The Wrongologist – Page 28 – Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Saturday Soother – April 15, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Wildflowers, Ennis, TX – April 2023 photo by Teresa Gawor

Welcome to the start of taxpayer’s blues weekend. The date for submitting your taxes is April 18 this year, since April 15 falls on a Saturday and Emancipation Day, a holiday observed in Washington, DC, is April 17. Around 88 million Americans still hadn’t filed by April 1, so there’s got to be some burning of the midnight oil this weekend.

Let’s talk about the leak of classified Pentagon documents by Jack Teixeira, a 21 year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Teixeira was arrested on Thursday for posting US secret documents in a private Discord chat room he hosted. The classified material was shared with some 20-30 room members, including some of whom were foreigners.

The details are depressing. The group had a taste for racist and anti-Semitic memes. The WaPo reports that they seemed to love guns, military gear and God.

What happens next will be a damage assessment by the US Intelligence Community (IC), along with some of the usual suspects staking out political positions about how inept the IC is by allowing another classified leak.

Sadly, Teixeira has already picked up supporters in the GOP, as this tweet by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shows:

It’s surprising how open and direct the pro-Putin Right is in linking Russia’s policies to those of the authoritarian white Christian secession movement in America. If you read Wrongo’s column yesterday on what’s dividing America, today’s tweet by Greene is a prime example of the difficulty in finding common cause with the extremist wing of the Republican Party.

Perhaps you didn’t see that Fox’s Tucker Carlson said that Teixeira deserves a medal not prison time. Or that he said that Teixeira is today’s Daniel Ellsberg. Others are saying that the racist meme and the god and guns framing aren’t true and are simply what the liberals at the DOJ and the NYT are spoon feeding to us. If you can stomach it, read some of the comments Right Wingers leave after viewing Tucker’s spew.

If this had happened when GW Bush was president, the GOP would be demanding that Teixeira receive a public execution.

But the GOP has moved on, and now there isn’t a substantial difference between Trump and Teixeira. The crimes are the same, and it seems, so are their motives. But Trump isn’t a 21-year old trying to impress his friends in a private forum. After four years as US president, he knows exactly why his behavior was criminal and dangerous.

And whatever sentence Teixeira receives should also apply to Trump, only with less leniency.

A basic question for the US Intelligence Community is how many more disaffected people are out there who have access to our intelligence? How many have a desire to steal it, either to stick it to the man or to simply hoard a few secrets? How many more IC oddballs are out there living in houses filled with terabytes of digital and paper secrets squirreled away?

That’s enough for today, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we block out all distractions and try to figure out how many miles our cars were driven for business in 2022.

Here on the fields of Wrong, it’s been in the high 80’s and it’s suddenly apparent that there’s plenty of yard work that needs doing. Wrongo has started trimming and shaping the bushes that seemed to grow wildly last year, even without much rain. Ms. Right helpfully says just chain saw them off to half their size. It will be brutal, but effective!

But before starting the yard work, let’s take a few minutes to center ourselves and try to prepare for the week to come.

Start by finding a seat near an open window. Now, watch and listen to the Vienna Philharmonic play Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann: Barcarolle” live and outdoors in Vienna in 2020. Here the orchestra is conducted by Valery Gergiev. Barcarolle comes from the Italian “barca” or boat. It is a traditional folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers, or a piece of music composed in that style:

Can America Come Back From Our Divide?

The Daily Escape:

Easter Sunday, Great Smokey Mountains NP – April 2023 photo by Melissa Russell

We’re back from our roughly 2,200 mile journey to Gettysburg PA, St. Augustine FL, and Charleston SC. The focus of our trip was visiting with family, and it didn’t disappoint. We saw about 40 family members in the three locations. Most are healthy and thriving, and there was lots of laughter.

But we also saw slices of different cultures than what we’re used to here in Connecticut. Wrongo wonders if the US has ever been as divided as it is now?

Yes we’ve been divided in the past, most notably before and during the Civil War. American schools still teach the Civil War to our kids, although like everything else, views on what it was fought about differ largely by geography and political leaning.

Between 1861-1865, we killed our fellow Americans at a prodigious rate, with about 620,000 dying. In fact, Americans killed more other Americans in that war than all of our adversaries did in eight of our wars combined: the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Gulf Wars. The Civil War stands alone when it comes to America being divided deeply enough that we killed each other in astonishing numbers.

