State of the Union open thread

Maddow just mocked Capito (4.00 / 1)

During her midnight hour show, Rachel Maddow just mocked that despite being "Co-Founder of the House Civility Caucus", Rep. Capito had the following comment about the bi-partisan seating during the speech.

"But really, for the average citizen, they don't give a rip where we sit," Capito said in an interview.

Actually, I think Capito has a point, but the hypocrisy of the "civility caucus" shows through.  Especially for someone who, despite being a sitting member of Congress, had the temerity to claim the "EPA is lynching people every day" during a statewide interview with Hoppy Kercheval last Friday. That comment is not very "civil" in my book.

In a good conversation everyone speaks.  In a great conversation some even listen.

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by: Wabi-Sabi @ Wed Jan 26, 2011 at 06:17:47 AM UTC

I thought the speech sounded great. (4.00 / 1)

Not so sure about the content though.

I think we certainly need to invest in our infrastructure, but I'm not really sure it's responsible for our economic decline.

To me it would be more a reason for people to live here, sort of a quality of life thing more than an economic thing.

Although I could sort of see how if we had a high speed rail that ran from Ashland to Pittsburg that it might help a lot of people who live in bumfuct WV to commute to a high employment area yet still maintain the rural lifestyle.

He seemed to focus on education and personal responsibiltiy as a reason we were falling behind, yet I can't put my finger on the link, but seems as I recall there was some sort of a study that said that a high % age of future jobs in WV won't even require a college degree.

I'm an Appalachian so all I can do is see it thru the WV experience.

I know tons of people with degrees who've moved out of state to find jobs, so really education is only part of the issue.

Then I've known a lot of jobs and businesses in WV that are dependant on the money from the gov't. Stores that people on disability or teachers or gov't employees buy at.
So the freeze on spending, I can't see how it can't do anything but hurt WV economy.

The infrastructure thing is a good idea that might bring some jobs here but I'm not really seeing any big bump in jobs related to expanding broadband they did, nor do I have broadband where I can get it yet.

Then on his embrace of the malpractice reform thing. I've seen a lot of stuff like that pass before but I've not seen any big reduction in rates or cost of medical services so far. Manchin passed something that was supposed to make auto insurance go down and my rates stayed the same.

Hey, and while we are on it why do conservatives and Obama apparently think that the right to sue is not a free market concept and limiting lawsuits is not "socialisim"???

To me if you want to reduce malpractice suits then you want to have big money awards to where doctors and hospitals make sure to institute quality control???

In my experiences with the health care system it seems that far more people are injured and never seek compensation and also the average doctor or nurse caring for a patient actually knows less about them and is less competant than my mechanic is about my car.

India and China are moving up, but there's still tons of peasants and dirt poor uneducated people in their countries compared to the US.

I really think the best thing for the US was for them to actually move up further so their citizens would demand better wages and benefits and then we would have more of a competitive advantage over them.

Anyway, SOTU was OK but I don't think Obama at this point is "getting" that  the problem with the economy is the middle class doesn't have enough $$ to throw around and get our economy going. He's succumbed to the supply side thinking and the US is not moving back up anytime soon IMO.

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by: Hollowdweller @ Thu Jan 27, 2011 at 16:15:14 PM UTC