Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday night he would support legislation to end insider trading among members of Congress and saw no reason why the bill couldn't become law this year. President Barack Obama called on Congress during his State of the Union address to swiftly pass legislation barring legislators from investing in companies whose business is affected by matters before the two chambers. "Well, I think people should have enough sense not to do it without legislation, but I will support legislation," Reid told a handful of reporters after the speech.

Republicans don't think it's fair for President Barack Obama to accuse them of obstructing progress. But that's not going to stop them from blaming him for doing the same. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) delivered the Republican response to Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night, accusing the president of pushing an extreme agenda that was "pro-poverty." Picking up on many of the themes sounded by the GOP presidential candidates on the campaign trail, Daniels criticized Obama for calling on the wealthiest Americans to pay higher taxes, saying it was doing nothing but "divide" America and stifle economic growth. Daniels pointed to Obama's "grand experiment in trickle-down government" that has "held back rather than sped economic recovery" and his record in putting America on a course to make the federal debt "radically worse in the years ahead."

President Barack Obama vowed during Tuesday's State of the Union Address to establish a new Financial Crimes Unit dedicated to investigating and prosecuting "large-scale" financial fraud. By naming New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to the squad, Obama put enormous pressure on the outspoken Wall Street critic to join a foreclosure fraud settlement that Schneiderman has frequently rejected as overly acquiescent to the financial establishment. As a political statement, Obama's announcement marks a change of rhetorical tone from an administration that has been reluctant to directly criticize Wall Street. But the Obama team's weak record on Wall Street fraud -- and the presence of two big-bank-friendly regulators on the panel with Schneiderman -- cast doubt on whether the new enterprise will be able to take serious action against the big banks instrumental in the 2008 meltdown.

When President Obama's immigration policy staffers gathered to help pen the State of the Union Address passage dedicated to their issue, they didn't have much to work with. Comprehensive immigration reform never came close, and the Dream Act failed. What's a speechwriter to do? Control-C. Control-V. "I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration," Obama said in his Tuesday evening speech. Indeed, he "strongly believe[d] that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration" last year, according to his State of the Union speech.

In a State of the Union speech focused tightly on jobs and the economy, President Barack Obama outlined his ideas for getting long-term unemployed workers back to work and closing the "skills gap" separating jobless Americans from employers who have positions to fill. In a speech setting his presidential agenda for 2012 -- as well his burgeoning re-election campaign -- Obama put forth policies that he said would "restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot," calling for more job training for young or unemployed workers as well as reforms to the unemployment insurance system.

The Washington, D.C. faction of the Occupy movement is slated to issue a response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday. From their encampment in McPherson Square in D.C., Occupiers are expected to deliver their message via the “people’s microphone,” a system of call-and-response where one person reads part of a statement and the crowd then repeats it.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

The 68-year-old senior Democrat from Massachusetts suffered the injuries during a pickup hockey game over the holidays. According to the Political Intelligence blog, Kerry was hit in the face with a hockey stick.

President Barack Obama used Tuesday's State of the Union address to lay out a vision of America in which everybody gets a fair shot at economic success and everybody -- including "the wealthy" -- plays by the same rules as the average citizen. Obama's address, which comes in the midst of a rapidly escalating presidential campaign season, delivered a strong message about the need for social and economic equality and put forward a handful of new policy ideas targeting tax reform, college affordability and clean energy. But by and large, Obama's third State of the Union was focused on proposals for boosting the economy and ensuring protections for the middle class. "Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same," Obama said. "It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom. No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody."

Jobs and the economy are the focus of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday evening, but many Americans are hoping he'll also address a topic that the White House has given no indication is on the agenda: same-sex marriage.

During his State of the Union address tonight, President Obama will announce the creation of a special unit to investigate misconduct and illegalities that contributed to both the financial collapse and the mortgage crisis. The office, part of a new Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses, will be chaired by Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, according to a White House official.

The White House has sent over embargoed portions of the President’s State of the Union Address, which contain a great deal of forward-looking economic vision and stem primarily from the same philosophical threads as Obama's much-discussed speech in Kansas several months ago.

It seems not all members of Congress agree that bipartisan seating for Tuesday's State of the Union address is a helpful show of unity. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) tweeted: “Regarding a 2nd SOTU Rep-Dem ‘date night,’ I note the 1st SOTU bipartisan ‘date night’ preceded a year of epic partisan rancor.”

Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain will deliver a State of the Union rebuttal for the Tea Party Express on Tuesday, right on the heels of President Barack Obama's address and a followup response by the GOP.

Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) will not be attending the president's State of the Union address. According to his office, the congressman plans to watch the speech with his brother, who is stationed in Alexandria, Va.

Fox News' Shep Smith gave an unforgettably epic breakdown on his Tuesday show of the food the White House served him at a journalists' luncheon. Smith was at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for the lunch that the president traditionally has with news anchors on the day of the State of the Union. (Just some of his companions: Brian Williams, Diane Sawyer, Scott Pelley and Wolf Blitzer.) Since the lunch is off the record, Smith could only tell viewers what he'd had to eat -- and he more than obliged, bringing up the menu about seven or eight times during the course of the hour, unfolding every detail of the food just after every commercial break. (He does this every year.)

In 2006, political scientists Matthew Baum and Samuel Kernell crunched the numbers on American viewership of presidential addresses. They found a steep decline since the 1980s, with cable television largely to blame.

Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) appeared on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon to describe their reasons for pursuing an ongoing pet project to get congressional lawmakers to embrace a system of bipartisan seating at the State of the Union address. "Any small step we can take to show a little togetherness -- the fact that this is an opportunity for us, as lawmakers, to demonstrate that we can be civil with one another, we can show respect for the institution, show respect for other lawmakers," Murkowski said.

"That means since April 29, 2009, Washington has been on a rudderless spending binge with absolutely no restraint. This spending spree has added $4.5 trillion in new debt to our tab and has enabled our overall debt to surpass $15 trillion."

President Barack Obama will seek to frame an election-year State of the Union address on Tuesday in starkly populist terms by emphasizing the inequality in a tax system that allows the wealthy to pay a lower rate than middle-class Americans.

Tonight, I’ll be joining my colleagues on the House floor in hopes that the President will deliver real, honest solutions to get our economy going and create jobs outside of government. A resurgence of American manufacturing and innovation are direly needed, and I have laid out many proposals to jumpstart those industries. Unfortunately, the President has scheduled 5 battleground state stops immediately after this speech, and tonight he is bringing Warren Buffett’s secretary as a prop to the State of the Union. These seem like indicators that Obama is only focusing on his re-election campaign instead of on the American economy and the American people.

Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) will not be attending the president's State of the Union address. According to his office, the congressman plans to watch the speech with his brother, who is stationed in Alexandria, Va.

President Obama sat down with several news anchors on Tuesday to preview his State of the Union speech, an annual tradition that's lasted through several presidencies amid a changing media landscape.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said on Monday that President Obama's State of the Union address was still being finalized. That might give some hope to different associations and organizations who have been writing the president to encourage him to incorporate certain issues into tonight's speech.

When President Obama delivers his State of the Union speech this evening, all Americans will hear is “a bunch of flowery rhetoric and all this stuff about all the things he has done,” Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said today.

President Barack Obama is ready to reclaim the spotlight with a plea for economic fairness in a State of Union address that opposition Republicans panned in advance as a rehash of old ideas.

A Democratic senator who planned to sit with a Republican for President Barack Obama's State of the Union address says he will keep the seat empty in honor of his ailing colleague.

A spokeswoman for Wasserman Schultz said the congresswoman will be escorting her friend Giffords into the House of Representatives. Giffords, who is resigning from Congress this week to focus on her recovery, will be making one of her final public appearances as a congresswoman.

Oh, hello, everyone! As you no doubt already know, President Barack Obama will be delivering his State Of The Union address Tuesday night on the teevee. And we know that many of you may choose to use this occasion to get somewhat "chemically altered." We can't blame you! Have you seen the State of the Union? It's pretty vertigo-inducing already! So, to assist you on your adventures with recreational binge drinking, we have prepared for you the official Huffington Post State of the Union drinking game.

When Sara Ferguson, an elementary school teacher from Pennsylvania, and Alicia B. Davis, a General Motors plant manager from Michigan, join First Lady Michelle Obama in her viewing box during Tuesday's State of the Union Address, they will be taking part in 30 years of presidential history.

Mitt Romney delivered a prebuttal to President Barack Obama's State of The Union Address Tuesday in Tampa, Fla. "Floridians are struggling to find a job, keep a home, and raise a family. As I've traveled across America, I've heard similar stories in virtually every corner of this country," he said, according to prepared remarks. "This is the real state of our union. But you won't hear stories like these in President Obama's address tonight. The unemployed don't get invitations to sit with the First Lady."

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) spent about three minutes reminding House members of the "appropriate" dress code ahead Tuesday's State of the Union address. "Members should wear appropriate business attire during all sittings of the House, however brief their presence on the floor might be," Boehner said, according to The Hill. "You know who you are," he added, drawing laughter from the crowd.

On the eve of President Barack Obama's third State of the Union address, education experts expect the president's address to hit on college affordability, an issue Obama has made a central prong of his re-election campaign's middle-class message -- despite questions about the administration's ability to tangibly help students.

Warren Buffett's longtime secretary, Debbie Bosanek, will join First Lady Michelle Obama in her box during Tuesday night's State Of The Union address, according to a tweet by White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. "Tonight President Obama will offer more details on the Buffett Rule," he adds.

President Barack Obama will deliver a State of the Union address on Tuesday night built on the message that everyone deserves a fair shot at economic success and everyone must be held accountable for what they do. The next day, he'll begin using that same message as the thrust for his re-election campaign for the next 10 months. Obama's third State of the Union address, which airs on all major networks at 9 p.m. EST, will map out a vision for boosting the economy and strengthening the middle class, based on four pillars, White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a Monday briefing. Those pillars are American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and American values. The president also will adopt a tone that ran all through a speech he gave in Kansas last month -- one that many are equating with a historic speech that Teddy Roosevelt gave in 1910 -- that carries a strong message about social and economic equality. On the policy front, job creation and the economy will dominate the speech. Housing and college affordability will be central themes, again tied into the overall message of fairness, according to sources familiar with the speech. National security, as is always the case with the State of the Union, will also be a key component. Expect Obama to break out issues that he and Congress can work on together; Carney signaled Monday that those areas could include comprehensive immigration reform and tax reform. The president will also point to areas where he can take action without Congress, a practice the White House has said to get used to in the coming months given the partisan gridlock that has come to define Congress. The president won't waste time selling his message once the speech is over. Less than 24 hours after the address, he'll kick off an intense, three-day tour of five states, all of which are key battleground states for his re-election: Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan. The move is a convenient overlapping point for Obama to connect his governing to his campaigning, which has already gotten off the ground but isn't in full force yet.