Clinton restored the stature of American diplomacy around the world. Trump asked Russia to find her hacked emails and interfere with the US presidential election.
#youdecide
Foreign policy bona fides
Trump’s trial balloons
Mike Flynn leading chants of “lock her up!” from the RNC podium was a test for tolerance of persecution of political opponents. We don’t do that in this country. At least, not in modern times we haven’t.
Each new boundary pushed is a test for when we’ll snap, or when the base will have finally gone too far. We haven’t hit it yet. They’re snarling; out for blood.
SOTU word cloud: Make work, America. Obama OUT!
Some of the more interesting bits
From Obama‘s State of the Union speech, 2015:
- End of Afghanistan “mission”
- Appeal to double down on middle-class economics
- Increase availability and provide tax credit for quality childcare
- Getting paid sick leave laws on the books
- Wage equality
- Raising the minimum wage — “If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it.”
- Lowering cost of community college to free
- Asks companies to provide more job training, hire more veterans
- Bi-partisan infrastructure plan to attract businesses / industries
- Trade deals in Asia, Europe — “95 percent of the world’s customers live outside our borders, and we can’t close ourselves off from those opportunities.”
- Precision Medicine Initiative — pursuing cures for cancer, diabetes; personalized health information
- Free, open, and fast Internet
- Colonizing space — “not just to visit, but to stay.”
- Closing corporate tax loopholes brokered by lobbyists
- Opposing Russia, supporting Ukraine
- Opening relations with Cuba
- Halting Iran’s nuclear program
- Legislation around cyberattacks, identity theft, and child data
- Pursuing climate change solutions, including getting China to commit to limiting their emissions for the first time
- Free speech; religious rights; LGBT rights
- Shutting down Guantanamo
- Transparency on surveillance; civil liberties vs. counter-terrorism
- Marriage equality
- American values vs. partisanship
- Plea for a better politics
- Appeal to debate and reason on divisive issues: abortion rights, immigration, voting rights, police brutality
- Mic drop — “I have no more campaigns to run.”
President Obama’s tech-centered State of the Union: full text, and digital rights concerns – Boing Boing. p.s. cool visualization of Twitter mentions during the speech (via srogers @ cartodb)
