State of the Union Live Blog 02/12/2013
Follow along as President Barack Obama delivers his 2013 State of the Union address
-
[The President] 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...
--U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 3 -
Cruz, one of three senators to vote against Kerry, is waved over by Secretary of State and shakes his hand #SOTU
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 13, 2013 -
Settle into your seats: embargoed copy of Obama's #SOTU speech comes in at 6,419 words - a decent-sized book chapter
— Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) February 13, 2013 -
Lee Tien of @eff says Obama "clearly trying very hard" to reach out to #privacy advocates with #cybersecurity executive order #SOTU
— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) February 13, 2013 -
At least a dozen lawmakers will sit with a member from the other side of the aisle tonight, a "date night" practice that began two years ago as a show of bipartisanship after the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. -
For those asking, the word "I" appears in embargoed #SOTU speech 31 times (+ 3 x "me" and 110 x "we")
— Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) February 13, 2013 -
As President Barack Obama entered the chamber, rock musician and gun rights provocateur Ted Nugent didn't clap.
Nugent, who previously said he would "either be dead or in jail” if Obama was reelected, is the guest of Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman. -
President Obama: “Tonight, thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, there is much progress to report.” #SOTU
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 13, 2013 -
The president said in his speech that U.S. employers have added 6 million new jobs since the worst of the recession, but that doesn’t necessarily mean 6 million fewer unemployed Americans.
As of January, there were around 12.3 million unemployed Americans, around 3 million fewer than at the end of 2009, when unemployment was at its worst, according to Labor Department numbers.
Since that time, however, Americans have also dropped out of the labor force, meaning that they are either not working or not looking for work.
The labor force participation rate is now 63.6 percent, down from well over 66 percent pre-recession. As the unemployment rate is calculated as a fraction of the labor force, less participation can mean a lower jobless rate. That rate is now 7.9 percent, down from 10 percent in late 2009. -
The opening of Obama's speech is more optimistic than any previous State of the Union address. He's aided by not having to downplay any success ahead of an election with a still struggling economy.
-
Bobak Ferdowsi, flight director, Mars Curiosity Rover, arrives as a guest of first lady Michelle Obama for President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. (AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
-
The glamorous scene where the WH press pool is watching tonight's SOTU address twitter.com/jbendery/statu…
— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) February 13, 2013 -
As Obama mentions sequester, important to remember he's been playing politics on the issue for weeks.
-
From left, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. sit on Capitol Hill in Washington before President Barack Obama's State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress. (AP/Charles Dharapak)
-
The president in his prepared remarks advocated raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour. That's a significant bump from the current level, $7.25 per hour, but still means relatively small earnings. For someone working 40 hours a week, $9 per hour translates to around $18,700 per year in income.
-
Obama says one of his Medicare reforms would be to "reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies," but his administration cut deals with those same companies to preserve their profit margins to keep them from lobbying against his health care reform act in 2009.
-
Obama says that defense sequester is a ”bad idea.”
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter warned that if automatic budget cuts were to be enacted on March 1, the Pentagon would be forced to find $46 billion in automatic cuts over seven months.
The cuts would make it so that maintenance on ships and aircraft would be postponed, civilian employees would face more than 20 furlough days and hiring freezes.
"This whole thing is dumb," said independent Maine Sen. Angus King during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. "This is a totally self-imposed disaster that we don't have to do." -
The rebuttal to the State of the Union is always a tough job, in part because the format is a more awkward close up with the camera. Many are taking note of Rubio's hasty water drink mid-speech:
-
Paul calls on viewers to "demand a new course" re: federal spending.
-
Paul takes on both Democrats and Republicans to buckle down on spending. "It is time Democrats admit that not every dollar spent on domestic programs is sacred. And it is time Republicans realize that military spending is not immune to waste and fraud," he says.
-
Rand Paul dings politicians for not reading the bills they are writing before they vote for them. But both Republicans and Democrats have forged last minute deals via leadership that members have no chance of vetting before a vote.
-
And now Paul takes on Obama on civil liberties, citing opposition to executive action on gun rights and "secret lists of American citizens who can be killed without trial."
-
Rand Paul says that the $1 trillion dollars in sequestration cuts set for March could be improved by being expanded: "Not only should the sequester stand, many pundits say the sequester really needs to be at least $4 trillion to avoid another downgrade of America’s credit rating."
-
Marco Rubio is taking the criticism over his awkward water drink in stride:
#GOPResponse #SOTU #gop #tcot twitter.com/marcorubio/sta…
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 12, 2013 -
