Is Biden Too Old?

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Coquille River Lighthouse, Bandon, OR – September 2023 photo by Mitch Schrieber Photography

At lunch this week with three people all who are around 80 years old, one whispered that “Biden is too old”. The rest of us agreed. In a perfect world, Biden would be considering winding up his political life and shipping his boxes to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. Biden will run for president again, and the polls show it’s likely to be a tight race against Trump. Many in the press see Biden as too frail to carry out even basic duties, leaving his aides to secretly run the country in his stead.

But as Semafor points out, in the first book that now documents the early years of his presidency, the picture is the reverse:

“The Last Politician,” the Biden-in-power book that Franklin Foer published last week….presents an aging president who’s nonetheless fully engaged in the job, stumbling more when he loses his temper…than when he loses his train of thought.”

Foer’s book portrays Biden as a leader who sounds shaky in public but is the dominant force in his White House. Foer tells Semafor that Biden: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“…buries himself in details…[and] takes technocratic charge of issues”.

More from Semafor:

“The Last Politician acknowledges that Biden ‘would occasionally admit that he felt tired,’ and that his ‘advanced age was a hindrance’ when he blanked on a name…..It’s weird; people are always saying, ‘well, it’d be great if we saw more Biden,’ Foer said. ‘He gives public speeches almost every single day. He sticks to his message. He doesn’t say anything insane. He does have kind of a low-key style in these speeches, but I don’t think that’s abnormal for a president. It’s just abnormal in the aftermath of Trump.”

And Georgetown’s Don Monyahan wonders why Biden doesn’t even get credit in the press for his recent diplomatic success: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Biden’s age has become such a trope in coverage that even when he undertakes a whirlwind diplomatic tour and a 40 minute press conference, these are the headlines. Actual demonstration of his fitness is used to raise questions about his fitness. All of this is a choice.”

From Margret Sullivan:

“As the 2024 presidential election looms ever closer — with its hugely important stakes for democracy — the mainstream press, far too often, doesn’t seem to get the significance of the moment. Or what their responsibility is.

Journalists’ continual fixation on President Biden’s age plays right into the hands of the Fox News crowd and Donald Trump’s campaign.”

She quotes a recent headline in the NYT:

“In three days of diplomacy in Asia, President Biden rallied world leaders to help finance poor nations, fortified the coalition backing Ukraine and struck a deal with Vietnam to counter Chinese aggression.”

The “Biden’s too old” situation is now spiraling into a meta-narrative, in which some like the WaPo’s David Ignatius say it’s time for Biden to step aside. Others like Josh Barro are calling for Biden to stay but only if he dumps Harris.

Vox’s Ian Millhiser makes the correct linkage of Biden’s unfavorable news coverage in 2023 to 2016:

Biden’s age is something that appears to have some traction among actual swing voters. But the subtext is not so much that he’s going to die in office as “and then we get Harris”?. The underlying racism and misogyny gets ignored because the only other option is the doddering criminal with his 91 counts.

More from Millhiser:

“As a general rule, I think the political press is at its worst when it covers a story that 1) involves a matter that is of genuine concern to reasonable people; and 2) isn’t a big deal when compared to other issues of superseding importance.”

What the press is doing today is actually much worse than the 2016 “But her emails” nonsense. Back then, it was still possible for the press to pretend that Trump might not actually be what he became, that there was a semi-normal person lurking underneath his shtick.

That was an historically bad take by the media. All of this is wildly irrelevant in the here and now, where the choice is between the suboptimally old Biden and fascism.

Why the preoccupation with Biden’s age when Joe is getting things done and showing a degree of wisdom while doing it? Biden’s biggest problem is that despite being an effective president, nobody knows it. His biggest challenge is figuring out how to use his accomplishments to offset the age concern.

Finally, Bob Cesca puts it this way:

“MAGAs will nominate a criminal who incited an insurrection as part of a conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 election, and whose incompetence led to 400K American deaths in his final year. But Biden is disqualified because he’s old. We’re an unserious nation.”

For some context, we’re staring down a manufactured budget crisis, a sham impeachment circus, and Sen. Tuberville’s unprecedented obstruction of military promotions. These are facets of the same unified Republican strategy to destabilize America.

Hammering on Biden’s age plays into their plan to make 2024 a year of chaos.

Biden has slowed down, that’s objectively true. But he is worlds better than Trump. And if those are the choices for president in 2024, be thankful that the old guy is on the right side of history.

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Remembering 9/11

The Daily Escape:

This mass includes parts of five floors of the North Tower of NYC’s World Trade Center that compacted on 9/11/2001 during the building’s collapse. iPhone photo by Wrongo taken at the 9/11 Memorial Museum, September 2016.

The above is among Wrongo’s favorite pieces at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. It is a charred and pitted lump of fused concrete, melted steel, carbonized furniture and other, less recognizable elements. It weighs between 12 and 15 tons and is four feet high. If you ever thought that humans who were in the Twin Towers when they collapsed might have survived, consider this pancake.

