• Gabby Giffords’ voice rings loud in Senate, urging 'bold' action on gun control

    Slideshow: Former Ariz. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

    J. Scott Applewhite / AP

    A look at the Arizona lawmaker's rise to prominence — from high school to Capitol Hill.

    Launch slideshow

    By Kasie Hunt, NBC News

    Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' words during a brief opening statement at a Senate hearing on gun violence were careful, slow and deliberate.

    But they were firm: "Too many children are dying," she said Wednesday, breaking up the syllables during her testimony to open a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun laws.

    "It will be hard, but the time is NOW," said Giffords, who has embarked on an arduous recovery after being critically wounded at Tucson Safeway while meeting with constituents in early 2011. "You. Must. Act. Be bold. Be cour-ag-eous. Amer-i-cans are count-ing on you." Continue reading the full story.

    Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

    Senate Judiciary Committee members, from left, Sen. John Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Sen. John Orrin Hatch (R-UT), ranking member Sen. John Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Sen. John Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Sen. John Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. John Richard Durbin (D-IL) listen to testimony during a hearing about gun control on Capitol Hill on Jan. 30 in Washington, D.C.

  • Senator John Kerry appears at speech with injuries from hockey game

    Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

    U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) arrives prior to the start of U.S. President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Jan. 24, in Washington, DC. Obama said the focal point his speech is the central mission of our country, and his central focus as president, including "rebuilding an economy where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded."

    Evan Vucci / AP

    President Barack Obama greets, from second from left, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, after delivering his State of the Union address.

     by Jason Brough / nbcsports.com

    U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) couldn’t have picked a better time to get smashed in the face with a hockey stick.

    Kerry was at the White House yesterday for the ceremony honoring the Stanley Cup-winning Boston Bruins, and the 68-year-old came complete with two black eyes and a broken nose that he got during a game of hockey with family and friends over the holiday.

  • The fight continues for the unemployed at the White House and Congress

    Mark Wilson / Getty Images

    Sen. Olympia Snowe. left, questions Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner while Sen. Mary Landrieu, right, listens during a Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Oct. 18, in Washington, DC. The committee is hearing testimony on "The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010" one year later.

    Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images

    President Barack Obama speaks at the YMCA on Guilford Technical Community College Campus in Jamestown, North Carolina, on Oct. 18, during the second day of his three-day bus tour to discuss jobs and the economy. Obama is making the trip in effort to generate support for a $447 billion jobs bill blocked by Republican lawmakers in Washington. The White House has touted the jobs bill as a shot-in-the-arm for the economy and accused Republicans of playing politics by blocking it, as Democrats have vowed to break it down and bring votes on each of its components.

    By Phaedra Singelis, NBC News

    Two views of the same problem: unemployment.

    Despite public support, the president's jobs bill failed to pass in the Senate, so Obama is pushing Congress to pass it piece by piece. Full story on the swing-state jobs tour.

    Meanwhile, Geithner is testifying before the Senate Small Business committee on the Small Business Jobs Act from last year which created the $30 billion Small Business Lending Fund. The program distributed a little over $4 billion to 332 community banks nationwide in an effort to increase loans to small companies to stimulate growth. Treasury has blamed the low participation on a lack of qualified applicants.

  • Stalking the corridors of power as a deal is done

    By David R Arnott, NBC News

    As one of our headlines succinctly put it over the weekend, It's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad DC. One less mad just would not have covered it. Here are a few images that struck me from a weekend of deal-making.

    Joshua Roberts / Reuters

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) walks from a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the debt ceiling crises on Capitol Hill in Washington July 31.

    Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

    Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), right, talks with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as the U.S. Congress tries to hammer out a solution to the looming debt ceiling crisis at the U.S. Capitol July 30.

    Brendan Smialowski / EPA

    Senate Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gives a thumbs-up while walking to the Senate floor to announce a deal July 31.

    Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

    President Barack Obama walks past Vice President Joe Biden and White House Communications Director Daniel Pfeiffer after speaking on the debt limit impasse from the briefing room of the White House July 31.

    Last Wednesday NBC's cameras secured unique access to the corridors of power, as well as a few more unlikely locations around town, for a special show entitled Taking the Hill: Inside Congress. For me, the most amusing vignette takes place in "what could easily be mistaken for a Capitol Hill frat house" (© Brian Williams) but is actually the shared DC home of Senators Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin and Congressman George Miller. Check it out at 3:10 in the clip below.

    As the debt limit debate roiled Capitol Hill, members of Congress and their staffs used a variety of means to find common ground on legislation one member said was tougher to pass than a "kidney stone."

  • Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

    Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) delivers opening remarks during a hearing about the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on Capitol Hill on December 2, 2010 in Washington, DC.

    Sen. John McCain during "don't ask, don't tell" hearing on Capitol Hill

    By Mish Whalen

    This is an interesting angle to photograph Sen. McCain at this hearing. Read the latest on this here.

  • Mark Wilson / Getty Images

    Newly elected Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI) narrates and records a video for his Facebook page while walking around Statuary Hall inside the U.S. Capitol on Monday in Washington, DC. Today the House of Representatives starts its lame duck session of the 111th Congress. House Democrats lost over 60 seats in the mid-term elections the giving control of the house to the Republicans.

    Freshman congressman shoots Facebook video

    By Stokes Young, nbcnews.com

    Updated at 8:10 a.m. ET, Nov. 16: You can watch the resulting video here.

    Original post:

    At press time, Duffy had not yet posted the video to his Facebook page or Twitter feed.

    From the AP:

    Dejected Democrats and invigorated Republicans returned to the Capitol Monday to face a mountain of unfinished work and greet more than 100 mainly Republican freshmen-elect lawmakers determined to change how they do business.