Category: Playlist

Should Dems Worry About Students Disrupting Their Convention?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Iron Duff, NC – April 2024 photo by Rhiannon Medford. Hard to believe those colors aren’t enhanced.

The clashes between Hamas/Israel war protesters and police on college campuses nationwide is spreading alarm among Senate Democrats. They’re worrying that this type of anger will make the Party’s Chicago-based presidential nominating convention a spectacle that will hurt Biden’s chances of re-election. Does that mean we’re looking at Chicago 1968 version 2.0?

From The Wrongologist:

“In 1968, Tom Hayden helped plan the antiwar protests in Chicago that targeted the Democratic National Convention. Police officers clashed with thousands of demonstrators, injuring hundreds in a televised spectacle that a national commission later called a police riot. Yet, Hayden and others were charged by federal officials with inciting riot and conspiracy.”

Those demonstration led to the Chicago Police riot. We remember it for Mayor Richard Daly saying these immortal words:

“Gentlemen, let’s get this straight. The policeman isn’t there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”

Those of us who have reached a certain age remember too well what happened in Chicago at the 1968 convention. From The Hill:

“A number of Democratic senators are old enough to remember the violent clashes between police and anti-Vietnam War protesters at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, where the nomination of Vice President Hubert Humphrey as the party’s presidential candidate was marred by images of police tear-gassing protesters and beating them with clubs.”

The Atlantic’s David Frum explains why the disruptions in Chicago in 1968 are unlikely to happen again. His point is that 2024 isn’t 1968. Protesters presuming to replicate 1968 will find the US government is much better prepared, Frum says: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…responsibility for protecting political conventions has shifted from cities and states to the federal government. This…was formalized in a directive signed by…Clinton in 1998. The order created a category of “National Special Security Events,” for which planning would be led by the Secret Service.

National Security Special Events draw on all the resources of the federal government, including, if need be, those of the Defense Department. In 2016, the federal government spent $50 million on security for each of the two major-party conventions.

Those funds enabled Cleveland, the host of the 2016 Republican convention, to deploy thousands of law-enforcement personnel….Federal funds paid for police to be trained in understanding the difference between lawful and unlawful protest, and to equip them with body cameras to record interactions with the public. The city also used federal funds to buy 300 bicycles to field a force that could move quickly into places where cars might not be able to go, and that could patrol public spaces in a way that was more approachable and friendly.”

This wasn’t an issue in 2020 when the conventions were mostly virtual due to the Covid pandemic.

Right now, the media are making the campus demonstrations seem like a big deal, and they are, in the sense that university campuses are lightly controlled and lightly policed. Frum adds:

“Pro-Palestinian protesters have proved considerably more circumspect when they march in places where laws of public order are upheld.”

The Feds have also gone to school on the Jan. 6 insurrection that has informed their planning. While the subsequent J6 prosecutions make it much less likely that people hoping to disrupt the DNC convention will ever get much beyond being hopeful. It’s important to point out that the scale of today’s protests are nowhere near the same as the Vietnam protests in 1968.

More on the current thinking of students from Simon Rosenberg:

“…there is not broad support for these protests in America or on American college campuses. Most young people are far more concerned with making a living, their health after a pandemic, loss of reproductive freedom and our democracy, climate change, gun safety and a host of other issues.”

Rosenberg includes an interesting chart from the Harvard IOP Youth Poll:

The only issue where inflation did not win its individual match-up was when it was paired with women’s reproductive rights. Women’s reproductive rights was considered the more important issue, 57% to 43%. Israel/Palestine ranked next to last among the 16 issues.

Wrongo has no idea if the campus demonstrations will morph into something huge, or become a nothingburger, but he agrees with this from Caroline Orr Bueno:

“The stories you hear in the media will be the most extreme examples that can be found, and nearly all of them will be fundamentally misrepresented based on the biases of the person telling the story. This will fuel a cycle of escalation that few people on either side want.”

