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The State Of The Union: A Little Bit Of Color

Energy independence. Iraq. The economy. Taxes. These were the issues that dominated the President’s state of the union address. But we’ll admit it: At times, our interests were elsewhere. Namely — who was that sitting next to Laura in the box? Who were the special guests? And what, in the name of all that is holy, was Loretta Sanchez wearing?

The guests: It was a crowded box, folks. Here’s a sampling of the President’s special attendees.

• Blanca Gonzalez, who lives in Miami, Fla. She is the mother of Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, a Cuban political prisoner arrested in He has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for reporting on the conditions of Cuba’s state-run services and for criticizing the government’s management.
• Former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and Donna Shalala, who served as Health and Human Services Secretary under President Clinton. The two co-chaired the commission charged with helping wounded military veterans get better health care and return to civilian life.
• Kevin Sterne, a student at Virginia Tech, who was shot twice in the right leg during the massacre there last April. He was able to stop his own bleeding to help save his life, and he has since returned to Virginia Tech to pursue a master’s degree.

This one caught our particular attention...

• Tatu Msangi, a 35-year-old single mother and registered nurse from Tanzania, and her 2-year-old daughter, Faith Mang’ehe. After discovering she was HIV-positive, Tatu enrolled in a program designed to prevent transmission from mother to child. She delivered a healthy daughter, Faith, who is HIV-free. However, under current U.S. policy, Msangi is technically barred from entering America because she has HIV. Sullivan surmises that “the administration must have found a way to get Msangi a special waiver” and suggests that her situation is another reason to support the HIV Nondiscrimination in Travel and Immigration Act of 2007. [Andrew Sullivan]

The kiss: We wonder what the blogs will be saying about this smooch.

• Before his address, it appeared as though the President received a friendly peck from a Republican Congressman — who appeared to be Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT). [Think Progress]

And finally, the failures...

• While there was no mention of human-animal hybrids by the President (darn it), it’s hard to forget all the people the Bush White House managed to fail during his years in office. Take a look at our list. [American Progress]

It’s a wrap.

The State of the Union: At Home

From earmarks to energy independence, President Bush’s state of the union address hit upon every domestic issue on the block. Here’s what he said — and what you need to know.

Energy Independence

• HE SAID: “To build a future of energy security, we must trust in the creative genius of American researchers and entrepreneurs and empower them to pioneer a new generation of clean energy technology.” [Audio, :10]
• FACT: In 2004, White House official Philip Cooney, chief of staff of its Council on Environmental Quality, doctored a report on global warming to downplay scientific warnings. (He now works for Exxon.) In 2006, NASA scientist James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, accused the White House of preventing his research from reaching the public. In October 2007, the administration altered a draft of congressional testimony to be given by Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on the negative health implications of climate change. According to a CDC source, her testimony was “eviscerated.” [AP] [NY Times] [Washington Post]

Earmarks

• HE SAID: “The people’s trust in their Government is undermined by congressional earmarks — special interest projects that are often snuck in at the last minute, without discussion or debate. Last year, I asked you to voluntarily cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. I also asked you to stop slipping earmarks into committee reports that never even come to a vote. Unfortunately, neither goal was met.” [Audio, :15]
• FACT: According to the Congressional Research Service there were 997 earmarks in the fiscal 2000 defense appropriation bill. The first defense bill signed by Mr. Bush, which funded the department for fiscal 2002, contained 1409 earmarks, a 40 percent increase. Meanwhile, two years ago, earmarks were estimated to have grown to more than $16 billion, not counting some major projects run by the Army Corp of Engineers and Pentagon. In 2007, the new Democratic-run Congress put a moratorium on earmarks pending a review of procedures. This year, they total just over $9 billion, according to the House Appropriations Committee. Defense spending bills attract more earmarks than any of the other 11 individual spending bills. [CRS]

The Economy

• HE SAID: “In the long run, Americans can be confident about our economic growth. But in the short run, we can all see that growth is slowing.” [Audio, :10]
• FACT: In its stimulus package, the White House blocked measures to get help to the people who need it the most. No increased unemployment benefits. No increase in food stamp help. No temporary boost to state health care programs. In fact, experts say that many of the proposals left on the cutting room floor—expanded unemployment benefits, expanded food stamp programs, temporary federal aid for states’ health insurance programs—are among the best ways to pump money quickly into the economy. [American Progress]
• FACT: Between December 2006 and December 2007, the national unemployment rate increased by 13.6 percent in seasonally adjusted terms, from 4.4 to 5.0 percent. The number of unemployed civilians in the United States increased by 13.2 percent between December 2006 and December 2007. [BLS]

The Rich

• HE SAID: “Wages are up, but so are prices for food and gas.” [Audio, :07]
• FACT: Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 — receiving their largest share of national income since 1928. [NY Times]

Health Care

• HE SAID: “To build a future of quality health care, we must trust patients and doctors to make medical decisions and empower them with better information and better options. We share a common goal: making health care more affordable and accessible for all Americans.” [Audio, :10]
• FACT: In 2006, America’s health care costs spiraled to an all-time high of over $2 trillion (or $7,026 per person). In a report by the World Health Organization, America ranks 37th in health care quality, despite spending more per person than any other country in the world. There were 47 million Americans living without health insurance in 2006; that’s 8.6 million more uninsured than there were in 2000. [EPI] [LA Times] [WHO]

The State of the Union is [we’ll let you fill in the blank.]

