By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO―President Obama will deliver his annual State of the Union Address on Tuesday. Cathy McMorris Rodgers will give the Republican response to the speech. Mike Lee will follow her with the Tea Party response to the Address. Finally, Rand Paul will follow him with a speech representing his idiosyncratic perspective. If this trend towards increasingly more response speeches continues, C-Span may license a new 24 hour a day public service station just to reprise all the response speeches to the State of the Union Address.
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Russia is deploying hundreds of Cossack soldiers as security guards at the Sochi Olympics. Drawing on their long history, the Cossacks will participate in a new Equestrian Raping and Pillaging Competition. Jewish spectators have been warned to stay away from the Cossacks who still think they are serving the Czar.
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Banks have refused to loan money to the new pot businesses that are springing up in Colorado and Washington out of fear that they will face federal prosecution. This possibility never deterred them from engaging in other predatory loan practices.
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President Obama warned Congress not to scuttle the Nuclear Reduction Agreement with Iran by adding more economic sanctions to the country. Prime Minister Netanyahu warned Iran that no nuclear deal with Iran that permits it to keep even one centrifuge is acceptable to his country. Foreign policy analysts speculate that the conflicting positions of the two leaders constitute a diplomatic version of the good cop/bad cop game.
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Rand Paul accused Bill Clinton of predatory sexual behavior in his illicit relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, thereby proving that the definition of a reactionary is someone who prefers past scandals to current ones.
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com