Printer Friendly Version
THE WEEK AHEAD: Obama's fourth major international trip takes him from Russia to Italy to Ghana, Congress is back, Al Franken gets seated and George W. Bush and Nancy Reagan birthdays.
For our mailbox, submit your questions for next week in the comments section below. We might pick yours.
By the way, this is an early Week Ahead, because we, at First Read, are taking tomorrow off. Happy Fourth of July! See you Monday.
From NBC's Alex Beinstein, James Rankin, and Katelin Schartz
June 30 was the end of the fiscal year for most states, and here's a round up of headlines -- in the last couple of days -- that shed light on the challenges they're facing:
Alabama “Recession Delays Alabama Tax Refunds” 120,000 Alabama taxpayers will have to wait for their refunds due to declining revenue.
Arizona “Brewer Rips Budget, Calls Special Session”
California “California Ready to Issue IOUs”
Colorado “Colorado Crisis Worst Since Depression”
Connecticut Gov. Rell Vetoes Democrats' Budget Proposal Delaware “House OKs a Dozen New Tax Initiatives”
Florida “Florida Drivers, Brace for Impact on Your Wallets”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Ken Strickland
The Senate Health Committee unveiled its plan for a public/government insurance program to compete with private insurers. And it also detailed the "play or pay" provision that would require companies to provide insurance coverage to their employees or pay fees to the government.
Today's announcement, while significant, provides only a few new pieces in what has become a giant health-care reform puzzle. Several outstanding issues remain -- chief among them total cost of reform and how you pay for that cost. Votes are at least weeks away, and bipartisanship on major elements remain elusive.
Here are the outlines of what the committee released today. (This is the committee chaired by Ted Kennedy , but temporarily run by Chris Dodd .)
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Scott Foster President Obama was asked for his reaction to the apparent perception in the black community that he wasn't "respectful enough" to the death of Michael Jackson.
The president responded that he knows "a lot of people in the black community, and I haven't heard that."
(To recap: Obama's spokesman spoke on the president's behalf during a White House briefing last week, and the White House issued a written statement over the weekend that the President had sent a condolence letter to the Jackson family.)
Today, Obama offered his public reaction, praising the legacy of Jackson -- while also noting the troubling aspects of his life.
"Michael Jackson is -- will go down in history as one of the greatest entertainers," he said. "I grew up on his music, still have all his stuff on my iPod. You know, I think his brilliance as a performer also was paired with a tragic and in many ways sad personal life. But, you know, I am glad to see that he is being remembered primarily for the great joy that he brought to a lot of people through his extraordinary gifts as an entertainer."
From NBC's Mark Murray Joe Biden has arrived in Iraq. The visit comes just days after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country's largest cities. Here's the release:
From NBC's Mark Murray Bill Clinton will host a fundraiser for New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney -- which is certainly interesting given that Maloney is challenging incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
A Clinton source insists that this doesn't mean he's endorsing Maloney, and says the former president is raising money for her "as a way of saying thanks for Maloney's help" during Hillary's failed 2008 presidential bid.
Bill Clinton, in fact, helped raise money for Gillibrand earlier this year.
Still, the news that Clinton is assisting Maloney here probably isn't welcome news to the Obama administration (which includes Clinton's wife) and establishment Democrats backing Gillibrand.
From NBC's Mark Murray President Obama's handling of the economy (even though, as we pointed out this morning, that the huge job losses began back in 2008 ).
RNC Chairman Michael Steele : “June’s unemployment report shows a job loss of 467,000 and proves that the stimulus package is not a ‘Recovery Act.’ Today President Obama will hold another White House PR event with presidential spin instead of putting forth real world, free market solutions that will put Americans back to work."
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor: "House Republicans laid out a serious and substantive agenda that put jobs first. House Democrats, along with the White House, instead took an unfocused, ‘go it alone’ approach that has fallen well short of its goals and has failed to create jobs."
And House Minority Leader John Boehner has released a Web video that asks, "Where are the jobs?"
*** UPDATE ***
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg *** Unemployment at 9.5%: Right before the long July 4th weekend, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning that the U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs in June, and that the unemployment rate is now 9.5%, a 26-year high. Expect Republicans -- once again -- to pounce on these numbers and question the stimulus (but they’re also forgetting that the economy lost 3.1 million jobs in Bush’s last year in office; in Obama’s first five months, the total loss has been 1.9 million). Not surprisingly, of course, Obama will today talk about jobs, innovation, and the economy at 2:20 pm ET. These remarks will follow a closed-press meeting with business leaders. Later in the afternoon, the president departs to Camp David to begin his July 4th holiday.
*** Home cookin’ at the town hall? Did the White House get a tad carried away in its attempt to stay on message at yesterday's town hall? Says the Washington Post , "Of the seven questions the president answered, four were selected by his staff from videos submitted to the White House Web site or from those responding to a request for ‘tweets.’ The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence." Then again, Republicans who are pouncing on this news have probably forgotten when only party faithful were even allowed into Bush town halls and rallies. Still, the optics here for Obama -- someone who usually doesn’t shy away from answering tough questions -- aren’t good. For those complaining that Obama is being held to a different standard than Bush, remember that he set his own standard, and that's why the media is pushing back so hard on him.
*** Operations Khanjar (Strike of the Sword): According to NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski, the U.S. Marines announced last night that 4,000 Marines and 650 Afghan military launched a major offensive in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan -- aimed at driving out the Taliban to "secure the population from the threat of Taliban and other insurgent intimidation and violence." It is the first large-scale operation of its kind under the new emerging U.S. military strategy for Afghanistan. Unlike previous operations in the country, Mik says, the Marines intend to set up a series of bases and remain in Helmand. The objective is to create long-term security and stability that will enable the local Afghans to establish legitimate government. In other Afghanistan news, Mik reports that American officials believe that the Taliban has kidnapped a U.S. soldier in another part of that country.
*** North Korea and Russia: But Afghanistan isn’t the only international issue the White House is closely following today. Also on its radar screen is a potential North Korea missile launch tied to July 4. “Asked if North Korea is likely to conduct a July 4 Taepodong-2 test, as occurred in 2006, Gen. Renuart said in an interview this week with The [Washington] Times at Northern Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, ‘I think we ought to assume there might be one on the Fourth of July and continue to be prepared and ready.’” And then there’s Obama’s upcoming trip to Russia. The Wall Street Journal writes, "Obama will explore with Russian leaders a longstanding proposal by Moscow to install U.S. missile-defense components on Russian soil, aimed at growing threats such as the Iranian and North Korean missile programs. The White House and Kremlin do expect progress on negotiations to reduce strategic nuclear warheads to about 1,500 for each side.” Bottom line on the Kremlin visit: If the Russians insist missile defense needs to be a part of the nuke talks rather than a parallel discussion, then it'll be hard to call this part of the trip a success.
*** 2009 vs. 1993-1994: The narrow passage of the House energy bill had many Republicans drawing parallels to 1993-994, when contentious legislation (BTU, gas-tax increase) helped the GOP take back control of Congress. But there’s one big difference between then and now: Back in 1994, Democrats had controlled the House of Representatives since the 1950s; now they’ve controlled it for less than three years. The energy vote victory, National Journal’s Ron Brownstein writes, “suggests that Democrats learned something from their 12 years in the minority, when they watched narrower Republican House majorities, however reluctantly, surmount their differences to pass almost all of their party’s agenda. ‘The example of 1994 looms over everything,” says White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. ‘We learned that if we don’t hang together, we die separately. It brought unity and pragmatism to the party.’” One could argue Rahm lives by the following credo: WDCDin'94 (What Did Clinton Do In '94?), and then he advises the president to do the opposite. Speaking of ’94, Politico notes that several members of that GOP freshmen class (Sanford, Ensign) have been caught up in affairs or sex scandals.
*** The GOP’s brand problem: This Washington Post piece has a fascinating take on why Norm Coleman lost to Al Franken: It’s all about the Republican Party’s brand. "[S]ome Republican strategists said the Coleman defeat ought to generate a broader reexamination of the party's status rather than simply a review of its legislative tactics. 'For [Coleman] to lose to Al Franken has to be a wake-up call to Republicans that the brand is what brought Coleman down,' GOP strategist John Feehery said. 'Hopefully that will spark a bigger strategic discussion about how to prevent the brand from bringing other people down.'" In 2010, we'll get some good tests about the state of the GOP brand in the Ohio (Rob Portman) and Missouri (Roy Blunt) Senate races. My Bodyguard (or not): Will the drip-drip end up being South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s undoing? Earlier this week, of course, Sanford gave that bizarre interview to the AP, in which he admitted more contacts with his Argentine mistress than he previously revealed, and then said he had “crossed the lines” with other women. (The interview became more damaging when the audio was released. It was one thing for folks to read the excerpts; it was another to listen to Sanford.) Now comes a report from the State newspaper noting that Sanford left the governor’s mansion without a security escort 38 times in 2008, and 39 times in the first six months of this year. “Those trips are about one-third of the 195 trips Sanford made from the mansion, with or without security, over that 18-month period… The information was obtained from security logs provided to The State newspaper under open-records laws.”
*** Happy Fourth of July: Finally, we won’t be publishing our morning note tomorrow, although we’ll update the Web site as news warrants. We’ll see you bright and early Monday morning. Have a happy and safe holiday. And for some good holiday reading, check out this Wall Street Journal story about cracking Thomas Jefferson’s code. “For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now…” Could this be the next plotline for Nicholas Cage?
Countdown to Election Day 2009: 124 days
Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Obama meets with business leaders at the White House privately to discuss how "they've been able to create jobs despite the economic doldrums," the AP says. Obama will speak from the Rose Garden afterward. Also, the president will sit down with the AP in advance of his trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana next week. Obama heads to Camp David at the end of his day. Reuters . "We are ready for this. ... "Now is not the time to discover who is in a more difficult position or who is tougher. It is time to join efforts. We must improve our relations to solve multiple global problems through joint efforts."
The New York Times : "President Obama returned to the familiar trappings of a political campaign on Wednesday, holding a town-hall-style meeting where he sought to heighten the urgency surrounding the health care debate and dismissed critics who say the issue is too complex to tackle during his first year in office... With members of Congress away for the week, the president had the stage to himself as he promoted his plan to lower the cost of health care and make coverage more accessible. He cast his proposal as a cost-saver, rather than a giant expenditure, saying the economy was not likely to rally without reversing 'the crushing cost of health care.'"
CONTINUED >>
"Determined to advance President Barack Obama's health care agenda, key Senate Democrats are calling for a government-run insurance option to compete with private plans, as well as a $750-per-worker annual fee on larger companies that do not offer coverage to employees,"
AP's Espo reports. "In a letter outlining the details, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said their revised plan would cost dramatically less than an earlier, incomplete proposal, and help show the way toward coverage for 97 percent of all Americans."
Charlie Rangel said on MSNBC that insurance companies are "
stealing " from people. "In response to Rangel's comments, Ken Johnson, senior vice president of PhRMA, said: 'We would love to have Mr. Rangel spend a few days in a laboratory talking to some of our scientists who are working to cure cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's. Perhaps then he would have a better appreciation of what we do. Yes, we agree saving money is important. But so is saving lives.'"
