Super Bowl Sunday has finally come. Wrongo made chili and a new batch of tomatillo sauce. Everybody likes a day when weâre free to eat and drink whatever is set in front of us. The Super Bowl has become a de facto holiday, one for which calories donât count.
Trump likes to gloat that the NFL is in real trouble. Thanks to him, no one watches the games. Everyone is too angry at the uppity black football players, many of whom have knelt during the national anthem. He ignores that they are protesting police brutality against African-Americans. Despite What Trump says, todayâs game will be the most-watched TV broadcast of the year. The Super Bowl is the last unifying moment when the whole country tunes in together.
Howard Schultzâs decision to run has made enemies of some Democrats:
Trumpâs dream order:
Saturday was Groundhog Day. Trump didnât see a wall:
Trump says Intelligence Chiefs are wrong about threats:
She puts the Trump Administrationâs support of Venezuelaâs opposition leader, Juan GuaidĂł, in perspective. Despite the fact that while Trump was running for president, he promised to âstop racing to topple foreign regimes,â heâs now saying Venezuelaâs president Maduro must go.
According to Willard-Foster, there is a long tradition by American presidents of attempting Foreign-Imposed Regime Change, or FIRC. She lays out three FIRC lessons from our history:
Lesson #1
The more fragile a leaderâs political power is, the less likely that leader will cave in to foreign pressure. Weak leaders are difficult to coerce. If a foreign power demands change, the more the incumbent fears an attack by domestic enemies. The incumbent becomes very difficult to coerce.
But politically weak leaders often seem relatively easy to overthrow, and their domestic enemies are more than happy to help the foreign power take them out. Willard-Fosterâs research shows that the probability of FIRC rises by 112% for leaders with at least two predecessors taken out by a coup, or rebellion in the past ten years.
Lesson #2
Americaâs overthrow of Panamaâs Manuel Noriega demonstrates what happens when the domestic politics in the foreign power’s country make it politically feasible for the foreign power to take military action. Like Maduro in Venezuela, Noriega railed against US imperialism and broke off relations with the US. When crises escalate, a single incident can lead to military action, and that happened in Panama. When a US service member died in December 1989 after an encounter with Noriegaâs forces, the Bush administration had the domestic political cover it needed. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell, made the case for intervention. He argued: (brackets by Wrongo)
âThere will be a few dozen casualties if we go [in]…If we donât go, there will be a few dozen casualties over the next few weeks, and weâll still have Noriega.â
The US decided that coercing Noriega wasnât changing anything, but regime change by force could.
The risk of a US military escalation may explain why Maduro offered to negotiate with the oppositionâhe wants to avoid giving Trump justification for military force.
Lesson #3
The third lesson from the history of FIRC is that no matter how disastrous the last FIRC attempt was, policymakers still believe it will work this time. From Willard-Foster:
Whatever approach failed last is usually what policymakers avoid the next time. When George H.W. Bush and Bill Clintonâs indirect approach to toppling Saddam Hussein failed, George W. Bush capitalized on the post 9/11 public mood for war to launch an invasion. The lesson Obama drew from the costly Iraq occupation was to avoid using troops to oust Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. The fallout in Libya then convinced Obama to avoid using military force in Syria, where he reluctantly funded the Syrian opposition.
Trumpâs current Venezuelan approach is an indirect strategy, relying on economic and diplomatic pressure. Whether Maduro stays in power largely depends on the Venezuelan military. If Russia and China can blunt Trumpâs economic pressure, Maduro may keep the militaryâs loyalty.
If China and Russia succeed in propping up Venezuelaâs economy, Trump will have two options: Continue calling for regime change, while doing nothing about it, (as heâs doing with Iran) or employ military force. If protests grow, this will suggest Maduroâs position is weakening, which could cause Maduro to lash out, and possibly provide political cover for Trump choosing military force.
In supporting GuaidĂł, itâs unclear what path Trump will take. If, like Noriega, Maduro believes caving in to US demands will imperil his political (and personal survival), heâll dig in.
But, a weakened Maduro appears, and still digs in further, the more likely it becomes that Trump will continue the tradition of forcibly toppling foreign regimes.
Time to move on from another week of âAll Trump, all the timeâ to the anticipation of gorging ourselves during the halftime show of Sundayâs Super Bowl. You need to prepare for the chili, nachos, dips, chips and alcohol by relaxing today with a Saturday Soother.
Now settle back in a comfy chair, and take a few minutes to listen to Sarah Chang play Elgarâs888 composition, âSalut d’Amour, Op.12â, accompanied by Andrew von Oeyen, on piano. Chang is American, born in US, and raised in New Jersey:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here:
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have sparked intense debate this month by proposing higher taxes on the rich, with Warren calling for a wealth tax and Ocasio-Cortez proposing a 70% top marginal tax rate.
But, Senate Republicans are moving in the opposite direction. Three GOP senators reintroduced legislation to permanently repeal the federal estate tax. The 2017 GOP tax overhaul has already reduced the number of estates subject to the tax by roughly doubling the value of assets that can be excluded from the tax. For 2019, this tax will only be paid by 1,700 families, but that’s all too much for Republicans.
Axios just reported on what Americans think about taxes:
Polling has found tax increases on the wealthy to be popular. A survey earlier this month by The Hill and HarrisX found that 59% of registered voters, including 45% of Republicans, support increasing the top income tax bracket to 70%. A Fox News poll released last week found that 70% of voters favor tax increases on families making over $10 million a year and 65% favor tax hikes on incomes over $1 million annually. Paying taxes is a complicated and controversial issue. What is not controversial is the need for people to take advantage of tax services that can help ensure they pay the right tax and thus appease the ever-lurking IRS. Going to http://daveburton.nyc/tax-services-nyc/ will provide more detail on this.
Those numbers suggest that a complete repeal of the estate tax might be about as popular as the polar vortex.
This shows how vast the gulf is between Republicans and Democrats on taxes. A poll by Axios, along with SurveyMonkey, ironically presented at Davos, showed that 70% of Americans think the economic system is skewed toward the wealthy and the government should do more to fix it. It further showed respondents are ready to vote for a 2020 candidate who agrees.
58% of people surveyed say that âunfairness in the economic system that favors the wealthyâ is a bigger problem than âover-regulation of the free market that interferes with growth and prosperityâ
Among 18-24 year-olds, that gap is a chasm: 76% to 21%
Among those 65 and older, itâs a very narrow 51% to 46%
89% of Democrats agree
68% of independents agree
But 77% of Republicans say over-regulation of the free market is a bigger problem than economic unfairness
A huge majority of Democrats (90%) said they would be excited to vote for a candidate who promises to reform the economic system, with 71% of independents saying the same.
(SurveyMonkeyâs online poll was conducted January 16 through 18, 2019 among a national sample of 2,277 adults.)
After WWII, America had very high marginal tax rates, and one result was corporate income was reinvested in the company, rather than given to top management or shareholders. Why give 70% of every dollar to the government?
Back then corporations, in exchange for limited liability, assumed they had fiduciary duties to the public and to their employees as well as shareholders. But the Right got behind the doctrine that a corporationâs only duty was to their shareholders. CEOâs became significant shareholders through stock options.
Then, Reagan and Bush lowered taxes on corporate and personal income, and dividends.
Our basic political issue in America has become: âDoes the economy exist to serve the nation, or does the nation exist to serve the economy?â
Our affirmative vote must be for the economy to serve the nation. Over the past 40 years, we have reduced taxes for high earners and corporations. Weâve added loopholes that subsidize corporations, but our need for infrastructure spending hasnât declined, and our military spending has grown dramatically.
Weâve financed the tax cuts for high earners and corporations with ever growing budget deficits. The golden age for these policies must end now.
We need to go back to the days of socially responsible capitalism, not the predatory capitalism we have today. High marginal income tax rates will help. In addition, taxing dividends at the same as ordinary income is a good idea.
Letâs raise the capital gains tax above its current 20% rate.
Letâs find a Constitutional way to tax wealth as Elizabeth Warren suggests. Add a very small transaction tax on sales of stock on all public markets.
Itâs time to move past the politics of âWhat can America do about inequality without corporations and rich people actually giving anything up?”
This isnât an anti-corporate, anti-wealth assault, it is a necessary corrective to bad tax policy from the 1970s to today.
Edworthy Falls, Elbow Pass, Kananaskis, Alberta, CN – 2018 photo by sluis0717
Just when Wrongo was beginning to think we would make it to 2020 alive and in one piece, testimony by the US Intelligence Chiefs had quite a bit to say about how the world could still blow up. This from Booman: (Brackets by Wrongo)
âIn a written report and [subsequent] congressional testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, the senior members of the United States intelligence community had some interesting things to say. The most important arguments they made directly contradicted their boss, the president.â
They said that North Korea is unlikely to give up their nuclear program, and that Iran is not currently pursuing their nuclear program. Trump is holding a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February. Last week, Trump said that the two sides are making progress in efforts to fully denuclearize the Korean peninsula.
The Intelligence Chiefs assess that Russia will continue to interfere in our politics and our elections. They think that ISIS is far from defeated. They reiterated what a report released to Congress last week by the Pentagon said, that climate change is a national security threat.
Now, the intelligence community doesn’t always get it right, but Trump is on the opposite side of each of these assertions. More from Booman:
âWeâre supposed to have a chief executive and commander in chief who is a customer for this kind of intelligence. Our president is supposed to be the primary customer for these types of assessments.  But thatâs not the situation we have in this country right now. At the moment, our president has taken public positions contrary to every one of the assessments…and heâs simply not interested in contrary evidence. He is certainly not interested in being contradicted.â
Itâs a huge problem when Trump, who makes the final decisions on what weâre doing geopolitically, is fact-free when it comes to threats to our security. Fortunately, the Intelligence Chiefs seem willing to provide honest threat assessments, and testify about them before Congress.
But, there are people within the administration who support whatever Trump wants. Some are even willing to slant the information they provide to the press and to Congress if it supports the presidentâs stated position. Trump’s position has been that disruption is at the heart of his geopolitics.
In just the past few weeks, weâve gotten quite a few things wrong. (h/t Arms Control Wonk)
On December 6th, the United Nations General Assembly rejected a US resolution to condemn the Islamic militant group Hamas for violence against Israel. The embarrassing vote, which required a two-thirds majority, was 87 in favor to 58 opposed, with 32 abstentions.
On December 12th, Secretary of State Pompeo blasted Iran at the UN Security Council and received no support from US allies for walking away from the nuclear deal. In fact, US allies Britain, France and Germany praised Iran for holding up its end of the bargain.
On December 21st, the US barely rounded up more votes than Russia on a Russian resolution at the UN calling for the preservation of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The vote was 46 against to 43 in favor, with 78 abstentions.
On January 10th, Pompeo, speaking in Cairo, declared, âLet me be clear, America will not retreat until the terror fight is over.â The next day, the front-page headline in the New York Times was âU.S. Begins Syria Withdrawal, Amid Uncertainty Over Strategy.â
On January 14th, en route to Saudi Arabia, Pompeo declared he was âconfidentâ and âoptimisticâ that he was nearing a deal with Turkey on a mutually agreeable exit plan from Syria. Later, Trump tweeted that he would âdevastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds.â
On January 22nd Pompeo spoke to the assembled billionaires at Davos:
âIs this pattern of disruption a force for good or not? Iâd argue this disruption is a positive development.â
Most of us would say thatâs crazy talk.
The Intelligence Chiefs have done everything except sound an air raid siren about this administration’s foreign policy bungling. There’s no indication that the Senate Republicans have mustered the gumption to act on their alarm.
