YouTube has a snippet from MSNBC respectfully titled Bernie Responds to the State of the Union. There is a post on The Friends Of Bernie Sanders Facebook page where you can join the conversation about this video.

In Sander’s answer about TPP, he failed to mention that if Obama would respond to Sanders’ request and let Sanders have a peek at what was in the TPP, then at least he could make judgments about the TPP from more than just leaks about what is in it. Middle-class friendly Obama will let the titans of industry write the treaty, but he won’t let members of Congress see it. Makes me pretty sure Obama is hiding something that he knows the Progressives and the American public cannot accept.

The treaty is so bad that Obama has to twist the arms of our trading partners to the point of breaking, and they still don’t want it. I guess this is called diplomacy in Obama’s eyes. (Why do they hate us so?)

Morning Joe really only wants answers to question framed in a way that makes Republicans look good and Progressives look bad. Even though Sanders was too polite, he did manage to turn those questions upside-down.

Why were they interested in who might run for President on the Republican side, but seemingly uninterested on who would run on the Democratic side?

The American Prospect has the article The Politics of Gesture by Robert Kuttner. “None of Obama’s proposals will fundamentally change the distribution of wealth and power in America.”

These initiatives are welcome. It probably sounds churlish to say that measures such as these should have come much earlier in his presidency, and could have been a lot stronger. Late in the game, when there is no risk that his proposals will be enacted, Obama is belatedly pursuing policies that seek to underscore the differences between Democrats and Republicans in terms of the practical situation of regular people.
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The White House policy of business-as-usual for Wall Street plus marginally increased help for working families calls to mind a very useful British expression—”horse and rabbit stew,” a supposedly equal ragout made from one horse and one rabbit.

When you add it all up, it still amounts to Rubinism, the ideology associated with America’s most influential Wall Street Democrat, Robert Rubin. The former Goldman Sachs co-chair, later chair of the executive committee of Citigroup—with a stint as Clinton economic policy czar and later treasury secretary in between—had a neat formula for serving the interests of Wall Street while signaling concern for America’s struggling working families.

The policy was one part financial deregulation and trade deals crafted to enable banks and corporations to outrun the constraints of domestic law. The other part was small-bore initiatives to signal help for ordinary working families. Such proposals are unobjectionable, except for the fact that they don’t fundamentally change the political economy of American inequality.

If Hillary Clinton should be the next president, we run the risk of having Rubinism as the dominant Democratic economic ideology for three successive Democratic presidencies—and we will keep wondering why working people increasingly give up on Democrats and on government itself. (While Obama is cautiously proposing some modest spending initiatives, Bill Clinton keeps on showing up at events sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, sounding the alarms about the federal deficit.)

Kuttner is right.  The concept of horse and rabbit stew is quite useful.  In this country we are getting elephant and donkey stew.

I just got an email from Democracy For America with the subject “State of the Union: Imagine if President Warren gave it?”

I am too lazy to post it all here, so I will just give you some selected excerpts.

Wow. That might have been the most progressive State of the Union speech that President Obama has ever given.

Tonight, President Obama used his State of the Union to promote a number of unabashedly populist, progressive ideas, from cutting taxes for middle class families to giving workers more paid time off and making some college tuition-free.

“It’s now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next fifteen years, and for decades to come,” he said. “Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?”

Elizabeth Warren has been leading the charge on issues like income inequality and student debt for years. Now, finally, the rest of the Democratic Party — and even the President — seem to be catching up.

That’s why Democracy for America, along with our friends at MoveOn, launched our Run Warren Run campaign. Because if Elizabeth Warren has this much influence over the Democratic Party agenda as a Senator, just imagine the progressive changes she could make happen as president.

Democracy For America is not just a cheerleader.  They also have a discerning eye.

The speech had its shortcomings, of course. President Obama’s request for trade promotion authority to pass the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership is tremendously disappointing. Previous trade deals haven’t just failed lived up to the hype, they’ve cost Americans’ jobs, destroyed communities, and ripped apart families. Elizabeth Warren opposes that bad trade deal — another reason why we need her to run for president.

Finally, the bottom line:

We believe that income inequality is the greatest crisis we face as a nation today, and we’re thrilled to see the president proposing bold steps to address it. But President Obama won’t be president for much longer.

We can’t afford to go backwards: We need to make sure that we have a candidate in 2016 who will fight for working families, even when — especially when — that means making deep-pocketed Wall Street donors and corporations uncomfortable. We need Elizabeth Warren.

Now, imagine if President Hillary Clinton gave the speech.  What do you think she would say?  Do you have any evidence from her previous behavior to back that up?

Here is the video that everyone is talking about.  It must have happened after the President lost me, and I turned off the speech.  How come nobody told me about this?

Score 1 for Obama.

Bloomberg News has the article Allies Line Up Against Obama’s State of the Union Plea on Trade.

The difficult battle ahead to win the so-called fast-track authority he is asking for was illustrated by opponents — including Democrats and labor leaders — who began issuing statements before Obama had even finished speaking.
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The Asia trade agreement is a sweeping deal covering not only tariffs but other policies affecting trade such as intellectual property protection and data flows. It could eventually benefit companies as diverse as International Business Machines Corp., Caterpillar Inc. (CAT), Boeing Co. (BA) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE)

Labor unions, including the AFL-CIO, and other groups have attacked the legislation on a variety of fronts. They have argued the deals reflect a corporate agenda rather than one supported by the public, that they are negotiated in too much secrecy, and that they underpin a global economy that has dragged down wages in the U.S.

At least Bloomberg acknowledges that there are issues with the “trade” pact.  However, we can’t expect much more from a big corporate business news source that helped make Michael Bloomberg into a billionaire.

It is a pretty good example of how to lie with balanced reporting.  The term intellectual property protection is a seemingly laudable goal.  In reality it is euphemism for giving US corporate oligarchs an unfair advantage that other countries refuse to give them.

Not reported in this story is the power that the TPP gives to corporations to overturn environmental, labor, health, and safety laws and regulations in any signatory country.  That’s the definition of a corporate agenda that would not be supported by the public if the public knew about it.

I guess that Bloomberg doesn’t see any point  in bothering you with the details.

Here is a simple BS detector that you can apply to this issue.  If this treaty is so great, then why won’t the Obama administration let progressive Democrats see what is in the secret treaty, but he readily allows corporate titans to not only see the treaty, but to write the treaty itself? If Obama has nothing to hide, then why is he trying so hard to hide it?  Doesn’t it make you even a little suspicious  that all you have to go on is his word that it is great, but he doesn’t want you to see it?

Here is an email I just received from Elizabeth Warren.

Subject:	We build it together
Date:	Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:39:21 +0000
From:	Elizabeth Warren <info@elizabethwarren.com>
To:	Steven Greenberg

Steven, Nobody got rich on their own. Nobody. Sure, people who built great businesses worked hard. Most successful entrepreneurs worked their tails off. But those businesses need good soil to grow – and that meant they need roads and bridges to get their goods to market, dependable and affordable power grids, access to clean water and safe sewers, up-to-date communications – the kind of basic infrastructure that we build together. Coming out of the Great Depression, we built those roads and bridges and power grids that helped businesses grow right here in America. We plowed money into our future, and as those businesses grew, they created great jobs here at home. But by the 1980s, our country sharply cut back on making those investments in our future, and now we’re getting left behind. Today China spends 9% of its GDP on infrastructure. Europe spends about 5% of its GDP on infrastructure. They are building a future for their businesses – and better jobs for their people. But the United States is investing only 2.4% and looking for more ways to make cuts. Today, the American Society of Civil Engineers says we have about $3.6 trillion worth of deferred maintenance, repairs and upgrading – and every day we’re falling behind. That’s why my colleagues and I are calling on Congress to make improving our infrastructure a top priority this year. Will you join us? Focus for a minute on just one piece of this: highways and mass transit. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials says a highway bill would create 8 million jobs over the next four years. A highway bill could put people to work in good jobs right now and fix crumbling roads and bridges that will support future businesses and future jobs – right here in America. We know how to create the basic building blocks for a strong economy and a strong middle class. We celebrated success, but we always paid ahead, making sure that the basic conditions would be right so the next generation could do even better. We did it before, and we can do it again. Join me in calling on Congress to invest in American infrastructure in 2015. Sign our petition now. Thank you for being a part of this, Elizabeth All content © 2014 Elizabeth for MA, All Rights Reserved PO Box 290568 Boston, MA 02129 Paid for by Elizabeth for MA

I like this sort of campaign better than the one that the Democratic Party and Barack Obama has been waging lately. This is a single issue that I can get behind and support. Barack Obama and the Democratic Party want me to sign a petition saying that I support everything Obama stands for. They don’t give you a chance to even tell them about the parts of Obama’s plan that you cannot support. Therefore, the only vote I can take on their pleas is NO.

Well, I have been watching the State of the Union Address.  Most of the discussion about economics was not bad.  Of course claiming that negotiating a trade agreement that the Congress is not allowed to see, but big corporations are writing for us is NOT a way to benefit middle-class wage earners in our country or any other country.

Raising taxes by eliminating unfair loopholes for the oligarchs is a great idea.  It takes from their grasp the money they are storing up to destabilize our economy.  However, balancing the budget with this money is an extremely bad idea. (See my previous post Replacing the Budget Constraint with an Inflation Constraint.)  Perhaps Bernie Sanders and his new chief economist on the Senate Budget Committee can finally knock some sense into the President’s head and into the heads of all Democratic candidates who might run for President in 2016. (See my previous post Is It Time for MMT To Become Mainstream to Save Us from the Second Global Financial Crisis of the Millennium? which links to the article Bernie Sanders opens a new front in the battle for the future of the Democratic Party.)

When the President got to foreign policy, he talked about using diplomacy as well as military power, but every initiative he wanted Congress to pass was an authorization to use the military.  He talked about opposing Russia in the Ukraine even though that problem was fomented by our giant corporations trying to gain unfair economic advantage.  I don’t see how applying our military might to aid the profits of our oligarchs helps the middle-class in this country or any other country.

Perhaps the President would have gotten around to talking about non-military efforts such as reaching agreements with Iran and easing pressure on the Cuban people.  But my BS limit had been exceeded, and I just had to turn it off.

The unfortunate upshot of this speech is that everything that the President proposed and I support will not make it through Congress.  Everything that the President proposed that I vehemently oppose will sail through the Congress, and be approved by the President.  So maybe calling this so-so was far too high praise to give this speech.

The rest of you can comment, and tell me what, if anything, I missed.

The New York Times, that bastion of journalistic rectitude, has the story Fox News Becomes the Unwilling Star of a French TV Satire.

Fox was abject in its apologies, as was Mr. Emerson. Julie Banderas, a Fox anchor, said that “over the course of this last week, we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France.”

“Now this applies especially to discussions of so-called no-go zones, areas where non-Muslims allegedly are not allowed in and police supposedly won’t go,” Ms. Banderas continued. “To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.”

I know it has been cold around here, but I had no idea that Hell had frozen over.

The Washington Post has the story A signal of distaste for dynasties bodes ill for Bush, Clinton.  The story concerned a focus group session in Colorado.

The two-hour session, moderated by Democratic pollster Peter Hart for the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, turned upside down much of the conversation about the coming presidential campaign, where Bush and Clinton occupy so much space.
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“Elizabeth Warren, from every part on the compass, had a level of support,” he said. “She’s not invisible. She’s not unknown. She’s not undefined.” And, he added, she has reached them on the issue that so many spoke about, which was their own economic concerns.

“You couldn’t leave this without feeling how hard-pressed these people are and how they’re looking for someone who will be a voice for their cause,” he said. “And Elizabeth Warren has broken through.”

That, he added, was wholly unexpected when the focus group was organized.

It was interesting to read how some of the people came to their understanding of what was going on in the country with regular people.

According to the group Ready for Warren,

Sharing news like this is one of the best and easiest ways to show Senator Warren and the world just how much momentum there is behind the draft Warren movement.

So, I am sharing this with you.  If you want Elizabeth Warren to run for President nearly as much as I do, please share the story with your friends, too.

The Washington Post has the story Elizabeth Warren: It’s time to work on America’s agenda.

But the lobbyists’ agenda is not America’s agenda. Americans are deeply suspicious of trade deals negotiated in secret, with chief executives invited into the room while the workers whose jobs are on the line are locked outside. They have been burned enough times on tax deals that carefully protect the tender fannies of billionaires and big oil and other big political donors, while working families just get hammered. They are appalled by Wall Street banks that got taxpayer bailouts and now whine that the laws are too tough, even as they rake in billions in profits. If cutting deals means helping big corporations, Wall Street banks and the already-powerful, that isn’t a victory for the American people — it’s just another round of the same old rigged game.

Thanks for Ready For Warren for posting this on their Facebook page. They chose to emphasize a different excerpt from what I chose.

Chris Van Hollen, with his puny shift of $1.2 trillion over ten years from the ultra wealthy to the middle-class (and not so much to the poor), is not the big thinker that this newspaper says he is. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are the big thinkers. And Bernie Sanders is even ahead of Elizabeth Warren in the thought size department. Did you see who he appointed as Chief Economist for the Minority on the Senate Budget Committee? Her name is Stephanie Kelton, and she is a big thinker. Having the smarts to appoint her as chief economist shows what a big thinker Bernie Sanders is. Appointing her also shows how courageous he is.

See my previous post Democrats, in a stark shift in messaging, to make big tax-break pitch for middle class to understand why I compare her to Chris Van Hollen.