Obama's State of the Union Address Jan. 25

Obama will give his State of the Union address Tuesday, Jan. 25 at 9 pm eastern time. It will be all over your TV. You can watch it online here. Then on Jan. 27 at 2:30 pm eastern, Obama will answer questions in a YouTube interview:

Supreme Court Judges Shouldn't Be Pulling a Joe Wilson

It wasn't exactly "You lie!" but it seems to me that Supreme Court justices should have more maturity, integrity and more of an ability to control themselves. Samuel Alito's response to Obama's light scolding during the State of the Union:

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito didn't like hearing President Barack Obama publicly criticize the high court's ruling removing corporate campaign spending limits — and he didn't try to hide it.

Alito made a dismissive face, shook his head repeatedly and appeared to mouth the words "not true" or possibly "simply not true" when Obama assailed the decision Wednesday night in his State of the Union address.

The president had taken the unusual step of publicly scolding the high court, with some of its members in robes seated before him in the House. "With all due deference to the separation of powers," he said, the court last week "reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections." MSNBC

Cantor Says Obama's Speech Lacked Focus

The smug Eric Cantor said Obama's speech lacked focus. No, it didn't lack focus. Obama's got a lot to accomplish. The republicans think they can have it both ways--wreak havoc on the economy and on our nation and then criticize the president who comes in to fix everything. The GOP is ugly. Bipartisanship is looking to be a fairy tale.
Watch Cantor here.

Rudy Giuliani wishes that Obama said "terrorism," "terrorist," "terror" more often.

Ultimately, it's not the speech the matters, but the actions. Pundits place too much importance on speeches, especially Obama's, just so they have something to talk about for days on end.
The republicans' single focus isn't to help govern. It's to get back in power:

Here's Joe Biden:

Obama's State of the Union Jan. 27 2010 Video

Speech transcript.

POTUS was powerful. Happy for the bipartisan message and happy that Obama is still fighting.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you'd like, you can watch Bob McDonnell give the republican response here. Read about the unofficial response by "You Lie!" Joe Wilson here. Alito's reaction to being called out by Obama for a lame SCOTUS decision on campaign financing. Bank bailouts as popular as a root canal video.
My favorite part of Obama's speech:

So no, I will not give up on changing the tone of our politics. I know it's an election year. And after last week, it is clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual. But we still need to govern. To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that sixty votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions. So let's show the American people that we can do it together. This week, I'll be addressing a meeting of the House Republicans. And I would like to begin monthly meetings with both the Democratic and Republican leadership. I know you can't wait.

and this:

Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions - our corporations, our media, and yes, our government - still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people's doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.

No wonder there's so much cynicism out there.

No wonder there's so much disappointment.

Obama to Propose Freezing Discretionary Spending

This will cause uproar among democrats, republicans. Just as CNN says, Republicans will say it's not enough and democrats will say it's too much. It will be a free for all! Nothing Obama does will please anyone. Everyone has lost sight of the common good.

President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit, administration officials said Monday.

The officials said the proposal would be a major component both of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union speech on Wednesday and the budget that he will send to Congress next Monday for the fiscal year 2011 that begins in October.

It would cover the agencies and programs for which Congress allocates specific budgets each year, from air traffic control and farm subsidies to education, nutrition and national parks.

But it would exempt the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security budgets, as well as the entitlement programs that make up the biggest and fastest-growing part of the federal budget, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. NYT

Gen. Casey Concerned About Backlash Against Muslim Troops

Casey also discusses the heavy demand on U.S. troops:

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said Sunday he's concerned about backlash against Muslim members of the military in the wake of the shootings at Ford Hood, where the suspect being held is a Muslim.

"You know there’s been a lot of speculation going on and probably the curiosity is a good thing, but we have to be careful because we can't jump to conclusions now based on little snippets of information that come out," Casey said on CNN’s "State of the Union." "And frankly I am worried, I'm not worried but I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers."

Casey said he's asked military leaders to “be on the lookout” for mistreatment or discrimination against Muslim soldiers.

"As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well," he said.
read more at Politico

Boehner Speaks on Party Divide

John Boehner says the republican party accepts moderates. They haven't been very accepting of Olympia Snow or John McCain and I can't think of another moderate republican aside from Susan Collins.

Republicans are hitching their wagon to the tea party because they identify with the tea party. Republicans are having a battle with themselves. Fringe folk like Sarah Palin suggest that if republicans just stick to their conservative guns, so to speak, then they can win. Limbaugh:

"The Republican Party needs to learn something,'' suggests Limbaugh, whom the Obama White House has tried to paint as the voice of the Republican Party. "If it goes country club blue blood moderate, it's going to lose. If it goes Reagan conservative and commits to it, it's going to win landslides. Swamp

While most republicans seem to want to espouse tea party values, white culture and all of that, they realize they can't win elections on tea party values because that's not where the nation is.

So there is a conflict among republicans. Increasingly what's happening is the tea party fringe wants to de-legitimizing government altogether, which makes things even more interesting.

Valerie Jarrett on the marginalization of the republican party:

Both Sides Reach Consensus: Cheney is a Fool

Sherrod Brown says Dick Cheney is fool (paraphrased):

George Will says Dick Cheney is a fool:

Rahm Discusses Fox News Slant

Rahm Emanuel says Fox is not a news organization.
It is a perspective. What's happening is other news organizations are following Fox. I agree. It's almost too late though. There has been a breakdown in what constitutes news and a gradual degradation of the craft of journalism itself. The White House is doing a good thing though. It's pointing out to people that what Fox does is not news. People need to recognize that. They need to know the difference between facts and opinion. There is this scary trend of people believing in things, despite evidence to the contrary.

McCain: Let's Come up With a Winning Combination

McCain will forever be haunted by one of his biggest mistakes--choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. He will always have to defend that decision. But I wonder if he's really reckoned with what a lousy and unfair decision it was. He did the American people a great disservice by selecting Palin.
McCain appears to believe that he could've won if the stock market didn't crash.

Dick Cheney on State of the Union-Video

Who in their right mind would believe anything Dick Cheney said? He said some of the same things he said when he emerged from his bunker last time.
He's out to fix his image but he shouldn't be allowed out of his hole. This man is a dreadful human being. Frank Rich is right. I have no patience for Cheney and his ilk. Think Progress has a clip, not in the clips below, where Cheney calls Rush Limbaugh "a great friend." That should put everything into perspective. 

John McCain: Obama's Off to a Bad Start

An SNL skit spoofed that republicans are irrelevant and in real life, they're working their way toward irrelevancy because they don't yet realize that Americans want a new direction.
I had originally thought that Obama would get more republicans to support the stimulus but it's become apparent that the republicans are backing into the hard right corner, so bipartisanship needs to be viewed as inviting the republicans to participate, but if they're not offering any good ideas, or the same ideas, then there's no sense bickering with them. McCain says they weren't invited to participate, but three republicans did.

CNN: “It was a bad beginning,” McCain said Sunday of the legislative process that resulted in the $787 billion stimulus bill recently passed by Congress. “It was a bad beginning because it wasn’t what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people – that we would sit down together.”

While McCain said he appreciated the fact that Obama came to Capitol Hill to speak with House Republicans about the stimulus bill. But, “that’s not how you negotiate a result.” Instead, “you sit down in a room with competing proposals” and “almost all of our proposals went down on a party-line vote”

“I hope the next time we will sit down together and conduct truly bipartisan negotiations. This was not a bipartisan bill.”

Bush's State of the Union

blah, blah blah, boring. dull. ignorant.

Obama's response.


kennedy on GMA