Category: Playlist

Saturday’s Hot Links

The Daily Escape:

Grand Canyon, South Kabab Trail, AZ – February 2024 photo by Lynsey Schroeder

We’ve made it to Super Bowl weekend, but not without bumps and a few bruises caused by this week’s edition of America’s dysfunctional politics. Today, let’s do a lightning round of mostly bad and a few good stories from the past week.

First up, Special counsel Robert Hur has released his report declining charges against Biden in his classified documents case but finding he did willfully retain information. In the report, Hur goes out of his way to paint a damning portrait of the President. He cites several examples of memory lapses and describes Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Hur’s message boils down to this: a well-intentioned, forgetful old man took the wrong stuff home from work. He “willfully retained” it, but we’re gonna let him go. Not because he’s president, but because we’re nice guys. Sotto voce: (because we probably couldn’t prove criminal intent). Maybe the DOJ felt Trump needed a win after 91 felonies.

There’s a pattern to the DOJ’s appointments of special counsels:

What’s amazing is that Biden now faces more heat from the media for being found innocent than Trump will if he’s found guilty. The multiple questions by reporters at Thursday night’s Biden press conference showed just how difficult it is for America’s media to focus on what’s important. The White House Press Corps should collectively be ashamed of its behavior during the press conference. They behaved like a pack of rabid hyenas.

Why the horrible behavior toward Biden, and the deference to Trump? Mainstream media outlets have long been obsessed with Biden’s age. They have not, however, given the same attention to Trump’s age or to his gaffes and incoherent comments. It’s sad that we’re in a situation where Trump’s multiple indictments seemingly are politically advantageous to him, and Biden’s exoneration is politically terrible for him.

Given the media’s obsession, it won’t matter how well Biden does in public. If he makes one mental slip it becomes confirmation that the biggest concern about him is true. He can’t be perfect every day for the next nine months. Nobody can.

Next, Reuters reported that the Hawaii Supreme Court has upheld the state’s laws that generally prohibit carrying a firearm in public without a license. In the process, they criticized the US Supreme Court’s rulings that have expanded gun rights:

“The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.”

This is a direct attack on the US Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in “New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen” which recognized for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. More:

“The Government’s interest in reducing firearms violence through reasonable weapons regulations has preserved peace and tranquility in Hawai’i. A free-wheeling right to carry guns in public degrades other constitutional rights….The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness encompasses a right to freely and safely move in peace and tranquility. Laws regulating firearms in public preserve…liberty and advance these rights….There is no individual right to keep and bear arms under Article I, Section 17. So there is no constitutional right to carry a firearm in public for possible self-defense.”

Hawaii for the win!

Third, on February 9, 1964, 60 years ago, Ed Sullivan hosted the Beatles on his show. If you’re a member of the baby boomer generation, chances are you were sitting in front of a television that night. Seventy-three million Americans joined in to watch something they had never seen before. You can wake up old memories by watching “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” here.

Fourth, after blocking the border bill on Wednesday, Senate Republicans allowed a clean funding bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan to advance toward a vote. In the meantime, Ukraine is close to losing Avdeevka, a major eastern city to the Russians.

Fifth, disinformation watchdog groups have uncovered a covert, coordinated Russian effort to spread disinformation via Telegram and X/Twitter across the Texas border about a US Civil War:

“The disinformation campaign…expanded after Russian politicians spoke out when the US Supreme Court lifted an order by a lower court and sided with….Biden’s administration to rule that US Border Patrol officers were allowed to take down razor-wire fencing erected by the Texas National Guard…..There also appear to be a number of Russian accounts on X posing as pro-Texas groups, in another echo of 2016 when an account that claimed to be run by Tennessee Republicans was outed as Russian-run.

One of the suspect accounts is the Texan Independence Supporters, which has already been called out for spelling errors and constantly referencing Ukraine and Russia. On Sunday, the account claimed “we are a Texan organization, not Russian. We can definitely assure ya’ll [sic] that we’re not Russian.”

Another reminder that the internet is a cesspool.

Enough! It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we stop obsessively scrolling through our news feeds and take a few moments to chillax and gather ourselves for another week hearing all the reasons why it’s necessary to continue bombing Palestinians.

Here at the Mansion of Wrong we’re preparing to host a small Super Bowl viewing party with as many high-calorie, high-fat appetizers as we can eat.

To help you relax, find a spot near a south-facing window and watch and listen to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”.  February 12th is the 100th anniversary of this work that combines jazz and classical origins into an iconic American work. Here it is performed by Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic while playing solo piano in 1976 in Frankfurt, Germany:

(hat tip to Marguerite S.)

Wrongo was struck by how Bernstein was able to conduct and play. Maybe multi-tasking IS possible.

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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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The Red Sea Is Becoming A Bigger Problem

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Camden Outer Harbor, Camden, ME – February 2024 photo by Daniel F. Dishner Photography

A quick update to Wrongo’s column, “The End Of US Naval Superiority?” which concluded by saying:

“We don’t have sufficient deterrence to keep the Red Sea and thereby, the Suez Canal, open. We can’t do enough to the Houthis to make them back down. And we won’t be able to stop them with boots on the ground.”

That’s still true, and the military situation hasn’t gotten any better. Tim Anderson, Director of the Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies, mused on Xitter that the Houthis might have a path of escalation if the US and UK keep striking at their missile and drone launch capacity by cutting the Red Sea’s internet cables. The Houthis have denied this, but that doesn’t matter. The possibility is now out there.

From The Middle East Eye: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Egypt is a major [undersea cable] chokepoint, handling traffic from Europe to the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and vice versa. The 15 cables that cross Egypt between the Mediterranean and Red seas handle between 17% to 30% of the world population’s internet traffic, or the data of 1.3 billion to 2.3 billion people.”

Does this mean that the Houthis have a path to escalatory dominance? We also learned from CNN that a few days ago, the USS Gravely had to use its Phalanx CIWS (Close-In Weapon System) against a Houthi cruise missile that had gotten to within a mile of the ship. The Phalanx is essentially the ship’s last layer of air defense against incoming attacks. The fact that the Houthis got a missile through the AEGIS system which is the ship’s primary defense against incoming attacks by air, must be really concerning to the Pentagon. Having the possibility of a US Navy ship getting hit by the Houthis would be something that the Chinese, Russian, and Iranian navies would be watching very closely.

The economic situation hasn’t improved either. The WSJ reports that the world’s oceans are seeing an interlocking set of maritime security crises from Europe to East Asia. This raises a troubling question:  How difficult will it be to preserve freedom of the seas going forward? Here’s a map showing the way shipping routes have been altered in the last year:

This is exacerbated by the way the US Navy was sidelined during America’s decades of counterterrorism fascination. It makes it difficult to defend not just the shipping lanes but also undersea data cables and gas pipelines that are equally important to global economic output. More from the WSJ:

“Even if those ships can evade Houthi missiles, they can’t hide from insurers. The rate for war insurance through the Red Sea, once a tiny percentage of the total value covered, has ballooned to 1%, a difference that many shippers deem cost-prohibitive.”

The 10,000-mile-long alternative route, circumnavigating Africa, is so fuel-intensive that cargo ships pay steep climate taxes on arrival in Europe and risk scoring failing grades on the International Maritime Organization’s carbon report index.

Adding to shipping costs is the spiking of container rates. Here’s a chart (paywalled) from Statista:

While rates remain lower than they were in 2022, the fact that freight rates have spiked is a sign that the Houthi attacks are getting the desired effect, and that the maritime industry is taking them seriously.

This is an example less of asymmetric warfare than of asymmetric objectives. Briefly, the Houthis have a simple objective – trade disruption – which is straightforward to accomplish with relatively unsophisticated weapons. The West’s objective – freedom of navigation – is much more complex and requires a large, long-term presence with the ability to operate by land, sea and air, without ever having to seize the initiative.

As we’ve said previously, ships handle more than 80% of global goods. We seem unable to stop the Houthis. So it is likely that longer lead times on imported goods are right in front of us, along with more cost in delivering them.

This is another way in which Israel and Netanyahu specifically have dragged the US and the west into an escalating dilemma. There seem to be only two options: We end Israel’s destruction of Gaza as a means to eliminate Hamas, or we escalate in Yemen.

What will Biden and the US military say is our way out of the box we’ve gotten ourselves into?

That’s enough for this weekend. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to forget about Trump, Nikki Haley and the pile of hot steaming stuff that are the House Republicans. We do that by turning off the news for at least a few minutes. Here at the Mansion of Wrong, we remain undecided about when to take down our Christmas tree. The ornaments are packed away, but Wrongo likes looking at the lights in the evenings. Maybe just before company arrives for Super Bowl weekend.

To help on your way to unplug from the news, start by brewing up a vente cup of Frank Sumatra coffee ($13.95 for 12oz) from Camden, ME’s Coffee on the Porch. It is said to be a fun and lively roast with notes of nutmeg, dark chocolate, and a fruity zing. Who doesn’t like a fruity zing?

Now grab a seat by a window to watch and listen to Ravel’s “Boléro” performed by Prequell live in Paris. The backstory to this performance is that it was part of Paris’ 2017 campaign to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The city wanted to create a moment combining the city’s history, culture and sporting spirit using the Seine river. One project was this performance of “Boléro” on a 100-meter track floating on the Seine.

It showcases French classical music with a floating orchestra, arranged in a straight line, playing Ravel’s “Boléro”. As you know, Paris was successful in its bid for the 2023 summer games.

Watch and listen to Ravel’s masterful earworm:

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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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Another Reason Why People Think The Economy Sucks

The Daily Escape:

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

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has crunched the latest Social Security Administration (SSA) wage data. It shows the average American workers haven’t made much money since the 1970s:

“The latest SSA data demonstrates how vastly unequal earnings growth has been between 1979 and 2022. Over that period, inflation-adjusted annual earnings for the top 1% and top 0.1% skyrocketed by 171.7% and 344.4%, respectively, while earnings for the bottom 90% grew just 32.9%.”

That’s 33% over 43 years, less than 1% per year. The largest share of total earnings in the US economy have accumulated at the top of the wage ladder. The EPI is describing  “labor market earnings”, the pay (including benefits) of the 80% of workers who are not managers or supervisors at work. For decades before 1980, these workers’ hourly pay largely tracked economy-wide productivity growth.

When productivity growth slowed significantly, hourly pay growth collapsed even faster, leading to a growing gap between these typical workers’ pay and overall growth. That difference in missing pay for typical workers went to workers at the top or to business owners.

The EPI study shows that if you’re in the bottom 90% of wage earners, you’ve seen annual wage growth of less than 1% per year over the past 43 years. If you’re in the “upper middle class” things were very different. Here’s a chart from EPI:

Average wages in the 95th to 99th percentile have almost doubled, from $120K to $234K (all figures are in 2022 dollars). But this leaves out the real winners, the top 1%. Average wages for them went from $289K in 1979 to $786K in 2022. But even this huge growth is eclipsed by the wages of the top .1%, which increased an astounding 344%, going from $634K to $2.82 million.

Note that the data are for average annual wages which for the bottom 90% were $40,845 in 2022. Data on average wages are all that’s available, but it’s misleading. The MEDIAN wage for all workers is around $34k. That means half the bottom 90% are making LESS than 34k. Also, median household income is around $76k; which is two people working in the same household.

The media and the rest of us really have no idea how little the average person is earning.

And this is just income from wages. People at or near the top of the pyramid own the vast majority of the equity capital in the US — the top 10% of households own 85% of the total corporate stock owned by households.

The economic debate in America since the 1880s has been between those in favor of lightly regulated heavily financialized consumer capitalism, with some very modest income redistribution, sufficient — barely — to keep the losers in that economy from starving or freezing to death.

The other side are the Republicans who think England in the Industrial Revolution, is a model for what America ought to look like today. And Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon says we should listen to Republicans more. He’s specifically talking about NATO and immigration.

And this has been the GOP’s pitch forever:

Democrats need to address the negative impacts of US wage distribution as part of their 2024 pitch to keep the presidency, and return to controlling the House and Senate in November.

The Fields of Wrong are covered in snow, mostly due to temperatures being below freezing for the past several days. We had a tree fall into the road during the big windstorm last Sunday. Now it sits, snow-covered, on our property waiting for our next chain sawing event.

It’s Saturday, and professional football will be all over the television for the rest of the weekend. Good luck to those of you who follow one of the remaining eight teams. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we  try to forget about the Red Sea, the New Hampshire primaries and funding the government, and instead try to calm ourselves for a few moments. Hopefully we’ll be in better shape to launch into the roller coaster ride of next week’s horrors.

Take a few minutes and grab a chair by a window. Now, watch and listen as John Williams is persuaded to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his “Imperial March” from Star Wars during a gala to celebrate his 90th Birthday.

There are many seriously talented people on the stage, including track star Florence Joyner, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Steven Spielberg, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Star Wars actor, Daisy Ridley. Williams is 91, still going strong, and an example to those who think young Biden is too old to run again. Bravo, Maestro:

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Welcome To MLK Weekend

The Daily Escape:

Housatonic River, near Appalachian Trail, Bulls Bridge, CT – January 2024 photo by Jane Haslam

We’re into the MLK, Jr. holiday weekend, during which Wrongo, Ms. Right and our extended families and friends are gathering to observe Wrongo’s 80th birthday which occurred late last year. That means this column will be brief but paradoxically, unfocused.

In addition to MLK’s birthday, is anyone else worried about the expansion of the Israel/Hamas war into the Red Sea? From NBC:

“The United States and Britain launched military strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen on Thursday, after weeks of mounting attacks (on commercial shipping) by the Iran-backed militant group in the Red Sea.

The strikes, carried out from land and sea, threatened an expansion of the conflict in the Middle East beyond Israel’s war in Gaza — an escalation the Biden administration and its allies have been working to avoid.”

Nothing about this should be surprising. Houthi leadership have been near-begging for airstrikes against them for the last month, given their continued attacks on international ships attempting to use the Red Sea to transit the Suez Canal.

The reaction so far has been as expected. The Houthis have pledged retribution. Pro-Palestinians claim this is the start of WWIII. Some Republicans in Congress say this strike is not authorized, but Wrongo isn’t sure that was necessary.

Anyone who looks at America’s history with cruise and tomahawk missile attacks knows that they are not particularly effective at taking out land-based military installations. It doesn’t seem particularly likely that these strikes will either prevent or deter attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. But it also doesn’t seem likely to escalate things much beyond where we are right now.

America’s military often says “something must be done, and this is something”, and this seems to be another example. And the alternative of confining ourselves only to defensive responses may not have been any better.

Either way, we seem to be looking at a larger and more long-term military presence in the Red Sea. If the Houthi leadership wants to be part of the Israel/Hamas war, then they’re going to be a part of it. Whether the Houthis benefactor Iran wants them to attack global shipping companies is an unanswered question for now.

Is the Iranian leadership about to start a war? The real question is with whom? Iran has a very highly educated population and a diaspora of people waiting to help push the theocrats out if those theocrats slip up. Iran’s options (in a war) would be the many countries that they share land borders with. Those are Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq (who they fought with for 10 years), Turkmenistan, and Pakistan, (a nuclear power). Also Turkey, (in NATO), Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Among countries they don’t share a land border with, are the Saudis or Israel or US, all of which would likely result in Iran getting at least some of the shit bombed out of them. So a war started by Iran seems unlikely, but “Houthis disrupt global shipping from Yemen” was not on Wrongo’s 2024 bingo card, and it’s still January

Since it’s Saturday, let’s close with a musical statement that echoes MLK’s enduring message. Watch and listen to “Keep Your Eyes On The Prize“, a folk song from the American civil rights movement.

The song was composed as a hymn before World War I, but the lyrics in this version were written by civil rights activist Alice Wine in 1956. It is based on the traditional song, “Gospel Plow”, which is also known as “Hold On”, and “Keep Your Hand On The Plow”.

In this version from 2006, Bruce Springsteen starts on vocals, but when Marc Anthony Thompson (with hat) joins him, it becomes a great soul-stirring anthem. Thus, an instructional guide for all of us:

Sample lyrics:

Paul and Silas bound in jail
Had no money to go their bail
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

 Paul and Silas thought they were lost
Dungeon shook and the chains come off
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

Freedom’s name is mighty sweet
And soon we’re gonna meet
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

I got my hand on the gospel plow
Won’t take nothing for my journey now
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

The only chain that a man can stand
Is the chain of hand on hand
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

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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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Trump’s Role In The Insurrection May Go Unpunished

The Daily Escape:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Joan Walsh:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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A New Year Brings New Work

The Daily Escape:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Rick Wilson: (emphasis by Wrongo)

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

More:

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

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

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

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

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