Mea culpa, part 1 of infinity (World Cup edition)

This World Cup has been crazy and unpredictable in the fantastic way the best sporting events are. That said, I should take accountability for a few things I've gotten wrong.

* Congratulations to Argentina for making it to knockout rounds. I had written you off after Croatia destroyed you. Turns out Croatia might be that good and Argentina might succeed in spite of epic corruption and mismanagement. Lionel Messi came up with a goal that even video games would reject as not humanly possible. He did this with only the hopes and dreams of 40 million people resting on his shoulders.

* I, along with pretty much everyone else, thought Germany would find a way to make it out of their group. I, along with pretty much everyone else, was wrong. This does provide another handy excuse to peruse the German tabloid reaction:

Translation: Out! But we did not deserve that anyway.

I would pay a hefty subscription fee to read German tabloids covering SEC football.

* I should've listened to my brother-in-law, a diehard Sweden fan. They are legitimate contenders. First, they prevented Italy from even qualifying for the World Cup. 

(Let's take this opportunity to revisit the Italian tabloid reaction It's hard to see in this picture, but one sub-headline reads: “Italy, this is the apocalypse.” If the German tabloid sports media is unwilling to move to Birmingham, I would happily accept the Italians instead.)

Translation: Everybody at home!, Finished, Everybody out!

Then Sweden recovered from having their hearts ripped out by Toni Kroos in their match with German. The ending was so brutal that their coaches nearly fought after the game:

Nevertheless, Sweden recovered and schooled Mexico, scoring three goals in the second half. If you're a soccer neophyte, this was similar to those NBA finals games where Steph Curry or Kevin Durant would get tired of messing around and hit 5 three-pointers in a quarter or drop 43 points, respectively. 

This World Cup is up for grabs. Sweden has as good a chance as anyone. The knockout rounds should be thrilling.

Reading Twitter: Get your affairs in order

As a former school administrator who managed student discipline, I can assure you of this: Bad behavior usually repeats itself.

North Korea, watch out. https://t.co/7yUI90cZHn

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) June 26, 2018

This is all that should be said about l'affaire Red Hen.

Once again the vast majority of mainstream political journalism has gotten played by an obvious bad faith con job. https://t.co/V9ZhLFdaTW

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 25, 2018

This is…extremely incorrect. https://t.co/woaAmJxqLh

— Nicole Hemmer (@pastpunditry) June 26, 2018

Wasn't Gergen around for a lot of the stuff he's referencing? Is he able to differentiate between kicking someone out of a restaurant and actual violence?

Is it, though? https://t.co/emSrxICYsq

— Daniel Larison (@DanielLarison) June 27, 2018

The follow up to the North Korea summit is that there was no follow up.

Amazing @JaneMayerNYer piece on game night at Rebekah Mercer's: players take on the role of a real political figure & compete to win the White House. Her dad's "policy wishlist" in the game includes mass deportation & freedom of religious discrimination. https://t.co/hnSxbqCCdu

— Alex Altman (@aaltman82) June 25, 2018

If you learn that Jane Mayer is writing a piece on you, get your affairs in order.

Welp. That's that, then. https://t.co/CkAF7SpdDj

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 25, 2018

We should all get our affairs in order.

Little will change until it costs you lots of money

It will likely take something close to this to substantially move the public's perception of Trump.

Perhaps you, like me, are incensed that our Supreme Court disregards open, expressed religious animus to uphold terrible public policy. 

And maybe you are still furious that we are entertaining bad-faith arguments about who gets to eat at a nice restaurant instead of condemning what seems eerily close to kidnapper's demand: give up your due process rights and the feds will return your children. 

You might have read Michelle Goldberg's op-ed in the NYT today and said to yourself, "Yes. All of this."

Though it’s tiresome to repeat it, Donald Trump eked out his minority victory with help from a hostile foreign power. He has ruled exclusively for his vengeful supporters, who love the way he terrifies, outrages and humiliates their fellow citizens. Trump installed the right-wing Neil Gorsuch in the Supreme Court seat that Republicans stole from Barack Obama. Gorsuch, in turn, has been the fifth vote in decisions on voter roll purges and, on Monday, racial gerrymandering that will further entrench minority rule.