She makes the point that university administrators are not prepared to handle the demonstrations while at the same time, facing donor anger. From the London FT:

“Donors are withdrawing millions of dollars in planned funding to punish US universities for their responses to Hamas’s attack on Israel, in a stand-off over free speech, higher education funding and academic leaders’ public responsibilities.”

The FT also reports that:

“Such actions have highlighted the influence of donors, who last year contributed $60bn to US universities…”

Time to wake up, America! Let’s not get twisted up by the potential for demonstrations in Chicago by students protesting the Hamas/Israel war. How about focusing instead on the antidemocratic extremists who speak at the Republican convention to renominate Trump? We shouldn’t fear this debate. We should welcome it.

To help you wake up on a warm Tuesday, watch and listen to the late Peter Green, former guitarist of Fleetwood Mac, play “Albatross”, originally from FM’s 1969 album “The Pious Bird of Good Omen”. Here Green plays it with the Peter Green Splinter Group in England in 2003:

The late, great BB King said of Peter Green: “He’s the only white guy to ever make me sweat.”

 

Facebooklinkedinrss

The Supreme Court Is Officially Corrupt

The Daily Escape:

Moonrise, Boston, MA – April 2024 photo by Kristen Wilkinson. The Jenga-style building is Boston University’s Data Science Center.

Wrongo spent part of Thursday morning listening live to the oral arguments at the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) over Trump v. United States, which concerns former president Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal charges for “official acts”: In this case, whether Trump can claim immunity as a defense in the Jan. 6 case brought by Jack Smith, the DOJ’s special prosecutor.

While the decision in this case is unclear at this point, the questions the Conservative justices asked of both sides were very disheartening.

A short walk through the history of this case: The Conservative majority granted Trump a victory before the hearing began by refusing Jack Smith’s request to skip the intermediate step of an appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Then the Court improved on that by refusing to hear the matter on an expedited schedule. Finally it appears that the Court probably won’t issue what pundits think will be a fractured opinion until the last possible  day (June 30). It’s possible that the Court will order the DC trial court to engage in pre-trial fact-finding about the difference between “private” and “official” acts. Meaning further delays, possibly until after the November presidential election.

And if Trump were to win, the Jan. 6 case will be quashed by the incoming DOJ.

So even if the Supremes don’t grant Trump a total victory, they have already granted Trump what he most wanted: a lengthy delay. Their lackadaisical approach to resolving the question of immunity smells of the current politicization of the Court. From Jamele Bouie:

“Rather than grapple with the situation at hand — a defeated president worked with his allies to try to overturn the results of an election he lost, eventually summoning a mob to try to subvert the peaceful transfer of power — the Republican-appointed majority worried about hypothetical prosecutions against hypothetical presidents who might try to stay in office against the will of the people if they aren’t placed above the law.

It was a farce befitting the absurdity of the situation. Trump has asked the Supreme Court if he is, in effect, a king. And at least four members of the court, among them the so-called originalists, have said, in essence, that they’ll have to think about it. “

Chris Hayes reminded us when Republicans aggressively took the other side of the immunity argument:

Taking a wide view, Alito is 74. Thomas is 75. Roberts and Sotomayor are 69. The next president could be in a position to nominate four replacements for these justices if Trump wins, or if Biden wins a second term. If it’s Trump, say goodbye to the SCOTUS for at least 30 years, and say goodbye to your Constitutional rights. That would also mean that Trump can commit crimes with impunity, including a complete dissolution of the Voting Rights Act, implementing legalized voter suppression, and much more.

Is it totally lost on the American people that the very same Supreme Court who ruled that 172 million women should no longer have the freedom to decide their own pregnancy choices, is now, suddenly, struggling with the idea whether ONLY ONE MAN in America should have the freedom to commit crimes without punishment?

