SOTU 2015

Watching Obama give a speech is a painful experience and the State of the Union address last week was no different. I am so tired of hearing people gush about what a great orator or speaker he is. He is not. He drops his voice like a thud at the end of short, choppy sentences, and when he makes gestures, drops his left hand on the podium, which thumps the microphone in a frustratingly irritating manner.

He bounced up to the podium as he always does like Mr. Cool Guy trying to appear jovial, casual and relaxed. The problem is we are not in a jovial, casual or relaxed time in history. His attitude was Nixonian in its arrogance and defiance. His whole manner was disturbing at best.

If you were hoping to hear anything of real substance you probably came away disappointed. Obama said nothing new. It's the same old speech he's been giving for five years, same failed ideas, same false claims of a great economy, a great foreign policy, and the respect of the world. The speech was a fraud, full of contradictions, mythical statistics, and a perverted sense of what is good.

It's time to turn the page and remake America, he said. What? What has he been doing for the last six years? That's the same message he was preaching in 2008. Or is he saying it's time to turn around the train wreck we've been on for the last six years and get back to where we were? If only that were true.

It was no surprise that he touted the economy. In fairness, every president will take credit for a good economy. Remember how Clinton took credit for the 1994 Republican Revolution reforms that led to the greatest economic boom in our history? (Remember also how liberals blamed Bush for the recession that followed the economic bubble that Clinton created with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac unsecured loans that burst as he was going out of office?)

Obama claimed that last year we had the fastest job growth since 1999. What he left out is that this recovery is the slowest recovery from a recession in American history. He also conveniently forgot to mention that there are still fewer people working today than when he took office, and the labor participation rate has dropped from 66.4% in 2009 to 62.7% today, the lowest rate since 1978, and that the net gains are in part time jobs, not full time. Ninety-two million Americans are out of work, and the number of people receiving food stamps has gone from 33 million in 2008 to 46 million today, an increase of 29%. He wants to raise the minimum wage because families can't survive on the current minimum level. They won't survive on 15 dollars an hour either if the only work they can get is part time.

Obama shamelessly took credit for the drop in oil prices and touted the success of solar and wind energy. People seem to have forgotten that in 2008 he told us to expect seven dollar a gallon gas. His policies were never designed to lower gasoline prices, but rather to cripple the energy industry. It has taken five years for him to conduct an environmental study on the XL pipeline and he still refuses to approve it, even though 70% of the country is in favor of it. He threatened to veto any bill approving it because he wants a comprehensive bill to cover other forms of energy including trains, bridges and infrastructure. Right. If you believe that I've got swamp land to sell you.

If he was really interested in helping the country he would take what he could get and work for the rest, not hold the pipeline hostage to his failed wind policies (Remember the bankrupt Solyndra?) while he destroys the coal industry. The reality is, oil has come down because of private industry research and development. Almost all of the new oil and gas deposits have been found on private land. Obama has refused to open up government lands for exploration or off shore drilling. The potential oil in ANWR in Alaska is so great it alone would make America energy independent, but it's inaccessible thanks to a government cowed by environmental nut cases.

The reality of the recovery is that it was the two stimulus packages Obama pushed through in 2009 (Remember the ones that he scared the Democrat controlled Congress into passing to prevent the entire economy from collapsing?) that have held up the recovery. The reason we are finally seeing a little light now is that the government infusion of money in failed efforts to stimulate the economy are past, the deficit has come down, and private enterprise is finally able to get back on its feet. Without the stimulus packages the recovery would have been complete four years ago.

Obama also shamelessly touted the deficit, which he has "cut" in half. What he and all his lapdog worshippers ignore is that the 590 billion dollar deficit last year was still 150 billion higher than President Bush's worst budget deficit, which Obama called "irresponsible and unpatriotic." And he's only cut in half the monstrous deficit he created. What is also lost in his view of the deficit is that the national debt is now over 18 trillion dollars, double in six years what it was when Obama took office.

Obama continued to praise obamacare, which, he said, brought health care rates to the lowest level in fifty years. The comment received no Republican applause and shouldn't have received any. The average American under obamacare will pay over $6000 a year for health insurance. Before obamacare the average American was paying under $4800.

Time and again Obama sounded like a Republican (which all liberals do when campaigning). He said the country works great when government doesn't get in their way. It's the free enterprise argument. The problem is, Obama doesn't believe it. His big government policies (Remember "You didn't build it?") have stifled the recovery and the growth of small businesses.

One of the greatest strains on the economy is illegal immigration and the porous border that Obama refuses to secure. But Obama promised to veto any immigration bill that would overturn his executive orders. He said we all need to work together to see that everyone gets a fair shot. We should not be allowed to just share in success, we should also contribute to success. In other words, redistribute the wealth by paying more taxes.

Along with this socialist idea he added universal child care, guaranteed paid sick leave, tax cuts up to $3000 per child, and equal pay for women who do equal work. He ignored the IRS scandal and how to deal with it, and the Equal Pay Act, passed in 1963 and signed by Kennedy, which already guarantees equal pay for women.

He praised military members for their service and challenged businesses to find them work, but failed to mention the reason so many servicemen and women need jobs is because he is systematically gutting the military and sending them home.

Obama said he wasn't going to make this speech a laundry list of wants, but by the time it was over he had demanded quite a few items including free community college education. He wants to pay for it by closing loopholes that give tax breaks to lobbyists and the rich. What loopholes he didn't say, but he wants to reward companies that will bring their businesses back to the U.S. from China. How he wants to reward them wasn't clear either, but the best way to start bringing them home would be to end the stifling taxes and OSHA regulations that drove them away in the first place. He talked a lot about tax reform, but made no mention of reforming the scandal ridden IRS.

