Letâs see…New Crown Prince in Saudi, Democrat lost in Georgia, and UBERâs CEO kicked to the curb. What did Wrongo miss? Oh yea, Trumpcare:
Get your health problems fixed while you still can:
Trumpcare may look familiar to some:
GOP plans to include certain pre-existing conditions:
New Saudi Crown Prince gives Trump an idea:
The Dems strike out (again) in Georgia:
The CEO of UBER is kicked to the curb:
The Daily Escape:
Waterton Park, part of Glacier International Peace Park – photo by Steve Coyle
Yesterday, we talked about the culture of anxiety that has developed in America in the last 40 years. One thing we didnât discuss is the growing problem of âtill debt do us partâ. The average American is dying in debt. According to Bloomberg, the average total household debt in America is just over $132,500. And with the Federal Reserve’s recent rate increases, repayment of that debt will become increasingly more difficult. The more the debt increases, the worse credit scores become, making it even harder for American’s to borrow money when they need it. Individuals can get a credit card for no credit to help them when needed. This is a great is a lifeline for many, however, that credit card isn’t going to be able to pay $132,000 debt.
Difficult enough that most Americans will be saddled with a sizable chunk of it at the time of their death.
Credit.com has reported that Experianâs FileOne database includes 220 million consumers (there are about 242 million adults in the US). To determine the average debt people have when they die, Experian looked at consumers who, as of October 2016 were not deceased, but then were listed as deceased as of December 2016:
Among the 73% of consumers who had debt when they died, about 68% had credit card balances. The next most common kind of debt was mortgage debt (37%), followed by auto loans (25%), personal loans (12%) and student loans (6%).
Those consumers carried an average total debt balance of $61,554, including mortgage debt. The breakdown of unpaid balances was as follows: credit cards, $4,531; auto loans, $17,111; personal loans (click here if you’re wondering how do payday loans work), $14,793; and student loans were the largest balance outstanding at $25,391.
Think about this: people who die with student loans outstanding owe $25k on average. That has to cause anxiety for the individual and any family member who guaranteed the debt. It can leave relatives in need of cash to pay off the outstanding amount due. Not everyone has $25,000 sitting around their home, so companies like King Of Cash are here to help.
Now, federal student loan debt can be cancelled upon a borrowerâs death, but private student loan debt rarely offers the same benefit. They can go after the borrowerâs estate for payment. Even then, family members are not then automatically responsible for the debt, but jointly-owned assets like the family home could be in jeopardy.
So, lots of anxiety when the average person is dying with $61.5k in debt. Considering that the median individual net worth in America is $81.1k, the average person is leaving just $20k behind when they die.
So the average American needs a lot of soothing for debt anxiety. To help with that, here are Anna Netrebko & El?na Garan?a performing âBarcarolleâ from Offenbachâs âTales of Hoffmanâ. Barcarolle is the most famous aria from the opera (Belle nuit, Ă´ nuit d’amour), performed in Act 2. The Barcarolle has been incorporated into many movies, including âLife Is Beautifulâ and âTitanicâ. Wrongo has featured Netrebko and Garanca before, and we return today to hear how beautifully and clearly their voices meld:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
The Daily Escape:
Matterhorn â 2008 photo by Wrongo
Overnight guests at the Mansion of Wrong started a discussion about how parenting styles have changed since the 1950âs. The primary focus of our near-geriatric group was on how our children parent their kids, as differentiated from the way our parents parented us. We talked about the difference between yesterdayâs âfree-rangeâ parenting, where the kids were (relatively) unscheduled, and free to play outside until dark, and todayâs helicopter parenting, where the kids are highly scheduled and the parents monitor their every move.
