The Wrongologist – Page 214 – Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Monday Wake Up Call – June 1, 2015

How many hours does it take to make rent at the minimum wage? The National Low Income Housing Coalition looked at the number of hours minimum-wage employees have to work per week in each state just to rent an apartment and survive financially. Their headline conclusion is there is no state where a minimum wage worker can earn enough to make the fair market rent for a two-bedroom place on 40 hours a week. West Virginia tallied the fewest hours at 63 to make the average fair market rent. Hawaii was 175 hours. California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Washington, DC were all over 130 hours. So, no chance to get an average place for a family while working 40 hours. Here is a chart from their report:

The Wrongologist would have preferred if the study had used median rents rather than average rents. The red bars show the gap in hourly wages between the state’s minimum wage and the cost of an average two bedroom place. This is another artifact of the Great Recession. Let’s recap what has happened since it ended:

• The percentage of people employed in the US has never recovered
• All income gains went to the top 1%
• There has been a huge bull market in stocks, despite stagnant income for all but the top few

If we don’t wake up, America will be a banana republic, with the emphasis on the “banana”, since the “republic” is already dying. The US will be small enclaves of massive wealth run by a few oligarchs. Think of it as Manhattan, a few square miles where the Corporations and their top employees reside, surrounded by a sea of low wage cast-offs.

None of this is inevitable. We could increase wages, we could rebuild our decaying infrastructure. This approach is dismissed as “Keynesian” by our right-wing brothers. The only kind of Keynesian stimulus they will accept is military Keynesianism. It’s not that peaceful Keynesian stimulus doesn’t work, it’s just that they won’t benefit from it. They see war as prosperity. China is next in their battle sights.

Wake up America, time is running out to keep us on a course that avoids our demise as a middle class economy. The next election may be the most important in our lifetimes. Here is today’s wake-up call, Amy Speace, a folk singer featured in a NYT Money section article. Here is her song, “Spent,” about trying to make rent:

Sample lyric:
We’re head over heels,
In over our heads,
We borrow and steal
To pay the rent.
How are we gonna save any money
When it’s already spent?

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

Today’s breakfast links:

Study shows human attention span now lags that of a goldfish. Who is behind the study? Microsoft, who wants to learn how modern technology impacts the attention span of people who use it. (Insert your own joke here)

Sudden loss of ice in Antarctica was large enough to affect Earth’s gravity. The ice loss causes small changes in the gravity field of the Earth, which were detected by a satellite mission, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE).

What do you get if you take the blades off a wind turbine? A better wind turbine. This new turbine is a hollow straw that sticks up 40 feet up in the air and vibrates like a guitar string when the wind blows. Its 50% cheaper than blade turbines, and while it is also 30% less efficient at capturing energy, a wind farm can double the number of bladeless turbines that occupy a given area. That’s a net energy gain of 40%. The company is Vortex Turbines. Invest at your own risk.

A new salt reactor will use spent nuclear fuel to make energy. This nuclear reactor generates 75 times the electricity per ton of uranium compared to today’s light-water nuclear reactors, since it burns 96% of its fuel, compared with only 4% in light-water reactors. The company is the venture-funded Transatomic Power. They hope to build a 20-megawatt demonstration reactor by 2020. With nearly 80,000 tons of radioactive waste in the US (and with 2,000 tons added every year), it could turn something toxic into something useful. Invest at your own risk. With this being said, it could be as simple as doing some research into something like uranium mining stocks and finding out about this sector in this particular industry. The more people know about investing, hopefully, the more clued up they will become and potentially make better decisions.

A PA newspaper published a letter calling for President Obama to be executed, but now they’re apologizing. The paper says: “We will strive to do better in the future.” Another example of our media’s inexorable descent. They are only sorry they got caught.

Here is a list of Zagat’s best brunches in Manhattan.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 31, 2015

Get a cup of coffee and ponder a few things on this Sunday.

First, from the NYT’s Upshot, data-driven news you can use: Clinton vs. Sanders voting record. Top line numbers, they voted the same way 93% of the time. However, the 31 times that Ms. Clinton and Mr. Sanders disagreed happened to be on some the biggest issues of the day, including measures on continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an immigration reform bill and bank bailouts during the Great Recession. Bernie was opposed to all these actions.

