Five weeks into the Trump Ascendancy, and things look worse than ever. Wrongo has not had much time for the Trump/Russia conspiracy. If anything beyond the DNC hack surfaces, we can discuss the possibility of election interference. But as of now…unpersuaded. That is, until this coincidence occurred at CPAC:
Jason Charter, 22, and Ryan Clayton, 36, passed out roughly 1,000 red, white, and blue flags, each bearing a gold-emblazoned âTRUMPâ in the center, to an auditorium full of attendees waiting for President Trump to address the conference. Audience members waved the pennantsâand took pictures with themâuntil CPAC staffers realized the trick: They were Russian flags.
The stunt made waves on social media, as journalists covering CPAC noticed the scramble to confiscate the flags. It was a gutsy and (mostly) harmless gag, unless you count the damage to Conservative egos. That the gag was carried out by two people who should fit the neo-con profile for Normal and Safe shows that the tribe cannot tell members from interlopers.
Trumpâs team refused to let accredited journalists from certain news outlets attend Trump press secretary Sean Spicerâs âgaggleâ on Friday. This is where American news is heading:
It is more important than ever to know who the real enemy is:
Kim Jong-Un channels the Donald, and there are surprising similarities:
Trump walks away from supporting LGBT rights:
GOP Congresscritters are terrorized about meeting their constituents:
Today, Democrats will select a Chair for the Democratic National Committee, someone who will be tasked with moving the Party towards relevancy after its 2016 election debacle. In typical Democrat fashion, there are 10 candidates who seem on the surface to be saying exactly the same things. One of the top candidates, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) promises to provide the party with a megaphone for a message of economic solidarity with the working class. Ellison said:
I am not afraid to say that I care about poor people…the rich people have a party, the Democratic Party needs to be the party of the working people.
Ellison proposes a 50-state strategy; listening to the grass roots; better candidate recruitment, and more effective organizing. Ellison is supported by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer (!)
Tom Perez, former Secretary of Labor under Obama, and front-runner, is supported by both the Obama and Clinton camps. He promises principled progressivism with some organizational change.
Perezâs focus on DNC organizational change could prove appealing to the insider voters, who want the action to take place at the state level. Last week, Perezâs team said he was nearing the 224 votes needed to clinch the race in the first round, while Ellison called that count âunverifiableâ.
After years of emphasizing big donors, it seems that all candidates are expressing a desire to return to the hard work of a state-based, grassroots, 50 state strategy.
To some, this election is a choice between a populist, grass-roots organizer in Ellison, and the technocrat mainstream Democrat Perez, who calls himself a turnaround artist. Sounds like the Democratâs 2016 primary all over again. Regardless of who wins, it will be spun as a victory for either the status quo, or for the agents of change in the party. OTOH, either of the two front-runners will be better for the future than were Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and her predecessor, Tim Kaine.
So, after another tough week in Trumplandia, you need to chill out, and so does the rest of America. Sit back, grab a cup of Peetâs Sumatra Batak Peaberry, and listen to todayâs Saturday Soother. Here is Russian soprano Anna Netrebko in 2006 with the Berlin Opera Orchestra singing the aria “O mio babbino caro” from the opera, âGianni Schicchiâ by Puccini:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKh_m6t9ukQ
A nice way to spend 3 minutes, and you get to see in English what she is singing about. Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Republicans in Arizona came up with a legislative response to Democratic and Independent protesters now that their party has started seeing energized protests at town halls and in their downtown areas. (There was a 15,000 person protest in Tucson in January) They plan to criminalize protests by seizing the assets of anyone involved even in lawful assembly.
On a party-line vote of 17-13, Arizona Republican state senators voted to give police new powers to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration â even before anything bad actually happens. From the Arizona Capitol Times:
SB1142 expands the stateâs racketeering laws, now aimed at organized crime, to also include rioting. And it redefines what constitutes rioting to include actions that result in damage to the property of others. But the real heart of the legislation is what Democrats say is the guilt by association â and giving the government the right to criminally prosecute and seize the assets of everyone who planned a protest and everyone who participated.
Itâs beginning to sound like you could join a protest in Arizona, and face RICO charges if someone so much as breaks a window.
With their new-found political power, Republicans will no longer tolerate dissent, and they plan to use the police power of the state to crush those who disagree. Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said that chilling effect is aimed at a very specific group of protesters:
A lot of them are ideologues, some of them are anarchists…But this stuff is all planned.
Thereâs more: By including rioting in racketeering laws, it actually permits police to arrest even those who are planning events. Kavanagh added:
Wouldnât you rather stop a riot before it starts? Do you really want to wait until people are injuring each other, throwing Molotov cocktails, picking up barricades and smashing them through businesses in downtown Phoenix?
