State of the Union 2019

The most absurd part of Trump's surreal and sleazy state of the union speech was his denunciation of socialism, "we will never be a socialist nation."  First of all, we already are:  Medicare (which was originally denounced by the medical community as "socialized medicine"), public schools. public libraries, social security, the post office, etc.  The major things we don't have that more "socialist" nations in Europe have are single-payer health care, free college education and childcare for working families.   The fear of socialism, of course, is less immediate now for Trump than the fear of immigrants, a subject on which Trump continues to dissemble, including stating that a wall in El Paso has stopped illegal immigration when the evidence shows otherwise.

Among other things that Trump did not mention was the separation of families at the border (though he did denounce abortion) and two things important to the working classes;  the shutdown of the government that deprived many workers of their paychecks, and unions, which were instrumental in raising wages until recently, when they have constantly been under attack by Trump and his allies. Otherwise the sotu was a typical Trump dog-and-pony show, including lauding WW II veterans and the Republican attendants popping up like "whack-a-moles" to applaud every absurd Trump assertion.

Stacey Adams's response to Trump was refreshing, pointing out that Trump mentioned nothing about the government shutdown, education, gun control, the burden Trump's trade wars have placed on American farmers, tearing families apart at the border, climate change, the affordable care act (which Trump claimed during his campaign to replace with something "better and cheaper" but has never made the slightest attempt to do), voter suppression and a respect for diversity.

Manifest

The one current network show I watch is NBC's "Manifest," a mixture of science fiction, police procedural and soap opera.  An airplane runs into some turbulence and when it lands it is five years later (the flight took three hours).  The show for a while was about a government conspiracy to kidnap and interrogate the passengers, then turned into a show about some of the passengers "seeing" the future and recently has brought in non-passengers who disappeared for periods of time, have miraculously survived and also have "callings," seeing the future.  One thing I like about the show is its unpredictability; too often I see a network show, like it and turn it on again only to find the plot exactly the same.  Perhaps most network TV watchers want that kind of predictability.

The various plot strands are woven carefully together by creator Jeff Rake and executive producer Robert Zemeckis (who directed the Back to the Future movies).  Josh Dallas plays Ben Stone, who returns from missing five years to find his wife with another man; his young son Cal, who was with him on the plane, has stayed the same age while Cal's twin sister Olive has aged five years.  Stone leads the inquiry to find out what has happened, as well is what is happening:  some of the plane passengers have died under mysterious circumstances. Next week is the final episode of the season and we'll see if the various plot elements continue to come together or further unravel.