Category: Banana Republicanism

Thoughts On The Debt Deal

The Daily Escape:

Rosa rugosa, Cape Cod, MA – May 2023 photo by Don Wilding

The holiday is over, and it brought an apparent deal between Biden and McCarthy. But was negotiating with the axe of a default on the national debt hanging over the country worth it? Sure, since it pulled the country back from the fiscal cliff.

But mostly, having to do it at all was stupid, and dangerous. And now, neither Party is completely happy, because both sides had to compromise. Wrongo recommends Noah Smith’s take:

“The recent fight over the debt ceiling, however, seems…like a return to the pointless obstructionism and grandstanding that characterized politics in the 2010s. There was absolutely zero reason for the House GOP leadership to use the debt ceiling — they could have just forced a deal through the normal appropriations process. Few people actually believed that the country’s leaders would let the US default on its sovereign debt due to a random minor budget fight…”

He’s correct, the House is controlled by Republicans. And the Senate also has enough Republicans to control the country’s fiscal budgeting process. They can ensure that what’s included and what’s cut would almost certainly be what Republicans wanted in the final package.

The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein tweeted:

“It’s really something House GOP was willing to risk tanking global economy for such a tangential set of policy goals. Their plan threatened spending on young & low-income but by excluding revenue & entitlements had small impact on overall deficits. Means wildly excessive for ends.”

Despite all of the grandstanding by both Biden and the Republicans, the compromise deal looks like this:

  • A freeze on non-defense discretionary spending in 2024 and a 1% increase in 2025.
  • A 3% increase in defense spending.
  • Expanding work requirements by four years for SNAP (food stamps) and some smaller welfare programs.
  • Resumption of student debt payments (this isn’t a change to Biden’s student debt plan).
  • Reducing IRS funding by $20 billion.
  • Clawing back some unused Covid relief money.
  • Minor changes on permitting to streamline the process of environmental review.

House Republicans had initially demanded huge cuts in spending, which would have been pretty destabilizing to essential programs. These demands may have been simply an initial negotiating tactic. But not getting them in the final agreement might also speak to Biden’s negotiating ability.

Remember that the GOP’s threat to trigger sovereign default was because they think that the level of our national debt is an existential threat. But they wanted to include tax cuts in their original proposal. That would have been nuts since the purpose of their bill was to limit the growth in federal debt.

Remember too that only about 27% of our federal spending is classified as “discretionary”. About 65% is “mandatory” spending, which means that it doesn’t go through the appropriations process. (The remainder is interest on the debt.)

The spending restraint in this deal will affect only the “discretionary” portion, leaving the “mandatory” majority untouched. The “mandatory” portion includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, EITC and SNAP.

More from Noah Smith:

“…what frustrates me about this nothingburger of a result is how incredibly costly it was to produce. The House GOP went through months of dramatic, high-stakes negotiations, forced the administration to consider the Fourteenth Amendment and the trillion dollar coin, got the media talking seriously about the prospect of a US sovereign default…. and all that for a little bit of discretionary spending restraint, a few added work requirements for food stamps, and a little defunding of the IRS?….It’s like…a guy walked into a restaurant with a ticking bomb demanding to blow everyone up if he didn’t get a free peppermint!”

We’re unsure if this compromise will actually pass both Houses of Congress. But if it does, it’s another piece of evidence that Republican politics is largely theater/spectacle. That’s why a reality TV star/performance artist like Trump was able to take over the Party.

OTOH, consider this quote from one of our founding fathers:

“Politics…Has Always Been the Systematic Organization of Hatreds” ̶  Henry Adams

Of course, Adams’ comment raises the question of whether politics has to be a systematic organization of hatreds, or if people could be politically active and committed, while in no way giving in to hatred of their opponents? Sounds utopian to Wrongo.

We have to give credit when credit is due. Politics is supposed to be about compromise. And Biden has accomplished a compromise in one of the most partisan, polarized times in our recent political history. If you’re arguing against what Biden did, remember that unless your Party controls every arm of the government, and in particular the Senate with a big majority, you either compromise or you get nothing done.

Want to get your way every time? Win more elections.

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Poetry Banned in Florida

The Daily Escape:

Storm, Outer Banks, NC – May 2023 photo by OBXbeachbum

You may remember that 18 days after the Jan 6th attack, a 22-year-old poet named Amanda Gorman stood on the steps of the Capitol. She addressed the nation’s fresh wounds and its uncertain future:

“A nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.” What a beautiful sentiment.

But those exact words offended a Miami Lakes, Florida serial book banner named Daily Salinas. Salinas alleged that “The Hills We Climb “ included references of critical race theory, indirect hate messages, gender ideology and indoctrination, according to school district records obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project. The Daily Beast reports that Salinas is an avid supporter of Ron DeSantis. She worked as a volunteer on his “Education Agenda Tour” in August 2022.

You can read Gorman’s full poem here. A video of Amanda Gorman reciting her poem at the 2020 Inauguration is here. Gorman reacted, saying in a Facebook post:

“Unnecessary #bookbans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back…”

A review by the WaPo of complaints in 153 school districts across the country for the 2021-2022 school year found that a:

“…majority of the 1,000-plus book challenges analyzed by The Post were filed by just 11 people.”

The WaPo says that each of these people brought 10 or more challenges against books in their school district; one man filed 92 challenges:

“Together, these serial filers constituted 6% of all book challengers — but were responsible for 60% of all filings….In some cases…these serial filers relied on a network of volunteers gathered together under the aegis of conservative parents’ groups such as Moms for Liberty.”

Not surprisingly, Daily Salinas is one of them. Miami Against Fascism alleges in a tweet thread that Salinas is associated with Moms for Liberty Miami-Dade county as well as with the Proud Boys and County Citizens Defending Freedom USA (CCDF), and a Christian nationalist group. From the LA Times:

“When asked if she was aware of professional reviews of the National Youth Poet Laureate’s poem, Salinas wrote, “I don’t need it.” And when asked to list the author, she wrote Oprah Winfrey. (Winfrey wrote the forward for the book version of the poem published in March 2021.)”

Here’s the form that Salinas filled out:

Look again at pgs. 12-13 from Gorman’s poem above. If you can detect a hate message, let Wrongo know. And saying that poetry will indoctrinate students? We should be so lucky. Gorman reacted in a tweet:

“I’m gutted…They ban my book from young readers, confuse me with Oprah, fail to specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read any reviews, and offer no alternatives,”

This is the Florida of Ron DeSantis. And this is the America he wants to create. DeSantis’s campaign merchandise touts that he will “Make America Florida.” Here are some stats that show how well DeSantis is governing Florida: Florida is 34th in fatal overdoses, 26th in teen birth rates, and 31st in infant mortality.  FL ranks dead last in providing long-term care for older adults. Florida ranks 48th in teacher pay, 45th in per-pupil spending. Despite having a fairly high cost-of-living index (23rd), Florida ranks dead last in providing unemployment benefits, giving recipients just $236 a week for just 12 weeks.

Most Americans would rather their states remain free from the fascist landscape that DeSantis has given Florida.

BTW: the Bible includes: Rape, incest, torture, slavery, bestiality. But apparently, it isn’t subject to the same standards that Daily Salinas uses, despite on the surface, being one nasty book.

We can’t let today go by without thinking about Tina Turner. She was one of the most important recording artists in American history. It’s pretty hard to describe how incredible and important she was for so many decades. In my twenties, Ms. Right and I got to see Ike and Tina Turner (and the Ikettes) live at Fillmore East in January 1970.

Later in her life (and ours) it was just Tina. One thing was consistent: Tina Turner blew the lid off of any joint where she performed. You can’t say that about many acts, but Tina could do just that. Sadly, the soundtrack to Wrongo’s life is growing fainter with time. Tina Turner’s passing adds to the growing list of performers from the past 70 years that Wrongo admired.

Take a few minutes to watch and listen to Tina and Mick Jagger perform “State Of Shock / It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” in front of 100,000 people at Live Aid in 1985 at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia:

Let’s hope Ike is burning in Hell.