The bill now moves to the Arizona House. While that moves forward, we have moved into an era of authoritarian rule in America.
And you are watching it happen in real-time.
Americans have the right to peacefully assemble, we have the right to free speech, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Even though the Tea party was very vocal for the last 8 years; GOP legislators didnât think that their protests needed to be shut down, or their organizers prosecuted.
Republicans are making a hash of the Constitution, they have no intention of acting in the best interest of all of their citizens. This is a violation of their oath of office. Taking away our right to protest by penalizing potential protesters with threats of asset forfeiture and/or intimidation, is not our America.
Here is Peter Garrett with âIt Still Mattersâ. You may remember Garrett as the lead singer of the Australian band Midnight Oil. He was also a Labor Party member of the House of Representatives for New South Wales from October 2004 to August 2013. Here is âIt Still Mattersâ:
Tell Arizona Republicans that the Constitution still matters to the rest of us.
Sample Lyrics: Watching the parade on the news last night
I was one that walked that road before
When everything feels like its crumbling
Like the writingâs on the wall
It still matters to me I hope it matters to you
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
The Trump administration has drafted preliminary economic growth forecasts for its federal budget planning that rely on assumptions that are far rosier than projections made by independent agencies and most private forecasters, according to several people familiar with the discussions.
Imagine. The Trump Team ordered government economists to cook up rosy economic forecasts upon which to base the latest Republican fantasy sales pitch about trickledown economics.
Trumpâs âthe economy will be greatâ promises made during the election are now turning into policy and legislation. The problem is that the future they are cooking up for us is most likely unobtainable. Consider that recent GDP growth has been around 2%, while Trump is telling us to expect growth of between 3.0% and 3.5% for the next 10 years. But the Trumpets have a plan:
Trump officials believe a regulatory rollback and a tax-code revamp will unleash growth that drives a recovery in productivity, sends business investment higher and draws idled workers back to the labor force. They also assume interest rates would remain low because the US would become a more attractive place to park money.
Most economists believe sustained growth at more than 3% will be difficult to achieve unless there is a sharp rebound in productivity growth, while the US labor force also grows. Few are projecting that both of those will happen. Worker productivity growth has slowed to 0.7% a year since 2010, a sharp slowdown from rates exceeding 3% in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
So the simultaneous equations to achieve growth include increased spending on military and infrastructure, tax reform, cuts in regulations, and not touching granny-starver Paul Ryanâs favorite target of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
The WSJ says that the Trump team gave the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) staff the growth targets that their budget should produce, and asked them to backfill other estimates to justify those numbers.
Business school logic says that could work if the baseline target is realistic. Matt Yglesias at Vox points out that under Trumpâs budget, the deficit would be larger; but the economy would be 17% larger and therefore, the deficit as a percentage of GDP would be smaller (perhaps small enough for the GOP to again say âdeficits donât matter?â).
So, Trump has an overly optimistic budget based upon phenomenal growth which no one else believes will happen, and he will hand off this budget grenade to Congress. If Congress balks, or does not find a way to make Trumpâs budget happen, accusations will be tweeted from The White House regarding how Congress canât get anything done.
It will be everybodyâs fault except the Donaldâs.
This reminds Wrongo of his days in the Fortune 500. Corporate HQ orders an extremely aggressive budget number. The number is missed, and people are terminated. Things continue to slide, and a new CEO is hired, who gets another âstretchâ budget that is again missed.
How many times do we need to watch this movie? Trump has declared bankruptcy six times.
Will this make seven?
Here is Alex Dezen with âA Little Less Like Hellâ:
Lyric:
Tell me who I gotta talk to
Tell me who I gotta kill
Just to make this place
Feel a less like hell
(Student dormitories surround the largest Buddhist Monastery in Tibet)Â
Trump spoke at Boeingâs factory in South Carolina last Friday to help unveil the latest version of the company’s 787 Dreamliner. During his visit, he praised Boeing and its employees for the new jet and vowed to protect US manufacturing jobs:
We want products made by our workers, in our factories, stamped with those four magnificent words: Made in the USA…
Boeing, however, buys many parts for the plane globally. It assembles the plane in the US. In fact, foreign parts account for almost a third of the cost of the entire plane. So much for “Made in the USA“:
An Italian firm makes the center fuselage and horizontal stabilizers.
A French firm makes the aircraftâs landing gears and doors.
The Germans supply the main cabin lighting.
The Swedes make the cargo access doors.
A Japanese company makes parts for the lavatories, flight deck interiors and galleys.
Another Japanese firm supplies the systemâs lithium-ion batteries.
The French make its electrical power conversion system.
The British company Rolls Royce makes the engines.
None of those countries are low wage/low tax places. Robert Reich has a good observation about Boeingâs partners: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
Notably, these companies donât pay their workers low wages. In fact, when you add in the value of health and pension benefits â either directly from these companies to their workers, or in the form of public benefits to which the companies contribute â most of these foreign workers get a better deal than do Boeingâs workers. (The average wage for Boeing production and maintenance workers in South Carolina is $20.59 per hour, or $42,827 a year.) They [foreign workers] also get more paid vacation days.
These nations also provide most young people with excellent educations and technical training. They continuously upgrade the skills of their workers. And they offer universally-available health care.
To pay for all this, these countries also impose higher tax rates on their corporations and wealthy individuals than does the US. And their health, safety, environmental, and labor regulations are stricter.
Weâre not talking about China or Bangladesh. Boeingâs partners are in high-wage/high-tax locations. Why? Because the parts made by workers in these countries are more reliable than parts made anywhere else. Boeing isnât concerned about costs of personnel or parts (within reason), they are concerned with reliability and total cost of ownership of the plane for their clients.
Thereâs a lesson here: Trumpâs idea of putting a wall around America and charging more for imports wonât make us more competitive with the rest of the world. Investing more, and investing smarter in the education and skills of working-age Americans is what has to happen. Subsidized and formal on-the-job training will also help make US workers more competitive.
Trump isnât interested in the kind of education reform which would re-energize our middle class and improve our global competitiveness. Heâs simply rehashing his campaign speeches. Trade is global, and has been for thousands of years. Capital is global; there is no way to restrict its movement. Trying to implement a protectionist system will fail.
The best weapon a country has in the global competitive environment is an educated people.
Here is the British rock group Ten Years After doing âIâd Love to Change the Worldâ. This is the lead single from their 1971 album âA Space in Timeâ. It was their only Top 40 hit. The Vietnam War ended three years after this song was released, so the lyric, “them and us, stop the war” had relevance then, and still has relevance now. The lyric “tax the rich, feed the poor/ ’til there are no rich no more,” has more relevance today than it did in the early 1970s when it was written.
Here is âIâd Love to Change the Worldâ:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
You’ve probably heard that at Trump’s political rally in Florida, he lamented an attack that took place in Sweden on Friday Night. He told his supporters:
You look at whatâs happening…Weâve got to keep our country safe. You look at whatâs happening in Germany, you look at whatâs happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?
Nothing nefarious happened in Sweden on Friday, or Saturday for that matter, and Swedes were left baffled:
Swedes reacted with confusion, anger and ridicule on Sunday to a vague remark by President Trump that suggested that something terrible had occurred in their country.
Apparently the Donald has a fantasy life: He dreamed up some fake news on his own. Digby reports:
The truth is that Trump was watching Fox News on Friday night and Tucker Carlson had some wingnut documentary filmmaker on talking about his movie about refugees in Sweden committing crimes. Trump just…got the story wrong.
We used to say âtruth is beauty and beauty is truthâ, but there is no beauty in Truth by Trump. Consider that the Wall Street Journal had a dust-up with its own reporters, and one lost his job when they said the paper was soft on Trump. And when reporting on this false story of Swedish tragedy, the WSJ did not link to the (also Murdoch controlled) Fox News which had the Tucker Carlson story, despite most other media reporting it. From Bob Lefsetz:
This is scary on two levels that the WSJ is self-editing, and Trump believes everything he sees and reads, when they tell you in second grade not to.
This wasnât the first time. Remember when he said he saw thousands of Muslims cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11?
Trump is a typical old, Fox News-obsessed male wingnut. They get mixed up a lot. He combines the ignorance of Dubya with none of the self-control. The story served his narrative that we live in fear and that he is the only one who can save us. Will Wheaton said this:
None of the three events happened, except in the mind of Donald Trump. Time for Republicans everywhere to Wake the F—k up! They need to stop excusing Trumpâs behavior. They need to join the media in calling out the president when he makes shit up. To help with this wake-up, here is Richard Thompson with âGood Things Happen to Bad People (But Only for a While). Try to hold on to that thought when you hear Trump spout another silly innuendo, or another lie, and Republicans say nothing.
