Author, Doctor, Speaker, Joseph Bentivegna

Doctor Bentivegna is an ophthalmologist living in Connecticut. He has written numerous op-ed pieces for The Hartford Courant and The New York Times regarding health care, tort reform, and the political situation in Haiti.

Predictions for 2020

 

      Once again, it is time to look into the crystal ball and predict what will happen in 2020. But unlike most pundits who hope you will forget their previous prognostications, I will review my predictions for 2019.

      1. The stock market will remain flat. Thankfully wrong. It gained over 25%.

      2. President Trump will not be impeached. Debatable. A vote to impeach the President passed the House but some legal scholars believe impeachment does not occur until the articles are passed to the Senate. Thus far, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has refused to do so.

      3. Michael Bloomberg will become the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Partial credit. There is no clear frontrunner and Bloomberg is a player.

      4. Alabama will win the football national championship. Wrong. Clemson crushed them.

      5. The Patriots will win the Super Bowl. To my infinite disgust, correct.

      With such a lackluster record, is there any sense to reading any further? Yes. Because as one of my daughters pointed out when she was a teenager, my predictions have “negative value” meaning that you can determine the future by the opposite of what I suggest. So here goes.

      1. The stock market will gain around 5%. Corporate profits are good and many of the Blue Chip stocks are paying dividends in the 3% to 5% range. With low bond yields, investing in the market is a reasonable play, but the ride may be bumpy.

      2. Bernie Sanders will be the Democratic nominee. The Democrats are in a fight between the liberal purists and the pragmatic mandarins. Both sides passionately want to defeat President Trump, but the mandarins will not be able to convince the purists that a centrist candidate can win. Polls in 2016 consistently showed Sanders beating Trump by larger margins than Hillary Clinton. The purists remember this. Furthermore, the Democrats changed their convention rules so that superdelegates – mostly party mandarins who represented 15% of the convention vote in 2016 – can no longer vote on the first ballot.

      Sanders will win both Iowa and New Hampshire while Warren fades. Biden may take both South Carolina and squeak by in Nevada, but then Bloomberg is going to blast the air waves on Super Tuesday and damage Biden while Sanders’ support remains rock solid. Perhaps Buttigieg, Yang, Bloomberg or Klobuchar will gain traction, but the mandarins will be too dense to figure out that Biden is unelectable until it is too late. Thus, no one will go to the Convention with 50% support. Hillary may sweep in to pick up the pieces, but the purists will not accept her. The superdelegates will try to push a more moderate candidate, but the purists will threaten to walk. The mandarins will have to relent and get behind Sanders. Of course if Michelle Obama enters the race, all bets are off.

      3. President Trump will win reelection. Just as the 2016 Brexit vote in England augured the Trump coup d’état, the rout by Trump-clone Boris Johnson in England bodes well for the president. Trump has thus far delivered what the average voter wants – peace and prosperity. Furthermore, the Democrats have shifted too far to the left – open borders, free health care for illegal immigrants, Medicare-for-All, third trimester abortions on demand, higher taxes, forgiveness of student loans, racial reparations and a job-killing climate change agenda that returns the United States to dependency on foreign oil. Even if a centrist nominee emerges, President Trump will not allow the voters to forget that this agenda is the heart-and-soul of the Democratic Party.

      4. The Republicans will hold the Senate. Presently, the Republicans have a 53-47 advantage and Alabama Democrat Doug Jones has little chance of holding his seat in 2020. On the other hand, Republicans are vulnerable in North Carolina, Colorado, Arizona, Maine and maybe even Kentucky. The Democrats could lose New Hampshire and Michigan and Minnesota are both long-shot Republican pick-ups. Expect the Republicans to have 52 seats when all is said and done.

      5. The Republicans will retake the House. The Democrats retook the House in 2018 by concentrating on bread-and-butter issues such as health care and education. The newly-elected Democrats from the 31 districts that Trump won in 2016 overwhelmingly voted to impeach him. They will have a hard time convincing their constituents that they won’t impeach him again if reelected. These voters would rather the country move on and accept the election results.

      6. LSU will win the national football college championship. Their opponent, Clemson only played two teams in the top 25, and barely defeated Ohio State in the semi-final. LSU on the other hand is undefeated with a much tougher schedule and obliterated the fourth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners 63-28.

      7. The Baltimore Ravens will win the Super Bowl. The Ravens have the best record in the NFL, 14-2. Quarterback Lamar Jackson is the rare athlete capable of both running (over 1200 yards) and passing (66% completion percentage) against the sophisticated NFL defenses. He should enjoy it while it lasts. Few quarterbacks can maintain this brutal level of play. Ask Cam Newton and Ben Roethlisberger. But for now, Jackson has cracked the code.

Governor Lamont Should Ban Tom Brady from Moving to Connecticut

        According to published reports, Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady is considering moving to Greenwich. If Governor Ned Lamont really wants to see his popularity sky rocket, he should propose legislation to prevent such an outrage.       But before such legislation is proposed, education is crucial. The good people of Connecticut must understand that if Tom Brady is your neighbor, he will insist that a swat team be called if your dog does its business on his front lawn.       But the real problem will arise when Brady joins Ned at the Greenwich Country Club. The magnanimous Brady will bribe his way to admittance by donating durable steel pins. As the golf rules have recently changed, there is no longer any requirement to remove the pin when putting. Brady will argue that using these pins will enable the club to save money, as the pins will not have to be replaced as often when the ball hits them.       Then the club will have its annual Member-Guest tournament and be honored when Brady’s guest, Bill Belichick, graces … [Read more...]

Failure of Lamont’s Toll Plan Shows Lack of Trust in Our Institutions

        In spite of a having a large majority (22-14), Senate Democrats informed Governor Ned Lamont that they will not support his scaled back plan to place tolls - or in Lamont’s Orwellian term “user fees” - on fourteen bridges. This is after the media, multiple civic groups and Connecticut’s corporate leadership have been cheerleading for tolls for the past year. Why?       It is because nobody believes anything Lamont or our institutions tell us.  Lamont’s election victory was due to his promise to only allow tolls on incoming out-of-state trucks. Had he been honest about his real plan to place tolls on Connecticut drivers, he would be comparing the nose of first-growth Bourdeauxs at his Greenwich estate.  But voters expect politicians to lie and may have forgiven Lamont if his latest proposal was not replete with more myths. Let’s take a look. Myth Number 1. The repairs will cost $21 billion.       Connecticut is notorious for low-balling construction and transportation estimates and then shafting the taxpayers. The construction for the ball park that houses the … [Read more...]