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America’s Playing Default Chicken

The Daily Escape:

Ice and clouds, Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone NP, WY – May 2023 photo by Joethehiker

Wrongo doesn’t know about you, but he’s starting to think that the “bi-partisan” Debt Ceiling negotiations aren’t going to stave off a default on the US’ debt obligations.

Every talking head is still saying that at the last minute, Biden and McCarthy will agree to…something. Something that prevents a government shutdown, and a default on payments for the country’s outstanding debt.

But is that real or hopium? In any negotiation, the idea is to find a point (or multiple points) of leverage that bends the other side toward your viewpoint. That helps the two sides to meet at some place in the middle.

So who’s got the leverage in the current Debt Ceiling negotiation? No one. Biden surely has no leverage over the House Republicans. Republican Speaker McCarthy has some leverage over Biden but has little leverage with his own House members. The Senate leaders, Majority Leader Schumer and Minority Leader McConnell, who normally have leverage to help resolve Debt Ceiling standoffs, are bystanders in this game of Default Chicken.

We’re in a high stakes game of chicken because nobody can deliver their side to the table. Politico reports:

“White House aides privately estimate they may need to deliver as many as 100 Democratic votes to ensure an eventual debt limit deal can pass the narrowly divided House…”

But few Democrats will support the deep cuts to social programs that Biden might be forced to agree to. McCarthy knows that a portion of his GOP House members will vote against ANY compromise bill. House Republicans have already called the legislation they passed last month (lifting the Debt Ceiling in exchange for deep spending cuts) the floor, not the ceiling to the negotiation. Dan Pfeiffer quoted Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL):

“I think my conservative colleagues for the most part…don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage.”

So Gaetz thinks that Biden and the Democrats are his hostages. If they are, how do they negotiate with the terrorists on the other side?

The positions are clear. The White House is open to budget negotiations but opposed to debt ceiling brinkmanship. Republicans threaten default if their budget demands aren’t met. They’re planning to pull the pin on this grenade and then blame Democrats for making them do it.

Recent polling from ABC and The WaPo gives Democrats a narrow advantage: An equal number of voters from each party—78%—would blame the opposite party for default. While 37% of independents say they would blame Republicans and 29% would blame Biden, with 24% blaming both parties equally.

The Democrats’ negotiating position appears to put them in the worst of both worlds: If the Debt Ceiling is breached, the polls show that they will share the political fallout with Republicans. Otherwise, they may have to agree to significant cuts to crucial programs like welfare and food stamps, which will badly hurt them with their base.

Either way, the Dems will complain about the financial wreckage caused by Republican extremism, and hope voters agree with them. The simplest way out is to agree to a temporary debt ceiling increase as we have many times in the past, to allow both sides to continue negotiating.

Sadly, McCarthy and the House Republicans seem to prefer default to compromise. They’re using passing a new Debt Ceiling as leverage to cut spending for Social Security and Medicare while increasing the defense budget. That’s their idea of “fiscal responsibility”. Sure, our military budget is 10 times Russia’s and three times China’s, but Republicans want grandma to tighten her belt.

At the end of the day, we’re stuck playing Default Chicken: The US must pay the bills it has already incurred as they mature. McCarthy can’t be seen by House Republicans to be giving concessions to Biden. After all, they think their job is to save the country from excess spending, not from the consequences of default. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said on Wednesday that no one in the House Republican conference is concerned about the potential of a US debt default:

“Regular Americans … don’t worry about the government shutting down.”

Negotiating with terrorists is very difficult. The pressure on Democrats to cave to Republican demands for massive spending cuts will become harder to resist. If somehow they do resist, chances are we’ll see America default on its debts.

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Monday Wake Up Call – May 22, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Mountain Laurel with waterfall, Panther Creek trail, Chattahoochee NF, GA – May 2023 photo by Paula Johns

The Republican drumbeat to impose restrictions on women’s sexuality are growing ever louder. We’ve seen the Republicans pass laws to do exactly that in states where they have the legislative power to do so, regardless of local public opinion.

This Republican war on abortion, mifepristone, and contraception says that female bodily autonomy is a problem for most of the GOP (with some exceptions). It is pursued by Republican politicians from the lowliest state legislator to the Party’s representatives on the Supreme Court.

