Ukraine and Hunter Biden dominated cartoons this week. Here we go.
The GOPâs answer:
Tables get turned on âcontextâ as GOP equivocates:
Twin tunnels:
The other border crisis:
Theyâve got the wrong guy:
GOP is decorating a sparse tree:
The Daily Escape:
Surf, Shore Acres SP, OR – December 2023 photo by Alan Nyri Photography
Next week is the last before the Christmas and New Yearâs festivities. The extended holiday time will reduce Wrongoâs output and most likely limit his posts to season-appropriate musical selections. But thatâs next week. With what remains of this week, here are some snippets from longer articles.
First, from Kyle Tharp, âInside the first-ever White House holiday party for internet celebsâ:
âItâs the influencer party,â I overheard one Secret Service officer mumble to another….We were in line for one of the annual White House Holiday Receptions…where allies of the President, dignitaries, and the press are invited to gather for spiked eggnog and hors d’oeuvres while touring the newly unveiled holiday decorations. Unlike past parties, however, the guest list for the reception…was unprecedented: this event was organized by the White Houseâs Office of Digital Strategy….That meant the median age of attendees was probably decades younger than most holiday shindigs in DC, and the cumulative social media audience of those in attendance approached 100 million followers.â
Jill Biden gave a short toast:
âWelcome to the White House….Youâre here because you all represent the changing way people receive news and information.â
Next, Politico reports that Bidenomics is a big hit outside the US:
âBidenomicsâ is falling flat with American voters. But the rest of the world canât get enough of it.
The Inflation Reduction Actâs (IRA) mix of support for clean energy technologies and efforts to box out foreign competitors is also promoting a kind of green patriotism â and even some politicians on the right outside the US say thatâs a climate message they can sell:
âItâs probably the most impressive piece of legislation in my lifetime,â ex-diplomat Marc-AndrĂ© Blanchard, an executive at Canadaâs biggest pension fund, told POLITICO at the…COP28 UN climate talks…â
Bidenâs climate law has shown leaders around the world that winner-picking is back, something that has been out of fashion for the past 40 years. The IRA is having a real-world impact as investors shift their money to the US from abroad, hungry to take advantage of US tax breaks:
âIn July, for example, Swiss solar manufacturer Meyer Burger canned plans to build a factory in Germany, choosing Arizona instead.â
Third, The Hill reports that buried in the just-passed defense bill was an anti-Trump nugget:
âCongress has approved legislation that would prevent any president from withdrawing the United States from NATO without approval from the Senate or an Act of Congress.â
The measure, spearheaded by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), was included in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and is expected to be signed by Biden.
You have to give credit to Lilâ Marco, a shameless Trump supporter who publicly slams Biden, but who clearly understands that Trump back in office is a massive threat. Itâs interesting that both Houses passed this, meaning that some House Republicans are acknowledging that Trump will abandon the US commitment to NATO if he gets the choice.
Finally, Drones. They are rapidly changing how soldiers fight, and as both sides in the Ukraine War grow more dependent on them, itâs becoming clear that the US doesnât have the countermeasures that can defeat drone attacks. From Foreign Policy magazine:
âThe advent of pervasive surveillance…has created a newly transparent battlefield. Ubiquitous drones and other technologies make it possible to track, in real time, any troop movements by either side, making it all but impossible to hide massing forces and concentrations of armored vehicles from the enemy.â
More:
âThat same surveillance…makes sure that forces, once detected, are immediately hit by barrages of artillery rounds, missiles, and suicide drones.â
As drones take an increasingly prominent role in modern warfare, itâs clear that the need to disable or kill them is critical. Back in the stone age, when Wrongo was an air defense officer, it was the domain of specialist units with very expensive equipment. Now, the proliferation of small, cheap drones is spreading the anti-drone role down to the infantry squad level. From the WSJ:
âPentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante said…that the US needed a surge in production of counterdrone technology, and that a lack of such equipment was hampering operations in both Ukraine and Israel.â
While Ukraine has successfully used drones throughout the war, Russia has recently improved its capabilities. Thatâs causing Ukraine to lose 10,000 drones a month. Both sides are also expanding their capacity to make drones. More from the WSJ: (brackets by Wrongo)
âRussia has been very effective at bringing Ukrainian drones down by sending out more powerful signals to control the drone than [can] its actual operator….This ability to jam drone signals means that Ukrainian operators have to move closer to the front line to maintain a signal with their [drones]…â
State-of-the-art drone Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) are severely lagging in the West, reducing our ability to help Ukraine, and potentially endangering us here at home. Warfare has changed and Americaâs playing catch-up. You better believe China is going to school on drone warfare in Ukraine.