Today, Wrongo read an article by Pratik Chougule in the American Conservative entitled, âIs American Childhood Creating an Authoritarian Society?â Its sub-title, âOverprotective parenting is a threat to democracyâ gives the articleâs viewpoint:
American childhood has taken an authoritarian turn. An array of trends in American society are conspiring to produce unprecedented levels of supervision and control over childrenâs lives. Tracing the effects of childrearing on broad social outcomes is an exercise in speculation. But if social scientists are correct to posit a connection between childrearing and long-term political outcomes, todayâs restrictive childhood norms may portend a broader regression in our countryâs democratic consensus.Â
That is way much too much speculation for Wrongo, but Chougule offers some interesting facts:
Chougule also offers the following:
More so than any other factorâidentity, religiosity, income etc.âit was votersâ attitudes on childrearing that predicted their support for Trump. Those who believe that is more important for children to be respectful rather than independent; obedient over self-reliant; well-behaved more than considerate; and well-mannered versus curious, were more than two and a half times as likely to support Trump than those with the opposite preferences.
This leads to the conclusion that voting for Trump = Authoritarian tendencies in the family. Wrongo disagrees. He fails to see the link between helicopter parenting and authoritarianism in todayâs kids. He isnât even sure that todayâs kids are little authoritarians.
Overprotective parenting has more to do with parental anxiety that started in the 1970âs when our kids were growing up, seeing high-profile incidents of abducted children. Then there were (and still are) the hyperventilating pundits warning about freak accidents affecting kids.
Most of all, it is driven by two trends: First, the two-career family has created guilt and fear that at least one parent wonât be around if something terrible happens. Second, the increasingly prevalent one-child family means that the psychic investment in the precious single offspring is huge, and by definition, fragile. If all your eggs are in the basket of one kid, it makes sense for him/her to wear a helmet at all times, and never speak to strangers.
When Wrongoâs kids were growing up, it was safe to send kids out to play in the neighborhood, because you knew there were going to be a dozens of adult eyes watching whatever was going on, as opposed to todayâs  neighborhoods, which are vacant from 8am â 6pm.
Today, overprotecting is achieved largely in the form of monitoring where the kids are via cell phones. Parents do this in the name of protecting their kids. This is a major difference, as these devices didnât even exist until the 1990s.
An unfortunate reality is that many kids today get too little direct supervision from their parents. The slack is being taken up by day-care centers and schools, neither of which should be the primary source of guidance for todayâs kids.
An argument can be made that todayâs parents have become more authoritarian and conformist because they are fearful in a world that seems to be getting more dangerous. It may be a fear of physical danger, like terrorism, but it can also be fear of downward mobility. The perception is that good jobs and other economic opportunities are getting fewer, so that only the highest-performing young people will have a shot at getting them.
We know that in times of peace and prosperity, society loosens up. People become more tolerant and trusting. When opportunities are limited or when external enemies threaten, tolerance erodes. People want their neighbors, their kids and their kidsâ teachers to hew to their world view.
The politics of fear breeds ever more fear. We need to break the cycle.
Here is a tune. It is London Grammar doing a cover of Fleetwood Macâs âDreamsâ, recorded on June 9, 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLTVQugvros
Takeaway Lyric:
Now here you go again, you say
You want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down?
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
The Daily Escape:
Going to the Sun Road, Glacier National Park, 2016 â photo by Wrongo
They told Wrongo that if he voted for Hillary, weâd be at war in Syria. He voted for Hillary, and sure enough, looks like we could get into a war with Syria! Particularly after this:
A U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet from Carrier Air Wing 8 on board the USS George Bush shot down a Syrian Air Force Su-22 ground attack aircraft near Raqqa, Syria after the aircraft struck ground troops in Ja-Din, south of Tabqah, near Raqqa.
According to most sources it is the first time a U.S. combat aircraft has shot down a manned enemy aircraft in aerial combat in nine years.
The pro-Assad regime Syrian Su-22 that was downed had attacked Syrian Democratic Forces aligned with the U.S. led coalition and inflicted casualties on the friendly forces as they were driving south of Tabqah before it was intercepted.
Russia was displeased. They announced that they could possibly shoot down any US air craft operating in western Syria:
In the combat mission zones of the Russian aviation in the air space of Syria, all kinds of airborne vehicles, including aircraft and UAVs of the international coalition detected to the west of the Euphrates River will be tracked by the Russian SAM systems as air targets.
Treating US and allied planes as âtargetsâ does not mean the Russians will shoot at them. What theyâre saying is that they will track the planes as they would track any target, they will send their own planes to observe the targets, and possibly escort the targets out of the area.
This gets tricky: what happens if the âtargetâ refuses to be escorted away? Do the Russians then shoot at the target? They havenât said. But until they do start shooting, weâre not in a hot war. Weâve just moved a step closer to one possibly occurring soon.
And this would be the most dangerous confrontation between the US and Russia since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Wrongo remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis very well. He was in college. We sat around thinking that DC (where we lived) would be taken out by nuclear missiles launched by the Russkies.
This is one outcome of Trumpâs outsourcing full control of military action on the ground to the generals.
One miscalculation, and Trumpâs generals are making new foreign policy. Clemenceau was correct when he said that âwar is too important to be left to the generalsâ. Who we decide to fight is one of our most important national decisions. From the American Conservative:
There has never been a Congressional vote authorizing US military operations in Syria against anyone, and there has been scant debate over any of the goals that the US claims to be pursuing there. The US launches attacks inside Syria with no legal authority from the UN or Congress, and it strains credulity that any of these operations have anything to do with individual or collective self-defense.
The US says we are in Syria to fight ISIS and evict them from Raqqa. But we have also been arming the Syrian opposition for at least three years. And we have been a party to the Syrian civil war for at least a year before that. But the underlying assumption, that it is in our interest to be fighting in Syria, has not been seriously questioned by most members of Congress.
Americans are so accustomed to fighting wars on foreign soil that we barely notice that the policy has never really been debated or put to a vote. If this Syrian confrontation leads us into a larger conflict with Russia, will it finally be time to notice whatâs happening? Â
Shooting down a Syrian jet shows the dangers that come from conducting a foreign policy unmoored from both the national interest and representative government.
It was shot down because it was threatening rebels opposed to the Syrian government, and the US supports those rebels, apparently up to and including destroying Syrian regime forces that attack them. We say we are there to fight ISIS. That has sufficient support by the people and the Congress. If we are also fighting to oust Assad, we are doing something that requires a full debate.
Without that debate, when we shoot down a Syrian plane inside its own country, we have committed an act of war against another state.
A bit of music. Here is Paramore with âHard Timesâ:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Takeaway Lyric:
All that I want Is to wake up fine
Tell me that Iâm alright
That I ainât gonna die
All that I want
Is a hole in the ground
You can tell me when itâs alright
For me to come out
The Daily Escape:
Round Hill Highland Games â Litchfield County, Connecticut
From Zandar:
The slow death of the civil rights era under the Trump regime continues as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will proceed with handcuffing the department’s civil rights office, because systemic racism and sexism in education is embarrassing to Dear Leader, so in order to Make America Great Again⢠it will no longer be exposed or even acknowledged.
Whatâs up? The DoE is scaling back investigations into civil rights violations at the nationâs public schools and universities, easing off mandates imposed by the Obama administration that the new leadership says have bogged down the agency. The NYT reports that Candice E. Jackson, the acting head of the Departmentâs office for civil rights issued an internal memo stating that: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
Requirements that investigators broaden their inquiries to identify systemic issues and whole classes of victims will be scaled back. Also, regional offices will no longer be required to alert department officials in Washington of all highly sensitive complaints on issues such as the disproportionate disciplining of minority students and the mishandling of sexual assaults on college campuses.
The new directives are Education Secretary Betsy DeVosâ first steps to reshape the DoEâs approach to civil rights enforcement, moving away from President Obamaâs efforts to require that schools and colleges overhaul policies addressing a number of civil rights concerns. That approach sent complaints soaring, and the civil rights office found itself understaffed and struggling to meet the departmentâs stated goal of closing cases within 180 days.
So, DeVosâ new protocols have the cover of âwe need to move fasterâ to resolve the big case backlog.
But civil rights leaders believe that the new directives will have the opposite effect. Since DoE staff members would be discouraged from opening new cases, and efficiency will take priority over thoroughness, the entire process will be weakened. Catherine Lhamon, who was the assistant secretary of the Education Departmentâs civil rights office under Mr. Obama, and who now heads the United States Commission on Civil Rights says:
If we want to have assembly-line justice, and I say âjusticeâ in quotes, then thatâs the direction that we should go.
So the logic of DeVos seems to be: “Well if we can’t close civil rights cases in six months, why bother opening them? Letâs just save the money.â
This is another example of Zero-Sum Thinking by the Trumpists.
Time to wake up America! While you are following the twists and turns of Russiagate, the Trump administration is overturning the civil rights accountability that Obama put in place for the nationâs schools. Obamaâs idea was that ALL students should have their civil rights protected, not just the Taylors and Hunters out there in the suburbs, but those kids in the poorer school districts. Â
To help you wake up, here is The Weeknd with his newly released âSecretsâ, which owes a big debt to Tears for Fears:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Itâs Fatherâs Day. Here is Wrongoâs tribute to his own dad, now gone for 19 years. Steve Goodmanâs song, âMy Old Manâ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6BB1FbCA2I
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Takeaway lyric:
I miss my old man tonight
And I can almost see his face
He was always trying to watch his weight
And his heart only made it to fifty-eight.
For the first time since he died
Late last night I cried.
I wondered when I was gonna do that
For my old man.
Happy Fatherâs Day to all who qualify!
On to cartoons. This week, itâs hard to decide where to look first. How long will the current era of political good feeling last? We can be hopeful, but cracks have already appeared, and the urge to score political points has already begun:
The DC shooting reminds us that Congress still plays the âol ballgame:
NOW we need some protection?
While Americaâs busy looking at the Russian drama, the GOP has had a breakthrough:
Trumpâs team ruminates on replacing Mueller:
The Daily Escape:
Mt. Fuji, Japan- photo by Takashi Yasui
The news and the pundits are non-stop in their analysis of the shooting in DC that critically wounded Republican Congressman Steve Scalise and 3 others. Much has been written, but Wrongo likes what Charlie Pierce wrote the best:
Violence doesnât âintrudeâ on everyday life in America. Violence is a part of everyday life in America. A little more than a week ago, five people were shot to death in warehouse in Orlando. Is a warehouse in Orlando less innocent than a Virginia ballfield? Is a disgruntled worker taking his mad vengeance less of a demonstration of a country unhinged than a home-inspection specialist who fried his brain over politics? Is somebody who wounds over politics a worse murderer than someone who kills because he got fired? I admire the ability of anyone who can make that measured a moral choice.
On the whole, people shouldnât get shot. They shouldnât get shot in the streets. They shouldnât get shot in school. They shouldnât get shot in the workplace. They shouldnât get shot while carrying snack food in the âwrongâ neighborhood, and they shouldnât get shot while theyâre trying to surrender. They shouldnât get shot while dancing in a nightclub. And they shouldnât get shot on the ballfield on a spring morning.
In the main, one victim is not more âinnocentââand, thus, of more valueâthan any other one. Their occupation shouldnât matter. Their politics shouldnât matter. There is a violence inherent in the countryâs history and there is a wildness present in its soul and, on occasion, both of these surface more clearly than is usual. Technology has made the violence more lethal and the wildness more general. The uniquely American conflation of innocence with hubris is a luxury we can no longer afford.
