The Daily Escape:
Cascade River Valley, North Cascades, WA – September 2023 photo via WanderWashington
Given how often the Republicans in the House shoot themselves in the foot, Santa better bring them Kevlar shoes. This cartoon expresses the problem perfectly:
The room where it never happens:
The Daily Escape:
Sunset, Coquille River Lighthouse, Bandon, OR – September 2023 photo by Mitch Schrieber Photography
At lunch this week with three people all who are around 80 years old, one whispered that “Biden is too old”. The rest of us agreed. In a perfect world, Biden would be considering winding up his political life and shipping his boxes to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.
But we don’t live in a perfect world. Biden will run for president again, and the polls show it’s likely to be a tight race against Trump. Many in the press see Biden as too frail to carry out even basic duties, leaving his aides to secretly run the country in his stead.
But as Semafor points out, in the first book that now documents the early years of his presidency, the picture is the reverse:
“The Last Politician,” the Biden-in-power book that Franklin Foer published last week….presents an aging president who’s nonetheless fully engaged in the job, stumbling more when he loses his temper…than when he loses his train of thought.”
Foer’s book portrays Biden as a leader who sounds shaky in public but is the dominant force in his White House. Foer tells Semafor that Biden: (Brackets by Wrongo)
“…buries himself in details…[and] takes technocratic charge of issues”.
More from Semafor:
“The Last Politician acknowledges that Biden ‘would occasionally admit that he felt tired,’ and that his ‘advanced age was a hindrance’ when he blanked on a name…..It’s weird; people are always saying, ‘well, it’d be great if we saw more Biden,’ Foer said. ‘He gives public speeches almost every single day. He sticks to his message. He doesn’t say anything insane. He does have kind of a low-key style in these speeches, but I don’t think that’s abnormal for a president. It’s just abnormal in the aftermath of Trump.”
And Georgetown’s Don Monyahan wonders why Biden doesn’t even get credit in the press for his recent diplomatic success: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“Biden’s age has become such a trope in coverage that even when he undertakes a whirlwind diplomatic tour and a 40 minute press conference, these are the headlines. Actual demonstration of his fitness is used to raise questions about his fitness. All of this is a choice.”
From Margret Sullivan:
“As the 2024 presidential election looms ever closer — with its hugely important stakes for democracy — the mainstream press, far too often, doesn’t seem to get the significance of the moment. Or what their responsibility is.
Journalists’ continual fixation on President Biden’s age plays right into the hands of the Fox News crowd and Donald Trump’s campaign.”
She quotes a recent headline in the NYT:
“In three days of diplomacy in Asia, President Biden rallied world leaders to help finance poor nations, fortified the coalition backing Ukraine and struck a deal with Vietnam to counter Chinese aggression.”
The “Biden’s too old” situation is now spiraling into a meta-narrative, in which some like the WaPo’s David Ignatius say it’s time for Biden to step aside. Others like Josh Barro are calling for Biden to stay but only if he dumps Harris.
Vox’s Ian Millhiser makes the correct linkage of Biden’s unfavorable news coverage in 2023 to 2016:
Biden’s age is something that appears to have some traction among actual swing voters. But the subtext is not so much that he’s going to die in office as “and then we get Harris”?. The underlying racism and misogyny gets ignored because the only other option is the doddering criminal with his 91 counts.
More from Millhiser:
“As a general rule, I think the political press is at its worst when it covers a story that 1) involves a matter that is of genuine concern to reasonable people; and 2) isn’t a big deal when compared to other issues of superseding importance.”
What the press is doing today is actually much worse than the 2016 “But her emails” nonsense. Back then, it was still possible for the press to pretend that Trump might not actually be what he became, that there was a semi-normal person lurking underneath his shtick.
That was an historically bad take by the media. All of this is wildly irrelevant in the here and now, where the choice is between the suboptimally old Biden and fascism.
Why the preoccupation with Biden’s age when Joe is getting things done and showing a degree of wisdom while doing it? Biden’s biggest problem is that despite being an effective president, nobody knows it. His biggest challenge is figuring out how to use his accomplishments to offset the age concern.
Finally, Bob Cesca puts it this way:
“MAGAs will nominate a criminal who incited an insurrection as part of a conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 election, and whose incompetence led to 400K American deaths in his final year. But Biden is disqualified because he’s old. We’re an unserious nation.”
For some context, we’re staring down a manufactured budget crisis, a sham impeachment circus, and Sen. Tuberville’s unprecedented obstruction of military promotions. These are facets of the same unified Republican strategy to destabilize America.
Hammering on Biden’s age plays into their plan to make 2024 a year of chaos.
Biden has slowed down, that’s objectively true. But he is worlds better than Trump. And if those are the choices for president in 2024, be thankful that the old guy is on the right side of history.
The Daily Escape:
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, AZ – September 2023 photo by Bob Miller
Back in the 1950s, lefties were often called “fellow travelers” with Communists or the Soviet Union by Republicans.