Some say that the Republican Party isn’t anti-woman, but the actions of Republican-led states and legislatures provide the best guide to what the Republican Party wants to do, and the best insight into the society it hopes to build. When Republicans call for a return to traditional values in family life, they mean returning to a legal and cultural place where women no longer have the freedom to leave bad marriages, the freedom to choose to have some or no children, or the freedom to obtain professional employment.

Jamelle Bouie had an op-ed in Sunday’s NYT about state GOPs efforts to gain cultural control over life in America. He outlined the “Republican Four Freedoms”, which are decidedly different from FDRs:

There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles.

There is the freedom to exploit — to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit.

There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class.

And there is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people.

And the Right continues to try to move the limits of control even further. Rolling Stone reports that:

“Republicans across the country are now reconsidering no-fault divorce. There isn’t a huge mystery behind the campaign: Like the crusades against abortion and contraception, making it more difficult to leave an unhappy marriage is about control.”

If you think that’s strange, more than two-thirds of all heterosexual divorces in the US are initiated by women. All 50 states and DC have no-fault divorce laws on the books — laws that allow either party to walk away from an unhappy marriage without having to prove abuse, infidelity, or other misconduct in court.

It took more than four decades to end fault-based divorce in America: California was the first state to eliminate it, in 1969; New York didn’t come around until 2010. But Mississippi and South Dakota still only allow no-fault divorce if both parties agree to dissolve the marriage.

Researchers who tracked the emergence of no-fault divorce laws state by state over that period found that the passage of no-fault divorce resulted in a 20% decline in suicide for married women in the first decade, and about a 40% decline since the first law passed in 1967. There also were dramatic drops in the rates of domestic violence, and spousal homicide of women.

Texas and other states are looking at legislation to end no-fault divorce. More from Rolling Stone:

“A…proposal is presently being workshopped by the Republican Party of Louisiana. The Nebraska GOP has affirmed its belief that no-fault divorce should only be accessible to couples without children.”

More:

“At the Republican National Convention in 2016 — the last time the party platform was overhauled — delegates considered adding language declaring, “Children are made to be loved by both natural parents united in marriage. Legal structures such as No Fault Divorce, which divides families and empowers the state, should be replaced by a Fault-based Divorce.”

It’s kinda awful that Republican males seem to think that the only way to retain their partner is to legally trap them in the marriage. The GOP effort to end no-fault divorce is becoming a key piece of their agenda.

Time to wake up America! The GOP has been captured by religious radicals and wingnut social conservatives who would be happy if they could return the country to the way society was in the 1940s.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Gloria Gaynor perform her hit “I Will Survive”, the ultimate breakup song. Did you ever notice at weddings, whenever this is played, all the women get up and dance?

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 21, 2023

Top negotiators for Biden and Speaker McCarthy resumed talks Friday evening after the Republicans said the negotiations had to go on a “pause”. Roll Call reports that:

“After a nearly daylong setback, White House Counselor Steve Ricchetti, White House budget director Shalanda Young, Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., and House Financial Services Chairman Patrick T. McHenry, R-N.C., resumed talks at the Capitol shortly after 6 p.m.”

Time is running out for Congress to raise the debt ceiling. If not, the consequences are stark. Keeping the lines of communication open and giving away the store are two different things entirely. On to cartoons.

McCarthy’s toll booth:

The North Carolina legislature overrode Governor Roy Cooper’s veto  of a bill imposing a ten-week abortion ban. Will this ensure Democratic victory in North Carolina in 2024?

Texas has sued the Biden administration 29 times in a Texas Federal District Court. Now after banning mifepristone, Texas judges have new careers:

Durham’s report:

Disney’s Bob Iger asks DeSantis: “Does Florida want our jobs and taxes or not?” This is a severe kick in the balls:

Wrongo’s old enough to have seen Jim Brown play in Yankee Stadium against the NY Giants:

Trump’s one note:

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The Durham Report Finds Nearly Nothing

The Daily Escape:

Tulips, Boston Common, Boston MA – May 2023 photo by Ken Grille Photography

The DOJ has released the Durham Report. Former Connecticut US Attorney John Durham was tagged by Trump’s Attorney General Barr with proving there was a deep-state plot against Trump. From the NYT:

“Mr. Durham’s 306-page report appeared to show little substantial new information about the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, and it failed to produce the kinds of blockbuster revelations impugning the bureau that former President… Trump….had once suggested that Mr. Durham would find.”

