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Alicia Colon, IrishExaminerusa.com

 

Unbelievable! That's the only way I can describe the State of the Union Address last week, but first I have to admit that I didn't watch the live broadcast. I read the transcript instead because I never watch these speeches, even when they're given by presidents I voted for. They're far too long and always interrupted by members of Congress standing up and clapping - up and down, up and down - yawn.

 

It was much easier to read President Obama's speech than to watch him at the podium with Vice President Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi nodding like bobbleheads and grinning at his every word. I did get to see portions of the broadcast and came away with a feeling of wonderment: Is he serious? Does the president think we're all as dumb as those members of Congress that stood to applaud his barefaced untruths?

 

Who wrote his speech? Was it at all possible that Mr. Obama didn't have time to review all the inaccuracies in the State of the Union message? If he did, then I have a hard time agreeing with those who believe we now have the smartest president ever in office. I'll leave it to others to dissect point by point what was wrong with the 68-minute speech and instead cover the three issues that stood out for their blatant evidence of deceit or something very close to it. Read article.

Politico.com

 

President Barack Obama might just wish he had opened even one health care meeting to the C-SPAN cameras.

 

The issue is starting to follow him around.

 

Once again Tuesday, he faced a question about it, from a high school student in Nashua, N.H., who asked him to grade the White House’s transparency efforts, given the fact that all the health care discussions have been behind closed doors.

 

Obama said that after the House and Senate bills moved forward, “it is true that I then met with the leaders ... to see what differences needed to be resolved. And that wasn’t on C-SPAN.”

 

“I made that commitment, and I probably should have put it on C-SPAN,” he said, but added that lawmakers might not have been as honest and candid if they were being televised.

 

During the presidential campaign, Obama had famously promised to open up health care negotiations to C-SPAN so that voters would know who was arguing for what. Instead, the backroom tussles over the bill happened well out of sight of the public, just as they always have in Washington. Read article.

John Hindraker, PowerlineBlog.com

 

These are policies that President Obama has advocated in the past, so we shouldn't be surprised to see them in his 2011 budget. Still, it's hard not to be a little shocked. The budget says, at page 40:

 

Reduce the Itemized Deduction Write-off for Families with Incomes over $250,000.

 

Currently, if a middle-class family donates a dollar to its favorite charity or spends a dollar on mortgage interest, it gets a 15-cent tax deduction, but a millionaire who does the same enjoys a deduction that is more than twice as generous.

 

That's because the "millionaire" pays income taxes that are more than twice as high. It isn't "generous" for the government to refrain from taking all of your money. The document continues:

 

By reducing this disparity and returning the high-income deduction to the same rates that were in place at the end of the Reagan Administration, we will raise $291 billion over the next decade.

 

This is, of course, Orwellian. The "disparity" is in fact a disparity in tax rates--higher income people pay much more. And the reference to the Reagan administration must have been intended as a cruel joke on taxpayers. The "high-income deduction" will be the same as during the Reagan administration, but the high-income marginal tax rate won't be, so now the deduction will apply to only half the contribution. Read article.

Chris Stirewalt, Washington Examiner.com

 

If you're a fan of President Obama, you probably felt good about last week.

 

Rather than change his approach in the face of the clearest political signals sent to a president in 16 years, Obama doubled down on his big, complicated agenda.

 

Liberals, moderates and conservatives are all worried, some about his priorities, others about his ability to deliver.

 

But the Obamanauts cheered when the president dished out smack talk to Republicans and even to justices of the Supreme Court during his State of the Union speech.

 

Obamanauts swooned when he visited congressional GOPers on their annual retreat and told them that they were really the ones in trouble, no matter what the polls say.

 

It's the Obama way to deal with adversity: When you get into a box, give a speech in which you attack your critics and admit to some self-serving mistakes. ("I gave people too much credit," etc.) But the most important thing is to "stay cool," meaning that you stick to your plan and wait for things to turn in your favor. Read article.

Jed Babbin, Human Events.com

 

When the Republican House leadership surprised its members with their invitation to President Obama to speak at the Republican retreat in Baltimore, many conservatives were dismayed. As the event played out on January 29th, their concerns appeared justified.

 

The reason for the invitation is that Republican leaders have read the polls, and are worried about the “party of no” label which the polls prove is damaging them. Their intent was to get the president to admit that they had ideas worth considering. That led to the inevitable setup by White House political advisor David Axelrod who said in a Thursday interview that “It’s time to put up or shut up. We will put the other party to the test and they will have to explain why they are standing in the way.” 

 

The president came to the Republican meeting weakened after a year of run amok liberalism, the most polarizing president ever. According to a new Rasmussen poll, only 21% of Americans believed his State of the Union claim that taxes have been cut for 95% of them. He, more than the Republicans, needed the meeting. Read article.

 

Pamela Geller, Big Journalism.com

 

Ayn Rand said it best:

 

 

But now we have left the Age of Enlightenment and entered the Age of the Philistine. It hurts the heart, this rapid deterioration of the conditions in which free men produce, invent, and prosper, because of government taxation and regulation. Americans are paying the price of force. Big government has been encroaching on our lives for decades now, and with Obama in the White House, the bottom is falling out.

 

The changes are imperceptible on a daily basis, but for those of us over forty, it is not hard to recall the differences. Particularly the small differences. Eastern Airlines (long defunct) was the most familiar carrier New York to Florida – and every flight was an experience. (For a time, it was even run by a NASA astronaut, the commander of Apollo 8, Frank Borman.) To the privileged was the champagne and the ice cream sundae cart. That lovely little cart would make its way down the aisle, and you’d choose from the sprinkles or the whipped cream or the hot sauce atop your favorite flavor. Silly, I know, but like most things, this lagniappe went the way of the horse and buggy, as did the hot meals that every airline once served. And how could all this not have disappeared? The government taxed everything from soup to nuts. From the fuel surcharges to security fees, all these new taxes always come out of the consumer’s pocket. Air travel went from being an experience to dreaded harassment.

 

Who can forget the excitement of the Concorde? The Concorde was going to be the future of air travel, in which we’d bop from place to place in half the time. Now the Concorde is defunct. Kaput. Much like the environment for producers and businessmen, who are the recurring “villains” in the set pieces of Democrats, statists, collectivists, moochers and looters. Read article.

 

Debra J. Saunders, Townhall.com

 

Ready for a sticker shock?

 

When CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson dug into the latest House expenses filing for the climate confab, she found that the cost for a hotel room for the congressional delegation of 15 Democratic and six Republican members of Congress and 38 staffers was $2,200 per person per day -- more than most Americans spend on their monthly mortgages. In addition, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members flew on three military planes, at an estimated cost of $168,000. Many staffers, however, flew on commercial airlines, at fares ranging from $4,163 to $10,038.

 

The tab for the House delegation -- not including the military planes -- was $553,564. We still do not know the price tag for the 60-plus administration officials who, like President Barack Obama, attended the summit. Ditto the unknown bill for the two senators -- John Kerry, D-Mass., and James Inhofe, R-Okla. -- and 30-plus Senate aides. Read article.

 

Fred Barnes, Prairie Pundit.Blogspot.com

 

President Obama’s greatest need is to escape the ideological grip of congressional Democrats and the liberal base of the Democratic party (they’re one and the same). But he either doesn’t recognize this or, as a conventional liberal himself, isn’t so inclined. This self-inflicted difficulty has put Obama in worse political straits than President Clinton faced after the Republican landslide of 1994.

 

Certainly there was nothing in Obama’s State of the Union address last week to indicate he understands the fix he’s in or has devised a credible way to get out of it. His message, though he didn’t put it in quite these words, was that he’d rather fight for unpopular liberal policies than switch to broadly appealing centrist ones.

 

A bad omen for Obama and Democrats was the pleased-as-punch response of Capitol Hill’s top Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “It makes my job a little easier than if he were moving to the middle and picking up people,” McConnell says. “I naïvely thought he was going to do a course correction.”

 

McConnell characterizes the Obama strategy as: “Ignore the public, we know what’s best, full speed ahead.” The practical effect is to yield the political high ground to Republicans. “He can call us the party of no till he’s blue in the face,” McConnell says. “It depends on what you’re saying no to.” Read article.