Politics – Page 13 – The Wrongologist

Monday Wake Up Call – April 25, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Dory, Jodrey State Fish Pier, Gloucester Harbor, Gloucester, MA – April 2022 photo by Juergen Roth Photography

Utah is in the news, first for the death of Orrin Hatch. He was the longest-serving Republican and the sixth longest-serving Senator in the history of the Senate. Hatch decided not to run for reelection in 2018, clearing the way for Mitt Romney to be elected in 2018.

Hatch blocked labor law reforms and fair housing bills. He voted against the Equal Rights Amendment, he proposed a Constitutional amendment to make abortion illegal. He helped draft the USA Patriot Act and supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hatch also opposed the Affordable Care Act and backed Trump’s anti-immigrant initiatives and Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Accords on climate change.

For his superb work in making the nation worse, Trump presented Hatch with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.

In other Utah news, Democrats want to defeat Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) badly enough in November to nominate non-Democrat Evan McMullin instead of one of their own. From KSL.com:

“The Utah Democratic Party made an extraordinary decision on Saturday. A majority of delegates decided to not put forth a Democratic candidate to face off with Republican Sen. Mike Lee and instead back independent candidate Evan McMullin.”

At Utah’s state Democratic Convention, McMullin received 57% of the votes to 43% for his Democratic Party opponent Kael Weston.

McMullin ran an unsuccessful independent presidential campaign against Trump in 2016. He was a CIA operations officer from 2001 to 2010. He holds an MBA from Wharton and worked as an investment banker. He’s a (former?) Republican who was a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He also served as a chief policy director for the House Republican Conference in the US House of Representatives from January 2015 through July 2016.

Backing McMullin has big implications for Utah’s Democrats. Having finally accepted that Utah Dems have been at least comatose if not dead for years, they’re not bothering to field their own Senate candidate. More from KSL.com:

“It’s an unprecedented measure for Utah’s Democrats, who grappled between party loyalty or backing an outsider to increase the likelihood of defeating a Republican in November. The Democrats were motivated by the prospect of unseating Sen. Mike Lee, who is running for his third term this year…”

After the vote, the losing Democrat Weston said:

“Of course, you want to be the candidate that walks out with a unanimous degree of support, but I knew this was always going to be an important conversation to have and I think with a great team, and a lot of supporters who drove from all across the state, it was a real conversation….Today was a crossroads and a certain path was taken. It’s a path that has not been taken before.”

Weston also said he’s more concerned about ensuring Utah has a:

“healthy political marketplace, and that’s not going to be possible if we don’t have Democrats on the ballot…”

Seems like the wound-licking will last for a while. McMullin said after the vote:

“Democrats are putting country over party….This is our democracy and, yes, it can be messy at times as we saw today, but it’s sure a heck of a lot better than the alternative.”

That sounds pretty mealy-mouth to Wrongo.

In 2022 we are facing some hard truths. Democrats at least in this Red state have decided that it’s time to do whatever it takes to stop sitting Republican seditionists like Mike Lee. It’s also a tacit admission that the Democratic Party brand is toxic in many Red states. So some Democrats are acting on the idea that coalition-building may not be such a bad strategy. They’re thinking that combining Democrats with Independents and a few never-Trumpers adds up to a huge chunk of real estate.

Maybe enough to win.

Time to wake up Democrats! Your Party is fractured and isn’t going to be healed by November. Since the states are often called the “laboratories of democracy”, maybe a few experiments in coalition-building with the center-right will tell us something more than simply being waxed in another Republican wave election like in 2010.

To help Democrats wake up, listen to Carlos Santana & Eric Clapton play “Jin Go Lo Ba” at the 2004 Crossroad Guitar Festival held at Cotton Bowl in Dallas, TX:

Trust Wrongo, you won’t spend a better eight minutes today.