Watergate and Nixon doesn’t come close to the stench surrounding today’s Supreme Court and its propping up of Trump. Josh Marshall had this to say:

“The Roberts Court is a corrupt institution which operates in concert with and on behalf of the Republican Party . . . That’s the challenge in front of us. . . . But things become more clear-cut once we take the plunge and accept that fact.”

But, there’s really nothing you can do about it individually. So relax and cruise into our Saturday Soother, where we turn off all political news for a few minutes and try to find the will to rejoin the fight next week.

Here on the Fields of Wrong, we had a hard frost on Friday morning, and expect 80° on Monday. It’s weather like this that keeps us from planting the vegetable garden until early May. To help you get into a proper frame of mind, grab a seat by a south-facing window. Now watch and listen to “Suite Opus 34 for flute, harp, violin, viola and cello” by Marcel Tournier. Tournier is among the relatively few important composers who were also virtuoso harpists. He composed several dozen solos for harp, and a few chamber works that feature the harp. Tournier wrote this Suite in 1928. He died in 1951.

Here is his “Opus 34” performed by the Cracow Harp Quintet:

Wrongo and Ms. Right first learned about Tournier and saw this live last summer as part of a local concert series by the Washington Friends of Music.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Is This What The Final Straw Looks Like?

The Daily Escape:

Atlantic Ocean, St. Augustine FL – 2019 photo by Wrongo. (Wrongo and Ms. Right are on their annual trip to visit siblings who moved from the Northeast to Southern climes. Columns will be light and variable until April 22.)

With Israel’s killing of the seven humanitarian aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK), did Netanyahu deliver the final straw to the US and the Biden administration’s unconditionally having Israel’s back in their war with Hamas? From Axios:

“Israel’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers has the makings of a watershed moment — rapidly accelerating a decline in U.S. support for the war in Gaza, Axios’ Zachary Basu writes.

The big picture: Frustration with the Israeli government has been building inside the White House for months as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has worsened. It’s now boiling over.”

It’s difficult to say what is actually policy and what is political theater when parsing the words of Biden and Blinken about what Israel needs to do next in order to keep the US supplying armaments. You may vote for theater when learning that CNN has two stories that seem to indicate it will be business as usual with Netanyahu and the Israeli government. First Natasha Bertrand reported:

“…the Biden administration is close to approving the sale of as many as 50 American-made F-15 fighter jets to Israel, in a deal expected to be worth more than $18 billion…”

Second, CNN’s Bertrand also reported that:

“The Biden administration recently authorized the transfer of over 1,000 500-pound bombs and over 1,000 small-diameter bombs to Israel….adding to its arsenal despite US concerns over the country’s conduct in the war in Gaza. The transfer authorization of the MK82 bombs and small-diameter bombs, more than 2,000 munitions in total, occurred on Monday…”

These aren’t the biggest bombs, but a 500-pound bomb will destroy your apartment building. Monday was the same day that Israel killed the seven WCK staff. Chef José Andrés took to the NYT to express his view:

“We know Israelis. Israelis, in their heart of hearts, know that food is not a weapon of war.

Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces….The Israeli government needs to open more land routes for food and medicine today. It needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. It needs to start the long journey to peace today.”

Chef Andrés’s words have resonated deeply with many Americans. In some ways it reminds us of the late Gen. Colin Powell’s famous Pottery Barn rule that he cited in the summer of 2002, warning President GW Bush of the consequences of the planned invasion of Iraq:

“You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people,….You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You’ll own it all.”

Israel must be shown how they “own” the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They’ve pulverized the buildings. They’ve killed most of the now-dead civilians. They’ve prevented food and medical assistance from reaching the sick and the starving. Therefore, they should own the humanitarian solution starting immediately.

BTW, think of all the suffering we’ve heard about in Gaza. Now recall just how little of it you have actually seen via western media. Many of the same videos run day after day on US media. Why? Because Israel has made it a priority to conduct the war largely beyond the sight of Western cameras, beyond the scrutiny of the press.

If we knew more and saw more, we might be even more horrified.

