I’m not sure there is any precedent for this, but both speeches will be tonight – the Governor at 7:30 and the President at 9:00. The SOTC was supposed to be last week, but snow had other ideas. By one count the GOP is up to 5 responses to the SOTU. I will not be in front of a computer during the speeches, but I invite you all to use this thread to post your comments on either speech during or after the fact.
Please share widely!
“All of the above. And I will cut red tape to ensure we can expand and triple natural has production”
Aka more tracking and still baby. Also fast tracking TPP leads to more Made in the USA? Another laundry list of blah. Gonna pour another old fashioned and maybe put the DVR of Girls on.
More fracking and drill baby
With David Corn’s analysis
I largely agree with the analysis you posted, especially about Mr. Obama’s acceptance of a more limited agenda. I differ somewhat, however, about the premise that Mr. Obama let the GOP off the hook.
Perhaps I am more swayed by nuance and understatement than some. I thought that, for example, zingers like this: “Let’s not have another forty-something votes to repeal a law that is already helping millions of Americans” packed a welcome punch that I find refreshingly new for Mr. Obama.
By and large, I think Mr. Obama is playing good-cop/bad-cop in this election year, and I’m fine with that strategy. Mr. Obama will take the high road, emphasizing what he wants to do and using humor and flattery to remind voters of why so little is being accomplished. While doing that, I expect a host of other Democrats and perhaps some sympathetic media figures will score the necessary negative points.
All in all, I liked this speech. I continue to be disturbed by the gap between the speech and reality (in what part of America can a full-time worker earning $10.10/hr NOT be living in poverty?), but I am heartened that Mr. Obama at least recognized a few areas where we MUST do more:
– Climate change
– Equal pay for equal work
– Closing GITMO
Does he really need Congress to close it? Can’t the COC just transfer them to America and give them due process already?
I think Congress passed legislation forbidding the transfer of “detainees” to the US for trial. One issue, and it is a real one, is that many of those left are genuine bad-guys who were tortured. As soon as they get to a US court, the charges will be dismissed because of that torture (as it rightly should) — they will be free to walk. No other country will take them.
We did a really awful thing when we tortured these people. We did another awful thing when we chose not pursue prosecution of those who ordered the torture.
We will pay this price — in embarrassments like GITMO — for years to come.
… Obama signed an executive order to close Gitmo on day one of his administration. On days 2 through 7, Joe Lieberman, amongst others, got busy with legislation that proactively defunded that executive order and, as SomervilleTom explicates above, went about legislatively denying entry to the detainees. Between that and the horrible horrible legal puke that John Yoo and others in the Bush administration had left on Obamas lap, there’s little that can be done with even less to be gained.
I think this, more than any other single event, immediately set the tone for the Obama administration. I think Obama, in choosing Joe Biden for VP and Rahm Emanuel as CoS, was very much looking forward to working hand in glove with the Democrats in the Senate and the House. But the betrayal, craven and cowardly as it was, by Senate Democrats on Gitmo was as near as makes no difference a knife in the back…. setting the stage for almost everything that follows, including the Republican obstructionists. I don’t say that it is solely responsible for everything after, but I do say it marks an early point of reference on relationship with the Senate…
“You like war powers when Bush exercised them? I’ll show you how I exercise war powers!” If Bush could exercise these so-called “war powers” to detain them in the first place than Obama is equally within his rights to transfer them and try them whether Congress likes it or not.
…Bush and Cheney didn’t do things by fiat, as much as progressives like to think they did: They used a adumbrated logic and vague judicial seeming arguments as a fig leaf to their overreach. Yet overreach it was…
But that’s not the problem.
The problem is that the Democratic congress let them get away with it. Now for Obama to do as you ask would be opening up a particularly Democratic can of worms and to say, forthrightly, that the Democrats, when the going go tough pissed their pants and went fetal. Obama can’t do as you say without taking on his own party.
Me, I think he ought to do exactly that I’d love it. But I don’t, given what I know about Obama, think it likely.
I get if Congress put it in the budget — that’s a hard thing to veto. But
Why not veto it?
Had he vetoed it, the veto would have been overridden. For example, the first Senate vote was 90-6 (emphasis mine):
A new President was betrayed by his own party. I don’t think we can leave this monkey on Mr. Obama’s back.
Then let the bastards override it, at least he would’ve taken a firm stance. This was a promise he should’ve fulfilled on day 1 and his impotence in fulfilling it really set the tone for the rest of this presidency.
I tend to be sympathetic … but then, I think there’s an argument to be made that that’s why Mr. Obama is President and I’m not.
I agree that his impotence has defined the rest of his presidency. I’m receptive to the speculation that Mr. Obama’s overriding desire was to avoid being cast as the stereotypical “angry black man”. I’m also receptive to the argument that much of his political power has been premised on his ability to act as bridge between the disaffected working poor and the 1% — viewed through that lens, the argument is that such a stance would have permanently alienated his 1% backing and neutralized the base of his political power.
Ultimately, still, it was our own party who brought this about. In my view, Mr. Obama had a right to expect more support from his own party than he got on this and multiple other issues.
And don’t even get me STARTED on Joe Lieberman — or, for that matter, the entire “blue-dog” caucus.
Those blue dogs got replaced by wackoo birds back in 2010 anyway, regardless of their attempts to stay right of center.
The party that stands for itself as Democratic, backs working families against the powerful interests aligned against them, is the party that starts winning elections. Obama’s weak tea kept the base home in both elections. Truman campaigned against a do-nothing Congress and got the bums thrown out, I don’t see whats stopping the President from doing the same. Stopping him from going to West Virginia and Kentucky to brag about how the health coverage has helped them. Instead he is apologizing meekly for a crummy website. He’s gotta get out of the Beltway more and stop arguing against himself.
Anyway I’ve said this elsewhere, my point is he surrendered leadership on the issue on day 1 or 2 of his presidency and hasn’t prioritized it since.
I tend to like a comment Bill Maher has made: “Obama is half white and half black. First we got the white term, but now that he has been re-elected I’m looking forward to the black term!:)”
they would only need ONE.
Because Sen. Coburn had to sign up for health insurance through Obamacare, he ended up losing his cancer doctor (“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”) Now, I am sure Sen. Coburn has sufficient resources to pay the out-of-network costs, but what about the rest of Mr. and Mrs. America?
“The plans sold through the Obamacare exchanges tend to have relatively limited provider networks. A recent McKinsey report that found that 70 percent of the products offered on the exchanges are either “narrow” or “ultra-narrow” products, meaning they include fewer than 70 percent of the local hospitals in their networks.”
I recall my own personal concern about the same thing happening to my family as what happened to Sen. Coburn, and Tom said I was “delusional”. Well, if it can happen to Sen Coburn, it can happen to you and me.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/28/did-sen-coburn-lose-his-cancer-doctor-because-of-obamacare/
He should have signed up for the Republican plan.
He’s the one who pushed this part of the plan. But in general, really? If you go from one plan to another it’s not exactly the same? Wow, if I had HPCH and switched to BC, it wouldn’t be exactly the same? Who knew? The narrowing of networks is not a ACA phenomenon, if you were paying attention, it’s been going on for some time now with municipalities. Could have Coburn have selected a different plan, does he qualify for Medicare? I would think his Specialist takes Medicare, who doesn’t? we’re going to need some additional information from Coburn, other than Senate theatrics.
in the linked article, which doesn’t seem to know what happened to Coburn.
and stop being a such a whining douche bag. I thought it was the Republican Party that believed in personal responsibility. Perhaps he should have called the 800 number and had someone with more than 1/2 a brain walk him through the process. Numnuts.