OTOH, according to Heather Digby Parton:
Meanwhile, 93 people on average are shot and killed every day in America, many of them in incidents involving multiple victims. More than 100,000 people are struck by bullets every year. President Donald Trump was right to speak about âcarnageâ in America in his inaugural address. He just didnât acknowledge that the carnage is from gun violence. According to the gun safety website The Trace:
Using data from the World Health Organization, researchers found that America accounted for 82 percent of all firearm deaths among 23 comparable nations in 2010. Ninety percent of women killed by guns in the study were in the U.S., as were 91 percent of children under 15.
There is no solution for this that will fly politically in this country. The gun-toter, and the no guns crowds are already spinning their version of the narrative to the crowd that sits in the pews directly in front of them.
America just has to accept that this is perhaps the most concrete way in which America is exceptional, and, it.just.sucks.
It is difficult to get to a soothing place on this Saturday, with all that has happened. Also, my brother died a year ago this week. Back in the late 1970âs he was (very) down on his luck, and each weekend, he would come to visit Ms. Right and me to get fattened up for the coming week. He would walk into the house, grab the album âGoodbye Yellow Brick Roadâ and play its opening track, âFuneral for a Friendâ. There would be no talking until 11 minutes later when it ended:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
The Daily Escape:
Image of Saturn taken from the Cassini spacecraft on July 19, 2013
Wrongo has read much of the evidence that Russia interfered with the 2016 US Presidential election. He has watched House and Senate committees ask the intelligence community and the Justice Department what is known and not known about the Russian hacking story.
 It is clear that the Russians have extremely capable cyber technicians. They have a pragmatic view about getting what they need strategically, so it is both feasible and possible that they could have been disruptive to our democratic process.
But is there actual evidence that Russia interfered in our elections in 2016? And if they did, is there evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with them? The answer so far is summed up by Caitlin Johnstone:
Russiagate is like a mirage: from a distance it looks like something, but once you move in for a closer look, thereâs nothing there. Nothing. Nothing solid, nothing substantial, nothing you can point at and say, âHere it is. This hard evidence justifies saturating the media waves with obsessive 24/7 coverage, escalating tensions with a nuclear superpower, stagnating political discourse in America and fanning the flames of a hysterical, xenophobic McCarthyist feeding frenzy.â
Most of what we know comes from the intelligence assessment by James Clapper when he was the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) for Obama; Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections. Here are the conclusions:
From Sic Semper Tyrannis:
The assessment says Russia did three basic things to “influence” the Presidential election. First, the NSA, CIA and, to a lesser extent, the FBI, believed that the Russians hacked into the DNC and John Podesta emails, then passed that content to WikiLeaks and DC Leaks, who subsequently published the information. Second, the Russians supposedly obtained access to “elements” (undefined) of US state or local electoral boards. Third, Russian media outlets, RT and Sputnik News, put out Kremlin friendly messages.
There is no evidence backing up the claim that the Russian intelligence service hacked the DNC and Podesta that has been presented to the American people. The FBI did not conduct a forensic examination of the computers of either the DNC or of Podesta. The belief that the Russians did it is based on an independent firm, Crowdstrikeâs examination of the DNC emails. Moreover, the release of Podestaâs emails had little to no effect on the election, while the Comey on-and-off-and on again investigation into Hillary Clintonâs emails were certainly damaging to her electoral chances.
The larger point is that Democrats have convinced themselves that getting rid of Trump justifies throwing pasta (or any other sticky substance) at the wall to see what sticks. And that is what is happening with the âall Russia, all the timeâ hearings in the House and Senate.
An important subtext to this whole Russian conspiracy theory is the insistence that the Trump campaign colluded with Vladimir Putin to sabotage Hillary’s campaign.  That is repeated endlessly on the cable channels, and has become an article of faith to many Americans, especially Democrats. But, a few meetings do not create collusion. Possibly the intelligence community has some proof, but it has not been presented in a form that inspires credibility.
About a month ago, the DOJ appointed a Special Counsel to ferret out what is real from what is fake in the allegations about Russiagate, from hacks to collusion.
Letâs hope that he gets to the bottom of the story.
In the meantime, stay focused on the potential damage that Messrs. Trump, McConnell and Ryan are trying to do, from the gutting of Dodd-Frank to passing an Obamacare replacement that hurts many Americans.
Now for a tune. The Beatlesâ âBack in the USSRâ was released in 1968. It was intended to be a parody of “Back in the USA” by the Beach Boys. The song shocked many at the time for its pro-Soviet message. Years later, Paul McCartney stated he knew very little about the Soviet Union when he wrote the song. Here is McCartney doing the song live in Moscowâs Red Square:
Note Putin vaguely rocking @ 0:14
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
The Daily Escape:
Via: Naked Capitalism
He said he would make America great again. He was elected on a messianic platform, to reform DC from the outside, to create jobs, to drain the swamp, all while saving the social safety net, and ending our foreign adventures.
He promised all of those things. He actually said he would do them â in many places and at many times, and in differing contexts.
The dissonance should be hitting his supporters very hard about now.
In the nearly six months Donald Trump has been in power, he has accomplished only the dismantling of major parts of Obamaâs agenda. For example, the EPA announced that it will delay implementation of an Obama-era chemical safety rule for nearly two years while it reassesses the necessity of the regulation: (parenthesis by the Wrongologist)
(Obama administration) Officials moved to overhaul chemical safety standards after a 2013 explosion at a chemical plant in Texas killed 15 people. Their rule would require companies to better prepare for accidents and expand the EPA’s investigative and auditing powers.Â
Trump and Scott Pruitt will MAGA by ensuring more workers die on the job from unsafe working conditions. Of course, like 90% of Trumpâs agenda, this is just standard Republicanism.
Couldnât the GOP just âlead by exampleâ on the whole âgetting killed at workâ thing?
Just in case anyone is interested, here is a link to the White House’s list of all legislation signed since the Orange Flake took office. If it weren’t for things like approving the name change for an outpatient VA clinic in Pago Pago, his big agenda items like passing a budget, replacing Obamacare, reforming taxes, or rebuilding our infrastructure remain aspirational.
So, where is the plan to make America great? As Derek Thompson said in the Atlantic:
There is no infrastructure plan. Just like there is no White House tax plan. Just like there was no White House health care plan. More than 120 days into Trumpâs term in a unified Republican government, Trumpâs policy accomplishments have been more in the subtraction category (e.g., stripping away environmental regulations) than addition. The president has signed no major legislation and left significant portions of federal agencies unstaffed, as U.S. courts have blocked what would be his most significant policy achievement, the legally dubious immigration ban.
The simplest summary of White House economic policy to date is four words long: There is no policy.
Republicans are held hostage by campaign promises that they cannot fill. The White House is hostage to the presidentâs perpetual campaign, a cavalcade of promises divorced from any effort to detail, advocate, or enact major economic legislation.
Trump uses public policy as little more than a photo op, and that isnât going to make anything great.
Letâs turn to poetry. Lawrence Ferlinghetti turned 98 in March. Here is âPity the Nationâ, a poem he wrote in 2007:
Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation â oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.
That was written in 2007 folks.
Here is a video of Ferlinghetti reading âPity the Nationâ in 2007:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
The Wrong family is back from graduation weekend, Rodâs homebrew was the best, and a good time was had by all. Except for possibly the newly minted graduates, who had to listen to recycled exhortations to put down their screens, find their own compass, etc.
Trump started infrastructure week saying we should privatize the FAA. You might see this:
British Prime Minister Mayâs snap election strategy backfired:
Wonder Woman dominated the news:
And many wondered about the Wonder Woman vs. Working Woman comparisons:
How did Comey rehabilitate himself with Democrats?
The Saudis say the Qataris support terrorism, but what about them?
RIP Adam West:
