Category: Leadership

Saturday Soother – August 27, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Super moon over Lake Champlain, Burlington, VT – August 2022 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

Republicans are outraged this week about Biden’s cancellation of student loan debt! Americans now owe a total of more than $1.6 trillion for higher education. From the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The result is one of the most significant changes to American higher education policy in decades — and a new cornerstone of the president’s economic legacy. Biden’s decision will dramatically change the financial circumstances of tens of millions of Americans, fully erasing the student loans of roughly 20 million people.”

Student debt played a minor role in American life through the 1960s when Wrongo accrued his $5k of college debt while attending Georgetown. But it increased during the Reagan administration. It then shot up after the 2007-2009 Great Recession as states made huge cuts to funding for their college systems.

But the argument that “tuition has gone up because public support for higher education has declined” isn’t the only one. While it’s valid for some institutions, it doesn’t explain the “arms race” among colleges and universities to add student amenities and layers of administrative staff over the past 10 years.

Over the last decade, revenue at independent (non-religious) private colleges and universities in the US has increased by 148% on an inflation-adjusted (real) per student basis. At religiously affiliated private colleges and universities revenue has increased by 87% in real per-student terms over the last 10 years.

Meanwhile, at public institutions, revenue has increased by just 23.4% on the same basis. However, this is still 36% greater than per capita GDP growth over the same 10 years.

The headline is that our elite educational institutions have gotten obscenely wealthy. And many of our second tier institutions chased after them, causing education budgets everywhere to explode.

It’s become another example of America’s new gilded age.

Opinions differ about the ethics of loan forgiveness for student debt, and that’s understandable. The general thrust of the Republican railing about the educational loan forgiveness is about how unfair it is when one group of Americans is getting a benefit at the cost of other Americans.

This tweet from former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is on point for most of the GOP:

“Joe Biden wants those who didn’t go to school, didn’t take out loans, or already paid off their loans to pay off $300 billion of other people’s debts…..It’s socialism, it’s un-American, and only makes his record-setting inflation worse.”

But it isn’t socialism when our government bails out one group at the expense of another; it happens all the time. No Republican complained about the Trump tax cuts which were directed at America’s wealthy and its corporations. No Republican complained about the bank bailout in 2008. No Republican objected when Trump gave $16 billion to farmers hurt by the Trump tariffs.

Second, despite what the GOP is saying, the $300 billion in loan forgiveness isn’t inflationary. It’s true that it’s money that student borrowers won’t be paying back. But because of the student debt moratorium, they had already stopped payments in 2020, so there’s no change going forward. They simply won’t have to restart making payments on that $10,000 of debt.

It isn’t clear that there will be much impact to inflation or the Consumer Price Index. Since they weren’t making payments, it’s likely they were already spending those funds that might have gone to loan repayments. So no new spending.

We can have a debate about how much higher education should cost per student. We live in a society that is a whole lot wealthier than it was 40 years ago, but many of our students do not come from those few wealthy families.

The political calculus of Biden’s decision will be seen in November. The WaPo reported that a majority of Americans support limited debt forgiveness. Biden’s pollster, John Anzalone said:

“This is a motivator for young people….It’s a huge issue for young people — the support levels for them are in the high 60s.”

Let’s hope they turn out to vote on November 8.

Now, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we decompress from another week of body blows to America and find a few moments to gather ourselves for the week to come.

Here on the Fields of Wrong, we had a day of very satisfying brush clearing although we’re still waiting for rain.

Go get a big mug of decaf cold brew coffee and grab a chair in the shade. Now listen to Schubert’s “Impromptu in G flat Op. 90 No. 3”, written in 1827, and played here in 2012 by Olga Jegunova at the Bishopsgate Institute in London:

Schubert really understood how to capture emotion in his music.

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Louisiana Denies Flood Control Funding to New Orleans

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, North Plains, OR – August 2022 photo by David Leahy Photography

Wrongo and Ms. Right are streaming “5 Days at Memorial” a dramatization of the tragedy at a downtown New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina. It’s adapted from the 2013 book “Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital” by Sheri Fink. Ms. Right highly recommends the book.

It is difficult to watch something when you already know the outcome is a terrible loss of life. Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005, some 17 years ago. When we visited New Orleans three years ago, damage was still visible in parts of the city.

So imagine Wrongo’s surprise to read that the state of Louisiana is withholding nearly $40 million in funding for flood control in New Orleans: (brackets by Wrongo)

“[Louisiana] Attorney General Jeff Landry successfully pushed [the State Bond Commission] commissioners to withhold the funds as punishment, after the New Orleans City Council passed a resolution asking law enforcement officers not to enforce Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban…”

Yesterday, Wrongo quoted Dan Pfeiffer who said: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Democratic efforts to turn this midterm from a progress report on Democratic governance into a referendum on GOP extremism failed to connect until the Dobbs decision. That was when Republican extremism went from an abstract argument to lived reality.”

The Dem’s performance in Tuesday’s primaries showed that Pfeiffer may be right, as many Democrats outperformed in swing districts. And what’s happening in New Orleans is another example of Republican extremism around the Dobbs decision. From Salon:

“The New Orleans City Council on July 7 passed a resolution in which local policymakers proclaimed their support for reproductive healthcare access and asked police, sheriff’s deputies, and prosecutors not to… enforce Louisiana’s draconian prohibition on abortion…”

That led to the state’s Bond Commission voting 7-6 to defer a motion to approve flood prevention funding until next month. CNN reported that this was the second time in two months that the panel rejected financing for a $39 million project that is meant to pay for drainage pumps critical to protecting New Orleans from flooding.

The Louisiana AG Landry sent a letter urging the bond commission to:

“…defer any applications for the City of New Orleans, Orleans Parish, and any local governmental entity or political subdivision under its purview….Any other funding that will directly benefit the City of New Orleans…should also be paused until such time as the council, mayor, chief of police, sheriff, and district attorney have met with and affirmed that they will comply with and enforce the laws of this state and cooperate with any state officials who may be called upon to enforce them.”

New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell told CNN that she is unwilling to budge on abortion and criticized Landry and other Republican members of the bond commission for endangering public health by holding flood mitigation funding hostage:

“We cannot afford to put politics over the rights of people, and particularly safeguarding people from hurricanes and other disasters, because we are on the front lines of climate change…”

Republicans used to favor local control. They always say federal policies shouldn’t apply unless the states agree. Now they’ll only say that if it’s politically convenient. This is political blackmail, not simply politics.

The sad part is how short sighted it is. This Landry guy and his Republican supporters who live outside of New Orleans think this can’t harm them. But, how long has it taken Louisiana to recoup all of its losses from Katrina?

And this bad behavior is becoming normalized. It happened in Texas’ Harris County when Houston was denied funds related to 2017’s Hurricane Harvey until recently. In Houston, the funds were not denied due to the abortion issue, but for other political reasons (including voting rights). Texas’s decision matrix favored more sparsely populated areas and areas with higher property values, which worked against Houston and Harris County, Harris County is a Democratic stronghold in a very Red State.

This kind of blackmail won’t go away unless fair-minded people win these important state offices, like attorney general and secretary of state.

Democrats need to hold the US House and Senate in November and retake the Presidency in 2024. If not, we will have failed to meet the moment. The defense of our previous political wins must be a constant goal in the game.

The 2022 and 2024 elections are America’s political endgame. And right now, it’s unclear how it’s going to play out.

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The Mid-Terms Landscape

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Grand Teton NP, MT – June 2022 photo by Charyn

On Monday, Robert Hubbell had a very useful column about how some of the anti-Trump narratives are already baked into the politics of the mid-terms (barring some huge unforeseen event): (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…it is likely that the political throughlines are set for the midterms. That is both good and bad for America and Democrats. The topics for debate have been identified and the rules of engagement have been set….Let the media do its job, which, in this instance, will consist of talking about the same half-dozen stories non-stop.”

Hubbell outlines that the narratives that will dominate the news from now until November 8 are unlikely to produce political earthquakes:

“It is unlikely that the DOJ will indict anyone in Trump’s inner circle (including Trump) before the midterms. For example, in a filing last week, the DOJ said its investigation regarding the improper removal and retention of defense secrets was in the “early stages.” Nearly every Trump administration witness appearing before a federal grand jury was examined by the J6 Committee six to eight months ago. And the only grand jury subpoenas published in the press indicate that the investigations were opened in 2022 and that the subpoenas were issued in June.”

Wrongo agrees. This is also true for the Georgia grand jury investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia. Few realize the grand jury that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is presenting evidence to cannot indict anyone. According to the Georgia Recorder: (emphasis and brackets by Wrongo)

“In contrast to a typical grand jury, the 23 members on the special grand jury do not have the power to indict anyone but can [only] make recommendations to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.”

So, when DA Willis has sufficient evidence to indict, she must then impanel a new grand jury, present evidence, and ask for an indictment. Not likely to happen before November.

While the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago (MAL) has Trump on every front page, the DOJ says its investigation regarding the Mar-a-Lago search is in the “early stages.” The way America’s legal back and forth works, it is doubtful that we will see any facts contained in the affidavit the FBI used to justify the application for the search warrant before November.

Trump made a court filing requesting a Special Master (instead of the DOJ) review the documents removed from MAL. However Trump’s new request is decided, it’s likely to be appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, if not the Supreme Court, which will take time. That means we can expect Trump and the GOP to continue undermining the DOJ and FBI right through the mid-terms.

And there will be few new facts to indict Trump in the court of public opinion.

It’s likely we will see a steady drip of information about the recovered documents, just like Tuesday’s NYT article saying that, including the FBI seizure, Trump took more than 300 classified documents when he left office. That seems to say it couldn’t have been an oversight.

Finally, the January 6th Committee returns to work in September, but as of today, there are no hearings scheduled. Mike Pence will never testify. Since he still has presidential ambitions, testifying would put him on the wrong side of Trump supporters, making a run in 2024 problematic.

While the January 6th hearings have moved the needle on US public opinion, it’s difficult to what they will add to what we know in the time remaining for this 117th Congress.

Of course, running against Trump is the Dem’s dream, but there are other issues out there, like abortion. In the new NBC News poll, abortion rights was only the seventh most important issue:

But it’s only one poll, and voter enthusiasm and turnout win races. The Morning Consult has the Democrats’ enthusiasm at 62%, up dramatically from 52% on July 31. That’s comparable to the GOP’s 65%.

Dan Pfeiffer believes the political environment has shifted in Democrats’ favor because of the abortion issue:

“Democratic efforts to turn this midterm from a progress report on Democratic governance into a referendum on GOP extremism failed to connect until the Dobbs decision. That was when Republican extremism went from an abstract argument to lived reality.”

Dems need to remind voters that unemployment is at record lows, that its Democrats who fight for economic progress, and to preserve women’s right to an abortion. Democrats can’t keep people from worrying about inflation, but they can influence whether it is the top issue to voters. They can keep the heat on Republicans for their extremist views on abortion and on Trump’s extremism and his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The hope is that these realities overtake concern about inflation as the main issue for a big swath of Independent voters.

That could be the difference.

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Monday Wake Up Call – August 22, 2022

The Daily Escape:

A new day at Jockey’s Ridge SP, Nags Head, NC – August 2022, photo by Crystal Calla Photography.

There’s trouble in the Republican Party. They’ve believed the pundits who said that the GOP had a lock on the November mid-terms, but with terrible Senate candidates, along with the Dobbs decision and Biden’s legislative comeback, things are getting very tight. From the WaPo: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Republican Senate hopefuls are getting crushed on airwaves across the country while their national campaign fund is pulling ads and running low on cash….In a highly unusual move, the National Republican Senatorial Committee [NRSC] this week canceled bookings worth about $10 million, including in the critical states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona.”

Sounds serious. The NRSC has had a record fundraising year, bringing in $173 million so far this election cycle. But they’ve burned through much of it. The NRSC’s cash on hand was just $28.4 million at the end of June.

Republican spending has been augmented by Mitch McConnell’s super PAC, which announced a $28 million rescue effort in Ohio, where Republican candidate JD Vance has raised only $1 million in the second quarter and has spent less than $400,000 on ads.

McConnell’s super PAC also moved up by three weeks its spending in Pennsylvania, adding another $9.5 million, for a total of $34 million. The Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman, is building a lead over the Republican candidate, Mehmet Oz.

Many of this year’s Republican Senate candidates haven’t run for office before and have had to deal with nasty and expensive primaries that crushed their favorability ratings. A string of recent polls show Republican candidates in many battleground states trailing, or in toss-up races with well-funded Democratic opponents. From Charlie Pierce: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“There’s a pretty good chunk of evidence that the Republican Party is currently very nervous about its chances in this year’s elections for the US Senate. When a party’s C47 flies over your state and dumps a massive payload of cash-like ordnance…(you know you’re in trouble).”

The Republicans suddenly have to start using money they’d earmarked for propping up people like Vance, as life support for the campaign of North Carolina’s Senate candidate Ted Budd, who’s in a dead-heat election with Cheri Beasley. Budd’s public statements on a violent insurrection are likely to cause any thinking Republican voter to stay home.

