For the first time in a long while I watched the State of the Union Address like a normal person: only barely paying attention.
Overall, I thought it was fine. President Joe was very much on his bipartisan schtick, starting off with lots of crowd-pleasing Ukraine stuff and then emphasizing things he thought everyone could support. He took a few partisan shots—one at the Republican tax cut, another at "infrastructure week"—but those were kept to a minimum. Otherwise he talked about funding the police, protecting the border (though without a lot of detail), and his cancer moonshot, which are hardly the ingredients of partisan strife.
I imagine this didn't go down too well with Democrats in the TV audience, most of whom probably wanted a little more red meat. At the same time, I don't imagine he pulled many Republicans over to his side regardless of his demeanor. After all, he didn't promise to end the scourge of CRT in our classrooms or call on Democrats to stop stealing elections.
I thought the worst part of the speech was when Biden talked about inflation. He rattled off a bunch of stuff that was way too complicated for most people to understand. Even at the risk of incurring the wrath of the fact checkers, he should have simplified this to about a third grade level.
The best part of the speech was pretty clearly the opening few minutes about Ukraine, which set a great tone for the rest of the address. Biden's "four things we can all agree on" was also good, but it needed a summary: "Opioids, mental health, veterans, and cancer." I'm surprised none of the writers thought to include that.
I don't think Democrats will be upset. There may be a few going off on a particular area, but in general, it should get support. Bernie on Stephen Colbert's show seemed fine with it.
When it comes to border crossing Republicans will be on the defensive. Trumps problem, Biden fixed it.
Time to fix the price of oil next and begin arresting traders. Talk about a scam.
It was fine though I personally would prefer more to fight heart disease rather than cancer
The difference is that we largely know how to fight heart disease: exercise more and eat less. Tough to make a satisfying SotU address out of that.
Americans don't want prevention -- that's WORK! We want a CURE!
I try but I definitely can't fix myself so I would prefer some more assistance.
I have no idea if it'll have any impact, but the most notable aspects of this speech for me were when Biden just kind of expressed his own self. Saying hello to a "buddy" (I forget who it was), saying "happy birthday" to a clearly amazed 13-year-old in the audience, and telling everyone that "we're going to be ok" (as opposed to loftier rhetoric). Normal stuff. But that's the point. Biden is at his best, in my opinion, when he comes across as the normal guy who happens to be President.
Agreed. Scranton Joe.
Why did AOC look so pissed?
Resting Snitch Face.
Being at the State of the Union kept her from her preferred task of chaos agents for the FARA violations known as Brand New Congress & Justice Democrats.
“Biden asked his countrymen to put aside their differences. “Let’s stop looking at COVID-19 as a partisan dividing line and see it for what it is: a God-awful disease,” said the president. “Let’s stop seeing each other as enemies and start seeing each other for who we really are: fellow Americans.” Trump, conversely, prodded Americans to turn against one another. “Our country is being poisoned from within,” he warned, calling his domestic opponents “truly evil” and “vicious people.” “As grave as the dangers are abroad, it’s the destruction within that spells our doom,” said Trump. “Our most dangerous people are people from within.”
I am not a “fellow American” to republicans or trumpists or antivax people. Trump taught me that lesson. Biden’s appeal to unity simply does not undo all that’s happened. But I’m no one… no one cares what I think and, despite my comments on this obscure blog, I’m not contributing to the hatefulness. I’m simply acknowledging that it exists and accepting that all those awful people are really truly awful. I guess President Biden won’t admit that or doesn’t believe it.
Maybe he still doesn’t understand what “Let’s go Brandon” means, but I do. It means fuck you Justin too. And that’s all I need to know about people who say it.
And so this is some decent justice.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/national/capitol-riots/man-awaiting-sentence-capitol-riot-dies-by-suicide-matthew-perna-january-6-sharpsville-pennsylvania/65-e0f08230-bec0-493e-b7ab-f0b2b67a31e2
That’s a little too harsh and unfeeling. Prison is genuinely a bad place to be and most jails and prisons in this country are hell on earth. If you’re not a regular and inured to living in what is essentially a never ending nightmare, it’s an unimaginably difficult thing for ordinary people to face. This guy had a normal life with friends and family; he wasn’t a gangster, a rapist or even a thief. Yes, maybe he was that crazy uncle at thanksgiving but there’s a likelihood that he will be missed by someone.
Equally, I think we need to worry about the approach of the DOJ. Harsh consequences have been visited almost randomly on the least culpable foot soldiers of the insurrection but it’s leaders and organizers have been untouched. And the DOJ has made it abundantly clear that this is a policy choice. They aren’t pressuring lower level participants to flip and implicate the higher up because the decision has obviously been made to give them a pass.
Well, I'm OK with Justin on this one. People died because of this guy's intentionally stupid choices. If he chooses to remove himself from the gene pool, I confess to being non-feeling about it.
I think it's easy to hammer the poor slobs who are being sent out as cannon fodder. But it's wrong to go after them if the DOJ is just going to let the instigators and leaders just going on about their daily lives. It's like if the Nuremberg trials had settled on Sgt. Schultz the scapegoat for World War II and the Shoah and then gave everyone in the Nazi Party or the government a pass so they could go about their daily lives without being bothered.
At this point it's clearly not about accountability or about deterring another insurrection in 2024. It's just a silly meaningless performance that visits a lot of cruelty on people who are easy targets as a way of diverting attention from the decision to allow the leaders to get on with their lives (and make tons of money).
I just don't see how sentencing people for whom there is clear evidence of law-breaking is a silly meaningless performance.
More time is needed to prosecute the bigger fish that are more responsible. Solid evidence is needed to survive the legal challenges of prosecuting these people. It takes more time to do this, and I am a patient man.
It’s the lack of proportionality. The normal thing is for gang leaders or organized crime bosses to be prosecuted more vigorously and punished more harshly. But here, the Biden Justice Department has established a morally inverse principle whereby the instigators and leaders of the failed coup are given a pass but the people at the bottom are punished extremely harshly, particularly in comparison to their leaders.
I understand that the wheels of justice grind slowly but extremely fine. But for them to grind at all they have to be moving and there’s exactly zero indications that any of these leaders are being investigated at all.
Indeed, the DOJ allowed the statute of limitations to run on Trump’s obstruction of justice charges which were detailed in depth in the Mueller report. Insofar as I’m aware, no investigation file was opened, no grand jury was convened, no documents or testimony was obtained, and no reason was ever given for giving Trump a pass.
This would be like the allies giving Heinrich Himmler a pension and a villa on the Danube but hanging Sgt. Schultz as a war criminal.
But, but, but... Schultz knew nothing! NOTHING!!
And he saw nothing, too!
Link… https://www.thebulwark.com/a-tale-of-two-speeches/
Thanks for the link.
"“As grave as the dangers are abroad, it’s the destruction within that spells our doom,” said Trump. “Our most dangerous people are people from within.”"
Crap. I hate that I find I agree with the POS.
Yeah, and who knew he was talking about himself??
trump, if he ever uttered the words, fellow americans, it was a lie just like everything else that came out of that maw. i've never felt that disconnect with any other president, including w, whose wars i despised.
I though the speech was great, but the reporting afterward seemed focused on instant polling.
I strongly think the media may need to forget about polling entirely. Whatever the issue Republicans will only answer in a way they think can do maximum harm to others, not in a considered or genuine way.
Agreed. I'd like to see more analysis, ACTUAL analysis, like they do on Talking Points Memo, and skip the knee-jerk responses of the ignorant (which is most of us).
That would have the added advantage of maybe getting east coast reporters out of the "diners" of the rural midwest. I am desperately tired of the ignorant, bigoted, parochial views of a few layabouts who have time to spend hanging around in greasy spoons all day.
This idiot myth of diners among news people is like fingernails on a blackboard. People do not hang around in a diner like it's a British pub.
It's like that 'sense of the people' trope, where they report about how halfwits get it wrong as evidence of how politicians, by which they mean Democrats, get it wrong by not also being wrong like halfwits, ergo Republicans are the real Americans, being really wrong like normal folk.
I remember in 2008 a CNN reporter was doing a broadcast from a Midwest small-town diner, and he asked the customers-real American, so elderly white folk- who they supported for President.
McCain- a little tepid clapping.
Obama- tremendous outburst of applause,
He then told the camera "Looks like it's evenly divided." Even the customers burst out in laughter and jeers.
> I imagine this didn't go down too well with Democrats in the TV audience, most of whom probably wanted a little more red meat. At the same time, I don't imagine he pulled many Republicans over to his side regardless of his demeanor.
I think you are conflating Democrats and the Green Party. Democrats loved the speech, especially the part about funding the police. The Green Party wanted more red meat.
Biden's point that there are many things that reasonable people can work on together still seems important whether or not it actually swayed any unreasonable Republicans.
"Overall, I thought it was fine. President Joe was very much on his bipartisan schtick, ...."
The old definition of a diplomat used to be "One who is disarming even when his country is not." The new description of a US president (Trump excepted, of course) seems to be "A politician who invokes bipartisanship even when his party does not."
I bet Vladimir Putin doesn't even know what TikTok is,
https://www.rawstory.com/tiktok-outs-russia-soldiers/