Category: Trust of Government

Monday Wake Up Call – The Republican’s Electoral Vote Ploy

The Daily Escape:

Mammoth Terraces, Yellowstone NP – photo by Jack Bell Photography

This picture is a perfect metaphor for America at the start of 2021. What we see is beautiful, but it sits on top of a mega-volcano that could erupt at any time. This could describe what our nation sees in January.

Little in America works anymore. Friend of the blog Pat M. said that when she asked the food bank in her small coastal town on the New Jersey shore what they needed most, they said “diapers”. Her town is an upscale place that much like down-scale places across America, has citizens in desperate need.

Imagine being a mom in middle class America who can’t afford to diaper her baby….

Our politics (and our politicians) have failed our people. There’s plenty of proof of that: The hard-hearted inability of Congress to pass relief legislation until it may have been too late for some. And the so-far disastrous federal rollout of the coronavirus vaccine proves that the Trump administration is incompetent at their jobs.

Democracy now starts its first week of 2021 living dangerously. We knew that a few Republicans would object to the counting of the Electoral Votes of certain states. That the certification of Electoral Votes would be delayed to handle objections by politically motivated back-benchers in both Houses of Congress. This game plays out on Wednesday. We’ll watch Republicans attempt to throw out enough of the votes of Americans in a few states, to keep Trump in power.

That effort will fail, but we should see it for what it is. There’s a through line from impeaching Bill Clinton, to refusing Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a hearing, to Republicans in Congress refusing to confirm the election of Joe Biden. From Paul Campos:

“The logical and perhaps inevitable extension of the principle ‘we won’t confirm any Democratic Supreme Court nominee if we have the votes to block it’ is ‘we won’t confirm any Democratic winner of a presidential election if we have the votes to block it.’”

Republicans don’t have the votes to block Biden right now, but it’s one of their goals for the  future. Back to Campos:

“…Don’t fall for the claim that Mitch McConnell in particular was powerless here: The Senate majority leader has enormous formal and informal power to sanction deviationist members, by for example stripping committee assignments, blocking pet legislation, calling big soft money donors etc…”

From the NYT:

“Vice President Mike Pence signaled support on Saturday for a futile Republican bid to overturn the election in Congress next week, after 11 Republican senators and senators-elect said that they would vote to reject President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory when the House and Senate meet to formally certify it.”

The NYT normally pulls its punches, but this article speaks of “unambiguous results,” that every state has “certified the election results after verifying their accuracy,” and that Republicans have attempted to question those results by “offering vague suggestions that some wrongdoing might have occurred” and amplified them via “specious claims of widespread election rigging that have been debunked and dismissed.”

That the Times says straight out that the GOP wants to overturn the election doesn’t matter at all to today’s Republican Party.

Our social and political systems depend on the maintenance of informal norms as much as they depend on adherence to formal rules. Our most basic norm is the assumption that sociopaths are and will remain, unable to control our systems. We count on society’s guardrails to keep us from flying off the track. Here’s something to think about:

  • All of Congress were elected in November, including those Republicans who are objecting to the election results.
  • Among the Senators signing onto the effort are: Steve Daines (R-MT), and Senators-Elect Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), all elected in November.

All are objectors to Biden’s election, but none of them are objecting to their own wins on the same day, on the same ballots, using the same election systems.

Let’s give the last word to Heather Cox Richardson:

“Democracy depends on a willingness to transfer power peacefully from one group of leaders to another. By revealing that they refuse to do so, the members of the “Sedition Caucus,” as they are being called on social media, are proving they are unworthy of elected office.”

Wake up America! The next time you see a Republican lose it when an athlete takes a knee during our National Anthem, remind them that they sat back and watched Trump and his supporters attempt to dismantle our democracy.

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Happy New Year!

The Daily Escape:

Somehow, we’ve made it to the last day of 2020. This year was awful. Even if you escaped unscathed, you would have to be a sociopath not to feel heartache for the tens of millions of people who didn’t escape: People who lost spouses, parents, and friends. People who lost their jobs, or their homes. People who couldn’t be at the bedside of a dying loved one, or share the mourning of their dead together.

