MR PRESIDENT, WOULD YOU PLEASE

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The State of the Union Address by United States President Joe Biden before the Joint Session of the 118th Congress on Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 6 pm, PST/9 pm EST live streamed on BBC for about 73 minutes.

BIDEN STAYS TRUE TO COLORS AND PITCHES LEFT OF CENTER FOR VOTES

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The show ain’t over ‘till it’s over, and it ain’t gonna be over any time soon, said President Fighting Joe, about the State of the Union in the United States of America.

With a lot of the world and a lot of the nation falling into irrevocable chaos, United States President Joe Biden came out on Tuesday night swinging success.

The nation is always all good on Tuesdays because it has to be with the next day being Wednesday, and Wednesday just happening to be ‘anything can happen day’.

But seriously folks, President Joe Biden spoke for the Middle Class Tuesday tonight, at least those Americans that should be from the middle who are a bit left of center. In America, the left of center middle class includes independent business owners and hardworking union members keeping American productivity competitive with Europe, Japan and China. 

Fighting Joe knows that without a happy union workforce you don’t get a ‘Made in America’ motor vehicle that works properly, and incumbent Joe don’t get re-elected next time around.

The vitriol is all the norm during State of the Union Addresses except during the President Jimmy Carter Administration when the intergenerational peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia was just too humble and just too plane down to earth to lead anybody astray with vitriol.

Biden started his address by noting a few firsts: Nancy Pelosi was not standing behind the President for the first time in a long time. If Nancy was not there, John Boehner always seemed to be there, especially when Biden was Vice President standing beside him like Vice President Kamala Harris was standing beside Pelosi’s replacement on Tuesday night. House Speaker Paul Ryan used to stand behind President Donald Trump. But anywho, now Republican Kevin McCarthy stands beside Vice President Kamala Harris who stand together behind President Joe Biden during the State of the Union Addresses, at least when they are not sitting.

McCarthy was not the first Republican Speaker of the House, but I am pretty sure he was one of the first in the chamber tonight rehearsing his key lines written down in note form in front of him, that he still had to read from when the show went live, that’s how newbie and nervous he was.

It may be a while before McCarthy gets his self-confidence back after requiring 15 ballots over what seemed like two weeks but was actually four days when he had to woo 19 Republican votes before being elected by the Republican Majority as Speaker of the House on January 7, 2023.

After all those troubles and tribulations, McCarthy though had very few lines to say during the Address. What became clear though is that if Hollywood every makes a movie about his ordeal, that Josh Lucas should be cast as McCarthy.

Biden also gave black Congressman Hakeem Jeffries a nod as the first black House Minority Leader (Democrat), replacing Pelosi.

Biden spoke longer than President Obama, but he had fallen short at 73 minutes to the long winded Address by President Donald Trump in 2020, oh, my, I mean February 5, 2019 for 82 minutes, which I swear had got to be the longest ever.

No wonder the middle class collapsed with the big bad wolf going from house to house during the 2017 to 2020.

Trump was elsewhere unmentioned during Biden’s speech. When I heard Biden talk about bringing jobs back to America, I heard Trump. When I heard Biden talk about using ‘Made in America’ materials for government infrastructure products, I heard Trump.

That’s fine though, it takes a good, strong character to accept some good ideas coming from the presence of an adversary.

And that’s what Biden is to America, after a long career in public service as a representative of the people in Washington, DC.

Trump would talk about and implement tax cuts for the rich and some of his friends as a way of trickling the economy from the top down. 

Biden talks about and implements policy that stimulate low and middle income households and thereby feeding the economy from the bottom up. Biden is distinctly left of the middle, whereas Obama was a bit more to the right of ‘left of middle’, and Trump was well over the line in the corner right nursing his rural votes of good honest hard working Americans who steadfastly believe in the trickledown effect economy.

The working class poor who have matured into poor retired seniors in America were also mentioned, including the military veterans.

The Administration has legislated price caps of $35 per month on diabetes medication for seniors on Medicare. Biden claims that a vial of insulin can be produced and package for about $13, while big pharma is charging seniors on Medicare $400 per month. What’s even more sideways is that Medicare pays for the medication and Medicare is a federal government funded program. One in 10 Americans have diabetes.

Even more shocking is that veterans are taking their own lives at the pace of 17 lives per day in America, or 6,146 suicides among veterans in 2020, totaling so far 30,177 9/11 war operations veterans. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars took 7000 US Military lives in the combat zone.

Post-traumatic stress syndrome forever changes a veteran especially after returning home to America.

Biden also had a laundry list of policies meant to help the middle class and the impoverished indentured class, such as creating a minimum corporate tax of 15% and could’a, should’a maybe make the 1000 billionaires pay the same personal tax as the teachers and nurses.

Mr. President also talked about getting rid of junk fees and hidden fees such as requiring airlines to show the full price of an airline ticket prior to the purchase.

Americans will also have the right to unionize with the Pro Act (Protecting the Right to Organize Act), if the proposed legislation ever clears both Houses.

Still, even with that proposal, McCarthy had nothing to say in opposition, sitting right behind Mr. President for all 73 minutes. 

Biden too wants to go after the criminal syndicates that stole billions of dollars in covid relief checks and government funding.

McCarthy again said nothing in opposition about that.

I could hear Trump though, going on and on about how, if Biden mentions building a border wall, he might have a bit of a bird on the golf course tomorrow in Florida.