SC Gov. Nikki Haley’s 2016 GOP State of the Union Response

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was tapped by the Republican Party to deliver its response to President Obama’s final State of the Union address. Haley's message was clearly intended to convince voters seven years under the thumb of  a Democratic president has been seven years too many. Haley directed explicit criticisms of the president, saying:

Barack Obama's election as president seven years ago broke historic barriers and inspired millions of Americans. As he did when he first ran for office, tonight President Obama spoke eloquently about grand things. He is at his best when he does that.

Unfortunately, the President's record has often fallen far short of his soaring words.

As he enters his final year in office, many Americans are still feeling the squeeze of an economy too weak to raise income levels. We're feeling a crushing national debt, a health care plan that has made insurance less affordable and doctors less available, and chaotic unrest in many of our cities.

The South Carolina governor followed up her opening shot at Pres. Obama by savaging his foreign policy and highlighting Republican priorities on immigration, taxes, education, and the Second Amendment.

Haley's alternate state of the union was a clear attempt to disparage the Democrat in White House to reconstitute conservative governing ideology as good governance, as Republicans have done since Pres. Bush moved out of the White House.

During his State of the Union address last night, President Obama seemed eager to tout the nation’s economic gains. “The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world,” he said, before rattling off key statistics, including rapid job growth and the strength of the American auto industry. “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction,” the president added.

• A LONG List Of President Obama’s Accomplishments (With Citations)

The Great Recession legacy Pres. George Bush and his Republican controlled congress left to the United States after eight years in office the nation's longest, and by most measures worst economic recession since the Great Depression between December 2007 and June 2009. The follow discussion reviews the course of the economy following that recession against the background of how deep a hole the recession created – and how much deeper that hole would have been without the financial stabilization and fiscal stimulus policies enacted by Pres. Obama in early 2009.

Hillary Clinton’s Polling Trend Not Her Friend

Several polls out this week show Hillary Clinton trailing (to various degrees) in New Hampshire, and now, also falling behind in Iowa in the January Quinnipiac University poll taken after New Year's Day and completing Jan. 10th.

In a mid-November Quinnipiac University poll, Clinton had the support of 51 percent of likely Iowa caucus attendees to Sanders' 42 percent, for a 9 point lead. Quinnipiac last polled Iowa in December, at which point Hillary Clinton led Bernie Sanders by 11 points. That poll was completed Dec. 13.  The Iowa poll out on January 12, 2016 showed a five-point 49 percent to 44 percent advantage — for Sanders. That's a 16-point swing over the course of a month. This also wasn't the only poll to show Sanders with a lead. A survey from American Research Group this week has him up three points.

So what happened to Clinton? Well, part of it is that her favorability slipped. Among all voters, she dropped seven points in the head-to-head matchup (Sanders gained nine), but the percentage of people viewing her favorably fell from 81 to 74. Among groups that have preferred Sanders (like men), Sanders's lead increased.

Pres. Barack Obama Delivers His Last State of the Union Address

When President Obama took office in January 2009 after 8 years of Pres. Bush's administration, America was experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Job losses were mounting by 800,000 jobs per month, people were loosing their homes and life savings, and tens of thousands of U.S troops were deployed in Iraq and Afganistan. Seven years later, our businesses have created 14.1 million new jobs over the past 70 months. America has reformed its health care system, reinvented its energy sector, and brought home more than 160,000 troops.

President Obama used his final State of the Union address to reflect on his presidency and accomplishments, and the work yet to be accomplished.

• A LONG List Of President Obama’s Accomplishments (With Citations)
• Fact Checking GOP’s Claims About Obama’s Record

About 31.3 million people watched President Obama deliver his last State of the Union address on network and cable television Tuesday — the smallest audience recorded since ratings company Nielsen started keeping track in 1993. The ratings count the 12 networks that carried the address live: ABC, Al Jazeera America, Azteca, CBS, CNN, FOX, FOX Business Network, FOX News Channel, Galavision, MSNBC, NBC and NBC Universo. Spanish-language Univision also carried the speech on tape delay. These TV ratings numbers do not include other ways people follow the State of the Union address on streaming video sites like YouTube and social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This year, the White House added Amazon video and Snapchat to the mix. Nielsen said 9.8 million people saw one or more of the 2.6 million tweets sent in the United States about the speech. The Twitter audience peaked at 30,600 tweets-per-minute immediately after the president's speech.

Watch the video of President Barack Obama delivering his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in Washington on January 12, 2016.

VP Joe Biden Praises Bernie Sanders

Vice President Joe Biden has nothing but glowing praise for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Biden, who contemplated a run for the presidency but decided to opt out, said of Sanders:

“Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real. And he has credibility on it. And that is the absolute enormous concentration of wealth of a small group of people, with a middle class now being left out.”

Biden was referring to Sanders’ consistent record of speaking out on and pushing initiatives about income inequality throughout his career. Sanders has made the issue a central theme of his campaign. Biden also believes the issue of income inequality is of vital importance to the country.

Biden said: “There used to be a basic bargain. If you contributed to the profitability of an enterprise, you share in that profit, and that’s been broken. Productivity is up and wages are stagnant.”

Biden continued, commenting on Hillary Clinton, "It's relatively new for Hillary to talk about that," acknowledging that Clinton has "come forward with some really thoughtful approaches to deal with the issue" of income inequality. Hillary's focus has been other things up to now, and that's been Bernie's -- no one questions Bernie's authenticity on those issues,"