Here’s a thought experiment: Elon Musk owns Starlink. He helped Ukraine take on the Russians using his constellation of satellites and transmit/receive terminals on the ground. When SpaceX started providing Starlink internet service to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, it created a lifeline for the country when its communications systems had largely been knocked out.
Musk got great PR for helping America’s plucky little friend in their war against the Russian invaders. But as the war ground on, Kyiv began to fear that Musk was becoming increasingly ambivalent toward assisting them. Then, just as they are on the verge of a decisive blow that might shape the direction of the war, he turned off the network, thereby saving the Russian fleet from a Ukrainian sneak attack. From the WaPo:
“The armed submarine drones were poised to attack the Russian fleet….[but] the drones lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.”
Ukrainian and American officials instantly scrambled to get service restored, appealing to Musk directly. After it was too late to continue the mission, Musk eventually agreed. His reasoning for torpedoing Ukraine’s torpedo mission has been well-reported over the past few days. According to the WaPo, Musk had second thoughts:
“How am I in this war? Musk asked….Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do peaceful things, not drone strikes.”
Later, when the Sevastopol operation was to begin, Musk remembers this:
“There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor….If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”
Musk says he was afraid of being responsible for a Russian nuclear escalation. Moscow had publicly stoked such fears throughout the Ukraine war, but Western intelligence agencies say there’s no sign they were or are serious. There is zero evidence that tactical nuclear weapons were being prepped for use.
Nothing like what Musk feared happened.
“The voiced concern is that Russia could “escalate.” This argument is a triumph of Russian propaganda. None of Ukraine’s strikes across borders has done anything except reduce Russian capacity. None has led Russia to do things it was not already doing. The notion of “escalation” in this setting is a misunderstanding. In trying to undo Russian logistics, Ukraine is trying to end the war.”
It’s curious that according to Ronan Farrow in a New Yorker article, around this time, Musk held conversations with Vladimir Putin (Musk denies speaking to Putin) – which seems to have had an effect on Musk’s change of position regarding Ukraine.
So this is the thought experiment: Is Musk naïve, or has he become a fellow traveler with Putin? He seems to have not only bought Moscow’s propaganda about nuclear escalation but acted on it. In either case, his “I was for helping Ukraine before I was against it” is a moral failure, and it’s a crime of providing material assistance to ours and Ukraine’s enemy.
He’s a fellow traveler.
We’ll never know if the war has been extended because the Sevastopol attack was aborted. We do know that since then, thousands of Ukrainians have died, and $ billions of Ukrainian assets have been destroyed.
This is a reminder of how Musk has amassed enormous influence through his dizzying pace of innovation that has left his competitors in the dust. It has also left governments (like our own), tip-toeing in their relationships with SpaceX in particular.
Wrongo thinks that US policymakers were happy to tolerate Musk’s early involvement in Ukraine because it saved money and solved an immediate tactical communications problem. But how wise was that in hindsight? There are reasons why diplomacy and international relations are left to elected governments in the West, and not put in the hands of one tech bro.
Rightwing Republicans have been pushing privatization without regulation for decades. Now that Musk has done just that with satellites and SpaceX, politicians and the mainstream media are shocked to find that the Ultra-Wealthy entrepreneurs don’t really believe in democracy.
Who could have known?
And think about it: Russia under Putin started this war. We’re involved because our national security interests in Europe are under attack by the Russian Federation. That constitutes a war, whether we choose to recognize it or not. Musk’s inaction must be viewed through that lens.
Our forces are not engaging in combat with Russian forces; that’s Russian propaganda. But we have history vs. Russia: We fought against Russian fighter pilots in the Korean war. They had advisors on the ground in Vietnam. We fought a Wagner force in Syria when they attacked our troops.
And Wagner isn’t a rogue mercenary organization. They are an irregular Russian force operating outside the norms of international law.
Musk and quite a few House Republicans need to understand the true nature of this war. We didn’t attack Russia. NATO didn’t attack Russia. And Ukraine didn’t attack Russia. Russia attacked Ukraine with a full scale invasion.
While Putin and his thugs are guilty of aggression, many Americans are guilty of being naïve. They fail to understand what failing in this fight will mean.
Whew! That’s enough for this week, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to find a place of calm and then gather ourselves for another week of polycrisis without end.
We’re aerating the lawns on the fields of Wrong, but only overseeding a small portion of it, since a 50 lb. bag of quality grass seed costs $225 vs. the $75 it was in the before times. Whip Inflation Now!
We’re likely to have thunderstorms for the next few days. So grab a chair by a large south-facing window and watch and listen to Playing For Change’s version of the Grateful Dead’s “Ripple”. It features the Dead’s drummer Bill Kreutzmann along with a host of performers, including the late Jimmy Buffett and David Crosby. Jerry Garcia lent his slide guitar to CSN’s “Teach Your Children” years ago, and Crosby returns the favor here. Time to listen to some feel-good music.
