Category: Saturday Soother

Saturday Soother – July 27, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Bear Creek Trail, Ouray, CO – 2019 photo by pickleskins

Wrongo didn’t watch the Mueller testimony, thinking that the outcome was pre-ordained. Given the millions of words that have been written to analyze his performance, and the largely weak tea now being brewed by House Democrats, there are two questions before us: First, should Democrats have relied so heavily on Muller to make a case against Trump? And second, what will the House Democrats do now?

The first thing we learned was that Mueller is showing his age, and that, if Robert Mueller is the mastermind of the Deep State coup that Trump alleges, he’s failed miserably.

Throughout Trump’s presidency, Democrats have grasped at one straw after another that was going to magically remove Trump from office. The Access Hollywood tape. The Stormy Daniels revelations. The likely violations of the Emoluments Clause. Racism. And, of course, Mueller Time.

Pursuing all of these have kept Trump off-balance, but no one should have expected any of them to bring him down. We now live in a no-rules time. The bar gets lowered with every outrage Trump perpetrates, and there is limited ability on the part of the average American to follow the House Committee’s parsing of the Mueller investigation’s facts.

Pelosi needed Mueller to ignite public opinion and provide her support for beginning impeachment proceedings. And, yet, Mueller in his testimony wouldn’t support except indirectly, Congress’s asking him to help them act on his report.

Wrongo has long believed that the FBI is a reactionary element in our society. It isn’t difficult to believe that Mueller had little intention of teeing up Trump for the Congress.

Moreover, the GOP has decided there’s absolutely nothing wrong with accepting intelligence support from foreign governments, provided their Party is the beneficiary of that help.

Pelosi knows the ONLY LEVERAGE that Dems have politically is their majority in the House of Representatives. It would be political malpractice to risk losing that. Sacrificing the majority in the House, even for the good of the country, could leave Dems on the moral high ground as usual, but with zero political power.

And we know that as of today, winning the presidency in 2020 looks like a 50/50 proposition. Mueller’s performance should make a lot of potential Biden and Bernie supporters think twice about trying to elect yet another senior citizen, regardless of their prior political experience.

Enough for this week! It’s time for a Saturday Soother. You’ve followed the news, so you know that we all need a break to forget about politics for a while. To help you on the path to forgetting, let’s start by having a tall glass of cold brew coffee. Today, let’s try Wandering Bear Straight Black cold brew ($30 for a 96 oz. box) from NYC’s own Wandering Bear Coffee. The brewer says their coffee is decadently bold, but surprisingly smooth. The box fits in your fridge, and pours like a tap. Good times!

Their slogan is that cold brew = life. Wrongo is far from in agreement with that.

Now, settle back in a comfy chair and listen to CPE Bach’s “Cello Concerto in A Major“, performed live by cello soloist Monika Leskovar, accompanied by the Zagreb soloists. Wrongo and Ms. Right heard the New Baroque Soloists play this piece on Friday in Washington, CT, with the wonderful Samuel Magill as cello soloist:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – July 20, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Castle Geyser, Yellowstone NP – 2019 photo by suprememaddy

Guess what? He’s not sorry. From TPM:

“Not even 24 hours after telling reporters that he was “not happy” with the “send her back” chant against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) at his reelection rally earlier this week, President Donald Trump on Friday seemed to be more onboard with the widely condemned message.”

Here’s a series of Trump’s Friday tweets:

Then this:

And finally:

Actually, he attacked four, not three, Congresswomen, and now, more racist attacks against Omar. He started this when he tweeted last Sunday that they should “go back” to the countries they supposedly came from, despite all four being US citizens.

But, the GOP wants you to believe that there isn’t a single racist bone spur in his body.

The “chant” will now magically break out at all of his future rallies. He’ll pretend to stop it but, what can he do? His people just love him too much for him to stop. Then, the GOP cheerleaders will flood the media with enough bad faith arguments to confuse the issue, and lower the heat, and Trump will move on to the next outrage.

This is the pattern. First, Trump says something so abhorrent that most of us lose our collective minds. Then, he doubles down. Then, we see some opprobrium from the media, from all Democrats and a very few Republicans. Trump then quiets down for a few hours, and in a week or so, we’ve moved on to the new normal. This week, our new normal is “send them back.”