The State Of The Union: At War

The Surge

• HE SAID: “Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt. Al Qaida is on the run in Iraq, and this enemy will be defeated.” [Audio, :14]
• FACT: The surge has failed. In January 2007, President Bush announced a plan to send a 20,000-troop “surge” to Iraq to quell the violence and provide military cover while the Iraqi government took over the ruling of its own nation. The U.S. military was able to staunch much of the violence in the country—though at the price of 896 American troops killed in 2007—but the Iraqi government remains in chaos. The Iraq Inspector General calls government corruption “the second insurgency,” Parliament rarely is able to get a quorum together to conduct business, and even the Iraqi Minister of Defense says the government will be unable to take over its own security until at least 2012. [Chicago Tribune] [The Guardian]

Iraqi Political Progress

• HE SAID: “And we are seeing some encouraging signs. The national government is sharing oil revenues with the provinces. The parliament recently passed both a pension law and de-Ba’athification reform. Now they are debating a provincial powers law.” [Audio, :12]
• FACT: The de-Baathification reform, approved this month by the Iraqi Parliament under pressure from the Bush administration, has actually had the opposite effect of national reconciliation between ex-Baathists and Shiites. Instead of integrating former Baathists into the government, experts say the new legislation “is much harsher than the existing policy and a draft of the law that the United States had encouraged parliament to pass” and could lead to a new ex-Baathist purge. [Washington Post]

“Return on Success”

• HE SAID: “When we met last year, our troop levels in Iraq were on the rise. Today, because of the progress just described, we are implementing a policy of “return on success,” and the surge forces we sent to Iraq are beginning to come home.” [Audio, :10]

• FACT: The return of troops is not the sign of success, but the sign of an overstretched military.

  “Over 130,000 troops have been deployed to Iraq for nearly five years, and another 25,000 have been deployed to Afghanistan for the last six. Many of these combat units are in their third and fourth tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. While President Bush may claim that the four additional combat brigades being withdrawn from Iraq are a reward for success, in reality, their redeployment is an obligatory step in restoring military readiness.” [American Progress]

FISA

• HE SAID: “This means that if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. The Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted.” [Audio, :12]
• FACT: The FISA bill, as pointed out by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), “reduces court oversight of spying nearly to the point of symbolism. It could allow the targeting of Americans on false pretences. It opens us up to new, twisted rationales for warrantless wiretapping, which is exactly what it ought to prevent. It could allow bulk collection of the communications of millions of Americans, as soon as an administration has the wherewithal to build such an enormous dragnet. And it sets all of these deeply flawed provisions in stone for six years, depriving us of the flexibility we need to fight terrorism.” [Senator Dodd]
• FACT: Allowing it to expire will not prevent officials from continuing their wiretaps on existing targets. “Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security, said in an interview that if the August bill was allowed to expire in 10 days, intelligence officials would still be able to continue eavesdropping on already approved targets for another year under the law.” [NY Times]

Telecom Immunity

• HE SAID: “The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America.” [Audio, :06]
• FACT: Letting these companies off the hook would “result in the complete and permanent dismissal of all of the pending lawsuits arising out of this joint telecom-government lawbreaking, which would, in turn, ensure that this lawbreaking remains concealed...we would likely never find out — at least not for a long, long time — the extent of this oversight-less surveillance by our government on Americans, nor would we be able to obtain a judicial ruling as to its illegality.” [Salon]
• FACT: “Liability protection” would let companies who broke the law go without punishment. Immunity “would wipe out a series of pending lawsuits alleging violations of privacy rights by telecommunications companies that provided telephone records, summaries of e-mail traffic and other information to the government after Sept. 11, 2001, without receiving court warrants.” [Washington Post]

Time for a Strategic Reset.

The State Of The Union: Democratic Response

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius offered the Democratic response to President Bush’s State of the Union address. Here are our favorite parts:

• “In this time, normally reserved for a partisan response, I hope to offer something more – an American response. A national call to action on behalf of the struggling families in the heartland and across this great country, a wake up call to Washington on behalf of a new American majority.” [Audio, :21]
• “Governors in both parties and a large majority of the Congress are ready, right now, to provide health care to 10 million American children as a first step in overhauling our health care system. Join us, Mr. President. Sign the bill and let’s get to work.” [Audio, :16]
• “America’s foreign policy has left us with fewer allies and more enemies. Join us, Mr. President. In working together with Congress to make tough, smart decisions, we will regain our standing in the world and protect our people and interests.” [Audio, :17]

Let’s get to work.

Good News, Bad News

Drink More Pee

With water supplies tightening around the world, more and more communities are looking to “recycled sewage” as a source of potable (mmmm...drinkable) water. “Earlier this month, California approved operation of the Advanced Water Purification Facility (AWPF), the largest water reclamation plant in the nation. It will produce 70 million gallons a day of drinkable water from sewage — supplying about 10 percent of the water needed for the district’s 2.3 million residents.” Not that big a deal. [Live Science]

GOOD NEWS

“The water is as clean as and probably cleaner than standard tap water,” says Mehul Patel, principal process engineer of the Orange County Water District.

BAD NEWS

Kind of gross, but so is drowning in water bills or dying of thirst.

Quote Of The Day

Q Is the country better off now than seven years ago?

MS. PERINO: Certainly seven years ago — well, seven years ago, right before September 11th, I think that people would say that the country certainly felt better off. There’s been — once we were confronted with terrorists who would fly jumbo jets into buildings and kill thousands of our citizens in an instant, it created a sense of fear and nervousness about our security. And that’s why the President decided to take on the terrorists head on and go on the offense.

And we have done that around the world. We have been successful so far in preventing another attack on our country. But it’s not for their lack of trying. And that’s another reason why the President — tonight you’ll hear him call on Congress to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization. They have until Friday to do that, and the President sees no reason why they shouldn’t be able to get that done.

— White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, admitting the country is not better off than it was seven years ago. [White House]

Speed Round

TOXIC TRAILER SCANDAL GETS DIRTIER

Ever wonder how FEMA was able to put thousands of Katrina victims in toxic, formaldehyde-laced trailers without anyone finding out? Turns out the CDC was in on it and “suppressed repeated warnings from one of its top scientists…to conceal the long-term health risks of formaldehyde in the trailers it distributed to hurricane victims — health risks like cancer and birth defects.” [CBS News]

ARIZONA ABORTIONS

Now you can have an anti-abortion license plate in Arizona. Way to take a serious national debate and make it the equivalent of a Garfield tail hanging out of your trunk, AZ. [Reuters]

NO CONTEST

Former North Dakota Gov. Edward Schafer was confirmed as the new Secretary of Agriculture yesterday. There were no objections. [NY Times]

LOOKIN’ DOWN

Another road sign on the path to recession: US Department of Commerce figures show that sales of new US homes fell an unprecedented 26% in 2007. [BBC NEWS]

WE FEEL A LITTLE SICK

California’s push for state-wide Universal Health Care failed in committee yesterday. The bill, which had the support of both Gov. Schwarzenegger and the DemocraticAssembly Speaker would have provided health care to millions of Californians. [Reuters]

DECEASED

President of the Mormon church Gordon Hinckley, considered by Mormons to be a living prophet and apostle, died Sunday. He was 97.[BBC NEWS]

EXPENSIVE PASSAGE

Start saving those pennies. Expect major toll increases in the near future while driving on our nation’s highways.[USA TODAY]

SUDAN

The UN forces that are supposed to restore peace to Darfur will take a full year to deploy. “It is the first time the UN has said there could be such a long delay.” [BBC]

PROGRESS

According to a report on child development, Black and Hispanic children have made significant gains in income, health, and safety over the past 2 decades. [USA TODAY]

JUST PLAIN SHADY

In a fantastic display of blame-shifting, Blackwater files a $30 million malpractice suit against its own lawyers for not doing a good enough job spinning the truth in a wrongful death suit.[THE BLOTTER]

CASUALTIES OF WAR

Five American troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Northern Iraq yesterday. [ABC News]

STIMULUS PACKAGE

The Senate wants to add benefits aimed at seniors to the new stimulus package, allowing people living on their Social Security checks to feel the relief. [CNN]

ETHICS LAW

Call it the unseen consequences of good intentions: Alaska state Rep. Richard Foster needs a kidney transplant. An aide to one of his fellow congressmen wants to give him one and is a match. The problem: Under the new Alaskan ethics law, the maximum worth of legislative gifts is $250. [Anchorage Daily News]

4,000

Number of mine safety violations the Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration has failed to act on over the last 6 years. [WV Gazette]

7,000

Number of American kids every year rushed to the ER after ODing on cold medicines. [Reuters]

OUCH

Under heavy pressure from students, New England prep school Choate Rosemary Hall has decided to cancel Karl Rove’s address at its commencement ceremony this year. [AP]

$4,000

The price of “security, airfare, and first class accommodations” for former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at an upcoming speech at Washington University in St. Louis. “Gonzales will receive a payment of $30,000 for his speech. [Student Life]

WAR

“The Bush administration will ask Congress next week for $70 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other related operations for part of the 2009 fiscal year, the Pentagon said on Monday.” [Reuters]