The 9/11 Memorial’s email today asked this question:

“Did you know that over 100 million Americans have been born since September 11, 2001?”

Although Wrongo has a grandson who was born later that week and who’s now turning 22, Wrongo had no idea that roughly 30% of Americans have no memory of this event that profoundly shaped America in the past 22 years.

What do those of us who do remember 9/11 want to tell those who can’t remember it? Maybe that there’s too much fear in America, and all of that fear is grinding us down. The visible scars of 9/11 are gone, but more than ever, America lives in persistent fear.

We distrust Russia. We worry about inflation. We worry that our budget deficit will bankrupt us. We fear for our kids’ safety while they’re in school. We worry that if we lose our job we won’t find another one. Some of us worry that we’ll never find the job we’re looking for. Some of us think the rest of us are Communists. The Lefties think the Righties are fascists, and we’re still afraid that ISIS will attack us on our streets. We fear the mob outside our gates trying to get in. We fear the immigrants already inside the gates.We think most of the news we see is fake. Many of us distrust our public school teachers.

Hell, we don’t trust our government!

Succumbing to so much fear has enabled the growth of internal threats that could end our democracy:

  • We’re so angry that we’ve lost much of our social cohesion
  • We aren’t willing to deal with income inequality
  • We’re seeing overt racism grow before our eyes
  • We see clear threats to the right to vote, or whether our votes will even count if we cast them

So today’s wakeup call is for America, particularly for those Americans born after 9/11. Don’t forget the heroes and the victims of 9/11, but please, learn to stop letting fear drive you as much as it drives those of us who are old enough to remember 9/11.

Here’s a 9/11 tune: The October 20, 2001 “Concert for New York” can’t be beat. It was a highly visible and early part of NYC’s healing process.

One of the many highlights of that 4+ hour show was Billy Joel’s medley of “Miami 2017 (seen the lights go out on Broadway)” and his “New York State of Mind”. Joel wrote “Miami 2017” in 1975, at the height of the NYC fiscal crisis. It describes an apocalyptic fantasy of a ruined NY that got a new, emotional second life after 9/11, when he performed it during the Concert for New York: 

Check out the audience reaction to Joel’s songs. That doesn’t look like fear. That’s where we all need to be today in 2023. It isn’t hyperbole to say that the city began its psychological recovery that night in Madison Square Garden. Please visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum if you haven’t been there yet.

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Have we reached peak MAGA?

The Daily Escape:

Glacier Park Lodge, Glacier NP, MT – August 2023 photo by Jack Bell Photography

Wrongo’s Magic 8 Ball says “yes”. Let’s start with the Ohio Republicans failing to pass a state constitutional amendment that would have required a 60% supermajority to amend their constitution instead of a simple majority. That means the GOP failed to make it more difficult to enshrine abortion as a right in the state.

Ohioans voted 57% against the amendment. It followed similar unexpected defeats in Kansas and Michigan, along with losing the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. These are Republican losses in very conservative places. From the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A review of six statewide votes since last year, including Ohio’s, shows that in 500 of 510 counties, access to abortion outperformed President Biden’s 2020 results….Across those counties, including a lot of deep-red ones, the margin of support for abortion access topped Biden’s 2020 margin by an average of 26 points, a significant shift to the left….Of the 510 counties included in the analysis, only two counties that voted for Biden in 2020 also opposed access to abortion. Among Trump-voting counties, 81 supported that access.”

These local MAGA stalwarts are getting their clocks cleaned on culture war issues. Republicans have repeatedly shown that their abortion agenda and their authoritarian agenda are really one and the same. And this week’s sweeping pro-choice victory in red Ohio shows once again that a majority of voters find both of those linked agendas repulsive. Politico quotes a national Republican operative:

“It has become quite difficult to rely on state parties….Because people who are involved for the right reasons…are pushed out, and now you’re stuck dealing with fringe characters who don’t know how to win elections, can’t be trusted to manage resources, and play with people’s worst instincts.”

In the Ohio aftermath, it seems that Republican politicians are still thinking that women in America will forget about abortion rights by the time 2024 rolls around. But it turns out most normal people don’t care much for sex-obsessed Republicans peeping through their bedroom keyholes.

And there are other problems for state-level Republican Parties. The National Review reported that in four key states, the state Republican parties are collapsing, either by going broke and devolving into infighting:

“Even worse for the GOP, these aren’t just any states — Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota all rank as either key swing states or once-purple states that would be tantalizing targets in a good year.”

More: (brackets and parenthesis by Wrongo)

“If Republicans [lose]….the 2024 elections…(which would be their fourth straight loss)….a key factor will be the replacement of competent, boring, regular state-party officials with…blustering nutjobs who have little or no interest in the basics of successfully managing a state party or the basic blocking and tackling involved in helping GOP candidates win elections.”

Back to Politico:

“Michigan’s Republican party is broke. Minnesota’s was, until recently, down to $53.81 in the bank. And in Colorado, the GOP is facing eviction from its office this month because it can’t make rent. Around the nation, state Republican party apparatuses — once bastions of competency that helped produce statehouse takeovers — have become shells of their former machines amid infighting and a lack of organization.”