Robert Hunter wrote this song for the Dead in 1970. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Grateful Dead in 1994 and is the only non-performer to be inducted as a member of a band. Hunter was a lyricist:
The Daily Escape:
Wukoki, Wupatli National Monument, AZ – September 2023 photo by David Erickson
September is underway, and we’re about to have a negotiation about government spending. But that doesn’t mean that the news this month will be any less stupid than last month’s. Also, as the Republican presidential candidates demonstrate every day, we don’t actually know whether the GOP is a dying Party or, the rising single Party of an authoritarian state.
Unless and until the traditional press presents these as the stakes, it is very unclear which it’ll end up being. With this as an introduction, Wrongo wants to introduce two writers who are attempting to break through our chain of bad policies and the bad ideology that threatens our democracy.
First, from Wesley Lowery in the Columbia Journalism Review:
“We find ourselves in a perilous moment. Democracy is under withering assault. Technological advances have empowered propagandists to profit through discontent and disinformation. A coordinated, fifty-year campaign waged by one of our major political parties to denigrate the media and call objective reality into question has reached its logical conclusion: we occupy a nation in which a sizable portion of the public cannot reliably tell fact from fiction. The rise of a powerful nativist movement has provided a test not only of American multiracial democracy, but also of the institutions sworn to protect it.”
Lowery is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. He goes on to say:
“In 2020, I argued that the press had often failed this test by engaging in performative neutrality, paint-by-the-numbers balance, and thoughtless deference to government officials. Too many news organizations were as concerned with projecting impartiality as they were with actually achieving it, prioritizing the perception of their virtue in the minds of a hopelessly polarized audience…”
Lowery also says that news organizations often rely on euphemisms instead of clarity in clear cases of racism (“racially charged,” “racially tinged”) and acts of government violence (“officer-involved shooting”). He says that these editorial decisions are not only journalistic failings, but also moral ones:
“…when the weight of the evidence is clear, it is wrong to conceal the truth. Justified as “objectivity,” they are in fact its distortion.”
Lowery concludes by saying:
“It’s time to set aside silly word games and to rise to the urgent test presented by this moment.”
Second, Bob Lord is a tax attorney and associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. He also serves a senior advisor on tax policy for Patriotic Millionaires. At Inequality.org, he proposes a graduated wealth tax on the rich:
“The United States is experiencing a level of wealth inequality not seen since the original Gilded Age. This yawning gap between rich and poor has unfolded right out in the open, in full public view and with the support of both political parties.
A malignant class of modern robber barons has amassed unthinkably large fortunes. These wealthy have catastrophically impacted our politics. They have weaponized their wealth to co-opt, corrupt, and choke off representative democracy. They have purchased members of Congress and justices of the Supreme Court. They have manipulated their newfound political power to amass ever-larger fortunes.”
More from Lord:
“In well-functioning democracies, tax systems serve as a firewall against undue wealth accumulation. By that yardstick, our contemporary US tax system has failed spectacularly….Our nation’s current tax practices allow and even encourage obscene fortunes to metastasize while saddling working people with all the costs of that metastasizing.”
Lord along with the Patriotic Millionaires propose new legislation, called the Oligarch Act (Oppose Limitless Inequality Growth and Reverse Community Harms). It is being brought forward by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Summer Lee (D-PA). The Lees have developed a graduated wealth tax tied directly to the highest wealth in America. The Oligarch Act propose a set of tax rates that escalate as a taxpayer’s wealth escalates:
Per the US Census Bureau, the median household wealth in 2021 was $166,900. So the first tier 2% wealth tax would kick in at $166,900,000, and so on.
This would affect only very high levels of household wealth. To put that in perspective, according to the Federal Reserve, the wealth level that puts you into the top 0.1% of households in 2019 Q3 was $38,233,372. So if enacted, this Act would touch a really small number of outrageously wealthy households. Also, their taxable amount would be peanuts by their own standards.
The legislation would also require at least a 30% IRS audit rate on households affected by the new wealth tax. One recent estimate indicated that the richest Americans dodge taxes on more than 20% of their earnings, costing the federal government around $175 billion in revenue each year.
The immediate argument is that this tax will never pass as long as the filibuster is intact. And here’s how the work of both authors comes together. We see the “it will never pass” objection from journalists and pundits who try to appear savvy in the ways of DC. On any cable news show, someone is sure to jump up to say it.
The paradox is that if you look at the Congressional Record and flip to the special orders section and extensions of remarks, you’ll notice they’re filled with speeches and statements on behalf of recently introduced bills which the sponsors know will never pass as written. So why do they do it?
Because the point of introducing a bill is not just to pass it in the current session of Congress. It never has been. There is a tradition going back to the earliest days of Congress of introducing bills to make arguments and advance debate. Many famous members of Congress (think Ted Kennedy, Thaddeus Stevens, John Quincy Adams) sponsored or backed multiple bills they knew were not going to become laws.
