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Overall I give the speech a solid B. Without getting into partisanship propaganda, I would say it is long overdue for both parties in this country to come together and work on the issues that face this country. We are split down the middle today, worse than I can ever remember and it accomplishes nothing. If we can't unite as one, I suggest implementing Imperial Truth and force it upon the people! =) Feel free to discuss.

As a speech, Its pretty solid B.
Some of the points - whether or not we believe in the politics - are fair and reasonable. The man simply did not make any friends by calling everyone out on their crap.

I just hope that all the stuff he promised for small businesses and bringing manufacturing jobs back actually happens. If it did, the USA would be on top again. More American made stuff, even if it is a little more expensive will help people cut their Wal-Mart dependence, which will give us something to stick in the faces of the Chinese.

Oldgrue wrote:As a speech, Its pretty solid B.
Some of the points - whether or not we believe in the politics - are fair and reasonable. The man simply did not make any friends by calling everyone out on their crap.

I agree with you on calling people out, but when is the last time in a Stae of the Union address, did a president go after senators and congressman like that? Its long overdue.

bringing manufacturing jobs back actually happens. IDK if that is ever going to happen.

Calling people out was brave but foolish.

I don't think the left and the right will come together, I feel that the divide is too deep, where we once just disagreed there is now dehumanizing hate.

I gave it a C- based on the fact that A freeze won't do anything to save the deficit, or balance the budget, That nobody cared about until he got elected.

I feel it's a little to late to try and be the big man after he sat back doing nothing as Healthcare drowned in Death camps and other hog wash. He sat by while pretty much everything people elected hm to do was shot down by tea parties and radio shows.

Freezing all goverment spending is what the McCain's campain said they would do and he didn't win. The old sector jobs won't come back we need new ones. Untill everybody, companies included, we'll continue to go broke.

States are going broke, stopping free lunchies for kids (South Caralina) when thier governor is wasting money going south of the border for some booty won't fix anything. Not when every tax law has a loop for everybody but the middle class.

So all he is doing is freezes and tax cuts, Gitmo is still open, healthcare failed, we are still in two wars, banks are still getting a free ride, nothing has changed.

I don't minde that as much as I don't think he fought hard beliving that people could use common sense and work together. It's too late for him to try now IMHO.


P.S I'm just grumpy today.

Calling for unity is boilerplate since, well since we have had parties. It sounds nice but rarely means much in practical terms.

I am not going to enjoy discussing this in class next week...

I haven't had a chance to see the address, since the White House channel has not updated for some reason, yet. From what I can tell though, the majority of this speech, was Obama trying to sound tough (manufacturing jobs? REALLY, Obama?!), and doing a poor job of continuing a piss-poor bipartisan attempt.

I get why he wants to cut back on spending, but the way he is doing it, does not appeal to me at all.

I gave the speech a B- at best. I was upset with his mocking of the Supreme Court, among other things. I just don't see how it everyone freaks out when one Congressmen calls the President a liar, but he calls the Justices fools and its ok. I have much more respect for the SCOTUS, even if I don't agree with their rulings. I thought it was very tacky on his part...

But Obama is here to shake thing up, and it looks like he's finally gonna get around to it. I'm finally starting to become optimistic about this year, so don't feth it up!

Here is the address.




I'll be watching this over the course of the next hour or so.

JEB_Stuart wrote:I gave the speech a B- at best. I was upset with his mocking of the Supreme Court, among other things. I just don't see how it everyone freaks out when one Congressmen calls the President a liar, but he calls the Justices fools and its ok. I have much more respect for the SCOTUS, even if I don't agree with their rulings. I thought it was very tacky on his part...

I think that was my favorite part of the speech because the Justices looked really, really pissed off lol.

warpcrafter wrote:But Obama is here to shake thing up, and it looks like he's finally gonna get around to it.

By how, insulting the top interpreters of law in the land? You notice, that even those who dissented stood, or rather sat, with their fellow Justices? The President is not there to mock and bully the SCOTUS, he is there to ENFORCE the law, and Congress is there to CREATE the law. SCOTUS is there to INTERPRET the law and how it relates to the Constitution. So what if you disagree with them, they are all smart, intelligent and capable, and quite honestly is the only branch of government that I actually trust.


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Ahtman wrote:I think that was my favorite part of the speech because the Justices looked really, really pissed off lol.

