Category: Social Cohesion

Monday Wake Up Call, MLK Jr Day – January 16, 2023

The Daily Escape:

It’s MLK day, so let’s talk about a topic that was near to his heart: economic inequality. Since 1980, economic inequality has been increasing between the top 1% and the bottom 90% of Americans. It’s become so great that today, America now faces the same level of economic inequality that existed before the Great Depression.

Here’s a chart from Elise Gould and Jori Sandra of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) showing the percentage change in annual wages by income group for the last 40 years:

From the EPI article: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The level of earnings inequality that existed in 1979 could have simply continued…to today. Instead, we have seen a growing concentration of earnings at the…very top of the earnings distribution, while the bottom 90% has experienced meager gains. Wages for the top 1% grew more than seven times fast as wages for the bottom 90% between 1979 and 2021. The top 1% now amasses a record share of total earnings, while the bottom 90% share of earnings has hit a historic low.”

Slow growth in real (inflation-adjusted) hourly wages for the vast majority of workers has been a defining feature of the US labor market for most of the last 40 years. Only for about 10 years after 1979 did workers see consistent positive wage growth: in the tight labor market of the late 1990s and in the five years prior to the pre-pandemic labor market peak in 2019.

While some low-wage workers have experienced high wage gains after America reopened from Covid, the truth is that most haven’t even kept pace with where they were in 1979.

Today is Martin Luther King Day in America. We mostly celebrate Dr. King’s birth rather than acknowledging what he was arguing for when he was killed. His focus at the end was on both economic justice, and voting rights. Perhaps more than any other leader in American history, King could see the different strands of political and social injustice. He was able to tie them together to form a coherent narrative, one that was capable of leveraging dissent for concrete policy change.

Those were the enduring lessons of Dr. King’s life.

There’s less than three months between the observance of King’s birthday and his death. The way each is recognized by politicians reveals the contradictions in his legacy. Most politicians extol the virtues of racial equality, while most ignore King’s criticisms of economic injustice.

From his April 30th speech in Atlanta: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

“A true revolution of values will…look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, ‘This is not just’…this business of…injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane….cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

As the EPI report above shows, over the last four decades, policies promoted by the GOP have reduced the opportunities for most workers to achieve wage growth at rate similar to the top 10%.

Time to wake up America! Develop your narrative, one that fights against economic injustice and for voting rights. Add any other issues that are pertinent to you. Take your narrative to your neighbors. Then work to get out the vote.

To help you wake up, watch “People Get Ready”, a Curtis Mayfield tune that foretold the turning tide in the battle for racial equality. It topped the R&B charts after its 1965 release by The Impressions. It’s been covered by scores of artists, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and by Rod Stewart and the late Jeff Beck, who died last week. Early in their careers, in 1969, Beck and Stewart performed together in the Jeff Beck Group. Here’s Beck’s official music video for “People Get Ready” featuring Rod Stewart:

Jeff Beck was one of one as a guitarist. There was no one better. He had the mindset of a jazz musician playing blues rock. His guitar sound wasn’t anything like traditional jazz guitar. He didn’t cut his teeth playing the old jazz standards, but he could improvise something fresh every time. OTOH, Wrongo didn’t love Beck the recording artist.

Rod Stewart has a secret hobby; he builds model trains. He would take his trains on tour with him, requesting an extra room so he could work on them while staying in hotels. Stewart recently unveiled his 1,500 square-foot replica of post-war Chicago and New York railway systems that took him 23 years to build.

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Monday Wake Up Call – January 9, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Kennebunk, ME – January 2023 photo by Eric Storm Photography

Buried in the McCarthy debacle last week was some good news on the abortion front. From the NYT:

“For the first time, retail pharmacies, from corner drugstores to major chains like CVS and Walgreens, will be allowed to offer abortion pills in the United States under a regulatory change made Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration.”

The online magazine STAT asked an interesting question: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“When the Food and Drug Administration lifted some — but not all — of its restrictions on an abortion pill this week, it raised questions about why these rules were there in the first place. Mifepristone, the drug in question, has been used by over 3.7 million Americans to end early pregnancies since its approval in 2000, is more than 97% effective, tends to have only mild side effects such as cramping, with severe ones occurring in fewer than 0.5% of patients. So why was it on a list of prescription drugs requiring extra precautions and red tape, alongside opioid painkillers?”