OTOH, there will be plenty of Republican money flowing into these states in 2024 general election via Super PACs. That will largely be directed at turning out Republicans in support of their presidential candidate, but it will also help down ballot Republicans as well.

Democrats see an opening in some swing states and are redoubling their efforts to win more state legislative races, but the national Republicans has given some help to local parties.

In June, the Minnesota State Party received a $160,000 transfer from Protect the House 2024, a fundraising committee backed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Other state parties critical to the fight for the House including Pennsylvania, California and New York also got six-figure checks from the McCarthy-controlled fundraising operation in June.

The conservative youth PAC Turning Point USA has announced it’s expanding efforts in Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia ahead of 2024. Turning Point plans to spend $108 million in those three states and says it has recruited 3,000 state party precinct leaders around the nation since 2020. They will use this group to influence state parties to replace traditional local GOP leadership.

Finally, two Republicans made moves to join Republican Senate primaries in which they aren’t wanted. In each case, the candidate could win the party’s nomination, but would almost certainly get beaten by a more moderate Democrat in the general election. Toxic cloud Kari Lake appears to be joining the Arizona race, and in Montana, Rep. Matt Rosendale wants to run against Democrat John Tester. Rosendale lost to Tester by 3 points in 2018. The state GOP’s choice is retired Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy.

All of this should be good for Democrats, but as always, turnout will decide the 2024 election. As long as Republicans keep serving up pretend culture war issues that are unpopular with voters, it looks like Dems will do better in 2024 than recent polling predicts.

Happy Saturday! It’s time for our Saturday Soother. Here in the northeast, we’re having temperate weather, with scattered showers later. So quickly grab tall glass of lemonade and a chair outdoors in the shade. Now spend a few minutes thinking about Robbie Robertson of The Band who died last Wednesday. Somehow, this one hurts Wrongo a little more than the deaths of most musical contemporaries. The big irony is Robertson is categorized in “Americana” music despite having been born and raised in Canada.

Wrongo has previously featured Robertson and The Band six times. Here are two tunes to watch. First, a reworking of The Band’s classic tune, “The Weight” written by Robertson and remade in 2019 for the 50th anniversary of the song.

It was produced by the charity, Playing For Change and features musicians performing together across 5 continents, led by Robertson and Ringo Starr. The musicians are incredible, but whoever mixed and edited the video deserved a Grammy. The shift between vocalists and locations feels seamless. The sound is nicely balanced, and the editor also gives each musician a sufficient share of the limelight. Take a load off and turn it up. Trust Wrongo, you won’t be disappointed:

Second, here’s one from the 1978 epic “The Last Waltz” a documentary film by Martin Scorsese capturing The Band’s last performance. Watch and listen to “Further On Up The Road“, first recorded by Bobby “Blue” Bland. That’s Levon Helm on drums and Robbie Robertson on guitar along with Eric Clapton. A little known fact is that Clapton asked to join The Band in 1968. They said no:

In these two videos, we see Robertson as a young man playing alongside Clapton. And we also see him fifty years later as a 76 year old, reprising a song he had written in 1968. Thanks Robbie!

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Off To Alaska

The Daily Escape:

Sitka Harbor – Alaska stock photo via Bing

(Today we’re leaving for Alaska and will have limited access to WiFi, so columns will be light and variable. Regular columns will resume on 7/1. In the meantime, if turbulence occurs, keep your tray tables in their upright and locked position and if you’re Trump, keep your tiny hands inside the blog.)

Wrongo isn’t sure who is the most famous Alaskan, but he really likes this comment by Sarah Palin, when asked if Trump’s followers were a cult:

Sarah! That’s the EXACT definition of Trump’s followers. And isn’t a cult just a religion that doesn’t have tax-free status? Maybe the difference is that in a cult, there’s a guy at the top who knows it’s a scam. In a religion, that guy is dead.

In other battlefields in the culture war, the Southern Baptists voted to uphold the expulsion of one of its most prominent mega-churches, Saddlebrook, because Saddlebrook had decided that women could be pastors. In the Southern Baptist Convention, preaching is a man’s job. From the Economist:

“The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), America’s largest Protestant denomination with 13.2m adherents, which begins its annual meeting on June 13th in New Orleans, has long treated women as subordinate to men. “Complementarianism”—the idea that men and women occupy distinct but equal roles, with men exercising spiritual authority—is the preferred term.”

On Wednesday the Convention voted by a two-thirds majority to amend their constitution to state that the Southern Baptist Convention “Affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder.” Their concern was the old slippery slope:

“….that female pastors are a precursor to acceptance of homosexuality and sexual immorality.”

If you think that sounds out of touch with modern America and more like the Taliban, this chart from the Economist shows that you’re not alone:

This means that the Southern Baptists are back where they were in the 1980s in terms of membership. More from the Economist:

“By the mid-1980s, 200 women had been ordained as pastors….But a year later conservatives commandeered the leadership of the SBC, and began to purge women from seminaries. In 1998 the SBC amended its statement of faith to affirm that a wife should “submit herself graciously” to her husband. In 2000 it said that only men can be pastors. Churches that disagreed were hounded out.”

Kind of explains the decline in membership. Also it isn’t the SBC’s biggest problem: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“In recent years hundreds of sexual-abuse allegations have surfaced, implicating pastors directly and in the cover-up. And ever more people are leaving the faith. In 2012 there were three baptisms for every congregant who quit. Last year the SBC lost two-and-a-half members for every baptism.”

Could it be that the SBC has some kind of a marketing problem?

This is a problem across the evangelical community: Women are meant to be meek, accommodating baby making machines. They have no sexual education. Home schooling leaves them unable to compete in a globalized work environment. It’s not about the scriptures, it’s about power and control.

That’s what cults are about. It doesn’t matter if it’s MAGAs or the SBC. Considering that evangelicals compose a significant portion of the voting GOP, this shouldn’t be a surprise. These people are fearful of what the future may hold. Like the MAGAverse, they long for a time that may never have existed. The Economist quotes the conservative leaders of the constitutional amendment:

“Once a denomination has female pastors, it’s usually just a matter of time until they ordain homosexual pastors….”

That’s probably true, but these people really have nothing to fear but fear itself.

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Monday Wake Up Call – June 5, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Blue Ridge mountains, NC – June 2023 photo by Michele Schwartz

It’s getting to be long enough into our economic recovery that we’ve started to ignore the monthly jobs report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Luckily, Simon Rosenberg doesn’t let us forget: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The…BLS jobs report is out and it’s another good one – 339,000 net new jobs, [plus] 432,000…upward revisions from previous months. With this new data my monthly jobs tracker clocks in at:

-33.8m jobs – 16 years of Clinton, Obama

-13.1m jobs – 28 months of Biden

-1.9m jobs – 16 years of Bush, Bush and Trump

Biden’s 13.1m jobs is almost 7 times as many jobs as were created in the 16 years of the last 3 Republican Presidencies, combined.”

Since the end of the Cold War, the US has seen 49 million new jobs created. Remarkably, 47 million of those 49 million jobs were created under Democratic Presidents.

On the Democratic Party’s watch we’ve seen strong economic growth. OTOH, during the same time, Republican presidents have overseen three consecutive recessions. It’s not a stretch to say that the GOP’s economic track record over the past 30 years has been among the worst in US history.

Consider Biden’s record of economic growth:

  • GDP growth under Biden is 3+%, or 3 times what it was under Trump.
  • Almost 7 times as many Biden jobs as last 3 GOP Presidents combined.
  • Best post Covid economic recovery among the G7 countries.
  • Lowest unemployment rate in a peacetime economy since WWII.
  • Lowest poverty/uninsured rates ever.
  • Real corporate earnings up in 2022.

Despite what the GOP is saying to the press about their being deficit hawks, the federal deficit went up every year under Trump, and has come down every year under Biden. Rosenberg adds this helpful chart of GDP growth by president:

So why is it that Americans aren’t convinced that the economy has improved since the pandemic? In a new poll from the AP-NORC, asking if the nation’s economic conditions are in good shape, the percentage who agree is down from 30% last month to 24%. Only a third of Americans in the new survey approve of how Biden’s handling the economy, while two-thirds disapprove.

In the survey, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to view economic conditions favorably, but just 41% of them say the economy’s good and only 7% of Republicans agree. And both numbers are down from the previous month for both Parties.

Now this may be at least partially due to the Republicans scare tactics about the Debt Ceiling. The Hill reports that this AP-NORC poll is in line with other recent surveys that suggest most Americans think the country’s economy is in poor shape, Other polls also indicate low confidence in the economic leadership team.

Axios suggests a different way to view the economic issue. They looked at Federal Reserve survey data from 2017-2022, which shows that people think they’re personal economy is doing just fine, while they think the national economy is in terrible shape:

This is most likely because of the media’s awfulizing about our economy. Obviously, consumer prices are high, but inflation is coming down. But even if inflation went to zero, today’s prices will still be much higher than Americans were accustomed to pre-pandemic, so people will be complaining.

And we can’t discount the negative impact of Congressional dysfunction about the Debt Ceiling, or all the news bunnies crying about our unsustainable national debt.

Still, our economy continues to do better than even the economists think. The May employment report marked the 14th straight month that more jobs were created than economists expected. Our GDP continues to grow (it’s up more than 5% from its pre-pandemic peak), even after accounting for inflation.

The average US employee now makes $33.44 per hour, 17.5% more than before the pandemic. The stock market is up 10% so far this year, but still, Americans aren’t buying it. Axios’ Felix Salmon reports that while Americans say that they’re broadly happy with their personal finances (above chart), in other polls, a majority consistently think (erroneously) that we’re currently in a recession.

