Okay…I am stuck in traffic on Montlake. But I can, apparently drive and blog, so here is the thread. Enjoy the discussion while I enjoy the fragrence of car exhaust.
6:11: I made it to the Montlake Alehouse just in time for the start. Man…it took 30 minutes to drive from UW campus…a 20 minute walk….
6:15: This morning, Boehner was calling Obama un-American. This evening he has to introduce Obama to the entire nation. Awwwwwwkward.
6:18: Biden is doing a great job keeping that spot on his forehead stationary, while moving his head around it. Great party (and SOTU) trick!
6:19: Obama wears a red tie. Boehner wears a blue tie. This is the dawning of a new age of bipartisanship!
6:24: Even Boehner is being forced to clap (gingerly) at some of these tax ideas. Poor guy…it must hurt.
6:25: Eric Cantor is thinking, “Oh my God…we’re going to have to oppose this?!?”
6:34: Obama plots to get more young people into those institutes of liberal indoctrination…. Educated citizens == Bad for Republicans
6:35: Obama channels Rick Perry on illegal immigration. How can the Republicans not feel all warm and cozy inside?
6:39: Mitch McConnell was obviously heavily sedated prior to the SOTU address.
6:42: Republicans are all like, “boooooo…clean energy….bad, bad, bad.”
6:44: Watch…dollars to doughnuts, next week there is a house bill to prevent the military from investing in clean energy.
6:47: There Obama goes again, pandering to the “millions of innocent Americans”. What about the millions of guilty Americans????
6:49: Thanks, TV people, for that magnificent view of Holy Joe’s facial pores.
6:51: What kind of anti-American bastard is Boehner…he isn’t wearing a flaggy-flag pin!
6:55: Tax breaks for the wealthy or keep our investments? I wonder what Republicans would choose?
6:58: Obama argues for investing in the future. Yeah…like that is going to win over the selfish teabaggers.
7:01: Obama has a new theme…the divide between Washington D.C. and the rest of America. This could be a potent theme. But the follow-up was pretty weak. (I don’t think insider trading by congresscritters really highlights the problem.)
7:11: Joe Biden wipes away a small tear.
7:14: Obama uses graphical imagery to help us all live the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
It’s over. Obama was pretty much focusing on common (D & R) themes. “Send me bills and I’ll sign them.”
Now we can enjoy the Republican rebuttal followed by the Michele Bachmann second rebuttal….
7:29: Mitch Daniels seems angry. Given his approval ratings, I guess he has good reason to be angry.
7:30: “With a government as big and bossy as this one….” What a fucking pathetic whiner!
7:31: Gloom and Doom! What a pessimistic son-em-bitch.
7:32: Carl Ballard: “I’m surprised how political the speech is!”
7:33: “Being a businessman is the most noble of human pursuits”…which pretty much means that Mitch—the politician—is self-loathing.
7:35: Mitch Daniels looks like the very model of a modern undertaker.
7:38: Mitch criticizes “Obama” by quipping about freedom to choose the right light bulb. Apparently he doesn’t realize that the lightbulb thing was done by the BUSH administration…while he was director of the Office of Budget Management. What a fucking dolt!
Mitch Daniels gives the second worse Republican response. It will take generations to out bad Bobby Jindal. But damn he tried.
7:52: There seems to be a live Tarantula on Mitt Romney’s head!
7:53: Did anyone notice that both Mitch Daniels and Mitt Romney have defaced flaggy-flag pins on? There is a big blotch in the middle of the stripes. Some say, communists do that.
7:57: Poor Mitt…all those millions and he still cannot keep his hair under control…
I’m waiting for the “you lie” moment.
Michael…that’s obsolete. They will have to go for something like a group of 20 teabaggers in unison flipping the bird or mooning Obama.
Obama’s taking the Republicans to the wood shed!
Boehner looks pissed.
Who punched John Kerry in the face?
Dude is hitting another homerun.
Eric Cantor looks pissed too.
“we’ve brought trade cases against China at over twice the rate as the previous administration.”
BHO
Gnoot wants to debate THIS 7 times at 3 hours apiece
and thinks he can”win”.
“train 2M people with the skills that will lead directly to a job”
Yes!!! Go community colleges!!! I’m loving this.
Re-employment system vs.Unemployment system
That’s a winner.
Michael @ 5,
“Who punched John Kerry in the face?”
I almost wrote the same thing. Man…is he looking haggard!
@12
I’m seriously curious about that. He looked awful.
No, we don’t have 100 years worth of N. gas.
He’s being overly optimistic on energy and on how much money we have to put towards basic research and clean energy.
Yay, energy conservation. Note to BHO, please don’t give a speech from the oval office wearing a cardigan.
The guilty ones only add up to 1%.
