Category: Politics of Fear

What does “To Serve” mean in the Senate?

There is an illuminating Op-Ed in today’s NYT by Frank Bruni that tells two stories, one about Cassandra Butts who was nominated by Mr. Obama to be our Ambassador to the Bahamas. She was never confirmed due to holds placed on the nomination by Republican Senators.

Butts died suddenly at 50 years old from leukemia, after waiting more than 820 days to be confirmed.

The second story is about the Senate’s process and specifically, GOP Senators who no longer even try to work across the aisle. From Bruni’s article:

The Senate held a hearing about her nomination in May 2014, and then… nothing. Summer came and went. So did fall. A new year arrived. Then another new year after that.

Bruni continues:

The delay had nothing to do with her qualifications, which were impeccable. It had everything to do with Washington. She was a pawn in its power games and partisanship.

At one point Senator Ted Cruz, (R-TX) had a “hold” on all political nominees for State Department positions, partly as a way of punishing President Obama for the Iran nuclear deal.

Later, Senator Tom Cotton, (R-AK), specifically placed a hold on Butts and on nominees for the ambassadorships to Sweden and Norway. He had a gripe with the Obama administration over a Secret Service leak of private information about a fellow member of Congress; and he was trying to pressure Obama to take punitive action. But that issue was unrelated to Butts and the Bahamas.

From Bruni: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Cotton eventually released the two other holds, but not the one on Butts. She told me that she once went to see him about it, and he explained that he knew that she was a close friend of Obama’s — the two first encountered each other on a line for financial-aid forms at Harvard Law School, where they were classmates — and that blocking her was a way to inflict special pain on the president.

Bruni says that in a subsequent call to Sen. Cotton’s office, his spokeswoman did not dispute Butts’s characterization of that meeting, and stressed, in separate emails, that Cotton had enormous respect for her and her career.

There we have our two stories. In one, a Harvard educated lawyer, a classmate of the president, who could have cashed in by joining the private sector. But instead, she worked in DC, for the N.A.A.C.P.’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, for the Center for American Progress and for Obama, including time as deputy White House counsel.

Tom Cotton on the other hand, is a Harvard educated lawyer. He was in the US Army. He did stints in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he earned a Bronze Star. He is a Tea Party Republican who is likely to be a candidate for president in 2020.

Cotton’s actions were not tied to ideology. Apparently, he just wanted to hurt President Obama. He is a US Senator. Think about the oath of office for the Senate.  Mr. Cotton’s duty is to defend the Constitution, and to serve his constituents and the people of this nation, not to act out his retribution fantasies. The oath a Senator takes does not include ‘inflicting special pain on the president’. It does not include stymieing foreign relations or, in the case of Merrill Garland and 83 other judicial vacancies, our justice system.

Remember this when Sen. Cotton positions himself for his own quest for the White House. Think of the opportunities he would have for enhanced retribution, should he reach the Oval Office.

Senators from both parties use holds on nominations for leverage with the White House. But it has become extreme and egregious: a tactic that’s turned into a tantrum. Politicians sometimes do bad things. Usually, for money, or power, or to assist an ally. Cotton’s action was none of those. It was done purely for spite.

These Senatorial blocking privileges are being abused and should end. They are helping the Senate become a body of obstructionists for whom the verb “to serve” no longer has meaning.

In addition, why not change the Senate’s rules so that any nomination not acted upon for a reasonable time (90-120 days?) should be automatically approved.

It wouldn’t take a Constitutional amendment to accomplish this, just a change in Senate rules.

However, changing the rules in a body that has no accountability will require a “political revolution”, and as we have said before, the revolution has to be won precinct-by-precinct.

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Monday Wake Up Call – June 6, 2016

We know that D-Day was June 6, 1944, but what does the “D” in D-Day, stand for?

