My take and that of the Wall Street Journal editorial board are quite similar. First, let’s tune into Trump’s Bipartisan Pitch.
President Trump used his State of the Union address Tuesday to highlight his achievements and make a pitch for bipartisan cooperation in Congress. Overall it was an effective piece of political rhetoric, especially his defense of his tax and deregulation policies and their results. But we doubt he reframed the political debate in a way that will give Democrats much pause going forward this year.
Mr. Trump likes these moments before Congress, no doubt because he savors the political theater. But they are also notable—and perhaps instructive to Americans who won’t follow politics obsessively—because they are among the few times he bothers to make an extended argument about political substance.
Amid the daily distractions of Robert Mueller and his Twitter blasts, our guess is that this is the first time millions of Americans heard anything at all about the First Step Act and prison reform. The emotional high point of the speech was his introduction of the two former inmates who became productive in prison and earned their reduced sentences. The political groundwork for criminal-justice reform was laid by others, but it wouldn’t have happened without Mr. Trump’s endorsement.
The biggest disappointment was his failure to reframe the immigration debate. He faces another government shutdown deadline at the end of next week over funding for the border. Yet he merely repeated his familiar parade of horribles about the border, the caravans moving north, and illegal immigrants who commit crimes. He is preaching to the converted and persuading no one else.
At least he added a grace note about legal immigrants and said they could come “in the largest numbers ever,” without any details. But he offered Democrats nothing about the Dreamers or anything else on immigration that would make them want to bend on funding “the wall.”
Mr. Trump sounded like someone who expects no compromise on immigration and thinks it will remain a stalemate through the next election. We may be headed to another pointless shutdown next week, or Mr. Trump’s declaration of a “national emergency” that would unite Democrats in opposition but divide Republicans. Mr. Trump will probably be talking about the wall for two more long years, which is not where he wants to be politically.
First Step
I too had never heard of First Step. In general, anything Trump does or says that has bipartisan support gets little play. A partisan press surely doesn’t help.
Then again, everyone needs to question why some of these people are in prison in the first place. I suggest we legalize drugs and let the non-violent offenders free. Michael Bloomberg says that would be the dumbest thing ever, which is of course ridiculous.
The Wall
Trump again threw down the gauntlet on the wall. He mentioned the wall eleven times in his speech.
“I’ll get it built,” said Trump.
OK, what are the options?
Another absurd government shutdown? Is Nancy Pelosi supposed to suddenly cave? An emergency declaration?
Not a single one of those has the support of a majority of the Senate. And Trump did not even say or threaten an emergency.
Nor did Trump mention “dreamers”. If he truly wanted to reach out to Democrats that was likely the word they wanted to hear.
Endless Wars
I certainly approve of Trump’s comment “Great nations do not fight endless wars.”
Socialism
“Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.”
If only we would practice just that.
Humor
The complete transcript does not do justice to Trump’s delivery. Trump was articulate and witty. He cracked some jokes that both sides of the aisle liked. At least one was a clever ad-lib.
His address was as good as could have been expected, and I suspect far better than most expected.
But repeating forever “I’ll get it built,” does not get walls built, as we have seen.
If Trump wants a wall, he is going to have to give Nancy Pelosi a “dreamer compromise” or declare a national emergency. And it’s possible that might not even work.
In short, Trump made a good delivery, but it is unlikely to result in any accomplishments.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Well, look at the “Democrates”! Their IQ level must be below 70.
Trump has no idea what he’s saying most of the time.
That applies to you.
How so?
Nothing?
Hmmmm… and you are ?
Who’s asking?
‘… everyone needs to question why some of these people are in prison in the first place.’ They are ‘non-violent’ because they ‘pled down’ a long list of felonies to plead guilty on a ‘minor’ charge so ‘the process’ can be relatively quick. Don’t buy the ‘non-violent’ propaganda.
“I’m amazed that you gave Trump a pass on his tax policies.”
Precisely where did I do that? I never said I agreed with anything but socialism and wars. He had a good delivery. That does not imply agreement. I certainly disagree on Iran, taxes, drugs, and lots of things.
Why should immigrants come in the largest numbers ever?? That’s not graceful.
ITs a sellout of the nation and its people. ITs criminal
Saying: ‘I don’t care if my country is destroyed, as long as it’s destroyed LEGALLY’ is not a solution, its a justification.
Legal/illegal is not the issue. The issue is, “You are not us, this country is for us.
Don’t worry, Trump doesn’t believe in legal immigration either. “Your” country is safe.