Enough of the scary stuff. Itâs time for our Saturday Soother, where we decide to unplug from all news all the time and spend a few moments gathering ourselves before the rush of news and holiday shopping that will fill next week.
Start by arranging yourself in a comfy chair by a south-facing window. Now, watch and listen to Edvard Griegâs  Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 âMorning Moodâ. It is performed here by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan in 1983:
Practically every human being has heard this at least once in their life.
The Daily Escape:
Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, ME – December 2023 drone photo by Rick Berk Photography
There are plenty of newsworthy items as we end another week. You can read about them all over the internet. Wrongo wants to highlight just one: The Dow Jones index is up 29% since bottoming on Sept. 30, 2022, climbing to a new all-time high.
This is mostly due to the announcement by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday that in all likelihood, there will be no more increases in interest rates, and that there may be as many as three interest rate reductions in 2024.
Professional investors arenât following the Dow, but it remains a mental benchmark that many Americans use to gauge the health of the stock market and the economy. So accept good news when it shows up.
Today we return to the topic of illegal immigration. As Wrongo writes this, there is still no deal on immigration, which is thought to be the hold-up on funding for Ukraine and Israel. From Semaphore:
âGOP negotiators said they believed they were making progress in securing a border policy package thatâs tilted toward conservative priorities….They also welcomed the…Democratic attacks on the negotiations…..âThere are several Democrats that have spoken against it,â GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, (R-NC) told Semafor. âThat means weâre hitting the right sort of tone.ââ
Wrongo mentioned that it is very difficult to find facts from either side in the immigration debate. One constant refrain from the Right is that terrorists are slipping over the southern border, posing an existential threat to America, and itâs all Bidenâs fault. From CBS:
âRepublican lawmakers, GOP White House hopefuls and conservative media figures have argued that the Biden administration’s border policies have given terrorists an easier way to enter the US and harm Americans. On Monday…Trump claimed that the “same people” who killed or abducted more than 1,000 civilians in Israel are coming across the southern border separating the US and Mexico…â
And Media Matters added:
âSince the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and the subsequent bombing campaign in Gaza, Fox News has seized on the chaos in the Middle East to revive its relentless fearmongering campaign suggesting that migrants crossing into the US at the southern border are terrorists, this time from the Middle East. Foxâs toxic rhetoric follows âa spike in hate incidentsâ against Muslims in the US.â
There has been an increase in Border Patrol apprehensions of individuals who are on the US terror watchlist over the past two years. But they represent a tiny fraction of all migrants processed along the southern border. From the NYT: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âFrom October last year to this September, officials at the southern border arrested 169 people whose names matched those on the watch list, compared with 98 during the previous fiscal year and 15 in 2021, according to government data. But that is a minuscule fraction of the total number of migrants who were apprehended at the border over the past year, more than two million.â
That fraction is less than 0.01% for those of us without calculators. Finding illegals who are on the terror watch list is far more common along the US-Canada border, despite much lower levels of unauthorized migration there. Hereâs a US Customs and Border Protection chart:
Customs and Border Protection recorded more than 430 watchlist hits along the northern border in fiscal year 2023, the vast majority of them at official ports of entry.
Still, there are concerns. In its homeland threat assessment for 2024, the intelligence branch of DHS said:
â…record encounters of migrants arriving from a growing number of countries have complicated border and immigration security…â
The assessment also said a recent increase in apprehensions of migrants from the Eastern Hemisphere, while still significantly lower than those from the Western Hemisphere, has âexacerbated border security challengesâ because those individuals require more vetting and processing and because itâs more difficult to deport them.
Thereâs also the question of migrants who arenât apprehended. The Border Patrol estimates more than 1 million individuals have entered the country surreptitiously over the past two years.
Republicans in Congress now talk about the southern border primarily as a national security issue rather than largely as a collective fear of the âgreat replacementâ. If hundreds of thousands of migrants are evading apprehension, these national security fears have merit. But since terror watch list apprehensions are tiny and a lot higher along our northern border, that border most likely poses an equal threat to national security, if not more, since the security along the northern border is lax. We donât really have any idea how many evade apprehension by crossing it.
Despite the constant hammering by Fox and the Right, since 1975 no one has been killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the US that involved someone who came across the border illegally. Whenever Congress gets around to dealing with illegal immigration, the solution will require more manpower both for the border patrol and immigration services.
Immigrants will keep on coming. Migration is a part of human nature. Europeans came to North America before America was a country. The peoples of the UK are not the peoples that were there 5,000 years ago. The vast majority of UK citizens have little DNA from the original peoples of those islands. That is also true in the US.