“I’ve approved fewer regulations in my first three years than the previous admin did.”
BHO
Spilled milk …wow!
The Republican’s are sunk.
@20
That was awesome.
A bit of a late start on getting serious about finical crime, but it’s nice to see it finally happening.
Did I miss anything, I was off making myself an old fashioned.
My personal SOTU is getting a little tipsy.
Hillary didn’t look real thrilled.
Israel, blah, blah, blah,
One of my friends on Face Book thinks the Supremes look like Nazgûl.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazgûl
John Boehner looks like he’s in pain.
“When you put on that uniform it doesn’t matter if you’re… gay, straight… ”
BHO
Loving the focus on working together and trust.
Home run
See #6.
Gonna hear that one plenty more times between now and November.
Obama did great.
Did BHO ask business to ask what they could do for their country, kinda like JFK?
@35
Yeah, he kinda did.
The talking bobble-heads keep saying Obama was focused on “small bore” stuff. What they should be saying is that Obama focused on things that actually matter in the majority of Americans day to day lives. I guess us wee-little people are more .243 than .338.
OMG! Skeletor is speaking for the Republicans!!
“the haves and the soon to haves.”
Skeletor talking inspires like fungus growing on the Olympic National Forest.
Bobby Jindal II!
What a pile of crap. I think I need another drink.
@41
He’s the white Bobby Jindal.
Hey, he even went after the wealthy getting more than they need from the government. Either that or I’m drunker than I think I am.
He’s the very model of the modern major-general.
Ooo… It’s the war on light bulbs! The light bulb regs that Bush signed into law…
In all seriousness, would anyone choose this guy (Daniels) over Romney?
Setting the bar low enough is the key to success.
What’s the deal with the phrase “free born?” That keeps popping up lately.
HAHAHA all the republicans had to follow that speech was that stupid short Hoosier Mitch Daniels. Republicans are pathetic idiots
Germany and the nordic countries have less debt, lower per capita health costs, lower unemployment, better schools, and lower teen pregnancy rates, but europe is a failed place?
David Brooks thinks were “kinda close” to being Greece.
@44: Believe me they’re pining for him when they contemplate Gnoot (I love that, I’m stealin’ it) at(s) the top — of the ticket.
I saw unmistakable “we’re fucked” looks on Cantor and McConnell’s faces.
The most significant thing in the speech was his tasking an investigation into foreclosure fraud (MERS, robo-signing, etc.). That was a big surprise. It may mean the 50 state AG deal they’ve been pushing may be dead for now (a good thing). I’ll be anxious to see details.
Boehner looked like he’d had a few. Fucking drunk asshole…
Agreed. About fucking time, too.
Michael,
I sure wish I had what you had to drink. All I’ve got is a couple Miller tallboys. I’m watching a replay, after working late. Yes, wingnuts, Democrats work late. I work late to make sure I can make payroll.
@55
I make a point of living within my means, so I can afford something like a bottle of Dry Fly once or twice a year. Small batch whiskeys are totally worth the price.
Indeed. Small batch whiskeys create joy. I generally only partake on fishing trips to Montana. Is Dry Fly worth the price (I love the brand name)?
@57 There’s Jack Daniels No. 7, and there’s everything else.
Wall Street detests Obama. I wonder why? They must hate money or something. Performance of major stock indexes since Obama took office:
DJIA +53%
S&P 500 +55%
Nasdaq Composite +82%
S&P Midcap 400 +81%
Russell 2000 +69%
(Source: CNBC)
Bulletin — SEALS Rescue American Kidnapped In Somalia
Chalk up another success for the Obama administration. Jessica Buchanan, 32, an American aid worker kidnapped in Somalia in October, was rescued by Navy SEALS tonight in a raid that also freed a 60-year-old Danish hostage. SEALS killed several Somalian pirates and retrieved the hostages unharmed.
(Source: MSNBC)
Message In A Bottle
To: Pirates
From: Barack Obama
Re: Kidnapping Americans
Try it, motherfuckers, and you’re dead.
Kisses,
The SEALS and their Commander In Chief
I knew the processed food sold to us by American corporations is crap, but until tonight, I didn’t know that eating microwaved popcorn could give your kid diptheria:
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_n.....e-efficacy
@61
That’s just awesome.
@57
You’re paying a little bit of a premium for getting something that’s really, really, small batch and for something that’s made with all local wheat, (Dry Fly’s from Spokane and uses all local everything in everything they make) but it’s damn good stuff. I’m willing to throw a few extra bones the way of companies that have a good quality product and are doing cool stuff.
@64: Me too. Dry Fly “Canadian”? Where can I get it?
@64: I’m a big fan of Glacier potato vodka (from Teton, Id). Makes awesome martinis. I use pickled green beans from Yakima. Goes great with grilled oysters.