Dude it was completely tacky, and there was no class. You can attempt to encourage or discourage the other branches of government in many ways, calling them naive fools is not one of them. Like I said, even the dissenters, especially Ruth Bader Ginsburg, looked pissed at the President for mocking them and their colleagues on national television.

JEB_Stuart wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:I think that was my favorite part of the speech because the Justices looked really, really pissed off lol.

Dude it was completely tacky, and there was no class. You can attempt to encourage or discourage the other branches of government in many ways, calling them naive fools is not one of them. Like I said, even the dissenters, especially Ruth Bader Ginsburg, looked pissed at the President for mocking them and their colleagues on national television.

I don't disagree. It wasn't 'they just got served!" lol, it was 'did that really just happen?' lol. Learn your lol's. Your life may depend on it one day...after the apocalypse.

Ahtman wrote:Learn your lol's. Your life may depend on it one day...after the apocalypse.

Hell no...that is what Bessie is for!

I can confirm that neither Texas nor Kentucky have seceded in the last 30 days. Can't speak for foreign countries like Louisiana.

Oh wait, you're talking Obama speech #23,578,978? Sorry I thought it was about something important.

It was... well it wasn't that impressive.

First off, he did lay out some good ideas. Dropping capital gains on small business investment, publicizing earmarks, etc. I doubt any of that stuff will happen but it would be nice to think about. I still get the general impression that it was a belated hand towards the Republicans now that the democratic super majority is gone not that they ever did anything with it to begin with though.

I did like him calling people out on their crap. I've stopped calling myself a Republican and settled on conservative since my old party reduced itself to nothing but an opposition party, not that the Democrats were any better during the Bush years but then again I never liked them much either. Saying no to everything isn't leadership, but neither is totally ignoring the opposition.

The bad though, it seemed like for over an hour he was trying very hard to shift the blame onto anyone and everyone else. Did he inherit the problems with the economy? Sure he did. Does that alleviate the fact that we spent over a trillion dollars on "stimulus" that didn't live up to its promise? Not in the least. Did healthcare legislation bomb, yup. Was the whole thing proposed an absolute disaster that he seemed to do nothing to untangle and allow to keep chugging forward? Yes he did. Does the blame rest solely on him? No, there are three branches of government and he heads the least powerful. Does some of it rest on him? Of course it does because while lacking much real power outside of vetoing things and ordering people bombed he is the leader.

Pissing on the Supreme Court? Really bad form, on equal with the "Liar" comment regardless of the right or wrong of either statement. It vastly glosses over the case that was before the court and I'm fairly certain that foreign contributions to political campaigns are illegal anyways. It was crass because any one of those justices knows far more about the law and its implications than anyone else in that room including Barrack.

Freezing spending is a hollow promise since he's not proposing it immediately but delaying it until 2011. Even if he does hold to it once he's out of office nothing is binding the next President to it. Which all assumes it will actually happen. Anyone remember the last spending freeze where they actually froze spending? No? Neither do I. Finally, it's not enough money to make a real dent in the deficit. It might slow the rate of growth but that just means we sink a bit slower into the quicksand and it'll take China a year or two more to finish buying the country.

On the whole it was well delivered hot air. Pretty much par for the course when it comes to political speeches.

Agreed on all counts.

Its easy to propose a freeze when you increased the same departments 20% (vs. average 2% - 3% annually historically) in the previuos year. At best its just a scheme to lock in that increase. Its a joke and even that won't happen.

On the positive I can't say vote for me and I'll make the (high speed) trains run on time, my idea appears to have been stolen...

I prefer to read Obama's speeches than listen to them, it's easier to seperate out content from pure hot air.

To me, it seemed like a lot of covering for why he hasn't done all that much so far. I think myself that a lot of that comes down to how weak the democrats are at getting legislation passed, and how much more unified the republicans are. That's my view as an outsider, is it any way close to the reality?
As to the policy stuff, I think it was either obvious stuff, or making defenses and apologies for why previous policies aren't working, or why the change has not been that obvious at all. I liked that he called out the various people messing things up, but the SCOTUS stuff is over my head as a foreigner. Is it likely to impact badly on him at any point? Or was it just that it was impolite?

Da Boss wrote:To me, it seemed like a lot of covering for why he hasn't done all that much so far. I think myself that a lot of that comes down to how weak the democrats are at getting legislation passed, and how much more unified the republicans are. That's my view as an outsider, is it any way close to the reality?

