Category: Playlist

February 15, 2017

The Daily Escape:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(The Philology library at Berlin’s Free University. Designed in the shape of the human brain)

Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Flynn is out. His lies or charitably, his misremembering whether his communications with the Russian ambassador included discussing the sanctions that had recently imposed by the outgoing Obama administration, were too much even for the fact-challenged Trump administration. That became patently obvious after the WaPo dropped the bombshell that Trump was warned about Flynn’s ties by the Justice Department before the inauguration.

Who notified them? Then-acting attorney general Sally Q. Yates. You remember that Yates was later fired by Trump for advising the President that his Muslim ban was unconstitutional.

She informed the Trump White House late last month that she believed Michael Flynn had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the US, and warned that the national security adviser was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

When she notified the White House that the FBI had Flynn on tape talking with the Russian Ambassador, she also told then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan.

So the Trumpets had more than enough of Ms. Yates by the time she advised them that the Muslim ban wouldn’t fly.

Flynn resigned Monday night. Most Republicans say there is nothing more to see here, and that we should move along. Democrats want an independent investigation.

Whether this issue is over or not probably depends on whether you believe that Flynn was a rogue actor, operating without any cooperation or involvement by others in the Trump administration. Was something larger at work? Was it just Flynn lying to Pence, and then Flynn lying to Trump?

That’s possible, but considering the character of some of the people in this administration, from Trump to Bannon, to Miller and Conway, it seems unlikely that Flynn was acting alone.

And on Tuesday, Trump tweeted, after accepting Flynn’s resignation, that:

The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington?

We all know that isn’t the real story. Thank you Sally Yates!

Here is The Who with “Behind Blue Eyes” from their album, “Who’s Next”. It was recorded in March, 1971. It describes the Orange Overlord to a “T”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfuWXRZe9yA

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Sample Lyrics:

No one knows what it’s like
To be a rich man
It’s a bitch, man
Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it’s like
To be hated
To be baldpated
Telling only lies

No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it’s like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies

But my dreams
They aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That’s never free

No one knows what it’s like
To feel these feelings
Like I do

And I blame you

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February 14, 2017

The Daily Escape:

(The Long Room of the Library of Trinity College Dublin, built in 1592)

Today is Valentine’s Day, so we pause from blogging about what’s wrong to thinking about what’s right with the world, the people we love.

Wrongo would like you to listen to the late great Chet Baker, the hypnotic jazz trumpeter with a fabulous voice, who lost it all to heroin. Along the way, Baker also lost many teeth, both due to addiction, and to a street fight over drugs. It’s tough to play the horn without teeth, and it took Chet a few years to scrape up enough cash to fix his mouth and then learn to play the trumpet again. He was 58 when he died in 1988.

Here is Chet Baker with “Time After Time”, words by Sammy Cahn and music by Jule Styne in 1946:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Lyrics:

Time after time
I tell myself that I'm
So lucky to be loving you
So lucky to be
The one you run to see
In the evening when the day is through
I only know what I know
The passing years will show
You've kept my love so young, so new
And time after time
You'll hear me say that I'm
So lucky to be loving you
I only know what I know
The passing years will show
You've kept my love so young, so new
And time after time
You'll hear me say that I'm
So lucky to be loving you
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Monday Wake Up Call – February 13, 2017

Wrongo and Ms. Right went to a concert by Buster Poindexter on Saturday. Poindexter is a stage persona for David Johansen, a glam rocker from the 1970s, when he fronted a group called the New York Dolls. Poindexter’s thing is to look suave and sophisticated, holding a drink, while singing an eclectic song book. He tries to say something humorous as a lead-in to the next song. His first comment was that he had been drinking steadily since November 9th.

The venue is in rock-solid conservative territory, but the line mostly drew laughs from a decidedly middle-age audience, except for one guy who screamed “bullshit” loudly and often during Poindexter’s first song. Eventually, the local police came, and the guy became a model of passive resistance, going to the floor limp, and unresponsive. After assuring themselves he hadn’t collapsed, the police ushered him out to a standing ovation, again, in a solidly Republican part of Connecticut. But think about this:

That sort of indicates that Trump voters are a forgiving lot. They were prepared to lock up Hillary Clinton for using a private email server because it jeopardized national security. Now the Trump administration is doing the same thing, and many think its no big thing. From The Hill: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

The [poll] results are surprising, considering Trump’s campaign included calling out Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for using a private email server while she was Secretary of State.

According to Newsweek, at least four senior officials in President Trump’s White House have active accounts on a private Republican National Committee (RNC) email system. Counselor Kellyanne Conway, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, chief strategist and senior counselor Stephen Bannon and senior advisor Jared Kushner all have rnchq.org email accounts. More from Newsweek: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The system (rnchq.org) is the same one the George W. Bush administration was accused of using to evade transparency rules after claiming to have “lost” 22 million emails.

Think about that. If it weren’t for double standards, Republicans would have no standards at all. But maybe the crowd reaction at the Poindexter concert showed us something: Buyer’s Remorse.

Remorseful Republican voters can help bigly in 2020 (and maybe in 2018), because all it takes is a few of them to make a difference in who becomes the next president. Presidential elections are won on the narrowest of margins, so if, 3-4% of Trump voters show remorse and flip, or decide to stay home, Trump could lose by a wide margin, even while maintaining the vast majority of his support.

Moreover, if many of them are demoralized or turned off by 2018 that could flip midterm Senate seats. Think back to 2006: the Democratic Senate pickups that year were in four states Bush had won (MT, VA, MO, OH) and one he had only lost by 2.5% (PA), which ended up in a 17 point blowout. Why? GW Bush voters stayed home, or switched.

OTOH, the only Republicans up in 2018 are the ones who survived 2006 and 2012, the year the Tea Party decided to debate “legitimate rape”).

There is virtually no way to make the 2018 map good. There are only 9 Republican-held seats up for election at all; three of those would have to go to Democrats in order to flip the Senate, even if all the vulnerable Democratic seats were held. The best that can be hoped for is mitigating the damage.

As Kathleen Parker in the WaPo said:

Thus far, Trump and his henchmen have conducted a full frontal assault on civil liberties, open government and religious freedom, as well as instigating or condoning a cascade of ethics violations ranging from the serious (business conflicts of interest) to the absurd (attacking a department store for dropping his daughter’s fashion line). And, no, it’s not just a father defending his daughter. It’s the president of the US bullying a particular business and, more generally, making a public case against free enterprise.

Parker is a conservative columnist. To an objective observer, it would seem that quite a few Republicans will decide not to defend the indefensible.

To help them arise from their slumbers, which at least a few did on Saturday night, here is Buster Poindexter with Hot, Hot, Hot from 1987:

That’s Bill Murray pouring the martini @ 2:00.

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – February 11, 2017

Tons of moving parts this week. Jeff Sessions and Tom Price were confirmed; the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed Trump a setback in his plan to keep most Muslims out of the country, making our Overlord 0-2 vs. the justice system. The tweets continued; Elizabeth Warren was told to shut up, and Kellyanne was shut down for pumping Ivanka’s merch on a Fox news show.

But the big news for Wrongo was hearing on the BBC about National Security Advisor Michael Flynn: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

[Flynn] couldn’t be certain that he didn’t discuss sanctions with Russia’s Ambassador [Kislyak] to the US on December 29, 2016.

In December, it was rumored that Gen. Flynn had done exactly that, which brought denials from the Trump transition team. You may remember that Mike Pence said in an interview with CBS News that he had spoken with Flynn about the matter. Pence said there had been no contact between members of Trump’s team and Russia during the campaign. To suggest otherwise, he said: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

Is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the [Trump’s] candidacy.

Of course, December 29, 2016 was not during the campaign. Now, the WaPo has a blockbuster story indicating that Flynn did talk to the Russians:

National Security Advisor Michael Flynn privately discussed US sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials, current and former US officials said.

More from WaPo:

Nine current and former officials, who were in senior positions at multiple agencies at the time of the calls, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

All of those officials said Flynn’s references to the election-related sanctions were explicit. Two of those officials went further, saying that Flynn urged Russia not to overreact to the penalties being imposed by President Barack Obama, making clear that the two sides would be in position to review the matter after Trump was sworn in as president.

MoJo reports that on Friday, the Trump administration confirmed that Flynn did speak to the Russians about sanctions.

This means that Flynn was working against established US policy. He was telling Moscow not to worry about new sanctions imposed by Obama, and to stand by until Trump was inaugurated, which is what Russia did.

In some quarters, this is aiding an enemy. It also was dumb, since US intelligence routinely intercepts Russian conversations. The WaPo indicates that a transcript of Flynn’s conversation was passed among the intelligence community.

This is not the way a senior national security official should behave. He isn’t fit for the office he holds, he should be fired.

Gen. Flynn clearly needs a soothing something after the week he is having, and you do too. So grab a hot cup of cocoa, put your feet up and listen to “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2” by Franz Liszt, composed in 1847 and performed here by Katica Illényi, a Hungarian violinist, with the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra in 2011:

If you grew up with Saturday cartoons on the tube, this will sound familiar. It has been featured in Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Krazy Kat and Tom & Jerry cartoons, and in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

A Bonus Video: Illényi is one of the few people who plays the Theremin. Here she is playing “Only You” by the Platters:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

 

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Monday Wake Up Call – Repair and Replace Edition

Where is the GOP plan for repealing and “replacing” Obamacare? It has been moved to an off-ramp on the Trump highway. Why? WaPo’s Greg Sargent explains: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

For weeks now, Republicans have employed a range of tortured talking points designed to push one idea: The GOP repeal-and-delay plan will not leave anyone without health coverage, and is merely designed as a transition that will ultimately move us seamlessly to the new, improved health care system Republicans envision, with the details to be worked out later.

The GOP’s problem is that several red states could be taken out of the individual insurance market completely. The Congressional Budget Office recently examined a version of the GOP repeal-and-delay bill (one passed by Republicans in 2015 and vetoed by Obama), and concluded that insurers would exit the market, and 10% of Americans could be living in an area that had no participating insurers at all.

And that 10% of the population is concentrated in Republican areas.

Jeanne Lambrew, a former Obama administration official involved in implementing the ACA, conducted an analysis to determine where that 10% percent resides. Using data furnished by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Lambrew singled out counties that met two criteria:

  • They have low populations
  • They currently only have one insurer serving individual market customers

It’s a big list. The states include: Alaska, Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and West Virginia. In addition some at risk counties are in swing or blue states like North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Illinois. And in a few cases, entire states would lose coverage. In Oklahoma, Wyoming, Arizona, South Carolina and Alabama, individual markets would be completely eliminated.

In other words, Repealing and delaying Replacement could be a political bloodbath for Republicans, at least in the House in 2018. And the GOP knows it. At the GOP Strategy Meeting in Philadelphia, Tom McClintock (R-CA) said: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

We’d better be sure that we’re prepared to live with the market we’ve created with repeal. That’s going to be called Trumpcare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we’ll be judged in the election less than two years away.

The judgement has already started. The LA Times reports that the execrable Rep. McClintock ran into a buzz saw at his raucous town hall meeting in Roseville CA:

The California congressman ultimately was escorted out by police.

KQED’s Katie Orr reported that the 200 seats for the town hall set up by the Republican in Roseville, CA were filled, and hundreds more people remained outside. More from the LA Times:

McClintock is one of many members of Congress who have been encountering protests at their district offices or town hall meetings since President Trump took office just over two weeks ago. Most protesters have been asking members to fight the possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act…

Some Republicans seem to be open to “repair” instead of replacing Obamacare. The term “Repair” was suggested by Republican wordmeister Frank Luntz. Luntz, according to Bloomberg, recommended the term because it:

Captures exactly what the large majority of the American people want…the public is particularly hostile about skyrocketing costs, and they demand immediate change.

Luntz understands that Americans want their health insurance to be both generous in terms of coverage, and affordable in terms of premiums. The ACA tries to deliver that by subsidizing poorer people’s premiums. Those subsidies cost money, and that money is partly funded by taxes on the rich.

But Republicans got elected by promising to reduce rich people’s taxes. This means whether they replace or repair, their plans involve rolling back the taxes paid by the rich. That leaves less money to subsidize insurance for the non-rich, and that means the non-rich will either pay higher premiums, or accept worse coverage.

Keeping voters in Red States on board with the GOP requires that they abandon repeal, or pass a repeal/replace bill that essentially leaves the law intact.

If they repeal the tax increases and use deficit financing, they could accomplish 90% of what their main constituents, plutocrats and the white working class, care about. Whether they are smart enough to go this route is questionable.

Time for Congress to wake up! Time is against them since they voted to repeal the ACA 50+ times, but STILL have no plan for replacing it. To help them wake up, here are Jeff Beck, Lizzie Ball (violin), Tal Wilkenfeld (bass) & Jonathan Joseph (drums), playing the Irish instrumental “Women of Ireland” live at the “Crossroads Guitar Festival” in Madison Square Garden NYC, on April 13th 2013:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ej_X2_SggQ

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – February 4, 2017

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” – Kurt Vonnegut

Welcome to the weekend, we should be at least concerned, if not terrified. After all, look at who is in charge. Its those jerks you knew back in the day.

We have just driven into a long, dark tunnel in the back seat of the Trump Express. Will we ever see light at the other end? When a president is out of his party’s mainstream by this much, he just provides cover for the rest of them to act out accordingly.

A few things that happened this week that you should consider, none of which will be the worst thing that Trump puts in motion over the next four years:

  • The House and Senate approved a measure that scuttles a new regulation aimed at preventing coal mining debris from being dumped into nearby streams. The Senate’s 54-45 vote on Friday sends the measure to President Trump. What’s more, the law prevents the executive branch from imposing substantially similar regulations in the future.
  • On Thursday, the House repealed a Social Security Administration regulation to keep people with severe mental illnesses from buying guns. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee said:

The agency should be focused on serving all of its beneficiaries, not picking and choosing whose Second Amendment rights to deny…

On the gun issue, the GOP is taking away Obamacare, so you won’t be able to afford treatment for your mental illness, but hey – go buy a gun!

To paraphrase Mitt Romney, coal companies are people too. They need the profits from dumping industrial waste in the water supply just as much as a human needs clean water. Why should we prioritize humans over corporate folks? Maybe you’re just prejudiced against legal persons.

Republicans seem to know intuitively that the faster and more boldly they move, the harder it will be for Democrats to change the rules later. As long as Republicans control both the House and the Senate, Trump will leave big, black heel marks all over our democracy.

So, calm down. It’s gonna get worse. Take a break with a hot cuppa DECAF coffee and settle back for half an hour to listen to music. Here is Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto E Minor OP 64 first performed in 1845. It took Mendelssohn six years to write. Today we hear it performed by three-time Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn playing in June 2012 with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Korean Art Centre Concert Hall, Seoul Korea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1dBg__wsuo

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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GOP Plans to Gerrymander the Electoral College

Donald Trump was the fifth candidate in our history to win sufficient votes in the Electoral College (EC) to become president after losing the popular vote. Now, Republicans are making an effort at the state level to change how electoral votes are apportioned to presidential candidates, from winner take all, to being allocated to the winner of each congressional district.

Republicans call this a modest tweak to the EC process. But it will make gerrymandering of congressional districts even more important to electing the president than it is to electing Members of Congress today.

How today’s system works:

In 48 states, (all except Maine and Nebraska) the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in their state receives all of that state’s electoral votes. A state’s number of electors equals its number of US Representatives and Senators.

Although ballots list the names of the presidential candidates, when voters within the 50 states and Washington, DC vote for President and Vice President, they’re actually choosing electors proposed by the Parties in their state. These presidential electors then cast electoral votes for those two offices, so the EC elects the President or Vice President, not the popular vote.

Despite what you might think, the Constitution reserves the power to appoint electors to the states. Here is Article 2, Section 1; Clause 2:

Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

So it is clear that each state has the exclusive right to determine how their state electors are selected.

The proposed Republican “tweak”:

The Republican tweak apportions electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the vote in each congressional district. The two remaining electors would go to whomever wins the statewide vote. States considering moving to allocating electoral votes to the candidate winning in each congressional district include Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia – all have legislatures controlled by Republicans. Two, Virginia and Minnesota, currently have Democratic governors, so at this point, they could veto the proposed legislation.

After the 2010 census, 55% of all congressional districts were redrawn to favor Republicans, while just 10% were redrawn to benefit Democrats. In 2016, Trump carried 230 districts to just 205 for Hillary Clinton, even though Clinton won nearly 3 million more votes nationally. So if every state awarded electoral votes by congressional district, Trump would have still prevailed. And guess what? Mitt Romney would also have won in 2012, and George W. Bush would have won in 2000.

The tweak takes voting power away from cities and puts more in suburban and rural areas, making it more likely that a candidate with fewer votes over all could routinely win a larger share of electoral votes. And thanks in part to recent poor performance by Democrats, 32 States now have Republican-controlled legislatures.

Should we be talking about this at all? Debating whether to pass bills to reduce the value of an urban vote to a fraction of the value of other voters?

Sounds like a Republican paradise.

An advantage of the EC is that it tends to improve the winner’s margin of victory and thus the presidential mandate at the beginning of his/her term in office. Also, it ensures that candidates actually campaign in more states, rather than in fewer. Would anyone campaign in NH when they could garner many times more popular votes in a couple of counties in California? They do it today because NH’s four electoral votes can make a difference.

The president doesn’t represent congressional districts. The president represents all the people, which is why the ONLY reasonable reform to the EC is a nationwide popular vote.

The fact remains that Republicans have the ability to make this happen. Allowing statehouses to decide presidential elections will have undemocratic consequences. Keeping politicians from making the Electoral College subject to gerrymander is crucial.

To help us pause and reflect on this threat, here is Leonard Cohen with “Democracy” from his 1992 album, “The Future”, here performed in 2008 live in London:

Cohen said this about the song:

It’s a song of deep intimacy and affirmation of the experiment of democracy in this country. That this is really where the experiment is unfolding. This is really where the races confront one another, where the classes, where the genders, where even the sexual orientations confront one another. This is the real laboratory of democracy.

Let’s hope the experiment doesn’t fail.

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Sample lyrics:
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

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Is Climate Change Real?

Wrongo has never written about climate change, but will make an exception today. NASA recently released a series of then and now photos called “Images of Change” which reveal how our world has changed (not for the better) over the past 30+ years. The series provides a comparison of satellite images that depict everything from Arctic ice retreat to island building, to urbanization.

The series shows how rapidly our planet has changed in recent decades, due largely to urbanization and climate change. Perhaps, with the Trump administration firmly in control of a climate denial narrative, these photos will soon disappear from the internet, so please go and see all of them while it is still possible.

Here is one photo that shows the Arctic’s sea ice. It is clear that the ice has been shrinking for decades. The picture below compares September 1984 (on the left) with September 2016:

The total area of persistent (4 years or older) ice has declined from 718,000 square miles to 42,000 square miles in the 32 year time period. In the images, blue/grey ice is younger whereas white ice is older. But please calm down, you can’t stop the Trump express to climate Armageddon unless:

  • We take control of the Senate from the Republicans, and
  • Win the White House in 2020.

And at a time when we won’t let most Muslims into our country, and absolutely zero Syrians, maybe it’s time we chill out with a beautiful song by a Syrian national currently based in Paris, Lena Chamamyan. Here she is singing “Love in Damascus”. The accompanying video has many photos of Damascus; probably most taken before the rebellion. Wrongo could not find a reliable translation from Arabic for you, but the singing is beautiful:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Monday Wake Up Call – Immigration Edition

Everyone knows by now that Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) on Friday barring people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US. But many people traveling to the US from those countries, including some who are legally permanent US residents, were in the air at the time of the ban, and couldn’t turn around.

By early Saturday evening, several federal judges in NY, MA, and including Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia, made rulings that would at least stall the implementation of portions of Trump’s anti-refugee executive order. The Daily Beast reported:

As a result, airports across the country turned into Lawfare zones, with cadres of volunteer lawyers squaring off against bureaucrats in the Customs and Border Protection agency. Late-night rulings from federal judges made a legally unprecedented situation even more dramatic, with all three branches of the federal government—congressional, executive, and judicial—warring with each other.

There are three things to consider in this fast-developing story. First, how unprepared the Trump administration was to actually carry out their own EO. From CNN: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leadership saw the final details shortly before the order was finalized, government officials said. Friday night, DHS arrived at the legal interpretation that the executive order restrictions applying to seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen — did not apply to people who with lawful permanent residence, generally referred to as green card holders.

CNN further reports that the White House overruled that guidance, with the order coming from Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. They decided that, on a case by case basis, DHS could allow green card holders to enter the US. It was decided by DHS that green card holders could fly to the US and would be considered for re-entry on a case-by-case basis after passing a secondary screening. But CNN reports that the guidance sent to airlines on Friday night said:

Lawful permanent residents are not included and may continue to travel to the USA.

It gets worse for Trump: Before he issued the EO, the White House did not seek the legal guidance of the Office of Legal Counsel, the Justice Department office that interprets the law for the executive branch.

CNN indicates that the EO did not follow the standard agency review process overseen by the National Security Council.  That inter-agency process would have asked the Justice Department and homeland security agencies to provide operational guidance, but it didn’t happen.