The Republicans had already written their responses to the speech well in advance of knowing what was in the speech. It didn’t matter anyway. Heck, I was in class during the whole speech, and I could write the Republican response in just a couple of minutes:
“Socialism… “class warfare”… “punishing job creators”… “higher taxes”… “failed policies”…”
Then just insert a few transitional words, and you have the Republican response to just about everything the President does, without the slightest regard for what was actually said.
Heck, they even have the same talking points prepared for this morning’s round of morning news shows. They just cut up the “hot words”, shake them in a bag to scramble up the order a bit, and pull them out one at a time to respond to any question. Again, it doesn’t matter what the question is, because they aren’t listening anyway.
Poor Li’l Baby Dep’t
Mittster feels picked-on. He claims Obama’s tax hike on the rich is aimed at him personally. Apparently he’s forgotten we have a deficit and the gummint needs more money to balance its books. And never mind that tax rates on guys who make over $20 million a year are at an all-time low. Nah, in his view, it’s personal; it’s punishment for criticizing; it’s a nefarious plot to keep him from winning the White House; it’s dirty tricks; it’s pure evil. Yeah, that’s it, taxing the rich is evil pure and simple. I can see why even Republicans don’t want to nominate this ass.
Ahhh man what’s this country going to come to if we have socialists promulgating the “politics of envy” like this:
What dopey commie said that I wonder?
I’m not a drinker but I found a recent BBC story on small batch gin making in GB pretty interesting.. Some of those distillers were using some far out methods like using liquid nitrogen to process the botanicals..
It was funny. In order to start their operations they had to navigate some Victorian era laws that were put into place to repress gin consumption among the lower classes. Gin was the poor people’s drink in Victorian times and eased the pain of their Dickensian lives.
Now what was the inspiration for small batch gin distilling in GB?
The small batch movement in the U.S. People want to drink their blues away in this abomination of an economy but they want to do it well.
Maybe it explains the existence of shows on the Discovery Channel about illicit intoxicants like “Moonshiners” and “Weed Wars”..
“Our business is booming!”
Military Injustice
Remember the Haditha massacre? On Nov. 19, 2005, a squad of U.S. Marines gunned down 24 unarmed Iraqi men, women, and children.
Today, it became clear no one is going to jail for these two dozen murders.
The last defendant in the case — the only one to be found guilty of anything — was allowed to plea-bargain to what amounts to a misdemeanor … and his punishment will be a loss of rank and reduction of pay. That’s all.
For twenty-four innocent human lives, murdered by armed troops in a revenge killing, one individual will lose rank and pay. That’s all.
If foreign troops did this, we’d call it an atrocity. When our troops do it, our military covers it up, but if the crime is exposed to the world, we let the perpetrators off with a slap on the wrist.
Does anyone see echoes of My Lai and Lt. Calley here?
Needless to say, Iraqi residents of the town of Haditha, where the massacre took place, are outraged by this failure of the U.S. military justice system.
I forgot the link — here it is:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....=webmail20
When Cheap Labor Isn’t Cheap Anymore
Anyone who invests in stocks (maybe I should say, “anyone who makes money in stocks”) knows about “mean reversion.” This refers to the tendency of prices to revert to a mean or average. For example, if a stock is too expensive relative to other stocks, its price will tend to fall back to the average or mean. Likewise, if it’s too cheap, its price will rise until equal with the market average.
The same is true of wages, it seems. From a decade, China has used its cheap-labor advantage to suck manufacturing jobs out of the USA. But guess what?
“Salaries in China are growing 15% to 20% a year … and experts project Chinese wages could reach First World levels by 2030.”
Meanwhile, U.S. manufacturing wages have been falling. So guess what? Not only are manufacturing jobs coming back to America, but American workers are now making cars to ship to China.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/20.....n-america/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The cheap labor conservatives forgot all about “mean reversion.” They thought Chinese wages would stay low forever, and competition from low-wage Chinese workers would drag down U.S. wages to third world levels. It never occurred to them that U.S. standards of living might pull Chinese wages up to first world levels. Now they’re gonna have to pay our workers and their workers a living wage.
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
Hey Wingnuts — How D’Ya Like This Fucking ICE AGE???
Hey Wingnuts — D’Ya Like This ICE AGE???
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has updated its seed planting guide. You can now plant certain seeds in areas farther north than used to be possible. Because the planet is getting warmer.
http://www.time.com/time/healt.....66,00.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: When tomatoes are growing in Kodiak and sunflowers are blooming in Greenland, the global warming deniers will still be claiming global warming is a hoax.
If you want to understand the economy — and the economic issues facing us — read this article by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz in the current issue of Vanity Fair.
http://www.vanityfair.com/poli.....ion-201201
I’m an economics junkie. I dig that kinda stuff.