The Civil War was about one issue: Slavery.

In today’s America, we’re fighting about everything: Gun control, abortion, climate change, fossil fuels, drilling, the environment, immigration, refugees, diversity, voting rights, elections, women’s rights, policing, who gets tax cuts, health care, LGBTQ+ rights, health care for transgender kids, bathrooms, books, what’s taught in classrooms, COVID-19, vaccines, poverty, welfare, unions, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, student debt, Trump, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and education.

These modern divisions exist without exception in every state. They are fought over with words, and occasionally, with weapons. They are fought about in our courts. Some on the political Right call for secession. In 2021, the University of Virginia Center for Politics released the results of a poll that found the majority of the individuals who voted to reelect Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections hoped that their state could secede from the Union.

“Hoping” isn’t doing something to make secession happen, although it’s a first step.

What’s worrisome is that like before the Civil War, there doesn’t seem to be a pathway forward to a common cause. Wrongo has written about “The Cause, The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783” by Joseph Ellis. It says that the founders had to create a blurry vision of the revolution because colonists were suspicious of the motives of other colonies. So the founders described their fight for independence as “The Cause”, an ambiguous term that covered diverse ideas and multiple viewpoints.

It succeeded in unifying us against the British.

Maybe America’s now reached a point where it’s possible that nothing will ever unite us again. Instead, we yell at each other across a chasm of ideological and political partisanship.

Our global reputation has sunk: We’re seen as an undereducated, and unhealthy nation. Many of us want our political opponents dead, while admiring the world’s autocrats. We’re tolerant of the gun slaughter of our children, and callous about the plight of our neighbors, especially if they are poor, sick, or different.

The annual World Happiness Report, based on data from Gallup’s World Poll of 24 developed nations, shows that Americans, when asked to evaluate their current life as a whole, are less content than the citizens of 14 other wealthy countries.

It’s worth noting that most of the countries whose citizens are happier than ours have governments that provide their residents with a sense of safety and security, a foundation on which their people can build a fulfilling life and an optimistic future. They can get treated for medical problems. They can afford life-saving medicine. They don’t fall into medical bankruptcy.

Their life expectancies are longer than ours and rising; America’s is falling.

They value higher education enough to provide it for free. They value families enough that their maternal care, both before and after birth, is outstanding. The US should be ashamed of our maternal mortality rate, which is higher than almost any other country, developed or not, in the world.

We desperately need to find a new “Cause” to bind us together.

Benjamin Franklin famously remarked at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that we had formed a republic if we could keep it.

We must get prepared both mentally and in our guts, to fight to keep this country together – AND to keep it a representative democracy.

The alternative looks horrendous.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – April 9, 2023

Wrongo and Ms. Right are in Charleston, SC. We will be heading back to CT on Monday. While this is time dedicated to family, the past week produced so much news that it seemed necessary to at least comment on some of it. But first, happy Easter to those who celebrate.

Let’s start with Mifepristone, one of two key drugs used for medicated abortion. On “good” Friday, a federal judge in Amarillo, TX decided that it should be banned. This happened despite 20 years of data showing it’s safe and effective. Mifepristone has a lower rate of complications than Tylenol. The judge’s opinion is equal parts junk science and religious screed. You can read the particulars of the case elsewhere. It’s clear that religious extremists are continuing their assault on the status of American women as equal citizens under the law.

Clarence Thomas. Thomas released a statement saying that he did not disclose the lavish gifts he received from right-wing megadonor Harlan Crow on the advice of “colleagues and others in the judiciary.” For more than 25 years, Thomas received free travel by jet and luxury accommodations (including stays on a yacht) that exceeded his salary by a significant percentage. Heather Cox Richardson pointed out that:

“Thomas said that he and his wife Ginni had been dear friends of the Crows for over 25 years, but he joined the court over 30 years ago…”

Whatever the explicit rules were, when someone is receiving economic benefits that exceed your salary, that benefit is corrupt.

Finally, Tennessee. This isn’t the first time the Right has denied elected representatives their seat, and it won’t be the last. Whenever they have the power, they’ll try it. It happened in Nashville last Thursday when the Republicans expelled two Black lawmakers, Justin Pierson and Justin Jones, for staging a protest for gun safety legislation on the floor of the Tennessee House. The punitive action for an act of protest marks just the third time since the Civil War era that the Tennessee House has expelled a lawmaker from its ranks.

This is another installment in the long-running series, “Black People Are Doing It Wrong”. Because there is no acceptable way for a Black person to express displeasure over anything in society. They just make White people too scared. Even a Black man kneeling down makes Whitey terrified. On to cartoons.

In another universe:

Tennessee operates a state park honoring Civil War soldier and KKK founder, Nathan Bedford Forrest, to this very day:

Congress pretends guns aren’t the problem:

Easter Bunny gives Trump a few eggs:

The Thomas Rules:

Monday Wake Up Call – April 3, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Just when you thought it was only a meme: The beer is tasty – April 2023 iPhone photo by Wrongo. You may not know that there is a “Florida Man Birthday Challenge” web site. (Hat tip to Amy DeP-O). Wrongo is born in December. Of the many December Florida man entries, Wrongo’s favorite is: “Florida Man says aliens have landed, burns down house stocked with flamethrowers and ammo.”

It was a rental property…

We’ve been here in the land of the anti-woke for a few days. No one in our family openly talks politics, so we just enjoy the fabulous food. But you’re aware that Trump was indicted by the NYC DA. You have probably heard that Trump said:

“Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who was handpicked and funded by George Soros, is a disgrace.”

That led to some research. But it’s no secret. The NYT reported that Soros has put money behind electing reform-minded prosecutors like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner and Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg. But he doesn’t fund them directly. His foundation donates to organizations that do field work like Color for Change. This isn’t any different from the right-wing billionaires who support right-wing organizations, issues and candidates.

So, when critics of Alvin Bragg say that he is backed by Soros, it should be similar to when critics say Republican politicians are backed by the Koch Brothers or the late Sheldon Adelson.

But bringing up George Soros feels different. The reason for vilifying Soros is rarely spelled out. You get general descriptors, like he’s a “globalist.” Of course, Soros IS Jewish, and the charge that rich Jews try to control the world for their own mysterious and nefarious reasons is an old and dangerous trope on the right. But Sheldon Adelson, who backed many Right-wing Republicans, including Trump was also Jewish.

Some say that people who mention Soros are anti-Semitic, and some probably are. Yes, he’s indirectly funded Bragg, but is Bragg doing something that wouldn’t have happened anyway? How exactly is Soros pulling Bragg’s strings? And why is Soros in more control of politicians he donates to than are donors on the right?

There’s zero indication that Bragg is bucking popular opinion to do the bidding of a Jewish billionaire, which is something you can’t say about many, many NRA-backed politicians.

The thing that impresses Wrongo the most is that while George Soros isn’t small potatoes on the billionaire list, the right-wing thinks he’s able to pay off millions of people, start revolutions, and influence deep states in dozens of countries without going broke.

Virtually every Republican politician has stood up for Trump, saying he’s the victim of a political witch hunt. Ron Brownstein lays out the Republican’s dilemma:

“The dilemma for the Republican Party is that Donald Trump’s mounting legal troubles may be simultaneously strengthening him as a candidate for the…presidential nomination and weakening him as a potential general-election nominee.”

It’s going to get worse for the GOP, since it’s highly likely that this is only the beginning of Trump’s legal troubles. There are possible charges from Fulton County, Georgia’s District Attorney Fani Willis. She has been examining Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results in her state. There are also the twin federal probes led by Special Counsel Jack Smith into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents and his role in the Jan. 6 effort to block Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election.

So, while Trump may lock up the primaries without difficulty, the recent NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist survey shows that 61% of Americans—including 64% of independents and 70% of college-educated white adults—said they did not want him to be president again.

That result was similar to the latest Quinnipiac University national poll, which found that 60% of Americans do not support Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

The challenge for the GOP is that about 80% of Republicans said they consider themselves part of the MAGA movement, and about 75% say they want him back in the White House. That means he will be the nominee, but not the next president.

Brownstein quotes Bryan Bennett, director of polling and analytics for the Democratic polling consortium that conducts the Navigator surveys:

“For the GOP to bet that Trump could overcome swing-voter revulsion over his legal troubles and win a general election by mobilizing even more of his base voters….seems to me the highest risk proposition that I can imagine.”