More from STAT:

“Many reproductive rights advocates celebrated the change. But to others, the agency hadn’t gone far enough. Having the drug on a list of medicines that require a risk mitigation strategy gives the false impression that it’s dangerous, they argue. To them, it should be treated like any other pharmaceutical that’s been proven safe and effective.”

That might help to ensure greater access at a time when some states have banned it.

Mifepristone pills are already used for more than half of pregnancy terminations in the US. There has been growing demand for them since the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, the 50-year old federal right to abortion.

With Conservative states moving quickly to ban or sharply restrict abortion, these pills have become the focus of political and legal battles, all of which can influence whether an individual pharmacy will dispense the medication.

The availability of mifepristone through pharmacies will probably vary depending upon location. Deep Red areas will probably have fewer pharmacies willing to dispense it – a combination of more pharmacists exercising their right to substitute their morality for a woman’s, and a fear by the pharmacy of negative consequences ranging from boycotts to fire bombings.

Abortion pills are only a small percentage of any pharmacy’s sales, but they could have a big impact on its public profile. Such calculations will influence a pharmacy’s decision, as will the fact that in about half of the US states, abortion bans or restrictions would make it illegal or very difficult for pharmacies to provide abortion pills.

So, yes, this is a positive development, but it won’t be a panacea: Some Republican-allied group will soon start a court battle to try to reverse the FDA’s policy. Eventually, it will come before the six Christian justices on the Supreme Court. This is a battle for civil rights. It needs to be fought on every level from local to federal, and every incremental victory matters.

We can’t let what may happen down the road prevent us from celebrating a win. The Republicans and the Conservative movement aren’t omnipotent gods. We still live in a world where working, fighting, and voting can make a difference.

Consider this: The Republican’s House majority is due to just 6,670 votes out of 107 million cast, says Inside Elections, a nonpartisan publication. That means every vote cast in 2022 mattered. And if a few more in the right places had been cast, it could have made a generational difference.

Time to wake up America! Every year that American women can continue to access abortion, (chemical or otherwise) matters. Every effort to stem the tide of the many actions that are threatening our civil liberties matter. All of this says we still have the power to change America for the better.

To help you wake up, listen to John Mayer perform his 2006 Grammy-winning hit, “Waiting on the World to Change” from his third studio album, Continuum. The song is kind of an apologia for Gen Y’s well-documented apathy, but even that has changed quite a bit in the 17 years since it was written:

Sample of lyrics:

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could
Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

[Chorus] And we’re still waiting (Waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (Waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
One day our generation Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting (Waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

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Reasons For Optimism In 2023

The Daily Escape:

Spirit Lake, viewed from Mt. Spokane, ID – December 2022 photo by James Richman Photography

Wrongo has served you many big plates of gloom in 2022, and he has plenty more cooking on the stove. But, maybe there’s a reason to be a little optimistic about 2023?

Let’s take a few minutes to offer reasons why 2022 wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and why the coming year has a shot at being even better.

First, the Russians failed to win their war in Europe. And you ought to think that the Ukraine war is really a war against Europe, not just a land grab in Ukraine. Second, in the US, most of the authoritarian and anti-democratic candidates promoted by the Republican Party failed to gain a bigger toehold.

Both of these could easily have gone another way, as was nearly universally predicted by our so-called know-betters. But through the efforts of many government leaders and America’s regular citizens, they didn’t. But don’t underestimate just how close to real disaster we came in 2022.

In 2022, the West, at great cost, chose to help Ukraine defend itself. And in America, enough voters came out to help protect our democracy. Turnout in the midterms was reasonably high, especially among young voters. And despite the voter suppression laws passed in Georgia and Texas, voters got to the polls. Most losers acknowledged they had lost, just like in a functional democracy.

In fact, with last week’s passage of the Electoral Count Reform Act, the American system is enabled to create resilience, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now. Congress, with some semblance of bipartisanship, also passed a budget at the last minute.

Meanwhile despite our worst fears, the DOJ gained convictions against many Jan. 6 coup plotters and seditionists. A group of Oath Keepers is facing prison time. And the ringleaders of the plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor also got long prison sentences. Add to all of this Trump’s legal difficulties, which bring a high probability of him facing a criminal conviction, and there’s some reason for optimism in 2023.

And there is certainly more to come from DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith, Wrongo’s pick for 2023 person of the year.

Even with some optimism there are a few things that could go horribly wrong in 2023.

  • Russia’s war in Ukraine is nowhere near over. The war is currently at a military stalemate, but the Ukrainian people are suffering terribly. Despite recent losses on the battlefield, Russia has a formidable army, and they might outlast the West’s commitment to Ukraine. That will bring a temporary peace to Europe, but it would be a huge strategic mistake to stand aside and let the Russians win.
  • The political crisis in the US isn’t over. We know that the Republican Party’s elected members of Congress still represent the main source of threats to the Constitution. With control of the House, they will pursue an anti-democratic agenda. Wrongo worries that when the Debt Limit needs to be increased this spring, the Republican-controlled House will refuse to be a part of that effort.

Anyone who predicted last year that 2022 would have been this successful would have been called a Pollyanna. The twin challenges for 2023, including the preservation of US democracy and the restoration of global peace, aren’t new. We’ve been facing them for several years if not decades. And we’re still here working on them.

Here are a few Wrong wishes for the new year:

  1. An end to the war in Ukraine with a Ukrainian victory.
  2. Continued good health for President Biden.
  3. No deep 2023 recession. Let’s hope the economy defies history and remains strong.
  4. A resolution to America’s immigration crisis. Let’s hope Congress can find a bipartisan solution that respects the dignity of migrants and establishes an efficient, workable immigration process.
  5. Further relief from Covid. Fewer people are dying, but the virus can mutate very quickly, and that threatens all of us still.
  6. Is a more centrist Supreme Court too much to ask for?

Finally can we have a rational House of Representatives?  We need political stability. Wrongo knows that delivering on this wish is an extremely heavy lift.

As we enter the new year, as Kasey Kasim used to say:

“keep your feet on the ground, but keep reaching for the stars”.

Will things turn suddenly worse in 2023? Will inflation continue to hurt Americans? Will the stock market collapse in the face of recession? Will political turmoil continue? Perhaps. But if 2022 is a gauge, it’s far more likely that we will muddle through, with our politics marking time while both Parties position for 2024. And our economy will continue to grow, albeit very slowly.

Let’s try to keep things in context, and not be distracted by the many things that could go wrong. Let’s also recognize those things that go right. Happy New Year!

Now listen to Diana Krall in 2005 asking, “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”:

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The Criminal Referrals

The Daily Escape:

Gateway Crossing Bridge, Houlton, ME – December 2022 photo by Christopher Mills Photography

The Jan. 6 Select Committee has completed its job. On Monday it approved a criminal referral for Trump, a former President, and a current Presidential candidate, on a series of charges that include insurrection and conspiring to defraud the US. Marcy Wheeler summarizes the findings of the Committee perfectly:

“Trump corruptly tried to prevent Congress to certify the electoral victory of Trump’s opponent. He did so by committing other crimes. He did so by mobilizing a violent mob. He did so using fraudulent documents. And most importantly, he did so for personal benefit.”

The Committee will publish their final report next week. They will turn over the unredacted interview material to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its Special Counsel, Jack Smith. According to Punchbowl, the Committee has already begun cooperating with Smith, who apparently sent the Committee a letter on Dec. 5 requesting all of the panel’s materials from the 18-month probe.

Sadly, it seems that their report ignores the policing failures that occurred both before and on Jan. 6.  One of the objectives of the Select Committee was to make recommendations about how the US Capitol could avoid a similar attack in the future. But it doesn’t seem that subject has been properly addressed.

While Wrongo believes that the investigation into Jan. 6 was critical and that it may eventually result in the DOJ indicting Trump at some point, conspiracy is a very high bar to prove against a common thief, much less against a former president who is used to communicating like a mob boss.

As Dan Pfeiffer says:

“…we will all wake up and go about our business. Donald Trump will continue to be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination and a legitimate contender to be the next President of the United States. The vast majority of Republicans will continue to stand with Trump — and most will do so enthusiastically.”

Before issuing any indictment, DOJ  prosecutors must decide if there is a case to be made that includes sufficient evidence to convict the former President beyond a reasonable doubt.

And it could take the DOJ a year or more to get a grand jury to indict Trump. While the DOJ has had grand juries up and running and considering evidence about Jan. 6 for a very long time, building such a complex case may take long enough that by the time they’re ready to bring a case, it will be near the time of the GOP primaries.

The Mar-a-Lago secret documents case is an easier one to make. We know that an FBI search of the former President’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida found more than 300 classified documents.

Trump’s removal of official government records from an office of the US is one possible charge. A second separately chargeable offense is theft of government records. Those two crimes carry maximum three-year and 10-year sentences respectively.

