Category: Saturday Soother

Saturday Soother – December 12, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Cathedral Spires, Black Hills SD – 2020 photo by Max Foster

We’re stumbling into another December weekend without a bailout package for those who are still unemployed in the pandemic. The WaPo’s headline says it all: “More Americans are shoplifting food as aid runs out during the pandemic.” This is caused at least in part, by people going without jobs or unemployment insurance while waiting for the Senate and Mitch McConnell to come up with a bill that provides Americans the aid they need.

But the biggest news of the week was that the Supreme Court declined to hear the case brought by Texas asking the Court to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and declare Trump to be the winner. The Supreme Court wrote:

“The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot,”

In case you’re wondering, Trump’s three new appointments didn’t support hearing the case. Whoever talked Trump out of appointing his kids, Eric, Ivanka and Junior to the Court had better lay low for the next few days. The Supreme Court deserves credit for rejecting an attempt to destroy American democracy, but many of those Republicans who joined the lawsuit, deserve our harshest judgment.

Adam Sewer of The Atlantic tweeted:

People have argued that because Trump hasn’t overturned an election, that we can now relax: The “system worked”, there were no tanks in the streets. But Republicans chose sides this week. More than half (126) of the Republicans in the House of Representatives signed onto Texas’s failed lawsuit, along with 17 Republican attorneys-general. Republicans must own up to their anti-democratic actions.

Once this is over, and Trump is living in Florida and is acting as president-in-exile, we’ll need to hold all of his seditious minions accountable. Unsurprisingly, this failed lawsuit came from the Party that claims to oppose “judicial activism.”

But enough of all of this big news, Wrongo was attracted to an Ars Technica story that reported on researchers teaching lab rats to drive little electric cars. The research was aimed at learning what effect the environment a rat was raised in had on its ability to learn new tasks. The team, led by Richmond University professor Kelly Lambert, decided to teach them to drive not just navigate another maze.

But if you’re going to teach rats to drive, first you need to build them a car (an ROV or, Rat Operated Vehicle). The chassis and powertrain came from a robot car kit, and a transparent plastic food container provided the body:

The controls were three copper wires stretched across an opening cut out of the front, with an aluminum plate on the floor. When a rat stood on the plate and gripped a copper bar, a circuit was completed, and the motors engaged: one bar made the car turn to the left, one made it turn to the right, and the third made it go straight ahead. Sounds hard, but it didn’t take long for the rats to learn how to drive. Their goal was to drive the car to a food treat.

The rats had three five-minute training sessions a week for eight weeks, and they learned to drive!

The placement of the treat and the starting position and orientation of the car varied, so the rats had a different challenge each time. At the end of the experiment, each rat went through a series of trials, conducted a few days apart, where they were allowed to drive around the arena. One experiment had them driving without food treats, to see if they were only doing driving to get food.

Some who were quicker to start driving continued to be more interested in driving, even when there was no reward beyond the feel of moving without using their feet.

Uber is excited by this news and may try to replace human drivers. It’s their Holy Grail: drivers that do it for the love of driving and don’t ask for pay, benefits, or even treats.

On to the weekend! We’re finishing up the Christmas decorations in the Mansion of Wrong, although there will be very few visitors this time. So grab an ornament, and listen to the Dave Brubeck Quartet play “Take Five” from their 1959 ground-breaking album, “Time Out”. The tune was written by Paul Desmond, here on alto saxophone, Brubeck on piano, Teo Macero, drums and Eugene Wright on bass. Have a martini on the house:

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Saturday Soother – December 5, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Trump barn, Ohio –  photo by Dan Keck via

The Democrats are soul-searching about why they can’t win the US rural vote. Many believe the Democrats underperformed in fly-over America, and they’re asking (again) if rural America is lost to them forever.

According to the Economic Innovation Group, the rural Midwest counties Biden won had population growth that averaged 1.8% over the past 10 years, while counties Trump won saw an average population decline of 2.5%:

“…16 rural counties flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020…12 flipped from Clinton in 2016 to Trump in 2020.”

So, not much change. Over the past 50 years, the Midwest has seen out-migration, economic stagnation, young people leaving and small towns withering. They turned rightward and have largely stayed there. Is rural America worth fighting for?

Estimates of rural populations across the US suggest roughly 20% of Americans live in them. Rural areas are not exclusive to states that gave all their electors to Trump. New York and California have plenty of rural spaces and voters. Wrongo’s county in Democratic Connecticut is largely rural, and voted for Trump in 2016 and by a lower margin in 2020.