The second issue was that the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, at least at Washington DC’s Dulles Airport apparently disregarded the stay orders from Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia. More from the Daily Beast:

Brinkema…ruled that the travelers detained by Customs and Border Protection had a right to see lawyers.

After the judge’s ruling, lawyers standing by at Dulles expected they would be able to see the detainees and try to help them get into the US. But, the CBP would not let them see their would-be clients. The Daily Beast reports that it’s unheard of for government agencies like CBP to prevent people who have the legal right to live in the US from seeing their lawyers.

But, that’s what happened. In fact as the evening wore on, it became clear that CBP was defying, or at best slow-rolling Brinkema’s ruling. The lawyers at the airport believe that meant someone must be in contempt of court. The judge could theoretically have sent in federal officers to force CBP to let the lawyers meet with the detainees, but, that would have been unprecedented, and it didn’t happen.

The third issue is that Saudi Arabia was not on the banned country list. That’s right, the country most responsible for supporting and sustaining both ISIS and Al Qaeda skated. Our past few presidents found it convenient to cozy up to the Saudis, but should Trump be continuing that coziness?

If Trump’s intention was to punish sponsors of terrorism, the ban should have hit Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which is where the money and most of the actual 9/11 terrorists came from.

This is what the next 4 years are going to be like. But the question is, are the Trumpets going to become more competent as they go along, or is this what we should expect going forward?

Today’s wake up is for Donald Trump and his administration.They need to govern, not play pretend president.

To help them wake up, here is Xenia Rubinos performing “Mexican Chef“, from her album “Black Terry Cat”. It’s her ruthless critique of the undervalued labor that immigrants perform every day in America:

Sample Lyrics:

French bistro

Dominican chef

Italian restaurant

Boricua chef

Chinese takeout

Mexican chef

Nouveau America

Bachata in the back

 Brown walks your baby

Brown walks your dog

Brown raised America in place of its mom

 Brown cleans your house

Brown takes the trash

Brown even wipes your granddaddy’s ass

 

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Saturday Soother – January 28, 2017

We’ve made it to Saturday, all the while trying to sort through the blizzard of executive orders issued by our Orange Overlord. As we cruise into the weekend, we need to reflect on Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General. The Senate Judiciary Committee will probably vote on the nomination on Tuesday, after which it will go to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.

Wrongo agrees with Charlie Pierce:

At a moment like this one, it simply will not do to have someone in the attorney general’s office who was deemed too racist to be a federal judge 30 years ago. It will not do to have someone in the attorney general’s office who launched a dirty-tricks prosecution of voting-rights activists when he was a U.S. Attorney in Alabama. It will not do to have someone in the attorney general’s office who greeted the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 by noting that it was “good for the South.”

Pierce says that no (zero) Democrats should vote for Sessions:

There is no room for compromise or horse-trading. The Democratic Party should stand for the expansion of the franchise and for a greater ease in exercising it.

Voting rights will be at risk if Sessions is confirmed. The AG will follow Trump’s lead and focus on a “voter fraud” investigation in the big liberal states and urban areas that do not vote Republican. This is something the right wing has been doing for years. From what Trump said this week to David Muir on ABC, he believes that the problem exists only in places he didn’t win. He told Muir that every one of the alleged 2 million to 3 million illegal votes went to Hillary Clinton.

If it isn’t clear by now, this is a powerful new national campaign of voter suppression coming down the road to a polling place near you. We don’t know at this point who will be heading Trump’s “investigation,” or what form it’s likely to take, but Jeff Sessions is just the man for the job.

We could also tell our Senators that they should not vote to confirm Betsy DeVos and Tom Price, but both will probably get a few Dem votes. Wrongo isn’t arguing for complete resistance as the only response to Trump, but we can’t appoint Sessions.

Will even a single Republican Senator have the backbone to vote against the president’s hand-picked bigot? The prospects are not heartening.

Glad that’s off of Wrongo’s chest. Time to grab a cup of Bengal Spice Chai tea, and mellow out with the Saturday Soother. Today we are going acapella with the University of North Carolina Clef Hangers. They have been around for 35 years, and have released 17 studio-produced albums. Here are the Clef Hangers doing “You Never Need Nobody”, a song by the Brooklyn NY-based The Lone Bellow:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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