Time to wake up America! Things are rolling along reasonably well, even if they’re not fantastic. We have the best job market in 50 years, and there’s no recession on the horizon. As the Rolling Stones said: “You can’t always get what you want…”. Maybe it’s time to look at the glass as half full.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Alan Jackson cover Eddie Cochran’s 1958 “Summertime Blues” in 1994. The Blue Cheer had the radio hit with it in 1968. Wrongo loves three versions of this song: Blue Cheer, the Who, and this Allen Jackson cover:

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Immigration Reform Has To Happen

The Daily Escape:

Eastern Sequoia Canyon NP viewed from Mt. Whitney trail, CA – April 2017 photo by Peerman Craft Photography

The federal government is expecting a surge in migrants at the southern border after next week’s lifting of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that has allowed the US to refuse to process asylum claims on public health grounds. In anticipation, the Biden administration is preparing to deploy an additional 1,500 troops to the southern border for 90 days.

Those troops are on top of about 2,500 who are serving there currently. None of the soldiers are armed. They are largely performing administrative tasks that free up Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staff to handle the anticipated surge of migrants.

This could be a critical political moment for Biden, who’s just launched his 2024 reelection bid. We seem to be on the verge of another potential border crisis, which brings the certainty of new attacks by Republicans. The GOP has been hammering the administration, saying Biden’s immigration plans are too little too late.

When Title 42 is lifted, CBP will rely on the existing Title 8 law, under which any individual who is deemed ineligible to be in the US faces a five-year ban on readmission – and criminal charges if found crossing illegally.

On Wednesday, US and Mexican officials agreed on new immigration policies. Under the agreement, Mexico will continue to accept up to 30,000 migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua who are turned away at the US border; and up to 100,000 individuals from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador who have family in the US will be eligible to live and work in Mexico.

The US is accepting 30,000 people per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela for two years and offering them the ability to work legally, as long as they enter legally, have eligible sponsors and pass vetting and background checks. We’re continuing to turn away migrants from those four countries who cross the border illegally.

We’ve been following the same ad hoc approach to immigration for the past several administrations: We find a temporary solution that can handle a surge in migrants while not providing an open door for all who wish to enter the US.

We share this problem with most other rich countries. On Tuesday, the World Bank’s latest World Development Report said that about 184 million people across the world now live in countries where they’re not citizens. About 37 million of the total are refugees, a number that has tripled over the last decade.

Most of the transit happens through Central America before migrants reach the southern US border. Border security isn’t rigorous enough there to stem the northward flow. Recognizing that problem, the administration announced that it will set up regional processing centers for migrants to apply to come to the US. These centers will be located in Colombia and Guatemala, two countries migrants often pass through on their way to the US-Mexico border.

Deciding who gets to stay in the US is a bigger challenge when the migrants have few job skills and they’re not seeking asylum. We differentiate between asylum seekers and economic migrants. With a current backlog of 1.3 million asylum cases to be heard (equal to 4.25 years), the system is clearly broken.

The question is what should we do to stop/slow the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants attempting to cross our southern border? Bloomberg shows the scale of the problem:

What’s the answer to this? Wrongo doubts that there is ONE answer.

Do we create a kind of reverse Berlin Wall like Trump tried to do? If it became a militarized border, we could surely cut down on the migration and the southern border would be controlled. This is the wet dream of the anti-immigration hawks. But the cost of building and manning the wall with soldiers would be ruinous, and to date, militarized borders aren’t who we are as a country.

Do we undertake nation building in Central and South America, hoping that those countries can become more attractive to their potential migrants? America’s track record with nation-building is terrible. And think about the cost, which could be far greater than the cost of a militarized wall. Think about how much money would be skimmed into the pockets of local politicians.

But we can’t just leave our borders open. Open borders are a sign of a government that has lost control of its geography. It would ultimately lead to a reality that no American wants. This is the specter that instills fear into most Americans about the growing migration problem.

It appears that we’re going to continue using an orderly throttling and vetting process at the southern border to decide who among this new surge of migrants is allowed into the country. The bigger question is what should our immigration policy be going forward?  We haven’t had immigration reform since the 1980s. We’re unlikely to have reform any time soon.

Biden and the Democrats are vulnerable if they can’t articulate a plan (that they can back with numbers) that shows the American people what we’re doing to control immigration. Developing a clear position on immigration could draw significant public majority support.

There are plenty of Democrats and Independents who are strongly against migration. So Biden needs to show progress soon by demonstrating that we’re controlling the problem.

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Saturday Soother – April 22, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Rainbow, Blue Ridge Parkway, VA – April 2023 photo by Tim Lewis

American carnage is real, my friend. Just not in the way that Trump stated in his inaugural rant. The American carnage Wrongo speaks of is the gun attacks made on others by angry or fearful lone American gunmen. From Charlie Sykes at The Bulwark:

“Ringing the wrong doorbell, making a wrong turn, getting in the wrong car, and an errant basketball. A wounded teenager, a dead young woman, cheerleaders in critical condition, and a 6-year-old girl and her father shot.”

