Politics of Fear – Page 18 – The Wrongologist

Know Your Constitution – Monday Wake-Up Edition

Colin Kaepernick, quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers refused to stand for the national anthem at 49ers preseason game vs. the Green Bay Packers on Friday.

Like most Americans, Wrongo stands with hand over heart during the playing of the national anthem. But, for most Americans, playing of the national anthem is largely a ritual, and like most rituals, its true meaning has become vague, with many people simply going through the motions.

Until someone like Kaepernick won’t play along with the ritual. He was protesting what he thinks are wrongdoings against African Americans and other minorities in the US by the police:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.

Not surprisingly, some of the reaction to Kaepernick’s silent protest was…not so silent. Nor was it particularly reasonable, or rational. You can imagine the “love it or leave it” crowd’s twitter comments, baked with a generous helping of racism.

But, for those that know anything about the US Constitution, he is exercising his right as an American citizen. As such, his actions are by definition patriotic, for they’re a celebration of what it means to be an American. This tweet captured the right spirit:

While refusal to participate in the anthem can call one’s patriotism into question, standing for the National Anthem never has been a requirement. Most stand as a sign of respect for the country they love, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

To insist that others respect this custom in the same way you do, is to deny them their constitutional rights.

Sometimes free speech can be objectionable, or even offensive to some. Perhaps it’s time we all reconsider what the National Anthem actually means, and the rights and freedoms it celebrates.

So wake up you faux patriots, you blind Exceptionalists! To rouse you from your slumbers, here is the Boss with “Born in the USA”:

Some only hear lyrics discussing economic destabilization, political gridlock, and hollow national pride. St. Ronnie Reagan mistakenly tried to make the song’s message into a jingoist anthem, but the Boss would have none of that.

Perhaps the true meaning of the song is as an anti-war song and a patriotic song, with the message: “Remain proud to be an American, despite some of our terrible actions at home and abroad.”

For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 28, 2016

Wrongo and Ms. Oh So Right have returned to the Mansion of Wrong. That means we are back to “All Trump, All The Time”, something we did not miss while in the American and Canadian Rockies.

Saturday’s NYT had a long-form article. “Syria’s Paradox: Why the War Only Ever Seems to Get Worse” details the reasons that the Syrian war could last a very, very long time. From the NYT:

The core combatants — the government and the insurgents who began fighting it in 2011 — are quite weak and, on their own, cannot sustain the fight for long. But they are not on their own. Each side is backed by foreign powers — including the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and now Turkey — whose interventions have suspended the usual laws of nature. Forces that would normally slow the conflict’s inertia are absent, allowing it to continue far longer than it otherwise would. Government and rebel forces are supplied from abroad, which means their arms never run out…These material and human costs are easy for the far richer foreign powers to bear.

Not all cartoons are funny. Here is a graphic way to think about the war’s impact on Syria’s children:

COW Syrias Kids

Khalid Albaih is a Sudanese cartoonist living in Doha, Qatar.

The French forcing Muslim women to take off their burkini is another form of warfare:

COW Burkini

Trump backtracks on the wall:

COW Trump Wall2

Trump knew from the beginning that he couldn’t deport 11 million people, and he knew from the beginning that his wall would never be built. So, maybe this isn’t a flip-flop, just an admission. Trump supporters, however, were conned about as much as they deserved to be.

The Orange Trumpet pitched African-Americans this week:

COW Trumps Pitch

Hillary better hope the Clinton Foundation issue doesn’t weaken her campaign:

COW Clinton Foundation2

Epipen pricing by Mylan is just another racket:

COW Epipen

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 21, 2016

Although the Wrongologist cannot get newspapers, and only has occasional wifi, the news does not seem to have changed much in the past week. So, here are a few cartoons curated from the wilderness:

Aetna pulled out of Obamacare. Why are you surprised?

COW Aetna

Trump accused Democrats of exploiting Blacks at Minnesota Rally:

Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press

Trump told CBS News:

I have seen them marching down the street essentially calling death to the police and I think we’re going to have to look into that…When you see something like that taking place – that’s really a threat, if you think about it. And when you see something like that taking place, we are going to have to perhaps talk with the Attorney General about it or do something.

He also painted the entire African American community as living in poverty with no jobs. Doesn’t that show he’s completely out of touch?

The Clinton Foundation’s practices continue to puzzle Clinton supporters:

COW Zip Line

Ryan Lochte and teammates entered the wrong event:

COW Lochte

Bonus cartoonage from Australia. They cover Trumpology:

Trumpology

Where Republicans Are Coming From – Monday Wake Up Edition

(There will be limited blogging until 8/25, as Wrongo and Ms. Right visit Glacier National Park. Keep your tray tables in the upright and locked position while we are away.)

One of Wrongo’s earliest memories, a fragment, was riding in the car with my parents. When I asked where we were going, my mother said: “To elect Mr. Dewey president.” That was 1948. And here is a graphic example of what civic-minded Republicans were doing in Pittsburgh in 1949:

Vote Republican

The photo was taken by Charles “Teenie” Harris, and is in the archives of the Carnegie Museum of Art. It is part of a show of his work that opened on Aug. 13. Pittsburgh was Harris’s home town.

Note the predator’s clutching fingers. Note the long nails that Americans imagined that their Japanese enemies had in WWII. Note the blackface doll carried by the little white girl. While many Blacks in the north still voted for the Party of Lincoln in 1949, this billboard was in many ways a “dog whistle” for the white community of Pittsburgh.

The billboard was part of the Republican Party’s “informed debate” in Pittsburgh’s mayoral election in 1949. Their message was that the streets were not safe for women and children. This, at a moment in American history when we were not suffering lots of crime. In fact, there was a drop in homicides in the immediate post-war period.

There was pushback against the billboard, even among Republicans, in fact, the Pittsburgh Outdoor Advertising Co. refused to honor their contract to put up 100 copies of the image once they saw it. They had to be forced to do so by a local judge, who called the picture “a shocking example of bad taste.” Within a week of the billboard’s appearance, however, the Republicans themselves decided to replace it with a less offensive image. From Blake Gopnick at Artnet:

Back then, at least, a Republican candidate could realize he’d crossed a line and decide to step back from it.

That’s much too much to ask in 2016. Of course today, the Republicans would say the way to make that child safe would be to give her a gun and tell her to lock and load.

So another Monday morning wake-up for the GOP. To help them join the rest of us in the real world, here are Belle and Sebastian with “Olympic Village, 6am”. As we start the second week of the Olympics, the focus shifts to track and field, and so does this video:

For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

(H/T: LGM)

Words Have Meaning

This captures where we are:

COW Hill's Threats

People are debating whether Donald Trump suggested violence against Hillary with his comment about how “the Second Amendment People” might be the only group capable of stopping Hillary Clinton from appointing liberal judges if she is elected president.

The Trump comment was in the context of what happens after Hillary is elected, and that there was nothing anyone could do about Hillary appointing Justices, except for…Second Amendment people.

He said, “If [Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks.” There’s “nothing you can do” in this situation because Trump is talking about a time after the 2016 election is over, and Clinton is president.

If he wasn’t talking about after the election, why would he say there was “nothing you can do?” During the election, there’s something pretty obvious you can do: Get out the vote and prevent her from becoming president in the first place.

Then Trump immediately follows it up by saying, “But I tell you what, that’ll be a horrible day.” Again, this suggests the time frame he’s talking about is when she’s already in the White House. Otherwise, both the “horrible day” comment and the “nothing you can do” comment that bookend his Second Amendment remark are total non-sequiturs.

So no, this isn’t about the NRA organizing their members to get out the vote. His comments were about doing something AFTER the election. Why would it be a “horrible day” if all he was talking about was getting out the vote, his vote? It is totally illogical.

There is no ambiguity here.

This seemed to Wrongo to be another effort at a joke by the Pant Load. The WaPo reported that Paul Ryan said:

It sounds like just a joke gone bad. I hope he clears it up very quickly. You should never joke about something like that.

It’s highly unusual for the Wrongologist to agree with Paul Ryan, but that’s probably the best defense for Trump’s words. But when faced with an outcry after his controversial comments, Trump never admits error and never backs down — no matter how strained the defense.

Why should this time be any different?

Trump knew exactly what he was doing, and he did so in the same manner he has been using throughout the campaign. A suggestion, an inference, a little birdie told him, it is what people are saying. The dog whistle, the wink, the nod. Some ambiguity to the comment, delivered in a veil of coyness.

Maybe we should remember the very bright line that Sarah Palin crossed a few years ago when she took out an ad that deliberately placed Gabby Giffords in crosshairs, just before Giffords was shot and critically wounded by a gunman. This is different, but really, how different is it?

On ABC’s Good Morning America, Rudy Giuliani gave Trump’s words the real test: How did they play with Trump’s audience? Getting Hillary couldn’t be what Trump meant, Rudy observed, because if Trump had actually called for Hillary to be killed, the crowd would have gone wild.

Imagine being Giuliani: So invested in Trump’s campaign that you’re contorting yourself into a pretzel to translate the candidate’s Wingbat-ese into English.

And once again, defending the indefensible.

Words matter, especially when delivered by someone who aspires to be POTUS.

Election Myths and Realities – Pant Load Edition

Ian Welsh lays out a probable narrative that the Pant Load will use if he loses:

Republican leaders and billionaires turned on him when he could have won, flocking to Clinton, and there was voter fraud.

Trump Channels George Costanza

The underlying personality trait of George Costanza is that he’s a liar. He doesn’t try to hide it, he wears it as a badge of honor, and he takes great pride in his dishonesty. Here, in George’s own words:

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

The Donald is the second coming of George Costanza. With all his lying, Prima Donald didn’t have a great Monday. From the Daily Beast:

Monday was an incredible day of falsehoods for the GOP nominee.

The DB goes on to list and rebut a series of lies that Trumpy put out at a few campaign stops and on a pre-recorded piece for Sean Hannity of Fox News. Read the whole list here. In addition, Prima Donald:

Continued to attack against Khizr Khan.
For the second time in two days, Trump attacked a fire marshal at a press conference for having the temerity to not allow him to violate maximum occupancy regulations.
Reacted to the NYT’s investigation of his draft-dodging.
Preemptively declared that the presidential election is rigged.
Announced unimpressive funds raising numbers. (He’s raised $35 million, which he said is “unheard of for Republicans, $35.8 million”. Actually, Mitt raised $101 million in July 2012.)
Declared that if women, even his daughter, were victims of sexual harassment, they should just quit (perhaps overlooking that not every woman can just get another job within their father’s empire)
Praised Paul Ryan’s primary challenger, while Paul Ryan is (1) basically the leader of his party and (2) standing by his endorsement of Trump.

These are just a few of his recent whoppers. Why is he like this? He’s a man whose mentality is completely focused on closing deals. He, like many senior business leaders, sees everything as a transaction.

Wrongo has a lifetime of big business experience with dozens of people like Trump, people who identify with the deal. The deal validates who they are. They wine, dine, flatter, intimidate, abuse psychologically; the closer does whatever it takes to get the signature on the bottom line.

Then the closer walks away, and is on to the next deal, repeating the process. If shit happens after the close, there are designated handlers who are tasked with fixing it, it’s not the closer’s job. Whatever was said or done to close the last deal is irrelevant to the next one. The closer is walled off from the last deal, and the sole focus is validating his/her worth by closing the next one. There is no feeling of remorse for prior actions, no blow-back penetrates the wall.

For Trump, the idea that people would hold his bullying and insults against him must be surprising. That is why he fights back so angrily when caught up short.

Turning his personality to the political arena, Trump above all thrives on winning. He needs to be able to point to victories and yell: I WON! I WON! I WON!

Between the end of the Conventions and Election Day, it’s beginning to look like there aren’t going to be a lot of well-defined victory moments for Prima Donald.

Three months is a long time for a thin-skinned addict to go without his fix.

This is his temperament. It should disqualify him.

“Read the Constitution” – A Trump Wake Up Call

By now, most have seen the short speech that packed a wallop by Khizr Khan at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The speech by Mr. Khan was one of the most difficult/beautiful/gut wrenching 15 minutes of this long campaign season.

When Khan pulled his copy of the Constitution out of his pocket and waved it at Donald Trump, it was only a matter of time before the Pant Load responded. You can count on the Donald. Trump said:

If you look at his wife, she was standing there…She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe, she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.

Khan shot back on CNN’s”State of the Union” :

For this candidate for presidency to not be aware of the respect of a Gold Star mother standing there, and he had to take that shot at her, this is height of ignorance…

Trump then went on to say that he had made a lot of sacrifices by, ya know, hiring people and stuff. That led to a twitter storm carried on the hashtag: #TrumpSacrifices. While there are many funny tweets, Paul Begala, CNN commentator and advisor to a pro-Clinton Super PAC, wrote:

Once survived an entire weekend at Mar-a-Lago with just one can of hairspray.

Or this, Wrongo’s favorite:

Rob Woodyard tweet

OMG, THAT’s what Trump wants to get out of this: He wants to be Kevin Spacey with a comb-over!

Thank you, Khizr Khan for reminding our country that we are founded on what should be a sacred document that lays out how we should live in a society based on justice. And thanks for the sacrifice of your son Humayun, lost while taking part in an ill-advised war:

Humayun Khan

Donald Trump needs a wake-up call for his shocking lack of knowledge of the US Constitution. Let’s start with a list from the WaPo that shows Trump doesn’t know the Constitution:

He wants to “loosen” libel laws, so he could more easily sue news organizations who write “nasty” articles about him. There are centuries of First Amendment jurisprudence that would restrict his ability to do this.
He’s said he would push military commanders to go further than water boarding, even though it has been banned by federal law.
Many scholars believe Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims would be struck down as unconstitutional (due process, equal protection, religious freedom, etc.).
He insisted on “Meet the Press” earlier this year that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee birthright citizenship.
His attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel over his Mexican heritage show his lack of respect for an independent judiciary.
Trump has at times suggested that he might somehow be able to initiate the prosecution of Hillary Clinton over her emails if he’s elected. In March, asked about the kind of Justice he’d name to the Supreme Court, he said he’d:

Probably appoint people that would look very seriously at [Clinton’s] email disaster because it’s criminal activity.

A signal he doesn’t understand the role of each branch.

To help wake up the Donald, here is a hip hop tune about the Constitution by Smart Songs, an organization that provides kids and teachers with positive, educational hip hop, to help make learning fun. We chose this because Trump needs to start with an elementary education about the US Constitution, and work up from there:

For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

Obama’s Convention Speech

The President gave a great speech last night. And it was a clutch performance. For our non-ESPN readers, “clutch” means a top performance when the stakes are high. It was a summation of his time as president, and the presentation of a vision which is left for his successor to achieve. From Nancy LeTourneau:

The expectations were high for President Obama’s speech last night at the Democratic Convention. He had several tasks to accomplish. First of all, he needed to remind us of what we’ve accomplished over the last eight years.

And Obama said:

A lot’s happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war and recession and all manner of challenge – I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your President, to tell you I am even more optimistic about the future of America. How could I not be – after all we’ve achieved together?

About Trump and Russia

From Emptywheel:

There has been a lot written about Russia intelligence agencies allegedly hacking the DNC server and — by leaking it — attempting to influence the election. Some observers have, based on that assumption, called the hack an act of war.

The good news was that the leak of emails defenestrated the detestable Debbie Downer Shultz, head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). It also exposed the DNC’s tipping of the playing field in favor of Clinton during the Democratic primaries, after much speculation that they were doing exactly that.

There are many claims being made, all serving a narrative that Putin is playing a role in our presidential election, and that he (Putin) prefers to see Trump in the White House. More from Emptywheel: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

I’m not saying the Russians didn’t do this hack, nor am I dismissing the idea that they’d prefer Trump to Hillary. By far the most interesting piece of this is the way those with the documents — both the hackers and Wikileaks — held documents until a really awkward time for some awkward disclosures

It is doubtful that the Russians care in the slightest about Debbie Wasserman Schultz, or the DNC. Perhaps there is another shoe to drop on the Clinton campaign. It is interesting that the Main Stream Media is focused on the hacking, and not the content of the hacked emails and the DNCs lax IT security. Is it possible that we will see a series of ever more damaging releases as the campaign goes on?

A piece of underreported news was that Trump and the Russians have had a cozy business relationship since the 1980s. Josh Marshall at TPM took an in-depth look at the business connections between Donald Trump and Russia. Marshall reports that Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money, some of it from persons close to Putin. Here are a few facts:

Trump’s debt load has grown dramatically over the last year, from $350 million to $630 million, according to estimates by Bloomberg. This happened in a year when his liquid assets have also decreased.
There is evidence that some big US banks don’t want to work with him, but Deutsche Bank has lent him $300 million since 2012.
Post-bankruptcy, Trump has been highly reliant on money from Russia. WaPo has a good overview which includes this:

Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.

One example of this is the Trump SoHo development in Manhattan. The project was hit with a series of lawsuits, and emerging out of that litigation was news about secret financing for the project from Russia and Kazakhstan. As the NYT said: (brackets by the Wronologist)

Mr. Lauria [an FBI informant who worked for Bayrock Group, developer of the Trump SoHo project] brokered a $50 million investment in Trump SoHo and three other Bayrock projects by an Icelandic firm preferred by wealthy Russians “in favor with” President Vladimir V. Putin, according to a lawsuit against Bayrock by one of its former executives. The Icelandic company, FL Group, was identified in a Bayrock investor presentation as a strategic partner…

While not all in the Josh Marshall article checks out, there is something to the reasoning that Trump has a “special relationship” with Russia, which bears examination, even if Russia didn’t hack the DNC. The relationship is based on circumstantial, but non-trivial evidence for a financial relationship between Trump and Russia.

Even if you see no adverse news, Trump’s financial empire is highly leveraged and has a questionable reliance on capital infusions from foreign banks and oligarchs.

Even if you yell, “but, the Clinton Foundation has the same issue”, Trump’s dependence is simply not something that should be ignored. As Mustang Bobby said:

I’m old enough to remember when even a whisper of a connection between a political candidate and a foreign power — to say nothing of the country that makes up what’s left of the former Soviet Union — would be instant political death.

The question, is: Will this gain any traction in the American media, or will Mr. Trump be hailed as a deal-maker who can work with our adversaries?

Will Trump’s neo-conservative supporters who hate Russia think, “Commie sympathizer”?

Don’t hold your breath.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Politics of Fear

Know Your Constitution – Monday Wake-Up Edition

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 28, 2016

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 21, 2016

Where Republicans Are Coming From – Monday Wake Up Edition

Words Have Meaning

Election Myths and Realities – Pant Load Edition

Trump Channels George Costanza

“Read the Constitution” – A Trump Wake Up Call

Obama’s Convention Speech

About Trump and Russia