Category: Monday Wake Up Call

Why Ukraine?

The Daily Escape:

St. Ann’s Church and Shrine, Polonia, Buffalo NY, abandoned in 2012  – March 2024 photo by Abandoned and beyond Buffalo. It was recently purchased by a group of Muslims aiming to transform it into a refuge.

From Timothy Snyder:

“…It has been 459 days since the US Congress passed legislation to support Ukraine. Russia, supported by arms from Iran and North Korea, is now slowly advancing…and sending scores of missiles and drones at cities throughout Ukraine.  Russia has…destroyed one major Ukrainian hydroelectrical facility, and…is targeting two others.  The aim is to bring down the Ukrainian electricity grid.

The US Congress is once again in recess.  Although sizable majorities of Americans and their elected representatives want to support Ukraine, legislation has been blocked by the Putinist wing of the House of Representatives.”

This means that the House won’t address funding for Kyiv until mid-April at the earliest. It would be difficult to state the problem more succinctly or better than Snyder does. Where have the Biden administration and the US House been for the past 460+ days?

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) was on “Meet the Press” yesterday. Bacon favors some support for Ukraine and highlighted his partnership with Reps. Jared Golden, (D-ME), Brian Fitzpatrick, (R-PA), and Ed Case, (D-HI) on a Ukraine aid bill:

“We put a bill together that focuses on military aid — a $66 billion bill that provides military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan….If we do this bill, and I think we will, there’s enough support in the House to get this done. And — and I want to make sure that we have support in the Senate…”

It’s possible that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could face a vote to oust him if he moves to pass Ukraine aid in the House. Before the House left for its two-week vacation Marjorie Taylor-Greene, (R-GA), submitted a motion to vacate, which could lead to a House vote to oust Johnson. Since Greene did not file the motion as privileged, the vote can happen at an indefinite point in the future. Shortly after Greene filed the motion, she said: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“He (Johnson) should not bring funding for Ukraine to the floor…”

The US has been in a stalemate on resupplying weapons to Ukraine for six months. Zelenskyy told CBS News that Ukraine’s forces had managed to hold off Russian advances through the worst of the winter months:

“We have stabilized the situation. It is better than it used to be two or three months ago when we had a big deficit of artillery ammunition, different kinds of weapons….We totally didn’t see the big, huge counteroffensive from Russia… They didn’t have success.”

CBS said that Zelenskyy acknowledged that the invading Russian troops and their seemingly endless supply of missiles and shells is having a negative effect, that they’re not going to be able to defend against another major Russian offensive expected in the coming months. That, he said, was expected around the end of May or in June.

More: (parenthesis and emphasis by Wrongo)

“He (Zelenskyy) said what’s needed most are American Patriot missile defense systems, and more artillery…he said the nature of the funding dedicated by the American government to help Ukraine must be put into perspective.”

He then made the point that the vast majority of the funds committed to Ukraine go to defense contractors in the US:

“Let’s be honest, the money, which is allocated by the Congress, by the administration, in the majority of cases….at least more than 75% — stays in the US. This ammunition is coming to us, but the production is taking place there, and the money stays in the US…”

What’s happened to Americans? Two years ago every town in the US was sponsoring Ukrainian families. Zelenskyy spoke to the US Congress and received standing ovations. Their war of necessity with Russia dominated the evening news.

Now, we get crickets instead of news about Ukraine. It seems that we’ve become a culture where we admire, support and follow “winners only” like Beyoncé and Taylor. We like winners. Their stories are simple to follow, and their detractors are easy to get angry about.

Ukraine looked like a winner in the fall of 2023, so America was all in, but that died in the standoff in the spring of 2024. America no longer has the willingness or ability to think through complex problems like Ukraine vs. Russia, a problem that may take several more years to solve. So we kick Ukraine to the side of the road and instead talk about Princess Kate and her cancer diagnosis or about Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, his awesome huge contract and his possible connection to gambling.

You know, the easy stuff that doesn’t make your hair hurt.

We need to keep Ukraine in the forefront of our thinking. We need to realize that Russia sees the eastern NATO countries on their border like potato chips. And you can’t expect Russia to eat just one.

America has two “far enemies” (as opposed to “near enemies”). Our far enemies are Russia and China. Rather than allow them time to become near enemies, we need to deal with them where they are today. This means arming Ukraine with the best air defense systems we have and with longer range missiles that can strike at Russia’s oil, shipping and manufacturing facilities.

Its long past time for the US Congress’ wakeup call! Your dithering may cost Europe and America far more than you think.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to the late Kirsty MacColl perform her hit “Walking Down Madison”, from her 1991 album Electric Landlady. The backup group includes Johnny Marr (The Smiths) on guitar and rapping by Aniff Akinola. Wrongo has loved this song since he first heard it 33 years ago. The idea that you’re never far from having reality whack you in the face has always appealed

Sample Lyrics:

From an uptown apartment
To a knife on the A train
It’s not that far
From the sharks in the penthouse
To the rats in the basement
It’s not that far
To the bag lady frozen asleep on the church steps
It’s not that far

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Who Attacked The Civilians In Moscow?

