Category: Saturday Soother

Saturday Soother – June 26, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Low tide, Thumpertown Beach, Cape Cod MA – July 4, 2018 iPhone photo by Wrongo

After Biden and a bipartisan group of US lawmakers announced a deal on infrastructure, it soon became clear that Democrats would only support it if it was passed alongside a big reconciliation bill, something that Wrongo suggested was the only way to play infrastructure with the Republicans.

The American Society of Civil Engineers says that we need to spend $2.59 trillion in the next decade on pure, traditional infrastructure. According to a fact sheet released by the White House, Part 1 includes just $579 billion in new infrastructure spending over the course of five years, with $309 billion going to transportation and $109 billion earmarked for roads, bridges, and other projects.

That means there needs to be two bills: one, a “hard infrastructure” bill along the lines of the framework agreed on Thursday, and the second, a “broadly defined infrastructure” bill containing the other provisions Biden originally wanted in his big infrastructure bill.

If a bipartisan Part 1 appeases enough moderates of both parties sufficiently to get them not to raise hell over a reconciliation Part 2, then Biden will be acknowledged as better at politics than the pundits.

OTOH, McConnell says Biden can have Part 1 only if he doesn’t ask for Part 2. That sets up the possibility that Democrats must choose between something that’s admittedly terrible, or nothing. Biden says he won’t sign the first unless he is also given the second one to sign, while Pelosi says the first bill won’t pass the House until the reconciliation bill passes the Senate.

As with everything in DC, the usual caveats apply: So. Much. Can. Go. Wrong. The two-track Senate strategy (one bill bipartisan, another through reconciliation) requires extraordinary political deftness, possibly a bridge too far for the craptacular Senate Majority Leader Schumer.

A few words about Part 1 from Common Dreams:

  • Rather than pushing for taxes targeting rich individuals and corporations, a White House fact sheet on the bipartisan package outlines other potential financing sources, from unused Coronavirus funds to reinstating Superfund fees for chemicals.
  • The proposal also relies on public-private partnerships, (P3s), private activity bonds, and asset recycling for infrastructure investment.

When politicians say “asset recycling” they mean the sale or lease of public assets to the private sector so the government can put that money toward new investments. But the devil is in the details, and how we fund new infrastructure can’t be through privatizing our existing infrastructure.

America won’t get a redo once its public infrastructure is privatized.

In some places public/private partnerships can be tolerable. Think rail policy where Amtrak’s funding is contingent on some sort of matching grants for private freight service improvement. This can be better justified as both are connected as part of the same rail network and improvements can be easily tracked.

But elsewhere, it can’t, especially in power and telecom, where P3s only serve to prevent public services from being offered. This sounds like how Philadelphia and other cities sold off infrastructure like parking garages and parking meters. The city derived no recurring income, while private companies collected the monies.

From Benjamin Studebaker:

“In most democracies, a working legislative majority allows the government to pass legislation. In the United States, things don’t work this way….As our problems slowly mount, neither the Democrats or the Republicans are able to experiment with policy solutions. The policies that do get passed are the result of fraught compromises. It’s never clear who is responsible for the policies that issue from the federal government, and every time anything goes wrong every part of the US government passes the buck to every other part.”

The failure to make essential investments in the basic infrastructure of the country is not consistent with having a functioning state. Either the filibuster must go, or the primary system must go. The primary system is here to stay because it is equated with democracy itself in the US. Therefore, sooner or later, the filibuster will go.

So, rather than teasing Americans with the promise of a new Roosevelt administration (in aviator shades), it looks like we’re in for another round of gridlock.

That’s enough politics for this Saturday. It’s time for our Saturday Soother. Wrongo and Ms. Right are spending a few days on Cape Cod, which is always enjoyable. So, before going off to watch another beautiful sunset, let’s take a few minutes to relax and listen to the Second movement (largo) of Dvořák’s “From the New World“, performed here in 1985 by the Vienna Philharmonic, directed by the late Herbert von Karajan:

 

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Saturday Soother – June 19, 2021

The Daily Escape:

View of Lake Champlain from Hog Island, VT – photo by Kim Brown

A few items that were lost in the noise this week: First, the House voted 268-161 to repeal the 2002 AUMF, the Iraq War Authorization for Use of Military Force. The 2002 AUMF allows military action to defend the national security of the US against the continuing threat posed by Iraq. The other AUMF, the 2001 AUMF, issued to allow the president to order the invasion of Afghanistan, remains in effect.

The rationale for repealing these AUMFs is that the power to declare war properly belongs with Congress. Congress’s delegating a blank check to the president via the AUMF’s to make war promoted the indefinite, Middle East military engagements that turned Onion headlines about sons patrolling the same routes in Afghanistan as their fathers into a horrible reality.

Congress has been negligent in reclaiming their power. And while there’s a case for the kind of open-ended military actions of the 21st Century, that case should be made in Congress, where the strategy can be deliberated, and if approved, funded by Congress, our ultimate authority for both war-making and war-funding.

The 2002 AUMF repeal now goes to the Senate and if passed, to Biden, who has suggested he would sign a repeal.

Even if the repeal passes the Senate, the standard Republican line on AUMF repeal is that a replacement resolution must be passed at the same time. That will possibly kill the repeal. And depending on how it is written, it could defeat its entire purpose.

Second, this week, Lina Khan, the author of “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” was confirmed by the Senate (with 19 Republican votes) as Federal Trade Commissioner. A 32-year-old, British-born woman of Pakistani heritage is now Chair of the FTC, facing down the most powerful corporations in American history, backed by the full power of the US government.

Khan inherits an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, which seeks to break up the company over allegations that it copied or acquired and killed its rivals. The lawsuit is a test of Washington’s ability to check Silicon Valley’s power amid a broader debate about changing tech regulations. Kahn will be running an agency that lawmakers and experts for years have warned is under-resourced and lacking technical expertise.

Our existing antitrust laws are robust, but they have been weakened by business-friendly judges and clearly aren’t optimized for our digital world. A bipartisan group in Congress introduced a series of bills that would outlaw many of the allegedly anticompetitive tactics that tech companies used to solidify their dominance. But as with all reforms, it’s unclear whether they’ll pass.

Ms. Khan will be getting more resources. Biden has proposed an 11% funding increase for the FTC, boosting its spending from $351 million to $390 million. The president’s proposal will also allow the FTC to increase its headcount to 1,250, its largest staff since it was eviscerated in the early 1980s.

She enters the FTC with a 3-to-2 Democratic board majority, but it’s unclear how long that will last. Rohit Chopra (D) is awaiting his confirmation to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If he leaves, it could be difficult for Biden to build the bipartisan support needed to install another commissioner.

Finally, it was disconcerting to hear Putin, in his post-summit news conference, play back Republican disinformation. From the WaPo’s Dana Milbank:

“For the past few years, Republicans in Congress have echoed Russian propaganda. On Wednesday, in Geneva, Vladimir Putin returned the favor: He echoed Republican propaganda.”

Milbank notes that the Russians have adopted the talking points of right-wing media about January 6. Putin mentioned that the January 6 insurrectionists are not looters or thieves:

“Many of the suspects, have been hit with very harsh charges…. Why is that?”

Putin read some more from the Republican playbook:

“As for who is killing whom or are throwing whom in jail, people came to the US Congress with political demands….Over 400 people had criminal charges placed on them. They face prison sentences. … They’re being called domestic terrorists.”

It’s surprising how awful Republican talking points sound when spoken by Putin.

On to the weekend, and our Saturday Soother! We will be continuing our yard work on the Fields of Wrong. You know you live in the wilds when Ms. Right can find bear poop 20 feet from our front door. Interestingly, it smelled like the bear had dined on fish. That’s probably enough outdoors reality for this week!

Let’s start our Juneteenth and Fathers’ Day weekend by listening to Harold Darke’s “Fantasy in E Major”. It is arranged here for string orchestra by Clive Jenkins because Drake’s arrangement is lost. It’s played by the Chamber Ensemble of London, conducted by Peter Fisher:

The video is beautiful because it includes paintings by English landscape artist, James Lynch. They’re lovely. Enjoy!

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Saturday Soother – June 5, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Rhododendron in bloom, fields of Wrong, Litchfield County, CT – June 4, 2021 photo by Wrongo

There’s an asymmetric battle underway between America’s political parties: Democrats Joe Manchin & Kyrsten Sinema are saying that federal voting rights legislation needs a bipartisan supermajority in the Senate. But at the state level, Republicans are changing election rules without facing a filibuster. Their new rules are designed to prevent Dems from winning a fair election.

Texas and 14 other states are attempting to curtail voting rights. Some Republican-controlled states have purged officials who refused to obey Trump’s instructions not to certify the election results; a few are considering measures that would allow state legislatures to overturn election results outright.

This will be the state of play for the rest of Biden’s first term. In the Senate, both the Democrats and the Republicans are truly minorities, with the balance of power held by two Democrats, Sinema and Manchin. As long as the filibuster stands, Biden will only be able to have bills passed via the Reconciliation process, which allows bills that are part of the budget process to pass with 51 votes.

Senate GOP Minority Leader McConnell has again said, as he did in the Obama years, that he will block all of Biden’s legislation. And with Sinema and Manchin refusing to eliminate or reform the filibuster rules, it’s highly unlikely that any significant legislation will reach the 60-vote threshold.

The current Senate shouldn’t necessarily be bound by rules set in place by an earlier body, elected by different voters and facing a different set of challenges. And no legislative body should be able to control how a future legislative body enacts legislation.

While we’ve talked a lot about what Democrats can (or can’t) do about Joe Manchin, little has been said about Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). Dan Pfeiffer asks if we shouldn’t simply call Sinema the new Joe Liberman. She has been more adamant than Manchin in defending the filibuster:

“Manchin and Sinema’s political situation could not be more different. Donald Trump won Manchin’s home state by 39 points. Manchin has not yet said whether he will run for reelection in 2024, but he would be a massive underdog if he did…. Arizona is not West Virginia. Sinema is the first Democrat to win a Senate seat from Arizona in thirty years. The state has been reliably Republican since the mid-nineties.”

Recent polls show that Sinema is losing support among Democrats without gaining any from Independents and Republicans. A March poll from Civiqs shows that Sinema’s net favorable rating among Democrats is down 30 points from December. She isn’t up for reelection until 2024, but if Sinema stays on this trajectory, she’s in trouble in either a primary or the general election.

What’s so frustrating about her approach to the filibuster is that her arguments are inaccurate, and her political strategy makes no sense. More from Pfeiffer:

“She is more Joe Lieberman than John McCain. Like Lieberman, the former Democratic VP nominee turned Iraq War and McCain supporter, Sinema seems to enjoy being a spoiler in the eyes of their own party. In 2006, Lieberman lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont, but won the general election as an independent. The path will not be available to Sinema. Arizona is not Connecticut. 2024 is not 2006. And she does not have Lieberman’s long ties to her state.”

The Democrats are in an abusive relationship with their Republican “colleagues”. It’s further enabled by Sinema and Manchin. They, along with Biden and others, still seem to think the relationship can be turned around if the Dems just try harder. But the clock is ticking, and the Democrats’ problems go way beyond Manchin and Sinema:

We must blunt the hostile takeover of our democracy by Republican zealots in 15 states.

We need a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection.

We need to unwind the Trump tax cuts. Infrastructure funding wouldn’t hurt either.

Maybe all this will change over the course of the year remaining before the 2022 mid-terms. But a year isn’t a long time.

Enough! Time to kick back and focus on a nice weekend in the northeast. Our yard work on the fields of Wrong has graduated to trimming and weeding, and there’s plenty of both to do.

Before we fire up the trimmer, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to leave the pressures of the real world behind for a few minutes. So, grab a chair by a window and listen to Chris Botti and Caroline Campbell performing live in the audience at the Chateau St. Michelle Winery, Woodinville, WA in July 2015.

During the pandemic year, we’ve missed live music. Live venues are starting to open. Hopefully, we’ll start to see more like this:

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Saturday Soother – May 29, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Old Beach gate and oil house at Race Point Light, Provincetown MA – 2021 photo by Kristen Wilkinson Photography. The Oil Houses provided fuel to light houses before they were electrified.

On Friday, the Republicans had a successful filibuster of the bill to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. The final tally was 54-35. Eleven Senators weren’t present to vote, including nine Republicans and two Democrats, Patty Murray (D-WA), and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).

Party’s over, drink up. It’s 5 o’clock somewhere. As Jonathan Last says:

“At some point, soon, Democrats are going to have to pick a pathway for 2022.”

They’re acting as though the GOP’s performance in the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection were aberrations, that we’re still in a normal political environment. They seem to be thinking there’s a way to slide past the voting havoc being raised by the Republican Party in the state legislatures that they control.

Don’t you think that if Democratic leadership really believed democracy was at risk, they’d be spending all of their energy working on passing structural reforms to lessen the power of state-level control by political minorities and make American government more democratic? We’re at an inflection point that requires eliminating the filibuster to:

  • Establish federal election standards as contained in HR-1.
  • Establish federal standards for redistricting. The Apportionment Clause of Article I, Section 2, of the US Constitution requires that all districts be as nearly equal in population as possible. That isn’t a significant barrier to partisan gerrymandering. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment requires that districts be substantially equal. Some states have provided a deviation standard. For instance, Colorado prohibits districts from having a population deviation above 5%. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits plans that intentionally or inadvertently discriminate based on race, which could dilute the minority vote. Again, this doesn’t prevent gerrymandering.
  • In addition to the standards set out by the US Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, states can adopt their own redistricting criteria, or principles, for drawing the plans. Principles, or criteria, are already found in state constitutions. A list of possible federal reforms can be found here.

Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report looked at 2020 House races and what it means that Democratic candidates consistently ran behind Biden:

“…that a majority of House Republicans in the most competitive CDs [Congressional Districts] out-performed Trump suggests that the former president’s presence in 2022 is more of a liability than a benefit for vulnerable GOP House incumbents. The fact that House CDs with significant Latino populations provided the largest ticket-splitting gaps (voting overwhelming Biden and narrowly for House GOPers) means that we need to take a very different approach in how we assess races in these types of districts in upcoming elections.”

Walter adds:

“While Biden handily carried the once-GOP-controlled suburbs around Dallas (TX-32), Houston (TX-07) and Chicago (IL-06), House Democrats (who also won there) polled 2-3 points lower. We saw the same pattern in the suburban exurbs where Biden came up short, like MO-02, TX-21 and TX-22. These House Democrats would have lost even if they matched Biden’s showing in those CDs. But their 2–4-point underperformance suggests that the anti-Trump vote doesn’t completely convey to down-ballot Democrats.”

Without Trump on the ballot in 2022, will these dyed-in-the-wool Republican voters support Republican candidates at higher levels?

Jamie Harrison, current head of the DNC must come up with a better strategy than his predecessor Tom Perez used in 2020. Democrats need to win both Houses again and with expanded majorities, so Harrison and the Dems need to be as close to 100% confidence that they can make that happen.

If not, then Democrats should reorganize their priorities and possibly, their leadership.

On to our Saturday Soother. Our new split rail fence was installed this week, 30 days later than promised. The fields of Wrong are coming into full bloom. Here’s a picture of our starting to open Itoh Peonies:

We’re off to another of the four bachelor and grad school graduations by our grandchildren this spring, so no cartoons on Sunday. Still, there’s time to both kick back and simultaneously gear up for the weekend.

Take a seat by a window and listen to “Pick Up the Pieces” originally by the Average White Band (AWB). For the youngster readers, they were a Scottish funk and R&B band that had a series of soul and disco hits between 1974 and 1980. “Pick up the Pieces” was their top-selling track. Here the AWB are live with Daryl Hall at Daryl’s House in January 2010:

The AWB were pretty good, but they never sounded this funky on their own. Very nice!

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Saturday Soother – May 8, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Sunset at Old North Bridge, Concord, MA  – 2019 Photo by Kristen Wilkinson photography. Old North Bridge is where in April 1775, 400 American colonists engaged 90 British Army troops, routing them. The current bridge is a replica of the bridge that stood at the time of the 1775 battle.

Sorry for the long break.

Anyone else have the feeling that we’re in the beginning stages of a third revolution in America? Take a look at what’s happening in Republican-controlled state legislatures.

Arizona has outsourced an audit of its 2020 presidential vote in Maricopa county to a firm called Cyber Ninjas, a Florida company with no history in voting audits. One of the people helping coordinate the audit is John Brakey, who explained one of the tests that was being conducted as part of the review process:

“There’s accusations that 40,000 ballots were flown into Arizona and…stuffed into the box…And it came from the southeast part of the world….And what they’re doing is to find out if there’s bamboo in the paper…[because] they use bamboo in their paper processing…in southeast Asia.”

Thus, democracy hangs by a thread, possibly made of bamboo. But their audit isn’t about bamboo, it’s about bamboozling their base. It’s about keeping the contributions flowing and the outrage boiling. This speaks to a larger and growing problem. From The Bulwark: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Political sorting has created a country in which even local elections are highly polarized. In practice this means that divided government…[isn’t common]…even at the state legislative level. Forty-seven states have both branches of the legislature controlled by the same party….Of these, Republicans overwhelmingly dominate—meaning either complete control of both branches or veto-proof legislative majorities with a Democratic governor—in 25 states, giving party leaders carte blanche to set the agenda and pass bills.”

It’s been six months since the 2020 presidential election, and Trump’s lies about the election continue to corrode our democracy. Unfortunately, his lie is now a litmus test for Republicans. Republicans who spoke out against Trump’s lies are facing consequences as the Party coalesces around the former guy.

In Congress, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said:

“One-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration”

In the House, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) is expected to be forced out of her leadership post because she called Trump a liar. The House GOP members will stand against her and behind Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Why the unanimity? Because the House is different from the Senate.

McCarthy has 212 members who say to him, “your number one job is to get me re-elected,” while in the Senate, every senator is an island and has six years to reassure their voters that they’re ok with Trump, despite not all acting like his buddy. House members don’t run statewide. They only run for two-year terms, so they’re much more vulnerable to primary challenges.

The belief that the 2020 election was stolen isn’t amenable to fact-checking. The assertion of fraud has become an ideological statement that political opposition to the Republican Party and to Donald Trump is illegitimate. To oppose Trump is to be The Enemy, and The Enemy has surrendered any claim to fundamental political rights.

To paraphrase Norm from Cheers: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world and Democrats are wearing Milkbone underpants.”

We shouldn’t be surprised that most Republicans believe that the election was stolen. A majority of them believed the Obama birther lies. They believed Hillary killed Vince Foster. They believed giving tax breaks to the rich would “trickle down” to the rest of us. Most of them believe that universal health care, public day care, and free college will make America a communist state.

Biden has tumbled to the fact that he won’t be able to cut deals with the GOP. On Wednesday, he offered his least confident assessment:

“I don’t understand the Republicans.”

He now faces a basic question: What if Republicans have changed so fundamentally that they’ve become a rogue Party? The answer is, they have. So, what does that mean for Biden’s presidency? And for our democracy?

Enough, it’s time for our Saturday Soother. Time to get near a window and breathe in the pollen-soaked air in the Northeast. Our delicate fruit trees have made their annual journey outside for the summer, and the vegetable garden is planted. Now, like America, we await good results.

To help take your mind off how precipitously things have changed, spend a few minutes listening to “Kashmir”, by Led Zeppelin, in a symphonic cover version recorded live at the Epic Symphonic Rock show in Lima Peru in February 2018. The cello soloist is Ghislaine Valdivia. This is a real treat and a must watch:

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Saturday Soother, Mondale Edition – April 24, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Flying Saucer plants at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson AZ – April 19, 2021 photo via Visit Tucson

This is a long post by Joe Trippi about Walter “Fritz” Mondale. Mondale died last Monday. You should read to the end.

Trippi is a Democratic political operative who managed the 2004 Howard Dean presidential campaign. Recently, he was a senior advisor to Doug Jones’s successful Senate run in 2017.

Trippi cut his political teeth in Ted Kennedy’s unsuccessful run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1979. By 1983, he was 27, and working for Walter Mondale’s unsuccessful 1984 presidential run. After Mondale’s death this week, Trippi published this twitter thread with a picture of a boxing glove, and a personal story about the kind of man Mondale was. First, the boxing glove:

“1/ The story of these gloves will tell you the kind of man Fritz Mondale was and why he meant so much to me. Please take the time to read this thread – and wait for it. It’s worth it.

2/ In December 1983, I was in my 20’s and running Iowa for Fritz.
At the end of every campaign swing through Iowa – Fritz would almost always end the trip the same way….

3/ After loading the campaign plane…with traveling staff and a huge press corps that were assigned to a front-running campaign back then….

4/ Fritz would come down the steps of the plane and take me on a stroll around the tarmac 2 or 3 times before rebounding the plane to…some other state. The conversation always ended the same way…

5/ Fritz explaining that he could not lose Iowa and that he was counting on “The Hogs” (the name Mondale Iowa campaign staff proudly called ourselves) to do everything we could to make sure he won a must win state. “Don’t let up. Keep fighting” and back on the plane he went…

6/ But we also talked about all kinds of things before we got to the “no pressure, just don’t blow it” part. One day as we walked around the plane – we got to talking about my family. Fritz asked a dreaded question about my father….

7/ I explained to Fritz that my father had stopped talking to me 5 years earlier, when I left college to join the Kennedy campaign in 1979. My dad was old school Italian — I was supposed to take over his flower shop — not go to college, or run off to become a political hack…

8/ Fritz asked a few more questions and then joked with me that my dad was wrong about a lot of things but maybe I should have listened to him about going to work for Kennedy. I was one of only a handful of Kennedy operatives hired in the Mondale campaign…

9/ I was lucky to have worked for them both. But at the time there was still a lot of bad blood – luckily, Fritz was joking. And I was relieved when he got to the – “win Iowa” part…

10/ About a month Later, we won Iowa with 49% of the vote and with Gary Hart taking a distant 2nd, But that was enough to get Hart the media spotlight and the momentum he needed to win New Hampshire and the Hart rocket was roaring….

11/ After a string of loses to Hart, “fighting Fritz” emerged as the narrative of the campaign. Mondale would walk on to the stage at rally after rally and thrust these gloves in the air and speak from the heart about who he was fighting for…

12/ I remember traveling with him to a meat packing plant & Fritz bellowing ‘Show me your hands!” My jaw dropped as plant worker after worker thrust a hand in the air with fingers missing lost on the job. I had no idea, but Fritz did. And that’s who he was fighting for…

13/And so the campaign put out the word to the press that Fritz would carry those gloves and carry on the fight til he broke the string of losses to Hart. Time and delegates were running out on us and the delegate rich Pennsylvania primary was looming as critical to our cause…

14/ If I had nightmares about losing Iowa (and I did) they were nowhere near those I had in Pennsylvania. I was sent in as state director of Pennsylvania in March when we were down by 14 points. The Pennsylvania Primary would be held in April – months after winning Iowa…

15/ And so for a month – Fritz and I did the tarmac walk thing again. No Pressure but fighting Fritz needs you and all the staff to “not let up, remember who we are fighting for”…

16/ It was a comeback win of all comeback wins I have ever been part of — only Doug Jones win in 2017 compares to it. But Fritz won Pennsylvania – and with it regained the momentum to move towards being the Democratic nominee….

17/ After the polls closed and the networks called Pennsylvania for Fritz. I got a call in the boiler room. David Lillehaug, then the aide that traveled with Fritz (and would later serve as an Associate Justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court) was on the line…

18/ “Joe, Fritz wants to see you before he goes down to the ballroom to make his victory speech, get up here quick”. I rushed to the elevator and up to Fritz’s hotel suite…

19/ when I walked through the door there was Fritz Mondale, sitting down and explaining to an old Italian guy that his son was “in an honorable profession. Fighting for people who were down and hurting — he’s making a difference – I count on him and you need to know that ”….

20/ Fritz Mondale had remembered a story I had told him months and months ago — eons in the life of a Presidential campaign. He had somehow gotten someone to locate my dad and get him to Philadelphia to be there on Primary night and bring us together to reconcile…

21/ I still tear up thinking about this moment of my life that shows the kind of man Walter “Fritz” Mondale was. David Lillehaug broke the spell as my father hugged me… “Sir we have to get downstairs for your speech” and handed Fritz his “fighting Fritz” gloves….

22/ Fritz turned & said “I don’t need these anymore” took out a felt tip and wrote “To Rocky Trippi, with thanks” Fritz Mondale. Handed me the gloves , grabbed my dad, brought him with to the ballroom and dragged him on stage to stand with him as Fritz declared victory…

23/ Years later when my father passed away, I gently tucked one of the gloves with him to rest with him.

This one remains with me as homage to a man that touched my life like few others. RIP Fritz”

Mondale didn’t have a chance against Ronald Reagan in 1984, but he had a long, successful career in the US Senate, as vice president, and as ambassador to Japan.

Most of all, he was a decent man who never took himself too seriously. May we all have such a legacy.

Let’s close with soothing Saturday music. Listen to “Take Five” written by Paul Desmond, and famously recorded by Dave Brubeck in 1959. Here it’s played by the Camaleon Bassoon Quartet, who are  members of the bassoon section of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. Who ever heard of Jazz bassoon?

 

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Saturday Soother – April 3, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Spring snow in Grand Canyon NP – March 2021 photo by indieaz

Here’s some good news amidst all of the negative DC political punditry. US manufacturing activity hit its highest level in 37 years last month. Manufacturing’s biggest problem right now is the same one that Wrongo’s new treadmill company had: making products fast enough to satisfy all of their current demand.

A little more detail: The overall ISM manufacturing index rose from 60.8 to 64.7, the highest reading since 1984. The new orders sub-index, an important leading indicator, also rose from 64.8 to 68.0, the highest reading since 2004.

The Economist says that CEO worries about weak demand for products has been replaced by fear of supply bottlenecks, from worldwide chip shortages to the freak traffic jam in the Suez Canal. They quote Chad Moutray, chief economist of the National Association of Manufacturers:

“…90% of members surveyed recently by the trade association were bullish about their businesses’ outlook for the next 12 months, the highest in two years. Two-thirds foresee revenues returning to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year, as new orders, production and employment all pick up.”

The optimism is being backed by investment. Intel announced that it would spend $20 billion on two factories in Arizona. More from The Economist:

“Scott Davis of Melius, a research firm, reckons that capital expenditure at several dozen leading American industrial companies he follows, including icons such as Caterpillar and Stanley Black & Decker, are set to rise by 20% on average this year.”

Goldman Sachs forecasts that capital spending at S&P 500 firms will reach $740 billion this year, slightly above the $731 billion in 2019. For the first time in a while, Goldman Sachs says big American firms will spend more on capital goods, research and development than on dividends and share buy-backs.

Three factors are driving this positive news. First, America will be largely vaccinated by the summer, so the level of those unemployed should continue to drop, like it did last month, when 916,000 new jobs were added. This means that Americans will have more money to spend on cars, electronics and other goods. It’s not all roses, manufacturing jobs increased by 53,000. But, since February 2020, manufacturing is still down 515,000 jobs, or 4% of the total. As of now, over 60% of the total manufacturing jobs loss of 10.6% has been regained.

Second, much of the Biden infrastructure plan’s spending will wind up in the hands of private companies who will be performing all of that new infrastructure building. That’s the kind of trickle-down that causes economic growth.

Third, companies went to school on the impacts of tight, non-resilient supply chains. Some were surprised that bad Texas weather could slow production. Or, that Covid could stop their orders for PPE, and strain port capacity in Los Angeles. Stranded container ships in the Middle East and geopolitical tensions with China are making CEOs think more seriously about building networks that can withstand such shocks.

In the short term, this involves stockpiling components. In the longer run they are looking to bring production closer to home, which would also bolster American suppliers. More from the Economist:

“General Motors is hoping to build…a second battery factory in America. Intel’s planned Arizona [factories]…are a way both to guarantee deliveries of chips to customers in Detroit and beyond, and to “near-shore” the semiconductor giant’s own production.”

If people can just hang in there a little bit longer, we might just be able to avoid a whole lot more Covid deaths, and then have a very good year. Fingers crossed.

Time to put down your phones and settle in for a Saturday Soother, where we spend a few minutes escaping from the perils of the world. Here at the Mansion of Wrong, we had snow flurries on Friday, and the temperature barely got into the high 30s. That means a break from more spring yard work for a few days.

Let’s start by brewing up a yuuge cup of Dirty South – (As Dark As We Will Go) coffee ($14.99/12 oz.) from Atlanta’s Peach Coffee Roasters. Given the voting repression in Georgia, it seems certain that the outlook in the state for free and fair elections is substantially darker than this coffee.

Baseball’s opening day was Thursday. Some games were cancelled, while some played in snowstorms. When baseball has both indoor stadiums along with many in the warmer south and west, why are teams playing outdoors in 40°weather?

And, in honor of opening day, take a seat by a window and listen to “Field of Dreams” from the movie, performed live at the Tenerife International Film Music Festival. The music is composed by James Horner. The orchestra is conducted by Diego Navarro, artistic director of the festival. It is performed by the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. This is a very nice way to remember an iconic film:

Remember the line: “Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa.”

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Saturday Soother – March 27, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Stinson Beach, Marin County, CA – photo by Merrill Dodd

A single-point-of-failure in the global economy failed last week when the Ever Given, one of the world’s largest container ships, ran aground in the Suez Canal shutting down traffic in both directions. It’s now stuck sideways in the Canal.

And the Suez Canal isn’t just any waterway; it links the factories of Asia to the customers of Europe. It’s also a major conduit for crude oil. The WaPo reports that 12% of the world’s cargo travels through the Suez Canal. That this vast flow of cargo could come to a halt because a gust of wind blew a ship off course makes the brittleness of our global system of trade apparent.

That one mishap could spread chaos from Los Angeles to Rotterdam to Shanghai underscores the extent to which commerce today is tightly intertwined with the global supply chain. From the WaPo:

“By Friday, more than 160 ships were anchored in the Mediterranean and the Red seas. Egyptian officials appeared confident the canal could reopen within days, while salvage engineers cautioned that freeing the stuck ship might take weeks.”

A delay of two weeks could strand at sea one-fourth of the supply of containers that would normally be in European ports.

The NYT reports that a surge of Covid-related goods orders for items like exercise equipment has exhausted the supply of available containers at ports in China. The cost of shipping a container from Asia to North America has more than doubled since November. And on the US west coast, container unloading has been slowed as dockworkers and truck drivers were infected with Covid-19 or forced to stay home to attend to children who are out of school.

For decades, economists have lectured us about the virtues of “economic efficiency”. But, as the initially poor response of the global supply chain to the Covid-19 showed, economic resilience is also particularly important. We couldn’t get PPE for essential workers because we followed just-in-time inventory management and relied on China as our primary supplier. We’ve also seen shortages of computer chips for cars.

From the NYT: (brackets by Wrongo)

“It [just-in-time] has also yielded a bonanza for corporate executives and other shareholders: Money not spent filling warehouses with unneeded auto parts is, at least in part, money that can be given to shareholders in the form of dividends.”

Once again, we’re learning that the neo-liberal economic solution fails the people. So the economists and the CEOs have gotten it wrong. And the canal blockage, like the PPE shortages, show that they can be spectacularly wrong sometimes. More from the WaPo:

“And the grounding of the Ever Given has exposed how complex ownership structures in global shipping make it difficult to hold anyone accountable: The Ever Given is operated by Taiwan-based shipping company Evergreen Maritime. Evergreen charters the ship from a Japanese firm; a Dubai-based company acts as the agent for the ship in ports; and the ship flies the flag of Panama.”

So, accidents will happen, and they’re nobody’s fault.

The challenges presented by the Suez blockage come directly from the ‘just-in-time’ mantra. While a crisis cannot be predicted, it can be prepared for. Corporations and nations need to stop sticking their head in the sand about long-term planning, and get back to doing what the MBA’s call “resilience planning.”

Resilience planning’s been devalued by our push for short-term profits and stock market gains. If you doubt that, read about the massive cyberhack of US government agencies and major corporations, perhaps the biggest in history, that was discovered in early December by the security firm FireEye. Much of that was preventable by better management and planning.

Globalization isn’t our only problem. Add to it our short-term mindset which, when combined with greed, has endangered America.

It is unclear how long it will take for the Ever Given to be refloated and the flow of the canal traffic can resume. CNN reports that it may be freed over the weekend. But to do that, more than this level of effort will be required:

Credit: Reuters

As the clock ticks, Egypt isn’t collecting tolls for ships’ passage. And many ships, including some operated by Evergreen, have begun to re-route around the Cape of Good Hope. Multiple shipping firms have contacted the US Navy for protection against pirates on their rerouted trip, according to the Financial Times (paywalled).

Enough of the world’s problems for now. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, when we take a break and either watch the Sweet Sixteen if so inclined, or do more spring yardwork, since today is supposed to be the better of the weekend days.

Before pulling on the gloves, let’s take a few moments and listen to “Cloudburst” by George Winston, from his album, “Plains”. The video is of springtime in the northern Idaho plains. It’s a meditation on a few of our feathered friends in spring:

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Saturday Soother – March 20, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Owens Valley, Mammoth Lakes, CA – photo by anraaivi

Has anyone else noticed that the media is trying to rehabilitate Florida governor Ron DeSantis? From Eric Boehlert at Press Run: (brackets by Wrongo)

“He’s [DeSantis] spent the last year brawling over Covid, trying to silence scientists, covering up data, rescinding mask ordinances, and doing his best Trump II imitation by playing down the virus’ threat, fighting with the Florida press, and portraying himself as a maverick under attack.”

More:

“In recent weeks though, the Beltway media have rallied to the southern governor’s cause. They’re holding him up as a rare Republican Covid star, pushing GOP talking points about how DeSantis has steered the Sunshine State into “boom” times, and suggesting the pandemic has thrust him to the front of the 2024 White House line.”

The LA Times recently compared Florida’s Covid results to that of California:

“From the earliest days of the pandemic, California and Florida took significantly different courses in responding to the crisis, approaches that came to symbolize the deep divisions across America on how best to respond to the coronavirus.”

California’s lock-down hurt their economy and left most public school students learning at home. Florida adopted a laissez-faire approach that most public health experts thought was very risky: Masks were optional, kids were back in school earlier than elsewhere. Restaurants were open for indoor dining.

Now, Republican DeSantis is garnering praise in conservative circles while Democrat Gavin Newsom is facing a potential recall over his handling of the crisis. Making Boehlert’s point is a recent WSJ opinion piece that had a numerical comparison between the two states, calling it DeSantis’ “vindication.”

Despite the DeSantis hype, California did a better job controlling the virus. If California had Florida’s death rate, 6,000 more Californians would be dead, and tens of thousands of additional patients would have been admitted to already overcrowded California hospitals.

And if Florida had California’s death rate, 3,000 fewer Floridians would be dead from Covid. Here’s a chart showing the differences:

As the chart shows, Florida had a cumulative death rate that was at one point, 84% higher than California’s. But the winter surge slammed California, and the gap has narrowed to 11%.

Florida has performed worse, but only modestly worse than California. The big question is, did following the CDC guidelines make a difference? The CDC just released a study of all 3,000 US counties that found that mask mandates were linked to a significant reduction in Covid deaths.

But not all states’ death rates align perfectly with their policies. Arizona and Florida both had lax rules, but Arizona’s death rate was far worse. Hawaii and Vermont, whose rules are like California’s, have the two lowest death rates in the nation, so other factors are driving the outcomes.

Within California, the Bay Area’s death rate is only one-third that of LA County. This could be due to LA’s large number of essential workers, extreme levels of overcrowding and a population that’s less receptive to restrictions.

If LA County’s deaths are subtracted from California’s total, Florida’s death rate would be 39% higher than California minus LA. It is those LA vulnerabilities that drove California’s surges and pushed its total death rates closer to Florida’s.

Florida’s older population might have prevented the virus from spreading as quickly as in California. Worldwide, young adults who socialize and mingle, either at work or in social settings, tend to spread the virus the most, while older people are more cautious. Florida’s population is the fifth-oldest nationwide. The percentage of those over 65 in Florida is 20% vs. 14% in California.

But scientists note Florida’s humid climate may have helped keep the death rate low.

Is this another case of the press airbrushing a Republican’s performance to set up a comparison? Hard to say, but California is forecasting a state budget surplus, while Florida is grappling with a state budget shortfall. More workers in California were able to work from home, keeping wages and taxes flowing.

On to the first day of spring! Many think that the availability of vaccines will bring some semblance of normalcy. Let’s hope so. It’s promising to be beautiful in Connecticut today, so we may be outside doing yard work.

But before we pick up the rakes, it’s time for our Saturday Soother. So, grab a seat by the window and listen to Robert Plant & Alison Krauss perform a sultry live cover of Led Zeppelin’s head-banging “Black Dog”. At last week’s Grammys, Beyonce took over the #1 spot for most Grammys awarded to a female performer. Few know that the person she overtook is Alison Krauss, a bluegrass singer with 27 Grammys to her credit. Watch Alison’s “Black Dog” duet with Robert Plant here.

Their duet is waaay different from the legendary Robert Plant’s 1973 duet with Jimmy Page at MSG.

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Saturday Soother – March 13, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Warwick RI – 2021 photo by Rick Bateman

The WaPo reports that a Georgetown University law professor was terminated and a second placed on leave after a video clip showed a conversation between them that included what a University official called “reprehensible” statements about Black students.

The conversation between adjunct professors Sandra Sellers and David Batson was shared on Twitter this week. It shows Sellers discussing student performance:

“I hate to say this. I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks,” Sellers said in the video. “Happens almost every semester. And it’s like, ‘Oh, come on.’ You get some really good ones, but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy.”

Full disclosure: Wrongo is a graduate of Georgetown University.

Context for the video: The professors held their conversation on a zoomed negotiations class on February 21. It was recorded so that students could view it later. Sellers and Batson stayed on the call after the students left, and their conversation was also recorded. It was saved online for about two weeks before students noticed the conversation between Sellers and Batson. Then it was reported by students to the administration. The university fired Sellers and issued a statement on Thursday after the video went viral.

Ever notice how racists always start with a comment that gives them away? They try blunting the racism with phrases like “I hate to say it” or, using weird phrasing like “a lot of my lower ones are Black.” Most White people know that they can say 90% of the same shit they’ve always said, if they preface it with a disclaimer:

  • “I’m not a racist, but…”
  • “I have black friends, but…”

But what we hear most since Trump is:  “(big sigh), I know it’s not politically correct (eye roll), but...”

That’s used when they want to make sure everyone knows that they’re political martyrs who are living dangerously.

Imagine reversing professor Sellers’s thought: “I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Whites…You get some really good ones, but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom.” That shows how odd it is to divide your law students into racial groups.

Georgetown Law doesn’t have trouble finding top quality students. US News rates it as number 14 among American law schools. They receive more applicants than they can accept. They may not be getting the topmost Harvard and Yale candidates, but they can choose from among the very high quality law students. Logically, all of their admitted students should be able to perform at a high level.

Still, a normal distribution of performance should be expected because multiple factors go into creating a final grade. Think about a student’s commitment to studying, or their individual contribution in class. Sometimes, group assignments are graded, which are at least partially dependent on others. So, it should be common for grades to be normally distributed.

Every day, we learn again that racism is a norm, not an exception in America. One day, that may no longer be true, but that day isn’t going to get any closer by pretending it’s already arrived. So it’s good that Sellers was fired.

Finally, graduating at the top of your class isn’t necessary or sufficient to insure high-level future performance. Doubt that? Remember that Ulysses S. Grant graduated at the bottom of his West Point class and did just fine. While Mike Pompeo graduated first at West Point, so there you go.

It was a big week in DC, with the passage of the American Recovery Plan, and the one-year anniversary of the start of the pandemic. But now, it’s time for our Saturday Soother. We’ve started on the spring clean-up on the fields of Wrong. The deer fences have come down, and we’re starting to think about some new split rail fencing. Remember, Daylight Savings Time starts tonight, but the dog has no plans to “spring ahead”. He’ll still want breakfast at the same time on Sunday morning.

Let’s settle back near a window and listen to the” Flute Quintet in D Major, Op. 51 No. 1: III. Adagio ma non troppo”, by Fredrich Kahlau, Danish composer who knew Mozart, and died in 1832. Here it’s played by the Kodály Quartet along with soloist Ginervra Petrucci:

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