The Israeli military has dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others for their role in the WCK strikes, saying they had mishandled critical information and breached the army’s Rules of Engagement (ROE). The Guardian reports that the IDF’s ROE are classified, but reporting by the Israeli media and human rights organizations suggests an exceptionally high tolerance level for civilian casualties.

In the current war, observers suggest, ROE rules that were already permissive in previous conflicts in Gaza have been loosened further, as evidenced by the number of civilian casualties in high-profile strikes. America faces a serious moral dilemma and Wrongo has been feeling it for a while. Wrongo still thinks it’s possible to be committed to Israel and to its right to defend itself. But at the same time we need to be highly critical of the Israeli response in Gaza.

There are times when a friend, a family member or a neighbor asks you to help them solve a problem. You go along, thinking that you’ll be able to help out, only to find you’re deeply involved in something that has become either a reputation killer or possibly, something life-threatening.

And this is where America sits with Israel in their war with Hamas. Our friend has caused us to get badly stuck in something awful. And it’s become very difficult to see how to get our partner to stop the bombing, killing and starving.

Wrongo suspects there have been more than a few final straws among Israel’s friends in recent months, since Israel seems oblivious to the damage they’re doing. It has been gut wrenching to watch America go from responsible support for Israel on 10/7 to becoming likely complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza. We must change course now.

Biden needs to follow through on his message to Netanyahu.

It’s Saturday, so it’s now time for our Saturday Soother, where we attempt to pull back from the fire hose of news and opinion and grab a few minutes of calm. On the Fields of Wrong this weekend, we’ve seen snow, an earthquake and on Monday, we’ll witness a solar eclipse. We’re certainly operating in interesting times.

As the Wrong family takes off for a few days, let’s listen to a road song of sorts, “The Drinking Gourd”, a song of the open road. It was originally used by Underground Railroad operatives to encode escape instructions. In the1950s and 1960s, it played a role in the Civil Rights and folk revival movements. Here is the folk singer Eric Bibb performing the song for the television series, “God’s Greatest Hits”, airing in Canada on VisionTV:

We’ll see you down the road!

Facebooklinkedinrss

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

Facebooklinkedinrss

Democrats Are Better For The Economy

The Daily Escape:

Sunset at Fonts Point, Anza-Borrego Desert SP, CA – March 2024 photo by Paulette Donnellon

“If you want to live like a Republican, vote for a Democrat.” – Harry S. Truman

Republicans always claim that they are the Party of prosperity. They pretend that their policies lift everyday workers and their families, what with tax cuts and all, and the public seems to buy it. In polls, the Republicans usually get better marks on the economy than Democrats, often by hefty margins.

But as John E. Schwarz notes in the Washington Monthly:

“What is truly startling is the astonishing degree to which American workers have fared better under Democratic than Republican presidents….Today, the economic data are unambiguous: Whether it’s real wage gains or job creation, average Americans have fared far better under Democratic than Republican presidents.”

From the economist Jeffery Frankel, Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers:

“Since World War II, Democrats have seen job creation average 1.7 % per year when in office, versus 1.0 % under the GOP.  US GDP has averaged a rate of growth of 4.23% during Democratic administrations, versus 2.36% under Republicans, a remarkable difference of 1.87 percentage points. This is postwar data, covering 19 presidential terms—from Truman through Biden. If one goes back further, to the Great Depression, to include Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, the difference in growth rates is even larger.”

Frankel says that the results are similar whether one assigns responsibility for the first quarter of a president’s term to him or to his predecessor. He also makes the point that the average Democratic presidential term has been in recession for 1 of its 16 quarters, whereas the average for the Republican terms has been 5 quarters, a startlingly big difference.

Frankel asks whether these stark differences in outcomes are simply the result of random chance?  But he concludes they aren’t:

“The last five recessions all started while a Republican was in the White House (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush twice, and Trump)….The odds of getting that outcome by chance, if the true probability of a recession starting during a Democrat’s presidency were equal to that during a Republican’s presidency, would be (1/2)(1/2)(1/2)(1/2)(1/2), i.e., one out of 32 = 3.1%.  Very unlikely.”

I know, nobody said there’d be math in the column. Frankel says that the result is the same as the odds of getting “heads” on five out of five consecutive coin-flips. And it gets worse if we look back further in time:

“A remarkable 9 of the last 10 recessions have started when a Republican was president.  The odds that this outcome would have occurred just by chance are even more remote: one out of 100.  [That is, 10/210 = 0.0098.]”

More math, but you get the idea. If you look at job growth, the results are similar. More from John Schwarz:

“The significant contrast between each party’s record on wage and job growth has held true from the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 through to the onset of the pandemic, just after 2019 ended, and after that, starting once again under Joe Biden.”

Here’s a chart from The Economist:

The Republican and Democratic Parties were in the White House for roughly equal amounts of time, 24 years each. During the Republican presidencies they created about 17 million jobs, whereas Democrats presided over the creation of about 60 million. That’s such a big gap that Americans can safely reject claims of stronger economic performance under Republicans.

Schwarz closes with this:

“Democrats have an amazing story to tell in 2024. They should tell it loud and clear.”

Absolutely!

Enough of the hard math. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, when we try to disconnect from Trump’s Bible sales and from the plan by Senate Republicans to introduce articles of impeachment of the Secretary of Homeland Security when there’s so much truly pressing business for them to consider.

Here on the Fields of Wrong, we’re attending to some spring yardwork in the precious time between passing rain and snow showers. We will also find the time this weekend to watch college basketball’s March Madness.

To help you focus on anything but politics on this Easter weekend, grab a seat by a south-facing window and listen to Gregorio Allegri’s “Miserere mei, Deus” (Have mercy on me, O God), performed here in 2018 by the Tenebrae Choir conducted by Nigel Short at St. Bartholomew the Great Church, in London.

Allegri composed this in the 1630s, during the papacy of Pope Urban VIII. The piece was written for use in the Tenebrae service on Holy Wednesday and Good Friday of Holy Week. Pope Urban loved the piece so much, that he forbid it to be performed elsewhere outside of the Sistine Chapel.

We all could use a little mercy now, and this is beautiful:

Facebooklinkedinrss

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:

Facebooklinkedinrss

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

Facebooklinkedinrss

Thoughts On Biden’s Performance And On Gasoline Consumption

The Daily Escape:

Saguaros and poppies, Catalina SP, Tucson, AZ – March 2024 photo by Paul J Van Helden

You’ve all heard and read about Biden’s State of the Union (SOTA) speech last Thursday. But maybe you’re unaware of the White House strategy for the speech. This was the first SOTA in history to be streamed live on Instagram, in addition to a primary stream on YouTube. Playbook reported that the 9 pm and10 pm hours were the best periods of grassroots fundraising for Biden since the President’s campaign launch.

The White House Office of Digital Strategy also held several events to brief and engage digital creators and media brands around the SOTA. There was a creator watch party in the White House State Dining Room during the speech. Given the declining reach of legacy media, these creator engagement strategies are important.

Trump had planned to comment on Biden’s speech in real time on his Truth Social platform but it went down for the first part of the SOTA. It took over an hour to read what he had to say. When the site came back, we learned that Trump had pretty much just been ranting about Biden’s coughing and warning people not to shake his hand because it had germs.

As an aside, Trump has been a germophobe forever. A casual friend knew him quite well in the 1980’s. Then Trump was a young real estate entrepreneur wanting to get into a fancy Westchester, NY country club. My friend’s husband was also in the real estate business, and Trump’s father Fred prevailed on him to get the Donald into their club. That led to multiple weekends where Trump would take a limo to Westchester to play golf with my friend’s husband and several buddies, all of whom were club members.

