Tag Archives: SOTU

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What is the State of our Union?

President Biden is getting ready to deliver a speech that many of us have waited to hear. He will stand before a joint session of Congress and after a few opening remarks and perhaps a quip or two he will tell us about the State of our Union.

He is likely to make a declaration that starts out, “My fellow Americans, the State of our Union is … “

Is it “strong”? Is it “weak”? Is it “troubled”? Is it a mixed bag of all of the above and perhaps even something none of us can quantify?

Were I advising the president, I would urge him to offer a “strong” description of our Union’s current condition. Not because all is well and good. But because I cling to the hope that despite our trouble and anxiety that Americans’ collective strength will see us through it all.

Our political structure is roiling under The Big Lie that too many politicians continue to foster about the 2020 presidential election. Congress is examining whether a former POTUS incited an insurrection against our democratic process; I believe he did, but I am not in a position to make an official declaration.

We’re facing down in real time a serious threat by Russia against Ukraine. Our NATO allies stand ready to defend Ukraine if they deem it necessary.

Our economy, while it is exhibiting tangible strength, continues to struggle with raging inflation.

And yes, the pandemic is waning … at least for now.

President Biden will stand before a Congress divided by suspicion among its members toward each other and by those on one side of the great divide who continue to resist any effort on the president’s part to actually govern responsibly.

We’ll wait for the applause lines and we’ll watch the Democratic half of Congress cheer while Republicans sit on their hands. It will disgust many of us.

The Union’s strength lies in the people who are the real bosses. It isn’t the congressional leaders who seek to guide federal policy while ignoring the will of those they govern.

I don’t know what President Biden will declare about the strength of our nation at the State of the Union speech he will deliver in a few days. I just hope he tells us we are stronger than the forces that seek to divide us and tear at the fabric of our nation’s greatness.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Awaiting the SOTU

Let’s look ahead — shall we? — to President Biden’s first State of the Union speech. He’ll get to stand before a joint session of Congress and give them, and the nation, a report on the health and well-being of the nation he governs.

It is set for March 1.

These events have become sort of a handicapping exercise. Pundits will be offering views on how many members of Congress stand and applaud at the appropriate times.

Although I intend to watch the president deliver his speech, I am approaching that date with a bit of apprehension. We live in highly contentious times. Republicans seem to detest the Democratic president. Many members of the GOP congressional caucus, for instance, haven’t even accepted the fact that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Many of the nut jobs within the Republican caucus have made speeches endorsing Donald J. Trump’s Big Lie about the vote fraud that did not exist.

How will those idiots react to anything Biden says? How many of them will even attend the SOTU? Might we hear a “You lie!” insult coming from the GOP side the way we did when President Obama delivered an SOTU years ago?

I will approach this upcoming event with bit of trepidation. I hope Congress — men and women on both sides of the great divide — will treat President Biden with all due respect. Frankly, given the madness that seems to permeate the thick skulls of many within the GOP caucus, I do have some doubt over the kind of reception the president is going to receive.

Please, GOP members, prove my concerns to be without merit.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Why not honor Brig. Gen. McGee instead of Daddy Dittohead?

This isn’t an original thought that comes exclusively from this blog, but I’ll offer it anyway.

If Donald John Trump was so intent Tuesday night on handing out a Presidential Medal of Freedom, why didn’t he award one to the 100-year-old Tuskegee Airman, Brig. Gen. Charles McGee, who was in the VIP box listening to the president deliver the State of the Union speech?

I mean, Gen. McGee is far more worthy of the nation’s highest and most exalted civilian honor that Rush “Daddy Dittohead” Limbaugh, who received the medal in a surprise ceremony during the speech.

Yes, I am aware that Donald Trump saluted Gen. McGee for the heroic service he performed during World War II, in Korea and in Vietnam.

Gen. McGee surely deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

national news

SOTU shows the nation’s stark and deep divide

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Well now … just how divided is the United States of America?

It’s pretty damn divided, based on the performance that took place in the House of Representatives chamber full of lawmakers, about half of whom want the nation’s current president removed from office.

