Obama's State of the Union Speech Video Jan. 25, 2011

The State of the Union speech, by the way, is one given by every president every January, reporting to us the condition of our country. See an "enhanced" version of the speech here. Full speech (transcript):

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White House staffers answer questions on the State of the Union following the speech:

This is a great video for school kids or those who want to learn more about the State of the Union speech itself:

The GOP response from Paul Ryan:

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Watch Obama's State of the Union Address

Update: Transcript. Video.

Obama's Schedule Jan. 25 2011

Watch the State of the Union at 9 pm eastern here.

9:30 AM	The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing Oval Office Closed Press
9:00 PM	The President delivers the State of the Union Address United States Capitol

Who's Sitting With Michelle Obama at the State of the Union?

Dr. Jill Biden

Phil Schiliro, Assistant to the President and Director, Office of Legislative Affairs

Gary and Robert Allen (Rochester Hills, MI)
Gary and his brother Robert have been partners in the family business, Allen Brothers Inc., a roofing products manufacturing company, for 25 years. With the help of $500,000 from the Recovery Act, the Allen brothers were able to retool half of their manufacturing facility in order to manufacture solar shingles and launch a whole new business, Luma Resources. A graduate of Saginaw Valley State University, Gary, his wife Diane, and their six children are residents of Rochester Hills, Michigan. Robert lives in Oakland Township, Michigan with his wife Nicole, and their three children.

Ursula M. Burns (Norwalk, CT)
Ursula M. Burns is the chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation. She joined Xerox in 1980 as a mechanical engineer summer intern and later assumed roles in product development and planning. From 1992 through 2000, Ms. Burns led several business teams including the office color and fax business and office network printing business. In 2000, she was named senior vice president, Corporate Strategic Services, heading up manufacturing and supply chain operations. She then took on the broader role of leading Xerox's global research as well as product development, marketing and delivery. In April 2007, Ms. Burns was named president of Xerox, expanding her leadership to also include the company's IT organization, corporate strategy, human resources, corporate marketing and global accounts. At that time, she was also elected a member of the company's Board of Directors. Ms. Burns was named chief executive officer in July 2009. Ms. Burns earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Polytechnic Institute of NYU and a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University. Ms. Burns was named by the President to help lead the White House national campaign on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in November 2009, and is on the board of Change the Equation, a coalition of over 100 CEOs focused on STEM education that the President announced in September 2010. She was appointed vice chair of the President’s Export Council in March 2010.

Amy Chyao (Richardson, TX)
Amy, a sixteen-year-old high school junior from Richardson, Texas, has developed a photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy (PDT), an emerging cancer treatment which uses light energy to activate a drug that kills cancer cells. After her freshman year biology class, Amy became interested in cancer research and came up with an idea for improving the way medicine is designed. So over her summer vacation she taught herself some basic chemistry and began her research. With her work, Amy won the first place Gordon E. Moore Award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a program of Society for Science & the Public, in May 2010. Since taking home the top prize at the Intel science fair, she and her teacher have received inquiries from researchers who are actually implementing the therapy and are interested in her work. Amy, whose parents came here from China, is also a cellist and tutors younger children in her spare time. Amy met the President at the October 2010 White House Science Fair.

Kendra Baker and Zachary Davis (Santa Cruz, CA)
Business partners Kendra Baker and Zachary Davis had a dream of opening an organic, homemade ice cream shop in Santa Cruz, California, but had trouble finding a lender that would help finance their dream. With the help of a Recovery Act SBA loan of $250,000, Kendra and Zack were able open the doors to The Penny Ice Creamery in August 2010. The SBA Recovery Act funding allowed them to not only open the shop, but also to employ eleven people, purchase American-made equipment, and to hire nearly twenty local businesses to design and renovate the space. Kendra and Zack were so thankful for the financing help, that they posted a video on YouTube thanking the Administration and Members of Congress for their Recovery Act SBA loan. As a result of the video, the Vice President called them in November 2010 to thank them for the video and wish them good luck.

Brandon and Julie Fisher (Berlin, PA)
Brandon Fisher is the owner of a small business, Center Rock, in Berlin, Pennsylvania that specializes in a new kind of drilling technology. Last summer, Center Rock manufactured the drill bits and other equipment used to find and rescue the 33 trapped Chilean miners. The technology enabled a considerable shortening of the rescue timeline. Brandon and his wife, sales director Julie, spent 37 days in Chile working to drill the rescue shaft. Brandon, along with some of the Americans involved in the Chilean mine rescue efforts, met the President in October 2010. Read who else will be sitting with the First Lady.

Obama's State of the Union Jan. 27 2010 Video

Speech transcript.

POTUS was powerful. Happy for the bipartisan message and happy that Obama is still fighting.

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If you'd like, you can watch Bob McDonnell give the republican response here. Read about the unofficial response by "You Lie!" Joe Wilson here. Alito's reaction to being called out by Obama for a lame SCOTUS decision on campaign financing. Bank bailouts as popular as a root canal video.
My favorite part of Obama's speech:

So no, I will not give up on changing the tone of our politics. I know it's an election year. And after last week, it is clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual. But we still need to govern. To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that sixty votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions. So let's show the American people that we can do it together. This week, I'll be addressing a meeting of the House Republicans. And I would like to begin monthly meetings with both the Democratic and Republican leadership. I know you can't wait.

and this:

Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions - our corporations, our media, and yes, our government - still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people's doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.

No wonder there's so much cynicism out there.

No wonder there's so much disappointment.

Live Stream of Obama's State of the Union Jan. 27 2010

You'll be able to watch it all over your TVs, but if you're not in front of a TV, here you go. It will be all over the Internet as well. What we know so far is Obama is going to ask Congress to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, he's going to talk about immigration reform, he's going to urge healthcare reform, he's going to talk about a 3-year freeze on discretionary spending. Will there be any surprises? A holler out, a "you lie," something in the speech that the media hasn't already fussed over. We shall see.
Speech over. See SOTU video here.

Obama Will Answer Questions Post SOTU

After the President's speech begins this Wednesday (1/27) at 9pm EST, anyone will be able to submit a follow-up question and vote on others at YouTube.com/CitizenTube. Then next week, the President will answer questions in a special online event, live from the White House. WH

Don't miss the speech at 9pm EST on Wednesday night and the chance to follow-up with your questions.

Hopes for State of the Union Jan. 27

Obama speaks to Congress on healthcare

I only have one hope for Obama's state of the union speech and that is that he calls for bipartisanship, and he holds all of Congress responsible for bipartisanship, and that he makes it happen. Obama has to insist on it. Our leaders need to start behaving like mature adults. I'm so sick of politics. I want to see both sides sitting down solving problems, no excuses. The republicans have been despicable. Their sole focus has been to oppose Obama at every turn. They've been acting like political animals clawing their way back to power. They've allowed the way out there conservatives, such as Michele Bachmann, to take over. The democrats haven't been solving problems either. They've been too busy figuring who's on top -- liberals or blue dogs. They're all out for themselves and no one is representing the people. Matthew Dowd, on This Week, says independents are on the rise and independents want bipartisanship. That's about right.

MORAN: Well, the Republicans seem to think it -- many -- that it was a Republican victory, just as the Democrats did in 2008. Take a look at a chart that -- that refutes that a little bit. This is a chart that shows how people identify themselves. Are they liberal, moderate, or conservative? Over the course of the last five years, there's basically been no change -- that's the message, that this country didn't swing to the left in 2008 and it's not swinging to the right now.

DOWD: Well, the fastest rising -- the fasting rising group of voters in this country right now are independents. It's not as if the Democrats suffered and Republicans rose. Independents have risen.

Dowd's got it right on what the majority of Americans hope for:

MORAN: But, seriously, what should Barack Obama do when he gets before the Congress and the country on Wednesday night?

DOWD: Well, I think the first thing -- he has to do a combination of things. He has to basically say he understands people's fears and concerns and anxieties and give voice to those fears and concerns and anxieties again, but also point a path to the promised and hope and how we're going to get there.

People want to be understood in their anxieties, but they also want a sense of hopeful and optimistic. And I also think, instead of going up there and pointing his finger at Republicans...

ROBERTS: Right, he needs to...

DOWD: ... he's going to have to say, "I embrace this. We went off a bit over the course of the last year, but I want to bring a bipartisan solution to the problems of America." Read the whole transcript.

Obama's State of the Union Jan. 27 2010

The Obamas served at SOME soup kitchen today

Americans can now rush to check for TV conflicts:

President Obama will deliver his first State of the Union address on Jan. 27.

The White House finalized the date for the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress for next Wednesday at 9 p.m., a senior administration confirmed on Monday. The date of the speech is to be formally announced on Tuesday.

In the televised speech to the nation, Mr. Obama will outline his priorities for the coming year as well as recount what he believes are the achievements from his first year in office. Speech writers have been working on the address for weeks, but the date had not been set, pending the outcome of the health insurance legislation in Congress.

But the White House decided against waiting beyond January for the State of the Union address, which Mr. Obama will use to set the tone for the coming year. More at NYT

Getting a Good Seat at Obama's Speech to Congress

"There's something majestic about the President of the United States" (even though some can't stand his policies). Eliot Engel, a democrat who likes the president's policies, explains why congresspeople line up early to shake the president's hand. Obama will speak at 9 pm eastern.  Supreme Courters get reserved seating. Others getting good seats with Michelle Obama: 8th-grader Ty’Sheoma Bethea, Leonard Abess Jr., a banker in Miami who shared $60 million in profits with his employees, Geneva Lawson, one of Abess' employees, and Lilly Ledbetter.

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