I first posted on what is an important emerging category of spirits, American single malt whiskies, back in November 2019 and now, after two years of arduous, even single-minded research I am prepared to make my results public. Over the last two years I have consumed more whiskey than at any prior time in my life (not to excess, mind you). The cause of advancing science sometimes demands sacrifice. Here, in no particular order, are my favorites. During the last two years I only found one American single-malt whiskey which was actually undrinkable. I will not mention it here. Suffice it to say, if you stick with the drams I mention here you can hardly go wrong.

Stranahan’s Blue Proof: 86 Finish: aged in American oak barrels, Solera finished Price: $39.99 This whiskey, produced in Denver, has become one of our house staples.
Balcones Lineage Proof: 94 Finish: Aged in refill and new oak barrels Price: $39.99 While not quite as refined as the Stranahan’s, this whiskey has a substantial amount of character. It has replaced its cousin, Balcones Baby Blue, as one of our house staples. It is distilled in Waco, Texas.
Westward Proof: 90 Finish: aged in charred American oak barrels Price: $69.99
Cedar Ridge Quintessential Proof: 92 Finish: Price: $59.99 This whiskey is distilled in Swisher, Iowa.
Corsair Single Malt Proof: 90 Finish: Price: $64.99 This is distilled in Nashville, Tennessee. Sadly both the Corsair Single Malt and Triple Smoke are out of stock. The Triple Smoke sort of defies description. A bit like drinking a rib smoker.

I struggled with myself before posting on this editorial at the Wall Street Journal. On the one hand I agree with their premise and would even add one of my own. On the other hand I think they’re overstating the strength of their case.

Their premise is that most of the major media outlets are run by progressives who, shall we say, slant their coverage to get progressives elected and favor the policy goals of progressives which has led to their taking egregiously false positions on a number of significant stories over the last several years. Those outlets include to varying degrees of bias the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC.

My additional claim is that progressives tend to hold erroneous views of human nature which inevitably result in their favored policies producing bad results.

Here are the editors’ remarks on some stories that the media got wrong. My observations will follow.

• The Wuhan Virology Lab origin theory of Covid-19. In the early days of the pandemic, even raising this as a possibility was taboo. Sen. Cotton was vilified for doing so. The Lancet, a supposedly open-minded scientific journal, published a letter in February 2020 “to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”

This year we learned that the Lancet letter was part of a coordinated effort to quash the lab theory. We learned about the conflicts of interest of Anthony Fauci and others who provided funding for the Wuhan lab. Eventually even the press noticed that China had blocked an honest inquiry, and that no evidence for a natural origin has emerged.

• Lockdowns stop Covid-19. There was no fiercer consensus in the early days of the virus than the belief that locking down the economy to stop the virus was an unadulterated social good. We felt the consensus wrath when we raised doubts, in an editorial on March 20, 2020, about the harm that lockdowns would do to the economy and public health.

Two years later we now know that lockdowns at most delay the virus spread. The damage in lost education for children, lost livelihoods for workers and employers, and damage to mental health is obvious for all to see. Even Randi Weingarten, the teachers union chief who did so much to keep schools closed, now claims she wanted to keep them open all along.

• The supply side of the economy doesn’t matter. The Keynesian consensus, which dominates the U.S. and European media, has long held that the demand for goods and services drives the economy. The ability or incentive to supply those goods is largely ignored or dismissed. Spurring demand was the theory behind the trillions of dollars in spending by Congress and easy money from the Federal Reserve.

All that money did spur demand. But the Keynesians ignored the disincentives to increase supply from paying people not to work and restricting work with lockdowns and mandates. The result was the surging inflation that caught nearly all of them by surprise. Their demand-side models never saw it coming.

• The Steele dossier and Russia collusion narrative. In 2019 the Mueller report exposed the lack of evidence for the claims that Donald Trump and the Kremlin were in cahoots. This year the indictments by special counsel John Durham have revealed how Democrats and the press worked together to promote the dossier that was based on disinformation.

Yet for four years nearly everyone in the dominant media bought the collusion narrative. One or two of the gullible have apologized, but most want everyone to forget what they wrote or said at the time.

• Vilifying police won’t affect crime. The fast-congealing consensus after George Floyd’s murder was that most police were racist, as was most of American society, and violent protests against this were justified—even admirable. Woe to anyone who pointed out that the victims of these riots and crime were mostly poor and minority communities.

Police funding was cut and bail laws eased in many cities. Eighteen months later we see the result in rising crime rates and a soaring murder count. A political backlash now has even many Democrats claiming they really do want more funding for police.

Theory suggests that SARS-CoV-2 developed in an animal population and made the jump to infecting humans. At this point we’ll probably never know its true origins. My view is that there is already sufficient evidence that it spread via a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology to prevail in a civil suit in the United States and that course of action should be pursued if for no other reason that it might energize the Chinese authorities to pursue and provide compelling evidence of an alternative theory.

Was there actually a fierce consensus that lockdowns were “an unadulterated social good”? I wish they had presented some evidence to that effect. My recollection was that it was a desperate move to slow the progress of the virus, taken with the understanding that it would also have adverse consequences. I think it would have been helpful if political leaders at the time had laid out their thinking in more detail and with more metrics. At least here in Illinois those were completely absent.

I think they misstate the “Keynesian consensus”. I also think that it is no more wrong than Newtonian mechanics is wrong, i.e. it’s just a special case. The underlying assumption is that an increase aggregate demand will impel an increase in aggregate supply. That’s the source of the “Keynesian multiplier”. I would say an increase in aggregate demand through borrowing is only benign to the extent that it does not exceed the increase in aggregate supply. IMO globalization throws everything into a cocked hat.

I thought the Steele dossier and the attendant Russia collusion narrative were pretty obviously the products of Clinton campaign oppo research but deserved investigation. I think that my more restrained approach has paid off. If not taking a highly confrontation stance with respect to Russia is being “in cahoots” with the Kremlin, most reasonable, well-informed people are.

I largely agree with their point about “vilifying the police”. Rather than going into hysterics about racism in police departments I think we’d be much better off devoting our energy to the problem of police officers taking an “us vs. them” attitude with “us” being police officers and “them” being everybody else. I also see a distinction between “vilifying the police” and taking a realistic attitude towards them.
I don’t deny that some police officers are racist; some are; some aren’t. One of the least racist, most progressive people I know (a college roommate) spent 30 years as a police officer. You learn a lot getting invited to cop parties.

I wouldn’t classify the stories they selected as the things the media got most egregiously wrong, either. I think that honor belong to its defense of the “1619 Project” which has been demonstrated to be a lie. A close second would be the role of CEI in the schools which IMO is extremely widespread and almost completely malignant.

As a hint at what 2022 may bring David Ignatius devotes his Washington Post column to a William Safire-inspired multiple choice quiz:

1) North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will celebrate 2022 by: a) Demanding removal of Treasury sanctions on his April 26 Animation Studio so he can resume cartoon exports; b) Launching Jeff Bezos into space; c) Partnering with Donald Trump to develop “Mar-a-Lago East” on the Sea of Japan; d) Conducting his seventh nuclear explosion and testing an ICBM that can reach the continental United States.

2) Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman will shock the world by: a) Taking the throne after King Salman’s death and beginning what could be a half-century reign; b) Offering clemency and freeing the children of former counterterrorism officer Saad Aljabri he has been holding hostage; c) Meeting President Biden and halting cooperation with China on ballistic missiles; d) Joining the Abraham Accords and opening a Saudi commercial office in Tel Aviv; e) Shaving off his beard.

3) The Ukraine crisis will enter a new phase in 2022 as: a) Russian cyberattacks disable the Ukrainian power grid and hundreds freeze because of shortages of gas and coal; b) Donetsk separatists backed by Russia overrun Ukrainian front lines at Avdiivka and enraged rightwing nationalists kill pro-Russian MPs in Kyiv; c) Russia, after creating chaos in Ukraine, invades to “restore order”; d) Russian forces gradually retreat from Ukraine’s border as the West offers limited security guarantees.

4) The 42-year-old “Iran crisis” enters a decisive stage as: a) Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s death triggers a succession struggle between military and clergy; b) Prodded by Russia and China, Iran reaches an interim nuclear deal with the United States that reverses nuclear progress in exchange for sanctions relief; c) Israel launches a military strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure after the U.S. midterm elections; d) Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invite Iran to meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council and open diplomatic relations.

5) The year’s most disruptive technology will be: a) Operational quantum computing that unlocks all current and historical encrypted data; b) Reinvention of the World Wide Web as “Web 3,” using secure blockchain technology; c) Issuance of reliable cryptocurrencies by China, the European Union and other nations, also using blockchain; d) Undetectable “deep fake” techniques that affect financial markets and elections.

6) Space warfare becomes a red-hot military topic in 2022 as: a) The U.S. Space Force disables a seemingly “hostile” foreign satellite based on what proves an inaccurate intelligence assessment; b) National Reconnaissance Office ground stations are hit by disabling cyberattacks leaving the United States “blind and deaf” in space for weeks; c) China demonstrates an antisatellite weapon capable of destroying satellites in geosynchronous orbits; d) The United States declassifies information about “exquisite” capabilities developed during the Cold War — causing Russia and China to revise security plans.

7) The most active Republican campaigner with the highest poll numbers during the 2022 midterm campaign will be: a) former president Donald Trump; b) Sen. Ted Cruz; c) Sen. Josh Hawley; d) Rep. Liz Cheney; e) former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

8) Topping the list of Democrats seeking the presidential nomination if Biden decides not to run will be: a) Vice President Harris; b) Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; c) MSNBC host Joe Scarborough; d) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; e) Republican crossover and former representative Will Hurd.

9) The U.S. secretary of state in December 2022 will be: a) Secretary Antony Blinken; b) Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman; c) Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo; d) CIA Director William J. Burns; e) Sen. Christopher A. Coons.

10) The “black swan” crisis of 2022 will be: a) Backlash against President Xi Jinping’s unprecedented third five-year term from senior party and military leaders; b) Global economic downturn caused by a new covid variant that is as transmissible as omicron but more vaccine-resistant; c) a devastating ransomware attack against Taiwan’s chipmaking giant TMSC by Chinese “private” hackers; d) Russia’s candidate wins control of the International Telecommunication Union and imposes new rules that aid censorship and curtail freedom; e) Saudi Arabia begins selling oil in Chinese yuan, in addition to dollars.

My answer: 1) d; 2) d; 3) d; 4) c; 5) d; 6) c; 7) a; 8) a; 9) a; 10) e

Mr. Ignatius’s answers: 1) d; 2) d; 3) a, b, c; 4) b, d; 5) c; 6) c; 7) e; 8) Moot: Biden will run; 9) a; 10) e.

There’s quite a bit of overlap between his and mine but some notable differences. IMO selecting multiples is cheating as is his answer for 8 with which I agree.

I want to draw your attention to a post at Axios from Stef Kight. The post largely consists of a large infographic depicting the Axios-Google news cycle findings for the past year consisting of the volume of interest in 52 different issues over the period. I won’t reproduce it here—cruise on over to the link to see it.

Four issues show sustained high levels of interest: crime, inflation, the border, and audit. I have no idea what “audit” means. Here’s Ms. Kight’s interpretation:

There was relatively high and sustained interest in topics like crime and the border this year — favored midterm talking points by the GOP. However, it was largely in line with interest over the last five years.

Mine is somewhat different: it’s still the economy, stupid. These are the issues that people care about. “Cult of personality” issues, the weather, daily headlines, and niche issues like abortion. critical race theory, and voting rights are not the issues people care about. The media (whether legacy or social) can gin up interest in one or the other of those peripheral issues for short periods but that doesn’t make them the issues people care about which, yes, are pretty constant.

Any political party can do worse than devote attention to the issues people care about.

In a piece at RealClearMarkets Walter Block paints a rather rosy picture of what the United States would be like if free markets actually prevailed:

Government regulation and taxes, if they existed at all, would be very minimal. There would of course still be laws against murder, rape, theft, assault and battery, fraud, and upholding contractual rights, but that would just about be it. Most people would be as aware of who the president is as much as they now know the names of the dog catcher, the chief librarian, or the parks commissioner in their town. That is, they would be blissfully unaware of their identities. There would either be no crime at all, or muggers would be so cowed by the few necessary policemen that they would for all intents and purposes cease and desist. They would still have criminal impulses; “libertarian man” would be pretty much as he is now, but greatly constrained.

As a result, we would be roughly four times richer than we are now. Calculation? The state at present seizes some half of our incomes; absent that, we would be twice as wealthy. But don’t the bureaucrats give us value in return? Not really; GDP statistics would be far more accurate if instead of adding the government sector expenses to what is produced in the market, we subtracted the former from the latter. What do the revenooers do with their 50% of our productivity? They vastly reduce our productive capacities with their inefficient and stultifying regulations. Without that, we arrive at our second doubling: 2×2=4.

I don’t believe that things would be quite as lovely as he thinks. Let’s take him quite literally at his word and make a list of how things would be different.

There would be no patents, copyrights, or other intellectual property. The limitation on enforcement in those lines would be what was in your contracts and they would last as long as the contracts. That would greatly reduce the incentives to produce new inventions.

Caveat emptor would prevail.

There would be no public highways, bridges, ports, airports, sewer systems, air traffic control, etc. All of those would be private to the extent they existed at all. All roads would be toll roads and the number of tolls extracted on a trip across the country would be enormous. I notice that torts are not included in his list. If a bridge collapsed or you were injured by using a tool you had purchased, you would have no legal recourse.

There would be no inspections or regulations of food or pharmaceuticals. A lot of the food and drugs sold would be unsuitable for consumption. Unless you could prove intent you would have no legal recourse.

There would be no licensing or certification of lawyers, physicians, or engineers and, consequently, there would be far fewer of them. There would be no restrictions on the pharmaceuticals that could be sold or any guarantees of effectiveness that weren’t made by the manufacturers themselves. If they were clever enough they could avoid claims of fraud.

There would be no public schools. All students would either be homeschooled or attend private schools. The children of the poor would receive little or no education.

There would be no public fire departments. Insurance companies might have have their own fire departments and, if your house caught fire and you didn’t carry the insurance of the company with the closest fire department, it might well burn to the ground.

Refusing business to someone due to their race, ethnicity, or religion would be completely legal.

If your bank became insolvent, you’d just be out of luck.

There would be no public parks or green spaces.

I could go on and one with this list but I’ll stop there. And I haven’t even gotten to the military. It would be impossible to fund a standing modern military in the low government footprint world he envisions. How do I know these things are what would happen? That’s exactly what things were like in the late 19th century, before the reforms that led to the expansion of government to manage free markets.

That may sound idyllic to Mr. Block or to you but it does not to me.

It could reasonably be claimed that’s not what Mr. Block intended. I suspect it was not but as you fill in the blanks he has left, the scope and cost of government increases.

I am not Panglossian enough to argue that we are living in the best of all possible worlds but I will claim that things could be worse and one of the ways of making them worse is to follow Mr. Block’s guidance blindly.

Those of you who are wondering how the decennial redistricting is proceeding should find this amusing. Here’s how the Princeton Gerrymandering Project assesses the State of Illinois’s efforts:

and here’s how they assess the State of Florida’s:

Although both efforts are graded F, obviously Florida’s Republicans could use a few tips if they are to achieve the levels of unfairness and lack of democracy that Illinois has achieved. And note Illinois’s gerrymandered districts!

When you zoom into the area around Chicago, truly the proposed 5th Congressional District is a thing of beauty.

No use in taking any chances is there? Not only have they preserved the absurdly gerrymandered Illinois 4th District, they’ve actually improved on it.

What prompted my previous post were these remarks at The Hill by libertarian Kristin Tate:

As President Biden’s approval ratings have tanked with nonwhite voters, the Democratic Party increasingly has become dominated by liberal white women who virtue-signal with suburban lawn signs and then henpeck people in supermarkets to pull their face masks up over their noses. Or, put more simply, the Democratic Party is at risk of becoming a party of “Karens.” Recent polling suggests that Hispanic and Black voters are abandoning the party — many of these individuals are being harmed by the surging inflation, anti-business COVID measures, and exploding crime rates in urban areas brought about by a year of left-wing measures.

For more than a decade, Democrats worked to build a voting base composed of minorities and unmarried women. After Donald Trump’s 2020 loss, it would appear the mission was being accomplished. White voters dropped from 81 percent of the electorate in 2000 to just 67 percent two decades later. Meanwhile, Biden carried a whopping 63 percent of single women in 2020.

However, poor public policy over the past year is already casting the idea of a continuing Democratic majority in doubt. Recent polling suggests that Hispanic and Black Americans are more likely to vote as individuals than as aggrieved racial blocs.

The challenge about which I’m concerned for the Democrats is that they’re being placed in the situation in which they must pick and choose among different constituencies and the strategies to which they have become accustomed will no longer work.

The infographic above is the best explanation I’ve found for how people spend money at different income levels, courtesy of FlowingData. In this post I’m going to use the term “inflation” to describe increases in prices.

People at or below median income tend to spend half or more of their incomes on just three categories: housing, food, and transportation. Over the last year housing prices have increased by almost 18%, food prices increased almost 4% (meat by around 15%), gas prices have increased nearly 60%, and used car prices have risen 25%.

As your income rises, you tend to spend more of your money on services. Services, unlike housing, food, and transportation have increased in price considerably less.

In recent elections Democrats have received most of the vote among college educated people in the top 20% of income earners while they have seen their previous leads in lower income groups decline. Frankly put, there just aren’t enough people in the former category to make up for losses in the latter category.

If Democrats don’t want the mid-term elections to be a complete disaster for them, they’d darned well better pay attention to inflation. Being or seeming tone deaf on the subject will not be a good look for them.

You might be interested in Karl Rove’s predictions for 2022, published in the Wall Street Journal:

Now my bets for 2022. Republicans take the House, picking up slightly fewer seats than the post-World War II midterm average of 30—but only because they got a head start by gaining 13 seats in 2020. The Senate becomes Republican by a seat or two.

Democrats gain governor’s offices but lose ground in state legislative races. Republican secretary of state candidates lose in at least three of these states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. Mr. Biden’s approval rating at year’s end is 45% or below. Today, about 30% of Americans say our country is on the right track while 62% say it’s going in the wrong direction. That improves but is still upside down at year’s end.

Inflation falls slightly from today’s 6.8% yet rises faster than wages. Growth softens from 2021’s 5.6%. Unemployment ends 2022 slightly lower than the current 4.2%. Covid persists with more variants, but will be a dramatically less significant issue by year’s end. Public-school enrollment won’t reach pre-pandemic levels.

The Supreme Court will significantly weaken Roe v. Wade but not overturn it outright; states will be allowed to define more of their abortion policies. “Abortion rights” becomes the left’s rallying cry but is only a minor electoral advantage.

The Jan. 6 Committee finds that groups deliberately planned violence for that day and the Willard Hotel Trump command center knew in advance there would be violence. Hundreds of defendants plead guilty or are convicted; few are acquitted. The Supreme Court slaps down Mr. Trump’s attempt to hide documents.

Russia doesn’t subjugate Ukraine but keeps applying enormous pressure on Kyiv and the West, since Vladimir Putin views the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as an existential threat and convenient villain to rally support at home. China and North Korea perceive American weakness and increase hostile actions in the far Pacific. Taiwan becomes a flashpoint. The left-wing former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wins the Brazilian presidency.

Statistically, it’s likely the Republicans will gain majorities in both houses of Congress. I think his predictions on inflation, R v. W, and Russia are about right.