Then there’s the Espionage Act, which also carries a sentence of 10 years in prison. We know that before January 20, 2021, the Acting Archivist of the US asked for those records to be returned, and Trump’s White House Counsel Pat Cipollone agreed that Trump needed to return them before his term ended.

After Trump left DC with the documents, a grand jury subpoena demanded that all of them be returned to a courthouse located in Washington, DC.

These three crimes are relatively straightforward to prove. Garland and his team might decide that charging them alone suffices, without adding a fourth offense of obstructing a pending federal criminal investigation, into improperly taking and retaining the stolen documents.

Obstruction carries a 20-year maximum sentence — double the penalty for violating the Espionage Act. That shows how seriously that charge is considered under the law.

We know that Trump and his attorneys stonewalled the government for more than a year, refusing to return the 13 boxes of classified documents that the FBI’s August 8, 2022 search recovered. Most of this year has been an effort by Trump to delay the FBI and the DOJ from inventorying all of the classified documents that Trump took to Florida.

The DOJ has a strong case against Trump on the charges described above. They are easier to prove, and existing laws are very clear what the penalties are when it comes to the theft of classified documents. And there’s plenty of legal precedent for putting people who steal US government secrets in jail for a long time. If we want Trump taken off the battlefield before 2024, the theft of classified documents case is the best shot.

Let’s close with “Christmas Must Be Tonight“, a 1975 tune written by Robbie Robertson. It was released on the Band’s 1977 album “Islands”. This version is from that album. The tune appeared in the movie “Scrooged” in 1988. There is Rick Danko’s singing along with Robbie Robertson’s lyrics. It doesn’t get any better than this:

Chorus:

How a little baby boy bring the people so much joy
Son of a carpenter, Mary carried the light
This must be Christmas, must be tonight

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Monday Wake Up Call – November 28, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Thanksgiving Day, Brewster, MA – November 2022 photo by Anne Marie

There was plenty of news over Thanksgiving that Wrongo was itching to talk about, but instead, he decided to take a complete break. Here’s something that’s been on his mind.

Despite all of the self-congratulating by Democrats, the Cook Political Report shows that Republicans received some 3.5 million more votes than Democrats in the midterms. Republicans received 54.13 million votes compared to the Democrats’ 50.79 million votes. Republicans did better in 2022 than they did in the 2018 midterms by 3 million votes, while Democrats got 10.3 million fewer votes than 2018, when they won control of the House by 235–199. Much of this is turnout.

Despite this context, the narrative is that America rejected the far Right by defeating election denier candidates. And most Trumpist candidates were defeated by significant margins. Democrats shouldn’t rest on their laurels or assume “the Trump fever has broken”. It hasn’t. America comes out of the midterms with voters evenly divided between the Parties.

Now, there are only four swing states left: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Wisconsin. These four only account for 43 Electoral Votes. Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster points to the striking “continuity among the elections” since Trump emerged as a national political figure:

“We’ve now gone through 2016, ’18, ‘20 and ‘22 – and all looked pretty much alike….And it has locked in the coalitions.”

So we’re not only evenly divided, but we’re also deeply divided politically.

Looking at the Electoral College, the midterms offered some optimism to Democrats when 2024 comes around. The five states that decided the last presidential race did so by flipping from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020. Those five (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) moved more toward the Democrats in 2022.

The Dems won six of the eight Senate and governor races across these states, and Dems could notch a seventh victory if Sen. Raphael Warnock defeats Herschel Walker in a Georgia run-off next month.

But Republicans made Ohio, Iowa, and Florida Redder. Each now appears securely in the GOP’s column for 2024 (and most likely beyond). And the Dem’s perennial hope of turning Texas Blue still looks like it’s another 10 years away after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s double-digit victory against Beto O’Rourke. Republicans again won all of Texas’ statewide offices, continuing a Dem shutout that stretches back to the 1990s.

It appears that the offsetting and hardening partisan strengths of each Party could again give the power to decide the presidency to a few hundred thousand voters, in a very few close counties in a few very balanced states.

CNN’s Ron Brownstein says that a 2024 presidential race with just Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona as true battlegrounds would probably begin with Democrats favored in states holding 260 Electoral College votes (including Washington, DC) and Republicans in states with 235. That means Democrats would need to win just one of Arizona (11 votes), Georgia (16), or Wisconsin (10) to reach an Electoral College majority. But that’s far from a certainty.

This division will make for tons of political stress over the next two years. Each Party understands that our nation’s future is now controlled by the choices of a tiny minority of people living in a few contested political districts: White-collar suburbs of Atlanta and Phoenix, working-class Latino neighborhoods in and around Las Vegas, and the mid-sized communities in Wisconsin’s so-called BOW counties (Brown County, Outagamie County and Winnebago County).

No GOP presidential candidate will concede Michigan or Pennsylvania just because of the midterm results. But the magnitude of those 2022 Democratic wins show how difficult it will be for a Republican nominee to take them in 2024 – particularly if the GOP candidate supports further restrictions on abortion.

It’s likely that Democrats will target North Carolina to expand their roster, while Republicans will target Minnesota and New Hampshire. But flipping any state will be difficult, depending upon candidate quality.

This shrinking list of competitive presidential states could increase political tensions for the next two years. Time to wake up America! Think about how your indifference to politics and to voting in our elections has put the country on a knife edge. The threat posed to America by the MAGA extremists remains very real.

It’s going to take tremendous effort in every single election until this dynamic shifts. And that could take a full generation. To help you wake up, watch “People Get Ready”, a Curtis Mayfield tune that foretold the turning tide in the battle for racial equality. It hit the top of the R&B charts after its original 1965 release by The Impressions.

It’s been covered by scores of artists, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and here in 2009 by Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles. Beck’s reaction when Stewart comes on stage is priceless. Stewart served as vocalist for the Jeff Beck Group back in 1969:

Sample Lyrics:

People get ready
There’s a train a-coming
You don’t need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don’t need no ticket
You just thank the Lord

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Saturday Soother – House of Representatives Edition, November 19, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Verbena and sunset, Anza Borrego SP, CA – November 2022 photo by Paulette Donnellon

We start Saturday with a reflection on the outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Many think that she ranks as the best House Speaker in modern times.

Wrongo remembers her for standing up to Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel during the debate over the shape of the ACA. There was much concern about how far the Democrats could go with the bill. Emmanuel wanted to tone it down to meet objections from the GOP and from moderate Dems.

Pelosi met with Obama and his aides and said that she wouldn’t support anything but the full monte. That caused the White House’s effort to find a more moderate way forward to crumble. And America made its biggest single step toward providing health insurance to all Americans.

At the end, It was Pelosi not Obama, who made it happen. It was her ability to deliver her caucus that gave Obama et.al a spine.

Wrongo recently learned that when Nancy Pelosi was a teen and her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was mayor of Baltimore, she maintained his “favors book”. That explains much about her effectiveness when she finally got to Congress at age 47. At the point when she took office, she had five kids. Wrangling them, plus learning to keep a “favors book” was probably ideal preparation for being the first woman House Speaker.

This week, control of the US House has passed to the Republican Party. That means two things: First, that Republicans will now say that compliance with House subpoenas is mandatory, even though they purposefully ignored them for the last two years.

Second, Americans should prepare for investigations of the Biden administration by grandstanding GOP Congresscritters. James Comer (R-KY) held a press conference saying that he will be looking into Hunter Biden, his laptop, and his father. Comer, the incoming Oversight Committee chair, has said an investigation into Hunter Biden and other Biden family members and associates will be a priority. His idea is to try and position the president as having compromised national security.

If that seems to echo the FBI/DOJ investigations into Trump, well, that’s purely a coincidence. Be prepared to see absolutely nothing get done over the next two+ years that might improve the lives of the American people.

Let’s spend a minute on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Last March, the WaPo did a story on a security review it had authorized of the disk drive on the “Hunter Biden laptop”. The WaPo asked security experts Matt Green and Jake Williams to review the drive to see what they could authenticate. From the WaPo:

“In their examinations, Green and Williams found evidence that people other than Hunter Biden had accessed the drive and written files to it, both before and after the initial stories in the New York Post and long after the laptop itself had been turned over to the FBI.”

So people had kept adding content to the “laptop,” making it impossible to say what was on the “laptop” when it was originally provided to the Delaware computer repair shop.

More from the WaPo:

“Analysis was made significantly more difficult, both experts said, because the data had been handled repeatedly in a manner that deleted logs and other files that forensic experts use to establish a file’s authenticity.”

But according to the House Republicans:

You should read the entire story of the laptop in the WaPo. It details the laptop’s convoluted journey from Hunter to the FBI, while several other copies of its hard drive were made. They went to Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon. The WaPo reviewed one of the Republican copies, but not the one in the hands of the FBI.

What would a jury decide if this laptop was Exhibit A? Would they consider it to be tainted evidence? Seems like there are too many unknowns and too many people who had access to it.

