Itâs the start of a new week, the 67th week of our Orange Overlord’s tenure. Things to look forward to: Another Giuliani mistake on the Sunday pundit shows, more skullduggery about whether the US will stay in the Iran nuclear deal, and another week with no leaks from Mueller. On to cartoons. Trump admits he knew about the Stormy payment:
Dems decide they now love Rudy:
Trump administration says 57,000 Hondurans have to go in 18 months:
Donald decides where to meet Kim:
Accusations of Charlie Roseâs sexual abuse resurface:
NRA canât allow guns inside their convention:
Ryanâs messaging didnât pan out:
British view of Scott Pruitt by Kal, the Economistâs cartoonist:
Rua Nova do Carvalho, Lisbon Portugal – 2016 photo by Brotherside. Formerly a part of the red light district, but when the street was painted pink in 2011, it quickly became the epicenter of a vibrant party scene.
In a week with a Hawaiian volcanoâs eruption, Bibiâs nuclear song-and-dance, and Rudyâs confessions on Fox that Trump had indirectly paid hush money to Stormy, you may have missed the report that the fired House Chaplain is back at work. The WaPoreported:
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) reversed course Thursday and agreed to keep the Rev. Patrick J. Conroy on as House chaplain after an extraordinary showdown that included the priest alleging anti-Catholic bias among Ryanâs staff.
Ryan defended his original decision and continued to question whether Conroy was delivering sufficient âpastoral servicesâ to the entire House. âI intend to sit down with Father Conroy early next week so that we can move forward for the good of the whole House,â Ryan said.
That is how it ended. His return started when Rev. Pat Conroy rescinded his resignation in a letter to Ryan. Conroy wrote:
While you never spoke with me in person, nor did you send me any correspondence, on Friday, April 13, 2018 your Chief of Staff, Jonathon Burks, came to me and informed me that you were asking for my letter of resignation. I inquired as to whether or not it was ‘for cause,’ and Mr. Burks mentioned dismissively something like, ‘maybe it’s time that we had a Chaplain that wasn’t a Catholic.’
Great job, Mr. Burks! Did you know that there have been exactly two Catholics as House Chaplain?
Fr. Conroy continued:
At that point, I thought that I had little choice but to resign, as my assumption was that you had the absolute prerogative and authority to end my term as House chaplain.
This was mostly about the tin ear that some Republicans have when it comes to social issues. One House member, Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), who is also a Baptist pastor, apparently said that the next House chaplain needed to have a family.
That would rule out anyone who, like Fr. Conroy, had taken a vow of celibacy. Why do some people continually use their religion to bludgeon others?
Democrats and a few Republicans have said they believed that Speaker Ryan was facing pressure from evangelicals within the GOP conference to find a chaplain whose politics more closely aligned with theirs, but for now, this little âholy warâ in the House is over. Maybe the next House Chaplain should be a Zen warrior priest who roams the halls, hitting Congress critters with his sword, you know, in a pastoral manner.
Spring has sprung with a vengeance in the Northeast. Today, Wrongo has battled a love sick bird that is trying to build a nest above the kitchen door at the Mansion of Wrong. The determined bird tried three times before finally bowing to Wrongoâs will.
Now, sit outside, take in the nature surrounding you, and listen to Sierra Boggess singing âThe Lusty Month of Mayâ from Camelot. It is performed live in 2012 at the BBC Proms:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Last week, the nationâs six big Wall Street banks posted record, or near record profits in the first quarter. They can thank the Republicanâs tax cut. The tax cut saved them $3.59 billion last quarter:
While higher interest rates allowed banks to earn more from lending in the first quarter, the main boost to bank came from the billions of dollars they saved in taxes under the tax law Trump signed in December. Combined, the six banks saved at least $3.59 billion last quarter.
Before the tax law change, the maximum US corporate income tax rate was 35%. Banks historically paid among the highest tax rates, because of their US-centric business strategies. Before the Trump tax cuts, these banks paid 28% to 31% of their yearly income in corporate taxes.
