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I know there were much more dangerous and important things said in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, but one relatively minor claim completely surprised and shocked me.But what I offer tonight is a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class. Some require congressional action, and I'm eager to work with all of you. But America does not stand still, and neither will I. (Applause.) So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families,...

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said her impression of the State of the Union, gathered by listening on her truck radio and reading on her phone from kids’ ball games, is that the president’s “hubris” and “naivete” is “alarming.” Palin said she avoided watching the annual speech because it’s all been said before in a Facebook post Wednesday. “If you skipped huddling around the TV last night for the State of the Union address because you’ve heard it all before, plus you were just busy with life, well… so did I,” Palin wrote. “Putting the real world on hold

Governor Palin via Facebook: If you skipped huddling around the TV last night for the State of the Union address because you’ve heard it all before, plus you were just busy with life, well… so did I. Putting the real world on hold to watch the fantasy declaration of “utopia’s-on-it’s-way” just isn’t efficient. My truck radio was tuned in though. And driving kids to and from ball games with me negotiating control of the dial allowed me hear what I’d forebodingly anticipated. Later, reading the President’s remarks on my cell phone made sitting on sticky steel bleachers (that exacerbate parents’...

Breaking news from Germany necessitated the cancellation of most of President Obama's anxiously awaited bipartisan State of the Onion Address. President Obama hustled off stageAccording to an article titled Flatulent cows start fire at German dairy farm - police, BERLIN (Reuters) - Methane gas from 90 flatulent cows exploded in a German farm shed on Monday, damaging the roof and injuring one of the animals, police said. High levels of the gas had built up in the structure in the central German town of Rasdorf, then "a static electric charge caused the gas to explode with flashes of flames," the...

I first caught wind of a thread about "the use of a soldier as a prop" less than an hour ago; it's amazing how little interest it's generated, aside from the ad hominem attacks against those that saw it less about 'honoring' SFC Remsburg, than 'using' him. Late to rise & without coffee, it was easier than normal to not react and I took a devil's advocate stance, looking for fact, as I did not watch SOTU. Where to go first? Web search came up with little; I went to DU and found this thread: Title: F**K (edited)He stood that...

As dark clouds continue to gather over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, all but the most diehard Obama worshipers grudgingly concede that his presidency has entered its lame duck phase. Some analysts have drawn comparisons between the second term of the current occupant of the White House and that of his immediate predecessor. Bruce Drake, writing at Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank, notes: Barack Obama and George Bush have at least one thing in common when it comes to the second terms they won — the first year of their encores have been downers when it came to their public images. Both...

Well, that was painful. To quote the VodkaPundit:  “I miss James Buchanan.” Focus groups nixed our “income inequality” altogether and didn’t like our “ladders of opportunity” a whole lot better so we had to pull most of those references too. Leaving us with just this: “But what I offer tonight is a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class, and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class. Some require congressional action, and I'm eager to work with all of you. But America does not stand still - and neither will I....

In his response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address that focused heavily on "inequality," Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) slammed Obamacare as "an inequality Godzilla," symbolizing an administration that has favored Washington, D.C. while purporting to fight for America's middle class. In an address sponsored by the Tea Party Express on Tuesday, Lee spoke for "those individuals and families who work hard, play by the rules, balance their budgets, honor the Golden Rule, and don’t understand why their government in Washington can’t do the same." He said these Americans "may feel they have been forgotten by both political...

President Obama delivered an unremarkable speech tonight in which he advocated a number of small-ball initiatives, several of which were repeats from previous years. Virtually nothing in the address was memorable, with one significant exception. As he drew his remarks to a close, the president relayed the incredible story of an American wounded warrior, who was perched next to the First Lady in the House gallery. On a night of milquetoast policy and predictable rhetoric, this stirring tribute to a true hero broke through: On his tenth deployment, Cory was nearly killed by a massive roadside bomb in Afghanistan. His...

ICYMI, my story from today: It’s a role that Gov. Cuomo does not often talk about: “designated survivor.” Tuesday night, as President Obama delivers his State of the Union address, one of his Cabinet members will be located far away, just in case the unthinkable happens and the Capitol is attacked. Twice when he was President Clinton's housing secretary, Cuomo was chosen to be the designated survivor, putting him one national catastrophe away on the night of the big speech from being the last man standing in the executive branch. Cuomo said it was hard not to ponder all the...

As President Barack Obama enters his sixth year in the White House, 68 percent of Americans say the country is either stagnant or worse off since he took office, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Just 31 percent say the country is better off, and a deep pessimism continues to fuel the public's mood. Most respondents used words like “divided,” “troubled,” and “deteriorating” to describe the current state of the nation. On the eve of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, more than six-in-10 Americans believe that the nation is headed in the wrong direction and 70...

President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday wasn't what I wanted to hear. This is what the president should have said: "I cannot imagine what I was thinking when I pushed Obamacare. I now see it is folly to entrust government, which cannot balance its books and routinely loses track of billions of dollars, with even greater power over health care. "If something as simple as a website is too much for government to get right, imagine what government will do to complicated medical pricing and insurance plans. "Foolishly, my plan destroyed many sensible insurance plans -- some...

President Barack Obama celebrated “booming” U.S. oil and gas production during his fifth formal State of the Union address Tuesday night, delivering a blow to environmentalists worried the president isn’t doing enough to combat climate change. From his podium in the House of Representatives, Obama held steadfast to his pledge of an “all-of-the-above energy strategy” that he claimed was bringing America “closer to energy independence than we’ve been in decades.” And he touted the potential of natural gas to help the U.S. pare its emissions of heat-trapping gases while making the transition to cleaner energy sources, such as wind and...

President Barack Obama outlined plans Tuesday to make 2014 his year of action — using his executive authorities wherever possible while encouraging Congress to go even further. Obama took on a more pragmatic tone than in previous State of the Union addresses, acknowledging that getting his agenda past House Republicans was unlikely and therefore he would use his power to do what he can on his own.

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A State of the Union address is often difficult to fact-check, no matter who is president. The speech is a product of many hands and is carefully vetted, so major errors of fact are relatively rare. But State of the Union addresses often are very political speeches, an argument for the president’s policies, so context is sometimes missing. Here is a guide through some of President Obama’s more fact-challenged claims, in the order in which he made them. At the end, we also examine one fishy fact in the Republican response. As is our practice with live events, we do...

January 28, 2014 Five Ironic and Hypocritical Statements From Obama's SOTUKatie Pavlich After speaking for more than an hour, President Obama has finished his 2014 State of the Union Address. Not surprisingly, his words and statements didn't come without irony or hypocrisy. Here are the top five: 1. President Obama touted the pre-existing condition requirement in Obamacare saying, "Because of this law, no American can ever again be dropped or denied coverage for a preexisting condition." As a result of Obamacare and since the federal exchanges were launched on October 1, 2013, millions of people have been dropped from their...

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Yes! The State of the Union Address feels like a national ritual that is stuck on autopilot, lumbering along year by indistinguishable year, immune to reform or adaptation or updating, usually instantly forgotten and increasingly irrelevant… and yet unstoppable. Even the speech text is pretty much the same every year, regardless of the actual condition of the country. National Journal’s Matt Vasilogambros points out how often the opening statement must include the cliché, “the State of our Union is strong!” (It’s become a catch phrase. The audience expects it like the bar crowd shouting “NORM!” on Cheers, or Kramer exploding...

The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their...