Category: The Presidency

Saturday Soother, January 7, 2017

Happy Birthday today Kelly!! Other than that happy fact, little went right in America this week. Our Overlord, Donald I, rode to a presidential win by saying he would bring jobs back to America that have been lost to automation and offshoring by US companies.

But economists have said for years that creating jobs for low skilled Americans will be difficult. Here is further evidence that bringing back jobs may be tougher than Trump thinks. Salon reports that for men ages 25 to 54, the work statistics are poor:

For this group, labor force participation has sunk to 88.5% from a 1954 peak of 97.9%. Most of that loss has occurred among men who have a high school degree or less, according to a report this year by the Obama administration.

And there are interesting facts to consider where unemployed men are concerned. The NYT’s Upshot reports that the jobs that have been disappearing, like machine operator, are predominantly those that men do, while the occupations that are growing, employ mostly women. More from Upshot:

Of the fastest-growing jobs, many are various types of health aides, which are about 90% female. When men take these so-called pink-collar jobs, they have more job security and wage growth than in blue-collar work, according to recent research. But they are paid less and feel stigmatized.

Upshot quotes David Autor, an economist at M.I.T.:

The jobs being created are very different than the jobs being eliminated…I’m not worried about whether there will be jobs. I’m very worried about whether there will be jobs for low-educated adults, especially the males, who seem very reluctant to take the new jobs.

The issue is America’s culture of masculinity. Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist and public policy professor at Johns Hopkins says:

Traditional masculinity is standing in the way of working-class men’s employment…We have a cultural lag where our views of masculinity have not caught up to the change in the job market.

Why is it that men can get away with saying that they deserve better than women? Perhaps that is a rhetorical question. After all, we elected Donald Trump, who can get away with anything.

The Salon article had this snippet: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Health problems and the opioid epidemic may also be a major barrier to work, according to research by Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist and former Obama adviser. Nearly half of men ages 25 through 54 who are neither working nor looking for work, take pain medication daily.

Some of these men may have been injured on the job and were subsequently laid off. But some may also represent part of the huge increase in opioid use in America. They may be part of the increase in disability cases since the Great Recession: More than 10 million Americans received Social Security disability benefits in 2014 (most recent statistics). Benefits paid to disabled workers totaled $11.4 billion per month nationwide, a substantial increase from the $6.1 billion paid monthly in 2004. The top three states receiving disability benefits are West Virginia, Alabama and Arkansas.

We became this society honestly. Our politicians hold our corporations in high esteem. The corporations repay us by automating most jobs and shipping other jobs overseas. They do this with little or no responsibility to help displaced workers retrain, or find new work. They do this while asking for bigger tax breaks to remain domiciled in the US. They do this while blaming our education system for not providing trained, ready-to-work job entrants at no cost to them.

We just cannot count on them to be good corporate citizens.

Those on pain killers may or may not have disabilities that prevent them from working. But in any case, society does not owe unemployed working age men permanent, high paying manufacturing or mining jobs, despite whatever efforts Trump may make.

It is time for them to adapt.

We need a soother. Here is Grex Vocalis a Norwegian chorus formed in 1971. Grex Vocalis has reached the finals of the BBC contest “Let the Peoples Sing” three times. In this video they are performing “An Irish Blessing” (May the road rise to meet you) written by an American, James E. Moore in 1987, live at the Amadeo RoldĂĄn Theatre in Havana Cuba:

A Norwegian chorus performing an Irish tune, written by an American, in Cuba. That’s gotta be soothing.

For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

Sample Lyrics:

May the sun make your days bright

May the stars illuminate your nights

May the flowers bloom along your path

Your house stand firm against the storm.

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Audit The Federal Reserve?