They did it because they knew that debates over bills that will become laws don’t occur in a vacuum. They happen in the greater context of the debate in Congress over issues which are influenced by every other bill under consideration. And of course, you’ve gotta start somewhere.
Jumping to the conclusion “it will never pass” isn’t being savvy, it’s a sign you’ve missed the point. And it’s a sign of the vapidity of so many journalists and pundits that it’s the first thing out if their mouths. It’s never a good idea to take cues from the stuffed shirts on Fox, CNN and Meet The Press.
This graduated wealth tax is a good start and sets a precedent: There is an amount of wealth that is ruinous to democracy. Taxing it is a necessary condition for preserving democratic governance.
It is true that Congress, as it is presently constructed, will not pass this, or other badly needed legislation. A genuine revolution in thinking will be required. Both Wesley Lowery and Bob Love point us toward fresh thinking about how we start dealing with what we consider to be intractable problems.
Wrongo still has hope for the younger generations who are suffering the consequences of all this government sanctioned selfishness.
Change is coming.
The Daily Escape:
Belle, a water taxi in Camden, ME – September 2023 photo by Daniel F. Dishner
Happy Saturday, hopefully, you are getting a great start to a restful Labor Day weekend! This past week, we had friends from Los Angeles stop by the Mansion of Wrong. We had a few bottles of a delightful wine, and the question that never goes away came up again: “Why is Biden doing so badly in the polls?”
There really isn’t a good answer. The economy is doing fine, much better than the pundits expected it would be in the third quarter of 2023. But as Dan Pfeiffer points out:
“…somehow — against all common sense — the 2024 election between a competent President and an incompetent criminal — will be incredibly close. The Real Clear Politics polling average has Biden up by only 1.4%. Biden won the popular vote in 2020 by 4.5%. Given the strong Republican lean of the Electoral College, a Biden popular vote win of this size would likely mean that Trump ends up with 270 electoral votes.”
Now, Wrongo never relies on Real Clear Politics’ average of polls, but they’re not alone in offering up grim polling data, and the one thing Trump beats Biden on in surveys is running the economy, a very scary number :
While the actual economic numbers are good, people mostly look at how much money is in their pockets, asking: “What can I buy, given what I’m earning”? The August jobs report showed continued solid gains in aggregate pay for nonsupervisory workers even after inflation is taken into account. From the Bondad blog:
“Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel increased $.06, or +0.2%, to $29.00, a YoY gain of +4.5%….”
YoY is year over year. By comparison, the most recent Consumer Price Index for July was 3.3%. Pay increases have been outpacing overall CPI inflation this year. So wages are creeping up, inflation is almost under control, and there’s no recession on the horizon.
A helpful statistic is that spending on pleasure boats is near previous highs, Axios reports:
“Why it matters: You don’t buy a boat unless you’re feeling fairly confident the economic wind is at your back. So this is a good sign for the economy. The ongoing boat-buying binge — which began during COVID shutdowns — is another strike against the once dominant “looming recession” narrative.”
One million used boats sold in the last 12 months! One guess as to who’s buying all of these boats: It isn’t the antifa-BLM Marxist globalists from big cities and blue states. Florida and Texas are in the top three states in revenues from boating.
And you won’t buy a boat unless you’re fairly confident that the economic wind is at your back. That means despite what people are telling pollsters, people are feeling pretty good about the economy.
Pfeiffer notes that all isn’t lost. As of now, Biden is in better shape politically than Obama was at this juncture. August of 2011 was the first (and only) time Obama’s approval dropped below 40%, and he was losing to a generic Republican. More:
“The primary reason for the statistical tie in the race is that Trump is holding onto more of his 2020 vote than Biden. In a NYT poll, 91% of Trump’s 2020 voters are supporting him again while only 87% percent of Biden’s voters plan to vote for him in 2024.”
More:
“Among Biden’s 2020 voters, only 77% percent of Democrats in the poll have a favorable opinion of Biden, compared to 80% of Republicans for Trump.”
But Pfeiffer says we shouldn’t panic, because convincing people who have already voted for Biden to vote for him again is doable, and easier than convincing a Trumper to vote for Biden. But despite that, given the Reddish tilt to the Electoral College, we should assume that 2024, like the 2020 presidential election, will depend on a number of voters smaller than the number of attendees at a Taylor Swift concert.
A second point we talked about was Biden’s age. There are two referendums that will be a part of the 2024 presidential election. First, on Trump and his 91 counts. Second, on Biden’s age and whether he seems up to the task going forward.
It’s one thing for Biden to tell us about all that his administration has accomplished in 3 years. His results should be pitched to turn his vulnerability as an older person into a perception of wisdom. He needs to convince voters that the country is on a good path and that Biden, our captain, with his age and experience, has steered us to where we’re starting to see success.
Charlie Sykes suggests the pitch should sound like this:
“We’ve done the hard work. We took the punches. We had a plan and now it’s starting to turn around. So the question is, as we come back, who do you want in charge for the next four years?”
