Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
The Guardian
White House officials are setting the scene for a confrontational state of the union address on Tuesday night, claiming that President Barack Obama is preparing to “bypass” Congress with executive action on divisive issues such as economic inequality.However, in a flurry of last-minute appearances, advisers also hinted at a growing sense within the administration that the president's chances of securing more ambitious legislative reform before November's midterm elections may already have passed.
In an interview on Sunday and in an email to supporters on Saturday Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's senior adviser for strategy and communications, struck a defiant tone. “We need to show the American people that we can get something done; either through Congress or on our own,” Pfeiffer told CNN. “The president is not going to tell the American people he will wait for Congress.”
Reuters
President Barack Obama may not say it in his State of the Union speech this week, but part of his underlying message will be: Please vote for Democrats in the November elections.Obama's big speech on Tuesday will be his sixth foray into the House of Representatives chamber to lay out his policy priorities for the year.
This year's address is critical to forming a narrative on which Democrats can campaign this year. And Obama wants to bolster his standing after a rocky end-of-the-year controversy over the botched rollout of his signature healthcare law, and the tumult surrounding a government shutdown.
Obama has seized on income inequality in America as the main theme of his State of the Union speech, which went through its usual draft process over the weekend.
He will promote his demand that Congress raise the minimum wage and call for steps to increase jobs at the lower rungs of the economic ladder at a time when the stock market is soaring, but overall job growth is tepid.
USA Today
Amazing how one little constitutional requirement has become such a multimedia extravaganza.When President Obama delivers his annual State of the Union address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress — as well as a global television and Internet audience— he'll be fulfilling a presidential duty defined in Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1787-88:
"He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."