That appalling State of the Union address

This foto says it all. These are the 3 puffed-up, smug clowns that 35-40% of Americans want running their country, resolute in a belief that – contrary to all evidence – both they and the country are doing well. . .

Trump delivered 168 lies in 107 minutes – CNN fact-checked him in real time – and there are several responses to these below. But here is what strikes me as the real take-away about about the current Republican government, led of course by folk who fear prison: To understand the speech’s core purpose — arguably, the core purpose of Trump’s presidency — you need only to hear one line. Democrats, Trump claimed, only oppose voter ID because ‘they want to cheat.’ And then he took it much further. ‘Their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat,. We’re going to stop it.’ Think about that for a second. This is the president of the USA claiming that the opposition party is not only wrong on policy but fundamentally illegitimate, so much so that, if they win an election, it must be because they cheated. Taken literally, that is the president announcing that the stated policy of his administration is preventing the opposition from winning any future election. [Zack Beauchamp of Vox]

If Americans can’t understand this and prevent it, their ‘experiment in democracy’ is dead in the water. And we will all pay the price for this failure.

Meanwhile . . . Some adverse responses to the SOTU address:-

Non-comedic

• Stuart Rojstaczer: Trump’s big lie. We are not winning.
• Bernie Saunders: The truth about wealth growth and inequality in the USS.
• The Guardian: Trump claims a host of successes and attacks old foes in the longest State of the Union. He hails a ‘turnaround for the ages’ but offers few policy pledges and repeats his jibes against ‘crazy’ Democrats.

Comedic

• The Daily Show: Trump gets Tarantino-gory & award-crazy
• Jimmy Kimmel: Trump claims everything is GREAT, MAGAland gives [sickeningly] rave reviews
• Seth Myers: Trump’s tantrum.
• Stephen Colbert: Trump’s speech was disborbing.

Other News

A bombshell?? . . . From the NYT: Epstein files are missing. Documents released by the DoJ briefly mention a minor’s unverified accusation that Trump assaulted her in the 1980s but several memos related to her account are not in the files.