Second, recycled neo-con viewpoints from the Washington Post Editorial Board on the Obama administration’s strategy in Iraq and for ISIS: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

The Obama administration has been unable to induce [Iraq’s] Abadi government to deliver desperately needed arms…to the Sunni tribes and Kurdish forces. Yet it [the Obama administration] simultaneously refuses to deliver materiel directly to those fighters, on the grounds this might undermine the Abadi government.

Then the Jeff Bezos team trots out Iran bogeyman:

Meanwhile, US officials watch as Iran continues to provide massive direct support to Shiite militias, including forces the US has designated as terrorist organizations.

Finally the neo-con wet dream of more troops on the ground emerges, repeating John McCain’s view:

Mr. Obama should bolster them with more US advisers, including forward air controllers, and more air support. He should insist that Mr. Abadi open a weapons pipeline to Sunni and Kurdish units. Perhaps most important, Mr. Obama should make his priority eliminating the Islamic State — as opposed to limiting US engagement in Iraq.

What we know: Experienced Iraqi army officers, who were largely Sunni, were left jobless when the Iraqi army was disbanded in 2004. Some of them joined ISIS. And Iraq’s current army officers are incompetent and corrupt appointees of an incompetent and corrupt Iraqi government. No matter what equipment we provide to the Iraqi army, all the Iraqi army will be capable of doing is spending our money and losing on the field of battle.

The editors of the WaPo have an agenda that isn’t serious about Iraq. The Iraqis do not lack weapons. We have spent nearly $40 billion on weapons and training. What money can’t buy is the will to fight. The Iraqi army apparently doesn’t have a lot of that.

If what the WaPo and Republicans really are saying is that more American men and women should die in Iraq for a country whose soldiers flee at the first sight of ISIS, then they should say that.

Let’s fight an endless war with money we don’t have. Great idea. Go ahead, you can now have your flashback to Vietnam.

On to a few cartoons.

Obama’s ISIS conundrum in a nutshell:

FIFA’s story inspires others:

FIFA gets 47 count indictment:

Texas floods delay Texas policy:

One-third of Nigeria’s rescued girls are pregnant:

Tribes of America

We have two tribes in America, largely represented by our two political parties. The parties debate the correct course for the country, without any chance of reaching compromise. One of the parties has begun acting like insurrectionists.

Over the past 40 years, the Republican Party has transformed into a party that flouts the law when it is in the majority, and threatens disorder when in the minority:

• No Democrat has called for secession, as Rick Perry did
• No Democrat defied the Supreme Court by sending in the National Guard and provoking a confrontation with police, as Jeb Bush did during Schiavo
• No Democrat is so anti-science that they believe that if women are “legitimately raped,” they will be protected from pregnancy, as Todd Akin did
• No Democrat has said, what Mike Huckabee has said: The Supreme Court is only that…it is not the Supreme Being. It cannot overrule God…when it comes to life, and when it comes to the sanctity of marriage, the court cannot change what God has created
• No Democrat has suggested that states disregard EPA rules on coal plant emissions while various court challenges occur, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did

Politicians keep their jobs because they win elections, and a politician who openly admits that he only believes in democracy if it achieves his desired ends, is at minimum, a radical, or more likely, is an insurrectionist.

There is a precedent for the actions of today’s Republican Party. It is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John C. Calhoun, who threatened to nullify federal legislation, and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery.

The homeland of today’s right-wing insurgency is the very same place where the last insurgency originated: The Old Confederacy. History offers some geographical perspective: The South had an almost unbroken control of the Federal Government from 1789 until secession. Our presidents were either Southerners, or when they were Northerners like Pierce and Buchanan, they were puppets of Southern senators and cabinet members.

For 70 years, the Supreme Court had a majority of Southern justices. With the aid of Northern allies and the three-fifths rule, the South continuously controlled one or both houses of Congress. The 15 Slave States, with a white population of not quite eight million, had 30 Senators, 90 Representatives, and 120 electoral votes, while the state of New York, with a population of four million had two senators, 33 representatives, and 35 electoral votes.