Well, it should be no surprise that the Federal Reserve is already audited, but Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) re-introduced an “Audit the Fed” bill in the House on Wednesday, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced companion legislation in the US Senate. This has been a pet idea of Republicans for years. The GOP’s reasoning was summed up by Rep. Massie:

Behind closed doors, the Fed crafts monetary policy that will continue to devalue our currency, slow economic growth, and make life harder for the poor and middle class…

Mr. Massie apparently does not know that the US dollar is among the strongest currencies in international markets. Otherwise, he wouldn’t say that the Fed is debasing our currency. This guy is the exact reason why Congress’ role in directing the Fed should not be enlarged. Some suggest the bill is inaccurately named, but as the WSJ says:

Fed officials meet several times a year to decide what to do with short-term interest rates and how to influence them—actions that affect the borrowing costs of households, businesses and investors across the country. The “Audit the Fed” measures would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine those decisions.

And then report their findings to various Congressional committees. The GAO already has some Fed oversight, but the bill would repeal restrictions on their oversight. The most important restriction blocks the GAO from reviewing:

Deliberations, decisions, or actions on monetary policy matters, [as well as] discussion or communication among or between members of the Board and officers and employees related to such deliberations.

The repeal of these existing restrictions would allow the GAO to view all materials and transcripts related to meetings of the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the entity that sets US interest rates. It would require the GAO, at the request of Congress, to provide recommendations on monetary policy, including the FOMC’s interest-rate decisions, to Congress.

This would make meeting-by-meeting monetary policy decisions subject to Congressional review and, potentially, Congressional pressure. Judging by Mr. Massie’s level of knowledge about central banking, it would be highly likely that political pressure and rabble-rousing would be unavoidable.

The Fed’s financial statements are already audited in the usual sense by the government’s Inspector General (IG) and by Deloitte, a world-class independent accounting firm. The resulting financial reports are available to the public online. Every security owned by the Fed, including its unique identifying CUSIP number, is also available online.

The GAO reviews the Fed’s activities at the request of Congress, and has wide latitude to review Fed operations. For example, the Dodd-Frank Act required the GAO to conduct reviews of the Fed’s emergency lending programs during the 2008 crisis, along with the Fed’s governance structure.  Since the financial crisis, the GAO has done some 70 reviews of aspects of Fed operations. That’s about 10 reviews a year since the end of the crisis.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who joined with Sen. Paul to introduce the “Audit the Fed” legislation in the Senate, speaks for many of the Right Wing political class when he says, “the Fed is a group of unaccountable, unelected philosopher kings making decisions that affect every American”.

The bill’s proponents argue that “transparency” is lacking, and this will be cured with more Congressional oversight. Or, by more finger-pointing by certain gerrymandered GOP lifers talking about how the FOMC decisions are based on incorrect assumptions and broken models. There will probably be about as much value-added oversight as the various Benghazi committees exercised over the State Department.

In 2017 we’re having the same debates about the role of the Federal Reserve Bank that America had in the early 1900s prior to the Federal Reserve Act’s passage in 1913. We still hear voices calling for either more or less restrictive monetary policy, for more or less regulation, and even for the Fed to be abolished.

These are the same issues that Sen. Nelson Aldrich, banker Paul Warburg and their colleagues debated a hundred years ago. Back then, the debate was highly politicized, since there was widespread populist mistrust of Wall Street and of the concept of a centralized federal banking authority. Sound familiar?

So, time to let the GOP politicize the Fed. Time to let the Congress get its hands on monetary policy, even though they have proven to have zero ability to handle fiscal policy. Consider Congress’s failure to pass budgets, and their willingness to let the US government default on its debt.

Shouldn’t we keep the Fed’s deliberations free from grandstanding politicians playing to a conspiracy hungry constituency?

Isn’t this supposed to be the Congress that believed in less government?

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American Exceptionalism Doesn’t Include Your Healthcare

The Republican’s effort to repeal and (maybe) replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) began today. From NPR:

Opening punches were thrown in what one top Democrat today called “the first big fight” of the new congressional year – the promise by President-elect Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

The Obamacare debate is political and ideological, and it obscures a hard truth about healthcare in America. Historically, we spend more money than any other country on healthcare.

In the late 1990s, the US spent roughly 13% of its GDP on healthcare, compared to about a 9.5% average for all high income countries. However, the difference has steadily increased. Last year, as the ACA continued to roll out, healthcare costs hit 17.5% of GDP, the highest ever. That’s $9,695 per person.

We spend over $3 trillion on healthcare annually, and that rate of spending is expected to accelerate over the next decade. With all the debate about Obamacare, and what should replace it if it is repealed, we are ignoring what healthcare costs in the US, relative to other high income countries. It may surprise you that America doesn’t have better care than other high income countries, if we compare life expectancy to per capita health expenditures:

Source: Visual Capitalist

Americans spend more money, but do not receive similar results to other countries using the basic metric of life expectancy. Whilst we have fantastic services, like Functional Medicine Clarksville TN for instance, accessibility to these services varies greatly. The chart shows that the divergence started before 1980, and it widens all the way to 2014. While the 2015 statistics are not plotted on this chart, but we know that the healthcare expense in 2015 was 17.5% of GDP, so the divergence is likely to continue to widen.

The conclusion is that while our healthcare spending is considerably higher than in other high income countries, it’s also relatively less effective. If America spent more money and got the same results, we might say that our system is unique, but it produces similar outcomes, so let’s keep it the way it is.

But in fact, Americans on average live shorter lives than people in other high income countries. In fact, life expectancy went down in 2015:

The overall death rate for Americans increased because mortality from heart disease and stroke increased after declining for years. Deaths were also up from Alzheimer’s disease, respiratory disease, kidney disease and diabetes. More Americans also died from unintentional injuries and suicide.

We have a broken political system, one that cannot deal with the root cause of our expensive healthcare, or the fact that our healthcare system simply doesn’t produce the results that others can.

Despite the talk by Republicans about Obamacare being socialized medicine, our system is private, with the exception of the health insurance provided by Medicare and Medicaid. Our insurance companies are private, our physicians (like those at Southwest Care) and providers are private.

By some estimates, the private multi-payer system in the US adds $0.38 for every dollar spent to cover the profits and the discreet management organizations that exist in our multi-payer system. The problem is that there is so much money (over $1 trillion) going to the private players, that they will fight like hell to keep the system as it is.

And they have the lobbying funds available to fight to keep the status quo. Thus, we will continue to deal with excessive costs regardless of no Obamacare, or some jury-rigged GOP Obamacare replacement.

In our Exceptional system, the fact is that even though you pay for health insurance, you are not the actual customer. When you go to the doctor or to the hospital, you are not the actual customer. The Insurance companies are the true customers of the doctors and the hospitals, and for the insurance companies, their shareholders are the true customers.

And before you question the statistics, saying for example, that the US counts infant deaths differently than they do in other countries, the infant death rate in the US is about 0.5% of births, and with about 4 million births in the US that translates into about 20,000 infant deaths. If you remove 20,000 people assigning them a life span of zero, in a country of 320 million people, the overall average life expectancy rises by only 1.81 days (43.4 hours). That is the statistical life span increase assuming we had zero infant deaths. (Please check Wrongo’s math).

Higher infant death rates have virtually no effect on the results shown on the chart.

Remember: Whomever is getting that extra $1 Trillion dollars every year has a trillion reasons why they should keep getting it.

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Congress Is Back, And the Revolution Begins!

Here is food for thought from David Weigel of the WaPo: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

When the 115th Congress begins this week, with Republicans firmly in charge of the House and Senate, much of that legislation will form the basis of the most ambitious conservative policy agenda since the 1920s. And rather than a Democratic president standing in the way, a soon-to-be-inaugurated Donald Trump seems ready to sign much of it into law…

That plan was long in the making. Almost the entire agenda has already been vetted, promoted and worked over by Republicans and think tanks that look at the White House less for leadership and more for signing ceremonies

There is little reason for Republicans to seek bipartisan support for middle-of-the-road legislation. They will simply work as a hive to turn America into Kansas. You remember Kansas, the state that has such a terrible record of job creation and economic growth? Kansas governor Republican Sam Brownback launched the orthodoxy of Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers on the state. And Brownback and Steven Moore who helped Brownback with his disastrous legislative agenda, are both economic advisors to Trump.

