Again, with the shutdown. It appears that Wrongoâs prediction was well, wrong. And yesterday was the first anniversary of President Trumpâs inauguration. Quite the first year. On inauguration day, he made a few promises. Jonathan Chait has reviewed them a year later:
Trump made a series of promises, some resting on vague or imaginary premises, none coming close to being fulfilled. âAmerica will start winning again, winning like never before,â he declared. âWe will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.â
Chait went on:
Trumpâs presidency has presented an especially jarring contrast, since the rhetoric has borne no relation whatsoever to what followed. Itâs not that he overpromised but that his promises were fundamentally a con.
So, on to cartoons about the week that was. Reports about the big gameâs first quarter seem mostly accurate:
We had a shutdown, but the real issue seems to be whose fault is it?
Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of women were on the march all over America:
Trumpâs annual physical included a mental exam:
Rumors of sexcapades by the Donald are no big deal for the religious right:
(This is the last post before the Thanksgiving holiday. Drive safely if you are taking to the roads. We will resume with the Monday Wake Up Call on 11/27.)
The Daily Escape:
Turkey Parade, Litchfield County CT â 20014 photo by Wrongo
It is a tradition on Thanksgiving at the Mansion of Wrong to play âAliceâs Restaurantâ by Arlo Guthrie. Arlo was convicted of littering in November, 1965 in Stockbridge, MA. This year we are changing things up a bit, so Arlo isnât featured on the front page.
But, we are still having turkey, and gratitude is still the word for the day.
It turns out the more grateful people are, the healthier they are. NPR reported on a study by Paul Mills, a professor of public health at UC San Diego, that showed people who were more grateful had better cardiac health:
We found that more gratitude in these patients was associated with better mood, better sleep, less fatigue and lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers related to cardiac healthâŠ
More from Dr. Mills:
Taking the time to focus on what you are thankful forâŠ[and] letting that sense of gratitude wash over youâŠhelps us manage and cope.
Who knew? Being thankful can keep your heart healthy. That, and no seconds on stuffing and gravy.
This is our 1319th column since entering the blogging business in 2010. Wrongo wants to thank all who have stuck around since the beginning, all of you who read the work, and those who both comment, and/or criticize. We got started with the idea of highlighting what is wrong in our world, and suggesting that you take action to make the world more like you think it should be, rather than sitting and watching it continue on the current path.
So on this day of yuuge portions of turkey, gravy, pies, dressing, etc. Wrongo is very grateful to all of you!
Finally, Wrongo is posting two tunes for Thanksgiving. First, a re-post of one of the great non-Thanksgiving Day tunes of thanksgiving: âBe Thankful for What Youâve Gotâ by William DeVaughn. This one-hit wonder sold two million copies in 1974, reaching #1 on the US R&B charts and #4 on the Billboard chart. It reminds us of a time when there was more optimism in America:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTXljIqxRE
Those who read the Wrongologist via email can view the video here.
Second, letâs listen to the late Tom Petty and his band Mudcrutch. Petty started his career by forming Mudcrutch, but everyone knows his next group, The Heartbreakers, from which most of his hits were launched. Petty returned to Mudcrutch twice, the last time in 2016, when they released the album âMudcrutch 2â. Here is Mudcrutch with Petty singing âI Forgive it Allâ. In a sense, that’s a wonderful sentiment for the rock icon who left us this year:
Takeaway Lyric:
I ainât broke and I ainât hungry
But Iâm close enough to care.
Those who read the Wrongologist via email can view the video here.
Since you are reading this, you woke up on this side of the dirt! Another reason to be gratefulâŠ
Tuxedo, Ms. Oh So Rightâs favorite dog â 2008 photo by Wrongo
There has been a decided absence of columns this week. Wrongo and Ms. Right have been preoccupied with the health of our Havanese dog Tuxedo, pictured above. Now nearly 15, Tux has congestive heart failure (CHF), and is nowhere near the robust dog he was in 2008.
This week, we have had to visit both the vet and the doggie cardiologist. We have added a new med, Sildenafil, to his list. Sildenafil is the generic name for Viagra, but Tux has no need for its intended use in humans. Like some other drugs, Sildenafil has value in other areas. For dogs with CHF, it helps with pulmonary hypertension. Viagra is covered for most humans, including those in the US military. But the uninsured rack rate for a one-month supply for Tux was $770.00 at our local CVS. By using an affiliation marketing company that makes deals with pharmacies, we were able to reduce that cost to just $35.
Poor Tux now takes five different meds either two, or three times a day. As with humans, getting that many pills into the body is a challenge that requires some ingenuity, particularly when the dog has limited appetite, even for his favorite foods. So far, Tux is sticking to his meds schedule.
Our primary objective is to preserve his quality of life for as long as possible. There is no question that perceptions of quality of life can differ, so we are monitoring Tux using pet oncologist Dr. Alice Villalobosâs 5 Hâs + 2 Mâs scale. The five Hâs stand for Hurt, Hunger, Hydration, Hygiene and Happiness, while the two Mâs stand for Mobility and More good days than bad. If you need the scale, it is available for download here.
And so far, Tux is doing reasonably well on the Villalobos yardstick, but with CHF, the primary decision rule is, can the dog breathe properly? If not, the other rules donât really matter. Tux is weak, but heâs still breathing reasonably well, and is able to take short walks with the family.
The questions regarding how and when to euthanize a pet are very difficult to answer, and are certainly in our future. If the dog is euthanized too late, it suffers mightily. If euthanized too soon, itâs the humans who suffer from the guilt of putting their interests ahead of their petâs.
At this time of the year, it is natural to hope your pet will be with you for Thanksgiving or the Christmas holidays. But holidays have no meaning to Tux. What is important to him is avoiding visits to the vetâs office, where he gets extremely anxious. So when the time comes to make that terrible decision, we will try to ensure that the vet can make a house call to help keep his anxiety under control.
So this week, Tuxâs health, his willingness to eat, and his ability to live life in a way that is consistent with the past 14+ years has been our familyâs priority.
While not the happiest week, Wrongo has enjoyed a few days away from thinking about the House and Senate tax cut debates, the dangers in the Middle East, and the Roy Moore fiasco, while focusing on the health struggles of the most intelligent dog in our little pack.
Lego sculpture at Hamley’s, the oldest and largest toy store in the world. Lots of fun, bring the grandkids if that is an affordable option, but worth your time in any event. 2017 Photo by Wrongo.
Baboon sculpture made of chicken wire at the Tower of London. 2017 photo by Wrongo.
Tower Bridge viewed from inside the Tower of London grounds. 2017 photo by Wrongo.
Busy Tuesday in London. Itâs been a year since Wrongo and Ms. Right last visited. Today we had lunch at Nopi, a SoHo restaurant that is inspired by the cookbooks of Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully. We highly recommend a visit. If you have a crowd, ask for the communal table downstairs with a view of the kitchen.
Last night, we had dinner with Mark Shenton, a London-based British arts journalist and theater critic. Great conversation about the future of UK theater criticism and print-based critical journalism. Shenton is bullish on the former, and quite bearish on the latter, similar to what we see in the States. Mark alerted us to the coming of Frozen the Musical to Broadway in February 2018. He saw it in Denver, and gives it his highest possible recommendation.
Every local we spoke with is focused on Brexit, whether they are in favor of leaving the EU, or revisiting the idea of remaining part of the Union. All mention that under Brexit, farmers will lose substantial market share. The other endangered group is financial services. The banks and the firms that service them are renting new space elsewhere.
The second-most mentioned topic of discussion is the cost of Londonâs residential real estate. The average sales price of a place in London was $621,281 in the third quarter of 2017. That was down by 0.6% from the prior year. And London was the only city in the UK to see a price decline in the past year.
Some people engage in wishful thinking about whether London will become affordable again, but average people really canât afford to live in the center of town.
Athabasca Falls Canyon, Jasper National Park – Alberta, Canada
Jamie Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase. It is the largest bank in the country, with more than $2 trillion in assets. In February, when Trump announced a broad effort to ease regulations on Wall Street, particularly the Dodd Frank financial reform measures adopted in 2010, he singled out Dimonâs potential contribution:
There is nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie…
Dimon has been Chase CEO since before the 2008 Great Recession. In a series of conference calls with Wall Street last Friday while discussing the bankâs quarterly profits, Dimon vented his frustration with gridlock in Washington: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
Itâs almost embarrassing being an American citizenâŠand listening to the stupid shit we have to deal with in this country… [The inability to make headway on significant legislation is]…holding us back and it is hurting the average American. It isnât a Republican issue; it is not a Democratic issue.
Mr. Dimon delivered this tirade while announcing the most profitable year ever for a US bank.
What kind of sociopath does that? Apparently, Mr. Dimon has no capacity for embarrassment. What he seems to be saying is that banks should have continued immunity from reasonable taxation and continued relief from the kind of criminal excess that in the recent past, nearly brought down our financial system.
And what is he complaining about? His entire industry was bailed out by our government, using the tax dollars of the little people. Meanwhile, the derivatives-fueled casino that was the tripwire for the 2008 Great Recession remains alive and well, still making megabucks for the “too big to fail” guys. Dimon wasnât too embarrassed in 2008, when he took $12 billion in bail-out funds from the Federal Reserve. And he wasnât too embarrassed when Chase lost $6.2 billion in a derivatives misstep, and paid $962 million in fines. Remember that Dimon emerged from that unscathed?
Dimon is correct that it is embarrassing to be an American these days, but that doesnât have much to do with banking freedom. Normal Americans are concerned about their jobs, their kidsâ educations and their health care. They care about their neighbors and the environment they live in. They are worried about their futures and about their childrenâs futures, while Dimon argues for increasing the power of global capital. He argues for immunity from state jurisdiction, except when banks need to rely on a local legal system that ensures title to assets pledged to secure loans, or to enforce their repayment.
Americans would be less embarrassed if Jamie Dimon had to go and relearn what he knows about capitalism and its role in our society from inside a for-profit prison.
From here on out, things will start moving faster and perhaps get a quite a bit darker.
Todayâs wake up tune is for the Trump family. In this time of never-ending revelations about campaign officials and Russia, âLawyers, Guns and Money” is the most appropriate song for our times. It was written by Warren Zevon, and is the closing track on his 1978 album âExcitable Boyâ. Zevon died too young from cancer in 2003:
Takeaway Lyric:
I went home with a waitress the way I always do
How was I to know she was with the Russians, too?
I was gambling in Havana, I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns, and money
Dad, get me out of this…
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Bluebells, Brussels Belgium April 2017 photo by Francois Lenoir
In many ways, it is too easy to criticize Donald Trump. While we can have differing opinions on matters of policy, they only account for a few of the issues Wrongo has with Trump. Most are his unfathomable attempts to avoid telling the truth. Consider his interview with The Economist which posted the entire transcript on Thursday. Letâs focus on this excerpt:
The Economist: Another part of your overall plan, the tax reform plan. Is it OK if that tax plan increases the deficit? Ronald Reaganâs tax reform didnât.
Trump: Well, it actually did. But, but itâs called priming the pump. You know, if you donât do that, youâre never going to bring your taxes down.
[Snip]
Economist: But beyond that itâs OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
Trump: It is OK, because it wonât increase it for long. You may have two years where youâllâŠyou understand the expression âprime the pumpâ?
Yes. We have to prime the pump.
Itâs very Keynesian.
Weâre the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?
Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?
Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I havenât heard it. I mean, I justâŠI came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. Itâs what you have to do.
Ok, so how did the guy from the Economist keep a straight face? The reporter is thinking John Maynard Keynes, the great British Economist, who came up with the idea of âpriming the pumpâ in the 1930âs. By the way, Keynesian pump-priming is temporary government spending to boost temporarily weak demand. It is designed to boost growth, (and jobs) during a downturn, but we canât assume that it will boost the economyâs growth rate.
Trumpâs idea for pump-priming is more tax cuts. Heâs following classic trickle-down economics, and claims that his tax cuts will boost investment, productivity growth, and labor supply, and thus raise the long-term growth rate of the economy. In this regard, Trump conflates Keynes, whoâs been proven right, with Arthur Laffer, who wasnât.
But, didnât Trump graduate from Wharton with a business degree? Nobody gets out of Wharton without knowing that Keynes was the âpump primerâ. And his saying that he coined the phrase ‘prime the pump’ a few days ago? Unfortunately, there are only two explanations: first, Trump is 70 years old and his cognitive skills are starting to desert him. Or second, he is a pathological liar.
Wrongo wants to go with #2.
He just wants to sell America something with his name stamped on it. But since America isnât buying a hotel, heâs trying to sell Trumponomics, Trumpcare, etc. He does not really care about the details, he just wants to pass it, and to claim it is a success. Thatâs Americaâs tragedy.
So with Comeygate, Trumpcare and pump-priming, we all need to unplug and try, just try to relax on Saturday. We had a full moon and clear skies over the fields of Wrong on Thursday, so today we listen to âClaire du Luneâ by Claude Debussy. It is the third movement of âSuite bergamasqueâ. Its name comes from Verlaine’s poem Clair de Lune, “moonlight” in French. Here it is played by Dame Moura Lympany, British pianist, who died in 2005:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
(Aleppo’s Umayyad mosque, photographed before the war, in 2009)
Joshua Landis edits a blog called âSyria Commentâ, and his last post was about Trump’s strategy for taking Raqqa from ISIS. He thinks allying with Turkey at the expense of the Kurds is a mistake.
We are watching a continuation of the policy that predates the Trump presidency, the balkanization of Syria by alternative means…Trumpâs âA Teamâ of generals seem to have fallen back on the old plan.
Landis thinks that Trump is planning to give the Turks free hand in taking Raqqa and most likely all of the Euphrates Valley. Turkey has proposed taking Raqqa from the north at Tel Abyad. The map below points out the geography:
Tel Abyad is the large black dot near the top of the map. This approach would drive through the middle of the Kurdish region (the purple shaded area above), cutting it in two. This splitting of the Kurdish territory is the main reason Turkey has offered to take Raqqa. From Landis:
Turkey hopes to establish its Arab proxies in a new âEuphrates stateâ in eastern Syria. This would partition Syria into three states: a western Assad-ruled state; an eastern Turkish and Sunni Arab rebel-ruled state, and a northern Kurdish state.
If the US allows Turkey to do this, it will lose the Kurds as allies in the attack on Raqqa, or in any other part of ISIS territory. Turkey says it is the only way that they can participate, because Assadâs army has already taken territory east of Aleppo, which has cut off Turkeyâs access to Raqqa via al-Bab. Landis asks:
Why are the Kurds willing to take Raqqa even though they do not have territorial interests in and around Raqqa? They are investing in their relationship with the US. They assume that it will serve them well over the long run when it comes to their political aspirations.
A major issue with following Turkeyâs plan is that they have dangerous Islamic fundamentalist allies. Turkeyâs Arab rebel allies include Ahrar al-Sham, (similar to the Taliban, and adamantly opposed to the US). If the Turkey/Ahrar coalition rules the Euphrates post-ISIS, it will become a haven for Salafists and al-Qaidaâs coalition.
For the past five years, Turkey has teamed with al-Qaidaâs forces in Syria. It allowed them to mass inside Turkey in 2013. Turkey has no problem with them being part of its Arab force, since their strategy is to use the Salafists as proxies in thwarting Kurdish regional ambitions. More from Landis:
These…are the reasons that American generals do not want to work with Turkey. They donât trust it, both because it wants to attack our Kurdish allies and because it is soft on al-Qaida-like rebel groups.
Our generals donât fully trust this NATO partner to act in Americaâs interest!
Whatâs more, there is a likelihood that Iran, Russia, Syria, and Iraq would move against a Turkey-led Sunni land grab. They will not allow a Sunni rebel enclave in the middle of their spheres of influence. Landis: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
The US would [then] be expected to side with Turkey and the Sunni rebels in a long and escalating war against the Shiites. I think this is a swamp waiting to suck the USÂ into its malodorous depths.
For more than 15 years, we have been engaged in a war in the Middle East. Now, the Pentagon is planning to send another 1, 000 troops to Syria in the coming weeks. This is indeed an endless war.
Letâs get ISIS, but we shouldnât be teaming solely with the Turks in the effort to destroy ISIS. The great Orange negotiator should stand up to the Turks on this.
Now for some Syrian music. Here is Refugees of Rap with their song, âHaramâ (“Forbidden” in Arabic):
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Sample Lyrics (translated):
Came out of the house
I smelled gunpowder
Voices from the minarets
Say go back to your houses
Shells on the neighborhoods come down like rain
I felt more scared, I felt a sense of danger
I completed my way and approaching death to me more and more
Average people say Allahu Akbar
I saw the neighborhood; neighborhood was red in color
The smell of blood and body parts in front of me scatter
I ran to help my friend was injured
Hospitals in dire need of blood donation and mosques shouting
Walls in the streets become white in color
Sorry, we were upgrading our blog software last night, and the new software corrupted the database and files. We restored to 10/16, and will try to post the columns for 10/17 and 10/18 later today.
These events all happened the day before the UN General Assembly meets for a week in New York, so the bombings could have serious political meaning. But politicians are telling us these events are not linked. Just a coincidence, they say.
Meanwhile, this could be Hillary Clintonâs worst nightmare, as Donald Trump says we are not strong enough in the face of terrorism, while Hillary has said that we are “winning” the war on terra. Trump told a crowd in Colorado Springs:
I must tell you that just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York. And nobody knows exactly whatâs going on. But boy, we are living in a time â we better get very tough, folks. We better get very, very tough…
Because we’re not tough enough on terror just yet.
So todayâs wake up is about Americaâs fear. 15 years after 9/11, itâs hard to remember what this country was like before: How the American spirit was so much stronger at the height of the Cold War than it is today.
Back then, we feared the USSR and dying (frying) in a preemptive nuclear war. We all believed we would have no more than 20 minutes to prepare for Nuclear Armageddon. There were municipal fallout shelters. Some had shelters in their homes. We practiced getting under our desks at schools, even though we knew that would be fruitless.
But there was a very different feel to America back then. People were far from paralyzed by fear; they controlled their sense of imminent danger. There was a military draft. We worked, took the kids to sporting events, and our kids went to school every day with far less concern for their safety than today.
Since 9/11, we do face very real threats from terrorism, by actors both foreign and domestic. But, the probability of instant death like we had for 40 years, from the 1950s until 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed, doesnât exist today.
Wrongo is not a student of mass psychosis, but asks, if the nature of todayâs threat, while serious, does not lead to instant death for millions of Americans, why are we so paralyzed by fear? Â No IED is going to end America as we know it, no gun or knife-toting terrorist is going to kill millions of Americans.
A zero domestic deaths from terrorism policy is doomed to failure.
For the past 15 years our last two presidents have said: âmy first responsibility is to keep you safe.â But, havenât we really needed leaders who would say: âmy first responsibility is to defend your freedom and personal liberty?â
But no politician today would dare say that, because no one would vote for them. This is the nation we have become after 9/11, and we need to wake up before we surrender even more of the freedoms guaranteed by our Bill of Rights.
To help America wake up, here is âRadioactiveâ by Imagine Dragons, from their 2012 album, âNight Visionsâ. The song was Rolling Stoneâs âBiggest Rock Hit of the Yearâ in 2013. This video has had almost 600 million views since it was posted:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Sample Lyrics:
I’m waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my systems blow
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, Â I’m radioactive, radioactive
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, I’m radioactive, radioactive
I raise my flags, don my clothes
It’s a revolution, I suppose
We’re painted red to fit right in
I’m breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse
Welcome to the new age indeed!
People should learn about England and Ireland during the Sinn Fein bombing attacks that lasted from 1969 to 2001. Wrongo lived in London for part of that time, and while fear existed and the risk was real, people dusted themselves off, and soldiered on.
We should not let fear decide our Presidential election, or further vitiate the Constitution.
Wrongo visited Philadelphia last week, leaving just prior to the start of the Democratic Convention. The city seemed eager for the Democrats to arrive and start spending. We met with several local retailers who had high hopes for throngs of Democrat shoppers. The many Uber drivers we spoke with were looking forward to busy days, but were concerned about getting around town with the crush.
As part of the security plans, trucks are forbidden from using I-95 through central Philadelphia during the convention. Perhaps the thinking is that big bombs are only delivered by truck. One of the local colleges is housing police in its dormitories, presumably cops brought in from other jurisdictions to assist in maintaining the peace.
Speaking of maintaining the peace, on a walk through the South Philly Market (SPM) Â the iconic mural of former Philadelphia Police Chief and Mayor, which graces the SPM website above, had been tagged thusly:
It reads: âFuck Racist Pigs 4 Evaâ, and âEnd Copsâ. In talking to vendors, we heard that it had happened the night before. An elderly local resident on Market Street who was looking on, said it was the first time the mural had been tagged. But, in speaking with the two men who came to clean it off, they said it happens from time to time. Rizzo was controversial in his lifetime, and remains so today.
A law and order guy, Rizzo said during his 1975 re-election campaign:
Just wait after November, you’ll have a front row seat because I’m going to make Attila the Hun look like a faggot…
There were many incidents of police brutality and alleged racism during his years as Chief and as Mayor, culminating in a 1979 Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit charging pervasive police abuse. Rizzo’s handling of the first MOVE incident in 1978 has been interpreted as supporting the charge of racism. This radical group lived in squalid conditions, and when members of the group refused entrance to city inspectors and social services agents, Rizzo evicted them through police action. The final MOVE incident occurred in 1985, after Rizzo was out of office. At that time, a police helicopter dropped a bomb on a heavily fortified row house occupied by MOVE. The bomb sparked a firestorm which killed 11 MOVE members and gutted 61 homes, leaving 250 people homeless.
Philadelphia has decorated its downtown with 56 plastic donkeys, one for each state and US territory.
Here is North Carolina:
And here is Missouri:
Itâs unclear why Missouri chose to make its donkey a green zebra, but it is also unlikely that Democrats will win Missouri any time in the next 20 years, so the artistic choice doesnât really matter.
Today, the Democrats didnât disappoint, if your standard for convention success is WrestleMania.
First, discredited and soon-to-depart Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was repeatedly interrupted and booed as she sought to speak to Florida’s convention delegation. Florida is her home state.
Later, Bernie Sanders spoke to his supporters, and they booed every mention of Hillary Clinton. Nothing like a lefty frenzy against the âDemocratic Establishment.â
