Pictured is U.S. President Joe Biden
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-Chief
Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
WASHINGTON, D.C.- During a much anticipated televised address last night to a joint chamber of Congress and the American people, President Joe Biden highlighted the strong points of his first 100 days in office and said that terrorism is at the nation's backdoor through White supremacy that manifest itself through systemic prejudices and the oppression of Black people in America.
It was the president's first official address to Congress since taking office in January.
A popular Democrat who unseated former president Donald Trump last year to takeover the White House, Biden, 78, spoke on public policy issues across the spectrum, from jobs, to education, women's rights, infrastructure, immigration and policing reforms, and the gambit of issues that he hopes will characterize the core of his presidency.
He advocated for more research and resources to deal with cancer, and diabetes that disproportionately impacts Blacks, and he touched on foreign policy and said that the U.S. must end its 'forever war in Afghanistan."
He said that since he took office in January jobless claims are dropping, schools and businesses are reopening, unemployment has fallen, and more that 200 million people have been vaccinated behind COVID-19.
The fight for a $15 federal minimum wage is a necessary fight, he said, and part of his political agenda in terms of hoping to convince Congress to adopt legislation for what he says is a living wage.
Climate change. he said, is commensurate to jobs, and raising taxes, he said, will kill jobs, adding that "trickle down economics never worked."
And he mentioned excessive force killings by police of Black people across the country and the frailties in the nation's legal system, saying the most existential threat to America right now is institutionalized racism against the Black community.
“White supremacy is terrorism, and we’re not going to ignore that either. My fellow Americans, look, we have to come together to heal the soul of this nation, the president said among st a small group in the House chamber, mainly members of Congress, and with two powerful women seated behind him, Vice President Kamala Harris, the nation's first Black vice president, and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Fransisco Democrat and the first woman to lead a majority party in Congress.
Commenting on the unprecedented murder last year of George Floyd by convicted murderer and fired White Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, whom a jury of his peers found guilty last week of second degree intentional murder, third degree murder, and second degree manslaughter, Biden called for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act, among a host of proposed legislation that he and his fellow Democrats, who control both the House and Senate, hope to push through Congress.
Though his speech to Congress was not a traditional State of the Union speech that typically is undertaken by a sitting president annually in January, it was crafted as if it were just that.
Biden did not hesitate in discussing the Trump induced Jan 6 attempted insurrection on the Capitol Building that left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer.
“As we gather here tonight, the images of a violent mob assaulting this Capitol desecrating our democracy remain vivid in all our minds," the president said "Lives were put at risk many of your lives. Lives were lost. Extraordinary courage was summoned. The insurrection was an existential crisis, a test of whether our democracy could survive. It did.”
The president, who served for 36 years in the U.S Senate and was vice president under Barack Obama for eight years, thanked a still divided Congress for last month passing his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, a sprawling economic relief plan that comes as the coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of more than a half million Americans since it hit the U.S. with a vengeance in March of 2020.
Before passing the House, that controversial measure narrowly passed the Senate 50-49, a party line vote with not one Republican casting a favorable vote.
Biden said he inherited a nation in crisis and outlined his ambitious plan to combat COVID-19, a broad spending plan that is sure to meet opposition from congressional Republicans, most of them anyway.
But the president's overall tone during Wednesday night's joint address to Congress was one of diplomacy that lacked the confrontational thrust that so often plagued former president Trump, a Republican real estate mogul and former media personality, and a one-term president.
President Biden said that since taking office he has again shown that he can get along across the aisle and that bipartisanship is key in keeping the government on track.
He said that his administration has met with Republicans in the Senate to promote his jobs plan and other employment measures, and to keep the country moving in the right direction.
“Vice President Harris and I met regularly in the Oval Office with Democrats and Republicans to discuss the American Jobs Plan. And I applaud a group of Republican senators who just put forward their own proposal,” Biden said.
Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
