State of the Union - Text

This is from the Houston Chronicle and is as prepared for delivery to the press corps: here.

In a system of two parties, two chambers and two elected branches, there will always be differences and debate.
Well, glad we are entirely a system of two parties... No need to talk about the Green, Constitution, or Reform parties I guess...

The only way to protect our people, the only way to secure the peace, the only way to control our destiny is by our leadership, so the United States of America will continue to lead.
But is the rest of the world really interested in continuing to follow our lead? Did I miss something? Did we lead Palestinians to elect Hamas so heavily into their government? ( I wonder how long until they, as a democracy, attack Israel, as a democracy, and all the stupid punditry about 'No democracy has ever attacked another democracy' will finally be over with. )

At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea and Iran...
Syria - 18,448,752
Zimbabwe - 12,746,990
North Korea - 22,912,177
Burma - 42,909,464
Iran - 68,017,860
China - 1,306,313,812 ( Oh wait, we don't talk about them anymore... )

Their (Bin Laden and friends) aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world.
Uh... Huh? Lets see... Iraq used to be a secular ( non-religious ) government, which actually considered Bin Laden to be a dangerous religious nut... Now we have... Let's see, the dominant party in Iraq ( over half the population ) is the religious Shiite party ( with their ties to Iran ) and they will likely take over the nation ( though in true American democratic fashion, we are trying to strong-arm the minority 20% or so Sunni faction into a stronger political position ). Even if the Shiites do take control, Islamic priests don't like Bin Laden either as his behavior usurps centuries of tradition as he attempts to declare 'fatwahs' and 'jihads' upon his own, rights which under Islamic religious law only priests can do.

By allowing radical Islam to work its will by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself, we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals, or even in our own courage.
Or, maybe, we could be saying 'Hey, we respect your religious differences and will stop trying to impose our western imperialism upon you by ramming our culture down your throat or bombing your cities.'

America rejects the false comfort of isolationism.
Bullshit alert! Okay, name one politician or political figure in America who in the past year has advocated Isolationism? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Yeah... This is called a 'straw man'. Lets set up an easy target to poke holes in so we can make all the crap that follows from this statement sound good.

We remain on the offensive in Afghanistan, where a fine president and national assembly are fighting terror while building the institutions of a new democracy.
"Watch me claim this as a victory while I fail to mention that the three formerly unfriendly terrorist groups based in Afghanistan have actually agreed to join forces and are working togethor now. Also, I'll cleverly avoid mentioning the continued deployment of NATO forces there since, really, the government only controls a couple of cities and the nation as a whole is still a free-fire zone..."

And we are on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory.
I thought we already won, didn't your landing on that aircraft career and that banner reading "Mission Accomplished" mean we won? We have a plan? Plan for what? Strong-arming the political majority in the nation into accepting a government that doesn't represent them because it is what we want and we should be the final arbitrators of their democracy?

Second, we are continuing reconstruction efforts and helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy, so all Iraqis can experience the benefits of freedom.
Because no democratic government is ever corrupt! *cough* *cough* Abramoff *cough*

The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home.
... in pine wood boxes or in medical helicopters to where they can learn to use their prosthetics properly.

Staff Sergeant Dan Clay's wife, Lisa, and his mom and dad, Sara Jo and Bud, are with us this evening.
And they sooo did not look happy to be there.

Our offensive against terror involves more than military action. Ultimately, the only way to defeat the terrorists is to defeat their dark vision of hatred and fear by offering the hopeful alternative of political freedom and peaceful change.
... and the threat of us bombing them back to the stone-age if they don't toe the line.

The Palestinian people have voted in elections; now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism and work for lasting peace.
And while we are making wishes, I'd like a pony too!

We also show compassion abroad because regions overwhelmed by poverty, corruption and despair are sources of terrorism, organized crime, human trafficking and the drug trade.
"Note that I am talking about 'abroad'. Domestic povery, corruption and despair will continue to be ignored."

Fortunately, this nation has superb professionals in law enforcement, intelligence, the military and homeland security. These men and women are dedicating their lives to protecting us all, and they deserve our support and our thanks. They also deserve the same tools they already use to fight drug trafficking and organized crime, so I ask you to reauthorize the Patriot Act.
Maybe I missed something... Since when did the DEA have the authority to perform secret searches of peoples homes without probable cause and just on the grounds of 'suspicion', when did we allow law enforcement officers opposing the drug trade to jail non-citizens without cause or trial, or allowed spying and violation of attorney-client privelage? Uh... Some serious bullshit there. The Patriot Act goes soo much further and impinges upon sooo much of the Bill of Rights.

In the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million new jobs, more than Japan and the European Union combined.
Okay... 4.6 million new jobs, which are largely low-paying service industry jobs, alongside the loss of at least 2.7 million manufacturing jobs since 2000 ( that many were lost by the end of 2003 ) and the loss of over a million tech sector jobs by the end of 2003. So, maybe a net gain of 900k jobs, but doubtful since the numbers I was looking at for job loss and the general employment decline were dated back to 2003, 2004 was worse for the tech sector then 2003 was and I know in the Pacific Northwest at least that the tech sector is still slowly hemorraging jobs overseas. As well, manufacturing jobs continue to disappear, such as the Ford announcement just a few days ago.

This year my budget will cut it again, and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities.
Among the programs that are going to be suffering funding cuts are:
HOPE VI Program
Housing for Persons With Disabilities
Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS Program
Public Housing
Section 202 Housing for the Elderly

But since you are likely unemployed, or on welfare, to be part of those programs don't worry. Or rather, we won't worry as your lobbying efforts are likely to be inconsequential. We are just hoping you'll disappear entirely while we continue to cut welfare and medical aid spending. Stake out a large comfortable cardboard box now!

( I haven't found a full list of program cuts yet, that was just off of a listing of housing assistance programs taking hits. )

By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire federal budget. And that will present future Congresses with impossible choices: staggering tax increases, immense deficits or deep cuts in every category of spending.
Yep. Health care for the retiring baby boomers is going to get expensive.

Keeping America competitive requires affordable health care. Our government has a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor and the elderly, and we are meeting that responsibility.
Uh... But apparently we won't be meeting that responsibility in 2030 without severe spending cuts in every category of spending.... ( see above )

Keeping America competitive requires an immigration system that upholds our laws, reflects our values and serves the interests of our economy. Our nation needs orderly and secure borders. To meet this goal, we must have stronger immigration enforcement and border protection. And we must have a rational, humane guest worker program that rejects amnesty, allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally and reduces smuggling and crime at the border.
After the State of the Union was over on CSpan2 they were interviewing representatives that had been there for the speach to get their opinions on it. One of them really went off on this point. Apparently, according to him at least, the border could be secured today. The people and resources could be easily made available, but Bush has more then once withheld granting them in order to push his 'guest worker program' forward, which is not a popular program among several border state representatives.

Tonight I announce the American Competitiveness Initiative, to encourage innovation throughout our economy and to give our nation's children a firm grounding in math and science.
"Because in the future of fast food industry jobs, the only job market that hasn't been in decline over the length of my presidency, it will be vitally important that they can do the math to give correct change quickly!"

This funding will support the work of America's most creative minds as they explore promising areas such as nanotechnology, supercomputing and alternative energy sources.
It was really funny to listen to him pronouce 'supercomputing'.

Third: We need to encourage children to take more math and science, and make sure those courses are rigorous enough to compete with other nations. We have made a good start in the early grades with the No Child Left Behind Act, which is raising standards and lifting test scores across our country.
Okay. Prepare for a longer rant... 'No Child Left Behind' was, and remains, crap. I can't even begin to describe my loathing for the program. To sum it up 'no child gets left behind because the quick children get cut off at the knees'. The idea that the proper way to determine which schools get more funding is based around test scores is crap. I have quite a few friends who teach, several at heavily multi-ethnic schools. They have a seperate teaching criteria for every student of a different ethnicity and those scores are not apparently weighted. One student from Distractistan's test scores and performance is apparently considered on par with his 99 classmates who are third-generation 'Mericans. The number of horror stories I've heard about re-districting efforts to put all the minorities in one school so that just that one school gets fucked over and looses funding are insane. The entire thing promotes a 'teach for the test' way of thought instead of teaching children life skills or about the simple joy of learning or reading. Gyah... As Einstein put it years ago, "It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry... It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty."

Tonight I propose to train 70,000 high school teachers to lead advanced-placement courses in math and science; bring 30,000 math and science professionals to teach in classrooms; and give early help to students who struggle with math, so they have a better chance at good, high-wage jobs. If we ensure that America's children succeed in life, they will ensure that America succeeds in the world.
So, lets see, 100k more teachers in science and math are going to solve our problems... How, pray tell, are you going to get those 30k math and science professionals to take the insane pay cuts they would be taking by going into the education sector? Given that teacher pay across most of the nation isn't a hell of a lot above the poverty line...

Much less, providing a whole bunch of additional teachers into a system without enough schools or classroom space already doesn't solve any problems. It is a nice little bit of political rhetoric that sounds great but doesn't do anything about the underlying issues.

Oh, what is also neglected to be mentioned is that tomorrow morning they are cutting back 12 million in funding for higher education grants and are upping the interest rates on college loans apparently.

There are fewer abortions in America than at any point in the last three decades, and the number of children born to teenage mothers has been falling for a dozen years in a row. ... These gains are evidence of a quiet transformation a revolution of conscience, in which a rising generation is finding that a life of personal responsibility is a life of fulfillment.
Or, maybe, just possibly... It is because it is easier to get condoms, birth control pills, and the 'morning after pill' these days then it was in 1976?

They are concerned about unethical conduct by public officials...
That one phrase being the closest the entire speach ever comes to talking about the corruption scandals in D.C. right now or about the pretty well glossed over now CIA leak scandal.

Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids and buying, selling or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our creator and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale.
And because human life is so sacred, we are going to make expanding the boundaries of medicine illegal so we never develop medical practices or technology that could save it or extend it...

So far the federal government has committed $85 billion to the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. We are removing debris, repairing highways and building stronger levees. We are providing business loans and housing assistance.
"We are also giving people only 120 days to decide what is going to be done to their property before we seize it and sell it to private developers. Note that we really aren't making that big of an effort to reach or contact people, they have to come forward and contact us on their own."

In New Orleans and in other places, many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country. The answer is not only temporary relief, but schools that teach every child and job skills that bring upward mobility and more opportunities to own a home and start a business.
"And so we encourage you to move to Iraq of Afganistan where we are building plenty of new schools and infrastructure there. We even have electricity hooked up in their cities now because of us, unlike you people in the 9th ward of New Orleans who still don't have power."

A hopeful society acts boldly to fight diseases like HIV/AIDS, which can be prevented, and treated, and defeated.
Huh? We have a cure for AIDs?

We will also lead a nationwide effort, working closely with African-American churches and faith-based groups, to deliver rapid HIV tests to millions, end the stigma of AIDS and come closer to the day when there are no new infections in America.
Because, you know, a church is EXACTLY where you want to go to get a HIV test because you've been sleeping around...

Ai-yi-yi... I need more booze...