US Constitution, Article II, Section 3

[Of the President:]

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; ...

Bolds mine. Reproduced here for the benefit of the GOPer ratfucking bastards in the House of Representatives, who are thinking of blocking the State of the Union.

Look, muthafuckas, it doesn't matter if you reject it. It doesn't even matter if the President reads it in front of you; Washington himself sent a written document. It doesn't matter if the issues it addresses are of no interest to you; it's the President's baby entirely. It doesn't even have to be annually delivered; that's just tradition. It is a constitutional duty of the President to provide you with "Information of the State of the Union". If s/he does that, in a manner of his/her choosing, the presidential duty has been fulfilled, and you have no legitimate complaint against the President.

If you 'fuckas would spend a tenth the time on constructive legislation in cooperation with the President that you spend soiling yourselves and your constituents with the crap you spew in symbolic gestures, the nation might survive another century. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for you to do that... only to avoid smelling your crap.

The Enemy Of My Enemy — Can A Left-Right Populist Alliance Overthrow The Parties And The Wall Street Establishment?

The Parties are over broken

Robert Reich thinks it's possible. In a post titled "The Six Principles of the New Populism (and the Establishment’s Nightmare)" Reich asserts that there are at least six items on which the Tea Party and the increasingly disempowered progressive wing of the Democratic Party can agree, items which might serve as a basis for an active populism that would save America from its ongoing and apparently never-ending economic recession. (When can we stop being polite and call it a depression, which seems a more accurate name to me?)

The six items are big enough (break up the big banks; resurrect Glass-Steagall; end corporate welfare; rein in the NSA; put brakes on America's overseas interventions; stop corporate-crafted trade agreements), and Reich offers evidence of support for them from left-wing populists and right-wing populists.

I would love to see this work. What a concept... a popular takeover of an aging, failing democracy! But of course I have some cautionary words:

• Left populists and right populists share no goals, only means. Any such alliance would be temporary at best, and the aftermath of the breakup may be difficult to say the least.
• Right populists cannot be trusted. Will they follow through on their promises? only as far as those freely made promises further their goals, which are not the same goals... see above.
• Establishment parties and related institutions have ways of getting what they want in the face of all sorts of adversity. One of the main ways they have is money. In this respect, there is less difference than you might think between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Dems have done absolutely nothing to support their left-leaning progressives, and the Tea Party appears to be supported primarily by obscenely wealthy individuals whose goals overlap those of the membership only as far as they serve the interests of the wealthy supporters.

In other words, it's a great idea, but how can it be pulled off for an extended enough period to make any real dent in establishment institutions and ambitions?

Obama Rescinds Offer To Cut Medicare, Social Security As Tea Party Insists On No New Taxes

The great schism in the Republican Party has led to the abandonment of the so-called Grand Bargain. Obama withdrew his offer to cut Social Security and Medicare in response to the Tea Party's refusal to offer $800 billion in new tax revenues.

It should never have come to this: Obama should never have put the laws best loved by nearly all Americans (even Republicans not wearing tea bags) on the table in the first place. But he did, in hopes of getting new tax revenues from the GOP. But the Tea Party wing of the increasingly extreme Republican Party wouldn't hear of it. And so we owe thanks, to Obama for finally figuring out reality, and to the Tea Party for being so goddamned stupid as to think the whole world is going to cave to their political desires with no concessions on their part.

Food Stamps Cut By $8 Billion

We're supposed to be grateful: the GOPers wanted to whack $39 billion. I wonder how many of the Tea Party Starve-The-Poor caucus actually opened their Bibles to find out how Supply-Side Jesus told them to justify what they did. Failures as human beings; that's what they are... just plain evil, not merely ignorant.

BTW, altogether too many Democrats voted for the farm bill in spite of the food stamp cuts in it. Shame knows no political party.