I suppose we see Trump trying a Nixon trick in “flanking to the left”, while others dither.  It is a joke, the taking of credit for the “first step act”, but oddly he may be right that “only Trump coulda  passed it.”, in that Obama should have signed it but McConnell was following the dictates of Trump’s campaign from tough on crime to the Great Kardashian diplomacy..  The Nixon part of the equation comes in the question of just how one administers that progressive legislation you’re touting— what I always suspect the true lines behind the paradox in some parcels some people let with Nixon as the ironic last liberal presidency.

On the other way, this has the feel t it of George W Bush’s sotu bromides for wind energy… Solar energy… Disconnected from any policy, or in the main so, and seemingly scrubbed from encyclopedia articles, as though just read about a thing.

In the end, it is effective politics — though I suppose out of the other side of the mouth you pivot to the American carnage line.  I began reading the speech … The first several paragraphs rewrite history to where apparently he walked in at the start of his administration to… Urm… Mad max?… And now we have paradise on earth.  It’s unreadable, and I can’t bring myself to hear down on it.    I am curious on what he says on North Korea, which in the past I’ve wanted to give him an element of praise if not for the fact he hasn’t bothered to even stumble into a policy there he seemed to… we have this summary of what he’s presented at each sotu.

Oh great… Democracy Now has a debate between a former Bush speechwriter and a Jacobin writer on the viability of Bernie Sanders.  Hilarious in the Amy Goodman selective picking of congressional validator for the position of the show, and good on Frum to mention the 70s era sexual charger underground materials which will dry up that great suburban female gap with Trump.  It gets goofy again as the Jacobin man sells Bernie as aptly selling his socialism from the rich vein of Americana a la debs and thomas, who… You know, ran for president indeed and… Tapped out at six percent.  I guess the one thing Sanders has over Elizabeth Warren — he does appear aware that he’s talking beyond the most narrow twittery of the Democratic party primary electorate.

At the moment Trump has his highest approval ratings, and the Democratic field looks damned flat.  I suppose it is a “buttigieg, ready for your close up?” Moment.

Depending on what it is that had happened with Trump’s Superbowl tweet — great night for the state of Kansas — it could have meant something of it could have meant nothing.  It means nothing.  It is closer to Obama’s meaningless “57 states” statement than Obama supporting Trump bashers would have it — message quickly deleted, replaced with a correct one — why should one card if he does not address the flub?

On the “failure” that happened in Iowa last night — I have no real reason to see… why it matters.   More of less, a good thing to see the media contrived meaning of it torn to shreds.. It is just the first of 57 contests, afterall.  (58 if you toss in the super delegate race.)

The problem is meaning is ascribed where you want to see it.  See McConnell “and they want to run health care?”  See, hrm, the same basic headline only lightly assuaged by note takers pointing out the “fiasco of iowa is not new.

I suppose we are still set with Biden having to figure out how to survive until Super Tuesday and show enough support to not let that dissolve.  Kerry musing off record in private for evesdropping need reporters to record how he may just have to jump in the race because it’s hard to tell whether the very real plausible fear of a doomed Bernie disaster is feted by a fear he may win.  Reports circle that Hillary is seeking the vice presidency, by more high end sour rd than those speculating that the story last night in Iowa was a thinly  veiled sabotage of bernie, and I guess that’s why Buttigieg jumped the gun in declaring victory.

“I don wanna have fun.”

Amusing.  The dad deals down to meet the whining boy who keeps repeating “but I don wanna have fun.”

A pre-mature emo kid.  It is worth dissecting to what extent the two are synonymous … You don’t want to have fun, would rather sing dad ballads whimpering in a dark room or whatever on the teenager’s side — have a little less ability to choose your course as a pre schooler but round about that…

As the fun being shoved on you is false — high school athletics and activities for the terms — swing sets and clowns at a younger age.

The kid… Hopefully can get his wish and… Not have fun.

I watched the first episode of the new Picard series, and — sure, shall see the second one whenever it is free.

Noting this piece of commentary Here on the aging characters of Star Trek versus how Star Wars must cycle through into the young taking up the battle… Or, to put it otherweres, there’s a role for a ninety year old “earl Gray decaf” drinking ex captain to pay down a thick exposition on the terms of his final controversy for an oral history project before jumping back out of retirement to settle having done wrong for Data’s mind as…

I know Picard is the new Churchill… The show makes it implicit by bringing up his “mistake” as Dunkirk.

This pile of sludge that means squat to non trek did hards.

Sometime back in 2016, there was some forced commentary on pop culture pointing the way to — oh, over bearing technocratic leader with two x chromosomes.  Dreyfuss in Veep.  Ghostbusters.  Point the way to a Hillary presidency, never mind Ghostbusters was a mild box office failure, never mind the laws of “swamp the media oxygen” favored mr orange.

Arriving in 2020 and the flawed Democratic line up.  Famously long in the tooth the whole batch of them.  I don’t really know that the retreading of captain Picard can argue for a retreating of Biden… Or if some of the reasons — superficial and otherwise — that no one can get past the familiar boomer brands… The generation s candidates caught between two massive generations…  Maybe the Star Trek universe of a few centuries hence experienced the same demographic crater.  (Or we have the anti intellectual rampant in society suggested by the shutting down of aI research… Probably failing to address present enemy and still on the last war against romulans and not the next against borg…

or, slightly off the opposite problem Which does not argure for the yutes voting… the “ok boomer” comment to anyone remembering anything at all from the last century, or expressing misgivings on cultural shifts.)

y’know… oddly the person who maybe best prefigures some of the economic reconfiguration toward a Trekian universe could be Andrew Yang.  Think about it…