Apparently, this is a frequently asked question by visitors to The National WWII Museum. But the answer isn’t simple. Disagreements between military historians and etymologists about the meaning of D-Day abound. Here are two explanations:

In Stephen Ambrose’s D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, Ambrose writes:

Time Magazine reported on June 12 1944 that ‘as far as the U.S. Army can determine, the first use of D for Day, H for Hour was in Field Order No. 8, of the First Army, A.E.F., issued on Sept. 20, 1918, which read, ‘The First Army will attack at H-Hour on D-Day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel salient.’ (p. 491)

In other words, Ambrose reports the D in D-Day stands for “Day.” But In Paul Dickson’s War Slang, he quotes General Eisenhower:

When someone wrote to General Eisenhower in 1964 asking for an explanation, his executive assistant Brigadier General Robert Schultz answered: ‘General Eisenhower asked me to respond to your letter. Be advised that any amphibious operation has a ‘departed date’; therefore the shortened term ‘D-Day’ is used.’ (p.146)

It’s an enigma wrapped inside of a mystery. A continuing enigma is the lack of accountability by both our elected officials and our state and national bureaucrats. Today’s travesty was reported in the UK’s Guardian:

Despite warnings of regulators and experts, water departments in at least 33 cities used testing methods over the past decade that could underestimate lead found in drinking water.

These tests are taken annually and sent to the EPA in Washington. The 33 offending cities were in 17 different states. Of the cities, 21 used the same failed water testing methods that were used in Flint MI. Additional findings:

  • Michigan and New Hampshire advised water departments to give themselves extra time to complete tests so that if lead contamination exceeded federal limits, officials could re-sample and remove results with high lead levels.
  • Some cities denied knowledge of the locations of lead pipes, failed to sample the required number of homes with lead plumbing or refused to release lead pipe maps, claiming that would be a security risk.

Since the Flint water crisis erupted last year, school districts from coast to coast have stepped up testing of fountains and sinks. From Newark to Boston to Detroit, city after city has reported elevated levels of lead in the water of some educational buildings. The Portland OR schools have the problem and the school district has been aware of it for years. But the federal government doesn’t actually require most schools to test, so few do.

Apparently, the federal EPA has known since 2001 that its testing guidelines were weak. They are working on “long-term revisions” to its lead and copper rule, which are expected in 2017. Or sometime.

From Ian Welsh:

No regulator worth its salt, who is doing their job, could have missed entire States and large cities cheating, because any regulator worth its salt does its own audits and testing.

Republicans do not see this as a problem. Yes, there have been apologies, but no federal funding to remediate the problem. In fact, Fitch Rating Service estimates that capital costs to replace the nation’s lead water service lines could exceed $275 billion.

Republicans expect Mr. Market to take care of issues like this, once we privatize our water supply.

After all, aren’t invisible hands already cleaning the lead from the brains of America’s children?

It’s the miracle of market self-regulation.

Time for a wake-up call for all who think that business as usual is acceptable for our aging infrastructure, and in the case of our water supply, our poisonous infrastructure. Let’s look back to a time when America could do great things, even if it cost real dough. In 1977, we sent the Voyager I and II interstellar satellites off into space with a record of the things we thought made Earth unique. The music we sent was picked by Carl Sagan. This link lists all of the music we sent into the cosmos. One of his picks was by Blind Willie Johnson, “Dark Was the Night”, which has no lyrics, but creates a mood of loneliness. Here is “Dark Was the Night”:

This song will likely last longer than the human race. It’s doubtful that Blind Willie ever thought THAT was gonna happen.

What isn’t gonna happen is that our politicians decide on their own to be accountable to the rest of us.

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Pant Suit vs. Pant Load, Part III

(Note: this week there will be no Sunday Cartoon Blogging, since Wrongo will be visiting MA and PA through Sunday, returning on Monday.)

Wrongo and long-time blog reader Terry engaged in a short email dialog on how to “fix” the US political system. We were concerned that there is no individual Congressperson accountability. A backbencher can follow an agenda that can imperil our nation (and a few have done just that) without consequence.

But in America, accountability is managed by election district. Your only alternative is to round up enough votes to replace poor representation. So, if you wanted to reform the impact that money has in our politics, or the way the filibuster works in the Senate, you have to reform Congress.

Yet, under our Constitution, only Congress can reform Congress. And today, there are three parties vying for control of it, and since they rarely are willing to work with each other, not much gets done. So you can completely forget about Reform.