You will see plenty of year-end reviews, so Wrongo will leave that to others. But let’s call out a few conclusions from 2020:

  • Our politicians failed us. We can never forgive the mismanagement of the national (or most state’s) responses to the virus. We also should never forgive the deliberately lax attitudes of many of our fellow citizens to physically distancing or wearing masks. We will never forgive Trump for his willful and obstinate refusal to even pretend to care about the Americans who were dying every day. Or, forgive Jared Kushner’s callous desire to keep the economy open in order to help Trump’s opinion polls and campaign because, at that time, only people in the blue states were dying. We should never forgive governors, Congresspersons and pundits who were mask-deniers or who said the Covid deaths were the price of keeping our economy and stock market on track.
  • Teachers are really important. We learned quickly that parents teaching at home were an imperfect substitute for professional instruction. In many cases, parents were also a full-time employee of someone else. There are yard signs everywhere in America’s suburbs thanking and celebrating school teachers. Will this lead to better pay and more resources directed to public education? Let’s hope so.
  • Apparently, people really don’t like spending their mornings and afternoons stuck in traffic. Work from home mushroomed. It appears to be yet another privilege that will accrue to white collar workers. There will be many more remote workers, maybe triple or quadruple the number there was before the pandemic. But, more than half the workforce has little or no opportunity for remote work. Many of those jobs are low wage, and more at risk for automation and digitization. Remote work will accelerate social and income inequalities.
  • Our divergent perceptions and beliefs about reality drove a deep wedge into our social fabric. 2020 saw facts and conspiracy theories about those facts fracture our social cohesion. “Hoax” should be the word of the year, because it describes the reaction by Trumpists to his election loss, and to the pandemic. The pandemic showed us how important it is that a critical mass of people accept a shared reality, allowing them to cooperate to solve nation-wide problems. Nurses and doctors worked shift after shift, putting themselves and their loved ones at risk, witnessing gruesome deaths, while watching as many of their neighbors went about their lives, ranting about how they were the ones who were being imposed upon.
  • 2020 was the year that voters toppled the greatest threat to our nation. Turning out more people to vote against the president-strongman than had ever voted against any president in American history. Turning out large enough numbers to ensure the victory was clear, so that it thwarted Trump’s and the GOP’s attempt to overturn our democracy.
  • Americans seem to be very optimistic about 2021. Axios and Survey Monkey conducted an online poll last week that found 73% of Americans more hopeful about their future in 2021:

The only group that wasn’t optimistic about 2021 was Republicans: 41% said they were more hopeful, while 58% said they were more fearful. More demonstration of America’s failing social cohesion!

Let’s remember that unpredictable things will continue to happen: a year ago, “coronavirus” was a crossword puzzle clue, “wear a mask” was a Halloween suggestion, social distancing was for introverts.

We will drag the wreckage of 2020 along with us into the New Year. The first weeks of 2021 will be dark and stormy because of both our fractured politics and the pandemic. There will be no magical cure for these self-inflicted wounds to our society. We can see this, and have a very clear-eyed view of what comes next. But we can also be optimistic.

2021 will not be worse than 2020. In most ways, it will be better.

Can we learn from the past four years? Can we learn from last year? Will a better year bring an opportunity to foster more togetherness? Will we be able to start to rebuild trust and cooperation among our fellow citizens?

Here’s Wrongo’s hope that we can do all of these things. We’ll be here, trying to figure it all out right along with you.

Happy New Year.

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Trump Failed to Protect Government Networks

The Daily Escape:

Old cabin in winter – photo by Julie Williams

Various thoughts about US cyber security: First, along with the news about the cyber hack of the US government, comes news that Trump’s twitter account was hacked in October:

“Dutch prosecutors have confirmed that Donald Trump’s Twitter account was hacked in October despite denials from Washington…. The hacker…Victor Gevers, broke into Trump’s account @realDonaldTrump on 16 October by guessing the US president’s password…”

The password? MAGA2020. Gevers told the Dutch paper De Volkskrant that the president was not using basic security measures, like two-step verification:

“I expected to be blocked after four failed attempts. Or at least asked to provide additional information,”

The current US government-wide hack is a true disaster. The cyber security firm FireEye working with the FBI, has reported that the hack was caused by an infiltration of its network security via a software product made by the firm, Solar Winds. Reuters reported:

“On Monday, SolarWinds confirmed that Orion – its flagship network management software – had served as the…conduit for a sprawling international cyberespionage operation. The hackers inserted malicious code into Orion software updates pushed out to nearly 18,000 customers.”

