(Wrongo and Ms. Oh So Right are heading to Europe today. We will be gone for 10 days, so blogging may be sparse. Please keep America great while we are away.)
Happy Motherâs Day to all. A few more thoughts about BLOTUS (Big Liar of the US): Not only does he have the worst approval ratings of any president at this point in his term, but heâs also incapable of moving the needle of public opinion toward his positions. Ironically, for all of Trumpâs sycophantsâ talk that Trumpâs words ARE his actions, his tweets and public pronouncements are making his positions more unpopular.
Bluebells, Brussels Belgium April 2017 photo by Francois Lenoir
In many ways, it is too easy to criticize Donald Trump. While we can have differing opinions on matters of policy, they only account for a few of the issues Wrongo has with Trump. Most are his unfathomable attempts to avoid telling the truth. Consider his interview with The Economist which posted the entire transcript on Thursday. Letâs focus on this excerpt:
The Economist: Another part of your overall plan, the tax reform plan. Is it OK if that tax plan increases the deficit? Ronald Reaganâs tax reform didnât.
Trump: Well, it actually did. But, but itâs called priming the pump. You know, if you donât do that, youâre never going to bring your taxes down.
[Snip]
Economist: But beyond that itâs OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
Trump: It is OK, because it wonât increase it for long. You may have two years where youâllâŚyou understand the expression âprime the pumpâ?
Yes. We have to prime the pump.
Itâs very Keynesian.
Weâre the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?
Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?
Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I havenât heard it. I mean, I justâŚI came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. Itâs what you have to do.
Ok, so how did the guy from the Economist keep a straight face? The reporter is thinking John Maynard Keynes, the great British Economist, who came up with the idea of âpriming the pumpâ in the 1930âs. By the way, Keynesian pump-priming is temporary government spending to boost temporarily weak demand. It is designed to boost growth, (and jobs) during a downturn, but we canât assume that it will boost the economyâs growth rate.
Trumpâs idea for pump-priming is more tax cuts. Heâs following classic trickle-down economics, and claims that his tax cuts will boost investment, productivity growth, and labor supply, and thus raise the long-term growth rate of the economy. In this regard, Trump conflates Keynes, whoâs been proven right, with Arthur Laffer, who wasnât.
But, didnât Trump graduate from Wharton with a business degree? Nobody gets out of Wharton without knowing that Keynes was the âpump primerâ. And his saying that he coined the phrase ‘prime the pump’ a few days ago? Unfortunately, there are only two explanations: first, Trump is 70 years old and his cognitive skills are starting to desert him. Or second, he is a pathological liar.
Wrongo wants to go with #2.
He just wants to sell America something with his name stamped on it. But since America isnât buying a hotel, heâs trying to sell Trumponomics, Trumpcare, etc. He does not really care about the details, he just wants to pass it, and to claim it is a success. Thatâs Americaâs tragedy.
So with Comeygate, Trumpcare and pump-priming, we all need to unplug and try, just try to relax on Saturday. We had a full moon and clear skies over the fields of Wrong on Thursday, so today we listen to âClaire du Luneâ by Claude Debussy. It is the third movement of âSuite bergamasqueâ. Its name comes from Verlaine’s poem Clair de Lune, “moonlight” in French. Here it is played by Dame Moura Lympany, British pianist, who died in 2005:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Bald Eagle with Great Blue Heron – photo by Bonnie Block
(The Wrongologist site was hit by a Denial of Service attack on Sunday, April 23. If you had difficulty accessing the site, Wrongo apologizes. We are working with the hosting company to sort it out, but the problem may continue until the end of day today.)
Congress returns today. They will try to pass an increase to the Debt Ceiling before the April 28th funding deadline. After that, at least a partial government shut-down looms.
The Republicans are not in agreement about their stance on the extension. The Orange Overlord complicated the negotiations by saying that he wouldnât sign a Debt Ceiling increase unless it contained funding for the Wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for.
Consider the exchange between Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday and Trump Budget Director Mick Mulvaney. Mulvaney said that it was the Democrats who are guilty of “stunning” obstructionism because they will not negotiate on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Wallace noted that President Trump had offered Democrats a deal: If you fund the border wall, payments to Obamacare would not be cut. Wallace:
You are holding hostage health insurance for millions of lower-income Americans.
Mulvaney replied:
Actually, what I would say is they’re holding hostage national security…
Then he brought up obstructionism by Democrats:
The Democrats will oppose everything that this president wants to do, which is stunning to us, especially when we are offering them something they want in return.
Wallace countered:
You’re saying, âgive us what we want. And if you don’t, we’re going to cut off funding that would provide health insurance for millions of lower income Americansâ.
The laugher was that Mulvaneyâs logic is that Trump is trying to build a border wall to protect millions of low income Americans who may lose their health care benefits in the trade-off.
So Mexico wonât pay for the wall, and Republicans donât want to pay for the wall either. They would prefer that Democrats agree to pay for Trumpâs wall to give the GOP cover for those Republicans who wonât fund Trumpâs ghastly promise of a wall.
On the obstructionist claim, everyone knows that the Republicans made obstructionism an eight-year strategy when Obama was president. Now, Mulvaneyâs pearl-clutching about obstructionism canât possibly sound legitimate to anyone other than people who watch Fox News. We need to remember that it was the Republicans who picked the 100th day of the (now Trump) administration for last yearâs Continuing Resolution that funded the government, to expire. The idea was to make Hillary Clinton look bad after she won, and then couldnât get a Debt Ceiling increase passed without Republican help.
It never occurred to them that if the Republican nominee won, that he wouldn’t be able to get much done without support of Democrats.
So itâs time for Republicans to wake up, and pass a Debt Ceiling increase. After all, they control the House, Senate and White House. It is their job to avoid a government shutdown.
To help them wake up, here is the UK group Stone Foundation, a modern UK soul band with a tune from their new album, âStreet Ritualsâ. The song is âYour Balloon is Risingâ, featuring Paul Weller formerly of the punk rock group The Jam, and later, Style Council.
Here is âYour Balloon is Risingâ, a blue-eyed soul tune that allows Weller to show all of us that he still has it:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Bombs Away! Another week of American Trumpceptionalism is in the books. Dropping the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat left 36 ISIS fighters dead in a tunnel complex in Afghanistan. The so-called Massive Ordinance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) used 11 tons of explosives in one shot. One MOAB costs about $16 million, and 20 have been produced. $16 million for 36 ISIS fighters.
Thatâs $444.4k per dead fighter if you are keeping score.
The MOAB looks mostly like another âboys and their toysâ deal. It is hard to see this kind of weapon doing much against the Taliban or ISIS in Afghanistan. It seems more likely that our military has run out of better ideas.
We are in the final countdown to Tax Day on April 18th. Tax preparation at the Mansion of Wrong is the reason for the skimpy column production this week. By the way: about 22% of taxpayers wait until the last two weeks before the deadline to file.
So you and Wrongo need a Soother today at least as much as we did last week, and todayâs Soother is a feel good story from Croatia, where a pair of Storks have become a national obsession. From the Daily Mail:
A stork has melted hearts in Croatia by flying to the same rooftop every year for 14 years â to be reunited with its crippled partner. The faithful bird, called Klepetan, has returned once again to the village of Slavonski Brod in east Croatia after a 5,000 mile migration. He spends his winters alone in South Africa because his disabled partner Malena cannot fly properly after being shot by a hunter in 1993. Malena had been found lying by the side the road by schoolteacher Stjepan Vokic, who fixed her wing and kept her in his home for years before helping her to build a nest on his roof. After placing her there, she was spotted by Klepetan 14 years ago. And now every year they are reunited in the spring. Klepetan keeps a very strict timetable, usually arriving back at the same time on the same day in March to be welcomed by locals.
Here is Klepetanâs flight plan:
Klepetan didnât arrive on time this year, but things worked out for the love birds:
But this year he was running six days late, causing panic among local media and fans of the stork couple. Such is the popularity of the pair that there is even a live feed on the main square in the capital Zagreb showing the two storks. There was huge excitement when stork-watchers saw what they thought was Klepetan circling over the nest, and then coming in to land. But the new arrival turned out to be a different stork that was attempting to woo Malena. She quickly attacked him and drove him off and continued to wait for Klepetan. Stjepan Vokic, whose roof the couple nest on, said: âShe was pretty clear about the message, I doubt he will be back again.â Vokic has taken care of Malena since she was first injured by hunters and says that she â like her partner â is now part of the family.
But heâs back, and on the case! They are raising this yearâs brood of little storks:
And what about Malena in the winter? She goes indoors:
During the winter, Vokic keeps her inside the house, and then lets her go to the roof each spring where she patiently waits for her partner. This year, Malena made a rare flight and the couple were reportedly inseparable for hours. She does have the ability to make very short flights but her wing has not healed well enough for her to make the trip to Africa, or even to properly feed herself. Every summer, the pair bring up chicks, with Klepetan leading their flying lessons in preparation for the trip south in summer. The oldest recorded living stork was 39. Locals are hopeful the coupleâs long relationship will continue for years to come.
This is proof that some animals live their lives by a higher moral code than some humans.
Here is Fleetwood Macâs âWish You Were Hereâ, a 2016 remastered version of the song from 1982, a song the storks might sing, if they could play guitar:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Takeaway Lyric:
There’s distance between us
And you’re on my mind
As I lay here in the darkness
I can find no peace inside
I wish you were here holding me tight
If I had you near it would make it alright
I wish you were here
‘Cause I feel like a child tonight
Wrongoâs investment in popcorn futures is looking better all the time. The circus surrounding whether Trumpâs people had, or didnât have a secret relationship with Russia has a life of its own. Now that Trump has accused Obama of wiretapping his campaign, it is time to sit back and watch whatâs gonna happen next.
As the WSJâs Peggy Noonan said in 2000, it would be irresponsible not to speculate: While the story is moving fast, and new players pop up almost daily, Trump’s inopportune tweet opens the door for Republicans to investigate Obama, and thatâs exactly what the Trump administration has done:
A Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee says he believes President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations that his predecessor ordered wiretaps of Trump Tower will become part of the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton says, “We’re going to follow the facts wherever they lead us. And I’m sure that this matter will be a part of that inquiry.”
This is more likely than not to lead to more damaging revelations about Trumpâs associatesâ ties to Russia. Then, in mock sorrow, the GOP will have to go after Trump, or else look like they ignored evidence in order to get a few Right Wing policies enacted.
Wrongoâs guess is that the GOP will start preparing the Proletariat for Trumpâs departure, and the investiture of President-in-Waiting, Michael Pence. Sadly, Trump doesnât see two moves ahead:
FBI gets a warrant to wiretap a target, via the ordinary FISA procedures.
The reaction of a normal person when they learn of that should be: “There must be something going on“
The reaction of any normal target would be: “I’d better start covering-up (or come clean)â
But not Trump: “They wiretapped me! That’s an illegal crime, and I will investigate/prosecute!“
When the Overlord learned that the FBI was using a FISA warrant to look at Trump Tower emails and phones, he didn’t see an arm of the US government legitimately investigating a possible crime. He didnât think “if they find anything, I could be in trouble“.
No, he doubled down, saying, “Obama attacked me, with wiretaps! That’s illegal!” Even though it’s not even remotely illegal, as any 21st Century Republican knows full well, because they wrote the legislation that made it legal.
In the meantime, Jeff Sessions is in damage control mode. He was the butt of the joke on Saturday Night Live this weekend. Republicans who support Sessions need to wake up and remember that it is never the action, it is always the cover-up that kills members of the political class. Here is Lynyrd Skynyrd doing their monster hit âSweet Home Alabamaâ, the redneck national anthem, in honor of native son, Jeff Sessions:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Key Lyric:
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth
Five weeks into the Trump Ascendancy, and things look worse than ever. Wrongo has not had much time for the Trump/Russia conspiracy. If anything beyond the DNC hack surfaces, we can discuss the possibility of election interference. But as of now…unpersuaded. That is, until this coincidence occurred at CPAC:
Jason Charter, 22, and Ryan Clayton, 36, passed out roughly 1,000 red, white, and blue flags, each bearing a gold-emblazoned âTRUMPâ in the center, to an auditorium full of attendees waiting for President Trump to address the conference. Audience members waved the pennantsâand took pictures with themâuntil CPAC staffers realized the trick: They were Russian flags.
The stunt made waves on social media, as journalists covering CPAC noticed the scramble to confiscate the flags. It was a gutsy and (mostly) harmless gag, unless you count the damage to Conservative egos. That the gag was carried out by two people who should fit the neo-con profile for Normal and Safe shows that the tribe cannot tell members from interlopers.
Trumpâs team refused to let accredited journalists from certain news outlets attend Trump press secretary Sean Spicerâs âgaggleâ on Friday. This is where American news is heading:
It is more important than ever to know who the real enemy is:
Kim Jong-Un channels the Donald, and there are surprising similarities:
Trump walks away from supporting LGBT rights:
GOP Congresscritters are terrorized about meeting their constituents:
Republicans in Arizona came up with a legislative response to Democratic and Independent protesters now that their party has started seeing energized protests at town halls and in their downtown areas. (There was a 15,000 person protest in Tucson in January) They plan to criminalize protests by seizing the assets of anyone involved even in lawful assembly.
On a party-line vote of 17-13, Arizona Republican state senators voted to give police new powers to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration â even before anything bad actually happens. From the Arizona Capitol Times:
SB1142 expands the stateâs racketeering laws, now aimed at organized crime, to also include rioting. And it redefines what constitutes rioting to include actions that result in damage to the property of others. But the real heart of the legislation is what Democrats say is the guilt by association â and giving the government the right to criminally prosecute and seize the assets of everyone who planned a protest and everyone who participated.
Itâs beginning to sound like you could join a protest in Arizona, and face RICO charges if someone so much as breaks a window.
With their new-found political power, Republicans will no longer tolerate dissent, and they plan to use the police power of the state to crush those who disagree. Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said that chilling effect is aimed at a very specific group of protesters:
A lot of them are ideologues, some of them are anarchists…But this stuff is all planned.
Thereâs more: By including rioting in racketeering laws, it actually permits police to arrest even those who are planning events. Kavanagh added:
Wouldnât you rather stop a riot before it starts? Do you really want to wait until people are injuring each other, throwing Molotov cocktails, picking up barricades and smashing them through businesses in downtown Phoenix?
The bill now moves to the Arizona House. While that moves forward, we have moved into an era of authoritarian rule in America.
And you are watching it happen in real-time.
Americans have the right to peacefully assemble, we have the right to free speech, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Even though the Tea party was very vocal for the last 8 years; GOP legislators didnât think that their protests needed to be shut down, or their organizers prosecuted.
Republicans are making a hash of the Constitution, they have no intention of acting in the best interest of all of their citizens. This is a violation of their oath of office. Taking away our right to protest by penalizing potential protesters with threats of asset forfeiture and/or intimidation, is not our America.
Here is Peter Garrett with âIt Still Mattersâ. You may remember Garrett as the lead singer of the Australian band Midnight Oil. He was also a Labor Party member of the House of Representatives for New South Wales from October 2004 to August 2013. Here is âIt Still Mattersâ:
Tell Arizona Republicans that the Constitution still matters to the rest of us.
Sample Lyrics: Watching the parade on the news last night
I was one that walked that road before
When everything feels like its crumbling
Like the writingâs on the wall
It still matters to me I hope it matters to you
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
You’ve probably heard that at Trump’s political rally in Florida, he lamented an attack that took place in Sweden on Friday Night. He told his supporters:
You look at whatâs happening…Weâve got to keep our country safe. You look at whatâs happening in Germany, you look at whatâs happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?
Nothing nefarious happened in Sweden on Friday, or Saturday for that matter, and Swedes were left baffled:
Swedes reacted with confusion, anger and ridicule on Sunday to a vague remark by President Trump that suggested that something terrible had occurred in their country.
Apparently the Donald has a fantasy life: He dreamed up some fake news on his own. Digby reports:
The truth is that Trump was watching Fox News on Friday night and Tucker Carlson had some wingnut documentary filmmaker on talking about his movie about refugees in Sweden committing crimes. Trump just…got the story wrong.
We used to say âtruth is beauty and beauty is truthâ, but there is no beauty in Truth by Trump. Consider that the Wall Street Journal had a dust-up with its own reporters, and one lost his job when they said the paper was soft on Trump. And when reporting on this false story of Swedish tragedy, the WSJ did not link to the (also Murdoch controlled) Fox News which had the Tucker Carlson story, despite most other media reporting it. From Bob Lefsetz:
This is scary on two levels that the WSJ is self-editing, and Trump believes everything he sees and reads, when they tell you in second grade not to.
This wasnât the first time. Remember when he said he saw thousands of Muslims cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11?
Trump is a typical old, Fox News-obsessed male wingnut. They get mixed up a lot. He combines the ignorance of Dubya with none of the self-control. The story served his narrative that we live in fear and that he is the only one who can save us. Will Wheaton said this:
None of the three events happened, except in the mind of Donald Trump. Time for Republicans everywhere to Wake the F—k up! They need to stop excusing Trumpâs behavior. They need to join the media in calling out the president when he makes shit up. To help with this wake-up, here is Richard Thompson with âGood Things Happen to Bad People (But Only for a While). Try to hold on to that thought when you hear Trump spout another silly innuendo, or another lie, and Republicans say nothing.
Sample Lyrics:
Well I know you’ve got a secret or two
Your hair’s in a brand new ‘doâ
And you’re so happy
Good things happen to bad people
Good things happen to bad people
But only, but only, for a while
You cried the day I walked you down the aisle
And I know you’ve been bad
From the way you smile
Politico reports that President Trump has actually done little since entering office despite White House aide Stephen Millerâs bragging on the Sunday Pundits:
We have a president who has done more in three weeks than most presidents have done in an entire administration.
That simply isnât true, but the thrust of the article is that, when you tune out the noise coming from the White House, very little has actually happened. From Politico:
So far, Trump has behaved exactly like he has throughout his previous career: He has generated intense attention and sold himself as a man of action while doing little other than promote an image of himself as someone who gets things done.
Sorry, but this is characteristic of the gleeful DC narrative that Trump is failing, that heâs bumping up against the institutional/Constitutional realities of Washington. This meme seems to repeat the same mistakes that smart people made during the campaign â misreading and underestimating Trump. They see him challenged on a few things and assume that since Trump thought heâd show up, wave a wand, and make things happen immediately, and is now stymied, therefore he must be frustrated. They presume that clashes with other branches of government, or with the unfawning press, or the âresistanceâ from the 52% that didnât vote for him to begin with, has made him cool his jets.
Why should we think it upsets him that his first bolts out of the gate are stymied?
Wrongo thinks that so far, Trump is winning. His fights with what he calls âthe Establishmentâ and the âfake news mediaâ are a win from the perspective of the Trumpets. They figure thatâs what he was sent to DC to do.
If heâs not trying to learn the ropes? That goes in the plus column. And if itâs reported that he shows impatience or impulsiveness? Plus column. To his base, the furor in the media makes the infuriated ones, and those who report it, seem like smug elitists, determined to enforce the status quo through the usual DC tactics.
Really, everything Politico says are problems for Trump are the opposite. Heâs ginned up a national hissy fit over his ill-conceived Executive Order on immigration, while managing to mostly get his cabinet choices confirmed (sorry Mr. Pudzer) â a cabinet more radical and unqualified than any traditional Republican would dare to nominate.
Dems obsess over each offense and announce âresistanceâ but have no real strategy. They raise money but can do little, while being viewed as unseemly in Trumpâs flyover country.
When the Republican obstruction to Obama took shape in 2008, they assumed a posture of cooperation, only to be âdisappointedâ by the âextremeâ positions of the President. Rarely in Obamaâs first term did they announce obstruction in advance of his actions. By his second term, Democrats had lost enough seats that they no longer had the ability to override Republican inertia, and the GOP’s naked obstruction was visible.
Now Democrats have fewer votes as a minority party than the GOP had in 2016, and have no way to block anything but the most obnoxious Trump moves, assuming that a few Senate Republicans join in the blockage.
Trump has no need to figure out or to get along with Washington â in fact, thatâs the opposite of what he wants. He has staked his political fortune on an âown the mobâ strategy â which worked just fine in November. He doesnât need to deliver on his election promises. He needs to let Republicans push through the horrifying agenda theyâve salivated over for decades. And he will.
He needs a riled up Establishment to blame for any stymied efforts. This means the more cartoonish his behavior the better, as the Establishment will be all too happy to jump on his missteps.
Trump wonât suffer if he never comes up the learning curve.
The rest of us, the country, the world, will. We actually need things to work.
Here is Robert Cray with âSmoking Gunâ recorded in 1986. With all the Trump people who seem to be on the wrong side of the CIA and FBI, it seems appropriate:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