It turned out that Trump was a good golfer, so the men were ok with playing with him, except for the obvious cheating on the course. But after each round, the group would adjourn to one of the members’ homes for a potluck, and there Trump’s germophobe flag would fly. He wouldn’t shake hands, and he washed his hands often. He clearly preferred going through the buffet line first, to the extent that if he couldn’t he wouldn’t eat.

Apparently, Trump has done a lot to overcome his germ fears but it all came back when Biden didn’t wash his hands before leaving the podium.

A little on Biden’s strategy: Biden isn’t banking on turning out 100% of Democratic voters. He’s not necessarily counting on low-propensity voters who normally have very little interest in politics. His goal is for Trump to continue to be himself, while Biden, in addition to getting high Democratic turnout, will peel off about 10% of self-identified Republican voters (up from 8% in 2020) and then win Independents. Wrongo has stated previously that he’s certain that Trump will not get near the same number of votes he got in 2020.

Next up, the Biden campaign is rolling out a $30 million ad buy and many more campaign travel stops.

What to say about the rebuttal speech? Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) spoke from her kitchen table. By the end of the evening, there seemed to be less talk about her vice presidential chances than about who might play her on Saturday Night Live’s cold open.

Let’s turn our attention to gasoline consumption in the US. Wolf Richter reports that for 2023, gasoline consumption was where it had been 20 years ago, even though miles driven set a new record. This was largely due to more efficient internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and the shift to electric vehicles (EVs). Wolf provided two handy charts:

Gasoline consumption in the US in terms of product supplied to gas stations rose by 1.5% in 2023, to 376 million gallons per day. But that was still down by 3.9% from 2019. It’s finally back where it was in 2003, (20 years ago).

For clarity, gas consumption is determined by miles driven, and the growing efficiency of gasoline-powered vehicles, including hybrids, along with the transition to EVs (the #2 bestselling model in the US in 2023 was a Tesla).

The second chart above, “per-capita gasoline consumption” makes what’s going on clearer. The US population has grown over the past 20 years, but while gasoline consumption has been flat, per-capita gasoline consumption has plunged by 15% from 2003 and by 21% from 1978.

Further, average fuel economy has increased by 42% over the past 20 years, along with average horsepower, because of technical innovations that make today’s ICE vehicles more powerful and more economical than ever before. From Wolf:

“Since 1975, fuel economy for highway driving doubled from 14.6 mpg to nearly 30 mpg in 2023!”

More: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“With less demand for gasoline domestically, the US has become a significant exporter of gasoline….Exports of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel accounted for about 21% of the record 10.1 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products that the US exported in 2023.”

Where will gas consumption go from here? Biden says we should be at zero emissions by 2050. How will we replace the tax receipts from federal and state gas taxes?

Enough. Let’s punt on the election and on the debate over EV cars. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, when we take a break from the assault on our consciousness by media and social media, and instead, focus on calming ourselves before launching into another week of disinformation.

Here at the Mansion of Wrong, we’re planning for projects on the Fields of Wrong, preparing for a meeting with our yard guys. We’ve finally convinced them that because of global warming, yard work must begin in early March rather than in early April.

To help you get centered on this Oscars weekend, grab a seat by a big window, then watch and listen to famed conductor Michael Tilson Thomas lead the USA’s National Youth Orchestra in a 2018 performance of Aaron Copland’s “Hoe-Down” from his ballet “Rodeo” in Beijing:

Facebooklinkedinrss

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.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Florida Lets Measles Run Free

The Daily Escape:

Highland Lighthouse, North Truro, Cape Cod, MA – February 2024 photo by Barbra A. Bentley

Let’s take a break this Saturday from a) Russia’s infiltration of the Republican Party and b) the growing realization that unless House Speaker Mike Johnson Johnsonless whips his members into shape before March 1st, we’ll have a government shutdown. Instead let’s focus today on Measles.