That's pretty close to the reality of it. He relies on Congress to turn his proposals into laws and even outnumber the Republicans 3 to 2 they haven't done anything in a year.

As to the policy stuff, I think it was either obvious stuff, or making defenses and apologies for why previous policies aren't working, or why the change has not been that obvious at all. I liked that he called out the various people messing things up, but the SCOTUS stuff is over my head as a foreigner. Is it likely to impact badly on him at any point? Or was it just that it was impolite?

Pretty spot on with the policy. As for the SCOTUS, mostly it's just him being a dick. It won't likely impact anything, you don't get to be a Supreme Court justice by being a petty douche, but it does make him look rather classless.

Tyyr wrote:

Da Boss wrote:To me, it seemed like a lot of covering for why he hasn't done all that much so far. I think myself that a lot of that comes down to how weak the democrats are at getting legislation passed, and how much more unified the republicans are. That's my view as an outsider, is it any way close to the reality?

That's pretty close to the reality of it. He relies on Congress to turn his proposals into laws and even outnumber the Republicans 3 to 2 they haven't done anything in a year.

I know, it's almost like there's a solid block of around 40 obstructionists who vote against every proposal forcing a minimum 60 in favor. Wonder who those obstructionists could be?

chaplaingrabthar wrote:I know, it's almost like there's a solid block of around 40 obstructionists who vote against every proposal forcing a minimum 60 in favor. Wonder who those obstructionists could be?

Thank you Captain Obvious.

I'd be a bit more concerned by the fact that 40 Republicans can agree on something yet 60 democrats can't.

In fairness, if the Republicans can do that, then why can't the Democrats get their arses in gear and exploit loopholes from their side. They're just not as good at the game.
(Or, that's how it looks to me)

Its easy to concentrate when the proposed legislation is so wingish that it throws the more centist elements of their own party into dissarray.

Having said that, in the rare instances where a President and majority Congress were of the same party (very rare-the US doesn't like because it creates crap like the 2009 legislative session) the President typically has the most problems with his own party's Congressmen.

Screaming "NO" doesn't take much effort. And the Republicans have always been more in lockstep about things then the Democrats. And, of course, if the Democrats do get their gak together and get something passed, they'll be lambasted for not following election promises of being bi-partisan (hard to compromise when the oppositins positions seems to be "LALALALALA! I can't hear you")

Also, everything seems to have ground to a halt over the whole gigantic health care boondoggle.

Whilst I favor a Dual Mandate option rather than 90% of the proposals we have seen, it'd be nice to get some informed debate on the actual content of the bill (which looks much more like a bail out to health insurance companies that don't need it than anything else in it's current form), rather then scares about Death Panels, letting Granny die and all the other FUD that's been spread in the (allegedly "liberal") media.

Da Boss wrote:In fairness, if the Republicans can do that, then why can't the Democrats get their arses in gear and exploit loopholes from their side. They're just not as good at the game.
(Or, that's how it looks to me)

That is a rather simplistic view of the whole situation, not forgetting that the Dems are notoriously unorganized in general.

The main point is that as a party, the Dems ARE much more complicated policy wise. The main reason that the Reps can work so well together, is that the majority of their party, simply agrees on nearly everything from the get-go. This is in no way the case with Dems, and it stands to reason that a party composed of varied ideals, would run into these problems with great regularity.

I don't like the fact that as a party the Democrats, basically choose to fight internal battles, only to ignore the more obvious and pressing issues facing them. This is why I will likely never call myself a Democrat, but an independent, for whatever the feth that is worth... .

Wrexasaur wrote:

Da Boss wrote:In fairness, if the Republicans can do that, then why can't the Democrats get their arses in gear and exploit loopholes from their side. They're just not as good at the game.
(Or, that's how it looks to me)

That is a rather simplistic view of the whole situation, not forgetting that the Dems are notoriously unorganized in general.

The main point is that as a party, the Dems ARE much more complicated policy wise. The main reason that the Reps can work so well together, is that the majority of their party, simply agrees on nearly everything from the get-go. This is in no way the case with Dems, and it stands to reason that a party composed of varied ideals, would run into these problems with great regularity.

I don't like the fact that as a party the Democrats, basically choose to fight internal battles, only to ignore the more obvious and pressing issues facing them. This is why I will likely never call myself a Democrat, but an independent, for whatever the feth that is worth... .

Thats an incorrect view. As a former Rpeublican they most deinfitely do not agree and there are strong sub parties-just like the Democrats.

Switch the names and dates and you'd see the Republican controlled Congress being just as inept, and bought and paid for.

As a former die hard republican(now moderate towards the left) I have to say he makes solid points. The problem though that annoys me is to many people are crapping onhim and his healthcare plan sucked.

I will start with the negativity towards him. I for one feel he has a tall order to fill, but to still blame things on the Bush administration is just assinine at this point. Yes we know Bush did a lot to bring downthe economy(as war does), but truth be told Clinton really screwed us over, and I feel he is to blame for a lot of this. Clinton sold off our gold reserves to help pay the deficiet thus creating our financial burdon at this moment. In doining so he took away the real value of our dollar so now our currency is borrowed against to get funding. His NAFTA was a joke at best and really screwed over many U.S run Corp. His downsizing of the military to the level he did it left us in a bad posistion going into any war. Thus setting the stage for the Bush disaster. I was a HUGE supporter of him hell I got personal pics as one of my high school buds ,at the time, dad was one of the bush's biggest contributor(texas Oil). As I went off to war though and saw the economic downfall we were being plunged into fighting a war on so many fronts is just STUPID. We are in more then just Iraq, and Afghanistan people. All this lead to were we are today yes, but for Obama to keep saying his fault not mine, YES WE KNOW.

Now all of our problems hell most of them sadly will not be solved in Obamas administration, maybe if he goes 8 years will we start to see thigns take action, but that is at this moment unlikely. The reason for this is big gov't takes time...LOTS OF IT to get things moving. It's similiar to the katrina incident were people were pissed it took the army almost 4 days to mobilize troops. Why is it that Americans fail to comprehend logistics. You can't just waive a wand and have things magically happen it takes moey and time. Onto the health care though.

As a first major push for him this is moronic. First off here in Mass we have mandatory health care. Every citizen MUST have it or be heavily fined come tax season. We are far from an utterly bankrupt state(thank god devals almostout), and have a damn good health care system. In fact one of the best in the Nation. That said let the states govern themselves on healthcare reforms. I see no point in me paying for heathcare for some boarder hopper in Cali when I am here in mass and doing fine. Now I know he "Claims" illegals can't get it but so far from true. If you go to a ER it is mandatory they help you no matter the cost. Also passing into law that all doctors (surgeons/not practicianers mind you) must be willing to give abortions or face fines, and disbarment from practice is far from ethical. Don't mistake this as I hate Obama because I am actually a big fan. I think overall he has a TON on his plate, and he has the abilitry to be our best pres since reagan(bush sr. was good not great). Just my 2 cents I guess.

While I agree with some of what you're saying, Empchild, I think it's foolish to blame Clinton for selling off the gold reserves to pay the deficit, as I believe the 'balance the budget' was an initiative started by Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America folks that took both houses in 1994.

Also, who's fault were those huge deficits in the first place? You could lay the blame at just about every post-Eisenhower President for letting the economy getting into such bad shape that it took the insane deficit spending of Reaganomics to turn it around. It's just that the spend came home to roost after the dot-com bubble burst on Clinton's watch, leading us into the current Bush-Obama recession

Frazzled wrote:Thats an incorrect view. As a former Rpeublican they most deinfitely do not agree and there are strong sub parties-just like the Democrats.

Switch the names and dates and you'd see the Republican controlled Congress being just as inept, and bought and paid for.

Wait a minute... Is that you George Carlin?

chaplaingrabthar wrote:While I agree with some of what you're saying, Empchild, I think it's foolish to blame Clinton for selling off the gold reserves to pay the deficit, as I believe the 'balance the budget' was an initiative started by Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America folks that took both houses in 1994.

Also, who's fault were those huge deficits in the first place? You could lay the blame at just about every post-Eisenhower President for letting the economy getting into such bad shape that it took the insane deficit spending of Reaganomics to turn it around. It's just that the spend came home to roost after the dot-com bubble burst on Clinton's watch, leading us into the current Bush-Obama recession

I see your point and strongly agree with you honestly because if you think about any president is really trying to deal from 20 to 30 years back. I think the best person to blame out of everything would be Wilson....Why you may ask because he took us out of isolationism and onto the global stage. (that was more a joke then actual belief)