Reuters earlier had reported that a researcher informed SolarWinds last year that he had uncovered the password to SolarWinds’ update mechanism, the vehicle through which its 18,000 customers were compromised. The password was “solarwinds123.”

That isn’t even as strong as Trump’s password. Right now, the damage is uncertain, but it seems extensive. NYT reported:

“…the Treasury and Commerce Departments, the first agencies reported to be breached, were only part of a far larger operation…. About 18,000 private and government users downloaded a Russian tainted software update…that gave its hackers a foothold into victims’ systems, according to SolarWinds, the company whose software was compromised.”

FireEye’s analysis shows that once the virus had infected the targets, it started ‘phoning home’ within 14 days. Sounds like quite a few people in the Trump administration were asleep at the switch: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Two of the most embarrassing breaches came at the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security….[who] issued an obfuscating official statement that said only: ‘The Department of Homeland Security is aware of reports of a breach. We are currently investigating the matter.’”

Tom Bossert, Trump’s original Homeland Security advisor in 2017, has an op-ed in the NYT that claims the hack was the work of the Russians. Whether that’s true or not, he’s correct about what has happened since:

“The magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate. The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months….For those targets, the hackers will have long ago moved past their entry point, covered their tracks and gained what experts call “persistent access,” meaning the ability to infiltrate and control networks in a way that is hard to detect or remove.”

It will take years to know for certain which networks the hackers are monitoring. Politico reports that Trump has tried to gag the administration’s intelligence community leaders from reporting on the extent of the breach to Congress:

“During a National Security Council meeting on Tuesday night, national security leaders were instructed not to reach out to Capitol Hill for briefings on the massive hack without explicit approval from the White House or ODNI, according to people familiar with the episode.”

This is more dereliction of duty by the Trumpers.

We shovel money at the NSA, the CIA, and Homeland Security, but rarely ask what we get in return. How much compromise of our systems will it take to get accountability from these bureaucrats? It’s staggering that we continue to spend on a bloated military when the most crippling attacks we’ve faced in the past 20 years involve box cutters and computer hackers.

It’s hard to know which was worse: That the federal government was blindsided by a state controlled intelligence agency, or that when it became evident what was happening, White House officials said nothing.

This much is clear: While Trump was busy complaining loudly about the voter hack that didn’t happen in an election that he clearly lost, he’s been silent about the fact that someone was hacking our government. He can hide from this for another five weeks, and after that Biden will doubtless dig into it.

Republicans have spent six weeks crying fraud about the presidential election. But for this? Absolute silence. If this had happened during a Democratic administration, we’d have Republican hearings and talking points for the next 10 years. Where’s their outrage?

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Could Trump Be Attempting a Coup?

The Daily Escape:

Yosemite changing from fall to winter – November 2020 photo by kscwuzhere

Here’s another way of looking at the election: Joe Biden’s share of the popular vote is now 50.8% (77,126,066 popular votes). That will be greater than Ronald Reagan’s 50.7% vote share in 1980, vs. Jimmy Carter. It’s more than GW Bush’s margin over Kerry (50.7%), and more than Bush’s margin over Gore (47.9%). It’s larger than both of Clinton’s races: (49.2%) over Dole, and (43%) over GHW Bush.

Yet, the official position of the Republican Party, as put forth by the RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, is that Joe Biden and the Democrats stole the election:

“On Tuesday…McDaniel….told FOX News commentator Sean Hannity that she has 234 pages containing 500 sworn affidavits alleging 11,000 incidents of various types of voter fraud…..It’s been rigged from the beginning…and now you have a media that’s rigging it again by saying we’re not going to even listen to these stories.”

Republicans have been making excuses that Democratic presidents haven’t been legitimate leaders since FDR. Kennedy only won because of dead Chicago voters. Johnson only won because of sorrow about Kennedy. Carter only won because Nixon was framed. Clinton only won because Perot messed things up. And how did Obama win? TWICE??