Time to wake up America! There’s nothing to be gained by letting the media, the GOP or Trump spin you up with irrelevant issues. Soros is just another wealthy white guy who wants to see change he can believe in.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Larkin Poe cover a Son House tune, “Preaching Blues”. Eddie House was a troubled man. He grappled for years with the seeming incompatibility between his growing love of the blues and his teenage desire to be a Baptist preacher:

Sample Lyric:

I’m gonna get me some religion
I’m gonna join the Baptist church
I’m gonna get me some religion
I’m gonna join the Baptist church
Gonna be a preacher
So I don’t have to work

Proposed Israeli Judicial Overhaul Threatens Civil War

The Daily Escape:

St. Augustine Beach, FL – 2015 photo by Wrongo

(New columns will be light and variable for the next 10 days as Wrongo and Ms. Right are off to our annual family reunion in Florida. New writing will begin in earnest sometime after April 12. As always, keep your tray tables in their upright and locked position and your arms inside the blog at all times.)

Are you following what’s going on in Israel? It’s been an important story, but it now seems to be getting bigger. From the NYT:

“Civil unrest broke out in…Israel Sunday night after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for criticizing the government’s judicial overhaul, which Gallant said is causing turmoil in the military and threatens Israel’s security.”

Here’s what Minister Gallant said that got him fired: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The rift within our society is widening and penetrating the Israel Defense Forces….[the schisms have caused]…a clear and immediate and tangible danger to the security of the state — I shall not be a party to this.”

By some media accounts, 600,000 people came out to protest across the country, which would mean that 6.5% of Israel’s population was on the streets.

The judicial overhaul was designed to give the government greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices and to limit the court’s authority over Parliament. It would give Netanyahu power to handpick the judges presiding over his corruption trial (he’s charged in three cases and faces potential prison time).

The proposed overhaul has pitted liberal and secular Jewish Israelis against more right-wing and religiously conservative citizens. The firing of the Defense Minister also prompted Israel’s largest workers’ union to call a general strike, while leading universities closed down, and Israel’s consul-general in New York resigned. Flights from Tel Aviv’s airport were grounded.

The near-rebellion has caused Netanyahu to announce a suspension of the proposed legislation. From the WaPo:

“Out of national responsibility, from a desire to prevent the nation from being torn apart, I am calling to suspend the legislation….When there is a possibility to prevent a civil war through negotiations, I will give a time-out for negotiations.”

That wasn’t enough for the leaders of the months-long protests against Netanyahu’s push to remake Israel’s judicial system. They called for demonstrations to continue since Netanyahu announced that he was suspending, but still planned to pass the legislation.

The Movement for Quality Government called on the leaders of Netanyahu’s political opposition to continue fighting, saying:

“The coup d’état laws must be shelved completely….Not paused, not halted. Shelved. The suspension of the legislation looks like a cheap political exercise designed entirely to wait for a good time to bring the blitz of anti-democratic legislation back into our lives.”

Wrongo generally doesn’t agree with Tom Friedman, but he’s right about this:

“Netanyahu and his coalition thought they could pull off a quick judicial coup, disguised as a legal “reform,” that would enable them to exploit the narrowest of election victories — roughly 30,000 votes out of some 4.7 million — to allow Netanyahu & Co. to govern without having to worry about the only source of restraint on politicians in Israel’s system: its independent judiciary and Supreme Court.”

More from Friedman on the multi-front wars that Netanyahu has undertaken since being reinstalled as Israel’s Prime Minister:

“Netanyahu’s extremist coalition is now taking on the Palestinians and Iran militarily while ignoring the wishes and values of its most important ally, the US government; its most important diaspora community, American Jews; and its most important source of economic growth, foreign investors.

And it’s doing all of that while dividing the Israeli people to the brink of a civil war.”

Civil war in Israel? Even Netanyahu mentioned the possibility in his offer to suspend the effort to pass the judicial overhaul.

Meanwhile Haaretz reported that Israel’s far-right party Otzma Yehudit said that they have struck a deal to allow Netanyahu to delay the judicial overhaul until after the Knesset recess in return for the establishment of a national guard under the control of the Party’s leader, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Netanyahu caved to Ben-Gvir after the ultra-nationalist minister had threatened to resign over Netanyahu’s announcement to shelve the legislation. The idea of a national guard under Ben-Gvir isn’t new. Early versions of the proposal included siphoning off Border Police officers to the national guard, as well as the recruitment of 10,000 volunteers.

