass on their property taxes (and owners of owner occupied commercial property), who pay income taxes and sales taxes on the activities conduct at those properties, in addition to property taxes on property that does not provide untaxed imputable income from its use.

In the case of retail businesses, some of this excess taxation in the form of sales taxes and property taxes can be passed upon to customers, but in the case of uses like office buildings, it is significantly harder to pass on the incidence of excess property taxes to the clients of these businesses.

Homeland Defense v. World Policeman

It is commonplace to argue that the United States should not be a world policeman.

This is a legitimate vision to hold for American foreign policy and military affairs. Many countries, for example, Mexico and India, hold that vision and act accordingly.

But if you genuinely believe that the United States should not be a world policeman, then you should translate your vision and values into your budgetary priorities.

The cost of providing the United States with homeland defense that is at least as solid as it is today, if not more so, if that is your sole predominant goal, is vastly less than what you United States spends today on its military.

The U.S. military budget, in round numbers, is about $750 billion a year. A U.S. military budget devoted to homeland defense as its predominant goal, could easily be 80% smaller, i.e. perhaps $150 billion a year or less, a savings of $600 billion a year ($6 trillion per ten year budget cycle) that could be devoted to other priorities: to reducing or eliminating budget deficits, to national infrastructure, to social programs and other domestic spending, to lower federal taxes, or to some combination of these alternatives.

Even for the limited goal of homeland defense, the U.S. military would still need some major expenditures to maintain its current standards. But the vast majority of the U.S. military budget is devoted to military resources that allow the U.S. to serve as a world policeman in foreign wars.

What Is Necessary For Homeland Defense?

The national guard and coast guard alone, are more than adequate to repel a military invasion from Mexico or Canada (as utterly unlikely as either scenario would be), to put down any domestic insurrection, and to control smuggling and piracy in U.S. waters.

The U.S. would still need to maintain a global system of military intelligence satellites. It would still need to maintain its strategic nuclear triad. It would still need a fleet of state of the art air to air combat aircraft so that it could always maintain air superiority in and near U.S. airspace since war is a winner take all scenario in which to be second best usually means to lose.

The prospect of an amphibious invasion of the United States from the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Pacific Coasts of Washington State, Oregon, or California is laughably remote. The risk of such an amphibian invasion could be stymied even more definitively with sea patrol aircraft, like the P-8 in our current naval air fleet, and with diesel-electric coastal submarines, like those of many of our European allies, that are vastly less expansive than our large current fleet of nuclear attack submarines (which have never engaged in even a single combat engagement since the first one was purchased).

The notion of foreign forces trying to occupy, conquer, or rule and part of the lower 48 U.S. states with ground forces, perhaps arriving as paratroopers, is likewise laughably absurd, even with only the national guard and the coast guard available to deal with this invasion. No country has an army with capabilities remotely up to that task. Foreign tanks, mobile artillery, and armored personnel carriers will never appear in Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Seattle, or San Diego, as they have this past week and a half in Ukraine.

U.S. territory in the Pacific is somewhat more vulnerable and would require some of the military forces housed in the Department of Defense to defend at current levels.

Alaska, which we purchased from Russia, is thinly populated. It is only about 5 minutes by supersonic jet fighter and only about an hour or two by fast warship, from Russian territory and to this day experiences occasional intrusions into its airspace by Russia warplanes. 

Guam, the Northern Mariana Island, and American Samoa have tiny populations and are closer to China than they are to the American mainland. 

Hawaii is the only part of U.S. territory that has been the subject of a serious military attack since the War of 1812, and Pearl Harbor lasted only a few hours on a single day in 1941 and was launched by a country that became our strong ally after we defeated it and occupied it.

None of these places have a land border with another country. There is no place from which an amphibious invasion of any of these places could be launched without ample advanced warning. None of these places have heavily populated areas that could be bombed with aircraft without at least enough warning to allow interceptor aircraft to be deployed and to warn the population centers facing imminent attack.

And, let's face it. The United States of America could survive an extended hostile foreign occupation of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, or part of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, although this would be an unwelcome act of war, without undue trauma. And, even those occupations would receive no sympathy or support from the local populations. So, while it is absolutely worth it to incur costs of substantial blood and treasure to defend those parts of U.S. territory, the fights necessary to defend them do not justify incurring any cost whatsoever.