We have seen lots of hand-wringing about how to stand up to the Trump agenda that will begin raining down on America on January 20th. Most calls to action are from single-issue activist groups that lack the resources to get media attention, or to make a difference.

But there is a clear need for collective action on national, state and local levels. And that movement needs a leader.

How about an anti-president? Maybe Bernie Sanders? When Trump governs by tweet, he would be countered by the anti-president. Americans might come to know that, while Trump and company are cutting healthcare, the shadow government led by anti-president Sanders and vice president Warren are passing and signing a national healthcare bill.

When Trump cuts taxes on the rich and corporations, the shadow government is raising taxes on the rich and penalizing corporations that locate overseas to avoid paying tax at home.

When Trump appoints an anti-abortion, pro-Citizens United Supreme Court Justice, the shadow government appoints someone who is for social justice.

This can begin to build a consensus about what Trump is doing wrong.

We don’t have a parliamentary system, but, most Americans have no idea about political theory, or political facts. So, few will realize that a shadow government isn’t consistent with our Constitutional system!

And the new shadow government MUST not contain Pelosi, Schumer, or any of the geriatric Democrats in the House and Senate. That will de-legitimize the effort.

On New Year’s Day, Wrongo and Ms. Right attended a Baroque music concert at an old Congregational church in Washington CT that dates from 1741. Within a beautiful program, we heard a piece by the Italian composer, Domenico Zipoli. Zipoli has an interesting history. He studied with Scarlatti, he became a Jesuit, and worked as a missionary and died in 1726 in Argentina at age 38. Zipoli’s music was a revelation to us. Here is Zipoli’s “Elevazione” for oboe, violin, organ and cello. It was wonderful to hear it in a place with a good pipe organ.

The “elevation” is the point in the Catholic mass when the chalice and host are presented to the congregation. The performance lasts for eight+ minutes, much longer than what Wrongo prefers to present to you, but it is achingly beautiful, so please have patience.

It may be the perfect antidote to the shenanigans we will be seeing from the Trump administration, and we may need to watch it daily for a few months:

It begs the question, why was the 18th century blessed with so many great composers while the 21st century was given Justin Bieber?

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

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Wrongo’s Useless 2017 Predictions

“It’s tough to make predictions. Especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra

Since you have already plunged a stake into the heart of 2016, it is time for some predictions about 2017, which most likely, won’t happen. We can expect the following:

  1. There will be more global political and social turmoil:
    1. The EU could collapse. France is a Marine LePen government away from pursuing an exit from the EU, so there would be a Frexit to go along with Brexit.
    2. China’s economy is wobbling, and China’s president Xi has leaned into a populist message:

On this New Year, I am most concerned about the difficulties of the masses: how they eat, how they live, whether they can have a good New Year…

  1. The US will continue to lose influence globally despite “Mr. Unpredictable” becoming our Orange Overlord: Trump brags about winning when he negotiates. That has been undeniably true in his real estate and name brand licensing. He will find that when the other side doesn’t need access to his brand in order to succeed, he will have to resort to instilling fear. That may work once, but it will not work consistently.
  2. A corollary: Trump arrives in the Oval Office as an overconfident leader, the man with no plan but with a short attention span, and within six months, he will have his first major policy failure. Getting his hand burned will make him more subdued, more conservative and less populist thereafter.
  3. A second corollary: The triumvirate of Russia/Turkey/Iran will elbow the US firmly out of the Fertile Crescent, and secure friendly regimes in Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran. This will push American influence in the Middle East back to just the Gulf States, a weakened Saudi Arabia, and an increasingly isolated Israel.
  4. Domestically, drug abuse, suicide, and general self-destructive behavior will continue to climb and become impossible to ignore.
  5. The Trump stock market rally has already turned into the Santa Selloff. The Dow peaked on December 20 at 19,975, 25 points away from party-hat time. But since then, Dow 20,000 slipped through our fingers like sand. It closed the year at 19,719, down 281 points from 20k.
  6. Regarding the stock market, many people who want to sell stocks waited until 2017 in order to pay lower capital gains tax. Selling in January could lower prices further.
  7. The growing antibiotic resistance to main stream drugs will impact health in the US.

