I’ll be liveblogging tonight’s speech as usual. Hit me with your opinions in real time at our main site email address – now just under the site logo or ping me on Twitter at @joshtpm.
Here are key excerpts the White House has made available from tonight’s speech. And here’s a look at what the GOP’s designated response will say, from Joni Ernst.
And if you’re not at a TV or maybe just one of those youngs who does it that way, here’s a live video stream of the speech.
For myself, I’ve decided to watch tonight on CSpan. (Now I’ve switched to NBC’s feed.) I go back and forth about the best way to view it. Without any of the cable news nonsense to filter it for me? Or one of the big channels? In many ways, the nonsense is the show in terms of reaction and impact. Because that is what the overwhelming majority of people watch. But I’ve decided my nonsense tolerance is low. So I’m watching tonight on CSpan.
9:00 PM: Looking over Joni Ernst’s response I’m reminded of what I wrote just after the November election: the big problem for Democrats is that they do have a clear policy prescription for the chief domestic ill of our time: stagnating wages for most of Americans. But if Democrats don’t have an answer, or good policies, Republicans has no policy prescriptions whatsoever. Ernst’s speech leads with the challenge of “stagnant wages and lost jobs” but then prescribes spending cuts, tax simplication and tax cuts and more free trade agreements.
Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says Senate Republicans will not sign on to the House’s new Social Security crisis ploy or any effort to cut benefits … unless they have Democratic support. This is quite believable. Indeed, it’s the major lesson of the Bush era Social Security phase-out debacle from back in 2005.
Toxic NYPD union leader Pat Lynch facing growing rebellion from rank and file over grandstanding, general dickishness and inattention to bread and butter needs of officers.
These are strange multi-racial days. So strange in fact that white people now feel the cold boot of voter disenfranchisement on their necks. Especially in the South. But this is with a catch. A group of white voters is suing Dallas County, Texas under the Voting Rights Act for discriminating against white people in redistricting county offices. But here’s the thing: the county board is majority white and white’s make up only 32 percent of the population. )Hispanics are 39% and blacks are 23%.) So what’s the problem? Not enough people on the board are Republicans. Only one in fact. The county is abridging white peoples’ right to elect Republicans. As the plaintiffs say “Like something out of the bad old days, a southern electoral body plays naked racial politics, intentionally using its power to minimize a dissenting race’s political sway.”
Here’s the story.
French satire community recovers in time to snark on Fox News clowns terrified about Parisian “no go zones”.
About the key facts, there is little dispute. Over the last three months, President Obama’s approval rating has slowly crept upward, notwithstanding a continuing stream of press coverage about the President as weak, detached and increasingly marginalized. The averaged change is still relatively small – a move from the very low 40s to the mid-forties. But the last couple weeks have shown the first examples of net positive popularity in something like a year. And the latest ABC/WaPo poll shows the President at 50% approval.
After twelve months of press analysis of why President Obama is cut off, weak, unpopular and damaging to his party, why is he getting more popular?
AN INTERESTING PARALLEL: MLK was targeted by J. Edgar Hoover, an unsavory character; I was targeted by the equally unsavory B. Hussein Obama
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) January 19, 2015
Last week I noted two events which threw a wrench into the prevailing narrative about the war the NYPD – or at least key members of the union leadership – has been waging against the city’s mayor. First there was a poll showing the city’s population overwhelmingly opposed calculated displays of contempt like turning backs on the Mayor during officers’ funerals – despite city residents approving of the police department in general. Then there was news about a fiery union meeting in Queens at which Lynch’s critics claimed he’d led them into a dead-end with an ego driven pissing-match with the Mayor that gave short shrift to their actual needs. Now it turns out Lynch’s position is worse than I’d imagined and he’s blinked in his demand for an apology from the Mayor.