Saturday Soother – December 8, 2018

The Daily Escape:


Sunwapta Falls, Jasper National Park, Canada – photo by BlakeRandall

Ho hum. Another alleged Republican criminal is taking office,but there’s nothing to see here, so move on. The GOP wants to focus some more on Hillary’s emails.

What’s Wrongo talking about? The Senate is about to seat a Republican Senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley. Missouri attorney general. Josh Hawley was the Republican Party’s nominee to take on Senator Claire McCaskill, and he won. It seems as if he improperly used his old office to run for Senate. McCaskill raised this issue in the last days of the campaign, but Hawley won. However, Hawley’s problem didn’t go away.As Ed Kilgore explains:

On October 31, the Kansas City Star reported that Missouri Attorney General and GOP Senate nominee Josh Hawley had let his campaign staff coordinate activities with public employees on state property,violating a constitutional provision banning use of state resources for political or personal use….
Hawley’s out-of-state political consultants gave direct guidance and tasks to his taxpayer-funded staff, and followed up to ensure the tasks were completed, according to emails, text messages and other records obtained by The Kansas City Star.

Now, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has launched an investigation into the way Josh Hawley ran his office as Attorney General. Jay Ashcroft is the son of former US Attorney General and Missouri Senator John Ashcroft.

Kilgore says that Ashcroft lacks subpoena power, so it’s unclear how far his investigation can go, and it’s highly doubtful that a new election will be called.

With this, and the current fiasco over absentee ballots in North Carolina’s Ninth District, criminality is now a feature, not a bug, for Republican politicians.

At a minimum, the Republican who “won” in the NC Ninth, Mark Harris, is unlikely to be seated if the North Carolina State Board of Elections doesn’t certify the district’s vote.

And when Missouri’s Josh Hawley walks into the Senate, his fellow GOP’ers will circle the wagons to protect him from facing justice, unless and until the time comes (if ever), when it is no longer politically viable to support him.

The wheels of justice will grind pretty slowly on this, but a six-year term is a long, long time for a junior senator Josh to brazen it out.Unless, of course, Mitch McConnell is on your team.

In other news, Wrongo assumes that this week, you binged on the George HW Bush funeral. Maybe it’s just that it takes a few years to rehabilitate a reputation, but after 25 years out of office, why did America treat HW like he was Lincoln?

Time to move on to the weekend. Let’s unplug from Trumpworld, forget how many shopping days remain, and spend a few minutes detached from our responsibilities.

Here’s how we’ll do that: Start by brewing up a vente cup of Red RoosterCoffee’s new seasonal roasting, Holiday Sweet Blend ($16.99/12oz.). Red Rooster is an organic-certified micro-roaster focusing on socially conscious and high-quality coffee that The Wrongologist has featured before. The Holiday Sweet Blend is said to be a harmoniously balance of sweet, tart and savory flavors.

Now settle back where you can look out of a south-facing window, and listen to Fauré’s “Cantique de Jean Racine Op 11”, for choir and piano or organ. Here, it is performed by choir and orchestra, and doesn’t suffer.

Faure´ composed this as a student project when he was 19. It was first performed in 1866. At the time, using work by Jean Racine was frowned upon, and the clergy banned its performance, but here it is:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 2, 2018

Wrongo’s not gonna say much that’s bad about the late George HW Bush today. Wouldn’t be prudent.

What the Hell…here’s a few observations. Bush was an average president who looks better than he should because we compare him to the terrible Republican presidents we’ve experienced since he left office. He was a genuine war hero, and a self-made successful businessman (to the extent that his wealthy family didn’t just hand him a Texas oil business). He was a reasonable head of the CIA.

But to become president, he engaged in race baiting, using the Willie Horton ad against Dukakis. It was openly racist, harking back to old American fears of black men raping white women. Bush can never be forgiven for this.

He brought us Clarence Thomas. Bush could have held the Reagan administration accountable for Iran-Contra. Instead, he chose to pardon everyone. Just before he left office, he pardoned Caspar Weinberger, who was just about to go on trial for his crimes, describing him as a “true American patriot.” He also pardoned Elliott Abrams and Robert McFarlane, basically ending the chance that anyone would be held responsible for Iran-Contra.

His pardons of the Iran-Contra crew allowed them to re-enter public life where they became the backbone for Operation Iraqi Freedom under GW Bush. This is his barely-remembered and negative contribution to today’s political landscape. His Thousand Points of Light idea was a non-offensive push toward nonprofits and individual acts of kindness and charity. Neil Young said it best:

We have 1,000 points of light
For the homeless man
We have a kinder, gentler
Machine gun hand

On to cartoons. The national Christmas tree looks different this year:

Trump tosses pardons for Mueller relief:

Rudy means there’s no collusion between Manafort and Cohen:

G20 meetings saw Putin working with his hands:

GM’s plant closings could create more immigrants:

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