Up to this point his address was pretty much what I expected; rehashing the same one-liners and spin drivel we've been hearing for the last six years. But building up to the finish it was the most galling piece of lily-livered hypocritical tripe I've ever heard. He actually defended his cowardly leadership from behind. He called it the smarter strategy of diplomacy and threatened to veto any legislation to toughen sanctions on Iran. He insisted we must give the diplomatic efforts a chance to work.

Let's see. He was unable to get Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions with his softer, gentler diplomacy, so he loosened the sanctions that were about to put Iran under in order to get them to stop work on their centrifuges. Six months was agreed upon in order to come up with a treaty. Then it was extended six months. And then it was extended six months again. In June, no doubt, there will be no agreement and it will be extended again. All the while Iran continues to work toward nuclear power while Obama in Jimmy Carterish blindness claims they have stopped.

He then criticized America's embargo of Cuba and claimed that if after fifty years a policy isn't working it's time to try something else. Well, duh! Something else should have been tightening the sanctions against Cuba, not surrendering the store to the last hold out of the Cold War.

Obama then claimed that American air strikes are turning back ISIL (He continues to use the title for ISIS that recognizes their right to claim Palestine.), and then asked Congress for authority to send troops to fight them. This is the war Obama claims to have ended. A year ago he said ISIS was the JV, and when he authorized air strikes he and Secretary of State Kerry promised there would be "no boots on the ground." Now he's asking to put boots on the ground to restart the war that Bush won and he gave away. He said it's time we stand down from our war setting while he's gearing up to start another war.

He talked about standing up to the bankrupt ideology of violent extremism, and although he did use the word "terrorism" once in the speech, he refused to link it to Islam or to mention Al Qaeda. Last year he boasted of success in Yemen, but this year never mentioned the country even though its leader was being overthrown as Obama spoke. Neither did he say anything about the Al Qaeda terrorist attack in France the week before.

Obama lectured us that we don't lead with bluster, but with firmness and resolve. Well, first of all, Putin has taken the Crimea and moved into Ukraine with a whole lot of bluster, challenging Obama's firmness and resolve and finding it to be wanting. The reality is, you need a little bluster to reassure your allies (Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!), because the lack of bluster exposes your lack of firmness and resolve. Bluster worked pretty good for Reagan. It won the Cold War.

Then he turned to Climate Change. The theory that the earth is warming up has been so debunked that even Al Gore has stopped talking about it, but Obama brought it up again. All scientists believe it, he said. Really? Fourteen of the last fifteen years are the hottest on record, he said. Really? The facts used on those studies were manipulated to a pre-determined outcome, as the leaked e-mails back in 2009 proved, and the only scientists still preaching it are those being paid to. Average temperatures have actually gone down ten years in a row according to other meteorological scientists. But Obama will veto anything that challenges the "progress" he's made in battling the weather. He's not only a narcissist, he's got a God complex.

Obama claims our pillar of leadership is based on our values. Then he gave us a most mixed up explanation that had nothing to do with values. We need to use drones with the proper constraint. Why? If you're going to use them, why not send overwhelming numbers and win the war? He said we must reject Muslim stereotypes. Why? Every major terrorist attack in the world in the last twenty years has been done by Muslim terrorists. You're not going to win the War on Terror if you don't identify your enemy and send him to blazes. He failed to condemn ISIS for killing women, children, Christians, and gays. He again insisted on closing Guantanamo because "that's not who we are."

Well, who the heck are we? He praised as an accomplishment of our values system the overturning of traditional marriage by the courts in favor of gay marriage, even though the majority of Americans are against it. He held up a woman's right to choose for health care (meaning abortion on demand) as another pillar of our values. Then he said the right to vote is sacred and is denied to too many. What was he talking about? Who has been denied the vote? Democrats and their illegal immigrant stooges voted, some as many as three times in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia in the 2012 election. Who was denied?

He finished with a rah-rah about America's greatness and in his only biblical reference in the speech decided that we are our brother's keeper. Of course, in liberalese, that means not you and me, but big government nanny state.

In defiance of the recent election in which all of his policies including obamacare were resoundly rejected by the American public, he then said he has two years left to do what he thinks best. Work with me, he said, and I'll work with you. He hasn't worked with the Republicans for the last six years. What makes anybody think he will now? He wants America to unite. Why? He's been the greatest divider the nation has seen since the Civil War. With another dividing reference to Furguson, Missouri, he wants us to let the children know that every life matters. What about the lives of the unborn? Planned Parenthood received over half a billion dollars last year from the government to continue to be the nation's largest abortion provider.

He said we've laid a new foundation of remaking America. Wait a minute. That was his plan in 2008. You mean after six years he's only laid the foundation? The only thing left for his remaking of America is its destruction.

This was the stupidest, most anti-American speech ever given by a president before Congress. It was the most arrogant, self-serving pack of lies ever foisted on America, and he ought to be impeached for it. Obama doesn't care about you. He says he wants to equalize the playing field by redistributing the wealth. Socialism, as Joe the Plumber pointed out. But Obama has increased his personal wealth over a thousand percent from a little over one million dollars in 2008 to over 13 million now. Do you think he's going to give any of his wealth to level the playing field? He's living like a king, spending over a billion dollars in travel expenses galavanting all over the world to play golf while he ignores world wide crises that need his attention.

Wake up America. If the Republicans don't stand up to Obama over the next two years we may not have a country left to stand up for. These are the times that are trying our souls. These are the times that are going to prove whether we can turn our country back to constitutional government and the God of our Forefathers, or whether we deserve the leadership we elected in 2008 and 2012 and the continued fall headlong to destruction.