Obama trolls the GOP: How a not-so-lame-duck president left them bumbling - By Joan Walsh

[DonViejo]

With his modest tax proposals Obama is neither Piketty nor Robin Hood -- but here's why his SOTU riled up the right

JOAN WALSH

President Obama delivered his second to last State of the Union address with an epic combination of sweet-talking and trash-talking, cajoling and trolling. He brought us the story of Rebekah and Ben Erler, who got through some economic troubles with their family intact. “It is amazing,” Rebekah wrote the president, “what you can bounce back from when you have to…we are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times.” You knew what was coming: Yes, Americans, we too are “a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times.”

Or more specifically, we’re a strong, tight-knit family whose Republican relatives have been wrong on Russia and Iraq, clueless about climate change and can’t even get right with the pope on Cuba. When he commented, “I have no more campaigns to run,” and Republicans applauded, Obama shot back: “I know, because I’ve won both of them.”

My personal favorite Obama taunt came during his call for a minimum wage hike. “To everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.”

Anyone who tuned in expecting a conciliatory lame duck president was disappointed.

Since almost all of the president’s SOTU proposals were available for mass consumption days before the address, the night’s big questions involved theater, much of which was provided by Obama himself. But it was fun to watch Republicans frown at so many ideas they once supported. While much of the media framed Obama’s plan as a radical break from his first six years, that’s silly. I’m happy with what the president outlined, but it’s essential to say that aside from his community college proposal, he’s using mostly old-fashioned GOP ideas, though they’re DOA in this Congress.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/21/not_so_lame_duck_president_cajoles_trolls_the_gop/

[Pisces]

1. It was a great speech with great delivery. The Republicans always have egg on their face.

[Historic NY]

4. I don't think thats egg.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Walsh calls it:

"aside from his community college proposal, he’s using mostly old-fashioned GOP ideas"

[madokie]

3. Let there be no mistake

the problem the gop has with Obama is he is black

[onecaliberal]

5. ^^^^That

Watching them so disrespect POTUS makes my stomach turn. None of them could or will ever be President. They have so little respect for the country they just don't give a rip how they appear to us.

[Fred Sanders]

6. This DOA crap has to end. What happened to the power of ideas? Is that now dead, buried

beneath the rubble of ideological childishness? Cling to the lies manufactured for you by Fox, but what
happens when Fox loses all of its marginal credibility? You will then have to carry your own water. Us some Breadbags.

[vlyons]

7. What happened was Citizens United that made money = free speech

Our government has been bought and sold to the highest bidder. The Wall St sock puppets rule congress and gerrymander districts, suppress the vote, spew lies, fear monger, and thus stay in power.

[world wide wally]

8. After Obama won two elections with huge turnouts, Republicans spit in the faces

of the people who elected him and basically gave them the big finger by opposing every last thing he ever even tried to do.
Now, when the Republicans won the Senate because of gerrymandering with the smallest turnout in history, they revere the "will of the people"
See? ... They are coming around

[still_one]

13. The Senate was not won by gerrymandering. That is not how the Senate races are.

[Stargazer99]

14. I personally think the Senate was won by underhanded tactics in electronic voting

At gut level I feel the Republicans have pulled some stunts in electronic voting
too many odd things have happened like votes reversing, "disappearing", etc
If the pentagon can be hacked why does any one think the company with definite conservative Republican leanings are impervious?
Logic tells you something smells

[still_one]

16. that is a different issue, and has some validity at least indirectly, but voter turnout did not help

at all

[world wide wally]

18. True, but it is how the house is won and it was the lowest turnout in history

[still_one]

21. Turnout was a big factor

[1StrongBlackMan]

9. Welll ...

The plan is pro-family, pro-child, pro-work — and most of it only goes to the middle class, not the poor (the new credits aren’t refundable for low-income people who don’t pay taxes).

This should come as some surprise to tax-preparers (every where) and the 6.2 million poor people that received the Earned Income Tax Credit.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=2505

[SunSeeker]

10. Yup, and it expands the Earned Income Tax Credit to those without children.

Obama's plan helps the poor and the whole economy.