Meta Prediction: It is certain that few Trump voters will get the results they voted for. Some people who voted for Trump have incompatible outcomes in mind, so it’s a virtual guarantee that a sizable minority are going to feel cheated when they fail to get what they were promised.

OTOH, when Trump fails, most of his base will blame anyone but the Donald. The question is, when disillusionment sets in, will the reaction be a turning away, or a doubling down on the anger?

Wrongo thinks anger will win out.

The coming Trump administration will seem like a fractious family outing: Just under half of the family (the “landslide” segment) wanted to go out, but now, the whole family has to go. Those who wanted to stay home will sulk in the back seat while Daddy tells them to stop bitching.

Meanwhile, once we are out of the driveway, it dawns on everyone that Daddy hasn’t decided yet where to go. Everyone pipes up with suggestions, but Daddy again tells everyone to shut up, because it’s his decision alone. There will be the usual “are we there yet?” complaining, some motion sickness and incessant fighting over who is touching whom.

Daddy won’t reveal the destination, but insists everyone will love it once they get there, even those who wanted to stay home, those who wanted to go the beach, and those who wanted to head over the cliff like Thelma and Louise.

Time for our Monday Wake Up Call, “Wake Up Everybody”, originally by Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes, featuring Teddy Pendergrass. Teddy left the group for his solo career after this album.

But, today we will hear and watch John Legend’s cover of the tune, backed by the Roots Band along with Melanie Fiona, and Common. The song is as strong as it was 42 years ago when it was released:

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

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Trump’s Nuclear and Israel Policies

2016 is ending on a somber note: We elected Donald Trump. We have confirmed his modus operandi, his lack of tweeting impulse control. We’ve seen his appointments to senior positions.

2017 will be an abrupt shift from the policies and guiding principles of the post-Reagan era. This will be true for the social safety net, tax policy, and several other primarily domestic policies, some which had their genesis in FDR’s New Deal. Then there is the Supreme Court.

It is doubtful that Trump can undo the Iran nuclear deal, but two other international policies will change.

First, America’s nuclear weapons policy: Donald Trump has recently tweeted that the US needs to “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.” We have had a 50-year period of nuclear arms control with Russia, mostly delivered by Republican presidents. It tamed and then downsized the nuclear arms race. But Trump’s national security appointees and Republicans in Congress now want to throw away their inheritance. They will try their best to bankrupt Moscow again. They will seek to chip away, if not walk away, from the New START and INF treaties. They will try to remove the CTBT from the Senate’s calendar and reduce funding for that Treaty’s global monitoring system.

Trump has shown little interest in intelligence briefings. This is reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s first term. Recently declassified documents from the Reagan presidency show how slowly Reagan was brought up to speed on national security issues. Reagan took office in 1981, and was not fully up to speed by 1983, preferring to let his national security team handle those details. This is from the National Security Archive: (Emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Sharper understanding at high levels of the grave danger of nuclear war was one consequence of a Defense Department nuclear war game that occurred in mid-1983. In the “Proud Prophet” game…the lead players were JCS Chairman John W. Vessey and Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger… during the game Vessey and Weinberger followed standard policies constructed for crises; as a U.S.-Soviet conflict escalated, their actions initiated a major nuclear war. “The result was a catastrophe” in which “a half billion human beings were killed in the initial exchanges and at least that many more would have died from radiation and starvation.”…Proud Prophet had a chastening and moderating impact on the Reagan administration’s rhetoric and thinking about nuclear war….but…The Proud Prophet report remains massively excised and it is unknown even if or when Weinberger briefed Reagan on it.

(h/t Booman)

This history shows that the (unelected) national security apparatus thinks it prudent to keep newly elected presidents in the dark for a long time after they are elected. In the case of Harry Truman, he didn’t even know we had nuclear weapons until he was asked for permission to use them!

Our only hope with nuclear is that Trump seems to want to forge a working alliance with Russia. We know that a renewed nuclear arms race is not in either country’s interest. It’s possible that Trump will surprise us by doing deals with Vladimir Putin, who cannot afford an arms race.

Second, is Israel’s out-of-proportion reaction to the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2334, which passed with the US abstaining, rather than exercising its veto. The resolution condemns Israel’s construction of settlements within the occupied Palestinian territories. Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t take the Resolution well. He vowed revenge on everyone, except Trump. Netanyahu said that Israel will “re-evaluate diplomatic relations” with all 14 countries who voted yes, including permanent Security Council members Russia, the UK, China and France. “Re-evaluation” will have no meaning to them, but for the other nine, who knows? Bibi singled out Senegal and halted Israeli aid. He recalled Israeli ambassadors from some of the countries that voted for the resolution, called for re-evaluation of Israel’s relationship with the UN, including its funding commitment.

Republicans, emboldened by their love of Israel, have made threats to defund the UN, something we haven’t heard since John Bolton was relevant.

Almost certainly, Netanyahu’s strategy is to exploit the UN vote to convince Trump and his team that Israel needs to be compensated in some way for what the UN, and especially the US, has done.

More compensation. How Republican of them. America has given Israel $124 billion in aid, and Obama just authorized another $38 billion over the next ten years.

It’s time to cut Netanyahu adrift. What we have here is a US client state that thinks it’s in charge. The question is how bad do Israel’s policies have to be before it provokes some sort of reassessment by Congress? Or is everything to be swept under the rug of “existential necessity”?

The Trump and the I-love-Israel-more than-life-itself crowd in Congress are on track to do severe damage to the UN and to our ME strategy during the next four years.

Trump’s foreign policy is giving Wrongo the year-end blues.

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Christmas Eve 2016

(We will be taking the next few days off. Regular posting will resume on December 27)

Family starts arriving tonight here at the mansion of Wrong. We always have three Christmas parties, one the weekend before the holiday week, and in this case, on the 25th and the 26th. It’s a big family, with many adult children and adult grandchildren, so we try to accommodate as many schedules as possible. There’s less tension that way.

Many say that this is the most wonderful time of the year. Perhaps it’s better if we don’t think about what a roller coaster ride of a year we had in 2016.

Do you think that we need a little Christmas after the year we had? The tune “We Need a Little Christmas” is from the musical Mame, which opened on Broadway in 1966. It is sung in the scene when the stock-market crash of 1929 has just hit, and Mame’s deceased brother’s 10-year-old son has been entrusted to her care. She introduces him to her free-wheeling lifestyle, using her favorite saying: “Life is a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death.”

Sounds about right in our unequal society.

We are having a little collapse of our own in America now, although it is more prospective than a harsh reality. Right now we are either at the end of the good times, or we are about to go on such an awesome winning streak that you will bow in obeisance to our Orange Overlord, saying you are so sorry we ever doubted him. You be the judge.

Wrongo is thinking about all of this. He is also thinking about the loss of his brother Kevin to complications of ALS in June. Kevin personified resilience, and fought very hard. Wrongo and his sisters were able to be with him up to his last moments. We miss his humor and fierce intelligence every day.

Kevin didn’t live to see his candidate win the presidency.

One thing that we did at Christmas when he was alive was to all sing the Tom Lehrer song “Christmas Carol”. It was always an exuberant rendition, if not always on key. Here is the real song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffO8nZThwmM

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

Lyrics:

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don’t say “when.”
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.

On Christmas day you can’t get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore.
There’s time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Relations, sparing no expense’ll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
“Just the thing I need! How nice!”
It doesn’t matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit.
Sentiment will not endear it,
What’s important is the price.

Hark the herald tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry, merchants,
May you make the yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!

So let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don’t stand underneath when they fly by.

In closing, you may not know that it is perfectly correct to use “Xmas” wherever “Christmas” is called for. From Today I Found Out:

Myth: “Xmas” is a non-religious name/spelling for “Christmas”.

It turns out, “Xmas” is not a non-religious version of “Christmas”. The “X” is actually indicating the Greek letter “Chi”, which is short for the Greek, meaning “Christ”. So “Xmas” and “Christmas” are equivalent in every way except their lettering.

The practice started with religious scribes, who used the symbol “X” in place of Christ’s name, and it has been continued by religious scholars for at least 1000 years. If it seems offensive to you to use Xmas, then by all means spell out Christmas.

Still, it’s another loss for O’Reilly’s War on Christmas.

And there’s this: Public Policy Polling (PPP) released a survey on Monday that shows that only 34% of Americans believe there is a war on Christmas. Most Americans now find both “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” to be acceptable greetings but favor “Merry Christmas” when asked to choose.

So, no need to get angry with people who say “Happy Holidays”.

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Monday Wake Up Call – December 19, 2016

Wrongo can’t lie, Democrats are in dire straits, and are barely able to put up any sort of defense against the coming Trump disaster. Obama will not save us. Schumer and Pelosi have no clue how to save us. We’re going to have to do the hard work to build a foundation strong enough to get back in the game, and that’s going to mean lots of time, resources, and people willing to spend them effectively.

Speaking of effective spending: Politico reports that the Trump campaign struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better media coverage, his son-in-law Jared Kushner told business executives Friday in Manhattan. Kushner said the agreement with Sinclair, which owns television stations across the country in many swing states and often packages news for their affiliates to run, gave them more access to Trump and the campaign.

In exchange, Sinclair would broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without commentary, Kushner said. Kushner highlighted that Sinclair, in states like Ohio, reaches a much wider audience — around 250,000 listeners — than networks like CNN, which reach somewhere around 30,000.

“It’s math,” Kushner said. Apparently, Hillary Clinton turned down a similar offer by Sinclair.

El Jefe appointed Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) as head of the Office of Management and Budget. Mulvaney is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, and a budget hawk. It will be interesting to see how Mulvaney reacts if Trump really planned to spend a quarter-trillion dollars on infrastructure. Mulvaney was a leading player in the debt ceiling fights.

Here are a few reactions:

Or, this from Lizzie O’Leary, a reporter for NPR’s Marketplace:

Another Trump appointment was Monica Crowley, Fox commentator, to be senior director of Strategic Communications for the National Security Council. Crowley sent this tweet in October:

She apparently has no clue about the Berlin Wall, the purpose of which WAS TO KEEP PEOPLE INSIDE. CNN reported that Crowley repeatedly pushed an unfounded conspiracy theory that claimed Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin has ties to Islamic extremists. Now she will be on the inside, influencing the National Security Council. But, on the plus side, Trump’s draining the Fox News swamp of one of its morons.

We have our first capture of the Trump administration, and it is Donald himself. Even by Republican standards, some of these picks are embarrassingly bad (We mean you, Michael Flynn). He is now completely in thrall with the hard right members of the GOP. Within a few months, there won’t be even nominal opposition to Trump from within the Republican Party.

So, time to wake up America! You need to roll up your sleeves and get to work building a party that can defeat the hard right. It might not be the Democrats.

Fortunately, you get a hall pass until New Year’s Day.

To help you relax about the horrible things that you can’t control, here is Affinití, an Irish group of three women who play a fusion of classical, Celtic and rock music. They have a Kickstarter that you may want to support. Here is Affinití with “Oh, Holy Night”:

Consider yourselves soothed.

