30 thoughts on “How was the State of the Union speech?”

  1. Philip I’ve never heard you say clearly what you are for.

    And I can never really figure out the point of posts like this.

    Would you in this one case just say what you’re for, and what you actually think this person believes and how that is different from your reality?

    Please no wisecracks or jokes, just a direct answer. Thanks.

    • The point of this post was to save me from having to watch any part of the speech! (I have avoided watching politicians on TV for at least 50 years. I am sure that Trump would be more entertaining than average, but I would still rather do almost anything else than watch a political speech on TV.) Also to see if readers had interesting thoughts after watching.

      What am I for? I am for people who have $80,000 to spare on a car not whinging about how difficult their life is! Let’s assume that this is a guy and he has actually been victimized by Trump, e.g., because he made money by arranging tax-avoidance maneuvers that are now irrelevant due to Trump’s changes to the tax system. If we honor his victimhood that leaves us with less time and attention for other victims who might well be worse off.

    • Tax avoidance is good.
      Except by some greedy corporations (those who don’t sponsor us). It is the way of Resistanz.
      So…
      What do you think? What do you really think? No, REALLY!
      Please say it: we are watching.
      Please confirm you support whatever we support. PLEASE!

  2. Wish us slaves could afford to print out a pile of paper & rip it up. Calif* would shoot anyone who did that & wasn’t ruling class. Based on the cliff notes, there was that medal of freedom for Rush. To be fair, lions can’t imagine talking every day for 50 years for 3 hours to mindless callers, about headlines they don’t really care about, stating opinions they don’t really have.

    • Whoa. That is actually shocking! I wouldn’t have believed it possible for anyone to be awarded a Medal of Freedom in what is theoretically a summary of everything going on for 330 million people. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/05/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-objects-medal-of-freedom-rush-limbaugh/4665670002/ confirms your statement about Rush Limbaugh. Has anything like this ever been done before? I.e., a Medal of Freedom awarded during a State of the Union speech? Was Rush L. actually there at the speech?

    • Uh oh. Checking the list in Wikipedia, it seems that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi got a Medal of Freedom: In a 2013 interview with the BBC’s Mishal Husain, Aung San Suu Kyi did not condemn violence against the Rohingya and denied that Muslims in Myanmar have been subject to ethnic cleansing, insisting that the tensions were due to a “climate of fear” caused by “a worldwide perception that global Muslim power is ‘very great'”.

    • Even worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond

      He opposed the expansion of federal authority in the form of civil rights legislation, voted to confirm Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, and “supported racial segregation throughout much of his career.” I think that is a lot worse than Rush calling Barack Obama “halfrican-American.”

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hyde “Hyde was one of the most vocal and persistent opponents of abortion in American politics and was the chief sponsor of the Hyde Amendment to the House Appropriations bill that prohibited use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions through Medicaid.”

    • @Philg:

      Yes, Rush Limbaugh was in the gallery at SOTU. The day before, he announced that he’s been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer and is currently in treatment, with Mark Steyn taking over the hosting duties on his show today, and I suppose for the indefinite future, with his other usual substitute hosts.

      I have the feeling Trump awarded the MoF to him during SOTU because he was concerned that if Limbaugh’s treatment doesn’t go well, he might not be around long enough for a conventional Medal of Freedom ceremony / reception. That, and it was guaranteed to make liberal heads explode. Limbaugh has dedicated almost every moment of his show to defending Trump for the past two years. He has been the de facto Press Secretary. It’s no exaggeration to say that he has single-handedly said more in Trump’s favor than the combined total of everyone else in the media.

      As for the rest of SOTU, I didn’t watch it.

      Reasons:

      1) I knew it was going to be Trump talking about how great he is and how great the country is doing, with the Democrats shaking their heads, sitting planted in their chairs with grumpy cat faces, fantasizing about a blood-curdling monster bursting into the room and ripping Trump limb from limb live on TV, yelling uproariously (there actually was a protester removed from the gallery, the father of a Parkland shooting victim), engaging in other theatrics (Nancy Pelosi ripping up a copy of the speech), etc., etc. The highlight reel proved me right about that, all except the blood-curdling monster.

      2) I knew it was going to be Trump talking about things he wants to do next, which are all going to be opposed almost to the letter by Democrats and will be covered in the conventional, non-SOTU media in any case, as more examples of how the Trump Administration is trying to destroy America.

      There was no point in watching it. It might be of historical interest for academics who study such things to keep a transcript and video of the proceedings, because they’re going to need them to document the end of the Republic.

      I generally don’t watch SOTU speeches any longer, regardless of who is President. I can’t stand watching politicians on television, either. SOTU lost its relevance around 30 years ago for me. The bullshit never even takes a pause now. I really don’t think anything that happens in Washington, D.C. is technically occuring in the United States any longer.

      “I think we are in a very, very grave period for the world.” – Henry Kissinger, July, 2018.

      I wish I could give the SOTU speech, I’d at least have the temerity to be honest about the State of Our Union. It ain’t great. And I was a Trump supporter!

      “

    • Your Wikipedia link showr that Aung San Suu Kyi made her remarks about the Rohingya long after she received the medal. It would take a some research to determine whether the Ford administration should have known about James Watson’s controversial positions back in 1977. However, in most of these cases, the controversy is not related to the reason that these people received medals, which was their accomplishments in their individual fields. In the case of Limbaugh, his racism is integral part of his work, the purpose of which is to convince non-wealthy people to vote against their own interests.

      So the effect of your list is to throw a bunch of sand in the air in the defense of a racist jerk.

  3. Watching politicians perform seem like a really low form of entertainment, right down there with strip joints, TV sitcoms, lottery tickets and MMA fighting.

  5. Um, how does wanting to dump trump equate with whining about how difficult their life is? Maybe they are concerned about the future of the country, concerned about the future of the planet, concerned about the well being of their fellow citizens, and tired of the default assumption when the president says something is that it is a lie.

    • Wally: He says that he wants to “Make America Great Again” by dumping Trump. So the implication is that America has not been great for him for the past three years (maybe he had to downgrade from a Gulfstream G450 to a Challenger 600?). He is concerned about the future of the planet, but drives a car that would be lucky to get 20 mpg in real-world driving?

  6. Giving the MoF to Limbaugh, a confirmed and admitted racist, is an insult and a slap in the face to every American…even the ones that are too stupid to realize they have been slapped. That has to be the single, most atrocious thing I’ve seen. I bet even Limbaugh was shocked.

    • He never admitted to being a racists. Actually the other day he claimed he was not racist. Who confirmed that he is a racist? The problem with liberals (aside from not being able to just kill them) is that they always play the race card. This was all over the fake news today. Why can’t the liberals just say they don’t like Limbaugh because they disagree with him? Why bring race into this?

    • If Snopes gives the statement that Limbaugh is a racist a “Mixed” rating, he’s clearly not a racist.

      https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rush-limbaugh-racist-quotes/

      @Jim, you have no idea what a racist is. A racist (towards blacks) would never watch NFL games, Limbaugh seems to have been a fan, even trying to get involved through ESPN.

      https://www.espn.com/gen/news/2003/1001/1628537.html

      If you look at the top 10 “racist” quotes by Limbaugh, they are much more in the insensitive camp, than the racist camp, and it seems like only a couple of them could be backed up.

    • We already knew that The Orange Man is bad: nothing new or exciting on until Impeachment 2.0.
      Our (social) media should work harder. They might even consider(!) not promoting KKK, which they do by throwing around racist labels and allegations and by promoting identity politics. You know, that time-honored Catch a Thief story.

  8. To answer the original question: the Audi owner will probably be able to survive just fine. Yet mere survival is not the only goal for a lot of people.
    They care, as you do, about sensible healthcare, less corrupt politicians, clean rivers and so on.
    All fine and good reasons to dump Trump in favour of a lesser evil.

    Imagine if your society was run by adults like
    https://twitter.com/MikeGrunwald/status/1225529425187528709
    !

    • Steven: Thanks for the link. Is it reasonable to compare Denmark (same population as Minnesota) to the US (330 million people, many of whom don’t share a language, culture, or values)? Maybe the guy would also have been favorably impressed if he’d visited the Minnesota state senate.

      I was recently in Orlando. I met a Moroccan who didn’t speak Spanish and a bunch of recently arrived older Venezuelans (chain migrants who have at least one child already in the US) who don’t speak English. That’s not the basis of a traditional nation-state. A group of people who don’t want to live in their respective home countries is not a coherent body politic. It is not fair to blame a politician for failing to unite a group of resident (as opposed to “citizens”).

    • A more fair comparison would be to the EU Parliament, which combines people who don’t share much other than an accident of geography. How smoothly does the EU political process function?

  9. The people of the US of A are a diverse lot. But to me it looks as if the people on a senate hearing (like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0YZZnRhE0c ) are rather similar (college educated, english as their first language) and thus fairly comparable to the politicians attending hearing in Denmark or the EU.

    I’ve only followed one hearing at the EU (crypto, 1996). The politicians were very polite and posed fairly intelligent questions. Then they voted as instructed by their local intelligence services (they favored https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/ for some reason).
    The EU is a slow bureaucracy. But still fairly civilized.
    I guess the same goes for the Minnesota state senate. Whereas the Florida state senate might consist of less calm people.

    Anyway, the main point was that there are several good reasons to dump Donna Trump and go for Bernice Sanders or some other – even lesser – evil.
    https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1227170093903171586

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