Today marks a busy Tuesday. Tonight we have Obama’s State of the Union address, which is very important because it marks his first State of the Union address for his second term. We learned last night that North Korea successfully tested another nuclear weapon. Supposedly this was a response to US ‘aggression’. Finally this morning Senator Richard Durbin hosts the second hearing on gun control.
I expect the State of the Union to be Obama as far left as they come. After all, he doesn’t have to fight for reelection again, so he can be whatever he wants to be tonight during his speech. It appears that Obama is going to be shifting back jobs. This is somewhat odd. I mean he has shifted his focus to jobs many times in the past. While the unemployment rate has been steadily dropping, there are still millions without jobs throughout the country.
North Korea testing another nuke doesn’t surprise me, nor does it really concern me. Even though they may be close to being able to launch a nuclear missile at the US, I just don’t see that as something we can really control. The fact is that North Korea would be obliterated if they made such a move and they know it. That in my mind makes an attack very unlikely and not worth talking about.
Finally, the second of three gun control hearings is something I will likely DVR and watch. I did watch the first hearing all the way through. I posted my notes on that hearing here. My impressions from the first hearing was that the witnesses were very fairly distributed between pro gun control and pro gun rights. I will be curious to see if this hearing has a similar distribution or is more skewed towards gun control. The hearing is being held by Senator Dick Durbin, who is a staunch gun control advocate, so it wouldn’t surprise me if this hearing is more skewed towards more gun control.
There will be one more hearing on gun control being hosted by Senator Dianne Feinstein later this month. I expect that to be a complete gun control bonanza. Feinstein announced that she wanted her own hearing on the matter once she learned who would testify on the first hearing and was unsatisfied with the witness pool.
So this is a busy Tuesday. How many of you plan to watch Obama tonight at the State of the Union?
It isn’t easy running a tyrannical dictatorship these days. That’s why North Korea wants distracts its people from the real problems occurring within their own country. A way to achieve such result is to mobilize public opinion against an enemy, but you need to create an enemy when you don’t have any. It may explain the aggressiveness of North Korea and it makes their nuclear program a dangerous threat.