Republicans have climbed back into a familiar box. In 2010, the Republicans blew a chance to take the Senate because they couldn’t resist nominating terrible candidates. For example, Sharron Angle in Nevada suggested that a teenage victim of rape shouldn’t get an abortion but make a “lemon situation into lemonade.” Christine O’Donnell in Delaware finally had to say she wasn’t a witch.

Besides Vance, Republicans this year couldn’t stop themselves from nominating Herschel Walker in Georgia. They also are defending the indefensible incumbent Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, who in a Marquette University Law School poll, is seven points behind the Democrat Mandela Barnes.

While the odds of Democrats holding the Senate are improving, it is still more than possible that some or all of these Republican candidates could be sitting in the Senate next January. It’s certainly possible that big money Republicans will ride to the rescue of their terrible candidates.

And that’s the point. For the GOP, the worse the candidate, the more the Party’s true believers embrace them. That’s how they prove they’re true believers. Eventually, (hopefully already?) this will reach the point of diminishing returns.

Are we there yet? Can we get there before our democracy crashes and burns is the real question.

Time to wake up America! It’s our job to deliver more than 50 seats in the Senate to the Democrats! There are 35 US Senate seats up for election in 2022, of which 14 are held by Democrats and 21 by Republicans. Democrats need to hold serve, and win two-four more!

We have an opening with the GOP choosing shitty candidates and spending their ad money frivolously. But it means Democrats must turn out in large numbers in all of these elections, from Warnock in Georgia to Fetterman in PA, to Barnes in Wisconsin. And don’t forget Mark Kelly in AZ, and Catherine Cortez Masto in NV.

To help you wake up, watch, and listen to “Lily Was Here” performed by saxophonist Candy Dulfer and the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart. Written by Stewart, it was the title track to a 1989 Dutch film called “De Kassiùre, (The Cashier).” Here it is performed live by Stewart and Dulfer in 1989:

Dulfer was born in the Netherlands. She’s the daughter of saxophonist Hans Dulfer and started to play the soprano saxophone at age six. She’s very very good.

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Companies Are Making Inflation Worse

The Daily Escape:

Grand Park, Mt. Rainier, WA – August 2022 photo by Edwin Buske Photography

As discussed yesterday, polls are showing that voters are still concerned about inflation. The good news over the past two days is that producer prices (prices at the wholesale level) and consumer prices both fell from June to July.

But these inflation concerns won’t be going away, and the Republicans hope to make the November midterms a  “gas and groceries” election, saying Biden is the cause of rising prices. In July’s Consumer Price Index, the price of groceries was a particular pain point, rising 1.3% for the month. Wolfstreet reports that the year-over-year rise in the “food at home” part of the CPI (food bought in stores and at markets) is now at 13.1%, the worst spike since 1979.

Food is a category where inflation hits consumers right in the face on a daily basis. And it hits people on the lower end of the income spectrum much harder because they spend a relatively larger portion of their income on food.

But the fall in gasoline prices over the last couple of months is also meaningful. After peaking in June at $5.03 per gallon, the average national price of gas fell below $4 this week, according to GasBuddy.

The Hill reports that Biden will go on offense against the Republicans’ drumbeat about inflation by traveling the country to tout job creation and the Inflation Reduction Act, once it is passed by the House on Friday. Biden plans to make the point that Congressional Republicans sided with the special interests every step of the way on delivering lower costs for working people.

That won’t hurt Dems chances in November, but will it be enough to offset what’s happening with retail prices? Here’s another striking set of facts from Bloomberg:

“The first sign that this wasn’t going to be a typical corporate earnings season came early on the morning of July 12, when PepsiCo Inc. unveiled an odd set of results. Growth in unit sales, it said, was essentially zero in North America. Revenue rose though, driven by the double-digit price increases Pepsi slapped on its snacks.”

They weren’t the only consumer product company to raise prices as sales fell: The purple dots show how unit sales fell (as much as 10% for Clorox) while prices (green dots) rose in most cases, more than 10%. And revenue (yellow dots) rose for all firms:

This is bad for the economy on many levels: Price-driven sales growth isn’t healthy; and it isn’t good for consumers who have lost purchasing power (and are angry about it). It isn’t good for our overall economy, or for the Federal Reserve that’s trying to bring down inflation.

Many CEOs are willing to raise prices because it’s no longer the taboo it has been for the past two decades, when annual inflation averaged a little more than 2%. Their thinking is that if volumes slip a little as a result of the price hikes, their share prices won’t take a beating. So no worries, just raise prices.

The bet that these consumer products CEOs are making is that once things settle down in the economy, people will come back. Bloomberg quotes  Neil Saunders, an analyst at GlobalData Plc, a consulting company:

“If they keep losing share next year, they’ll take more notice. It’s very hard at the moment to tell what’s temporary and what’s permanent.”

Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark, and Church & Dwight, the maker of Arm & Hammer baking soda and OxiClean, all reported quarterly numbers that fall into the weak-volumes-and-big-price-hikes category. More from Bloomberg: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“One of the best examples is Conagra Brands Inc., the…Chicago-based food conglomerate, which reported results on July 14. A core measure of its revenue jumped 6.8%, in the three months that ended on May 29, thanks to an increase of 13% in the average price it charged….The amount of goods it sold, though, fell 6.4%.”

We know that inflation is very high, among the highest rates in the past 40 years. It now seems clear that consumer products companies are a prime contributor to these price increases.

We know that unemployment is as low as it’s been in 50 years. The labor market is strong. We know that the growth rate of GDP was really high in 2021, and that it’s slowing in 2022.

What we don’t know is how voters are going to act in November.

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Partisanship is Dragging Down Consumer Sentiment

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Smugglers Beach, Yarmouth, MA – July 2022 photo by Sue Frageau

We all hear the negative news, and fewer of us hear what’s positive. Bloomberg’s Matt Winkler says that the measures that track confidence in the economy are being skewed downward by politically disgruntled Americans, mostly people on the Right. Here’s a chart:

There’s plenty of evidence that the Democrats are terrible at political messaging. But, even though inflation is at 40-year highs, we need to ask why consumer sentiment seems so low when the economy is doing pretty well.

Winkler’s point is this level of negativity makes little sense economically but as the chart above shows, it’s consistent with partisanship. And he makes a compelling case that the current sentiment levels are disconnected from the overall state of the economy relative to historic levels. More from Winkler:

“Never mind that the deaths related to Covid-19 plunged 78% from the first to the second quarters, that 10 million new jobs have been created, that unemployment at 3.5% represents a 53-year-low, that corporate earnings rose to a record and that the confidence of chief executive officers remains above its long-term average. Not to mention that total household net worth soared by $18.1 trillion in 2021, the most under any president…”

Here’s a different chart from Barry Ritholtz showing the University of Michigan Sentiment Index going back to 1978, annotated to show previous economic turndowns:

The chart shows that the current sentiment readings are worse than:

  1. 1980-82 Double Dip Recession
  2. 1987 Crash
  3. 1990 Recession
  4. 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
  5. 2000-2003 Dotcom implosion
  6. 2007-09 Great Financial Crisis
  7. 2020 Pandemic Panic

Does it make any sense that today’s consumer sentiment would be worse than it was for all of those previous economic crises? It does not.

It seems that Republicans are indifferent to the positive developments. The University of Michigan’s national Consumer Sentiment Index has plummeted 50% under Biden to an all-time low, primarily due to Republicans’ disapproval of an economy led by a Democratic President.

Bloomberg found that Democrats also aren’t as approving when their Party isn’t occupying the White House. But in contrast to Republicans, Democrats’ confidence correlates closely with rising and falling gross domestic product and unemployment trends.

To be sure, the highest inflation level in 40 years, as measured by the Consumer Price Index at 9.1%, for June (although July measured a lower 8.5%) is punitive to the least affluent voters, the traditional base of Democrats.

Republican are amplified by FOX News in their views that the economy is in terrible shape. When the Commerce Department said on July 28 that the economy contracted for a second consecutive quarter, the Fox Business channel declared, “We are officially in recession.”  But, as Wrongo and many others have said, there is no “official” recession until the nonpartisan economists of the National Bureau of Economic Research declare it.

It’s a perplexing time for economists. Overall activity as measured by GDP has contracted, but it doesn’t feel like a recession. The economy has added 2.74 million jobs this year through June. This earnings season has shown that members of the S&P 500 Index are on track to post record profits for the second quarter.

But none of this is apparent in the Michigan Sentiment Index, perhaps because Republicans running for office across the country in 2022 are saying the economy is terrible. They are the same people who are still denying the results of the 2020 election.

Paul Krugman asks why Biden isn’t getting any credit for the 10 million new jobs created in his first two years in office:

“Some polling suggests that the public may not be aware that we’ve been creating jobs at all, let alone at a record pace. And we’re in a partisan environment where politicians…can make obviously false assertions and have their supporters believe them. The other day Trump told a crowd that gas in California costs $8.25 a gallon, and nobody laughed. (It was actually $5.43 at the time.)”