We’re going to spend the rest of our lives dealing with narratives by the opposition about how Trump isn’t who he so obviously is. We’ll spend years hearing that what he said isn’t racist. His supporters see their chanting, and Trump’s incitement as innocent trolling. They think it’s all a game, and that he’s just playing his part in owing the libs.

Wrongo has had enough for this week, and so have you. We desperately need some Saturday soothing. Let’s start by brewing up a cup of Rukera Kenya ($21.20/12 oz.) from the old reliable JBC coffee roasters in Madison Wisconsin, who have been featured here many times before.

Now staying indoors and away from the heat that is gripping most of America, listen to Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński perform ”Vedro con mio diletto” from the opera “Il Giustino” by Antonio Vivaldi.

Wrongo and Ms. Right first heard a countertenor live on Broadway at the show, “Farinelli and the King”, in 2018. The voice of Farenelli was performed by Iestyn Davies, and it was magical. Today, Orliński is performing in a live recording made in July, 2017 from Lix-en-Provence:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – War With Iran Edition, June 22, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Na Pali Coast, Kauai HI – 2019 photo by Santahickey

It’s tough to wake up on a Friday morning and find out that during the previous night, America almost started a war. On Thursday night, Trump allegedly pulled back from a military strike he had earlier authorized against Iran.

The New York Times wrote: “Trump Approves Strikes on Iran, but Then Abruptly Pulls Back”. The NYT says that Trump’s hawks, Bolton, Pompeo, and CIA Director Gina Haspel, had argued for the strike, while the Pentagon was said to have been against it. The NYT report includes this paragraph: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Asked about the plans for a strike and the decision to hold back, the White House declined to comment, as did Pentagon officials. No government officials asked The New York Times to withhold the article.”

It’s curious. If Trump was serious about attacking Iran, what purpose was served by the WH giving this story to the NYT? Not everyone bought the claim that a planned attack was called back. Jeffrey Lewis, a scholar on international conflicts, tweeted:

Jeffrey Lewis @ArmsControlWonk – 3:43 UTC – 21 Jun 2019

I don’t buy this. Trump’s team is trying to have it both ways — acting restrained but talking tough. This is pretty much what Nixon did in 1969, too. Why not just admit that sometimes restraint is smart?

He goes on to link to the 1969 NYT piece referenced above:

The @nytimes ran the same story Nixon in 1969. Nixon was not going to retaliate but he wanted people to think he almost did — and the Gray Lady obliged. —> Aides Say Nixon Weighed Swift Korea Reprisal

On May 6th 1969, the Times carried a story that Nixon decided not to escalate when the NoKo’s shot down a US Navy plane. So, this current storyline of “a strike was ordered, but Trump held back and saved the day” might also have been coordinated by the WH and the NYT.

If the threat of another Middle East war wasn’t bad enough, a new IMF study shows that US $5.2 trillion was spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017. The latest available country breakdown is for 2015. In that year, the US was the third-largest subsidizer of the fossil fuel industry, providing $649 billion in subsidies. China and Russia ranked first and second, respectively.

You should be outraged that the $649 billion we spent in 2015 is more than 10 times the 2015 federal spending for education. America has to change its priorities. The true costs to America of using fossil fuels has to include these subsidies.

These two stories about fossil fuels show our government’s fealty to the oil industry.

The average person didn’t notice that on the day the American drone was shot down in the Straits of Hormuz, the price of oil jumped 10%. Trump surely was told this, and the risk of higher oil prices caused by his risky foreign policy may have reduced his desire to strike at Iran.

For whatever reason, we’ve finally seen a prudent move by Trump. It’s a face saving gesture: he appears both tough and reasonable simultaneously. Also, it is encouraging that he used the concept of proportionality, saying that the planned strike would have been too harsh a retaliation for losing one drone.

We can expect his neo-con advisors and the FOX fringe to try to undercut his decision. Maybe then he’ll understand it’s time to clean house.

