2010 State Of The Union

[hblask 1]

I've seen a lot of articles saying what the think Obama will say, or what he should say. This is the best one. It may not be exactly what he will say, but it won't be far off:“My fellow citizens of the world. I come before you today to gaze into the middle distance and speak in ringing phrases. For make no mistake: the time for phrases that do not ring is past. Already, in only the first year since I have fulfilled my awesome destiny, I have created millions of jobs—not just ordinary jobs that you have to work at for pay, but jobs beyond your wildest imagination, over the mountain of your deepest desires, and down the hallway of your fondest dreams. I have sent many troops to Afghanistan—many, many troops who are running here and there with serious faces, shouting “Let’s go,” and firing their rifles so that the isolated extremists who have gathered together in great numbers to attack us will know that I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds. “But there is much still to do. Even as we speak, a child is crying—a little, sad, pitiful child with big eyes, crying enormous tears that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to dry. So let me be very clear: the bridge from yesteryear leads to the cloudbanks of a golden perfection where the prospect of a horizon awaits a mighty century. At this, we must not fail. Thank you—and God bless us, every one.”

[85suited 0]

How scary does Nany Pelosi look?

[slink 1]

How scary does Nany Pelosi look?

She always has that "unaware of her surroundings look".

[SCYUKON 0]

She always has that "unaware of her surroundings look".

I wanted to telesmack Biden and Pelosi for continually standing up and clapping, so aggravating.Wonder if the "even if you don't believe in the science" re climate change was a small crack in the AGW armor? Dare to dream....

[LongLiveYorke 38]

I wanted to telesmack Biden and Pelosi for continually standing up and clapping

Yeah, I've never seen congress clap at a State of the Union before...

[Naked_Cowboy 0]

There were a LOT of absurdities and intentional distortions of the truth in that speech, starting only a couple minutes in with the notion that the tax on banks who already repaid TARP of over $100 billion was a "modest fee". Nowhere on earth is $100 billion a modest fee sir. I want to come back and do this thoroughly, but i have a crazy day so I don't know how much i'll be able to write about. A few bullet points:- a tax credit is not a tax cut in the way he is presenting it. - small businesses do not borrow only from small banks. - defining a small business by a numerical threshhold invariably will give the businesses that lie on just short of the threshhold a disincentive to grow (including creating jobs) in linear proportion to the incentives you grant "small businesses" through tax changes. - on that same path, promising to lower the capital gains tax on small businesses is just weird. That is a miniscule portion of the overall tax liability of a typical small business. most small businesses have zero capital gains because a capital gain arises when you sell real property (not inventory - this is things like stock, land, giant machines, things you don't sell in your ordinary course of business). I have to assume that I misheard him and he said less capital gains on small business stock. This would provide an incentive for people to invest in businesses if those businesses want to change their capital / ownership structure by issuing stock / more stock. I don't know that the answer i'd want to hear as a small business is "act like a large business and give up some of your ownership if you want to survive".- you're right, you haven't raised the income tax specifically, however, since you made no indication to the contrary, you are going to passively raise it later this year when you let the bush tax cuts expire as you've promised. that's a weird thing to make a big deal about when it will very shortly be false.- staying strong on getting cap and trade through in the same speech you make jobs your #1 priority is a hilarious contradiction. DUCY?- you cannot change the laws of supply and demand in regards to "green energy". insisting that something not yet cost effective is good for the economy does not make it true.

[Naked_Cowboy 0]

This is the republican response, which I thought was both very strong from a "common sense" perspective, and infinitely better than the terrible response to his last address to a joint session.edit: hi daniel

[brvheart 1,752]

A look at some of Obama's claims and how they compare with the facts:---OBAMA: "Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't."THE FACTS: The anticipated savings from this proposal would amount to less than 1 percent of the deficit - and that's if the president can persuade Congress to go along.Obama is a convert to the cause of broad spending freezes. In the presidential campaign, he criticized Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting one. "The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel," he said a month before the election. Now, Obama wants domestic spending held steady in most areas where the government can control year-to-year costs. The proposal is similar to McCain's.---OBAMA: "I've called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can't be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans."THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted - a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.---OBAMA: Discussing his health care initiative, he said, "Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan."THE FACTS: The Democratic legislation now hanging in limbo on Capitol Hill aims to keep people with employer-sponsored coverage - the majority of Americans under age 65 - in the plans they already have. But Obama can't guarantee people won't see higher rates or fewer benefits in their existing plans. Because of elements such as new taxes on insurance companies, insurers could change what they offer or how much it costs. Moreover, Democrats have proposed a series of changes to the Medicare program for people 65 and older that would certainly pinch benefits enjoyed by some seniors. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted cuts for those enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans.---OBAMA: The president issued a populist broadside against lobbyists, saying they have "outsized influence" over the government. He said his administration has "excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs." He also said it's time to "require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress" and "to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office."THE FACTS: Obama has limited the hiring of lobbyists for administration jobs, but the ban isn't absolute; seven waivers from the ban have been granted to White House officials alone. Getting lobbyists to report every contact they make with the federal government would be difficult at best; Congress would have to change the law, and that's unlikely to happen. And lobbyists already are subject to strict limits on political giving. Just like every other American, they're limited to giving $2,400 per election to federal candidates, with an overall ceiling of $115,500 every two years.---OBAMA: "Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. ... And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year."THE FACTS: The success of the Obama-pushed economic stimulus that Congress approved early last year has been an ongoing point of contention. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.The Congressional Budget Office has been much more guarded than Obama in characterizing the success of the stimulus plan. In November, it reported that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million "compared with what those values would have been otherwise." It said the ranges "reflect the uncertainty of such estimates." And it added, "It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."---OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress "to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve."THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign - to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it's acted upon.---OBAMA: "The United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades."THE FACTS: Despite insisting early last year that they would complete the negotiations in time to avoid expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in early December, the U.S. and Russia failed to do so. And while officials say they think a deal on a new treaty is within reach, there has been no breakthrough. A new round of talks is set to start Monday. One important sticking point: disagreement over including missile defense issues in a new accord. If completed, the new deal may arguably be the farthest-reaching arms control treaty since the original 1991 agreement. An interim deal reached in 2002 did not include its own rules on verifying nuclear reductions.---OBAMA: Drawing on classified information, he claimed more success than his predecessor at killing terrorists: "And in the last year, hundreds of al-Qaida's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed - far more than in 2008."THE FACTS: It is an impossible claim to verify. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has published enemy body counts, particularly those targeted by armed drones in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The pace of drone attacks has increased dramatically in the last 18 months, according to congressional officials briefed on the secret program.---Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn, Jim Drinkard, Erica Werner, Robert Burns and Pamela Hess contributed to this report.

[akoff 0]

A look at some of Obama's claims and how they compare with the facts:---OBAMA: "Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't."THE FACTS: The anticipated savings from this proposal would amount to less than 1 percent of the deficit - and that's if the president can persuade Congress to go along.Obama is a convert to the cause of broad spending freezes. In the presidential campaign, he criticized Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting one. "The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel," he said a month before the election. Now, Obama wants domestic spending held steady in most areas where the government can control year-to-year costs. The proposal is similar to McCain's.---OBAMA: "I've called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can't be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans."THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted - a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.---OBAMA: Discussing his health care initiative, he said, "Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan."THE FACTS: The Democratic legislation now hanging in limbo on Capitol Hill aims to keep people with employer-sponsored coverage - the majority of Americans under age 65 - in the plans they already have. But Obama can't guarantee people won't see higher rates or fewer benefits in their existing plans. Because of elements such as new taxes on insurance companies, insurers could change what they offer or how much it costs. Moreover, Democrats have proposed a series of changes to the Medicare program for people 65 and older that would certainly pinch benefits enjoyed by some seniors. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted cuts for those enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans.---OBAMA: The president issued a populist broadside against lobbyists, saying they have "outsized influence" over the government. He said his administration has "excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs." He also said it's time to "require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress" and "to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office."THE FACTS: Obama has limited the hiring of lobbyists for administration jobs, but the ban isn't absolute; seven waivers from the ban have been granted to White House officials alone. Getting lobbyists to report every contact they make with the federal government would be difficult at best; Congress would have to change the law, and that's unlikely to happen. And lobbyists already are subject to strict limits on political giving. Just like every other American, they're limited to giving $2,400 per election to federal candidates, with an overall ceiling of $115,500 every two years.---OBAMA: "Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. ... And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year."THE FACTS: The success of the Obama-pushed economic stimulus that Congress approved early last year has been an ongoing point of contention. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.The Congressional Budget Office has been much more guarded than Obama in characterizing the success of the stimulus plan. In November, it reported that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million "compared with what those values would have been otherwise." It said the ranges "reflect the uncertainty of such estimates." And it added, "It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."---OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress "to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve."THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign - to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it's acted upon.---OBAMA: "The United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades."THE FACTS: Despite insisting early last year that they would complete the negotiations in time to avoid expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in early December, the U.S. and Russia failed to do so. And while officials say they think a deal on a new treaty is within reach, there has been no breakthrough. A new round of talks is set to start Monday. One important sticking point: disagreement over including missile defense issues in a new accord. If completed, the new deal may arguably be the farthest-reaching arms control treaty since the original 1991 agreement. An interim deal reached in 2002 did not include its own rules on verifying nuclear reductions.---OBAMA: Drawing on classified information, he claimed more success than his predecessor at killing terrorists: "And in the last year, hundreds of al-Qaida's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed - far more than in 2008."THE FACTS: It is an impossible claim to verify. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has published enemy body counts, particularly those targeted by armed drones in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The pace of drone attacks has increased dramatically in the last 18 months, according to congressional officials briefed on the secret program.---Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn, Jim Drinkard, Erica Werner, Robert Burns and Pamela Hess contributed to this report.

so you are saying the a President didn't let the facts get in the way of his story? big suprise there. Botton line for me was he was rreaching. he was reaching to find a place that will everyone happy. The thing about that approach...you don't make anyone happy. the man is post turtle...he is sitting where doesn't belong, he doesn't know how to get off and you can't help but wonder how the hell he got there.

[El Guapo 8]

There were a LOT of absurdities and intentional distortions of the truth in that speech, starting only a couple minutes in with the notion that the tax on banks who already repaid TARP of over $100 billion was a "modest fee". Nowhere on earth is $100 billion a modest fee sir. I want to come back and do this thoroughly, but i have a crazy day so I don't know how much i'll be able to write about. A few bullet points:- a tax credit is not a tax cut in the way he is presenting it. - small businesses do not borrow only from small banks. - defining a small business by a numerical threshhold invariably will give the businesses that lie on just short of the threshhold a disincentive to grow (including creating jobs) in linear proportion to the incentives you grant "small businesses" through tax changes. - on that same path, promising to lower the capital gains tax on small businesses is just weird. That is a miniscule portion of the overall tax liability of a typical small business. most small businesses have zero capital gains because a capital gain arises when you sell real property (not inventory - this is things like stock, land, giant machines, things you don't sell in your ordinary course of business). I have to assume that I misheard him and he said less capital gains on small business stock. This would provide an incentive for people to invest in businesses if those businesses want to change their capital / ownership structure by issuing stock / more stock. I don't know that the answer i'd want to hear as a small business is "act like a large business and give up some of your ownership if you want to survive".- you're right, you haven't raised the income tax specifically, however, since you made no indication to the contrary, you are going to passively raise it later this year when you let the bush tax cuts expire as you've promised. that's a weird thing to make a big deal about when it will very shortly be false.- staying strong on getting cap and trade through in the same speech you make jobs your #1 priority is a hilarious contradiction. DUCY?- you cannot change the laws of supply and demand in regards to "green energy". insisting that something not yet cost effective is good for the economy does not make it true.

I only got through the first half, but the bolded are my thoughts exactly. Thank you for saving me the time in typing it all out.

[Naked_Cowboy 0]

I only got through the first half, but the bolded are my thoughts exactly. Thank you for saving me the time in typing it all out.

The whole speech brings me back over and over again to the point that I simply don't think there are enough people in washington that understand extremely basic econcomics, finance, and accounting. You don't have to be a CPA or a financial advisor to understand this stuff, you only need to have seen how a successful business works and put yourself in the shoes of the people who run that business. What would they do when you propose X? Is that a good thing or even what you intended? If the answer is no, does what you're saying make sense in terms of the goals you claim to have? If the answer is no, then why is that your plan?

[LongLiveYorke 38]

The whole speech brings me back over and over again to the point that I simply don't think there are enough people in washington that understand extremely basic econcomics, finance, and accounting. You don't have to be a CPA or a financial advisor to understand this stuff, you only need to have seen how a successful business works and put yourself in the shoes of the people who run that business.

I really don't think that Obama's problem is that he doesn't have enough advisers who understand basic economics.

[El Guapo 8]

I really don't think that Obama's problem is that he doesn't have enough advisers who understand basic economics.

LLY is correct. The problem is he chooses to ignore that and continue promote social policies while using tax savings talking points that sound good, but mean nothing.

[hblask 1]

I was going to give a detailed response, but NC covered much of it, plus brvheart posted a nice analysis.Besides the economic illiteracy and the flagrant lies, a couple other things bothered me.First, he keeps going back to blaming Bush. Obama, you are a quarter of the way through your term. You've spent over a trillion dollars. Own it. It's time to be a big boy and admit that you had something to do with that lamp falling to the floor and breaking, when it was fine just a few minutes ago.Second, I'm really sick of the condescension. No, it's not your ability to explain things that makes us hate your policies, it's because we've studied them in detail that we hate them. The deeper we dig, the uglier they look. So quit telling us that it's because of misinformation, or an unclear message. It's because your policies suck. If you keep telling us that we're just too stupid to understand, you will lose in a landslide. You serve us, not vice versa.

[El Guapo 8]

I remember something else that bothered me. He took credit for TARP. He siad how much he hated the bank bailout, but took credit for the fact it worked. He had nothing to do with it, except for presiding while the last of the money was loaned out, and when some of it got paid back.

[85suited 0]

The former Constitutional lawyer, or senior lecturer, cited the US Constitution last night during his State of the Union Address. Unfortunately, the quote he cited was from the Declaration of Independence… not the Constitution.In last night's State of the Union Address, President Obama said:We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal….Um, wrong founding document, Mr. President. It is in our Declaration of Independence that we read:We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

.And this is the same guy who lectured the Supreme Court moments later in the same speech

[LongLiveYorke 38]

.And this is the same guy who lectured the Supreme Court moments later in the same speech

Please look up the word "enshrined" before continuing with this train of thought. Thanks.

[hblask 1]

Please look up the word "enshrined" before continuing with this train of thought. Thanks.

<h2 class="me">en⋅shrine</h2> AC_FL_RunContent = 0;var interfaceflash = new LEXICOFlashObject ( "http://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/d/g/speaker.swf", "speaker", "17", "15", " /ɛnˈʃraɪn/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [en-shrahyn] Show IPA Use enshrined in a SentenceSee images of enshrinedSearch enshrined on the Web –verb (used with object), -shrined, -shrin⋅ing. 1. to enclose in or as in a shrine: His love for her is enshrined forever in his poetry. 2. to cherish as sacred: The memory of our friendship will be enshrined in my heart. I'm not sure that settles anything. But it does leave enough doubt that I vote this one falls into the poor wording category rather than an outright mistake. If he meant it in the sense of "written in the DoI, but made definite by the Constitution", he should've used different words. After all, isn't he The Great Orator?

[LongLiveYorke 38]

The relevant one (from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enshrined)2 : to preserve or cherish as sacredNow, looking at the quote:We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal….Using the above definition, Obama is saying the following:We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise that our Constitution holds as sacred: the notion that we are all created equal….He's not saying anything about what the constitution says, he's describing the spirit of the constitution, the deeper principles. Would you complain if he had said the above verbatim in his speech? If not, then you can't complain about what he actually said.

[Naked_Cowboy 0]

it seems like a weird thing to complain about considering the problems with the things he definitely said.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

it seems like a weird thing to complain about

Good god I couldn't agree more.

[JoeyJoJo 18]

it seems like a weird thing to complain about considering the problems with the things he definitely said.

Good god I couldn't agree more.

I say we impeach him.

[El Guapo 8]

I say we impeach him.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

I say we impeach him.

Impeach Obama or 85suited?

[LongLiveYorke 38]

I say we impeach him.