This would be a highly inflammatory step given that Ben-Gvir has, in the past, called for the police to use live ammunition on rock-throwing protesters. Haaretz reports that Ben-Gvir told Netanyahu that he would vote against the state budget if it does not include funds for establishing a new national guard. From Haaretz:

“Israel’s oldest human rights organization, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, responded immediately by describing the proposed national guard as “a private, armed militia that would be directly under Ben-Gvir’s control.”

And the irony of Netanyahu treating ordinary Israelis like, well, Palestinians, can’t be lost on anyone right now. Biden should make it clear that it stands by a democratic Israel, not the one being fashioned by Bibi and his coalition partners.

Monday Wake Up Call – March 27, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Snow Geese flying over Daffodil fields with Mt. Baker in background, WA – March 2023 photo by Erwin Buske Photography

Three House Republican committee chairs are indicating that the House may soon take up legislation to strip state and local prosecutors of the authority to prosecute former presidents. They’re saying that America needs federal legislation to prevent Trump from being indicted by a state.

Is the bill going to be called the “Ex-Presidents Are Above the Law” Act? Surely they mean to draft legislation to protect only Republican presidents and not the Democratic ones.

There are a least two states that have Trump in their sights. Georgia for attempted election fraud, and New York for falsifying business records to hide the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels. In addition, there are civil suits in NY over his business practices and a defamation suit arising from an allegation of rape by the writer E Jean Carroll.

You may have heard that these same Congress critters sent a letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg requiring Bragg’s appearance in front of their committees to give evidence about the NY DA’s ongoing investigation into Trump. When Bragg said of their demand:

“It is not appropriate for Congress to interfere with pending local investigations,….This unprecedented inquiry by federal elected officials into an ongoing matter serves only to hinder, disrupt and undermine the legitimate work of our dedicated prosecutors.”

The trio followed up with another letter to Bragg rejecting his arguments. They wrote:

“Your conclusory claim that our constitutional oversight responsibilities will interfere with law enforcement is misplaced and unconvincing.”

Because: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“the potential criminal indictment of a former President of the United States by an elected local prosecutor of the opposing political party (and who will face the prospect of re-election) implicates substantial federal interests”.

They meant the former president is facing re-election, not Bragg. They added:

“Therefore, the Committee on the Judiciary, as a part of its broad authority to develop criminal justice legislation, must now consider whether to draft legislation that would, if enacted, insulate current and former presidents from such improper state and local prosecutions…”

We all know that this is more performative grandstanding by House Republicans. Since the Senate has a Democratic majority and the White House is held by Biden, a bill shielding ex-presidents from prosecution will not be enacted into law. But the Republicans persist. On Sunday, Rep. James Comer (R- KY), chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, insisted to CNN’s Jake Tapper that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is improperly conducting a federal investigation. From Aaron Rupar:

Comer has a BS in Agriculture, BTW. He soldiered on:

“We just want the government out of our elections….We believe the local DAs need to be focused on business crimes, on burglary, on theft …”

You have to be a moron to say you want the government out of our elections. States are in charge of their elections even in Comer’s Kentucky. And Trump wasn’t president when he allegedly orchestrated the payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels and then fraudulently altered his books to hide it.

Time to wake up America! There is no longer any reason to look for traditional Republicans inside of the GOP. And anyone who is attempting to strip state and local prosecutors of the authority needed to do their jobs just to protect their Party’s cult leader, well, that sounds like Fascism.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Pink Martini play “¿Dónde estás, Yolanda?” live from the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon on New Year’s Eve 2,005.

It is a fan favorite from their debut album, “Sympathique”, featuring vocalist China Forbes, and including Thomas Lauderdale on the piano, Gavin Bondy on trumpet, and featuring a trombone solo by Robert Taylor:

Where is Yolanda, and indeed, where are the traditional Republicans?

(This song is for friend of the blog Ashley G. who has some health issues and loves Pink Martini)

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – March 26, 2023

TikTok’s CEO testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week. He wasn’t well received. The main focus of your Congress critters was how TikTok could be weaponized against Americans through data surveillance and/or algorithm manipulation.

TikTok is used by about 150 million Americans. It may (or may not) be owned or controlled by the Chinese government. Given what we know about how American Big Tech abuses your data, and how China embraces surveillance as a tool of social control, it’s common sense to ask questions about how best to guard against TikTok’s misuse.