The Indiana man who shot a 16-year-old boy for knocking on his door is described by his grandson as a conspiracy theorist and avid consumer of right-wing media: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“I feel like a lot of people of that generation are caught up in this 24 hour news cycle of fear and paranoia perpetuated by some…news stations. And he was fully into that, sitting and watching Fox News all day, every day blaring in his living room…..that doesn’t necessarily lead people to be racist, but it reinforces and galvanizes racist people. And their beliefs.”

Right wing propaganda is about fear. And some people bathe in it for hours a day. So, while the rest of us enjoy walks in the park or a trip to the market, they’re terrified of every swarthy stranger at the Publix or Home Depot.

Add this level of fear to the implicit permission given gun owners by “stand your ground” laws, and you have the elements of an environment of violence.  Vox provides background:

“Some of these shootings took place in states with so-called “stand your ground” laws, which offer expansive legal protections for people who use deadly force against others out of self-defense….and experts have noted that the laws can bolster a “shoot first, ask later” mentality.”

More: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Under such laws — which exist in some form in 38 states — people can use lethal force if they reasonably believe their life is under threat, and they don’t have to take steps to retreat or avoid the confrontation first. That’s a stark change from prior laws….In the past, the “castle doctrine,” which has been adopted by most states, allowed people to use deadly force if a person entered their home.

Stand your ground laws take that idea one step further, with some making such allowances no matter where a person is, whether that’s a public place, their vehicle or their office.”

Add pervasive fear and permission to stand your ground to the proliferation of guns in America (aided by the Supreme Court’s expansive reading of the Second Amendment) and the US has come undone. From Umair Haque: (emphasis by Haque)

“Did you know that America isn’t just the most violent nation in the industrialized world — but an off the charts extreme outlier? Iceland is the world’s most peaceful society. Canada is the world’s 12th most peaceful society. America is the
 129th.”

That’s 129 out of 163 countries tracked. Further evidence is in the recent TSA statistics about intercepting guns about to be carried on to planes:

“Officers with the Transportation Security Administration confiscated more than 1,500 guns at airport security checkpoints in the US during the first quarter of the year, more than 93% of which were loaded. The 1,508 firearms equate to an average of 16.8 intercepted each day during the first three months of the year…”

The gun gives its owner the power of life and death. No training needed. The power of God right there in your hand. It’s very attractive to a certain type of person. And we cultivate that type of personality in America.

We have no safety nets, no social bonds, no norms of decency. That means we ask each other to bear the unbearable.

We don’t invest enough in safety nets, insurance, public goods, healthcare, education, and, in most states, gun laws. According to Haque, it’s all justified by politicians saying, “I can bear the unbearable — why can’t they?” But we can’t do that forever. Someone will snap, and the frustration of bearing the unbearable pours out as rage that’s visited on whomever is nearest, or easiest to hurt. That’s American Exceptionalism at work. America’s extreme violence, caused in large part by the twisted ideology that asks Americans to bear unbearable things.

Enough about guns and people snapping. It’s time for our Saturday Soother! Here on the Fields of Wrong, our crabapple trees are in bloom. They’re being visited by both birds and bees, each looking for high calorie snacks. The bees for the flowers, the birds for the buds. Our spring clean-up is lagging, so there’s still much to do.

But first, let’s relax for a few minutes. Grab a comfy chair near a big window and watch and listen to Valentina Lisitsa, a Ukrainian-American pianist, play “Rustle of Spring”, a solo piano piece written by Norwegian composer Christian Sinding in 1896:

If you are interested in amazing piano technique, watch Lisitsa perform Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

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Can America Come Back From Our Divide?

The Daily Escape:

Easter Sunday, Great Smokey Mountains NP – April 2023 photo by Melissa Russell

We’re back from our roughly 2,200 mile journey to Gettysburg PA, St. Augustine FL, and Charleston SC. The focus of our trip was visiting with family, and it didn’t disappoint. We saw about 40 family members in the three locations. Most are healthy and thriving, and there was lots of laughter.

But we also saw slices of different cultures than what we’re used to here in Connecticut. Wrongo wonders if the US has ever been as divided as it is now?

Yes we’ve been divided in the past, most notably before and during the Civil War. American schools still teach the Civil War to our kids, although like everything else, views on what it was fought about differ largely by geography and political leaning.

Between 1861-1865, we killed our fellow Americans at a prodigious rate, with about 620,000 dying. In fact, Americans killed more other Americans in that war than all of our adversaries did in eight of our wars combined: the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Gulf Wars. The Civil War stands alone when it comes to America being divided deeply enough that we killed each other in astonishing numbers.

The Civil War was about one issue: Slavery.

In today’s America, we’re fighting about everything: Gun control, abortion, climate change, fossil fuels, drilling, the environment, immigration, refugees, diversity, voting rights, elections, women’s rights, policing, who gets tax cuts, health care, LGBTQ+ rights, health care for transgender kids, bathrooms, books, what’s taught in classrooms, COVID-19, vaccines, poverty, welfare, unions, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, student debt, Trump, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and education.

These modern divisions exist without exception in every state. They are fought over with words, and occasionally, with weapons. They are fought about in our courts. Some on the political Right call for secession. In 2021, the University of Virginia Center for Politics released the results of a poll that found the majority of the individuals who voted to reelect Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections hoped that their state could secede from the Union.

“Hoping” isn’t doing something to make secession happen, although it’s a first step.

What’s worrisome is that like before the Civil War, there doesn’t seem to be a pathway forward to a common cause. Wrongo has written about “The Cause, The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783” by Joseph Ellis. It says that the founders had to create a blurry vision of the revolution because colonists were suspicious of the motives of other colonies. So the founders described their fight for independence as “The Cause”, an ambiguous term that covered diverse ideas and multiple viewpoints.

It succeeded in unifying us against the British.

Maybe America’s now reached a point where it’s possible that nothing will ever unite us again. Instead, we yell at each other across a chasm of ideological and political partisanship.

Our global reputation has sunk: We’re seen as an undereducated, and unhealthy nation. Many of us want our political opponents dead, while admiring the world’s autocrats. We’re tolerant of the gun slaughter of our children, and callous about the plight of our neighbors, especially if they are poor, sick, or different.

The annual World Happiness Report, based on data from Gallup’s World Poll of 24 developed nations, shows that Americans, when asked to evaluate their current life as a whole, are less content than the citizens of 14 other wealthy countries.

It’s worth noting that most of the countries whose citizens are happier than ours have governments that provide their residents with a sense of safety and security, a foundation on which their people can build a fulfilling life and an optimistic future. They can get treated for medical problems. They can afford life-saving medicine. They don’t fall into medical bankruptcy.

Their life expectancies are longer than ours and rising; America’s is falling.

They value higher education enough to provide it for free. They value families enough that their maternal care, both before and after birth, is outstanding. The US should be ashamed of our maternal mortality rate, which is higher than almost any other country, developed or not, in the world.

We desperately need to find a new “Cause” to bind us together.

Benjamin Franklin famously remarked at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that we had formed a republic if we could keep it.

We must get prepared both mentally and in our guts, to fight to keep this country together – AND to keep it a representative democracy.

The alternative looks horrendous.

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Saturday Soother – January 14, 2023

The Daily Escape:

A view from Shenandoah NP near Keezletown, VA – January 1, 2023 photo by One Man’s Outdoor Journey

Wrongo and Ms. Right live far enough out in the country that we have no city water, sewer, or gas lines. But the cooktop in our recently remodeled kitchen runs on propane while our ovens are electric. We have a well and septic. Our hot water is made by propane as well.

So what are we supposed to make of this week’s controversy over the Biden administration’s Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) possibly banning future sales of natural gas stoves and cooktops? The reason for this is that burning gas stoves put their partially burned fuel, including nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in the air, which causes asthma. And older stoves with pilot lights instead of electric igniters also push NO2 into the air.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported that the CPSC was considering new regulations around gas stoves, given growing concerns over indoor pollutants. Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. said:

“Any option is on the table….Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

The proposal by the CPSC followed a December study by scientists finding that gas ranges that burn natural gas account for almost 13% of childhood-asthma cases in the US. Advocates have long argued against gas stoves, saying the pollution they emit makes them inferior to other options, such as electric or induction ranges. But the asthma statistic breathed new life into the debate.

OK, Wrongo knows the difference between propane and natural gas, but when he first heard about the debate, it was unclear whether his gas of choice was also a health problem and had to die.

Bloomberg neglected to say that any CPSC regulations, like other proposed state and local-level bans of gas stoves, only applies to new construction. But that didn’t keep Republicans from evoking visions of a 2023 filled with government agents busting down doors and ripping out stoves. That tentative regulation conversation about how to best mitigate the health hazards of gas stoves morphed into a Right Wing campaign to convince Real Americans that the Government is coming for their gas stoves:

Rep. Ronny Jackson, (R-TX) tweeted:

“If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands,”

From Sen. Tom Cotton,(R-AK):

“Democrats are coming for your kitchen appliances,”

From Rep. Byron Donalds, (R-FL):

“Get your hands off our gas stoves!!!!”

From Rep. Jim Jordan,(R-OH):

“God. Guns. Gas stoves.”

God, Guns, and Gas stoves! All because one appointee in the administration discussed it. But this controversy isn’t about facts; like always, it’s about feelings. Over 30 years ago, the Clean Energy Act was easily renewed on a bipartisan basis. Since then, the environment has become part of the culture wars.

The reflex to position gas stoves as the last redoubt of traditional American life threatened by big government, is just stereotypical of the American Right wing. It’s difficult to see the fight about gas stoves as something that will move the needle since gas is far more common in cities and blue states. So, let the Republicans keep on cooking up the outrage du jour. It’s doubtful that the voters will be eating it up.

Remember their past freak-outs, like when former Rep. Michele Bachmann tried to build a political career around preserving incandescent light bulbs? Another useless freak-out.