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

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 18, 2016

Wrongo had hoped to avoid writing about the Russian email hacking, but it seems that it is all that the pundits will talk about. The argument is that Russia interfered in the US election, and the intervention gave the election to Trump. The drumbeats have gotten louder as Monday’s Electoral College voting looms.

Mainstream TV news anchors are reporting with indignation, and as fact, that Russia (specifically Vladimir Putin) not only sought to influence the US election and promote “doubt” about the whole legitimacy of the US electoral system, but to throw the vote to Donald Trump.

The main accusation by the government is that the DNC and Podesta emails leaked through WikiLeaks were provided by state-backed Russian hackers, while no Republican materials were leaked. The leaked emails seemed to be genuine, since no complaints about the contents were made by the victims of the leaks.

The case against Russia is plausible, but many questions remain. Jeremy Scahill and Jon Schwarz of The Intercept have asked Obama to disclose the government’s secret evidence:

US intelligence agencies have repeatedly demonstrated that they regularly both lie and get things horribly wrong. In this case, they may well be correct, but they cannot expect Americans to simply take their word for it.

The current debate about Russia’s possible hacking is plagued by innuendo similar to what we saw in the McCarthy era. There is a disturbing trend emerging that dictates that if you don’t believe Russia hacked the election or if you simply demand evidence for this tremendously significant allegation, you must be a Trump apologist or a Soviet agent.

Wrongo is neither. The growing lack of trust in government and news media means that few of us know what to believe. It will take facts to make a case that this isn’t just more fake noos. Even if a few CIA or NSA secrets are made public.

Putin needs a password:

Are Putin and Trump running a con? From The Economist:

When asked about the hack by Obama, Putin said nothing:

Trump picks Rick Perry:

Trump helps make coal great again:

Trump offers presents for the rest of us:

 

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Saturday Soother – December 17, 2016

Welcome to Saturday. For the rest of the year, we are going to rely heavily on music and cartoons to help get us through to the inauguration of El Jefe, our Orange Overlord. This is how Wrongo expects it will go on January 20th:

Our collective futures have been placed on hold by electing Donald Trump. His big idea is that America should return to doing what grandma and grandpa did, because fifty years ago those policies were just so darn successful.

Generals will be in charge of foreign policy, while banksters will run our domestic policy.

The lesser agencies will be re-designed to make America great again. They will be run by people specifically picked to destroy them from within. The white shoe classes are about to get free rein, knowing America will soon be willing to work for food.

And all it took to achieve this brilliant result was fooling the usual suspects, those who started following Trump when he yelled about the birth certificate, and who stayed for the yelling about the emails.

America is finally getting the government it deserves.

Today’s musical soother is no soother. It’s a Christmas partying song that pokes fun at the issues we all see when we get together with family on the holidays. Here are Dropkick Murphys with “The Season’s Upon Us”. Play this early and often:

This is for Wrongo’s Irish family, and all families everywhere!

Sample Lyrics:

The season’s upon us, it’s that time of year
Brandy and eggnog, there’s plenty of cheer
There’s lights on the trees
And there’s wreaths to be hung
There’s mischief and mayhem
And songs to be sung

There’s bells and there’s holly, the kids are gung-ho
True love finds a kiss beneath fresh mistletoe
Some families are messed up while others are fine
If you think yours is crazy
Well you should see mine

My sisters are whack-jobs, I wish I had none
Their husbands are losers and so are their sons
My nephew’s a horrible, wise little twit
He once gave me a gift wrapped box full of shit

My mom likes to cook, push our buttons and prod
My brother just brought home another big broad
The eyes roll and whispers come loud
From the kitchen I’d come home more often

If they’d only quit bitching

The table’s set, we raise a toast
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
I’m so glad this day only comes once a year
You can keep your opinions, your presents, your “Happy New Year”
They call this Christmas where I’m from
They call this Christmas where I’m from

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