And the parties have not been willing to deal with the not-so hidden desperation in America that shows up in statistics like increasing opioid addiction and suicide rates. The political class ignores how lethal the US economy is for the less fortunate: The New York Times reported this week that US death rates have risen for the first time in a decade.

The increase in death rates among less educated whites since 2001 is roughly the size of the AIDS epidemic. One reason is the use of opioids. And, despite Mr. Obama’s speech in Elkhart, IN where he said our economy is doing well, there has been a spike in suicides to levels higher than during the 2008 financial crisis.

The little people know that the economic policies followed by both parties have brought income inequality to Gilded Age levels. They know that all of the post-crisis income gains have accrued to the top 1%. Unlike in China which continues to grow, our economic expansion has brought with it high unemployment and underemployment, particularly among the young.

As a result, people feel powerless. In fact, a RAND survey in January found that 86.5% of GOP voters who strongly identified with the statement “people like me don’t have any say about what the government does” were Trump supporters.

And, since so much of politics is about corralling money into the bank accounts of our politicians, your Congresspersons have no intention of listening to you unless you have given at least $10,000 to their campaign fund, or are the CEO of a major employer in their district or state. In US politics, money=speech. But, there is little meaning to free speech without free access to influence the political process.

Many of us feel nihilistic about our politics and our government. So the Pant Load’s support seems a lot like a form of public political vandalism where The Donald is the can of spray paint.

Most people can see that a large portion of Americans are poorer with each new election cycle. After all, the reason Trump (and Sanders) are doing well is because many, many workers are seeing their job security, income security, and retirement security all go up in smoke. That’s no mystery, just the natural outcome when the government fails to represent the people in favor of the rich who fund their campaigns. It’s no wonder the Pant Load is easily corralling the frustrated.

But can the Pant Suit reverse the Democratic Party’s abandonment of the working class in America?

We know that she needs to focus on drawing more potential working class and young supporters, but so far, Democrats are content to run only in their municipal strongholds, following a strategy of stitching together interest groups, largely in states with big urban populations.

Energizing people around the fact of our corrupt political system is both a way to get higher turnout, and a way to elect members of Congress and state legislatures to fix the corrupt system. That is Bernie’s message, what he calls a “political revolution.” But Sanders is not the person to bring this about. Consider Sanders just the messenger.

Strategically, the Pant Suit needs to figure out how to get folks energized enough to vote for her and against Trump for reasons that don’t so paralyze them with fear that they stay home. If she is successful, it could be the start of re-establishing the New Deal coalition, and a re-installation of the principles of the civil rights movement.

That’s a huge job that will not be completed in one election cycle.

This threat is the GOP’s worst nightmare. They have worked for 40 years to eliminate these ideas, so expect the GOP to unanimously support the Pant Load:

COW Never Hillary

The Bernie Dems will rally behind Hillary for similar reasons.

Trump/Arpaio 2016: Because immigrants are the greatest threat to the nation.

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The Pandering Pant Load

Trump is a thin-skinned Pandering Pant Load© with rabbit ears: He hears everything that is said about him and responds to it all. Say something, and @realDonaldTrump will tweet back something nasty.

We saw two examples of his pandering in the past few days. First, Trump attended “Rolling Thunder” an annual event which brings hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists to DC to raise money for POW-MIA’s of the Vietnam War. On Sunday, He told about 5,000 that illegal migrants in the US are often better cared for than the nation’s military veterans:

Thousands of people are dying waiting in line to see a doctor. That is not going to happen anymore

Although Trump has used this comparison of the treatment of immigrants and veterans before, it isn’t true. Congress and many states have written an assortment of laws and policies designed to restrict government services to people living in the country illegally.

Could Congress do more for vets? Absolutely. Do we do less for them than we do for illegals? NO.

We know that the Pandering Pant Load© claimed to have raised $6 million for veteran’s groups, including $1 million of his own money when he held a fundraiser for veterans’ causes in place of an Iowa debate that he skipped.

But so far, he hasn’t distributed it, or said where it is going. He is expected to hold a news conference today to announce the names of the charities selected to receive the money. We’ll see.

Still, when you tell an interest group that you will do more for them than we do for illegals, you are setting the bar very low.

Second, the Pandering Pant Load© supposedly told House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) he supports cutting Social Security but cannot admit it publicly because it would hurt his election chances, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Trump said of cutting Social Security:

From a moral standpoint, I believe in it…But you also have to get elected. And there’s no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying, ‘We’re going to cut your Social Security’ and the Democrat is saying, ‘We’re going to keep it and give you more.’

Bloomberg reported that The Pandering Pant Load© made the above comments during the May 12 meeting with Mr. Ryan aimed at improving ties between them, citing an unnamed source who was in the room.

So the deal was made, and what we have been watching is theater. And from a “moral standpoint”, Trump just lies about what he plans to do, because his audience is against it?

HuffPo reported that Trump’s opposition to cutting Social Security (SS) has been both a hallmark of his campaign and one of his greatest departures from traditional conservative ideology. Now it seems, he is simply pandering. Consider this:

  • Many conservative House Republicans told The Huffington Post shortly after the May 12 meeting with Ryan that that they were unconcerned about Trump’s public posture on Social Security.
  • Why? Because Trump policy advisor Sam Clovis had already appeared to reverse course on May 11, indicating that Trump would be willing to consider cuts as president.

The media have their nice, shiny Trump, and they have signed on for the whole ride, so don’t expect to hear much more about his pandering.

The Pant Load will try to dupe people (this week, Vietnam Vets and the middle class) into voting against their interests, because he is sure that they can’t be bothered to pay enough attention to understand that he’s lying.

The truth is that SS faces a funding gap beginning in 2034. Without Congressional action to either raise the program’s revenues or scale back benefits, there will be an across-the-board benefit cut of approximately 20%.

We all know this.

Why is the Pandering Pant Load© being dishonest about it? Maybe the real shock shouldn’t be that Trump is devoid of integrity; if he’s breathing, he’s lying.

It’s that his base doesn’t seem to care that he’ll throw them under the bus without a second thought.

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Memorial Day 2016

Thank You Armed Forces

Every year, the Wrongologist reminds blog readers that Memorial Day was called Decoration Day for more than 100 years, ending in 1971. It was established by an order issued by Gen. John Logan, the national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. This is from Gen. Logan’s order:

The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land…

Back then, it was our most solemn holiday. It was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, a tradition we still follow today.

The Civil War claimed more lives than any conflict in US history, requiring the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. Drew Gilpin Faust’s book, The Republic of Suffering-Death and the American Civil War (2008) reminds us just how deadly the Civil War was: 620,000 dead soldiers, (2% of the US population at the time), at least 50,000 dead civilians, and an estimated 6 million pounds of human and animal carcasses to deal with on battlefields.

When the Civil War began, neither army had burial details, graves registration units, means to notify next of kin, or provisions for decent burial. They had no systematic way to identify or count the dead, and until 1867, no national cemeteries in which to bury them. In an ironic twist, in 1866, after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Union Army opened an office in Ford’s Theater to record deaths, house the war records and assist families to find lost loved ones. In 1893, the building collapsed, killing 22.

The mortality rate in the South exceeded that of any country in WWI. In addition, the South lost nearly 2/3rds of its wealth in the War.

Decoration Day became Memorial Day when Congress passed the National Holiday Act of 1971, which made us observe national holidays on Mondays, creating three-day weekends for We, the People. So, along with parades, picnics and mega-sales on the web and in the malls, many think that the holiday celebrates the start of summer.

Instead, please stop and remember the people who died in our wars. Do that irrespective of whether you “believe” in a particular war.

Memorial Day is a time to meditate on the difference between right and wrong wars. Mr. Obama spoke in Japan last Friday, walking a fine line, remembering the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not calling WWII and our actions against Japan “wrong”.

Another thing to remember is that our government owes our all-volunteer military policies and policy decisions that are worthy of their sacrifice. But, our government rarely makes decisions that are completely worthy of such sacrifice.

Let’s also give some thought to this quote from Andrew Bacevich:

With its military active in more than 150 countries, the United States today finds itself, if anything, overextended. Our principal security challenges — the risks to the planet posed by climate change, the turmoil enveloping much of the Islamic world and now spilling into the West, China’s emergence as a potential rival to which Americans have mortgaged their prosperity — will not yield to any solution found in the standard Pentagon repertoire. Yet when it comes to conjuring up alternatives, the militarized history to which Americans look for instruction has little to offer.

Ask Trump and Clinton what will be different if they become Commander-In-Chief. Which one will address climate change, the rise of China, or the near-civil war in the Greater Middle East?

Finally, when you think about policies worthy of sacrifice, here is a Memorial Day tune from Warren Zevon: “The Envoy”, from the album of the same name. The song was written in 1981, back when we thought our issues in the Middle East were rare. It was inspired by Philip C. Habib, who was President Reagan’s special envoy in the Lebanon crisis.

That was the start of something that hasn’t achieved much. The US currently has 48 Special Envoys, but you can’t see any peace from where we sit.

OK, the song isn’t “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” or, “Werewolves of London,” but Zevon was one of the best and brightest. Here is “The Envoy”:

These 34 year-old lyrics about the Middle East could be tomorrow’s headlines. Is there a threat to world peace? Oh yeah, us.

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

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Will We See a Recession Soon?

With Trump vs. Clinton vs. Sanders sucking all of the oxygen out of the news cycle, it is probable that you missed the release by the Federal Reserve on May 18th of its delinquency and charge-off data for all commercial banks in the first quarter. It isn’t a pretty picture.

Heres a few nuggets:

  • Delinquencies of commercial and industrial (C&I) loans at all banks, after hitting a low point in Q4 2014 of $11.7 billion, have ballooned. C&I loans are classified delinquent when they are 30 or more days past due.
  • Between Q4 2014 and Q1 2016, delinquencies have increased by 137% to $27.8 billion. Currently, they are halfway to the all-time peak during the Financial Crisis in Q3 2009 of $53.7 billion. And theyre higher than they were in Q3 2008, when Lehman Brothers melted down.

Below is a chart of delinquencies released by the Board of Governors of the Fed. The shaded areas are times of economic recession. Wolf Richter of Wolf Street added the emphasis in red to point out where we stand in relationship to the 2008 Lehman moment:

C&I Deliq Q1 16

As you can see from the chart, business loan delinquencies are usually a leading indicator of economic trouble. They begin rising at the end of the credit cycle since loans made in the good times start to go bad when the economic situation changes. Then, the obligations of interest payments and loan repayments begin to pose a problem for weaker borrowers whose sales, instead of rising as expected when times were good, may be flat or shrinking while expenses can be rising. Suddenly, there is not enough money to service the loan.

It is however important to also consider Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDLs). Although no one can accurately predict what might happen in the future to an absolute degree of certainty, economists should always consider the possibility that we might see an increase in businesses seeking SBA eidl status in the event of a recession.

That being said, this all started with the oil and gas sector reacting to lower crude oil prices in 2015, but it has moved beyond the oil patch. Total US commercial bankruptcy filings in April, 2016 rose 3% from March, and are up 32% from a year ago, to 3,482, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

This is happening at an interesting time.

First, the health of the economy will be a huge deal in the General Election. Both Trump and Clinton have a stake in saying it isn’t as good as it could be. Yet, it is highly unlikely that we will be in a recession in November 2016, because our current economic momentum will carry us for at least another 6 months.

Second, the Fed is now indicating that it believes the economy is strong enough to raise rates for a second time this year, perhaps as soon as June, according to the Feds recent Open Market Committee minutes. That supports the idea that no recession is imminent.

But we still have this pesky loan delinquency data.

Loan delinquencies must be cured within a specified time. If not, they’re taken from the delinquency bucket and dropped into the default bucket. If defaults are not cured within a specified time, the bank deems a portion (or all) of the loan balance uncollectible and writes it off, therefore moving it out of default and into the write-off bucket. This is a factor in many different loan types, such as the usda business loans on the market.

That’s why the delinquency statistics usually do not get very large loans and don’t stay delinquent for a very long period.