The U.S. could satisfy all of its homeland defense needs without its fleet of aircraft carriers and their escorting surface combatants, with a small fraction of its attack submarine fleet, without the entire Marine Corps, with a fraction of its current Air Force, and with an Army adapted for a much narrower range of climates that is not designed to repel significant sized heavy, mechanized ground forces like tanks, mobile artillery batteries, and armored personnel carriers. The U.S. Army would also not need the same magnitude of expeditionary forces like its airborne divisions.

The United States would not need nearly as many troops in its standing Army, a military resource that the Founding Fathers were wary of and the President Eisenhower warned of the perils of having.

The U.S. could satisfy its homeland defense needs without foreign military bases in South Korea, Japan, Germany, the U.K., Spain, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and Diego Garcia.

The Preferences Of The United States Revealed In Its Budget And Actions Shows A Unilateral Commitment To Being A World Policeman

The United States military's scope and resources are not consistent with these forced having predominant purpose of providing homeland defense. The lion's share of United States military spending is devoted to resources that are almost entirely for the purpose of serving as a "world policeman". Even those military resources that incidentally provide homeland defense benefits, like its attack submarine fleet and its network of military intelligence satellites, are predominantly used to carry out its world policeman actions.

The United States is bound by NATO treaty to join in the mutual defense of its NATO partners if any of them are invaded. But nothing in that treaty requires the U.S. to have European military bases, to maintain the world's largest navy by far to patrol the North Atlantic ocean's blue sea waters with little allied assistance, or to have any particular size of force available to deploy in the event that war breaks out in Europe. The NATO treaty obligation of the U.S. is formally and legally speaking not materially different than that of Canada or Denmark that routinely provide smaller contributions to multilateral military alliances because they are smaller countries.

The U.S. would not be shirking its legal obligations to its allies under binding treaties if it trimmed its expeditionary military forces in the U.S. Marine Corps and a substantial share of the U.S. Army, to a single expeditionary Army division, and closed all of its European military bases. 

Likewise, so far as I know, it is not obligated by treaty to maintain its military bases in South Korea and Japan, or to defend Taiwan, even though it has expressed an unequivocal intend to defend all three of them with military force. 

And, no treaty requires U.S. military forces to keep the Mediterranean Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean free from military and piracy threats to commerce, let alone, to do so at the primary expense of its own taxpayers, with only minimal foreign contributions.

The U.S. has no legal obligation to intervene in wars in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, as it has done repeatedly, with the possible exception of a legal, or at least overwhelming moral, obligation to defend Israel from its mostly extremely hostile neighbors - something that the U.S. has mostly done with foreign aid spending and arms sales, rather than with its own military forces.

Instead, in the Cold War era and beyond, the U.S. has unilaterally undertaken, by repeatedly authorizing the use of military force, by authorizing and maintaining foreign military bases, and by spending at least $600 billion a year of federal funds that it wouldn't have to spend on the purpose, the role of serving as a world policeman - protecting its allies and taking on violent threats to the world order.

Mostly, after World War II, the U.S. has devoted the resources its has devoted to its military to resist advances from Communist or former Communist regimes abroad, and from militant Islamist revolutionaries (sometimes as insurgents and sometimes as sovereign or claimed sovereign states) abroad.

The response to Islamist  forces, that can be traced back at least to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iran and Lebanon in the late 1970s and the 1980s, has been justified politically primarily as a response to the threat of Islamist terrorism, which resulted in one major attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, and a few minor attacks with less than a twentieth of the impact. 

Those military engagements have had mixed success, but have been, when compared to the scale of the American military and its economy, "small wars", which while not cheap, have also not involved massive numbers of deaths for U.S. forces, a military draft, or a total national economic commitment. Also, the U.S. could certainly have chosen to make more limited and isolated responses to terrorism related threats, particularly following 9-11, than it ended up taking.

Even our Cold War and post-Cold War efforts to respond militarily to Communist and post-Communist regimes have been a story of mixed successes. 

The U.S. saved half of Korea from a horrible fate in the Korean War, but lost the other half of it which has been one of the worst and most dangerous regimes in the world and has a few nuclear weapons and long term missiles. The U.S. ultimately lost the Vietnam War, and related conflicts in Cambodia and Laos. In the long run, Hong Kong and Macau were peacefully restored to the control of Communist China and have not maintained the autonomy that made these city-states thrive since then. The U.S. was not successful at preventing one party totalitarian regimes from arising in most of the Middle East and much of Africa. The U.S. did not manage to prevent East Germany and almost all of Eastern Europe from becoming communist tributary states of the Soviet Union who were part of the Warsaw Pact under Soviet duress and sometimes overt military action until the fall of the Soviet Union, over the strong objections of its and its NATO allies.

The U.S. was not successful in wresting Cuba from its communist regime. The U.S. anti-communist interventions in Latin America in the Cold War period and beyond were mostly either unsuccessful or gave rise to equally bad or worse hard right, neo-fascist regimes.

The U.S. response to global Islamism, and to a lesser extent, even to Communism, has also been inconsistent.

It has formed secure, if shallow, alliances with oil rich monarchies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In part, due to oil wealth, but also to protect Israel, the U.S. has provided military and other foreign aid to a one party state in Egypt and to Saudi Arabia's absolute monarchy. The U.S. tolerated communist leanings in Mexico and Venezuela and Libya, because of their oil and gas wealth. 

The regimes that the U.S. and its allies put in place after invading Afghanistan (in response to 9-11) and after twice invading Iraq (the first time in response to Iraq's invasion of the oil rich, slave holding monarchy of Kuwait, and the second time based upon false reports that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction it planned to used for terrorist style attacks), had Islam as the established national religion and Islamic law as the supreme legal authority.

Conclusion

The U.S. through its national budget and history of military action has shown a strong unilateral commitment that continues to this day to being a world policeman.

Other nations in the world, moreover, have retreated from world policing activity and declined to form international institutions to do so, to a great extent in reliance on the fact that the U.S. is doing so.

There has been a long running American experiment in serving as a world policeman. It was begun shortly after its founding in its deployment of naval forces and marines to Tripoli in the Mediterranean sea against the Barbary Pirates. It continued prior to World War II, mostly in a Latin American and Caribbean sphere of influence, on the high seas, and in the later part of World War I. World War II was more than that and the U.S. was brought into involuntarily with attacks on Pearl Harbor and U.S. ships that made this more than a world policeman operation. But this American experiment continued, refocused, and dramatically expanded after World War II in the Cold War, in resistance to militant Islamism starting in the late 1970s, and in post-Cold War conflicts.

There is a legitimate argument to be made that the American experiment in serving as a world policeman has demonstrated that this policy has been, on balance, unwise, despite the facts that it has had successes in addition to failures, and that the U.S. should retreat from this role.

But at the moment, the preferences of U.S. policymakers revealed by their actions make unequivocally clear that the U.S. has voluntarily and unilaterally stepped up to and taken the role of being a world policeman on behalf of Western-style developed, non-communist nations around the world.

So, at this juncture, it is dishonest, unseemly and cowardly, for the U.S. to retreat from defending Ukraine and other non-NATO targets of Russian military aggression on the grounds that the United States is not a world policeman. 

The U.S. has accepted the duty of being a world policeman for reasons having nothing to do with its formal treaty obligations and it is now its obligation to do so to the best of its ability. 

If it cannot, because it fears a Russian nuclear attack on it, it should say forthrightly that it is shirking the responsibilities its has assumed as a world policeman because of this fear for its own people's safety. But it should not try to pretend that it didn't sign up for this job and assume responsibility for global security.

If the U.S. can't take adequate action in the face of such a bald Russian attack on Ukraine in flagrant violation of international law and all norms of decency, because its people have lost the resolve to have the U.S. serve as a world policeman, however, it should promptly dramatically overhaul its military force, should overhaul its base structure, and should disabuse its international allies of any expectations that they had previously formed based upon the assumption that the U.S. would protect them and the world geopolitical order.

The rest of the world shouldn't be left with false hopes of U.S. support that it has no intention of honoring, and the U.S. people shouldn't have to bear the exorbitant cost of perhaps $600 billion a year (about $2,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States and about 3% of the U.S. GDP) to create a mere façade of a willingness to use the resources it has purchased with those funds for their only available and intended purpose. The hypocritical status quo is indefensible.

Quote of the Day

Jealousy's something you feel about things that matter.

- My Dress-Up Darling (Episode 8). 

COVID-19 v. War

COVID-19 has killed far more people in the last week in the United States alone, about 13,000 than the week old all out conventional war between Russia and Ukraine has in its first week, even by the highest available casualty estimates on both sides combined.

About 85% of the U.S. deaths from COVID-19 could have been prevented with vaccinations, which are available for free in the U.S. to anyone who wants them with appointments to get vaccinated that are now easily available.

Right wing conspiracy theories and misinformation are the main reason that Americans aren't getting vaccinated and are dying instead.

Updated Casualty Claims

The Russian News agency TASS claimed on February 28, 2022 that:

Russian troops destroyed 1,146 Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities during their special operation for demilitarizing Ukraine, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said on Monday.

