WHY DEMOCRATS WILL RETAIN CONTROL OF THE U.S. CONGRESS AT THE UPCOMING 2022 MIDTERM ELECTIONS

There are more Independents in the U.S. than Republicans or Democrats.

At the turn of the century, there were equal numbers of Independents, Republicans and Democrats. Today:

Independents 44%
Democrats 30%
Republicans 25%

Independents swing their votes for a variety of reasons. What is happening today, and will continue until November of 2022, is the slate of issues that will mostly tarnish Republican candidates:

Abortion rights: the Supreme Court decided to side with Texas
Gun rights:

The current Congress will not pass any meaningful gun control law, for you need 60 votes in the Senate.
With every new shooting, the public will want more controls.

Voting rights: many state legislatures have introduced and passed bill to restrict the right to vote.

Democracy and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Congress. Watch Republican Liz Cheney discuss the Meadows resolution.

Donald Trump.

He remains the leader of the party.
His character and all those upcoming court cases will only hurt those he endorses.

Republicans are for abortion control, gun rights, and tweaking democracy. The way these issues are progressing or not today will only influence more Independents to lean in the Democratic direction.

There will be a number of races, particularly in the House, where Donald Trump will anoint his preferred candidates. This will only mean that whichever Republican prevailing in the primary vote will lose a few votes in the general election to the Democratic victor. This would mostly be many Republicans from the losing candidate just not bothering to vote.

Surely some time next year Trump will be in court, and not only once. The usual sex, finance and political issues. However, a new one seems to be germinating dealing with how terribly he handled the pandemic. Geneva could be the venue for his crime against humanity for all those COVID-19 deaths.

Democrats in the House will protract the January 6 issue into next fall. I've lost track of all the subpoenas the House Rules Committee has issued, but I read that the number now exceeds 100. The messier this gets, the worst for all Republicans.

If just a few percentage of Independent voters get worried that abortion rights are being compromised, all the effort of Republicans to pack the Supreme Court will backfire. That Texas ruling will just be the beginning. A sufficient number of female voters will get concerned.

While every House member runs in 2022, the Senate will this year feature 14 Democratic seats and 20 now held by Republicans. Worse, at this point, at least five Republican incumbents have chosen not to run, and only one Democrat. Two more Republicans, John Thune of South Dakota and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin remain con-commital. Just this number ratio omens well for Democrats anyway.

While it is disconcerting that more than half of Republicans believe that the latest presidential election was stolen by the Democrats, those 40% or so who don't feel that way will be concerned about the fate of American democracy. If just 10% of that group get significantly influenced by the House probe into the January 6 attack, that alone could be enough to seal more Democrats than Republicans being elected to the the House on 8November 2022.

What about the prospects of Donald Trump becoming Speaker of the House on that day? Theoretically, he can be selected by Republicans for that role even if he does not run for any office. Since World War II, the president's party has LOST AN AVERAGE OF 26 SEATS IN THE HOUSE in the midterm election. Republicans only need to flip five seats to become the majority party. Of course the House then will attempt to impeach President Biden, among other dastardly deeds.

But all that will not happen if Democrats retain control, as I have predicted. If just two more Democrats get elected to the Senate next year, that will open the door to a whole host of liberal programs gaining ground when the new Congress convenes in January of 2023.

Tropical Storm Rai just missed Palau, but is predicted to gain Category 2 strength up to 120 MPH and slam into the middle of the Philippines.

The northern hemisphere is in the middle of winter and still spawning a major typhoon.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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