Yet, given the Electoral College, it is difficult to fashion a durable political majority if Democrats write off most of exurban and rural America. Let’s briefly look at Iowa and Wisconsin.

In Iowa, Trump won the state by 8.3 percentage points this year. GW Bush won in 2004 by 0.7 percentage points. He was the first GOP presidential candidate to carry Iowa in 20 years. Obama won with 54% in 2008 and 52% in 2012. Trump won with 51.7% in 2016, and with 53% in 2020.

Trump carried 93 rural counties, while Biden carried all six of Iowa’s urban counties. Republicans now represent all or parts of 97 of Iowa’s 99 counties.

Wisconsin flipped to blue by six-tenths of a percentage point. Biden won in 14 counties. From Martin Longman at Progress Pond:

“Wisconsin’s Dunn County is in the central part of the state, over 96% white, and represented by Democrat Ron Kind in Congress. Not far from Eau Claire, the rural area voted for Barack Obama twice, but in 2016 Donald Trump won it with 52% to 41%, a 2,000-vote advantage over Hillary Clinton. In 2020, running against Joe Biden, Trump carried Dunn County 56-42, giving him a 3,300-vote edge.”

Bill Hogseth, the chair of the county’s Democratic Party, wrote a piece for Politico Magazine, explaining that the national Democratic Party doesn’t take rural issues seriously enough to get support from rural Wisconsinites. From Hogseth:

“For Democrats to start telling a story that resonates, they need to show a willingness to fight for rural people, and not just by proposing a “rural plan” or showing up on a farm for a photo op…A big step forward for Democrats would be to champion antitrust enforcement and challenge the anticompetitive practices of the gigantic agribusiness firms that squeeze our communities. In his rural plan, Biden pledged to “strengthen antitrust enforcement,” but the term doesn’t appear until the 35th bullet point. For rural voters, antitrust enforcement is a top priority…”

Hogseth is talking about Democratic neglect. Elizabeth Warren made anti-trust and the breakup of big companies’ part of her primary campaign. That’s good policy, and if it helps win some rural votes, even better.

Republicans aren’t talking about anti-monopoly anywhere in America. A generous Farm Bill channeled money into rural areas and the Trump administration’s trade relief payments to farmers have helped maintain rural Republican support. Hogseth says Democratic neglect leaves:

“…an opening for other stories to be told to fill the vacuum—stories that villainize and divide us along racial, geographic and partisan lines.”

People don’t make decisions based solely on a rational analysis, or on self-interest. They don’t believe in the Democrats’ promises to improve things, because Dems haven’t delivered on them in the past 40 years. They need a villain to blame. Trump, and the GOP (and every other nationalist movement in history) gives them just that.

The center-left should be rejoicing, but their down-ballot results are a cause for concern. Today, Democrats are fighting about whether they should be more progressive, or remain moderate going forward.

One reason that Trump got 74+ million votes was because Democrats never mobilized the working class against him. Instead, they mobilized to win suburbia. That gave Biden the presidency, but it also keeps our enduring governmental gridlock in place.

Time to relax a bit on this December Saturday. Today, Connecticut is waiting on a snow storm that in typical nor’easter fashion, could dump 10+ inches, or miss us entirely.

Still, we have time to take a few minutes, turn away from our email, and listen to Harpist Silke Aichhorn play Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” from his Nutcracker Suite. It was written as a ballet in 1892, and has been enjoyed around the holidays ever since:

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Saturday Soother – Attempted Coup Edition, November 21, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Bryce Canyon NP, UT – November 2020 photo by cookdog1117

We’ve come to a point where the future of our democracy depends on a few Republicans doing the right thing.

Wrongo has never written a scarier sentence, but it’s true. The success or failure of the slow-rolling Trump coup will be decided by a small group of Republicans who have the job of certifying the election in key swing states. The WaPo says it all:

“…Trump is using the power of his office to try to reverse the results of the election, orchestrating a far-reaching pressure campaign to persuade Republican officials in Michigan, Georgia and elsewhere to overturn the will of voters in what critics decried Thursday as an unprecedented subversion of democracy.”

We became aware of Trump’s plan when he called a Republican member of Michigan’s Wayne County Board of Canvassers (who had earlier voted to certify the County’s vote) to persuade her to change her vote. After speaking to Trump, she unsuccessfully tried to rescind her certification of Biden’s win in what is the state’s largest county.

Not giving up, on Friday, Trump summoned two Michigan GOP leaders to the White House ahead of next Monday’s state canvassing board meeting to certify Michigan’s results for Biden. After the meeting, they said they were “not yet aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election” in Michigan. They also vowed not to interfere with the certification process.