Meanwhile, Biden is doing exactly what he promised when he got elected. And he’s succeeding against the odds with only occasional bipartisan support. His success shows that what’s hurting the consumer sentiment polling is partisanship and disinformation.

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Should Legislative Wins Have Dems Feeling Optimistic?

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Colorado, NM, near Grand Junction, CO – July 2022 photo by David Shield

Robert Hubbell made a list of landmark legislation passed thus far during the Biden presidency so that we’d have it handy over the next few months leading to the mid-terms in November:

  • 03/11/2021 American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion relief bill to address the continued impact of COVID-19 on the economy, public health, state and local governments, individuals, and businesses.
  • 11/15/2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion investment in “hard infrastructure” including roads and bridges.
  • 03/29/2022, Emmett Till Anti Lynching Act, 120 years after an anti-lynching bill was first introduced and which failed on nearly 200 prior occasions, Congress passed a bill designating lynching as a hate crime. Only three representatives—one each from Texas, Kentucky, and Georgia—voted against the bill.
  • 06/25/22 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, extended background checks for gun purchasers under 21, funding for state red flag laws and other crisis intervention programs, and partial closure of the “boyfriend” loophole.
  • 07/29/2022 CHIPS and Science Act, the most significant research bill passed in a generation, including a $56 billion investment in American semiconductor production to incentivize companies to move chip production back into the US.
  • 08/02/2022, Honoring our PACT Act of 2022, expanded healthcare and other services for veterans who were exposed to toxic substances during military service.
  • 08/07/2022, Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the largest climate investment in US history, also lowers prescription drug prices by giving Medicare the power to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs and extends expiring Obamacare health care subsidies for three years.

The scope of the issues addressed is significant: the pandemic and its economic fallout, highways, bridges, broadband, rail, manufacturing, science, semiconductors, prescription drug prices, health insurance, veterans’ health, climate change, deficit reduction and tax equity.

And they were passed within the constraints of a 50/50 Senate. Five of these laws, and all but the two biggies: the American Rescue Plan, and the IRA received Republican support. It’s pretty amazing that the Dems got this much.

So, whenever someone asserts that “Biden or the Democrats haven’t achieved anything” or that “Biden’s presidency has been a failure,” ask them to name as many significant pieces of legislation passed by Trump. Or, by Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, or Nixon.

Only LBJ stacks up to the progress Biden has made so far.

But, it’s unclear how much this will help the Democrats in November. The Dems went into the 2010 midterms having passed Obamacare, a landmark piece of legislation, but they lost 60 seats and the leadership of the House. That was the biggest swing since 1948. Republicans also reduced the Democrats’ Senate majority.

So, as Wrongo stated yesterday, the political challenge for Democrats turns in large part to messaging —and targeting their message to the cohorts that make up the Democratic Party. Ruy Teixeira, a Democratic strategist affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in the WSJ that Hispanics are no longer a sure cohort for the Democrats:

“It seems clear that Democrats seriously erred in 2020 by lumping Hispanics in with other “people of color,” assuming that they sympathized with the racial activism that dominated so much of the political scene that year. In reality, Hispanic voters are not a liberal voting bloc, especially on social issues.”

More:

“In a Pew postelection survey, just 20% described themselves as liberal, while 45% were moderate and 35% conservative. Surveys show that Hispanics are overwhelmingly an upwardly mobile and patriotic population whose main concerns are jobs, the economy, healthcare, effective schools, and public safety.”

Teixeira cites the polling firm Civiqs’ survey in late July that showed that just 12% of Hispanic working-class voters said their family’s financial situation had gotten better in the last year, while 50% said it had gotten worse.

In general, Hispanic voters cite inflation and the economy as by far their top issues for 2022. They could be a tough get for Dems who want to focus voter attention on abortion rights, their legislative achievements, and the Jan. 6 hearings.

How should Democrats message Hispanic voters?

We’re at an inflection point. All of the above happened because there were 50 Democratic Senators. It wouldn’t have happened with 49. It might have been bigger with 52 or more. Lose control of the House in November, and see Biden impeached.

These are things all Democrats should be reckoning with. Let’s leave the last words to Hubbell: (brackets by Wrongo)

“We have the policies, the positions, the values, and the candidates necessary to win. We need to….engage without fear or hesitation…..Let’s capitalize on the string of mistakes and “pulling back the curtain” moments that have revealed…[Republican] depravity as never before. We have every reason to be confident but no reason to be complacent!”

 

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Monday Wake Up Call, Inflation Reduction Act Edition – August 8, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Summer storm passes, Grand Teton NP, WY – August 2022 photo by Hilary Bralove

The Senate came into session at 12 pm Saturday, and after a full 24 hours, it paused the vote-a-rama on Sunday for a new prayer. Those are the Senate rules. Then the Senate promptly resumed its vote-a-rama, which ended about 3:15 pm on Sunday. From the WaPo:

“The Senate on Sunday approved a sweeping package to combat climate change, lower health-care costs, raise taxes on some billion-dollar corporations and reduce the federal deficit, as Democrats overcame months of political infighting to deliver the centerpiece to President Biden’s long-stalled economic agenda.”

While most of the Democrat’s reconciliation process proceeded according to plan, Senate Republicans successfully stripped a provision capping the price of insulin in the private marketplace from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) by a 57-43 vote, with seven Republicans (Cassidy, Collins, Hawley, Hyde Smith, Kennedy, Murkowski and Sullivan) voting to keep it in. But the seven GOP votes, plus all Democrats, weren’t enough to reach the 60-vote threshold necessary to pass.

The cap on insulin prices for only those on Medicare remained in the bill since it complied with the rules on reconciliation. Apparently, the Republicans think that if we give people handouts for having diabetes America’s just incentivizing people to get diabetes. Who wants that?

Democrats included a new tax on large companies that currently pay nothing to the US government and added about $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service to pursue tax cheats. They also approved a 1% tax on companies that buy back their own stock, a practice that many see as detrimental to the economy, that benefits only wealthy shareholders and executives.

After the bill passed, Republicans were predictably outraged. The appropriately-named Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) said:

“It does nothing to bring the economy out of stagnation and recession. But rather, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 gives us higher taxes, more spending, higher prices — and an army of IRS agents…”

And it’s important to note that while Democrats don’t think that Sens. Manchin and Sinema are all that great, don’t forget that this watered down bill was opposed by EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN.

There is plenty to crow about in the IRA. Does it contain everything on the progressive wish list? No, but Dems should take the win and stop pissing and moaning about what couldn’t get by Manchin, Sinema and/or the Senate Parliamentarian, and sell the bill hard to the American people.

If Democrats want to deliver even more, they’ll need to improve their margin in the Senate, and hold the House in the November mid-terms.

It’s not enough for Democrats to wait for Republicans to shoot themselves in the foot this fall, even though some candidates can be counted upon to try hard to do just that. Democrats need to be shouting about their successes. Just yesterday, Trump said at CPAC: “You have not good job numbers now”, even though the just-published job numbers were awesome! That has to be countered at every opportunity.

This means a wall-to-wall, multi-pronged messaging campaign, reminding Americans every minute that Republicans can’t be trusted on the economy. And despite where inflation is today, we need to be saying that gas prices are down nearly $1.00/gallon in the last seven weeks.

Maybe John Stewart should become the Dem’s Minister of Information?

We need to say that most GOP candidates support the Big Lie and the impeached coup plotter, Trump. That they’re willing to eliminate the right to an abortion in America. On Friday, Indiana’s Republicans passed and Republican Governor Eric Holcomb immediately signed, a bill that prohibits nearly all abortions from the moment of gestation. Several Republican-controlled states will shortly pass similar laws.

People must, as Tom Sullivan says, “campaign like crazy“, while reminding all Americans that the Party of Lincoln no longer will deliver anything that ordinary people want.

Time to wake up America! We’re at war politically and ideologically with Republicans. The only way to win is to keep defeating them at local, state, and federal levels until they stop trying to force their radical ways on the rest of us. To help you wake up, watch, and listen to the interesting but short-lived group, 4 Non Blondes play their big hit from 1992, “What’s Up”:

Sample Lyric:

25 years and my life is still
Tryin’ to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination

I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means

And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed
Just to get it all out what’s in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – July 31, 2022

Q: Why do people take an instant dislike to Justice Samuel A. Alito?  A: It saves time.

Alito spoke in Rome dismissing criticism from foreign officials who he said “lambasted” his opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade. Alito spoke at a conference promoting religious liberty, saying:

“I had the honor this term of writing I think the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders who felt perfectly fine commenting on American law…”

Alito called out Prince Harry as making a particularly hurtful comment. What Harry said at the UN:

“This has been a painful year in a painful decade….Climate change wreaking havoc on our planet, with the most vulnerable suffering most of all. The few weaponizing lies and disinformation at the expense of the many. And from a horrific war in Ukraine, to the rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States, we are witnessing a global assault on democracy and freedom, the cause of Mandela’s life.”

Alito said in response:

“But what really wounded me…was when the Duke of Sussex addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare the decision…with the Russian attack on Ukraine…”

To quote Charlie Pierce:

“The conservatives on the Supreme Court are now not simply ruling like political animals, they’re behaving like political animals as well.”

This guarantees that Alito will be forever known internationally as a dickhead. On to cartoons.

Manchin had a surprise:

The GOP’s burning its mid-term chances by walking away from the PACT act:

And this incarnation of GOP plumbers need tech support:

The stuff of nightmares:

Change brings things to light:

DHS scrapped the effort to collect agency phones in order to try to recover deleted Secret Service texts:

Putin’s staff misunderstands:

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US Military Needs Recruits

The Daily Escape:

Old Victorian farmhouse between Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA – photo by Dave Alvin

The NYT has a report about how hard it is for the US military to find new recruits:

“Almost across the board, the armed forces are experiencing large shortfalls in enlistments this year — a deficit of thousands of entry-level troops that is on pace to be worse than any since just after the Vietnam War. It threatens to throw a wrench into the military’s machinery, leaving critical jobs unfilled and some platoons with too few people to function.”

More:

“The Army is the largest of the armed forces, and….As of late June, it had recruited only about 40% of the roughly 57,000 new soldiers it wants to put in boots by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.”

Still more: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Less than a quarter of young American adults are physically fit to enlist and have no disqualifying criminal record, a proportion that has shrunk steadily in recent years. And shifting attitudes toward military service mean that now only about one in 10 young people say they would even consider it.”

This is shocking. You don’t have to be a competitive athlete to join the Army. Too many young men have prison records. The military should seriously consider issuing waivers for criminal history. A willingness to die for one’s country should be seen as a gigantic step towards rehabilitation.

And since just 10% of potential recruits are willing to consider serving, young people have obviously understood the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq. Why would young people want to die for wasteful wars of choice that have nothing at all to do with protecting their country?

These shortfalls put pressure on the military to bring in people who are either marginally qualified or unqualified. Wrongo ran a US Army unit in Germany during the Vietnam war. Back then, the US Army couldn’t recruit enough people who met its basic standards. The DOD came up with a program called Project 100,000 in October 1966 to recruit new soldiers who previously had been below the military’s mental or medical standards.

Project 100,000 personnel died at higher rates than other Americans serving in Vietnam. In Germany, more of our Project 100,000 soldiers served time in military jails than did our regular recruits. The project was ended in December 1971.

It looks like the Army is currently walking toward implementing a similar solution to the same problem it had 45 years ago.

Since jobs are plentiful in America, and wages have increased, the military has to compete by sweetening their deal with signing bonuses (up to $50,000). The military has also downsized. The number of active-duty service members is now about half of what it was in the 1980s and it’s projected to keep decreasing.

Also, the shabby way we treat our veterans hasn’t gone unnoticed by young people. The Watson Institute researches the cost of the Afghan war. They say that more than 40% of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have already been approved to receive lifetime disability benefits. This is what happens when you continually redeploy the same soldiers into a 20-year long battle. Many get permanently injured.

And most of the costs associated with caring for post-9/11 veterans have yet to be paid, and will continue to accrue for years into the future.

July marks the 40th anniversary of doing away with the draft. We instituted the all-volunteer army because during the Vietnam War, significant numbers of draftees didn’t want to serve. The all-volunteer army was a bad idea then, and it’s still a bad idea. The post-9/11 wars were the first major test of our all-volunteer military.

Leaving aside their bravery and personal sacrifice, which was profound, how do you think they did?

On September 11, 2001, roughly one in every four American men were military veterans. But over the past two decades, the number of veterans in the population has declined to fewer than one in eight.

We need to re-institute the draft to spread the responsibility for our defense to all Americans. Barring reinstituting the draft, the number of military in our population will continue to decline. The Census Bureau projects that the number of veterans will be just 1 in 14 by 2040. By 2050, when the costs of providing medical care and benefits for veterans of the post-9/11 wars reaches its peak, few Americans will have a direct relative who was involved in those wars.

The other benefit of a draft is that it exposes young people to others of all races, ethnicities, and beliefs, and forces them to find ways to get along to accomplish a mission.

That would be both a refreshing and necessary change.

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