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Better make that 2020. It's even worse than it looks.

Medicare seems vulnerable, and that's wrong.

Management is about setting concrete goals:

• No goal to restore the employment to population percent to what it was prior to the meltdown.
• No goal for CO2 reduction. Just a fuzzy target for energy efficiency- fuzzy because "wasted energy" is not quantifiable.
• No goal for breakup of the to big to fail financial institutions who caused, and profitted from the meltdown.
• No concrete proposal for multi branch oversight of military actions against what was alluded to as a conflict without end against terrorist threats.
• No proposed remedy for House district gerrymandering.
• No call for aggressive reforms needed to sweep away the unconstitutional procedural requirement of a 60 vote Senate super majority to pass measures.

It was exceptionally timid. A disaster because Obama's "Ask" was set so self-defeatingly low.
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I was flabbergasted.

John Messerly,

That's true, the speech covered too much and at the same time, not enough of the really salient points. It was surprising. An excellent speech, but it was too big of a plate full to fit some of the more important things into.

That 60 vote business is really important; without that, little else he mentioned will get done.

John, you must have heard a different speech than I did. He was more specific than you were with your "No goal" etc. list. What are your goals and proposals? Have you communicated them to your congressional representatives?

@JohnMesserly:

Those liberals and progressives who are flabbergasted have not come to terms with the fact that Obama is a republican poser sent to betray the most fundamental demand of the 2007 presidential election, -a demand that the USA end all involvement in foreign conflicts.

His refusal to investigate or prosecute allegations of torture of war detainees was a pivotal "gift" to republicans that revealed his true nature. His use of the CIA drone program to prosecute illegitimate and undeclared "permanent war" against any person or persons he designates as the enemy is just icing on the neoconservative cake.

In spite of all that you have seen, you can't quite get your head around the idea that Obama is a really really conservative democrat. -So conservative in fact that his policies and his actions fit better with the republican party than they do with the party that was fooled into electing him. Right?

We have been fooled and betrayed by a poser.

Jimes, you must have been reading a different note than I posted. I called for

• Breakup of the too big to fail financial institutions
• Restoring the Employment to Population ratio to what it was prior to the meltdown (which was 63%)
• Multibranch oversight of military action against terrorists. I have multiple notes on maddowblog going into detail on what that would look like. In short, the administration would have to prove to a multimember judge panel that military action against an individual or group of individuals was justified based on the evidence. This includes any form of lethal action in non war zones- whether via drone strike or manned mission.
• What is unclear about demanding concrete CO2 emissions targets for our nation? In order to prevent catastrophic climate change, James Hansen is calling for 2020 emissions to be 42% what they were in 1990. What is so difficult about the President naming a specific percentage and challenging the US to meet or beat that target? Why did Obama refuse to be specific about using EPA mechanisms to effectively implement a cap and trade system and bypass congress? (If you are unclear on this mechanism and its constitutionality, Hayes described it tonight.) What was abundantly clear was that Obama does not take the threat of climate change seriously enough to call for a national mobilization similar to that of a major war. Obama could have mentioned his plans for the XL pipeline. If he approves it, he could state the cap on CO2 emissions allowed from burning that energy, and challenge US industry to meet that goal. Export of that energy to countries not agreeing to those measurable caps should be prohibited.
• Any proposal for district gerrymandering. My specific proposal made in several posts here is to vote for representatives using the system that Cambridge MA uses, Ireland, Australia and Malta uses to elect representatives. All House seats would be district-less "at large" seats, and allocated based on proportional vote. The specific ranked voting scheme is known as transferable vote, or more technically the Hare–Clark system invented 150 years ago and advocated at the time by John Stuart Mill. A Youtube with a good illustration of the scheme may be found here. Earlier today, I made a legal argument that if the conservatives on the court rule that gerrymandering cases are nonjudiciable, logically this means that any district scheme represents an unconstitutional block of the Court's responsibility to defend protected One Man One vote rights of US citizens.

