Try as he might, President Obama will NEVER get this Republican party to like him. Hell, he couldn’t even get Smirking John to stand for 102-year old Desiline Victor who waited 6 hours + to vote here in Florida.
There were a lot of things I liked about the president’s speech last night. He mentioned climate change and the need to do something to save the planet for future generations, he proposed raising the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25/hour to $9.00, universal preschool, comprehensive immigration reform, passing the Paycheck Fairness Act and a number of other things that I’m generally pretty happy to hear him tout.
I could play devil’s advocate and say that if he really wants to take on climate change, he’d stop the Keystone XL pipeline immediately, and I did. (BTW, there’s a big action happening at the moment in front of the White House. The Sierra Club has ended its 120-year ban on civil disobedience and many are risking arrest today. A bigger rally is planned for Sunday in DC. Details are here)
I could play devil’s advocate and say that while I applaud the president’s words on climate change, fracking for “natural” gas is NOT the answer, and I did.
I could play devil’s advocate and say that while I’m thrilled the president wants to raise the federal minimum wage, one person cannot live on $9 an hour – let alone a family – and the corporations are getting richer while the working poor numbers skyrocket, and I did.
I could play devil’s advocate and say that his talk about the TPP and the new Trans Atlantic Partnership scare the shit out of me, and that I worry about his executive order on cyber security as it comes on the same day as two members of Congress re-introduce the CISPA bill (though I’m not passing judgement until I know more about it), and I did.
I could go on and on about both sides of President Obama and his SOTU address, and I did on the show this morning.
My friend Sally Kohn writes and opines from the left for Fox News. I know, that’s an oxymoron. But she represents us well, and did in a piece on their site this morning, “Republicans need to quit complaining and start cooperating with Obama” – and joined me on the show to talk about it.
John Amato of Crooks and Liars did too… it was at C&L that I found this video clip of Marco Rubio’s Bobby Jindal moment. Yes, Rubio, aka the GOP Savior, was tapped to deliver the Republican response to the State of the Union. Rubio proved he is not ready for prime time with a horrific case of cotton-mouth and the Sip Heard an d Seen Round the World…
And if you just want the awesome gif for shits and giggles, here you go:
And finally, this photo by request from a Facebook friend. Thankfully, everyone seemed to ignore Ted Nugent last night. One person did snap this photo of the out-of-place creep who looks to me as if the body cavity search was still hurting. Either that or he’s leaning way to his left to avoid catching the gay from the androgynous looking person sitting to his right.
We took a break from our State of the Union recap to learn another fabulous female fact from cultural HERstorian Amy Simon of She’s History: The Most Dangerous Women in America, Then and Now, as we do every Wednesday morning.
Back tomorrow talking about energy and climate change and chatting with Maysoon Zayid! And mark your calendars… I’m in for Randi Rhodes Friday, Monday and Tuesday too!