If you really just can’t wait to find out what President Obama is going to talk about in his State of the Union speech this evening, the best indications come from the First Lady’s guest list. Normally the President will refer to the guests during the speech to highlight a particular issue.
Immigration should be a very big issue in the speech. Roughly five the guests’ personal stories related directly or indirectly to the issue of immigration.
Gun control will also likely feature prominently. Three of the guests relate to the issue, including the Pendletons, whose daughter was recently shot and killed, and Lieutenant Brian Murphy, who was the first officer to arrive at the Sikh temple shooting.
Interestingly, it looks like Obama may talk a fair amount about the Affordable Care Act after mostly ignoring it last year. At least three of the guests appear to have been invited because of their connection to the law set to be implemented next year.
The full list includes:
- Dr. Jill Biden
- Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President
- Sergeant Sheena Adams (Vista, CA) – Team Advisor & Lead Instructor, Female Engagement Team
- Alan Aleman (Las Vegas, NV) – DREAM Student
- Jack Andraka (Crownsville, MD) – Winner of the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair
- Susan Bumgarner (Norman, OK) – Early Childhood Educator
- Deb Carey (New Glarus, WI) – Small Business Owner, New Glarus Brewing Company
- Sergeant Carlos Evans, USMC (Cameron, NC) – Wounded Warrior
- Tim Cook (Cupertino, CA) – CEO of Apple
- Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel A. Pendleton Sr. (Chicago, IL)
- Menchu de Luna Sanchez (Secaucus, NJ) – Registered Nurse, NYU Langone Medical Center
- Bobak Ferdowsi (Pasadena, CA) – Flight Director, Mars Curiosity Rover
- Bradley Henning (Louisville, KY) – Machinist, Atlas Machine and Supply
- Tracey Hepner (Arlington, VA) – Co-Founder, Military Partners and Families Coalition
- Peter Hudson (Evergreen, CO) – Co-Founder and CEO, iTriage
- Governor John Kitzhaber (D-OR)
- Mayor Marie Lopez Rogers (Avondale, AZ)
- Amanda E. McMillan (Jackson, MS) – Pay Discrimination Victim
- Lee Maxwell (Wilton, IA) – Graduate, Kirkwood Community College Wind Technician Program
- Lieutenant Brian Murphy (Oak Creek, WI)
- Lisa Richards (Arlington, VA) – #My2K Participant
- Kaitlin Roig (Greenwich, CT) – 1st Grade Teacher, Sandy Hook Elementary School
- Abby Schanfield (Minneapolis, MN) – ACA Beneficiary
- Haile Thomas (Tucson, AZ) – Let’s Move! Champion
- Desiline Victor (Miami, FL)
Official White House photo by Pete Souza





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Emancipation of Americans from energy monopolies ? Wall Street? State based health insurance monopolies? Maybe the money we waste using potential energy to drive and the waste in healthcare insurance and healthcare providers, over 25 of GDP, might be a good place to start. Instead America got Compromise with monied corporations. Compromise did not work out to well for the republic with those that enjoyed a monopoly on energy, human beings, not to long ago. Compromising with monied interest? Servitude! Corporate servitude.
They should just let Tim Cook give the SOTU.
i don’t see anywhere Peter Griffin on the list.
Let’s hope Operation SOTU is successful and anonymous will be able to disrupt his pack of lies.
What?! No Jayzee? No Beyonce? Where do the rich people get their part of the STFU…sorry…SOTU?
There’ll be angry mobs of plutocrats on the streets in seconds, I tell you. Gatherings of 500 of them (complete with phalanx of Range Rovers and body guards…and Nannies and “domestics”) will be covered diligently, by a once again spritely Fox News Channel.
Noam Chomsky? Ralph Nader? Chris Hedges?
The heirs to Rachel Carson? Bill McKibben?
What is a list from Spectacle City, anyway?
I wonder how many six-packs of Spotted Cow Deb Carey brought with her to Washington. Her brewery’s beers–which are excellent–aren’t distributed outside Wisconsin.
For something a little different than listening to the bat-shit-crazy-white people-party response here something that might make some sense.
The Green Party of the United States, Dr. Jill Stein will deliver a Green response 9pmET/6pm PT
http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
I won’t be watching this ‘Potemkin Village’ production.
Should Obysmal state that the union is seriously fcuked up, I might watch the repeat.
But the Union is always Strong, so who gives a shit about O’s tired, epic, list of bombastic platitudes.