So, after four years, and $6.5 million of our money, Durham found nothing? Apparently the best he could come up with was a Right wing personal opinion. Meanwhile Conservatives are furious with Durham for not finding Hillary Clinton guilty of…something. The Right-leaning Washington Times said:

“Special counsel John Durham’s failure to indict any Obama-era FBI officials involved in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation has left conservative activists and Trump allies questioning why he didn’t pursue prosecutions that they said were handed to him on a silver platter….Mr. Durham brought three prosecutions during his sprawling, four-year probe that concluded Monday, but he netted only one conviction: a low-level FBI lawyer who admitted to doctoring evidence.”

More:

“None of the three indictments involved high-profile FBI figures who greenlighted an investigation into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign based on unverified intelligence and ignored evidence that countered the collusion narrative, according to Mr. Durham’s 300-page report released Monday.”

There’s a lot of crying on the Right. The broken down ex-football coach who became a Senator, Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said the Durham report shows that: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…a whole list of people lied…If people don’t go to jail for this, the American people should just stand up and say, ‘Listen, enough’s enough, let’s don’t have elections anymore.”

Yikes! The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols observed:

“A US Senator says people should rise up and do away with elections unless the State punishes law enforcement officers for doing their job. A word I rarely use, but: This is pretty fascist stuff.”

So this is the Trump legacy in America. A Special Counsel appointed by Trump’s AG to disprove there was a connection between the Trump campaign and Russia doesn’t disprove it. He didn’t recommend filing any new charges against people he investigated in his final report. Despite criticizing the FBI, he didn’t recommend revamping the investigative procedures they use in politically sensitive investigations.

OTOH, the FBI’s investigation that Durham was supposed to debunk, wasn’t about investigating Trump but was about Russia’s support for his campaign. It was meant to find a conspiracy against Trump that didn’t exist. That’s the stock in trade of Trumpism. See the whole Republican investigation witch hunt list: Whitewater, Benghazi, Voter Fraud Commission, Hunter Biden’s Laptop.

It’s all political theater. The GOP outrage act has been running for longer than most Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.

Unlike the Mueller investigation, Durham mostly came up empty on the cases he brought to trial. The absolute best he can say is “Maybe the FBI shouldn’t have looked into Trump-Russia because the feds played it fast and loose“.

But since he doesn’t mention any individuals who should be recommended for charges or suggest any operational improvements, it’s clear it was Durham who was wasting everyone’s time, not the FBI. In the report’s executive summary, Durham says:

“…this report does not recommend any wholesale changes in the guidelines and policies that the Department and the FBI now have in place to ensure proper conduct and accountability in how counterintelligence activities are carried out,”

Durham concludes with the premise that he started with: That the FBI should not have opened the Trump-Russia investigation:

“We conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report…”

Durham’s job was to investigate the investigators (and also the investigation): To lend credibility to the idea that the Trump-Russia investigation was the product of a political witch hunt against Trump. He winds up accusing the FBI of “confirmation bias” in its legitimate probe of Trump/Russia links.

That’s rich since Durham never made any secret of his own bias in trying to discredit the Bureau with conjecture and few facts. He’s failed.

Durham found nothing but tries hard to make it sound like he did.

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Is Default Preferable To Compromise?

The Daily Escape:

Wild Ocotillo blooms with Agave buds, Anza-Borrego Desert SP, CA – May 2023 photo by Paulette Donnellon

Yesterday, Biden met with the leadership of the Congress to discuss the debt ceiling and the dangers of default. Wrongo is writing this before we know what if anything concrete, comes out of that meeting.

This is the third time in twelve years that a Republican House majority has tried to use the debt limit to extort a Democratic president into adopting policies that the GOP failed to enact through normal political means. This time around, like the past two times, Republicans say they want spending cuts, but as Nate Cohn wrote in the NYT:

“The 2022 midterm campaign didn’t show evidence of a resurgent conservative passion for spending cuts either. The debt-deficit issue had such a low profile in the national conversation that a question about it wasn’t even asked in exit polling.”

But absent real news, let’s take a look at the Republican position as outlined in the bill McCarthy and the GOP passed in the House. They’re pushing to pair $4.5 trillion in spending cuts over a decade with a one year, one time, $1.5 trillion increase in the debt limit. Their plan achieves most of its savings with spending caps for discretionary spending — the part of the yearly budget that isn’t automatic (like Social Security payments) — but it doesn’t say which discretionary programs should be cut and which should be spared.

Their plan caps government spending at last year’s levels. This would be a decrease of ~ 9%. A yearly increase is capped at 1% annually for the next 10 years. This action would save approximately $3.2 trillion. They haven’t offered any detail about where the cuts would come from, and there is no inflation adjustment to the spending cap.

But since the GOP has said it plans zero cuts in the defense budget and that there will be no cuts for veterans or for border security, cutting everywhere else will be very deep. The NYT estimates that if those programs remained untouched, the GOP plan would cut the balance of federal spending by an amount of a 51% cut across the board.

Seems unrealistic.

Social Security checks could still be issued because a 1996 law provides a means of circumventing the debt limit. It allows the Treasury Department to pay Social Security benefits, along with Medicare payments, even if there is a delay in raising the debt ceiling. It allows for the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to be drawn down to keep those benefits flowing until the debt limit is raised, and the trust fund replenished. It also prohibits those funds from being used to pay for any other government programs.

In the past, the usual political rhythm of fiscal crises is that the GOP House stumbles around for a while, and then, right before the deadline, Senate Republicans and Mitch McConnell come off the sideline. They cut a deal with the Democratic president and pass the deal in the Senate with a big bipartisan majority. They then leave town with the hot potato squarely in the Speaker’s lap.

It’s questionable if this will happen in May, 2023.

Biden should address the nation after the Tuesday talks. How about an oval office address that lays out the facts, along with a call to action: Call your representatives and tell them to pass a clean debt limit bill. He could detail for the American people the cuts the GOP are demanding in return for raising the limit. He could also say that he is willing to negotiate in good faith on the budget with House Republicans as long as the debt ceiling is a separate matter.

The compromise might be to have a temporary debt ceiling increase to allow both to move forward together. Sadly, for McCarthy and the House Republicans, default seems to be preferable to compromise.

This is zero-sum politics with the highest stakes. At the end of the day, all paths lead to the same place: The US will need to find a way to pay the bills it has incurred as they mature.

The question is how much damage will have happened along the way.

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Tuesday Wake Up Call – May 9, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Wild Azaleas at sunrise, Blue Ridge Mountains, VA – May 7, 2023 photo by Susan Anton

Wrongo and Ms. Right spent most of the weekend in NYC where we saw two Broadway plays, “New York, New York” and “Fat Ham”.

New York, New York is set at the end of WWII. The story is about a down-on-their-luck cast of characters who have come to NYC to  chase their dreams. It has some really strong points: Loved the choreography, the highlight of which is seeing a group tap dancing on the steel girder of an unfinished skyscraper. There’s also a nighttime snowfall in Central Park, and multicolored umbrellas seemingly floating in a rainstorm. The dancing scenes reminded Wrongo of “An American in Paris” which he saw in London and loved.

The scenery, dominated by towering fire escapes is very interesting and evocative of NYC. However, the male lead Jimmy, played by Colton Ryan, doesn’t have a voice that’s up to the role, although he is a versatile musician and has a nice sense of physical comedy. The female lead, Francine, played by Anna Uzele who played Catherine Parr in “Six” has a very good voice and was truly the star of the show.

The play doesn’t meet musical expectations. Despite having songs written by the legendary John Kander (“Cabaret” and “Chicago”) and co-written with Lin Manuel Miranda (you know, “Hamilton” and “In the Heights”). The tunes simply don’t deliver any real emotion to the audience.

It finishes with a rousing big band version of the signature tune that has the audience singing along. Sadly, for Wrongo, that was the highlight of the show.

Fat Ham by comparison, is a winner. It’s a contemporary riff on “Hamlet” set in a backyard somewhere in an unidentified part of the American South. This Black family includes a gay young male college student who is unsettled by his mother’s decision to marry the brother of her recently deceased husband, who was murdered in jail.

Some of the themes in Shakespeare’s play are quickly evident. But the play uses comedy and a few plot twists to challenge the family’s history of violence. In winning the Pulitzer, Fat Ham was described as:

“…a funny, poignant play that deftly transposes ‘Hamlet’ to a family barbecue in the American South to grapple with questions of identity, kinship, responsibility and honesty.”

All of the above. The actors frequently break the fourth wall, letting the audience know how they feel about the drama being acted out on stage. Fat Ham refers to its main character: Juicy is queer, Black, and is taking online classes at the University of Phoenix.

Juicy’s father Pap appears as a ghost just before the cookout celebrating his mother’s marriage to the father’s brother Uncle Rev. Pap tells Juicy that he was killed in prison on the order of Uncle Rev and tells Juicy to kill Uncle Rev in revenge. Like Hamlet, Juicy is moody and sarcastic, but he isn’t particularly committed to murdering Rev. He acts like his father has asked him to do a chore he never plans to get around to.

Ultimately, Rev conveniently chokes to death on a pork rib, so Juicy didn’t have to lift a finger.

The play is about secrets that stay hidden because of guilt or shame. The ones that you keep for fear of ever being found out to be what you think is a more disgusting version of yourself.

It turns out that in the end, everyone acknowledges that several family members in addition to Juicy are gay. They come to terms with their failed expectations of each other as well. Ultimately they’re all liberated from the personal stories that keep them from being happy. The play ends with a splashy finale, including a confetti cannon, with one character channeling Rick James.

Wrongo recommends seeing Fat Ham if you are able to get to NYC.

One quibble is that all of these characters appear to have lived their whole lives with unfulfilled dreams that largely get fulfilled at the very end of the play.

Only on Broadway do we see people who can be released from their personal conflicts so easily.

Time to Wake Up America! We’re already a few days into what promises to be a difficult week. There’s a lot going on, and it can be hard to focus on just one thing. But Wrongo thinks we should be focusing on the Debt Ceiling and whether those bums we’ve elected have any interest in solving the problem.

As the clock ticks down to the moment when the US suffers a politically engineered default on its debt, let’s hope that the President and the Congress can defy partisanship and come up with something.

To help them wake up, here’s “Manic Monday”, written by Prince. It was a hit for the Bangles in 1984. Here they perform live in 2008:

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 7, 2023

(The Monday Wake Up Call will be published on Tuesday this week.)

America has been waiting for more than a year for the Federal Reserve to get control over inflation. In that time, they’ve jacked up interest rates to over 5%. A year ago, raising rates that high seemed unthinkable, but here we are. Wages have also risen.

There was some damage: A few horribly managed banks collapsed. A couple of auto dealer-lender chains that specialized in selling overpriced used cars to subprime customers collapsed. And there were some fiascos in commercial real estate.

All of that has led the Fed to indicate that there could be a “soft landing” for our economy. But with the latest jobs growth numbers, maybe the Fed will have to keep circling the airport. In April, 253,000 jobs were created. There are now a record 155.7 million payroll jobs. Over the past 3 months on average, 222,000 jobs were created per month. So is a soft landing ahead?

Please raise your seat tables to the upright position and pass your trash to the attendant. On to cartoons.

Coronations aren’t just for the Brits:

(Wrongo watched the coronation of King Charles III yesterday. Seventy years ago, he also watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II  on a 9″ black & white Philco television. Yesterday’s was on a 55” Samsung.)

The reality about the GOP:

What to expect after the GOP talks with Biden about the Debt Ceiling:

Proud Boys found guilty, but who pulled the strings?