TikTok could be used to collect information on American citizens. But if TikTok was banned, that wouldn’t protect the privacy of American citizens. Many other companies are already collecting that information and are willing to sell it to any buyer.

The only thing that could protect the privacy of American citizens is a law preventing anyone from collecting that information: A law that would restrict all companies’ capacity to collect data on Americans, not simply TikTok’s.

A final argument made in Congress is that TikTok could be used to promote Chinese propaganda. It could; but is our government in the business of protecting us from a free flow of ideas? If America is still a democracy, people should be free to promote or listen to any kind of speech. That is the very essence of free speech. On to cartoons.

Why hammer only the Chinese?

The hypocrisy by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs after the bank failure was breathtaking:

Tranny vs. tyranny. GOP knows what it hates:

Stormy weather ahead:

More hypocrisy by Republicans:

Woke or witch, it’s all the same:

Vlady isn’t into upsets:

Saturday Soother – March 25, 2023

The Daily Escape:

The Neon Museum at night, Las Vegas, NV – March 2023 photo by Linda Hoggard Henderson

The US confirmed Thursday that it had struck an Iranian-backed group in northeastern Syria after it launched a drone attack against a US base in Syria, killing one US contractor and injuring another along with five US troops. On Friday, the Iran proxy forces launched seven rockets at a US base in northeast Syria on Friday in retaliation.

Wait. We’re still in Syria? Yep, the US still maintains about 900 troops in Syria after Trump ordered the withdrawal of roughly 2,000 in 2018. Video footage indicates that the strike was in Deir Ez-Zor, a Syrian province that borders Iraq and contains significant oil fields.

We entered Syria uninvited in 2015. Our invasion was based on two ideas, one commendable and the other disastrously stupid from the start.

We were misguided in our effort to identify, train and equip the local “good jihadis” to take on the Syrian government. These so-called good jihadis understood we were gullible dupes from day one. It turned out that all we accomplished was to supply better weapons to ISIS.

The commendable effort was our direct support of the Rojava Kurds in their existential battle against the ISIS jihadis. We had experience fighting with them against ISIS in Iraq. We weren’t invited by Syria to help the Rojava Kurds, but it was a fight against a mutual enemy. And at the time, Syria exercised no control in the region.

The main fighting was by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) of the Rojava Kurds. We entered the conflict by conducting airstrikes aimed at Kobani and embedding two Special Forces teams with the YPG, who later captured Kobani.

Our tiny presence with the YPG metastasized into creation of the Syrian Defense Force (SDF). Now, it’s clear that we have stayed too long. We should have been preparing the YPG and SDF for integration into the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). We failed to do that, and we remain there because we promised both groups we’d stand by them, stoking their false hopes of independence from Syria.

We don’t belong there anymore than the Russian Army belongs in Ukraine. Like Ukraine, Syria is a sovereign state and can choose whomever it wants to align with, and who it doesn’t.

How can we demand that Russia exit Ukraine’s sovereign territory while we remain in Syria, uninvited?

We should leave. With all that’s going on elsewhere, taking Syria off the table should be a no-brainer for Biden. We should coordinate our leaving with Syria and the Russians, so as not to be seen as disappearing into the night.

On the way out the door, we need to make it clear to the Rojava Kurds and the SDF that we’re going to leave, and that now they must negotiate an accommodation with the Syrian government.

That’s enough geopolitics for this week. It’s time for our Saturday Soother. Wrongo and Ms. Right are just back from Napa Valley and our granddaughter’s wedding. And Spring has sprung here on the fields of Wrong. It’s already clear that Wrongo is behind on his annual spring cleanup. The woods are taking on the vague red color of new buds, and our Bradford Pear also has buds. Yesterday, we put out our Bluebird nesting boxes.

Let’s relax for a few minutes and center ourselves before next week brings us another political atrocity, like the firing of a Florida school principal after three parents complained about an art teacher showing a picture of Michelangelo’s 16^th century sculpture of David. Time to get fig leaves put on all the statues in Florida.

