Colbert's live monologue after the State of the Union plus reactions from Kimmel and FiveThirtyEight

In the middle of Debbie Dingell discusses Ukraine and the State of the Union Address on Fat Tuesday, I told my readers "I plan on blogging about the address and reactions to it" today. Three of my favorite sources came through with reactions to the speech, beginning with Stephen Colbert Goes LIVE After Biden's First SOTU Speech | A Rousing Call To National Greatness.

Stephen Colbert delivers a live monologue following President Biden's first State of the Union address, where the POTUS touted his covid response, underlined America's steadfast support for the people of Ukraine, and unveiled his "Unity Agenda" of domestic policies.

I don't know if that was a fair summary of the speech, but it sure was a good highlight reel of the evening's funnier moments.* Still, it did capture that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the pandemic, and inflation were major subjects of tonight's speech, just as Representative Debbie Dingell predicted yesterday, along with infrastructure. No surprises there.

Jimmy Kimmel started with the State of the Union then moved on to other topics in Trump’s 'Tough on Russia' Fairy Tale, Biden Addresses the Nation & Putin's Black Belt Gets Stripped.

Tonight President Biden delivered his First State of the Union speech, Marco Rubio decided to skip because of the COVID testing requirement, Biden did his best to come up with something to uplift all of us, Vladimir Putin has been suspended as the honorary President of the International Judo Federation and stripped of his honorary black belt in Taekwondo, Hollywood is fighting back by not showing the new Batman movie in Russia, a feisty fella from Texas went as far as to join the Russian army, OJ Simpson weighed in with his thoughts on Putin & Trump, Donald Trump Jr is busy complaining about FEMA guidance, 62% of Americans believe that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump was still in charge, a new edition of Cancel Nation, and clarinetist Doreen Ketchens sits in with the Cleto and the Cletones!

I think Kimmel and his writers decided making fun of Vladimir Putin, the Most Interesting Man in the World made for better comedy. I can't say I blame them.

FiveThirtyEight opened with a funny cold open to Unity From Biden, Disunity In Texas | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, making for a good transition from comedy to serious reporting.

It was a night of firsts, with the first primaries of 2022 taking place in Texas and President Biden’s first “real” State of the Union speech. Galen asked the FiveThirtyEight crew what the key takeaways were in Biden’s optimistic State of the Union. They also analyzed the outcomes of the Texas primaries as the results came in in real time.

The panelists seemed confused by Biden bringing up Build Back Better and voting rights, both of which failed because of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, especially Manchin. They looked and sounded more enthusiastic about the Texas primary elections. I'll take that as playing to their strengths. I might have something to say about the winners of the Texas primaries after World Wildlife Day and Marching Music Day. Stay tuned.

*Excluding Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert heckling Biden. I think Stephen and his writers made the right decision to ignore "Bizarro Betty and Veronica" except for connecting Greene to mental health. That could have come off as meaner, but I'm not very sympathetic to her.