State of the Union: Assessing the man and his message

Pabulum from the POTUS  "This man, our President, is the emptiest suit of empty suits.  There is no there there. "
...."He has devastated American medical care, intentionally; he wants it redistributed from the rich to the poor.  The result is that no one but the very rich will get good care, if any care at all."
...."He took credit last night for our oil production even though he has done everything he can to impede it."
.... " There is not a single person in the Obama administration that measures up to any one of those former or current philosophical geniuses.  Not one.  He has surrounded himself with lesser beings than himself which is proof of his narcissism and a tragedy for our country.
By Patricia McCarthy, who otherwise thought Mr. Obama was a genius.

AP ‘Fact-Checks’ Obama’s Latest SOTU Address
"Fact check: Less than meets eye in Obama speech"
"He’s ordering a higher minimum wage  for a sliver of the workforce, which affects no one now and not many later."
... "Oh, and never mind that this tiny sliver of federal workers are mostly janitorial and cafeteria workers who just happen to be represented by the SEIU. The union that seems to own Obama lock stock and barrel."

 Snow jobs and minimum honesty: Fact-check roundup on SOTU 
 "Perhaps because Barack Obama managed to “win” Politifact’s Lie of the Year in 2013, we have a few media outlets on the case today — the Associated Press, Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post, and Politico all got rapid research completed overnight. What nuggets did they find?" ...

The TOTUS Who Can’t Look America in the Eye   "Not once — not even once — did the man who claims to be the legitimate leader of our nation ever look me, and all the other watching citizens of this nation, in the eye during his State of the Nation speech. He was a dash-top bobble-head, swinging back and forth from prompter to prompter.
"Good grief! The man can’t uncouple himself from his comfort-zone technology for even a moment to look Americans in the eye just once, and give us some sense of our comfort that he is sincere."

“The world is literally about to blow up,” Graham said, saying he completely disagrees with Obama on Iran policy.

Political Wire:    ..."Obama's State of the Union was agreeable in tone -- he laid out what he was for (on the economy, immigration, health care) but did so hoping that some Republicans could agree with him. It wasn't confrontational. And not surprisingly, it tested well:" ...

Obama Draws Chuckles At SOTU When He Says He’s Trying To Fix Healthcare

 Consider the source line of the night: "If you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance—PERIOD..
"If you like your doctor ,you can keep your doctor—PERIOD…
"Global warming is a fact —PERIOD

Ted Cruz reacts to State of the Union: Obama doesn't need a pen, he needs an eraser  " 'When the president says that he has a pen and he has a phone -- if you want to bring back opportunity, he doesn't need a pen, he needs an eraser," Cruz said. "He needs to start erasing the job-killing regulations, the job-killing taxes. He needs to start erasing the damage that Obamacare is doing to millions of Americans.' "

MSNBC's(!) Howard Fineman: Obama Not Taken Seriously Around Town
"This is a huge acknowledgement by Fineman, who has been second only to Matthews as chief MSNBC Obama cheerleader." 

Governor Christie has nothing on Obama bully boys at payback time

Washington Examiner  "Closing down a bridge to punish a mayor for not endorsing Gov. Chris Christie for re-election was an unambiguous abuse of power by individuals on the governor’s staff and was rather petty to boot. This kind of bullying is hardly unique to New Jersey, though. It goes on at the federal level, too. In fact, the now-former Christie associates are amateurs compared to President Obama’s team of pin-striped tough guys.

"Consider the government shutdown last fall when the president authorized the needless closing of federal parks and museums in an attempt to smear Republicans. Obama’s team got so carried away that they even tried to close state-run parks in Wisconsin that weren’t dependent on federal funds. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker had to defy federal orders to keep them open."

Alan Caruba: One Speech Too Many

Warning Signs

 

... "Obama’s refusal and failure to work with Congress, combined with the disaster of Obamacare that was passed with only Democratic Party votes and, even then, required Chicago-style bribery and pressure, has seen not just his approval begin to slip away, but it includes the whole of Congress.

"Obama’s assertion that he will use executive orders to get his way is simply an admission that he has failed to work with Congress and intends to continue as his second term shapes up to be one of increased resistance. Earlier presidents faced with a Congress whose power was held by another party used persuasion and compromise, but Obama uses neither." ...

The President Won't Be Needing You

Obama speech 'goading' GOP  Rep. James Lankford called Obama's speech Tuesday, "an intentional provocation of congressional Republicans, calling the speech an empty attempt rally his liberal base."

Heritage

 

"President Obama says this is a “year of action”—and last night he made it very clear whose action he was talking about.
"After noting recently that he has a pen and a phone and can use those to make changes without the help of Congress, Obama charged forward with promises of taking executive action wherever lawmakers fail to meet his demands.
“ 'This President has acted like the playground bully who when he can’t have everything he wants, he decides to take his ball and go home,” Heritage President Jim DeMint said yesterday. “This is not the way our government is supposed to work.”
"Indeed—Heritage’s legal experts have long questioned the legality of the President’s lone ranger style. And early analysis of this year’s State of the Union proposals indicates the executive branch will continue to run amok." ....

Is It Possible to Love the Artist, but Hate His Politics? The culture clash over Pete Seeger's legacy.

This is a good reprimand to those of us who only know of Seeger as a communist sympathizer and look no deeper into the man than that. These thoughts could have also applied to Springsteen had he practiced his art in the early to mid-twentieth century instead of today. I disagreed with Seeger, but knew he was for real; I cannot help but see Springsteen's music - excellent as it is - as shtick  .  TD

denverpost.com

By Rick Moran at PJ Media  "Communist activist and troubadour Pete Seeger is dead. The outpouring of vitriol on the right and hagiography on the left is entirely predictable and, with few exceptions, entirely banal. Turning Seeger’s death into another clash in the culture wars somehow seems tiresome, like two old boxers coming out of their corners for the 12th round. Battered, beaten, bloody, all they have left is the instinct to try to destroy each other. Whatever art and artifice they possessed disappeared long before the bell clanged for the last round.

"Must we reduce everything in America to a right vs. left Armageddon? One longs for a more complicated, less knee-jerk combative analysis of people like Pete Seeger. Actually, there has been no one like Pete Seeger, and future historians will brush aside most of the shallow, venomous assaults on his memory — as well as the one-dimensional paeans that whitewash his execrable politics — and look at the totality of his life and judge his monumental contributions to American society."

Clinton supporter to CSPAN: Ben Carson 'trying out for Uncle Tom’s Cabin'

Examiner.com  "On Monday, a supporter of Hillary Clinton went on a racially-charged rant during a call to CSPAN's "Washington Journal," attacking Dr. Ben Carson, Allen West and men in general, the Washington Free Beacon reported:

 
" 'Good morning. I am a black woman from Fort Washington, Maryland. And yes, Hillary Clinton will run for office and she will win," the caller began, before launching into a racist tirade against conservative blacks who dare to not stay on the Democratic Party plantation.

" 'Mr. Carson, the only thing he’s going to be doing is trying out for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, because it’s kind of full right now with Allen West and the crew," she said.

"The caller then went on a rant against men in general." ...

This is all the natural result of Today's Democrat Party and the leftist demagoguery that is woven into their character, smothering all traces of tolerance and compassion. TD

These were NOT Pete Seeger's finest moments

Famed Folk Singer, Songwriter And Political Activist Dies At 94
"His musical career was always braided tightly with his political activism, in which he advocated for causes ranging from civil rights to the cleanup of his beloved Hudson River. Seeger said he left the Communist Party around 1950 and later renounced it. But the association dogged him for years."

Seeger was apparently a sucker for liberal causes and apparently not wise enough to judge the worth of them. He supported the Occupy movement -including, in my mind- their deplorable excesses (I've never heard of Seeger condemning them) and, most amazingly, Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley.

He got himself jailed for five days for blocking traffic in Albany in 1988 in support of Tawana Brawley, a black teenager whose claim of having been raped by white men was later discredited. He continued to take part in peace protests during the war in Iraq, and he continued to lend his name to causes.

America’s Most Successful Communist ... ... "Given his decisive influence on the political direction of popular music, Seeger may have been the most effective American communist ever."
...
"Though Seeger didn’t formally join the Communist Party until 1942, the Almanacs’ lyrics marched in lockstep with the party’s views well before then. In keeping with the line adopted after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact (which caused many U.S. party members to quit in disgust), for example, the Almanacs warbled against American entry into World War II, foreshadowing the preference for peace at any price that later characterized the McGovernite Left. “Franklin D., listen to me,/You ain’t a-gonna send me ’cross the sea.” The group continued in this vein into the late 1940s. Campaigning for Progressive Party anti–cold war candidate Henry Wallace in 1948, they regularly performed a send-up of Harry Truman, to the tune of “Oh, Susannah”:" ...

Governing by Pen and Phone; Obama used to sigh that he was not a dictator who could act unilaterally. No more.

Victor Davis Hanson  "There are lots of creepy things about such dictatorial statements of moving morally backward in order to go politically “forward.” Concerning issues dear to the president’s heart — climate change, more gun control, de facto amnesty, more massive borrowing supposedly to jump-start the anemic, jobless recovery — Obama not long ago had a Democratic supermajority in the Senate and a strong majority in the House. With such rare political clout, he supposedly was going to pass his new American agenda.

"Instead, all he got from his Democratic colleagues was more borrowing and Obamacare. In the case of the latter, the bill passed only through the sort of pork-barrel kickbacks and exemptions to woo fence-sitting Democratic legislators that we hadn’t seen in the U.S. since the 1930s. And for what? Obamacare (be careful what you wish for) is proving to be the greatest boondoggle in American political history since Prohibition. If Obama sincerely
wished to work in bipartisan fashion with Congress, he probably could easily get a majority vote to build the Keystone XL Pipeline, or a backup sanction plan against Iran in case his own initiatives fail." ...

Bridenstine Bringing Ty Woods' Dad to SOTU

Charles Woods

Big Government  "Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) is determined to counter the Obama Administration’s efforts to sweep the massacre at the U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya under the rug. Bridenstine announced Monday that his personal guest at Tuesday’s State of the Union address will be Charles Woods, the father of Navy SEAL Ty Woods, who was murdered in the 2012 terrorist attack that the Obama Administration initially insisted was the result of an anti-Islam video."
Mr. Woods testified,

When I was approached by Hillary Clinton at the coming-home ceremony of the bodies at Andrews Air Force Base, and she said, “We’re going to go out and we’re going to prosecute that person that made the video,” I knew that she wasn’t telling the truth, and I think the whole world knows that now.

 More on this here.

A GOP Congressman Is Bringing Father of SEAL Killed in Benghazi to Obama’s State of the Union Address
“ 'Republican leaders were urging their members to bring people who have been hurt by Obamacare. Some Democrats plan to bring illegal immigrant children who were granted a temporary stay of deportation by Mr. Obama, hoping their presence will spur a push for a broader immigration bill to pass Congress this year,” the report notes."

The nauseating spectacle the State of the Union has become

http://terrellaftermath.com/

 

Republicans, beware The SOTU Curse  "Why responding to the president can be hazardous to your political career."

Jonah Goldberg; The Pull of the SOTU    ... "But I really do resent the demand on my time and attention to listen to a fairly pathetic wish list of focus-grouped programs and the rhetorical placating of various constituencies. As a fan of civic rituals myself, I understand why some people have a soft spot for the pageantry of this thing. But I find it all canned, tacky and vaguely monarchical. If you find that too mealy-mouthed, I strongly recommend you read Kevin Williamson’s piece today. He’s less equivocal. "...

OK, we will. Here:

On the nauseating spectacle that is the State of the Union address
"The State of the Union is only one example of the deepening, terrifying cult of the state that has taken root here. Many heads of state — and some royals, for that matter — fly on commercial aircraft. ... but are known to use mass transit — just like the people they are elected to represent. An American president stages a Roman triumph every time he heads out for a round of golf. ...Washington has become ...a Renaissance court with armored sedans and hundred-million-dollar paydays.

Thinking ahead to the State of the Union speech.

You Said A Mouthful  "His major thrust is going to be "income inequality" and all that goes with it - jobs, the economy, education, and a half-century of progressive, overfunded social programs which haven't made a dent in poverty. Actually, he'll skip that last bit because it now seems like the biggest factor in creating upward economic mobility is having a stable family structure - something to which the Left is adamantly opposed."

Forbes; Obama's State Of The Union Address: If You Like Your Income Inequality, You Can Keep It  "President Barack Obama was right when he said, “The long-term unemployed are not lazy. They’re not lacking in motivation. They’re coping with the aftermath of the worst economic crisis in generations.”
"He should know, his policies prolong the situation.
"From a promised minimum wage increase, to destabilization of the health care system,  to an energy policy encapsulated by “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” no part of the Obama vision is about making America freer and richer."

Obama enlists corporations in State of the Union plan to address long-term unemployment   "The wall street journal reported the pledge Monday morning. It commits corporations to boosting the long-term unemployed by ensuring that they are not unfairly treated in companies' advertising or hiring decisions and improving their efforts to hire those out of work for long periods. The pledge does not appear to include any legally binding provisions."

Feeding the RGI ( “Racial Grievance Industry” )

Neal Boortz  "This is an industry operated by and for the benefit of people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  The simple fact is without racial grievances to promote and to wail over, these people generally cease to exist.
            "The Atlanta Journal Constitution certainly did its part to provide fodder for the RGI over the weekend.  How’s this for a story?  “New Cities Reignite Debate Over Race.” 
            "Really?  As you went about your daily routine in Atlanta and the ‘burbs were you aware that the debate over race had been reignited?  All this time I thought that people were concerned about finding or keeping their jobs, navigating the crevasse-filled landscape of 0bamacare, or how to put aside enough money to retire in the face of today’s confiscatory tax rates."
....
All this fits the leftist template:

To recognize people as individuals is to deny their all-important group identity.  Group identities are so important to the left – so easy to exploit for political power.  Liberals love groups .. mobs.  Groups don’t think, they just react in mass like lemmings.  Individuals – white or black – think independently and are thus difficult to control or manipulate.