And when Republicans spew their litany of racial hatred, and class warfare, Biden should be saying:
“Working folks like you need cheaper prescription drugs, you need to be able to spend more time with your family by getting better wages for your labor…”
Ultimately 2024 will be about voter turnout. Convincing younger voters and those who aren’t fired up about Biden to come out to the polls will decide America’s fate.
Now take a beat and forget about the many crises we face. Let’s focus instead on our Saturday Soother. We’re expecting beautiful weather in the northeast, and much of our time will be spent outside. So join Wrongo in pulling up a comfy chair in the shade and spend a few minutes watching this lovely video of a Loon family swimming on a lake in a thunderstorm. It’s guaranteed to improve your outlook. You may want to bookmark this video to use whenever our politics are driving you nuts:
The Daily Escape:
Sunrise at Laite Beach, Camden, ME – August 2023 photo by Daniel F. Dishner
There’s plenty of good reporting and bad punditry out of Georgia. So Wrongo, as in the past, will limit what is said about it here. From the NYT’s Peter Baker: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“…most Americans made up their minds about Mr. Trump long before prosecutors like Fani T. Willis or Jack Smith weighed in, polls have shown. He is, depending on the perspective, a serial lawbreaker finally being brought to justice or a victim of persecution by partisans intent on keeping him out of office.”
Republicans will continue to rationalize Trump’s criminal behavior. Their main talking point today is that the Democratic Party is part of a giant deep state cabal working to take down Trump. It is the Dems, not the Donald who are guilty of election interference. And what about the Biden Family Crime Syndicate?
The courts are finally treating Trump as the career criminal he’s always been. And many pundits are shaking their heads, saying that the shock to the American political system is going to be extreme because Republicans are angry.
What the pundits and the wingnuts don’t understand is that the rest of us are angry too. We’re livid that this cancer of a person has evaded justice after what he did post-the 2020 election. We’re enraged that his goons desecrated the Capitol. Finally, we nearly stroked out once we realized that after trying to overthrow our duly elected government, Trump and cronies seemed to get away with it.
And we plan to vote in historic numbers.
Republicans think they are the only side that feels passionately about Jan 6, but that is a huge mistake. Many Americans are angry that justice hasn’t been done. One foundational tenet of the MAGA movement is its southern anti-DC attitude. But Trump has in essence been saying to Georgians that they screwed up. That Georgians held a fraudulent election. It seems highly unlikely that framing will play well with a Fulton County jury. (Although it will only take one MAGA jury member to create a mistrial.)
A few other thoughts: The sooner journalists stop pretending that Republicans care about holding other Republicans accountable, the quicker we can move on to saving our democracy. Most mainstream journalists miss the moment because of their inbred need to show both sides of an argument. It was Jonathan Foster formerly of Sheffield University who said:
“If one person says it’s raining and another says it’s not, a journalist’s job isn’t to report that disagreement, but rather to look out the window.”
America’s journalists should heed Foster’s advice.
Finally, the importance of the Georgia case is that Trump can never pardon himself if he’s found guilty in Georgia. In fact, Georgia’s governor doesn’t have that authority. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“Unlike the federal cases, which could be dismissed by a future Republican president, Georgia’s pardon process is in the hands of an independent board, not the governor. Under the state’s rules, a person needs to wait five years after they serve any prison sentences before they can be considered for a pardon.”
What kind of person holds on to a lie and builds a scaffold of dishonesty around it? At any point in Trump’s Big Lie, from voter fraud to conspiracy, Trump could have said, “I lost fair and square, and I’ll get him next time”. Many in his Party in Georgia did just that. But Trump pushed on. The Senate could have convicted him at a time when the Capitol was in a damaged hulk. That also could have spared the country where we are today. But most Senate Republicans couldn’t find the courage.
Another tragedy is the enduring distrust of and lost faith in those America’s institutions that still function, if tenuously, today. Whether Trump wins or loses these cases, or whether he wins the White House again, this damage will take decades to undo.
We have zero control over what happens next in the various courtrooms. We have no influence over the juries who will weigh the evidence. Whatever the result, it will be divisive. But we won’t heal unless we lance the boil. Yes that means Wrongo is saying that Trump is a festering abscess poisoning our nation.
We need open, transparent trials, with public records of all witnesses and evidence. No one should argue for pardoning Trump because they’re afraid of his insurrectionist allies.
Trump and America deserve REAL trials, with REAL sentences. And we can move forward from there.
We were wrong to pardon Nixon. We let other Republicans (like Reagan and Bush Sr.) slide based on a wrong-headed sense of respect for the office, setting a bad precedent. It encouraged later Republican presidents to think they could rely on magnanimity when none was deserved.
Nail the crooks, starting with Trump.