Let it go. Now, sit in your favorite chair and watch and listen to Alana Youssefian and the Voices of Music perform “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on original instruments used in Vivaldi’s time. This features Youssefian playing a baroque violin. They bring life to this Vivaldi old favorite that you’ve heard many times, making it something fun, and joyful. It’s definitely worth your time:

China’s Triangulation Of Russia And The West

The Daily Escape:

Joshua tree in bloom, Joshua Tree National Landmark SW, UT – March 2023 photo by Lisa Simer

We’re back at the Mansion of Wrong after a few lovely days in St. Helena, CA. Surprisingly, it seems that lots of things happened while we were away. From Heather Cox Richardson:

“So, for all the chop in the water about the former president facing indictments, the story that really seems uppermost to me today is the visit China’s president Xi Jinping made today to Moscow for a meeting with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.”

In 2015, shortly after Russia intervened in the Syrian Civil War, Wrongo asked a visiting Russian author who spoke at our local library whether Putin wanted to move Russia closer to the west or to the east. He said unequivocally that Putin was a product of the west and would keep Russia in the west’s orbit.

It’s clear that he was wrong. Russia has moved away from the west, possibly permanently. Earlier in March, Wrongo said the following:

“The US is attempting to isolate both China and Russia. With Russia, we’re using ever-tightening economic sanctions. With China, we’re building a geographic containment strategy among our allies in Asia.”

And on Monday, Chinese President Xi met with Russian President Putin in Moscow. Here’s a meeting summary from the blog Institute for the Study of War:

“… [the meeting]…on March 20…offered a more reserved vision for Russian-Chinese relations than what Putin was likely seeking. Xi and Putin touted the strength of Chinese-Russian relations in their meeting…but offered differing interpretations of the scale of future relations….on March 19 Putin published an article in Chinese state media in which he argued that Russia and China are building a partnership for the formation of a multipolar world order in the face of the collective West’s seeking of domination and the United States pursuing a policy of dual containment against China and Russia.”

….Xi offered a less aggressive overarching goal for Russian-Chinese relations in his article published in Russian state media….in which he noted that Russia and China are generally pursuing a multipolar world order but not specifically against an adversarial West. Xi instead focused…on presenting China as a viable third-party mediator to the war in Ukraine….

David Ignatius concluded in the WaPo that the meeting was about:

“A strong China…bolstering a weak Russia….The Chinese aren’t providing weapons (yet), but Xi certainly offered moral and psychological support in what might be described as a get-well visit to an ailing relative….The paradox of the Ukraine war is that Putin’s bid for greater power in Europe has made him weaker. This diminished Russia will fall increasingly under China’s sway….Maybe that’s the biggest reason for Xi’s…visit: He is bolstering a flank against America and the West.”

China’s dominance over Russia will grow if Russia cannot find a way to end the war in Ukraine. Russia has lost its energy markets in Europe because of the invasion, so it must depend heavily on demand from China. China’s growing economic power in Asia coupled with its capabilities in space, cyber, and artificial intelligence will increasingly dwarf Russia’s.

Russia’s economy is concentrated on exports of energy. It also has a major population problem. The Economist reports: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Over the past three years the country has lost around 2million more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war, disease and exodus. The life expectancy of Russian males aged 15 fell by almost five years, to the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had been in the months of Hitler’s occupation.”

“…the life expectancy at birth of Russian males plummeted from 68.8 in 2019 to 64.2 in 2021, partly because of Covid…Russian men now die six years earlier than men in Bangladesh and 18 years earlier than men in Japan.”

And the Economist says the exodus of well-educated young people at the start of the Ukraine War also hurts Russia’s future. According to its communications ministry, 10% of IT workers left the country in 2022. Many were young men, further skewing Russia’s unbalanced sex ratio. In 2021 there were 121 females over 18 for every 100 males. More:

“Demographics is rapidly making Russia a smaller, worse-educated and poorer country, from which young people flee and where men die in their 60s.”

As Wrongo said, separating China from Russia used to be a central goal of US foreign policy. The Biden administration tried that strategy in reverse: Warming relations with Moscow at the June 2021 summit in Geneva in part to concentrate on the challenge China presented.

How did that work out?

Now it’s China trying the role of triangulator. Xi’s playing off the split between the US and Russia, helping Putin, but also keeping some distance while building China’s bona fides with the third world.

Xi’s also used China’s close relations with Iran to make a diplomatic breakthrough between the Saudis and the Iranians, something that the US could never achieve.

We seem powerless to blunt what’s happening before our eyes.