Sample Lyrics:
Well I know you’ve got a secret or two
Your hair’s in a brand new ‘doâ
And you’re so happy
Good things happen to bad people
Good things happen to bad people
But only, but only, for a while
You cried the day I walked you down the aisle
And I know you’ve been bad
From the way you smile
President Trump is engaged in an open war on the US press. While he canât be impeached for that, it is time to recognize what he intends: His plan is to neutralize what is our most vital check on authoritarianism. If he succeeds, it will still be called the âfree pressâ, but we will hear only the official story from the White House. Our media must change its game, or democracy will die. Right now, its Trumpâs facts first, and THE facts second, if at all. This is a battle the public must make certain Trump loses. Only 47 months to go…
Trumpâs press conference was all we needed to know:
The Westminster dog show was controversial in some circles:
Itâs Saturday, and Wrongo wishes he was sitting in that beautiful 5,000 book home library, drinking a Grande Chai Latte, listening to music, and distracted from the world at large.
But reluctantly, Wrongo watched some of Trump’s press conference on Thursday (transcript and video here). His presentation style is obnoxious. He adds opinions and adjectives to everything that he, or anyone else says. The point is that he NEEDS to tell you that his shit is great, and yours stinks.
He has memorized a list of both positive and negative adjectives, and he fires them in volleys as he speaks. He said that he has made “incredible progress” so far. Every new POTUS claims to make progress on something in the early weeks, but generally, they leave it to the media and public to evaluate the claim. Trump however, gives us the first glowing review of his work, and if possible, the first negative review of his opponents.
This is highly problematic for fact-based observers, because they have to evaluate not only “progress” but “incredible progress”
He is willing to lie about things that a ten year old could fact check. A lot of his shtick is a continuation of his basic campaign speech, and nobody needs to waste time refuting that BS. We can just roll our eyes, and move on.
However, we should be very concerned about how completely he controlled the press conference. It seemed to Wrongo that the press corps acted in a less than first-rate manner when on their feet. They had few sharp or pointed questions, and they allowed Trump to repeatedly call them out for trading in fake news.
Why didnât anyone point out that the slow confirmation process for Cabinet positions is due mostly to Trump naming his appointees late, followed by submitting the required paperwork slowly?
Trump gets away with his whining because the press spends time trying to play âgotcha” with the Jedi Master of gotcha: Did you see what he did to Rep. Elijah Cummings? They should be exposing that half of what Trump thinks he knows is wrong. But he sure knows how to hold a press conference, and we should probably expect him to do more of them than any previous POTUS.
The Trumpets like the notion that he’s going to “Shake things up“, but he plans to go well beyond shaking things up. For example, he wants to change the balance of power with the other two branches, and it appears that many of his supporters actually want that to happen.
It he pulls that off, say bye-bye democracy.
Wrongo gets incensed when powerful people attack the weak and vulnerable. He believes in the importance and value of facts and rational thought. But Trump, and his so-called mainstream Republican buddies keep moving farther and farther away from these values.
We could try to look at each lie or obfuscation in Trumpâs press conference, but something is lost when you look at the trees rather than the forest.
And its Trumpâs forest of total bullshit that needs to be chopped down by what remains of the independent media.
The NATO Defense Ministers are meeting this week, and a big issue is the financial support provided by the member nations. The US spends more of its GDP on NATO than any other member, 3.6%, or $664 billion in 2016. NATO countries have committed to spending 2% of their GDP on the military, but the only countries currently meeting that target are Britain, Poland, Estonia and Greece. At a preliminary meeting, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the ministers would âstress the importance of fair burden-sharing and higher defence spending,â
New US Defense Secretary, Gen. Jim Mattis, warned that continued American support for NATO could depend on other NATO countries meeting their spending commitments:
Americans cannot care more for your childrenâs future security than you do…I owe it to you to give you clarity on the political reality in the US and to state the fair demand from my countryâs people in concrete terms…If your nations do not want to see America moderate its commitment to this alliance, each of your capitals needs to show support for our common defense…
Europe is reluctant to pay for its own defense. The GDP of the EU approximates that of the US, but its military budget is less than half of ours. Trump is correct to question why Europe doesnât pay its fair share. Of course, he isnât the first US president to make that point.
This issue is well known, but a Win/Gallup survey provides a disturbing portrait of the will of people in Europe to defend themselves. The survey shows that 61% of people polled across 64 countries would be willing to fight for their country. However, there are significant differences in willingness to fight by region. It is highest in the Middle East (83%), but, it is lowest in Western Europe (25%).
Win/Gallup surveyed a total of 62,398 persons globally, and developed a representative sample of around 1000 men and women in each country. This is somewhat old data, the field work was conducted during September 2014 – December 2014.
In Europe, the highest number willing to fight was Finland at 74%. The Netherlands was at 15%, Germany was at 18%, Belgium, 19%, Italy, 20%, UK, 27%, France, 29%. Â Except for Turkey at 73%, Greece at 54%, and Sweden at 55%, a clear minority of people in the NATO countries said they would be willing to fight for their country.
Only 44% of Americans surveyed said that they would fight for our country.
We should remember that like us, most European armies have professional militaries, and that is probably reflected in the survey results. Neutral Finland still has a draft, and trained reserve of about 900 000. They also have an 830 mile border with Russia.
It is also possible that there was confusion, with some respondents thinking about fighting an offensive war, while some could have been thinking of a defensive war. Another difference could be due to whether the respondents think an offensive or defensive war is more likely for their country.
Europeans have become used to having the US foot much of the NATO bill. The bigger question is raised by the Gallup survey: What would they do if we had a real fight?
BTW, would most Americans fight for America? Survey says “no”.
With the Trump administrationâs moves to deport Mexicans, letâs remember a plane crash in Los Gatos Canyon in January 1948 that resulted in 32 dead. The news reported it as four Americans and 28 migrant workers whose names were not recorded. They were simply called âdeporteesâ in news reports, because they were being deported back to Mexico. Woody Guthrie wrote “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” to remember them. Here is Judy Collins with âDeporteeâ:
On Labor Day, 2013, a monument was unveiled listing the names of the 28 who perished in the crash. After 65 years, the names of the 28 were finally known.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Politico reports that President Trump has actually done little since entering office despite White House aide Stephen Millerâs bragging on the Sunday Pundits:
We have a president who has done more in three weeks than most presidents have done in an entire administration.
That simply isnât true, but the thrust of the article is that, when you tune out the noise coming from the White House, very little has actually happened. From Politico:
So far, Trump has behaved exactly like he has throughout his previous career: He has generated intense attention and sold himself as a man of action while doing little other than promote an image of himself as someone who gets things done.
Sorry, but this is characteristic of the gleeful DC narrative that Trump is failing, that heâs bumping up against the institutional/Constitutional realities of Washington. This meme seems to repeat the same mistakes that smart people made during the campaign â misreading and underestimating Trump. They see him challenged on a few things and assume that since Trump thought heâd show up, wave a wand, and make things happen immediately, and is now stymied, therefore he must be frustrated. They presume that clashes with other branches of government, or with the unfawning press, or the âresistanceâ from the 52% that didnât vote for him to begin with, has made him cool his jets.
Why should we think it upsets him that his first bolts out of the gate are stymied?
Wrongo thinks that so far, Trump is winning. His fights with what he calls âthe Establishmentâ and the âfake news mediaâ are a win from the perspective of the Trumpets. They figure thatâs what he was sent to DC to do.
If heâs not trying to learn the ropes? That goes in the plus column. And if itâs reported that he shows impatience or impulsiveness? Plus column. To his base, the furor in the media makes the infuriated ones, and those who report it, seem like smug elitists, determined to enforce the status quo through the usual DC tactics.
Really, everything Politico says are problems for Trump are the opposite. Heâs ginned up a national hissy fit over his ill-conceived Executive Order on immigration, while managing to mostly get his cabinet choices confirmed (sorry Mr. Pudzer) â a cabinet more radical and unqualified than any traditional Republican would dare to nominate.
Dems obsess over each offense and announce âresistanceâ but have no real strategy. They raise money but can do little, while being viewed as unseemly in Trumpâs flyover country.
When the Republican obstruction to Obama took shape in 2008, they assumed a posture of cooperation, only to be âdisappointedâ by the âextremeâ positions of the President. Rarely in Obamaâs first term did they announce obstruction in advance of his actions. By his second term, Democrats had lost enough seats that they no longer had the ability to override Republican inertia, and the GOP’s naked obstruction was visible.
Now Democrats have fewer votes as a minority party than the GOP had in 2016, and have no way to block anything but the most obnoxious Trump moves, assuming that a few Senate Republicans join in the blockage.
Trump has no need to figure out or to get along with Washington â in fact, thatâs the opposite of what he wants. He has staked his political fortune on an âown the mobâ strategy â which worked just fine in November. He doesnât need to deliver on his election promises. He needs to let Republicans push through the horrifying agenda theyâve salivated over for decades. And he will.
He needs a riled up Establishment to blame for any stymied efforts. This means the more cartoonish his behavior the better, as the Establishment will be all too happy to jump on his missteps.
Trump wonât suffer if he never comes up the learning curve.
The rest of us, the country, the world, will. We actually need things to work.
Here is Robert Cray with âSmoking Gunâ recorded in 1986. With all the Trump people who seem to be on the wrong side of the CIA and FBI, it seems appropriate:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
