Video: State of the Union Recap

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Sarah hosted Thursday night’s panel recapping President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. Tune in to catch Steve offering his analysis on the partisan nature of the speech, David breaking down the electoral ramifications, John explaining the policy announcements, and Declan expressing his thoughts on whether Biden and the GOP met expectations.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Dave IL

    I would write this in ALL CAPS except screaming here would do no more good than screaming at the podcast in my car. Yes, this election is unique because the candidates have never been this unpopular. Yes, it's difficult for a third party to avoid being cast as spoilers. Yes, conventional wisdom says a candidate must claim he intends to win in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
    Obviously, the first two points overrule the third. The possibility of dropping out has to be made a feature, not a bug. The initial act of a third party campaign should include a warning. "If you want an alternative to these other Bozos, tell the pollsters you'll vote for us. If you don't, you'll miss your chance, because we'll drop out on Indigenous People's Day. (Columbus Day. Whatever.) The third party could still be a spoiler, but only if they're polling at 30% or more in enough states.
    That still leaves the problem of finding a candidate who is both viable and willing to risk his political career, but that would be a lot easier if the spoiler issue were dealt with.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Jeff Walden

    Quick comment from someone who watched this and (inadvertently) ended up listening to about a dozen minutes of it by podcast before recognizing the retread: Declan's acting out Mike Johnson's facial expressions and mannerisms doesn't carry over well to the audio version!

    Mistakes will be made, anyone doing the podcast version probably has to resign themselves to slightly less information at times, but I feel it's worth the quick reminder: if the thing you're making is destined for a pure-audio format, try to remember to spell out in words what might occasionally be demonstrated only visually. :-)

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  3. ConProf

    The “did he meet expectations,” convo is dumb and a waste of time. How about discussing the fact that he proposed 1.8T over two years in new spending with his $400/mo let’s reinflate the housing bubble plan? How about discussing the fact that his “We’ll save $200B on prescription drugs,” will amount to only 25% of THIS YEAR’s debt service payment? Or that he unconstitutionally claims the authority to tell banks what fees they can charge?

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    1. BadgerBill

      Congress gave the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (created by the Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection Act of 2010) sweeping authority to regulate bank fees. Threr’s nothing unconstitutional in what he’s proposing.

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      1. ConProf

        I stand corrected on that. Am I mistaken that the USSC has cracked down on the CFB’s authority?

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  4. R. James

    Well he did it. He's going to send the US military into Gaza. With a couple sentences buried at the end of a very long speech, the President is going to bring the country to the brink of war.

    He incredulously claims that this will not require "boots on the ground". Who is building the port then? The Army's 7th Transportation Brigade has been identified by the BBC's US sources as the unit to conduct the mission. They operate LARCs, LCU, LCVs and causeways to conduct Joint Logistics Over the Shore (JLOTS) supply missions. Did you catch that "Over the Shore" part? It requires them to bring supplies onto the beach using lightering craft, LCUs and constructing a floating causeway. This cannot be done without putting US personnel on the beach. The minute US personnel are on the ground in Gaza they will become the target of terrorist attack. (Heck the LCU could be attack if Hamas has any anti-ship attack drones.) You want to take a guess at what happens after a US soldier is killed in Gaza by Hamas? Google "mission creep".

    Any on the ground aid mission in Gaza will subject US sailors, soldiers and marines to enemy fire as they will have to defend the aid being off loaded onto the beach from attack and pillaging by Hamas. This will not be a quick mission either. Politico's US sources say it will take a couple months to build the port and get it to full capacity. This is very reminiscent of the Clinton intervention into Somalia which culminated in the events of Black Hawk Down. Biden is going to embroil our country into another foreign conflict because he wants to boost his poll numbers in Michigan.

    Moreover, there are several questions that come to mind that will complicate this mission and lead to the potential for mission creep and casualties:
    What is happening to the supplies once they reach the beach?
    Who will guard them to ensure they are not just taken by Hamas?
    Who will organize their orderly distribution to Gazan civilians?
    Who will provide the security to the supply depo, the JLOTS mission, and the supply distribution?

    I can't help but notice the man getting dragged out of the Gallery moments before Biden announced his plan for a US intervention into Gaza was a Gold Star father of a marine killed at the Abbey Gate during Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. How many flagged draped coffins are we going to suffer in this latest Middle East campaign?

    This is a half-baked idea that is being conducted for domestic political reasons and will get Americans killed.

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