Of course, there are other loans that might be impacted by these trends too. For example, it would be interesting to analyze the trajectory for merchant funding options such as a business cash advance loan for businesses in need of a financial boost. Ultimately, only time will tell what the future holds for loans and the financial sector in general.

Regardless, the Fed has painted itself into a corner. They have to raise rates because low rates are destroying many pension funds and they hurt retirees who rely heavily on interest-bearing investments. Pension funds have been modeled on interest rates of between 6%-8%, which have not been seen for at least 10 years.

But, a Fed rate hike would add more risk of more loans becoming delinquent.

And the largest American corporations are awash with the debt that they used to fund buy-backs of their shares. That debt has to be renewed periodically. If rates rose high enough to help pension funds, it could wound quite a few large companies.

If that wasn’t bad enough, South America, Europe, and the Chinese are looking increasingly fragile. Even if the Fed engineers a domestic miracle of sorts, it may not be enough. The financial world can be a minefield when we are trying to hang on to our hard-earned money.

So, prepare to hear both Trump and Hillary tell you they have the answers.

Since their global corporate benefactors now rule the world, they should be able to figure out what to do with it.

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Monday Wake-up Call – May 23, 2016

The subject of the day is the continued saber-rattling by our military. Recently, two retiring US Generals made goodbye speeches indicating that Russia is the biggest threat facing America. As Crooked Timber said:

Russia? Really? I guess there ain’t no money in ISIS and Al Qaeda. You don’t need strategic bombers, huge mechanized armies and aircraft carriers to fight them.

Equally disturbing are the concurrent mind games being played in the military strategy establishment. Take the RAND Corporation. RAND has run numerous war games which pit Russia against NATO in the Balkans. Their conclusion is always the same: If Russian tanks and troops rolled into the Balkans tomorrow, outgunned and outnumbered NATO forces would be overrun in under three days. Scary!

RAND argues that NATO has been caught napping by a resurgent and unpredictable Russia, which has begun to boost defense spending after having seized the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine and intervened in support of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine. In their report RAND said:

The games’ findings are unambiguous: As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members…

Underlying this, is the insanity of the geopolitical outlook that dominates the national security lobby in Washington. The same day as the RAND report was released, Defense Secretary Ash Carter unveiled plans to add more weapons and armored vehicles to pre-positioned stocks in Eastern Europe. The new $3.4 billion plan (that’s the annual cost folks) adds another brigade to the mix, but the soldiers would be based in the US, rotating in to Europe for a few months at a time. So, that’s politically acceptable, assuming the next president can find the money.

But, Carter’s commander in Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of US European Command, released on his blog that there is no:

Substitute for an enduring forward deployed presence that is tangible and real. Virtual presence means actual absence.

Lots of agreement between these boys.

And, in an article in Politico Mark Perry discussed the testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee of a panel of senior Army officers, in which they claimed that the Army is now in danger of being “out-ranged and outgunned” in the next war that the Army is in danger of becoming “too small to secure the nation”. Yikes!

While their testimony made headlines in the major media, Politico reported that a large number of former senior Army officers, rolled their eyes:

That’s news to me…Swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles? Surprisingly lethal tanks? How come this is the first we’ve heard of it?

The unnamed General went on: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

These guys want us to believe the Russians are 10 feet tall. There’s a simpler explanation: The Army is looking for a purpose, and a bigger chunk of the budget. And the best way to get that is to paint the Russians as being able to land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time…What a crock.

All of this is political fodder for Obama’s critics in Congress who complain that the President isn’t taking us into the next war fast enough.

So it’s time we all wake up to this maneuvering behind our backs. Maneuvering that is designed to have us spend waaay more money on defense, because, Putin.

To help you wake up, give a listen to a rarely-heard tune by Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, “Ye Playboys & Ye Playgirls Ain’t a Gonna Change My World”, recorded live in 1963 at the Newport Folk Festival, when Dlyan was still a folk singer, two years before he would be booed off the main stage at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival:

Put in context of the times: Dylan was being called the “Voice of a Generation”. Seeger adds an endorsement of the fed-up young artist who was already one of the key singers of topical songs in the sixties. For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can listen to the tune here.