"Since the beginning of the special operation, the Russian Armed Forces have crippled 1,146 Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities, including 31 command and communications centers, 81 S-300, Buk-M1, and Osa surface-to-air missile systems, and also 75 radar stations," the spokesman said.

Operational-tactical aircraft of Russia’s Aerospace Force wiped out six armored columns of the Ukrainian armed forces, the general said.

The Russian combat planes "destroyed 311 tanks and other combat armored vehicles, 42 aircraft and helicopters (including those on the ground), 51 multiple launch rocket systems, 147 field artillery guns and mortars, and 263 special military motor vehicles," the Defense Ministry spokesman said.

Notably, if you take Russia's claims at face value and compare them to estimates of Ukrainian forces before the invasion, this still leaves Ukraine with many functioning military aircraft and tanks. 

Another source has claimed that there have been at least 2000 Ukrainian civilians killed so far in the conflict. 

Ukraine Claims '5,840 Russian Soldiers Killed & 211 Tanks, 862 Armoured Vehicles Destroyed' And 61 helicopters and aircraft.

From this YouTube video from yesterday. These estimates are probably higher than the reality, but there is no doubt that Ukraine has inflicted serious damage on Russian forces.

It is also worth noting that there are almost no reported instances of tank v. tank battles in this conflict so far.

Public and Private Sanctions Against Russia And Support For Ukraine

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, governments, private businesses, and non-governmental organizations around the world are taking sweeping action to isolate Russia and Belarus, and people influential in those regimes, from their international investments, international trade, and international cultural exchanges. 

Meanwhile, they are taking some steps to help Ukrainians on the fronts of cutting immigration red tape, providing economic aid, and providing military aid.

The broad scope of these sanctions short of direct military action (which other Ukrainian allies have largely refrained from out of fear of a Russian nuclear strike), imposed so quickly, is almost unprecedented.

The sanctions, collectively, look likely to severely harm the Russian economy far more than any economic benefit that it will receive from its invasion of Ukraine, could do permanent, long term harm to Russian economic might, and make it far more costly for Russia to continue its military actions than it would be otherwise. 

This economic pain could also heighten domestic dissent in Russia, a topic that I'll reserve for a possible future post.

Economic Sanctions 

Russia is buckling under a raft of severe wide-ranging sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies. They have restricted the country's access to its overseas currency reserves and barred many of its banks from SWIFT, a global network that financial firms use to conduct transactions.

As a result, the value of the ruble has plummeted, Russia has been forced to raise interest rates sharply and the country has kept its stock market closed to prevent further economic and financial pain. 

From National Public Radio.  

The Treasury Department on Monday moved to further cut off Russia from the global economy, announcing that it would immobilize Russian central bank assets that are held in the United States and impose sanctions on the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund that is run by a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.

. . .

On Saturday, the European Commission, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United States said they would remove some Russian banks from SWIFT, essentially barring them from international transactions, and impose new restrictions on Russia’s central bank to prevent it from using its large international reserves to sidestep sanctions.

From the New York Times.

Italy has embraced sanctions against Russia despite receiving 40% of its natural gas from Russia.

As of 9 p.m. Eastern Time Wednesday, Russian aircraft are prohibited from entering U.S. airspace.

President Biden announced he was ordering that in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, joining the European Union and Canada in banning Russian planes, part of a worldwide effort to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

The Putin regime is expected to reciprocate and prohibit U.S. aircraft from entering Russian airspace. That could mean longer flights as jets are rerouted around closed airspace, but aviation industry experts say Russians will likely feel the greater impact.

According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the order prohibits all passenger, cargo and charter flights on "all aircraft owned, certified, operated, registered, chartered, leased, or controlled by, for, or for the benefit of, a person who is a citizen of Russia."

Any aircraft operators who violate the ban on entering U.S. airspace "may be intercepted, and their pilots and other crewmembers detained and interviewed by law enforcement or security personnel, as appropriate."

From National Public Radio. 

While China has not formally taken a stand against Russia, China has also not supported Russia, and "two of China’s largest state-owned banks restricted financing for purchases of Russian commodities[.]"

Business Boycotts and Private Disinvestment 

Energy giant BP helped kick off the corporate exodus on Sunday, when it announced plans to unwind a 20% stake in Rosneft, the Russian oil giant. . . . two of BP's competitors, Shell and Exxon Mobil, followed suit. 

. . .

Volvo Cars and General Motors have halted vehicle exports to Russia, while Harley-Davidson said it "has suspended its business in Russia and all shipments of its bikes to the country." 