And now, John Bolton tells everybody that Trump wants to send 5,000 troops to Columbia as part of its failing Venezuela strategy.
In another ominous sign, Pompeo added Elliott Abrams, a neocon who was an actor in the Iran-Contra mess, as a Trump administration special envoy overseeing policy toward Venezuela. Maybe you remember that Abrams was pardoned for his Iran-Contra role.
Just two more neocons, completely lacking in principle, but flush with Trumpâs authority to disrupt another part of the world.
Read the report, and then think about how it squares with Trump’s policy.
Bell Island, Franz Josef Land with Eira Lodge in foreground. The lodge is a remnant of Benjamin Leigh-Smithâs expedition in 1880 – 2017 photo by Ilya Timin, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The largest gathering of billionaires in the world took place last week at the World Economic Forumâs annual conference in Davos. Vanity Fair reports that they:
âUBS and PwC Billionaires Insights reports show that global billionaire wealth has grown from $3.4 trillion in 2009 to $8.9 trillion in 2017…The fortunes of a dozen 2009 Davos attendees have soared by a combined $175 billion, even as median US household wealth has stagnated…â
âTheyâll never admit it in public, but many of your bosses want machines to replace you as soon as possible. I know this because, for the past week, Iâve been mingling with corporate executives at the World Economic Forumâs annual meeting in Davos. And Iâve noticed that their answers to questions about automation depend very much on who is listening.â
Roose goes on to say: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“In public, many executives wring their hands over the negative consequences that artificial intelligence and automation could have for workers. They…talk about the need to provide a safety net for people who lose their jobs as a result of automation.
But in private settings, including meetings with the leaders of the many consulting and technology firms…these executives tell a different story: They are racing to automate their own work forces to stay ahead of the competition, with little regard for the impact on workers.”
Roose quotes Mohit Joshi, president of Infosys, an Indian technology and consulting firm: (emphasis and brackets by Wrongo)
âEarlier they [large businesses] had incremental, 5 to 10% goals in reducing their work force. Now theyâre saying, âWhy canât we do it with 1% percent of the people we have?ââ
And American executives have come up with new buzzwords and euphemisms to disguise their intent. Workers arenât being replaced by machines, theyâre being âreleasedâ from onerous, repetitive tasks.
Companies arenât laying off workers, theyâre âundergoing digital transformation.â Theyâre being âreskilledâ.
A 2017 survey by Deloitte found that 53% of companies had already started to use machines to perform tasks previously done by humans. That figure is expected to climb to 72% by next year. As an example, Terry Gou, the chairman of Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, who makes iPhones, has said his company plans to replace 80% of its workers with robots in the next five to 10 years.
And Wisconsin just gave Foxconn $4.5 Billion to build a plant and employ 13, 000 workers. Can Wisconsin’s soon-to-be laid-off workers be âre-skilledâ, and find employment?
A January 2019 report by the very same World Economic Forum estimates that the 1.37 million workers who are projected to be displaced fully out of their roles in the next decade according to the US BLS, may be reskilled to new viable (similar skill set) and desirable (higher wages) jobs:
“The report shows that, in the US alone, with an overall investment of US$4.7 billion, the private sector could reskill 25% of all workers in disrupted jobs with a positive cost-benefit balance. This means that, even without taking into account any further qualitative factors or the significant indirect societal benefits of reskilling, for 25% of at-risk employees, it would be in the financial interest of a company to take on their reskilling.”
The rest presumably will need to fend for themselves. They will likely rely on your taxpayer dollars to be âreskilledâ, or go on government assistance.
The real question isnât how to stem the tide of automation, itâs inevitable. The question for capitalists and our government is how the financial gains from automation and AI will be distributed, and whether the excess profits corporations reap as a result of layoffs will go in part, to workers, or solely to bigwigs and their shareholders.
Will we create a shared prosperity, or just a greater concentration of wealth?
Time to wake up America! This Fourth Industrial Revolution is underway, and estimates are that it will impact as many as 40% of American workers.
Itâs time to understand that the 21st Century American corporation isnât our friend, as constituted and rewarded. It is the enemy of our society, as they quietly work to eliminate your jobs.
We constantly reduce their taxes. We look the other way when they pollute our environment. We allow them to disproportionately finance our elections.
It took LaGuardia Airport being closed for about an hour before Trump and the GOP crumbled on the government shutdown. Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave to see that the Air Traffic Controllers union that he once busted rise up again, and change policy in DC.
Pelosi made Trump cave:
An ancient artifact blocks entrance to Capitol:
It was indeed a great fall:
The bar has been lowered:
The herd is heading to Iowa and New Hampshire:
Davos: Where the rich and the insincere act like something other than profits is important:
Trumpâs buddy Roger Stone desperately acts as if all is well:
Frozen pond, Oak Creek Canyon, north of Sedona, AZ – photo by ballsagna2time
Yesterday, Wrongo posted a comment by Sarah Kendzior who said that the shutdown is a hostile restructuring of government by people who were happy to see the non-military portion of the government weakened. This sounds like an exaggeration until you read that earlier this month, Trump retweeted a Daily Caller article by a purported high-level of his administration, arguing that the work of most federal employees is worthless:
âWe do not want most employees to return, because we are working better without them…As one of the senior officials working without a paycheck, a few words of advice for the presidentâs next move at shuttered government agencies: lock the doors, sell the furniture, and cut them down.â
Maybe, once again, weâve underestimated Trump and his band of authoritarians.
And everyone can see how disconnected the administration is from working people, despite their protests of populism. On Thursday afternoon, Trump told reporters that grocery stores will âwork alongâ with people who canât pay for food. Wrongo isnât sure what happens in your neighborhood, but around here, nobody runs a tab with Walmart, or Stop and Shop. Nobody is holding up the checkout line while the cashier marks a new amount on the shopperâs tab with the store.
And also on Thursday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared on CNBCâs âSquawk Boxâ to talk about the government shutdown. He apparently didnât understand why unpaid federal workers would be suffering, since they could just go to the bank and get a loan:
âThe obligations that they would undertake, say a borrowing from a bank or a credit union, are in effect federally guaranteed. So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out, thereâs no real reason why they shouldnât be able to get a loan against it…â
Sure they can. And if they had a few bucks left over, they could go in together on a few tumbrels.
The fact that the administration and the GOP-controlled Senate have weaponized a government shutdown is all you need to know about their callousness and cynicism. It’s morally repugnant to use people as pawns. But, as is clear from the quotes above, most of the Trump administration are elites who, for their entire lives, have used average people as pawns for financial gain.
There will never be a better reason to vote all of them out in 2020 than the heartless way they are reacting to the very real problems that they have created for millions of Americans in January 2019.
Ok, time to slow the burn, kick back and try as best we can to shut out all the noise echoing in our minds. Itâs time for your Saturday Soother.
Letâs start by brewing a cup of Kenya Ruthaka Peaberry ($19/12oz.) from Sacramentoâs Temple Coffee Roasters. It apparently has a resonant finish with notes of dark chocolate and red currant, and undertones of crisp marjoram, if youâre into that.
Now, settle back in your most comfy chair, and unplug from all screens (except Wrongoâs) and in honor of the Speaker of the House, listen to the John Coltrane Quartet from 1962 doing âNancy with the Laughing Faceâ:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
âSpeaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday she will block President Trump from delivering the State of the Union address in the House chamber on Jan. 29. In a letter to Trump, Pelosi said she would not move forward with the legislative steps needed for the address to take place:
âThe House of Representatives will not consider a concurrent resolution authorizing the presidentâs State of the Union address in the House chamber until government has opened,â she wrote.
Pelosiâs move comes just hours after Trump informed her in a letter that he would move ahead and deliver the address at the Capitol on that date, essentially daring the Speaker to scrap his plans.â
This is why the election of House Speaker truly mattered. Dems should have assumed that whoever got the job would be immediately tested by Trump. When some Dems moved to replace Pelosi in December, the possible shutdown and test of a new Speaker was on the horizon. If another Democrat had been elected Speaker, donât you think Trump would have already gotten his Wall money?
Someoneâs gonna blink, and soon. Trump’s support looks like itâs beginning to crack:
âOverall, 34% of Americans approve of Trumpâs job performance in a survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Thatâs down from 42% a month earlier and nears the lowest mark of his two-year presidency. The presidentâs approval among Republicans remains close to 80%, but his standing with independents is among its lowest points of his time in office.â
âSeven in 10 Americans don’t think the issue of a border wall is worth a government shutdown, which they say is now having a negative impact on the country….Among Americans overall, and including independents, more want to see Mr. Trump give up wall funding than prefer the congressional Democrats agree to wall funding. Comparably more Americans feel House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is handling negotiations better than the president is so far.
Republicans are more divided than Democrats are on whether the shutdown is worth it.â
As weâve said in the past, $5.7 billion is not a lot of money, but itâs always been about more than just the money. If Democrats cave in now, particularly when public opinion supports them, it would reward Trumpâs tactic of taking hostages. He would gladly bring more pain any time he wanted something, and he wouldnât care who, or what he took hostage.
But there are other insights to why Trump may persist with the shutdown despite poor polls. Sarah Kendzior said this on Twitter: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âThe Trump camp is not worried about public approval, because theyâre not worried about losing elections, because they donât plan on having free or fair elections. This is an acceleration of the move toward authoritarianism….The shutdown is a hostile restructuringâŠMueller will not save youâŠWe are being ruled by a coalition of corruption, a burden we as ordinary citizens all share but none deserve. The shutdown is not about Trump knowing too little about how government works, but about his team of GOP operatives and outside advisors knowing too much.â
Perhaps Kendzior is correct, but more likely, Trump is learning that the Art of the Deal doesnât work when the other side has roughly equal power. He hasnât caused Democrats to blink, if fact they seem more united than ever.
He hasnât âwonâ anything with China. So far, theyâve had alternative solutions to keep trade flowing. He certainly hasnât âwonâ his war of words with Nancy Pelosi.
But someone will blink, and possibly, soon. The GOP is asking for concessions when they ought to be offering them.
Thursdayâs votes in the Senate will tell us nearly nothing, but since Schumer and McConnell had to agree that both votes would happen, maybe they point to an evolving position that 60 Senators and Pelosi can support.
Most likely, Pelosi will offer an alternative after the Senate votes, something that possibly could get 60 votes in the Senate.
Maybe Trump will console himself with a military action in Venezuela. He launched an attempt to kick President Maduro out of office by recognizing the opposition leader as interim president. Maduro responded by telling our diplomats to leave within 72 hours. The US replied that our diplomats will not leave simply because the elected president of Venezuela (that we no longer recognize as legitimate) has asked them to.
Going to war in the middle of a government shutdown: what could go wrong?
Someone will blink. The bet here is that it will be Senate Republicans who will prevail upon Trump to back down, and support whatever compromise can garner sufficient votes in the House and Senate.
Those of us of a certain age, but not quite old enough, were too young to attend the 1963 March on Washington. The march and Rev. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech influenced our era, our views, and changed the country. There are times one wishes, if only I could have been there for that moment in history. Then again, such thinking fixes the civil rights movement in time. The truth is, that struggle never ended.
Wrongo was in Washington in 1963. Dr. King is one of his heroes. And, as Tom Sullivan says, the struggle has never ended. Wrongo spent the 1960s and 1970s convinced that America would turn a corner, see the wrong in slavery, and know that racism was holding us back.
He thought that we would achieve a point of equilibrium where Americans of all stripes would accept each other as part of a larger tribe, one that shared common beliefs about democracy and equality for all.
Wrongo was wrong. Weâre not there. Weâve made some progress, but then we fell back on old beliefs.
Today we are 51 years removed from Dr. Kingâs assassination, and while America is better and fairer than it was then, we will enter the 2020âs needing to do much to improve society.
This brings me to MLKâs last book, âWhere Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?â published the year before he died. In it, King lays out a vision for Americaâs future, including the need for both better jobs and housing, higher pay and quality education. King called for an end to global suffering, saying that for the first time, humankind had the resources and technology to eradicate poverty.
He wrote about how Civil Rights reforms had fallen short, but he couldnât have envisioned what the Supreme Court did in gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with its 2013 decision in Shelby County vs. Holder.
So here we are in 2019 with white kids mocking Native Americans at the Lincoln Memorial, chanting âBuild that wall, build that wall.â This happened days after Trump made light of the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee to mock Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Here we are: Income inequality is the highest itâs been since the 1940s.Our federal government is shut down because we canât agree about the threat posed by illegal immigrants asking for asylum at the US southern border. And racism is marching back into the light from under rocks all across the country.
Time to wake up America! Racism is the wound that wonât heal. We have much to do, and the work wonât be easy.
To help you wake up here is a 2019 song by The Killers, âLand of the Freeâ. It is broadly about America and the intolerance holding us back. Listen to it, and reflect on what it makes you feel. Depending on what about it makes you angry, it is a reflection of who you are. The video is very powerful. Please take the time to watch it.
Think about whatâs at the heart of this song. People who want the same things we do:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
âWhite men have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know.â
Yesterday we wrote about Buzzfeedâs story that Michael Cohen lied to Congress about Trumpâs efforts to get a Moscow hotel, and that Trump asked him to do it. After Saturdayâs Wrongologist was published, Muellerâs spokesperson, Peter Carr issued a statement denying the Buzzfeed story:
Buzzfeedâs description of specific statements to the special counselâs office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohenâs congressional testimony are not accurate.
Some are lamenting it as another case of fake news directed at Trump. Raul Ilargi, at The Automatic Earth, whom Wrongo admires, said:
Is this the worst day for fake news to date? Itâs hard to keep track. Itâs just that this one was taken up by so many hoping for, finally! Impeachment. Please Lord make it stop.
But maybe what we saw really isnât fake news. Marcy Wheeler reports that Buzzfeedâs story differs from the sworn testimony. She points out that a discrepancy between the Special Counsel’s Cohen sentencing memo and the Buzzfeed story is that the memo merely indicated that Cohen committed perjury to benefit the Trump messaging, not that he’d been ordered to do it. If Cohen was encouraged or directed to do it by Trump personally, it isn’t as obvious as Buzzfeed said it was.
So, there are differences in what Buzzfeed reported, and what is in Cohenâs testimony. That doesnât mean that the Buzzfeed story is fake news. Mueller is probably defending the Special Councilâs reputation against accusations of leaking. It also seems possible that Peter Carr may have been trying to tamp down the Buzzfeed allegation that Trump âdirectedâ Cohen to lie, because that may be difficult to prove.
Cohen is a cooperating witness for Mueller. If and when Mueller makes a case that the Trump Tower deal was part of a larger election year conspiracy, they will need Cohen to testify, and have him describe how he kept Trump and Don Jr. in the loop for the possible deal.
The lesson is not to take much, if any news at face value. And not to get out too far over our skis when it comes to breaking news about Trump.
On to cartoons. Since we didnât publish them last Sunday, today thereâs a bumper crop.
Junk food for furloughed workers, good stuff for the plutocrats, paid by your tax dollars:
Choose your national emergencies carefully:
Pence helps Trump with the Wall narrative:
Two-faced Mitch:
Racism is mainstream in the Trump/GOP party, itâs not just Steve King:
The GOP will take some token actions. No vote to expel, or to run a non-racist in the 2020 Iowa primary:
We both lost our minds in 2016:
Demand for retail space is suddenly spiking:
Sometimes getting your story straight is tough, and has consequences. Ask Buzzfeed:
