Follow-Up to Obama's 2015 State of the Union

While I didn't completely get what I wanted from Obama's address - although he DID push for an economic and tax agenda I can support - I did get to bear witness to one of the epic smackdowns in American History:

During his scripted speech, Obama claimed his position as "I have no more campaigns to run."

This prompted a round of applause from the Republican Congresscritters seemingly celebrating that Obama's unable to run for re-election.

Obama then ad-libbed "I know... because I won both of them."

Boom.

Burn.

Dunk.

Mic Drop.

Linkage to some Twitter reactions - usually the go-to source for the immediate OMG pulse of the moment - here and here and a few others if you look for them.

It was sweet.

If I ever have kids, I will tell them of this moment.

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What I'd Like To Hear From Obama's State Of the Union Tonight

I'll be working evening shift so I won't see any of it until I get home.

So here's the list I hope to hear about later.

1) "The state of our union is ROBUST." I am sick and tired of hearing 'strong'.  IT'S CALLED A THESAURUS PEOPLE, THEY HAVE THEM ONLINE NOW.

2) "Thanks to massive gerrymandering in Republican-controlled states and pitiful voter turnout efforts by Democrats that turned into a turnoff, a meager 36 percent of voters this past November put a bunch of batsh-t crazy politicians in charge of Congress.  Yeah, I went there.  Now I gotta manage the crazy 24-7 until 2017.  Like I said, thanks."

3) "I will not make any deals on Social Security or Medicare. You are not going after our social safety nets that do work, that just needs minor and yes I mean minor reforms to make them solvent.  Just don't even try cutting Social Security benefits, Congress.  I will make you eat your own serving if you bring that sh-t to my house."

4) "I will insist on a budget where the nation's entire tax burden will be placed on Grover Norquist.  I'm gonna drown YOU, buddy."

5) "We as a nation thrive on immigration.  It's how we went from some rustic backwater of the 19th Century into a major superpower by the 20th Century.  It's how we keep ourselves innovative and refreshed with talent and drive.  For us to turn our backs on millions of hard-working, intelligent young adults that can become part of this great nation through the DREAM reform efforts is not only offensive, it is short-sighted and harmful.  We are going to reform our immigration policies to make it easier to keep families together, to make it easier for our workforce to stay strong."

6) "We need to do something about reducing college costs.  This is why I'm pushing for local, community college programs to be free to millions of American families.  We need to do more to stop the growing amount of financial debt that millions of families are incurring in order to have their own children achieve success.  What good will all that effort be if entire communities go bankrupt, killing all hope for that success?"

7) "If Congress passes one more self-serving pay raise while doing nothing about the wages of all other workers, I swear to God I will personally bitch-slap each and every one of you.  You're already earning six-figure salaries with this job, that's more than what 95 percent of our nation's workers ever see."

8) "Seriously Hollywood, you pat yourselves on the back for awarding a hokey, poorly-scripted movie on race like Crash and yet you snub the hell out of a historic, well-acted and genuinely impactful film like Selma?  I was already upset with your Oscars voters for how they snubbed TRON for Best Visual Effects - TWICE - but now this sh-t..."

9) "We are this close to letting Disney take over Cuba as the first nation-sized Epcot Center.  Don't ruin the deal, Congress, just let me handle it..."

10) "The real reason this nation's future this year is so incredible, why we've got a good year ahead of us?  Because Age of Ultron AND Episode VII are coming out this year!  YES DAMMIT IT IS GOOD TO BE A GEEK IN THE USA!  GOD BLESS US!  LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!"

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Here Comes The State of the Union

"...He shall, from time to time..."

The biggest question about Obama's upcoming SOTU speech among the Talking Heads on television will be if he speaks out against Keith Olbermann's ouster from MSNBC.  Kidding.  But I wouldn't be surprised if those self-absorbed nabobs went there.

No, the biggest question is if Obama will surrender his forces to the GOP House / Teabagger leadership under threat of government shutdowns and whatnot.

The buzz is that Obama will address the deficit as the primary issue, but how he will address it is the key.  Will Obama push for drastic cuts on everything the Republicans hate - Social Security, social safety net spending, education, state funding, etc. - or will he aim for more moderate cuts with a stronger emphasis on spending caps?

For myself, I hope that Obama comes out swinging on the issue that's REALLY the major issue for most Americans: the ongoing unemployment crisis.  For every Congressperson obsessed with the deficit (THAT THEY CAUSED) there's about ten Americans obsessed with how bad the job market is and how bad the wage earnings are.  Obama's probably unable to push for any government project (the Republicans still hate Obama's stimulus package with a vengeance, and most Americans still aren't aware how effective that stimulus was in keeping us out of a full-blown DEPRESSION), but he's got to do something to address the fact that there's at least 15-20 million Americans who have been unemployed longer than 27 weeks... and that those long-term unemployed are frozen out of the sluggish recovery we've recently been watching on the financial news.

Obama better have something good on the table for the jobs issue.  If he doesn't, we're screwed.  It's jobs, people, it's JOBS that help keep this economy going...

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