Monday Wake Up Call – April 11, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Cactus flowers – April 2022 photo by Renee Phillips

The Right-wing Washington Times quotes Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) saying on CNN’s “State of the Union”, that Congress is mulling whether to issue a criminal referral to the Justice Department against Donald Trump for “unlawfully” seeking to obstruct certification of the 2020 election.

Cheney said that the Jan. 6 House Select Committee has uncovered significant evidence that Trump and aides had acted improperly:

“It’s absolutely clear that what President Trump was dealing with, what the number of people around him were doing, that they knew it was unlawful [and] they did it anyway….I think what we have seen is a massive, well-organized and well-planned effort that used multiple tools to try to overturn an election.”

But talk is cheap. At a dinner last week, Wrongo was asked if he thought anything would come of the work by the committee. He wasn’t encouraging.

We can infer from Rep. Cheney’s comments that the House panel may have sufficient evidence to make a criminal referral of Trump (or some of his advisors) to the Department of Justice (DOJ). But recent reporting seems to indicate that some Committee members may not have the will to pull the trigger. From the NYT:

“The leaders of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack have grown divided over whether to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department of former President Donald J. Trump, even though they have concluded that they have enough evidence to do so…”

The question seems to be whether the Committee’s work would somehow hurt the DOJ’s ongoing investigative work:

“The debate centers on whether making a referral — a largely symbolic act — would backfire by politically tainting the Justice Department’s expanding investigation into the Jan. 6 assault and what led up to it.”

Can anyone imagine Republicans having what they thought to be sufficient evidence of a crime acting conflicted about delivering a criminal referral to the DOJ? Say about Hunter Biden or Hillary Clinton, because it might saddle the DOJ’s criminal case with partisan baggage? That’s unimaginable.

For Democrats, this is another failure of political analysis. Even if there had been no Select Committee, and the DOJ decided to prosecute Trump or some of his enablers for Jan.6, the political firestorm would be consequential, and unending.

Wrongo believes in following process and in patience, but soon, the politics of the mid-terms and the looming 2024 presidential election must also be considered. If the Republicans take control of the House, the Select Committee will be disbanded. In that event, it must wrap up its work right after the November elections.

If you’re hoping that the Democrats will hold the House, then a referral to the DOJ needs to happen right now, regardless of whether that fact has any impact on the deliberations inside the DOJ.

We already know what is the worst thing that can happen. It’s that Democrats lose both the House and Senate in November. Having the Select Committee stay silent now as an act of political expediency simply shows voters that Democrats do not have what it takes to lead in the 21^st Century.

Voters need to see Democrats willing to fight for justice. No one gets excited about voting for the conflicted or the meek.

This is the third time that we’re trying to hold a thoroughly criminal man and his corrupt regime accountable for the harm they have inflicted on America. The DC Dems’ efforts are a combination of Lucy pulls the football out from under Charlie Brown meets “Groundhog Day”. We’ve seen this over and over and over again.

It is now time for Merrick Garland and the DOJ to prevent a seismic collapse of our civil society and our democracy.

It’s also time for Congressional Democrats to wake up! There is nothing to be gained by failing to deliver a tsunami of criminal referrals to the DOJ. To help them wake up, here’s the masterful slide guitar player Roy Rogers (not THAT Roy Rogers) doing his version of “Terraplane Blues”. “Terraplane Blues” was written and recorded in 1936 by legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. Back then, the Terraplane was a brand of car built by the Hudson Motor Car Company between 1932 and 1938. They were inexpensive, yet powerful vehicles.

In the Terraplane Blues, Johnson uses the Terraplane Car as a metaphor for sex. His car won’t start, and Johnson suspects that his girlfriend let another man drive it when he was gone. Here’s Roy Rogers playing at the Sierra Nevada Brewery Big Room in 2001:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – April 10, 2022

Jonathan V. Last had a thoughtful essay that asked the question, “What if Democrats do everything right and still lose?” He’s speaking about the Dems’ poor mid-term polling. Last describes polls showing that people who benefited from the Child Tax Credit passed by Democrats nonetheless favor Republicans going into 2022:

“Inside the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan was the most substantively pro-family agenda item in a generation: A child tax credit that put real money into the pocket of just about every family….The child tax credit was the ultimate kitchen-table issue. Then Republicans killed it. They own…the act of taking this money away from working families.”