The Daily Escape:

MLK statue through Cherry blossoms, Tidal Basin, DC – March 2024 photo by National Parks Service

An event in Russia highlights how difficult it is for many to believe what they’re reading and hearing. A terrorist attack took place in the outskirts of Moscow at the Crocus City Hall last Friday. At least 133 people were killed and more than 100 others were injured in the attack just before a performance by a rock band. Assailants who were dressed in camouflage uniforms opened fire and reportedly threw explosive devices inside the venue, which was left in flames with its roof collapsing after the deadly attack.

The Islamic State in Afghanistan known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, (ISIS-K) – subsequently claimed responsibility for the attack.

And that’s where the charges and countercharges about who was behind the deed started flying across the internet. Earlier, on March 7, the US Embassy in Russia issued a warning to “avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours”:

“The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and US citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”

Apparently the US Embassy also passed this information on directly to their Russian counterparts. It’s likely that the collapse of US-Russia relations since the start of Ukraine/Russia war makes it very difficult for Russia’s security services to take seriously any intelligence the US might provide about possible attacks.

All of this led to the US State Department saying that ISIS-K was to blame, while the Russians accused Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Putin is all over the idea that Ukraine is behind the attack: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“They were trying to hide and were moving toward Ukraine….Based on preliminary information, a window for crossing the border was prepared for them by the Ukrainian side.”

Whether or not this is true, it represents a Russian verdict on Ukraine’s guilt.

But think about Putin’s “window”. The idea that escaping terrorists would head for Ukraine is nuts. Russia has 20,000 miles of border. The Russian-Ukrainian portion of it is covered with Russian soldiers and security forces. The Ukrainian side is heavily mined. It’s a site of active combat. It’s almost the last place an escaping terrorist would choose to run to.

Ukrainian officials have denied having anything to do with the attack, and American officials have said there is no evidence of any Ukrainian involvement. From Paul Campos:

“…people often forget that a) Russia occupies vast territories populated predominantly by Muslims, b) Russia has waged a brutal war of terror in order to subjugate some of those territories, and c) Russia has been a target of radical Islamist terror in the past. Consequently, allegations of ISIS-K involvement easily pass the smell test.”

It’s apparent that neither side is remotely interested in a comprehensive investigation. The State Department’s verdict was that Ukraine was innocent and ISIS K was to blame. The Russian FSB’s verdict is that it was hired nobodies from Tajikistan who were sponsored by Ukraine’s GUR (intelligence service) – and thus it was a terrorist act supported by the West. From Timothy Snyder:

“Russia and the Islamic State have long been engaged in conflict. Russia has been bombing Syria since 2015. Russia and the Islamic State compete for territory and resources in Africa. Islamic State attacked the Russian embassy in Kabul. This is the relevant context for the attack outside Moscow.”

Finally CNN begs to differ with the Russians: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“In March alone, Russian authorities had thwarted several ISIS-related incidents, according to RIA (the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency). On March 3, RIA reported that six ISIS members were killed in a counter-terrorist operation in the Ingush Karabulak; on March 7, it said security services had uncovered and “neutralized” a cell of the banned organization Vilayat Khorasan in the Kaluga region, whose members were planning an attack on a synagogue in Moscow; and on March 20, it said the commander of an ISIS combat group had been detained.”

It is in Putin’s interest to pin the attacks on Ukraine because Russia needs to mobilize more troops to finish the Ukraine job.

OTOH, if Ukraine had anything to do with the murdering of Russian civilians on an industrial scale, the West would shut off their arms & ammo supplies. The US and NATO has zero reason to risk starting a nuclear war by allowing it’s Ukrainian client to murder and maim Russian civilians.

And Ukraine targeting civilians doesn’t fit with their strategy of attacking Russian airfields, refineries, railroads, critical bridges, and FSB offices. If they were going to kill civilians it would be workers in weapons factories or oil industry or railway employees.

Meanwhile during and since the incident, Ukraine attacked two Russian Ropucha Class landing ships, the Black Sea Fleet Communications Center in Sevastopol, and a few more refineries.

Time to wake up America! We need to see beyond the headlines in a complicated story like this terrorist attack in Moscow. This is why people who get their news from social media without better research into the full gamut of possibilities will make bad conclusions about what/who is behind this. It’s probably a good idea for all of us to keep our powder dry and wait for the evidence to tell the story.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to three guys play boogie-woogie on a public piano in St. Pancras station in London. This is an excellent tune to start your day:

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State Of The Union Speech Mop-Up

The Daily Escape:

Morrow Bay, CA – March 2024 photo by Slocoastpix

(This is most likely the only column this week, as Wrongo is working on an outside project.)

Today let’s cover a few disparate topics that are about clean-up from the Biden State of the Union address. The Hollywood Reporter reports on Biden’s viewership ratings with this headline:

“The 2024 State of the Union address drew a larger TV audience than the 2023 address.”

Biden’s speech averaged 32.23 million viewers across 14 broadcast and cable outlets, almost 5 million more viewers than the 2023 State of the Union. Viewership rose on all of the largest outlets by about 18%.  More:

“The vast majority of viewers — 28.47 million — watched the State of the Union on the big four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) and the three largest cable news outlets (CNN, Fox News and MSNBC). All seven outlets drew a bigger audience than they did for last year’s address.”

So much for viewer apathy. One big surprise to Wrongo is that Fox News led with 5.84 million viewers, beating out the 5.24 million for ABC, which had the largest viewership among the broadcast networks. NBC’s 4.47 million viewers finished third, followed by MSNBC at 4.43 million, (its largest audience ever for a State of the Union).

Why would Fox have more viewers when their network demographics skew far more to the Right than the others? Did they tune in hoping to see a Biden senior moment?

Second, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Jesus) lied in her rebuttal for the GOP.

Third, Umir Haque’s newsletter, the issue has some good insights that Wrongo hasn’t seen elsewhere. About leadership: (emphasis, parenthesis and brackets by Wrongo)

“We recently discussed the difference between occupying a leadership position—and being accepted as a leader. This Biden’s been hid[den] away by the Democratic machine….Those roaring, electrified [people attending the speech)? Those surging positivity ratings? That’s…going from merely occupying the position, to being accepted as a leader.”

More:

“Biden quietly proposed something very much like a new America. A new American social contract. The ideas came so fast and furious that they were almost easy to miss, sandwiched between philosophy and persuasion.”

More:

“…most State of the Unions aren’t like that. They’re pretty boring because Presidents tout their accomplishments. They’re backwards looking…sort of performance reviews….This one really was…profoundly different.”

Haque who lives in the UK, says that the ideas Biden put forth, are very popular in Europe:

  • Taxing billionaires, which is part of a new movement, arising mostly in Europe, to reduce inequality, by having a global tax on the ultra-rich.
  • Taxing executive compensation on salaries over $1 million by making them no longer tax deductible. This is also linked to recent moves by European nations to make economies more equal again.
  • Giving home buyers tax credits. This is a first step towards fixing America’s badly broken housing market…..many European nations are trying to fix that through incentives like this.
  • Lowering drug prices. One of Biden’s most revolutionary policy ideas was to let the government negotiate prices for many more drugs—this is a big deal, because of course Americans are ripped off incredibly badly by their version of “healthcare.” This would bring the US in line with other Western nations.

More: (brackets by Wrongo)

“if you read between the lines….Biden [is] recognizing how badly broken many aspects of the American social contract [are] —healthcare, housing, inequality, salaries, taxes—and how all that adds up to an incredibly precarious life even [if you are] at or above the median [income].”

More:

“Taxing billionaires, limiting salaries, intervening in broken markets, giving people actual support—none of these are ideas we associate in the slightest with…American politics. They’re the stuff of social democracy, and Biden’s setting out a sort of lightweight…social democratic vision. It’s not quite one fully, but what it does…is begin to put America on the path to becoming one, like the rest of the Western world.”

This sets a clear distinction between the Parties in 2024. Democrats since Bill Clinton have not had a clear definition of what they stand for: What do they stand for? What’s their overarching idea? Are they after a just society, and a good life for all Americans?

This theory of the good life, the just society, and how they’re linked now has Biden championing a politics that isn’t simply another version of “life’s about winners and losers”. Haque thinks this is an incredibly important evolution in US politics.

Will Biden’s move leftward bring enough votes to win in November? We have to hope it will. Conservative Republican Peter Wehner in the NYT reminds us that there’s just 34 weeks to the election:

“The next 34 weeks are among the more consequential in the life of this nation. Mr. Trump was a clear danger in 2016; he’s much more of a danger now. The former president is more vengeful, more bitter and more unstable than he was, which is saying something…..He’s already shown he’ll overturn an election, support a violent insurrection and even allow his vice president to be hanged. There’s nothing he won’t do. It’s up to the rest of us to keep him from doing it.”

It’s time on this Monday morning, to wake up America! IF he gets to run the country, Trump will act like a juvenile delinquent, flipping over as many of the cafeteria lunch tables as he can. In a nutshell, that’s his MAGA platform. And like the Zombie Apocalypse come to life, sooner or later all Republicans who hold public office will endorse him.

The rest of us have to put aside our ideological differences and support Biden. To help you wake up watch and listen to The Clash perform “(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais” from their 1979 album “The Clash”. This is far from their best, but it’s on point for today’s column:

This song is from a time when the youth began to realize that sticking together was actually a better idea than allowing themselves to be divided. That has to come back.

Sample Lyric:

White youth, black youth
Better find another solution
Why not phone up Robin Hood
And ask him for some wealth distribution

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Russia. China And Iran, And Other Thoughts

The Daily Escape:

Snow at sunrise, Grand Canyon NP, AZ – February 2024 photo by John Fecteau

Welcome to another Monday Wake Up. Wrongo wants to touch on a few different ideas today. First, a non-trivial topic that Wrongo plans to return to this year. When we look at the geo-political landscape today, the US is confronting a growing alliance between three countries, each of which holds ill-will towards us and towards our western allies. Those three are China, Russia and Iran.

We’re confronting them separately and also in the case of the Ukraine War, jointly. This is an excellent time to harken back to something that Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in 1997. He had formerly (through 1981) been Carter’s National Security Adviser:

“Potentially the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and perhaps Iran, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition, united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. . . . Averting this contingency . . . will require a display of US geostrategic skill on the western, eastern and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously.”

Today’s geopolitical landscape reflects exactly what Brzezinski feared more than two decades ago. Is the world heading toward what the late Brzezinski referred to as “the most dangerous scenario”? What should America be doing now to head off what we’re seeing from our three rivals? Or is it already too late?

Which presidential candidate will do the better job of blunting this potential power conflict ?

Second, what did the weekend’s South Carolina Republican primary tell us? Trump won by a wide margin. As of this writing, the tally has Trump at 59.8% and Nikki Haley at 39.5%. The media is treating this as a significant triumph. When you win by 20 points, that’s true.

The real story, however, is that Trump underperformed expectations and failed to expand his coalition beyond his base. If you doubt that, take a look at the polling group 538’s polling vs. actual results for Trump across the three Republican primaries:

We’re seeing Trump consistently underperform the polls by 7-8 points. Worse for Trump, Fox News’ John Roberts talked about an alarming exit poll finding that 59% of Haley voters in South Carolina last night (equal to 40% of the electorate) would not vote for Trump in the general election.

From Simon Rosenberg:

“It’s my view that something broke inside the GOP when Dobbs happened. That even for many Republicans, it was just too much, the party had gone too far, had become too ugly and dangerous.”

Trump and the GOP are showing signs of deep institutional weakness. They had disappointing elections in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023. They’re replacing the entire leadership team at the RNC due to their ongoing fundraising struggles. Today’s RNC is broke:

In addition, the GOP’s state parties have atrophied in some key battleground states. Trump is burning through cash at unprecedented rates to fund his many lawsuits. Even Nikki Haley out raised him last month.

Wrongo thinks that we’re finally seeing “Trump Fatigue”. Everybody has seen his act and has zero need to ever see it again. The assertion that Trump is strong beyond his die-hard MAGA base seems to at last, be untrue. But what does Wrongo know? When he retired from the F500, he thought he would go into private equity. But he was seduced into online journalism by the promise of very small paychecks and zero job security.

Our third story is for the birds. The Guardian reports that:

“The Eurasian eagle owl named Flaco, which escaped New York City’s Central Park Zoo last year, has died after crashing into a building in Manhattan, officials said late on Friday.”

Here’s Flaco in happier times:

More:

“Flaco was rescued by the zoo in 2010, when he was less than a year old. He was reputed to be the only owl of his kind in the wild in North America, and there were widespread fears he ultimately wouldn’t survive for long outside captivity.”

The Eurasian eagle-owl is one of the larger owl species. Flaco’s wingspan was reported to be about 6 ft. Ornithologist Stephen Ambrose wrote on LinkedIn that there was evidence light glare from city buildings’ windows could blind owls momentarily and increase their risk of crashing into the structures, especially at night.

This raises the evergreen question of how to keep birds safe in US urban areas. Federal officials estimate that one billion birds in the US die annually after accidentally flying into building windows. Wrongo and Ms. Right had this happen to us years ago when a hawk crashed through our lakefront cottage living room’s wall of glass. He was dead when he hit the floor. It doesn’t only happen in high-rise buildings.

Time to wake up, America! There’s glare everywhere, including in the media’s silly discussion about how overwhelming Trump’s electoral chances are vs. Biden. Trump has a very small chance of being elected in 2024. To help you wake up, watch this great video of England’s Prince William singing “Livin’ on a Prayer” with Jon Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift at the Winter Whites Gala charity ball at Kensington Palace. This is fun and worth your time:

The future King of England singing with the current Queen of Americana.

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US Media Should Learn The Difference Between Age And Ageism

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Manhattan, NYC, from The Summit One Vanderbilt – February 2024 photo by Alec Halstead

Judd Legum’s Popular Information notes that the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal ran 81 articles about Special Counsel Hur’s assessment of Biden’s memory in the four days following his report’s release. (NYT ran 30 and the WaPo ran 33, leaving a mere 18 in the WSJ). But Trump’s mental lapses and incoherence barely merited a mention in the same publications.

