Category: Congress

Cartoons Of The Week

(The Wrongologist will not publish a Monday Wake Up Call column this week)

Last week ended with a New York judge handing Trump a crushing defeat in his civil fraud case, finding the former president liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and ordering him to pay a penalty of $355 million. In addition to the monetary penalty, Justice Engoron imposed a three-year ban preventing Trump from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity for three years.

The verdict was civil, not criminal. That means Trump hasn’t yet been convicted of a crime, but he has been declared a fraud by the state of New York. He’s settled numerous fraud trials before this one, notably the Trump University case, in which he was barred from ever running another charity in New York after he defrauded little kids with cancer.

It’s the Democrats’ job to see that this stays in the forefront of the voters’ minds. When you’re barred from running a business in New York, how can Republicans make the case that you’re qualified to run the country? Or if you’re in debt bigly, wouldn’t it be tempting to take a few bribes? Or sell a few classified documents? On to cartoons.

Trump now has some thinking to do:

OTOH, he’s proving surprisingly difficult to kill:

The Kansas City Super Bowl parade becomes just another unsafe place:

The Ukraine city, Avdiivka fell on Friday because it didn’t receive ammo from the US on time:

Trump offers gift to Putin:

RIP Alexy Navalny:

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Cartoons Of The Week – February 11, 2024

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

Plenty of Super Bowl-adjacent cartoons this week but let’s start  by looking at two overlooked stories. First, the Nevada primary. It’s another case where the media decided there wasn’t anything worthwhile to cover. Except for Nevada’s own journalist, John Ralston:

Seems as if no one’s reporting that Biden got twice as many votes as Trump in the Nevada primary. Maybe they’re still covering Robert Hur’s feelings about Biden?

Second, you probably missed the Trump administration’s IG Report about the medical unit in Trump’s White House:

“The drugs dispensed included Fentanyl. Morphine, Ketamine, Hydrocodone, Provigil, Ambien, Diazepam, Versed, and Tramadol.”

Neither the pharmacy nor the WH’s clinical operations were credentialed by an outside agency. However, they saw an average of 6 to 20 of the patients seen each week who were not eligible to receive care from the pharmacy. There was little mainstream media coverage of this story. On to cartoons.

Everybody likes the commercials:

It’s hard to escape politics even at America’s biggest show:

Even the Super Bowl’s real narratives will get twisted:

The DOJ gave Biden a beating last week:

Everybody’s got memory problems:

 

Tucker Carlson interviews Putin:

 

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Saturday’s Hot Links

The Daily Escape:

Grand Canyon, South Kabab Trail, AZ – February 2024 photo by Lynsey Schroeder

We’ve made it to Super Bowl weekend, but not without bumps and a few bruises caused by this week’s edition of America’s dysfunctional politics. Today, let’s do a lightning round of mostly bad and a few good stories from the past week.

First up, Special counsel Robert Hur has released his report declining charges against Biden in his classified documents case but finding he did willfully retain information. In the report, Hur goes out of his way to paint a damning portrait of the President. He cites several examples of memory lapses and describes Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Hur’s message boils down to this: a well-intentioned, forgetful old man took the wrong stuff home from work. He “willfully retained” it, but we’re gonna let him go. Not because he’s president, but because we’re nice guys. Sotto voce: (because we probably couldn’t prove criminal intent). Maybe the DOJ felt Trump needed a win after 91 felonies.

There’s a pattern to the DOJ’s appointments of special counsels:

What’s amazing is that Biden now faces more heat from the media for being found innocent than Trump will if he’s found guilty. The multiple questions by reporters at Thursday night’s Biden press conference showed just how difficult it is for America’s media to focus on what’s important. The White House Press Corps should collectively be ashamed of its behavior during the press conference. They behaved like a pack of rabid hyenas.

Why the horrible behavior toward Biden, and the deference to Trump? Mainstream media outlets have long been obsessed with Biden’s age. They have not, however, given the same attention to Trump’s age or to his gaffes and incoherent comments. It’s sad that we’re in a situation where Trump’s multiple indictments seemingly are politically advantageous to him, and Biden’s exoneration is politically terrible for him.

Given the media’s obsession, it won’t matter how well Biden does in public. If he makes one mental slip it becomes confirmation that the biggest concern about him is true. He can’t be perfect every day for the next nine months. Nobody can.

