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Sunday
March 2010
14
Community Blogs
cur-mud-geon: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
State of the Union 2010
The President has delivered his first State of the Union message and I heard him say that Republican obstructionism was the reason that there is no health care reform bill passed yet. It appears that he has chosen to ignore the simple fact that the Democrats had an unassailable majority in both the House and the Senate and him in the White House. There are many reasons that there is no health care reform bill yet passed, but Republican obstructionism was not among them; the Republicans were not actively engaged in this effort by the Democrats other than as foils in press conferences.
In general, I did not hear the “fire in the belly” tone that I thought I’d hear; maybe I missed that, but his speech seemed decidedly less “Obama-like” than I had expected given his oratorical talents. Maybe I have simply gotten used to his speeches, or maybe he was trying to be more ‘presidential’ in his delivery.
There were the typical platitudes included that are there no matter the political party. There were the typical promises that are there no matter the political party. The likelihood that significant changes in direction will occur is remote in my opinion. Leopards do not often change their spots, unless their name is Bill Clinton with his classic ‘triangulation’ comeback.
He ‘admitted’ to some missteps in his first year but that admission was almost a throw-away line; it was as if he knew he needed to say it but he didn’t really mean it.
We continue to have major issues in our country that need to be resolved, wisely resolved. We have unemployment numbers that are causing a lot of pain and suffering. We have runaway spending on massive government programs. We have a country awash in illegal immigrants. We have daily threats to our homeland. We have seen a massive bail-out of institutions that were “too big to fail”, but we seem not to have taken the appropriate lessons from those issues. We have states that will go “belly up” in the next year or two at the present rate; our own state is in terrible fiscal shape. We seem to think we have a need for high speed rail service but we fail to observe that the vast majority of those systems only survive on huge annual infusions of tax dollars; yet one is going to be built between
We have mid-term elections on the near horizon with the promise that the Democrats will lose a number of seats. Whether or not the Republicans will capture a majority in either the House or the Senate is pure speculation. I suspect that the House majority could change but the Senate majority will remain with the Democrats.
Our President needs to begin anew if he is to realize his goals, or at least realize some of his goals. He has now had the benefit of a year of seasoning in the nation’s capitol. That world is much different than is
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The Curmudgeon Blog today is titled "Obama & The Supreme Court".
I was happy to hear the "overwhelming evidence" and the "I thought I'd get applause on that one" quips. Overall he impressed although I was saddened to hear that the budget cuts wont affect defense spending. I thought he was calling the kettle black a tad telling people to stop looking at the past while pointing out some of the flaws of the previous terms.
What an absolute joke! He was condescending, and contradicting throughout the entire speech! He talked about both parties needing to stop the bickering and name calling with each other but then spent time ripping the GOP. He talked about reigning in earmarks, but he signed a stimulus bill loaded with them! He did nothing but make the same promises he did on his campaign trail. The same ones he has continued to break over and over again in the last year! He talked about the need to stop always campaigning when in office, yet, he himself takes every opportunity to do that! He talked about working openly…a complete joke! He and his admin have done anything but that over the last year and they will not change! He was nothing but a sales man on the podium last night, well spoken but lacking any substance…his track record so far speaks for its self! Change….there has been no positive change! Let’s hope that the next election brings a change back to a true conservative direction…
Tags: Economy : Political : Quality of Life : U.S.
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