I usually don’t listen to the State of the Union speech, but I did last night. (See the full transcript and video here, and the Wall Street Journal‘s analysis and video highlights here.) It was a good speech, an inspiring one rather than a partisan harangue. Obama emphasized promoting more economic opportunity in America, which is one of the biggest issues in the U.S. today. He suggested some things Congress could do as well as listing actions he’ll take on his own.
One commentator said, “Independents would say, ‘It was a good speech, but let’s see what he does.’ ” Amen to that. He’s promising to be an effective leader, and I wish him and us all luck. We could use it.
January 29, 2014
I hope so too.
Over here, the Gandhi scion who will lead the INC’s charge in the forthcoming elections to our parliament gave his first ever interview on TV to a very clever anchor and came off as being a nincompoop. If you can spare an hour and a little over twenty minutes, you can watch why this guy will lead the INC to its death throes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB_eWW5ttaM
For some reason the video wouldn’t play for me, so I found the transcript: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2014-01-27/india/46684096_1_rahul-gandhi-arnab-goswami-aicc Thanks for telling me about it.
Here’s an interesting article about the interview: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/world/asia/rahul-gandhi-better-off-as-a-silent-enigma.html?_r=0
And here’s a fellow who thought Gandhi did well: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/how-he-turned-the-tables-the-rahul-gandhi-interview-1364921.html
Yes it was an inspiring, well written speech. Except he said one thing I didn’t like. Speaking to Congress, that was his audience there, he said, “With or without you, I will move ahead with MY agenda.”
His audience wasn’t really Congress, it was the American people, especially the ones in areas where the Democratic candidates are vulnerable. He’s expecting the House to continue to be uncooperative and is saying there are still actions he can take without it. According to one analyst, the Democrats have a better chance of not losing the Senate if Obama can get his job approval rating closer to 50% — it was 43% in the last poll I read about.
i’m not sure we ever really have seen what this president could do. many things about him i have liked. many not so much. but i do think he has tried.
he got caught up in the rampant ‘one side or the other’ backlash on every single thing he tried to achieve. good or bad!
i wonder if there will now be such a ridiculous deadlock in the congress regardless of the president in office? it seems we’ve moved into a whole new realm of politics.
or … rather …
not what is best for the country always… but ‘what is best for MY PARTY!’
ugh.
Don’t forget, the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate the first two years. That’s when they passed Obamacare. A lot of Americans were upset that he focused on that instead of the economy and jobs.
A lot of the partisanship is the way the parties pick their candidates. The extreme Left and Right have too much power in the primaries, IMHO.
I’ve not read the transcript but what seems to be the problem for the larger nations – is the keyword ‘LARGE’ – there are all these “states/territories” that all have their own agenda and I would guess trying to rein any of them in nowadays – since globalisation has struck would be near impossible…Probably the same for India/Rummuser.
Maybe not so for places like China who are still “new boy on the block” and certainly making inroads to the large countries who in many ways utilise their cheap labour. Even NZ has lost many industries to “created to our specifications in China”
Once upon a time, our woollen industry was thriving, it’s still here in the raw states but all the manufacturing is off shore, closer to the traders/continents therefore less freight costs to get to the market…same with timber, we have the fastest growing pine trees in the world, but the logs are shipped elsewhere to be manufactured!
Latest word is China is no longer cheap, so is losing U.S. enterprises to cheaper labor countries.
We export a lot of our raw materials, too. And now ethanol producers are trying to figure out how to get the surplus from the Midwest to some of our seaports.
I agree with BHB, China is changing and labor is no longer so inexpensive there. It’s hard to keep track!