The GOP believes that it has been the rightful winners of every presidential election since Eisenhower. The natural order requires that they win. Actual vote counts are irrelevant.

The most likely outcome of the next two months is that Joe Biden will be sworn in as president in an orderly way, but there’s a chance it could go differently. Here’s a thought from Jared Yates Sexton: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“People keep asking whether Trump and the Republicans attempt to steal the election is legitimate, if it’s a coup, if it’s a fundraising scheme, if it’s posturing, if it’s actually all that dangerous.

The answer is yes. All of these things….

People like McConnell and Graham are giving voice to Trump for multiple reasons….they need to win the special elections in GA, the controversy creates passion, and it leads to fundraising. But…they’re also fine with a coup.…

Trump and the GOP are playing a dangerous game. The coup might not work, but they see an advantage at flirting with a coup. The coup might work and they see an advantage with grasping power for themselves. It’s a win-win for them while we lose.”

Sexton’s most disturbing point, that Establishment Republicans probably don’t think the coup will work, but they seem to be 100% OK with it, if it does. 

Republicans believe that Democrats have no legitimate claim to govern, because Democrats only win elections when the wrong people vote for them, as opposed to Real Americans, who vote GOP.

The only question the press should be asking Republican officials is: “Are you on board with Trump’s coup?” The GOP really doesn’t want to answer questions about their actions, and won’t, even when asked. Charlie Pierce says this:

“So the president, the leaders of the Republican majorities in Congress, and the Secretary of State all are attached to the fantasy that Joe Biden is not the President-Elect….They are taking active measures in support of that fantasy, and the longer they do, the more real it becomes to the president’s 70 million followers. And, therefore, the more political power it gains, and the more poison is pumped into the political bloodstream of the country…”

This week, Trump replaced the head of the military, who had previously said that he was concerned about the use of troops against civilian populations. Then he replaced a number of senior military officials with known loyalists who have zero qualifications for their jobs.

People seem to believe that the (relatively) independent directors of the CIA (Gina Haspel) and FBI (Christopher Wray) are going to be replaced, soon.

If all of that happens, what is the innocent explanation for all of these moves? Pundits have said there may be simple explanations for them, but there’s a non-trivial chance that Trump is attempting to assert control over key parts of the government in advance of a destabilizing action to remain in power.

For decades, we thought that norms of behavior would prevent something like this from happening. Our respect for institutions, love of country, institutional guardrails, and separation of powers would prevail. But, those things only work as long as both sides informally agree to act like rules have meaning.

From the moment Trump declared his candidacy, he’s crossed those lines, over and over again. Even if he goes away or drops dead tomorrow, these lessons can’t be unlearned, no matter how badly Dems want to pretend things can go back to the way they were.

Because the GOP certainly isn’t forgetting any of it.

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Our COVID Data Is Inaccurate, And It’s Going to be Spun

The Daily Escape:

Sand Harbor State Park, Lake Tahoe, CA – 2020 photo by debarnec

Happy belated tax day! Two disturbing articles about both the accuracy and reliability of COVID-19 data were in the NYT yesterday.

First, the collection and reporting of data is increasingly reliant on outdated technology to deliver test results:

“Health departments track the virus’s spread with a distinctly American patchwork: a reporting system in which some test results arrive via smooth data feeds but others come by phone, email, physical mail or fax, a technology retained because it complies with digital privacy standards for health information.”

The problems are compounded by human error:

“These reports often come in duplicate, go to the wrong health department, or are missing crucial information such as a patient’s phone number or address.”

Before the pandemic, nearly 90% of laboratory test results for diseases tracked by public health departments were transmitted digitally. But the need for substantially greater Coronavirus testing has brought many more players into the public health arena, including companies that usually run employment screening tests, and small clinics that usually test for diseases like the flu and strep throat.

This has increased the share of lab tests coming to public health departments via fax and phone.

The result is unreliable information. The Times quotes Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Nationally, about 80% percent of coronavirus test results are missing demographic information, and half do not have addresses…”

Hard to trace an infected person without an address. America’s health system is a jumble of old and new technology that make it difficult to track what’s really going on with the COVID pandemic.

