Category: Media Laziness

Trump’s Role In The Insurrection May Go Unpunished

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Camden Harbor, Camden ME – January 2024 photo by Daniel F Dishner Photography

It’s been three years since the Insurrection on Jan. 6. One of the determining factors of the outcome of 2024 presidential election will be whether the cases against Trump for his role in the Insurrection are decided before the election on November 5th of this year. It’s just 303 days away. That isn’t a lot of time, and there remains only a small possibility that Trump will be convicted and sentenced to prison for his role in fomenting either the violence at the Capitol or in the stolen documents case before November.

Wrongo no longer expects that either of the political cases against Trump will be decided by then.

Hopefully you realize that if those cases are still pending on Nov. 5 and Trump wins the election, the US government will withdraw from them, eliminating the possibility of Trump ever being convicted.

The failure of the DOJ to see the past four years as an asset that had to used quickly and decisively before it was used up by the Trump team’s procedural appeals, is unforgivable. This also applies to the DOJ efforts to try the downstream Jan. 6 insurrectionists. From the NYT:

“As of December, about 1,240 people had been arrested in connection with the attack, accused of crimes ranging from trespassing, a misdemeanor, to seditious conspiracy, a felony.”

Another 350 cases are still pending. That’s out of a total of nearly 3, 000 people who have been identified as Jan. 6 insurrectionists. So far, around 170 people have been convicted at trial, two people have been fully acquitted, and about 710 people have pleaded guilty. More than 450 of them were sentenced to jail time, ranging from a handful of days to more than 20 years.

Yet the instigator of all that happened that day remains free. And his public still support him. Here is a chart from the WaPo that shows how the view of Trump’s responsibility for the Jan. 6 insurrection have changed over time:

The survey also found that over a third of Americans now believe Biden’s election was illegitimate compared to a December 2021 WaPo survey. Republicans are also less likely to believe that Jan. 6 participants were “mostly violent”. Only 18% of them believe the people who entered the Capitol on 1/6 were in that category. They are less likely to believe Trump bears responsibility for the attack.

This prove that Mark Twain was right: you can indeed fool some of the people all of the time.

A few months ago, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released its annual American Values Survey. Buried inside their extensive report was a very alarming finding:

“One-third of Republicans and 46% of people who think the 2020 election was stolen believe that ‘true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.’”

This is a dangerous powder keg: An increasingly unhinged former President, and a Republican base that believes violence may be the only way to preserve America as they know want it.

When Wrongo speaks about “dread” in the political sense, his biggest fear in 2024 is the powder keg we’re sitting on. If Trump loses again, we are certain to see more political violence from the Right. And if he wins? No one should think there is a zero chance of violence against Trump’s political enemies.

This brings to mind a quote from Churchill, who when speaking about countries appeasement of Hitler said:

“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.”

That is clearly true for many Republicans and most of the media.

A lot of Democrats are down in the dumps these days. They are frustrated with the lack of progress on some issues (immigration) and by the never-ending cycle of bad polling on Biden’s popularity. Some were hoping to vote for a younger or more progressive Democrat this time around.

Those feelings are legitimate, and it is incumbent on Biden and his campaign to persuade people why they must exercise their voting power against the dark forces on the Right. Democracy can’t function when people intend to use force as a means to bring about their idea of justice. It’s even worse when they are excused after their behavior.

This is the reason to unify and mobilize the disparate Democrats, Independents and anti-Trump Republicans. The use of force on Jan. 6 and the possibility of using more force this year to get an unconvicted Trump back in the White House and keep him there, isn’t democracy. This is the time and place to stop Trump’s rolling Insurrection.

Biden recognizes this and kicked off his 2024 political campaign in Valley Forge, PA on Friday. Biden sees Valley Forge as a symbolic connection between his efforts to “heal the soul of the nation” and George Washington’s undaunted spirit during the American Revolution hundreds of years ago.

His second speech will be at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, where white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine Black parishioners as they welcomed him to pray with them in June 2015.

From Joan Walsh:

“Something that stays with me, that few commentators ever mention: Trump came down his gilded escalator to declare his presidential candidacy just one day before the Charleston massacre. It would probably be too daring for Biden to make that connection, but I always do.”

Biden’s campaign theme of “preserving democracy” isn’t compelling, or “made for TV.” But it is precisely what the nation needs as it stares into the abyss of a potential second Trump term as president. Like Biden, Trump has made promises. He’s promised his followers that, if re-elected, “I will be your retribution.”

As with Biden, we should take Trump at his word: He will exact retribution and act as a dictator on day one of his second term. These competing promises of Trump and Biden tell us all we need to know about the choice we face in the 2024 election.

On to our first Saturday Soother of 2024. Here at the mansion of Wrong, we’re ready for tonight’s snow. We’re also looking forward to next weekend when we will have all of our 12 grandchildren here for a belated Christmas party. Since they span the ages of 15-32 and are spread all over the country, this is the first time ever that they will be in the same space.

It’s something that Wrongo and Ms. Right are looking forward to with great anticipation.

Today, let’s try to forget the dread and the likelihood that Trump will never be convicted for his crimes of Insurrection. Instead, grab a comfy chair by a window where, if you are in the Northeast, you can watch the falling snow.

Now watch and listen to the London Gay Symphony Orchestra play “La Calinda” from Delius’ third opera “Koanga”, written between 1896 and 1897. Koanga is reputed to be the first opera in the European tradition to base much of its melodic material on African-American music. Delius spent time as a young man working in Florida. Here is “La Calinda” conducted by Christopher Braime at St. Giles Cripplegate in February 2017:

 

Facebooklinkedinrss

Americans Dread The Future

The Daily Escape:

Manhattan Beach Pier, CA – December 31, 2023 photo by Michael Franich

Welcome to Wrongo’s first column of 2024. Let’s dispense with the reviews of last year and the forecasts of this year. Let’s try to describe what we’re all feeling as we say so long to the presidential campaign of 2023, and welcome in the presidential campaign of 2024.

What’s the overwhelming feeling that comes to mind for Americans when thinking about the upcoming presidential election? Dread, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll:

“The survey of 1,636 US adults…offered respondents seven emotions — three positive, three negative, one neutral — and asked them to select any and all that reflect their attitude toward the 2024 campaign.

Dread, the most negative option, topped the list (41%), followed by exhaustion (34%), optimism (25%), depression (21%), indifference (17%), excitement (15%) and delight (5%).”

Here’s the relevant chart:

More:

“In total, a majority of Americans (56%) chose at least one of the three negative feelings (dread, exhaustion or depression), while less than a third (32%) picked at least one of the three positive feelings (optimism, excitement or delight).”

Wrongo test marketed the idea that “dread” was the watchword for 2024 at a New Year’s breakfast with people who span the political spectrum. They universally hated it, but after a short discussion felt it was arguably, the dominant feeling that they had about what will/might happen in 2024.

From the issue:

“We are feeling an acute sense of loss….But what do you call the feeling of watching your society being taken over by fanatics, monsters, and lunatics? How about the feeling of watching democracy crash and burn—remember, it’s declining by the stunning rate of about 10% a decade, putting its extinction within our lifetimes.”

Psychology Today gives us a frame to think about dread in their 2023 article, “How to Overcome the Sinking Feeling of Dread”: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A sense of dread may be due to an abstractly internalized experience of external volatility called “disembedding”….This phenomenon refers to our ability to interact with one another without having to make face-to-face contact. The result is an overabundance of information that comes our way. It becomes abstracted and metaphorically slips through the fingers of our minds in trying to grasp what it is. With a few clicks through an Instagram feed, scrolling through Twitter, or even just opening your web browser to search for something, your brain becomes a dartboard for world news.”

More:

“When one experiences this, there are often repeated attempts to secure a firm base. People will reassert their values as moral absolutes, declare other groups as lacking in value, draw distinct lines of virtue and vice, be rigid rather than flexible in their judgements, and punitive and excluding rather than permeable and assimilative….Another consequence of disembedding is the possibility of scapegoating: the underclass, racial minorities, new-age travelers, addicts, people with unusual behaviors, and other vulnerable social groups risk being singled out and demonized as the source of society’s problems.”

Dread makes us less tolerant of differences, and as a result, we punish them. This is the emotional backdrop for 2024, and the road ahead looks murky as hell. And facts increasingly don’t matter, since whichever side posits a fact, the other has a prepared rebuttal that says the source (even if its official statistics) are misleading if not outright lies.

The NYT’s Krugman notes that overall, the country’s in pretty good shape. The challenge is that people so far continue to blame Biden for the chaos and ugliness that Trump and his cult are creating: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The big question…was whether America would ever fully recover from that shock. In 2023 we got the answer: yes. Our economy and society have, in fact, healed remarkably well. The big remaining question is when, if ever, the public will be ready to accept the good news….America’s resilience in the face of the pandemic shock has been remarkable, [but] so has the pessimism of the public.”

The big question going forward is whether the grim narratives will prevail over our relatively sunny reality when we get to the 2024 election. Unfortunately, we are bathing in the hideous cultural nastiness caused by the Republican Right and it’s spread despair throughout the country.

Overcoming that mood (and the dread people feel) isn’t going to be easy, but disaster is certain if you give up. Individually, we each can do more than we think we can to keep America in good hands.

Start by no longer buying into the bullshit spewed by the mainstream media, in particular, the NYT. Their both sides coverage of Trump’s crooked behavior demonstrates their inability to let us know how real his threat is to the public.

The rest of the corporate media’s coverage is the same, with a few exceptions. Don’t overlook outlets abroad which had good reputations for thorough and unbiased reporting. In the age of the internet with translation capability at your fingertips, it’s not absurd to look outside of the US news rut for different perspectives.

As long as the GOP can paint the Democrats as the bigger enemy, Independent and anti-Trump Republican voters have an out; they can justify staying on the sidelines. The mainstream media’s complicit role in broadcasting the GOP strategy can’t be overstated. And the Democratic Party leadership’s long-term paralysis in the face of this simple equation is one reason why we’re in the situation we are in now.

Stop ascribing superpowers to the GOP. The Republican Party is a hot mess.

No matter what you read, act! Make a plan and act. It can be surprisingly easy to become a thought leader on the local level. Inside both Parties, the leaders are the people who show up and do the work. That’s it, that’s all it takes to begin making change happen. Show up, do the work.

We’re heading into what will be the toughest part of an existential fight for this democracy. It’s going to be an ugly, messy show, one that is certain to add to those feelings of dread. Plan on it and then show up to do the work it will take to beat back the fascists.

Think about the toll Americans will endure in 2024. How many women will die of complications from a pregnancy they couldn’t end? How many trans persons will give up because they can’t live as human beings with autonomy over their bodies? How many persons will die from Covid this coming year because of right-wing propaganda supported by elected GOP officials? How many futures will be shortened because children may not get the food, health care, or education they need?

How many families will be split up because they couldn’t find shelter?

Our message when we’re doing the work has to be about unity. It’s clear right now that Democrats are splintering in all directions. Some don’t want Biden because he’s pro-Israel. Young people find Biden to be too old. Some feel he’s too middle-of-the-road. We all need to remember American novelist Rebecca Solnit’s mantra:

“Voting is a chess move, not a valentine.”

Facebooklinkedinrss

A New Year Brings New Work

The Daily Escape:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Rick Wilson: (emphasis by Wrongo)

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

More:

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

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

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

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

Facebooklinkedinrss

War, What Is It Good For?

The Daily Escape:

Garden of The Gods, CO – December 2023 photo by James H. Egbert

It’s another Monday, and the world is still a mess. There is so much division here at home that we forget that the rest of the world is  boiling over with wars. Not a world war, but there are wars everywhere around the world. Americans are focused on the Ukraine War and the Israel/Hamas war, but there are local and regional wars we barely hear about.

From Hal Gershowitz:

“Among the deadliest wars so far in this still young century are the Second Congo War, the Syrian Civil War, the Darfur War in western Sudan, the war in Afghanistan following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the war against Boko Harem in Nigeria, the Yemeni Civil War, Russia’s current war against Ukraine, and, of course, the current blood-letting between Israel and Hamas.”

More:

“According to the Geneva Academy….more than 110 armed conflicts are raging worldwide.”

Gershowitz says that in 2022, 237,000 men, women, and children died from organized violence, double the number of armed conflict deaths of the year before. While the bloody toll for 2023 hasn’t been compiled yet, we should expect the numbers to exceed those of 2022.

The Middle East, including North Africa, is the most blood-soaked region of the world, hosting more than 45 shooting wars. We know about the Israel/Hamas fight, but we hear much less about ongoing armed conflicts in Cyprus, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Turkey, Yemen and Western Sahara.

There are scores of other active hot conflicts, most of which don’t ever make headlines: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan are among the most dangerous places on the planet for civilians.

War dead in this region alone adds up to between hundreds and thousands every day. Some countries, such as the Central African Republic, have had multiple wars. Last year, the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region accounted for over 100,000 battle-related deaths, according to Oslo’s Peace Research Institute.

Currently, there are 21 separate armed conflicts raging in Asia, two of which are considered international wars (India-Pakistan and skirmishes between India and China). In some countries, such as Pakistan and the Philippines, there are multiple armed conflicts taking place simultaneously. Both countries are host to six separate regional in-country conflicts.

While everyone is familiar with Putin’s war in Ukraine, there are five other European nations (or territories) that Russian armies have occupied, including Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Moldova’s Transdniestria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia (Georgia).

The deaths in Ukraine are adding up. The US estimated in August that there were approximately 300,000 Russian casualties, including as many as 120,000 deaths and 180,000 wounded. Ukrainian losses were estimated at 70,000 deaths and 120,000 wounded. Since those estimates were released, the toll of dead and wounded on both sides has climbed even higher.

In our hemisphere, there are six armed conflicts in Latin America—three in Mexico and three in Columbia.

The 21st Century is still young, but it’s horribly violent. China is eyeing Taiwan, North Korea is elbowing its way into the nuclear club, and Iran, which follows the Shia form of Islam, is eying all of Arabia, which embraces Sunni Islam.

Back to Israel/Hamas for a few random thoughts: First, at the start of any new armed conflict, the UN, occasionally the US and other nations, call for an immediate cease fire. There hasn’t been a durable cease fire in this century. Yet, Steve Coll in the New Yorker had this to say:

“Even a temporary ceasefire displays the moral power of peacemaking. Last week, as a shaky truce to allow prisoner and hostage swaps and aid deliveries quieted the ruinous war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli families welcomed back more than a hundred children and older adults whom Hamas and its allies had kidnapped on October 7th…..In the West Bank, jubilant crowds waved the flags of Fatah and Hamas as Palestinian parents hugged their teen-age children released from Israeli jails.”

More:

“Ceasefires usually don’t end wars because they don’t address the issues that underlie them. (A study of sixty-seven civil wars published in the Journal of Peace Studies in 2021 found no evidence that ceasefires and prisoner releases led to sustainable peace agreements.)”

Specifically with respect to Israel/Hamas, we can’t see what the end state looks like. Netanyahu visited Gaza during the ceasefire and cited three aims: “eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages, and insuring that Gaza does not become a threat to the State of Israel again.”

As Wrongo said two months ago, it is difficult to see how the second objective can be achieved in tandem with the first. Regardless of what Netanyahu thinks, the third will not be controlled by Israel, even though it may be the most important of Israel’s three objectives.

Another problem is that this war is causing a terrible divide in America. Think about how quickly U of Penn’s president Liz Magill was forced to resign after giving a truthful and legally correct answer to an utterly bad faith question. The question she was asked was, “Is calling for the genocide of Jews always a violation of Penn’s code of conduct in regard to bullying and harassment?”

Now, no rational person is in favor of genocide, but Rep. Stefanik’s question implies that simply speaking out in support of Palestinians is the equivalent of calling for Jewish genocide. Plenty of today’s college students support Palestine, and very few of them think that Jews should be exterminated.

Stefanik’s question asks us to ignore people’s free speech rights when they are awful and noxious. It lands very close to the witch hunting of McCarthyism in the 1950s.

Also, it’s clear in Wrongo’s circle that people are afraid to express opinions on the Israel/Hamas war, because whatever is said is sure to offend someone. It could possibly be enough to cause a threatening retaliation. What’s worse is that not a single person will live or die in the Middle East because of anything anyone says or doesn’t say at the University of Pennsylvania or in Wrongo’s hometown.

There is nothing at stake in the performative rage about what’s said at college demonstrations. It’s all empty theater.

Time to wake up America! If Republicans and other hardliners are able to make criticism of Israel a forbidden topic in mainstream society, that means our democracy will die right along with the many more deaths we will see in the Middle-East.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to a globally produced cover of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” by the people behind Playing For Change. This song came out in 1971 when the Vietnam war was still going on. Here it features Sara Bareilles among many other talented people:

Sample lyric:

Father, father
We don’t need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some loving here today…

Facebooklinkedinrss

Wake Up To Monday’s Hot Links

The Daily Escape:

Cypress trees, Lake Verritt, LA – November 2023 photo by Rick Berk Photography. Note the egret in the background.

For today’s Wake Up Call, we return to a staple of yesteryear, some hot links that caught Wrongo’s eye over the past few days.

Wrongo isn’t happy with how the Ukraine War has slipped from the consciousness of America’s media and thereby, from our view. Saturday’s WSJ offered an intriguing idea with its column, “Does the West Have a Double Standard for Ukraine and Gaza?” (free link). The article makes two excellent points. First, how these two wars have divided the world. Here’s a view of the division:

From the WSJ: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Outrage and political mobilization have become subordinated to geopolitical allegiances—a selective empathy that often treats ordinary Ukrainians, Palestinians and Israelis as pawns in a larger ideological battle within Western societies and between the West and rivals such as China and Russia.”

Second, the article concludes by saying that the main difference between the two wars is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with all its complexities, lacks the moral clarity of the Ukrainian resistance to Russia. They quote British lawmaker Alex Sobel:

“There is no moral justification for the Russian invasion. Zero. It’s just about Russian imperialism….But in Israel and Palestine, it’s about the fact that there are two peoples on a very small amount of land, and political and military elites on both sides are unwilling to settle for what’s on offer.”

Yes, America may have the moral high ground in both cases, and views can differ on how both wars are being waged. But as the article says in its second paragraph:

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was unprovoked, while Israel sent troops into Gaza because of a mass slaughter of Israeli civilians…”.

Make of the article what you will, but it’s important to think through why you (like Biden) think both wars are morally equivalent.

Link #2 is apropos of the COP28 conference now underway in Dubai. Grist Magazine has an article: “Where could millions of EV batteries retire? Solar farms.” As solar energy expands, it’s becoming more common to use batteries to store the power as it’s generated and transmit it through the grid later. One new idea is to source that battery back up at least in part from used electric vehicle batteries:

“Electric vehicle batteries are typically replaced when they reach 70 to 80% of their capacity, largely because the range they provide at that point begins to dwindle. Almost all of the critical materials inside them, including lithium, nickel, and cobalt, are reusable. A growing domestic recycling industry, supported by billions of dollars in loans from the Energy Department and incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, is being built to prepare for what will one day be tens of millions of retired EV battery packs.”

More:

“Before they are disassembled…studies show that around three quarters of decommissioned packs are suitable for a second life as stationary storage.”

Apparently there are already at least 3 gigawatt-hours of decommissioned EV battery packs sitting around in the US that could be deployed, and that the volume of them being removed from cars is doubling every two years.

Link #3 also shows the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act. Wolf Richter writes that:

“In October, $18.5 billion were plowed into construction of manufacturing plants in the US ($246 billion annualized), up by 73% from a year ago, by 136% from two years ago, and by 166% from October 2019.”

More:

“The US is the second largest manufacturing country by output, behind China and has a greater share of global production than the next three countries combined, Germany, Japan, and India.”

All of this construction spending will take time to turn into production. When these new plants are up and running and producing at scale, manufacturing’s share of US GDP will rise. And much of the new construction is happening in fly-over America, which can use the help.

Finding factory workers in sufficient numbers to support the new capacity will be a key. America has energy in abundance and has robotic manufacturing. So pulling production from overseas with fewer workers needed will be a giant plus for the US.

Link #4 is a downer. Civic Science says in this week’s 3 things to know column, that “Nearly 3 in 10 Americans say they have had to forgo seeing a doctor in the past year due to costs.” Here’s their chart”:

Civic Science says that 12% of US adults have had to miss or make a late payment on medical bills in the last 90 days, a two percentage point increase over September 2022.

A far larger percentage of Americans – 27% of the general population and about 30% of respondents under 55 years old or with an annual household income under $100,000 – report they could not go to a doctor in the past 12 months because they could not afford the cost. Gen Z adults and households making between $25K-$50K are more likely to have held off seeing a doctor due to cost (34% and 31% respectively).

We all know that medical costs have continued to rise and that medical debt is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the US. If Congress was really interested in helping provide for the general welfare, they would deal with this out of control problem.

Time to wake up America! There’s plenty going on that isn’t getting visibility in the mainstream media or on social media. You have to cast your net widely to be on top of the good and bad happening in the US.

To help you wake up, we turn to Shane MacGowan, frontman for the Irish group the Pogues who died last week. He left behind a body of work that merged traditional Irish music and punk rock. He wrote many songs that could easily be mistaken for traditional Irish tunes including this one, which was also used as the music for wakes by the Baltimore Police Department in the great, great HBO series, “The Wire“. Here’s “The Body Of An American” from their 1986 album, “Poguetry in Motion”:

RIP Shane.

Facebooklinkedinrss

America’s Confusing Opinion Polling

The Daily Escape:

Oak Creek, Sedona AZ – November 2023 photo by Jim Lupton

Over single malt and martinis, our Thanksgiving guests talked about what a confusing time we’re living in. Americans are angry and anxious, and the polls continue to show problems for Biden across the board, despite that overall, the economy is fine.

Inflation has slowed significantly. Wages are increasing. Unemployment is near a half-century low. Job satisfaction is up. Yet Americans don’t necessarily see it that way From the NYT:

“In the recent New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in six swing states, eight in 10 said the economy was fair or poor. Just 2% said it was excellent. Majorities of every group of Americans — across gender, race, age, education, geography, income and party — had an unfavorable view.

To make the disconnect even more confusing, people are not acting the way they do when they believe the economy is bad. They are spending, vacationing and job-switching the way they do when they believe it’s good.”

Continuing with the confusion, the new WSJ/NORC survey of the American dream—the proposition that anyone who works hard can get ahead regardless of their background, has moved out of reach for many Americans. Only 36% of voters in the survey (conducted between Oct. 19-23 with a margin of error of ± 4%) says that the American dream still holds true: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The American dream seemed most remote to young adults and women in the survey…..46% of men but only 28% of women said the ideal of advancement for hard work still holds true, as did 48% of voters aged 65 or older but only about 28% of those under age 50 agreed.”

And people think the dream is growing more remote. When last year’s WSJ poll  asked whether people who work hard were likely to get ahead, 68% said yes—nearly twice as many as in this year’s poll (36%). More from the NYT:

“Economic difficulties are greater for those without a college degree, who are the majority of Americans. They earn less, receive fewer benefits from employers and have more physically demanding jobs.”

Voters without a college degree are Trump’s strongest cohort.

Adding to the cloudy forecast, the Economist/YouGov weekly tracking poll of registered voters says most people are happy with their jobs:

  • Overall, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the way things are going in your life today? Satisfied 64%, Dissatisfied 35%
  • How happy would you say you are with your current job? Great deal/somewhat 80%, A little/not at all 19%.
  • Do you consider yourself paid fairly or underpaid in your job? Paid fairly 56%, Underpaid 38%.
  • Do you think your family income will increase or decrease in 2024? Increase 45%, stay the same 41%, decrease 15%.

But the same Economist/YouGov poll gives a different impression when you ask about the American economy more broadly:

  • Do you think the economy is shrinking or growing? Growing 22%, staying the same 25%, shrinking 37%. That’s 47% thinking its growing or staying the same. (The reality: The economy has grown at 3% on average under Biden, the highest for any President since Clinton.)
  • Are the number of jobs in the US increasing (42%), staying the same (36%) or decreasing (22%)? (The reality: 14 million new jobs have been created under Biden.)
  • How would you describe the current state of the American economy? Excellent/good 30%, fair/poor 64%. (The reality: We’ve had the fastest job growth perhaps ever, very strong GDP growth, inflation is way down, wage growth is very strong, and the annual deficit is way down from Trump’s presidency.)

What’s going on here? These data suggest something tragic – either the American people have no idea what is happening in the country, or what they do know is deeply wrong.

A final nail in this conundrum. Ed Kilgore in NY Magazine says that the youth vote is swinging against Biden:

“Until recently, Democrats’ biggest concern about the 2024 youth vote was that millennial and Gen-Z voters …might not turn out in great enough numbers to reelect Joe Biden. Young voters were…the largest and most rapidly growing segment of the Democratic base in the last election. But now public-opinion surveys are beginning to unveil a far more terrifying possibility: Trump could carry the youth vote next year.”

The latest national NBC News poll finds President Joe Biden trailing Trump among young voters ages 18 to 34 — with Trump getting support from 46% of these young voters and Biden getting 42%, while:

“CNN’s recent national poll had Trump ahead of Biden by 1 point among voters ages 18 to 34.

Quinnipiac University had Biden ahead by 9 points in that subgroup.

The national Fox News poll had Biden up 7 points among that age group.”

Hard to know what to believe from those surveys. More from Kilgore:

“According to Pew’s validated voters analysis (which is a lot more precise than exit polls), Biden won under-30 voters by a 59% to 35% margin in 2020. Biden actually won the next age cohort, voters 30 to 49 years old, by a 55% to 43% margin.”

So, what’s wrong? It’s important to note that yesterday’s younger voters aren’t today’s. From Nate Silver:

“Fully a third of voters in the age 18-29 bracket in the 2020 election (everyone aged 26 or older) will have aged out of it by 2024, as will two-thirds of the age 18-to-29 voters from the 2016 election and all of them from 2012.”

Silver says, So if you’re thinking “did all those young voters who backed Obama in 2012 really just turn on Biden?” Those voters have aged into the 30-to-41 age bracket.

We need to remember that today’s young voters share the national unhappiness with the performance of the economy, and many are particularly affected by high cost of living and higher interest rates that make buying a home or a car difficult. Some are angry at Biden for his inability (thanks to the Supreme Court) to cancel student-loan debts. And most notoriously, young voters don’t share Biden’s strong identification with Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas (a new NBC poll shows 70% of 18-to-34-year-old voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war).

And there’s this tidbit from the NYT:

“Younger people…had concerns specific to their phase of life. In the poll, 93% of them rated the economy unfavorably, more than any other age group.”

What exactly are kids in their 20’s supposed to be feeling at this stage of life? Unless you come from money, your 20’s are a financial struggle. Wrongo’s certainly were, and that’s decades ago when the economy was great. This isn’t to dismiss today’s very real economic uncertainties. Wrongo’s own grandchildren run the gamut of (relative) struggle financially.

The single most persuasive way to convince young people that Trump isn’t the right answer is to show them what he’ll do in his own words. Many of them are too young to know much about Trump. Some of today’s college freshmen were just 14 or 15 when he was in office.

It’s Monday, and it’s time to wake up America! People need to pay attention. Once again, it will come down to effective messaging for the Dems. They must help voters understand who will serve their interests and who will literally crush their interests.

To help you wake up watch and listen to William Devaughn’s “Be Thankful For What You’ve Got”. It sold nearly two million copies in 1974. It takes us back to a time when there was more optimism in America. If you lived or worked in NYC in the1970s, the video will also take you back to a difficult period in the city’s history. In its own way, it’s a great Thanksgiving song:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Biden’s Birthday

The Daily Escape:

Eastern Bluebird, Cape Cod, MA – November 2023 photo by Ken Grille Photography

“Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” – Yogi Berra

Biden celebrated his 81st birthday on Monday. Although this isn’t breaking news, as if on cue there were plenty of: “Is Biden Too Old?” faux concern expressed by journalists and pundits across the media landscape. As Wrongo has said before, Biden is visibly old. He looks like many older men who have remained physically fit: They seem thinner with voices that become more gravely with time.

From Paul Campos:

“When Biden was born in 1942, the…life expectancy for American males at birth was 62.6 years. 81 years later, it’s possible to estimate within an extremely high degree of accuracy how long American men born in 1942 will end up living, on average. The answer is 71.1 years, i.e., 14% longer than their…life expectancy at birth.”

Wow! Biden is old! Campos describes the two alternative definitions of life expectancy. First, period life expectancy, which is “life expectancy at birth,” a statistical construct. Period life expectancy isn’t a prediction: it’s a statement of a statistical fact. That fact is, if age adjusted mortality rates were to remain constant over the course of a cohort’s lifetime, it would indicate the average age at which people in that cohort died.

The second is called cohort life expectancy. This is a look back at how long people actually lived. When Biden was born in 1942, the period life expectancy for American males at birth was 62.6 years. This alternative definition of life expectancy how long people actually live, is called cohort life expectancy. That is 71.4 years in Biden’s case.

The gap between period life expectancy and cohort life expectancy was at one point nearly 20%. It turns out that people born in the US in 1900 lived to be on average 56 rather than the expected 47 years. With the massive improvements in medicine and public health over the last 120 years, the difference between period and cohort life expectancy are diminishing.

Period life expectancy isn’t a prediction, and it’s very inaccurate. Nevertheless it is almost always interpreted by the media as a prediction.

If Wrongo had one request for Biden’s handlers it would be to teach him to add more color, more inflection, to his voice. Everyone knows that he will occasionally trip over a word or two when speaking. That problem is as old as the man himself. From the NYT: (brackets by Wrongo)

“While Mr. Biden shuffles when he walks, talks in a low tone that can be hard to hear and sometimes confuses names and details in public…[his staff]…note that he maintains a crushing schedule that would tire a younger president.”

And while it is easy to see that Biden remains in command of situations that would cause younger men to freeze, better projection of his words and ideas would go a long way to blunting the finger-wagging ageists who jump on his every appearance on the world stage.

That said, Wrongo thinks that Americans can hold two competing thoughts at the same time: Biden is older than Trump but is competent and accomplished. While Trump is younger and a menace to America. To Wrongo, it seems that the press is more concerned about Biden having a birthday than about Trump becoming Hitler.

The media who are pushing Biden’s age choose to ignore Trump’s age. He’s 77 and will be 78 if elected, and 82 at the end of his term. He’s not aging well. In his recent campaign appearances, he’s mistaken Biden for Obama 7 times, claimed that Biden will start World War II and said that Jeb Bush started the Iraq War.

These are just the highlights, and there are many more alarming gaffes. Think about what a second Trump term would bring: a dictator-adjacent felon who wants to weaponize the DOJ to take revenge on his former political appointments.

Despite Biden’s many achievements, during one of the toughest periods in our recent history, the media has planted and nurtured the idea that Biden is unfit to be president. Why? Well, because of nothing beyond how Biden seems in videos. After thousands of articles saying Biden’s too old, many in America are willing to dump the president that ended Trump’s reign of error.

Let’s get real: Biden has rung up a fine record as president. CLEARLY, his age and experience have given him the ability to make decisions that less experienced politicians probably would not make. Biden has ably handled foreign crises and had the most productive first three years of any president since LBJ.

All the while, his opponent is rapidly decompensating. This from a man who has proven his inability to put the country first in his thinking. The contrast is stunning, and more obvious than the media seems capable of being honest about.

The sad truth is that neither Party is willing to take the risk of nominating a younger candidate who might underperform what Biden and Trump did in the 2020 presidential election.

In the meantime, happy birthday Joe Biden, who statisticians predict will be approximately one year older than he is today on election day 2024!

It probably won’t be long before we see a headline saying, “If Biden really cared about the environment he wouldn’t put so many candles on his birthday cake.”

Facebooklinkedinrss

Cartoons of the Week – November 19, 2023

Since we couldn’t have a Saturday Soother, Wrongo wants to complain a bit today. But first, it was a bad week for cartoons. Here are the best:

It’s clear that many Americans can’t hold two thoughts simultaneously:

Biden sees through the turkey:

 

 

Complaint #1: We’re faced with a choice between our aging president and his aging contender for the job. Biden did quite well in his meeting with China’s president Xi. He seemingly met all of the American objectives for the meeting. In the press conference afterwards, he looked in command, walking across a minefield of questions, even with the gotcha question about whether Xi was a dictator, without any missteps.

But the press still talks about how old Biden looks. From Kevin Drum: (brackets by Wrongo)

“…having now listened to a number of Biden’s recent speaking gigs, there’s really no question that this [his age] is solely about his physical appearance. Cognitively, Biden is perfectly normal. The worst he ever does is the occasional verbal flub, a longtime Biden habit. Agree with him or not, he says what he means to say….He thinks Xi Jinping is a dictator and has repeated this [even] through the grimaces of his Secretary of State.”

Contrast that with Trump who doesn’t appear to be as old, but can barely remember who the president is, or how many world wars we’ve had. America will either elect a charade of an active former president with a deteriorating mind, or we can keep an active president with a strong mind but obvious physical limitations.

Which would you rather have?

Complaint #2: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box, he told Americans on Tuesday that our time-honored concept of separation of church and state, a founding principle of the country is a “misunderstanding”, that what the founders really wanted was to stop government interfering with religion, not the other way around:

“The separation of church and state is a misnomer….People misunderstand it. Of course, it comes from a phrase that was in a letter that Jefferson wrote. It’s not in the Constitution.”

Johnson was referring to Jefferson’s 1802 letters to the Danbury Baptists Association of Connecticut. In the letters, Jefferson makes clear that the founding fathers subscribed to a powerful separation of church and state, which they enshrined in the establishment clause of the First Amendment (even Johnson knows while the Amendments are technically “not” part of the Constitution, they really are).

It’s no surprise that the same people that believe the Constitution should be strictly interpreted are also trying to force an interpretation of it that allows them to make the bible integral to it. Integration of religion into politics has historically been something that fascists and authoritarians have used to get what they wanted.

Rolling Stone says that Johnson has:

“…a flag hanging outside his office that leads into a universe of right-wing religious extremism…”

More:

“The flag is white with a simple evergreen tree in the center and the phrase “An Appeal to Heaven” at the top….this flag was a Revolutionary War banner, commissioned by George Washington as a naval flag for the colony turned state of Massachusetts.”

The quote “An Appeal to Heaven” was taken from John Locke. In the past decade, this flag has come to symbolize a die-hard vision of a hegemonically Christian America. Still more:

“…if you look closely at the…videos and pictures of the Capitol insurrection, Appeal to Heaven flags are everywhere. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them…[in]…the crowd…”

An example from Jan. 6:

Rolling Stone has spent months researching this corner of Christianity known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). They use the same flag hanging outside Johnson’s office, and it’s a key part of their symbology.

The NAR was formed in the 1990s around an evangelical seminary professor named C. Peter Wagner. This is a nondenominational network that believes they are the vanguard of a Christian revolution. In the mid-2000s, these NAR networks embraced a theological paradigm called the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a prophecy that divides society into seven arenas — religion, family, government, education, arts and entertainment, media, and business.

The “Mandate,” as they understand it, is for Christians to “take dominion” and “conquer” all seven of these sectors and have Christian influence flow down into the rest of society.

Follow along for another minute: One of Wagner’s key disciples is Dutch Sheets. In 2013, Sheets was given an Appeal to Heaven flag. A friend told him that, because it predated the Stars and Stripes, it was the flag that “had flown over our nation at its birthing.” Sheets saw the flag as a symbol of the spiritual warfare-driven Christian nationalist revolution he hoped to bring about in American politics.

Sheets endorsed Trump’s candidacy and over the course of the 2016 campaign, the Appeal to Heaven flag and the NAR’s vision of a Christianity-dominated America became entwined with Trump.

Why does Johnson fly this symbol of Christian warfare at the House Speaker’s office when it is clear that the spiritual-warfare appropriation of it connotes an aggressive form of Christian nationalism. The Rolling Stone closes by saying:

“It is simply untenable to think that Johnson is unaware of what the Appeal to Heaven flag signals today. It represents an aggressive, spiritual-warfare style of Christian nationalism, and Johnson is a legal insurrectionist who has deeply tied himself into networks of Christian extremists whose rhetoric, leadership, and warfare theology fueled a literal insurrection.”

We The People cannot let the Mike Johnsons of the world take over our country.

When theocrats and fascists tell us who they are, believe them.

Facebooklinkedinrss

What Is It With These Freaking Polls?

The Daily Escape:

Yellow Ocotillo in bloom, Anza-Borrego SP, CA – November 2023 photo by Paulette Donnellon

Today is Election Day in the US. If you are eligible to vote, you should get to your local polling place and do your duty as an American. Wrongo and Ms. Right live in Litchfield County, CT. The county skews right, having voted for the Republican in the last three presidential elections while going for Obama in 2008, but not in 2012. Litchfield was the only Connecticut county to vote for Mitt Romney in 2012.

Tomorrow, we’re electing a mayor, town council, school board, zoning board and several other offices. Like in most off-year elections, turnout in our town is expected to be much smaller than in presidential years. Wrongo always wonders why turnout is low, when the stakes for what happens in your town are so high, regardless of whenever it’s an off-year election. Wrongo and Ms. Right plan to split our tickets.

By Wednesday morning, we’ll know which state elections across the country look like they are a bellwether for the 2024 election which is just under a year away. Will Virginia’s Republicans take full control of the state legislature and clear a path for Gov. Youngkin to enact his far-right proposals on abortion and education?

In Ohio, voters will decide whether to approve Issue 1 and Issue 2. Issue 1 would enshrine the right to an abortion and other reproductive health care in the state constitution. Issue 2 would legalize marijuana for adults over 21.

2023 has been a very good year for Democrats, and we need to close strong. So, by Wednesday, we’ll know more than we do today.

Despite that, this week, the NYT is out with a poll predicting a future they can’t possibly know. Their poll shows Trump leading Biden in five critical swing states:

“President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues….Across the six battlegrounds — all of which Mr. Biden carried in 2020 — the president trails by an average of 48 to 44 percent.”

According to Simon Rosenberg, Republican presidential candidates have only topped 48% and won the popular vote once since 1988 (Bush 2004 re-election). Trump received 46.1% and 46.8% of the vote in his two elections. Polls finding Trump in the high 40s or with large leads over Biden place him in territory he has never achieved with voters.

If Wrongo hasn’t convinced you, remember that the NYT poll was of 3,662 registered voters. It was conducted by telephone using live operators from Oct. 22-Nov. 3. Picture it: People answering a phone call from an unknown caller. Do you know anyone under 50 who answers a call from numbers they don’t recognize? Apparently, the NYT has admitted that they overweighted Republicans and later attempted to “smooth” the results statistically.

After all the smoothing, the margin of sampling error for each state is from 4.4 to 4.8 percentage points. In other words, the overall results that show Trump waxing Biden are within the margin of error.

Voters also told the NYT:

  • 56% have a somewhat unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable view of Trump.
  • Asked who would be better for “democracy,” voters give Biden a 48%-45% edge.
  • 51% say that following the 2020 election, Trump “threatened democracy.”
  • 54% believe Trump has committed “serious federal crimes.”
  • 52% say they do not think he will be convicted of any crimes.
    • Yet if he is convicted and sentenced to prison, then suddenly Biden goes to 49%, vs. Trump at 39%.
  • Asked if it would be “bad for the country” if Biden or Trump won:
    • Biden would be bad for the country: 44%
    • Trump would be bad for the country: 46%
  • Again: The net voting preference in this poll is Trump 48%, Biden 44%. With a 4.45-4.8% margin of error.

Does this picture fit together with the NYT’s overall results?

It’s useful to remember that Congressional polling is encouraging for Democrats. The current Economist/YouGov tracker has Congressional favorables/unfavorables for Congressional Democrats at 44%/51% (-7%) while Congressional Republicans are at 35%/59% (-25%).

And a new poll from Navigator Research shows that in battleground House districts, it found terrible numbers for Congressional Republicans:

If this data holds: 1) Democrats will be the clear favorites to win the House and 2) The declining GOP Congressional brand could drag Trump down along with the overall GOP brand in the Presidential battleground states. And this poll was taken before voters learned how extreme the Republican’s new Speaker is!

Dan Pfeiffer has a nice article; “How to Respond to the Very Bad NYT Poll.” If you are worried about the poll, Pfeiffer adds detail:

“Perhaps the simplest explanation of Biden’s political challenges is that he has done a lot of good, popular things, and almost no one knows about them. Navigator tested a series of messages about Biden’s various accomplishments, including allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug costs, the bipartisan law to rebuild roads and bridges, and efforts to create more manufacturing jobs in the US

Guess what? All of this stuff is super popular.”

More:

“Medicare negotiating drug prices is supported by 77% of Americans, including 64% of Republicans. The bipartisan infrastructure law has the support of 73% of Americans and a majority of Republicans. Every accomplishment tested in this poll had majority support. It’s hard to overstate how impressive that is in a deeply divided, highly polarized country at a time when the President’s approval ratings are in the low 40s.”

According to the NYT poll, a majority of Americans heard little or nothing about these accomplishments, so there’s a yawning knowledge gap. But the poll also shows that when people are told about what Biden has done, his approval rating goes up.

The NYT poll reminds us that everyday people like you and me can have an outsized impact if they focus on letting friends and family know about Biden’s accomplishments. That is so much more valuable than worrying about polls a year in advance.

It’s time for a rare Tuesday Wake Up Call. Wake up America! We will be dealing with polls that skew reality, and with negative press from now to next November. To help you wake up, listen to Rachel Platten perform her big hit, “Fight Song”, live on New Years Eve in 2016:

This is to help heal you from the bad polling news. Now, get up off the floor and do what you have to do.

Sample Lyric:

And all those things I didn’t say
Were wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?

[Chorus]
This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I’m alright song
My power’s turned on
Starting right now, I’ll be strong
I’ll play my fight song (Hey)
And I don’t really care if nobody else believes
‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me

Facebooklinkedinrss