Here is an actual paragraph that ran on the front page of the NYT:

“Mr. Trump, by contrast, does not appear to be suffering the effects of time in such visible ways. Mr. Trump often dyes his hair and appears unnaturally tan. He is heavyset and tall, and he uses his physicality to project strength in front of crowds. When he takes the stage at rallies, he basks in adulation for several minutes, dancing to an opening song, and then holds forth in speeches replete with macho rhetoric and bombast that typically last well over an hour, a display of stamina.”

Wow! According to the NYT, Democrats should just give up now.

Wrongo could beat up on the NYT and the others. He noted that the commenters in many newsletters said that because of this, they were terminating their subscriptions to the Times. Wrongo won’t be doing that although he agrees with Jamison Foser, who writes at his substack Finding Gravity that the NYT is now, politically, a Republican newspaper:

“The Times is a newspaper that falsely portrayed Al Gore as a serial liar and George W. Bush as a straight-talker; treated Hillary Clinton’s email hygiene practices as the most important issue in 2016; and routinely portrays Donald Trump as a law-and-order candidate despite his repeated, flagrant law-breaking.”

OK, we know that Biden is older. But as JVL says:

“We don’t choose our leaders based on recall and processing speed.”

Wrongo is 80. Every human knows that when you get to your 70s and beyond, you’re not as quick on your feet as you used to be. In general, geriatrics shy away from real-time debates with 45-year-olds. More from JVL:

“You very rarely look at an old guy and think, that dude is slick.”

But is slick what we want in our leaders? No, we want experience because the first requirement for problem solving is experience. If you know little to nothing about a given problem, you will almost certainly come up with terrible solutions. Trump demonstrates this every day. Back to JVL:

“There is a reason that we have a minimum age for voting in this country and not a maximum age—it’s because we don’t trust young people, with all of their rapid recall memory and synaptic lightning, to be wise enough to vote….By the same token, we don’t have a maximum voting age, because we recognize that the losses elderly people experience in the ability to rapidly process are over-balanced by the accumulated wisdom of years and experience.”

Especially in a president, we’re smart to value wisdom over glibness.

Experience gave Biden the ability to instantly understand the stakes in Ukraine and wisdom helped him navigate the strengthening of the NATO alliance vs. Putin. It is wisdom that allowed Biden to see the benefits America receives from leading the global order. It was also wisdom that made Biden cooperate with the special counsel and respect the rule of law, the right decision even though it’s biting him in the ass right now.

Contrast this with Trump. Last weekend, Trump threatened the abandonment of our NATO allies and to let Russia “do whatever the hell they want.” We all know that he’s 77, but its clear that Trump didn’t spend all those years accumulating wisdom. His experience is more like one year of experience repeated 76 more times.

Trump’s reckless comments were condemned by most major media. The NYT led with three front-page stories about the Trump’s statement.

  • Favoring Foes Over Friends, Trump Threatens to Upend International Order
  • An Outburst by Trump on NATO May Push Europe to Go It Alone
  • Trump draws fire for his comments on NATO and Russia

The WaPo had a top-of-page headline, “Trump’s NATO-bashing comments rile allies, rekindle European fears.”

The WSJ included a below-the-fold front page headline, NATO Leader Blasts Trump’s Suggestion He Would Encourage Russian Invasion of U.S. Allies.

And leading Republicans excused Trump’s reckless statement. Senator Marco Rubio said:

“He doesn’t talk like a traditional politician, and we’ve already been through this. You would think people would’ve figured it out by now.”

Excusing Trump because “he doesn’t talk like a politician” doesn’t change how our NATO allies feel about Trump’s invitation to Putin to invade NATO countries. Article Five of the NATO charter doesn’t bind America only if America decides that a European country is fully paid up.

It’s not a high bar, but Biden is the picture of cognitive clarity compared to Trump. Let’s give the last word to JVL, who thinks Biden ought to embrace his age:

“Am I elderly? You betcha. Don’t move like I used to. And I have the occasional senior moment. I’ll probably have one during this speech, just so folks from the New York Times have something to write about.

But I know what the hell I’m doing.

Let me tell you about getting older. You aren’t as fast on your feet. You have to think a moment before you remember stuff.

But…as you get older, you’re able to see what really matters. You’re able to let go of your ego and focus on what’s important. That’s why I was able to work with the Republicans in Congress even while they said nasty things about me in public: Because I didn’t care what they said—I’m too old for that.”

Biden would be smart to embrace his age. As would other Democrats. There’s a difference between substantive grounds for breaking up the Democratic coalition, and a flimsy one, that only plays into the hands of the hard right.

There’s a big difference between age and ageism.

