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Showing posts with label State of the Union address. Show all posts
Showing posts with label State of the Union address. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

The Greatest Response Ever

I've never been a fan of the "response" to the president after his SOTU...even when it was my party that did it. But Nikki Haley's speech last night in response to President Obama's final state of the union address was fucking fantastic.



What should be the future of the Republican party....

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

The Populist President

My first reaction to the speech tonight was this...who won the election again last November? :)

Obviously, the president and the Democrats know that they stole the honeymoon from the Republicans and are sitting pretty right now. The president realizes that there is a missing story from last year's election and so they are going to shift left and pull the country with them. He's got the poll numbers now (and Congress sure as shit does not) to throw his weight around a little more and you could really tell from his body language tonight as well as his speech. Barack Obama is finally at a point where he has absolutely nothing to lose and, man oh man, did the Republicans look uptight and grumpy about it all night during the speech.

A few highlights...

America, for all that we’ve endured; for all the grit and hard work required to come back; for all the tasks that lie ahead, know this: The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is strong.

Yes it is..in a large part, thanks to him which is why conservatives hate him so much. He has been successful.

We believed we could prepare our kids for a more competitive world. And today, our younger students have earned the highest math and reading scores on record. Our high school graduation rate has hit an all-time high. And more Americans finish college than ever before.

So much for "Department of Our Collapsing Schools"

So the verdict is clear. Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don't get in the way. We can't slow down businesses or put our economy at risk with government shutdowns or fiscal showdowns. We can't put the security of families at risk by taking away their health insurance, or unraveling the new rules on Wall Street, or refighting past battles on immigration when we've got a system to fix. And if a bill comes to my desk that tries to do any of these things, it will earn my veto.

Yes, the verdict is clear. Conservative economic ideology has failed. Time to leave it behind forever.

21st century businesses need 21st century infrastructure -- modern ports, stronger bridges, faster trains and the fastest internet. Democrats and Republicans used to agree on this. So let's set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline. Let's pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than thirty times as many jobs per year, and make this country stronger for decades to come.

I think the Keystone Pipeline is a great metaphor for Republican policies...rigid and out of step with a dynamic world.

I've heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they're not scientists; that we don't have enough information to act. Well, I'm not a scientist, either. But you know what -- I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we'll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.

We should also not act like little insecure babies who don't like it when there are other people out there who are smarter and more accomplished than we are. Having more intelligence than someone shouldn't be a prerequisite for attacks from paranoid morons living in their parents basement.

Of course, the main takeaway from this speech is going to be the middle class tax cuts paid for by tax increases on the wealthy. Clearly, that's when GOP members in the audience lost a little in their shorts. How dare President Uppity try to take back the middle class white vote?

It's going to be a fun two years, folks!




Wednesday, January 29, 2014

State of the Union A Go Go

As is usually the case, the president delivered an excellent speech in front of the nation calling for action in multiple areas of our society that would improve our nation a great deal. His main focus was inequality, citing multiple areas in which we could improve the disparity between the very wealthy in this country and everyone else. He spoke of his health care law, tech hubs, improving the tax code, immigration, and a whole host of other issues, ending with a very poignant and moving tribute to a wounded Afghan vet named Cory Remsburg.

But cynicism is the rule of the day presently in Washington and with good reason. We still have a Congress full of Republicans who will never allow the president to succeed on anything. Their maturity level (see: 12 year old boy) simply can't stand that someone they don't feel is befitting of the office of president will be viewed positively in any way. They are so insecure that even a small degree of success somehow translates into a boiling pit of sewage for them. The only possible movement we might see this year is on immigration and that's because GOP leaders know they are fucked in the election if they don't do something. The Latino vote has become far too important to disregard any longer. So, I suppose I should happy for at least that.

Yet I am not. We used to be a nation that got things done and strove for higher ground. We weren't held back by petty adolescents whose only conviction was their vanity. People who were..well...nuts didn't win elections. People like Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY).



Or people like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who said after the SOTU speech last night that "The world is literally about to blow up." Boiling pit of sewage indeed.

Or people like Fox News analyst and retired Army general Paul Vallely who have called openly for a coup d'etat.

Seriously, what a fucking clown show. And there are millions of people that fall for this shit?

The political press and beyond have talked extensively over the last week or so about how important this speech was for the president if he hopes to tread water in the 2014 elections and not lose any ground. Given the jack wagons on the Right and their behavior, I'm wondering how long it will be before the dam bursts and we can finally be rid of the right wing blogger mentality that seems to overshadow the GOP these days.

Honestly, it can't come soon enough.

Monday, January 24, 2011

State of Delusion

On Tuesday, President Obama will give his State of the Union address. The Republican response will be from Paul Ryan. And the Tea Party response (?!) will be given by Michele Bachmann.

I've never been a fan of the 'response' regardless of who is president. The whole response thing was, of course, started by the GOP back in the Johnson era. That first one was given by Everett Dirksen and Gerald Ford on January 12, 1966. The irrational fear of 'Big Government' was kicking around even back at that time.

As soon as it started, the whole thing smacked of adolescent gaming...my 12th level Druid is better than your 12th level Wizard...N'yah N'yah!! Moreover, it's the school yard bully 'I must get in the last word' deal as well. This was very apparent during the Clinton years when the GOP (much like they are now) simply could not accept Clinton as president. He won! How dare he? Much of their outrage is centered around their delusion that President Obama is an illegitimate president.

All of this has now gotten really ridiculous as the delusions of the Tea Party have slipped into the mainstream and, thus, we have a third state of the union delivered by Michele Bachmann. None of this would be happening if the economy was in good shape. People have given in to irrational fears and, as is usually the case, it's all the fault of everyone on the left.

I wonder how many state of the union addresses we will have in 2012. Four? Ten? I can just see the communists, skin heads, and the Maple Grove, MN ladies auxiliary getting in their two cents. If things don't get better economically, we might see more. Regardless of where they fall politically, the response to the State of the Union is ridiculous. It reeks of insecurity and is characteristic of an Orwellian drive to control the way people think. If a president that I didn't vote for stands up and says a bunch of crap that is either a lie or wrong (see: George W. Bush), why do I need someone from the Democratic Party to tell me it is? I can think and act for myself.

And that's one big difference between liberals and conservatives. The more I see things like this, the more I become convinced that it really does come down to how our brains are wired. I might not have liked what Bush said but I didn't feel the need to have a response to balance it out.. I knew he was wrong. The GOP (and the ultimate paranoids, the Tea Party) not only dislike what Barack Obama says but they don't want other people to like it.

In other words, they don't want him to win the argument....just like school yard bullies.