Sorry for the lack of columns; Wrongo has an acute case of Trump Fatigue. It is difficult to: a) think of anyone or anything else, and b) when writing a column, everything seems linked to every other thing, and none of you want to read a thousand-word rant. On to the rich harvest of cartoons.
Le Penâs ballots in todayâs election in France may be enough to force the big box to open:
The March for Science, unsurprisingly, has opposition:
It isnât enough to just think about the planet on Earth Day:
Fox replaces OâReilly with another loser:
Why do we still call it the Presidency when the differences are so stark?
Why would millions of people willingly watch a real-time murder?
(There will not be a Monday Wake Up column this week, as Wrongo continues to deal with getting the Wrong family tax return fininshed by Tuesday)
Why wonât the Syrian tar baby let us go? Why canât we quit Syria? Some clues from Robin Wright in the New Yorker: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
Henry Kissinger made twenty-eight trips to Damascusâfourteen in a single monthâto deal with the fallout from the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. He finally brokered an agreement with Assad, in 1974, to disengage Syrian and Israeli troops along the Golan Heights.
Jimmy Carter met Assad in Geneva, in 1977, to explore prospects for a U.S.-Soviet conference on Middle East peace. Assad was unyielding. He demanded the return of territory seized by Israel.
Tensions between Ronald Reagan and Assad turned openly hostile after Israelâs 1982 invasion of Lebanon, where Syria had thousands of troops deployed.
Between 1993 and 1996, Secretary of State Warren Christopher made almost thirty trips to Damascus, to broker a deal on the Golan Heights.
In 2007, the C.I.A. corroborated Israeli intelligence that Syria, with North Korean blueprints and technicians, was building a secret nuclear reactor in the remote city of Deir Ezzor. Israeli warplanes attacked the site.
The New Yorker articleâs headline calls the Assad family âThe Nemesis of Nine US Presidentsâ. It assumes that this is a one-sided story, but it seems that it is also about Americaâs little nuclear-armed apartheid partner on the Mediterranean, and the weeping sore of its occupation and annexation of Syrian territory. And we wonder why Russia and Iran have insinuated themselves in the Shiite Middle East.
On to a shortened version of cartoons. The Easter Egg Roll, which takes place at the White House on Monday, is one of the WHâs biggest annual events. Last year, more than 35,000 people attended, but about 20,000 are invited this year. It has been an annual event since first lady Dolley Madison started it in the early 1800s. Trump is at Mar-a-Lago for Easter weekend. Thereâs an Easter hunt there too:
Steve Bannon isnât getting the message:
Bannon was “volunteered” to give up his seat on AF One:
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
Wildflowers in the Temblor Range, CA. April 2017 photo by Robyn Beck
We still have little hard evidence proving that Syria gassed its own people. Much like Iraq in 2003, we have made a military move that feels great emotionally, but that isnât built on a solid foundation of fact. That the Syrian government deliberately used chemical weapons to bomb its civilians became absolute truth in US media in less than 24 hours.
And once that tidal wave of American war frenzy starts rolling, questioning the casus belli is not permitted. Wanting conclusive evidence before commencing military action will get you vilified, denounced as a sympathizer with Americaâs enemies.
When Trump launched the tomahawks, most in the mainstream media suddenly fawned all over him. Margret Sullivan in the WaPo quoted several, starting with CNNâs Fareed Zakaria:
I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night…
Sullivan noted that the NYT’s piece failed to even mention that Trump is keeping refugees from the Syrian war, even children, out of the US. Victims of chemical weapons were âbeautiful babiesâ to Trump at his news conference, while the children trying to flee such violence require âextreme vettingâ and face an indefinite refugee ban. And this from the WSJâs Bret Stephens, previously a Trump critic:
 President Trump has done the right thing and I salute him for it…Now destroy the Assad regime for good.
Perhaps the worst was MSNBCâs Brian Williams, who used the word âbeautifulâ three times when discussing the tomahawk missile launches. He quoted a Leonard Cohen lyric (from First We Take Manhattan): I am guided by the beauty of our weapons â without apparent irony:
We see these beautiful pictures at night from the decks of these two US Navy vessels in the eastern Mediterranean…I am tempted to quote the great Leonard Cohen: âI am guided by the beauty of our weapons.â…They are beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments making what is for them what is a brief flight over to this airfield…
Williams might have focused on: What did they hit? What are the strategic consequences?
Many of these same media pukes were continuously expressing doubts about Trumpâs judgment since before his election. But, when he orders the use of force, his judgment needs to be questioned by them more than ever. One reason that the US so easily resorts to the use of force abroad is that the very people that should be the first to question the rationale for a presidential military decision are instead among the first to cheer it and celebrate it.
We see groupthink most of the time when the American news media watches an administration step up to the brink of war. This was true in the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003, the start of our longest military disaster.
Journalists and pundits need to keep virtues like skepticism, facts on the ground, and context fixed firmly in their minds. They should not be like Brian Williams, focused on spectacular images in the night sky, without contemplating their deadly effect.
For example, how can the media NOT ask how Trump, a man with little outward empathy, can change in a minute, suddenly becoming a caring individual about beautiful Syrian babies? Or, how in a period of 24 hours, Trump managed to flip-flop 180 degrees on a position about Syria that he’s held for years?
Why is the media leading the cheers on Syria, but keeping silent about Yemen?
Why are there never pictures of âbeautifulâdead babies after our drone strikes go awry?
Time for the main stream media to wake up and do their jobs in an old school way. To help them wake up, here is Brian Williamsâs favorite lyricist, Leonard Cohen, with âFirst We Take Manhattanâ:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Takeaway Lyric:
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I’m guided by a signal in the heavens
I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin
I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
There are two inescapable conclusions in the aftermath of Trumpâs missile strikes in Syria. First, the US can no longer focus only on destroying ISIS. Now, we are in the position of having to also burn calories dealing with the fallout from those strikes with Russia, Syria and Iran.
Second, we can no longer keep our previous distance vis-Ă -vis the Syrian civil war separate from our relations with Russia. Before Trumpâs Tomahawking, it was possible to argue that Russiaâs involvement in Syria was peripheral to our goals in Syria, and certainly not central to overall US/Russian relations. Now, the US has put at risk the limited cooperation we have had with Russian in Syria regarding ISIS.
And for what? Apparently, Trumpâs missile strikes didnât change much on the ground in Syria. In fact, the Syrian air force just used the same air strip that we blasted with 60 tomahawk missiles (at the cost of $1million a copy) to again bomb the same city that suffered the sarin attack.
Doubtless, Trump will call this a âvictoryâ but, if you use $60 million to disable an airbase, shouldnât it be disabled? Again, the question is: What was Trump trying to accomplish? He has taken a dangerous situation, and seemingly made it more dangerous. To Wrongo, it looks like Trump got nearly nothing from his attack. Does this remind anyone of Trumpâs attack on Yemen?
Since the Syrian fly-boys are back in the air, bombing the SAME city, Trump looks like a fool. Want to bet that he will feel the need to correct that impression? On to Cartoons!
Who/What was Trump aiming his tomahawks at?
We tipped off Putin that the tomahawks were coming:
Trump meets with Chinaâs Xi and learns something:
Negotiations with Xi werenât as easy as Trump thought:
Mitch McConnell, wrecker extraordinaire:
Invoking the nuclear option made things much easier for the GOP:
Ready, Fire, Aim! Arenât you glad we didnât elect Hillary, the neo con warmonger? From Booman:
Our Bush Era PTSD has been reactivated in a big way. While I offered a limited and cautious and conditional defense of President Trumpâs decision to authorize the strikes against Syria, I was at pains to note that itâs very important that the administration provide convincing evidence that the Assad regime is responsible for the sarin attack that served as the predicate for the missile launch.
Russia and Syria have denied that they are behind the Syrian Chemical Weapons (CW) attack. We know there was an attack, and that some kind of chemical was used. The media are saying it was sarin gas.
They also, nearly unanimously, say it is the fault of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Earlier in the week, both US Foreign Secretary Rex Tillerson and US UN envoy Nikki Haley said removing Assad was no longer a priority in US Middle-East policy.
Now, Assad has to go.
Most news outlets and pundits support Donald Trumpâs spanking of the Assad government, but what is Trumpâs strategy? Enforcing norms against the use of chemical weapons (CW) is a good thing. But itâs hard to see how Thursdayâs all-out reversal of our level of engagement in the Syrian civil war is justified by the use of CW, particularly since it has been used several times before in Syria, and since it brings with it many other risks/issues, like a potential military confrontation with Russia and Iran.
After Thursdayâs Tomahawk missile attack, we are now simultaneously confronting the two strongest factions in the Syrian civil war, Assadâs army and ISIS. While Trump and the MSM are going bananas about the horrors of CW, no one was going bananas last week, or in all the prior weeks, about the daily death count of Syrian children who were collateral damage in the countryâs civil war.
The attack took place in the midst of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping This was where one of the hottest topics was what to do about North Korea’s continuing long-range missile tests and its work on completing a deliverable nuclear warhead.
Clearly there were implicit messages for both North Korea and China in the Syrian attack. This has something to do with Syria, and a lot to do with the Chinese. Military types would tell us that Trump firing 59 cruise missiles to take out an airfield is overkill.
But, it will not be lost on Xi that 50+cruise missiles could also devastate any of those new atoll airfields cropping up in the South China Sea. Donald Trump just proved to Xi that he is a man with 4,000+ nuclear weapons at this disposal and a military that follows orders. It looks to Wrongo like Xi and Putin now have a giant incentive to become better allies, and invite Iran to the party.
Once again, Wrongo thinks that the best option for the US would be to concentrate on humanitarian efforts and helping refugees. And to work with Russia and Syriaâs other allies to end the threat from ISIS in the greater Middle East.
Unfortunately, that also admits there is a limitation on the USâs ability to control events solely based on its military strength. Despite its flaws, if thereâs no reason to believe any strategy will improve results, then the best course is inaction. That was Obamaâs approach.
Itâs just not true that we âMust Do Somethingâ. People think that if we Do Something, then nothing bad that subsequently happens is really our fault, because AT LEAST WE DID SOMETHING. Whereas if we do nothing, then every bad thing that subsequently happens is our fault.
Thanks, Obama.
We really donât have to do anything. The problem is that by following the do-nothing strategy, America doesnât get to be the biggest, baddest ass on the Middle East Street.
Yes, if we do nothing, lots of people will die, but that doesnât exactly distinguish it from what will happen anyway. Our inaction wonât transfer blame for those deaths onto us, any more than an action to take out Assad will shift it from us.
Who knew running the worldâs superpower was so complicated? Certainly, not someone who said âI alone can fix itâ.
(Aleppo’s Umayyad mosque, photographed before the war, in 2009)
Joshua Landis edits a blog called âSyria Commentâ, and his last post was about Trump’s strategy for taking Raqqa from ISIS. He thinks allying with Turkey at the expense of the Kurds is a mistake.
We are watching a continuation of the policy that predates the Trump presidency, the balkanization of Syria by alternative means…Trumpâs âA Teamâ of generals seem to have fallen back on the old plan.
Landis thinks that Trump is planning to give the Turks free hand in taking Raqqa and most likely all of the Euphrates Valley. Turkey has proposed taking Raqqa from the north at Tel Abyad. The map below points out the geography:
Tel Abyad is the large black dot near the top of the map. This approach would drive through the middle of the Kurdish region (the purple shaded area above), cutting it in two. This splitting of the Kurdish territory is the main reason Turkey has offered to take Raqqa. From Landis:
Turkey hopes to establish its Arab proxies in a new âEuphrates stateâ in eastern Syria. This would partition Syria into three states: a western Assad-ruled state; an eastern Turkish and Sunni Arab rebel-ruled state, and a northern Kurdish state.
If the US allows Turkey to do this, it will lose the Kurds as allies in the attack on Raqqa, or in any other part of ISIS territory. Turkey says it is the only way that they can participate, because Assadâs army has already taken territory east of Aleppo, which has cut off Turkeyâs access to Raqqa via al-Bab. Landis asks:
Why are the Kurds willing to take Raqqa even though they do not have territorial interests in and around Raqqa? They are investing in their relationship with the US. They assume that it will serve them well over the long run when it comes to their political aspirations.
A major issue with following Turkeyâs plan is that they have dangerous Islamic fundamentalist allies. Turkeyâs Arab rebel allies include Ahrar al-Sham, (similar to the Taliban, and adamantly opposed to the US). If the Turkey/Ahrar coalition rules the Euphrates post-ISIS, it will become a haven for Salafists and al-Qaidaâs coalition.
For the past five years, Turkey has teamed with al-Qaidaâs forces in Syria. It allowed them to mass inside Turkey in 2013. Turkey has no problem with them being part of its Arab force, since their strategy is to use the Salafists as proxies in thwarting Kurdish regional ambitions. More from Landis:
These…are the reasons that American generals do not want to work with Turkey. They donât trust it, both because it wants to attack our Kurdish allies and because it is soft on al-Qaida-like rebel groups.
Our generals donât fully trust this NATO partner to act in Americaâs interest!
Whatâs more, there is a likelihood that Iran, Russia, Syria, and Iraq would move against a Turkey-led Sunni land grab. They will not allow a Sunni rebel enclave in the middle of their spheres of influence. Landis: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
The US would [then] be expected to side with Turkey and the Sunni rebels in a long and escalating war against the Shiites. I think this is a swamp waiting to suck the USÂ into its malodorous depths.
For more than 15 years, we have been engaged in a war in the Middle East. Now, the Pentagon is planning to send another 1, 000 troops to Syria in the coming weeks. This is indeed an endless war.
Letâs get ISIS, but we shouldnât be teaming solely with the Turks in the effort to destroy ISIS. The great Orange negotiator should stand up to the Turks on this.
Now for some Syrian music. Here is Refugees of Rap with their song, âHaramâ (“Forbidden” in Arabic):
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Sample Lyrics (translated):
Came out of the house
I smelled gunpowder
Voices from the minarets
Say go back to your houses
Shells on the neighborhoods come down like rain
I felt more scared, I felt a sense of danger
I completed my way and approaching death to me more and more
Average people say Allahu Akbar
I saw the neighborhood; neighborhood was red in color
The smell of blood and body parts in front of me scatter
I ran to help my friend was injured
Hospitals in dire need of blood donation and mosques shouting
Walls in the streets become white in color
On the campaign trail, no foreign policy issue seized Donald Trump more than the fight against the Islamic State. Once president, he signed an executive order giving his generals 30 days to produce a plan to defeat the terrorist group, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis gave him options on Feb. 27.
The Times says Trump has no plan. But Pat Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis says the plan has already been executed:
James Mattis, in his generalissimo mode of action has, IMO, been given the imperial wave of dismissal and sent forth to destroy IS. “Make it so!”
According to Lang, the signs are clear:
There is greater coordination and “de-confliction” between the US and Russia in air operations against ISIS. Lang points out that the rebel group âhayat tahrir al-sham” has now been designated as a terrorist organization by the US government. This makes them legitimate targets under the AUMF.
The insertion of a Marine artillery battery to provide fire support for operations to retake Raqqa.
Several hundred soldiers from the 75th Ranger Regiment have been positioned in and around Manbij to referee among the Turks, Assad’s Syrian Arab Army, (SAA), et al, to keep unwanted actors out of the coming battle to take Raqqa.
More from Lang:
I estimate these signs to…indicate that Trump and his generalissimo have decided to roll the iron dice and commit whatever force is necessary to destroy IS in both Syria and Iraq.
Wrongo agrees with Lang that the war to eliminate ISIS is on. We know a bit about the effort to take Mosul in Iraq, but have heard nothing about Syria. Trump said quite plainly that he had no intention of giving any advance notice of his military intentions. That seems prudent and logical to Wrongo.
But, basic contradictions persist:
Who will fight house by house to re-take Raqqa? Not Americans, or the Kurds. If Mosul is any indication, Sunnis will die to the last true believer if Jihadi families canât be bussed out.
Who will be the occupiers of Eastern Syria? The SAA has a legitimate right to be in Raqqa. Will Israel and the Gulf Monarchies sit idly by while Iran and Syria complete the Shia Crescent?
Many questions. If the 21st century has shown us anything, it is that neoliberal supranational rule brings only inequality and chaos. If there is ever going to be peace, if the flow of refugees is to be ended, national governments must be rebuilt, and their borders secured.
Only then can supranational alliances work to address the worldâs problems.
Assad has called us Syrian invaders. Unlike the Russians, Iranians, and Hezbollah, we were not invited by Syria to attend the “slay a few jihadis” party, nor are the Turks. While the YPG/SDF certainly seem agreeable to our being there, it doesnât make our entry legal under international law. The AUMF probably provides the cover of our national law to be in Syria, but international law does not.
We seem to have traded John McCainâs beloved Free Syrian Army unicorns for the much more effective YPG/SDF, who will now act as our “Assad must go” surrogates. If that’s Trumpâs plan, then we are cooked. Trump shouldnât be allowed to let that policy stand. He stated before he became POTUS that he thought that any form of larger commitment of combat forces into Syria would be a mistake.
But here we are watching a continuation of the policy that predates the Trump presidency, the balkanization of Syria by alternative means.
Trumpâs âA Teamâ of generals seem to have fallen back on the old plan. Can you smell the mission creep? We shouldnât be staying in Syria once the ISIS fighters in Raqqa are reduced to corpses on the desert sand.
A musical interlude to take you away from geopolitics. Here is âJessicaâ, the classic Allman Brothers tune, re-imagined by Kevin Burke, legendary Celtic violinist and veteran rocker John Brennan, from their album The Pound Ridge Sessions. The title comes from where the album was recorded, Pound Ridge, NY.
They substitute violins for guitars, and it is a nice version. Here is âJessicaâ:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
(The Wrongologist is heading to Florida today. The next column will be Sundayâs Cartoons)
The Daily Escape:
(Water Buffalo at night – Zimanga Private Game Reserve, South Africa)
Wrongo did not watch Donald Trumpâs latest reality show. Many are giving him some credit, saying that “it’s the most presidential he’s ever been”. What a low bar.
We should ignore the tone, and focus on the content. Today letâs discuss Trumpâs aspirations regarding defense spending, cuts in non-defense discretionary spending and Trumpâs tax reduction plans. In his speech, Trump repeated his commitment to increasing defense spending by $54 billion.
The Budget Control Act caps military spending at $549 billion for 2018. Trumpâs proposed increase would bring military spending to $603 billion. He indicated that would mean getting rid of the Sequester spending cap agreement. But, he didnât address how the spending caps would be overturned (it requires 60 Senate votes). And there was also nothing said about the rest of the budget, including the subject of what programs will be cut to fund the defense increase.
The problem is math. Trumpâs plans require solving simultaneous equations: It may be impossible to cut discretionary spending by enough to fund the defense increase. It will be difficult to give a big personal and corporate tax cut while spending $1 Trillion on infrastructure. As Bryce Covert at Bloomberg said:
To increase defense spending, cut taxes, spend money on infrastructure and the border, protect entitlements, and balance the budget, almost everything else must go.
Neither Trump nor Congressional Republicans had a better idea about how to accomplish that after the speech than they had before it.
Trump in particular, has no idea. In a Fox interview on Tuesday, Trump argued that his increase in defense spending could be covered not by severe spending cuts elsewhere, but by an increase in economic growth. He said:
I think the money is going to come from a revved up economy…
He promised on TV to grow GDP by 3% or more each year, not something that is all that easy to do. The economic concept behind his thinking is the Laffer curve, which says that an optimal level of taxation will assure high economic growth. Itâs a discredited theory.
If Trump and Congress canât get Sequestration eliminated and they still want to spend the $54 billion, non-defense spending would be 25% below what it used to be, bringing spending on these programs to the lowest level ever recorded. The historical low point of Discretionary non-defense spending was 3.09% of GDP in 1962; Trumpâs proposal could bring it below 3%.
Military spending increases are never justified to Americans by what the money will be used for. Instead, we hear vague arguments about how we need to be âstrongerâ, or laundry lists of the various kinds of new hardware we need to buy, without any focus on the strategic rationale for the new hardware. For example, how do new aircraft carriers help defeat ISIS?
More military spending has an opportunity cost: If we spend on defense, thatâs money we canât spend on education, healthcare, or rudimentary things, like the State Department.
It canât be enough to say that larger numbers will make us safer.
We need a geopolitical rationale for why additional defense spending is necessary. Trump hasnât offered that argument. He and the GOP say that President Obama âneglectedâ the military, but in truth, Obama left our military stronger than it was under Reagan: If we look at total military spending by China, Russia and the US in 2015, the US accounted for 68% of that total, while Russia accounted for 8% and China for 24%
Under Reagan the totals were: US, 62%, Russia, 36% and China 2%. So we are up from 62% to 68% under the Kenyan Muslim.
We should be thinking about cutting defense spending, not increasing it.
Take a break and listen to guitar hero Joe Bonamassa playing âFurther on Up the Roadâ live in 2009 at Royal Albert Hall with his hero, Eric Clapton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u03h73ClZ8
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
âIt’s tough to make predictions. Especially about the future.â â Yogi Berra
Since you have already plunged a stake into the heart of 2016, it is time for some predictions about 2017, which most likely, wonât happen. We can expect the following:
There will be more global political and social turmoil:
The EU could collapse. France is a Marine LePen government away from pursuing an exit from the EU, so there would be a Frexit to go along with Brexit.
On this New Year, I am most concerned about the difficulties of the masses: how they eat, how they live, whether they can have a good New Year…
The US will continue to lose influence globally despite âMr. Unpredictableâ becoming our Orange Overlord: Trump brags about winning when he negotiates. That has been undeniably true in his real estate and name brand licensing. He will find that when the other side doesnât need access to his brand in order to succeed, he will have to resort to instilling fear. That may work once, but it will not work consistently.
A corollary: Trump arrives in the Oval Office as an overconfident leader, the man with no plan but with a short attention span, and within six months, he will have his first major policy failure. Getting his hand burned will make him more subdued, more conservative and less populist thereafter.
A second corollary: The triumvirate of Russia/Turkey/Iran will elbow the US firmly out of the Fertile Crescent, and secure friendly regimes in Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran. This will push American influence in the Middle East back to just the Gulf States, a weakened Saudi Arabia, and an increasingly isolated Israel.
Domestically, drug abuse, suicide, and general self-destructive behavior will continue to climb and become impossible to ignore.
The Trump stock market rally has already turned into the Santa Selloff. The Dow peaked on December 20 at 19,975, 25 points away from party-hat time. But since then, Dow 20,000 slipped through our fingers like sand. It closed the year at 19,719, down 281 points from 20k.
Regarding the stock market, many people who want to sell stocks waited until 2017 in order to pay lower capital gains tax. Selling in January could lower prices further.
The growing antibiotic resistance to main stream drugs will impact health in the US.
Meta Prediction: It is certain that few Trump voters will get the results they voted for. Some people who voted for Trump have incompatible outcomes in mind, so it’s a virtual guarantee that a sizable minority are going to feel cheated when they fail to get what they were promised.
OTOH, when Trump fails, most of his base will blame anyone but the Donald. The question is, when disillusionment sets in, will the reaction be a turning away, or a doubling down on the anger?
Wrongo thinks anger will win out.
The coming Trump administration will seem like a fractious family outing: Just under half of the family (the âlandslideâ segment) wanted to go out, but now, the whole family has to go. Those who wanted to stay home will sulk in the back seat while Daddy tells them to stop bitching.
Meanwhile, once we are out of the driveway, it dawns on everyone that Daddy hasn’t decided yet where to go. Everyone pipes up with suggestions, but Daddy again tells everyone to shut up, because itâs his decision alone. There will be the usual âare we there yet?â complaining, some motion sickness and incessant fighting over who is touching whom.
Daddy wonât reveal the destination, but insists everyone will love it once they get there, even those who wanted to stay home, those who wanted to go the beach, and those who wanted to head over the cliff like Thelma and Louise.
Time for our Monday Wake Up Call, âWake Up Everybodyâ, originally by Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes, featuring Teddy Pendergrass. Teddy left the group for his solo career after this album.
But, today we will hear and watch John Legendâs cover of the tune, backed by the Roots Band along with Melanie Fiona, and Common. The song is as strong as it was 42 years ago when it was released:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