There he was, Donald John Trump during his State of the Union speech, awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a highly controversial radio talker, Rush Limbaugh — who I have acknowledged is battling an advanced form of lung cancer. I stand by my good wishes in his fight against the disease. However, watching the first lady hang the medal around Limbaugh’s neck made me cringe.

He has spewed hate speech for as long as I can remember. He has done not a single thing to earn the nation’s highest civilian honor. There he was, though, soaking up the love from the side of the House chamber that endorses his fiery rhetoric.

And then there was Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the House impeachment movement against Trump, tearing up the text of Trump’s speech in a dramatic show of petulance at the end of POTUS’s remarks.

Mme. Speaker, you did not need to do that in such a dramatic display. Yes, we all get that she is angry at Trump, but these public demonstrations lend nothing to the effort we all should seek to heal this country’s deep — and I hope not mortal — political wounds.

Trump fed his political base a healthy dose of the red meat it craves. He blasted the criminals who enter the country illegally without ever mentioning all the undocumented immigrants who have contributed to our nation while living in fear of deportation. He stood strong for the Second Amendment. He blasted socialism as a failed ideology.

And, of course, he took the expected digs at the “previous administration,” continuing his ongoing campaign to denigrate the work of President Obama and his team, who rescued the nation from its economic free-fall when they took office in 2009.

Donald John Trump has shown us once again that he intends to keep seeking to divide us. I wasn’t proud of what I witnessed.

economic news

Socialism is a serious straw man

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Donald J. Trump stood before a joint congressional session and received his share of cheers — mostly from Republicans sitting in front of him — during his State of the Union speech.

One applause line deserves a brief comment here. He declared, without an ounce of equivocation, that the United States is never going to become a “socialist nation.”

GOP lawmakers stood and cheered. So did a handful of Democrats.

Why mention this here? Because the president of the United States only revealed his acute command of the obvious.

He was taking a direct shot at one member of the Senate, Vermont independent Bernie Sanders. He also was targeting a handful of House Democrats, too, namely the rookie lawmaker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has become a media superstar while serving for an entire month in the House of Representatives.

Is the president’s declaration actually intended to stave off some hidden stampede toward socialism? He clearly intends with that statement to stoke some kind of made-up fear that there is enough support in Congress to allow for a government takeover of heavy industry. He is breeding panic among those who believe that the United States of America is going to forgo capitalism in favor of socialism.

Let’s catch our breath. There is no way in the world that the United States of America is going to adopt a socialistic economy.

The issues that some congressional progressives can be resolved without converting our economy from one that produces individual wealth to something that distributes wealth evenly among all 300 million-plus Americans.

“Medicare For All” is no more of a socialistic solution than, say, the original Medicare was when it was enacted in 1965. Or when Social Security became law in 1935. Yet lawmakers and, yes, the president insist that the Affordable Care Act — President Obama’s signature domestic policy initiative — marches the nation down the road toward socialism.

There remains a tremendous amount of individual wealth in this country. I happen to believe firmly that individual wealth will continue to flourish likely until the end of time — whenever that occurs! Socialism, as I understand the meaning of the concept, seeks to redistribute wealth through some nefarious government grab of individual assets.

Does anyone seriously believe that is going to happen? Ever?

If you believe it, then you likely have swilled the Kool-Aid dispensed by demagogues who flourish in a climate of fear.

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Pelosi isn’t the first to sit

The Internet is alive with idiotic chatter, as always.

Part of that chatter involves House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to most of Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech the other evening.

The goofballs out there just couldn’t understand why the speaker didn’t lead the cheers for the president. The picture I posted here, of course, tells the story of what is customary at these events.

Speaker Paul Ryan belongs to a different party than President Barack Obama. The picture shows Vice President Joe Biden clapping while Speaker Ryan sits there. Stone-faced. Expressionless. Have you ever noticed the dour look that Ryan’s GOP predecessor as speaker, John Boehner, would display when President Obama was being cheered by Democrats?

It’s all part of the time-honored game. Speakers from the opposing party do stand — on occasion — when the president says something that engenders bipartisan cheers. Trump did so the other night on more than one occasion and, yes, Pelosi joined Vice President Mike Pence in applauding the president.

Speaker Tip O’Neill sat on his hands often whenever President Reagan drew whoops and hollers from the GOP lawmakers. Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich did the same thing when President Clinton fired up the partisans on the other side. Democratic Speakers Jim Wright and Tom Foley also played the game when Republican presidents were cheered by their congressional brethren.

So, let’s cool it with the malarkey about Speaker Pelosi’s SOTU behavior. She did what all her predecessors have done since the beginning of the Republic.

Donald Trump, national news

If only he had pledged an end to insults and innuendo

Donald Trump sought to strike some sweet notes during his State of the Union speech, asking for an end to politics of revenge, seeking more cooperation and compromise and less confrontation.

If only the president had made one more pledge, one that I wish would come from his mouth. I wish he would pledge an end to insult and innuendo.

To my ears, those have been the hallmarks of Trump’s time as president. He continues to hurl insults at his foes. He denigrates opponents’ patriotism, their intellect, their motives.

He just recently said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a “danger” to the country. Why? Because she resists spending billions of dollars to build The Wall along our southern border; she pushes back on the president’s effort to ascribe certain motives behind why she believes what she believes.

Trump’s call for compromise and his plea to reject revenge is fine as far as it goes.

The coarseness of the current political debate is attributable directly to the president’s continuing use of insults and innuendo. I won’t suggest that he has caused the coarseness solely, but he at the very minimum helps perpetuate it by the manner in which he hits back at critics.

Trump’s friends keep justifying his crude language by citing his obvious lack of fluency in politic-speak. He doesn’t utter politically correct sentences, they say; the president speaks from his gut while “telling it like it is.”

Well, that’s their view. It ain’t mine. Donald Trump cannot respond without hurling a verbal brickbat.

That doesn’t make America great . . . again.

national news

Trump sought ‘unity’; he fell short

I will have more to say about Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech after I get some sleep tonight.

First reaction?

He pledged to speak to the ideals of unity, bipartisanship and compromise. Then he said there would be no progress while we’re going through “ridiculous” investigations.

Hmm. I think the president — dare I say it? — trumped his own call for compromise and unity.

Have a good night, y’all.

national news

Why didn’t speaker introduce POTUS?

Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech has concluded, but I want to revisit the very beginning of the president’s remarks.

These events usually commence with the following sequence:

The Cabinet comes into the House chamber, along with the Supreme Court and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Then the sergeant at arms bellows out, “Madam Speaker, the president of the United States.” 

The president walks down the aisle, shaking hands and greeting those who want to be seen in his presence.

Then the president ascends to the podium, hands copies of his speech to the vice president and the speaker of the House.

The president takes the applause. Then the clapping subsides.

Then the speaker usually says something like this: “It is my high honor and privilege to introduce to you, the president of the United States.” Applause commences again.

Except that Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t introduce the president.

Donald Trump started his speech right away.

What . . . happened?

national news, political news

Watch the body language at the SOTU

I don’t know about you but I plan to try to interpret some body language that will be on full display this evening in front of the entire United States of America when Donald Trump delivers the presidential State of the Union speech.

Sitting over his left shoulder will be a woman with whom he has had, um . . . words. Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited him to the House of Representatives chamber, then uninvited him, then reinvited him.

The president and the speaker aren’t exactly close. They’re fighting over The Wall. Trump wants money to build it along our southern border; Pelosi says it is an “immoral” request and opposes its construction.

Hey, we’ve seen this kind of thing play out many times over many decades. Speaker John Boehner and later Paul Ryan never looked all that thrilled when Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union speeches. The speakers were Republicans, the president was a Democrat.

How about when Speaker Pelosi sat behind GOP President Bush, or when GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich had to listen to Democratic President Clinton deliver the SOTU? Same thing, man. The speaker of a different party than the president usually doesn’t jump to his or her feet to applaud when POTUS delivers a line that suggests he expects some hand claps.

The animus between the current speaker and the president, though, is more visceral. Or so it appears. Sure, Trump said some nice things about Pelosi when House Democrats elected her speaker at the start of this congressional session. Did he mean them? Hah, you figure it out!

Pelosi, meanwhile, has been even less generous in her public comments about Trump. I believe the president knows it and likely will feel the speaker’s icy stare on the back of his neck while he talks about the State of the (dis)Union.

Pass the popcorn.