STFU

[Scooter]

Ok, I was drawn to watch like a rubber necker at a traffic pileup, and thus far the most surreal moment....

...Trump claiming credit for the largest number of women sitting in Congress, when something like 90% of them are Democrats.

[Bicycle Bill]

Ok, I was drawn to watch like a rubber necker at a traffic pileup, and thus far the most surreal moment....

...Trump claiming credit for the largest number of women sitting in Congress, when something like 90% of them are Democrats.

Well, in a way he ›IS‹ responsible for these women and other Democrats sitting in Congress this term.  We the People voted them in to stop his hate-filled Repugnican-backed agenda and to help throw his egotistical orange ass out.

-"BB"-

[Joe Guy]

Overall, I thought it was a decent speech and he made a couple good ad libs. I didn't get bored. He said some good things and some questionable things. Of course, I'm sure I will be told by CNN and others why I should have hated it. Don't worry. Although I appreciated his speech, I haven't changed my opinion that he is a narcissistic immature lying sociopath twat.

[RayThom]

Overall, I thought it was a decent speech and he made a couple good ad libs. I didn't get bored. He said some good things and some questionable things. Of course, I'm sure I will be told by CNN and others why I should have hated it. Don't worry. Although I appreciated his speech, I haven't changed my opinion that he is a narcissistic immature lying sociopath twat.

I agree somewhat, however, Lord Dampnut had his usual signature scribbled all over it.

[dales]

Everything that Joe Guy said.

even though....

I missed a lot of the speech.


I'll check in with others tomarrow at the community center and get their take on it.


My mind is a horrible thing to waste.

[Lord Jim]

By Trump standards, certainly not the worst I've ever seen...(But then we all know what "Trump standards" are like...)

It was a speech that was clearly deliberately crafted to have something in it for everybody...

Red meat lurid fear mongering tales (Those caravans of Muslim MS-13 gang member lepers with their duct-taped women are still threatening the border) and wall-talk for the base, some stuff deliberately designed to get applause from Democrats as well as Republicans... (criminal justice reform, infrastructure spending, reducing prescription drug costs, even a gracious sounding congratulations for all the women elected to Congress in this cycle)

Talk about military strength for the defense hawks, talk about military withdrawals for the right-wing isolationists and the left-wing defeatists...

Unifying themes and partisan attacks...

And he concluded with a series of soaring rhetorical flourishes that could have been delivered (much more effectively of course) by Ronald Reagan:

When American soldiers set out beneath the dark skies over the English Channel in the early hours of D-Day, 1944, they were just young men of 18 and 19, hurtling on fragile landing craft toward the most momentous battle in the history of war. They did not know if they would survive the hour. They did not know if they would grow old. But they knew that America had to prevail. Their cause was this nation, and generations yet unborn.

Why did they do it? They did it for America — they did it for us. Everything that has come since — our triumph over communism, our giant leaps of science and discovery, our unrivaled progress toward equality and justice — all of it is possible thanks to the blood and tears and courage and vision of the Americans who came before.

Think of this Capitol — think of this very chamber, where lawmakers before you voted to end slavery, to build the railroads and the highways, to defeat fascism, to secure civil rights, to face down evil empires.

Here tonight, we have legislators from across this magnificent republic. You have come from the rocky shores of Maine and the volcanic peaks of Hawaii, from the snowy woods of Wisconsin and the red deserts of Arizona, from the green farms of Kentucky and the golden beaches of California. Together, we represent the most extraordinary nation in all of history.

What will we do with this moment? How will we be remembered? I ask the men and women of this Congress, look at the opportunities before us. Our most thrilling achievements are still ahead. Our most exciting journeys still await. Our biggest victories are still to come. We have not yet begun to dream.

We must choose whether we are defined by our differences — or whether we dare to transcend them. We must choose whether we will squander our inheritance — or whether we will proudly declare that we are Americans. We do the incredible. We defy the impossible. We conquered the unknown.

This is the time to reignite the American imagination. This is the time to search for the tallest summit, and set our sights on the brightest star. This is the time to rekindle the bonds of love and loyalty and memory that link us together as citizens, as neighbors, as patriots.

This is our future — our fate — and our choice to make. I am asking you to choose greatness. No matter the trials we face, no matter the challenges to come, we must go forward together.

We must keep America first in our hearts. We must keep freedom alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in America's destiny — that one nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise and the light and the glory among all the nations of the world!

Thank you. God bless you, God bless America. Thank you very much.

So this speech was really all over the map; a hodge-podge amalgamation that nearly anyone could find something in it to agree with, and also much to disagree with...

A good example of the uneven, almost schizophrenic nature of the speech was the way he started off promising to deliver a unifying bipartisan message, but then almost immediately repeated his threat to hold progress on addressing any of the country's problems hostage to Congress curtailing its oversight efforts of him and his administration:

The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or Democrat agenda, it is the agenda of the American people. Many of us have campaigned on the same core promises, to defend American jobs and demand fair trade for American workers, to rebuild and revitalize our nation's infrastructure, to reduce the price of health care and prescription drugs, to create an immigration system that is safe, lawful, modern and secure, and to pursue a foreign policy that puts America's interests first. There is a new opportunity in American politics, if only we have the courage together to seize it.

Victory is not winning for our party, victory is winning for our country...


But we must reject the politics of revenge, resistance and retribution, and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good.

But then, (after a laundry list of economic accomplishments, some of which he certainly deserves some credit for; though as I've pointed out before just about every policy he has pursued that has aided the economy would have been implemented by any Republican President. ) he turns right around and makes his blackmail threat:

...An economic miracle is taking place in the United States, and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous, partisan investigations.

If there is going to be peace in legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just does not work that way. We must be united at home to defeat our adversaries abroad.

If you think about it, that really is quite an extraordinary threat for a President Of The United States to make...

For a President to publicly threaten progress on legislation to help all Americans, (and even the economic well being of the country) if the opposition doesn't fall in line and ignore it's Constitutionally mandated responsibility to provide real oversight of the Executive branch, is unprecedented in American history...

Even Richard Nixon, who at the height of Watergate did call for an end to the investigations, didn't have the gall to say, "either stop investigating me, or you can say good bye to the Environmental Protection Agency"...


One last observation here...

I thought that far and away the best part of the whole "show" was the extremely skillful use of the gallery acknowledgements...(A feature of the SOTU speeches begun of course by Mr. Reagan)

From Buzz Aldrin at the beginning, to that very moving shot of the Dachau concentration camp survivor sitting side-by-side with the Dachau camp liberator near the end, this is one aspect of Trump's presentation that was pretty much pitch perfect. (And guaranteed to bring both sides of the aisle to their feet for rounds of robust and sustained applause...)

[ex-khobar Andy]

'Soaring rhetorical flourishes' reminded me of this (1980) Doonesbury strip, where Zeke was trying to make some cash with a biography of Duke:

[Sue U]

Fortunately, I was on an airplane during the entirety of the SOTU and was mercifully spared.



Landed just in time to catch Stacey Abrams while waiting for my bag.

Harris/Abrams 2020!!!

[ex-khobar Andy]

I think Ted Cruz is going to run again in 2020. He looks much less like a refugee from The Munsters (or do I mean The Addams Family?) now that he has that beard.

[RayThom]

... Landed just in time to catch Stacey Abrams while waiting for my bag.
Harris/Abrams 2020!!!

Welcome back to the sunny climes of Camden County NJ.

[Big RR]

I had it on in the background, and found the end benediction unbelievably idiotic--esepcially when mouthed by him. His condemnation of the investigations reminded me of Nixon's SOTU in 1974--maybe Trump will follow suit and resign eventually. But what I really hated was the incessant applause--and the women congresspersons rising when he made the point of more women in the workplace/Congress was just ridiculous. It made me wish the SOTU was more like the times in in British Parliament wherein boos, catcalls, etc. are made from the floor when the PM speaks--he ate up the applause like he really thoght e deserved it.

Ad one question I had immediately after--is the middle class getting more and better jobs/wages than ever before, or are the evil immigrants stealing those jobs, forcing those wages down, and leaving them to a state of abject penury (at least when those evildoers aren't dealing drugs, trafficking minor women, and killing people in the NYC subway)? Just one of many inconsistencies in the BS that filled Trump's remarks.

[Sue U]

the women congresspersons rising when he made the point of more women in the workplace/Congress was just ridiculous.

I thought that was hilarious. Trump is definitely the reason there are more women in Congress -- almost all of them Democrats elected to stop Trump. From what I saw in the highlight reels, Trump didn't even understand that the joke was on him; he thought they were genuinely applauding him, while they were actually high-fiving and applauding themselves.

Welcome back to the sunny climes of Camden County NJ.

It ain't Miami Beach, but it will do for now.

[BoSoxGal]

That one moment when he acknowledged the anniversary of women’s suffrage and the record number of women in Congress and when the other side of the aisle also cheered that - that was the one really nice bipartisan moment.

Beyond that it was the usual Trump lies, empty policy promises and fear mongering - I was particularly sickened by the exploitation of the family of the recently murdered elderly couple, whose granddaughter didn’t seem to know whether she should smile for the cameras, or cry. I have mixed feelings (always have had) about the practice of parading SOTU guests for policy points, as it feels kinda creepy to me (also when Democrats do it).