Last feels that the current political moment isn’t actually about kitchen-table issues. He points to the Ohio Senate race between Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican Josh Mandel:

“The Ohio Democrat is running on jobs, healthcare, infrastructure, and national security. The Ohio Republican is running on Trump, abortion, Christian nationalist identity, guns, RINOS, the Bible, and bitcoin.”

If Tim Ryan loses this race, it won’t be because Dems are blowing off working-class voters by refusing to focus on the real, kitchen-table issues that affect their lives. It’s looking like the electorate has become entirely untethered to policy concerns and have reached a point of nihilism.

Despite this environment, let’s not impose arbitrary timelines on achieving success. Just ask newly minted Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. On to cartoons.

Same as it ever was:

Palin runs again:

Ukraine gives Putin a few new stories:

The definition of Red State has changed:

Will the Russian Army really fit in the smaller dolls?

Tiger returns:

Eric Boehlert, RIP

The Daily Escape:

Woodenshoe Tulip Festival, near Salem, OR, with Mt. Hood in background – April 2022 photo by Mitch Schreiber Photography

Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, who wrote commentary and media criticism in his “PRESS RUN” newsletter, was killed on Monday while riding his bike in Morristown, NJ.

Boehlert skewered today’s journalism and its practitioners. He hated journalistic laziness and took great pains to call out the mainstream media’s daily obsession with Both Siderism. We have often quoted him at the Wrongologist. He did a great job of researching his material and his arguments were ferocious.

Whenever Wrongo saw something with Boehlert’s byline, it was sure to be interesting, important, and reliable. He usually posted on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Wrongo was surprised when he didn’t post this past Wednesday. But as someone who doesn’t always post on a reliable schedule, I thought that something just came up.

This is a particularly terrible time to lose such an important voice, but it’s always a terrible time to lose a good person. James Fallows paid tribute to Boehlert in his “Breaking the News” newsletter, Framing: In Honor of Eric Boehlert:

“We have lost a crucially incisive voice, and a kind and generous person….Here is an attempt to continue in his spirit.”

Fallows continued about the unspoken assumptions that the media bring to its political coverage:

“This means, for example: the press’s assumption that the most interesting aspect of any development is the politics of it—“What does this mean for the midterms?” “Are the Democrats in disarray?” “Who can out-Trump Trump?”

Or that you should get to the truth of an issue by quoting both a Republican and then a Democrat, or better yet having them argue on screen.

Wrongo didn’t know Boehlert but read his newsletters each week. That somehow, makes the news of his death more painful. It’s interesting how when someone that you have never met dies, it can still feel like a huge loss. In some ways, the loss is very much like losing someone you knew in real life.

And yet, Dick Cheney and Mitch McConnell still walk the earth. Why not Cruz? Hawley? Clarence Thomas? Or any of the other assholes who pollute and poison our politics?

America has far too few voices speaking truth about the corrosive behavior of the US political media. Now, it’s lost one of our most important critics of that industry. Hopefully, others who do this important work will redouble their efforts in homage to Eric’s efforts. Wrongo will try harder.

As Boehlert would say in his sign-offs, “Stay healthy. Be kind.” He was a good man that fought the good fight.

