Prior to President
Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, in an
unprecedented move, the
White House released the president’s prepared address to the Congress and the
nation about 10 minutes in advance of his real time delivery. (Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery State of the Union Address)
I actually glanced at the speech as I’m sure several Americans did. I wanted to hear it in real time so I didn’t jump the gun and read ahead of the actual delivery. However, considering the president’s tone, substance and buoyancy, the White House could have saved us all some time and simply released this video instead of the entire prepared address:
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| President Barack Obama |
I actually glanced at the speech as I’m sure several Americans did. I wanted to hear it in real time so I didn’t jump the gun and read ahead of the actual delivery. However, considering the president’s tone, substance and buoyancy, the White House could have saved us all some time and simply released this video instead of the entire prepared address:
“Turn Down for What” is a triple platinum hip hop track
released by Lil Jon and DJ Snake that basically plays on the pop culture phrase, “turning down”. Before the meaning of “turning down”
can be explored, it will be necessary to explain what “turnt up” or “turning up”
means. Urban
Dictionary defines “turnt”
as:
A state of altered consciousness induced by alcohol or narcotics; also
being happy and excited and energetic!
Therefore, “turn
down” is defined as sobering up, coming back to Earth or in pure party terms –
the party is OVER.
After watching President
Obama deliver the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, it is safe to
say the president has no intention of “Turning Down”. In fact, he turned UP the heat on
Congressional Republicans with his address to the nation. After 6 years of relentless obstruction, the
Republicans won 9 seats in the November 2014 midterm elections to take control
of the Senate and added 5 seats in the House to bolster their majority in the
lower chamber of Congress. They were FIRMLY in charge of the legislative branch and they were poised to reduce Barack Obama, the nation’s FIRST African-American president, to not just LAME duck status but FROZEN duck status in the final two years of his presidency. Mitch McConnell, obstructionist emeritus, was eager to launch a conservative legislative agenda as Senate Majority Leader in advance of the 2016 presidential election. The Republicans DESPERATELY want to win the White House in 2016 and McConnell wants to cement his political legacy by being the Republican Senate Majority Leader who, through a conservative legislative agenda in the final two years of the Obama Administration, ushered a Republican into the Oval Office in 2016. Now that he was in charge of the Senate, McConnell believed he had Obama on the ropes.
Apparently NO ONE told President Obama that he was supposed concede the legislative agenda to the Republicans and play out the string of his historic presidency. Since the 2014 midterm elections, instead of licking his wounds and lamenting the fact he would be faced with Republicans in charge of the House and the Senate in his last two years in office, Barack Obama has gone on offense BIG TIME. Just two weeks after the midterm elections, President Obama expanded the population eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) by Executive Order. With the stroke of his presidential pen, the president deferred deportation with conditions for up to 5 million illegal immigrants; the majority of which were Hispanic. (Executive Actions on Immigration) The Republicans were in total disbelief. They expected the President of the United States to kiss THEIR rings and seek permission from them to carry out his agenda unilaterally. The resulting Republican CONNIPTION was both fully expected and thoroughly ignored. The Republicans compared the president's Executive Order to Armageddon. They promised full retribution. It was all smoke and mirrors, though. They have done nothing because they know President Obama delivered the Hispanic vote to Democrats in 2016 and Republican strategists recognized the best thing was to avoid further alienating the Hispanic community. The score: Obama 1, Republicans ZERO. The second power move the president made after the midterm elections was to move to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. This particular move was radioactive to hard line Republicans who wanted to continue to isolate Cuba with sanctions and no diplomatic recognition as a means of toppling the Castro regime. After fifty years, the Castro regime is STILL in charge. The president's strategy in restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba is simple: the more Cubans are exposed to democracy in the United States change in the regime in Cuba will happen internally. The Cuban people have received this news with great joy and on Wednesday, most of the major networks broadcast their evening news from Havana as American diplomats visited the country and began the process of rebuilding diplomatic relations. The score: Obama 2, Republicans ZERO.
During the State of the Union address, President Obama laid out a very progressive agenda: closing tax loopholes on the top 1%; subsidizing child care for middle class families; offering free junior college tuition for Americans who wanted to pursue degrees in order to qualify for the jobs of the future in America; proposing a middle class tax cut and asking the Republican led Congress to vote for an increase in the federal minimum wage. He firmly put the Republicans in a political bind. The early candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 have all espoused a populist tone by showing concern for the middle class and talking about income inequality. That's quite a twist from the party of "rugged individualism" and "personal responsibility" to now be concerned with income inequality. Even the BIGGEST political CHARLATAN of this generation, two time presidential loser Mitt Romney, has now developed a sense of concern for those in poverty. Wow. He sure has come a long way from being THIS guy:
Barack Obama has FORCED the Republicans into actually talking about populist issues. He has MOVED their needle. The Republicans thought he would come to THEM. They have now moved in HIS direction. They will, of course, deny this and try to convince the American people they really don't see what they obviously DO see. The FINAL score: GAME, SET, MATCH, CHAPIONSHIP to Obama.
The president even had a little fun with the Republicans when they got out of line with him and attempted to be sarcastic. When he mentioned that he had no more campaigns to run, some Republicans clapped audibly and his response was classic:
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