You are a witness the continued collapse in US public health standards since Florida’s Surgeon General has said its ok for unvaccinated kids to attend public school even though there are measles outbreaks. From KFF News:

“With a brief memo, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has subverted a public health standard that’s long kept measles outbreaks under control. On Feb. 20, as measles spread through Manatee Bay Elementary in South Florida, Ladapo sent parents a letter granting them permission to send unvaccinated children to school amid the outbreak.”

More:

“The Department of Health ‘is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance,’ wrote Ladapo, who was appointed to head the agency by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose name is listed above Ladapo’s in the letterhead.”

With his brief memo, Ladapo has subverted a public health standard that’s long kept measles outbreaks under control. This is where you wind up after decades of indoctrination of libertarianism and neoliberalism, where “freedom” becomes anarchy, a rejection of the ability of the state to impose restrictions, even in the name of public safety.

Everyone in America knows that measles is highly contagious, that it kills, and can do lasting damage. More from KFF:

“Most people who aren’t protected by a vaccine will get measles if they’re exposed to the virus. This vulnerable group includes children whose parents don’t get them vaccinated, infants too young for the vaccine, those who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons…”

The CDC advises that unvaccinated students stay home from school for three weeks after exposure. About 1 in 5 people with measles end up hospitalized, 1 in 10 develop ear infections that can lead to permanent hearing loss, and about 1 in 1,000 die from respiratory and neurological complications. They reported that in 2023, childhood immunization rates had hit a 10-year low.

Worse, only about a quarter of Florida’s counties had reached the 95% threshold at which communities are considered protected against measles outbreaks, according to data posted by the Florida Department of Health in 2022.

Rebekah Jones, a data scientist who was removed from her post at Florida’s health department in 2020, over a rift regarding Coronavirus data, said:

“I think this is the predictable outcome of turning fringe, anti-vaccine rhetoric into a defining trait of the Florida government,”

A strategy of letting measles spread (which can wipe out your body’s immunity memory) while Covid is still pin-balling its way around the country? Sounds legit.

The way that things are going with public health in the US, it’s only a matter of time until the health departments of other western countries start issuing travel health notices for their citizens wanting to visit the US, advising them of the diseases that are being left to run free, particularly in Florida.

From The Nation:

“In 2022, Georgetown University political scientist Donald Moynihan wrote a piece on how to undermine the administrative state….No country becomes a world power without a capable public service.”

Perhaps the corollary, as stated by The Nation’s Gregg Gonsalves is this:

“No country becomes healthy without a capable public health system.”

That describes America today. More from The Nation:

“We did terribly on Covid…part of the reason was that our fundamentals were weak, but our politics are also set up to undermine public health….This has implications well beyond…the pandemic. It’s about how we expect to survive and thrive in America….This is a disaster in slow motion, and we’re watching it unfold as bystanders.”

There you have it: another thing to lose sleep over, and the election is still 7+ months away. Will there be enough infant deaths to generate sufficient outrage to roll this decision back?

Highly doubtful.

Wrongo is leaving you with that thought and is segueing into our Saturday Soother, where we take a break from doom scrolling and spend a few stolen moments alone with our thoughts. Here on the Fields of Wrong, there is still snow on the ground. So while we hope that spring is just around the corner, there’s little evidence to support it.

To help you relax, grab a seat by a south-facing window and watch and listen to Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”, played here by the Vienna Philharmonic, and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Dudamel is scheduled to become music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026. This performance was a part of the annual free Vienna Summer Night Concert in 2019.

This is the fourth time Wrongo has featured this composition, although you are seeing this particular version for the first time.

Barber finished the Adagio in 1936. In January 1938, Barber sent an orchestrated version of the Adagio for Strings to Arturo Toscanini. The conductor returned the score without comment, which annoyed Barber. Toscanini later sent word that he was planning to perform the piece and had returned it simply because he had already memorized it!

It was performed for the first time by Toscanini in November, 1938. Here, it is conducted by Gustavo Dudamel in 2019, like Toscanini did, without a score:

Facebooklinkedinrss