Lincoln’s election in 1860 left the South in control of both houses of Congress, and until 1863, Lincoln and the Republicans would have been powerless to pass legislation hostile to the South. Through its control of the Senate, the South could have blocked the confirmation of any Lincoln appointee whom it considered unfriendly. In spite of this, and notwithstanding Lincoln’s repeated assurances that he would not, directly or indirectly, interfere with slavery where it already existed, the South seceded.

Today, the two parties are still the two tribes that were created out of secession, and the same political dynamic prevails today. The civil war map looks starkly similar to the political bases of both parties today, with the addition of the new Randians in the Upper Midwest.

This tribe now includes Republicans, the Tea Party and right-wing conservatives. They now control 36 state legislatures that are trying to eliminate abortions, remove environmental protections, enhance gun rights, and privatize education, all of which need a weak federal government in order to succeed. Time to call it what it is: A domestic insurgency by America’s right wing tribe.

After the Civil War, we passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, ending slavery, formalizing birthright citizenship, creating black male suffrage, and guaranteeing equal protection under the law. Later, after the Great Depression, we enacted laws to protect the people from financial abuses by businesses and corporations. With Civil Rights legislation, the federal government protected citizens from abuses at the hand of businesses as well as local governments.

Much of these will be unwound if the insurgency succeeds.

What good are policy proposals in the face of an insurgency? We no longer have fellow citizens, we have enemies. We do not have common views, we have religious, racial, class, and political factions.

When we see each other as enemies, we are the Middle East, we can no longer work together for the common good.

We should deal with our tribal issues at home instead of trying to fix the tribal issues in the Middle East.

Sec Def Carter Says What Politicians Can’t

After Ramadi fell to ISIS, Mr. Obama said in an interview with the Atlantic, that the fall of Ramadi was a “tactical setback” in the US effort to defeat ISIS but said, “I don’t think we’re losing.” Then, because something real had to be said, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said it:

What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight…They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight. They withdrew from the site, and that says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves.

He captured the essence of the problem:

We can give them training, we can give them equipment — we obviously can’t give them the will to fight…But if we give them training, we give them equipment, and give them support, and give them some time, I hope they will develop the will to fight, because only if they fight can ISIL remain defeated.

This was all too much for the Republicans, who are attacking President Obama’s “failed” strategy for dealing with ISIS. John Bolton said on Fox News Sunday: “We’re losing. There’s no doubt about it.” John McCain, on CBS’s Face the Nation: “We need more troops on the ground. We need forward air controllers”.

The Republican 2016 candidates also attacked Obama’s strategy, but said little about what they would do differently. Those who have spoken out, want thousands of US troops back in Iraq.

• Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum want to deploy 10,000 American troops in Iraq as part of a coalition with Arab nations
• Jeb Bush thinks additional American soldiers would have prevented ISIS from gathering strength in recent years. But an American-led force now? “I don’t think that will work,” he said last Friday
• Marco Rubio described his strategy against ISIS with a line from the movie “Taken” — “we will look for you, we will find you, and we will kill you”
• Scott Walker and Rick Perry are open to a combat mission
• Rand Paul wants boots on the ground — as long as they are “Arab boots on the ground”

The Republicans offer “more troops” and movie quotes. They seem to say, “It matters not if you win or lose, it’s where you place the blame”. They also want us to believe that the “surge” defeated the Iraqi insurgency back in the day, and that if Obama had just stayed in Iraq, ISIS wouldn’t be there today.

It’s just more Republican delusion about a country we broke and can’t put back together.

Def Sec Carter was correct to rebuke the Iraqis for cutting and running at Ramadi. The Iraqi military and police forces outnumbered the attacking ISIS forces by 10 to 1, and were more heavily armed. Yet they still ran away as fast as their US-provided ground vehicles would carry them. The Iraqi forces have pointed out that they did not have as much air support as they wanted.

Ok, but it is fair to point out the total lack of air support available to ISIS forces. Any army, like the Iraqis who have air support, when facing an enemy who fights without air support, and finds itself unable to overcome that enemy, is probably fighting poorly.

The military situation is that ISIS and the Iraqi Shias are evenly matched in weaponry, and the Iraqi army has superior numbers. ISIS uses their arms and smaller numbers better, and leads their fighters more skillfully. What is keeping the Iraqi army from using the mobile, combined arms operations tactics that ISIS executes routinely? Is it lack of US air support? Lack of Iranian support?

Maybe it is a marked inferiority in leadership. How about a lack of competence in tactics, logistics, maintenance and supply, not to mention nepotism and chronic corruption?

This is not our fight, and it never was. Now that the apple cart is upside down, and the Sunnis and Shias are at each other, there is absolutely no place in this for the US. At the end of the day, we need to have both Sunni and Shia friends in the ME.

Bravo, Secretary Carter!

Keep our politicians real whenever they try to posture about the ME and ISIS.

Nothing to Hide?

Here are two interrelated ideas about privacy and personal freedom. We know that most Americans value privacy and oppose mass surveillance. Of the large minority who think spying is okay, they justify it by saying it is because they have “nothing to hide”. 49% % said keeping the details of the government’s programs secret is more important than justifying their legality. Edward Snowden spoke last week about “nothing to hide” in a Q&A on Reddit: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

I think the central issue is to point out that regardless of the results, the ends (preventing a crime) do not justify the means (violating the rights of the millions whose private records are unconstitutionally seized and analyzed).
Some might say “I don’t care if they violate my privacy; I’ve got nothing to hide.” Help them understand that they are misunderstanding the fundamental nature of human rights. Nobody needs to justify why they “need” a right: the burden of justification falls on the one seeking to infringe upon the right. But even if they did, you can’t give away the rights of others because they’re not useful to you. More simply, the majority cannot vote away the natural rights of the minority.
But even if they could, help them think for a moment about what they’re saying. Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
A free press benefits more than just those who read the paper.

On the other hand, YouGov’s latest poll shows that many Americans support making it a criminal offense to make public statements which would stir up hatred against particular groups of people.

• Americans narrowly support (41%) criminalizing hate speech
• Most Democrats (51%) support criminalizing hate speech
• Independents (41% to 35%) and Republicans (47% to 37%) tend to oppose making it illegal to stir up hatred against particular groups

Support for banning hate speech is particularly strong among racial minorities. 62% of black Americans, and 50% of Hispanics support criminalizing comments which would stir up hatred. White Americans oppose a ban on hate speech 43% to 36%.

In both of these cases, loss of privacy, and the suppression of hate speech, the practical question is, what does more harm?

With mass surveillance, we give up a constitutional right to prevent the very tiny chance of being killed by a terrorist. Contrast that with the certain chance of being spied upon, and the certainty of losing your 4th Amendment rights in the name of protecting you from terrorists.

In the case of hate speech, think about it: It’s always easier to defend someone’s right to say something with which you agree. But in America, we defend free speech, even if you strongly object, because that is a right contained in the 1st Amendment.

Liberals are divided by these two ideas. They are against the Patriot Act’s attack on unreasonable search and seizure, as contained in the 4th Amendment. On the other hand they have a real problem with unfettered hate speech, which according to the YouGov survey, makes them want to limit free speech, putting them on the wrong side of the 1st Amendment.

There is no moral calculus that addresses either of these issues with certainty.

How Cleveland shoots. Links:

49 Shots And The Cop Goes Free. On May 23, Michael Brelo, one of the Cleveland police officers involved in the 2012 shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, was acquitted of manslaughter by an Ohio judge, who found that while Officer Brelo did fire lethal shots at the two people, testimony did not prove that his shots caused either death. 49 shots by Brelo, through the car’s windshield. While standing on the hood of the car. And reloading. You have to wonder what it takes to get a conviction. Black robes, white justice. NOTE: all cops involved fired 137 shots. However, only one cop, who fired 49 times, was charged.

It’s been 6 months since Tamir Rice died, and the cop who killed him still hasn’t been questioned. Tamir was killed because he was waving a toy gun. There is explicit surveillance video of the shooting, and the officer who shot him has a troubling record. So why is the investigation taking so long? And adult white men can carry weapons openly, in large groups, in public restaurants and stores, and have no fear of being shot.

Continuing our exploration of springtime at the House of Wrong, here is an Indigo Bunting. They are occasionally at our bird feeders:

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

Memorial Day 2015

“I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day. I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did.” – Benjamin Harrison

Welcome to Memorial Day Weekend. Before 1971, it was called Decoration Day, which was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The Civil War claimed more lives than any conflict in US history, but until 1867, we had no national cemeteries in which to bury them. The Decoration Day holiday was established by a military general order issued by Gen. John Logan, the national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. This is from Gen. Logan’s order:

The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land

Back then, it was America’s most solemn holiday. By the end of the 1860s, Americans in towns and cities everywhere had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.

Decoration Day became Memorial Day when Congress passed the National Holiday Act of 1971, which moved most national holidays to Mondays, creating three-day weekends. So, along with the picnics, three-day sales, and celebrating the start of summer, let’s stop and remember the people who died in our wars. Let’s do that regardless of whether we “supported” a particular war. Make it a time of remembrance along with the bbq and beer.

There are no “blue” or “red” gravestones in our national cemeteries:

This week, banks became felons, but their bankers did not:

There was one airbag recall, but there should have been two:

Spring graduations are full of messages:

The fields surrounding the House of Wrong have two bluebird houses, and both have nests and fledgling birds. Here is a video of Eastern Bluebirds along with a Tree Swallow:

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

See you on Tuesday.

Maximizing Shareholder Value

The Guardian highlights a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about the level of global subsidies paid by governments to the fossil fuel industry:

Fossil fuel companies are benefiting from global subsidies of $5.3tn (£3.4tn) a year, equivalent to $10m a minute every day, according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund.

That’s $5.3 trillion per year. The subsidy estimated for 2015 is greater than the total annual health spending of all the world’s governments. The subsidy is created by polluters not paying the many costs imposed on countries by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These include the harm caused by air pollution.

The IMF said that ending subsidies for fossil fuels would cut global carbon emissions by 20%. They argue that ending the subsidies would also slash the number of premature deaths from outdoor air pollution by 50%, or about 1.6 million lives a year.

It is difficult to get behind the IMF headline to the methodology that leads to their findings. They are basically estimating how much damage global warming is doing and listing that as a government subsidy. The benefits that fossil fuels have delivered to mankind are massive. The pro-fossil fuel argument is that if you could put a price on these things, it would outweigh the $5.3 trillion figure by many thousands of times.

That is true, but the argument misses the point. We need fossil fuels. We use fossil fuels. The issue is why are the costs socialized, while the profits are privatized?

This again highlights the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the “Maximize Shareholder Value” movement in corporate governance. The 1970-era Clean Air and Water Acts and the 1980-era Superfund, TSCA, and RCRA Acts were among the first attempts to shift the costs of the socialized pollution costs back onto the corporate and municipality originators. Ironically, given today’s political environment, all of the major environmental acts (except the 1980 Superfund) were signed into law by Republican presidents Nixon and Reagan.

In the IMF report, China provided $2.3 trillion of the subsidies. The US was 2nd with $700 billion.

China will be focusing on reducing their pollution and other impacts as their society gets wealthier. Once people’s basic needs are met, they will be looking to improve their lot, and breathing in poisonous smog and living next to putrid water will not be high on their list of desires. As an example, it only took 25 years after the end of WW II for Americans to insist on an improved environment.

And all of the above ignores the costs of wars to keep the fossil fuel supply lines open, as well as the regular costs of our defense and intelligence establishments, and the destruction of democracy as necessary collateral damage.

All that for something we burn. Along with our tax dollars, that is.

Cartoon of the Day: The real truth about DC’s Think Tanks:
Links:

Hillary Clinton on Trade Agreement: “I have been for trade agreements, I have been against trade agreements.” Anybody want syrup with those waffles?