Next, Reuters reported that the Hawaii Supreme Court has upheld the state’s laws that generally prohibit carrying a firearm in public without a license. In the process, they criticized the US Supreme Court’s rulings that have expanded gun rights:

“The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.”

This is a direct attack on the US Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in “New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen” which recognized for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. More:

“The Government’s interest in reducing firearms violence through reasonable weapons regulations has preserved peace and tranquility in Hawai’i. A free-wheeling right to carry guns in public degrades other constitutional rights….The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness encompasses a right to freely and safely move in peace and tranquility. Laws regulating firearms in public preserve…liberty and advance these rights….There is no individual right to keep and bear arms under Article I, Section 17. So there is no constitutional right to carry a firearm in public for possible self-defense.”

Hawaii for the win!

Third, on February 9, 1964, 60 years ago, Ed Sullivan hosted the Beatles on his show. If you’re a member of the baby boomer generation, chances are you were sitting in front of a television that night. Seventy-three million Americans joined in to watch something they had never seen before. You can wake up old memories by watching “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” here.

Fourth, after blocking the border bill on Wednesday, Senate Republicans allowed a clean funding bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan to advance toward a vote. In the meantime, Ukraine is close to losing Avdeevka, a major eastern city to the Russians.

Fifth, disinformation watchdog groups have uncovered a covert, coordinated Russian effort to spread disinformation via Telegram and X/Twitter across the Texas border about a US Civil War:

“The disinformation campaign…expanded after Russian politicians spoke out when the US Supreme Court lifted an order by a lower court and sided with….Biden’s administration to rule that US Border Patrol officers were allowed to take down razor-wire fencing erected by the Texas National Guard…..There also appear to be a number of Russian accounts on X posing as pro-Texas groups, in another echo of 2016 when an account that claimed to be run by Tennessee Republicans was outed as Russian-run.

One of the suspect accounts is the Texan Independence Supporters, which has already been called out for spelling errors and constantly referencing Ukraine and Russia. On Sunday, the account claimed “we are a Texan organization, not Russian. We can definitely assure ya’ll [sic] that we’re not Russian.”

Another reminder that the internet is a cesspool.

Enough! It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we stop obsessively scrolling through our news feeds and take a few moments to chillax and gather ourselves for another week hearing all the reasons why it’s necessary to continue bombing Palestinians.

Here at the Mansion of Wrong we’re preparing to host a small Super Bowl viewing party with as many high-calorie, high-fat appetizers as we can eat.

To help you relax, find a spot near a south-facing window and watch and listen to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”.  February 12th is the 100th anniversary of this work that combines jazz and classical origins into an iconic American work. Here it is performed by Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic while playing solo piano in 1976 in Frankfurt, Germany:

(hat tip to Marguerite S.)

Wrongo was struck by how Bernstein was able to conduct and play. Maybe multi-tasking IS possible.

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More Than The Border Bill Died This Week

The Daily Escape:

Trillium Lake, with Mt. Hood in background, OR – February 2024 photo by Mitch Schreiber Photography

In negotiations, there are four possible outcomes, two for “Yes” and two for “No”. The answers can come quickly or slowly. The fast “Yes” generally means that we offered more than we had to, while the fast “No” means there wasn’t enough in the deal for the other side to truly consider it. The worst outcome is the slow “No”. It burns tons of calories, and delays work on other important things. It is the most frustrating result for a negotiation, always raising the question of whether the other side was really negotiating in good faith.

Welcome to America’s politics in 2024 where if it wasn’t for bad faith, there would be no faith at all. Wrongo is speaking about the so-called border bill. Republicans had insisted that any allocation of funding for Ukraine be tied to an agreement about the border, saying that no money should go abroad until the US has addressed border security concerns here at home. They were also saying that the Democrats would need to agree to deal points that in the past, would have been very hard for the Dems to swallow.

But this past Sunday, Senate negotiators released the details of their hard-fought bipartisan border agreement which is harsher than we would have seen under any Democratic administration or Congressional majority in the last 40 years. The Dems agreed to the terms because it was the price House Republicans demanded in order to fund Ukraine. So naturally, House Republicans immediately declared it dead on arrival. This wasn’t a shock because they’ve been saying that for weeks despite not knowing precisely what was in the language of the bill.

