Joe Biden’s Tie Collection, And Other Musings From Last Night’s State Of The Union Address

February 13th, 2013 by NYU Local Staff

The State of the Union happened last night. And Twitter, once again, almost imploded. President Obama delivered his first back-in-office address to the nation as a second-term President, coming off a rhetorical high from his Inaugural Address just last month. As we mentioned, the President gave his botched-up progress report for America, with words not heard in Washington in the past few offset years: “the state of our Union is strong.”

For fodder, Mr. Obama began his speech with a statistical gold mine of indicators that we’re almost/sorta/definitely getting better. This was peppered with educational initiatives to fend off student loans, scientific calls for a research overload into the super-modern age and a declaration that everything abroad is absolutely fine (no mention of North Korea here).

After a recent steadfast shellacking at the polls last November, there was a noticeable difference in the Republican boo-ing to the President’s policy proposals – a partisan sentiment that has dominated the President’s Capitol monologues since 2009. To end it, Mr. Obama finished in a particularly strong direction with the emotional subject of gun control, revisiting Newtown as a call to legislative action to an audience that consisted of members from the tragedy-stricken community.

Marco Rubio also took a really long water break in the Republican’s response. So, naturally, #StayThirsty started trending like hot cakes. But a few other things we’re said last night. Here at NYU Local, we took a shot at remembering them:

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These Things Will Definitely Happen In The State Of The Union Tonight

February 12th, 2013 by John Surico and Jeremy Unger

At the beginning of every fiscal year, the President of the United States delivers his State of the Union address from deep inside the Capitol. In it, he fills the country in on everything he’s been up to lately, as well as the ongoing Big Picture progress of this strange scientific experiment in democracy that we read all about.  And, tonight at 9pm, President Obama will be delivering all of that to you, kind citizen. Make sure you’re five feet away from Twitter at all times.

Think of the speech as a Toyota Prius hybrid of “Look at everything we’ve done!” sound clips and an Americana pep talk. State of the Union addresses generally follow the same format: the President struts in, says hello to a few people, gives his worldview, says goodbye to a few people and then we all go to bed. Once in a while, you get an exciting gesture from an audience member, like that schmuck three years ago who yelled out “You Lie!’ Yeah, that guy.

Except this speech is particularly sweet because it’s the first of President Obama’s second term. Many speculators (re: all of the media) believe it will be a ‘Part Deux’ to his Inaugural Address, in which he clarion-called the ‘liberal agenda’ by mentioning gay rights, defending the age-old safety net and recognizing climate change two or three times. Maybe the speech will be about job initiatives or the Oscars; who knows – we’re not clairvoyant! (We do know Obama will announce a 34,000 troop drawdown in Afghanistan, which is more than half of all forces stationed there, to happen this year.) Regardless, you can bet the next five months’ rent on the following few occurrences for sure.

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The State of the Union: It Gets Better

January 25th, 2012 by John Surico

The past couple of nights had been rough for Barack. In the depths of the White House, avoiding Michelle and probably sneaking past the Secret Service for anxious midnight smokes, the President had been restless, hashing together his third State of the Union address, which he gave to approximately 42.8 million viewers last night.

With vague memories of this guy in the crowd the first time and Tea Party sentiment rising after midterm elections the second go-around, Obama faced a whole different ball game after a year where the Occupy movement pushed income inequality to the forefront of the national discussion and his approval ratings dropped to a standard third-year 44.4%. The punditocracy honed in on every syllable of the speech, Twitter imploded with more hashtags than actual words, Mitch Daniels’ GOP response began with a Super Bowl shout out and Joe Biden’s nasal drip distracted everyone throughout the whole damn thing. Here is what the President did right, did wrong and a few things he left out: Read more…


State Of The Union Drinking Game

January 25th, 2011 by Alexey Novikov

Politics & alcohol share a long and storied past – and with good reason. With alcohol, all the traditional staples of a boring political discussion (things like reason, patience, eloquence) are swiftly replaced by their more cheerful counterparts (things like bravado, blurred logic and/or vision).

With this in mind, tonight at 9 PM, let us celebrate our most hallowed annual address, the State of the Union, with our most hallowed college tradition – a drinking game. So fill up your shot glasses, buy a twelve-pack of PBR at Key Food, and prepare to turn even the most mundane conversation about alleged misappropriation of campaign funds into a high-octane, no-holds-barred melee. Read more…