Also, the Trump administration’s guidelines on demographic data haven’t taken effect yet. In June, they required laboratories to report a patients’ age, race and ethnicity, so public health officials could better understand the demographics of the Coronavirus pandemic. But, those rules won’t take effect until August, and they only state that laboratories “should” provide patients’ addresses and phone numbers. They do not mandate it.

Dr. Frieden, former CDC director says:

 “You’ve got hundreds of laboratories and thousands of tests. Nothing is interoperable because they haven’t been mandated to do that.”

Other countries have a unique number identifier for each patient, something that Congress refuses to provide in the US. Instead, data often come to public health authorities using only the information that laboratories need to track the record, not the details that public health officials need to help manage the disease.

Anyone who has healthcare knows that patients routinely fill out the same information on multiple forms in multiple offices. The need for doctors and testing services to use fax machines betrays the fundamental lack of modern technology in some health care settings.

And remember, it’s not for lack of money: There’s plenty of money in the US health care system.

The second item regarding COVID data is more troubling. The NYT reports that: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and, beginning on Wednesday, send all coronavirus patient information to a central database in Washington — a move that has alarmed public health experts who fear the data will be distorted for political gain.”

From now on, HHS, and not the CDC, will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, how many beds and ventilators are available, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.

This is seen as an inherently political move by outside public health experts. The NYT quotes Nicole Lurie, who served as assistant secretary for preparedness and response under former President Obama:

“Centralizing control of all data under the umbrella of an inherently political apparatus is dangerous and breeds distrust….It appears to cut off the ability of agencies like C.D.C. to do its basic job.”

This is more disturbing than finding out that the data are terrible. Alex Azar, who runs HHS, is a Trump crony and has clearly used his position to be helpful to Trump’s re-election campaign.

If there ever was any hope for a dispassionate, reasoned, and scientific FEDERAL response from Trump, it is certain that these two problems, one with the quality of the data, and the second with how it will be spun as it is reported, show we’re doomed.

How many health care workers will have to die? How many people living in states run by Trump’s personal bootlickers will get the treatment that they need?

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Trump’s Authoritarian Impulses

The Daily Escape:

Lake Superior from Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, Ontario CN – photo by crazytravel4

If you want to know where Trump is headed on civil disobedience in 2020, consider this about China’s Tiananmen Square demonstrations. Nicholas Kristof reminded NYT readers what Trump had to say about it in 1989:

“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it, Trump told Playboy Magazine….Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.”

Overwhelming force is Trump’s plan, just like the Chinese. Here’s a list of the military, government police units and militia-like components of the US Government that are walking the streets in Washington DC:

That’s 14 discrete police and military groups patrolling DC. And it didn’t stop there. The Trump campaign just changed his MAGA hats from red to camouflage, and is calling supporters the “Trump Army“:

Yep, Trump wants an army to fight off the liberal mob.

The Daily Beast reported that Trump and Barr have come up with a possibly legal way to bring troops into America’s cities:

“The idea was to…rely on the FBI’s regional counterterrorism hubs to share information with local law enforcement about, in Barr’s own words, ‘extremists’.”

More from the Beast:

“That’s when Barr turned to an existing counterterrorism network—Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs)— led by the FBI that unite federal, state and local law enforcement to monitor and pursue suspected terrorists….The construction we are going to use is the JTTF. It’s a tried and true system. It worked for domestic homegrown terrorists. We’re going to apply that model….It already integrates your state and local people. It’s intelligence driven. We want to lean forward and charge… anyone who violates a federal law in connection with this rioting.

We need to have people in control of the streets so we can go out and work with law enforcement…identify these people in the crowd, pull them out and prosecute them…”

See any reason to be concerned?

According to multiple current and former Justice Department and law enforcement officials, Barr is misusing the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) in support of Trump’s insistence that antifascists are “terrorists” exploiting the nationwide protests. Using the JTTF against the protesters is a political ploy to make being anti-Trump look like terrorism.

Authoritarians world-wide call domestic demonstrators “terrorists”. Saddam did it in Iraq, so does al-Assad in Syria. Duterte does it in the Philippines, as does Erdogan in Turkey. Xi does it in China.