Boehlert concluded each of his columns with music. Let’s try to honor him by watching and listening to the Celtic Woman perform “The Parting Glass” live in 2018 in Ireland’s Johnstown Castle. The parting glass was the final hospitality offered to a departing guest in Scotland and Ireland. It has become a tune used to celebrate the lives of the dearly departed:

Lyrics:

Oh all the money that e’er I spent
I spent it in good company
And all the harm that e’er I’ve done
Alas, it was to none but me

And all I’ve done for want of wit
To memory now I can’t recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

Oh all the comrades that e’er I’ve had
Are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e’er I’ve had
Would wish me one more day to stay

But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise, and you should not,
I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call
Good night and joy be with you all
Good night and joy be with you all

Biden’s Key Domestic Problems

The Daily Escape:

Aerial view of sunset at Cathedral Rock just after snowstorm, Sedona, AZ – February 2022 photo by mattymeis

Wrongo will leave it to others to deeply analyze Biden’s State of the Union speech. Biden clearly doesn’t have the oratory skills of Obama, or a Reagan. He’s more like Carter, or GHW Bush. He is, however, a better public speaker than Mitch McConnell.

Biden’s performance was pretty solid for a guy facing down fascism, both here at home as well as abroad. He didn’t attack his predecessor. He didn’t mention Jan. 6. That means he knows that what really matters isn’t shouting at his political adversaries, but talking over the heads of Congress to the nation.

But let’s take a prospective look at a few of the issues that may make or break Biden’s second year and likewise, cost the Democrats their majorities in both Houses of Congress in November. He’s facing one global crisis (the pandemic) that’s fading, and another (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) that’s escalating.

In his first year, Biden presided over a robust economic recovery. It did create inflation, bringing higher prices for everything from housing and food to cars and gasoline. Here are a few of the challenges and opportunities for Biden in 2022:

Inflation. Biden adopted an aggressive, populist approach to beating inflation in his speech. In particular, saying that “Capitalism without competition is exploitation—and it drives up profits” was a great way to speak to the average American. The Fed’s interest rate hikes in 2022 will help.

Gas prices. The cost of fuel, electricity and power was 3.8% of average disposable income in January 2022. This is about where it was in late 2018, when Trump was president. Vehicle fuel efficiency means $3.50/gal. gasoline isn’t the scourge it once was. But, with the oil markets at above $100 a barrel because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden may have a difficult time convincing voters they’re better off.

The supply chain. The shipping logjam is still with us. The Port of Los Angeles processed 7 million 20-foot equivalent shipping containers last year, surpassing the previous record set in 2018 by 13%. But that system isn’t built to handle the spike in demand caused by people buying more goods than services in 2021. Our supply chain is controlled by private companies including port operators, labor unions, the rail and trucking industries, and the large shippers that rely on their services. It’s unclear what Biden can do to reduce shipping costs.

Homicides. Americans are killing each other at rates not seen in decades. The sense that crime is out of control is and will continue to be a drag on Biden’s approval ratings, especially among Republicans and Hispanics. The current wave of killings began before Biden took office in 2021, and other measures of crime haven’t shown increases. There’s little Biden can do to turn this around.

Illegal border crossings. The 1.66 million migrants seeking to cross the US-Mexico border illegally in the 12 months through September, are the highest number since 2000. But Biden isn’t doing as bad a job as Republicans say. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that the actual number of successful unlawful entries in 2021 was less than one-fourth the total in 2000. Customs and Border Patrol has greatly reduced the number of migrants who manage to sneak in. Biden says he will address the multiple year backlog in asylum cases by hiring more immigration judges.

Tax refunds will be late this year. Americans hate doing their taxes but love getting refunds. A Bankrate survey found that 67% of those expecting a refund said it was important to their finances and planned to either save it, or use it to pay down debt or for daily expenses. The IRS says they’re overwhelmed following pandemic-related challenges, years of underfunding, and additional duties such as administering stimulus payments. The IRS has added a “surge team” to help whittle the big backlog and speed refunds. But if long delays materialize, voters will only remember they had to wait for too long to get their money back.

