Trump’s State of the Union address

U.S. President Donald J. Trump (center) gestures at the podium in front of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (left) and Speaker of the House U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (right) during his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress inside the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, USA.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Obama says fight against Islamic State is not World War III

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama accused critics on Tuesday of playing into the hands of Islamic State by comparing the fight against the militant group to World War Three, in an address aimed at laying out an optimistic vision of America's future.

Obama, who is delivering his last State of the Union speech to Congress before leaving office next year, said it was fiction to declare the United States was in economic decline or getting weaker on the international stage, despite rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates vying to replace him in the Nov. 8 election.

"Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence," Obama said, according to prepared remarks.

"That's the story ISIL wants to tell; that's the kind of propaganda they use to recruit. We don't need to build them up to show that we're serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world's largest religions," he said, referring to Islamic State by an acronym.

The remarks were a repudiation of Republican criticism of his strategy against Islamic State and, not so subtly, of Republican front-runner Donald Trump's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Obama's address comes as 10 sailors aboard two U.S. Navy boats were taken into Iranian custody. Iran told the United States the crew members would be "promptly" returned, U.S. officials said. The event gave Republicans further fodder to criticize Obama's nuclear deal with Tehran.

Obama did not address the issue at the top of his speech.

The address is one of Obama's few remaining chances to capture the attention of millions of Americans before November's election of a new president who will take office next January.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who is delivering the Republican Party's response to Obama's address, will knock his record on fiscal and foreign policy while delivering a not-so-subtle jab at Republican presidential candidates such as Trump.

"During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country," she will say, according to excerpts of her remarks.

Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrants.

Obama stuck to themes he hopes will define his legacy.

He emphasized areas where compromise was possible with Republicans in Congress including criminal justice reform, trade and poverty reduction.

He called for lawmakers to ratify a Pacific trade pact, advance tighter gun laws and lift an embargo on Cuba.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Trump says he would make Mexico pay for a border wall

WASHINGTON, United States - Presidential hopeful Donald Trump said in an interview aired Sunday that he would force Mexico to pay to have a wall built along its northern border with the United States.

"I would do something very severe unless they contributed or gave us the money to build the wall," Trump said on CNN's State of the Union.

It was the billionaire's latest broadside against Mexico since he announced his candidacy June 16 with a speech labelling immigrants from the United States' southern neighbor as drug traffickers, criminals and rapists.

His comments caused an uproar, prompting Mexico's interior minister to call him "prejudiced and absurd," and Univision, America's top Spanish-language TV network, to sever its ties with Trump's Miss Universe Organization.

In the CNN interview, Trump insisted "you have people coming through the border that are from all over. And they're bad. They're really bad."

"I'm not just saying Mexicans, I'm talking about people that are from all over, that are killers, and rapists," he said.

Asked about his calls for a border wall, Trump said, "Mexico has not treated us well. Mexico treats us as though we are stupid people. Which, of course, our leaders are.

"I don't blame Mexico. China's even worse," he added.

He said he would force Mexico to pay for the wall "because Mexico makes a fortune because of us."

Trump, a real estate tycoon and star of the TV reality show "The Apprentice," came in second place this week among Republicans in the running for the presidency, behind former Florida governor Jeb Bush, in a poll by Suffolk University.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Obama focuses on relief for working families

REDWOOD CITY, California - President Barack Obama has declared a full-on economic resurgence in this State of the Union (SOTU) address, with his approval rating rising for the first time in years and with more Americans showing more optimism for the economy.

A New Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that half of Americans said they approve of the job Obama is doing as president, his best rating since the spring of 2013. The poll also showed 41 percent of people think the economy is headed to the right direction, compared with 27 percent in October.

Besides highlighting the need to improve cybersecurity and to invest in infrastructure, the centerpiece of President Obama’s SOTU is middle-class economics, with a tax plan that addresses income inequality.

The plan provides extra money to low and middle-income families in the form of tax credits for children and working couples. It also increases taxes on upper-income taxpayers, particularly the one percent, through cutbacks and higher restrictions on savings. It is expected to raise $320 billion in revenue from wealthy Americans, while cutting middle class taxes by $175 billion.

He also pushes for lower mortgage insurance premiums that seek to help about two million borrowers save an average of $900 a year if they purchase or refinance their homes.

Another way Obama plans to help the middle-class is to provide free community college tuition, a 10-year plan costing $60 billion, which hopes to aid up to nine million students save an average of $3,800 a year.

The president also called on Congress to pass a bill that would require all U.S. companies to give employees seven days of paid sick leave a year.

President Obama, as expected, has already gotten some strong opposition from Republicans who control the House and Senate. In the past, the GOP leadership has been against increasing taxes and fees for the rich to reduce taxes for the middle class. For now, it remains to be seen if the president can manage to pull some strings as he strives to make a lasting impact in his last two years in office.

Read more from Balitang America:
http://www.balitangamerica.tv/

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Focus group suggests State of the Union speech was well-received

As President Obama delivered his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, a group of 50 swing voters armed with dial meters recorded strongly favorable reactions to his proposals on taxes, renewable energy, overcoming partisan divisions and defending the middle class, according to the pollsters who supervised the study.

The group, made up of Democrats, Republicans and independents, including both McCain and Obama voters from 2008, gave the president significantly higher marks after the speech than before on whether he will stand up for the middle class, whether he can be trusted on energy policy and on measures of empathy, such as whether he shares voters’ values and “makes me hopeful,” said Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg.

Such focus group reactions are “greater than what you see in real life” because people assembled in a conference room and instructed to watch a speech pay considerably more attention than the average viewer, noted Greenberg, who has conducted such studies for each State of the Union speech dating back to the Bill Clinton administration. Still, the reactions provide a rough gauge of the speech’s overall impact, he said.

“The most surprising” aspect of the reaction was “the lack of polarization” among the voters, he added. The speech has provoked a highly partisan reaction in Washington, but among the swing voters in the study, “the Democratic, Republican and independent lines” from the dial meters “tracked through most of the speech,” Greenberg said. “He captured people broadly.”

Not surprisingly, the moment in the speech that brought the most positive reaction was Obama’s mention of the death of Osama bin Laden. It drew an average reading of 80 on the 0-100 scale used by the meters. Obama’s call for more investment in renewable energy drew nearly as strong a reaction, however, said Andrew Baumann, another of the pollsters who conducted the study. The passages of the speech that talked about phasing out subsidies for oil companies and competing with China and Germany for new developments in wind power and solar energy did particularly well.

Not all the marks were positive. Although the voters reacted well to the speech, they remained skeptical that Obama would be able to achieve the goals he set out. When the speech ended, just under half said he was offering “realistic” proposals while about 60% said he would probably not be able to get his proposals accomplished. Both measures were slightly better than before the speech, but reflected voters’ doubts about Obama’s ability to break through Washington’s gridlock. And although the speech moved Obama’s overall job approval upward among the voters studied, the shift was small, from 50% favorable to 58%.

source: latimes.com