And now, it’s happening here.

On Wednesday, Trump again violated the First Amendment by authorizing federal police to block clergy’s access to St. John’s Episcopal Church (the one he used for his photo-op), effectively “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion.

That, from the holy defender of religious rights.

Monday wasn’t the worst day in American civilian-military relations. But the use of force to create a photo-op, including ordering military helicopters to fly low, scattering protesters with the rotor downwash, broke many established norms.

Trump followed that by deploying many different groups of uniformed “peace-keepers” to the streets of DC. So Monday became the worst day for American civilian-military relations since the military attacked the veterans march on Washington when Herbert Hoover was president.

Political Violence at a Glance asks a few questions:

  • If Trump insists on sending troops to states where governors don’t want them, will they go? On Monday, elements left their bases for operations in DC, which has a special status that Trump could legally exploit. That’s different from sending regular US forces into states without an invitation. That would cross a red line.
  • What would Congress do in response? The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, vowed to bring the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to testify. Would they even show up to the invitation?
  • How will the public react? The US military is one of America’s most popular institutions. In part, because it is seen as non-partisan, whereas most other government institutions are viewed as partisan. If the US military enters American cities, public support of the armed forces will surely drop.

Trump’s rhetoric continues to support white supremacists and far-right militias, while encouraging violence by his followers.

His effort to label the demonstrators as outsiders is meant to justify an increasingly aggressive police/military response. In the past few days, we saw them attack regular people on the streets, along with the journalists reporting on what was happening.

Former high-ranking military officers are finally calling out Trump, but his authoritarian instincts combined with Barr’s right-leaning reflexes pose a clear and present danger to our democracy.

Let’s hope the republic is still here for us to defend by overwhelmingly voting him out on November 3d.

They’re already telegraphing how they might respond if they lose.

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Monday Wake Up Call – Get Back to Work Edition, May 11, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Pileated Woodpecker chicks – photo by JH Cleary

Americans are starting to peek out of their nests again. Governors have decided, and 30 of them are re-opening their states. Those states are not exclusively Republican; there are a few Democratic states too. The logic behind reopening is that of risk assessment and risk management. Somewhere between prudence and overreaction lies today’s American toxic politics.

We judge risk versus gain for everything, including for other causes of death. We try to model healthy behaviors. Most of us wear seatbelts, most watch our diets, and have stopped smoking years ago.

We also have to judge the risks associated with whether to end, or continue the lockdown. That means deciding which steps to take that will minimize both the spread of the virus, along with minimizing the crushing economic hardship being experienced by many Americans.

Ignore that the government isn’t currently taking care of healthcare and housing if you are unemployed.

The lockdown could go on for much longer if the federal government was willing to underwrite living costs for those who are out of work, until such time as it was safe to go back to work. But they have no intention of doing that.

So, from the Trump perspective, the choice is clear: Businesses need to open and their workers need to go back to work, despite the risks. Their argument is that living with COVID-19 isn’t as risky as it seems. Twenty-two states have had fewer than 100 deaths. So far, only 15 of 50 states have had total deaths for the crisis that are higher than NYC’s current rate of 500 a day. 

The original goal of lockdowns was to keep the health care system from being overwhelmed, and in the largest cities, that risk seems to be behind us. Whether that will be true in rural America where few hospitals operate, remains to be seen. Derek Thompson said in the Atlantic:

“This crisis represents an existential threat to America’s small businesses. Almost half of all job losses in April occurred in leisure and hospitality, where small businesses are overrepresented in companies like restaurants and stores. The decimation of small business would have long-lasting implications. It would destroy jobs that would be unlikely to return quickly, while creating a crisis of long-term unemployment.”

And all of those restaurants, cafés, theaters, community centers, and specialty shops that are part of the local fabric of our towns and villages could be wiped off Main Street. Losing many of them would be an economic tragedy. More from Thompson: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The virus is real, the hospitalizations are real, the deaths are real, the need for masks and social distancing is real, the threat to millions of restaurants and shops is real, and the incomparable levels of unemployment are real, too. The White House plan to reverse this cavalcade of horrors is to “reopen” the economy. But 20 million Americans just lost their jobs in the past few weeks, not because the government shut down the economy, but because a pandemic scared millions of Americans into staying at home. There is plenty to be wisely afraid of, but Washington thinking that a pandemic economy is like a garage door that it can reopen by pressing a button might be the scariest thing of all.”