The Daily Escape:
Glacier Park Lodge, Glacier NP, MT – August 2023 photo by Jack Bell Photography
Wrongo’s Magic 8 Ball says “yes”. Let’s start with the Ohio Republicans failing to pass a state constitutional amendment that would have required a 60% supermajority to amend their constitution instead of a simple majority. That means the GOP failed to make it more difficult to enshrine abortion as a right in the state.
Ohioans voted 57% against the amendment. It followed similar unexpected defeats in Kansas and Michigan, along with losing the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. These are Republican losses in very conservative places. From the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“A review of six statewide votes since last year, including Ohio’s, shows that in 500 of 510 counties, access to abortion outperformed President Biden’s 2020 results….Across those counties, including a lot of deep-red ones, the margin of support for abortion access topped Biden’s 2020 margin by an average of 26 points, a significant shift to the left….Of the 510 counties included in the analysis, only two counties that voted for Biden in 2020 also opposed access to abortion. Among Trump-voting counties, 81 supported that access.”
These local MAGA stalwarts are getting their clocks cleaned on culture war issues. Republicans have repeatedly shown that their abortion agenda and their authoritarian agenda are really one and the same. And this week’s sweeping pro-choice victory in red Ohio shows once again that a majority of voters find both of those linked agendas repulsive. Politico quotes a national Republican operative:
“It has become quite difficult to rely on state parties….Because people who are involved for the right reasons…are pushed out, and now you’re stuck dealing with fringe characters who don’t know how to win elections, can’t be trusted to manage resources, and play with people’s worst instincts.”
In the Ohio aftermath, it seems that Republican politicians are still thinking that women in America will forget about abortion rights by the time 2024 rolls around. But it turns out most normal people don’t care much for sex-obsessed Republicans peeping through their bedroom keyholes.
And there are other problems for state-level Republican Parties. The National Review reported that in four key states, the state Republican parties are collapsing, either by going broke and devolving into infighting:
“Even worse for the GOP, these aren’t just any states — Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota all rank as either key swing states or once-purple states that would be tantalizing targets in a good year.”
More: (brackets and parenthesis by Wrongo)
“If Republicans [lose]….the 2024 elections…(which would be their fourth straight loss)….a key factor will be the replacement of competent, boring, regular state-party officials with…blustering nutjobs who have little or no interest in the basics of successfully managing a state party or the basic blocking and tackling involved in helping GOP candidates win elections.”
Back to Politico:
“Michigan’s Republican party is broke. Minnesota’s was, until recently, down to $53.81 in the bank. And in Colorado, the GOP is facing eviction from its office this month because it can’t make rent. Around the nation, state Republican party apparatuses — once bastions of competency that helped produce statehouse takeovers — have become shells of their former machines amid infighting and a lack of organization.”
OTOH, there will be plenty of Republican money flowing into these states in 2024 general election via Super PACs. That will largely be directed at turning out Republicans in support of their presidential candidate, but it will also help down ballot Republicans as well.
Democrats see an opening in some swing states and are redoubling their efforts to win more state legislative races, but the national Republicans has given some help to local parties.
In June, the Minnesota State Party received a $160,000 transfer from Protect the House 2024, a fundraising committee backed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Other state parties critical to the fight for the House including Pennsylvania, California and New York also got six-figure checks from the McCarthy-controlled fundraising operation in June.
The conservative youth PAC Turning Point USA has announced it’s expanding efforts in Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia ahead of 2024. Turning Point plans to spend $108 million in those three states and says it has recruited 3,000 state party precinct leaders around the nation since 2020. They will use this group to influence state parties to replace traditional local GOP leadership.
Finally, two Republicans made moves to join Republican Senate primaries in which they aren’t wanted. In each case, the candidate could win the party’s nomination, but would almost certainly get beaten by a more moderate Democrat in the general election. Toxic cloud Kari Lake appears to be joining the Arizona race, and in Montana, Rep. Matt Rosendale wants to run against Democrat John Tester. Rosendale lost to Tester by 3 points in 2018. The state GOP’s choice is retired Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy.
All of this should be good for Democrats, but as always, turnout will decide the 2024 election. As long as Republicans keep serving up pretend culture war issues that are unpopular with voters, it looks like Dems will do better in 2024 than recent polling predicts.
Happy Saturday! It’s time for our Saturday Soother. Here in the northeast, we’re having temperate weather, with scattered showers later. So quickly grab tall glass of lemonade and a chair outdoors in the shade. Now spend a few minutes thinking about Robbie Robertson of The Band who died last Wednesday. Somehow, this one hurts Wrongo a little more than the deaths of most musical contemporaries. The big irony is Robertson is categorized in “Americana” music despite having been born and raised in Canada.
Wrongo has previously featured Robertson and The Band six times. Here are two tunes to watch. First, a reworking of The Band’s classic tune, “The Weight” written by Robertson and remade in 2019 for the 50th anniversary of the song.
