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Local Democrats Praise Obama’s Final State of the Union Address

President Barack Obama received a total of 67 rounds of applause during his final State of the Union address Tuesday, down from 85 previous year.

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President Obama will follow up his final State of the Union address with a visit to Omaha, Nebraska Wednesday, where he will sit down with residents to discuss the themes of progress he touched on in his optimistic speech.

“No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome”, said Haley, whose parents are Indian immigrants.

Ryan reacted dismissively to Obama’s remarks, saying in a statement, “I can’t say I was disappointed by the president’s speech, but that’s because I wasn’t expecting much”.

Despite some global successes, such as killing Osama bin Laden and extricating most USA troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are most critical of Obama’s handling of events overseas, especially the terrorist threats from the Daesh which he insisted, while posing “an enormous danger” to individuals, “do not threaten our national existence”.

In light of the widening political divide, President Obama recommends, “if we want a better politics…we have to change the system to reflect our better selves”.

Subscribe to Times of San Diego’s free daily email newsletter! . “It’s bluster. It’s not serious”, the president said to a crowd of about 8,000.

Obama alluded to Biden’s own loss of his son to cancer this past year in tasking the vice-president to lead a new national effort to conquer the disease.

Instead, Obama called for a “better politics” and repudiated the campaign rhetoric of his would-be Republican successors. As he walked toward the exit after his hour-long speech, he turned back to the crowded House chamber and said, “Let me take one more look at this thing”.

“I know this is a risky time”, he continued, “but that’s not primarily because of some looming superpower out there, and certainly not because of diminished American strength”.

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In an election-year marquee event, Mr Obama hailed a period of “extraordinary change” laden with both opportunity and the risk of wider inequality. And so, I applaud the president for actually taking that step. We mishandled the Syrian civil war and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and while the P5+1 agreement with Iran was an achievement, we should have been more attentive to the concerns of anxious Arab allies who felt sidelined and betrayed by their exclusion from the process. “We’ve made progress. but we need to make more”. “It betrays who we are as a country”. We can not fear a change that is inevitable.

Credit Evan Vucci  AP