Is Japan becoming extinct? The Japan Times wonders what the projected drop in the country’s population says about its future. They cite a report, “Local Extinctions”, which says that that 896 cities, towns and villages throughout Japan are facing extinction by 2040. Factoid: In 2013, 8.2 million of the more than 60 million homes nationwide were empty, and 40% percent of the 8.2 million empty homes were not being offered for sale or rent.

Here’s how much of your life the United States has been at war. The link shows a ginormous chart of how many years of your life were in wartime. For the Wrongologist, it is 43.8% of his life.

Millions of tiny spiders rained from the sky in Australia. Residents of Goulburn, Australia woke one day this month to find their town shrouded in silken webs, while millions of tiny spiders rained down from above. Apparently this is called “Spider rain.” It happens when large groups of arachnids migrate all at once, using a technique called “ballooning.” Creepy much?

After decades of maintaining a minimal nuclear force, China is re-engineering its long-range ballistic missiles to carry multiple warheads, or MIRVs. China has had the technology for decades, but the decision to put three or more warheads atop a single missile is recent. So far, China has declined to engage in talks with the US about their decision to deploy MIRVs. If America treats China like an enemy, then China WILL BE our enemy. Maybe that’s what the Pentagon and CIA want. They need something to justify their big budgets, and their secret slush funds.

See you on Sunday.

Are We Now Borg?

On Monday, Reuters reported about the ISIS takeover of Ramadi in Iraq. They quote Secretary of State John Kerry, who said Ramadi was a “target of opportunity,” that could be retaken in a matter of days, and US officials insisted there would be no change in strategy despite a failure to make major advances against ISIS. They also reported that Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior Iranian official, said Tehran was ready to help confront Islamic State, and he was certain the city would be “liberated”.

Pat Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis made a great point about deceptive propaganda that is directed at a countryÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s own people. He was talking about the US and that John Kerry and our General in Iraq, Gen. Thomas Weidly used exactly the same talking points. Col. Lang makes a case that the US MilitaryÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s embrace of Ã¢â‚¬Å“Thought ControlÃ¢â‚¬ occurred after America lost the Vietnam War. This from Lang: (emphasis and brackets by the Wrongologist)

It came to be an article of faith that “Information Operations,” (propaganda = IO) and “Kinetic Operations” (shooting people as necessary) were equally effective ways to wage war. This belief led to an exaggerated faith in the IO side of COIN [Counterinsurgency Operations]…and [our] repeated attempts to change…the basic beliefs of the many different peoples of the earth who simply do not want to be changed by foreigners.

And we have conclusive evidence it hasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t worked in the Middle East. Lang continues:

As a result of this kind of thinking we have done all kinds of foolish things. Among them, we situated outposts in totally hostile parts of Afghanistan next to villages from which our men would never be able to defend themselves.

And we were told that if we followed COIN, we would win in Afghanistan and Iraq. But we didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t win. And now in Iraq, Syria and Yemen our government continues to spin us. The government narrative is that all is well, defeat at Ramadi is nothing but “a momentary setback”. This theme is propagated, while they tout a raid in Syria (see below in Links) as a distraction from what now appears to be a catastrophe in the making in Iraq.

Kerry has emerged as our Ã¢â‚¬Å“Baghdad BobÃ¢â‚¬. Increasingly, it seems that we are in a phase where our government tries to intervene in all aspects of our lives to keep people believing in our geopolitical strategy, whether it is Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Iran or Yemen.

When information operations (IO) came into vogue, truth was buried by the narrative. Somehow, the American public became a legitimate target for national IO. Lang closes by comparing us to the Borg:

When you are part of the Borg you eventually come to believe that the talking points are the only reality and that defeat is evidence of impending victory. Locutas said that resistance is futile.

Talking points wonÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t protect our Republic, they will hasten its demise.

Today’s Links:

US officials leak information about their ISIS raid thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s more sensitive than anything Snowden ever leaked. Over the weekend, the US government announced that Special Forces soldiers entered Syria to conduct a raid that killed an alleged leader of ISIS, Abu Sayyaf. In the process, anonymous US officials leaked classified information that the New York Times published. As to the Ã¢â‚¬Å“growing network of informantsÃ¢â‚¬ the Times quotes, maybe the US wants the ISIS to believe they have traitors in their midstÃ¢â‚¬Â¦.

World’s longest and highest glass-bottom bridge to open in China. The foot bridge spans two cliffs in ChinaÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon. It is 1,410 feet long and 20 feet wide, hovering over a 984-foot vertical drop. This may not be for the vertigo-challenged.

NYC police Chief Bill Bratton to assign 450 NYPD cops to fight terrorism that may come from the ISIS. Apparently ISIS is selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island.

Forbes reports on all 50 states ranked by the cost of weed. States where recreational marijuana use is legal are also the states where marijuana is least expensive. This is also the case in Canada, where weed can be bought legally from places like speed greens at an inexpensive price. If you would like to grow your own weed then you may want to check out grow tents for weed. Mr. Market says thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s what was supposed to happen. In four states where pot has been legalized or decriminalizedÃ¢â‚¬â€œWashington, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska, the price of an ounce has fallen below $300, compared with the nationwide average of $324. Oregon leads with a price of $204/ounce.

Florida GOP approves winner-take-all presidential primary for March 15, 2016. This makes FLA a BFD, especially for Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. It means the guy who finishes 2nd in Florida will have a hard time winning the Republican presidential nomination from the guy who finishes first.

An Easy Path To A Green Card

Over the weekend, the NYT reported on a federal visa program that allows up to 10,000 immigrant investors to qualify for a green card. The program is called EB-5. From the Times:

Under the federal program, a foreigner who invests $500,000…in a project that will create at least 10 jobs can apply for a green card.

In FY 2010, 1,885 EB-5 visas were issued. But by 2014, the entire annual allotment of 10,000 visas had been claimed by August, 4 months before the end of the fiscal year. This year, the quota was reached on May 1. More from the NYT:

Under the program, the family of the investor, including any dependent under 21, can apply for a green card, and each family member is counted toward the quota.

Critics have called the program a “scam” that essentially sells green cards to the affluent and their families. More than 80% of those in the program are from China. Critics clearly have sympathy with the vast amount of people who desperately read each and every Visa Bulletin in the hope that the results will bring them one step closer to permanent residency in the United States.

The EB-5 program was canceled in 1998 for three years because it was seen as corrupt. With $500k as the cost of entry, the US is one of the cheapest developed countries in which to get an investor visa. And the Department of Homeland Security isn’t coordinating with Immigration and Naturalization on these green cards, so there is opportunity for fraud and there are security concerns, it’s also unfair to those that have to legitimately renew green card dates that don’t have to luxury of being able to basically buy it.

Finally, one of our more anti-immigration Republican presidential candidates, Scott Walker (R-WI), makes an exception for the EB-5 visa. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (JS) reports that Walker is prominently featured on the website of FirstPathway Partners, a Milwaukee firm that helps foreigners find EB-5 opportunities. The JS reported that Our American Revival, a Walker for president organization said:

The Governor is a proponent of immigration that is supportive of the nation’s economic needs, our working families, and wages. But the system is broken and we need to review the current immigration system to ensure we are achieving those goals

Let’s see that check. OK, now move to the head of the line, sir. Why not make the cost of entry $5 million, and sell green cards to 100,000 a year?

We could begin to put a dent in the deficit.

Today’s Links:

FBI claims hacker took control of plane. They say a hacker admitted that he used his laptop to gain access to the in-flight entertainment system on a United 737, and then overwrote the code on the airplane’s Thrust Management Computer. He and the company he works for, One World Labs, have for some time nagged Airbus and Boeing about how easy it is to connect a laptop to a box beneath an airline seat and access the plane’s systems. The thought that someone could be on a plane and hack in and control it, should make airplane manufacturers panic. But apparently, they are not panicked enough to hire One World Labs!

The FBI spent two years trying to learn the lyrics to “Louie, Louie”. You know the song. You probably think the lyrics are indecipherable. After Robert Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover received letters saying that the song was “dirty”, the FBI tried to figure out whether the recording included vulgar variations on the published lyrics. The FBI played the record repeatedly, but concluded what everyone else already knew: the lyrics are indecipherable. It took nearly two years for someone at the FBI to think: Isn’t this song registered at the Copyright Office? Maybe we could send someone over there to find out what they think it says? This is one bizarre story of moralism, FBI and governmental overreach, plus, an attack on the First Amendment.

B.B. King: Generations of guitarists used B.B’s “Box”, a fingering technique to learn how to play. With virtually no knowledge of musical theory, guitarists can use the B.B. Box position to pluck out a solo that will work for most blues and rock chord progressions. To change keys, you simply move the position up or down the neck. No need for effects pedals for B.B. He came out of the Mississippi Delta, where guitarists learned their craft by watching other players, so no music theory, maybe not even knowledge of scales: just go on and make the guitar sound as sad as the blues they wanted to sing. RIP Mr. King!

Here is a spectacular National Geographic video of Mobula Rays off the coast in the Sea of Cortez. They breech the water and seem to fly:

They congregate once a year. Maybe it’s Spring Break for Rays. For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

Monday Wake Up Call – May 18, 2015

The Amtrak accident in Philadelphia came hours before the House Appropriations Committee was due to meet to debate a transportation bill. Amtrak is a for-profit entity, but its board is appointed by the president, and it is entirely funded by the government, receiving roughly $1.4 billion a year in subsidies. It operates in the red, losing $227 million a year.

Congress has been considering tightening the purse-strings. The Senate has been slow to approve $7.8 billion in Amtrak funding that has been passed by the House. Much of the money would go to prop up sagging rails and refurbish rolling stock.

But John Boehner said discussing Amtrak funding in the wake of the crash was “stupid”. Boehner noted that the crash was caused by the train going too fast, not bad infrastructure. Republicans prefer to attack the national train system because only Democrats ride trains, not good truck driving folks. We should invest in modern high-speed trains to zip Americans around the country. We could also invest in a better safety infrastructure so that train wrecks don’t happen if they are the fault of the engineer or conductor. Instead, the rail industry and its Republican friends are pushing for the reduction of train crews on freight trains, which could cause more crashes.

Sadly, the Goldilocks Moment (when it’s “just right”) to discuss practical responses to a tragedy can be discerned only by Mr. Boehner. Yesterday was too early, and politicized the tragedy by pointing out how Republican policies and governance set the stage for eight people to be killed. At some point, John Boehner will tell us it’s now “too late” to get any legislation in the hopper.

Amtrak has received $45 billion in subsidies from the 1970’s to the present. That’s about one year’s taxpayer support for big oil. Democrats should absolutely push for greater Amtrak funding in the wake of the crash.

Don’t expect Boehner or any Republican to take any real heat for opposing this, but it makes their moral position on these issues completely clear.

Time to wake up America! Infrastructure upgrading is not anti-American. For your morning wake up call, here is the Veery Thrush, also called the Wilson’s Thrush:

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

Monday’s Hot Links:

The Antarctic’s Larsen “B” and “C” ice shelf’s are going away by 2020. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that the “B” shelf is now “approaching demise.” NASA adds that the ice shelf “is likely to disintegrate completely before the end of the decade.” But, global warming is a hoax…

A 10-year-old oil leak where an offshore platform toppled during a hurricane could continue spilling crude into the Gulf of Mexico for a century or more if left unchecked. No, it isn’t the BP leak. Taylor Energy Company owned the platform and has played down the extent and environmental impact of the leak. The Coast Guard provided a leak estimate that is about 20 times greater than one provided by the company. Quelle surprise! An American company tries to minimize its responsibilities.

A New Zealand company called Touchpoint Group is building a robot that will be angry all the time. The idea is to let angry customers speak to a machine instead of human call center agents. The robot will collect the data to better serve you with bullshit responses.

Inequality Watch: Scientists find alarming deterioration in DNA of the urban poor. Well, if you lived a life of constant worry over money and how you would pay your bills, raise your kids with enough food, clothing and self-respect, your DNA might deteriorate too!!!

Raul Castro says that Pope Francis may get him to return to religion. Mr. Castro said: “I will resume praying and turn to the Church again if the Pope continues in this vein.” This Pope may really be the Rightologist!

Here is an extra wake-up for you this spring morning. Unclear how this pose happened, but it is relaxing: