The SOTU shitspiel

I've wanted Nancy Pelosi to step aside for a long time, but I have to admit, I'm enjoying her presidential rebukes.

Go Nancy.

An emboldened Donald Trump bragged about the “great American comeback” in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, in a speech resembling an 81-minute re-election rally that prompted the most powerful woman in Congress to rip up her copy of the speech on national television.

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As Trump came up to the podium, Pelosi reached out to shake his hand. In a striking moment, the president declined to return the gesture. She had the last laugh, though: the moment he finished speaking she calmly tore in half her copy of his script.

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[She] said she tore up the address, which he delivered on the eve of the verdict in his impeachment trial, because she couldn’t find “one page with truth on it”.

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The president delivered a speech rippling with jingoism, xenophobia and untruths just feet away from the Democratic leaders who inflicted on him the impeachment trial that he has tried so hard to dismiss as a “witch-hunt”.

Several Democrats, including Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, walked out during the speech. One senator, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, compared it to a “2020 campaign rally”.

“It was a total mistake for Democrats to be there. That was a 2020 campaign rally; that was not a State of the Union,” he said. “I regret stepping one foot inside.”

  Guardian

You could have walked out with the ladies, and the others: Tim Ryan (Ohio) and Bill Pascrell (NJ) .

Several Congress critters boycotted the speech altogether:  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Al Green (Texas), Steve Cohen (Tenn.), Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), Hank Johnson (Ga.), and Frederica Wilson (Fla.)

Republicans quickly seized on the moment, with former speaker Newt Gingrich accusing Pelosi of “childishness”.

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Trump’s advisers and senior Republicans had been pleading with him to take the high ground and focus on positives rather than unloading on his Democratic rivals in the joint chamber of Congress before him. As the White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, put it: “Success is the best revenge.”

Hewing to that advice, Trump devoted a lengthy part of his speech to what he called the “roaring” US economy, boasting that it was “the best it has ever been”.

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But in common with his three previous State of the Union addresses, Tuesday night’s was packed with misleading statements, exaggerations and blatant untruths. In one of the most memorable passages, Trump claimed that he was increasing social mobility in America.

“The vision I will lay out this evening demonstrates how we are building the world’s most prosperous and inclusive society – one where every citizen can join in America’s unparalleled success, and where every community can take part in America’s extraordinary rise.”

In fact, income inequality has reached its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking the data 50 years ago.

Not to mention the plight of immigrants and people of color under Trump's term of office.

Trump also repeated several of his favorite falsehoods in other areas. “We will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions,” he said, when in truth he has encouraged numerous Republican attempts to overturn President Obama’s Affordable Care Act and abolish protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Without naming his presidential rivals, Trump unleashed a ruthless attack on several of them. In particular, he tore into the healthcare plans of Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who narrowly came second to Pete Buttigieg in the early results out of the Iowa caucus on Monday.

Switching from State of the Union to political rally. All Democrats should have left the room at that point.

The “radical left”, he said, wanted to “take away your healthcare, take away your doctor and abolish private insurance entirely”. To ecstatic cheers from his Republican enablers, Trump addressed “those watching at home”, telling them: “Tonight I want you to know we will never let socialism destroy American healthcare.”

We'll do that ourselves.

He hailed a “man beloved of millions of Americans” – the controversial rightwing radio talkshow host Rush Limbaugh who has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer – awarding him the presidential medal of freedom.

Among other treats for the ranks of Trump supporters was his pledge to protect second amendment gun rights, backing of the right to pray in public schools, and his name-check for Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the two conservatives he appointed to the supreme court. Most significantly, he returned to the toxic issue with which he initiated his presidential bid in 2015 – his attack on “criminal illegal aliens”.

On foreign policy, Trump was no less contentious. He was self-congratulatory about his “peace plan” for the Middle East, no matter that it has been universally rejected by Palestinians.

Nancy Pelosi was right to tear up the speech.

He did some more bragging about the assassination last month of Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s top military leader, without referencing the Iranian counter-attack on US troops in an Iraqi base that it provoked.

Among the exceptionally rare moments of concord within the chamber was when Republicans and Democrats stood together to applaud the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó who attended as a guest of the White House.

Democrats can still be counted on the support foreign interference and the spread of capitalism.

Here's Nancy's reply to Trump's rally speech:

"Manifesto of mistruths."

Surprisingly, Trump has not yet tweeted anything about Nancy's performance.  (7:45 am Eastern)*

He gave a shout-out to Melania in the middle of his rally speech.

He had a big show of a military homecoming.

He also held a ceremony awarding Rush Limbaugh (who recently announced he's dying of cancer) the Medal of Freedom, an honor that has become meaningless in any form but to provide pets of presidents with baubles to show off at parties.

This is definitely not a State of the Union speech.

The elevator pitch for the 2020 SOTU was Fantasy Island meets Make-A-Wish meets Oprah.

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All of it was so jarring that, as Pelosi manically flipped her speech script papers back and forth in desperation, you almost wondered if something would suddenly be revealed from behind Curtain Number 3.

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Trump’s speech also included some perfunctory presidential stuff about freedom and aspirations and terrorists killed. There were the standard mistruths—12,000 new factories no one can locate, a boast about “restoring our nation’s manufacturing might,” despite the fact that experts claim manufacturing is officially in recession.

There was breaking news that Trump is building an inclusive America “where every community can take part in America’s extraordinary rise.” Not mentioned in the fine print was that there will be a few exceptions—like those communities riven by anti-Semitic violence, or those that welcome refugees, or those that never got their healthcare repealed and replaced, weren’t helped by the tax cut, and never saw a new factory—either real or imagined—come back to town.

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Though, of course, tucked in between the traditional passages we expected on late-term abortion and economic growth and trade, there was some creepy stuff Stephen Miller wrote.

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The highlights of the show were the red-carpet guests, and the parts about ICE agents, and the dangers of socialism, and then the section he delivered with gusto about how much he has protected coverage for pre-existing conditions, which is bull. But whatever. Remember: This isn’t reality. It’s reality TV.

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Meanwhile Senate GOP sources have spent the last few days insisting to reporters that Republican senators did not want the president to talk about impeachment during the SOTU, even though we all know that they don’t care what he does anymore.

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On Wednesday, Trump will be lauded for his address for as many hours as he is willing to sustain praise for it—and then, as surely as the sun sets in the west, he will blow everything up in his usual cycle of self-destruction that always follows his good days.

  The Bulwark

And, speaking of parties, Senator Krysten Sinema (D-Arizona) came dressed for one.

 She may know what she's doing considering her constituency, but I wouldn't bet on it.  And check out the two senators flanking her - Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris when she does it.

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed during a 2018 school shooting, was removed from House chamber on Tuesday night after yelling at President Trump during the State of the Union.

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Guttenberg's comments were partially drowned out by GOP lawmakers who were applauding Trump's line. But some reporters in the gallery characterized him as speaking about "victims of gun violence."

Guttenberg was at the State of the Union as a guest of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

  The Hill

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), in delivering the Working Families Party response to President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, referenced an article arguing “the cruelty is the point” for Trump and his administration.

“For Donald J. Trump, the cruelty is the point,” Pressley said, quoting a 2018 essay written by The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer. “Over the past year, I’ve seen the bigotry and hatred from this administration firsthand. I visited a detention center on the border and sat with immigrant mothers separated from their children and denied the basic necessities of life.”

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“Every day … we see the impact of an administration that emboldened white nationalists and promotes bigotry,” Pressley added. “Tonight, I want to remind Donald J. Trump that I see right through him, the American people see right through him.”

  The Hill

Aside from the many factual inaccurcies, aka lies, Trump showed his increasing difficulty speaking at all:

Remember when Bill Clinton talked to Loretta Lynch on the tarmac and Republicans lost their shit?

Freedom unifies the soul? What does that mean?

*  8:30am   He's on it now.  But instead of actually tweeting anything himself, he has retweeted twenty-four separate accounts that express some variation of the last one:

Come on President Asshat, you can do better than that.

UPDATE:  In response to the GOP talking point that is saying Nancy Pelosi broke the law by tearing up an official document...

Pretty sure that was Nancy's personal copy to do with as she pleased.  Mike Pence got one at the same time.  There's an official copy that will be preserved.

and...

UPDATE:

UPDATE: