Politics – Page 46 – The Wrongologist

The Pentagon’s Huge Problems with the F-35

The F-35 combat aircraft is the most expensive weapons program ever undertaken by the Pentagon. It will cost $1.5 trillion to build and operate over its lifetime. Most pilots think that the F-35 is being tasked with too many things, from use as a fighter and a bomber, to landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier, to performing vertical takeoffs and landings. These are conflicting demands, requiring the plane to be over-configured to accomplish all of them. So, the F-35 is unlikely to handle all of these requirements at a high level.

Despite all of the above, in the Pentagon spending bill that passed last month, Congress approved nearly a half a billion dollars more for the F-35 than the Pentagon even asked for.

Conventional wisdom touts the F-35 as an aerial Swiss army knife, but the F-35 is proving to be more like a butter knife — one that only slices taxpayer dollars. A recent report by the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight (POGO), highlights the conclusions in the latest F-35 report from the Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). Among the problems highlighted in the DOT&E report:

• Software glitches disrupting enemy identification and weapons employment
• A redesigned fuel tank that continues to demonstrate unacceptable vulnerability to explosion from lightning or enemy fire
• Wing issues that cause loss of controlled flight during high-speed maneuvering, a six-year-old problem that apparently will not be solved without sacrificing stealth or combat capability
• Helmet issues that prevent pilots from seeing things approaching from the side
• Engine problems so severe they’re impeding the test schedule, and generating risky operational decisions
• Maintenance issues leading to over-reliance on contractor support

The Marines’ version of the plane won’t be operational until this summer, while the Navy’s version won’t be operational until at least 2018.

There are accusations that Lockheed Martin has papered over these problems, failing to include certain failures or re-categorizing them to improve program statistics. Taken together, the GAO and DOD reports make for an unambiguous headline:

The F-35 is years away from being the next-gen fighter jet promised by Lockheed to the Pentagon.

More time, more money and unresolved problems. What is going on here?

That’s not all. Head-to-head competition with the Russian SU-30 fighter/bomber was conducted in the US in 2008, and the results favored the Russian aircraft. Now, aircraft have two primary missions, air-to-air combat (ATA), and air-to-ground attack (ATG). The F-35 failed the ATA exercises SIX YEARS AGO.

If you find this summary alarming, consider taking a tranquilizer or two before digesting the full POGO article (“Not Ready for Prime Time”) or the detailed DOT&E report, both of which focus on a subject that are the eventual cost equivalent to the combined GDP’s of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

We are at the point where we will be fielding yesterday’s aircraft solution tomorrow. To a great degree, this is a failure of the Defense Department’s Acquisition Process. POGO believes that the problem is not nearly as much with the detailed laws and regulations that govern the acquisition of military goods, as it is in the management by the people who have been operating the system. In the case of the F-35, while several nations are providing elements of the plane, Lockheed is the sole source contractor for the DOD.

This creates a case of moral hazard. Moral hazard is the idea that misplaced incentives can create unintended and adverse behaviors. For example, an insurance policy with no deductible could embolden some drivers to discount the consequences of reckless driving, raising the likelihood of accidents. Applied to a defense contractor, this policy can cause a heavy economic toll.

The F-35 program is an example of moral hazard. By continuing to lavish cash upon a failing program, Congress risks making failure a financially viable strategy. The predictable result would be more failure. This debacle is, in many ways, a sign of what happens when Congress is no longer the domain of the kind of statesmanlike adult behavior that puts the country first.

Congress itself has incentives to set perverse incentives for others. Unfortunately for the country, the first sign that moral hazard has truly captured our national defense maybe relying on a program that is supposed to be the single answer, one that does not perform, continues to be postponed, and costs far too much.

The second sign will be the inability of our airpower to effectively support our ground and sea military efforts, as and when called upon.

This will happen if bad decisions continue to bleed our resources, and Congress continues to try to make room for the F-35, a weapon that has not proven itself.

Friday Music Break – February 27, 2015

With all the talk about Scott Walker’s Republican presidential bid, maybe there should be some equal time for the governor of Minnesota, Wisconsin’s neighbor to the west, Mark Dayton, who is a Democrat. HuffPo reports:

When he took office in January, 2011…Dayton inherited a $6.2 billion budget deficit and a 7 % unemployment rate from his predecessor, Tim Pawlenty, the soon-forgotten Republican candidate for the presidency who called himself Minnesota’s first true fiscally-conservative governor in modern history.

During his first four years in office, Gov. Dayton raised the state income tax from 7.85 to 9.85% on individuals earning over $150,000, and on couples earning over $250,000, raising $2.1 billion/year. He’s also agreed to raise Minnesota’s minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2018, and passed a state law guaranteeing equal pay for women.

According to trickle-down economic theory, Minnesota must be losing businesses and jobs, right? Wrong. In the real world, the opposite happened. Between 2011 and 2015, Gov. Dayton added 172,000 new jobs to Minnesota’s economy, or 165,800 more jobs in Dayton’s first term than Pawlenty added in both of his terms.

• Minnesota’s top income tax rate is the 4th-highest in the country, but it has the 5th-lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6%.
• By late 2013, Minnesota’s private sector job growth exceeded pre-recession levels, and the state’s economy was the 5th fastest-growing in the United States.

Despite Republican complaints about Dayton’s supposedly anti-business agenda, Forbes ranks Minnesota the 9th-best state for business, while Scott Walker’s Wisconsin comes in at #32 on the same list.

And while Walker was busy blocking people from voting, Dayton actually created an online voter registration system, making it easier than ever for people to register to vote.

Oh, and Dayton is a billionaire. He’s an heir to the Target fortune, and a member of 1% who isn’t a prisoner of the billionaire dialectic.

There you have it, proof that trickle-down economics is bunk. Minnesota proves it.

On to your Music Break:
Whitehorse is a Canadian folk rock duo. Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland were married in 2006, but both were established and successful singer-songwriters prior to marriage and subsequently. They started to perform together in 2011. She also works with Sarah McLachlan, providing backing vocals at McLachlan’s live shows. Here are two songs from their just released “No Bridge Unburned” album. First up, “Downtown”:

Sample Lyric:
I’m electrified by the city light
I get off where I need to
And with who I like
I’m a diplomat
I’m a subway rat
I like the unfamiliar
I’m not scared by that

Next, “Sweet Disaster”:

Sample Lyric:
Galileo was bluffing
It’s just a mess out here
There’s no compass to guide us
Through the flashes of violence and fear

See you on Sunday.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 22, 2015

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs”− John Rogers

On Friday, we wrote about the Randian/Republican ideologues who want to keep myth alive in our discourse about economics. Today, we note that the Oklahoma Tea Party wants to change AP History courses in the state because maybe, they teach too much of the bad parts, like that messy land grab from Native Americans and all that civil war violence in the west. The bill would require schools to instruct students in a list of “foundational documents,” including some good things, such as the Federalist Papers, along with some questionable items like the Ten Commandments, two sermons, and three speeches by Ronald Reagan. In addition, they want included:

Founding documents of the United States that contributed to the foundation or maintenance of the representative form of limited government, the free market economic system and American exceptionalism

Limited government, the free market system and American Exceptionalism? Nope, no political agenda there.

The bill designates a total of 58 documents that “shall form the base level of academic content for all United States History courses offered in the schools in the state.” Many of the texts are not controversial and are undoubtedly covered in AP US History courses around America. Things like the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg address. The bill was approved by the Education committee on an 11-4 vote.

It’s all great stuff if you want to raise a state full of conservative think-tank weenies.

But we must go further. TPM reported that Fox host Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery suggested getting rid of the nation’s public schools altogether on Thursday’s “Outnumbered.” She was talking about that Oklahoma bill:

There really shouldn’t be public schools, should there?…I mean we should really go to a system where parents of every stripe have a choice, have a say in the kind of education their kids get because, when we have centralized, bureaucratic education doctrines and dogmas like this, that’s exactly what happens.

Sure. Bring back the 16th century, because in the 17th century, the first public school in America was founded (1635). So public education must have been holding us back ever since. Oh, and a glance at Ms. Montgomery’s Wikipedia page shows that she is a product of public education, from Lakeridge High School in Oswego, OR and from UCLA, it was public schools all the way. Hard to judge if that is a good thing, though. She seems to have graduated from both.

The news this week included snow, the dog show, the stay of the immigration executive order, Jebbie talking foreign policy, Biden acting frisky with the new Secretary of Defense’s wife, and A-Rod’s apology.

The Northeast has its own bad torture movie:

After the Beagle won at the Westminster Dog show, there were consequences:

Jeb Bush spoke about foreign policy. Mostly, he tried to flick away his bad angel:

Activist judge changes immigration policy, and the GOP is for it:

Biden misunderstood exactly WHO was being too frisky this week:

A-Rod found pie on his menu in NY:

The Republican Revolution is De-evolution

De-evolution, or backward evolution, is a term in biology that describes the fact that a species can change from a more complex form into a more primitive form over time. So noted. Now on to the commentary below:

America used to have smart, effective Republicans, but alas, not recently, and not in the lifetimes of younger voters. In line with this de-evolution of Republicans, consider Paul Krugman’s take down of what he labels the Charlatan Caucus, a group of supply-side voodoo economists that Scott Walker had to court this week: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

On Wednesday…[Walker] did what, these days, any ambitious Republican must, and pledged allegiance to charlatans and cranks.

Krugman reminded us that the phrase, “charlatans and cranks” was originally coined by Republican economist Gregory Mankiew, who served as George W. Bush’s chief economic adviser. Krugman is speaking about Gov. Scott Walker’s appearance at a New York dinner featuring supply-siders’ Arthur Laffer (of the Laffer curve), CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, and Stephen Moore, chief economist of the Heritage Foundation. More from Krugman: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Bowing obeisance before the high priests of bunk – like questioning climate change, evolution, and the current president’s American bona fides – has become a “right” of passage for Republican presidential contenders. Clearly, to be a Republican contender, you have to court the powerful charlatan caucus.

In Krugman’s view, with these economists, reality always takes a holiday. Ideology takes precedence. He cites:

• Mr. Moore published a 2004 book titled “Bullish on Bush,” asserting that the Bush agenda was creating a permanently stronger economy.
• Mr. Kudlow sneered at the “bubbleheads” who asserted that inflated home prices were due for a crash.
• Mr. Laffer wrote in the WSJ in 2009, “Get ready for inflation and higher interest rates”. What followed were the lowest inflation in two generations and the lowest interest rates in history.
• Mr. Moore publishes articles with lots of bad numbers. According to Krugman, Moore’s numbers are consistently wrong; they’re for the wrong years, or just plain not what the original sources say. And not surprisingly, his errors always make the case he wants.

But the supply-side ~~economists~~ charlatans continue to have a big influence on Republican politicians. The NYT also reports that the University of North Carolina’s Republican-appointed Board of Governors is closing several academic centers on its campuses dedicated to studying poverty, climate, and social change. That couldn’t also be about ideology, could it? More from The Times:

It’s clearly not about cost-saving; it’s about political philosophy and the right-wing takeover of North Carolina state government…said Chris Fitzsimon, director of NC Policy Watch, a liberal group…And this is one of the biggest remaining pieces that they’re trying to exert their control over.

OK, 29 of the 32 university board members were appointed by the Republican Legislature since 2010, but that doesn’t make the decision about politics?

It’s similar to Scott Walker’s Wisconsin, where our friend of education is cutting the University of Wisconsin’s budget by $300 million. Mr. Walker saw Mr. Laffer’s curve, and bought it. It hasn’t worked out so well for him, since he now has to refinance a $108 million debt payment, increasing the state’s borrowing costs by $19 million over the next two years. The re-fi is a result of Walker’s $600 million tax cut in 2014, which will ultimately lead to a $648 million deficit over the next two years. But, in the big Republican wet dream, he will be president by then, and blame his successor for Wisconsin’s fiscal debacle.

And there is Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS), whose aggressive tax cuts were heartily cheered on by Republican economists, but which have driven his state into a deep fiscal crisis. North Carolina’s Republican Gov. Pat McCrory has also tasted the charlatan Kool-Aid, but isn’t quite there yet, although he’s working on it.

Back to Krugman. He concludes:

So what does it say about the current state of the GOP that discussion of economic policy is now monopolized by people who have been wrong about everything, have learned nothing from the experience, and can’t even get their numbers straight?

Current-day Republicans seem to have abandoned the idea that there is an objective reality. What are you going to believe, Right-Wing doctrine, or your lying eyes? These days, Right Wing doctrine wins.

In America, there has been a steady drumbeat by conservatives against education. Conservatives really believe in education…but only if it’s the privatized, de-evolved kind.

You can’t have a bunch of people looking too closely at facts, because as is well-known, reality has a liberal bias.

Road Trip, Vol. I

Now sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. Well, not really. We drove about 400 miles today, passing through DC and south in Virginia to Richmond, headquarters of the Confederacy during the Civil War. There isn’t a shooting war between the White House and Congress, but sometimes, it feels that way:

Maybe it just depends on your point of view:

Wednesday Links:

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst has banned Iranian nationals from admission to certain graduate programs that school officials say aligns its policy with US sanctions against Iran. Luckily, there are other engineering schools.

Boston is using prison labor to shovel snow for pennies. Unionized city workers and state prisoners cleared commuter rails of snow on Monday

The WaPo thinks House Speaker John Boehner is managing to combine legislative incompetence with PR incompetence. Well, Boehner believes the country is in grave danger because of Obama, and right after this latest three-week vacation, he’s going to get busy taking health insurance away from poor folks.

The trade in antiquities is one of ISIS’s main sources of funding. Most of the items are from excavations rather than thefts from museums.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 15, 2015

Big week, what with Cease Fire #2 in Ukraine, or as Moon of Alabama calls it, Minsk 2.0. Mr. Obama is bombarded by advice about how to move forward, most of it in favor of providing military aid to the government in Kiev. He is trying to balance that advice against the cornerstone of his foreign policy: “Don’t do stupid stuff.” Like some other Obama principles, this has a very high Wimp Factor, particularly if compared to GW Bush’s “bring it on”.

Then there is Mr. Obama’s strategy on Syria and dealing with ISIS. This week, he asked for a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), a mere six months after we began bombing them. So, a few Democrats criticized the proposal as too broad and too vague. They say it could leave the next president with enormous war-making latitude. Republicans want to go bigger.

Obama’s AUMF proposal is an invitation to Congress to offer its own expansive view of the president’s war-making authority. Can Congress do better?

Mr. Obama’s Ukraine dilemma:

Congressional chicken hawks debate the “enduring” war:

In other words, The AUMF, after Congress gets through with it, could be a disaster waiting to happen. The entire situation could devolve into another decade plus of ground war in the Middle East.

So, here in the middle of cartoons, is the anti-war song “Highwire”, by the Rolling Stones from their 1991 album, “Flashpoint”. Remember 1991, that was Gulf War 1.0. There´s only ONE reason for more war: Mo money. That’s the bottom line. Is this song on Obama’s iPhone? It should be. Lindsay, and John, this song’s for you:

Sample Lyric:
We sell ’em missiles, We sell ’em tanks
We give ’em credit, You can call up the bank
It’s just a business, You can pay us in crude
(That’s oil you know…)
You’ll love these toys, just go play out your feuds
We got no pride, don’t know whose boots to lick
We act so greedy, makes me sick sick sick
…
We walk the highwire;
Sending the men up to the front line;
Hoping they don’t catch the hell fire;
With hot guns,
And cold, cold lies.

In other news, some guy killed 3 Muslims, but nobody thinks it’s a big deal:

State’s rights vs. Gay Rights is back on the table for those who think it never left:

Jon Stewart says he’s out:

Finally, Valentine’s day covered for a lot of feelings:

Is There Risk in a Professional Military?

With the pot boiling in Ukraine, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande have spearheaded a plan to bring Russia, Ukraine along with France and Germany to a peace summit that may be held this week. That may or may not lead to anything, but, our Republican Chicken Hawk leaders in Congress have already decided it is a wimpy response to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Sen. John McCain is reported by the Telegraph to have compared this initiative to the Munich Agreement in 1938 between Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, and Adolf Hitler, which allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland:

History shows us that dictators will always take more if you let them…They will not be dissuaded from their brutal behavior when you fly to meet them to Moscow – just as leaders once flew to this city.

Mrs. Merkel said that she was against supplying Ukraine with lethal aid. McCain’s reaction to the leader of Germany? He summed up his reaction to Ms. Merkel’s speech with one word: “Foolishness.”

What has to happen before we stop listening to the Chicken Hawk wing in Congress? Clearly, losing wars isn’t enough for us to stop using military force to meddle in other nations’ problems. The “War on Terror” has been a transfer of national wealth to the corporatocracy. War and weapons of war are strategic US exports, peace just isn’t that profitable.

But today, let’s step back and look at the confluence of two emerging societal issues with our military, and the risks they could bring.

First, the risks implied by having a professional military have been examined by the Wrongologist. This has two effects: It divorces the rest of us from the consequences of foreign wars. Out of a population of 310 million, only about three-quarters of 1% served in Iraq or Afghanistan at any point in the post-9/11 years. It is also skewing the demographics of our military. Today’s map of the states of those in military service align closely with today’s red states:

Montana, Alaska, Florida, Wyoming, Maine and Texas now send the largest number of people per capita to the military. The states with the lowest contribution rates? Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.

What’s clear from the data is that a major national institution, the US military, now has tighter connections to some regions of the country than to others, something that wasn’t true when we had a draft. The uneven pattern of military service is not an insignificant reflection of the cultural differences that characterize different regions of our country, and this has broad ramifications for our future.

Second, according to the WaPo, we’re “optimizing” the Federal civil service for Veterans:

Obama began accelerating the hiring of veterans five years ago in response to the bleak employment prospects many service members faced after coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Veterans benefit from preferential hiring for civil service jobs under a law dating back to World War II, but the Obama administration has increased the extra credit veterans get, giving them an even greater edge in getting those jobs. The government has also set hiring goals for veterans at each agency, and managers are graded on how many they bring on board, officials said. WaPo says that the result is that veterans made up 46% of full-time hires last year, according to the Office of Personnel Management. They now represent a third of the federal workforce, holding positions throughout the Federal government.

Here is the concern: Heidi A. Urben, studied the attitudes of the officer corps, and found that about 60% said they identify with the Republican Party. But, that’s not all:

Officers who identify with the Republican Party display lower levels of trust for their civilian superiors

The Wrongologist is pro-military. He served during the Vietnam era. Yet, is there a perfect storm brewing?

• We have an all-professional military that doesn’t really trust civilian superiors.
• Those who leave the professional military are staffing one-third of our federal workforce.

Charles J. Dunlap Jr., a retired Air Force major general at the Duke Law Schools says: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

I think there is a strong sense in the military that it is a better society than the one it serves…In the generation coming up, we’ve got lieutenants and majors who had been the warrior-kings in their little outposts…They were literally making life-or-death decisions. You can’t take that generation and say, ‘You can be seen and not heard.’

The Wrongologist has no idea what the effects of having veterans become a majority of our federal employees will be, but the active duty and the retired military are part of a fraternity. They share common training and values. They share political views, they come from the same states.

It is not hard to imagine that there is an iceberg straight ahead that we are ignoring.

And as the captain said on the Titanic: “Iceberg? What iceberg?”

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 8, 2015

Today is Sunday, the day when Christians worship their God. So, it’s appropriate that we focus on the reaction of certain right-wing Christians to Mr. Obama’s talk at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday. He spoke for about thirty minutes but the part of the speech that the right wing are focusing on is when he brought up the Crusades: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

Humanity has been grappling with these questions [violence in the name of religion] throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.

The righties are complaining that Obama is saying that Christianity is equivalent to ISIS. Which of course, isn’t what he said. He was saying that Islam was not ISIS, and demonizing Islam for the sins of ISIS is hypocritical, because, among other reasons, Christians have plenty to answer for, given their historical actions in the name of religion. So, conservatives are slamming Obama for not equating terrorism with Islam. For example, Jim Gilmore, former Republican governor of Virginia said:

He has offended every believing Christian in the United States…Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.

The blog Red State said:

Barack Obama, leftwing community organizer and closet theologian, used the National Prayer Breakfast to throw a tu quoque at anyone critical of Islam while continuing to fancy himself as the Pope of Islam

When did the clearly dominant religion in the US develop a glass jaw?

Mr. Obama has attended this prayer breakfast each year to speak about his faith. And the things he said this time were things that Christians agree with: that at times, the religion has been perverted, that we have to walk humbly before God, that God’s purposes are mysterious to us. These thoughts are accepted by every Christian. And so what he said was normal, a recognition of historical fact, and an urge towards some level of perspective and humility.

But what Obama says is never enough for these crypto-Christians. And as for American’s Christian conservatives, they love, love, love violent retribution. One example is their love affair with torture. Do you need the reminder that Sarah Palin said about waterboarding:

that’s how we baptize terrorists

Here is your OTHER approved form of Sunday worship:

But today, we have as many deniers as believers:

Mr. Christie, a denier, needs a different vaccine:

Mr. Romney’s exit creates a stampede:

Bibi gets to address Congress, but teleprompter has ideas:

Brian Williams not always honest:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 1, 2015

The Super Bowl is today. There will be queso con chorizo and enchiladas at the Mansion of Wrong.

It was a busy week. Obama has bromance with India’s Prime Minister Modi, then flies to the funeral of the Saudi King. The Republican beauty pageant began; we learned that the Koch brothers plan to spend nearly $900 million to elect Republicans in 2016, but Mitt isn’t running. Mitt didn’t leave gracefully, but perhaps he showed the self-awareness to avoid further indignities. He signed off calling for an “end to the grip of poverty,” which, considering the source, should be received by most with something between a snort and a laugh.

The Koch brothers are almost their own political party. The biggest contenders for the Republican nomination went to Palm Springs for their audition with the Koch funding team. This means if you are a candidate, you will shade your story and beliefs to please the Kochs and their fellow travelers. That means you are going to spend more thought about getting and keeping your Koch money, and less time thinking about which policies matter. Or maybe, its just birds of a feather.

Choose your poison at the SB:

Thank you, Supreme Court, politics is now forever in your debt, and democracy has left the building:

We will soon leave the snow season for the money season:

Mitt decides not to be the next Adlai Stevenson:

Mr. Obama visits Saudi Arabia, makes sales call:

When will they ever learn?

Your word for the week: Agnotology.

Agnotology is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.

Does this concept bring to mind any particular group?

Friday Music Break – January 30, 2015

“We know something about billionaire consumption, but it is hard to measure some of it. Some billionaires are consuming politicians, others consume reporters, and some consume academics.” – Thomas Picketty

Today’s music has a populist message designed to help you fight the Plutocracy over the weekend. It is “First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin”, written and performed by Leonard Cohen. The song was originally recorded by Jennifer Warnes for her 1987 album, “Famous Blue Raincoat”. Cohen recorded it a year later for his album, “I’m Your Man”. This version was recorded in London in 2009:

It has become an occasional anthem for Syriza, the Greek Populist Party that just won power on an anti-austerity, anti-European Union platform. In Greece, it was played with the words, “First we take Athens, then we take Madrid!”

Sample Lyrics:
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I’m guided by a signal in the heavens
I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin
I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

You loved me as a loser,
but now you’re worried that I just might win,
You knew the way you could have stopped me,
but you never had the discipline,
So many nights I prayed for this,
to let my work begin.

See you on Sunday

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Politics