. . . 

Dell has suspended product sales, and Apple has also "paused all product sales in Russia," according to a company spokesperson, who noted, "Apple Pay and other services have been limited."

Several of the world's largest shipping companies are no longer servicing customers in Russia, including UPS, FedEx and Maersk. The Danish shipping company said it "has now suspended bookings to/from both Russia and Ukraine until further notice," with the exception of "foodstuffs, medical and humanitarian supplies."

From National Public Radio. 

On Monday, Equinor, the Norwegian energy company, said it would “stop new investments into Russia” and “start the process of exiting” joint ventures there.

From the New York Times.

Russian oil trade was in disarray on Tuesday as producers postponed sales, importers rejected Russian ships and buyers worldwide searched elsewhere for needed crude after a raft of sanctions imposed on Moscow over the war in Ukraine. 

. . . 

Russia is the second largest exporter of crude worldwide, trailing only Saudi Arabia, as it ships out 4 million to 5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude, along with 2 million to 3 million bpd of refined products. 

. . .

Russia's key Urals oil grade was bid at a discount of more than $18 below physical Brent crude, the primary worldwide benchmark, a record in the post-Soviet era. Even at that price, traders have been unable to find willing buyers.

"Nobody wants to buy, ship or store Russian oil," a trader of Russian oil said.

In response to the severity of the disruption, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said it would coordinate a release of 60 million barrels of oil reserves from big consumers, with half coming from the United States.

From Reuters.

A tanker ship from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia has refused to refuel a Russian ship.

Russian entities, including the country’s main development and military banks, one of its sovereign wealth funds and a subsidiary of the state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. It has sought to freeze Mr. Putin’s assets as well as those of his foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and other Russian national security officials. And it has curbed purchases of Russian sovereign bonds, barred some Russian banks from Western financial markets and cut off Russia’s access to certain foreign technology products.

The European Union and Britain have taken similar punitive measures and also have banned some military-related exports to Russia

From the New York Times.

Airplane manufacturer Boeing says it has suspended major operations in Moscow and temporarily closed its office in Kyiv.

From the Associated Press.

Liquor stores and bars around the world are discontinuing sales of Russian vodka. In U.S. states where liquor stores are state run, this is being ordered by some state Governors.

Many investment pools, public and private, are divesting themselves of Russian investments. Public investors doing so include California pension funds, Colorado's pension fund, Norway's sovereign wealth fund, and the U.S. state of Georgia.

Sanctions Against Russian Oligarchs. 

Switzerland, a favorite destination for Russian oligarchs and their money, announced on Monday that it would freeze Russian financial assets in the country, setting aside its tradition of neutrality to join the European Union and a growing number of nations seeking to penalize Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. The country said it would immediately freeze the assets of Mr. Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail V. Mishustin and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, as well as all 367 individuals the European Union imposed sanctions on last week. 

From the New York Times.

Germany has promptly seized the $600 million yacht of a Russian oligarch. 

Another Russian oligarch is selling off his interest in one of the leading soccer teams in the world with the proceeds going to a charity to benefit Ukrainians.

The U.S. Justice Department has established a task force to enforce sanctions against Russian oligarchs.

Sports and Cultural Sanctions

Russian teams and competitors have been excluded from international sports organizations from the International Chess Federation, to FIFA and UEFA that run global soccer competitions, to World Cup competition in winter sports, to international basketball competitions. Other organizations including the International Paralympic Committee, World Taekwondo, and the International Tennis Federation, will allow Russian and Belorussian competitors to compete as unaffiliated neutral individuals, but not as part of their national teams. A leading sports video game producer is even removing Russian teams from its video games.

New York's famed opera house, the Metropolitan Opera, announced Sunday that it will suspend its ties to Russian artists and institutions who are allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin. . . . Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra dropped Gergiev and pianist Denis Matsuev from a three-concert series due to the two musicians' close ties to Putin.

Also dropping Gergiev as conductor were the Munich Philharmonic and the Rotterdam Philharmonic.

From National Public Radio. Other venues worldwide have followed suit.

For 20 years, Vladimir O. Potanin, one of Russia’s richest men, has been a key supporter of the Guggenheim Museum, serving as a trustee and major benefactor while his foundation sponsored exhibitions, including the current show in New York about the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. But the museum said on Wednesday that Mr. Potanin was stepping down as one of its trustees, a position he has held since 2002.

From the New York Times. 

Diplomatic Condemnation and Legal Action

Russia on Friday vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution denouncing its invasion of Ukraine while China, India, and the United Arab Emirates abstained from the vote.

From National Public Radio. 

The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday approved a nonbinding resolution condemning Russia for invading Ukraine and demanding that it withdraw its military forces. . . . he resolution passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 141-5 with 35 abstentions. The five countries that voted against it were Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea.

From National Public Radio.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court opened an investigation on Wednesday into allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide committed in Ukraine since 2013 and during Russia’s current invasion of the country.

From the New York Times.

Protesters are defiling and protesting in front of Russian embassies.

Russian diplomats are being expelled from many countries where they embassies, and called to account to the governments in the countries hosting them in other countries, like Greece.

The United States says it is expelling a Russian “intelligence operative” working for the United Nations, in addition to the 12 members of the Russian Mission to the United Nations whose expulsions were ordered Monday for engaging in espionage.

From the Associated Press. 

Pro-Ukrainian Refugee Policies 

Countries across Europe and the world have cut through red tape to welcome the more than one million Ukrainians fleeing the conflict in the last week. 

Poland, Hungary and Moldova are also welcoming thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war.

From the New York Times. 

Ireland also promptly welcomed Ukrainian refugees.

The European Union is expected to grant temporary protection to all Ukrainians, as record numbers of refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion move into the bloc, in what rights advocates warn could become a massive humanitarian crisis.

From the New York Times. 

Many people are also fleeing from Russia to Finland by train.

Economic Aid To Ukraine

Elon Musk is trying to help by providing satellite internet service to Ukraine and free access to electric car charging stations for Ukrainians.

European utility companies are adding Ukraine to their electrical grids which have been cut off from Russia and Belarus.

Wells Fargo and Bank of America, two of the largest financial institutions in the United States, pledged on Wednesday to each donate $1 million to humanitarian relief in Ukraine. . . . 

The BBC announced on Wednesday that it had turned to an old-fashioned form of radio broadcasting to keep Ukrainians informed about the war. The broadcasting company said it had launched two new shortwave frequencies, which can be heard on cheap, portable devices, that can be received clearly in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and parts of Russia.

From the New York Times.

About $34 million of cryptocurrency has been donated to Ukraine. Sony is making a $2 million humanitarian donation.

Military Aid

The Dutch are sending rocket launchers for air defense. The Estonians are sending Javelin antitank missiles. The Poles and the Latvians are sending Stinger surface-to-air missiles. The Czechs are sending machine guns, sniper rifles, pistols and ammunition.

Even formerly neutral countries like Sweden and Finland are sending weapons. And Germany, long allergic to sending weapons into conflict zones, is sending Stingers as well as other shoulder-launched rockets.

In all, about 20 countries — most members of NATO and the European Union, but not all — are funneling arms into Ukraine to fight off Russian invaders and arm an insurgency, if the war comes to that.

At the same time, NATO is moving military equipment and as many as 22,000 more troops into member states bordering Russia and Belarus, to reassure them and enhance deterrence. 

. . . 

While 21 of the 27 European Union countries are also members of NATO, the effort to move equipment and weapons rapidly into Ukraine from Poland is being carried out by individual countries and is not formally either a NATO or E.U. operation.

The French say that the E.U.’s military staff is trying to coordinate the push. Britain and the United States are doing the same, setting up something called, deliberately blandly and neutrally, the International Donors Coordination Center. It is doubtful that Mr. Putin will be fooled by the name. . . . even if no NATO soldier ever crosses into Ukraine, and even if convoys of matériel are driven to the border by nonuniformed personnel or contractors in plain trucks, the European arms supplies are likely to be seen in Moscow as a not-so-disguised intervention by NATO. 

. . .

On Feb. 25, the day after Russia attacked Ukraine, the White House approved a $350 million package of weapons and equipment, including Javelins and Stingers. Pentagon officials said shipments began flowing within days from military stockpiles in Germany to Poland and Romania, from where the matériel has been shipped overland through western Ukraine.

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, promised Ukraine to provide tens of thousands of shells and artillery ammunition, antiaircraft missiles, light mortars, reconnaissance drones and other reconnaissance weapons. 

. . .

Sweden, not a member of NATO, announced that it would send Ukraine 5,000 antitank weapons, 5,000 helmets, 5,000 items of body armor and 135,000 field rations, plus about $52 million for the Ukrainian military. 

Finland, similarly, has said it will deliver 2,500 assault rifles and 150,000 rounds of ammunition for them, 1,500 antitank weapons and 70,000 combat rations.

From the New York Times.