So, on this Saturday, it may be difficult to get soothed, but let’s try our best. Wrongo and Ms. Right are on Cape Cod with daughter Kelly, where rain is dominating the weather. In honor of being here, today we’ll brew up a large cup of Wellfleet’s Beanstock Coffee Roasters’s old reliable Wellfleet Blend ($11.99/12oz.).

Now, settle back and listen to “The Hebrides”, Op. 26 “Fingal’s Cave” by Felix Mendelssohn. It is played by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra, conducted by Scott Sandmeier.

Mendelssohn actually visited the west coast of Scotland in 1829. It was part of Mendelssohn’s three-year Grand Tour, a common excursion taken by young men of wealthy families as a part of gaining cultural literacy. Here is “The Hebrides”:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – June 15, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Emerald Lake, Yoho NP British Columbia – photo by newenglandmtbr

The basketball season ended on Thursday night, but the DNC gave us a new made-for-TV sport, the two-day Democratic presidential primary debates. If you are thinking Wrongo shouldn’t be using sports analogies for something of consequence, consider that the NYT called them “match ups” in their announcement. A sporting contest is how the media sees the Democratic primary race.

The fact that the future of the country rides on how these “match-ups” play out in November 2020 doesn’t seem to faze the media. Here is the line-up for June 26th:

Booker Inslee
Castro Klobuchar
De Blasio O’Rourke
Delaney Ryan
Gabbard Warren

It appears that Warren is the star of Wednesday night. She’ll try to knock off Booker, and audition O’Rourke for VP. FWIW, O’Rourke has the ability to knock off Warren, but he’s nowhere near as experienced. The rest will audition for VP.

This isn’t a debate. It’s a two-hour effort by each candidate to break through into the consciousness of viewers and the media. That 120 minute time slot will be reduced by at least 20 minutes of commercials. Ten candidates will then split 100 minutes, or about 10 minutes each, unless someone is a hog. A few of these candidates have a very hard time putting complex ideas into short sentences, so the role  of the moderators will be crucial.

Here’s the Thursday, June 27th line-up:

Biden Hickenlooper
Bennet Sanders
Buttigieg Swalwell
Gillibrand Williamson
Harris Yang

On Night Two, it seems certain that Sanders and Harris will try to poke Biden, another person who has difficulty with short sentences. Buttigieg will be trying to break through. Gillibrand looks to be auditioning for VP. Who is Swalwell?

We’ll get through this June circus, and then see another at the end of July. But for the third round in September, the qualifying thresholds jump significantly:

“The DNC’s outline for its September debate — the third of at least a dozen promised matchups during the 2020 nominating fight — decrees that candidates can participate only by reaching 2% in four approved polls released between June 28 and Aug. 28 while also collecting contributions from a minimum of 130,000 unique donors before Aug. 28. That donor list must include a minimum of 400 individuals in at least 20 states.”

That could cull half or more of the herd. Given today’s polling averages at Real Clear Politics, that could leave: Biden, Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete, Kamala Harris, and possibly, Beto in the top tier.

It is also possible that one or two other candidates could break through in the initial debates and get their numbers up significantly by September. But, we can count on it being a much smaller stage after Labor Day.

But you’ve had enough for this week!

Iran may have blown up a tanker or two, or it may be a false flag operation. Sarah Sanders leaving the White House confirms that it’s difficult to spend more than two years working for Trump. Trump said he’d cheat again, if a foreign country gave him another chance.

With all of this, it’s time for a Saturday Soother.

Start by brewing up a cup of Rocketeer Blend ($14.00/12 oz.) coffee from Massachusetts’s Atomic Roastery. They say you will taste chocolate, nutty tones and sweet spices.

Now settle back at listen to “Adagietto” (movement 4) from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, conducted by Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. The Adagietto is the most frequently performed of Mahler’s works. This leads to two stories.

Mahler was in love with Alma Schindler, the woman who became his wife. She was considered the most beautiful woman in Vienna. He didn’t declare his love, but instead, composed this piece and sent it to her without a note. She played the music, and said to Mahler, “Now you should come here.”