It was produced by the charity, Playing For Change and features musicians performing together across 5 continents, led by Robertson and Ringo Starr. The musicians are incredible, but whoever mixed and edited the video deserved a Grammy. The shift between vocalists and locations feels seamless. The sound is nicely balanced, and the editor also gives each musician a sufficient share of the limelight. Take a load off and turn it up. Trust Wrongo, you won’t be disappointed:
Second, here’s one from the 1978 epic “The Last Waltz” a documentary film by Martin Scorsese capturing The Band’s last performance. Watch and listen to “Further On Up The Road“, first recorded by Bobby “Blue” Bland. That’s Levon Helm on drums and Robbie Robertson on guitar along with Eric Clapton. A little known fact is that Clapton asked to join The Band in 1968. They said no:
In these two videos, we see Robertson as a young man playing alongside Clapton. And we also see him fifty years later as a 76 year old, reprising a song he had written in 1968. Thanks Robbie!
NY Magazine has an article about Biden’s weirdest White House habits. What struck Wrongo was this:
“While you might think the addition of a cat would make the White House feel more like a home, it seems that hasn’t solved the problem. In January 2023 the president revealed that his new cat Willow is adding to his discomfort.
“Willow may walk in here any time now. She has no limits” Biden said. “You think I’m kidding, I’m not. Especially in the middle of the night when she climbs up and lays on top of my head.”
No wonder Biden seems to have less hair. In Wrongo’s experience, dogs will cuddle but would never sleep on your head…although maybe nose to nose. NY Mag must be starved for real content. On to cartoons.
Florida redefines slavery’s harm:
White guy’s thickest whitewash now available in Florida:
RFK jr isn’t on the same planet that his father walked:
GOP helps RFK jr in tearing down Camelot and building SCAMALOT:
This Fall’s new TV hit:
GOP persists in its Trumpy love:
The Daily Escape:
Harbor Seals hauling out on a buoy in Petersburg, AK. Wrongo and Ms. Right were passing by in a zodiac – July 2023 photo via the cruise line
It seems like it’s going to stay hot for a long while, and nobody wants to do anything about it. Temperatures are rising both on land and at sea, with climate experts ringing alarm bells about unprecedented sea surface temperatures:
“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in late June warned that half of the world’s oceans may experience marine heat wave conditions by September.”
And it’s hitting close to home:
“Not only is Florida sizzling in record-crushing heat, but the ocean waters that surround it are scorching, as well. The unprecedented ocean warmth around the state — connected to historically warm oceans worldwide — is further intensifying its heat wave and stressing coral reefs, with conditions that could end up strengthening hurricanes.”
The NYT reported that the water temperature around Florida hit 90° yesterday.
And while it’s possible to score cheap political points on their governor DeSantis who would rather fight with Mickey Mouse and whatever “Woke” means this week while ignoring climate change, Wrongo won’t stoop to that. He’s sure that Floridians love their governor’s priorities. Just last week, as insurance companies were pulling out of Florida, DeSantis was saying not to worry, the insurers will return to Florida after the hurricane season.
As Pogo said many years ago: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Primarily, the enemy is the Republican politician who continues to vote against efforts to bring the world’s CO2 levels under some semblance of control. The fixes to climate change that will have the most impact involve changes in public policy that will never happen as long as Republicans hold enough votes to block them.
But the big idea is that we’re not going back to where we were heat-wise, no matter what we do to cut further CO2 emissions. As NYT journalist Jeff Goodell said on NPR: (brackets by Wrongo)
“We are moving into a different world, and we need to grasp that idea….the planet is heating up…because we’re putting CO2 into the atmosphere…..It is essentially permanent when we put it [CO2] up there….And the warming will not stop until we stop emitting CO2 and burning fossil fuels….And even if we stop [adding more] CO2, we are stuck with that warming planet for a very long time.”
So, even if at this moment we made huge changes, we would always be on this part of the temperature scale, unless we figure out how to take quite a bit of that CO2 out of the atmosphere.
A few red state legislatures are considering following South Carolina’s lead and simply banning all mention of global warming or climate change in official documents or state-funded research. They think the only real way to deal with the climate problem is to ignore it.
Worse, nobody has a good model for what happens when all that warm water sits and gets warmer. Some meteorologists have pointed out that if the Caribbean got hot enough, it could spawn a continuous series of Category 5 hurricanes, say, once a week from May to October.
Which would resolve the problem of insuring Florida’s oceanfront properties pretty quickly.
It’s becoming evident that we live in a world designed for a climate that no longer exists. What’s really sobering is that the climate that now exists won’t resemble the one that will exist a generation from now.
How our societies and political systems deal with this is the central question of the 21st century.
Wrongo and Ms. Right moved back to New England from California partly because of climate. We were concerned about how scarce water would become in Los Angeles, and we knew that Connecticut would have more water for longer. This week, several of our roads and bridges closed because we had too much rain, causing the Housatonic River to overflow its banks.