Trump’s efforts threaten our system of democratic presidential elections: If state officials start claiming the right to overturn elections because of unsubstantiated claims about “election fraud,” our democratic system will die.

What Trump is doing is election tampering. He risks criminal charges for directly intervening to change the votes for certification by the Wayne County Board members, and the minds of the two Michigan legislators. When does his criminal attempt to influence the Michigan election people become actionable?

If Michigan’s board becomes deadlocked, it is possible that Michigan’s Republican-controlled legislature could ignore Biden’s popular-vote win and seat Trump electors. But, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has the power to fire members of the canvassing board and appoint interim replacements without legislative approval.

The Georgia recount is finished and Biden won. Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified the statewide result on Friday, as required by law. The certification now sits with Gov. Brian Kemp (R). His signature is required by law on Saturday. But Trump has been publicly badgering Kemp to intervene in the recount to reject ballots and “flip” the result. The WaPo reports that Trump has told advisers he is furious with the governor for not doing more to help Trump take Georgia.

Trump’s coup would also need to succeed in Arizona, along with Michigan and Georgia, to change the election’s outcome.

Despite the voting, the counting, the re-counting and absolutely zero evidence of fraud, America needs a few Republicans to put country over Party, or the coup may succeed. Inadvertently, Trump’s effort to grab power has made the most persuasive argument yet for doing away with the Electoral College. What we’ve learned the hard way is that America lacks the proper checks and balances in our government to stop a tyrant. It’s very clear that Trump is free to subvert the very democracy he was elected to lead.

This is a lesson that must be learned. We must make sure this doesn’t happen again. We need to assure that no future tyrant like Trump is allowed to be the final judge in his or her own cause.

It’s difficult to divorce our thinking from the possible wreckage of our democracy, but let’s try to move away from it for a few minutes on this Saturday, while calming down to the extent we can.

Nearly all of the leaves are down on the fields of Wrong, and our thoughts turn to the holidays. This year, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be smaller, but surely as nice as bigger ones in the past. Scaling back for a year should be seen as an act of generosity, part of our community’s effort to avoid spreading the Coronavirus.

It’s frighteningly clear that the rampant growth in cases of Coronavirus show that society is failing the “marshmallow test”, because the “libertarian” way of life in red States means “I only do the things that I want to do, how that effects the rest of you be damned”.

Let’s relax with a piece by Franz Liszt, “Un Sospiro”, the third of three Concert Études he wrote between 1845-1849. An etude is a study in crossing hands on the piano, playing a simple melody while alternating hands with increasing complexity. This étude has been considered by many pianists as one of the most beautiful piano pieces. Here it is played by Dubravka Tomsic:

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Saturday Soother – Another Election Hot Take, November 7, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Fall Giving Way to winter, VT – October 2020 photo by Jennifer Hannux (hat tip Jeri S.)

Trump’s 17 minute debacle on our election process reminds Wrongo of FDR’s advice about public speaking: “Be sincere, be brief, be seated“. Trump wasn’t any of them.

If Wrongo was to ask how a specific county voted, giving you the following information, what would you say? This county is 96% Latino, the most Latino county in the US. Its poverty rate is 35% and its unemployment rate is 7.9%. It is also among the poorest counties in the US. Leading up to the election this fall, the county had a surge in Coronavirus cases that overwhelmed its only hospital, a 45 bed facility.

So, how would this county vote in 2020? In 2016, Clinton won it by 60%. In 2020, Biden won it by only 5%. We’re talking about Starr County, TX. Here’s a map with the 2020 election results superimposed:

This didn’t escape notice in the local paper, the Valley Central News. They quoted Political Science Professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Dr. Natasha Altema, who said that the “defund the police” meme may have cost the Democrats: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“…we’ve seen throughout the Valley that law enforcement—whether if it’s in the form of policing or CBP [US Customs and Border Protection] —is very prominent here along the border”

Altema also said that local lack of understanding about the Black Lives Matter movement may have also caused a push-back:

“The association of Black Lives Matters with the Democrats would be a turnoff—right? Because of…lack of understanding or misinformation,”

BTW, all local races were won by Democrats.

This was a dramatic swing towards Trump in four years, particularly since this is predominantly a Mexican-American community that lives in a border town. The question has to be: Are we witnessing a dramatic and historic realignment?

This can be broadened to the entire country. Trump underperformed with white men, but made gains with every other demographic. Some 26% of his votes came from nonwhite Americans, the highest percentage for a Republican since 1960. As Matt Taibbi says:

“Trump doubled his support with Black women, moving from 4% in 2016 to 8%, while upping his support among Black men from 13% to 18%. Remember, this was after four years of near-constant denunciations of Trump as not just a racist, but the leader of a literal white supremacist movement…”

Earlier this week, Wrongo introduced the idea that people across demographic groups liked the policies of the Economic Left, but disliked the policies of the Cultural Left. Biden isn’t really a part of the Economic or Cultural Left, but he allowed himself to be called a “socialist” by the Economic Right. He was tagged with approving of “defund the police” by the Cultural Right. We know that the Democratic Party platform does not embrace “socialism.” Nor does Biden.

Don’t forget, the Democrats nominated exactly the candidate the Party centrists wanted. That didn’t change what Republicans said about him. Biden was the moderate in the race, but Republicans still called him a radical socialist.

The Dems need to make some political changes, or they’ll lose Starr County (and more) next time. But that requires a rethink of its policies toward working Americans to include: Health care, good jobs, safe streets, free education. The main policies supported by the Cultural Left do not look like winners in heartland America.

Finally, it’s bizarre that after all this time, Democrats can’t defend what they believe from the attacks by the Right. Some Dems continue to believe that if they change what they believe, it will change what Republicans say about them. It won’t. Changing to policies that align with what average Americans need may fashion a durable coalition of Rural and Urban voters.

Maybe by the time you read this, Biden will have been (nominally) declared the next President, subject to the legal skirmishes Trump has planned for him. Those legal battles probably won’t start until next week, so try to relax today with our Saturday Soother.

Temperatures will be in the 70’s on the fields of Wrong this weekend. That means that Wrongo will be putting up our deer fencing to protect Ms. Right’s plantings from becoming deer food when cold winter arrives.

We will try to de-stress from the election season, along with everyone else. To get us off to a good start, listen to the late Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” performed live by Eddie Vetter and Beyoncé in 2015 at the Global Citizen Festival. This performance includes a short part of a speech by Nelson Mandela. The song is more important now than ever:

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Saturday Soother – October 31, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Mohawk Trail, just off Route 2, near Williamstown, MA – October 2020 photo by Alahomora

Three days to go.

Happy Halloween, although at the Mansion of Wrong, All Hallows Eve is just another day. We’ve never had a human come to the door looking for treats. Let’s hope that tonight’s not the night.

The reality show that is 2020 really sucks. On Monday in NYC, a man fell about 15 feet into a pit of rats when a sidewalk sinkhole opened under him. He was injured and while he will recover, nobody will ever want his nightmares.

And early on Sunday morning, we turn the clocks back one hour when daylight saving time ends in most of the US. This year, more than 30 states considered legislation to make daylight saving time permanent, something that Wrongo endorses.

Roll Call has this about Trump’s closing argument:

“By arguing that the country is ‘rounding the corner’ on COVID-19 in the face of irrefutable data that the coronavirus is surging, Donald Trump risks appearing more and more out of touch with reality.”

But we know cases are way up. This is the NYT’s chart from Friday:

From the NYT:

“As of Friday morning, more than 9,024,100 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 228,700 have died…”

That’s roughly a 2.5% death rate since the virus came to our shores. It seems serious that cases are rising in most states, while deaths are rising in 24. The NYT reports that the top ten states with the highest death rates are: (in order) North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, Nebraska, Idaho, Iowa and Utah.

Most of these states have significant populations that refuse to wear masks or practice physical distancing. Now, there clearly are people in America who won’t work for the common good, because their backs have never really been against the wall. We’ve become a soft, cartoonish version of what our parents and grandparents had to be in order to survive.

Americans play at being tough. Some of us strap on side arms or long guns to go to the supermarket. We complain when the internet is down because we can’t play Netflix or our favorite video game. We melt down on Facebook when someone objects to our little thoughts.

What this moment should have given all of us was a sense of common purpose that united us against an invisible enemy. Instead, it’s simply too hard for us to delay even a moment’s gratification in the face of the second wave of the pandemic.

Notice too that of those ten states, only one (Wisconsin) is a good bet to vote Blue next week. That’s not necessarily a problem, since the path to 270 for Biden looks like this:

If you look at voters in generational terms, Trump has turned into an electoral cul-de-sac. He’s simultaneously losing younger voters by a 2-to-1 margin, while also losing seniors by nearly 10 percent.

If you’re voting Blue this year regardless of your Party affiliation, you are indeed serving a common purpose, one that you will remember forever: When our democracy was on the brink of collapse, when our fellow Americans needed us, we came together to fire Donald Trump.

There are still a few days left to obsess about the election, but its Saturday, and we need our weekly break from the monster that sucks all of the happiness out of our lives. It’s time for our Saturday Soother.

We had snow on the fields of Wrong on Friday, and the weekend is bringing overnight temperatures in the 20’s, so few outdoor plants will survive that hard frost. We’ve still got a tree to plant that is supposed to arrive today, but Wrongo will wait for next week’s warmer weather to get it in the ground.

No coffee today, but a very relaxing video. The music is by Franz Schubert, his No. 4 Standchen from Schwanengesang, which means “swan song” in German. It’s from a collection of songs written by Schubert at the very end of his life. The Schwanengesangs were composed in 1828, and published in 1829, just a few months after the composer’s death. Franz Liszt later transcribed them for solo piano.

So a hopeful swan song for Trump, and a relaxing moment for all of us who listen today. Here the solo piano is played by Vadim Chaimovich.

The video combines Schubert with images of a Van Gogh painting. Pretty relaxing:

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Saturday Soother – Post Debate Edition, October 24, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Lone Cypress, Pebble Beach, CA – October 2020 photo by cookdog1117

Was there any joy in Trumpville after Thursday’s debate? Predictably, those on the right said Trump won decisively, while most mainstream media said Biden held serve. All but the right agreed on one thing, that Trump lied his way through the hour and a half debate. As Eric Alterman noted afterwards:

“One of Trump’s (and the Republican Party’s) greatest victories in their efforts to undermine our democracy is how little attention is being paid to the fact that virtually everything he said last night was a lie.”

But did Trump help himself? Probably not enough. Jonathan Last at The Bulwark reported on a new poll from Gallup that asked: “Does President Donald Trump deserve to be reelected?” The answer:

  • No = 56%
  • Yes = 43%

Only 1% had no opinion. Last correctly says that this should spell electoral death for Trump. He also points out that in the same poll, 60% of respondents said that their member of Congress deserves reelection while just 35% say their member doesn’t deserve reelection. So for the two federal offices that every American can vote on in two weeks, the average member of Congress is +25 on reelect; while Trump is -13 points.

Finally, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight is now predicting a total turnout of between 144 million and 165 million votes, with their most likely being 154 million votes. It’s worth remembering that turnout in 2016 was 137 million votes. In 2004, 122 million people voted. In 2008, the number was 130 million. So, it was up eight million from 2004 to 2008, and then up another seven million from 2008 to 2016.

Imagine a 2020 election where turnout rises by 17 million over 2016! If 154 million voters actually turnout, Trump will be looking at the most resounding defeat of an incumbent president in at least 40 years.

When you take those two numbers together: Trump down by -13 on “deserves reelection” with turnout in the vicinity of 154 million, the only open question is the magnitude of Trump’s loss.

Your pre-election anxiety is no longer warranted.

So relax on this October Saturday. The leaves keep falling on the fields of Wrong, but the weather is unseasonably warm. Most of our yard work is done, the Bluebird houses have been taken in for another winter. Next, the Meyer lemon tree must come inside, where our Christmas cactus has already set its buds. It should be in bloom by Thanksgiving.

So today, take the morning off. It was another tough week in Covid-raging America. Start by brewing up a vente cup of Hawai’i Puna Anaerobic Washed ($19.95/4 oz.) from Paradise Roasters, located in Hawaii and Minneapolis, Minnesota. This cup is said to be fruit-and honey-toned, with flavors of Lychee, tamarind, and almond brittle. That cup seems to be doing a lot of work!

Now settle back and listen to “The Love” by the Black Eyed Peas and Jennifer Hudson. This is the third version of a song released by the Peas. It is an updated version of the Black Eyed Peas’ 2003 hit, “Where is the Love?’ Lyrics include:

“I think the whole world is addicted to the drama.

Only attracted to things that’ll bring the trauma.”

This version interweaves parts of Joe Biden’s acceptance speech with the lyrics of the Black Eyed Peas song. This is among the most powerful videos you will watch this election season:

Have a soothing Saturday.

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Saturday Soother – October 17, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Hiram, ME – October 2020 photo by alexishowardphoto

Wrongo and Ms. Right are camped out on Cape Cod for a week. We’re trying to stave off the approaching cold and dark that will be soon be upon us. Also, we wanted to smell the salt air for a few days at least, in our Covid-filled 2020.

And every single person we’ve had to make small talk with in the past two weeks has said this exact sentence: “It gets dark so early now”.

The two things that dominated the week were the Amy Coney Barrett hearings and the continued growth in Covid cases as we run up to the election. Starting with the Barrett hearings, how is it believable that we have a process where aspirants to hold a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court pretend to have never given any thought to fundamental questions that absolutely every American adult has an opinion about?

She’ll be confirmed, and then we’ll move on to some fresh new Republican outrage.

Wrongo has said for months that this is the Covid election. No one wants to see more cases, but with incompetent presidential leadership, this is where we are with 17 days left until the election:

According to the NYT, over the past two weeks, new cases have increased in 43 states, plus DC and Guam. Deaths are increasing in 23 states. But Trump wants us to talk about whether Twitter is burying a story about Hunter Biden.

He’s bet his re-election on saying the pandemic is no big deal. Sadly for Americans, he’s wrong (again).

If the reaction by the anti-maskers (mostly Republicans) stay as they are currently, with some states encouraging residents to go maskless, then the projected number of deaths by February could be close to 400,000.

But if everybody stopped being stupid and wore masks and skipped large gatherings and kept a safe distance from others, then we could see the number of deaths be closer to 300,000.

Finally, a reason for hope: The Democratic candidate fundraising platform ActBlue just reported its most successful fundraising quarter in history. They raised $1.5 billion in three months from individual donors. That total includes some of Wrongo’s and Ms. Right’s money:

“From July through September, 6.8 million donors made 31.4 million contributions through ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s favored online donation platform, averaging $47 per donation. More than 14,223 campaigns and organizations benefited from the surge in donations, the largest single quarter in the platform’s 15-year history, according to figures shared first with POLITICO.”

In September alone, ActBlue processed $758 million. This doesn’t mean that the fight against Citizens United shouldn’t continue, but it does mean that energized voters can compete with the Big Money when it really counts.

Two years ago, no one thought Democrats had much of a chance of flipping the Senate. Now, with competitive races in North Carolina, Georgia (two), South Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, Arizona, Maine, Iowa, and Colorado, there is better than 50% chance of turning the Senate blue. Since Democrat Doug Jones will almost certainly lose in Alabama, if the Dems can flip five red seats, they will have the Senate to go with the House and the White House.

Voting can change the world. Those over 45 years old made our current, crumbling world. People younger than 45 have the power to remake it, if they turn out by November 3.

On to the weekend. After another rock ’em sock ’em week, you definitely need some Saturday Soother time! Let’s start by brewing up a cup of Colombia Hacienda Casablanca, ($20/12oz.), said to be bright, juicy, and cocoa-rich. It comes to us from Toronto’s Stereo Coffee Roasters.

Now settle back and listen to a classic played in a different way. Here is Debussy’s “Clair de lune” played on solo Harp by Mali Llywelyn. Here, she’s playing at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London in November 2017:

This will both relax and inspire you.

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Saturday Soother – Covid in the White House Edition

The Daily Escape:

Near Contoocook NH – September 2020 photo by Karen Randall

The October surprise is off to an impressive start! Wrongo suspected that Trump would either force the Durham investigation to announce a few indictments of members of the Obama administration, or the approval of a COVID-19 vaccine in October. But instead, both Trump and the First Lady have tested positive, throwing the presidential election into chaos.

Former Vice President Joe and Jill Biden tested negative for the virus on Friday. VP Mike Pence and his wife Karen also have tested negative, as did the Trump’s son, Barron.

What other surprises might we expect? Plenty. There are still 31 days left until the election.

Keep in mind that the vast majority of people with COVID, even the vast majority of those with co-morbidities, do not become critically ill, let alone die from it. But, Trump was transported by helicopter to Walter Reed Military Medical Center on Friday evening. If Trump ends up in an ICU, the 25th amendment could come into play.

If you want to bone up on what the US succession plan looks like should Trump become incapacitated, the Brookings Institution has a detailed piece on what happens:

“First, those in the line of succession would need to be protected. It would be important to keep Vice President Pence, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Grassley (President Pro Tempore), and members of the cabinet isolated from the president. It would be especially important to ensure that the vice president have limited contact with individuals generally to reduce his chances of contracting the virus as well.”

Grassley is in the line of succession? Shoot me now. Next:

“If the president is given notice that he is to be administered therapies that will impair his ability to perform the duties of office—for functional reasons, cognitive reasons, or both—under Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, the president can transmit to the House and Senate “his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

When Section 3 is invoked, the vice president becomes “acting president” until the president notifies the House and Senate that he is able to perform his duties once again. Section 3 has been invoked three times. Once for Reagan 1985, and twice for GW Bush in 2002 and 2007. Each time was for medical procedures that required anesthesia or heavy sedation.

If a president’s condition declined so rapidly that he was unable to invoke Section 3, Section 4 can be used instead. Under Section 4, the vice president and a majority of the cabinet can send notice to the House and Senate that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. In this case, the vice president also serves as acting president.

Once a president recovers, he can transmit a letter to that effect to the House and Senate, and re-take presidential power, unless the vice president and a majority of the cabinet tell Congress that the president remains incapacitated—at which point Congress must vote on a finding of incapacity.

As of now, Trump isn’t incapacitated, so he’ll continue in office, even at the hospital. Unlike the rest of us, he has the best tax payer-provided health care available, and it only cost him $750:

It’s unlikely anyone will truly relax this weekend, but let’s begin our usual Saturday Soother, designed to help you kick back, unwind, and think about anything other than politics. Here in Connecticut, we are starting to have the fall colors New England promises, but they are a little flat compared with other years.

The weekly coffee remains on hiatus, so it’s time for some soothing music. Today, let’s take a seat near a window, put on the Bluetooth headphones and listen to “Meditation” from Jules Massenet’s opera, “Thaïs”. It is based on the novel Thaïs by Anatole France. It was first performed in Paris in March, 1894.

Today, the Meditation is performed by violinist Janine Jansen in 2006, with the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Neeme Järvi. The concert was held at Berlin’s Waldbühne, an outdoor venue with 25,000 in attendance. Would that many Americans show up for an outdoor symphonic concert? Watch this, you won’t be dissapointed:

 

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Saturday Soother – September 26, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Fall, Polebridge, MT – 2020 photo by Drew Silvers

There are just 38 days to go until the election, and another 78 days after that until the inauguration, almost a lifetime in Trump years. Today, we’ll jump among a few unbelievable news items.

First, the nation’s leading newspaper’s story about the US president refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election appeared on page 15. How can it be page one in everyone’s mind, but on page 15 of the NYT? And what political story did the NYT find space for on Thursday’s front page? An article about how Trump is running well in the virtually all-white suburbs north of Milwaukee. But we all know there’s a liberal bias in the news.

Even if the media tries to do it, we can’t normalize Trump.

Second, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s coffin was in the US Capitol rotunda on Friday. She was the first American woman so honored. But, even that brought more naked politics: Although they were invited, neither of the top Republicans, Senate Majority Leader McConnell, nor House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy attended.

Third, Wrongo keeps saying that Trump’s willful failure to deal with the COVID pandemic is by far the largest story of the year, and the issue that should decide the election. Another 885 Americans died from COVID-19 yesterday, and 45,178 more were infected, according to The NYT COVID-19 map and case count.

Cases are rising in 29 states and Puerto Rico. Deaths are increasing in 12 states. Think about how difficult it will be to tell COVID from the flu now that we’re starting the flu season. Some perspective:

  • During World War II, an average of 220 US soldiers died per day.
  • During the Civil War, an average of 540 soldiers died per day.
  • So far during this pandemic, an average of 946 Americans have died per day.
  • New cases are trending up again, with the 14-day average up 17%.

Finally, turnout on November 3: The Cook Political Report has introduced an interactive page that lets you tinker with turnout levels for various demographic groups. It’s based on 2016 numbers, and without the 6% third-party vote, Joe Biden wins 307-231, very similar to Trump’s win of 306-232.

But if turnout is lower or much higher, it wouldn’t take much for Biden to lose. For example, if 2016’s turnout of white non-college voters goes from 55% to 60%, Biden wins the popular vote by more than 3 million, but loses the electoral vote 306-232.

And if there was a 4-point shift in the Black vote, with Trump going from 8% to 12%, Biden would win the popular vote by more than four million, but lose the electoral vote 276-262. Biden would pick up PA and WI, but Trump keeps FL, MI, and AZ. A combination of a 10% Trump Black vote, and a 2% drop in Black turnout also leads to electoral loss for Biden.

On the upside, if Biden’s share of white college voters goes up just three points from 54% in 2016 to 57%, he wins Georgia, NC, and Florida and he rolls in the Electoral College, 350-188. The same would happen if he does 3 points better with non-college white voters, winning 34% instead of Hillary’s 31%.

If somehow, he was able to do both, Biden would keep the same electoral margin, but he wins the popular vote by almost 12 million.

Some history: In 2004, 122 million people voted. In 2008, the number was 130 million. We had 129 million votes in 2016, and that’s the baseline for all of the current modeling. The big question about 2020 is whether turnout rises or falls by a crazy number? Crazy would be say, 150 million on the high side, or 110 million on the low side.

While there’s both upside and downside to think about, turnout is everything. Do whatever you can to help improve turnout over 2016.

On to the weekend. Indian Summer seems to be upon us in Connecticut, along with continuing near-drought conditions. Looking ahead to winter, Teresa Hanafin of the Boston Globe offers this: “The Old Farmer’s Almanac says chionophobia is the fear of snow. Mitchophobia is the fear of snow jobs.”

Saturday coffee is taking a break this week, so settle into a space outdoors and listen through your Bluetooth head set to Gerald Finzi’s “Introit for Solo Violin & Small Orchestra – Op. 6 (Molto Sereno)”. The piece was written in the mid-1920s. Here it is performed by the Northern Sinfonia, conducted by Howard Griffiths with violin solo by Lesley Hatfield:

 

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Saturday Soother – September 19, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Afternoon rain, Candlewood Lake, Brookfield CT – photo by Kevin Lane

We’re 10 days away from the first presidential debate on Sept. 29 at Notre Dame in South Bend, IN. The debates should have zero meaning for the election, since Trump will lie his way through all three of them. That has been the reality since 2016, and it’s continued, non-stop. From Politico:

“Four years after he won the Midwest by vowing to revitalize the US manufacturing workforce, President Donald Trump is campaigning for reelection on a job well done. The numbers tell a different story.”

It’s highly doubtful that economic anxiety alone won the Midwest for Trump. We should remember that there was a near-perfect conjunction among racism, sexism and Whites voting for Trump in 2016.

Here’s Trump lying on Sept. 10 at a rally near Saginaw, Michigan:

“You better vote for me, I got you so many damn car plants….And we’re going to bring you a lot more.”

So many car plants: That would be zero.

And Michigan was down 66,500 manufacturing workers for the year from July 2019 to July 2020. Much of those losses were due to the pandemic, but there were 10,200 fewer manufacturing workers in Michigan in February 2020 than there were in February 2019. Earlier, Trump lied in Ohio at a Whirlpool factory:

“Over the last six months, we’ve witnessed one manufacturing miracle after another”.

Ohio was down 48,000 manufacturing workers in July vs. last year. Pre-pandemic, it had lost 2,200 workers in February from last year. Politico quotes Mark Muro, a Brookings economist:

“Trump has been all in on this huge resurgence of manufacturing employment, and that has not materialized.”

More:

“…the White House’s trade wars kicked the [manufacturing] sector into another slump in 2019, with Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pennsylvania facing declines or plateaus in manufacturing employment even back in February — well before Covid-19 forced layoffs at dozens of plants.”

The trend is the same nationwide. Manufacturing across the US is down 720,000 workers from February, despite gaining 29,000 jobs in August.

And then there’s the pandemic. Trump blamed “blue states” for increasing the nation’s death rate from coronavirus, suggesting that if “you take the blue states out” of the equation the US would be far more competitive with other countries.

He’s making no bones about the fact that he’s president of only those who live in red states (149 million vs. 179 million in blue states.) Since he’s ignorant of most facts, here’s one: 53% of coronavirus deaths have occurred in blue states, and 47% have occurred in red ones. More than 90,000 people have died in red states, while about 100,000 have died in blue states. So, another lie, and not exactly a stellar record in red states.

Of course we will have to wait and see if reality vs. lies told in debates make any difference. Gimme the damn ballot.

It’s Saturday, so let’s take a short break from politics for our Saturday Soother.

The leaves are starting to fall here in Connecticut, long before any fall color arrives. We’re expecting the first frost over the weekend, and as usual, there’s yard work ahead. The last of our tomatoes need to be harvested, along with a few remaining jalapenos. Sounds like salsa to Wrongo. Oh, and the water fountain needs cleaning, too.

Before all of that, take time to brew up a vente cup of Kenya Gatuya coffee ($21.00/12oz.) from Lake Tahoe’s perfectly named for a Saturday, Drink Coffee Do Stuff. The roaster says the 6,000ft elevation at Lake Tahoe makes their coffees sweeter. You be the judge.

Now, put on a sweater and think about the eternal changing of the seasons. And remember that one day, like a miracle, Trump will just disappear. Now, listen to Yo Yo Ma play Ennio Morricone’s “Gabriel’s oboe and The Falls” from the movie “The Mission.”

Music like Morricone’s whispers to us, and carries us beyond our trivial endeavors. Consider yourself soothed:

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