Sample Lyrics:

You insane tongues of war talk
Ain’t a-gonna guide my road,
Ain’t a-gonna guide my road,
Ain’t a-gonna guide my road.
You insane tongues of war talk
Ain’t a-gonna guide my road,
Not now or no other time.

Please remember what Voltaire said:

 Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

THAT has always been the strategy of the military-industrial complex. Arguing over defense budgets, equipment procurement, force strength, is pointless.

Today, the money is just not there to do much more for the military.

The critical debate must be how to fix the economy, which drives the size and strength of our military.

And ultimately, our national security.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 22, 2016

The 60 Minutes team that‘s working upstairs is pretty good, but it’s doubtful they are all angels. RIP Morley:

COW 60 Mins

Trump had a do-over interview with Megyn Kelly. Nothing happened:

COW Megyn

Trump refuses to show his tax returns, it’s none of our business:

COW None of yer Biz

The debate about which bathrooms to use continued:

COW Uterus Control

Congress shows it isn’t up to dueling with mosquitoes:

COW Zika Funding

TSA is the curse that never ends:

COW TSA 1

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Obama Is Visiting Hiroshima on May 27th

When the US president travels, he is accompanied by the “Nuclear Football”, a briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes. Here is a photo of the Football:

Football

The Football allows him to order nuclear war despite being away from the White House or away from a US military installation. It is beyond ironic that Mr. Obama will be visiting Hiroshima Japan as part of the G-7 Summit meeting, and will bring along the Nuclear Football to his May 27th tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Obama will also bring a political to Hiroshima. No sitting American president has visited the site of the only nuclear weapon dropped in anger. The question is should he apologize for America dropping the bomb? What should he say to survivors and victim’s relatives?

And back home, what would he say to the veterans and their families who gave and lost so much?

Conservatives are revving up the “Apology Tour” meme. It gives them a free shot at Hillary, while allowing Trump to tout his truculence, by telling us once again that he “never apologizes.”

The Asahi Shimbun English (on line version) is making it clear that Obama will not apologize while in Japan. In fact, although he will be accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Abe, there will be no major speech, and no meeting with the Japanese A-bomb survivors. According to White House Press Spokesman Josh Earnest, there will a wreath-laying and remarks underlining a “look back” at the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So, the political football will be how Obama tip-toes between the natural human reaction to so much innocent death, and his role as Commander-in-Chief of the world’s most powerful military, the one that caused all that death 70 years ago.

Obama makes this an issue by going to Hiroshima. There would seem to be no point to the visit unless he intended to use it to make a gesture, such as indicating some level of regret or expressing sympathy for the victims (he should express sentiments short of an apology) and/or to speak about the need foster peace going forward.

Without a clear political or diplomatic objective, his visit merely reopens a long-festering wound in Japan. Although the Japanese have plenty of blood and atrocities on their hands, our use of nuclear weapons is an order of magnitude worse than anything the Japanese did.

The nuclear airburst was a deliberate targeting of civilians with the most powerful weapon ever created, for the sole purpose of fostering civilian terror. Obama could restate that no country should ever consider using nuclear weapons against civilians again, even if he cannot provide an apology.

We set a terrible precedent with the first use of nuclear weapons. Those attacks have enshrined our place in history as the first, and only nation ever to use these weapons in war. It’s a miracle that we have survived the false alarms and crises that could have easily led to nuclear exchanges between the US, its allies and the USSR. We still live under a cloud of potential devastation that could result from nuclear exchanges between India and Pakistan. And yet, we are now busy modernizing and upgrading our nuclear weapons (long after they’ve been recognized as having no essential military value).

Nobody can say for certain that the decision to bomb Hiroshima did or did not bring about a faster end to the war. But we can say that the Americans firebombing Tokyo or the Brits firebombing Cologne or Dresden, all of which caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, are not morally equivalent to dropping nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Obama will speak at Hiroshima. He will probably offer thoughts as a father, acknowledging the horror that occurred at an earlier time in the history of conflict between the two countries. It is important, as is the acknowledgement that the countries have been allies for what is now a very long time. They now have a common competitor in China, and their joint future is more important than their history in WWII.

Obama will attempt to square the circle, saying that use of nuclear weapons is a terrible, immoral thing, but he can’t forswear their future use without damning Hillary to second place. He can’t apologize for the US dropping nukes without turning the US military against the Democrats.

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Has Trump Changed Over The Years?

During his flu-mandated confinement last week, Wrongo read a 1990 Vanity Fair profile of Donald and Ivana Trump. 1990 wasn’t the best year for The Donald, he was up to his armpits in debt. Some of his real estate ventures were under water and his marriage was coming apart. He was involved in a very public extramarital affair with Marla Maples, whom he later married and still later, divorced.

The Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner, was written in the midst of all of that:

Trump isolated himself in a small apartment on a lower floor of Trump Tower. He would lie on his bed, staring at the ceiling, talking into the night on the telephone. The Trumps had separated. Ivana remained upstairs in the family triplex with its beige onyx floors and low-ceilinged living room painted with murals in the style of Michelangelo. The murals had occasioned one of their frequent fights: Ivana wanted cherubs, Donald preferred warriors. The warriors won.

Brenner continued:

For days, Trump rarely left his building. Hamburgers and French fries were sent up to him from the nearby New York Delicatessen. His body ballooned, his hair curled down his neck. “You remind me of Howard Hughes,” a friend told him. “Thanks,” Trump replied, “I admire him.”

It is a very long piece, and provides insight and important history. In a follow-up article in 2015, Brenner gave us bullet points about the Trump character and elements that have remained true through the years:

  • Trump’s views on women are still repugnant
  • He is still loves slinging bullshit.
  • He is still convinced that the public loves him, even if you find him repulsive.
  • When pressed on awkward topics—such as whether or not he regularly read Adolf Hitler’s speeches—he gets vague and inventive.
  • He has a long history exploiting undocumented immigrants on construction projects.
  • Loyalty has never been his strong suit.

In 2011, WaPo’s Richard Cohen recalled Brenner’s original Vanity Fair article: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

American political life [today] is [about] doing away with the back story. Increasingly, politicians are becoming religious types, Eagle Scouts who mastered all the knots, a monasticism leavened only by the occasional martini. They do not stray. They avoid midlife crises. They came out of the womb with certainty, avoided acne, married the first girl they dated and went on to make a fortune in something or other.

With Trump, it’s all back story. We know his flops. We know he curses. We know he fools around, that he isn’t religious. We know he lies. We know he has bad taste — in buildings, in ties, in associates (the late Roy Cohn, for instance, and now, Roger Stone). We know about his support for Birtherism.

He’s all these things, and he knows there’s no bad publicity.

He even exaggerates his exaggerations, which is what all people in real estate do. After all, every condo in the building is sold, and the apartment you want already has a ton of offers.

How will that style work with Putin? With President Xi of China? Does The Donald’s experience with borrowing money and then letting his projects go bankrupt animate his thought about welshing on our National Debt?

This from David Remnick:

Trump is no longer hustling golf courses, fake “universities,” or reality TV. He means to command the United States armed forces and control its nuclear codes. He intends to propose legislation, conduct America’s global affairs, preside over its national-intelligence apparatus, and make the innumerable moral and political decisions required of a President.

No, we are not in a Seth Rogen movie. That was North Korea. The movie we are in includes televised assurances of adequate genital dimensions. This is our political moment, a fact-free time where insults and bigotry are acceptable. Remnick reminds us of a story: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

When Howard Kaminsky of Random House called on the real-estate developer and self-marketing master Donald Trump at his office on Fifth Avenue. Kaminsky brought along a cover design for “Trump: The Art of the Deal”. Trump seemed reasonably happy. Just one thing, he said. ‘Please make my name much bigger.’

The Republican Party, having spent years courting the basest impulses in American political culture, now sees the writing on the wall. It reads “Donald Trump,” in very big letters.

Wrongo spoke today with a blog reader. His view was that the end game is set up for Trump, and that he can’t lose. If he wins in the General Election, he wins. If he loses in the General, he still wins.

Regardless of the outcome, Trump wins, but, apparently, we the people will lose.

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