Wednesday, January 26, 2011
In case you missed it, here is the President's SOTU speech in full.
Wow! That was amazing. (And once again for those who cannot watch the video, you can find the transcript here.)
Just in case your television's parental controls do not allow you to receive the batshit crazy channel, here is Michelle "I sound a LITTLE saner than Sarah Palin" Bachmann's rebuttal.
I especially enjoyed the huge lipstick stains she left on the Tea Party's ass before whipping out her Ross Perot charts of made up statistics to prove how scholarly she is.
Update: You ahve GOT to read the Guardian's take on Bachmann's speech. Too funny!
Here is a taste:
Bachmann's comments, spoken to camera and broadcast only by CNN, appeared to be off the mark, literally. She spoke directly into a camera operated by a dedicated broadcaster, Tea Party HD, thinking it was on air when the live camera was to one side.
So when she came to praise American voters — "thanks to you, there's reason for all of us to have hope" — she appeared to be thanking an off-screen CNN cameraman.
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The Five Worst Politicians Of All Time
ReplyDelete4--Sarah Palin. A scary, convoluted, self-proclaimed victim who'll walk on your carcass as she rides the ratings ladder.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/2011/01/the_five_worst_1.php
She was addressing the Tea Party web cam, what a freaking loon. The head loon of a freaking fringe party that gets national attention.
ReplyDeleteDoes the Libertarian, Green or The Rent Is Too Damn High Party get such time appropriated on CNN?
WTH.
Rupert Murdoch, Sarah Palin and the other powerful people putting our future at risk.
ReplyDeleteNo state suffers more from global warming than Alaska, where glaciers are already melting, methane is bubbling up through the permafrost, and animals are being forced to alter their migration patterns. Yet Palin, the host of Sarah Palin's Alaska, continues to ridicule climate change as a "bunch of snake-oil science." On her reality show, Palin tromps through the wilderness gushing about what she has called "the grandeurs of God's creation." But in the real world, she disses climate scientists, trashes clean-energy jobs and throws her political weight behind candidates who deny the reality and risks of global warming. (More than half of the 64 candidates she endorsed in the midterm elections won.) Her low point came during the BP oil spill in the Gulf, which, with typical bang-your-head-against-the-wall logic, she blamed on "radical environmentalists" who had locked up "safer drilling areas" like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/lists/whos-to-blame-12-politicians-and-execs-blocking-progress-on-global-warming-20110119/rupert-murdochceo-news-corporation-19691231
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/lists/whos-to-blame-12-politicians-and-execs-blocking-progress-on-global-warming-20110119
I bet Sarah's jealous of Michelle getting to do this. Can you imagine if Sarah HAD been the one? "Good evening those who love me and those who depise me. Why is everyone always picking on me? Reagan, Commonsense Conversative, drill baby, drill, also, too, I'll have to get back to you on that Charlie. Good night. Tawwwwwwd!"
ReplyDeleteim starting to think she and Sarah are the same person. Michelle is slightly scary looking
ReplyDeleteLizz Winstead's Rebuttal To Michele Bachmann's Rebuttal To Paul Ryan's Rebuttal To Obama (VIDEO)
ReplyDeleteYou'd think between their two rebuttals to President Obama's State Of The Union speech, that either Michele Bachmann or Paul Ryan would have come up with a decent alternative to Obama's "genocidal, baby- and job-killing healthcare bill." But neither the official rebutter nor the people's rebutter had the vision or grit to propose transitioning our "unconstitutional, America-raping healthcare bill" into a "private sector job creator" wealthcare bill.
Well, lucky for all of us real Americans, Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead has the teabags to say what we would all be thinking if we hadn't already been lobotomized by Obama's flesh-eating and God-killing healthcare bill.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/26/lizz-winstead-rebuts-michele-bachmann_n_814078.html
She might sound a little saner than Palin but she isnt. Usually I dont mind telling people where I'm from, but I have to cringe when its in the same conversation as Bachman...
ReplyDeleteHer and Beck must get along pretty well, both busy rewriting history for the rest of us.
Must be how you folks from Alaska feel when talking about that grifter...
Michele Bachmann's wacky reply
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/26/state-of-the-union-address-michele-bachmann
Michele Bachmann's Tea Party overdrive mocked for Obama response
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/26/tea-party-reply-state-of-the-union
The President's vision and the GOP response could not be more different. The GOP sweep of the House and state legislatures across the country could not have come at a worse time. We are nearing peak oil, if not there already; we desperately need to switch to alternative energy sources; and our entire transportation system needs to be overhauled and redesigned for high speed rail.
ReplyDeleteAll of which conservatives are against.
I do believe we'll get it done, anyway - by "we" I mean people who actually work for progress - but the knuckle-dragging neanderthals are going to make it take much longer than it would if they would just get the fuck out of the way so we can get things done.
Who was she talking to? And why couldn't she look into the camera?
ReplyDeleteThey LOVED him!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mediaite.com/online/cbs-news-poll-an-extremely-positive-response-to-obamas-state-of-the-union-speech/
Chris Matthews Yells At Tea Partier: Why Is ‘Balloon-Head’ Bachmann Speaking For You?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mediaite.com/tv/chris-matthews-yells-at-tea-party-leader-why-is-balloon-head-bachmann-speaking-for-you/
CBS News Poll: ‘An Extremely Positive Response’ To State Of The Union Speech
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20029581-503544.html
Poll: High Marks for Obama's State of the Union Speech
ReplyDelete91%!!!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20029581-503544.html
Palin going down. Bachmann rising to fill the void.
ReplyDeleteChrist, what the hell is this, whack-a-mole?
President Obama's State of the Union Address: "Spot On"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ACigTKo6JVc
Howard Dean:
ReplyDelete“I am going to be blunt about this I have seen the speech. It was leaked. It is a very, very good speech. I am delighted. I’m frankly a little surprised. The president is mindful of the deficit. He makes it clear he wants to work with the congress but with the most extraordinary thing is he lays down the gap gauntlet. Millionaires will have to pay more taxes if we are going to cut kids and other folks dependent on it. He made it clear this is going be a shared sacrifice and the tax cut extended for the people who make a million a year is not going to be extended again if we are going to do anything about the deficit. That was extraordinary. There is a lot of great stuff about the environment. I have to say, in print, we’ll see how he delivers it, it is one of the most substantive speeches I have seen him make.”
E.J. Dionne
ReplyDelete“It was a smart speech aimed at scrambling the political debate, reassuring Americans that we can overcome challenges to our economic power, and redefining the political center…Obama has clearly decided to take that challenge on, embracing the idea of America as an exceptional nation that always, well, wins the future”.
Ed Kilgore
….And that’s the beauty of Obama’s address. He basically put together every modest, centrist, reasonable-sounding idea for public investment aimed at job creation and economic growth that anyone has ever uttered; and he did so at the exact moment that the GOP has abandoned the very concept of public investment altogether. He’s thrown into relief the fact that Republicans no longer seem interested in any government efforts to boost the economy, except where they offer an excuse to reduce the size and power of government.
Paul Ryan’s deficit-maniac response played right into Obama’s trap: Ryan barely mentioned the economy other to imply that every dollar taken away from the public sector will somehow create jobs in the private sector economy (a private sector economy wherein, as Obama cleverly noted, corporate profits are setting records). For those who buy the idea that government is the only obstacle to an economic boom, this makes sense. But for everybody else, the contrast between a Democratic president with a lot of small, familiar ideas for creating jobs and growth, and a Republican Party with just one big idea, is inescapable. It’s a vehicle for the “two alternate futures” choice which Obama will try to offer voters in 2012.
Moreover, Obama’s tone—the constant invocation of bipartisanship at a time when Republicans are certain to oppose most of what he’s called for, while going after the progressive programs and policies of the past—should sound familiar as well. It was Bill Clinton’s constant refrain, which he called “progress over partisanship,” during his second-term struggle with the Republican Congress. During that period, the Republicans being asked to transcend “partisanship” were trying to remove Clinton from office. And Clinton wasn’t really extending his hand in a gesture of cooperation with the GOP but, by creating a contrast with their ideological fury, indicating that he himself embodied the bipartisan aspirations of the American people and the best ideas of both parties. It was quite effective.
By playing this rope-a-dope, Obama has positioned himself well to push back hard against the conservative agenda. Having refused to offer Republicans the cover they crave for “entitlement reform,” while offering his own modest, reasonable-sounding deficit reduction measures, he’s forcing the GOP to either go after Social Security and Medicare on their own—which is very perilous to a party whose base has become older voters—or demand unprecedented cuts for those popular public investments that were the centerpiece of his speech. Either way, in a reversal of positions from the last two years, Obama looks like he is focused on doing practical things to boost the economy, while it’s Republicans who are talking about everything else. Boring it may have been, but as a positioning device for the next two years, Obama’s speech was a masterpiece.
http://blackwaterdog.wordpress.com/
Roll Call
ReplyDelete“In a speech that echoed the voices of Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy, who led the nation through another period of economic and emotional transition, Obama hammered the message that the American dream is still within reach but only if people can meet the demands of a new age…Obama, speaking for about an hour, used much of his address laying out his vision for moving the country forward based on five themes: innovation, education, building, reform and responsibility. And at the heart of his road map is a plan to put the nation on a strict fiscal diet while also making targeted investments in clean energy and infrastructure to boost the economy.”
But, but, but where was the substance???? Well, here:
ReplyDelete1. Investment in government-funded research and technology
2. Investment in infrastructure, repairing crumbling roads and bridges
3. 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
4. Eliminate billions in taxpayer dollars subsidies for oil companies.
5. By 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.
6. Within 25 years, give 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail
7. Investment in education, including replacing No Child Left Behind and preparing 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.
8. Strengthen and protect Social Security for future generations.
9. Eliminate tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans
10. Strengthen health care law to increase affordability and reduce costs.
11. Reduce the deficit by $400 billion over 10 years.
12. Simplify the tax code for businesses by eliminating loopholes and for individuals to make it more fair.
13. Set a goal of doubling our exports by 2014
14. DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform
15. Bring all the troops home from Iraq this year.
16. Begin withdrawal from Afghanistan in July.
Time that President Obama focused on specific issues:
ReplyDeletehttp://blackwaterdog.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/3418/5389741782_30d620e4bf_o/
Hope you all had a chance to see Chris Matthews lay into her speech on his show last night--it was great. She reminds me of a Stepford Wife. It is as if she has a pull-string in her back and when it is pulled, after Republican Tea Party CD inserted, she talks in a staccato rythm and smiles at the end of each sentence. Kind of spooky. She also appears to be missing some chromosomes or been hit in the head rill hard when she was little. It seems that she can, at least, form a sentence, unlike scara.
ReplyDelete"Tea Party HD: For Those Who Demand the Highest Quality Idiocy"
ReplyDeleteSheesh.
Fact Checking Rep. Ryan's State Of The Union Response
ReplyDeletehttp://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201101250020
Fact Checking Rep. Bachmann's "Tea Party Response" To The State Of The Union
http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201101250021
Has Barack Obama ever given a BAD speech? I've been following him since I lived in Illinois and worked for him and voted for him for Senator in 2004. He simply has never given a bad speech that I've seen.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I've stopped watching him lately - Tucson and SOTU were an exception. I never missed any of Bush's pressers because they were highly enjoyable, waiting for him to say something completely off-the-wall.
By the way, I've met Obama several times. He is almost painfully thin, but you can tell how strong he is. Almost a tensile strength.
Michelle look fab last night - of course she usually does!
Loved the Guardian article, particularly a tiny detail in the center where past articles were listed. I saw a titles from one last summer that ought to get Sarah Palin's undies in a twist: "Michele Bachmann, queen of the right"
ReplyDeleteWhy hasn't the twit tweeted yet?
ReplyDeleteabirato - you win this post's funniest comment award - love the whack a mole analogy!
ReplyDeleteSarah popped up and she goes down, up comes Michelle. Ah, the imaginary whacking is so cathartic! Thanks.
Ryan, Bachmann Offer Confusing Stew of Doom and Despair
ReplyDeletehttp://news.firedoglake.com/2011/01/26/ryan-bachmann-offer-confusing-stew-of-doom-and-despair/
The State of the Union in three words.
ReplyDeletehttp://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/01/the-sotu-in-three-words.html
State of the Union: Watch the Strategy, Not the Polls
ReplyDeletehttp://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/state-of-the-union-watch-the-strategy-not-the-polls/
Anyone notice towards the end of Obama's address when he was thanking Biden and Boner? Boner almost started crying again! You could tell he was fighting back the tears when Obama mentioned how he use to mop floors and is now in the speakers seat. I tell ya, there is something seriously wrong with this guy. He only cry's for himself.
ReplyDeleteHerding The Aisle Hogs
ReplyDeleteSteve Kornacki identifies the worst culprits during the President's entrance into the House chamber.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/01/herding-the-aisle-hogs.html
Gryph, just fyi, I run under Firefox; the first video is available, the second is just a black blank.
ReplyDeleteIn one sentence, he is a new type of visionary leader we have never seen in our life time.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/26/938997/-Why-I-Gave-The-Presidents-SOTU-Speech-An-A-In-One-Sentence!
Giffords' medical team awed by State of Union address
ReplyDelete"It's a very emotional and very awe-inspiring experience to be in the room," said Friese, adding that Obama's message of civility was timely.
"That's how we all deal with each other," he said, "why should our politicians behave differently?"
Dr. Michael Lemole, chief of neurosurgery at the University Medical Center, said he felt a "sense of history" and "grandeur" when he walked into the chambers. Lemole added that having the opportunity to meet with some of the congressional members reaffirmed to him that politicians are still everyday people.
"And I hope that that is re-injected into politics going forward, that we're all Americans, we're all trying to better for ourselves our communities and our nation, and that tendency to move away from characterization and realize the real people behind I think is the important take-home message that I learned," Lemole said.
Tracy Culbert, a nurse who cared for Giffords after the shooting, also was touched by the seat reserved for Giffords. "It just shows how important she is to them that they would honor her and leave an open spot for her so she can one day return to that spot." .
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/26/20110126Doctors-Nurse-Tucson-State-of-Union-abrk.html
By accounts, last night's State of the Union address was one of the more inspirational, optimistic speeches given by President Obama (there were no boos or nasty shout-outs, as in speeches past). But what does all the rhetoric (62 minutes' worth) mean to you and your future?
ReplyDeleteHere's some of what President Obama called for -- and the takeaway.
http://www.walletpop.com/2011/01/26/the-state-of-the-union-2011-and-you/
The Most Reasonable Man in Washington
ReplyDeleteBarack Obama's 2011 State of the Union Address was a solid, steady performance. He clearly values this brand for himself as the Most Reasonable Man in Washington -- a balanced, centrist leader who takes ideas from every side and will work with anyone. It's an image that clearly has some advantages for him; the early reports I've seen from overnight polling and post-SOTU dial tests are very positive. On a short-term basis, the speech is a solid plus for the President.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/the-most-reasonable-man-i_b_814404.html
Yes...as we know SP has indicated several times that should no one on the right rise to the occasion she'll offer herself up as the GOP nom (or the Tea Party as the case may be). Well...SP...your good buddy Michele has taken that task on so no need to bother with the process any longer. Back to the speakers circuit, reality shows, Fox and authoring.
ReplyDeleteSheesh
I know CM called Michele on her earlier, ridiculous claim that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery. But why has no one called her on another statement she made in that same speech, when she said that it has been 22 generations since our country was founded. WTF?
ReplyDeleteA generation is frequently counted as 20 years. Even using that measure, it is only 12 generations since the Revolution. So when is she counting back to? It can only be to the first white Protestant settlements in North America. Talk about a racist perspective on our country's history! There are MILLIONS of Americans whose ancestors have been in this land for many, many more generations than "22."
Why has no one called her on this? Did the figure just slip past people?
Eyes didn't have it as Tea Party doyenne replies to Obama
ReplyDelete...Just who the heck is Michele Bachmann and why wouldn't she look into the camera?
...But Bachmann, 54, delivered her remarks looking away from the very camera that was broadcasting live into the living rooms of millions of Americans.
The effect was more than a bit off-putting to both professional TV critics and armchair observers.
"Bachmann seemed to be looking off-camera at a tall statue of George Washington, or maybe of Darth Vader," wrote Entertainment Weekly television columnist Ken Tucker.
"The effect was unsettling," added Time's James Poniewozik. "What was she staring at? A silent audience? A ghost that only she could see? Someone standing over my shoulder with a knife?"
The mystery was solved Wednesday, when the world learned Bachmann was looking at another camera — one paid for by the Tea Party Express and equipped with a teleprompter.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Eyes+didn+have+Party+doyenne+replies+Obama/4173571/story.html
Bachmann ridiculed over State of the Union rebuttal
ReplyDelete...Yet mockery and ridicule have greeted the Minnesota legislator’s six-minute segment, aired on CNN following Obama’s speech, thanks in large part to the fact that the self-styled chairwoman of the Tea Party caucus seemingly stared into the wrong camera throughout.
She also mispronounced the famous Battle of Iwo Jima, and repeated a widely debunked myth about thousands of IRS agents policing Obama’s health-care overhaul.
As it turned out, Bachmann was apparently looking into a different camera than CNN’s, one that fed directly to the Tea Party Express audience on the web. But with her gaze fixed to the left, the segment had an unmistakable amateur-hour appearance to the millions watching on the cable news giant.
It also set the Twitter-verse on fire before she’d even completed her remarks.
“Michele _ we’re over here,” tweeted John Hodgman of “The Daily Show.”
Seth Meyers, head writer of “Saturday Night Live,” where the rebuttal seems destined to provide fodder this weekend, weighed in: “I hope whoever is standing over my left shoulder is enjoying Bachmann’s speech.”
Added another wag: “Moving to the upper-left side of my couch so Michele Bachmann can see me.”
Coming on the heels of Bachmann’s recent erroneous assertions that the country’s founding fathers abolished slavery, the barrage continued for most of the day on Wednesday.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/928694--bachmann-ridiculed-over-state-of-the-union-rebuttal
Obama: compete; GOP: be afraid.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm a GOP strategist, I'm worried this morning. The official Republican response (by Paul Ryan) to the SOTU was followed by the official Tea Party response (by Michele Bachmann). Huh? I thought ideological factionalism was a Democratic specialty. Is Paul Ryan too liberal for the Tea Party? Didn't he faithfully invoke the sacredness of the Constitution, as mandated by Tea Party ideological requirements? True, only CNN carried the Bachmann response (um, remind me why), but it highlighted the internecine (someday I'll learn to pronounce it) battles of the GOP.
The bigger problem for the hypothetical GOP strategist is that Obama is running on Reaganesque optimism (tempered by stern talk about turning off the TV and starting to freakin' compete, people!), while Ryan basically told people to be afraid. I've mentioned this before: The rhetoric of some people on the right these days strongly implies that we live in the Soviet Union circa 1936, or China circa 1966, or North Korea circa 2011 -- a totalitarian state that crushes the spirit of the individual.
Ryan didn't go quite that far, but he did paint a picture of a country on the brink of a fiscal calamity that could forever diminish our aspirations and make our grandkids hate us and whatnot.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2011/01/obama_compete_gop_be_afraid.html