Over the past couple of months, elected officials have given important speeches.
On February 21, Governor Pritzker gave his 2024 State of the State and Budget Address for Illinois. He offered an interesting story about the power of people coming together when schoolchildren raised money to buy a copy of the Gettysburg Address.
As has a consistent theme since he entered office, he's heavily focused on providing social services. Tellingly, he hardly said anything about abortion, perhaps because a court overruled the law passed that would have punished pregnancy resource centers as "fake clinics".
I was impressed to hear Oak Park mentioned twice, and Berwyn once. As part of his aim to address homelessness, he mentioned Housing Forward, which does so much good in helping assist those facing housing insecurity. He also mentioned an Oak Park resident who opened her home to migrants. Oak Park has certainly gotten attention for the efforts of its residents to help migrants. When addressing maternal health, he mentioned a woman who works at a maternal health facility in Berwyn.
I hope that as much as he aims to enhance the government's social services he also empowers people themselves to take action to help their neighbors.
On March 7, President Biden gave his State of the Union Address. He didn't have his usual mellow tone giving the speech, conveying a much more defiant tone, almost as if he was yelling during much of it. Perhaps he felt a boost from the results of the Super Tuesday primaries two days prior, basically securing the nomination of the Democratic Party for the upcoming November presidential election. He constantly referred to his disagreement with Donald Trump, simply addressing him as "my predecessor". There was so much in his speech that contributed to a partisan, divisive feel, in contrast to what he said at his inaugural address with its aims to unify. It's no wonder that the speech was interrupted multiple times by members of the audience who objected to some of his points.
The one area of concern that his partisan slant caused interference was immigration. He clearly expressed his frustration that Donald Trump swayed some members of Congress to vote against a bipartisan legislative deal. However, President Biden could show stronger leadership in addressing the immigration problem at the southern border.
One of his major talking points was upholding "reproductive health rights" including the "right" to an abortion. Tellingly, Speaker Mike Johnson, seated right behind him, told the crowd at the March for Life 2024 that he was the result of an unplanned pregnancy, and his parents chose life. It's unfortunate that President Biden has jumped on to the Democratic bandwagon that upholds abortion as something so nonnegotiable, and that he does little to address the needs of moms and how to support them in ways that don't involve abortion, especially when they're facing pressure to abort their children. Abortion was just one example in the speech of his vision for this country that will take us down the wrong path. Patrick Madrid hammered it home on social media, particularly when he showed an image of Mike Johnson's face, and wrote, "I feel your pain". By the way, I don't even remember Speaker Johnson formally introducing President Biden. From what I recall, President Biden got to the podium and started speaking immediately after the gavel.
Katie Britt gave the Republican response to the address, and overall, I felt she had some good rebuttal points and a largely down-to-earth way of conveying her message. Some critics felt she shifted her tone in unusual ways multiple times, and I can see why, based on the fluctuations I noticed. The way I see it, President Biden lacks solid leadership in multiple areas, and I feel that Katie Britt was effective in calling him out on where he needs improvement.
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