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• The constitutional constraints on his authority and lack of cooperation in Congress are a recipe for low-yield initiatives with limited reach. But limited executive actions, such as the ones he announced Tuesday night, might be all government can bear to do in an election year when Congress' balance of power is on the line.
• The president renewed his call for Congress to increase the national minimum wage, to overhaul immigration laws, to broaden access to preschool education, to expand international trade. These were all features of his 2013 State of the Union address and remain unmet goals of his second term. This time Obama presented them as pieces of a larger whole, parts of an overarching opportunity agenda that acknowledges that even in a recovering economy, not all Americans are reaping the benefits.
• "Let's make this a year of action," Obama declared, in what has become the rallying cry of his sixth year in office. "What I offer tonight is a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class."
• But the new packaging can't mask the hard slog Obama still faces in Congress. And his path might be obstructed not just by adversaries, but by allies as well.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- It seems to be something of an occupational hazard for President Barack Obama: When he talks about his health care law, he's bound to hit a fact bump sooner or later.
• So it went Tuesday night, when he declared Medicare premiums have stayed flat thanks to the law, when they've gone up. As for an even bigger theme of his State of the Union address, the president's assertion that "upward mobility has stalled" in America runs contrary to recent research, while other findings support him.
• A look at some of the facts and political circumstances behind his claims, along with a glance at the Republican response to his speech:
• OBAMA: "Because of this (health care) law, no American can ever again be dropped or denied coverage for a preexisting condition like asthma, back pain or cancer. No woman can ever be charged more just because she's a woman. And we did all this while adding years to Medicare's finances, keeping Medicare premiums flat, and lowering prescription costs for millions of seniors."
• THE FACTS: He's right that insurers can no longer turn people down because of

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