No more Texas governors for president
No milk quotes? :)
After live-tweeting the President’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, we took a look at our retweet stats to get an (unscientific) sense of the parts Twitter liked most.
Here are the top moments of the speech, as decided by Twitter:
American commandos raced into Somalia on Wednesday morning and rescued two aid workers, including an American woman, after a shootout with Somali pirates who had been holding them captive for months.
The American soldiers swooped in by helicopter, killed nine pirates and captured several others, before spiriting away the hostages, who were not harmed, Western officials said.
It appeared that President Obama was fully aware of the raid as he was about to give his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, which would have been early Wednesday in Somalia.
According to NBC News, as the president stepped into the House chambers, he pointed to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta standing in the crowd and said, “Leon. Good job tonight. Good job tonight.” The president made no mention of the rescue in Somalia, but he did refer to the killing of Osama bin Laden last May in a similar operation conducted by Navy Seals.
In a statement Wednesday from the White House, the president said he authorized the operation on Monday. “Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our Special Operations forces, yesterday Jessica Buchanan was rescued and she is on her way home. As commander in chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts.”
The statement continued: “Last night I spoke with Jessica Buchanan’s father and told him that all Americans have Jessica in our thoughts and prayers, and give thanks that she will soon be reunited with her family. The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice. This is yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people.”
President BARACK OBAMA, to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta prior to the State of the Union speech. Earlier, Panetta had overseen the rescue operation of an American woman and a Danish national who were part of a relief organization in Somalia: they had been kidnapped and held for ransom by Somali pirates, nine of whom were killed in Wednesday’s firefight with U.S. soldiers.
Andrew Sullivan used the term “badass” to describe our president. He continues to be just that.
(via inothernews)
(via theatlantic)
A response to the state of the union address, from the West Wing president
We asked former president Jed Bartlet (@Pres_Bartlet) to give us a few words about the State of the Union:
The state of the union is one of anger. I’m not talking about President Barack Obama’s speech, though there were significant portions of his speech that seemed to come from a place of anger, or at least frustration. I’m talking about the actual conditions the United States is facing today.
We hear a lot about the high level of partisanship in Washington from congressmen and pundits who are positively phototactic. They run to the bright lights of our nation’s television studios and spend more time talking about how the other side prevents them from doing their job than they spend actually doing their jobs. This is why, not only does Congress have the lowest approval ratings in the history of the body, but lower approval ratings than telemarketers, lobbyists and used-car salesmen. The very same members of Congress that bash the gridlock cause the very gridlock they complain about.
But these are not the real issues we are facing. Even the issues that Obama addressed last night, including reinvesting in American energy and American manufacturing, cannot happen until we address the real issue in our country: education. The president touched on this briefly in his speech, but let’s look into the issue further. How can we honestly expect to revolutionise our energy industry when high schools in this country are cutting science and technology programmes? How can we build manufacturing jobs in America when our children no longer have the opportunity to work with their hands in school?
We need to get kids interested in education again. No one can argue that our children don’t need a background in mathematics and English to be successful. But our children also need science and art and technology. Our children need our politicians to recognise what every teacher already knows: American education should be as exceptional and as diverse as America’s citizens.
Today there will be a lot of discussion about how well the president did. You’re not going to see too many stories about the quality of the programmes the president proposed. What the majority of the stories will be about is simple: it will be about how the president’s speech will impact on his re-election campaign. This is not to criticise the media, they can only produce what we are interested in. We have turned politics into sports. National elections are reported as box scores. Unless we are willing to have real conversations about how to improve this country, we will never make the changes we need to improve this country. Obama’s speech won’t be measured on how successful he is at implementing the policies he proposed, but rather on whether he is re-elected.
The paper is blank. The slate is clear. We are the architects of tomorrow. The future our children will face is the future that we will create for them. Republican and Democratic visions for this future are not that different. We all want our children to grow up more successful than the previous generation – to live in a world that is more free and more prosperous. We disagree on how to get there, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go forward. After all, this is the nation of Lewis and Clark, of Armstrong and Aldrin, of Edison and Sagan. We are a nation of trailblazers, explorers and dreamers.
The union is angry because, for many Americans, the state of our union needs improving and they have little to no hope that their leaders will take action. We need to get to work, because our future is no longer on the horizon, it is right in front of us.
Photograph: Allstar/WARNER BROS
If you missed the president’s State of the Union last night, here’s what we’re internally referring to as “the kick-ass section.” Watch the rest of the speech and get an overview of the key points here.
Can you find the word “jobs” in Mitch Daniels’s Republican rebuttal?
Pretty much sums it up:
Mitch Daniels whining, in his State of the Union rebuttal. (via think-progress)
Right now, we’re poised to spend nearly one trillion dollars more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest two percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, or do we want to keep our investments in everything else? Like education and medical research? A strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both.
The American people know what the right choice is: so do I. As I told the Speaker this summer, I’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long-term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors. But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me — and an awful lot of members of Congress — pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the ‘Buffett Rule’: if you make more than a million dollars a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.
The President “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
This particular time, it’s happening tomorrow night at 9 p.m. ET. Have you RSVP’d for a watch party yet?
