The Wrongologist

The Daily Escape:

Santa Run, Las Vegas, NV -December 2024

Just a short message that this is the last column for 2024. Here’s hoping you have a wonderful holiday regardless of how or what you celebrate at this time of the year! We are spending time with family and friends accompanied by food, laughter, and strong beverages! We’re also swapping presents on the theme that the gift should be a “personal guilty pleasure”. That means Wrongo’s contains chocolate covered coconut pieces for the lucky winner. They’re delicious with single malt scotch.

The Christmas holiday is a time for reflection, and our focus is gratitude for having a large family and a few close friends that care so much about us, are so willing to help when needed, and who do it with a hug and a smile. We’re also grateful for those who read the blog. Thank you for going out of your way to be a part of this effort.

The New Year is bound to bring us new challenges, certainly for Wrongo, and certainly politically. How is Trump spending the holiday? Trying to take back the Panama Canal.

See The Intelligencer, Trump Is Threatening to Take Back Canal. He lambasted the 1977 treaty Jimmy Carter signed ceding the Canal to Panama, and he claimed Panama was violating that treaty by allowing China to manage it. (China does not manage the Canal). Trump’s post drew a reprimand from Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino who noted that every inch of Panama is part of a sovereign nation.

Trump then upped the ante with an “oh yea?” by posting a photo of the Panama Canal under a US flag with the caption, “Welcome to the US Canal.”

It is beyond difficult to describe the idiocy of Trump’s suggestion to invade Panama in order to take back control of the Canal. Perhaps he’s engaging in  a PR stunt to draw attention away from the fact that he’s lost some control of the GOP to Musk. From the AP:

“Since Panama is clearly not willing to give back the Canal — which the country has controlled since 1999 and spent billions of dollars to improve, and is a source of great national pride — pretty much the only way Trump could take control of the waterway would be for the US to invade Panama (again).”

More:

“Also, Trump still wants Greenland. In his announcement on Sunday nominating tech investor Ken Howery as ambassador to Denmark, Trump wrote that “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

It is tricky to ascribe rational motivations to Trump’s actions. His administration is shaping up to be one of fiasco, farce and fuck-ups. Prepare for much more of the same in 2025.

It’s going to be a crazy year, folks. All the best in your efforts to stay sane through it all!