The bad faith started with House Speaker Johnson (R-Bible) lying to the media by suggesting that he wasn’t consulted on the negotiations, a contention refuted by the principal GOP negotiator, Sen. James Lankford, (R-OK) who said that Johnson had declined his invitation to participate.

That led to an avalanche of slow “No’s” by Republicans in the Senate. The GOP’s default to “No” is for the moment, an election year strategy. They see border chaos as an important weapon against Biden in November. But the GOP often says “No” simply because it can’t figure out what else that divided caucus wants to do. They sometimes prefer foaming rage to solutions, or to victories.

As Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) tweeted:

“I’ve never seen anything like it….They literally demanded specific policy, got it, and then killed it.”

You can’t engage in bad faith negotiations and expect that the other side will forget about it when the next issue comes along.

It’s unclear if this is a moment of Republican/Trumpian desperation or madness. But they came out against a serious, bipartisan bill targeted at what they said was required in order to tackle our border challenges. The Border Patrol Union, which endorsed Trump in 2020, has endorsed the Senate bill. The WSJ editorial page has endorsed the bill. Neither of these are Biden supporters.

The GOP is now committed to a policy that will keep our borders, which they say are in existential crisis, in chaos. They believe that chaos serves their 2024 political goals of winning the White House, while sweeping the Senate and the House. Wrongo is re-upping his quotes from Ezra Klein about American’s desire to vote for stability:

“Biden and his allies are framing this election as order against chaos. The party that gets things done against the party that will make America come undone.”

And this:

“…Democrats are right that voters are craving stability. But…Trump is leading in many polls because voters believe that he is the one who might offer it. What Trump is pitching….is a push for order — ‘I am going to be the one who secures the border. I’m going to be the one that cracks down on crime. I’m going to be the one that tries to stabilize your prices.’”

So where do we go from here? It would be nice to think that if they really want stability, the American people will see through all this and realize how the Republican Party has grown so adept at holding hostages. Their MAGA wing represents a minority within a minority, yet our institutional rules permit them to veto decisions clearly favored by a majority of Americans.

But, with all the noise, it’s difficult to understand if voters can hear this even if they’re paying attention. Walking away from the border bill has enormous implications for the presidential election. With Biden’s economy going gangbusters (even Fox News admits that); with the inflation Republicans had expected to run on falling; with unemployment at historic lows and the stock market at historic highs; with the end of Roe trailing Trump like a dark cloud; he (and the GOP) have limited narratives left for waging his 2024 campaign, except fearmongering about border security.

Today’s chaos will become tomorrow’s over the imminent need to fund the government. Speaker Johnson has until March 1 and March 8 to get deals with the Senate and the President if we are to avoid another government shutdown. Right now, it’s difficult to see how any good faith negotiations will occur after what has happened this week with the border bill.

The government funding chaos isn’t on the voters’ radar just yet. So Democrats ought to go on offense about the border bill, describing what’s in it, where the GOP is lying about it, and how even when you meet Republicans more than halfway, they move the goal posts. The Dems need to make every Republican House and Senate member defend killing the border bill vote every day between here and the election, by making the immigration bill a central message of Biden’s reelection campaign.

As the Cato Institute reported last November:

“The Biden Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has removed a higher percentage of arrested border crossers in its first two years than the Trump DHS did over its last two years. Moreover, migrants were more likely to be released after a border arrest under President Trump than under President Biden. In absolute terms, the Biden DHS is removing 3.5 times as many people per month as the Trump DHS did.”

But those are facts, not feelings. Time to dust off this snippet of Stephen Sondheim’s song, “Send in the Clowns“:

Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you’d want what I want

Sorry, my dear

But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns
Don’t bother, they’re here

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What’s South Carolina’s Democratic Primary Telling Us?

The Daily Escape:

After the storm, Southern AZ – February 2024 photo by Leila Shehab

Welcome to the Monday Wake Up Call. Let‘s start with a quick review of the South Carolina Democratic primary: Biden won. He swept every county, garnering 96% of the vote overall and 95% or better in every county. At the watch party, people were headed out the doors less than an hour after polls closed. Here’s an MSNBC screen grab that says it all:

With the Biden vote so dominant and the race so noncompetitive, turnout was low, at 131,000. In 2020, with no competitive Republican primary and 12 Democrats on the ballot, 536,949 people voted. That means we didn’t learn very much about voter engagement for 2024.