Biden’s approval rating. Pundits think that unless Biden’s approval rating improves into the high 40%s in the next few months, Democrats risk a 2010-style bloodbath in November. We won’t know for a few weeks if Biden received a bump in his approval ratings post-speech. CNN’s post-speech poll shows that 67% of those who watched the speech say that Biden’s policy proposals would move the country in the right direction, with 33% saying we would go in the wrong direction. That’s in contrast with a survey conducted before the speech with the same people. They were closer to evenly split (52% right direction, 48% wrong direction).

Many of the challenges confronting Biden are not fully in his control. In addition to what are enumerated above, Biden can get a boost based on his handling of Putin’s War and the sanctions regime. That may offset the negative image of our Afghanistan withdrawal.

There are just 8 months until the mid-terms. Biden needs to move fast.

Biden’s State of the Union Speech

The Daily Escape:

Garden of the Gods Park, Colorado Springs, CO – February 2022 photo by Daniel Forster

Biden will give his first State of the Union (SOTU) address to the nation tonight. If you read Wrongo’s column yesterday, it’s no surprise that he will address a country that remains sharply polarized about America’s priorities:

“According to a Pew Research Center survey, 71% of US adults rated strengthening the economy as a top policy priority, followed by reducing health care costs (61%), addressing the coronavirus (60%), improving education (58%) and securing Social Security (57%).”

Americans are concerned about the state of the economy (71%), with 82% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats agreeing it is a top political priority.

Anyone outside of the Right-wing bubble knows that Biden is already committed to tackling inflation, but Americans remain anxious about the economy, despite record job growth in 2021 and solid wage gains.

So Biden is vulnerable on inflation, particularly since Republicans will stress high gas prices. They will also make the point that excessive spending on Covid relief added to inflation while increasing the budget deficit. In the Pew study, 63% of Republicans said that the budget deficit should also be a top priority.

Biden’s administration hasn’t touted its successes very well. The NYT’s Jamelle Bouie said that Democrats did little to publicize their few successes:

“…rather than go on the offensive, infrastructure spending in hand, they sat quiet. There would be no publicity blitz, no attempt to capture the nation’s attention with a campaign to sell the accomplishments…no attempt to elevate members who might shine in the spotlight and certainly no serious attempt to push back on the right-wing cultural politics that helped Republicans notch a win in Virginia.”

This is an opportunity for Biden to recount his accomplishments. The pandemic is (again) trending in the right direction; the economy is roaring (even though inflation must be addressed); respect of our foreign partners continues to be restored around the world (just when US leadership was urgently needed).

He’s probably had to rewrite the speech a few times since Putin invaded Ukraine, so it’s anybody’s guess what will be emphasized about that.

Biden faces strong political opposition from Republicans, who will fault him for a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the surge in migrants at the US-Mexico border. Some Republicans see Biden’s nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, as a wedge issue to keep Whites from voting for Democrats in November.

But as John Harris says at Politico, Democrats shouldn’t beat themselves up. They should remember:

“…that the modern presidency offers its occupants nearly inexhaustible capacity for political revival. While Biden faces a growing roster of doubts and doubters — including within his own party — his two immediate Democratic predecessors offer vivid examples showing that the tools for him to reverse perceptions and regain control of his presidency are within his grasp.”

Harris says that the Biden administration has failed to tell a compelling story to Americans:

“By outward evidence, Biden and his aides have either not settled on a narrative or have not effectively promoted it. It is on this score that the Obama and Clinton examples are especially notable. Since both Obama and Clinton recovered from midterm blowouts for Democrats to win second terms, why can’t Biden employ their strategies for recasting their presidencies before being blown out?”

The goal of the SOTU should be to give those voters who have open minds a chance to see Biden in new light. We’re always interested in success stories that show the main character growing from start to finish, discovering new ideas and new energy while amplifying his/her original values.

Biden ran and won on “Build Back Better”. It was a practical approach for dealing with the pandemic and the economic catastrophe that came with it. It encompassed straightforward solutions, many of which have been enacted into law.