No one knows what will happen between now and Election Day. It’s not just a matter of businesses opening up. For people to go back to work, schools must be open, day care must be open, public transportation must be safe, and customers must show up.

Are you up for all of that?

In the Great Depression, we learned that unemployment at today’s scale required massive government intervention to address: Jobs programs, infrastructure investment, and a robust social safety net.

It required an FDR to galvanize the country. Needless to say, neither Trump nor the Republican Party have the desire to provide that leadership. They will be every bit as uncaring and incompetent at rebuilding our economy as they have been at stopping the pandemic.

Time to wake up America! The economy has been opened, and you need to protect yourself whether you’re back to work, or trying to find a new gig. And you know that Trump isn’t going to help you protect yourself and your family, and he’s certainly not going to help you find a new job.

To help you wake up, listen to Guns ‘n Roses cover Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” which played during Trump’s visit to an N95 mask manufacturing plant in Phoenix:

Remember all of this in November.

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

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 10, 2020

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has an interesting new report showing that New York City’s subway system was a major disseminator of COVID-19 during the coronavirus’ initial infection of the city during March 2020.

They show that subway ridership correlates directly with new cases, particularly in Queens. The near-shutdown of subway ridership in Manhattan (down by 90%) at the end of March correlates strongly with the reduction in the rate of increase in new cases in Queens thereafter.

They superimposed maps of subway station turnstile entries with zip code-level maps of reported coronavirus incidence. That showed Coronavirus propagation followed a process strongly consistent with subway riding. Moreover, local trains appeared to have a higher propensity to transmit infection than express trains, perhaps because people spent longer on those trains. Bus hubs served as secondary transmission routes out to the periphery of the city.

The subway was shut down because of staffing issues on March 25, not because the mayor or governor thought it was an important disease vector. Since then, at least 98 transit workers have died from coronavirus. On to cartoons.

Jogging in Georgia requires evasive tactics:

Trump did it again:

It never ends. On Fox and Friends, Trump said there is “no question” the video of the Ahmaud Arbery shooting is troubling. But, he hinted that further evidence might emerge that could possibly exculpate the shooters:

 “You know, it could be something that we didn’t see on tape. There could be a lot of — you know, if you saw things went off tape and then back on tape”

BTW, the NY Daily News reported that no burglaries had been reported for seven weeks before the shooting.

Small man sits near a great man:

America grows smaller as the president tries to make himself bigger, all the while failing at the actual mission of leading the Republic.

Pro-life doesn’t get in the way of reopening:

The only animal Trump wants at the White House:

Dropping charges against Flynn looks partisan:

Another reason to stay indoors:

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – April 5, 2020

We’ve already lost more Americans to the Coronavirus in the month of March than we lost during the 9-year long Iraq war.

Here are the latest national numbers (which will be out of date by the time you read them). From The COVID Tracking Project: (as of 4/3)

  • Number of daily cases: 271,988, up 32,889 or +13.75% vs. April 2
  • Rate of case increase: 13.75% vs. 15% for the past week
  • Number of deaths: Total 6,962, up 1,178 vs. April 2
  • Rate of deaths increase 4/3 vs 4/2: 20.4% % vs. 23.1% on 4/2
  • Daily number of tests 4/3 vs. 4/2: 1,407,344, up 139,596 over 4/2
  • Rate of increase in tests: +11% vs. previous day

There is some evidence above that “flattening the curve” is working. Wrongo recommends visiting The COVID Tracking Project which has the most comprehensive data, both nationally, and by state. It is updated several times a day and can be exported to your device, if you are interested.

On to cartoons, starting with a chart Wrongo originally posted on Wednesday, now updated by Sharpie, showing why wearing a mask may be a very good idea:

Georgia governor Kemp said he didn’t know the virus could be spread without symptoms. Why do so many Republicans excuse their behavior by saying “I didn’t know“? Aren’t they the party of personal responsibility?