Time to wake up America! Biden’s advanced age is far from ideal for a president seeking a second term, even given how effective he’s been as president. He’s old. And he was never a gifted public speaker. Sometimes he makes cringe-inducing mistakes. It would be great if he were 20 years younger. But for the media to make this the overarching issue of the campaign is nothing short of journalistic malpractice.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Little Feat perform “Old Folks Boogie” which first appeared as the fifth track on Little Feat’s sixth album, Time Loves a Hero. (Here it’s performed live at the Rainbow Theatre in London, in August of 1977). This is taken from the album “Waiting For Columbus”, perhaps the best live album of all time:

Chorus:

And You Know That You’re Over the Hill
When Your Mind Makes a Promise That Your Body Can’t Fill

We’ve all experienced the discomfort of having our mind make a promise that our body couldn’t fulfill.

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

The Daily Escape:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More:

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

More:

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

Finally:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sample Lyrics:

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

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

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Will The Law Restrain Trump And The MAGAs?

The Daily Escape:

Shiprock, NM – January 2024 photo by Matt Farber

Does the law matter anymore to Trump and his MAGA followers? As Heather Digby said, the MAGAs:

“…now believe that the law is what Trump says it is.”

That seems patently true if you read anything on Xitter by Right-wing Trump apologists, since they throw all sorts of pasta at the wall hoping some will stick. The latest is about the judge in the E. Jean Carroll case Lewis Kaplan and Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan (no relation) having worked together in the early 1990s. Somehow that constitutes a conflict of interest in the minds of the MAGATs.

Roberta Kaplan joined the firm in 1992 and left in 2016. Judge Kaplan was a partner there until 1994, so there was a two year overlap that occurred 30 years ago. They’ll try to make chicken salad out of this chicken shit.

A more serious attack on the law is occurring in Texas. Vice News is reporting that:

“A trucker convoy of ‘patriots’ is heading to the US border with Mexico next week, as the standoff between Texas and the federal government intensifies. The organizers of the ‘Take Our Border Back’ convoy have called themselves “God’s army” and say they’re on a mission to stand up against the ‘globalists’ who they claim are conspiring to keep US borders open and destroy the country.”

God’s Army. Vice quotes Ruth Braunstein, professor at the University of Connecticut:

“When people believe that they are working on behalf of God, they might be willing to resort to relatively extreme measures….And so you have a politically volatile situation that could become much more so, in part because of this rhetoric.”

The God’s Army website is “Secure Our Borders.” It is calling on:

“…all active & retired law enforcement and military, veterans, mama bears, elected officials, business owners, ranchers, truckers, bikers, media and LAW ABIDING, freedom-loving Americans…”

To join in the march on Texas. This has stoked civil war fantasies on fringe forums, as well as favorable comments on the social media accounts of GOP lawmakers and right-wing political commentators. And no surprise, this has bled into politics. The Daily Beast reported that on a news show, Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and Newsmax host Carl Rigbie mused about the possibility of a “force-on-force conflict” erupting between the federal government and the Texas National Guard.

They should be careful what they wish for. Sen. Ted Cruz, (R-TX), was quoted in the Dallas Morning News saying he expects to see continuing escalation in the legal battles between the state and the Biden administration:

“It’s striking that Texas Democrats are willing to side with Mexican drug cartels invading the state of Texas over their own governor and over the people of Texas…”

And most Republican governors recently signed a statement backing Abbott:

“We stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border….We do it in part because the Biden Administration is refusing to enforce immigration laws already on the books and is illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally.”

Wrongo has written many times about the faction of MAGATs who sport flag lapel pins and show you copies of their pocket Constitutions. The irony is that these (mostly) dudes haven’t really accepted the words of the Constitution and its Amendments. They want to interpret the law based on referendums orchestrated by Trump and Fox News.

What Abbott, Trump, and the MAGAs are attempting with the “southern border resistance” is testing to see how much buy in they can get from red state governors, truck drivers, law enforcement, and “patriots”. Can they sow enough chaos that the presidential election is difficult to conduct?

Here’s a theory: Trump doesn’t expect to win in November. In fact, he may not even care about the November election. Why wait until November 2024 and/or January, 2025 to make his move? What if he can mobilize his followers to strike now? How would Biden and the federal government respond to multiple domestic attacks occurring simultaneously within our borders?

If the GOP and Trump can’t beat Biden one-on-one, why wait? Waiting means that Trump will likely be incarcerated. Both Trump and the GOP certainly know that time isn’t on their side.

It’s time for the federal government to step in and knock this shit off before somebody gets killed. All Guardsmen at the border should be federalized immediately and then ordered to assist other federal officials in enforcing the Court’s decision.

That’s the only legitimate authority in play here. The GOP Constitutional reading favoring the states against the federal government is laughable. What would the fallout be if the National Guard, federalized by Biden attacks Texas law enforcement along with guys who drove their pickups to the border?

