Don't Drink the Water

Debate Dump:  The debate was long but this time there were many eye catching, or rather ear ringing moments.  My take is that it’s time for Julian Castro to be voted off the stage. In an effort to break out from the 1% pack, he launched into an attack of Joe Biden, claiming that the former VP had said something about whether there would be automatic enrollment in his health care plan that the VP hadn’t said; Biden was  vindicated by the video tape after the debate ended.  Castro went so far as to say that Biden couldn’t remember what he had just said, more than implying that the former VP’s memory lapse, which as it turns out wasn’t a lapse, was due to his advanced age. Note to Castro, if you are going to aggressively attack a likeable, albeit gaffe prone candidate, a risky tactic that can easily backfire, at the very least get your facts straight.  I was similarly unimpressed by entrepreneur Andrew Yang, the generally amiable techie, who opened by saying that in order to prove the value of his $1000 per month universal basic income plan, his campaign planned to randomly select ten families and give them a total of $120,000 over the next year.  His attention grabbing gimmick which, unfortunately for him, followed Senator Amy Klobuchar’s opening remarks where she said that it was time to stop treating the presidency like a gameshow came off a little too much like an episode of “The Price is Right” and may actually violate campaign finance laws. Yang’s later joke that he knew a lot about health care because as an Asian he knew a lot of doctors also fell flat. Much of the beginning of the debate was spent arguing about health care with the differences between the moderates, a group that includes Biden, Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke and Mayor Buttigieg, and their let’s just fix Obamacare plan versus the more left wing crowd, a group led by Senators Sanders and Warren, and their let’s throw out the old and go with a Medicare for All approach ASAP, were stark and that’s okay because at least everyone on the stage believes in health care as a right, a distinction from their Republican counterpart who just wants to get rid of Obamacare and has still not suggested what, if anything, he’ll offer up as a replacement.  On the health care front, neither Sanders nor Warren would acknowledge that their plan might be prohibitively expensive, although Bernie, who proudly shouted (why does he always shout?) was more upfront about costs than Warren and both had no problem with the idea that those happy with their private plans would lose them, a bigly problem for the moderates who fear that the elimination of private plans would turn off some voters, especially union members who fought hard for their plans.  As to Bernie, though Castro tried hard to paint Biden as the old guy, it was Bernie who came off looking old last night.  His words weren’t garbled and his brain appeared to be as sharp as ever, but his face wore the look of an embattled and shriveled warrior who couldn’t get over the frustration that his ideas were gaining traction in the hands of other candidates, most notably the not so young Elizabeth Warren, who looks much better than him, who, though she didn’t get as much speaking time as some of the others, managed to maintain her composure and speak clearly when she did even if not all of her plans are feasible or affordable. Among the others, there were no obvious gaffes, they came off qualified to serve and some of them probably will, either as the VP candidate or back in the Senate or in the cabinet of whomever wins the nomination, assuming that person also manages to beat Trump and get him to leave the White House in 2020.  Most notably Beto found his footing again, and while his strong position on guns and his promise to get rid of AK 47s and AR 15s probably enrages a number of gun enthusiasts, particularly those wed to their arsenals of automatic weapons, they probably weren’t planning to vote blue anyway which is why Trump, who keeps promising to do something about guns, still hasn’t because those are his voters and he wants to keep them.  As usual Pete Buttigieg, who managed to speak more this time around, came off smart, balanced and competent.  Both he and Klobuchar get gold stars for pushing back at Castro’s attack dog routine.  Buttigieg was on point when his mocked Trump’s earlier snide question “could anyone imagine Buttigieg cutting a deal with Chinese president Xi” by pointing out that Trump has had almost three years and has failed to do so. Senator Kamala Harris had a good night too, she focused on attacking Trump rather than going after Biden, and was far more coherent this time around.  Cory Booker also stayed in the plus column, he always comes off as a little too earnest but earnest is far better than dishonest and crazy which is what we’ve got right now.  Bottom line is that, like them or not, all of these men and women would be better and more rational than Trump, though some would be better than others and it is time for some of them (hint, hint Yang and Castro) to drop out of the running.

What Else?  The Democrats formally initiated an “impeachment” inquiry yesterday with House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler saying “Some call this process an impeachment inquiry. Some call it an impeachment investigation. There is no legal difference between these terms, and I no longer care to argue about the nomenclature."  Whatever it is, the Democrats hope that it will help them force more testimony from some of those uncooperative Trumpies while also helping them get their hands on the information that they haven’t been able to get to date.  Something is up on the Andrew McCabe front.  It looks like the Justice Department has decided to indict the Former Acting FBI Director, or at the very least is trying to indict him, for “lying” about his conversations with the press, conversations that he was allowed to have. They’ve called their Grand Jury back into service but may be having trouble convincing what may be a fairly skeptical group of Washington DC jurors that the indictment isn’t just a political hit on McCabe who Trump has called treasonous and an enemy.  In any case, if McCabe is indicted Trump’s many anti-McCabe tweets will be submitted as evidence so convicting McCabe won’t be easy. Under pressure from a bipartisan group of senators, Trump has finally decided to stop sitting on aid already committed to Ukraine, the money he was holding back in what was looking like an effort to get Ukrainian leadership to share dirt, real or imagined, on the Biden family with Rudy Giuliani.  After denying that the long term Russian spy exfiltrated  by the CIA back into the US had been anyone important or even had been close enough to Putin to do any damage, the Russians have now asked Interpol to issue a Red Notice so that they can “find” him and send him back to mother Russia.  And lastly, the Trump administration rolled back some Obama era clean water protections because who needs clean water anyway?