And once again, the advance polling couldn’t be trusted. Here’s what Emerson College found on Jan. 5, 2024 just four weeks prior to the primary:

This meant that there were 23% undecided in early January. We all know that there are months to go before the general election this fall. It seems certain that Biden and the Democrats are currently testing the effectiveness of messages across the various voting cohorts in the US.

Democratic politicians and MSNBC pundits keep hammering on Trump’s threat to democracy. But how to tell the story about Biden’s first term in ways that normal people can understand? Is the implied threat of an authoritarian takeover by Trump enough to propel turnout in the fall? Or should the message focus on how much better off people are three years on from Trump?

The continued strength of the broader economy is finally starting to break through to people’s consciousness. But Biden and the Democrats still have to sell the Biden recovery and not flinch from fears that voters won’t buy it because they don’t feel it. Anat Shenker-Osorio famously said in an article in 2017 for The Hill, that Democrats shouldn’t just take the country’s temperature, they should change it.

Ezra Klein offered thoughts about American’s need to vote for stability:

“Biden and his allies are framing this election as order against chaos. The party that gets things done against the party that will make America come undone.”

More:

“…Democrats are right that voters are craving stability. But…Trump is leading in many polls because voters believe that he is the one who might offer it. What Trump is pitching….is a push for order — ‘I am going to be the one who secures the border. I’m going to be the one that cracks down on crime. I’m going to be the one that tries to stabilize your prices.’”

More:

“I’ve struggled with this portrayal of Trump as the candidate of stability. I doubt it can survive the gale-force winds of the actual campaign he will run, of the things people will hear and see from him when they tune in to the election.”

Finally:

“…Democrats are having trouble persuading voters of their central pitch: that they are the party of stability. It does not feel like a stable time. It is not Biden’s fault that the world is tumultuous. But that does not mean he will not be blamed for it.”

That’s where Wrongo parts ways with Ezra. He’s not certain that voters who yearn for stability will cast their lonely eyes on Trump. Think about how effective Nikki Haley’s message is that chaos follows wherever Trump goes. Trump’s base isn’t buying that, but that criticism was successful for Haley with Independents in New Hampshire, and will be effective with the “never Trumpers”.

As far as what will motivate 2024 voters to turn out? Wrongo is struggling with how to balance the need to defend America from the authoritarian Right and the kitchen table issues. Wrongo was in high school when the John Birchers were insisting that the threat of creeping communism required a militarist leader to keep America safe. That led to the Republicans nominating Barry Goldwater, at the time a member of the radical Right. The Birchers’ Republican heirs today have moved beyond Goldwater. They hunger for a fascist strong man.

Do average voters see this threat, or are they fretting so much about overpaying for their rent and groceries to care?

And the stability argument resonates with Wrongo. This Sunday brings the Super Bowl, which used to be the one television event that would still unite America. But a significant minority of Americans now think it’s a PsyOp to make Trump lose the election. Klein says in his article that:

“The cliché used to be that Democrats fell in love and Republicans fell in line. The reality, in recent years, has been that Democrats fall in line and Republicans fall apart.”

Time to wake up America! The choice whenever voting starts in your precinct this fall is between chaos and stability. We must stay obsessed with turning out Independents and unaffiliated, along with the Republican “never Trumpers” whose collective votes will ultimately determine the 2024 election.

Biden has to lead the way, and he’s got to do more interviews even though it increases exposure to his age as an issue.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Doreen Shaffer & the Skatalites tune, “You’re Wondering Now”. This was covered and popularized by the UK group The Specials in the 1980s. The Skatalites did this in 1968. But they were covering “You’re Wondering Now” by Andy and Joey, another Jamaican group who first performed it in 1963. Ska is a happy sounding form of music that featured a bass line on the off beat. In the early 1960s it was the dominant music genre in Jamaica and was also popular with the British mods. Shaffer’s voice is pure and wonderful:

Sample Lyrics:

You’re wondering now, what to do, now you know this is the end
You’re wondering how, you will pay, for the way you did behave

Curtain has fallen, now you’re on your own
I won’t return, forever you will wait

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Cartoons Of The Week

We’ve made it to Sunday, meaning we’ll see another week of speculation about the Super Bowl. But today, Wrongo wants to briefly talk about two events. First, Georgia’s Trump prosecutor Fani Willis admitted that she’s been having an affair with Nathan Wade, the man she hired to head the prosecution of Donald Trump and others for election fraud in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Since not everyone loves a lover (see Swift, Taylor), this has caused the scheduled Trump trial to at best, be postponed while Georgia figures out if there is sufficient grounds for Willis to step down.