Kremlin complains:

Justice Thomas needs to be taller to take the ride:

Time to buy more cards:

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Monday Wake Up Call – May 1, 2023

The Daily Escape:

The Schooner Surprise, built in 1918, is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, Camden Harbor, ME – April 2023 photo by Daniel F. Dishner

A few words about Biden, McCarthy and the Debt Ceiling. We all know that the clock is ticking on a US default of our debt sometime in June. There are multiple opinions in DC about who has the leverage in the coming debate between the House GOP, Senate Dems and Biden.

The institutionalist view is that McCarthy and the House GOP have taken the Debt Ceiling hostage and they plan a hostage negotiation with Biden. Some think that McCarthy is doing it badly. Others take the darker view that the Republicans are actually trying to crash the economy so that America blames Biden and returns the GOP to power in 2024.

If you think, based on what we’ve seen so far, that the GOP doesn’t plan to negotiate, that like terrorists, they will kill as many hostages as possible until their terms are 100% met, what they’re doing makes sense.

The NYT reports that McCarthy has been open about the fact that this is not a real bill:

“This bill is to get us to the negotiations….It is not the final provisions, and there’s a number of members who will vote for it going forward…say there are some concerns they have with it. But they want to make sure the negotiation goes forward because we are sitting at $31 trillion of debt.”

For the umpteenth time, we’re watching a game of chicken about raising the debt limit. There are something like 45 days until the Debt Ceiling must be raised. You know the “or else” sentence that follows: Or else, the US will face potentially calamitous economic consequences.

McCarthy’s bill may get the Republicans a seat at the table in the negotiations over raising the debt limit, but Biden’s position remains: “Send a clean debt limit bill, or pound sand.”

Has McCarthy overplayed a bad hand? If he had failed to get anything passed he would have looked completely incompetent. Nevertheless, passing a bill filled with devastating cuts and manifestly unpopular positions that will be difficult to defend except to the Party faithful, it is arguably worse than getting nothing done at all.

If the Dems are smart they will take the GOP’s messaging bill and come up with a message that has broad appeal that can be used to hurt the GOP in swing districts for the next two years. McCarthy’s bill shows that Republicans’ ultimate goal is to gut health care, food stamps and education, and even veterans benefits. The Vote Vets organization is out with a message:

“And now, it is the fringe MAGA party that voted for a budget that would gut health care and support for our Veterans. 217 of them voted for it, and just 4 against. They talk tough when it comes to Military action, but go AWOL when it’s time to take care of those who served.”

This bill isn’t intended to pass. Republicans had an opportunity to aim a productive salvo at swing voters to convince them that GOP majorities can deliver normalcy, and give them some sign that the Party was tacking away from the extremist positions that alienated voters in the last midterm elections.

Instead, their message is that the Party is about owning the libs and slashing aid for veterans and the poor. The GOP can’t even fake being a Party interested in governing anymore. That’s bad news for McCarthy, the man chained to the GOP canoe that’s heading over the falls. As Succession’s the late Logan Roy would say “You are not serious people.”

Instead the GOP’s message to the world is that America’s commitment to paying its debts is contingent on an underlying political negotiation about the size of the budget deficit.

  • Republicans believe they can win the political standoff by making Biden and Democrats look petty by refusing a basic negotiation.
  • Democrats also seem to be betting that Senate Republicans will step in as more mature political actors and defuse this situation.

The NYT quotes Sen. Chuck Schumer, (D-NY) and majority leader:

“Discussion of spending cuts belongs in talks about the budget, not for bargaining chips on the debt ceiling….The speaker should drop the brinkmanship, drop the hostage taking, come to the table with Democrats to pass a clean bill to avoid default.”

Time to wake up America! This kabuki play will run through at least mid-June. It’s a DC big boy fight. And we the little people, will have no say until November 2024 when we can escort the GOP flame throwers out of the House. To help you wake up, watch Crowded House perform “Don’t Dream It’s Over” from their first (of three) farewell tours, played at the Sydney Opera House in November 1996:

One of the greatest songs of the 80s and it still hits hard today.

Sample Lyrics:

There is freedom within, there is freedom without
Try to catch a deluge in a paper cup
There’s a battle ahead, many battles are lost
But you’ll never see the end of the road
While you’re traveling with me

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