[1StrongBlackMan]

12. Why is it so easy for the left to repeat rightwing frames? ...

in this case, the poor do not pay taxes.

[SunSeeker]

19. Yup. The poor pay twice the percentage of their income in state and local taxes than the rich.

The rich do pay a higher percentage of their income in federal income taxes. However, the poor pay a higher percentage of their income in the form of sales taxes, payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare), and state and local taxes. In fact, the poorest 20 percent of Americans paid an average of 10.9 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while the top 1 percent pay only 5.4 percent of their income to state and local taxes. http://www.cnbc.com/id/102341748#

Good catch, 1StrongBlackMan. I see you're one of those rare DUers who actually reads the article.

[1StrongBlackMan]

20. And ...

Good catch, 1StrongBlackMan. I see you're one of those rare DUers who actually reads the article.

I, generally, understand what I read ... and don't ignore inaccuracies just because I like the writer (i.e., I really do like Walsh or their inaccuracy fits into the larger popular left frame (in this case, "he’s using mostly old-fashioned GOP ideas" ... which, also, is not true, in this particular case.)

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Luv me some Joan!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

15. It riled them up because he spoke BLASPHEMY....

Republicans consider Reagan to be a GOD and "Supply Side" AKA "Trickle Down" is His Gospel.

[calimary]

17. It took, what? FOUR of them to try to rebut him?

Your gang-bang went Pffffffffftttt, you thoughtless selfish greedy assholes!

I hope most of America who bothered to stay tuned after the headliner spoke saw through that.

There was such baldly obvious trickery to try to bait and switch.

Bring out the pretty farm girl with the pretty oval face and pretty smile with all those pretty teeth in it, and listen to her soothing voice! Notice her harmless "mom" hairstyle that framed that pretty face. Get soothed and lulled and thrown off-guard by that nice soft warm mellow gentle voice that didn't screech at you like sarah palin's does. And the nice warm mellow gentle platitudes - no government spending and we'll all have rainbows and candy and pretty-looking pie-in-the-sky and cake-all-day-that-doesn't-even-make-you-fat! Aw, look how she ever so slightly cocks her head. Look how she ever so gently takes on the predictable and ever-so-slight frown of DEEEEEEEP concern, with the adorable little traces of furrows in her pretty-but-now-worried brow when she spoke of subjects she wanted to portray as baaaaad. Democrat and liberal and baaaaaaad!

This isn't Story Time and you're NOT the Storybook Lady, Miss Countess of Pig Castration.

Notice her "devices." Notice that VERY well-practiced "sweet harmless disarming smile." Looks like she wouldn't hurt a flea, doesn't she? Meanwhile she wants to impeach our President and take away YOUR health care that the aforementioned President and those dreadful mean ol' Democrats changes so you could finally AFFORD to have that health care. This ain't no sweet-voiced Storybook Lady. This is a Queen-of-Wasps (Hmmmm... in more than one way, actually), Madame Scorpion. Just another scheming, selfish, cold-hearted republi-CON meanie who wants to pass whatever help you need up to the super-rich who fill her campaign coffers and need NO help whatsoever. She's another bait-n-switcher. Hiding behind that pretty face and that nice warm ever-present smile. Remember how she smiled in that campaign commercial where she spoke proudly and so charmingly about castrating pigs, with that big purty smile?

When I saw that campaign commercial, it gave me chills. This is how they THINK they're gonna appeal to women, and APPEAR more female-friendly. DON'T BE FOOLED!!!!!! DON'T LET YOUR FRIENDS BE FOOLED EITHER!!!!!

I knew she was gonna be trouble. Trouble packaged in that nice surface-treatment. That pretty face and that pretty smile, which distracts you from realizing the hideously ugly and harmful policies. She's Snow White -- DELIVERING the poisoned apple, that she herself dipped in that smoking, bubbling witch's cauldron she keeps hidden behind closed doors so all you see are the birdies and the bunnies and the pretty little fawns. She and her trolls are just hoping you won't notice. Because you'll be fixated on the pretty face and that nice warm soothing voice speaking sweet nothings through your TV screen into your living room. With that mighty pretty smile.

[freshwest]

22. Beautiful! Thanks, DonViejo.

[Cha]

23. ..