It’s true that none of this makes any of the facts of the case less truthful. And the affair didn’t stop a unanimous grand jury from indicting 19 people. Moreover, it doesn’t make any of Trump’s actions any less damaging to our country. It’s just another way for Republicans to shift attention away from Trump, not by showing why he’s innocent, but by pretending those who are holding him accountable are actually the bad people.

This is a great example of why professional boundaries exist and should be respected. Willis and Wade have opened themselves up to scrutiny by working together on such a high-profile case while being romantically involved. It will at the very least delay and could risk this consequential prosecution.

Second, the US strikes in Iraq and Syria have been panned/condemned by many media and politicians. In truth, the strikes were on Iran’s Quds Force operating in both countries. This is an escalation from Biden’s former reactions to attacks in Syria and Iraq, and it’s a significant escalation. From David Rothkopf:

“This is a carefully thought-out attack. It is what would be called in baseball “a purpose pitch.” It was conceived to send a strong message to Iran: “Don’t mess with us”….Hitting 85 targets, with bombers from the US and aircraft from across the region…on short notice and the promise of more to come sends a message that goes beyond retaliation….I see a lot of folks calling this an escalation and striking…Quds Force targets is that. But it is also an escalation designed to deter future strikes and avoid further escalations. Which was called for in this case.”

There is so many negative narratives out there that Wrongo wanted to add his two cents on these. Now on to cartoons.

Taylor scares the MAGAs:

The  MAGA-verse is manly:

Border crisis isn’t a crisis for the GOP:

The twin Republican messages about the border:

Nikki Haley’s campaign is faltering:

What Zuckerberg should have said to Sen. Hawley:

Groundhog Day isn’t always about the weather:

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Biden’s Dilemma

The Daily Escape:

Highlands, Nantahala National Forest, NC – January 2024 photo by Michele Schwartz

The drone strike on a US base in Jordan killed three American troops and wounded at least 34 more. The base is called Tower 22. The attack has had several effects: First, it makes very real the likelihood of a widening conflict in the Middle East (ME). Second it has caused another partisan fire storm in US politics. Biden vowed to respond to the assault, blaming Iran-backed militias for the first US military casualties in the many similar strikes in the region since the start of the Israel/Hamas war. Here’s a map showing where the attack happened:

Basically, this is a logistics location for US troops in Syria at the US military base at al-Tanf, just 12 miles north of Tower 22. Tanf has been the key support location in the US effort to control ISIS in Syria and to contain Iran’s military build-up in eastern Syria. From AP News:

“Since the war in Gaza began Oct. 7, Iranian-backed militias have struck American military installations in Iraq more than 60 times and in Syria more than 90 times, with a mix of drones, rockets, mortars and ballistic missiles. The attack Sunday was the first targeting American troops in Jordan during the Israel-Hamas war and the first to result in the loss of American lives.”

The timing of this attack could hardly be worse. What began in October as a war between Israel and Hamas has now morphed with involvement by militants from four other Arab states. In addition Iran, Israel and Jordan all bombed Syria this month. Iran also bombed Pakistan, and Pakistan retaliated.

All of this is tit-for-tat in which American airstrikes against militias in Iraq or Syria, alternate with more militia attacks on the US installations. This illustrates the ME mission creep since last October. Whatever the original mission was for US troops in Syria, Jordan, and Iraq is now being sidelined as protection of the troop presence itself becomes the main concern.

All of these tit-for-tats carry an extreme risk of escalation into a larger conflict.

Iran has a network of proxy militias to project power across the ME. It is trying to support them while simultaneously trying to remain outside of the conflict. While Iran has tacitly accepted Israel’s targeting of Hamas, it  has been loath to unleash Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fearing that Israel (or the US) will hit back at Iran directly. Iran would like to force Israel into a ceasefire in Gaza and force American troops out of the ME. So far, its proxies have achieved only an increased American presence.