He ought to use the SOTU as the start of the 2022 mid-term campaign. He’s not an agile politician like Obama, Clinton, or Trump. But he is easily their equal and possibly their superior in terms of understanding the day-to-day practical burdens and aspirations of the voters he needs to sell on staying with Democrats in 2022.

He needs to show America that he’s managing an office with unmatched power in a successful manner. He should work every day to tell the story about who he is and what he’s trying to achieve for the country.

Tonight, we’ll see in what direction he’s taking both the country and the Democratic Party.

Monday Wake Up Call – February 28, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Wiggly Bridge, York, ME – February 2022 photo by Eric Storm Photo

Wrongo intended to write about domestic issues today. One domestic issue is how Republicans and the Right-wing media pivoted over the weekend from being pro-Putin and his War, to now saying Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine. Is that proof that the sanctions are working?

It’s hard to turn away today from Ukraine news, despite knowing that Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU) speech is tomorrow night. The Republican reply will be given by Iowa’s Governor Kim Reynolds. This happens at a time when there are big differences of opinion about the most important issues facing the nation by Democrats and Republicans.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, 71% of US adults rated strengthening the economy as a top policy priority, followed by reducing health care costs (61%), addressing the coronavirus (60%), improving education (58%) and securing Social Security (57%). The survey was conducted between Jan. 10-17, 2022 among 5,128 adults.

But as expected, the top issues were very different for those who identified as a Republican or as a Democrat. When asked which issues “should be a top priority for the president and Congress to address this year,” the top five regarded as most important by Democrats were:

Top 5 priorities, according to Democrats (percent saying issue should be a top priority)

Dealing with the coronavirus outbreak (80%)
Reducing health care costs (69%)
Improving the educational system (66%)
Dealing with global climate change (65%)
Strengthening the nation’s economy (63%)

Here’s the Republicans’ top-five list:

Top 5 priorities, according to Republicans (percent saying issue should be a top priority)

Strengthening the nation’s economy (82%)
Dealing with the issue of immigration (67%)
Defending the country from future terrorist attacks (65%)
Reducing the budget deficit (63%)
Reducing crime (60%)

Strengthening the nation’s economy is the only priority that both Democrats and Republicans rank among the most important. Two of the Democrats’ top priorities are among the five lowest-priority issues for Republicans. Only 11% of Republicans think global climate change should be a priority (vs. 65% of Democrats). Just 35% of Republicans think dealing with the coronavirus outbreak should be a priority (vs. 80% of Democrats).

Conversely, two of the Republicans’ top priorities are among the five lowest-priority issues for Democrats. Only 35% of Democrats think immigration should be a priority (vs. 67% of Republicans). Just 31% of Democrats say the budget deficit should be a priority (vs. 63% of Republicans).

All of this may be on display at the SOTU and the Republican reply on Tuesday.

Returning to Ukraine, it’s reported that Ukraine and Russia have agreed to have low-level delegations meet, hosted by Belarus, to discuss ending the war. It’s unclear what exactly might be achieved from these negotiations, given that Putin’s War appears to be aimed largely at removing Zelensky from power.

Finally, assuming that Russia wins either on the battlefield or at the negotiating table, that will almost certainly be followed by a Ukrainian insurgency supported by NATO. The US military knows a lot about how many troops it takes to hold ground when most of the locals want you dead.

Many military studies say that the number needed is 10 troops to one insurgent. From The Dupuy Institute (TDI): (Brackets by Wrongo)

“…TDI amassed data on 109 post-World War II insurgencies, interventions, and peacekeeping operations between 2004 and 2009. [TDI]…found that….While overwhelming numbers were not required to defeat an insurgency, force ratios above 10-to-1 nearly always produced a counterinsurgent victory. Conversely, lower force ratios did not preclude success, but conflicts with two or fewer counterinsurgents per insurgent greatly favored an insurgent victory.”

Remember in this case the insurgents would be Ukrainians, and counterinsurgents the Russians. More from TDI:

“When force ratios were assessed together with the nature of the motivation for the insurgency, TDI found that….when facing broadly popular insurgencies, counterinsurgents lost every time they possessed a force ratio advantage of 5-1 or less, failed half the time with odds between 6-1 and 10-1, but succeeded three-quarters of the time when outnumbering the insurgents by 10-1 or more.”

Ukraine’s pre-war population was 44 million. Let’s assume that 20% would support an insurgency, and that 2% would participate in an insurgency. That would be 176k Ukrainian insurgents. Following the 10-1 ratio would mean Russia would need to keep 1.76 million troops on the ground to win, an unsupportable number. Cutting the number of insurgents in half would mean Russia would need 880k troops to occupy Ukraine, still an unsupportable number.

This could mean that an insurgency in Ukraine could succeed as easily as it did in Afghanistan.

Time to wake up Putin! You might win before you lose in Ukraine. To help you wake up, watch the Saturday Night Live open, where the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York performed “Prayer for Ukraine”:

Kinda makes you tear up.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 13, 2022

Have you given any thought to the inconsistency between how Whoopi Goldberg was treated for her comment about the holocaust, and how Joe Rogan has been treated for his um, body of work? Whoopi was condemned by the left and right. She was appropriately suspended from her position as a host of ABC’s The View. She later apologized for the hurtful inference in her remarks.

With Rogan, after the flap over his COVID misinformation, it came to light that dozens of his episodes were quietly removed from Spotify because they featured Rogan using the N-word. To date, Spotify has yanked more than 100 of his episodes. But Rogan wasn’t suspended or “cancelled” by Spotify. Still, he’s held up on the Right as another victim of leftist cancel culture.

The artists who left Spotify weren’t trying to “cancel” Rogan. They just wouldn’t continue being associated with a platform that promoted him. Both the artists and Spotify are making free-market business decisions that they have every right to make.

That’s an idea that you’d think would be vigorously supported by Conservatives.

The outcry on the Right about “cancel culture” comes at a time when they are working to outlaw Critical Race Theory, overturn elections, enact legislation to deny the vote to millions of Americans, and ban books. It’s clear who’s doing the cancelling in America.

Those who defend Rogan say he’s simply providing a forum. Sure, he interviews kooks and sleazes, but he also interviews some reasonable folks. So he’s presenting “both sides“. The other side of a fact is a lie. And if you put a lie on an equal footing with the truth, you give the lie credibility. This is a cardinal sin that the media have been committing for decades. On to cartoons.

The massive self-deception the Right Wing practices while copying Nazi tactics:

Trump’s monument on the Mall:

RNC censures two of its own, says many of its own are totally fine:

Mitch the turtle takes RNC to task for its censure, also says Trump is wrong:

Russia’s about to bite off more than it can chew:

The end of mask mandates is political signaling. We’ll soon know if this calculated risk works:

Should the Mainstream Media Stay Neutral?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise with sea smoke, Curtis Island Lighthouse, Camden ME – January 2022 photo by Daniel F Dishner. Sea smoke forms on Penobscot Bay when the air temperature is colder than the water temperature.

On Tuesday, Wrongo took aim at the New York Times for it’s confusing editorial that misstated how to use an economic tool, and then went on to use that tool incorrectly.

The media, including the NYT, have become a source of both misinformation and disinformation. We really have two media, the mainstream one and the right-wing one. Although most of the disinformation is centered in the right-wing media, it’s becoming less clear to Wrongo that, at present, the mainstream media can (or will) help to defend our democracy.

If you doubt that, look at the November Marist College poll which found, by 42% to 41%, that American adults see the Democratic Party as a greater threat to democracy than the GOP.

The broader results were that 81% of Americans believed there is a “serious threat” to our democracy, including 89% of Republicans, 80% of independents, and 79% of Democrats. That was the poll’s headline. But buried in the cross-tabs was the answer to which Party presents the bigger threat – the 42% to 41% split.

This is mostly the result of our media that defaults to sensationalism rather than trying to explain complex issues. One group slavishly supports a GOP that is full of cranks, bigots, conspiracy theorists, and careerist politicians with flamethrowers. They’re also the media that say things like “intolerance of racism is worse than racism”.

The other side makes a pretense of non-partisanship while echoing many right-wing talking points.

We’ve learned over the past few years that the right-wing media has more control over setting the national agenda than the mainstream press does. The idea that the Party that’s trying to protect and expand voting rights is wrecking democracy isn’t just a misconception—it’s the result of an orchestrated assault on reality. And nearly half of Americans believe it.

In early December, Dana Milbank wrote in the WaPo about how the media has treated Biden as badly as – or worse than – Trump. Milbank had a data analytics company examine more than 200,000 mainstream news articles about both the Trump and Biden presidencies. Milbank wrote that: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“During 2020, when the Trump administration’s response to and dishonesty about the pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, when he refused to denounce white supremacists at a debate and launched serial assaults on democracy, he got slightly more favorable coverage in the mainstream media than Biden has received since August.”

Remember that Milbank’s review covered articles and mentions in the mainstream press. Milbank concludes by saying:

“We need a skeptical, independent press. But how about being partisans for democracy? The country is in an existential struggle between self-governance and an authoritarian alternative. And we in the news media, collectively, have given equal, if not slightly more favorable, treatment to the authoritarians.”

Does the mainstream media have the power to try to counter this? The big question is how will the mainstream press cover the 2022 mid-terms and 2024 presidential campaign?

People want to be light and breezy, but Wrongo‘s brand is accuracy. Things have been really bleak for many years. And Wrongo has become short-tempered with those in the media who continue to deny just how deep the hole has become.

After the 2020 election, America had a chance to recover from the anti-establishment efforts of Trump’s administration. It was clear that Biden wouldn’t be able to do all that much, because of the slender Democratic majorities in both Houses.

It was a gamble for Biden and the Democrats to wrap every promise into one big bill that would set us on a course for changing the “economic paradigm”. In the end, that was a failure. Governing isn’t simple, especially with such narrow majorities.

And that’s where Democrats are now, paying a heavy price for overpromising and Biden’s naive expectations that he would work magic with Republicans getting some of them to vote for his agenda.

Biden and the Dems could still rebound. Passing a smaller, more focused version of Build Back Better, along with an easing of inflation, and a return to something like normal on the virus front could bring a fall comeback wave.

But it will also take a mainstream media that understands and accepts its role with a resolve at least equal to that of the right-wing media.

Let’s close with a palate cleanser. Biden has an uphill fight. He should take inspiration from The Temptations doing “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” live on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1969. Eddie Kendricks’ falsetto was the best:

The Sullivan Show aired on CBS from 1948-1971. For 23 years it aired a wide variety of popular culture.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 23, 2022

The Dems need to build Biden back better before the mid-terms if they expect an outcome that’s different than what the polls are currently showing.

The question is how to do it. One thing that won’t be happening is support from the mainstream media for the makeover. There’s been a blizzard of over-the-top headlines such as the NYT’s, “Biden Can Still Rescue His Presidency,” or Time’s “How the Biden Administration Lost Its Way” and Axios’s “Biden’s Epic Failures.”

These headlines could say: “Biden Fails to Fix All of the World’s Problems in a year.”

What’s driving much of this “presidency in peril” coverage is Biden’s approval ratings. Some results are truly discouraging, while CNN’s poll of polls, released Thursday, found that 41% of Americans approve of the way Joe Biden is handling his job while 54% disapprove.

Still, Biden and the Dems need a mid-course correction. On to cartoons.

Can diplomacy solve the crisis in Ukraine?