Last weekâs results showed how sharply those rates have dropped. JPMorgan Chase had a first-quarter tax rate of 18.3%, Goldman Sachs paid 17.2%, and the highest-taxed bank of the six majors, Citigroup, had a tax rate of 23.7%. Bank executives at the big six firms have estimated that their full-year tax rates will be about 20%-22%. If you annualize the quarterly savings, $3.6 billion is about $14 billion a year for the six largest banks in America.
Does anybody think that the savings will go to customers in the form of reduced service fees? Or employee raises? Nope, Bank of America announced in December that they will be spending $5 billion to buy back their shares.
This is a permanent annual loss of revenues for America. If the GOP stays in power, you know exactly what they plan to cut to make up these billions. On to cartoons.
Trumpâs week looked like this:
(But you canât fix FOX.)
The two guys who were arrested had a bad day. Maybe Starbucks shouldnât say âshotâ:
Rumors that you will be fired will cause anxiety:
(Maybe John Boehner can hook him up.)
What Syrians might say about Trumpâs cruise missile attack:
Baltimore Oriole in crab apple tree â 2014 photo by Wrongo
Happy (or unhappy) tax day!
Yesterday, we talked about two red state revolutions led by teachers who are demanding better pay and funding to address educational needs. We also talked about the shameful reactions of the governors of Kentucky and Oklahoma to the demonstrators.
But the governors are not the only local officials with tin ears. Valerie Vande Panne, writes in AlterNet:
In Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA) is the primary teacherâs membership organization. It recently announced that the strike is over. But, Oklahoma teachers continue to strike, and are seeking a new union that would actually represent their interests. Meanwhile, legislators are seeking ways to punish the striking teachers, and have accused them of bussing in protesters, and local police call the teachers âterrorists.â
2018 is a gubernatorial election in Oklahoma, in addition to seats in the House and Senate. There are rumblings in the state to replace every single elected official this year.
Wrongo is indebted to Ms. Vande Panneâs article for the facts about Oklahoma below.
And the demographics are changing rapidly: In Guymon, a small town in the Oklahoma panhandle, just north of the Texas border and hours from the nearest shopping mall, 37 languages are spoken in the public school system of 3,000 students.
There seems to be a lot of red state unrest right now.
Are people finally getting fed up? Is the right wingâs mantra of too much government and not enough freedom starting to lose its grip? Has social media ended that mass mediaâs control of the narrative so much that opinion can easily be mobilized?
The strikes in West Virginia and Oklahoma are âwildcatâ strikes. The rank and file basically decided to advocate for their own interests, and when âleadershipâ in WV (and apparently in OK) made an agreement with the legislature that was less than what the strikers had demanded, the rank and file defied its own union âleadersâ.
These states have right-to-work laws, and few protections for labor, but when the teachers act together, they have political power. Without strong unions, labor has nothing to lose, if they mobilize enough of their rank and file. The union leadership has for years cozied up to local politicians, and now seems to have lost control over their own rank and file.
These reliably âredâ states have a very different political history than we might expect. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Oklahoma, Kansas and much of the Confederate South were hotbeds of populist uprisings, from the Farmersâ Alliance and the Peoplesâ Party. These parties even elected Members of Congress, and Senators. The Peoplesâ Party merged into the Democratic Party in 1896.
This sets the stage for the 2018 elections. Those who want change on the local or national level shouldnât run simply as anti-Trump. They need to address local issues that are resonating, like teacher pay and school funding. At the root of these issues is the continued cutting of taxes for corporations and the wealthy. Without revenues, schools cannot be improved, and teachersâ pay will stagnate.
Fight for equal pay for the same jobs, work to eliminate the barriers to voting, and end gerrymandering.
In Republican-land, itâs not as if we donât have plenty of awful things to process. And, just when you think that it canât be coarser, or darker, it is! Last week, the Republican governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin, vetoed the state budget, tax reform, and pension reform bills. Bevin scrapped all three bills in their entirety because he wanted significantly deeper budget cuts, especially to education and infrastructure. He sent the bills back, and announced that unless his cuts were passed, he would call a special session and keep it open until he got his way.
I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them….I guarantee you somewhere today, a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have enough money to take care of them.
Is this state-of-the-art 2018 Republican messaging? A Republican governor is saying children are safer in the care of government workers than with their own families. If Bevin is correct, summer vacation must be a season of child carnage in Kentucky. Maybe Kentucky schools should be open 24/7.
A larger question: What will it take to eliminate the societal myth that teachers are co-parents? Teachers have huge responsibilities for the children they teach, and most live up to this, but they’re not the kidsâ parents. They’re not equipped to co-parent.
Most towns fail to fully equip them to be educators, much less co-parents. And we couldnât (and shouldnât) pay them enough to assume that responsibility.
Bevin’s comments are unusual and despicable, but other politicians talk about teachers in similar ways. Consider that Oklahomaâs Republican governor Mary Fallin told CBS News that teachers striking for a salary increase are like âa teenager wanting a better carâ.
Newsweek reported that Fallin also suggested that the anti-fascist group Antifa was involved in the ongoing teachersâ protests, claiming it was among the âoutside groupsâ that were demonstrating alongside educators. There was no evidence that Antifa was anywhere near the teachers who were demonstrating.
Governors Fallin and Bevan had a golden opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to educating the children of their states. They could have made it clear that education would be a priority for as long as they remained governors.
But like most Republicans, they feel tax cuts are more important than kids. And in the typically arrogant and dismissive tone Republicans tend to assume, they decided to belittle teachers who are demanding they be fairly compensated for the important work they do.
Fully funding education is a no-win situation for Republicans. They donât want to fund education because they know that ultimately, it works against their best interests. Their intransigence means theyâre facing an angry, empowered, and unified group even in red states that have weak unions. The teachers now fully understand that they have political power, and they intend to exercise it.
Teachers donât take the job expecting to get rich, but theyâre certainly within their rights to expect fair compensation for their work. Theyâre also right to expect each state to adequately fund public education.
So, itâs time for Republicans to wake up! There really could be a blue wave in the voting booth this fall if red state politicians fail to support public education, despite whatever spew Betsy DeVos is spraying this month. To help them wake up, here is âHigh School Never Endsâ by Bowling For Soup, from their 2006 album, âThe Great Burrito Extortion Caseâ:
Sample Lyrics:
The whole damned world is just as obsessed With who’s the best dressed and who’s having sex Who’s got the money, who gets the honeys Who’s kinda cute and who’s just a mess
And I still don’t have the right look And I still have the same three friends And I’m pretty much the same as I was back then High school never ends High school never ends High school never ends And here we go again
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Weâve made it to Saturday! This concludes one of the more cacophonous political weeks in quite a while.
Paul Ryan is retiring from Congress, and is taking his signed first editions of Ayn Randâs books back to Janesville, WI. No need to hold a benefit, Paul has $10 million in campaign funds in the bank, and is likely to land a rainmaker job on Wall Street.
Ryan joins the record number of Republicans whoâve decided against seeking re-election. Theyâre fleeing the anger directed at them for both their hyper-partisanship, and their inability to do much. It is difficult to overestimate the damage Ryan has done to this country. His devotion to the Republican narrative at the expense of truth hasnât helped our democracy.
His “deficit reduction” proposals were always frauds. The revenue loss from tax cuts always exceeded any explicit spending cuts, so Ryanâs pretense of fiscal responsibility came entirely from “magic asterisks”: Extra revenue from closing unspecified loopholes, reduced spending from cutting unspecified programs.
Ryan took the helm of the House two and a half years ago, because he was seen as the only Congresscritter who could keep Republicans from fratricide. They had already shut down the government, and toppled their former Speaker, John Boehner.
Ryan leaves with the gaps in the party as evident as ever, but drawn along slightly different lines, with nativists and populists following the lead of President Trump. This hard right faction is pitted against what little remains of Mr. Ryanâs brand of traditional conservatism. But Ryan hewed to all of the Right-wing talking points. He faithfully ran interference for those who tried to turn the middle class into serfs beholden to the 1%. And he was in the NRAâs pocket. Sayonara, Mr. Ryan.
And, despite two days of congressional hearings on Facebook, the image that remains is Mark Zuckerberg trying to explain to people who have no idea of how Facebook works what heâs going to do to fix what they donât understand.
There was a lot of talk about how to better ensure privacy, how to prevent user data from being provided to advertisers. But that is the business model of Facebook: Advertisers use the data collected by Facebook to present specific consumers with what theyâre specifically selling.
It works because users often want to buy exactly what theyâre being sold. Thatâs how Facebook makes money.
Users happily share details about themselves and their lives, and Facebook provides those data to advertisers. Even if itâs a little creepy, advertisers are learning way too much about every Facebook user, and most of Facebookâs users are willing participants in the creepiness.
Facebook certainly shouldnât be allowed to sell those data to any party running a political operation. But it remains to be seen whether Facebook can effectively self-regulate, or whether Congress is up to the task of regulating that which it knows nearly nothing about…sort of like when they tried to regulate Wall Street.
Most of us can read between the political lines. Ryanâs one accomplishment is a flawed tax cut that will turn out huge budget deficits for years.
Zuckerberg? Well, almost everyoneâs on Facebook. And on Facebook, like in Congress, half-truths predominate. Facebook gives you the latest selfie of your friends who are at a dinner that you werenât invited to. Everybody joins because itâs free, and hundreds of millions of Americans already use it.
So this week, Zuckerberg and Ryan both got out of DC unscathed. Hard to believe that Zuckerberg is the more consequential person.
Anyhow, itâs a warm Saturday in the northeast, and the yardwork beckons. For some procrastinators, so does that final touch-up on the old 1040 form. Before getting to all that, itâs time to settle back and have a tall strong cup of PT Coffee of Topeka, Kansasâs Finca Kilimanjaro / Burundi Process + Ethiopia Process with its tasting notes of Fig, Caramel, and Cedar ($54/16oz.).
Cherry Blossoms, Tokyo Japan – March 29 photo by Eugene Hoshiko
Maybe Wrongo has Spring Fever, but how could he, when it snowed again yesterday? He promises to put the snow shovel in the garage for its three-season nap on Monday, no matter what.
The delay of springâs arrival got Wrongo thinking about change. We like to think that little changes in our environments, either natural, or socio-cultural, but change they do, every day. And except for a few details, Wrongo is certain that this blogâs readers are all on the same page: Change is in the air, and nothing stays the same. And weâre not just talking about the weather.
Yesterday is gone
Tomorrow is already here.
Wrongo has been writing this blog since March, 2010. Over the past eight years, he has explained how our political/social/economic systems operate, and why/how they can easily fail. And how we do not seem to have a rational, coherent plan to avoid that failure. Yet, each year we seem to inch closer to failure.
Are we doing anything more than Don Quixote was doing? Wrongo, by writing and you, by reading this blog? But Wrongo persists. Heâs here, you are here, and once again, as in 1968, change is in the air.
Millions of people are on the move, leaving their ancestral homes, fleeing conflict and poverty. They are trying to find a place to survive, while others who were left behind are dying in the millions. With the increased efforts by migrants to survive, both Europe and the US are closing the gates, hoping to keep the immigrant mob on the outside. But at home, we already have achieved conflict, poverty and death that isnât caused by immigrants. It is, to paraphrase Jimmy Buffet, âOur own damn faultâ.
On Monday in our little corner of Connecticut, we will have a very New England form of direct democracy, a special town meeting. Those citizens who show up will get to vote on whether the Town issues bonds to finance the repair of our roads, which have suffered 20+ years of deferred maintenance. Maybe 100 people will show up, (out of 8,000 voters) maybe less. Those who do show up will decide if we fix our roads, or not. They will decide if lower taxes are better than safe roads.
So Wrongo and Ms. Right spent today stuffing envelopes into mailboxes. This vote is the culmination of a two-year effort to get our town to address how poor our roads have become. We will see if our efforts today help to break voters from their Golden Slumbers, and participate.
If they fail to show up, it will be their own damn fault if the vote goes against whatever their viewpoint is on the bonds.
Wrongo believes that political change is in the air, but that change locally and nationally depends primarily on voter turnout. Turnout depends on people being motivated enough to waddle on down to their polling place and vote, even if the weather is bad, the candidate isnât perfect, and their one vote doesnât seem to matter.
But todayâs Saturday, and itâs time to settle back, relax, and get soothed. Or work on your taxes, if you have procrastinated. To help you relax, brew up a cup of Gedeb Lot 83 Ethiopia Natural coffee ($18.95/12oz) from JBC Coffee Roasters in Madison, WI. It has a sweetly tart structure with a rich umami undercurrent and satiny mouthfeel.
However, it isnât really called that, it isnât a waltz, and it isnât by Chopin. It is actually âMariage dâAmourâ composed by Paul de Senneville in 1987. It was wrongly titled and became wildly popular, so the various YouTube channels that feature it wonât correct its name. Still it is very beautiful, and of the season:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Emma GonzĂĄlez spoke for just under two minutes on Saturday before tens of thousands of demonstrators at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington, describing the effects of gun violence in emotional detail and reciting the names of classmates who had been killed.
Then she said nothing for four minutes and 26 seconds.
It was uncomfortable for many in the audience. Then a timer went off, and she said:
Since the time that I came out here, it has been six minutes and 20 seconds. The shooter has ceased shooting, and will soon abandon his rifle, blend in with the students as they escape, and walk free for an hour before arrest. Fight for your lives, before its someone elseâs job,
Wrongo likes this analysis by Melissa Byrnes at Lawyers, Guns & Money: (brackets by Wrongo)
[Her silence] It is the loudest call to action I have heard in a long time. We need to be unsettled. We need to question our assumptions about what is possible. We need pay attention to the silent woman who insists that we hear the multitude of silences of those weâve failed. We need to recognize when that woman is commanding us to listen. We need to rethink what leadership looks and sounds like.
Because this is a woman I am ready to follow.
There is reason to hope that these kids will drive change in our politics. They have stepped into a vacuum caused by our divided politics. They shouldnât have had to do this, it was our job, and we have failed.
Now, we canât just become their passive admirers. We have to participate in this movement for political and social change. On the one hand, we are being led by an amazingly courageous person in Washington DC. And on the other, your titular leader, Donald Trump, chose to go golfing in Florida this weekend.
Remember this in November.
For the first time since Trumpâs election, we are seeing how issues like gun control, #metoo, BLM and the frustration caused by economic inequality are melding together in a leftward political tilt.
Itâs way past time for Trump and politicians on all sides, who purposefully make no progress on the great issues of the day, to wake up, listen and ACT!
To help them wake up, here is Ed Sheeran with his 2017 song âWhat Do I Knowâ? Sheeran says that his dadâs advice was to never mention politics, never mention religion and never get involved in other peopleâs battles. From Sheeran:
The song âWhat Do I Knowâ was me looking at the world and being like âwe arenât doing too well are we?â and writing a song about itâŠ
Listen up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toQgbx-kT1w
Sample Lyrics:
The revolutionâs coming, itâs a minute away
I saw people marching in the streets today
You know we are made up of love and hate
But both of them are balanced on a razor blade
 Iâll paint the picture let me set the scene,
You know the futureâs in the hands of you and me
So letâs all get together, we can all be free
Spread love and understanding positivity
 Everybodyâs talking about exponential growth
And the stock market crashing and their portfolios
While Iâll be sitting here with a song that I wrote
Saying love could change the world in a moment
But what do I know?
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
March for Our Lives  in DC â 3/24/18 NYT photo by Erin Schaff
The March for Our Lives took place yesterday. High schoolers led the rest of us, marching against Americaâs gun culture, and against politicians who do nearly nothing to solve the slow-moving disaster that is our governmentâs response to mass murders in our country.
Nobody knows where this will lead. It could be part of something big that changes our society, or it could lead to nothing. But, we can be sure that nothing can change without electing a different set of politicians.
That wonât happen unless the public gets behind the demonstrators. MLK Jr. knew this. Wrongo is sure that Emma Gonzalez, and the other activists from Stoneman Douglas know this too. We must support them, and demand that our politicians actually do something about gun violence, or lose their jobs.
On to cartoons. MLK approves:
Unlike Congress Critters, these kids seem immune to cash that comes with strings attached:
Austin TX is safe, but the bomber didnât fit the stereotype:
John Boltonâs mustache grows even more alarming:
Facebookâs mismanagement of personal information makes Zuckerberg look bad:
The Dow looks like it might take a year to recover. But the weekend looks to be a rollicking good time, with marches by high schoolers and their adult supporters, Stormy Daniels on 60 Minutes, and the Sweet Sixteen college basketball tournament.
And donât forget John Bolton, also known as the “Mustache of War”.
Bolton, as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs from 2001 to 2005, was a prime mover behind the Bush II war on Iraq. As you can read here, Bolton rejected intelligence that conflicted with his desire that the US government use the phony claim that Iraq had WMD to justify the war. In fact, senior British officials accurately showed what was happening in their secret âDowning Streetâ memo to Tony Blair in July 2002 when they reported that:
The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy.
Throughout that fall, Bolton knew how the administration was misrepresenting the details of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraqâs WMD to the public. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also documented these distortions in a series of bipartisan reports following the 2003 invasion. Lawfare gives a first-person analysis of Bolton:
First, heâs a masterful bureaucratic tactician. Unlike his predecessors, Michael Flynn and H.R. McMaster, Bolton is a very experienced and adept creature of Washington institutions. Similar to former Vice President Dick Cheney, he knows the levers and knobs of the vast national security and foreign policy machinery: how they work, who works them, and how to exert control over them.
That’s also mixed in with the fact that Trump likes to defer to people who can dominate a room, another formidable trait of Bolton’s:
Third, he’s thorough and methodical. Most senior policymakers simply cannot keep up with the details across so many issues….Expect the same diligent readiness from him on issues like Iran and North Korea, but with the added advantage that he’ll face less pushback than he might otherwise because of the fact that so many senior diplomatic posts remain unfilled. His ability to be meticulous and bombastic will probably serve him very well in this White House.
The key takeaway is that Bolton brings to the president’s national security agenda a competence that this White House has lacked. I generally agree with Benjamin Wittes that some of the president’s worst instincts have often been tempered by sheer ineptitude. What makes Bolton dangerous is his capacity to implement those instincts effectively.
He has the ability to put loyalists in key positions while marginalizing those he distrusts. From Booman:
This is the most dangerous moment for humanity since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thereâs nothing Congress or the public can do directly to prevent Bolton from taking his post, but all means for resisting his influence must be employed.
Those who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis know that we barely avoided going nuclear, in part because JFK stood up to General Curtis Lemay, and because tactical commanders on both sides failed to follow their respective militariesâ rules of engagement.
Maybe this isnât a good time to bring up that many Democrats and independents thought that Hillary Clinton was a greater threat to world peace than the Donald. Kinda makes a person long for some good old Obama-style gridlock.
Enough! We gotta just get away, relax and get soothed. Wrongo says this every week, but this weekend, he really, really means it. The daffodils are poking up through the snow, and it is time to brew up a hot vente cup of something caffeinated. This week, Wrongo recommends Hula Daddy Coffeeâs Kona Sweet blend ($94.50/lb.), with its silky mouthfeel, and very sweet taste which suggests subtle milk chocolate, according to the roaster. Donât worry, the stock market is so bad, you might as well blow what you have left on one cuppa joe.
Now, settle in and listen to a selection from George Winstonâs âWinter into Springâ, recorded in 1982. This video adds terrific sights and sounds of spring in northern Idaho to Winstonâs soundtrack. Some might think it distorts Winstonâs art. You be the judge:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