And all the while, the Republican Party of the world’s greatest superpower argues about drag queens and wokeness.

Wake up America! Check out what China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia are building for us. You’re not going to like it.

Final Thoughts On The SVB Situation

The Daily Escape:

Spring wildflowers, Four Peaks Wilderness, AZ – March 2023 photo by Chris Flores

(This will be the final column for this week as Wrongo and Ms. Right are heading to CA for the Napa Valley wedding of granddaughter Nicole. Columns will resume on 3/23)

Several readers commented on how Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) major problem went beyond Wrongo’s discussion of asset management. They’re all former bankers and former colleagues of Wrongo, and they rightly brought up liability management as a key contributor to SVB’s problem.

For banks, the deposits that people make are the bank’s liabilities. The essence of banking is borrowing short term (deposits, overnight borrowings and medium term borrowings) in order to lend that money out for a longer term (mortgages, long term loans or, investments in bonds and long dated US treasuries). The difference between what they pay on their liabilities and what they earn on their loans and investments (the spread) is how banks make their profits.

SVB had little risk that their loans wouldn’t be eventually paid back (credit risk), but they did have substantial interest rate risk if rates went up. That included the risk that the face value of the bonds they invested in would decline in value in higher interest rate scenarios.

This is a well-known challenge for all banks. They try to maintain enough of their assets in easily sold investments so if there’s an unforeseen need to pay out cash to depositors, they can meet that need. The bigger the expected (or unexpected) cash need, the more assets the bank must hold that are easily converted to cash.

It wasn’t a surprise to the banking industry that the Federal Reserve (Fed) was raising rates; Chair Powell clearly said they were going to do that until inflation was under control. Basic liability management principles should have told SVB to move to hedge the risks in a rising rate environment by investing more in very short term (near cash) assets. But SVB didn’t. Maybe they thought they knew better.

SVB isn’t alone. The Fed raised interest rates quickly and sharply during 2022, so the face value of bonds fell. According to the FDIC, US banks were sitting on $620 billion in unrealized losses (assets that had decreased in market value but were still on their books at purchase price) at the end of 2022.

Of that amount, Bank of America alone had unrealized losses of around $114 billion, or 18% of the total.

A major risk that the banks didn’t correctly anticipate was the effect of huge cash injections into the economy during the pandemic, along with a prolonged period of historically low interest rates that predated the pandemic. That had ripple effects on all banks. According to Marc Rubinstein:

“Between the end of 2019 and the first quarter of 2022, deposits at US banks rose by $5.4 trillion. With loan demand weak, only around 15% of that volume was channeled towards loans; the rest was invested in securities portfolios or kept as cash.”

Then came the Fed’s rapid rise in interest rates. From FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg:

“The current interest rate environment has had dramatic effects on the profitability and risk profile of banks’ funding and investment strategies….Unrealized losses weaken a bank’s future ability to meet unexpected liquidity needs,”

Banks do not continually adjust the value of their bond portfolio to market. So their unrealized losses can be difficult for an outsider to see. It also means banks find that selling parts of the portfolio will bring in less cash than they may need, because the securities are worth less in the market than they originally paid for them. That happened to SVB.

From Michael Batnick at Irrelevant Investor:

“Without the pandemic, rates are not at zero for two years. Without the pandemic, $638 billion does not go into venture capital. Without the pandemic, rates don’t go from 0% to 4.5% in a year. And without the pandemic, we wouldn’t be talking about a run on the bank.”

So there’s plenty of blame to go around. The SVB management surely failed: More Treasury bills and fewer bonds would have helped, that’s for sure. They had to know that their customer base, which was concentrated in start-ups, were hemorrhaging cash. They knew that they had unrealized losses in their bond portfolio. Shouldn’t they have shortened their asset mix?

Should we blame the regulators or SVB’s auditors? KPMG gave them a clean bill of health just a few weeks before they went belly up. You would think KPMG should have seen what was coming. And the Fed just announced that they are leading a review of “the supervision and regulation of Silicon Valley Bank in light of its failure.”

For SVB, the government drastically changed its policy about insured deposits. Had SVB been “The Bank of Depositors With No Political Clout”, you can bet that the $250,000 insured deposit limit would have been enforced. And depositors with larger deposits would have had to wait for their money.

But, the exception was made, and now, it will certainly happen again. Ben Carlson says it best: