Obama No Longer the Boogeyman

President Obama has a lot to smile about on the day of his sixth State of the Union Address. His approval ratings have hit 50% for the first time in two years. Unemployment is at it's lowest level since he took office, and is continuing to drop. But most surprising of all is the bipartisan praise the President's nominees for Attorney General and Defense Secretary have received in the Senate, making it almost certain that both of them will be confirmed.

Just a few short months ago this would have been a fictional reality what with the GOP obstructionism the President encountered ever since he took office. But the midterms changed all that. Now that the GOP has control of both houses of Congress they can no longer be the party of no. Instead they have no choice but to govern with the President in order to have any chance of winning in 2016, which is why you see Republican Senators such as Jeff Flake of Arizona publicly supporting the administrations move towards normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba and other Republican Senators like Bob Corker of Tennessee supporting an increase in the gas tax to help with infrastructure improvements. 

The obstruction and attacks made by the Republicans in Congress over the past six years mostly had to do with them not wanting this particular President to have a legacy. But very soon the party of Reagan will face an electorate that is much more unfavorable to them, with more minorities and young people and other democratic constituents expected to vote in higher numbers in 2016 than in 2014. So therefore they must do everything they can to show that they can govern if they want to still be a major presidential party rather than just a congressional party in Washington. 

But there is more than just the GOP's desire to occupy the White House again that is creating an atmosphere of cooperation on Capitol Hill. It is also the reality that, with only two more years left in office starting today, President Obama is no longer the political threat to the GOP he once was. 

The 2014 midterms were the last in which the GOP would "run against" President Obama. Now moving forward, with the next Presidential Election on the horizon, the Republican Party is now setting it's sights on running against the next Democratic nominee for President, presumably Hillary Clinton. Therefore the GOP will focus more on attacking the future leader of the Democratic Party rather than the current occupant of the White House. 

This current dynamic of cooperation makes it possible for Washington to actually get things done. Let us hope the GOP finally works with the President and help get done as much as possible over the next two years. 

Why The Real 2015 Is Better Than The Back To The Future 2015

If you're a fan of the Back to the Future trilogy, 2015 may seem like a real letdown. We have no flying cars, no hover boards, we have no automatic size-adjusting and automatic drying ja

ckets, no power laces, and there is no weather service that can predict the weather within seconds. Despite those prognostications from Bob Zemeckis and his producer/partner Bob Gale, I would actually rather live in the real 2015 than in the BTTF 2015. 

Back to the Future Part II was filmed just a few years before the public availability of the internet, so the BTTF 2015 acts as if the internet never existed. Nobody in that 2015 have an smartphone, and it doesn't even seem as if the McFly family has a computer in their own home, something that is the universal norm for every family in America nowadays. Marty McFly Jr. was even seen in the film walking into a phone booth, whereas in the real 2015 if he wanted to call someone he would have just flipped out his iPhone or Android or any other smartphone people use nowadays. 

Although many have believed that we would have flying cars by now, the cars in the BTTF 2015 are simply horrendous. They have no sense of style, no sense of design, and no "wow" factor that makes you desire to get one someday. They are basically just boxes that can fly through the air. Come to think of it, living in a universe where we have flying cars can be quite dangerous, because what if a car runs of gas or electricity or whatever they run on and they fall to the ground? (see my other article, "Why We Don't Have Flying Cars") The result would be total catastrophe, with nobody daring to go outside for fear that a car would fall on them and crush them to death. The Airline industry would also be in turmoil since there would be the risk of a fluing car crashing to an airplane. Despite the plane crashes that happened in the past year, at least we don't have to worry about an airplane running into an oncoming car. 

While I get very annoyed when I see kids as young as 3 watching videos and playing games on an iPhone, young people these days are a lot cooler than the kids in 2015. Who would in their right mind think that "wearing clothes inside out" would be considered cool? And why would anyone call something where you have to use their hands not cool because it's a "baby's toy?" Well,. how else are you supposed to use something? 

But perhaps the thing I dislike the most about the BTTF 2015 is that all lawyers have been abolished, which means that my fathers hard work getting through law school and his long nights studying for the Bar Exam wouldn't have meant jack squat. It is actually a scary reality when a judge can just sentence someone to 15 years in prison within two hours without a jury, a fair trial, and a lawyer that can assist in representation. It is also a scary reality when The Supreme Court can just rule on what it wants without having lawyers from both sides arguing their case. Obviously both Bobs didn't think about that when they made this movie. 

Hoverbards, power laces, and automatic drying jackets are all things that I hope will become universally available within my lifetime. But despite not having any of those right now, I would much rather live in the real 2015 rather than the one Michael J. Fox visited any day.