Since delivering his powerful speech unveiling the American Jobs Act, President Obama has kept up the pressure on Congressional Republicans, and it appears to be working. Immediately following the speech, House leaders showed faint signs of openness to the measure, and Speaker John Boehner even left a tiny bit of wiggle room on tax loopholes in his speech yesterday. Right on cue, the President’s own party is riding in to rescue the GOP from the clever political trap he has laid for them.

Following tonight’s presidential address to a joint session of Congress, there were reports of encouraging signs that Republicans might actually consider working with President Obama on his American Jobs Act. That hope lasted about as long as a Kajagoogoo retrospective, as Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va) appeared on Fox’s Hannity show to provide a reading between the lines of Speaker John Boehner‘s tepid written statement: Republicans will take the tax cuts, and block the rest.

Perhaps in celebration of tonight’s presidential address made to a joint session of congress, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly opted to host his eponymous show live (insert your own “f*ck it, we’ll do it live” joke here). After a rather blasé opening segment with Lou Dobbs, things got much more interesting when O’Reilly welcomed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney onto the show to discuss President Obama‘s job speech.

It’s finally here! President Obama’s much-anticipated, much wrangled-over speech before a joint session of Congress, in which he will deliver a plan to create jobs (a plan that was demanded by some of the same people who are skipping the speech) and jump-start the economy, kicks off tonight at 7:15pm EDT. Here is the President’s speech as prepared for delivery.

Ahead of President Obama‘s address to a joint session of Congress, the White House has released excerpts of the speech: (via email from The White House)

Excerpts of the President’s Speech on the American Jobs Act

On Fox and Friends Thursday morning, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) explained the ostensible reason he will be skipping President Obama‘s address before a joint session of Congress, telling Gretchen Carlson that he “can’t listen to another political speech from this President,” but also making clear to co-host Steve Doocy that he didn’t “want to be disrespectful to the office or to the President personally.”

Jon Stewart returned from a two-week hiatus last night and passed by recent news stories like the earthquakes, hurricanes and a struggling economy, choosing instead to train his sites on last week’s controversy known as “speechgate,” or the scheduling conflict between the White House and Speaker’s office over a joint session address. The fake news host first noted how the conflict was resolved rather quickly by introducing a segment entitled “Tales of Reasonable Accommodation.” But that wasn’t the entire story.