But anyway, anything else he said in the speech was negated by the implied threat to halt any meaningful legislative process if Congressional investigations of his administration kept on. There’s really nothing that matters more than that obstruction of justice.

[Lord Jim]

reminded me of Nixon's SOTU in 1974

I've seen that comparison made a lot in the press but it's really unfair to Mr. Nixon...

Richard Nixon never threatened to hold the interests of the American people hostage to having the Watergate investigations ended, the way Trump threatened to do if investigations into him weren't stopped...

What Trump essentially said last night was:

"I don't really give one tiny shit about the cruel ripoff of the American people by predatory prescription drug pricing, or whether or not people die in bridge collapses. If you members of Congress do care about these things, or anything else effecting the welfare of the American people, then you damn well better not launch investigations into me or my Administration. The one and only thing I do care about is myself, and if you do things that I feel threaten me, the American people can go fuck themselves; I'll see to it nothing gets accomplished and let the country go to hell."

"It's a nice little country you've got here Congress people...

Be a shame if anything were to happen to it..."

[Burning Petard]

Jim Wright has a long commentary on this speech, including the question What do the events of Omaha Beach 75 years ago have to do with the State Of The Union today? The only answer I have is that it was supposed make us cheer in reflected glory, sort of like when the college I attended 60 years ago wins a minor league bowl game, and I never went to a football game when I was a student there.

http://www.stonekettle.com

He does have a nice opening lead: "Near as I can figure, the message last night was: American won WWII. So that's good. Huzzah. I was wondering how that whole thing turned out."

Lord Jim's comments about drug prices is right in line with Democratic party tactics to win back working class Trump voters: Trump and Rx drug prices. The agreement on trade with Canada and Mexico that Trump lauded in the constitutionally required report to Congress, includes lots of Easter Eggs for big pharma.

snailgate.

[RayThom]

Presidential harassment.

President Currently Facing 17 Investigations Speaks Out Against Investigations
https://babylonbee.com/news/president-u ... stigations

[Lord Jim]

There’s really nothing that matters more than that obstruction of justice.

Given the fact that he was stupid enough to confess to obstruction of justice on national television, and that since then he has been stupid enough to make numerous other public obstruction of justice efforts, and stupid enough to provide public proof of intent to obstruct justice over and over, and stupid enough to make this I'll-hold-legislation-hostage threat publicly (at least twice; both at his press conference after the midterm election, and again in his SOTU speech)...

It's no stretch at all to imagine that if he in fact makes good on this threat that he is stupid enough to publicly admit that's what he's doing...

Something like:

"I will refuse to sign this infrastructure bill unless the House Government Oversight Committee drops it's subpoena for my tax returns" ...

That will make for a lovely article of impeachment...

[Big RR]

Richard Nixon never threatened to hold the interests of the American people hostage to having the Watergate investigations ended, the way Trump threatened to do if investigations into him weren't stopped...

I won't argue that Trump is a much bigger jerk and worse president than Nixon could ever hope to be, but Nixon's statement was something like "let's get rid of this stupid investigation so we can address the task at hand", implying at least that we cannot move forward without stopping the investigation of him--Trump is just a transparent on what he was saying. I found Nixon's remarks (at the time) almost as outrageous as Trump's, mainly because those sort of even implied weren't made publicly by rational people (which Nixon at the time was not when it came to his belief he was being unfairly persecuted); Trump is even more irrational.

And BSG, what you saw as bipartisan, I saw as just playing to Trump's ego. It is bipartisan to work on legilation accetable to both ides--it is not bipartisan to kiss Il Duce's ass.

Sue, if that was waht the celebration intended, it fell flat and went right over my head, and I would think many others.. Ditto Pelosi's trying to silence any dissent to what he said, however outrageous.

[Lord Jim]

implying at least that we cannot move forward without stopping the investigation of him--

I'm not getting that from what he said:



He expresses the personal view that he believes he has cooperated enough for the investigators to conclude their investigations, and he makes clear that he's going to fight tooth and nail against releasing the tapes to the House Judiciary Committee, (that's what all that "not damaging the Presidency" verbiage is about) and he concludes by asserting that he'll never resign, but I don't hear anywhere where he brings in any threats, (direct or implied) against the general functioning of government if the investigations to him aren't brought to an end.

[Big RR]

Jim--as I recall (I don't have the time to look it up) he first set forth an agenda, then made a statement that all parts of government had to be focused on moving forward on the agenda, and then made his one year of watergate is enough and it is time to stop investigating because he would never give in and release the tapes, etc. I thought the implication was pretty clear--nothing will be done if the legislature keeps wasting time on the investigation; if you thought otherwise, fine. That was outrageous at the time, at least to me, even though it is pretty tame by Trump standards. Couple this with his repeated investigation that the house and senate hearings were a waste of time , and I think it is pretty clear what he is saying.