Time to wake up America! The Gospel According To CB Radio isn’t an authority on anything! Ask Trump and Abbott how many federal law enforcement officers enforcing a Supreme Court ruling are you willing to kill for your political stunt?

To help you wake up, we recognize the passing of the 1970s singer Melanie Safka who died this week at 76. Melanie was one of the surprise stars at Woodstock in 1969. To Wrongo, her best tune was “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)”. She would later say that the sight of people in the Woodstock crowd lighting candles in the rain inspired her to write the song which she recorded with gospel-style backing from the Edwin Hawkins Singers. It was released in 1970 and became her first hit.

Here she performs it live with the Edwin Hawkins Singers in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1970:

The song was anthemic, in the same way the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ “Oh Happy Day” had been the summer before. And the Edwin Hawkins Singers are also the chorus on “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).” The song is alternately hugely upbeat and dark.

Sample Lyric:

We were so close there was no room
We bled inside each other’s wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace

Lay down, lay down, let it all down
Let your white birds smile up at the ones who stand and frown
Lay down, lay down, let it all down
Let your white birds smile up at the ones who stand and frown

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Dems Need To Change Their Immigration Policy

The Daily Escape:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sample Lyric:

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

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Boeing’s Max Jet Fails Again

The Daily Escape:

Desert sunflowers at dawn in Anza-Borrego SP, CA looking west to the San Ysidro Mountains – January 2024 photo by Paulette Donnellon

Wrongo didn’t expect to again be writing about Boeing’s problems with its MAX aircraft, but here we are. From CNBC:

“The Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday ordered a temporary grounding of dozens of Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft for inspections, a day after a piece of the aircraft blew out in the middle of an Alaska Airlines flight.”

More:

“…video of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 that were shared on social media showed a gaping hole on the side of the plane and passengers using oxygen masks before it returned to Portland shortly after taking off for Ontario, California, on Friday afternoon.”

What blew off of the plane is a “door plug”, not a door. The configuration used by Alaska Airlines didn’t require an emergency exit door in that location so Boeing installed a door plug, which is attached to the plane’s skin and covered on the inside so that it appears to be a windowless wall.

Seats adjacent to the blowout were by chance, unoccupied. The accident depressurized the cabin and headrests were detached from two nearby passenger seats, the back of one seat was gone. Here’s a picture taken after the plane landed safely:

Boeing and the Alaska Airlines passengers were very lucky in two respects: First, that no one was sitting in the seats where it happened, and Second, that it didn’t occur at cruising altitude. The sudden depressurization at altitude would have been a disaster with many lives lost.

This happened on a plane that had been in service for just 10 weeks! And it happened a few days after Boeing asked every airline to check their Max-9’s for missing rudder bolts:

“Last month, the company urged airlines to inspect the more than 1,300 delivered Max planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system. Over the summer, Boeing said a key supplier had improperly drilled holes in a component that helps to maintain cabin pressure.”

And that was only a couple weeks after Boeing asked the FAA to give them a pass on a design flaw in the plane’s engine de-icer.

You remember that this is the plane that Boeing famously mis-programmed to nosedive into the ground. You may have forgotten that Boeing paid a big price:

“In 2021, Boeing agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion to settle a criminal charge related to the crashes. Under the deal, Boeing was ordered to pay a criminal penalty of $243.6 million while $500 million went toward a fund for the families whose loved ones were killed in the crashes. Much of the rest of the settlement was marked off for airlines that had purchased the troubled 737 Max planes.”

These are huge issues with quality and quality control. There are also problems with suppliers. The WSJ reported:

“Fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems is responsible for installing the emergency-door configuration involved in Friday’s incident. Spirit AeroSystems was working with Boeing on Saturday to determine what went wrong….Spirit AeroSystems was also responsible for the misdrilled holes on the fuselages that disrupted production in 2023.”

Spirit changed CEOs in October 2023, hiring Patrick Shanahan, a 30-year Boeing veteran. Since then, Boeing has invested in and worked more closely with Spirit to address “production” problems.

The Max is the best-selling plane in Boeing’s history. The more than 4,500 outstanding orders for the plane account for more than 76% of Boeing’s order book. Of the nearly three million flights scheduled globally this month, about 5% are planned to be made using a Max, mostly the Max 8.

Wrongo has written about Boeing before and how it lost its culture of engineering prowess and expertise. It began valuing financial engineering over aerospace engineering in 2009-2017 by engaging in $30 billion in stock buybacks, an amount that exceeded its earnings. Then in 2018, buybacks of $9 billion constituted 86% of annual earnings and late in 2018, they approved $20 billion more in buybacks.

Rank capitalism is a big element in this story. Passenger safety has been sacrificed to Wall Street profit-taking and bonuses for Boeing’s shareholders and executives. Until the culture changes back to one focused on engineering, the company will continue to be a hot mess.

Boeing needs a senior management change, and fast, before more people die on their airplanes. Wrongo will certainly avoid flying a 737 Max in the future.

Time to wake up, Boeing! You’re using euphemisms like “production problems” or “supplier problems” to describe improperly drilled holes. There should be no circumstance where a section of the fuselage falls off an airplane in flight.  This is systemic, an organization-wide failure.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Larkin Poe, who Wrongo has featured before, doing a cover of Son House’s “Preachin’ Blues”:

Sample Lyric:

I’m gonna get me some religion
I’m gonna join the Baptist church
Gonna be a preacher
So I don’t have to work

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The Number Of Guns Seized in US Schools Is Soaring.

The Daily Escape:

Geminids Meteor shower, Grand Tetons, WY – December 2023 timed exposure photo by Jeff Bernhard

We’ve just passed the 11th Anniversary of the school massacre in Newtown, CT. Wrongo and Ms. Right live about 20 minutes from the scene. While that grisly event is never too far from our consciousness when December rolls around, we never thought there would come a time when America would have an easier time banning books than guns. From the WaPo:

“Last school year, news reports identified more than 1,150 guns brought to K-12 campuses but seized before anyone fired them, according to an investigation by The Washington Post. That’s more than six guns each day, on average. Nationwide…1.1 million students…attended a school where at least one gun was found and reported on by the media in the 2022-2023 school year.”

It’s hard to imagine that while some children are trying to learn, others are packing.

Even that exhaustive review of local news sources doesn’t account for guns that are carried into schools undetected. In addition, many gun seizures are never disclosed by districts. Some guns are found on campuses located in communities that are underserved by news organizations.

The Post asked the country’s 100 largest school districts to share data on guns seized over the last five school years. Many said they do not track that data. But disclosures from 51 of them illuminated the gap between what’s reported in the news and what happens in schools.

In those districts, representing 6.3 million students, 515 guns were found during the 2022-2023 school year. That means 58% of seizures in those districts last academic year were never publicly reported by news organizations. The Post’s survey recorded guns recovered at schools in rural, suburban and urban areas, in all 50 states and Washington, DC. Here’s a chart from the WaPo survey:

Note the sharp increase after the Covid shutdown. A giant problem is that the true number of guns on school campuses is almost certainly far higher.

The Post found that the number of campus gun seizures spiked significantly between the 2018-2019 school year and the 2022-2023 school year — a five-year period that, following the pandemic shutdowns, has also seen significantly more behavioral problems in school. The 47 districts for which The Post was able to obtain five full school years of data saw a 79% increase in guns found on campuses over that time frame. In many communities, the number of guns found has more than doubled, a trend that mirrors a precipitous rise in school shootings.

A huge question is what’s causing so many more kids to bring loaded guns to school? The WaPo quotes Megan Ranny a leading firearm-injury researcher and dean of the Yale School of Public Health:

“Kids are more likely to carry firearms, and even to bring firearms into school, if they have been victims of violence themselves, if they aren’t connected to a community, if they have post-traumatic stress….We’ve got a lot of kids who are scared…maybe have lost parents from Covid, maybe have lost community connections because of shutdowns of community groups during Covid. And then add on to it increased access to firearms. A lot of guns bought over the last couple of years. It becomes a perfect storm.”

Such frightening thoughts. One of the positive outcomes from Sandy Hook is that Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit launched after the 2012 killings, debuted the “Say Something Anonymous Reporting System” that allows users to anonymously alert school officials of safety concerns at any time of day, online or by phone. More from WaPo:

“More than 5,000 schools use the program….The system is free to schools….In the districts they’ve trained, about 3% of students and staff, on average…submit tips…although some school systems see higher participation rates, up to 5%. Most tips concern suicidal behavior and drug use. But the system has averted at least 143 acts of violence with a weapon, including at least 15 planned school shootings, since 2018…”

And what about parents? What’s their responsibility for one of their kids bringing a gun to school? Parents have largely skated on accountability for the misdeeds of their children, except in Virginia, where last week, CNN reports that:

“The mother of the Virginia 6-year-old who shot his first grade teacher in January was sentenced Friday to two years in prison, according to the court in Newport News.”

What happens to her son (she’s a single parent) will be collateral damage in this story. Parents need to be held accountable for these acts, particularly when the kid took the parent’s gun to school.

When we talk about what‘s wrong today, we have to admit that there’s nothing more important in America than the supremacy of the Second Amendment. Your life, the lives of your spouse and children, or your friends are worth nothing compared to that “right” to own guns.

Time to wake up America! The nation is sinking under this sick and warped interpretation of the Amendment. To help you wake up, It’s the perfect time for Tchaikovshy’s 1892 “Waltz of the Flowers” from his ballet “The Nutcracker”. Here it is performed by the Concertgebow in the Netherlands, conducted by Semyon Bychkov.

The waltz is the last number in the Nutcracker Suite, which is set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child’s imagination:

 

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