I was curious, and if I’m being honest, I was worried about how the media would cover President Biden’s State of the Union speech earlier this week.

You could see the framing taking shape in the days ahead. That it would be boring, that he’d struggle to communicate as he faces a divided Congress and divided nation, etc. These narratives form then lo and behold become predictors as the media, now having established the framing, now needs to write articles after the event to fit their vision.

But incredibly, that didn’t happen. Biden, by all accounts, gave a really great speech. He had substantive things to share about his accomplishments and did a great job of outlining the nation’s challenges without stepping over into fearmongering. On top of that, the Republicans went above and beyond to look like social media trolls come to life on the House floor and that did NOT go over well with the American public. And it was a delicious moment when Biden, having predicted that some Republicans would be loud, disruptive and obnoxious, laid a trap for them by bringing up Social Security and Medicare. (If you missed that exchange, read THIS.)

The day after the speech, I surveyed my followers on a couple of social media platforms by asking them a question: What had they heard more of following the speech — news about the speech and its contents, or the Republican reaction to it. I was delighted to see that my straw poll revealed that a lot of people had seen more news about Biden and his speech, and while many of them saw pieces about Marjorie Taylor Greene’s antics, that was in the minority.

I was bracing for the worst from the media ecosystem, but am happy to report that they did a much better job than expected. Now, on to some more good news from the past week!

Good News

Democrats won all three vacant House seats in the Pennsylvania state legislature to claim a slim edge over Republicans, finally securing a majority they first appeared to have won in the midterms last November

Although the Oversight Committee, now led by Republicans, were hoping to dig into Twitter’s so-called collusion with Democrats to take down tweets they didn’t like, the hearing this week revealed that Twitter kept a database of all the times Trump and Republicans demanded that tweets be taken down source

The NRA has lost a million members and is now smaller than it was 2012

Mitch McConnell went onto a podcast a few days ago to confirm that it “was the Scott plan” (i.e. Rick Scott) to sunset Social Security and Medicare AND that he predicted it would hurt his re-election in Florida. So much for Republicans always looking out for each other!

Kevin Seefried, the January 6th rioter who carried a Confederate flag through the Capitol, sentenced to 3 years in prison

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has agreed to apologize publicly and pay $3.3 million in taxpayer money to four former staffers who accused him of corruption in 2020

72% of watchers had a positive view of President Biden’s State of the Union address, according to a CNN flash poll

Trump went very public and negative on Ron DeSantis this week

A federal appeals court said that the Minnesota Attorney General can pursue his investigation into Republican online fundraising giant WinRed over an allegedly deceptive marketing scheme that bilked unwitting donors out of untold amounts of cash

After leaving a classified briefing on China, Sen. Mitt Romney said that he believes the Biden administration made the right decision to wait and shoot down the suspected spy balloon

Cartoons

Categories: Articles

Tags: featured, recap