Here are yesterday’s cartoons today. The week begins with Congress at home trying to explain all the winning to their voters, while Der Donald is again on the golf course. For the next 17 days, the job of the Whitewash House is limited to describing his golfing success:
Is it more likely to see four new faces on Mt. Rushmore, or a fifth?
Wrongo and Ms. Right went to a concert by Buster Poindexter on Saturday. Poindexter is a stage persona for David Johansen, a glam rocker from the 1970s, when he fronted a group called the New York Dolls. Poindexter’s thing is to look suave and sophisticated, holding a drink, while singing an eclectic song book. He tries to say something humorous as a lead-in to the next song. His first comment was that he had been drinking steadily since November 9th.
The venue is in rock-solid conservative territory, but the line mostly drew laughs from a decidedly middle-age audience, except for one guy who screamed “bullshit” loudly and often during Poindexter’s first song. Eventually, the local police came, and the guy became a model of passive resistance, going to the floor limp, and unresponsive. After assuring themselves he hadn’t collapsed, the police ushered him out to a standing ovation, again, in a solidly Republican part of Connecticut. But think about this:
That sort of indicates that Trump voters are a forgiving lot. They were prepared to lock up Hillary Clinton for using a private email server because it jeopardized national security. Now the Trump administration is doing the same thing, and many think its no big thing. From The Hill: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
The [poll] results are surprising, considering Trump’s campaign included calling out Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for using a private email server while she was Secretary of State.
According to Newsweek, at least four senior officials in President Trump’s White House have active accounts on a private Republican National Committee (RNC) email system. Counselor Kellyanne Conway, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, chief strategist and senior counselor Stephen Bannon and senior advisor Jared Kushner all have rnchq.org email accounts. More from Newsweek: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
The system (rnchq.org) is the same one the George W. Bush administration was accused of using to evade transparency rules after claiming to have “lost” 22 million emails.
Think about that. If it weren’t for double standards, Republicans would have no standards at all. But maybe the crowd reaction at the Poindexter concert showed us something: Buyer’s Remorse.
Remorseful Republican voters can help bigly in 2020 (and maybe in 2018), because all it takes is a few of them to make a difference in who becomes the next president. Presidential elections are won on the narrowest of margins, so if, 3-4% of Trump voters show remorse and flip, or decide to stay home, Trump could lose by a wide margin, even while maintaining the vast majority of his support.
Moreover, if many of them are demoralized or turned off by 2018 that could flip midterm Senate seats. Think back to 2006: the Democratic Senate pickups that year were in four states Bush had won (MT, VA, MO, OH) and one he had only lost by 2.5% (PA), which ended up in a 17 point blowout. Why? GW Bush voters stayed home, or switched.
OTOH, the only Republicans up in 2018 are the ones who survived 2006 and 2012, the year the Tea Party decided to debate “legitimate rape”).
There is virtually no way to make the 2018 map good. There are only 9 Republican-held seats up for election at all; three of those would have to go to Democrats in order to flip the Senate, even if all the vulnerable Democratic seats were held. The best that can be hoped for is mitigating the damage.
Thus far, Trump and his henchmen have conducted a full frontal assault on civil liberties, open government and religious freedom, as well as instigating or condoning a cascade of ethics violations ranging from the serious (business conflicts of interest) to the absurd (attacking a department store for dropping his daughter’s fashion line). And, no, it’s not just a father defending his daughter. It’s the president of the US bullying a particular business and, more generally, making a public case against free enterprise.
Parker is a conservative columnist. To an objective observer, it would seem that quite a few Republicans will decide not to defend the indefensible.
To help them arise from their slumbers, which at least a few did on Saturday night, here is Buster Poindexter with Hot, Hot, Hot from 1987:
That’s Bill Murray pouring the martini @ 2:00.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
You may have noticed that the Wrongologist has not posted a column since Monday. Life intervened, as we began a to-the-studs kitchen renovation this week. Think about it, no kitchen in January in the Northeast. It’s like camping, but you sleep in your own bed, and use your own shower.
This week, the Trumpathon marched forward, with each day giving us something unique to consider, to react to with disbelief as our Overlord moves to fully take the reins of power.
The commonly accepted story is that the Russians hacked Podesta and the DNC, and that might have helped Trump defeat Clinton. Then there is the “Dossier” of possibly incriminating info that the Russians may, or may not, have on Trump. The story could be false or true, and there is no solid evidence either way.
Trump’s plan to place his business in “trust” is ridiculous, but he has no plan to abide by the spirit of a blind trust, and he’s exempt from the rules for other public servants, so deal with it.
The Democrats didn’t lose to the Republicans because of a Russian conspiracy, but because they didn’t do a good job of governing, for two reasons: First, the economy hasn’t recovered for quite a few Americans. Second, Obama’s record on foreign policy is at best, mixed and is possibly a failure.
Despite his success with Obamacare, we should remember that insurance coverage is not health care. Consider that the US mortality rate is going up. And there is still considerable economic uncertainty: Elevate’s Center for the New Middle Class looked at how much money in the form of an unexpected expense would be a crisis for ordinary Americans. Their study asked 502 nonprime (credit score below 700) and 525 prime Americans (credit score of 700 or above) how they could handle an unexpected expense. They found that:
A bill becomes a crisis for nonprime Americans at $1,400. For Primes, it’s $2,900…
160 million Americans come under the nonprime category, according to the study. That’s half of our population who would have difficulty paying for a trip to the emergency room with a broken arm. Two-thirds of Americans would struggle to cover a $1000 emergency expense. Half of Americans find it hard to pay over $100 a month for health insurance, while the average price nationally in 2017 for a bronze plan is $311 per month for a 30-year-old nonsmoker who does not qualify for subsidies. That means without subsidies, half of America is at serious risk of being uninsured under repeal and replace.
This speaks to our uneven economic recovery better than any average wage or unemployment statistics.
In short, Democrats lost to a very flawed person because they (Dems) ran the country badly for people like those in this study, and those people are upset.
If that didn’t bring you down far enough, there are just six days until the inauguration.
Wow, with all this going on, we need something to help us relax. Today’s soother is Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915“, with soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Barber was a 20th century American composer, perhaps our best. He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
He wrote this piece in 1947, based on a prose poem by James Agee. Agee would later use the poem as a preamble to his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Death in the Family, published posthumously in 1957. Agee was also the screenwriter for the movie, the African Queen. Here is Knoxville: Summer of 1915:
While this feels operatic, the lyrics are in English. Here is a sample:
It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street…People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt; a loud auto; a quiet auto; people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.
“Aestival” means of, or occurring in the summer.
Trump is now Team Trump. The two most influential people in his court appear to be his son-in-law, [Jared] Kushner, a fellow real-estate developer and the guy who made the key strategic decisions which led to Trump’s victory; and {Steve] Bannon. Bannon is an economic nationalist with white nationalist leanings, who identifies with the working class and wants to bring manufacturing back to America. He’s quite willing to have a trade war to do it.
And while we are at it, Wrongo is sure that all of the Goldman Sachs alligators Trump is dumping into DC’s undrained swamp have lots of winning in mind for America. Welsh adds:
Trump’s children are influential, and it appears that Ivanka, his daughter, is the most influential of the three. She’s probably the most liberal person in the administration (even if she, strictly speaking, isn’t in the administration.)
Despite Welsh saying Ivanka won’t be in the administration, US News reported that she will set up shop in the White House space usually set aside for the first lady, which is in the East Wing. That sounds like influence!
With almost five weeks remaining until the inauguration, attempting to understand what Trump’s administration will do to you (or for you, if you are a fan), is America’s favorite holiday party game.
Trump has loaded up on oligarchs and generals to help steer his thinking on policy. More from Welsh: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
So, for example, his shift on China policy [to confrontation] is in alignment with what a lot of generals think (China is the real threat) and with what Bannon thinks (manufacturing jobs, economic nationalism.)
In some ways, Trump’s China policy is a continuation and extension of existing policy, but his style is confrontational, and more focused. All of Trump’s complaints about Chinese actions are long-standing US complaints that had not been addressed by previous administrations.
When we look at Trump’s team, they are anti-labor, pro-corporatist, pro-Wall Street, pro-MIC, Big Oil, Big Coal, climate changing denialists. With Pruitt @ EPA, Perry @ Energy, and Ryan Zinke @ Interior, all the news looks bad for those of us who want to see more alternative energy and a radically improved global environment. And Price @ HHS will have the largest and quickest negative impact on Americans.
These proposed cabinet appointments are not the source of any Christmas cheer if you favor our current domestic policies.
And it will get worse: Congressional Republicans told BuzzFeed News that the GOP plans to re-introduce the First Amendment Defense Act. The act prohibits the federal government from taking action against private businesses and individuals that discriminate against LGBT people (or others) due to their “sincerely held religious beliefs.” Trump has already stated his support for the First Amendment Defense Act:
If I am elected president and Congress passes the First Amendment Defense Act, I will sign it to protect the deeply held religious beliefs of Catholics and the beliefs of Americans of all faiths…
We got to this precipitous place after a very close election. Paul Campos tells us that the US has recorded the popular vote in 34 US presidential elections (despite having had 57 of them), and Trump received the smallest share of the popular vote of any winning candidate in US presidential election history, if we exclude elections which featured a significant third-party vote.
Jacob Levy points out that Trump eked out victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and therefore the presidency, by a combined 80,000 votes across those three states.
That is a .05% vote margin in a 137 million vote election.
This is why vast numbers of people head into the holidays scared for their families and future.
So you need an Xmas soother. It’s not bad enough to be late in buying presents for people who you know will be disappointed when they open them. Now you gotta deal with Team Trump, and all of the winning we will see in the next four years.
Here are the Piano Guys with O come, O come, Emmanuel. It was filmed at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Jerusalem Movie Set in Goshen Utah:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
