US Politics Video and Transcript: President Obama's State of the Union Address

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PRESIDENT OBAMA: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, fellow Americans, 51 years ago, John F. Kennedy declared to this chamber that “the Constitution makes us not rivals for power, but partners for progress.”

(APPLAUSE)

“It is my task,” he said, “to report the state of the union. To improve it is the task of us all.”

Tonight, thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, there is much progress to report. After a decade of grinding war, our brave men and women in uniform are coming home.

(APPLAUSE)

After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over 6 million new jobs. We buy more American cars than we have in five years and less foreign oil than we have in 20.

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US Politics Analysis: Predicting Obama's "Aggressive" State of the Union Speech

Tonight Obama has the platform, and the one-time political capital he garnered by winning his re-election campaign, for setting the priorities of the national conversation. The President has disappointed his liberal allies before --- and it would be no great surprise if that happened once again --- but, if he does want to be remembered as a “great” President, then tonight marks the moment when he must begin to swing the nation behind the Democratic Party he leads.

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2012 in Review: How Did EA's Predictions Turn Out?

The Question We Asked Last Year: A Reliable Prediction? --- Right to Left: Tunisia's Ben Ali, Egypt's Mubarak, Libya's Qaddafi, Yemen's Saleh, Syria's Assad, Iran's Khamenei

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On 1 January, I offered some predictions about the year ahead. How did they turn out?...

4. Speaking of Syria, things will get worse before they get better. The Arab League observers will produce a middling report, one that speaks of a crisis that needs fixing but will be slow to blame the highest levels of the Assad regime. International outcry will be loud. Eventually, someone will crack, and there will be intervention.

However, I would be shocked if this happened before April, and absolutely bewildered if it happened before March. The opposition is still, in the eyes of the world, not organised enough to serve as a skeleton upon which the international community can build a mission.

In the meantime, the protests will not go away, and more and more people will defect. Those defections, however, will not reach a tipping point for a long time for the regime, unless that international intervention happens.

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US Politics Analysis: Trotsky's Icepick and the Fight within the Republican Party

House Speaker John Boehner speaks on Wednesday about the "fiscal cliff" negotiations

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The murder of Leon Trotsky at Stalin's behest in Mexico in 1940 --- with an icepick that made his ears burn --- has become synonymous with the tendency of supporters of the same political ideology to act more as enemies than friends. The history of Communist movements worldwide, and in the US, is rife with infighting and intrigue, splits and divisions.

Trotsky's Icepick has now reached the conservative movement in the US. The immediate sign is the division over how Republicans should approach the "fiscal cliff" negotiations, but there are also internal recriminations about how and why Mitt Romney managed to lose a winnable Presidential election.

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EA Video Analysis: Mr Obama, Why Should We Trust You With Drones?

Last week the Obama Administration said that rules for drone attacks had been drawn up this autumn. The reason? Because of the prospect that Mitt Romney, not Barack Obama, would be President from January 2013.

So a question to President Obama: "If you didn't trust Mitt with drones, why should anyone trust you?"

US Politics Opinion: Lessons from the Campaign and the Election

Anti-Obama billboard in Missouri

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The Republicans are between a rock and a hard place. Because of that, there is a possibility that business can actually be done in Congress, especially if Obama takes a leaf from Lyndon Johnson’s book in how to deal with legislators --- studying, for example, the passing of Civil Rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Indeed, the bigger risk for the President may be that his own party’s legislators will try to exact revenge for the past two years of gridlock, ruining the chances of good governance by the Executive and Congress.

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Israel-Palestine Opinion: Why Obama's Re-election Offers Renewed Hope for an Agreement

Obama has four years to craft a legacy, and there is reason to suspect he wants to include a Nobel Peace Prize with no accomplishment justifying it.

Taking another crack at a tenable two-state solution is as daunting as ever, but the cost is lower than once thought. Furthermore, after this past Tuesday, perhaps Republicans will realize that being superficially “pro-Israel” is irrelevant to the voters they most need to reach. The GOP will not help, but perhaps it will not stand in the way.

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EA Video Analysis: Your 4-Point Guide to the US Elections...& What Happens Next

Four points and 9 1/2 minutes to understand not only President Obama's re-election, but the lessons and challenges for both the Democrats and the Republicans....

1. Why Obama Won: "It's the Centre, Stupid"
2. The Social Front: "Charlie Brown, Are We Still Living in Traditional White America?"
3. The Short-Term Challenge for Obama and....
4. The Bigger Challenge for the Republican Party

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US Elections 2012 Analysis: Republicans Head Towards a "Social Cliff"

Bill O'Reilly on Fox News on Tuesday night: "It's not a traditional (white) America anymore. And there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff....The white establishment is now the minority."

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The question in these days after the election: will Republicans recognize that a majority of Americans may not be interested in using the Bible as guidebook for legislating the lives of private citizens? Can they accept that the same majority no longer see the US as the protected reserve of the descendants of the nation's "white" founders?

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US Elections 2012: Wednesday's EA Analysis --- Obama, Romney, and What Happens Next

Scott Lucas: Obama's Victory and "What's Next for Foreign Policy" --- An Interview with Monocle 24
James Miller: The GOP Needs to Listen to Mitt Romney
Video: When Karl Rove Would Not Believe Fox News "Obama Wins Ohio"
Video: Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech
US Elections 2012 Special: Tuesday's Live Coverage and Analysis