If we assume that the Tower 22 hit was a deliberate hit, (the base has been there for several years), it’s certain that militias in the area knew where to hit it to achieve a maximum result. Expanding from that, the US has about a thousand bases scattered around the world that are used to influence local operations, etc. Up to now, the US has considered them as assets. But if they suddenly become targets, trying to defend them simultaneously will be as difficult as defending ships in the Red Sea: Impossible. On the other hand, they are excellent targets if the US wants to be provoked into attacking Iran.

If such attacks continue, the position of these bases is going to become untenable and will pose a massive political problem for Biden.

Biden has fallen into a trap. And worse, it is Israel that placed Biden in the trap by not even trying to find a way to de-escalate the war with Hamas and bring Israeli hostages home. Biden’s support for Israel and his gentle pressure on Netanyahu to stop killing Gazans hasn’t worked; it also helped Biden fall in the trap. Biden should stop letting Bibi lead him around by the nose.

Biden can retaliate directly inside Iran, which will likely escalate the tit-for-tat attacks. And if taken as far as certain Republican pols want to go, it will endanger the Straits of Hormuz and risk doubling oil prices.

Worse in some ways, direct retaliation inside Iran might lead Russia to announce Iran is under full protection of Russia’s nuclear umbrella. That would make the Russia-China-Iran axis a concrete and formidable enemy. That would be a terrible outcome, even though some American Neo-cons have been making noises about being able to “win” a nuclear war. Here are some Republican chicken hawk suggestions about Iran:

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MI):

“We must respond to these repeated attacks by Iran and its proxies by striking directly against Iranian targets and its leadership. … It is time to act swiftly and decisively for the whole world to see.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK):

“The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) wrote:

“Joe Biden has emboldened Iran and shown weakness on the global stage. We have to have a stronger Commander-in-Chief.”

Talk is always cheap, and most of this is political theater. Biden could also conduct limited retaliatory missions against the actual militias in Syria who US Intelligence says attacked Tower 22. Whatever he does, Biden will suffer inevitable attacks from Republicans at home. All this with less than eleven months to go before Election Day.

As of now it isn’t clear how Biden intends to respond. In the past, when Trump targeted Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani, and other Iranian interests, the US conducted these actions outside of Iranian territory. Iran’s denial of direct involvement in the attack complicates the situation and makes it less likely that Biden will attack inside of Iran.

Striking militia leaders outside of Iran will cause Republicans to question the effectiveness of Biden’s tactics. The US has employed this type of retaliation in the past, but it hasn’t significantly curbed Iran’s or its proxies’ aggressive actions.

We need to keep perspective on the Tower 22 deaths. Republicans should remember that 48,000 Americans are killed by Americans with American-made guns every year. Of course our three soldiers should be honored, and we should retaliate. But if the loss of American lives is the big deal the Republicans say it is, then their indignation should be directed here at home in addition to in Jordan.

Otherwise, it’s false indignation.

All of us should remember that we have failed in every mission in the ME. We only accomplish growing our list of enemies like the Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, Syria and whoever comes next if we stick around.

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Cartoons Of The Week

From Paul Thornton of the LA Times: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“I know the story of Trump’s march to a third GOP nomination barely registered among those who’ve closely followed political news since 2015 — but still, please let it surprise you. Please let the fact that a man who tried to topple American democracy on Jan. 6, 2021, is now the second-most likely person to lead it after noon on Jan. 20, 2025, shake you to your core. German democracy held out for nine years after Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch in 1923; Trump’s likely nomination puts us on course to halve the time it took Germany to empower (or in our case, re-empower) its fascist leader of a failed coup.”

It was a bad week for Trump and a good week for Biden. Trump’s week was bad enough that he may soon be renting Mar-a-Lago from E. Jean Carroll. Also, it shows us that Trump can lose to an 80-year-old. On to cartoons.

Biden’s “bad” economy continues to set records:

Elephant reacts badly to December’s GDP numbers:

When it comes to Trump, the Elephant is all talk and no tusk:

House Republicans say immigration deal is dead on arrival:

Why isn’t the media covering Abbott’s insurrection?

Trump loses:

The Alabama execution:

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Dems Need To Change Their Immigration Policy

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Roan Mountain, TN – January 2024 photo by Arpana Goyal

It’s time to talk about immigration. Immigration is a huge political football not only in the US, but throughout Europe. In all cases, the hard political Right is anti-immigration while the political center and left continue to try to duck the issue wherever possible.

Immigration is an extremely complicated issue that will figure prominently in our 2024 election. So far, the debate has been largely one-sided, with Republicans on the attack, and Democrats in a defensive crouch. In essence, the arguments break down to this: Democrats want more money to process the historic immigrant backlog while Republicans want to stop people from coming here in the first place. The politics of this for Dems are fraught.

But before we get to the 2024 election, the subject of immigration and the US southern border is already at center stage in the continuing effort to fund the government beyond the current Continuing Resolution that could end with another possible government shutdown in early March.

The complicating issue for avoiding a government shutdown is Biden’s request for funding for Ukraine. The MAGA House Republicans, including Speaker Johnson (R-LA), oppose the money for Ukraine and say that they won’t approve Biden’s request without dealing with the crisis at the border. From Dan Pfeiffer: (brackets by Wrongo)

“To summarize, Johnson demands a border bill in exchange for passing Ukraine aid; the White House and Senate [are] work[ing] on a border bill; Johnson opposes the bill without even seeing it, despite repeatedly declaring that the “crisis at the border” is the House GOP’s top priority.”

When Ukraine aid became a Democratic policy priority, it pushed Republicans who were once advocates of the Ukraine war effort to abandon their support.

The Republicans see the border crisis as a huge political vulnerability for Biden and want to keep  the issue in limbo until after the election. Polling bears this out. A January  CBS News/YouGov poll shows that the number of Americans who say the situation at the border is a “crisis” has gone up 7 points since May of last year:

There’s no question the Right has used their propaganda apparatus to put the situation at the border on the radar screen for voters. The chart below shows that in the NYT/Siena college poll, Biden is lagging Trump on who is trustable on immigration:

The biggest reason for the shift seems to be the surge of illegal immigration during Biden’s term. Many would-be migrants correctly believe that as long as they can reach US soil, they will be able to stay for years.

Let’s look at some numbers for October 2022 – September 2023 (the US fiscal year):

  • There were 3.1 million attempted crossings at the US Southern border in 2023. Of that total, an estimated 600,000 entered undetected. That leaves 2.5 million migrants that were “encountered” by the US border patrol, over two and a half times the number just four years ago. 83 percent of the encounters occurred between US ports of entry, often in remote locations like the Sonoran Desert. Over half a million were expelled under Title 42, a policy enacted under Trump that allowed border officials to expel migrants without a deportation hearing. The Biden administration lifted that policy in May 2023.
  • Of that 2.5 million, 1.9 million were “processed” under Title 8 of the immigration Law, covering asylum, visas, refugees and deportations.
  • Of that 1.9 million, 1.5 million became new immigration court cases in 2023.

This has caused a huge jump in the backlog of immigration court cases. Today, it takes an average of 3 years to complete an immigration case in the US, largely due to the fact that the backlog per judge now stands at 4,500 cases, up from around 1,000 cases in 2020.

Science tells us that you can’t put two pounds of shit in a one pound bag, so despite the wringing of hands on the part of the US political Left, immigration must be addressed. For the past few months, the White House has been trying to find a compromise with Republicans in hopes of reaching a deal on border security. But so far, the talks between the designated negotiators in the Senate (Chris Murphy D-CT, James Lankford, R-OK, and Kyrsten Sinema, I-AZ), haven’t found an agreed path forward.

Presuming the details of any Senate deal are within the range of what would be acceptable, getting a border deal and passing aid for Ukraine and Israel would be the best outcome for Biden and the Democrats. Dems might be forced to play the cards as they’re dealt. Biden should take the deal and declare a victory for bipartisan politics.

The biggest shift is that the Democrats are reluctantly realizing that they are holding to a losing position. Many asylum claims are bogus and are simply people looking for a better economic life. We need to make policy about how many immigrants the US should be looking to bring into the country every year. That policy should balance the number of immigrants with our ability to help them get started on a fruitful life.

That still would be a pretty large number. It just can’t be infinite.

Time to wake up Democrats! We’re headed for the first presidential election rematch since 1956. Both candidates are unpopular and both are also extremely well-known to voters. That means for the first time in forever, a clear understanding of the policy stakes of an election will be important. That makes our immigration policy important.