I neglected to touch on immigration reform. There was an opportunity to categorically reject the idea that there will be a second class of residents in the US. Some businesses want undocumented jobs because that way they do not have to comply with minimum wage and labor law restrictions. Everyone working in the US should be a citizen or on the pathway to citizenship with full protection of their labor rights as anyone else. Period. The President simply could have devoted a single sentence rejecting the notion of second class status to any resident and left it at that. He declined. He is a cautious man and he chose caution.
Although I don't agree with Kiev's assessment (clearly Hillary is to the right of Obama as are the blue dogs), Obama is clearly in the right wing of the Dem Party. Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian has been excellent in his coverage of the Obama administrations refusal to prosecute Wall Street or those responsible for torture during the Bush years. Matt Taibi at Rolling stone has been excellent covering the refusal of Obama to do anything significant to reform Wall Street. I acknowledge Obama is far better than Hillary or many other Dems. But besides the question of which issues he chooses to go to the mat for, he appears to me to be unaggressive.
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Although he has been forceful on occasion, Obama's habit is not to take bold policy responses on the enormous multi-generational challenges facing the US: Climate Change, Jobs, Wall Street reform, electoral reform. Admittedly, a different man may not have become the first non white president. Admittedly, I demand a lot of our national leaders.
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We cannot lower the bar for anyone, and I am not making a point about civics and expectations of leaders. If for no other reason, we cannot lower the bar because the challenges facing our country are dire.

Why not fine the people paying less than minimum wage? We wouldn't want to jail a "job creator", but we could impose a monetary penalty on anyone paying less than minimum wage. We could have a hotline, like 1-800-LOW-PAYR, and offer a reward for people exposing the violators.

A low bar? How about this for a low bar....

“If Congress refuses to obey its own rules, if Congress refuses to pass a budget, if Congress refuses to read the bills, then I say: Sweep the place clean. Limit their terms and send them home!” - Rand Paul.

Is that really too much too ask of our representatives?

The funny thing is blanks, Rand Paul would be out of a job too. Which is a good thing.

@JohnMesserly:

"I don't agree with Kiev's assessment (clearly Hillary is to the right of Obama as are the blue dogs)..."

I think you conveniently confuse their campaign positions from the 2007 election with post-election reality. Obama campaigned to the left of Hillary, but he has governed to the right of GW Bush. We didn't vote for that. Impeach the man. He is not a democrat and NEVER WAS.

What causes you to believe that Hillary would not also govern to the right of her campaign positions? I don't see much daylight between Bill and Hillary's positions. Given the same circumstances, I have little doubt that Hillary would have signed Doma, signed the Glass Steagal repeal, and participated in the shreading of the safety net in time for the meltdown of 2008 when those programs were sorely needed.

If Hillary's positions are different, she has ample time to make some clear speeches on policy. The experience of the past decade has provided many reasons for her to repudiate her past positions. Has she or not?

@JohnMesserly:

Hillary has a much longer history of being to the left of the policies of the current and previous governments than Obama has. As a candidate in 2007, Hillary did run to the right of her existing record. This was a traditional approach.

Obama ran to Hillary's left in the primary. This was especially apparent on the issue of health care reform legislation. This tactical position helped Obama garner base support from democrats that otherwise would have been Hillary's. The convenient fact that Obama was a black candidate also helped him divide the democratic base. These two things plus republican crossover support for Obama in open primary states assured Obama a win in the PRIMARY, which was where the 2007 election was actually decided. The general election was guaranteed to go against the republican candidate, so the republicans had to win the democratic primary. They did.

Once you understand this, all the rest makes sense.

"I don't see much daylight between Bill and Hillary's positions."

The proper question is do you see daylight between Obama and Bill Clinton's positions?

Look at Bill Clinton and George H. Bush The Elder. Both refused to invade and occupy Iraq. In terms of general policy both refused to do what Dick Cheney and the Heritage Foundation supported in the mid east. Enter GW Bush and Obama. Both are doing exactly what Dick Cheney and the Heritage Foundation want done in the mid east. Did the public vote for that?

There's one thing I do believe puts daylight between Hillary and Obama. Hillary wishes to represent the democratic will of the people. The reason you are disappointed with Obama is your sense that he doesn't care what the people think. Here you are right. Obama doesn't give a tinkers damn about what the people want. His only goal was to fool the people just long enough to beat Hillary in the 2007 primary, thus becoming president by default in the general election, -so he could complete Cheney's unfinished agenda for regime change in the mid east and protect republicans and other vulnerable conservatives from investigation of torture.

In a nut shell, that's why you are unhappy and it's why I'm angry. And the worst part is we've got 4 more years of this bull@!$%# ahead of us.

I'll make a prediction for you John:

Before he leaves office 4 years from now, Obama will find a reason to justify issuing a full presidential pardon to Scooter Libby. That's the kind of man I think we have elected as a democrat. That's the kind of man we have made chief law enforcement officer of the United States.

That's right, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Where Bush only commuted Libby's sentence, Obama will finally wipe clean his legal slate and repair his reputation with a full presidential pardon.

And when that happens, you know what I'm going to say? ~"Fool me once, shame on you..." I bet you know how the rest goes. My point is this: We absolutely have to build more assurances and more confidence into our party nomination process, or we might as well not bother voting.

Those on the right are remorseless in their determination to make the next four years as bad as they can.

Further restricting the right to bear arms is a bad idea. We have a defense industry consuming over 600 billion dollars a year of our tax money. They have admitted in Congressional hearings to be a "military in search of a mission" in some years to justify the size of their budget. President Eisenhower directly warned us about the influence of the Military Industrial Complex. The danger of a huge, well armed, overbearing government is exactly why our founders wanted to keep the right to bear arms. Not because of hunting or recreational uses, but to guard against the power of future tyrants.

When our country is so safe and well run that our military budget is down to the size of Canada's, then maybe we could talk about our citizens reducing their arms holdings. Until then, stick to your guns.

@David Butz-

When many more Americans are killed each year by other Americans than by foreigners, even during wartime, isn't that a bit of a problem?

And our military budget can never be the size of Canada's, no matter how well our country is run. Canada will never have the target on its back that we have on ours. Get real.

KJ...,

Those on the right have little or no use for objective reality.

I wondered about that,, :>)

With this Dornan thing going on, are they going to cut to the SOTU?

It's only been the "Maddow Blow" since Benen took it over.

It's fixed, now.

:P

For those who have been paying the least bit of attention, "Maddow Blow" refers to the massive charge of energy one is infected with after a certain adorable host gives us our daily fix of news and insightful perspective.

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Though it is habit forming, the nice thing about #maddowblow is that it isn't illegal yet.

Meaning no disrespect to those killed and injured, but, I swear this was a movie, once.

The parallels are uncanny. The fire seems rather convenient.

It's a serious fire, he's not coming out of this one.

He's not above torching a stranger to end the pursuit. Don't trust him.

He thought it clashed with his "Flag pin"

Or his orange skin.

It's "cops and robbers" with the reporters, the FBI profiler, and the pundit at play. Sorry for the loss of life, but five straight hours of coverage waiting for resolution to this pursuit of a fugitive reminded me of tabloid journalism, not breaking news.

How kind of MSNBC to cut away from a MUCH more important story

Oh, I see you fixed it.

No way it was a typo, -the "G" and "W" are not close to each other.

Therefore I'm assuming it is a new drink. -Couldn't have been that other thing...

Wonder if he'll get hauled out by the Secret Service. He's awfully good at running his mouth.

Halloween? Or just summer colors? Would like to see both items actually work!!

We would like to see the orange badges, our "Problem Solver" pin, work too! These badges represent that the member of Congress wearing this pin is committed to end the gridlock. You can join the forty-five congressional problem solvers who are working right now to make Washington stop fighting and start fixing at our website, NoLabels.org/SOTU #fixnotfight

@nolabelsorg:

You're part of the problem!!! Until you stop allowing ridiculous false equivalencies to be propagated in the name of "a pox on both their houses", nothing can change. Right now, you are calling for the nation to accept that the only "middle ground" is the equidistant point between batcrap crazy and moderate. Until you start calling the batcrap for what it is and realize that the current crop of DC Democrats are ALREADY the responsible moderates you're pining for, you will continue to be part of the problem. A budget isn't an end in itself, and a batcrap budget is worse than continuing resolutions.

@We need to color coordinate better people:

What will we do with the rest?

It's called diversity, and I don't think we need designer diversity.