Story two: Their marriage struggled, and she had an affair with Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School of architecture. After Mahler died, Alma married Gropius. During her marriage to Gropius, Alma had an affair with Franz Werfel, an Austrian novelist and playwright. Alma and Werfel were eventually married after Alma separated from Gropius. They fled to the US when the Nazis took over Austria, and settled in Los Angeles. Alma died in 1964.

The Adagietto was chosen for the 1971 film “Death In Venice”. A member of the film crew was impressed with the music, and asked who wrote it. He was told “Gustav Mahler”. The guy replied “Can we hire him”? Mahler died in 1911.

Here is the beautiful Adagietto:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – Trump Mexican Tariff Edition, June 1, 2019

There’s No Escape Today:

More tariffs! This from CNN:

“President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to impose new tariffs on Mexico if the country does not step up its immigration enforcement actions, combining his boiling border-related frustrations with his preferred method of punishing foreign countries.

Trump said in a White House statement that the first round of tariffs would begin on June 10 at 5% ‘on all goods imported from Mexico.’ The statement said Trump would carry out his threat under authority from the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and that he would lift tariffs only ‘if the illegal migration crisis is alleviated through effective actions taken by Mexico.’

The statement warned further that if Mexico does not act as Trump demands, tariffs would go up to 10% by July, 15% by August, 20% by September and reach a permanent level of 25% by October.”

Mexico probably does need to do more to stop migrants crossing their country.

OTOH, they like America, have rules that safeguard migrants. It’s doubtful that the Trump administration has studied those rules or cares about them, any more than they care about ours.

According to Forbes, The US imported $346.5 billion in goods from Mexico last year and for the first three months of 2019, they increased 5.4%. At that rate there would be $365 billion imported in 2019. At a 5% tariff, companies would have to either raise prices or take an $18 billion hit to profits. And it is companies and eventually consumers that will pay these new Trump tariffs, not the exporting country as Trump consistently misrepresents.

This is why the DOW fell 355 points on Friday.

Trump used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as his legal basis to place tariffs on Mexico. It’s a Cold War-era law that actually vests the presidency with absurdly broadly defined, near-dictatorial powers in many areas. But, prior presidents, even Reagan and Bush 43, never conceived in their wildest dreams of using them except in an ACTUAL emergency. And they didn’t.

Trump doesn’t care, he sees a hammer, and decides that it isn’t for driving nails; it’s for breaking Mexican kneecaps. Matt Yglesias explains that there’s an easy climb down for Trump in this. Migration from/through Mexico is very seasonal, peaking in the spring, and declining sharply in the summer.

Trump will probably pretend to get some concessions from Mexico and declare victory in a couple of months. His moron supporters will surely applaud that.

At some point, Democrats will have to frame these and Trump’s other tariffs for what they are: a national sales tax on imports. Dems need to start explaining to the public that these tariffs are a national sales tax on everything from Mexico, including cars and components for US car manufacturers. Maybe saying this:

“Trump is making Americans pay a sales tax on imports until illegal immigration stops. How will Americans paying higher taxes force Mexico to stop illegal immigration?”

That’s how it should be framed.

Enough! We’ve been Mueller ’ed and Trump ’ed all week, and it’s time for your Saturday Soother!

On the first day of June, Wrongo hopes that you are in short sleeves, and thinking of getting outdoors, and that doesn’t mean shopping at the mall.

Let’s start by brewing up a vente cup of Hawaii Kau Champagne Natural from Paradise Roasters ($19.95/12 oz.). This coffee tied for the highest rating in Coffee Review’s May 2019 tasting report of Hawai’i-grown coffees. They say that its tropical and floral aromas lead into a sweet and complex dessert-like cup.

Paradise has experimented with yeast fermented coffees that produce a more intense and complex flavor than traditional methods. It evokes Champagne, fruity but dry, and not effervescent. They only roast this coffee on one day: June 3rd, 2019. So you have been alerted to act fast.

Now, move outside, assuming you live in a part of the world that isn’t suffering from rain or tornadoes. Put on your wireless headphones, and listen to a Philadelphia-based Irish band, BarleyJuice, play their tune, “Weekend Irish”:

Sample Lyric:
And the blood runs deep,
When the booze is cheap,
Long as you ain’t got an agenda to keep,
You can be a Weekend Irish, hey!
Aye, aye, we’re the Weekend Irish

And we’ll raise a hand,
To the motherland,
Best part of being an American,
To be a Weekend Irish

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

The Wrongologist does not condone identity politics, unless it involves weekend singing, dancing and drinking.

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Saturday Soother – April 27, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Hemingway’s desk, Finca Vigía, Cuba – 2014 photo by Wrongo. Hemingway lived here for 15 years, and wrote most of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea” here.

Spring has sprung in the Litchfield Hills. Bluebirds are again nesting in the bluebird houses on the fields of Wrong. We have flowers on our plum, pear and cherry trees. Hopefully, you are enjoying early spring as well.

There are 555 days left until the next presidential election. We don’t want to live through 2016 a second time, so Wrongo hopes that all of you will remember how energized you were during the 2018 mid-terms, and gear up again for 2020.

In retrospect, the Democratic Party handed Trump the gift of Russiagate. For two years, the Dems fought him primarily on the grounds of Russian influence on the 2016 election. However, the public was more concerned with health care and a square deal on jobs and wages. That Trump/Russia wasn’t the key issue was proven by the Dems winning the House in the 2018 mid-terms when they primarily ran on health care. The Party has now lost that fight, since the Mueller Report found nothing actionable against Trump.

While investigations loom in the House, Trump is completely stonewalling. His decision to simply defy all attempts by Congress to investigate either Russian interference, or his possible obstruction, makes it clear that Congress is being deprived of its lawful investigative powers.

His defiance will tip the scales in favor of initiating impeachment proceedings against him. He will play the victim, and make the contest with House Democrats a major 2020 campaign issue. Will that energize anyone who is not in his base? Time will tell.

Turnout will again be the key factor in 2020 as it was in 2016 and 2018. A key question for turnout is where are rank and file Democrats on the issues compared to the positions of the 20 Democratic nominees? Larry Sabato says:

“National polling from the past several years finds that Democrats are less ideological than Republicans, are less likely to express a desire for their party to move further away from the political center, and are more likely to value experience in a presidential nominee.”

Pew recently found that only 40% of Democrats wanted the party to move more to the left, while 53% said they wanted the party to move in a more moderate direction. Gallup’s ongoing measure of ideological self-identification among Democrats shows that while liberal self-identification is growing, the party is still split about evenly between those who identify as liberal versus those who identify as moderate or conservative.

In contrast, Pew found that 58% of Republicans wanted the GOP to move more to the right, while just 38% wanted the party to move in a more moderate direction. Gallup found that about three-quarters of Republicans identify as conservative while just a quarter identify as moderate or liberal.

Wrongo isn’t ready to accept the findings of Pew and Gallup, but most of the Democratic candidates are Obama-like: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, and Amy Klobuchar. Some of the (pardon the label) “no names” with no chance to win also fall into the centrist category.

There are only two real progressives, Sanders and Warren. Another question for the Party to answer through the primary process is whether the Dems can win without strong progressive positions.

Will the general election Democratic turnout be high enough to win with a centrist candidate? Or, will the Democrats just repeat 2016, winning the popular vote, while losing the Electoral College?

But enough navel-gazing, it’s time to gaze at the daffodils and dandelions in your yard.

It’s time for some Saturday Soothing. Start by brewing up a hot vente cup of Sumatra, Lintong – Medium Roast Single Origin coffee ($17/12 oz.) from Georgia’s Peach Coffee Roasters. The brewer says it is citrusy and floral, tart in structure with a juicy mouthfeel.

Now take your cup to your most comfortable chair, and contemplate springtime while listening to “Spring Morning” by Frederick Delius. This melodic portrait of nature is a companion piece to his “Idlle de Prinetemps” composed a year earlier in 1887. It is performed here by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by David Lloyd Jones:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – April 13, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Angel’s Rest, Columbia River Gorge, OR – 2019 photo by Thenervouspoops

(Sunday cartoons will be published on Monday, as Wrongo and Ms. Right are visiting a granddaughter in Buffalo NY)

Busy week at the Mansion of Wrong, as Wrongo prepared the Wrong family taxes for presentation to the Swamp on Monday.

His town responsibilities led to interviewing three interns for a part-time (paid) construction accounting position at the Department of Public Works. All three were accounting majors at Western Connecticut State University, and all were smart, articulate and working in multiple jobs while attending college full-time.

Those students made Wrongo feel hopeful about the next generation. That maybe America will avoid being consumed in the dumpster fire that the previous generations are leaving them.

Possibly lost in the news about Assange and William Barr was this from CNN, who reported on the bizarre words by former Pope Benedict XVI. He “retired” just before the current Pope, Francis II was elevated. Benedict wrote an essay on the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church that was published this week in a German magazine for priests. In the article, Benedict claims that the sexual abuse of children by priests was caused in part by the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the liberalization of the church’s moral teaching:

“Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of ’68…was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate…Benedict says that this mentality also affected bishops and Catholic seminaries and caused, the extensive collapse of the next generation of priests….here were — not only in the United States of America — individual bishops who rejected the Catholic tradition as a whole and sought to bring about a kind of new, modern Catholicity….In various seminaries homosexual cliques were established… which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries.”

His Awfulness. Benedict blames clerical pedophilia on the swinging sixties. He blames pedophilia on homosexuality.

It’s too bad the Catholic Church didn’t have a guy who is completely and unquestioningly in charge, like some sort of a “Super Bishop” who could have told everyone what to do. Someone who could have put a stop to all the child raping. Yes, that would have been Benedict, or those who came before him, or after.

The sexual revolution wasn’t about raping kids. What kind of moral failure is it on the part of the Catholic Church for the former Pope to say: “But they were doing it too!” Coming from an institution that prides itself on being the arbiter of morality, this is an historic failure.

There are tons of records of priestly pedophilia that predate the 1960’s, including plenty of cases of churchly cover-ups. Why is this retired guy entitled to speak about anything?

Enough! It’s time for our Saturday Soothing! Let’s start by checking out Vancouver, BC’s Notch Coffee’s flagship coffee, Sumatra Boru Batak (C$18.00/340 grams). Expect notes of Baker’s Chocolate, dried mango and tobacco, says the brewer.

Now, contemplate all of your to-be-done yard work while you sip this coffee and listen to “Simple Gifts” from Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” played in 1962 by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein. You’ll remember the melody, and maybe, you will think of the simple gifts that are missing from your life today:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – March 16, 2019

The Daily Escape:

More California poppies – March, 2019 photo by West Coast Aerial Photography

The horror in New Zealand, Manafort’s sentencing, and both Houses of Congress voting to end Trump’s emergency declaration. The vote tally was 59-41, not enough to override a veto. Moments after Thursday’s vote, the president tweeted a single word: “VETO!”, and has now he’s done just that.

We head into the weekend with 13 Democrats declared as running for the Party’s nomination. Another, Joe Biden, may announce this weekend. The internet is full of comments about which of the 14 are most worthy, and plenty of hot takes on who can’t win vs. Trump.

Wrongo’s hot take is that the 2020 presidential election will be determined by a handful of states. Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida were all lost last time around. Any Democratic candidate can win the same states as Hillary won last time. We need to be asking ourselves is: “Who has the best chance to win in those four states?”

Your choice may be different from Wrongo’s, but this must be a prime consideration. We all know that the presidential election isn’t about who wins the most votes. It’s about who accumulates the necessary number of electoral votes, and that path leads through the four states above.

So the challenge for the Democratic Party nominee is: How are you going to convince people in the above states to vote for you?

In the meantime, pundits are talking about a brokered convention. They’re assuming that no single candidate will garner a majority of votes through the primary process. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has set the system up so it’s difficult to win an outright majority if there is a large field of candidates, since there are no winner-take-all contests.

Instead, the delegates are awarded proportionately by congressional district and statewide vote. That means in a large field, the first place winner is unlikely to get close to 60% of a state’s delegates. To get any delegates at all, a candidate must receive at least 15% of a state’s votes.