This shows that there are no longer any places that can be marked safe from climate change. It has become impossible to predict the future climate/weather anywhere based on the past. And we’re still not coming to terms with just how hot and dangerous things are becoming. Or how fast it’s happening.
Let’s close the week with a wake up tune. Here’s “The Effects of Climate Change on Densely Populated Areas” by People Under The Stairs, a hip hop group from LA formed in 1997:
Sample Lyric:
Hundred degrees at midnight for the third day in a row
Nobody sleepin’ well and I can feel the tension growin’
LA wth rollin’ brownouts, rollin’ papers and rollin’ sixties
Heat exhaustion increasing caution across the city
Some people hit the mall, they’re tryin’ to stay cool
Some people call the cops; “there’s black children in the pool”
Everybody’s lookin’ sideways, we’re ragin’ on the highways
I hate it, I’m tryin’ to stay hydrated and faded but my way Is blocked
By road construction like a scene from “Falling Down”
Cops, they tryin’ to function but it seems they takin’ down us
Brown people at will People get hot and then killed
As the sun begins to set it’s hotter, no-one can chill
Everybody’s windows open there’s not a moment of silence
Alcohol heatin’ frustration that’s increasing domestic violence
9-1-1 is overwhelmed, homie, guess you on your own
The hills are still on fire, I recommend you stay at home
The Daily Escape:
Another Alaska pic: Wrongo was in a kayak about 20 yards from this big guy asking himself whether he could out-paddle a charging grizzly. June 21, 2023 photo by Kristina Rau for the cruise line.
Today let’s talk about two interrelated economic issues. First, with more than 200,000 jobs created in the US economy in June, nearly 4 million more people are now employed than just before the pandemic.
Heather Long at the WaPo looked at who’s getting them. Along the way, she busts a few Right Wing myths:
“The mistaken notion that Americans don’t want to work can now be put to rest. Nearly 81% of Americans ages 25 to 54 are working, the highest share since 2001.”
Long reminds us that in March 2022, Fed Chair Powell argued the labor market was “unhealthy”:
“There was a misguided belief that it would take a recession to get supply and demand for goods — and workers — back to more normal levels. But what many experts missed was how many workers of color and immigrants wanted to work and were still looking for opportunities.”
Long provides the demographic breakdown for our recent job gains:
“Fewer White people are employed now than pre-pandemic. In contrast, over 2 million more Hispanics are employed now, over 800,000 more Asian Americans and over 750,000 more African Americans.”
Before the pandemic, companies were complaining that they couldn’t find workers, while the experts were saying the nation was at “full employment.” However, every month, Black and Hispanic people (largely women) kept entering the labor force and getting jobs.
Also, more than 2 million more foreign-born people are employed now than before the pandemic. This means that more than half of the new workers have been immigrants.
This is partly a result of low unemployment. Blacks and Hispanics often do not get hired until late in an economic recovery. In the past year, there’s also been a strong uptick in jobs in government and health care, two sectors in which women of color have historically found employment opportunities.
Employers have also loosened their hiring criteria, offering improved pay and benefits, and removing requirements for college degrees for many positions. Long says:
“This past spring, for the first time, Black Americans were as likely to be employed as White Americans.”
What a change! Hard to see much “socialism” in this new jobs analysis. This is good news that disputes the old Right wing bromides about how “these folks don’t want work; they want to sit back and get free stuff”.
Second, the WaPo’s Department of Data, a new statistical analysis feature, answered the question:
“Which states contribute the most to the federal budget in taxes, and which get the most back in terms of benefits?”
They start by reminding us where tax revenue comes from:
“The vast bulk of the $4 trillion in revenue the federal government received in 2021 came in the form of income taxes and payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security. Most of the rest comes from corporate income taxes and excise taxes on goods such as gasoline and alcohol.”
And just 4.5% of that income (customs duties and earnings on Federal Reserve deposits) cannot be traced to individual states.
But let’s get to the good stuff. Just eight blue states, (CA, NY, NJ, MA, CT, WA, NH, and CO) pay more in taxes to the federal government than they receive in federal benefits. They therefore subsidize all other states. Every other state receives more federal money than they pay in taxes.
And unsurprisingly 9 of the 11 top recipients of federal benefits are red states (KY, WVA, MS, AL, AK, LA, OK, AK, SC).
Nine of the 10 states that sent the most to the federal government, per person, voted for Biden in 2020. Nine of the 10 states that sent the least voted for Trump. So who’s got the bigger stake in socialism?
Its important to remember that when Republicans complain about “out of control” federal spending, most of them live in a state that receives more from the federal government than they contribute.
If we ever called their bluff, Republicans would scramble to decide what federal benefits their home states would be willing to give up in order to cut federal spending.
But of course, they would simply bluster on about socialism in the cities.
Maybe we should divide America into the MAKER states and the TAKER states. It’s nice to see that the data again shows Blue states are far more productive. Maybe another question for the Department of Data is:
“Why is higher income so closely aligned with support for Democrats?”