You’re invited to join us tonight to watch President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union Address and chat live in real time with fellow members during his speech.
President Obama has expressed that income inequality, unemployment and other economic issues will be at the top of his list tonight, having already made known that he will be announcing a raise in the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour for companies the U.S. government contracts with from this point forward.
As he seeks to set a course for the remainder of his final term, it should be a very enlightening speech tonight. We hope you’ll be able to join us here tonight at The Planet for it, our simultaneous live chat greatly enhances the event, providing unique insights on the substance and potential impact of the speech.
Our live chat and live feed of the speech will be featured on our Live Events page, the link appears in the menu at the top of the page or you can click here to go there. As we do with Vox Populi, we will also be adding a live chat widget in the right hand column of every page so you can also participate from any page on the site.
Our live chat starts at 5:30pm PST, half an hour before the SOTU speech which is scheduled to begin at 6:00pm PST
And stay tuned after the SOTU Address because we will be continuing our live chat through the three (yep three!) Republican responses to the State of the Union speech, one from Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers representing the GOP, one from Mike Lee representing the Tea Party and one from Rand Paul…representing Rand Paul.
It should be quite a night, hope to see you here!
I think that PBO is a logical, sensible, level headed, smart man. He does not fit into the dysfunctional village that is DC. Most of the GOP; most of the “pundits”; some Democrats cannot handle it.
Dc is a pretty toxic and narcissistic place; a large number of the politicians and ‘pundits’ do not work well with others.
agrippa, this is the problem with any system, political, social, religious, etc..
However altruistic they may start out at inception to help the people, there is a gravity that pulls at them to instead make their top priority protecting and feeding the system itself.
DC is such blatant evidence of that. So many in politics and the media in DC live in a bubble where the game itself is what they mostly concern themselves with, not the end goal. So we have pols and pudnuts (tm Bito) that have built and sustain the natural swamp that is DC because that’s where slimy things prefer to live.
There are good pols out there and Obama is one of them. He has navigated his Presidency through some of the most difficult and hostile territories, as only someone who’s brilliant and strategic could. Last night’s speech was just more evidence of that.
One can only imagine where we would be had any of the clueless Repubs running for President in 2008 and 2012 won.
But due to their lunacy, I don’t think the Repubs will see the inside of the White House for quite a long time.
Aggripa…Tell me about it….Few years ago I was invited by Mme Secretary Madelaine Albright to come work with them….But I have been in D.C. many times – never living there – but visiting and I can’t stand the toxicity and venom of the city.Not even for a rather NICE salary.
Murph and I were the last ones remaining on the live chat last night when we saw what had to be the most humorous episode of the evening, Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Moronica, KS drowning in his own idiocy and flop sweat in an interview with Rachel Maddow.
https://youtu.be/wD4tBRd_qZo
How can a somewhat self-respecting constituent of this doofus not feel completely embarrassed by having such a blathering dimwit representing them?
Neither could I. Then I had another tab opened with OFA/WHITE HOUSE and it too, crashed.Then I hit the sack.
Ad, when a President wants to bring the military home he is politicizing the military??????
That is ending a bad war and bringing our people home ! To me and many others it is a good thing. To end wars is a GOOD thing and I’m proud of President Obama for doing it.
Nirek, you can’t take anything this lunatic says as an honest belief, he is just a raging racist who is mentally disturbed by a black man sitting in the WH and just grasps for any attack or insult he can use to voice his racism.
Of course there is no connection between bringing soldiers home and being “anti-soldier”, it’s absurd and of course pro-soldier to remove them from harm’s way and reunite them with their families.
Too bad we can’t draft people into the army by popular vote because this chickenhawk would be at the top of my list.
Ad, as a draftee I would like to see the draft back for only the nit wits and rich kids.
Actually I didn’t like the draft and was glad we stopped drafting people.
AdLib, that was downright painful to watch. If he’s the best Kansas has to offer, someone needs to do some testing on the water supply there for brain-eating parasites.
The GOP could save a lot of money on buying Congressmen and candidates buy just inventing a large version of the ancient “Chatty Cathy” doll. Pull a string and hear its collection of standard “answers”: “Socialist!” “Job killing Obamacare!” “You lie!” “Where’s Your Birth Certificate?” and the ever-popular
“Benghazi!!”
Then they could stop paying people like this guy.
On a similar note — I finally got a chance today to watch the CNN “interview” that Nirek mentioned with Wolf Blitzer, Michelle Bachmann and Bernie Sanders. He’s right: it was incredible. After the first couple of minutes, I realized that not only was she not interested in having a conversation, she wasn’t even interested in making sense. She was simply a noise machine. She was doing the verbal equivalent of blowing a whistle non-stop. Her goal wasn’t to be heard. It was to stop Bernie Sanders from being heard.
She could have been replaced by a shrieking toddler or a screaming monkey and the result would have been the same — except she’s not nearly as cute.
When are the American people and the media going to stop pretending to take these howlers seriously?
Kes, he is a walking insult to Kansas.
You’re right, the Tea Party crowd are pretty much mindless Chatty Cathys whose strings are pulled by the propagandists.
I think Dr. Seuss could combine a hornswaggler with a bamboozler and create a noisemaker that’s a substitute for a Republican.
Hooooollllly SHIT! It’s downright disgusting to see such a brainwashed, illogical tool as the people’s representative in congress, for any state.
Rachel nailed him to the wall and all he could do was spew old,weather beaten RW talking points. I thought for a moment his head would explode, but instead, MINE exploded.
I loved it when Rachel said “We’ve squared the circle!” Brilliant retort that went completely over this guy’s head. The people of Kansas, and every other state should be appalled that such a moron could actually have a seat in the US congress. Hoooollllyy SHIT!
It is pretty outrageous that such a raving, desperate lunatic could be a Congressman and pretend to represent citizens?
Rachel did put him on the dunce chair and he put the cap on himself. But what an embarrassment to our system to have someone like him in our government.
Do people in Kansas look at this and say, “So glad he’s representing me!”?
Lost for words. These people aren’t even pretending to be in touch with reality anymore, are they?
I think that The American University where he supposedly received his Ph.D. in political science, should either have their licence revoked to teach this course or a lot of $$$$ changed hands!!
Ad, ‘Moronica’ KS 🙂 So where are the other two Stooges?
Fergie, nope, they don’t even need to pretend to be rational anymore, all they have to do is spit out a collection of angry sounds and the RW base just flaps their flippers.
As for where the other two Stooges are, they are exponentially multiplying throughout the GOP,
“Hey Moe, it says ‘Gene Splicer’! Should I turn it on?”
“Get out of the way mutton head, if anyone’s gonna press a button, I am!”
Can’t seem to get into the live chat. 🙁
Same here – apparently the system overloaded. But it was a very wonderful and rousing speech. You could tell by the VERY grim faces of the GOP!!!
I was posting a comment and it crashed on me. I thought it was my computer.
HAIL TO THE CHIEF….the lyrics….
Hail to the Chief we have chosen for the nation,
Hail to the Chief! We salute him, one and all.
Hail to the Chief, as we pledge cooperation
In proud fulfillment of a great, noble call.
Yours is the aim to make this grand country grander,
This you will do, that’s our strong, firm belief.
Hail to the one we selected as commander,
Hail to the President! Hail to the Chief!
I think the GOP needs to sing that a few (dozen) times, Murph.
Other than what he says he is going to do by executive order,it will be just another list of things that he has no chance getting through the house.Another year squandered.What a country!
Beatlex – today the compromise Farm Bill restoring full funding on SNAP the “food stamp” program – passed the conference agreement. There will be a monetary reduction made up by ending fraud and waste, and NOT cutting anyone out.
However, some people will get reductions in allotments because they will have eligibility amounts recalculated based on reworking formulae on energy costs to any given family in 17 states with generous provisions. By reducing the assumption of utility costs, the amount for food stamps will likely be lowered.
So despite this rather remarkable accomplishment of bi partisan agreement, now advocates for food and nutrition are calling to “kill the bill”. Never mind there is nothing but MASSIVE cuts to ALL SNAP families in any other version of the bill likely to pass. REMOTELY likely to pass. It’s liberals doing this.
President Obama will do what he can, but unless the American people wake up and understand the process, we are doomed to stalemate.
And I am tearing out my hair.
See you tonight I hope – there is no sanity other than here.
Very few have your level of understanding….and far too few have any understanding at all….
Beatlex, the root blame does go to the independent voters in 2010 who were so short-sighted, they bought into the Repubs BS about how Obama and Dems were failures for not turning around the Great Crash overnight and how they would wave their magic wand over the deficit and the ACA and make Americans all wealthy again by making those two things disappear.
Due to that, Repubs gained control in many more states than they should have and have been able to gerrymander their control of The House despite the fact that a majority of Americans voted for Dems in the House.
Now we’re stuck with a non-representational House thanks to a corruption of our democracy and Obama has to struggle with addressing critical issues while clowns and freaks are in a position and committed to blocking anything positive he can do.
It is messed up but many Americans (and I only blame those indies who voted Repub in 2010) have responsibility for this on their own shoulders.
Statistically it was a deep plunge in Dem voting by those who listened to the likes of Ed Schultz who said,”Don’t vote and send the Dems a message.” The “too good to vote” crowd is totally responsible for this mess.
I’m not convinced Indies did vote GOP so much as Dems refused to vote AT ALL. In Ohio, ONE VOTE per precinct would have changed EVERYTHING. That’s true elsewhere as well.
We have to vote wisely because control of the PARTY is as important as any individual.
I think you are correct. It was the failure of the coalition that created 2008 to repeat it in 2010…pure and simple. It nearly cost us the whole ball of wax and it has been a drag on his presidency every since.
Murph, the exit polls from 2010 tell a very different story. Dems did turn out, that was not the reason they lost. Indies broke hugely for Repubs. Check out the link I posted in my reply to CL above.
What undermined America was the small minded ignorance of indie voters who foolishly bought The Emperor’s New Clothes from the Repubs.
CL – The story that Dem turnout was low or apathetic in 2010 is actually an urban legend.
Here’s an article from ABC News after the 2010 election that, using exit polls, showed that Dems did vote solidly in that election:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/vote-2010-elections-results-midterm-exit-poll-analysis/story?id=12003775
It was independents that screwed the country because many of them think so short term and are not clever enough to recognize when they are being manipulated by dishonest Republicans.
And that’s a shame, that the rest of Americans’ fates should be in the hands of the foolish.
People got the government that they wanted. The people who voted for those people are the ones responsible for this mess.
They have the government that they have earned; not just deserve.
agrippa, I do agree. If so many had not been so short-sighted and easily deceived by being told what they wanted to hear, times would be much better today.