Then you read the umpteenth profile of Trump voters and note that Trump's overall approval ratings are creeping up and Republicans approve of him at the same levels they did of George W. Bush, post September 11.

You, like me, might not be stunned so much as a little more cynical. What's it gonna take, huh? How is democracy supposed to work when public opinion doesn't shift much when terrible things are happening?

***

The answer is that we likely won't see a significant change in public opinion until a recession hits. 

One of the more boring truisms of American politics is that politicians in office will, by and large, remain popular when the economy is doing well. If the economy starts to slow, the ruling party is in trouble.

- In 2012, the economy was on its way up, but growth was slow. Barack Obama won small, decisive re-election and the GOP continued to control Congress.
- In 2010, the economy was still in recovery so the Republicans took back both houses of Congress.
- In 2008, the economy was in crisis, and voters elected Barack Obama by a large margin.
- In 2006, the economy was slowing down, though not yet in crisis. Democrats took both houses of Congress. 
- In 2004, the economy was doing well. George W. Bush was comfortably re-elected and Republicans stayed in control of Congress.

It's not that other political issues don't matter. They do, somewhat. For example, major factors in 2006 -- the last Democratic congressional wave -- included the fallout from the Bush administration's mishandling of Hurricane Katrina and growing public exhaustion with the wars in the Iraq and Afghanistan. It was also a mid-term election taking place during an incumbent's sixth year in office -- historically, when voters tire of the president's party. 

A slowing economy in 2006 made all of the above factors much more relevant and drove a massive Democratic victory. 

A bad economy is often the final push that drives dissatisfied voters to the polls, especially in years where the president isn't on the ballot. 

***

If you are a campaign manager and want to put an incumbent out of a job, two methods are the most effective. One is to change the votes of the 5% or so of people who always show up to vote, but regularly split their ballot between the parties. The other is to bring out people who are generally on your side, but typically remember to vote only in presidential years (if that -- see the Democrats in 2016).

Both are difficult to do. When the economy goes south, though, it becomes much easier. A pissed off voter is one who remembers to show up and vote for the out-of-power party.

This happens because voters pay attention to the stock market and jobs. They notice if interest rates are up because it's costing them money when they want to buy a car or take out a mortgage. Voters see if their retirement savings are stagnating or losing value. If their employer, or a relative's, is laying folks off, then they will take their anger out at the polls.

***

The thing about much of our current news is that it's mostly just angered the same people who were already going to vote for a particular party. (Come November, I may vote so hard that I punch a hole through the screen. I can imagine that some of my Fox News-watching compatriots feel the same anger, though directed at a different place.) 

Knowing that, this story in the NYT caught my attention and made me glad that once upon time, I earned an economics degree. (You are forgiven if you skipped over the article after seeing the term "yield curve" in the headline.)

Every recession of the past 60 years has been preceded by an inverted yield curve, according to research from the San Francisco Fed. Curve inversions have “correctly signaled all nine recessions since 1955 and had only one false positive, in the mid-1960s, when an inversion was followed by an economic slowdown but not an official recession,” the bank’s researchers wrote in March.

What's a yield curve? In short, it's the difference between short-term and long-term bond interest rates. Normally, the rate on the long-terms bonds are higher than the short-term. Among other things, this is how banks can make money -- they take in money at long-term rates and loan it out at short-term rates. Pocketing the difference between the two is one way banks make money. 

If the rates invert, banks aren't profiting from loans and will put the brakes on many types of loans. This matters because debt fuels the American economy.

Currently, the long and short-term rates are close to equalling each other, but haven't yet inverted. It may not lead to an immediate recession, but there's reason for pessimism about the long-term economy -- say, a couple months to two years from now.

From the NYT:

The yield curve, once it inverts, has a track record of signaling that a recession is coming.

percentage points

4

2

0

-2

0.34 pct. pts.

’85

’90

’95

’00

’05

’10

’15

⟵Recession

This downward trend is what a flattening yield curve looks like.
↙     

Another way of thinking about this is the economy is cyclical. It's been growing for about eight years. That's a long time in the life of a growth cycle. Eventually, there will be a correction. 

