State of the Union was absolutely wild. I Think one of the or at least my favorite part of the State of the Union was absolutely when Mitt Romney called out the fraud George Asantos this was fantastic. Now of course I'll go through my thoughts on the entire State of the Union but I have to play you this clip First of: Mitt Romney Responding to comments from reporters asking why did you say to George Santos you shouldn't be here Now this exchange. Initially, the exchange between Mitt Romney and George Santos some folks were looking at that going oh is Mitt Romney actually acknowledging George Santos George Santos is sort of that.

that famous uh, liar in Congress right now here I gave a little outline over here. although this is a list not including everything on George Santos George Santos says he went to college, didn't actually go to college, says he went to a prestigious prep school, didn't actually go to prestigious Prep School says he worked at Citibank and later worked at Goldman Sacks on Wall Street Both of those were not true, says he ran a charity and took donations for sick dogs. That turned out not to be true. Apparently his mother died twice.

once in 9, 11 and once in another convenience or opportunity for him to talk about his mother's death. Apparently he's got a whole host of other lies as well, and he potentially even worked for a Ponzi scheme. So this guy George Santos is basically a full-on fraud. Anyway, you've got Mitt Romney Uh, who responds to reporters here? Let's take a listen into this.

and then we'll talk about broadly the State of Union Some of the drama that unfolded at the State of the Union because boy oh boy, it sounded a whole lot more like something out of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom when Boris Johnson is trying to make an argument or Liz trust is trying to make an argument and everybody starts screaming and shouting. We'll talk about that in just a moment. But first, let's listen to what. Mitt Romney Had to say yeah, thank you I Didn't expect that he'd be standing there trying to shake hands with every senator in the president.

United States That's the guy. Given the fact that he's under an investigation and she's sitting in the back road staying quiet. instead of uh, parading in front of the president and uh, and and people coming into the room, he says he, you know that he embellished This Record Look, embellishing is saying you've got an A When you get an A minus. lying is saying you you graduated from a college you didn't even attend and he shouldn't be in Congress and uh, they're going to go through the process and hopefully get him out and uh, but he shouldn't be there and if he had any shame at all, he wouldn't be there.

Why did you make a point to say that though? I mean I mean it was kind of out of your way. He was standing right there. in the aisle shaking hands with everybody. Did he respond to you? uh, he may have I didn't hear it.

All right? We're gonna pull off this here. So this is Mitt Romney Making it very clear. Look, there's a difference between an embellishment and an outright lie. George Santos Obviously has been very clearly labeled as a liar.

and what a lot of people? Uh, well, a lot of people were extremely frustrated that. So when let me put it this way, when the President walks in for the state of the Union, he walks in through one of the alleys of of the House of uh Representatives So you've got the House chamber and the doors open and uh, you know here comes Uh, you know you get the music that comes on. the Patriotic music that comes on. Yeah and the President walks in and starts shaking hands with everybody.

Anyway, the aisle seats of that aisle the President walks down are really confident people. Really, They try to sit in those aisle seats, so that way they have an opportunity to shake hands with all the Senators who are invited from the Senate chambers into the house. Chambers and of course the justices who walk in, the military generals who walk in, and eventually the President. So George Santos Somebody a lot of folks think should not be there because he's a lion.

scumbag, takes one of those coveted aisle seats and starts shaking hands with everybody. That really pissed people off at the State of the Union. So that was probably one of the biggest sort of scandals at the State of the Union. Followed of course by Marjorie Taylor Green standing up and shouting uh, multiple times and and a voicing sort of or making the the face with her her mouth that Joe Biden was a liar.

uh, there was a particular and that ended up going trending on the internet. Uh, but I think one of the most uh uh, agitating pieces to her. uh, which you could see that photo? let's see. Oh, of course, there we go.

Let's get that photo up right here you can see here giving a thumbs down here. and uh, I did kind of a little bit of an odd clip here with Joe Biden pointing a finger back. but anyway, you've got uh, uh and and that's not to be uh, construed as the middle finger just sort of pointing at. But anyway, you, you've got Marjorie Taylor Green uh, shouting out a liar and a big old thumbs down and this ended up coming out because uh, Joe Biden This was a little bit of a stretch.

Joe Biden ends up calling on uh Republicans suggesting that Republicans want to Sunset or cut Social Security and Medicare This led to an uproar. uh, people ending up shouting that Joe Biden was a liar and people ending up clapping at the people who were yelling at Joe Biden. So this was a little tense, and the reason it was tense was because yeah, Joe Biden went a little too far here. It's been very, very clear from a leadership on the Republican side that no one is planning cuts to Social Security and Medicare Yeah, there have been previous suggestions that Social Security and Medicare and entitlement programs should have had Cuts even Ron DeSantis.

Back in 2014 and earlier in his career suggested that there should be cuts to Social Security and Medicare, but in this cycle it's been very clear and Republicans have been United that as part of debt ceiling and debt limit negotiations, cuts to Social, Security and Medicare are off the table. Donald Trump has suggested there should be no Cuts McCarthy has suggested there should be no Cuts GOP Leadership otherwise has suggested no cuts. and this is despite the fact that Medicare's a trust fund could basically be insolvent by 2026. essentially not enough money to cover their expenses, and Social Security could be insolvent by 2033.

So obviously there's need for some form of Reform here, and it's being caught up in the debt ceiling negotiation. The fact that it got caught up in the debt ceiling negotiation was a perfect opportunity for Joe Biden to take a stab. But probably not the best since it's not exactly what is being discussed anyway, so not a good idea what Republicans are though discussing is they are talking about potentially cutting agency spending like cutting spending. especially to the Department of Defense specifically because Republicans want? well, they want about 20 in cuts from agencies here somewhere around 195 billion dollars of Department of Defense cuts, particularly because they're not the biggest fan of sending more money to Ukraine.

Uh, then you are looking for potential not Cuts but potentially changes to Social Security and Medicare in terms of Eligibility. Some folks are construing that as cuts under the Uh 80 million dollars uh authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act for the IRS Republicans are arguing that money should be cut from here, so that way we don't have to raise the debt limit as much and that the IRS should actually be shrunk again and not made larger as it was obviously that's unlikely to happen. Republicans are looking to claw back about 157 billion dollars of covet. Aid They want to actually tighten the border.

That led to an uproar as well. During the State of the Union, there were suggestions about Joe Biden uh, working on legal immigration working to secure the border and that we've got a Fentanyl crisis That led to some Republicans shouting out that the reason we have a fentanyl crisis is because Joe Biden's been failing at doing his job and actually securing the Border Uh which In fairness is. the legal border crossings have been skyrocketing and uh, unfortunately. uh.

This has in part led to an increase in uh, Fentanyl? uh, the Fentanyl disaster that we're facing. Especially in California You're seeing a lot of that California schools now authorizing in certain districts students to carry Narcan which is the antidote for Fentanyl overdoses. It's it's a whole disaster. Fentanyl is probably the biggest drug disaster that we're facing right now.

Uh, certainly biggest new drug disaster that we're facing right now anyway. Uh, then you've got some more Republican arguments such as hey, look, if we're going to fight about the debt ceiling, we should talk about better work requirements if you're going to be receiving food stamps or welfare. although there are already work requirements for these programs Republicans Just want to take that to the next level. And then of course there are some Republicans that suggest we should just dig in and not raise the debt ceiling.

Of course you heard. Jerome Powell Talk about not even the money printer can save the US economy from the pitfalls of not raising the debt ceiling and then defaulting on our debt, implying that we would have a full-on crisis and financial crisis if we didn't raise the debt ceiling. So there's really no option but to raise the debt ceiling. But this catches you up a little bit on some of the debates that are going on now.

It's also worth noting that the Associated Press ran a poll right before. Uh, well, it was I shouldn't say right before it was about a week ago asking Democrats if if Joe Biden should end up running again last year. 52 percent of Democrats suggested Joe Biden should run again this year, just a week before the State of the Union, only 37 percent of Democrats think that Joe Biden should run again. This is leading to the idea that maybe people like Katie Porter uh or uh, even someone like Gavin Newsom might end up trying to run against Joe Biden in 2024 And a lot of people.

Honestly, and it sounds kind of evil, but a lot of people were looking at this state of the Union speech hoping that Joe Biden would prove that he's just an old, feeble old man who stumbles over a speech and has trouble reading the teleprompter and they were going to use that as ammunition to suggest that he's not capable of running for president again. Unfortunately for those people, Joe Biden actually did pretty dang good in terms of not stumbling. Don't get me wrong, this is not to say his entire speech and everything he said was good just to say there were that like there were really gaffes, he didn't really screw up his speech, he was clearly well prepared, and he, you know he didn't give people that ammunition that they were hoping for That here's the feeble old man running the State of the Union that didn't end up happening. Now that's not to say you didn't have Kevin McCarthy Acting like he was born and falling asleep.

although he was mostly respectful. Kamala Harris was Mrs Jump up and down and clap at everything. You didn't have any kind of talk about crypto. We're really the only limited talk you had about the stock market.

Well, yeah, you had no talk about crypto at all. But the only real talk that you ended up having about the stock market was this idea that, uh, democrats should pass a stock buyback tax that is four times as large as the current stock buyback tax. Current stock buyback tax is about one percent. So in other words, if a company does, uh, let's say a hundred dollars of stock BuyBacks they pay 1 one dollar in tax that's been nominal.

Companies have been increasing their stock BuyBacks Like crazy. especially at these lower prices. You have companies like Enphase Apple Starbucks Everyone's talking about stock BuyBacks Especially profitable companies, especially at a time where the stock market has been pretty, uh, pretty beat up. So a lot of talk about stock.

BuyBacks And it's very unlikely that any kind of quadrupling of the corporate buyback tax is going to happen. It's unlikely that the billionaire tax is going to happen. Some sort of tax on unrealized capital gains? Very unlikely. Joe Biden Talked about passing the Pro Act.

This basically expands the rights to Unionize McCarthy Shook his head no at this. Obviously unlikely that this is going to happen, especially with Republicans in control of the house. Talked about uh, how in order to get to an electric vehicle and a more sustainable energy future, we're going to rely on oil and gas a lot more. That led to Applause which is actually honestly the very correct way to look at it.

Look, we need clean and efficient oil and gas as much as possible to get to a green future, right? So I actually ran as Governor in California under the premise that we should allow our natural gas refineries in California to upgrade their stupid dumb 1970s technology to technology that's actually efficient and would make natural gas more efficient. So that way we have a cheaper and more reliable energy Grid in California So that way while having a stable grid, we could build more housing and we could increase our investments into a green future. of course. Californians for example California Democrats or at least the California Democratic Leadership because I think most people in California are reasonable since the government is a terribly unreasonable out here.

But anyway, uh, the California government stance is nope, no Investments at all into natural gas because it's not 100 green which is completely moronic. So it was actually a good thing that you saw Joe Biden mention. Look, we need clean and efficient oil and gas to get to a green future. He's absolutely right about this and this actually led to Applause from the right as well.

So this is pretty good. I Actually appreciated that he talked a little bit about like Resort fee fees and pricing for Airlines and junk fees on credit cards. uh, nominal little things to make people feel good. Did bring up the tire Nichols A disaster.

Uh, talking about police reform, holding police departments accountable for police brutality? Uh, look. I Completely agree. There needs to be a lot more of an investment into uh, training on de-escalation and elevating the role of of a proper law enforcing and de-escalating rather than kind of turning it into this, uh, this, uh, sort of cowboy-esque style of policing where where it's almost, uh, entertaining and and enjoyable to beat up on people because of the stop resisting argument. look I was a law enforcement Explorer for three years.

I'll tell you, the first thing you do in law enforcement is, even if somebody's not resisting, you just start shouting, stop resisting because it looks good for the camera and it's bad. Okay, that's not the kind of stuff that should be happening. It's terrible, it's it's quite frankly, in many regards, disgusting. Uh, and uh.

And it really, it's It's just a matter of more training that's that's required. But it's difficult because police departments, they're seeing their funding get caught. Uh, not only are they seeing that, but not a lot of people want to become cops. Right now, it's a big problem.

Uh, being a cop like when I was a police explorer uh, 13 years ago and and I went on ride alongside non-stop with law enforcement. It was actually respected. People would wave at cops. You know it was a respectable position.

a profession. Now it's not. I mean over the last, uh, certainly four years, it's become an extreme hot potato. and police departments are actually seeing quality.

Uh uh, people no longer apply for Police Department positions because of the reputation that police are under. so it's it's a terrible situation. anyway. Joe Biden talked about codifying Roe V Wade that's obviously not going to happen under divided Congress this has to do with abortion.

This is one of the few times Joe Biden actually mentioned the word abortion. Uh, then you had uh, you know, calls on more legal immigration and Asylum obviously this led to some anger. again about the Border uh Biden obviously talked about how strong his economy is and this of course is very frequently hit with uh, you know, responses like and this is just so debatable. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but it's very, very common for people to make uh, the statement that well Joe Biden talks about how great the economy is and how he shouldn't be responsible for inflation.

but the reality is, inflation was low before he got into office. This then leads to some people on the left saying hey, Will Donald Trump passed most of the stimulus uh in a bipartisan manner for covet and then of course it leads to other people saying well, so did Joe Biden When he got into office, the first thing he did was pass more stimulus and then of course people throw up chat charts like this where they say well, look at the chart, you know there's the line where Biden takes office on the right and when he takes office, what happens Inflation skyrockets and then of course again, this is where people say well, of course because inflation is a lagging effect of printing all the money we do. The reality is both Republicans and Democrats are responsible for the massive amount of money printing we did. We have not seen a crisis like uh, the Covet pandemic for over 100 years, So it's no surprise that our government and uh, and monetary systems panicked uh, printed way too much money.

It was a mistake. I think honestly, uh, everybody knows better at this point that that's not the way to respond. uh, but uh, you know, blaming just one side for the inflation I think is just an uneducated argument and it doesn't really go very far with me. But anyway, look, the State of the Union happened.

That's my summary on it. Hopefully you appreciated my summary and now I'm gonna move on.