It’s too complicated to go deeply into this, but there are lots of votes up for grabs in the early primaries. Brookings has this:

“Fifty-four percent of all pledged delegates will be chosen in the first five weeks of the primary season, mostly from four states — California, Texas, Ohio, and Michigan. An additional 10 percent of pledged delegates will be chosen one week later — nearly all from Florida and Illinois. One candidate with a big lead in name recognition or with a small band of intense supporters could wrap up the Democratic nomination based on the votes of a tiny share of voters and do so before primary voters have had much time to get acquainted with the candidates.”

This means that, assuming Kamala Harris will win California, and Beto O’Rourke will win Texas, catching them could be difficult. And if no one else breaks the 15% barrier in either state, it could be a pitched battle between just them all the way to the convention on July 13-16 2020 in Milwaukee.

Wrongo thinks Bernie will break 15% in a few states, and possibly be the spoiler for these two new faces of the Party.

Some think that if no one gets a majority before Milwaukee, that favors Biden, who will most likely, hold the majority of the DNC’s Super delegates, who can vote after the first ballot. OTOH, Biden has to prove he has the ability to get more than 15% in several states to merit their votes on the second ballot of the convention.

These primary contests used to reduce the field quickly, since it was very difficult to raise money from the big donors if you lost Iowa and New Hampshire. But, money is easier to raise via social media than it used to be. And social media can keep a candidate in the news even without huge TV expenditures.

There are now 485 days left until the Democrat’s convention, and a lot will happen between now and then. Buckle up!

Time for your Saturday Soother. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow, we break from our usual format of coffee and classical music. Let’s start by getting into a comfy chair, and listen to the Hooligans (the Irish Hooligans, not the Bruno Mars band) perform the Bluegrass classic, “Whiskey for Breakfast”:

As we all know, breakfast is the most important drink of the day. Now pour a nice snifter of Irish whiskey. Wrongo has 8 different Irish whiskeys in the pantry, and recommends Bushmills 21 Single Malt (~$230/750 ml). Enjoy its notes of toffee, honey, spiced fruit and dark mocha.

Sample Lyric:

Lord preserve us and protect us,
We’ve been drinking whiskey ‘fore breakfast

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – March 9, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Railroad bridge over Housatonic River in snow – 2019 photo by Quadco Joe

We start driving back from sunny, warm FL this am. While you are having coffee and listening to music, we’ll be once again driving by a few Civil War battlefields. But today, let’s talk about Paul Manafort. On Thursday, Trump’s former campaign manager and a one-time lobbyist for unsavory people, was sentenced to 47 months on tax evasion, when the sentencing guidelines called for something like twenty years.

Manafort was sentenced to four years, just like the rest of us. But his seems lenient, while ours seems harsh.

Manafort’s judge was T. S. Ellis III, of the Eastern District in Virginia, who isn’t a model of judicial consistency. Few remember Rep. William J. Jefferson (D- LA), who was convicted of corruption. He was sentenced in 2009 to 13 years by Judge Ellis, who said that he hoped Jefferson’s punishment would serve as a “beacon” to warn other public officials not to succumb to corruption.

Ellis gave Jefferson the longest corruption sentence ever for a member of Congress. It was five years longer than a different judge gave former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, (R-CA), after he plead guilty to more egregious charges, of steering defense contracts in return for bribes.

After the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in McDonnell v. United States, which narrowed the definition of public corruption, Mr. Jefferson appealed his conviction. Judge Ellis threw out 7 of the 10 charges against him, accepted Jefferson’s plea on the three remaining counts, and sentenced him to time served. In total, Jefferson served five and a half years.

Think about it: Ellis made an example of Jefferson, while sending the opposite message with Manafort’s sentence, and ignoring sentencing guidelines. Ellis said: “He’s [Manafort] lived an otherwise blameless life.” Franklin Foer in The Atlantic debunked that:

“In an otherwise blameless life, Paul Manafort lobbied on behalf of the tobacco industry and wangled millions in tax breaks for corporations.

In an otherwise blameless life, he helped the Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos bolster his image in Washington after he assassinated his primary political opponent.

In an otherwise blameless life, he worked to keep arms flowing to the Angolan generalissimo Jonas Savimbi, a monstrous leader bankrolled by the apartheid government in South Africa. While Manafort helped portray his client as an anti-communist “freedom fighter,” Savimbi’s army planted millions of landmines in peasant fields, resulting in 15,000 amputees.

In an otherwise blameless life, Manafort was kicked out of the lobbying firm he co-founded, accused of inflating his expenses and cutting his partners out of deals.

In an otherwise blameless life, he spent a decade as the chief political adviser to a clique of former gangsters in Ukraine. This clique hoped to capture control of the state, so that it could enrich itself with government contracts and privatization agreements. This was a group closely allied with the Kremlin, and Manafort masterminded its rise to power—thereby enabling Ukraine’s slide into Vladimir Putin’s orbit.”

There’s more, but you get the drift. People will argue that Manafort wasn’t charged with ruining the world, he was charged with tax evasion. And that using one crime to punish others the subject was not charged with is not a good practice.

True, but had Judge Ellis heard about Al Capone?

And giving less than one quarter of the recommended punishment says that Ellis, a Reagan appointee, saw the Republican in Manafort, while he saw the Democrat in Jefferson.

Time to leave the world behind and line up for your Saturday Soother. Let’s start by sampling the AK-47 Espresso Blend from Black Rifle Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company who calls their products “freedom fuel”. Wrongo saw their billboard while driving through North Carolina, and doesn’t want to hear any comments from wussy liberals about how the South is different.

Now, settle into your most comfortable chair and listen to Pablo Villegas, playing “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” (Memories of the Alhambra) by Spanish composer Francisco Tárrega, live at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center in 2013:

The piece showcases the challenging guitar technique known as tremolo.

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – February 23, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Snow in moonlight near Mammoth Mountain, CA – 2019 smartphone photo by Mwalt19

At the end of the week that includes President’s Day, there’s a story in the WSJ that deserves highlighting. The article, “An American Icon That Almost Wasn’t” is about the iconic, and larger-than-life statue of Abraham Lincoln that rests inside the Lincoln Memorial. As with most memorials on the National Mall, there were differences of opinion about the location of the Memorial, and the size of the statue of a seated Lincoln. It was originally designed to be 12 feet high, but to the sculptor, Daniel Chester French, that seemed far too small for the atrium of the Memorial. He fought for a larger, heroic sized statue, and finished it in 1920.

The Memorial was dedicated in May, 1922. But, according to Harold Holzer in the WSJ, by the time of the dedication, America had not internalized the lessons of the Civil War:

African-Americans in attendance were herded off to a “colored” section at the rear. The choice seats were filled by aged Confederate veterans dressed in their tattered gray uniforms.

Holzer reports:

Adding injury to insult, the only black speaker at the ceremony, Robert Russa Moton, head of the Tuskegee Institute, could not even deliver the full oration he had composed. The White House demanded he omit his most provocative words: “So long as any group within our nation is denied the full protection of the law,” what Lincoln called his “unfinished work” remained “still unfinished,” and the Memorial itself “but a hollow mockery.”

In 1922, 57 years after the end of the Civil War, we still couldn’t get past the idea that one race was inferior to the other. Worse, we couldn’t even acknowledge it openly. Contrast that with these words from Lincoln’s Second inaugural address:

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war….

We’ve gone forward in the last nearly 100 years to overcome much of the segregation that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial’s dedication, but much work remains unfinished. Lincoln said it best in the closing of his Second Address in 1865:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

And yet, we’ve still got work to do.

But you’ve done enough for this week, so forget about Bernie, Beto, Biden, Buttigieg, or whomever your favorite Democrat of the moment may be, and prepare for Saturday Soothing! Start by brewing up a vente cup of single origin Sumatra Tano Batak ($20.99/12oz.) from Maui’s Origin Coffee. The roaster says it has flavors of dark chocolate, melon and mandarin orange.

Now settle back in your most comfy chair, put on your wireless headphones and listen to Freddie Mercury and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” played in 2013 by the Indiana University Studio Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Hersh, with viola solo by Sarah Harball:

We feature it here in honor of the Oscars on Sunday night. Sadly, it’s the only Oscar-nominee movie that Wrongo and Ms. Right got to see this year.

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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