If it happens by this fall, Trump will see a chunk of his popularity erode and a bunch of GOP congressmen will lose their jobs. Trump's administration will then spend the next two years answering subpoenas from a Democratic congressional committees. If a Supreme Court seat is vacated, Democratic senators could channel Mitch McConnell and leave it open. 

So, you know, nothing big riding on this. 

A reason we are here: A child molester's legacy in the House of Representatives

Denny Hastert's official portrait

Denny Hastert's official mugshot

Denny Hastert is worth two footnotes in our nation's history. One, as former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, he is the highest-ranking U.S. politician to serve hard time. (Note: he was convicted of financial crimes stemming from illegal payoffs he made to a man he molested while Hastert was his high school wrestling coach.)

Two, in order to win election to the speakership, he instituted a policy in the Republican caucus that lives on as the "Hastert rule."

In case you slept through AP Government (shame!), one of the primary powers of the speaker is the s/he decides which bills will be voted on by the entire House. The Hastert rule is a "majority of the majority" rule. Only bills supported by a majority of the party in power would be ever be considered by Congress. In practice, this shifts the center of power from Republican and Democratic moderates to extreme factions within a caucus. 

Previous speakers didn't do this because it hamstrings their ability to get mainstream legislation passed. It can also empower congressmen who have little interest in passing anything at all.

This is why the Freedom Caucus -- a group of lawmakers who, in most previous congresses would've been backbenchers because they are far to the right of the House mainstream -- have, instead, considerable sway. 

So if you are wondering why Congress has accomplished nothing on immigration since the George W. Bush administration (not even popular legislative fixes like granting DREAMers a path to citizenship), the Freedom Caucus bears primary responsibility. 

See, the contours of an immigration compromise have been clear for a long time. This was codified by the "Gang of Eight" senators in 2013 when they worked out a deal with these as the main points:

• A path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.
• Fast-tracking permanent residence for U.S. university graduates with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math 
• Improvements to the employment verification system 
• Better work visa options for low-skill workers (impacting mostly farm and construction work)
• More funding for border security

This passed with 68 votes in the Senate, but the House never took it up. Why? It would easily passed a majority of the entire House. However, Speaker John Boehner didn't have enough support within the GOP caucus. 

If he would've brought it to the floor, the Freedom Caucus would've tried to remove him as Speaker. (They later did this anyway.)

Why did the Freedom Caucus resist this compromise? Explanations include**:

**Note: I don't agree with any of these and could make arguments against them, but don't want to stray too far from my purpose in attempting to relay what far-right GOP congressmen believe.

• By granting citizenship to anyone who entered the U.S. without permission, this would encourage more people to do the same, since they would believe they'd eventually be granted citizenship as well.
• Building on the above point, citizenship means granting more legal rights. Cross-border gangs and drug cartels could, theoretically, take advantage of this in some way. (Go ask drug lord and American citizen "La Barbie" how this theory works in practice.)
• Granting immigrants citizenship means they can vote. Immigrants are thought to be a demographic likely to vote Democratic. 
• Many migrants speak only Spanish and anti-immigrant types often use first-generation immigrants' failure to master English as a reason to not have them in the country.
• Increased costs for social services
• Many argue that all of the above are a fig leaf for racism against Latinos.

The upshot is that we continue to deal with the fallout from the same broken system. Real lives -- migrants, homeowners on the border, companies and small businesses seeking workers, even border patrol agents -- are hurt because the status quo lives on.

The thing about broken systems, too, is that they are ripe to be exploited by demagogues. 

To be sure, I could list some other factors that led us to this moment. But none have had the legacy of the child-molesting wrestling coach who did lasting damage to the House of Representatives so people could call him "Mr. Speaker."

Musical interlude: Life Ain't Fair (And the World Is Mean)

One of the most intriguing sub-genres of country music is the meta-criticism of the recording industry. Sturgill Simpson is the best modern practitioner of this style. 

Reading Twitter: Some tragedies are easily predictable

Wherein I spare you the mental anguish of reading Twitter:

I relate to this.

Sports Fan Has Opinion https://t.co/Vy3HS6aR97 pic.twitter.com/Q4uttsPoAI

— The Onion (@TheOnion) June 24, 2018

This genre of story annoyed me until James Fallows made this point.

Frequent “Trump supporters still support Trump” stories can seem strange if you ask why we don’t see “Jerry Brown supporters still support Brown,” “Chuck Schumer supporters” etc
They make more sense to me when I remember similar stories on steadfast Marion Barry supporters in DC. https://t.co/gl04CfkLbi

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) June 24, 2018

Trade-offs are a constant, even with the massive resources of the federal government.

People should really pay attention to this story, which is the evidence that Trump's zero-tolerance and family separation border policy is happening INSTEAD OF what should be higher priority investigations, prosecutions, and removals. https://t.co/J5yXbyNrxK

— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) June 23, 2018

What's weird about this media-saturated age is that the oncoming tragedies are quite predictable, if one has the stomach to look.

Trump's cramming 1,000 immigrants into an overcrowded #Victorville prison in California's Mojave Desert. Staff say it's unsafe and 'detainee deaths' will occur. Reporter: @LaurenWeberHP of @HuffPost. https://t.co/luYZ2JvgFe pic.twitter.com/LkDKXxYN2w

— Boing Boing (@BoingBoing) June 24, 2018

Speaking on easily predictable oncoming tragedies, on that's right up there on the list is the slow death of safety-net hospitals because we, as a society, insist on shortchanging paying for health care for the neediest. "GOP state legislatures refusing to accept the Medicaid expansion" sounds sort of bloodless. The consequences are easier to understand if you rephrase it to: "GOP rejects federal money because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, kills off hospitals of last resort and, by extension, people."

Lack of expansion had a huge negative impact on our General Hospital. Without expansion lots of Nashville residents can't access a continuum of care unless they go there.
Without a hospital more Nashville residents will die. https://t.co/qoBb6YvASA

— Fabian Bedne (@bedne) June 24, 2018

It is good to know some things will never change.

They try like hell to kill it but New York is still there. https://t.co/4NBUMyxVTc

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) June 24, 2018

World Cup update: What is Ronaldo hiding?

Here's an update on how the world's biggest sporting event is progressing. I'm watching while the rest of you suckers are working. (Well, most of you.) 

Argentina

Translation: Leave it. It is dead. 

On the bright side, Argentine men can devote more time to following their football association's instructions on how to seduce Russian women.

And, sure, thanks to Nigeria beating Iceland, Argentina is technically not yet eliminated. However, they've been the worst team in their group. Nigeria has a real shot at beating them. 

Croatia

They're now a "must watch" team. Luka Modric's strike against Argentine is the soccer equivalent of when LeBron decides to hell with it and just stampedes to the basket.

Mexico
The celebrations when Hirving Lozano scored the winner against Germany literally caused a false earthquake.

It's only one game (against the defending world champions), but El Tri looks as competitive as any of the top teams. By virtue of beating Germany, they are likely to avoid Brazil in at least the first knockout round.

Germany
Reading German tabloids after a soul-crushing defeat really gets to essence of "schadenfreude." Thanks to Google, you can get a translation, but it's more fun to infer from the original German.



Translation: 

“In the past months there has been a lot of talk about boycotting the World Cup for political reasons”, wrote commentator Matthias Brügelmann in tabloid Bild. “But I did not expect that Jogi’s boys would turn that into practice on the pitch in their opener, of all matches.”

Ouch.

Brazil
They'll move on to the knockout rounds easily enough, but Neymar remains as hard to root for as ever:



He was initially awarded a penalty kick for this play, but the referee reversed himself after video review showed that Neymar was essentially practicing a trust fall.

Portugal
Cristiano Ronaldo has scored all of Portugal's goals so far and is the favorite to win the Golden Boot (given to the player who scores the most goals in the tournament). He remains the most polarizing player in the world -- as talented and vain as ever. Tom Brady wishes he was as hate-watchable as this guy.

But can we talk about his stubborn insistence on wearing long sleeves? The other day, Portugal was playing in 90-degree heat and Nashville-esque humidity and he was the only player on the field in long sleeves. 



What sort of scandalous tattoos is he hiding?

France
They're cruising along, but haven't yet put it all together. Paul Pogba has been putting on a clinic, just in case you are curious as to what sort of havoc can be wreaked by a world-class midfielder.

Kylian Mbappe has scored one relatively easy goal and had a couple of other tantalizing chances. Hopefully we'll get to see Les Bleus drop the hammer on some poor team soon. If the soccer gods are smiling, as a bonus, we'll get to the see that thing where Mbappe just toys with a defense.

Spain
Like France, they're doing OK, but haven't yet played to their talent level. Spain versus Portugal was, by far, the most entertaining game so far. 

They remain appointment viewing and not just to see if Sergio Ramos causes an international incident during a game.

Liam Neeson isn't walking through that door

The central myth of the Taken movies is that you would probably be able to do something if armed men took your kids. 

I know, I know -- it's probably different with you. Maybe you studied taekwondo. Perhaps you own a gun or even many guns. I even know a couple of folks who own AR-15s. Maybe you're just a big ol' boy and no one can take you.

Plus, the adrenaline would carry you, right? Everybody's heard that story about the car that trapped the kids and the 5-foot, 100 pound mom lifted the car so the kids could escape. Parenting elicits such powerful emotions that we would be able to do the same, right?

Thing is, armed law enforcement officers exercise their will on the public every day. They even do this to people who possess weapons. It's central to how our justice system operates. Most of the time, this is a right and necessary use of state power. 

Except when it's not. 

***

I bring this up because I've run across comments along the lines of "Well, they wouldn't take my kids," or "I would defend my family."

This line of thinking is pernicious for couple of reasons. First, it's subtly dehumanizing of the actual people who did have their children ripped away from them. They don't love their kids any less than I love mine or you love yours. Their adrenaline was coursing through their veins the instant they realized that their child disappeared behind that door.

Second, it understates our government's power. It makes it seem like some how, some way, the parent could've chosen to keep their children. 

(I can hear the retort already -- "They shouldn't have brought them in the first place." You try raising your child in a town where drug cartels are the de facto government and tell me you wouldn't do everything possible to get the hell out of there.)

For most of us, if a person wearing a uniform and badge and holding a gun tells you to do something, you do it. 

***

In a civilized society, law enforcement officers make an implicit promise that they wield this awesome power responsibly. 

On our southern border, this promise has been grotesquely broken.  

Consular offices are often involved in cases of unaccompanied migrant youth, especially when children want to return to their countries voluntarily. But this situation was “atypical,” according to José Vicente Chinchilla, the consul general of El Salvador, because they did not even know children separated from their families were coming to New York, let alone how many.

The Washington Post reported (I can't link because of paywall) about an immigration judge blowing up at a prosecutor because parents of separated children hadn't been given any way of tracking where their children are. 

We have entrusted the power to separate children from their parents to people who are too evil, craven, or stupid to understand the gravity of their jobs as public servants.  

In a more perfect world, Liam Neeson would take care of this problem and hold the relevant parties accountable. 

In our highly flawed world, it falls on us. In the short term, outrage works. 

In the longer term, elect people who take seriously the basic responsibilities of government. 

***

Update:

It is shockingly difficult for immigration attorneys to locate children separated from their parents at the border. Today I spoke to lawyers who represent more than 400 parents. They've located two children.

— Kevin Sieff (@ksieff) June 22, 2018

The point is that we should try to ensure parents can spend more time with their kids

While public opinion seems to be shifting against separating parents from their children (low hanging fruit, to be sure), let’s also take a look at the 120,000 women and 1.1 million men who are incarcerated in U.S. prisons and also have children under 17.

I’m not making a blanket call to release anyone who is parent. Rather, we need to re-align our corrections systems to its original mission -- to improve our society as a whole. This means we should use common sense and modern technology to reduce or mitigate the negative effects on kids whose parents are in prison.

A logical place to start is with the moms.

Tyler Cowen wrote a column about this for Bloomberg. His suggestion:

Let’s take one-tenth of [women in prison for nonviolent offenses] and move them from prison to house arrest, combined with electronic monitoring. That would allow for proximity to their children. If the U.S. isn’t plagued by a subsequent wave of violent crime — and I don’t think it will be — let us try the same for yet another tenth. Let’s keep on doing this until it’s obviously not working. 

My hunch is that this would have a negligible effect on crime, reduce costs for taxpayers, reduce recidivism, and improve all sorts of outcomes for their kids.

***

In my work as a teacher and administrator, I speak with parents regularly. This past year, I averaged 15 calls or texts per day. 

This included parents who are incarcerated. I've conferenced with parents and heard the monotone interruption of "This call is coming from a federal penitentiary." In other cases, I could infer that the parent was using a contraband cell phone. 

To state the obvious: parents care about their kids. They will go to extraordinary lengths to support them. It is in our interests as a society to help them do this. 

Our criminal justice system serves us, not the other way around. 

Evening musical interlude - JC Brown and the Uptown Sound

Artist - JC Brown and the Uptown Sound
Song - "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart"

Tell me that you can resist classic Chicago rhythm and blues sound married to Jeff Tweedy's bizarre, melancholy lyrics. 

Apropos of nothing, breakup songs are one of my favorite types and this is in my all-time top 5. 

An anecdote about asylum seekers

When I lived in Denver a few years ago, I taught a student who came to this country because if she and her family had stayed in their home country, they faced a credible threat from the Zetas. Her older brother had already been murdered by gang members. The way the cartels operate, the entire family was now a target for harassment, extortion, and kidnapping.

In an alternate reality, my former student could've ended up coerced into a life that is the nightmare for any parents of a teenage daughter.

Faced with an impossible choice, they uprooted their lives and sought asylum at the U.S. border.

When people face a strong likelihood of persecution if they return to their homes, especially in certain places where their governments don't have the ability to protect them, American law permits them legal entry as refugees.

***

I try to imagine suddenly needing to leave Nashville with my family, giving up my home for no money, and moving to a place where we didn’t speak the language. I imagine giving up my way of earning a living because that likely won’t travel to the new place, either. I imagine doing this while grieving the loss of my son. The scale of it all is unfathomable.

Yet that is what my student’s family -- and tens of thousands like them -- did.

These families are who we, through our Border Patrol authorized by the government we elected, are arresting and separating at the border. 

These families, likely already traumatized, are being ripped apart by public servants acting in our name. 

***

Immigration, including and especially taking in refugees, makes our country better off. (Read the studies, if you'd like.) Contra Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Bible, and Jesus in particular, is quite clear about what should be done for impoverished, desperate strangers fleeing persecution.

We empathize best through stories though, and this one has a happy ending. My former student is now in college, training to be a teacher. Her other brother is in high school. Her parents rebuilt their lives, working incredible hours at tough jobs. Their children are thriving because of their sacrifice.

***

The potential we each have within us is a delicate thing. Single, cruel acts can reverberate across families and generations. Rebuilding one’s promise after such cruelty takes enormous effort. For every story that ends like my former student’s, dozens more have a tragic conclusion.

When our country opens its doors to those in need, we all benefit.

The opposite is also true.

Reading the New York Times with Father John Misty

I can’t grow thick enough facial hair to have a luxurious beard. Therefore, the second-most hipster thing I can do is to respond to today’s New York Times headlines using the titles of Father John Misty songs.

On this Father's Day, thank you for indulging my flailing attempts to be cool.

How Trump Came to Enforce a Practice of Separating Migrant Families

FJM - “When the God of Love Returns, There’ll Be Hell to Pay”

A Financier’s Profit-Minded Mission to Open a Channel Between Kushner and North Korea

FJM - “Things It Would’ve Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution”

Just the Fear of a Trade War Is Straining the Global Economy

FJM - “Just Dumb Enough to Try”

Beyoncé and Jay-Z Deliver a Surprise Album: ‘Everything Is Love’

FJM - “Total Entertainment Forever”

Major Study of Drinking Will Be Shut Down

FJM - “Nothing Good Ever Happens At the Goddamn Thirsty Cow”