Aqui Se Habla Espanol

Debate Part One:  Kudos go to former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro whose closing remark “On January 20, 2021, we’ll say Adios to Donald Trump” best summarized last night’s sentiment.  The generally monotone Castro also showed a side of himself that we haven’t seen before.  He was animated, forceful and picked one of the few direct fights with another candidate, distinguishing himself from Beto O’Rourke by chastising his fellow Texan for not calling for the end of criminalizing border crossings.  That issue is particularly relevant right now because officials “count” an illegal crossing as a crime that justifies the separation of a migrant child from his or her parents.  As to Beto, he spoke a lot, and was the first of several of the candidates to show off his Spanish skills, but he wasn’t all that impressive.  He kept on telling stories but was mostly short on substance.  To no one’s surprise, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, the “I have a plan for that” candidate was full of substance and started off strong, helped along by the NBC team who initially directed more questions to her than to the others but she seemed to fade as the evening went on partially because once the debate turned into an actual debate she stayed on the sideline. The more moderate Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who was among those in no rush to throw private health insurance by the wayside and who is all in on helping out with education financing and free community college but not so much interested in cancelling all student loans or free four year education for all, managed to get in a few zingers of her own.  She called Trump’s promise to reduce drug costs “all foam and no beer” as she pointed out the amount of money still going to pharmaceutical companies and the rising price of drugs under his watch and shaded Washington Governor Jay Inslee for saying that he was a leader on reproductive rights by pointing out there were three women on the stage who were way ahead of him on that issue.  As to Inslee, while he didn’t clock as much speaking time as the others he did drive home his history of implementing progressive policies in his state and also hammered home the importance and economic potential of focusing resources on climate change.  I am not much of a fan of  Hawaii Congressman Tulsi Gabbard, that said though she initially rambled a bit, the military veteran found her niche discussing the realities of war and did get in a zinger of her own correcting Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan’s assertion that the Taliban rather than Al Qaeda were the World Trade Center bombers.  Ryan who sees himself as a representative of all those middle of the country white guys who deserted Hillary for Trump looked uncomfortable especially when the others spoke Spanish.  As to those Spanish speakers, it’s not surprising that either of the Texans are fluent but it turns out that New Jersey native Corey Booker is too.  Booker, who clocked the most speaking time of any candidate, managed to display his language skills.  Though neither he nor anyone else on the stage attacked or even criticized former VP Biden, Booker went out of his way to remind voters, particularly the many African American older ones who seem to be all in on Biden that that he lives in Newark, experiences inner city life first hand, and is deserving of their support.  NYC Mayor De Blasio who made it clear that he was the leftist guy on stage and is fully supportive of raising taxes on the rich or on anyone who knows a rich person, was fairly loud and obnoxious, a performance that seemed to endear him to some pundits but that left me wishing he would go away.  Former Maryland Congressman John Delaney who  was trying to fill one of the middle road spots barely registered.  For his part Trump  mocked NBC’s technical difficulties, and yes they had a few, while tweeting that the evening was “BORING.”  As to Trump, before he left for the G 20 meeting he questioned the value of the US’s long term defense treaty with Japan and then went full cray cray during a live call in to Maria Bartiromo’s Fox Business News program. Proving that he is concerned about former Special Counsel Mueller’s upcoming testimony, testimony that lawyer Jay Sekulow says won’t be blocked, Trump ranted incoherently about Mueller’s crimes asserting that the special counsel had personally “terminated” love bird FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s texts whatever that means.  Bartiromo tried to talk over him but even she couldn’t hide his apparent dementia.  Trump also managed to blame the Democrats for the tragic deaths of Valeria and Oscar Alberto Martinez, the child and father who died trying to cross into the US after they were turned away at a legal crossing point, one of those results of the metering procedures that Trump has put in place to discourage migrants from legally requesting refugee status.  And of course, the Senate’s response to the $4.6 billion emergency funding package passed by the House was legislation of their own; no money will flow south until the two sides reconcile their differences.

The Supremes:  We’re still waiting for the SCOTUS to announce decisions on partisan gerrymandering and the census citizenship question.  However, the court did announce one decision yesterday that inflamed conservatives while giving hope to other court watchers that Chief Justice Roberts appreciates, or at least sometimes appreciates, the value of sticking to precedent.  The Chief Justice mostly joined with the liberal wing of the court by refusing to overturn a 1997 ruling that established the Auer deference, a decision that gives power to federal agencies to interpret their own regulations. Hope springs eternal that he will do the same when it comes to Roe, if, or more likely, when the conservatives on the court try to kill reproductive rights.  As to the citizenship question, a lower court is now reconsidering whether or not it’s inclusion in the 2020 census is discriminatory so even if SCOTUS hands down a ruling today in favor of the administration, the Trump team’s efforts to the question into the 2020 census questionnaire, which takes months to print, may be stymied.