History shows that trying to stop immigration all together is a foolâs errand.
Regardless of how successful we are at controlling immigration, the US demographics of the past 250 years will look VERY different from the US demographics of 100 years from now. That doesnât mean we should give up on controlling the process as much as possible. Part of that is to increase the costs of crossing the border, which we are doing today with instant expulsion and denial of asylum claims.
And once people are here, we must do all we can to get them integrated into US society.
The Daily Escape:
Sunrise, Henry Driggers Park, Brunswick, GA – December 2023 photo by Kyle Morgan
âDress me up for battle when all I want is peace
Those of us who pay the price come home with the leastâ
(from 1976âs âHarvest for the Worldâ, by the Isley Brothers)
There are only 11 days left until Christmas, and there are only three more days this year when the Senate is in session, and just two days left for the House. That schedule could be amended and lengthened if both Houses can reach agreement on anything before they break this Friday.
Prime among the legislation that should/must pass is aid for Ukraine. And Ukraine’s president Zelenskyyâs in Washington to try to help turn a few politicians to help. From the WaPo:
âThe visit â less than three months after Zelenskyyâs last trip to Washington â comes at a critical time for the supplemental appropriations bill….Republicans have demanded that the package include border policy changes, and some Democrats criticized the White House on Monday for being willing to give up too much in those negotiations after Biden said he was willing to agree to âsignificantly moreâ to strike a deal.â
Biden says heâs willing to deal, but Congress seems very likely to leave for the holidays without passing any new Ukraine package. From David Frum in The Atlantic:
âThe ostensible reason is that they want more radical action on the border than the Biden administration has offered. The whole aid package is now stalled, with potentially catastrophic consequences for Ukraine. Ukrainian units are literally running out of ammunition.â
More:
âHow is any of this happening? On past evidence, a clear majority of Senate Republicans sincerely want to help Ukraine. Probably about half of House Republicans do too. In a pair of procedural test votes in September, measures to cut or block aid to Ukraine drew, respectively, 104 and 117 Republican votes of the 221 (Republicans then) in the caucus.â
Bidenâs offer to negotiate with Republicans about the border is meaningful. The fundamental reason for todayâs border crisis is that would-be immigrants game the asylum system. The system is overwhelmed by the numbers claiming asylum. Most of those claims will ultimately be rejected, but the processing of each takes years. In the meantime, most asylum seekers will be released into the US.
Bidenâs proposal is $14 billion of additional funding that would pay for 1,600 new staff in the asylum system. New hires can speed up the process, reducing the incentive for asylum claimants who get de facto US residency while their claim is pending.
But are Republicans willing to negotiate? It doesnât seem like they are. The Republicans in the Senateâs  position is stated by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) who said:
âThereâs a misunderstanding on the part of Senator Schumer….This is not a traditional negotiation, where we expect to come up with a bipartisan compromise on the border. This is a price that has to be paid in order to get the supplemental.â
This is 2023: For some Republicans, what matters isnât what they get, but how they get it.
Thatâs also true in the House where Speaker Johnson (R-Bible) told Zelenskyy that the US southern border should come first in negotiations with Democrats over aid for Ukraine.
Clearly the Republican House members are in it to strike poses and television hits. They do not want to make deals. They each want to position themselves as the one true conservative too pure for dealmaking. The only things theyâre willing to admit they want are the things they know to be impossible.
Itâs a complicated situation, because House Republicans have one set of immigration demands while Republicans in the Senate refuse to say what their demands are.
This means Biden has to make a deal that Senate Democrats wonât want. Otherwise weâre headed to a ânoâ that will doom Ukraine and disgrace the US in the eyes of the world while doing nothing to remedy the crisis at the border.
If Congressional leadership was ever needed, itâs needed today.
Jon V. Last in the Bulwark lists the two real-world reasons for Biden to give in. First, that Ukraine is more important than our domestic immigration policy:
âThe war is a finite event, the results of which will influence global economics and security for years and decades to come. Depending on the outcome, NATO will either congeal or fracture. Peace and security in Europe will either stabilize or destabilize. China will either be deterred or encouraged in its quest to subjugate Taiwan.â
Second, immigration is a perennial challenge for America. Even if we âsolvedâ current immigration problems today, next year, weâd have more immigration problems to re-solve:
âImmigration does need reform. Huge sections of the system are broken, the humanitarian crisis at the border is real, and there are some areas where Democrats and Republicans have similar views of which reforms are needed.â
Jon Last also points out that there are good political reasons for Biden to make a deal. First, a deal makes Republicans co-owners of the border problem. For Republicans, immigration is like abortion: Itâs not an issue they want to solve; itâs a political club they want to wield.