In retrospect, it’s honestly shocking we were able in 1975 to ban leaded gasoline in America, although there were lots of dissenters at the time. And now, since we’ve gotten all their guns, it only makes sense that Democrats go after their gas stoves.

Let’s leave these partisan debates in the kitchen where they belong and embrace our Saturday Soother, that special time when we stop thinking about Biden’s secret document stash, or why Jim Jordan dresses like a gym teacher, and spend a few minutes contemplating nearly nothing.

Start by brewing up a big mug of Wilton Benitez Orange Bourbon ($19.00/8 oz.) from Wisconsin’s JBC Coffee Roasters. Apparently the coffee cherries for this variant turn orange when they ripen rather than the typical red and tend to be even more fruity than their red counterparts. The roaster says it is super creamy with flavors of candied ginger, pineapple, and cream soda.

Now grab a seat by a south-facing window to watch and listen to “Fandango” from the Guitar Quintet in D-major, G.448 by Boccherini, performed live in 2015 at the Schubertiade in Hohenems, Austria. Boccherini was an Italian composer and cellist who died in 1805. A fandango is a Spanish dance:

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Monday Wake Up Call – October 31, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Monument Valley rainstorm – October, 2022 photo by Martine Hubscher

Wrongo and Ms. Right are heading home to the land of disputed elections after a very fine week in London. We hadn’t been to England since 2019, and it was at least a little sad to learn that some of the local places near our hotel had succumbed to the pandemic. On the bright side, our favorite Indian place was open and thriving.

We can’t start Monday without acknowledging the death of Jerry Lee Lewis. He was the last one standing of the founding generation of rock ‘n rollers. Wrongo knows all of you are saying “But, what about Elvis”?

Early Elvis changed the world, but he died young and was already long past his peak when he did. Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Buddy Holly all exited before the Killer. None had his longevity. And that along with his talent is why he’s a greater artist than almost anyone of that generation of the major early rock stars. Some might quibble and say what about Sam Cooke? Or Dion?

As for Jerry Lee’s personal life, you know the story and it wasn’t good. He may be the ultimate example of differentiating between the art and the artist.

One wonderful and overlooked part of the Killer’s early career was an impromptu jam session involving Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash made on December 4, 1956, at the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. An article about the session was published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar under the title “Million Dollar Quartet”.

A recording of the session was released in Europe in 1981 as The Million Dollar Quartet with 17 tracks. Subsequently, it inspired a musical called the “Million Dollar Quartet” that played on Broadway and in the West End. Both are closed now, but it does occasionally travel in the US. Wrongo loved it when he saw it. See it if you can.

Regarding the hammering attack on Paul Pelosi by a Right Wing MAGA fellow traveler, it should be seen as an assassination attempt on the highest ranking Democrat in Congress and the woman who is second in line of succession to the presidency.

CNN is reporting that the man who attacked Pelosi had with him a bag that contained multiple zip ties.

This is all part of a pattern. First there was the assassination plot against the Governor of Michigan. Then there was a violent insurrection on Jan. 6, the attempted coup. These were followed by assassination threats/plots against multiple Democratic members of Congress and the members of the Jan. 6 Committee.

Now, on the verge of a very important midterm election, the Speaker of the House’s husband is beaten. From Brian Kass an Atlantic contributor and an associate professor at University College London:

“This week, 3 men were convicted of trying to kidnap Gov. Whitmer, a man pleaded guilty to threatening Rep. Eric Swalwell, a right wing conspiracy theorist tried to murder Speaker Pelosi, shortly after Bannon, who called to behead Fauci, was sentenced to prison. This isn’t random.”

More:

“There are dangerous people of all stripes. But Republicans, unlike Democrats, are actively encouraging violence, posing with guns in incendiary ads that speak of “hunting” opponents, or depict shooting actors who play Biden and Pelosi. Plus, there’s QAnon and the election lies.”

Still more: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“When a Supreme Court justice was threatened, Democrats didn’t just condemn it, they passed a law which Biden signed to give them more protection and security. This isn’t remotely a both sides thing. Which Biden adviser called to behead a public health official? Get real.”

Finally:

“Regardless, I fear that a) there will be assassinations; and b) political violence will be a routine feature of US political life, particularly around elections, for the foreseeable future. It’s a really dark place for our politics and it’s being caused, mostly, by Republicans.”

A Trump supporter attempted to assassinate a Congressional leader. That should be seismic political news. And yet, it’s just another news story. The growing awareness that we are no longer willing to settle policy disagreements with elections will dismantle the American experiment.

Time to wake up America! You only have a few days left to vote. You only have a few days to turn the tide on the MAGA movement. To help you wake up, listen to Jerry Lee do something you’ve probably haven’t heard.

Here’s “Me and Bobby McGee” a tune written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster. It was originally performed by Roger Miller, but we all remember Janis Joplin’s cover of the song, recorded a few days before her death in October 1970.

In 1971, Jerry Lee took Kristofferson’s song and turned it into something only Jerry Lee could do:

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