To help you wake up, listen to “Why Do We Build The Wall?” from the 2019 Broadway play “Hadestown”. The song was written by Anaïs Mitchell, and this is from her 2010 album “Hadestown”. Note that this song was written in 2010, long before Trump or any politician had any interest in building a wall:

Sample Lyric:

Who do we call the enemy?
The enemy is poverty,
And the wall keeps out the enemy,
And we build the wall to keep us free.
That’s why we build the wall;
We build the wall to keep us free.

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A New Year Brings New Work

The Daily Escape:

Merced River, Yosemite NP, CA – December 2023 photo by Graham Holmes Photography

We’ve enjoyed a few days away from the news, seeing kids and grandkids while eating non-stop and playing games in the living room. But it’s nearing the time when we will need to refocus on the state of our country. These are overstimulated times, as the abuse of all caps and exclamation-points around the internet shows us.

It’s doubtful, as the song goes, that “Next year, all our troubles will be out of sight“. It seems that next year will be very much like 2023 where the “bad vibes” were everywhere, despite all of the good news about the economy.

Here’s one finding from a poll by YouGov  that was performed between December 11th and 14th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 adult citizens, with a 4± point margin of error:

The bad vibes were overwhelmingly felt by Republicans, 66% of whom felt that 2023 was “One of the worst years in American history” even though it clearly was not.  From the NYT:

“The “vibe” is bad, voters can’t see that the economy is good.”

The economy is really good. Unemployment is near its historic low. Inflation is nearly controlled. While the Fed raised interest rates rapidly to slow economic growth, we are now likely to experience a soft landing of the economy. Back in December 2022, the Financial Times (paywalled) published a survey that showed 85% of economists were projecting a recession in 2023. But it didn’t happen, largely due to US fiscal policy (adding money to people’s pockets) overriding the impact of the Fed’s desire for a restrictive monetary policy.

Maybe people believing that the economy was bad shouldn’t be surprising. FOX, along with other media have been telling people non-stop that the economy is a problem (and using inflation as the proof). With few exceptions the Democrats haven’t responded clearly. Biden tried to brand the economy as Bidenomics, but neither he nor the Democrats mention every day how great the economy is.

Without hearing from the Dems, most Americans hear that the economy is bad and nobody contradicts that. So one side uses proper messaging techniques and the other side wonders why they’re unpopular. This is true for the Dems on issue after issue.

Heading into 2024, Wrongo is putting on his armor, because next year’s not going to be easy. In fact it’s going to be a shitshow. We know that we’re having an absolutely make or break election for president. Control of Congress is on the line as well. It’s now becoming clear that unless there’s a legal miracle, Trump will not be judged guilty in any of his pending criminal cases prior to the election.

That means it’s up to us voters to get the 2024 election right: Overwhelming turnout, hammering the message locally and not simply relying on the national Democratic apparatus to get things done for us at the local level. If we fail, it’s hard to see how America recovers fast enough to keep the entire world from turning to chaos with a Trump win.

From Rick Wilson: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“If I could weigh one magic wand and accomplish one simple change in the minds of anti-Trump voters, Republican or Democrat, it would be this: stop believing in miracles. Miracles are in short supply….It’s taken me a while to overcome the hope that something derails Trump….But nothing does. He is a protean force in American culture now, seemingly beyond all sanction. He is not going to jail….He won’t be disqualified from the ballot in any states when the Supreme Court is done. Trump is going to be the nominee; he is going to lure the media into his narrative frame once again.”

More:

“The miracles in politics are the ones we make. They come from work planning, preparation, organization, and focus. Nothing will set the Democratic Party back further and faster than the fantasy that somehow the law or fate will take Trump out of their way. This one will take a lot of work at every return, and there are no shortcuts.”

The DNC sends us their mealy-mouthed-please-send-money-now emails every week. They must up their game if they hope to win. Also, Wrongo can’t understand why so many Americans can’t see the handwriting on the wall. This isn’t a time for third parties, it isn’t a time to “send a message” to Biden.

The best defense for our democracy is to speak out and encourage everyone we know to vote.

We close this year with our final seasonal Christmas musical presentation, selections from the 2023 Christmas Carols Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall. This is snippets of the whole carols, which may disappoint some:

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