I want an enforceable immigration policy. Government allowing entry and then pretending they can’t be found is unlawful. This kind of crap is what you find on the road to tyranny. Build a wall or don’t, provide amnesty or don’t, allow more immigration or don’t, but do it in a lawful manner.
There is no reason for one more illegal to cross the border and stay. Those that have been here for 10 or 15 years can’t be sent home, because they have no home to go to. Their home is here. They settled here on a wink from the federal government, is it right to renege, even if the government acted illegally?
It is funny. My big lib brother in law is all for an illegal open border with Mexico, but hates the legal H1B workers that are in competition for HIS job. Go figure.
Making ILLEGAL legal is NOT the solution.
USA needs a wall on the whole border.
USA needs to STOP accepting asylum applications at the border since Mexico is safe enough and offers these migrants option of asking for asylum from Mexico or a residence permit.
USA needs to STOP the stupid bureaucrat interpretation that gives babies by illegals and tourists birthright citizenship.
USA needs to stop sanctuary cities and sanctuary states and DEPORT every criminal.
USA needs to make e-Verify mandatory with heavy fines for
employers that employ illegals.
USA needs to stop ALL welfare for illegals.
There must be NO amnesty of any kind, illegals need to go home and then they can apply for temporary working visas if they have a job that pays the same as Americans get and if the employers take care of all the healthcare costs so no more using ER as your doctor and paying nothing which causes prices of healthcare costs being higher for Americans.
USA needs to have a biometric entry-exit system to stop visa overstays and that immediately alerts ICE when people overstay their visas.
USA needs to stop the wage dumping that is being done through the H1B system and put the minimum wage for H1B’s at 250,000 dollars per year so companies only bring geniuses and keep their current American workers for their current jobs instead of the current scheme of firing Americans and giving the jobs for lower paid H1B’s mostly from India.
Also USA should count all the people in prison that are either illegal immigrants or legal immigrants and release the stats instead of trying to hide the number of illegals and other immigrants that are in prison.
I’m amazed that you gave Trump a pass on his tax policies. I would welcome tax reform, as in a revenue neutral change that reduced the nominal rate and eliminated the loopholes. What we got was a deficit explosion that benefits shareholders and executives but has done little to benefit the larger economy.
The fact the IMF is even thinking this tells you the underlying global economy is screwed.
At that point I think a revolution would be in order. Its a new form of govt theft and a good way for them to reduce their debts by stealing from the citizens. That is fubb and policy of the govt tyrants.
Well, he did manage to stay focused and read the speech somebody wrote for him off the teleprompter, which is impressive. Will doubtless need a lot of ‘executive time’ to recover, which means he’ll spend the day watching fox news, get all riled up, and resume tweeting nonsense. They should start piping circus music into the Whitehouse.
In your case the lobotomy and electroshock wouldn’t work. Maybe you[ can take your pills and feel a little bit better
This was his best pitch yet, and by a wide margin. I’d bet someone coached him, a very good sign that he’s finally willing to listen.
We need a third party and independent candidates for all offices like never before. The two party system has failed us.
The democrats will never forgive Trump for defeating the Evil Queen Hillary. They will continue to do everything they can to obstruct him, and if that is bad for the nation (which it is) they don’t care. Trump is willing to compromise; Nancy will not.
That’s BS… plenty of Democrats were dismayed with having Clinton as the candidate. As long as you keep believing that, you will keep misunderstanding current events.
I thought Trump did great and the fidgety democrats looked bad. There will never be a compromise. Trump knows this. What he has to do is get re-elected and I suspect he’ll make whoever the dems nominate look foolish in debates. Not sure if it will be enough to win.
60% of likely voters plan to vote against Trump. He’s toast. You and I both know that he can’t change his behavior, and he will continue to alienate 60% of the voting public right up to the election.
“A partisan press surely doesn’t help.” I certainly approve of Trump’s comment “Great nations do not fight endless wars.”
A partisan press does approve of endless wars. They even recently attacked Tulsi Gabbard, implying she is Putin’s favorite, in order to smear her candidacy for the democratic nomination for president. The MSM is meddling in our election again.
Tulsi Gabbard is the ONLY Democrat who would have a chance to win against Trump.
(this assumes that Trump builds hundreds and hundreds of miles of new wall by 2020, if there is NO new wall Trump is burnt toast no matter what)
“…persuade any Democrats…” ??? The National Socialist World Communist Peoples Democratic Party embraces violence over reason. They are backed by the WCCE – the Billionaire$ of the World Corporate Communist Empire, whose only agenda seems to be “Stop Trump”. It’s a Vandal Party that wants to destroy civilization and remake it in their image of the favela. Trump as symbol of the Deplorables is just a stumbling block on their glorious path to Utopia. Their Cultural Revolution is unfolding around us. Mao envy.
Trump is trapped anyhow. The power sector of the so called “Deep State” – the Fascist Merger of big.guv and big.biz – cannot allow him to succeed. It’s a bad sign – Imperial President as King – that he’s been able to do/undo as much as he has.
Your Amazon order of “Tinfoil Hat, Large” is on its way!
Credibility is the foundation of leadership. Trump has none left and thus whatever he says has no credibility. He has less credibility than career politicians which is really saying something about him.
And then today he will be back to being himself.
The words sounded good, but coming out of his mouth I found them disingenuous and impossible to believe. Give him a few hours or days and he’ll be back on twitter, lambasting anyone who disagrees with him. If there was sincerity behind the words, I did not feel it. Actions speak louder than words.
Bourgeois culture, any culture, can only stand if it is rewarded. In prior times bourgeois culture was fundamentally supported by the upper classes, who invested in America, creating vast wealth. They modeled sobriety, hard-work, risk and reward. The working classes modeled the behavior through church and labor unions, standing together for each other and nation.
The wealthy have abandoned America, and the working classes have abandoned religion, unions, and each other. Into that void steps cultural anarchy.
Bourgeois culture requires hard-work, and discipline. It requires accountability, primarily of the wealthy. I tire of articles that lament the loss of culture without holding those accountable who have abandoned their responsibilities.
Since NIxon took America the last step towards a fully developed totalitarian kleptocracy, somewhere between 90% and 99% (depending on how narrow or broad one wish to get) of all money, hence claims on wealth, currently in existence, have simply been printed out of thin air. As opposed to earned.
The kind of “wealthy” who had to earn every one of his gold coins by offering something of value in return, is a very, very different creature from those who were simply handed their wealth in the form of Fed, government and legally redistributed welfare. Which, today, are 90-99% of them. As economically illiterate as Obummer was, just like that other broken clock, he did somehow manage to hit it out of the ballpark with his infamous “You didn’t build that” remark.
He won’t honor any deal he makes, and lies compulsively. Why would anyone even consider making a compromise with him?
IMHO. The most important part of the speech.
Why would anyone on congress be opposed to this??? Oh yeah, big dollar special interests.
“We should also require drug companies, insurance companies, and hospitals to disclose real prices to foster competition and bring costs down…”
When I heard that line I started thinking that maybe someone near Trump had read Denninger’s plan to fix healthcare:
Which is why the most important thing the President could ever do is to fight for an amendment to control campaign finance.
Absolutely, but fostering competition and bringing down costs may actually work and eliminate the need to institute a single payer system at some point. Therefore, I think people profiting from the current system (“big dollar interests”) and those who want the current system to collapse so single payer can be instituted both oppose common sense reforms. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
Running around forcing anyone to do anything, is exactly why not a single darned institution of the West is working anymore. How many abject and undifferentiated failures of “forcing” does the yahoo army need to see, before they pick up on something so simple?
Costs of darned near everything drops when people are free to innovate and compete. Which “forcing” result in the exact opposite of.
In any area where prices are still dropping, like fracking tech, noone is forcing anyone to disclose anything regarding prices.
Once they do, prices will start climbing up even there. Since the game then becomes to beat and influence the forcers. Instead of fighting tooth and nail at innovating and producing, in order not to be rendered uncompetitive, jobless and starving over night. By the invariable forces of creative destruction, which is the only way prices ever meaningfully drop in any field.
In healthcare, EVERY SINGLE CASE is fundamentally unique. Moses brought no fixed, unalterable nor complete list pf services with him down from Sinai. The current classifications, are only used because they happen to make some sort of sense in the current particular version of our over regulated hellhole. Change the regulations, and service classifications will change with it. Such that no two services offered by anyone, is ever exactly the same, if that is what is needed to maximize profits.
And then, as always in progressive dystopias, privileged lawyers and other self promoters are, once again, off to the races; engaging in such makework as “deeming” and “finding” and “holding” and “deciding” and “judging” which disparate services are “deemed,” “found,” “held,” “decided” and “judged” to be the same. Always per strict instructions from those with the deepest lobbying pockets, of course….
You’d really think descendants of once semi free people would see through this nonsense by now…… Let anyone, from anywhere, offer any service and any product without restriction, and costs will drop like a rock, until darned near everything is commoditized.
The closer you get to that kind of environment, the more affordable healthcare, like all else, gets. And, conversely, the further away you stray, with one harebrained regulation scheme or another, the less affordable. Things aren’t harder than that. Just like in any other field, noone benefits from meddling by privileged third parties. No matter their intentions.
You are clueless.
You think people buying fracking tech are not told the price BEFORE they purchase?
Current healthcare pricing is like driving to a gas station and filling up and then being told the cost is 50 dollars per gallon.
What is clueless, is believing the reason frac tech customers are provided with firmer price quotes than health care customers, is some sort of strange, unalterable law of nature. Which just like, happened to fall out of the sky….. Rather than simply lack of nearly as unfettered and unrestrained competition in the health care field.
Health care customers don’t specifically want to not be quoted more solid, and lower, prices. And conversely, frac tech sellers would love to be able to, after the fact, come after the customer for whatever he can bear. The difference is simply that any frac tec seller trying to pull that stunt off, would see absolutely every possible customer leave for competitors offering them better deals.
While health care is already so regulated, to cheers from idiots bent on “forcing” others, that anyone wishing to offer better deals, are de facto barred from even entering the marketplace. Ask Canadian pharmacists… Philippine nurses… Doctors from darned near anywhere… Construction companies offering more cheaper hospital beds… Legal systems less extractive than the one the health care industry is currently stuck with… etc., etc… Yet the yahoos never stop clamoring for even more competition destroying “forcing of others” by way of regulations.
72% of watchers FAVOR Trump’s ideas on immigration in the speech:
That can only mean that 72% of Americans are clueless to the fact that illegal border crossings are at a 50 year low and he’s only using fear to keep people voting against their own self interests, a successful strategy for Republicans for generations.
@Bobnoxy, you are the clueless 28%.
Who do you think was watching his speech? The sound of his wheedling, simpering voice makes my skin crawl, and I know a lot of people are with me on that. His audience was self-selected for people who aren’t repulsed by him.
Good speech by Trump. He seemed presidential but still human. And he has accomplished a lot as a president.
Worst mistake is not starting to build the wall on day 1.
The first step act is the result of Kanye and Kim Kardashian lobbying Trump to pardon some of these people who had been convicted for long prison sentences for crimes where no violence was used and this led to Trump’s daughter and Jared getting involved and things started moving and the end result was bi-partisan First step act.
At least CNN reported about the first step act and Van Jones was thanking Trump with a tear in his eye but since then CNN has returned to “trump very bad” 24/7.
Real presidents don’t look into the cameras and spout 7 obvious lies. He’s a proven fraud.
You couldn’t be more dead wrong if you spent the rest of time working on it.
Real leaders always lie. Presidents are no different. It is logically impossible for it to be otherwise. Only in the childish fantasies of uncritical, and thoroughly indoctrinated, progressive dronelings, can “good” people somehow rise to the top of any contested hierarchy. And socialism somehow work.
In the real world, where we are stuck with real people, real organizations and real leaders, lying scum rise to the top. Always, without fail. And socialism hasn’t just happened to not work in every instance in which it has been tried so far. It cannot work.
Freedom, unfettered, can. And does. Specifically because it allows the rest to simply disregard, and route around, the inevitable and unavoidable scumbags who will always be in charge, and who will insist, like everyone of their predecessors did before them, that thiiiiiiiz tiiiime, things are somehow diiiiferent. Which things of course never have been, and never will be. At least not between the last and next Big Bangs.
No, you idiot. You are dead wrong on every count. Stay stupid my friend. Very entertaining!
Oh yea not like obama nation, lying crooked hiliary, obama lapdogs brennen the muslim extremist sycophant and clapper. Not like those lies Take your pills jeez what an idiot.
Yes you fool. That group combined never lied to us 7,000 documented times in only two years. Trump is a serial liar and fraud. Only fools see others as worse. Grow the hell up.
“Worst mistake is not starting to build the wall on day 1.”
Impossible. Republicans would have never supported it. Which is why he waited for Democrats to be able to veto it: so his own party wouldn’t look bad.
It’s about grabbing power, and voting your own self interests. The Dem’s strategy is to unite blacks, Spanish Indians, other folks who identify as colored, SJW’s, prudes and Puritans, Hillaryites, slackers, and those currrently offended for any reason, to vote in policies that benefit themselves. So higher taxes for more social programs, open borders, no ICE, more affirmative action, while continuing the status quo international and financial policies.
Spanish Indians?
Non-white Hispanics are Indians. Did you think they came from Hispain? But not all Latinos are Hispanic. The Haitians are Francics.
I thought it was a superb speech rhetorically. Trump looked and sounded very presidential which made me hopeful. The question is can he pull it off? Actually reach across the aisle, compromise, and get things done? Or will he just fall back into his Fox News style lambasting of anyone who disagrees?
Did you think his lies were delivered superbly too?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’m a Trump supporter.