Second, Biden can paint Republicans as anti-Ukraine even after making an immigration deal. He can say that Republicans didnât want to fund Ukraine (which polls well with voters) so he had to take action to make sure they didnât hand Putin a victory.
Third, an immigration deal shores up Bidenâs position with Hispanic and swing voters. Immigration is a very important issue to voters and large majorities of them disapprove of Bidenâs immigration policies.
Fourth, Biden can then reinforce his 2024 narrative that the election is a choice between governing, or chaos. Heâs going to try to disqualify Trump and make 2024 a contest between a workhorse who gets bipartisan compromises done and a chaos agent who burns everything down.
JV Last says:
âCutting a deal on immigration in order to get aid to Ukraine lets Biden say (a) âIâm the guy who gets business done by doing bipartisan compromise,â but also (b) âIf you donât like this deal, Democratic voters, then we have to win back the House.â
Good thinking from Last.
Wrongo has generally steered clear of debates over immigration and the Wall because they have a high noise to signal ratio, and neither side is always great on the facts.
Itâs curious: You would assume that all Republicans should be pounding on their Congressional representatives to increase the number of immigration judges immediately! But they arenât since that would conflict with their idea of shrinking the administrative state. They shouldnât be able to have it both ways.
One way to cut illegal immigration down would be to crack down on foreign remittances. Most immigrants are sending money back home to help the rest of their families survive. If remittances required an ID card that only citizens or those with a valid visa could obtain, remittances would fall.
All we can do now is hope for cooler heads to make a deal before year end.
The Daily Escape:
Garden of The Gods, CO – December 2023 photo by James H. Egbert
It’s another Monday, and the world is still a mess. There is so much division here at home that we forget that the rest of the world is  boiling over with wars. Not a world war, but there are wars everywhere around the world. Americans are focused on the Ukraine War and the Israel/Hamas war, but there are local and regional wars we barely hear about.
From Hal Gershowitz:
âAmong the deadliest wars so far in this still young century are the Second Congo War, the Syrian Civil War, the Darfur War in western Sudan, the war in Afghanistan following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the war against Boko Harem in Nigeria, the Yemeni Civil War, Russia’s current war against Ukraine, and, of course, the current blood-letting between Israel and Hamas.â
More:
âAccording to the Geneva Academy….more than 110 armed conflicts are raging worldwide.â
Gershowitz says that in 2022, 237,000 men, women, and children died from organized violence, double the number of armed conflict deaths of the year before. While the bloody toll for 2023 hasn’t been compiled yet, we should expect the numbers to exceed those of 2022.
The Middle East, including North Africa, is the most blood-soaked region of the world, hosting more than 45 shooting wars. We know about the Israel/Hamas fight, but we hear much less about ongoing armed conflicts in Cyprus, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Turkey, Yemen and Western Sahara.
There are scores of other active hot conflicts, most of which don’t ever make headlines: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan are among the most dangerous places on the planet for civilians.
War dead in this region alone adds up to between hundreds and thousands every day. Some countries, such as the Central African Republic, have had multiple wars. Last year, the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region accounted for over 100,000 battle-related deaths, according to Oslo’s Peace Research Institute.
Currently, there are 21 separate armed conflicts raging in Asia, two of which are considered international wars (India-Pakistan and skirmishes between India and China). In some countries, such as Pakistan and the Philippines, there are multiple armed conflicts taking place simultaneously. Both countries are host to six separate regional in-country conflicts.
While everyone is familiar with Putin’s war in Ukraine, there are five other European nations (or territories) that Russian armies have occupied, including Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Moldova’s Transdniestria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia (Georgia).
The deaths in Ukraine are adding up. The US estimated in August that there were approximately 300,000 Russian casualties, including as many as 120,000 deaths and 180,000 wounded. Ukrainian losses were estimated at 70,000 deaths and 120,000 wounded. Since those estimates were released, the toll of dead and wounded on both sides has climbed even higher.
In our hemisphere, there are six armed conflicts in Latin Americaâthree in Mexico and three in Columbia.
The 21st Century is still young, but itâs horribly violent. China is eyeing Taiwan, North Korea is elbowing its way into the nuclear club, and Iran, which follows the Shia form of Islam, is eying all of Arabia, which embraces Sunni Islam.
Back to Israel/Hamas for a few random thoughts: First, at the start of any new armed conflict, the UN, occasionally the US and other nations, call for an immediate cease fire. There hasnât been a durable cease fire in this century. Yet, Steve Coll in the New Yorker had this to say:
âEven a temporary ceasefire displays the moral power of peacemaking. Last week, as a shaky truce to allow prisoner and hostage swaps and aid deliveries quieted the ruinous war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli families welcomed back more than a hundred children and older adults whom Hamas and its allies had kidnapped on October 7th…..In the West Bank, jubilant crowds waved the flags of Fatah and Hamas as Palestinian parents hugged their teen-age children released from Israeli jails.â
More:
âCeasefires usually donât end wars because they donât address the issues that underlie them. (A study of sixty-seven civil wars published in the Journal of Peace Studies in 2021 found no evidence that ceasefires and prisoner releases led to sustainable peace agreements.)â
Specifically with respect to Israel/Hamas, we canât see what the end state looks like. Netanyahu visited Gaza during the ceasefire and cited three aims: âeliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages, and insuring that Gaza does not become a threat to the State of Israel again.â
As Wrongo said two months ago, it is difficult to see how the second objective can be achieved in tandem with the first. Regardless of what Netanyahu thinks, the third will not be controlled by Israel, even though it may be the most important of Israelâs three objectives.
Another problem is that this war is causing a terrible divide in America. Think about how quickly U of Pennâs president Liz Magill was forced to resign after giving a truthful and legally correct answer to an utterly bad faith question. The question she was asked was, âIs calling for the genocide of Jews always a violation of Pennâs code of conduct in regard to bullying and harassment?â
Now, no rational person is in favor of genocide, but Rep. Stefanikâs question implies that simply speaking out in support of Palestinians is the equivalent of calling for Jewish genocide. Plenty of today’s college students support Palestine, and very few of them think that Jews should be exterminated.
Stefanikâs question asks us to ignore peopleâs free speech rights when they are awful and noxious. It lands very close to the witch hunting of McCarthyism in the 1950s.
Also, itâs clear in Wrongoâs circle that people are afraid to express opinions on the Israel/Hamas war, because whatever is said is sure to offend someone. It could possibly be enough to cause a threatening retaliation. Whatâs worse is that not a single person will live or die in the Middle East because of anything anyone says or doesn’t say at the University of Pennsylvania or in Wrongoâs hometown.
There is nothing at stake in the performative rage about what’s said at college demonstrations. It’s all empty theater.
Time to wake up America! If Republicans and other hardliners are able to make criticism of Israel a forbidden topic in mainstream society, that means our democracy will die right along with the many more deaths we will see in the Middle-East.
To help you wake up, watch and listen to a globally produced cover of Marvin Gayeâs âWhat’s Going Onâ by the people behind Playing For Change. This song came out in 1971 when the Vietnam war was still going on. Here it features Sara Bareilles among many other talented people:
Sample lyric:
Father, father
We don’t need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some loving here today…
Itâs the start of a brand new week with shopping opportunities! And you can watch our Senate and House members leave for their undeserved vacation without doing much. Try that at your house. On to cartoons.
Trump told us what he plans to do:
Trump thinks he has an âItâs Easyâ button:
Voters then and now:
The Republican Party sleeps through a real crisis:
The MAGAts are all in:
The economy sucks and the checkout lines are too long:
Tuberville feels heâs entitled to more obstruction:
The Daily Escape:
Wild surf, Shore Acres SP, OR – December 2020 photo by Alan Nyri Photography
Instead of a soothing Saturday, Wrongo has decided to wade into the hot steaming pile that is the controversy over whether the presidents of various prestige universities are sufficiently anti-genocide. What they said at the House hearings has raised a chorus of voices who think that the leadership at Harvard, MIT and UPenn just arenât anti-genocide enough.
From Bloombergâs Noah Feldman:
âThe lowlight of the House hearings on campus antisemitism…came when Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) asked the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania whether it would be bullying and harassment if someone on campus called for a genocide of Jews. The presidentsâ answers â that it depended on context â landed about as badly as it could have. Stefanik, a Trumpist Republican election denier, browbeat them and called it âunacceptable.â
Feldman is a law professor at Harvard. He went on to say:
âThe core idea of First Amendment freedom is that the expression of ideas should not be punished because doing so would make it harder, not easier, to find the truth. That freedom extends to the most hateful ideas imaginable, including advocacy of racism, antisemitism, and yes, genocide.â
Wrongo isnât a lawyer and this isnât a court or a classroom, so what follows is his take on this matter.
Can speech be constrained? In 1969, the Supreme Court protected a Ku Klux Klan member’s speech and created the “imminent danger” test to determine on what grounds speech can be limited, saying in Brandenburg v. Ohio that:
“The constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a state to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force, or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
Speech promoting violation of the law may only be restricted when it poses an imminent danger of unlawful action, where the speaker has the intention to incite such action, and there is the likelihood that this will be the consequence of that speech.
In 2017, the Court affirmed this in a unanimous decision on Matal v. Tam. The issue was about government prohibiting the registration of trademarks that are “racially disparaging”. Effectively, the Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed that there is no âhate speechâ exception to the First Amendment. Such speech can be prohibited when the very utterances inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.
There is plenty of case law on the First Amendment out there to read or about hate speech if you prefer to do your own research. From Wikipedia:
âIn the 1980s and 1990s, more than 350…universities adopted “speech codes” regulating discriminatory speech by faculty and students. These codes have not fared well in the courts, where they are frequently overturned as violations of the First Amendment.â
So, while University presidents may sound lawyer-like when asked if âcalling for genocide of Jewsâ should be prohibited, think about the long history of case law that says there are few limits on hate speech that do not result in action intended to produce harm. Also think about the losing streak these universities have been on when they have tried to restrict speech in the past.
As it happens, the three presidents were accurately describing their universitiesâ rules, which do depend on context. Yascha Mounk in The Atlantic had this to say:
âIn a narrow, technical sense, the three presidents were correct to state that their current policies would probably not penalize offensive political speech. In a more substantive sense, universities should defend a very broad definition of academic freedom, one that shields students and faculty members from punishment for expressing a political opinion, no matter how abhorrent.â
Mounk goes on to say that the university presidents were disingenuous when they claimed that their response to anti-Semitism on campus was hamstrung by a commitment to free speech. Recent history at all three institutions shows that their rules about free speech are unevenly applied. So the problem with their answers wasnât about making a judgement call about calls for genocide.
Weâre stepping into muddy waters here. When students say: “From the river to the sea. Palestine will soon be free” theyâre using a political slogan that on its face is aspirational. While some may hear that and say it implies genocide of Jews, it should be protected speech. It’s stupid and ignorant, but 100% protected. Widening out our view, blaming all Jews for Netanyahuâs excesses or blaming all Palestinians for the atrocities of Hamas is wrong but itâs still protected speech.
People like Stefanik are too high on their own agenda to appreciate the distinction.
Still, itâs true that many (most? all?) universities have become hypocritical. There are plenty of examples of professors being expelled, or outside speakers being cancelled because the administration doesnât care for the viewpoints being expressed.
The question of exactly when political/hate speech becomes sufficiently threatening and specific toward a given individual or groups so as to constitute legally (and by extension administratively) a violation of a universityâs code of conduct is, not surprisingly, a massive gray area. On Thursday a man saying “Free Palestine” fired shots at a synagogue near Albany NY. Thankfully, nobody was harmed. He wasn’t on campus and he did back his words with a serious threat, so he was arrested.
The university presidents failed to be clear. The US case law and the schoolâs codes of conduct are sufficiently difficult to adjudicate on a hypothetical basis. These three presidents should learn that first, the US Congress isnât the academy. Second, they should admit they are fuzzy thinkers about free speech at their institutions. Third, they should develop better codes of conduct.
Letâs give the last word to Feldman:
âFree-speech nuance is something to be proud of, not something to condemn.â
A final thought. Stefanikâs gotcha game with yes/no answers to complex questions shouldnât be the way the game is played, but for now it is. Many Republicans think that colleges and universities deserve specific blame for the liberal political views of young Americans. It has become an article of faith on the right despite little supporting evidence that colleges are turning young people into liberals. Stefanik is a willing tool of this viewpoint.
On to our Saturday Soother. Weâve had snow overnight for the past two days on the Fields of Wrong. Still, itâs expected to be around 60° on Sunday. Given our uneven weather, the arborist isnât coming here until the middle of February.
Letâs get comfortable in a big chair near a window. Now, try to let go of the arguments about the âpeople we hate and I want to talk about themâ and empty our minds of complicated ideas, even if they are foundational to our democratic experiment.
Letâs listen to the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Ensemble perform Maurice Ravelâs âIntroduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and string quartetâ. He composed this work in 1905 and it was first performed in 1907.
The Daily Escape:
First snow, Doubling Point Lighthouse, Kennebec River, ME – December 2023 photo by Rick Berk Photography
Wrongo may have stumbled upon the reason why people say the economy is bad when so many economists say it isnât. From a LendingClub report from last May: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âFor some Americans, earning a six-figure income doesnât guarantee a comfortable lifestyle….many Americans are struggling to make ends meet â with 61% of those surveyed saying they feel stretched too thin, and 49% of those earning $100,000 or more saying theyâre living paycheck to paycheck.â
This ties together with other information, some of which comes from the issue, who reported this from the Aspen Institute: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âThough routinely positive cash flow is the starting point for financial stability, it remains largely out of reach for many Americans. Even before the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half (46.5%) of households reported that their income did not exceed their spending over the course of a year. For households with annual income of less than $30,000, this number increases to three in five (61.5%).â
Now there may be many reasons why people spend beyond their means. Some seem to be unable to defer gratification until thereâs money in the bank, so they buy on credit. There was a $48.5 billion jump in spending from September to October 2023. For others who make less than a living wage, the problem isnât one of choice, itâs existential.
The searing takeaway from the above is that negative personal cashflow was a problem even before the post-Covid inflation drove prices through the roof in America. The Aspen Institute provides this handy chart showing how individuals build financial security:
Financial security starts with having a routinely positive cashflow. But, nearly 50% of Americans today arenât cash flow positive (see quote above), while 49% of people earning more than $100k are living paycheck to paycheck.
This dovetails with Wrongoâs Monday column which showed that âNearly 3 in 10 Americans say they have had to forgo seeing a doctor in the past year due to costs.â If youâre one of the 7.5% of uninsured Americans, and have money in your checking account that isnât going to necessities, you can definitely go to the doctor.
Aspen has another chart that shows the breakdown of who lives paycheck to paycheck by income levels:
Seventy-four percent of those making less than $50k are living paycheck to paycheck, and while the percentage gets smaller as annual income rises, itâs still 48.7% for people making more than $100k, in an economy where the median income is around $54K! FYI, the percentage of Americans who make $50k or less is 37.8%.
More from LendingClub: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)
âThe share of consumers in the US earning over $100,000 per year who live paycheck to paycheck increased 7 percentage points in April year over year. High-income consumers are particularly likely to live in urban areas, at 36%, and these tendencies toward higher incomes…[donât] prevent almost 70% of urban dwellers from saying they live paycheck to paycheck.â
Itâs hard not to conclude that the majority of Americans are currently experiencing dire financial conditions, including many who live with negative cashflow. When your cashflow is negative, you either cut back, borrow or sell assets. For most people selling assets isnât a real choice. So while some cut back, the majority borrow to make ends meet. According to the issue, the:
â…highest risk, and most expensive forms of debt are now growing fastest. Payday loans, online insta-loans, and so forth. That means that people are exhausting the more mundane forms of debtâcredit cards, bank loans, government loans, etcetera.â
This squares with a report by Achieve, a personal debt management firm, that shows:
âIn the first nine months of 2023, the average monthly participation in debt resolution programs increased by 119% compared to 2020, even though the average earnings rose by approximately 37% during the same period.â
It gets worse:
“In 2023, the typical household income of individuals enrolled in debt resolution programs was $59,900, which is a notable increase from $43,598 three years prior.â
Americans are earning 37% more but are still struggling with debt. Not a pretty picture to take before the voters.
Meanwhile, Democrats still are touting how “strong” the economy is. The aggregate numbers hide terrible personal experiences that are happening out of sight of our politicians and surprisingly, our economists. However, itâs clear from the polls that few Americans are buying that message apart from the true believers, the media and pundits.
The disconnect between economic data and the lived experience of average people needs to be addressed by Biden and the Democrats. If nothing is done to at least acknowledge the actual problems of many Americans specifically, their negative personal cashflow, these angry folks will certainly tilt toward giving Trump another chance.
Letâs give the issue the last word:
âWhat is this? What do we call it when the majority of people can’t make ends meet, as in, they’re literally spending more than they make, because they don’t make enough to live a stable or secure life?
Today the averages are hiding a truth: that a near-majority of American citizens are financially underwater. These are big numbers. The Census Bureau says as of now, 258.3 million Americans are adults. And the Aspen Institute says that 46.5% of them canât make ends meet. Thatâs 120 million of us that are going deeper in debt every month.
That can only happen when those at the very top are skimming off more than 100% of the growth in the economy. This suggests that Biden et al need to run on policy that will help the majority of voters, not simply the moneyed people who finance political campaigns.
The Daily Escape:
Cypress trees, Lake Verritt, LA – November 2023 photo by Rick Berk Photography. Note the egret in the background.
For todayâs Wake Up Call, we return to a staple of yesteryear, some hot links that caught Wrongoâs eye over the past few days.
Wrongo isnât happy with how the Ukraine War has slipped from the consciousness of Americaâs media and thereby, from our view. Saturdayâs WSJ offered an intriguing idea with its column, âDoes the West Have a Double Standard for Ukraine and Gaza?â (free link). The article makes two excellent points. First, how these two wars have divided the world. Hereâs a view of the division:
From the WSJ: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âOutrage and political mobilization have become subordinated to geopolitical allegiancesâa selective empathy that often treats ordinary Ukrainians, Palestinians and Israelis as pawns in a larger ideological battle within Western societies and between the West and rivals such as China and Russia.â
Second, the article concludes by saying that the main difference between the two wars is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with all its complexities, lacks the moral clarity of the Ukrainian resistance to Russia. They quote British lawmaker Alex Sobel:
âThere is no moral justification for the Russian invasion. Zero. Itâs just about Russian imperialism….But in Israel and Palestine, itâs about the fact that there are two peoples on a very small amount of land, and political and military elites on both sides are unwilling to settle for whatâs on offer.â
Yes, America may have the moral high ground in both cases, and views can differ on how both wars are being waged. But as the article says in its second paragraph:
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was unprovoked, while Israel sent troops into Gaza because of a mass slaughter of Israeli civilians…â.
Make of the article what you will, but itâs important to think through why you (like Biden) think both wars are morally equivalent.
Link #2 is apropos of the COP28 conference now underway in Dubai. Grist Magazine has an article: âWhere could millions of EV batteries retire? Solar farms.â As solar energy expands, itâs becoming more common to use batteries to store the power as itâs generated and transmit it through the grid later. One new idea is to source that battery back up at least in part from used electric vehicle batteries:
âElectric vehicle batteries are typically replaced when they reach 70 to 80% of their capacity, largely because the range they provide at that point begins to dwindle. Almost all of the critical materials inside them, including lithium, nickel, and cobalt, are reusable. A growing domestic recycling industry, supported by billions of dollars in loans from the Energy Department and incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, is being built to prepare for what will one day be tens of millions of retired EV battery packs.â
More:
âBefore they are disassembled…studies show that around three quarters of decommissioned packs are suitable for a second life as stationary storage.â
Apparently there are already at least 3 gigawatt-hours of decommissioned EV battery packs sitting around in the US that could be deployed, and that the volume of them being removed from cars is doubling every two years.
Link #3 also shows the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act. Wolf Richter writes that:
âIn October, $18.5 billion were plowed into construction of manufacturing plants in the US ($246 billion annualized), up by 73% from a year ago, by 136% from two years ago, and by 166% from October 2019.â
More:
âThe US is the second largest manufacturing country by output, behind China and has a greater share of global production than the next three countries combined, Germany, Japan, and India.â
All of this construction spending will take time to turn into production. When these new plants are up and running and producing at scale, manufacturingâs share of US GDP will rise. And much of the new construction is happening in fly-over America, which can use the help.
Finding factory workers in sufficient numbers to support the new capacity will be a key. America has energy in abundance and has robotic manufacturing. So pulling production from overseas with fewer workers needed will be a giant plus for the US.
Link #4 is a downer. Civic Science says in this weekâs 3 things to know column, that âNearly 3 in 10 Americans say they have had to forgo seeing a doctor in the past year due to costs.â Hereâs their chartâ:
Civic Science says that 12% of US adults have had to miss or make a late payment on medical bills in the last 90 days, a two percentage point increase over September 2022.
A far larger percentage of Americans â 27% of the general population and about 30% of respondents under 55 years old or with an annual household income under $100,000 â report they could not go to a doctor in the past 12 months because they could not afford the cost. Gen Z adults and households making between $25K-$50K are more likely to have held off seeing a doctor due to cost (34% and 31% respectively).
We all know that medical costs have continued to rise and that medical debt is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the US. If Congress was really interested in helping provide for the general welfare, they would deal with this out of control problem.
Time to wake up America! Thereâs plenty going on that isnât getting visibility in the mainstream media or on social media. You have to cast your net widely to be on top of the good and bad happening in the US.
To help you wake up, we turn to Shane MacGowan, frontman for the Irish group the Pogues who died last week. He left behind a body of work that merged traditional Irish music and punk rock. He wrote many songs that could easily be mistaken for traditional Irish tunes including this one, which was also used as the music for wakes by the Baltimore Police Department in the great, great HBO series, “The Wire“. Hereâs âThe Body Of An Americanâ from their 1986 album, âPoguetry in Motionâ:
RIP Shane.