Playlist – Page 33 – The Wrongologist

Saturday Soother – January 23, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Lenticular clouds over the Presidential Range, Bretton Woods, NH – 2021 photo by Benjamin Williamson Photography. That’s Mt. Washington in the center.

Biden’s inauguration was wonderful TV viewing. Wrongo has watched every inaugural from JFK to Biden, and this one was the most satisfying. Maybe because its virtual nature meant that we were able to see many small moments of joy and artistry. Or maybe, it was just because the VIP seats were at home. Sara Jacobs, (D-CA) is a new member of Congress. She posted on Instagram:

“I’ve been in Congress for three Wednesdays. The first, an insurrection, the second, an impeachment, and the third, an inauguration. Let’s hope next Wednesday is as inspiring as this one.”

Couldn’t agree more. Biden’s speech was a worthy effort, hitting the right tone, and many key points. He pushed back pretty hard on lies and disinformation and assault on our democracy and institutions.

The real stars of the inauguration were others. Amanda Gorman, the young Black poet, gave all of us hope that the kids are alright. Lady Gaga’s voice was/is stunning. Wrongo really enjoyed John Legend singing Nina Simone’s arrangement of “Feeling Good” from 1965’s “Roar of the Grease Paint, Smell of the Crowd”.

The Ant Clemons/Justin Timberlake “Better Days” performance in and outside of the Stax museum in Memphis, TN was uplifting. Demi Lovato, who we’ve featured in the past, did Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” as an upbeat Zoom performance with health care workers. The closing “Firework” by Katy Perry, led to this image of the First Couple:

What moved you on Wednesday?

Nielsen reported that the Biden inaugural had more viewers than Trump’s in 2017. According to Nielsen, 39.87 million people watched the half-hour swearing-in ceremony over the nation’s six major TV-news outlets, compared with 38.35 million viewers for the 2017 event.

But back to reality: It’s going to be game on next Monday, as the House will transmit Articles of Impeachment to the Senate. The Right-wing knives will be back out, as before. They will say that Biden really isn’t interested in unity. Can Schumer get 17 Republican votes to convict Trump? We’ll see.

Convicting Trump will happen if the pro-democracy wing of the Republican Party is larger than we think. The other side is the Sedition Caucus, led by Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), but it contains many, many others.

Senate Republicans now have to deal with their Florida retiree. This is precisely why so many Republicans have jumped on the bandwagon for “unity”. They’re saying: “Please don’t force us to make impossible choices!” Some Republican Senators are saying that their party cannot convict Trump and survive. They may be correct. If Mitch McConnell (R-KY), votes to convict Trump, there will be an effort to remove McConnell as Leader of the (now) Republican Minority.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said this week that: (brackets by Wrongo)

“…any Republican-leader type who embraces [conviction] is doing a lot of damage to the Party….There’s no way to be a successful Republican Party without having President Trump working with all of us and all of us working with him…”

That says it all: Their arguments have nothing to do with Trump’s guilt, innocence, or suitability for future office. They are solely political. They’re saying that it is impossible for the Republican Party to be a contender for power if they can’t keep most of Trump’s loyal followers inside the Party.

Impeachment or not, there’s a fight coming in the Republican Party. As Jonathan Last says, it’s a fight between the Sedition Caucus, and those Republicans who try to pretend that the last four years never happened. Sadly, in any fight between true believers and those willing to face reality, the true believers usually have the edge.

It is in America’s best interest that the Sedition Caucus lose, whoever their opponents are.

But on this Saturday, we feel that a weight has been lifted from the backs of Americans. We have a window through which we perceive that something good may happen. So take a break. Sit back, and listen to Tim McGraw and Tyler Hubbard perform their song of unity, “Undivided”, that we saw on Celebration America. Here’s the studio version:

Lyrics:

I think it’s time to come together
You and I can make a change
Maybe we can make a difference
Make the world a better place
Look around and love somebody
We’ve been hateful long enough
Let the Good Lord reunite us
‘Til this country that we love’s
Undivided

Monday Wake Up Call – MLK Jr. Day -January 18, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Third Selma March, 1965 – photo by Charles Fentress Jr shows Frank Calhoun, 16, of Meridian, MS, his face smeared with white suntan lotion and the word “VOTE” written on his forehead.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead marchers on March 21 to March 25 from Selma, Alabama to the state capital in Montgomery. It was their third attempt after a brutal crackdown by police on their first try on March 7, that caused the injuries that resulted in calling the first march “Bloody Sunday.”

On Aug. 6, President Lyndon Johnson signed the national Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the VRA, with its decision in Shelby County vs. Holder.

Since Martin Luther King Jr delivered his iconic “I have a dream” speech in August 1963, the number of Black Americans elected to the US Congress has dramatically increased. But it took until 2019, more than 54 years later, for the share of Black members serving in the House of Representatives to equal the percentage of Black Americans in the US population (12%).

To date, only seven states have sent a Black representative to the US Senate, and many states have never elected a Black representative to either House of Congress.

Here’s a look at Black representation in every US Congress since 1963:

A few words on the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Since the Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013, 1,688 polling places have been shuttered in states previously bound by the Act’s preclearance requirement. Texas officials closed 750 polling places. Arizona and Georgia were almost as bad. Unsurprisingly, these closures were mostly in communities of color.

In December 2019, the House passed HR 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, now named the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, to restore the safeguards of the original VRA. It’s been collecting dust on Mitch McConnell’s desk ever since. He and his GOP colleagues continue to sit idly by as Republican state officials suppress the vote with no accountability.

If your vote didn’t count, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to suppress it. There’s no telling what change we’ll be able to make once we win the battle for voting rights.

So, time to wake up America! Change has to come. The fight didn’t start with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and it didn’t end with John Lewis. The fight continues. To help you wake up, listen again to Sam Cooke’s “A Change Gonna Come”. It was released as a single in December 1964.

Cooke was inspired by hearing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”, and was also moved by Dr. King’s August 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. But it was Cooke’s experience in October 1963, when he and his entourage were turned away from a whites-only Holiday Inn in Shreveport, Louisiana, despite having reservations – that directly triggered him to write “A Change is Gonna Come.”

“Change” was released as a single two weeks after Cooke’s murder at age 33 on Dec. 11, 1964. It was quickly embraced by civil rights activists.

Still relevant, in so many ways, it’s possible to see it as a comprehensive review of the Trump administration. The linked video is as powerful to watch as the lyrics to Cooke’s song are to hear:

Saturday’s (Not much of a) Soother – January 16, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Foster Bridge, Cabot, VT – photo by Michael Blanchette photography

Predictions for the year ahead are probably pointless, but 2021 could easily include more domestic terror. Biden’s inauguration will look like an armed takeover of the US Capitol, because the new president must be protected from a potential return of the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan.6.

That group included some very serious, most likely, coordinated people who had temporary restraints and a plan. Reuters reports that US prosecutors said in a court filing that rioters intended:

“…to capture and assassinate elected officials.”

The Trump Coupists believed that the election had been stolen, and that democracy in the US had been overthrown. It was, therefore, their duty to right the wrong that had been done, including taking captive those most responsible like Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. The WaPo says the mob got within 100 feet of Pence’s hiding spot:

“If the pro-Trump mob had arrived seconds earlier, the attackers would have been in eyesight of the vice president as he was rushed across a reception hall into the office.”

This is a Republican problem. Here’s polling data from Quinnipiac, who surveyed 1,239 registered voters nationwide, from January 7-11:

73% of Republicans say Trump is protecting, not undermining, democracy.
70% of Republicans say Republicans who voted to block electors were protecting, not undermining, democracy.
73% of Republicans say there was widespread voter fraud in 2020.

So what will these 50+ million Republicans out of the 74 million Trump voters who think they are disenfranchised, do? Their numbers are more than sufficient to sustain a domestic insurgency. They are geographically diverse, many are armed to the teeth. They believe they are part of a Trump movement, and it is their patriotic duty to fight in order to restore US democracy. From David Brooks:

“You can’t argue with people who have their own separate made-up set of facts…It’s a pure power struggle. The weapons in this struggle are intimidation, verbal assault, death threats and violence, real and rhetorical. The fantasyland mobbists have an advantage because they relish using these weapons, while their fellow Christians just want to lead their lives….The problem is, how do you go about reattaching people to reality?”

A distinct possibility for 2021 is a low grade insurrection, led by heavily armed true believers of the Trump movement. The challenge for America is whether these true believers can be deprogrammed and return to reality.

A return to reality requires all of us, but specifically Republicans at the local, state and federal levels to reject the Big Lie fomented by Trump. Republicans need to look in the mirror. The FT’s Janan Ganesh says: (paywalled, emphasis by Wrongo):

“Whether we date it to the congressional midterm election of 1994, or Barry Goldwater’s White House bid in 1964, or the McCarthyite 1950s, the party has not policed its right flank for a long time. The Republican portrayal of government as inherently malign is hardly new….The impugning of opponents’ legitimacy did not commence with president-elect Joe Biden’s this winter.”

Few of us know insurrectionists. We see them on TV as armed, angry brainwashed people eager for a second Civil War. We’re all unsure if deprogramming will work, because it rarely works for cult members.

We need brave Republicans who will speak out against the tyrant, and the Big Lie, regardless of the threats.

If the Big Lie persists, America could then be faced with mutually exclusive, and terrible choices: One is to become a police state. We could see more cameras, security checkpoints near state capitols, combined with more social media suppression and expanded no-fly lists. But if there are millions of armed true believers, they won’t be easily suppressed. We could face a long term insurrection, one that will not be put down, short of imprisoning many more millions of Americans.

Whether the trained and armed groups of (mostly) white men scattered all over the country, many of whom are currently in police forces or on military active duty, will coalesce sufficiently to conduct periodic quasi-terrorist actions is difficult to say. But even in the very red states where the Trump movement is powerful, there are urban centers. Those cities are much less red. And few in the Trump movement will want their family and friends getting killed for the cause.

Second, we can try peacefully to encourage the insurrectionists into the mainstream by making our politicians cut out the BS. And by creating a better society. A decent, livable America is currently out of reach for many. In that sense, we all could profit by working to make America great again.

Let’s climb down from all of the recent hysteria, and enjoy a brief moment of Saturday Soothing. Here is the Cadenza from “Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto”, with Canadian Chris Coletti on solo trumpet, conducted by Paul Haas with the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, in October 2017. His playing is remarkable:

The Complicated Question of Policing

The Daily Escape:

Winter, Stowe VT – photo by John H. Knox

Many in politics and the media have remarked about how, during the pro-Trump mob invasion of the US Capitol on Wednesday, surprisingly few police stood in the way.

Law enforcement had known that the protests were coming for days, but the Capitol Police appeared totally unprepared for the insurrection. They didn’t even lock all the doors. Videos showed some police calmly talking with attackers after they moved into the building.

As of now, five people have died in the attack, and of the ten thousand or so who surrounded the Capitol, and the hundreds who broke into the building, police have arrested only 69 people. The approach Capitol Police used on the mob was distinctly different from how police forces in DC handled protesters just a few months earlier during the summer of 2020, at anti-racism demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd. From Business Insider:

“The figure pales in comparison past protests in the nation’s capital, such as the 194 protesters arrested during an anti-racism protest following the police killing of George Floyd, or the 234 arrested protesting Trump’s inauguration — neither of which involved a violent attack on the heart of the US government.”

In Minneapolis after Floyd’s death, 570 people were arrested. In Ferguson, Missouri following the police killing of Michael Brown, there were 400 arrests.

It turns out that the tepid response by police to the Capitol insurrection isn’t an aberration.

Roudabeh Kishi, director of research with the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project says that authorities are more than twice as likely to break up a left-wing protest than they are a right-wing protest.

She says discrepancies we saw in DC on Wednesday are another example of a trend her team has been tracking for months: “We see a different response to the right wing.” This is the first time that data have been collected documenting what White protesters have long perceived: That police tend to crack down on left-wing protesters, and align with those on the right wing. Kishi’s very important report is here.

Eddie Glaude, professor at Princeton, said on NPR that the attempted coup and the law enforcement response raised the question of who has the right to protest in America:

“…what was very clear to me is that there is a sense in which some people who happen to be White are accorded the rights of citizenship and the right to dissent and others are expected to be grateful. And that was in clear view yesterday in terms of how the police responded to a mob insurrection…”

The Attempted Coup

The Daily Escape:

**Trump supporters storm the US Capitol in Washington D.C on January 6, 2021. – Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP**

Yesterday, while driving home after the gym, Wrongo thought that it would be a good day for some champagne, given the Democrats’ double play in Georgia that had flipped control of the Senate.

By mid-afternoon, that idea was dead.

What we saw in the Capitol on Wednesday ranks near the top of a very short list of unimaginable and historic insults to the American system. Wrongo was in college when JFK was killed. He was in the US military when RFK and MLK were killed, but none of those events make his top three insults to our way of life, and our democracy.

Wrongo’s top three have all occurred since 2000. They are: the 9/11 attack, Katrina, and Wednesday’s attempted coup. All demonstrated how weak our government is when truly threatened. We were threatened from outside on 9/11 by al-Qaeda, threatened by Mother Nature in Katrina, and finally, we are currently threatened by fellow citizens seeking to install Trump as president, despite his losing the election.

It’s hard to overstate what happened yesterday. The Capitol was attacked. Guns were drawn. People died. Congressmen and senators had to hide. And the president’s allies in the mob and in Congress tried to overturn the election. Let’s give some perspective to the attack on the Capitol.

Trump has organized an armed militia within the Republican Party. Our politicians and press watched him do it. In some cases, members of both groups facilitated the organizing!
What happened yesterday was a national effort. Fox News reports that at the same time the takeover of the US Capitol was happening, like-minded protesters descended on state houses, prompting multiple evacuations. Fox reports that protesters entered state houses in 11 states.
The Capitol invaders came disturbingly close to achieving their objective. Sen Jeff Merkley tweeted a photo of the boxes containing the Electoral College ballots that were rescued from the Senate floor just before the rioters broke in. The boxes were removed by Senate floor staff. Otherwise they could have been taken by the rioters and destroyed. Had that happened, Biden’s Inauguration would certainly have been delayed.
The Capitol Police were utterly unprepared. Why? The likely attack was well known in advance. For weeks, Trump supporters openly discussed the idea of violent protest on the day Congress would meet to certify the result. Leaders of the Stop the Steal movement called their Wednesday demonstration the Wild Protest, a name taken from a tweet by Trump that encouraged his supporters to take their grievances to the streets of Washington. It “Will be wild,” he tweeted.
Quite a few of the Capitol Police didn’t put up a real fight. Some took selfies with the rioters. Similarly, neither the DC cops, nor the Capitol Police, treated these White terrorists as terrorists. We need to recognize that in America today, police forces are filled with extremists who sympathize with people like the White terrorists who stormed the Capitol. There needs to be a cleansing of extremists from the police, or they will become a force multiplier for the Trump militia.
How America handles White conservative protestors versus how America handles protestors of color is clear. The summer’s Black Lives Matter protests in DC had a very impressive show of National Guard support. For Wednesday’s White Right protests, the Guard wasn’t called in until after the Capitol had been breached. Many noted that DC cannot protect itself. It needed approval from the Commander-in-Chief, who in this case, was one of the enemy. This provides a compelling reason for DC to be granted statehood.
Last night finally made it clear that unchecked authority is incompatible with the Constitution. Some Republican politicians (but too few) finally understood that their posturing has consequences. Some Trump appointees responded appropriately to the coup attempt, citing their oath to the Constitution. But others dawdled until Mike Pence took action. It will take some time until we understand why some decided to continue to protect the president rather than the Constitution.

What happened yesterday was unprecedented in the nation’s history, and we’re not out of the woods. It is 13 days until Trump most likely plunges the nation’s capital into havoc again by refusing to leave the White House. His destruction of our norms shouldn’t go unanswered, and the Constitution offers remedies. Now the Cabinet and the Congress must pursue them. There must be a cost for his coup attempt. Trump must pay.

Today, Trump stated that he will leave office, but he also promised to sustain his insurgency. On top of everything else Biden has to deal with, he now has to coup-proof the US government

Wrongo attended a few riots in the 1960s. Biden needs to figure out if this coup attempt represents the true feelings of a large segment of the population, or not. The danger is that tens of millions of armed Americans who won’t simply stand down are behind yesterday’s coup attempt.

But some riots can be simply sound and fury. They can peter out, either because they don’t represent a large enough segment, or it’s clear that they can’t change the thing they’re angry about.

We’re stuck with hoping that this battle will return to being waged on Twitter and Facebook, and not in the streets. It’s somewhat encouraging that the protestors were taking selfies and souvenirs, not setting up barricades.

It’s hopeful that every Republican of consequence has turned on Trump. Maybe, he’s finally disgraced.

Those Republicans who supported Trump now understand that they must uphold the Constitution, not Trump. Those that continue to support him will end their political careers.

Let’s hope it’s over.

Here’s a song for Trump to go out on: Let’s listen to “Commander-in-Chief” by Demi Lovato. It’s a powerful anti-Trump message:

Lyrics:

Commander in Chief, honestly
If I did the things you do, I couldn’t sleep
Seriously, do you even know the truth?
We’re in a state of crisis, people are dying
While you line your pockets deep

Trump’s Veto Threats

The Daily Escape:

Merry Christmas! The Wrongologist will be on break until next week, and on a reduced schedule through the New Year, unless something terrible happens. But really, what are the chances of that? OK, see below.

The Wrong family hopes that you can be in (physically distant) touch with your loved ones over the holidays. We hope that you can enjoy a few days of quiet reflection on this terrible year and our terrible government. Wrongo also fervently hopes that we experience a turn-around in how Americans care about each other in 2021.

Trump is threatening to veto the $900 billion Covid relief bill unless the Congress bumps up the $600 individual stimulus checks to $2,000. He said:

“Send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package and maybe that administration will be me and we will get it done.”

Trump also wants the three-martini lunch deduction that’s buried in the bill to be extended indefinitely. When you own a bunch of hotels, this might have a positive impact on your liquor sales.

That term dates back to the Mad Men era. The idea is that you can deduct all of the costs of a business meal, no matter how absurdly high, as a business expense. This change in the current bill will make the entire meal expense tax-deductible.

After military service, Wrongo’s first job interview was with Esso, the predecessor of today’s Exxon. The interviewers required that at least two martinis be consumed in the two hour lunch in order to prove that you had the right stuff. Wrongo received a hangover, along with a job offer. And thankfully, went to Wall Street instead.

As Axios noted, many of the items Trump wants changed, such as foreign aid, are not part of the Coronavirus relief package. They are part of the government funding bill, which was passed alongside the Coronavirus relief package.

So, Trump’s threatening a veto of the relief bill. On Wednesday, he vetoed the $740 billion defense spending bill. But the House will reconvene for an override vote on Dec. 28, with the Senate following on Dec. 29 if the House successfully overrides the veto.

But, what’s his strategy with the relief bill? If Trump decides to veto it, there may be a method to his madness.

Delays in negotiating prevented a timely passing of the relief bills, and that’s backed Congress into a corner. The Constitution grants the president 10 days to review a measure passed by the Congress. If the president has not signed the bill after 10 days, it becomes law without his signature, except if Congress adjourns during the 10-day period. In which case, the bill dies.

Ordinarily, Congress could just wait for Trump to veto the legislation and then vote to override it. But the Constitution mandates that a new Congress convene at noon on January 3. Meaning that this Congress ends at noon that day, ten days from now, and too late to meet and override the veto.

Moreover, the formal process of getting the bills to the president isn’t expected to be completed until Thursday or Friday, putting it on Trump’s desk within the danger zone for a Trump pocket veto. That prevents it from becoming law before the 116th Congress ends at noon on Jan. 3.

This means the next Congress would have to take up the bill all over again. Trump now can simply out wait the bill. He was scheduled to leave Washington on 12/23, for Mar-a-Lago.

There’s a disaster scenario here. The temporary government funding resolution runs out on December 29, unless extended by both Houses and signed by Trump. If Trump refuses to sign the bill, and Congress doesn’t choose to, or can’t override it before their session ends, there will be no Coronavirus aid, and the government will be shut down. If Trump remains intransigent with the next Congress, this could be prolonged until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20 and approves the bills.

Would Republicans actually agree to cave in to Trump and spend a few extra $hundred billion after fighting tooth and nail all year to keep this relief bill under $1 trillion? Saying no puts the GOP in the uncomfortable position of opposing its own president heading into the Georgia Senate runoffs, which are uncomfortably close for both Parties.

This also gives Democrats a strong argument against Georgia’s GOP senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who supported the $600 payment. It demonstrates, once again, that the only real obstacle to more generous economic assistance is the Republican Party.

Trump’s play may help the Georgia Democrats on January 5.

Let’s leave with a Christmas song you may not have seen. Here’s “Last Christmas“, a song by Wham! the English pop duo, originally released in December 1984. Here it is sung live in 2019 by Emilia Clarke of “Game of Thrones” fame (Daenerys Targaryen) in the movie “Last Christmas“.

Andrew Ridgeley, the surviving member of Wham! is in the audience. This is a feel-good way to head into Christmas:

Monday Wake Up Call – Sedition Edition, December 21, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Arches NP – photo by Jack Bell Photography

Maggie Haberman of the NYT reported the scary details of a meeting at the White House on Friday. During the meeting, Trump tried to hire Sidney Powell as special counsel to continue the investigation into Trump’s claims of voter fraud. He also asked advisors about declaring martial law, an idea floated by Michael Flynn, the general he recently pardoned.

The meeting’s attendees included Powell, Flynn, and Rudy Guilani via phone, along with White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. In addition to talk of martial law and Sidney Powell obtaining special counsel status and a top-level security clearance, Giuliani floated the idea of Trump issuing an executive order to commandeer Dominion Voting Systems voting machines. Giuliani had previously called Ken Cuccinelli, number two at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and asked him whether DHS could seize voting machines. Cuccinelli said that DHS didn’t have that authority.

Haberman reported that Meadows and Cipollone strenuously and repeatedly objected to these suggestions, saying they had no constitutional basis for going forward. Apparently, the meeting lasted several hours, and things got pretty heated. More from Haberman:

“The meeting got raucous, with various administration members drifting in and out and different people arguing. Powell told others they were quitters…”

The Washington Times, a right-leaning newspaper in DC reported that on Saturday, the military said it wants no part in the martial law discussion. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said in a joint statement:

“There is no role for the US military in determining the outcome of an American election,”

This shows how weak our government really is. With the right people supporting Trump, he could have attempted a military coup and overturned the election. This also shows how seditious Trump has become in the wake of his election loss. Thinking about, and possibly calling for, troops to stop a democratically elected president from taking office have taken his voter fraud claims to a much darker and militaristic place.

Since Trump has been thinking about suspending the Constitution and invoking martial law to overturn the election, he and his associates are committing seditious acts that should be treated accordingly.

America needs to make the price Trump pays for thinking about sedition higher than his price for accepting Biden’s win.

Now would be a good time for Biden to state publicly that attempts to violate election laws, or undermine democracy through overt and/or covert acts will be investigated by his DOJ, and that they will go wherever the evidence leads.

There are practical problems to think about: how will the incoming Biden team deal with a Trump administration that simply won’t agree to leave? Trump has stooges at the Department of Defense and the Justice Department. The Pentagon has already called a halt to transition activities, ostensibly until after Christmas, but who really knows?

What if Lloyd Austin, Biden’s new Secretary of Defense shows up at the Pentagon, and is denied entrance? Who does Biden appeal to? Trump? What happens when Trump refuses to take Biden’s call?

Does Biden ask the DOJ to step in? Trump’s stooge is sitting there as well. Does Biden ask the Supreme Court to intervene? What happens next?

None of us have any idea what’s going to happen between now and January 20^th, but we need a concerted effort to strengthen the guardrails of our democracy. Trump has exposed just how weak our safeguards are.

The US is one month away from inaugurating a president who will follow established norms and conventions. There’s one more month for Trump to try martial-lawing his way out from under the nastiness that awaits him upon his leaving MAGAstan.

Time to wake up America! Trump has already tried several non-military coups, from trying to influence state electors, to multiple lawsuits attempting to throw out election results. It’s not really a question of what Trump is willing to do. And he’s not going to give up. We left “peaceful, dignified transfer of power” behind several weeks ago.

It’s now a question of how many people in our government institutions won’t play along with his coup. To help you wake up, have a listen to Leslie Odom Jr. perform “Winter Song”, featuring Cynthia Erivo.

The lyrics were written by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson:

Saturday Soother – December 12, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Cathedral Spires, Black Hills SD – 2020 photo by Max Foster

We’re stumbling into another December weekend without a bailout package for those who are still unemployed in the pandemic. The WaPo’s headline says it all: “More Americans are shoplifting food as aid runs out during the pandemic.” This is caused at least in part, by people going without jobs or unemployment insurance while waiting for the Senate and Mitch McConnell to come up with a bill that provides Americans the aid they need.

But the biggest news of the week was that the Supreme Court declined to hear the case brought by Texas asking the Court to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and declare Trump to be the winner. The Supreme Court wrote:

“The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot,”

In case you’re wondering, Trump’s three new appointments didn’t support hearing the case. Whoever talked Trump out of appointing his kids, Eric, Ivanka and Junior to the Court had better lay low for the next few days. The Supreme Court deserves credit for rejecting an attempt to destroy American democracy, but many of those Republicans who joined the lawsuit, deserve our harshest judgment.

Adam Sewer of The Atlantic tweeted:

People have argued that because Trump hasn’t overturned an election, that we can now relax: The “system worked”, there were no tanks in the streets. But Republicans chose sides this week. More than half (126) of the Republicans in the House of Representatives signed onto Texas’s failed lawsuit, along with 17 Republican attorneys-general. Republicans must own up to their anti-democratic actions.

Once this is over, and Trump is living in Florida and is acting as president-in-exile, we’ll need to hold all of his seditious minions accountable. Unsurprisingly, this failed lawsuit came from the Party that claims to oppose “judicial activism.”

But enough of all of this big news, Wrongo was attracted to an Ars Technica story that reported on researchers teaching lab rats to drive little electric cars. The research was aimed at learning what effect the environment a rat was raised in had on its ability to learn new tasks. The team, led by Richmond University professor Kelly Lambert, decided to teach them to drive not just navigate another maze.

But if you’re going to teach rats to drive, first you need to build them a car (an ROV or, Rat Operated Vehicle). The chassis and powertrain came from a robot car kit, and a transparent plastic food container provided the body:

The controls were three copper wires stretched across an opening cut out of the front, with an aluminum plate on the floor. When a rat stood on the plate and gripped a copper bar, a circuit was completed, and the motors engaged: one bar made the car turn to the left, one made it turn to the right, and the third made it go straight ahead. Sounds hard, but it didn’t take long for the rats to learn how to drive. Their goal was to drive the car to a food treat.

The rats had three five-minute training sessions a week for eight weeks, and they learned to drive!

The placement of the treat and the starting position and orientation of the car varied, so the rats had a different challenge each time. At the end of the experiment, each rat went through a series of trials, conducted a few days apart, where they were allowed to drive around the arena. One experiment had them driving without food treats, to see if they were only doing driving to get food.

Some who were quicker to start driving continued to be more interested in driving, even when there was no reward beyond the feel of moving without using their feet.

Uber is excited by this news and may try to replace human drivers. It’s their Holy Grail: drivers that do it for the love of driving and don’t ask for pay, benefits, or even treats.

On to the weekend! We’re finishing up the Christmas decorations in the Mansion of Wrong, although there will be very few visitors this time. So grab an ornament, and listen to the Dave Brubeck Quartet play “Take Five” from their 1959 ground-breaking album, “Time Out”. The tune was written by Paul Desmond, here on alto saxophone, Brubeck on piano, Teo Macero, drums and Eugene Wright on bass. Have a martini on the house:

Dylan Sells His Music

The Daily Escape:

Eagle, Kent CT – December 8, 2020 photo by JH Clery

Today, let’s talk about something radically different. Bob Dylan has cashed out of 60+ years of his music by selling his publishing rights to the Universal Music Group. It’s reported that Dylan will receive from $300-$400 million. In return, UMG will get all the future income from his music. Whenever a record is sold, the money that once went to Dylan will now go to UMG. Same for the royalties from air play of his songs.

UMG will get to decide who can license Dylan’s tunes. If someday soon you hear “Just Like a Woman” in an ad for perfume, UMG will have made the decision to do it. They’ll also get whatever money that the cosmetic company agreed to pay to use the song.

The selling of publishing rights is nothing new. In recent years, Blondie and Barry Manilow sold theirs, along with the estates of Kurt Cobain and John Lennon. A London-based publishing company has spent more than $1 billion for the rights to the songs of Rhianna, Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake. Last week, Stevie Nicks sold her catalogue for around $100 million.

Dylan’s music has meant a great deal to Wrongo since the early sixties. You know that some are going to call Dylan a sell-out. They’ll say that, as a prime representative of the sixties counter-culture, Dylan should be held to a higher standard; but that’s nonsense!

A note about Wrongo’s favorite Dylan album, 1965’s “Bringing It All Back Home”. It includes “Maggie’s Farm“, “She Belongs to Me“, and “Mr. Tambourine Man”. And it contains one of Dylan’s masterpieces, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding“. This played constantly in Wrongo’s dorm room that year.

The reason “It’s Alright Ma” is so great, is that it’s a message about the culture of the sixties and the counterculture. Listeners were affected by the song, people started to question authority. We’re not talking about cheesy conspiracy theories like today, but what was at that point, the bedrock of our nation. Sadly, NOTHING’S CHANGED since he wrote this:

(Verse 6)

“While preachers preach of evil fates

Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Can lead to hundred-dollar plates

Goodness hides behind its gates

But even the President of the United States

Sometimes must have to stand naked”

(Verse 10)

“For them that must obey authority

That they do not respect in any degree

Who despise their jobs, their destinies

Speak jealously of them that are free

Do what they do just to be

Nothing more than something they invest in”

Will you think for yourself, or not? That was the question in the sixties, and many young people ended up on Dylan’s side.

(Verse 14)

“While them that defend what they cannot see

With a killer’s pride, security

It blows their minds most bitterly

For them that think death’s honesty

Won’t fall upon them naturally

Life sometimes must get lonely”

All of the politicians and the business executives are powerful until they aren’t.

(Chorus)

“Although the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing, Ma, to live up to”

In the 1960’s we didn’t buy in, instead, we rejected the system. Today, the opposite is true.

1975’s “Blood on the Tracks” is Wrongo’s second favorite, with “Tangled up in Blue”, “Idiot Wind”, “Simple Twist of Fate”, and “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” as standouts.

Of course, there are many, many great Dylan songs. 1963’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right“. 1964’s “The Times They Are a-Changin“. Dylan’s other 1964 album, “Another Side,” has “It Ain’t Me Babe“. 1965’s “Highway 61 Revisited” had “Like a Rolling Stone“, which was a radio hit in 1965. That was revolutionary, because the song was six minutes long and he didn’t have a traditional radio-friendly voice.

And this year, he released “Murder Most Foul.” A 17- minute stream of consciousness about the Kennedy assassination.

This isn’t the first time he’s monetized his music beyond concerts and the airwaves. His songs have been used in commercials selling products for Google, Apple, Pepsi, Victoria’s Secret and IBM.

It’s his music, and it’s his decision on how it’s used…at least it was until the sale. We live in desperate financial times. If selling their music is what artists need to do to survive, so be it.

It’s 2020 and the times, they are a-changin’.

You can listen to “It’s Alright Ma” here.

Monday Wake Up Call – December 7, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Crater Lake, OR – November 2020 photo via imagur. This is the fifth time we’ve featured Crater Lake.

What’s it gonna take for America to wake up to the Republican’s ongoing attempted coup? From the WaPo:

“Just 27 congressional Republicans acknowledge Joe Biden’s win over President Trump a month after the former vice president’s clear victory of more than 7 million votes nationally and a convincing electoral-vote margin that exactly matched Trump’s 2016 tally.”

A team of 25 Post reporters contacted aides for every Republican by email and phone asking three questions: 1) Who won the presidential contest? 2) Do you support or oppose Trump’s continuing efforts to claim victory? 3) If Biden wins a majority in the Electoral College, will you accept him as the legitimately elected president? Most refused to answer. Here are the WaPo’s findings in a chart:

When 215 of the 249 Republicans in Congress (86%) refuse to answer whether Biden would be the legitimately elected president, we’re looking at an attempted coup. These people aren’t waiting to get all the facts, or let the process play out. We shouldn’t be calling it anything else.

Just three state elections were really close — that is, decided by less than a one percent margin: Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Biden won all of them. The only semi-close state that Trump won was North Carolina, by a 1.3% margin. But had the three really close states gone for Trump, we would be looking at an Electoral College (EC) tie, 269-269. Then the House would re-elect Trump, thanks to the Constitutional process for breaking Electoral College ties, which gives each state one vote in the House to determine the next president.

Republicans control a majority of the seats in 26 House delegations, Democrats control 22, with two split evenly. That would mean a Trump re-election. It’s important to again emphasize that the EC would then have overturned the clear will of the people, showing how terribly flawed the EC truly is.

Since Republicans are still unwilling to say Biden won, even though all three of those states have certified him as the winner, imagine what we would be going through today if a single state hung in the balance?

And if the election had come down to a margin of a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania, you better believe the Supreme Court would have happily voted to toss out enough votes to provide a Republican victory. We shouldn’t feel sanguine about Biden’s clear victory.

We saw this in Wisconsin. Their Supreme Court just had a couple of 4-3 decisions on ridiculous cases brought by Trump, cases that argued for decisions that would be contrary to their constitution. Three of the four Republican judges voted with Trump anyway. Fortunately, one Republican judge actually cared a little about the law. That’s just too close.

And Politico is reporting that Rep. Mo Brooks, (R-AL) plans to challenge the Electoral College votes when Congress moves to certify Joe Biden’s victory on January 6. He’s looking for a Senator to join his challenge, though he noted that doing so would largely be a symbolic, and not practical, undertaking.

Time to wake up America! Our democracy is hanging by a thread. Despite Biden receiving more votes than any other president, despite getting the largest vote percentage against an opponent since 1932 (when Roosevelt defeated Hoover), Trump is still trying to overturn the election. And most Republicans are silent or looking the other way, hoping Trump succeeds.

To help you wake up, listen to Elvin Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite perform “What the Hell” which they released in August. You get Charlie’s harmonica and Elvin’s guitar. It’s a protest song for our times:

Here are their great lyrics:

Look at the shape, the shape the Nation’s in
This situation is a shame and a sin
I want to know, how could a good thing go so wrong?
Tell me, what the hell is going on?

Sometimes I don’t know whether to cry or laugh
Half the people in this country can’t stand the other half
I want to know, why can’t we halfway get along?
People, people, what the hell is going on?

He is the president but wants to be the king
Know what I like about the guy? Not a goddamn thing
I want to know, how can four years seem so long?
Lord have mercy, what the hell is going on?

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Playlist

Saturday Soother – January 23, 2021

Monday Wake Up Call – MLK Jr. Day -January 18, 2021

Saturday’s (Not much of a) Soother – January 16, 2021

Trump’s Veto Threats

Monday Wake Up Call – Sedition Edition, December 21, 2020

Saturday Soother – December 12, 2020

Dylan Sells His Music

Monday Wake Up Call – December 7, 2020