Whitney Trumps Trump

Reality TV: I did not watch the State of the Union Address because given the choice of listening to 80 minutes of Trump or watching My Big Fat Fabulous life I went with the latter, a truly awful but more tolerable reality show, which is saying a lot because it really is unbearably awful.  Whitney Way Thore, the star of Fat Life who like Trump doesn’t belong on a national stage, managed to survive an episode that had her engaging in a series of water sports while, from what I hear, that other reality star was delivering his mash up of exaggerated facts, false promises and a tribute to that great American hero Rush Limbaugh.  Unsatisfied with just gloating over a relatively strong economy, Trump claimed that “his” current job growth and decline in unemployment were unprecedented even though growth rates under Obama were frequently better and the percentage drops in unemployment rates were larger.  Though the Republican members of the audience did their usual adulation thing, Democrats lost it several times especially when Trump promised that he would sign any drug price reducing legislation the moment it crosses his desk ignoring that such legislation, HR3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act named after the late, great Elijah Cummings, has already been passed on a bipartisan basis in the House but is being blocked in the Senate wasteland by the legislation grim reaper also known as Mitch McConnell.  Trump’s promise to protect those with preexisting conditions didn’t go over all that well either  probably because his administration is currently suing to have that coverage and the entire Affordable Care Act overturned.  As to unifying the divided country and letting bygones be bygones, Trump made it clear that he wasn’t all that interested in any of that when after delivering the traditional copy of his speech to Speaker Pelosi he refused to shake her outstretched hand.  Not to be outdone, at the end of the evening she ripped up his speech telling reporters her “gesture was the courteous thing considering the alternatives.”  

The Mess in Iowa:  That other Reality TV program, the episode that will forever be titled the Disaster in Iowa is still not over but at least we now have most of the results.  With 71% of the votes reported it appears that Pete Buttigieg’s Monday night victory speech, which was criticized mostly by members of Bernie’s team for being prematurely delivered, was really warranted.  He eked out a victory by winning 27% of the state delegate equivalents over Bernie Sanders who so far clocks in with 25%.  The two are followed by Elizabeth Warren with 18%, Joe Biden with 15% and Amy Klobuchar with 13%.  Adding to the confusion, it appears that Bernie’s assertion of victory is also warranted as he may actually have received more votes than Buttigieg but in Iowa votes don’t always translate into delegate allocations as the Iowa caucus process is somewhat opaque and convoluted; that fancy new APP, the one that failed bigly in part because it was never beta tested, was supposed to make the process more transparent. Putting the technology fail aside, there are still some important takeaways.  The Iowa caucus has a history of being messy with initial results getting restated after final tallies are in so Monday’s mess wasn’t really that much of an outlier, the APP fail just magnified the problem.  That said the APP was a disaster, it’s failure reflects very poorly on both the Iowa and National Democratic parties, and a few heads are likely to roll, but even without the APP the Iowa caucus system is seriously flawed, it’s possible that it will have gone the way of the Edsel by the time 2024 rolls around.  Joe Biden never expected to win Iowa, the State’s homogenous population doesn’t reflect the make-up of his supporters or the rest of the Democratic base, but his fourth place finish is not a good thing for him and with Mike Bloomberg lurking in the wings, could make it difficult for him to raise the money that he desperately needs.  While Buttigieg and Sanders both earned bragging rights, and Sanders is likely to do very well in next week’s primary in his neighboring state New Hampshire, it’s still not clear how either, especially Buttigieg, will do in more diverse states like South Carolina or for that matter in a general election.  Shadow Inc, the company responsible for the Iowa APP, was a big loser, they can kiss their continued viability good bye as their other major client, Nevada, has wisely decided to drop them, moving to a plan B system of some kind, for their upcoming caucus.  And sadly, the biggest loser of the night was the Democratic party and by extension anyone who doesn’t want to see Trump go on for four more years.  The Dems really need to get their house in order or else.  Did I mention that Mike Bloomberg is in waiting in the wings? It’s not clear that he’s the solution, but it is fair to say that had he been in charge of the Iowa Caucus the technology would have worked.

Impeach:  The whole impeachment thing ends today and here’s a shocker Senator Susan Collins will not be voting to evict Trump from the White House because though she acknowledges that he did bad things, who really cares?  Mitt Romney has still not disclosed how he will vote, nor have the remaining Democrat outliers, including Alabama’s beleaguered Doug Jones and Arizona’s reliably unreliable Kyrsten Sinema, who apparently was the only Democrat to applaud Trump at the start of his speech last night. Also, not clear what West Virginia’s Joe Manchin is doing besides pushing for censure, but notably he sat with the Republicans last night, a quaint tradition that no one seems to be all that into these days. As to Rand Paul ignoring Chief Justice Robert’s example he announced the name of the Whistleblower on the Senate floor yesterday.  His neighbor, the one who beat him up over his unmanicured lawn, looks saner every day.