Obama's last State of the Union

Some of the speech I wish the President had made (please share if you agree):

My fellow Americans, the State of Our Union is “strong.” The State of Our Politics, however, is in critical condition.

In America this morning, a nurse and a teacher arose before dawn to go into work caring for our most vulnerable populations. Restaurants served their patrons. A cop walked the beat. A firefighter ran into a burning building. Americans are strong and more resilient than ever. The capacity of Americans to work for a better world is well established.

But in this chamber and across the various levels of the political spectrum, a poison is coursing through the veins of our body politic. It is fed by fear and isolationism. It is metastasizing across social media where vicious attacks become viral sensations. It destroys our good faith in the institutions of a civilized society. It helps and gives encouragement to our enemies.

Only Americans possess the ability to damage and undermine American values. We do this when we limit voting rights, stay home on Election Day and surrender to cynicism. We do this when we pull the ladder of progress up behind us and say “I’ve got mine, you stay out.” We do this when we argue for decades against ensuring that all citizens have access to quality healthcare. We do this when 20 first graders are brutally murdered in a public school and we do nothing about it.

Nothing.

Shame on us. Shame on all of us, without exception. The American people are getting up every morning and going to work to take care of themselves; to provide a better future for their children; to serve their communities. Why isn’t the Congress doing at least as much for kids as a cafeteria worker? Why does it take a campaign of shaming Congress to pass a bill providing medical care for 9/11 first responders? Why is it that the mass shooting of civilians on a regular basis is not the subject of official inquiry by a select committee?

Where would we be if the NYPD and FDNY behaved on 9/11 as you do today?

This can change and it can happen overnight. The people in this room can make that happen by making a choice. You can choose to elect citizenship over partisan rancor and you can do it right night now. You can decide that some things have to be handled without a political lens – things like security and infrastructure. You can do things for the good of the country, regardless of how it plays in your district, then you can explain that to you constituents. You can be leaders. And you know what? You SHOULD do that, because that’s what the voters sent you here to do.

One of these days, they’re going start measuring you against THAT standard – what’s good for the country, not just what’s good for keeping you in office. Will you be ready?

The Supremes

It seems that Chief Justice John Roberts actually does care about whether or not the Supreme Court considers cases of substance. Lately, it has felt like his court was being used as a bonus bite at the apple for GOP lawsuits that failed in the system. The ACA case prompted Roberts to instruct on the role of the Court. His interpretation is a conservative one: “Our duty, after all, is ‘to construe statutes, not isolated provisions.’”
And thus, health insurance made affordable for millions of Americans will remain so. Unfortunately, this also allows the GOP to continue to demagogue on the topic, crying for the repeal and reform of the law that is saving lives for some and improving its quality for all.
That's right--ALL. When the rise in health care costs and the accountability that comes with the ACA holds down costs, it benefits all Americans. If you're employer provides your coverage, the benefit costs are less, relative to the total cost of employing you. That means more cash is available for that raise you haven't had for years.
The dissent in the King v. Burwell case is what really tells the story. It says that Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito are making up their minds on a political basis, not on the merits of the case or on strict interpretation of the law.  What a shame.

Dear Mr. President

Dear President Obama,
I'm writing today to tell you that we did try to buy American when it was time for a new television a couple of years ago. Couldn't do it. Nothing made in America.

But as I wanted a new car, my husband and I talked extensively about features, about brand, about quality. If it doesn't get 30mpg on the highway, it's out of the question, I said.

Months of looking, WANTING to buy American, we held firm. Safety. Quality. Features. Good mileage. Great service. Not negotiable.

Mr. President, we were not going to take second place. And we didn't. We bought a Chevy Equinox. They say it gets 32 mpg on the highway! But I find it's more like 35 mpg.

We bought a car from a great American company whose course you corrected. Good call.

AZ Shooting - The Ultimate Hate Speech

Did you ever hear the expression "to send a message"? He slammed the ball through the hoop - that really sent a message. It's something we often hear in sports and in politics to indicate that someone's actions are emphatically communicating - usually serving to push back and intimidate the opposition.

Jared Loughton, the Tucson shooter, went to Rep. Giffords' "Congress on the Corner" to "send a message." His actions are speech - hate speech - and to suggest that there is no relationship between this speech and the Republican culture of violent political speech is a child's "nu-uh" argument. Specifically, the Alaskan Quitter-in-Chief has made herself such a reputation for provocative rhetoric, she welcomes the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" and gleefully compares herself to a pit bull (with lipstick). She and her running mate, Senator McCain, were only too happy to benefit from their campaign crowds screaming their heads off when Palin referred to candidate Obama as "palling around with terrorists" and claiming that he, a sitting U.S. Senator posed a threat to the security of the United States. I know you've seen this, but watch as an elderly woman confronts McCain and says she's afraid of Obama. McCain is nodding in affirmation. Then she says she thinks he's AN ARAB. McCain's only response is no, no, he's a decent family man (was that supposed to refute his being an Arab?). He retakes the microphone to get back to the stage and away from specifics. His supporters were so extreme (two of them saying they feared Obama) that McCain is in the ridicuous position of spending his campaigning time talking about the fact that a U.S. Senator is not an enemy of the county. And he does so, by the way, rather superficially.

So is it speech? Was a message sent? Recall, painful as it is, when JFK was gunned down. Was that a statement? How about his brother, Robert, then a sitting U.S. Senator? How about Martin Luther King, whose birthday we observe today? How about San Francisco Mayor George Moscone? Harvey Milk? Rep. Leo Ryan, murdered in Guyana while investigating the Jonestown cult?

Do you see a pattern in those names? Do you notice the progressive tilt? This helps to explain the red-faced anger and sentitivity on the part of progressives when it comes to modern day political assasinations. With the notable exception of Ronald Reagan (who very nearly died when he was shot) and the attempts on then- President Gerald Ford, this practice has been one that has pushed back and sent a message mainly to the political left >> sit down, be quiet. Not now, not yet.

When the Quitter-in-Chief invokes the term Blood Libel, it is no accident due her ignorance. No, indeed. Her accusation stated plainly is that the Jewish-owned and run media is taking the shooting of a Jewish Representative and the killing of a young child and others and using the blood of that crime to "feed" the media beast, directing its hungry attention to chewing on her, America's most successful quitter. Hence, the stain of that ugly lie is continued in the modern age, via Facebook. Like dropping leaflets from an airplane, there's no talking back. It's a one-way message.

When she claims innocence in the AZ shootings, I am reminded of another group that uses inflammatory language and the anonymity of numbers to do the work of spreading their ugliness, then claiming that they didn't light the match that burned the cross on your lawn. That's right, the Klan is great at this stuff -- spreading malicious, racist lies in ways that tend to be protected by the first amendment and are attributable to the "atmosphere" rather than recognized for being expressly incendiary. You know the problem with these things usually is that you can't demonstrate that the speech that was made was clearly a threat, was construed as a threat and was specific enough to act on as a threat.

And certainly we would not typically find a television interview featuring the victim (who was being interview because her office was vandalized) talking about how this "hit list" being posted for all the world to see HAS CONSEQUENCES.

My good friends in the mainstream media are quick to say there's "no connection" between Palin's crosshairs graphic and this shooting. They likely mean on the most literal level that nobody thinks she ordered a hit on a Congresswoman.

If Loughton were at large and you found that list in his apartment -- just a list of names of 20 members of Congress -- after one of them had been shot ... I think the other 19 would be on lockdown. But that's just me.

Still ... is that the standard now? We cannot prove she personally tried to KILL a member of Congress, so leave her alone? You know what? I don't think we will.

"Regular People"

Yeah, I realize that I'm just one citizen, just one tiny voice in the vapor, but I'm gonna say this ... I wish upon a star that the Federal government would return to regulating those things that used to protect us from outright piracy.

Recall one of the great pilot episode in all of television comedy -- that of The Cosby Show, wherein Cliff is trying to explain to his son, Theo, that he needs to work harder in school. Theo pushes back and says that that fact that his father is a doctor and his mother a lawyer doesn't mean he must go to college. He might be a bus driver, he says, and therefore won't need to go to college. He might be among "Regular People."

Cliff Huxtable then uses Theo's Monopoly game's play money to show Theo the most important lesson in the whole scene - after setting a salary amount for Theo, he grabs a third of it back and says, "The government comes for the regular people first."

And the audience applauds.

What I want to see if the government pausing from corporate rescue for just a minute to reinstate the maximum consumer lending rate to 18% ... like it used to be before Reagan "deregulated" it to being without cap. Now, you can pay 30% and more on a credit card ... ensuring that once you have a substantial balance, you'll virtually never pay it off.

These aren't loan sharks using these rates ... it's Sears, JC Penney and Wal-Mart. And they are screwing American families, starting with the "Regular People."

Barack, Joe ... are you listening? Can you make this happen? Can you rescue the Regular People?

It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep ...

But Barack Obama was up late sending you a text message: It's Joe Biden! (Read about Joe ... he's a hero of the working class)

Okay, that one just cracked me up for about 15 minutes. What an incredible slap to the self-described mainstream media. The ultimate Who needs you?

And how do I know this is what he wanted to prove? My cell phone went off just after 3:00 a.m. with the text message. I cracked up at the "It's three a.m. ..." recall of Hillary's ad. After a minute or two, I put on MSNBC to head David Shuster say that MSNBC's reporting indicated it was Biden and that although the Obama campaign had said they'd announce by text message, it had not happened yet.

WRONG. Just plain WRONG. If not for the message, I'm not up watching TV. And, yes, that makes me wonder about everything I hear on TV. They got this wrong ... this simple thing. What else is wrong or misleading?

Great flex of organizational muscle, to show McCain, the old political machines, the old media ("our sources are telling us ... absolutely nothing") that Obama ain't just talking about "new politics" he is going roll out the new Democratic Party and he's going to to knock down the walls of convention in how he does it.

He can even make one of the safest and most conventional choices in a running mate take on the drama and suspense of choosing an unknown.

Finally, utterly brilliant to do it at 3:00 a.m. -- to rifff on the Hillary ad and to do so when their supporters are almost certainly NOT WATCHING TELEVISION.

Oh, my. We could have four very good years coming.

Paris Hilton for President

Yes, that was nearly the funniest thing I ever saw. You wait while she finishes reading her magazine story. You're happy to wait. We've waited eight years for a real president, why not wait 10 seconds for Paris to finish skipping over the big words?

Let me tell you what offended me about that dopey John McCain ad (the one that featured Paris and Britney and tries to lump them all into one big ball of superficial silliness). Here's the problem ... while Paris was born into wealth and privilege, the other two - quite conspicuously -- were not.

I will not be voting for Britney on my Mommy-of-the-year ballot, but unlike Sen. McCain, she's made every penny she has, she's met a payroll, bumped and ground her way to international stardom and great wealth. She wasn't born into the Navy and didn't marry a millionaire.

Hmm. there's a thought for an Obama ad ... John & Cindy McCain ... Who wants to marry a millionaire? John McCain!

Like Britney, Obama did not open his trust fund and find tuition money for Columbia and Harvard, but he apparently found his way in and out of those institutions, only recently paying off his student loans. He didn't marry a millionaire, but he did find his way to a distinguished Princeton (cum laude) and Harvard Law graduate, Michelle Obama.

And for the self-described "family values" crowd, let's recall that the McCains began their relationship as an extramarital affair while McCain was still married to his first wife -- the one who waited for him while he was a POW. Let's hope that sometime between now and November, in front of MANY cameras, someone asks McCain if he really thinks gay marriage is a bigger threat to the American family than heterosexual adultery.