Conversion Therapy 🌻 🌻 🌻

SOTU:  Public speaking isn’t one of Joe Biden’s strengths, but you wouldn’t know that from last night’s State of the Union speech.  Sure, he stumbled and mumbled a bit, but mostly he was clear and on point, a happy warrior who appeared to be really enjoying himself while delivering an upbeat message. His speech was classic Biden, he called for more bipartisanship which won’t happen with the Republican controlled House, called for expanding insulin price caps, advocated for raising taxes on the very, very rich and those corporations who pay none, all while celebrating his legislative successes. He was welcoming to Speaker McCarthy, also congratulating Senator Mitch McConnell on his longevity while having warm words for newbie Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.  He did mangle Senate Leader Chuck Schumer’s title but that didn’t seem to bother Chuck, well not too much.  He even managed to trick the jeering Republican naysayers in the audience into denying that any of them had ever suggested cutting Social Security and Medicare by responding to hecklers in the crowd, and there were many, with an offer to have his office share copies of their slash and burn proposals, probably the one distributed by Florida Senator Rick Scott to his Senate pals.  By the end of that raucous segment, he had the entire audience, Republicans and Democrats, cheering his promise to leave the benefit programs intact, he even got in an unscripted quip about enjoying their conversion to the Democrat’s position.  That’s a bit of a dilemma for those who want to slash the budget because once you take Medicare and Social Security off the table the only big thing left is defense and though some Republicans would happily slash the defense budget, particularly anything going to Vlad’s enemies in Ukraine, many in their House caucus and few in Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell’s crowd would go there.  As to the Republicans in the audience.  George “many names” Santos who is now being formally investigated by the oxymoronic House Ethics Committee was there sitting in a coveted aisle seat, something that rubbed the usually ultra-polite Senator Mitt Romney who later referred to George as a sick puppy the wrong way.  Georgia’s Margie Q was there too.  Possibly because Speaker McCarthy told her she couldn’t bring it in with her, she left the “Chinese” white balloon that she’d been dragging around the Capitol back in her office.  Instead, she channeled the balloon, wearing a white dress with furry accoutrements, looking a bit like SNL’s Bowen Yang only he wore it better.  For his part, Trump who was not there, posted a running commentary about Biden’s speech on Truth Social.  Though he complimented Jill Biden’s dress, that was the only nice thing he had to say. He criticized Biden for the bigly sin of using the word “folks” too much, and then went all in on culture war issues, adding that he was running, again, to end the destruction of the country, which would be funny except we know Trump’s running to get back to doing that and if we’ve learned anything by now we should know that discounting his chances would be foolish.  As promised, newbie Governor and former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Saunders gave the official Republican response to Biden. She slammed Biden for failing us and went all in on the issues that really matter like fighting against the woke left-wing culture war, criticizing COVID policies, calling for the banning of Critical Race Theory, and most importantly asking legislators to formally ban the term Latinx.  It’s fun to mock Sanders but she’s a smooth and skilled prevaricator and sadly far too many thrive on the pearls of ignorance that she pushes.  The bottom line, though the next two years won’t be easy for him, or us, Biden won the night.

Human Resources:  Biden’s cabinet has been remarkably stable especially in comparison to Trump’s which often seemed to be playing a frantic game of musical chairs.  That said, Biden’s cabinet is about to lose one of its members and it’s not the Republican’s favorite punching bag Homeland Security Chief Alejandro Mayorkas, it’s Secretary of Labor, former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh who is stepping down to take his dream job, becoming the new Executive Director of the National Hockey League Players Association.  By the way, Walsh wasn’t at last night’s speech as he was this year’s designated survivor.  Speaking of survivors, Paul Pelosi, wearing what has become his signature fedora mostly because it covers the gash in his head was there, not as Nancy’s spouse but as one of Jill Biden’s honored guests, a nice touch given that he’s still not fully recovered from the attack that many in the SOTU audience threw shade all over. Not there, or at least not visible, was NYS gubernatorial wannabee Lee Zeldin who is widely expected to challenge NY’s incumbent senator Kirsten Gillibrand in 2024.  Zeldin, who’d campaigned for George Santos, may have finally hit a bit of a speed bump. He is about to launch a PAC and had intended to retain Nancy Marks who served as treasurer for his prior campaigns and who also worked in a similar capacity for George Santos. Yesterday Zeldin announced that he was dropping Marks while, of course, asserting that he really didn’t know her well and only interacted with her because their children go to the same school.  Curiously, like Santos, Zeldin had an unusually large number of $199.99 receipt-less expenditures included on his campaign finance documents. Marks and her consulting firm are about to go through some things, none of them fun, who knows who she’ll be willing to throw under the bus?  In other political news the Koch Network which funds the most right-wing conservative candidates through its Fund for Prosperity told its supporters and staff that they are ready to move on to “newer” candidates, a not-so-subtle way of them saying that they will not be supporting Trump or his handpicked candidates during the 2024 cycle.  Of course, should Trump win the nomination, they’ll back him wholeheartedly.  Lastly, for today, lots showing up in the news about West Virginia’s Joe Manchin pushing back at his Democratic colleagues, even a few articles suggesting that he is considering a run for the presidency.  My thoughts, to the extent they’re worth much, is all that means is that he’s positioning himself to run for reelection in Trump +39 West Virginia, something he needs to do whenever he’s up for reelection but even more so this time around if the state’s popular Republican Governor Jim Justice who was once a Democrat opts to challenge him, something that the term limited Justice is leaning towards doing. 

Wars and Quakes:  The earthquake death count in Turkey and Syria is up to 11,000 and rising and it looks like winter is going to be especially tough in war torn Ukraine.  There are lots of charitable organizations doing good work in those places, including Chef Jose Andreas’ World Central Kitchen (wck.org), one of my favorites because no matter what the tragedy people need to eat.