This week, President Joe Biden gave his first State Of The Union speech to the United States Congress, to the American people, and to the rest of world. This speech had to be hastily rewritten at the last minute, obviously, due to intervening events. Russia's Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine at the end of last week, which was obviously a lot more important than any political points or laundry lists of proposed legislation. So the speech got a quick makeover.

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But back to the speech. Biden's delivery was awesome both at the start of the speech and at the end. He showed honest heartfelt emotion when denouncing Vladimir Putin and Russia and metaphorically standing with the people of Ukraine. At the end, he spoke louder than the building applause when he called for what is best about America overcoming our worst impulses. Barack Obama couldn't have done a better job with Biden's closing paragraph, and that's high praise indeed!

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President Joe Biden will give his second speech to a joint session of Congress tomorrow, in his first official State Of The Union address. That seems like a contradiction, due to the quirk that the first time a president gives such a speech it is not officially known as the State Of The Union, but few care about splitting such hairs. After being in office for over a year now, the president will inform Congress and the American people what his view of the country is, looking both backward at his first year's accomplishments and forward to what he hopes to achieve in the coming year. This is normally a balancing act, but this year's speech will be unusual in that large portions of it are being rewritten at the last minute, due to the developing situation in Ukraine.

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This is going to be an article on political spin. I admit it, right up here at the start. But every once in a while, an opportunity arises for Democrats to do what Republicans always manage to do so effortlessly -- paint their entire opposition party as dangerously out of touch because of the extreme positions of a handful of them. Look how much mileage the GOP has gotten out of not only demonizing but also painting the entire Democratic Party with the broad brush of "Defund The Police," for instance. So when Democrats get a chance to return the favor, they really should leap at it.

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The world pauses and holds its collective breath as we all wonder the same thing: What is Vladimir Putin up to? Will he invade Ukraine? Is this all some sort of bluff or feint? Or is he deadly serious about reconstituting the Soviet Union's sphere of influence (of satellite states subservient to Moscow)? Is he just waiting for the Olympics to end as some sort of favor to China? Or will the troops eventually go home and the whole crisis blows over?

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Did what happened at the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021 constitute "legitimate political discourse" or not? That was the question that has divided the Republican Party all week, and may serve to be the one memorable phrase that sums up the difference between those in the GOP who have completely surrendered all their morals and thought processes and attachment to reality to Donald Trump -- and those who have not. Because that's what it all boils down to, really.

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Today Politico caused somewhat of a stir, by publishing an article that examined the question of the chances Democrats will have to avoid getting wiped out in the midterm elections this November. Up until now, the conventional inside-the-Beltway cocktail-party-chattering-class wisdom was that Democrats were toast and might as well not even bother running much of a campaign at all. Historical trends were against them, gerrymandering was going to take the House of Representatives away from them, and Republicans were going to emerge with new congressional majorities pretty much no matter what Democrats did or said in the meantime.

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One year ago today, Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States. His Inauguration was notable for a few reasons, first and foremost the fact that it happened only two weeks after the U.S. Capitol had been besieged and overrun by insurrectionists attempting to prevent Biden from ever taking office. So the entire Capitol complex was heavily locked down and defended for what is normally a positive and upbeat public ceremony. The other two notable reasons that stick in my mind were: Amanda Gorman absolutely stealing the show with her poem "The Hill We Climb," and Bernie Sanders providing the best photo op by sitting on a socially-distanced chair wearing adorable homemade mittens.

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I am writing this after watching a rather extraordinary press conference with President Joe Biden. It was extraordinary for two reasons, really -- it was only the second such press conference he's given on U.S. soil since becoming president, and it was monumentally long, clocking in at just under two hours. It was a true marathon of a presser, as Biden seemed almost reluctant to end it -- and at several times even kidded with the reporters that he could go for another two or three hours if they were up for it. Perhaps he was making up for the lack of regular press conferences in his first year by giving what amounted to a double press conference to begin his second?

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We're not quite sure exactly what to call what we witnessed this week in Washington. We know it's not "regicide," since we don't have kings here. So what, exactly? Execucide? Presidenticide? Legicide? Particide? Whatever neologism you prefer, however (and feel free to suggest your own in the comments...), what we saw this week was the strangulation of Joe Biden's presidency and the Democratic Party's political agenda. It happened mostly in public, as two supposedly-Democratic senators killed all hope of anything important getting done for the entire rest of the year (if not for the rest of Biden's term). This will likely doom Democrats' chances in the midterms and will likely also cement the legacy (whether justified or not) of Biden's term in office as a president who was weak, ineffective, and a massive disappointment to most of the Democratic Party.

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