But what will the House GOP grandstanders make out of it? Will laptop-gate be legitimatized by the media? And will many citizens fall for it just like they did with Clinton’s email server? The Right has lots of practice at turning complicated stories into political gold.

Time to move on to our Saturday Soother. Here on the fields of Wrong, nearly all of our yard work was completed before the first snowfall this week. Along with everyone in the northeast, our weather turned cold, and winter jackets are now hanging on the hook by the back door.

To ease into Saturday, start by brewing up a hot steaming mug of Villa Betulia Maragesha ($30/8oz.) from Colorado’s Corvus Coffee. The roaster says it has flavors of peach liqueur and strawberry syrup. Maybe that’s why it’s so expensive.

Now grab a seat near a south-facing window and watch and listen to the Adagio movement of the “Concierto de Aranjuez” by the Spanish composer JoaquĂ­n Rodrigo. Written in 1939, it is Rodrigo’s best-known work. Here it is played by Hauser on cello and Petrit Çeku on guitar at the “HAUSER & Friends” Concert in Croatia in 2018, along with Ivo Lipanovic conducting the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra:

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Why A Warnock Victory is Crucial

The Daily Escape:

Snow Geese, Skagit Valley, WA – November 2022 photo by Erwin Buske

Buckle up, America. Apparently, we’re gonna do it all over again. Trump is running, but who cares? The Democrats will beat him once again. The more he speaks, the more attention will be paid to his criminality, and the greater will be the demand on the Department of Justice to – you know, bring justice.

But the issue du jour (and du month) is the Georgia Senate runoff. Like Mark Kelly in Arizona, Georgia’s Sen. Raphael Warnock is running for his first full six-year term in the Senate. The Senate stands at D50 : R49 until Georgia votes. There are two reasons to vote for Warnock, one is tactical, the other, strategic.

First, the tactical: In a 50-50 Senate, the Parties will likely have equal representation on committees, based on a power-sharing agreement that Sens. Schumer and McConnell reached early in the current Congress. Winning Georgia means that the Dems won’t need a new power-sharing agreement, which McConnell will make more difficult this time. It would make it easier for Dems to control committees, and to confirm judicial nominees. And don’t expect a 51-seat Democratic Senate majority to eliminate the filibuster, because with Republicans controlling the House it won’t make much sense.

Second, the Strategic: The Georgia Senate seat could be an important buffer for Democrats in the 2024 election, where their map is very challenging. In 2024, Democrats have 23 seats up (including Maine and Vermont, held by independents who caucus with Democrats), while Republicans have just 11 at stake.

The 2024 election is a presidential election year. In the last two presidential cycles, only one Senator, Susan Collins (R-ME) prevailed when her state went for the presidential candidate of the other Party. In every other race, the same Party that won the state for the presidential election also won the Senate race.

From Larry Sabato: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Unless Democrats win the [2024] presidential race in a blowout — something that seems unlikely in our closely-divided nation — the Republican presidential nominee seems very likely to carry at least 3 [GOP] states that have Democratic senators up for reelection in 2024: Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. That puts Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and [Joe] Manchin (D-WVA) at a disadvantage. We’re not sure if we would start any of them as clear underdogs…but at best they would all start in Toss-up races.”

The Republican nominee, (whether Trump or someone else), should carry all of the states that Republican senators are defending next cycle, including the two most competitive states, Florida and Texas.

Even with the Republicans’ propensity to nominate bad candidates in winnable races, a problem they have had in 2010, 2012, and 2022, Republicans should be able to flip at least one Dem Senate seat in 2024. That’s what makes Georgia so important. If the GOP wins Warnock’s seat, winning one Dem seat in 2024 is all it would take to control the Senate.

But if Warnock holds, the Republicans will need two flips to win the Senate. Based on the three seats described above, that’s possible. But it’s harder to simply pencil in, since Democrats did so much better than expected last week. However, if Hershel Walker wins Georgia, Republicans have a much better chance to get a clear Senate majority in 2024.

So, Warnock winning is super important. Wrongo has engaged in conversations with a few readers about what the most effective way is to help Warnock out in Georgia. Remember that Georgia is a “strict voter ID” state. That means that being registered to vote in Georgia isn’t enough. A voter needs a proper ID as defined by Georgia law to cast a lawful ballot.

Wrongo recommends helping the good people at VoteRiders (www.voteriders.org), an organization that has helped millions of American voters get the ID they needed to vote. In Georgia, VoteRiders has identified 157,000 registered voters who do not have sufficient ID to vote. They have contact information for them as well.

VoteRiders is deploying its volunteers to assist in this effort. The more eligible voters in Georgia who are actually able to cast their ballot, the more representative of our democracy the Georgia vote becomes. And given the demographics of these registered voters without proper ID, the better Warnock’s chances will be. Warnock beat Walker by only 33,000 votes before the runoff.

You can donate here, and unlike campaign donations, this is tax-deductible.

Please also feel free to donate to Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign but do it directly at Warnock for Georgia, so he gets 100% of your precious dough.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 13, 2022

While we were focusing on the midterms, Biden flew to Egypt to appear at the COP27 climate conference where he took a brief victory lap before heading to Cambodia and then to Bali for the G20 summit (which Putin is skipping).

This particular climate conference is largely focused on what, if anything, the industrialized countries owe to poor nations that are suffering climate disasters which they did little to cause. The catch phrase for this is “Climate Reparations”.

It’s hard for America to be a global leader on climate given our internal political issues. We’re always going to be just a few Electoral College votes away from electing a climate denier. So the world can’t count on us. But America will never pay climate reparations. We must at least TRY to get clean water in US cities first.

Even after 157 years, we won’t really consider paying reparations to the descendants of our fellow citizens for the sin of slavery. The political will to pay reparations to brown skinned folks on the other side of the world will never be a majority view in America.

There was both good news and bad news about the 2022 midterms. The good news is that the outcomes were not as catastrophic as predicted. The bad news is that they were bad enough. While all the races aren’t finished and all the votes aren’t counted, we know the Senate will be controlled by the Democrats. It’s likely that the GOP will control the House. Still, it’s very clear there’s a very large segment of American voters who fail to read the writing on the wall about the threat of an authoritarian takeover of American democracy. Even though that writing is in large, blinking neon letters. On to cartoons.

The authoritarians are pensive:

The incredibly shrinking authoritarians:

The Georgia runoff doesn’t mean what you think it means:

The MAGA celebration ended early:

MAGA is still with us:

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Midterm Hot Takes

The Daily Escape:

First snowfall, Snoqualmie, WA – November 2022 photo by Gary Hamburgh Photography

Here are Wrongo’s hot takes on the midterms, with the understanding that it will be days (weeks?) before we really know all that happened:

  • The polls overcorrected for previous mistakes by being biased in favor of the GOP this time. Democrats outperformed their poll numbers by about 1 point. The evidence was there all along that there were alternative outcomes that were at least as likely, and that the vote differential between max D and max R would be at most, 3 points.
  • Abortion rights and election denial were both on the ballot. Despite the polling, results confirm that a woman’s right to choose was popular while election denial is a fringe belief. In Pennsylvania, exit polls found that abortion was the number one issue, outpacing inflation 36% to 28%. Both core Republican positions were rejected by most Americans.
  • 2022 was as close to a perfect environment for a Red wave as we’ll likely see in the next few years. But as the Daily Beast says: “Republicans had hoped for a red wave. What they got looked more like purple rain.”
  • In every race where Democrats helped fund a MAGA candidate in a primary over a less crazy Republican, the MAGA Republican lost in the general election.
  • All the abortion rights state initiatives won. John Roberts is sitting at home, weeping bitter tears and saying to his fellow Justices: “I told you so”.
  • The Senate is looking like a 50/50 split again, assuming that Kelly wins in Arizona and Warnock defeats Walker in a runoff. Walker is the essence of the GOP experiment in candidate crapification: “Exactly how little can we offer you in a candidate and still have you vote for them?“
  • You’re going to have to reopen your wallets for Rev. Warnock again in November.
  • There’s an outside chance that Nevada may return Cortez-Masto to the Senate, making the Dem’s potential ceiling 51-49.
  • We need to remember that 2024 is a much less favorable environment for Democrats. So by then, it may become impossible to confirm another Democratic SCOTUS nominee, possibly for as long as the rest of the decade. That requires Dems to kill the filibuster.
  • The House will most likely flip to the Republicans by a small margin. Democrats are overperforming, but they need to sweep the remaining toss-up races in order to keep the majority. Dozens of House races, including in NY and CA, are too close to call.
  • Current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had predicted a 60-seat GOP surge. It will most likely be fewer than 10 seats. McCarthy’s going to spend the next two years trying to give a bath to a bagful of bobcats.
  • All of the House Republicans elected on Tuesday are committed to a decidedly different direction than that of Biden and the Democrats. There will be few opportunities for legislative consensus. And lots of opportunity for Republican grandstanding.
  • The governor races that Republicans had hoped to capture: New York, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Maine, all stayed Blue.
  • Michigan Democrats are poised to win full control of state government by taking majorities in the legislature for the first time in 40 years, matching Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s reelection victory.
  • Florida is no longer a battleground state. And Iowa and Ohio seem now to be completely out of reach for Democrats. Texas stayed solidly Red for at least another cycle. But it appears that Michigan and Pennsylvania may have slipped into the Blue camp.

Closing thoughts: Biden defied expectations. He was set up to take the blame for a large midterm loss in both the House and Senate. That might have led for calls from within the Party for Biden to stand down in 2024. Limiting the Party’s losses may not improve his favorability ratings, but it makes attacks from within the Party difficult.

Second, regardless of your viewpoint on the quality of the Dems’ messaging, pundits in the media will make opposing arguments (e.g., Dems should be more moderate, Dems should be more liberal) and there will be at least some data points to support their views.

Third, Republicans are pointing their fingers at Trump for the GOP’s failure to live up to expectations. This is the third straight election in which Trump has cost the Republican Party winnable seats. Whether that emboldens Florida’s DeSantis to battle Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination remains to be seen. The best possible outcome would be that DeSantis actually takes on Trump. Imagine if he beat Trump to the nomination. Would Trump run a third party campaign?

It’s fun to dream about, even if it’s an unlikely prospect. Then again, let’s hope that Trump is indicted by the DOJ long before the 2024 nominating process gets underway.

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Saturday Soother – November 5, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Pond, Horsethief Canyon Wildlife Area, CO – October 2022 photo by Ray Mathis

(There will not be a Sunday Cartoons column tomorrow. Wrongo and Ms. Right are visiting with family.)

Despite not having Sunday cartoons, here’s one to focus your mind between now and Tuesday:

Regarding the midterms and what they might bring, we should do all that we can in these final hours to bring about the result we want. A fatal flaw would be losing control of the House and Senate because some people didn’t care enough to vote.

But as with most potentially game-changing events, we will have to wait for the votes to be tallied, all the while hoping we’ve done enough. It will make for an anxiety-provoking few days.

And Wrongo is worried by the thought that the Dems might lose. But we only truly lose when we cease to resist the autocratic forces on the Right who would tear down democracy. And what about if we win? There can’t be complacency with a win either.

As long as there are forces seeking to “tear it all down” there’s a need for continued work to energize Democrats. We may have political victories, but we can’t become complacent. Sorry to say, but democracy only sustains itself through the efforts of those who commit to its continued defense.

It’s also essential that we take the long view of what’s happening in our country. We are clearly in a battle between autocrats and (small d) democrats. The Democratic Party wants Americans to live in a democratic country that regulates capitalism and provides a social safety net. The autocrats do not.

This battle is going on throughout the world.

Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, after the election we will regroup and figure out how to go forward.

Here’s Wrongo’s wish that you have a calm weekend. That means he hopes that our Saturday Soother will help bring some calmness along with coffee.

Last Monday we returned to the Mansion of Wrong and saw evidence that wildlife are our neighbors. The flesh of the pumpkin by our front door was completely gone, and there were tracks in the remaining pumpkin mush that were consistent with that of a racoon, who are known to eat them. Also, a large animal (Bear?) tore open a big ground wasp nest on our lawn. Nothing remains but the new hole in the ground and a few broken honeycombs.

Not sure what message the animal kingdom is sending us. But Wrongo assumes it’s a reminder that we live in a large ecosystem that until the last century was dominated by wildlife.

Let’s start Saturday’s effort to not think about the midterms with a hot steaming mug of Kona Extra Fancy ($45/12oz.) from the Roberts family’s San Francisco-based San Francisco Bay Coffee. It seems expensive, but inflation is cruel to coffee drinkers. The roaster says that it has flavors of dark chocolate, persimmon, roasted almond butter, and magnolia. That probably explains the price.

Now, grab a seat in the sun (it will be 72° here today) and watch and listen to Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto in C Major, Op. 56 No. 2”. Here it is performed live in 2019, by a superstar trio of Anne-Sophie Mutter on violin, Daniel Barenboim conducting and on piano, and Yo-Yo Ma on cello, at Philharmonie, Berlin:

Yo-Yo Ma says:

“For me, in the Triple Concerto, it’s the constant invention that always takes me by surprise. You know what I love about the piece? It’s so celebratory, so positive.”

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