Kushner and Pence: little men trying to operate WAY beyond their abilities:

Remember when George W. Bush was the most incompetent president imaginable?

Remember when George W Bush was the most incompetent president imaginable?

Perhaps, “Thou shall not run a church as a money making enterprise” might help:

Why is gathering in a church not as dangerous as sitting in a restaurant? Is it because God will protect you in a church but not at Applebees? Or is group praying simply worth the risk? Or that Republican governors are afraid of pissing off their evangelical base?

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Saturday Soother – Even More Pandemic Edition, April 4, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Spring in Town – Grant Wood, 1941

Welcome to Saturday, fellow disease vectors! Here’s a quote often mis-attributed to Winston Churchill: “If you’re going through Hell, just keep going”. Those are words to live by in pandemic America.

You remember Joe Biden, right?

His campaign was premised on Trump’s complete unsuitability for the presidency, and on Biden’s particular experience and fitness for it. Biden wasn’t running on the issues, he was hammering on Trump. Before the pandemic, according to Joe Biden, Trump was:

“A threat to this nation unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.”

But lately, Biden could be a picture on a milk carton. He’s disappeared. Rather than holding a news conference in public every day, demanding to know why the administration isn’t providing enough tests and PPE to the states, Biden’s trying to organize a phone call with Trump. To share lessons learned from Obama-era pandemic responses. That will certainly change everything.

Does Biden have a strategy to win in November? The ABC/WaPo poll found that only 24% of Biden’s supporters were ‘very enthusiastic‘ about him, compared with 53% of Trump’s. While ABC News reminded us that in 2016, “Hillary Clinton’s ‘very enthusiastic’ score was 32% in September.”

These numbers are from the poll that has Biden beating Trump by only 2% points. Now, this poll could be an outlier, since the Real Clear Politics Polling Average has Biden at 50.6% to Trump at 44%.

Regardless, Biden needs to get off his ass, get out in public, and act like the leader of the opposition.

And speaking of leadership (again), Raúl Ilargi Meijer has a great column about leadership in the pandemic era. He differentiates between the visionary giants like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.  and our current crop who he calls “Little Managers”:

“They all failed to a horrific extent at their #1 task when it comes to Disasters, Pandemics, whatever their respective governments file these events under: Prevention. But now we’re in a whole new world. Now these failed leaders move into a situation they actually MAY be able to handle. That is, the -crisis- management that inevitably follows AFTER the failure at their #1 task of Prevention.”

Ilargi says that they might be able to succeed at crisis management because they were trained to be little managers. He describes them: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Core characteristic: these people don’t act, they re-act. Prevention is a job they’re absolutely not qualified for… Trump, Macron, BoJo, Merkel, Rutte, Xi, Abe, Conte, you name them, they’re all little managers…they have no ideas or visions, at least not original ones. People with original ideas don’t become politicians…”

Worse, politics isn’t policy. More:

“For now, the only thing to do is hope the little managers are better at step 2, Crisis Management, than they were at step 1, Prevention. Because there are no ready alternatives. When they say stay home, that’s the best thing to do right now.”

And finally:

“Can we blame our own respective…little managers? To an extent, sure. They didn’t do what they promised to when they swore their respective oaths. But maybe just maybe we should blame ourselves more, for picking little managers to lead our countries in the first place. We should have known that they were never going to be more than 2nd rate “leaders” who were never going to deliver more than 2nd rate societies.“

Hard to improve on that.

We’re all going through hell with no choice but to keep going. So, let’s take a breath, and try to spend our self-isolating time concentrating on something other than COVID-19. Here are “Two English Idylls” by the little-known George Butterworth, who was part of the English pastoral idiom.

These are Butterworth’s earliest surviving orchestral pieces, with No. 1 dating from 1910-1911, while No. 2 is from 1911. Butterworth and Ralph Vaughan Williams were close friends, and you may hear similarities in their music. Butterworth was killed in 1916 in WWI during the Battle of the Somme, he was 31.

Here it’s performed by the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, under Sir Neville Marriner, in 1975. The accompanying photography of the English countryside is transporting and wonderful, so Wrongo urges you to take a few minutes to watch:

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

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