February 2009 - Posts
From NBC's Abby Livingston If
Rick Santorum delivered tough love to the CPAC audience, Minnesota Gov.
Tim Pawlenty (R) followed him with sunshine. He opened his remarks calling his wife "hot," and then declared, "The reports of the demise of the conservative movement are greatly exaggerated."
He followed up with, "I've been to CPAC before. You are not timid. You are not weak."
Amid his jokes and anecdotes and metaphors and smiles, the oft-mentioned 2012 GOP contender was on the prowl to shore up his conservative credentials.
He hit as many boilerplate issues as he could, using the word "God" often; he praised standardized testing; and he railed against the tenure system in public education.
But at a convention where Al Gore is the equivalent of Public Enemy No. 1, Pawlenty advocated for alternative energy. He called for an "all hands on deck" approach to get off oil.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Abby Livingston WASHINGTON -- During the CPAC convention, it takes about 30 seconds for a reporter
walking in off the streets here to realize he or she is not in
hyper-Democratic D.C. anymore.
It is at CPAC where defiant newspaper stands carry "The Washingtom
Times" rather than "The New York Times" or "The Washington Post." It is
at CPAC where mere mentions of words like "ACLU" or "
Eric Holder "
elicit audience boos and "homeschooling" elicit audience cheers.
And it is at CPAC where former Republican Pennsylvania Sen.
Rick Santorum is still an ideological force.
His speech to the adoring CPAC crowd did not disappoint. He entered to
the music of Elvis, and it was fitting, because he was a CPAC rock star.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray Mitt Romney . He had supported abortion rights, had once championed embryonic stem-cell research, and had even voted for Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic primary.
But by the end of the GOP primary season, more and more conservatives had embraced the former Massachusetts governor. In fact, when he withdrew from the primary race at last year's Conservative Political Action Conference, he did so to loud gasps and shouts of "No!"
Well, Romney today returned to same conference where he ended his '08 presidential bid. And he did so to a thunderous applause.
When he addressed the confab here, he wasn't the moderate governor from a Northeast state. Rather, he was a full-throated conservative. He whacked the spending from the month-old Obama administration. "America voted for change," he said. "America did not vote for a boat-load of new government spending programs."
On his governing philosophy: "Conservative principles are absolutely essential to keeping America strong."
On Iraq: "It is in spite of Barack Obama's stance on Iraq -- not because of it -- that American troops are coming home to victory."
From NBC’s Athena Jones
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- An American flag and a crowded Marine field house provided the backdrop Friday for President
Obama 's announcement of his plan to withdraw combat forces from Iraq by August 2010.
The Iraq war was the issue that helped rocket Obama, who opposed it from the start, to political stardom, and he campaigned on a promise to redeploy combat troops within 16 months of taking office.
The reduction announced today will bring US troops down from the current 142,000 to what Obama called a transitional force of 35,000 to 50,000 and will change their mission from combat to training, equipping, and advising Iraqi security forces; counter-terrorism; and protecting "ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq."
All U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, but the initial drawdown will not happen as quickly as the president originally envisioned.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro (Statements compiled by NBC’s Mike Viqueira, Kelly O’Donnell and Ken Strickland)
Reactions to President Obama ’s Iraq withdrawal plan have been mostly universally praised by Republicans, but approached cautiously by some Democrats.
Video: President Barack Obama visits the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, N.C., to announce his plan to end the U.S. combat mission in Iraq. House Minority Leader John Boehner calls the plan “responsible” though, like Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell gives the credits Gen.
David Petraeus .
"The plan put forward by President Obama continues our strategy of bringing troops home from Iraq as they succeed in stabilizing the country," Boehner said. "I believe he has outlined a responsible approach...."
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor complimented Obama, and took a swipe at other Democrats.
“President Obama deserves credit for not listening to the chorus of voices calling for a rapid drawdown of forces regardless of the consequences for Iraq, our military and the American people," Cantor said.
Last night on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would like to see troops at lower levels by 2009. She amended her wording in the statement below, but choosing them carefully, she said, “[T]he remaining missions given to our remaining forces must be clearly defined and narrowly focused so that the number of troops needed to perform them is as small as possible.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called it a “sound and measured plan,” but added that the U.S. “must keep in Iraq only those forces necessary for the security of our remaining troops and the Iraqi people.”
Liberals like Dennis Kucinich , among those Cantor would be referring to, said, “I support President Obama for taking a step in the right direction in Iraq, but I do not think that his plan goes far enough,” Kucinich said. “America must determine at some point to end the occupation, close the bases and bring the troops home. We must bring a conclusion to this sorry chapter in American history where war was waged under false pretense against an innocent people.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray
The former Republican speaker entered the ballroom here at the Conservative Political Action Conference to Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," with the packed crowd standing and clapping to the song's beat. And in the first few moment of his remarks, Gingrich immediately criticized the month-old Obama administration.
He chastised Attorney General Eric Holder's recent speech that the U.S. was a nation of cowards when it comes to the issue of race.
"I welcome an opportunity to have a dialogue with you about cowardice anywhere, anytime," he said in comments directed at Holder. Then, turning to President Obama's Tuesday address to Congress and his budget, Gingrich called them "the boldest effort to create a European socialist government we have seen."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Courtney Kube CLAIM #1: Obama: "We'll raise military pay."
Fact: The President's budget calls for a 2.9% increase in pay for members of the military -- but pay for members of the military increases every year.
Secretary Gates spoke about pay raises during yesterday's briefing, saying, "Two years ago, we went to the Hill with about the same request. It was 3 percent. And last year, we went with a request for 3.5 percent. In both cases, the Congress added to it. But it's not all that different from what we submitted in the past."
Pentagon requests for pay increase:
CONTINUED >>
A decidedly skeptical look at what Members of Congress are Tweeting:
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro John McCain goes pork-hunting, vowing to reveal the "top 10 projects." His list so far (expect to hear all about these):
"#7. $300,000 for the Montana World Trade Center - enough said"
Video: GOP all a-Twitter. feels the need to post a "
Twit pic " from "backstage" at CPAC.
Rep.
Dana Rohrabacher is organizing Santelli tea parties: "Please ReTweet: Tea Party for Orange County at Huntington Beach Pier 9:00 a.m. tomorrow
http://bit.ly/eWsVB (I will be there.)"
Pete Hoekstra wants you to know he landed safely ... again. (Didn't he learn his lesson the first time?) "Safe landing. Very windy and bouncy. A little late but thank you NWA."
Uh, I guess Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) likes cats? "Apparently my micro-blogging was covered on Colbert. Meow." CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Ken Strickland John McCain said, "I am cautiously optimistic that the plan as laid out by the president can lead to success."
McCain was among those congressional members briefed on the President Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan yesterday at the White House. "I believe the president's withdrawal is a reasonable one. I think the plan is reasonable."
The Arizona senator credited "the surge," as well as the work by Gens. Petraeus and Odierno and Ambassador Crocker for improving security in Iraq and thereby allowing Obama's withdrawal plan to be implemented. "The failing situation in Iraq has been arrested and reversed," he said.
But he quickly added "the president's plan is not without risk. We have not yet completed the mission in Iraq, and the gains we have made there remain fragile." McCain also said the greatest risk will be the period leading up to and during Iraq's elections in December when "conditions could worsen."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray Barack Obama as the Senate's most liberal member, which became a chief talking point for the McCain campaign and the GOP during the presidential election.
This year's most liberal senator is -- drum roll, please -- Patty Murray . The most conservative senator? A four-way tie: John Barrasso (WY), Mike Enzi (WY), John Ensign (NV), and Jon Kyl (AZ).
Click here for more on NJ's ratings .
From NBC's Mark Murray
Liberal groups like MoveOn, SEIU, Democracy for America, and DailyKos are supporting Accountability Now PAC, a grassroots organization launched yesterday that will target what it sees as Democrats who have ethics problems or who are out of touch with their constituents on key issues. Its goal is to have about $1 million at its disposal to recruit and help potential primary challengers.
There isn't an actual target list -- although supporters cite Democrats like Sen. Joe Lieberman , ex-Rep. Al Wynn (whom current Rep. Donna Edwards defeated in 2008), and ex-Rep. William Jefferson (who lost his congressional seat to a Republican) as examples of past transgressors.
The idea behind Accountability Now is that primaries and primary competition are healthy; in fact, the organization's executive director, Jeff Hauser, compares them to a job-performance review.
But Accountability Now stresses that it isn't analogous to the conservative Club for Growth, which has been criticized for targeting moderate Republicans who represent moderate-leaning districts and states. It has no interest in trying to challenge, say, a Democratic member from Idaho. Rather, it wants to make sure Democratic congressmen aren't out of touch with their constituents.
"We are not pushing people to the left," said Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos, which is supporting Accountability Now. "We want a responsive party and a responsive government."
Moulitsas adds that the group's goal isn't always to challenge incumbent Democrats in primaries. Instead, it would be more than pleased to change their voting records and behavior.
"No one wants to be the next Lieberman, right?"
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro Iraq is back: The Iraq war -- once the dominant issue in American politics, and the issue that helped propel President Obama to win the Democratic nomination -- returns back to the spotlight today, when the president unveils his plan for troop withdrawal from the country. Almost two years to the day he announced his candidacy for president, Obama travels to Camp Lejeune, NC, where he will say the U.S. will withdraw nearly 100,000 combat troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010. But aides admit that would likely leave a force of as many as 50,000, including some combat troops, in Iraq for another 15 months beyond the August 2010 date. Interestingly, the Obama plan has been criticized somewhat by Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and praised by Republicans like John McCain. “The convergence of Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain on Iraq would have seemed highly improbable just a few months ago,” the New York Times reminds us. “Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of being naïve and opposed his withdrawal plans. At one point, Mr. McCain said Mr. Obama ‘would rather lose a war than lose a campaign.’”
Video: President Obama is expected to unveil his plan to remove most U.S. troops from Iraq by August 2010. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports. ***
A promise kept? So is Obama keeping his campaign promise on Iraq -- to remove all combat troops within 16 months? On the one hand, he certainly is setting a “date certain” for withdrawal, and 100,000 troops isn’t a small number. On the other hand, it’s 19 months (from the day he took office), not 16. And there will still be as many as 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq. But remember that he always said he’d consult with his military advisers to withdraw troops as safely as possible. “We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in,” he continually said during the campaign. So is the war over? Did we "win" the war? If you don't think we won, then did we lose? If you can't say we won or lost, then what happened? This will be what historians debate for years. Obama today will not say "Mission Accomplished," nor will he flash a "V" for victory. But unlike in 2007, Obama will talk about successes in Iraq, in addition to failures there. One thing to keep in mind: If it wasn't for Obama's opposition to the Iraq war from the get-go, he would never be president today; he might not have even won the Democratic nomination -- or even run. And by the way, don't forget this: August 31, 2010 is just two months before the midterms. Just sayin’…
*** In a battleground state of mind: With Obama traveling to North Carolina today, we’ve got to ask: Is he only going to hold events in battleground states, especially ones that turned from red to blue in ’08? Already as president, he has visited -- in order -- Indiana, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and Arizona (a state the Obama campaign would have targeted had McCain not been his opponent). Also, during the transition, Obama made a stop in Ohio. To be fair, he also visited his home state of Illinois earlier this month. But that’s it.
*** The end of the Reagan era? Transitioning back to domestic politics, it's possible we may someday say the Republican run on dominating American politics -- which began in 1980 -- ended just after the 2004 elections (sometime in August 2005, when a certain hurricane came ashore in Louisiana, or perhaps a few months earlier when congressional Republicans took up the Schiavo issue). If Obama has ushered in an era of Democratic dominance, then we shouldn't be surprised by today’s analyses about his budget, which all note how dramatically different it is from the Reagan-influenced budgets that even Bill Clinton continued during his eight years. Many see Obama’s budget -- rightly so -- as a dramatic break from the last 30 years of government budgets.
Video: Deal to save Citigroup announced. CNBC’s Melissa Lee reports. ***
Sim Citi: The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration and troubled Citigroup have reached a deal whereby the government has taken a big stake in the banking corporation. The Treasury Department “has agreed to convert some of its current holdings of preferred Citigroup shares into common stock, a move that could better protect shareholders against future losses… The size of the government's new stake will hinge on how many preferred shares private investors agree to convert into common stock.” The Obama administration believes it got these concessions in the deal: 1) a replacement of a majority of Citi’s board; 2) the lowest conversion price, which was lower than other private investors converting their shares; 3) a dollar-for-dollar conversion with private stock, meaning that other investors also have to take a part in this deal; and 4) a requirement that Citi has to go through a stress test like other banks.
*** Rich vs. poor: After previously writing about the GOP’s new struggles in the Diploma Belt (the nation’s best-educated counties), National Journal’s Ron Brownstein now notes the different reactions the economic stimulus has received in poor and rich states. “No Republicans have been more vociferous in denouncing President Obama’s economic stimulus agenda than the GOP governors of South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi, whose states respectively rank 41st, 49th, and dead last in median income,” he writes in the latest issue of National Journal. "But here in dynamic Silicon Valley, the plan is receiving a much more enthusiastic reception. That difference speaks volumes about the two parties’ shifting centers of gravity.”
*** CPAC, Day 2: On the second day of the Conservative Political Action Conference in DC, the featured speakers are Newt Gingrich (noon ET), Mitt Romney (4:35 pm) and Mark Sanford (7:30 pm). Sen. John Cornyn (at 8:00 am), Sen., Jim DeMint (8:30 am), and Rep. John Boehner (8:50 am) have already spoken this morning. And check out these panels today: “Bailing Out Big Business: Are We All Socialists Now?” “Will Congress Take Your Guns?” and “Will Obama’s Tax Policy Kill Entrepreneurship?”
*** Rush returns: Tomorrow, on CPAC’s final day, Rush Limbaugh gives the finale speech at the conference. And perhaps pegged to that, the liberal Americans United for Change and AFSCME have a new TV ad going up today (on national cable and in DC; read: a small buy) that criticizes GOP leaders for saying “no” to Obama’s stimulus and ties them to Rush Limbaugh. The ad’s narrator says, “Who are Republicans listening to?” Then you see a clip of Limbaugh saying, “I want [Obama] to fail.” The ad concludes, “Tell them America won’t take no for an answer.”
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The AP says that President Obama’s Iraq plan “will withdraw all combat forces over the next 18 months, or 19 months dating to his inauguration. He had promised a slightly faster pace of 16 months after taking office. Obama settled on a time frame after extensive consultation with military and security advisers. Yet, in a sign of the shifting war debate in Washington, Obama isn't facing scrutiny over the exact timing of the withdrawal, but rather how deep it really is.”
“Obama told a closed-door meeting of Republican and Democratic leaders from Capitol Hill that 35,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops would remain in Iraq, congressional officials said.”
More from the AP : “The administration now considers Aug. 31, 2010, as the end date for Iraq war operations. That timetable is slower than Obama had promised voters, but still hastens the U.S. exit.”
“The residual troops, which the Obama administration is calling a ‘transition force,’ will remain only through December 2011, when a strategic agreement negotiated by President George W. Bush before he left office mandates the withdrawal of all American troops,” the New York Times writes. “While the Bush team once envisioned a long-term military presence in Iraq long after violence subsides, akin to the deployment of tens of thousands of American forces in Germany or South Korea for decades after wars there, the Obama team said it plans to stick to the complete withdrawal by the end of 2011.”
The plan, the Washington Post reports, has pleased Republicans like John McCain, and disappointed Democrats like Harry Reid. “‘50,000 is a little higher number than I anticipated,’ Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said… Sen. John S. McCain (R-Ariz.) said he ‘supports the plan to leave 50,000 troops in Iraq as briefed by [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] Admiral [Michael] Mullen and [Defense] Secretary [Robert M.] Gates.’”
The Wall Street Journal on Obama’s budget: “President Barack Obama delivered a $3.6 trillion budget blueprint to Congress Thursday that aims to ‘break from a troubled past,’ with expanded government activism, tax increases on affluent families and businesses, and spending cuts targeted at those he says profited from ‘an era of profound irresponsibility The budget blueprint for fiscal year 2010 is one of the most ambitious policy prescriptions in decades, a reordering of the federal government to provide national health care, shift the energy economy away from oil and gas, and boost the federal commitment to education.”
The Los Angeles Times : “Not since Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt has a president moved to expand the role of government so much on so many fronts -- and with such a demanding sense of urgency.”
The Washington Post’s Balz adds, “President Obama's first budget -- with its eye-popping $1.75 trillion deficit, a health-care fund of more than $600 billion, a $150 billion energy package and proposals to tax wealthy Americans even beyond what he talked about during his campaign -- underscores the breadth of his aspiration to reverse three decades of conservative governance and use his presidency to rapidly transform the country.”
But John Harwood of CNBC and the New York Times notes the constraints that Obama’s budget faces. “He is asking Congress to take on a wide-ranging set of complicated issues all at once, after years during which it had trouble grappling directly with almost any of them. His own party remains seared by the last time it followed a new Democratic president on a course of tax increases and ambitious social engineering. Interest groups, while demonized by the White House, have hardly fled from Washington and are already mobilizing for battles that could have big winners and losers.”
CONTINUED >>
The move to expand the House by two members (so that DC can get a vote) is one-step closer , but there’s a hitch: The Senate passed the bill but included an amendment to strip DC of some of its very tough gun laws.
Video: Rachel Maddow explains why Washington D.C. may finally get taxation with representation. Remember one-time Commerce Secretary nominee Judd Gregg? The
AP has an investigative piece that looks familiar from the appropriations/earmark scandals of a few years ago -- it lines up Sen. Gregg requests with private investments. "Gregg, R-N.H., personally has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Cyrus Gregg's office projects at the Pease International Tradeport, a Portsmouth business park built at the defunct Pease Air Force Base, once home to nuclear bombers. Judd Gregg has collected at least $240,017 to $651,801 from his investments there, Senate records show, while helping arrange at least $66 million in federal aid for the former base."
And if there are folks who are wondering why this is popping up now, check out this paragraph in the story. "The senator has said his withdrawal had nothing to do with anything the White House uncovered in his background. A White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, declined to discuss the matter with the AP. AP began looking into the Greggs' activities at Pease before then but had not yet contacted them or the White House before Judd Gregg withdrew."
NBC’s Lauren Appelbaum reports on the speeches at CPAC last night. "We're alive," Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN), who emceed the evening session, said. "We're not going anywhere. Remember this is ground zero for the conservative movement."
The New York Times’ wrap of CPAC yesterday: Mike Huckabee “suggested that if Republicans were looking for anyone to blame for the electoral losses that swept Barack Obama into the White House and gave Democrats more power in Congress, they should look in the mirror.” More: “But the mood on Thursday among the thousands of conservatives at the annual session was not defeatist. This, after all, is the conference where Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, is a major celebrity, and where the talk show host Rush Limbaugh gets a prime speaking slot.”
CONTINUED >>
MINNESOTA: The Star Tribune : “Norm Coleman's luck improved a bit Thursday, as judges in the U.S. Senate recount trial ordered an inspection of about 1,500 rejected absentee ballot envelopes and changed their minds about letting a Coleman witness testify. The ballot inspection could lead to counting more votes, something Coleman needs, if local officials discover voter registration cards in the ballot secrecy envelopes of voters whose ballots were rejected for lack of registration. But there's no assurance how the votes would divide between the candidates.”
Still, Chuck Schumer predicts Al Franken will be seated “by the very beginning of April.”
NEW YORK: "Attorney General Eric Holder’s push for the renewal of the assault weapon ban has put Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) between a rock and a hard place,"
The Hill reports.
But "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will join Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in
opposing any effort to revive the 1994 assault weapons ban, putting them on the opposite side of the Obama administration… It was not immediately clear whether Reid would block the bill from the Senate, but his opposition casts serious doubt on its chances."
From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro
WASHINGTON -- Former Arkansas Gov.
Mike Huckabee softened up the
crowd here at the Conservative Political Action Conference with lots of
red meat in the first half of his speech. But he used the capital of
that first part to steamroll conservative critics from the fiscal wing
of the party for most of the rest.
"We didn't lose because of social conservatives,” Huckabee said of the
2008 election results. He added that it wasn't because social
conservatives are against putting “babies” in “wastebaskets,” it’s
because, “We [Republicans] were too tied to people who would spend
$1,400 on a wastebasket, like the clueless John Thain. ...Where I come
from, $1,400 is three courses at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock
and $87,000 is the price of a house."
Thain, the former Merrill Lynch chief executive, reportedly spent more
than $1 million redecorating his office, including $87,000 on a rug.
"The GOP can't be a haven for rich, white guys,” Huckabee added. He
called himself "prophetic" for saying during the campaign that the party was too close to
Wall Street. And he lashed out against conservative
critics -- from whom he's still waiting for an "apology," he said --
who criticized his "populist" rhetoric on the campaign trail.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray Chicago Sun-Times : "The son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris is a federal tax deadbeat who landed a $75,000-a-year state job under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich
five months ago... Blagojevich's administration hired Roland W. Burris II as a senior counsel for the state's housing authority Sept. 10 -- about six weeks after the Internal Revenue Service slapped a $34,163 tax lien on Burris II and three weeks after a mortgage company filed a foreclosure suit on his South Side house."
More: "A spokeswoman for the Illinois Housing Development Authority indicated Wednesday there was nothing improper about Burris II's employment by the agency... Burris II's hiring, however, raises more questions about Sen. Burris' interactions with Blagojevich and his inner circle at a time when the governor was soliciting Sen. Burris for campaign contributions and Burris was angling to have Blagojevich appoint him to the Senate seat once held by
President Obama ."
From NBC's Chuck Todd There's been plenty of speculation over the last few years that somehow Speaker Nancy Pelosi's personal views on key social issues, like guns, would cause political problems for, say, pro-gun Democrats who have been elected to Congress in the last two elections. Well, here's an example of why Pelosi is a much shrewder politician than she gets credit for and why she has more support inside her caucus, even among younger and newer members, than people around town realize.
Check out this exchange from Pelosi's press briefing today.
Q: "Madam Speaker, Attorney General Holder yesterday said that the Administration wants to reinstitute the assault weapons ban. Have you talked with Administration officials about that, and how quickly can you bring it to the floor?" That's right, Pelosi is using talking points which used to be standard NRA talking points regarding gun laws for years... "start with enforcing the law" on the books.
From NBC's Ken Strickland Judd Gregg -- the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee who initially accepted being President Obama's
Commerce secretary before withdrawing -- called the administration's budget outline "a half-hearted attempt" to reduce the deficits and "missed opportunity" to take the country in a fiscally sound direction.
In a written statement, he said "it raises taxes on all Americans, implements massive new spending, and fails to make any tough choices to control the deficit and long-term fiscal crisis posed by the huge entitlement programs."
Gregg also challenged Obama's stated desire to reign in government spending, asking in his statement "Where is the spending restraint? Instead, government spending continues to grow and expand."
From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski
A Senior defense official tells NBC News that Defense Secretary
Gates has decided to lift the ban against media coverage of U.S. war dead returning to the United States, and would leave the decision entirely up to the families.
From NBC's Ashley Codianni
Video: Joe the Plumber at CPAC. Wurzelbacher also was critical of current GOP leadership. "Personally, I don't see anybody as far as a leader in the Republican Party right now. They're afraid to say anything, they are more worried about being politically correct and their special interest groups. They are not worried about the American people. No way, no shape do I ever hear anything about that. They talk a good game, but I see no action."
From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum John Bolton , Bush's representative to the UN, admonished the young Obama administration for what he sees as not focusing enough on foreign affairs and making decisions based on what the left wants and not what is best for the country.
On Iraq, Bolton chastised Obama for what Bolton said is a plan to withdraw troops without regard to any progress in the country. "We've just seen a vindication of President Bush's surge policy in the recent provincial elections," Bolton said to loud applause. "The surge policy had both a military and a political component. The military component has had extraordinary success. The political component is making considerable progress. But we're seeing an administration so committed to satisfying the left of the Democratic party that it could well jeopardize all of that."
Bringing up Obama's statements as a candidate of offering carrots and sticks to Iran, Bolton argued Obama does not know how to handle negotiations with that Middle East nation. "This is a clear piece of evidence of the naiveté of the Obama administration and its faith in negotiations."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
"Where is it?" one man said to another looking for one of the ballrooms.
"To the right," the younger man replied.
"Everything's to the right at this conference."
True enough.
The Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activists, kicked off today and continues through Saturday. Speeches from potential 2012 contenders and big names from the conservative world like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter all get prime speaking slots and will draw much of the buzz.
Video: Pat Buchanan talks to MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer about the future GOP leaders. But below the surface, one of the places that's a can't miss at this conference, is the exhibit hall.
It's the place to find the best color at CPAC, so your First Reader headed there (after checking in with a "Joe the Plumber" panel.)
There were books, like "Obamaland", "The End of Prosperity," even one on "The Nixons: A Family Portrait." There was plenty to go around. (The hottest selling item was John Bolton's latest -- he had just spoken and held a book signing.)
There were five on Ronald Reagan, almost as many on Coulter, Obama and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. There were ones about how the South will rise again as well as "48 Lies About American History (That You're Probably Taught In School)." A couple of those lies: No. 22: The colonies were intolerant and racist and No. 14: Women had no rights in early America.
There was a stand giving out Palin posters. (Sorry, they were out when we got there!) We did manage to grab a glossy Sarah Palin for President 2012 campaign sign -- paid for by the 2012 Draft Sarah Committee.
There was a trailer playing for "Not Evil Just Wrong: The true cost of global warming HYSTERIA" with a photo of Al Gore on its movie poster.
For those wanting some target practice, stop by the National Rifle Association's "Varmint" video shooting range. Young men in suits and ties as well as women in skirts and heels trained their eyes on squirrels scurrying across the hills.
There's much more, but that's just the start.
From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski
However it may be framed politically,
President Obama's decision on U.S. troop levels in Iraq will NOT withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq within the next 19 months.
Senior military and Pentagon officials stress -- whatever the bottom line number (which may be up to 50,000 troops remaining, it will include combat elements. Senior military officials tell NBC News those combat troops may be renamed as "advisory brigades," which will work closely with the Iraqi military, but they will still be combat forces. There will also be a number of combat forces that would be assigned to protection of the U.S. military force, the U.S. embassy and U.S. government civilian workers in Iraq.
There will also be a "residual combat force" that will be assigned to a counter-terrorism mission, to continue to hunt down terrorist elements (Al Qaeda, foreign fighters, etc.) in Iraq.
Besides the reduction in U.S. forces from today's 142,000 to about 50,000 the biggest change is that even those combat forces that do remain will no longer be engaged in daily, routine combat missions as they are today. By August 2010, the Iraqi military and police are expected to takeover all daily combat missions.
Nevertheless, given the nature of the counterinsurgency in Iraq, all U.S. forces -- whatever their mission, rank, or gender -- could be drawn into the fight without warning. Therefore, as Gen. (retired) Barry McCaffrey has repeatedly stressed, to leave those forces without some level of combat force protection would be irresponsible.
From NBC's Ken Strickland
Video: President Obama will present his budget plan to Congress today. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports. OMB Director
Peter Orszag hand delivered the budget to Capitol Hill moments ago. Standing outside to receive it were Senate Budget Committee Chairman
Kent Conrad and House Budget Committee Chairman
John Spratt .
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro *** That’s one big budget : This morning, President Obama delivers remarks on his FY 2010 budget, which comes to -- cue Dr. Evil, placing his pinky finger to his lips -- FOUR trillion dollars, up from $3.1 trillion this year. It projects a $1.75 trillion deficit, representing 12.3% of GDP, which is the highest level since World War II. The other headlines here: The budget sets aside $634 billion over the next 10 years to expand health care (paid for by Medicare savings, cuts for wealthy Medicare recipients, and the reduction of tax breaks on those earning more than $250,000); it proposes $750 billion for bank bailouts on top of the $700 billion it has already spent (but this amount shows up as $250 billion in the budget, because the administration believes it will eventually get at least $500 billion back for its investments); and it sets aside $75 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan through this fall. There are also budget cuts here, including farm subsidies for high-income farmers, the last remaining cotton subsidy, and a few education pet projects. This budget is very tough on those who earn more than $250,000 a year. Not only are they losing out on the Bush tax cuts in the next couple of years, but they also will see their tax bill go above that to pay for this new health care bill. Ironically, many people hurt by this are folks who live in the bluest of cities, including New York, DC, Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago.
Video: TODAY’s Matt Lauer talks to CNBC’s Dylan Ratigan and Rick Santelli about President Obama’s budget plan. ***
Is honesty the best policy? This, of course, is A LOT of money. But here’s the thing: The price tag is much higher because the White House removes several past budget gimmicks -- like omitting the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, and assuming AMT taxes that later will later be eliminated. What’s more, the administration’s budget plans for a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina. In short, it believes this is honest budgeting and reflects a worst-case scenario. This is going to be run of those tricky spin days for the White House. They definitely deserve credit for the honest budgeting, but they’re also going to have to withstand GOP and tabloid hits for increasing the deficit, bailing out more banks, and growing the annual budget by nearly 30%. Most of this, however, is because of the Obama administration’s decision to be more honest about numbers than the Bush budget team was. So how many headlines in the next few days will be about tax hikes to pay for health care, and how many will be about "honest budgeting"? We think we know the answer. (Sorry, Team Obama.)
*** Hey buddy, slow down : Don't miss Bill Kristol's advice to congressional Republicans regarding the Obama agenda. Kristol did his best to slow down HillaryCare in '93-94, and he's offering similar advice -- slow it down. That's the game between the White House and congressional GOPers. They know that the longer it takes to debate health care, energy or any proposal, the more likely the White House will lose. The quicker they can get the bill written and passed, the better chance they have. It also explains why the White House wants to "flood the zone" with policy initiatives. Don't allow ONE bill to become THE debate topic. Divide the opposition by giving them 10 new policy proposals. At a cattle call, you need … more cowbell : In his upcoming New York Times magazine cover story on Newt Gingrich, political writer Matt Bai divides Republicans searching for a way back to power into two groups: “retrenchers” (those who believe that the GOP strayed from their conservative principles and must become more conservative) and “broadeners” (those who are perhaps less dogmatic and believe that the GOP must expand beyond its base). Well, beginning today and lasting through Saturday, the retrenchers hold a conference in DC that essentially serves as the first cattle call for 2012. (Yes, we know that election is still 1,349 days away.) Speaking at the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference will be Mike Huckabee (today at 1:30 pm ET), Mitt Romney (Friday), Mark Sanford (Friday), and Tim Pawlenty (Saturday). Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin aren’t attending. After Jindal's poorly received performance on Tuesday night, and also with Palin's rocky ride since last fall, Politico's Ben Smith declares that Romney -- who was unable to win in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2008, despite spending so much time and money in both states -- the early 2012 front-runner for the GOP. Why? "[H]e has a crucial advantage over almost all the other Republican candidates who are mentioned: He's not in office, and doesn't have to spend the next two years (at least) raising taxes, cutting services, and/or borrowing huge sums. He's free to articulate a clear voice of opposition, and to position himself to play the role of the turnaround specialist if he can make the case that Obama hasn't delivered."
*** CPAC straw poll : As it has in past years, CPAC will conduct a presidential-preference straw poll, and it will be unveiled at 4:30 pm on Saturday (right before Rush Limbaugh delivers the conference’s concluding remarks). But an important note of caution: The most recent CPAC straw poll winners were Romney (2008 and 2007) and George Allen (2006). Neither, of course, went on to win the GOP presidential nomination.
*** More CPAC : Other notable speakers at CPAC today include former UN Ambassador John Bolton (10:45 am); Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher (11:45 am); Sen. Bob Corker (2:30 pm); and Michele Bachmann, Rep. Roy Blunt, Rep. John Shadegg, and RNC chair Michael Steele (all at an evening event beginning at 7:30 pm). Also check out these forum topics at CPAC: "Al Franken and ACORN: How Liberals Are Destroying the American Election System" (today at 2:30 pm); "Bailing Out Big Business: Are We All Socialists Now?" (Friday); "Will Congress Take Your Guns" (Friday); "Will Obama’s Tax Policy Kill Entrepreneurship" (Friday); "Media in the Obama Era: Is Journalism Dead?" (Saturday); and "The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria" (Saturday).Michelle Obama watch : Beginning at 11:15 am ET today, the First Lady visits with workers at the Environmental Protection Agency to thank them for their public service.
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Reuters previews the budget that Obama will unveil today. “President Barack Obama will forecast a 2009 deficit of $1.75 trillion in a budget proposal on Thursday that sets goals of overhauling the healthcare system and shoring up the U.S. economy. The huge deficit would represent 12.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product -- the largest share since World War II. Two senior administration officials … said Obama's expensive policy goals would be offset by cuts to put the country in better fiscal shape.”
Bloomberg says the budget request “would provide as much as $750 billion in new aid to the financial industry.” An administration official “said the White House hasn’t decided whether the $750 billion in additional aid to the financial industry will be needed. He said it will be put in the budget as ‘placeholder.’ The official said the aid would appear in the budget as about $250 billion because the rules require policymakers to record the plan’s net cost to taxpayers. The government anticipates it would eventually recoup some, though not all, of the money expended to help financial companies.”
Also in his budget, the Washington Post reports, Obama “is proposing to begin a vast expansion of the U.S. health-care system by creating a $634 billion reserve fund over the next decade, launching an overhaul that most experts project will ultimately cost at least $1 trillion. The "reserve fund" in the budget proposal being released today is Obama's attempt to demonstrate how the country could extend health insurance to millions more Americans and at the same time begin to control escalating medical bills that threaten the solvency of families, businesses and the government.”
To help finance this reserve health-care fund, the New York Times says the Obama administration proposes calling “for stricter limits on the benefits of itemized deductions taken by the wealthiest households… Administration officials said Mr. Obama would propose to reduce the value of itemized tax deductions for everyone in the top income tax bracket, 35 percent, and many of those in the 33 percent bracket — roughly speaking, starting at $250,000 in annual income for a married couple.”
CONTINUED >>
Per a new Washington Post/ABC poll , two-thirds of Americans support President Obama's decision to send approximately 17,000 additional U.S. military forces to Afghanistan… Support for the proposed influx of troops to Afghanistan, however, comes as Americans are about evenly divided about whether the war there has proved to be worth its costs. They also split 50 to 41 percent on whether it is essential to win in Afghanistan to succeed in broader efforts against terrorism.”
More: “A parallel, though less dramatic, shift over the past two years is a bump in the number who say that winning in Iraq is crucial to victory in the campaign against terrorism. On that question, 44 percent see a close linkage, the highest number since an overnight poll following Bush's speech announcing the Iraq strategy.” Still, the poll finds that most believe the Iraq war has not been worth fighting. “Sixty percent in the new poll said the costs of that war have outweighed its benefits. That number is little changed from recent polls and has been the majority.”
Gary Locke was named Obama's third pick for Commerce. Politico looks at his past. "Locke’s post-gubernatorial efforts to drum up business for an array of companies in the rapidly expanding Chinese market may require steps to reconcile with the administration’s ethics policy." Locke "has advocated for Microsoft, Starbucks, and banking, timber and shipping interests in recent years, raising potential conflicts for him as head of a department charged with promoting U.S. trade around the globe."
Bill Clinton on Obama’s speech Tuesday night .
And the Obamas appear to have chosen at least the breed of dog. They're looking for a Portuguese water dog .
“The House on Wednesday passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill packed with pet projects requested by Democrats and Republicans alike,” the New York Times reports. “The 245-to-178 vote came just a week after President Obama signed one of the largest spending bills in the nation’s history, a $787 billion measure meant to rejuvenate a sluggish economy.”
"Despite vows by President Obama to curtail earmarks," earmarks mark the latest congressional bill, the Boston Globe reports. Across the country, there are more than 8,500, "totaling $7.7 billion -- up 3 percent from last year -- that were included in the $410 billion spending bill the House approved yesterday, according to the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense. The House rejected a Republican bid to strip the earmarks out of the legislation, which is to fund government operations from early March through the end of September."
The New York Daily News plays the crazy-pork-barrel-project game. "There's $190,000 set aside in the House's version of the federal budget for bringing Cody, Wyo.'s Buffalo Bill Historical Center into the digital age" ... "$238,000 for educational programs at Honolulu's Polynesian Voyaging Society" ... "$24,000 for a sexual abstinence program." New York Post salivates over them too with this headline: Congress' porky pols pig out on fine $wine: Big bucks for canoes and tattoos." is staffing up and showing no indication he'll step down.
On the opening day of CPAC, this probably isn't the kind of Politico headline Republicans want: "GOP at risk of becoming party in the no.” Sixteen Republicans broke with party lines on the $410 billion omnibus package "on a vote Minority Whip Eric Cantor had urged his colleagues to reject. And the cracks in the facade appear to be the first public signal of Republican rank-and-file squeamishness with a remarkably high-risk strategy that promises an uncertain return. For Republicans, a central question looms: Is saying no to Obama’s agenda the way to get voters to say yes to an already beleaguered GOP brand?" AP's Fouhy wraps the groundswell of criticism Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal faced from the left and right for his response to Obama's address to Congress. "Insane. Childish. Disaster. And those were some of the kinder comments ... Jindal's voice and earnest, awkward delivery have drawn comparisons to Kenneth Parcell, the geeky Southern page on the NBC comedy '30 Rock.' Indeed, a new Facebook group titled 'Bobby Jindal is Kenneth the Page' had already attracted more than 1,800 members Wednesday afternoon."
The New York Times adds that Jindal “has been a rising star in the Republican Party, but his stock took a hit as he was roundly panned for his televised response to President Obama’s first speech to Congress on Tuesday night.”
Don’t miss Norah O’Donnell’s look yesterday at Jindal’s speech.
MINNESOTA : "It wasn't just Norm Coleman's list of ballots that was shrinking Wednesday. It was also his witness list," the
Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. "Pamela Howell, a Republican election judge in Minneapolis who Coleman had hoped would bolster his case that some votes were counted twice, had her testimony stricken after judges learned that Coleman's lawyers hadn't shared her written statement with Al Franken's legal team." Coleman attorney Ben "Ginsberg said he couldn't believe the message of inconsistent standards wasn't getting through to the judges."
ILLINOIS : Oh, the lengths some are going to replace Rahm Emanuel. "This past Sunday afternoon, 19 candidates made their pitches to an audience of 35 voters gathered in a smoky VFW hall in the snow-covered Windy City suburbs," Roll Call reports. "That candidate-to-voter ratio, however, was an improvement from the day before -- when 13 of those same politicians pandered to a single voter in the audience at a forum held at a local school." NEW YORK : The Hill's Wilson says NY-20 is "becoming an obsession " for national Republicans. If Republican Jim Tedisco wins the March 31st special election, "Republicans will call it the first sign their party is back on track after so many devastating losses." Both the NRCC and RNC are involved in the race now. House Minority Leader John Boehner will campaign for Tedisco in the district in March, and RNC Chairman Michael Steele holds a fundraiser for him March 4.hold their own competing fundraiser for Scott Murphy on March 4th at DNC headquarters in DC. Invitees include: Kirsten Gillibrand, who held the seat for the past two cycles, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Majority Whip James Clyburn and DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Gov. David Paterson is adding some Clintonistas to beef up his staff. “Reeling from a series of setbacks, Gov. David A. Paterson has embarked on an ambitious shake-up of his administration, turning largely to veterans of the Clintons’ far-flung network to try to steady the situation.” RHODE ISLAND : Rep. Patrick Kennedy may get a GOP challenger .
From NBC's Chuck Todd and Abby Livingston John McCain (R), and Sen. Russ Feingold (D) are on the same page.
The issue: All three want a presidential line-item veto to curb earmarks and spending.
A line-item veto gives the president the power to veto particular items of a bill without having to veto it in its entirety. During the Clinton administration, Congress gave the power to Clinton, but it was later revoked in 1998 when the Supreme Court ruled that the measure overreached presidential powers.
Today, at the daily White House press conference, one of us asked Gibbs about the administration’s stance on a line-item veto. Gibbs answered, “Well, I can assure you he'd love to take that for a test drive.”
The interchange prompted Feingold’s office to contact First Read about legislation Feingold and his oft-strange bedfellow -- McCain -- are working on for to bring back a line-item veto that will be limited to spending and earmarks.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Athena Jones
During the fall presidential campaign, when struggling banks led to a credit crisis that roiled the markets and helped worsen an economic downturn,
President Obama began beating the drum for updating America's financial regulatory system.
Since then, he has called for a new regulatory framework that's part of a complex, multi-pronged solution to getting the economy back on track and to avoid financial sector meltdowns.
Today, the president met with Treasury Secretary Geithner , chief White House economic adviser Larry Summers , and the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee to begin work on a new set of regulations to monitor a modern banking system.
"This financial crisis was not inevitable," Obama told reporters gathered in the Diplomatic Reception Room. "It happened when Wall Street wrongly presumed markets would continuously rise, and traded in complex financial products without fully evaluating their risks. Here in Washington, our regulations lagged behind changes in our markets -- and too often, regulators failed to use the authority that they had to protect consumers, markets and the economy."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum and Ashley Codianni WASHINGTON -- Sen. John McCain delivered a chilling address at the American Enterprise Institute, reminding his audience the depth of resources required in Afghanistan. He talked of the stark realities of Afghanistan's situation, identifying significant increases in civilian fatalities, insurgent attacks, and influence of the Taliban throughout the country.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and Libby Leist
Clinton came under harsh fire from human-rights groups who said she downplayed the issue with Chinese leaders.
Today, in announcing the report's release, Clinton defended her record.
"The promotion of human rights is essential to our foreign policy,” she said, “but as a personal aside, I have worked for many years and in various capacities on the issues that are encompassed under the rubric of human rights. It is of profound importance to me and has informed my views and shaped my beliefs in ways large and small. As Secretary of State, I will continue to focus my own energies on human rights ... I am looking for results. I am looking for changes that actually improve the lives of the greatest numbers of people."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube Robert Gates took a very unusual step, during preparations to roll out the new Pentagon budget this year, of asking everyone who is participating in the budget process to sign a non-disclosure agreement ... even the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
NBC News has obtained a copy of this agreement, which states that the undersigned will "preserve the confidentiality of information related to the formulation of the President's budget."
The agreement goes on to say that the individuals "will not divulge the budget-related information ... to any individual not authorized to receive it, and under no circumstances will I disclose such information outside the Department of Defense and other government agencies directly involved in the defense planning ... such as the Office of Management and Budget."
Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said that "the highest-ranking people in this department were asked to sign this" and that Gates signed one himself. A Defense official could not tell us what the penalty is for someone who breaches the agreement.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Ken Strickland Obama 's call for bipartisanship in addressing the nation's economic woes. Their remarks come hours after Obama's speech to Congress and a couple of weeks after Congress passed the stimulus package that drew the support from only three Republicans.
"We don't want the Republicans to continue being the Party of 'No,'" said Majority Leader Harry Reid at a leadership news conference today. "We are here today to pledge that we are going to do everything we can to work with the Republicans and work with the administration to get things done."
Sen. Patty Murray said, "The door is wide open. We welcome their ideas."
Citing the generous amount of standing applause from Republicans during the president's address, she said, "We want them to turn their applause from last night into action and work with us."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Athena Jones
They say the third time's the charm, right?
President Barack Obama was likely hoping that old adage would prove true this morning when he officially nominated former Washington Gov.
Gary Locke to be his pick to head the Commerce Department.
"I'm sure it's not lost on anyone that we've tried this a couple of times. But I'm a big believer in keeping at something until you get it right, and Gary is the right man for this job," Obama said.
Locke is the third person the president has named to lead the department, following New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg , who both withdrew their nominations. Locke, who was the first Chinese-American governor in U.S. history, is also the third Asian-American to join Obama's cabinet.
Video: Obama introduces Locke as his pick for Commerce secretary. Calling entrepreneurship and industry the "wellsprings of an economy that has been the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history," Obama hailed Locke for his work as governor of Washington State.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC’s Lauren Appelbaum Obama received high marks at various points in his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night from a focus group in King of Prussia, Pa., conducted by MSNBC’s Tamron Hall.
Thirty-two people, including 16 Obama voters and 15 McCain voters, participated by turning dials from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) to grade parts of the speech.
Video :
Tamron Hall shares which parts of the speech stood out to the focus group. When Obama spoke about the economy, reactions from both sets of voters jumped from 5, the beginning default, to between 8 and 9. But when Obama mentioned that the economic recovery act is now law, McCain voters' reaction dipped slightly, hovering between 7 and 8, while the Obama voters' reactions stayed closer to nine.
Shortly after, though, the McCain voters' reactions steadied around 8. Obama voters' reactions held between 8.5 and 9.5.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray Michael Steele ? Senate leader Mitch McConnell ? House leader John Boehner ? Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal , who delivered last night's GOP response? Or what about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin ?
In an upcoming New York Times magazine cover story, author Matt Bai writes that Newt Gingrich has become the GOP's go-to person when it comes to ideas. "[A]s Republicans on the Hill begin to awaken from a November beating that left them semiconscious, Gingrich finds himself, once again, at the zenith of influence in conservative Washington... Whatever else you think of Gingrich, he has always been considered a prospector in bold and counterintuitive thinking — floating ideas, throughout his career, that have ranged from giving every poor child a laptop to abolishing the entire concept of adolescence."
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro Hope makes a comeback: One thing was absolutely clear from President Obama’s well-received address to Congress last night: The hope that propelled him to the presidency was back. At the top of his remarks, Obama declared, “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.” And then after a stern talk about our economy -- how we got here, and how we possibly fix it -- he ended his speech this way: “If we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis; if we put our people back to work … then someday years from now our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, ‘something worthy to be remembered.’” The address was also a report card of sorts. Obama touted to the public what he has achieved in his first month in office: the economic stimulus, ordering the closing of GITMO, passing the expansion of health insurance for children. Here’s a final thought about the address: Obama is so comfortable delivering a speech. Even after he and Pelosi slipped up at the beginning, the president was fully in control. Also, when is the last time we’ve heard humor and laughs at a State of the Union (or its equivalent)? “Nobody messes with Joe.”
A softer opposition: Republicans must have read the same polls we have because, overall, their tone in responding to Obama’s speech last night was much softer than we’ve seen in the past several days. Mitch McConnell said Obama’s “message was important and timely: America faces great challenges in the months and years ahead, and I was heartened to hear of his commitment to the millions who are struggling to hold onto homes and jobs and who are worried about what the future holds for themselves and their children. As we work to address all these concerns, we will have our differences… But one thing is clear: working through the current troubles will require a shared commitment as we address America’s challenges ahead.” And here was John Boehner before the speech: “Obama will make a compelling case that our nation can overcome the immense challenges before us… Republicans want to be partners with the President in finding responsible solutions to the challenges facing our nation, but thus far congressional leaders in the President’s own party have stood in the way.”
*** Not the Jindal we know: As for Gov. Bobby Jindal’s official GOP response, it appears someone gave him bad advice last night, whether it was his awkward entrance or his way-too-casual delivery. The Louisiana governor, a Rhodes scholar, is a serious guy who’s known for sometimes being too wonky and even somewhat humorless. Well, he tried too hard NOT to look wonky and humorless. But it didn't work; he wasn’t the Bobby Jindal we’ve seen before. Also, his speech seemed to be too much of a brochure about himself rather than about his party and its ideas. To be fair, Jindal got better as his speech wore on, and the good news is that past responders who also got poor initial reviews -- Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius come to mind -- easily recovered. One other thing: Is it disingenuous for Jindal to slam the role of the federal government (“Democratic leaders in Washington place their hope in the federal government; we place our hope in you”) when that said federal government is rebuilding New Orleans after Katrina?
***
I taw a Tweety bird: Your First Read authors have yet to get the Twitter bug. But we’ve got to ask: Are politicians and their offices beginning to embarrass themselves by Tweeting every thought in their brains? Aren’t some things best left unsaid? According to
Politico , early on during Obama’s speech, Rep. Joe Barton’s (R) office sent out this Tweet: “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren't going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour.” The office then fired off this CYA: “Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer.” Meanwhile, Rep. John Culberson (R) sent this message: “We are at war -- seems to me honoring our troops should come on page one rather than the end of the speech.” He then later Tweeted, “This is a great privilege to be here and I will try hard to find ways to work together while preserving my core principles.”
*** Fulfilling or breaking a campaign promise? It’s more than likely, though, that last night’s speech won’t be the most memorable White House event this week. According to NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, President Obama is expected to announce later this week that more than half of the American troops will be withdrawn from Iraq within 19 months. The plan would draw down the number of forces from the current 142,000 to around 50,000. While that certainly would fall short of the president’s campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat forces within 16 months, one senior military official told Mik and Kube: “It’s close.” The official adds that the remaining force of 50,000 would still contain a sizeable “combat element” to provide rapid reaction assistance to Iraqi combat forces and force protection for the remaining American troops and U.S. government civilians. One other piece of White House news to watch today: At 11:00 am ET, the president is expected to announce former Washington Gov. Gary Locke as his nominee for Commerce secretary.
*** The abortion wars cometh? Be sure not to miss the piece by CBN’s David Brody that anti-abortion groups are up in arms over Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius potentially leading HHS. The reason: abortion. Indeed, we have it on good authority that the reason the White House is hesitating on Sebelius is that they don't want an abortion fight now. They know one is probably coming in the summer -- with a Supreme Court vacancy -- and would rather punt. Then again, we suppose that any other person Obama might nominate to lead HHS would support abortion rights. And if it’s not Sebelius, does that mean we the administration won't have an HHS secretary when it convenes its health-care summit next week?
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The Washington Post : “Striking an optimistic tone that has been absent from his speeches in recent weeks, the president said his stimulus plan, bank bailout proposal, housing programs and health-care overhaul would work in concert to turn around the nation's struggling economy. And while he bluntly described a country beset by historic economic challenges and continued threats abroad, he said the solution lies in directly confronting -- not ignoring -- those problems. ‘The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation,’ he said. ‘The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.’”
The New York Times : “In his first address to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama mixed an acknowledgment of the depth of the economic problems with a Reaganesque exhortation to American resilience. He offered an expansive agenda followed by a pledge to begin paring an ever-climbing budget deficit.”
The Boston Globe makes a similar point: "President Obama, tempering the series of grim economic diagnoses he has delivered in recent weeks, sounded a new note of optimism."
The Wall Street Journal adds, “The speech, 52 minutes long, punctuated by more than 60 ovations, was billed as a rhetorical salve to a nation battered by layoffs and plunging stock prices -- and a tempering of pessimistic rhetoric from the Oval Office over the past few weeks.”
CONTINUED >>
The Washington Post’s Tom Shales writes that Obama “doesn't seem capable of bad speeches. Although this one began after unfortunate delays and with a slight parliamentary slip-up, he maintained his admirably high standards with a kind of state-of-the-Union speech that wasn't officially a State of the Union speech.” More: “His speeches will always make news, but the fact that he's a pretty great communicator is no longer a revelation. So after perfecting a style, and having given a speech last night that was full of practical content, there isn't much further he can go as a speechmaker.”
Per Politico’s Roger Simon , “It was not a night of sugar plum fairies dangled before us or sweet nothings whispered into our ears. We have had plenty of those over the years.” More: “And he also spoke of who was to blame: us.”
The Boston Globe's Canellos : "President Obama yesterday used the grandest stage of the presidency to reveal how he wants to be seen - as a realist, not an ideologue, as a figure of consensus, not the leader of a movement, as a hard worker grappling with problems, not a visionary seeking new horizons."
The New York Times’ editorial page: “If we have had doubts about the way President Obama has been handling the multitudinous disasters bequeathed to him by George W. Bush … it was that we wanted to see more of Barack Obama the candidate in Barack Obama the president. He has not been assertive, ambitious, clear -- or audacious -- enough. Mr. Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night was his chance to change that, and he rose to the occasion.”
Politico's Harris and Martin : "The substance reflected Obama’s bet that the country -- alarmed by the economic crisis, repelled by the failures of the president who preceded him --is ready to move in a decisively more liberal direction. The rhetoric, by contrast, reflected his apparent belief that most Americans remain instinctually conservative, leaving him and his agenda acutely vulnerable to backlash." (Question: But isn't Obama's rhetoric more a reflection of not wanting to alienate that conservatives, rather than that "most Americans are instinctually conservative.")
NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube reported yesterday, “U.S. military and administration officials tell NBC News that President Obama is expected to announce that more than half of the American troops will be withdrawn from Iraq within 19 months. The plan, expected to be announced later this week, would draw down the number of forces from the current 142,000 to around 50,000.”
More: “Although the plan falls short of Obama's campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq within 16 months, one senior military official said, ‘It's close.’ The official also points out, however, that the remaining force of 50,000 would still contain a sizeable ‘combat element’ to provide rapid reaction assistance to Iraqi combat forces and force protection for the remaining American troops and U.S. government civilians. The sources say the 19-month timetable was one of three options presented to President Obama for the withdrawal of forces – 16-, 19- and 23-month withdrawal plans. A senior military official said that it was up to President Obama to weigh the risks in withdrawal and ‘the shorter the timetable the greater the risk,’ to U.S. forces and Iraqi security.”
The Washington Post on the troop withdrawal: “Obama has not made a final decision on the matter, but it could come during a trip to give a speech in North Carolina on Friday, the officials said.”
CONTINUED >>
Covering the GOP response to Obama’s speech, the Washington Post says that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal “defended the virtues of small government that he said even his own party had abandoned in recent years. ‘Instead of trusting us to make decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest,’ he said of Democrats. ‘Democratic leaders say their legislation will grow the economy. What it will do is grow the government, increase our taxes down the line and saddle future generations with debt.’”
“Speaking of Obama, Jindal said that ‘we appreciate his message of hope, but sometimes it seems like we look for hope in different places. Democratic leaders in Washington, they place their hope in the federal government. We place our hope in you, the American people.’”
Politico notes the criticism Jindal’s speech received.
The Times-Picayune on its governor’s performance: "Jindal's appearance represented the delayed star turn he was to have had at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota in early September. Because he was directing the state's emergency response to Hurricane Gustav, Jindal canceled plans for a featured speaking role at the convention." If Jindal runs in 2012, "Tuesday night's speech may be remembered as the occasion when the two first went head-to-head." On his delivery: "Jindal appeared a bit nervous at first as he attempted to deliver the speech in a friendly, folksy style."
More 2012 buzz, per the Boston Globe : "Jindal was eyed by John McCain's presidential campaign last year as a potential running mate, but took himself out of contention. He has since been a leading critic of McCain's campaign tactics, saying that the Arizona senator didn't offer enough positive ideas on the economy. That has encouraged many to see Jindal as a party savior and a promising presidential challenger in 2012."
The Senate’s No.2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, yesterday asked embattled Roland Burris to resign . “‘I told him under the circumstances that I would consider resigning,’ Durbin told reporters. ‘He said he would not resign.’”
Video: Durbin says he urged Burris to step down, but Burris vowed to stay on. That said, the
New York Times notes, “Senate Democrats appear resigned at the moment to his remaining in Congress. With a seat in Minnesota still tied up in court over a close election, Democrats benefit from Mr. Burris’s vote. And he is hardly the first senator to remain in office under a cloud. Larry E. Craig, an Idaho Republican who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in a sex sting, served out his term before retiring last year.”
Hilda Solis was finally confirmed as Labor secretary yesterday. After several weeks' delay, she passed confirmation by an 80-17 vote.
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro Could it be any clearer that the economy is the top priority? So far, President Obama's speech, 40 minutes in, has focused exclusively on the economy.
He also made sure that "those who sent us here" were his audience right off the bat. This isn't about selling something to Congress; it's about reassuring the American people that Washington is doing something to try to help -- whether you agree or disagree with what's being done.
"We will rebuild, we will recover," and emerge "stronger than before," the president said.
One of the criticisms from the right (and President Bill Clinton) was that Obama wasn't being hopeful enough -- though Obama often says the country will recover.
He made it clear that the country could and would recover. He struck a professorial tone on explaining the credit crisis. And he got bipartisan applause in talking about accountability for banks.
"My job, our job," Obama said to the elected officials, "is to solve the problem."
From Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube U.S. military and administration officials tell NBC News that President Obama is expected to announce that more than half of the American troops will be withdrawn from Iraq within 19 months.
The plan, expected to be announced later this week, would draw down the number of forces from the current 142,000 to around 50,000.
Although the plan falls short of Obama's campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq within 16 months, one senior military official said, "It's close."
The official also points out, however, that the remaining force of 50,000 would still contain a sizeable "combat element" to provide rapid reaction assistance to Iraqi combat forces and force protection for the remaining American troops and U.S. government civilians.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal , in delivering the Republican response to President Obama's address, will strike similar themes to the president on working together, but will also criticize Democratic economic philosophy and take a swipe at the president for not being hopeful enough.
His speech is entitled, "Americans Can Do Anything," and he will draw on his biography for that inspiration: “As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country -- and they instilled in me an immigrant’s wonder at the greatness of America," he will say, according to select released prepared remarks. "As a child, I remember going to the grocery store with my dad. Growing up in India, he had seen extreme poverty. And as we walked through the aisles, looking at the endless variety on the shelves, he would tell me: ‘Bobby, Americans can do anything.’ I still believe that to this day."
He strikes a chord of bipartisanship, saying, "Republicans are ready to work with the new President to provide those solutions. Here in my state of Louisiana, we don’t care what party you belong to if you have good ideas to make life better for our people."
But bipartisanship is conditional, as he will also go on to criticize Democrats on economic philosophy.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray President Obama's address to Congress tonight: "But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
The White House also released First Lady Michelle Obama's guests. See below for more.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro Obama is expected to announce former Gov. Gary Locke as his nominee for Commerce Secretary tomorrow, a senior administration official tells First Read.
Locke would be Obama's third nominee for the position.
From NBC's Ken Strickland Roland Burris today, Illionis Sen. Dick Durbin told Burris under the circumstance he should resign.
Burris said he would not.
Burris also told Durbin he has not made up his mind about running in 2010.
From NBC's Mike Viqueira
House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi greeted the crew of Flight 1549 in her offices moments ago, thanked them on behalf of the American people, and then asked "Sully" to autograph a copy of the People magazine where they were featured.
Sully promptly complied, then spoke briefly. He said he is, as you might imagine, "grateful for the outcome" of the flight, and added that he and his colleagues felt as if they had been "chosen by circumstance" to be "temporary spokesmen" for the industry.
Jeff Skiles also spoke briefly, along with Reps. Miller , Tauscher , and McNerney . The crew will be guests in the speaker's gallery box this evening for the big speech.
From NBC's Mark Murray Michael Steele suggested that the three Republicans who voted for the stimulus -- Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania -- would face primary challenges, and he left open the possibility that the three might not receive funds from the RNC. (Hat tips: the Washington Post's Greg Sargent and Politico's Ben Smith .)
Steele's comments signaled a stark departure from past practice (the National Republican Senatorial Committee provided significant help to Specter in his '04 primary contest against Pat Toomey ) and seemed to violate Ronald Reagan's famous 11th Commandment (never speak ill of another Republican).
One former RNC official said that he couldn't imagine past party chairs undercutting a sitting senator, especially one who's up for re-election in 2010 like Specter (and in a state that Obama carried by 10 percentage points, 54%-44%!).
"I just don’t think we’re at a point where the party can threaten senators and ask them to adhere to some type of monolithic ideology," the official said. "In fact, the party’s almost always been at its strongest when it was broad and had its big tent out. I get what Steele is trying to do in terms of channeling the anger and frustration at the stimulus bill, but there’s probably a more artful way of doing it."
Originally, when First Read reached out to the RNC for comment, we were told that Steele's words spoke for themselves.
But the RNC later reversed course. "The RNC has no intention of getting involved in primaries," a party official told First Read. "We work with state parties to elect Republicans and will continue to do that."
From NBC's Mike Viqueira
Your U.S. House has passed a measure that would make it more difficult to keep an ape as a pet.
A week after a woman lay in critical condition after being mauled by a pet chimpanzee, the Captive Primate Safety Act passed bya 323-95 voted, with 93 Republicans in opposition.
The act would apply to the sale and transport of monkeys, great apes, lemurs, etc. The measure "makes it unlawful for a person to sell or purchase a live animal of any prohibited wildlife species in interstate or foreign commerce," according to a Library of Congress summary.
Animals that assist disabled individuals would be excempt from the ban.
Senate action is unclear at this point. The House sponsor is Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR).
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro Bobby Jindal delivers tonight's response to President Obama 's address to Congress.
I came across an ad on YouTube that linked back to a Jindal response Web site "Paid for by Friends of Bobby Jindal." On the site, you can read about Jindal, donate or even log onto his Facebook page. (The response is also being promoted prominently on the front page of BobbyJindal.com .)
From the site: "You can receive early excerpts of the speech by signing up in the form to the right. Not only will you receive the early excerpts, but you will also be able to watch the speech on this page (www.bobbyjindal.com/sotu )."
Evan Tracey, who tracks advertising at TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, tells First Read that the Jindal Web ads are low-cost (compared to TV or radio). About a few thousand dollars was spent on them, and they are running on sites to targeted demographics, particularly "the base and opinion leaders," Tracey said.
The ads highlight ambitiousness on one hand -- raising Jindal's profile two years out from re-election and three years from the presidential election -- as well as Web savviness on the other. The Republican Party has talked about getting younger and trying to make up ground with Obama on the tech front. This is at least one sign that Jindal is trying to show he recognizes that and is ahead of the curve.
Jindal's multi-million-dollar 2008 fundraising haul and his placement in response to Obama (and advertising to promote it) all suggest to political observers that the Louisiana governor has more than Louisiana governor in his sights.
*** UPDATE ***
From NBC's Pete Williams Eric Holder is the cabinet member who will not attend tonight's presidential speech.
By custom, one member of the cabinet is designated to go to -- as we say these days -- "a secure location," in case that person is needed to carry on as head of the government. Since 9/11, the stay-away is typically a member of the national security team.
From NBC's Ken Strickland Hilda Solis' nomination to be Labor secretary. The final confirmation vote will be today at 4:30 pm ET.
The new agreement removes the procedural vote that had be scheduled for earlier today that would have required 60 votes to advance the nomination to the next step. Now there will only be one vote on the nomination -- with a simple majority required for her confirmation.
Solis is expected to be easily confirmed, and if that happens, that will leave just two of the major cabinet posts unfilled: Commerce and HHS.
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro Tonight’s address: In what will be the latest in big speeches he has delivered, President Obama tonight will address a joint session of Congress at 9:01 pm ET. Technically, it's not a State of the Union address. But with the televised entry into the chamber, the handshakes, the standing ovations, the primetime slot, and the opposition's official response, there won't be much of a difference. (Bush and Clinton also gave addresses to Congress shortly after their inaugurations.) Aides say the president’s speech is expected to outline the rest of his domestic agenda, including health care, education, and energy, as well as his policies towards Iraq and Afghanistan. These aides also note that the speech will echo familiar themes. Will the president feel the need to calm the markets tonight? Sure, most of the address is going to be about domestic priorities that touch the economy, but those topics aren't just about the economic bailout. That said, when Obama talks about health care, education, and energy, he'll do so under the economic umbrella. By the way, national service is also something that will be mentioned in the speech tonight and could be fast-tracked to get Ted Kennedy's maximum involvement.
*** Report card time: Just in time for tonight’s address, there are two new report cards -- via Washington Post/ABC and New York Times/CBS polls -- that show Obama has earned high marks in his first month as president. In both surveys, more than six in 10 approve of his job, strong majorities think he’s bringing about real change, and majorities approve of the just-passed economic stimulus. As for Republicans, it appears that their unified opposition to the president isn’t paying dividends just yet. According to both polls, about three-quarters believe Obama has been trying to work with Republicans, while just 3 in 10 Americans think the GOP is doing the same with the president. Moreover, the WashPo/ABC poll shows that while 50% approve of congressional Democrats, only 38% approve of their Republican counterparts, although that GOP score is up 13 points since the middle of last year. Perhaps the most worrisome number for the GOP in that poll: “Democrats maintain an edge of nearly 2 to 1 over Republicans as the party that Americans prefer to confront ‘the big issues’ over the next few years.” But remember one thing: Republicans need to worry about keeping their remaining customer base happy. And while that isn't playing well right now, do they have another choice? That's the conundrum for the GOP right now.
*** The power of the bully pulpit: One example why Obama is winning the charm war -- and why Republicans are not -- was yesterday’s televised Q&A with congressional Democrats, Republicans, and policy experts at the conclusion of his “Fiscal Responsibility Summit.” Obama taking questions from these folks resembled a formal White House press conference, or better yet the British prime minister’s question hour with Parliament. Writing about yesterday’s Q&A, the Washington Post’s Stephen Stromberg made this point: the “more Obama makes it seem like he is reaching out, the higher the price the Republicans will have to pay in order to oppose him.” The Q&A was a great example of the power of the bully pulpit, and why Obama is winning the bipartisanship argument without necessarily being bipartisan (outside of soliciting GOP opinions without really acting on them).
*** Jindal’s rebuttal: Giving tonight's GOP response to Obama's primetime address is Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who's already been in the spotlight the past few days -- opposing part of Obama's stimulus and appearing on Meet the Press. Perhaps it's our 24-7 focus on politics, but with all the attention Jindal has received, it's still a bit jarring to us that Jindal has served only about a year as governor and is just 37 years old. As we've noted before, giving the response isn't always a stepping-stone to future success . One past responder who's back in the news: former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who is "likely" to be Obama's Commerce pick.
*** Three times a charm? Speaking of Locke, it appears Obama has settled on the former governor to be his third pick to lead Commerce (following the failed Bill Richardson and Judd Gregg appointments). Locke, a Chinese-American, has done a slew of trade missions to China, particularly when he was governor of Washington, which happens to be a big free-trade state. This is actually a big deal to business since he's a free-trade guy.
*** Another summit? President Obama let slip yesterday that he'll be convening yet another summit at the White House next week -- this one on health care. It was pretty clear yesterday, and will be clearer tonight, that the administration is going to make a strong push to get major health-care legislation passed in the next few months. But don’t expect a drawn-out battle. That was one of the lessons that everyone learned from the 1990s… If major health-care legislation isn't passed by the Fourth of July, can it get passed before the Nov. 2010 elections?
*** On Capitol Hill today: Per NBC’s Ken Strickland, Senate Democratic leaders say they're optimistic they'll have the 60 votes needed today to advance a bill that would give DC voting rights with a seat in the House of Representatives. (It would also give Utah an additional House seat.) While a successful vote would be a giant step forward for DC voting rights advocates, Strick says, several additional steps remain on both sides of the Capitol and likely before the courts. The vote is procedural, designed to break a filibuster on the bill. Once that hurdle is cleared, the bill then must push its way through the amendment process, which could include contentious measures on things like DC gun rights. What’s more, the House has yet to pass its version of the bill, which is slightly different from the Senate version. And even if/when both chambers pass the same bill, it’s all but guaranteed to face immediate court challenges on the constitutionality of giving the DC a voting seat in the House. That part to the process could take years to resolve.
*** Remember that Solis confirmation? Strickland also notes that while it seems apparent to Senate Democrats that Hilda Solis will eventually be confirmed as Obama’s Labor secretary, Republicans are making Majority Leader Harry Reid jump through hoops to get her there. This morning, Solis' nomination will face a procedural vote on the Senate floor that neither Eric Holder nor Timothy Geithner faced in their somewhat bumpy rides to confirmation. This vote will happen immediately following the one on DC voting rights. Strick adds that Republicans are forcing Reid to muster 60 votes to advance the nomination because of her ties to a pro-labor lobbying group, as well as her support for the contentious Employee Free Choice Act. Reid's office is optimistic that the majority leader will be able to reach an agreement with Republicans for Solis to have her final confirmation vote before week's end, possibly as early as this afternoon.
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According to the new Washington Post/ABC poll , “68 percent of poll respondents approve of Obama's job performance… Sixty-four percent said they approve of how Obama is handling appointments to the Cabinet and other top positions in the administration, despite tax problems and stumbles that have led to three of his top nominees withdrawing from consideration.”
More: “Although Obama has encountered near-unanimous GOP opposition to his stimulus plan in Congress and widespread criticism for a housing bailout plan that some say rewards people who have been fiscally irresponsible, 64 percent of those polled back the economic recovery package, and the same percentage support the mortgage proposal. The broad support for the recovery package comes as just 10 percent said the bill was too heavy on spending and too light on tax cuts, the primary contention of the Republican leadership in Congress. Overall, 60 percent of poll respondents approve of how Obama is dealing with the economy.”
The New York Times on its latest NYT/CBS poll: “The aura of good will surrounding Mr. Obama at this stage of his presidency is similar to the one that benefited Ronald Reagan as he led the nation out of economic gloom. With a job approval rating of 63 percent, Mr. Obama is in a strong position to sell his economic policies. Yet the poll also captured skepticism about how effective his plans will prove to be in addressing the deep recession, as well as a strain of populism that could test his ability to retain public support for efforts to prop up key sectors of the economy.”
CONTINUED >>
"A White House summit that opened discussions on how to make sweeping changes in entitlement programs concluded yesterday with a pledge to immediately pursue an effort to provide health insurance to most Americans, which could increase spending in the short term but would be designed to save money later."
USA Today : “President Obama pledged Monday to target Medicare, farm subsidies, tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and no-bid contracts in Iraq in the proposed 2010 budget he will unveil later this week. Turning his attention from short-term economic stimulus to long-term fiscal discipline, Obama said he will urge Congress to require that any spending increases or tax cuts be paid for, rather than add to a $1.3 trillion deficit. That requirement was dropped as the Bush administration waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
The New York Times says that “Mr. Obama called on Mr. McCain to offer any thoughts” during the Q&A session at the end of the president’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit. “Mr. McCain praised Mr. Obama for holding the event, then suggested one priority should be dealing with out-of-control military contracts. Exhibit A was the program to replace the current Marine One helicopters, with costs mushrooming to $11.2 billion from $6.1 billion. The Defense Science Board issued a new study blaming ‘poor communication’ about aircraft requirements between the government and contractors. Lockheed Martin declared Monday that it was ‘committed to the program’s success’ and would meet any conditions imposed by an Obama administration review.”
CONTINUED >>
The Boston Globe looks at the risk for some Republicans in voting "no" on the stimulus. "When Obama addresses a joint session of Congress in a televised speech tonight to outline his budget priorities and policy agenda, he will face 176 House Republicans who voted unanimously against his stimulus bill. Fewer than one dozen share [Washington State Republican Dave] Reichert's predicament: He represents a district carried by Obama in November, in this case by 15 percentage points. He is the type of endangered Republican most sought by Obama's gestures of bipartisan outreach, but also the type whom the new president's successes would be most likely to dislodge from office." Roll Call writes. It's called the "Patriot" program and is part of the design to "overhaul" the NRCC "after back-to-back election cycles in which the GOP suffered major losses." And check out this bit: "As one Republican source put it Monday, the effort is also designed to 'end the welfare state that the NRCC has become over the past six to eight years' by setting strict benchmarks for Members and adding one big stick to the process. Namely, those candidates who aren’t working to help themselves will be cut off from NRCC financial assistance."
Think Democratic leadership is going to yank Roland Burris soon? Think again. “There is already a process in place that includes investigations by Illinois state officials and the Senate Ethics Committee,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said, per Roll Call . “Let’s let the appropriate process play out and let all the facts come to light. But, in the meantime, he is still a Member of the Senate.” More PMA news: "Several clients of The PMA Group, which was raided by the FBI in November, are slated to receive earmarks worth at least $8 million in the omnibus spending bill funding the federal government through the rest of fiscal 2009, according to a list of projects put together by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)."
CALIFORNIA: The race to replace Hilda Solis in Congress is underway: "At first glance, given the demographics of the district -- about half of Democratic voters are Hispanic -- state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D) should be favored to replace Solis in a race that, for now, also includes State Board of Equalization Chairwoman Judy Chu (D) and former investment banker Emanuel Pleitez (D). But conventional wisdom in this race could be turned on its head in several ways."
ILLINOIS: The Hill checks in with the Democratic race to succeed Rahm Emanuel. Three Democrats have emerged.
KENTUCKY: "Bunning's office originally misspelled Ginsburg's name in the statement but later corrected it. Meanwhile, Republican Kentucky state Senate President David Williams would
not rule out a possible run in the primary. Williams has met with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP campaign arm in Washington, according to a person familiar with the situation who requested anonymity because the meeting was private."
MISSOURI: Roy Blunt's decision to run for the Senate has
set off a flurry for the Republican nomination to replace him.
NEW YORK: And Bill Clinton will
headline a Kirsten Gillibrand fundraiser March 11 in New York City.
From NBC's Athena Jones President Obama returned to the theme fiscal responsibility in speeches today, while also arguing that health-care reform was essential to long-term deficit reduction.
In a morning speech to the National Governors Association in the State Dining Room, the president repeated the warning he gave to some 80 mayors last week to spend stimulus dollars wisely. He also announced he was asking Vice President Joe Biden to oversee the administration's efforts to implement the $787 billion recovery plan.
"Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to next budget, the next administration, or the next generation," he said. "That's why today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Chuck Todd and Domenico Montanaro Gary Locke is the "likely pick" for Commerce Secretary, according to sources familiar with the decision process.
Locke, of course, would be the president's third choice to lead the large and diverse Cabinet agency which deals with the economy, the census and even the weather.
Locke was a two-term governor of Washington, who didn't leave with the higest of approval ratings.
Locke served as governor of Washington from 1996 to 2005. He graduated from Yale in 1972 and got his law degree from Boston University in 1975.
More to come.
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro Tom Carper (D-DE) set the table for President Obama to tee off on bipartisanship, encouraging him publicly to continue to reach out to Republicans.
"I'm just a glutton for punishment," Obama said in response before adding, "I'm going to keep on talking to Eric Cantor because someday, sooner or later, he's going to say, you know Obama, he had a good idea."
We've noted before that his efforts on bipartisanship are downpayments for other pieces of legislation.
Video: At the end of his economic summit, Obama says bipartisan support will help stabilize the economy. Isn't it pretty difficult for Cantor to sharpen the knives when Obama's flattering him from the podium?
By the way, that faux press conference at the fiscal responsibility summit was one of the more remarkable images we've seen since Obama's been elected president.
With Obama behind a podium -- a foot higher than the other elected officials made to look the part of White House correspondents, as they were called on to ask questions -- was there any doubt who's the boss?
From NBC's Kelly O'Donnell
Sen.
Roland Burris will be a much-watched face in the crowd tomorrow night as members of Congress welcome
President Obama to deliver his primetime address.
When Burris returns Tuesday from what turned into a news-making, controversy-filled recess for the embattled Illinois senator, Hill sources say he plans to reach out to Senate leadership and colleagues in a quiet attempt to "smooth feathers" over his varied accounts of contacts with ousted Illinois Gov.
Rod Blagojevich prior to his appointment.
The Burris game plan is to press on and plead for "patience," despite calls for his resignation. Aides say he intends to make a few announcements about new senior staff positions being filled in his Senate office in coming days, and also to politically convey that he is "getting to work."
Burris spent part of Saturday meeting with federal investigators in Chicago about the Blagojevich probe. Sources say Burris was told he is not a target.
From NBC's Ken Strickland and Mark Murray Jim Bunning apologized for remarks he made about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg , in which he predicted that she would pass away in nine months.
Note: Bunning's office misspelled Ginsburg's last name.
From NBC's Abby Livingston
First Read stumbled onto this -- President
George W. Bush is
hitting the speakers' circuit , as is former
First Lady Laura Bush .
The Web site pitches the former president this way: "George W. Bush offers his thoughts on eight years in the Oval Office, the challenges facing our nation in the 21st century, the power of freedom, the role of faith, and other pressing issues."
The former first lady is pitched as: "One of the most popular first ladies in history, is a compelling advocate for issues of national and global concern."
Calls to the company representing the former president, the Washington Speakers Bureau, have not yet been returned. However, ex-presidents typically net north of $100,000 when making speeches.
From NBC's Mark Murray and Chuck Todd Gallup poll , President Obama's approval rating is now at 63%, which is down five percentage points from his initial rating in January. Also, his disapproval number has doubled from 12% in January to 24% now.
But be careful if you're trying to draw a dramatic conclusion about this slight downward tick. The only group of voters that has moved away from Obama are Republicans, who went from 41% approval in January to 30% now. However, Democrats' approval has remained steady (88% then, 89% now). And -- perhaps most importantly -- so has approval among independents (63% then, 63% now).
From NBC's Mark Murray Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand say that if GOP Govs. Haley Barbour (Mississippi), Bobby Jindal (Louisiana), and Mark Sanford (South Carolina) don't want portions of their stimulus money, then they'll take it.
"New York receives 78 cents from the federal government for every dollar we send to Washington," the senators wrote President Obama . "If other states are willingly refusing federal support in this time of economic crisis, New York should benefit given our 'donor state' status."
"If any governor -- Democrat or Republican -- leaves stimulus money on the table, then we respectfully request that funds be distributed to New York," they added. "We will put the money to good use, investing in education and new infrastructure, such as health care IT and high speed rail."
From NBC’s Jeff Rossen John Thain -- this time, legal ones after a "heated" closed-door meeting between Thain and New York State investigators.
New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed court papers forcing Thain to speak candidly about $3-to-$4 billion dollars in bonuses handed out just before the merger with Bank of America.
According to sources, during his deposition Thain admits that Bank of America knew everything he was up to. But Thain reportedly refused to name names. He wouldn't go into specifics about who got the money. Investigators say they filed today's motion for two reasons: (1) Force Thain to speak openly, and under oath, and (2) Send a warning to Bank of America, and other banks -- that anything short of full transparency is unacceptable.
This headline-grabber is just the latest in a string of high-profile investigations for Cuomo. There are politics at play here. Cuomo is considering a run for governor in 2010. Recently, Cuomo exposed a health-care scheme costing millions of Americans, hundreds of millions of dollars. As a result of that investigation, United Health Group settled with Cuomo's office and agreed to reimburse people affected.
It's unclear when a judge could rule on this latest motion involving John Thain.
After the jump is an excerpt from the deposition between one of the investigators, Thain (“witness”) and Thain’s attorney. (See above links for full complaint deposition):
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Savannah Guthrie The White House will release $15 billion on Wednesday to the states to help with Medicaid costs, essentially fast-tracking a portion of the stimulus money to help states defer cuts in essential services.
From NBC's Pete Williams
Supreme Court Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg returned to work today to the Supreme Court, taking her place at the bench as the court resumed hearing oral arguments.
A beaming Justice Ginsburg walked into the courtroom under her own power, 18 days after surgery for pancreatic cancer.
And during the oral argument, she was a frequent and energetic questioner -- all in all, her normal self.
She left the courtroom as she came in, on her own, without taking the arm of another justice.
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro Time to go on a diet : After spending its first month in office convincing the American public to feast on an all-you-can-eat stimulus plan, the Obama administration is now turning its sights to the diet and exercise that lies ahead. (One of your authors who just got back from a weekend vacation in Memphis knows this drill all too well.) Today, beginning at 1:00 pm ET, President Obama convenes his "Fiscal Responsibility Summit," where he will announce that he’ll cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. The White House says it will get there thanks, in part, to 1) winding down the Iraq war and 2) phasing out the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. (By the way, the tax-cut rollback is being announced without a lot of fanfare, and it's interesting how Republicans are just letting this be announced without pushing back very hard yet. Will the Bush tax cuts end up being an actual "vote" on the floor of Congress before the 2010 elections?) This deficit-reduction task, however, is even more ambitious given that Obama claims he won’t use budget gimmicks that George W. Bush incorporated (like excluding war costs and counting on Alternative Minimum Tax revenue), and he’s also planning to budget for a yearly natural disaster (approx. $20 billion) On Tuesday, the president will deliver his domestic-issue-heavy address to Congress. And on Thursday, he’ll release his budget outline.
Video: Obama pledges to cut the deficit in half by 2013. ***
Touching the third rail? Given today’s fiscal responsibility summit, there’s a lot of chatter about President Obama’s intentions about Social Security. Per the
New York Times , Obama “considered announcing the formation of a Social Security task force” at today’s summit. “But several Democrats said that idea had been shelved, partly because of objections from House and Senate leaders.” Obama does have a Nixon-to-China opportunity to shore up Social Security, especially since his party controls the White House and Congress. But on “Morning Joe” today, OMB director Peter Orszag made the point that the administration’s immediate concern is with health care, not Social Security. Also, with everything else going on -- the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan -- liberals gladly point out that the system is solvent until 2041, which is a long ways away. Obama's instinct is to tackle Social Security, but he'll be flexible on timing. (Can anyone say "second term goal"?) By the way, this is a case where Speaker Pelosi is taking yet another arrow for the White House. House Republicans are jumping on the news that Pelosi vetoed this first change at focusing on Social Security reform. Don't think the White House isn't reminded that Pelosi is actually serving them well politically by taking these political hits on Obama's behalf.
*** A tale of two Republicans : The current divide among GOP governors over the stimulus was in full display yesterday on “Meet the Press .” In dueling interviews, we saw one governor -- Bobby Jindal -- rooted mostly in a conservative ideology that plays very well in the South and with the base, but not in some other parts of the country and not with many swing voters. “I think we just have a fundamental disagreement here. I don't think the best way to do that is for the government to tax and borrow more money,” Jindal said. “I think the best thing they could've done, for example, was to cut taxes on things like capital gains, the lower tax brackets, to get the private sector spending again.“ And we saw another governor -- Charlie Crist -- rooted in what he claims is pragmatism in a key presidential battleground state. “I'm a Florida Republican. And in the Florida way, we work together in a bipartisan fashion to do what's right for the people. That's really what it's all about,” he said. This has become perhaps the key question for the Republican Party: In which direction does it want to go? The GOP in the short term will divide on this question: Is the government more of a problem or more of a problem-solver?
Video: The debate on how to spend the stimulus money heats up, especially among Republican governors. ***
Jindal's wiggle room : Also on “Meet the Press,” Jindal -- who will be delivering the GOP’s response on Tuesday -- gave a qualified answer to questions about whether he’ll run for president in 2012. “I want to run for re-election to be governor of Louisiana in 2011,” he said. “I told the people of our state we have a once in a lifetime chance to change our state.” More: “If the people of Louisiana will have me, I absolutely want to be governor for the next seven years. Now, that's up to the voters of Louisiana.“ And: “It's my intent to, to run for re-election.” If Jindal does run for re-election, however, here’s something important to consider: The GOP nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire will probably come just two months after that re-election contest in Louisiana in 2011. Is that enough time to campaign in those states? Do you get left out of most of the debates? Or do you try to run for re-election in Louisiana, with occasional stops in the early states? These are questions that other potential presidential candidates don’t have to answer. If Jindal ever does run in 2012, he may have to create a draft movement that somehow allows him to get in the race late. It's possible that without a fight for an open seat for the presidency that the race on the GOP side could get started a tad later. Of course, Jindal wasn't the only GOP governor in DC on the Sunday talk shows who might have his eyes set on 2012. There’s Crist, Mark Sanford, Mitch Daniels, and Tim Pawlenty. By the way, assess how each gave themselves wiggle room for going after Obama in the next three years.
Video: Jindal discusses the possibility of running for president in 2012 on "Meet the Press." ***
GOP senators gone wild? Over the weekend, GOP Sen. Jim Bunning, who’s up for re-election in 2010,
predicted that Ruth Bader Ginsberg would be dead in nine months. “Bad cancer. The kind you don’t get better from,” he said. “Even though she was operated on, usually nine months is the longest that anybody would live after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.” And then there was Sen. Richard Shelby
doubting Obama’s citizenship . “Well, his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.” These things don’t really help the GOP, do they? Shelby's office walked back the report about what he said, but doesn't the senator himself have to deal with this? As for Bunning, there were a few other comments he made regarding how the establishment Senate Republicans are treating him right now. He's feeling a bit paranoid vis-à-vis the leadership, specifically Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn. Is Bunning going to be this cycle's Bob Smith, circa 2002?
*** The DCCC's stimulus campaign : Speaking of the stimulus fight, the DCCC says it’s targeting (via automated calls, text messages, and emails) 12 House Republicans who voted against the stimulus, arguing that they opposed middle-class tax cuts. The 12 Republicans: Judy Biggert (IL), Ken Calvert (CA), Michael Castle (DE), Charlie Dent (PA), Jim Gerlach (PA), Mark Kirk (IL), Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO), Dan Lungren (CA), Thaddeus McCotter (MI), Adam Putman (FL), Dave Reichert (WA), and Pete Sessions (TX). A sample of one of the automated calls: “Did you know Congressman Thad McCotter voted against President Obama's economic recovery plan, endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? McCotter's empty rhetoric can't hide that he voted to raise the AMT tax on 22 million middle class Americans and against the largest tax cut history.”
*** Whither Citigroup? This will definitely be a story to watch today: Citigroup, the Wall Street Journal reports, “is in talks with federal officials that could result in the U.S. government substantially expanding its ownership of the struggling bank, according to people familiar with the situation. While the discussions could fall apart, the government could wind up holding as much as 40% of Citigroup's common stock. Bank executives hope the stake will be closer to 25%, these people said.”
Video: CNBC's Melissa Lee reports that the government may raise its stake in embattled Citigroup. Countdown to NJ GOP primary: 99 days
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According to the Boston Globe , "[S]ome of the nation's top budget analysts plan to deliver a stark warning today at a White House summit that an even more foreboding long-term crisis will unfold unless Obama quickly fixes Social Security, healthcare, the tax code, and more. While the $787 billion stimulus plan relies on tax cuts and increased spending, the list of problems to be addressed at the "Fiscal Responsibility Summit" could result in a series of painful political decisions that might eventually include tax increases and cuts in government benefits."Wall Street Journal writes, “Mr. Obama will promise that he can shrink that total to $533 billion, or 3% of GDP, by 2013, primarily through savings from withdrawing combat forces from Iraq and allowing George W. Bush's tax cuts for families earning more than $250,000 to lapse in 2011. The forecast for a sharp narrowing of the deficit will also rest on the assumption that the economy recovers from the current slump. The official declined to say how any additional spending on economic stimulus or bailouts of the financial or other sectors -- actions many economists consider inevitable -- would affect the upbeat deficit projection.”
"Meet Barack the Knife," the New York Daily News writes. "Determined to slash the deficit from $1.3 trillion to $533 million in four years, President Obama will propose this week cuts across a wide range of the budget, sparing neither the Pentagon nor entitlement programs."
The Sunday New York Times added, “Measured against the size of the economy, the projected $533 billion shortfall for 2013 would mean a reduction from a deficit equal to more than 10 percent of the gross domestic product — larger than any deficit since World War II — to 3 percent, which is the level that economists generally consider sustainable. Mr. Obama will project deficits at about that level through 2019.”
CONTINUED >>
AP's Fouhy writes that "leading Republicans used this weekend's meeting of the National Governors Association to lay out divergent views of President Obama's stimulus plan -- and competing visions of their party's future."
The Washington Post : “Leading Republican governors continued their sparring yesterday by offering divergent views of the recovery act, with Southern conservatives saying they would reject some stimulus funds and coastal moderates embracing Obama's plan. But governors of both political parties said in interviews yesterday that the Obama administration should give states flexibility to make smart investments in education, health care and transportation.”
The New York Times on the geographical division inside the GOP: “The Republican governors’ divide reflects their party’s erosion to a mostly regional party that is based in the conservative South, after heavy election losses in the Northeast, Midwest and West. And with the party leaderless after losing control of both the White House and Congress in the past two election cycles, the split is colored by early maneuvering for conservatives’ support among potential aspirants for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination.”
CONTINUED >>
Previewing Obama’s address to Congress on Tuesday, the New York Times says Obama will “present a road map for ‘how we get to a better day,’ a senior adviser says… The appearance before a joint session of the Senate and the House offers an opportunity for Mr. Obama to reprise some themes and initiatives from his campaign that have been overshadowed by the economic emergency that has defined the first month of his presidency.”
More: “The president is not planning to announce significant new policies, officials said, but intends to explain how his agenda can advance despite the deepening recession and monumental budget deficit. The address will be heavily weighted toward domestic priorities and the economy, aides said, and will offer only a brief look at foreign policy.”
Here’s a good primer, courtesy of the New Republic , regarding what Obama will say about health care in his budget.
"Obama hasn't waited for the evildoers' to make the first move," the New York Daily News writes. "Despite his widely debated plan to close the U.S. terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay, Obama -- in far less publicized decisions -- has acted more hawkishly than the dovish candidate who was a hero to the left. In his first orders as commander in chief, Obama kicked Al Qaeda in the teeth with a series of missile strikes, set in motion a troop surge in Afghanistan and warned nuclear wanna-be North Korea. Once-skeptical intelligence officers now praise Obama for being 'a wolf in sheep's clothing.'"
And the Washington Post's Kessler sums up the first overseas trip for Secretary of State Clinton. "Clinton's willingness to speak frankly -- combined with an extensive effort to get beyond ministerial meetings in order to hold town hall meetings and conduct local television interviews in the countries she visits -- suggests she will put a distinctive personal stamp on the Obama administration's foreign policy. What is emerging is something less rigid, less cautious and more open."
Politico writes, “In multiple interviews, several Senate aides and Burris confidants say the senator was unprepared from a public relations and political perspective to deal with the national media frenzy and ethics problems he now confronts."
A Burris associate tells First Read that though he doubts the senator will resign soon. "It's impossible to find a Democrat in the state not touched by Blagojevich," the source said, adding that he doubted any Democrat could hold the seat, including state Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Blagojevich replacement Gov. Pat Quinn. "Pat Quinn was his running mate," the source said, adding, "Even Obama is associated."
Roll Call quotes another source saying resigning hadn't been discussed internally as of Friday. "Burris, this source said, is currently behind closed doors considering his next move. The Senator believes he has been honest and above board, but feels he is suffering in part because of a faulty communications strategy in relation to how he has dealt with this latest scandal."
CONTINUED >>
MINNESOTA:
The Hill's Wilson reports the RNC donated $250,000 to Coleman's recount bid on Jan. 26 under Mike Duncan’s administration. The Minnesota Republican Party also got a $142,000 cash infusion from Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) presidential victory committee. Sen. Lamar Alexander's (R-Tenn.) political action committee as well as dozens of individuals have also given to the state party, specifically earmarking their contributions for Coleman's recount efforts."
Stu Rothenberg, writing in
Roll Call , says Republicans' death in the Northeast "has been greatly exaggerated. True, over the past decade, the GOP has been slaughtered in New England... But 2010 could be the start of a comeback for the GOP in the Northeast, in part because the party suffered such complete devastation that a bit of a rebound seems close to inevitable."
From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro
South Carolina Gov.
Mark Sanford struck a feisty tone Saturday night, responding directly to Maryland Gov.
Martin O'Malley ’s call earlier in the day for “fringe” Republican governors opposed to stimulus funds to "step aside."
"I don't see folks [here], who are really wired to step aside," Sanford
said to applause from the GOP crowd in "The Crystal Room," an ornate
dining room, complete with cascading chandeliers and 15-foot high green
marble columns, at the upscale Willard Intercontinental Hotel in
downtown Washington, two blocks from the White House.
At the Republican Governors Association dinner -- in part, a thank you
to Republican fundraisers during this weekend when governors from
around the country are in the nation's capital for the National
Governors Association meeting -- Sanford lauded the efforts
specifically of
Bobby Jindal ,
Haley Barbour ,
Rick Perry and
Sonny Perdue , Southern governors who have said they’re opposed to stimulus funds and may not take money for their states.
Sanford called Republican governors the "last ones standing," when it comes to setting conservative policy.
He thanked House Minority Leader
John Boehner , who was in attendance, for keeping House Republicans firmly in opposition to the stimulus.
He had some tough words, however, for the Upper Chamber.
CONTINUED >>
Presidential possibles, stimulus, highlight weekend's NGA for Republicans
CONTINUED >>
From NBC’s Ken Strickland While there are lots of calls for Sen. Roland Burris to resign, don't expect any effort from his Senate colleagues to expel him from the Senate when he returns to Capitol Hill next week.
Even though Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin told a Chicago newspaper earlier this week that Burris' "future in the Senate seat is in question," leadership staff on both sides of the aisle say, at this stage, the only way Burris would be out of the Senate would be for Burris to resign.
As a rule, the Senate prefers to let investigations, trials, etc., run their course before they act. (For example, there was never a serious effort to expel former Sens. Ted Stevens and Larry Craig even as they were waiting to appeal their cases.)
CONTINUED >>
From NBC’s Athena Jones Obama pledged to do all he could to ensure stimulus dollars were not wasted, telling a group of some 80 mayors gathered in the East Room of the White House Friday that he would "call them out" if they spent the funds unwisely.
He said he would do the same to federal agencies who wasted taxpayer dollars, while highlighting the scope and scale of a plan he fought hard to pass.
"This plan does more to lay a new foundation for our cities' growth and opportunity than anything else Washington has done in generations and it will bring real and lasting change for generations to come," the president said.
The word of the hour at the East Room event was "unprecedented," with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden stressing that the recovery package included "unprecedented investment in American cities" and that the American people had placed "unprecedented trust" in the Obama administration to implement this plan effectively, something that would require "unprecedented responsibility and accountability" on everyone's part.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC’s John Yang
Energy Secretary
Steven Chu may be a Nobel laureate Ph.D. in physics, but his first forays into energy policy suggest he's a neophyte when it comes to the ways of Washington.
At a forum with reporters on Thursday, the head of the department that has traditionally taken the lead on global oil-market policy, was asked what message the
Obama administration had for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at its meeting next month.
"I'm not the administration," the Cabinet secretary replied. "I will be speaking and learning more about this in order to figure out what the U.S. position should be and what the president's position is."
CONTINUED >>
From WMAQ's Maryann Ahern Pat Quinn , who replaced the impeached Rod Blagojevich , has called on Sen. Roland Burris "to do what's right, put people's interest first and resign."
Quinn also laid out his plan for special elections to fill future Senate vacancies.
He said he still favors "temporary appointments" by the sitting governor, however.
*** UPDATE *** Dan Hynes and Alexi Giannoulias .
Per NBC's John Yang, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggests Burris take time this weekend and correct what he has said about his contacts with Blagojevich and Blagojevich's circle and "think about the future."
From NBC's Andrea Mitchell
Hillary Clinton is trying to reinvent the role of Secretary of State, surprising reporters on her plane and a lot of diplomats yesterday by talking plainly, even if it wasn’t exactly diplomatic.
Asked today why she had been so blunt about North Korea's ailing leader
Kim Jong Il , she said, "I don’t think it's a forbidden subject to talk about succession in the Hermit Kingdom. ...To worry about something that is so self-evident is an impediment to clear thinking."
Video: During her trip to Seoul on Thursday, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton sent some unmistakable signals to North Korea. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports. It does mark a change from the usual diplomatese. Clinton's response today? "Maybe this is unusual because you're supposed to be so careful you spend hours avoiding the obvious.”
She's been getting a rock star reception. Just take a look at what happened in Jakarta when she waded into a poor neighborhood to look at a water sanitization project and was mobbed. She plays to that advantage, telling reporters, "I see our job right now, given what we've inherited, as repairing relations, not only with governments but with people. …President Obama has an extraordinary ability to do that because of the emotion he engenders.”
To a lesser degree, she says she can do that also by getting down into the population. That's why in Jakarta she appeared on an Indonesian music show that was a cross between American Idol and The View, a program called "Awesome," charming the hosts when she confessed that her musical tastes were formulated in the 60s -- The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
CONTINUED >>
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro One month down: Today marks exactly one month since Obama was inaugurated. The country, and the world frankly, is engaged on pretty much anything this president does. The Blackberry-clutching candidate Obama joked on the campaign that a president needs to multi task. Well, he’s gotten his shot at that so far. It’s been a month of successes: passing the largest economic stimulus bill in the history of the country while retaining high approval numbers. And pitfalls: losing the spin war at the outset of the stimulus, Daschle (and other nominee) tax problems, lobbying exceptions, the Commerce Department (just in general -- what a mess), Geithner’s TARP II rollout. And there’s a whole lot more to come: Housing, health care, climate change, the labor-business fight, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Israel-Hamas, and on. Republicans have been unimpressed. In an e-mail blasted out (twice) to reporters this morning, they stress this has been a “disappointing month,” one “marked by wasteful spending, failed bipartisanship, and questionable ethics.” Ask yourself this, what will be more remembered -- Nancy Killefer’s taxes, field mice and Bill Lynn’s lobbying? Or that Obama got a more than $700 billion bill through Congress in less than a month -- and most importantly, to both Democrats and Republicans, whether it works at all?
*** The great challenge that this White House is dealing with is the 24/7 nature of the Twittering media that no other president has ever dealt with on the policy front. It's the natural evolution, considering that campaigns have gotten this kind of coverage for years. Still, this environment of incremental up-down rulings by the punditocracy (most notably business pundits, see yesterday) on Obama's first month of policy, is quite the message handling challenge for this White House. Right now, it’s chosen to deal with it by flooding the zone; instead of pushing one storyline a week, they go ahead and try and sell multiple messages. Can they keep up the pace?
Video: GOP governors split over stimulus. Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., discusses. ***
The governors are coming: After a furious week (including Obama signing the stimulus into law, unveiling his home-foreclosure plan, and traveling to Canada), all eyes are now turning to Tuesday’s big address to Congress. But before then, the governors are coming to town for the National Governors Association conference. Some events: Saturday kicks off with a press conference with Govs. Ed Rendell (D) and Jim Douglas (R) at 10:00 am ET, as well as with a panel on energy and infrastructure (with T. Boone Pickens and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger). Schwarzenegger and Rendell will
debate at 3:00 pm ET on what the nation’s priorities should be. On Sunday, President Obama hosts a black-tie dinner for the governors at 7:30 pm. And on Monday, there's a governors-only meeting with Obama at 9:30 am ET. There are two obvious storylines: The first is the economy and the stimulus plan, which provides quite a bit of money to the states to help balance their budgets. Some prominent Republican governors, all potential 2012 presidential candidates, (Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford) have not only been outspoken against the stimulus, they've also said they might reject the funds intended for their states. Recently, however, both Perry and Sanford have now signaled they'll probably take the money. It's also worth noting that other Republican governors like Schwarzenegger and Charlie Crist have supported the stimulus.
*** Showcase showdown :
*** The Dems: Don’t forget the potentially news-making Democratic governors expected to attend, like, New Jersey's Jon Corzine (who's up for re-election in 2009 and dealing with poor poll numbers), New York's David Paterson (still under fire after the badly executed Senate appointment), Illinois' Pat Quinn (who might have to make his own Senate appointment, if Roland Burris resigns -- fat chance, right?), Kansas' Kathleen Sebelius (headed to HHS?), and Michigan's Jennifer Granholm (who leads a prime auto manufacturing state facing tough economic times).
*** Against the stimulus before they were for it: We clipped a few items yesterday that mentioned House Republicans who now are for at least parts of the stimulus after they voted against it. Look at this list of House Republicans that the DCCC has tracked:
Huh? This is going to be a tight rope for these GOPers to walk. It’s why we thought they’d given themselves cover to vote for it on the second go round when $100 billion had been stripped out. But they were all whipped into voting against, and if these statements are any indication, could be problematic at home.
*** You don't know Jack: AP does a roundup of all the ethically challenged Democrats, included in the roundup is just one line about the mess involving Democratic Rep. Jack Murtha.
It involves illegal contributions from a defense contractor, among other things; of course, Murtha's always had a very cozy relationship with the defense industry, thanks to the prominence of his brother, the defense lobbyist. But keep an eye on this one: it could to be ugly. First, Murtha himself, seems to walk the ethical line regularly, starting with his involvement in ABSCAM in the early '80s to now. Second, he's close to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will he end up muddying her up, even if it's unsuspecting? DId she turn too much of a blind eye toward him, simply because she goes out of her way to respect the House's seniority system? Murtha was a cause celeb for about six months in '06 when he became the party's anti-war spokesperson; quite a few unaware Democrats sidled up to Murtha and may now find out they made a mistake.
*** Obama today: While the governors will be getting Obama's attention over the weekend, today he meets with mayors. Obama, Vice President Biden, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Attorney General Eric Holder, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood attend a meeting at the White House at 10:30 am ET with the U.S. Conference of Mayors to discuss the stimulus bill. If there's been one group that has embraced the stimulus, it's been this one, but Obama, per NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, will also issue a bit of a warning: Spend the money on good projects; don’t be wasteful or you’ll have to come back to the White House to answer for it. Afterward, the president meets with senior advisers and then lunches with Biden. Obama’s schedule also has him looking at next week. In the afternoon, he works on his Tuesday address to Congress.
*** BCS meet Capitol Hill: After an undefeated season, Utah finished sixth in the BCS and was eliminated from contention for a potential national championship. (Of course, other teams, like Texas -- no specific reason for mentioning them -- had even better claims to the title game.) And today, the commissioner of Utah’s Mountain West Athletic Conference pitches Congressional staffers on his proposed reforms to the Bowl Championship Series. (There will be more details on his proposal in a couple of weeks. Generally, he wants to make it more of a “performance-based system” -- was all we could get from his folks.) The system is broken; we’ve oft-advocated on this page for an eight-team college playoff solution. ’Horns spring practice starts later this month. Let’s get this done.
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"President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, emerging with smiles after a meeting in Harper's office and a working lunch, said this afternoon they had agreed to work closely on stimulus plans to tackle the global recession, to create a joint clean energy initiative, and to pursue stability and progress in Afghanistan," the Boston Globe writes.
Video: Obama makes first foreign trip on friendly turf. NBC's Chuck Todd reports. A few things to ponder: if residents of other countries react the way Canadians reacted to Obama, he's not going to be popular with a lot of world leaders... potentially. We wonder what was going through Prime Minister Stephen Harper's head when thousands showed to Parliament just hoping to catch a glimpse of the American leader.
On policy, it was interesting to see and hear Obama in Canada have to walk the line on NAFTA again. But if yesterday highlighted anything, it’s the difference between being a candidate and being a president. Harper may have shown the U.S. and Canada’s cards, by the way, when he said that the U.S. and Canada have the same goals on trade. Reading between the lines, he’s saying, “Hey, we’re not the problem here when it comes to labor and environmental standards.” Over to you, Mexico.
On Air Force One, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg said Harper “raised the issue of ‘Buy America.’ The President basically said what he said in the press conference about the fact that he was committed to making sure that everything we did was consistent with NAFTA and the WTO, and recognized that it was important under these circumstances for trade not to contract and for countries to work together to address that.”
Clinton’s Bluntness on North Korea: Staying abroad, NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports from Asia, following Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Clinton is trying to reinvent the role of Secretary of State -- surprising reporters on her plane and a lot of diplomats yesterday by talking plainly, even if it wasn't exactly diplomatic. Asked today why she had been so blunt about North Korea's ailing leader Kim Jong Il, she said, "I don’t think it's a forbidden subject to talk about succession in the Hermit Kingdom. ...To worry about something that is so self-evident is an impediment to clear thinking." It does mark a change from the usual diplomatese.
CONTINUED >>
After the round heard round the Web and (by cable gawkers), “It seems like everyone -- even those who don't own a home -- has an opinion about whether the country should spend $75 billion to let strapped homeowners refinance at lower interest rates,” the New York Daily News reports.
“President Obama's massive housing bailout plan ignited a furious national debate yesterday, with advocates calling it a godsend and critics demanding to know why homeowners who pay their mortgages on time should subsidize those who don't,” the New York Post writes.
Video: NBC’s Brian Williams talks to CNBC’s Rick Santelli and Steve Liesman about President Obama’s mortgage-rescue plan and the continuing slump on Wall Street. TODAY had on CNBC ranter Rick Santelli to debate the merits with colleague Steve Liesman, who penned a favorable review of Obama’s plan yesterday in the
New York Daily News . Pressed for real solutions, Santelli offered none.
Meanwhile, the New York Times’ David Brooks reluctantly endorses what the Obama folks are doing. "Actually executing this is a near-impossible task. Looking at the auto, housing and banking bailouts, we’re getting a sense of how the propeller heads around Obama operate. They try to put together programs that are bold, but without the huge interventions in the market implied by, say, nationalization. They’re balancing so many cross-pressures, they often come up with technocratic Rube Goldberg schemes that alter incentives in lots of medium and small ways. Some economists argue that the plans are too ineffectual, others that they are too opaque (estimates for the mortgage plan range from $75 billion to $275 billion and up). Personally, I hate the idea of 10 guys sitting around in the White House trying to redesign huge swaths of the U.S. economy on legal pads. But at least they seem to be driven by a spirit of moderation and restraint. They seem to be trying to keep as many market structures in place as possible so things can return to normal relatively smoothly."
CONTINUED >>
Per its filing to the Federal Election Commission, the Republican National Committee ended the month of January with $22.8 million cash-on-hand, and raised $5.8 million last month, says RNC spokesman Alex Conant.
Meghan McCain, campaign blogger extraordinaire and daughter of Sen. John McCain, has some tough medicine for the GOP. “When I first suggested launching a blog chronicling my experience on my father's campaign for president, I was met with confusion and resistance,” she writes in an entry on The Daily Beast . “A few people even asked me what's a blog.” Yikes. She even explains that she thinks many in the party were and are in denial, that the biggest problem was not having enough money, not their inability to mobilize voters in the way the Obama campaign did.
More: “The Republican party isn't exactly Internet savvy. That's no secret. This has been a source of personal frustration for me for a very long time. Unless the GOP evolves as the party that can successfully utilize the Web, we'll continue to lose influence. I think nothing confirms this fact to be more true than this recent election.” … Until the Republican party joins the twenty-first century and learns how to use the Internet, its members will keep getting older and the youth of America will just keep logging on to the other side.”
AP does a roundup of all the ethically challenged Democrats, included in the roundup is just one line about the mess involving Democratic Rep. Jack Murtha.
And, of course, there’s Roland Burris, who Politico writes “is embracing a strategy of riding out the storm.” “ ‘There is no way’ Roland Burris is going to resign from the Senate, and he will return to Washington to vote in the Senate next week, sources close to Burris told Politico . ‘There is fight in him, fight in his team,’ said one associate, requesting anonymity so he could speak candidly. ‘He’s not resigning … because he’s done absolutely nothing wrong. What would be the message if he did [resign]?’” Just sayin,’ but, who’s all this “I will fight” and “done absolutely nothing wrong” business sound like ?
The Boston Globe continues its series on Ted Kennedy with its sixth chapter.
MINNESOTA: The latest, per the Star-Tribune : Pressing its case in the Senate election trial, Norm Coleman's campaign argued Thursday that some votes already tallied during the recount must be illegal, going by a ruling issued by the judges last week. It's a mess that only the court can fix, Coleman spokesman Ben Ginsberg said. ‘There are more illegal votes in the current counts than in Al Franken's erstwhile [225-vote] lead, ... the margin in the race right now,’ Ginsberg said after Thursday's proceedings.”
Yesterday on Hardball, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said this could take to the "summer or longer" and that there's "no end in sight." He said not having a senator "puts us at a disadvantage" because the big issues are being decided in Washington and Minnesota is lacking in representation. He didn't push for someone to be seated, however. And he went on to criticize the stimulus.
NEW YORK: NRSC Chair Jon Cornyn has met with and is recruiting ex-New York Gov. George Pataki to run for Senate. Meanwhile, RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Pataki will headline a March 4 fundraiser for NY-20 Republican challenger Jim Tedisco.
From NBC's Athena Jones President Obama today, as he made his first foreign trip as president to meet Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper .
Some 17 Royal Canadian Mounted Police, clad in red, marched to the foot of the stairs as Obama deplaned at the airport, where he had brief meetings with several Canadian officials.
At least a thousand people waited outside Parliament to greet Obama, some holding aloft signs -- one read "Yes we CANada" -- and cheering as his motorcade pulled up a short time later. Others, including a person dressed as a polar bear, held banners demanding action on climate change.
Obama and Harper met privately and held a working lunch, where they discussed trade, the economy, restructuring the American auto industry, the war in Afghanistan, and energy and the environment before taking questions from the press.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Jade Taenzler
Since the recession began, the report says, an estimated four million additional Americans have lost their health insurance and two million have become uninsured. “Forty-six million people in America did not have health insurance prior to the recession in 2007,” Judy Feder, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said in a conference call with reporters today. “But with the recession, it got worse. The unemployment rate grew by 0.8 percentage points in December and January alone, implying that just in these two months nearly 900,000 people became uninsured.”
Michael J. Wilson, legislative director for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, sees the rising number of uninsured Americans impact other parts of the economy. “With 14,000 people losing health care every day, even people who still have health care are affected,” said Wilson. “If people are desperately saving their money to pay for health care, they will not be able to spend money on food or other goods, which adds to the recent turmoil in the market.”
From NBC's Joel Seidman presided at a ceremonial swearing-in for the new CIA director, Leon Panetta , at the intelligence agency's headquarters in Langley, VA, where he was cheered by employees.
Biden said as one of the agency's "leading customers" that he demanded the "unvarnished truth." He said that the CIA must "look around corners" and "imagine the unimaginable."
And the vice president underscored that a hallmark of this administration's foreign policy and diplomacy would be engagement, which he characterized as "active and aggressive."
In his remarks, Panetta said he wanted the agency to re-establish a working relationship with Capitol Hill. And he vowed, "We have to be honest."
Panetta also said that he was grateful that Deputy Director Steve Kappes was staying on in that role.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray Sarah Palin of Alaska, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, and Haley Barbour of Mississippi -- are considering turning down the stimulus money for their states.
Well, Sanford now says he might accept the money after all, even though he remains ideologically against it. Per the AP , "Gov. Mark Sanford says being against the plan 'doesn't preclude taking the money.' Sanford said Thursday on CBS' 'The Early Show' that he took a stand against the president's economic plan because it's 'a bad idea.' But he says ultimately he represents the interests of the almost 5 million people of his state, and he will look over the plan and decide whether some parts would work for South Carolina."
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro *** Nowhere to go but up : One thing was absolutely clear about the home-foreclosure plan President Obama unveiled yesterday: It was received MUCH better than Geithner’s rollout of Phase II of the bank rescue plan. Of course, that probably says more about the banking plan than the home foreclosure one; there was nowhere to go but up, right? Still, GOP criticism over the foreclosure package was pretty tepid. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor released six questions about the plan. And House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement 1) asking why the government should reward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and 2) wondering if taxpayers will be forced to subsidize ACORN. Seriously, when the GOP starts trotting out ACORN talking points, you know they don’t have much to complain about. But, after reading between the lines, there is a common thread linking the foreclosure and banking plans: The Obama administration was very careful about what it didn’t say -- namely, that not every homeowner and bank is going to be saved. There are going to be a lot of folks allowed to go under, as well as a lot of banks that fail the stress test. The question is how the administration can prove what's happening (when it happens later this spring and summer) is not as bad as if nothing was done. Will the markets react that way as well?
Video: James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, discusses details of Obama's foreclosure plan on CNBC. ***
Just askin’ : So how much is the housing plan going to cost? $75 billion or $275 billion? The White House insists that the cost is $75 billion, saying the $200 billion being used to stabilize and recapitalize Fannie and Freddie shouldn't be counted because not all the money is necessarily being spent. (Speaking yesterday to First Read, a White House aide compared it to the FDIC. If you raised the money that the government insures bank loans from $100,000 to $200,000, he said, that doesn't mean the federal government is spending new money. It's just backing up that amount.) That said, Fannie/Freddie could not offer the lower interest rates to refinance without the capital safety net, and it's pretty clear this plan will never cost $75 billion. So isn't it more correct that without $275 billion in total money, this housing plan couldn't be implemented? Discuss.
*** A GOP litmus test? This is a fascinating story, per the AP : “A half-dozen Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with foreclosures and unemployment.” Who are these GOP governors? They’re a “who’s who” of possible presidential candidates in 2012 -- Sanford (SC), Jindal (LA), Palin (AK), Perry (TX), and Barbour (MS). What say you, Mitt Romney? This could become the ultimate litmus test for Republicans. But what will happen if residents decide they need the assistance and don't want to lose out on the money? Can governors block this aid? Will state legislatures allow it? Remember, governors have to balance their budgets, so if these Republicans decide not to accept the money, will they get blamed for the future spending cuts or tax hikes that have to follow? Time to unleash the “Strange Brew” references, hoser : In his first international trip as president, Obama today travels to Canada. He arrives in Ottawa beginning at 10:30 am ET, where he’ll later be greeted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. After that, the two men will attend a working lunch (along with several other U.S. and Canadian officials). Then, at 2:45 pm, Obama and Harper will hold a joint media availability. And finally, Obama will meet with Canada’s opposition leader and American embassy personnel before returning to DC. What questions will come up at the media avail? Trade? Afghanistan? Cuba? Mexico’s drug violence? And which questions won't be touched with a 3.2-meter pole? (Two bonus points for any reader who remembers THAT previous reference.) Flashback time : Speaking of 1) Austan Goolsbee and 2) Canada… Today’s Obama-Harper meeting, of course, comes almost a year after U.S.-Canadian relations jumped to the forefront of the Democratic primary fight, when a leaked memo from Canada's Chicago consulate office claimed that Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee was downplaying Obama's anti-NAFTA rhetoric. The memo reported that Goolsbee, after meeting with Canada's consulate, said Obama's tough talk about NAFTA during the campaign "should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans." The Clinton campaign, of course, pounced on the memo in the build-up to primaries in Ohio and Texas, both of which Clinton won (although Obama won the Texas caucuses). And as it turns out, Goolsbee was speaking the truth. It was the classic instance of a Kinsley-defined Washington gaffe -- accidental truth telling.
***
Sebelius speculation : Meanwhile, the
New York Times reports that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has emerged as Obama’s top choice to head HHS. Our sources won't yet classify Sebelius as a "leading candidate," but no one is disputing she's on the short list for this post. Some in the White House may be a tad spooked by the “she's gonna get it" reporting because they fear she may not and they will have disappointed her yet again. Sebelius had been seen at one point as a shoo-in for Labor, and then suddenly was passed over. Obviously, the president and the Kansas governor have a good personal relationship, but it could get strained if it looks like she's being yanked around. Of course, the big blow for Democrats in all of this Sebelius speculation is that it now seems pretty clear she's not interested in running for the open Senate seat in Kansas. Would she allow herself to be talked about like this if she were seriously looking at running?
*** Dead pol walking, part II : Yesterday, we mentioned that Roland Burris looked like a dead pol walking. Well, the New York Post’s Fred Dicker -- picking up on David Paterson’s new low poll numbers -- notes that the New York governor might soon be joining him. “‘It looks like it'll be Gov. Cuomo,’ sighed a longtime Paterson loyalist. Words like ‘unprecedented’ and ‘unbelievable’ were being used to describe Paterson's collapse in popularity - but many on the inside said they weren't all that surprised. Those who've known Paterson well for decades say he's always been unfocused, self-centered, often lazy - and, at times, clownish and immature.” It’s amazing what one badly handled Senate appointment can do to your political standing. Back to Burris, we're wondering what the difference is between an editorial page calling for a resignation and the New York Times recommending that he "consider resigning." Discuss.
*** Coleman’s final move? Someday, the Coleman-Franken race in Minnesota -- which has been going on for 107 days past Election -- is going to come to an end. But that isn’t going to happen for weeks. Or now maybe even months, given that the Coleman legal team seems to be laying down a marker that it will take its case to the state Supreme Court or U.S. Supreme Court. This all comes after a three-judge panel yesterday declined to reconsider its ruling last week to exclude several different categories of absentee ballots, reducing the overall pool of ballots Coleman needs to overturn Franken’s 225-vote lead. After yesterday’s decision, Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg fired off this statement: “The net effect of the court’s February 13th ruling, and their decision today to not reconsider this ruling, is a legal quagmire that makes ascertaining a final, legitimate result to this election even more difficult.” Meanwhile, the Coleman camp is still trying to raise money, releasing this YouTube fundraising solicitation from GOP senators.
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Previewing Obama’s trip to Canada today, the New York Times writes that Obama these days is striking a different message on NAFTA and trade than he did during the primary campaign. “With Canadians up in arms over 'Buy America' provisions in President Obama’s economic recovery package, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper warning the United States not to back away from its international treaty obligations, Mr. Obama, who will make a day trip to Ottawa on Thursday, is no longer emphasizing the idea of reopening Nafta.”
“Instead, he and his senior advisers are talking up the booming trade relationship between Canada and the United States -- the largest trade partnership in the world, the White House says -- and limiting their Nafta message to revamping side agreements on environmental and labor protections.”
Video: Obama to talk trade in Canada. Of course, Obama made the pivot on trade as he moved into the general election. Wrote Fortune last June: “‘Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,' [Obama] conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA ‘devastating’ and ‘a big mistake,’ despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.”
CONTINUED >>
The Boston Globe on the home-foreclosure plan President Obama unveiled yesterday:
Obama unveils morgage rescue plan Phoenix, Az. The Globe puts together
an FAQ on the housing program.
The
New York Times : “The plan, which was more ambitious and expensive than many housing analysts had expected, drew praise from consumer advocates as well as the financial industry.”
The Times’ Zeleny makes this smart point about all of Obama’s travel so far as president -- it’s been to presidential battleground states (CO, FL, IN, OH, VA) that went from red to blue in November. “The president deviated from his pattern for the first time on Wednesday, appearing in Arizona to present his plan to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. Arizona, of course, voted for its favorite son Senator John McCain for president in November, but Democrats consider the state a ripe target to bring into their column the next time around.”
CONTINUED >>
The Hill says Burris is "on the ropes" and "on his own." Washington Post : ”Just weeks after Blagojevich became a national punch line with his frenetic round of television interviews as the Illinois Senate was throwing him out of office, Burris is becoming the reluctant star of a public sideshow of his own. The post he first sought in 1984 may be in jeopardy.”
Video: Burris defends himself. Still, the
Los Angeles Times says it will be difficult for the Senate to expel him from office. “Though Roland Burris had some trouble being admitted to the U.S. Senate, he will not be easily expelled now that he has arrived. It takes a vote of two-thirds of the senators to oust a member, and the last senators to be formally expelled were charged with supporting the rebels during the Civil War.”
CONTINUED >>
“The Minnesota U.S. Senate election trial's three-judge panel today denied Republican Norm Coleman's request for reconsideration of their decision to rule illegal thousands of rejected absentee ballots,” the Pioneer Press writes. “Last week, the court ruled that rejected absentee ballots that fell into any of 12 ‘categories’ were illegal and would not be counted. Those categories included ballots that were sent by the deadline but got stuck in the mail and ballots that were incorrectly submitted because of bad information from election judges.”
The Coleman camp blasted the decision. The Minneapolis Star Tribune : “The often-plodding trial of the U.S. Senate lawsuit erupted Wednesday. Norm Coleman's lawyers, reacted to a pair of adverse rulings by accusing the judges hearing the suit of creating ‘a legal quagmire’ and a ‘fatal inconsistency’ by refusing to consider some rejected absentee ballots that resemble others that have already been counted.”
More: “While it's rare for lawyers to criticize judges hearing their cases, it's not surprising given the circumstances facing Coleman, said law professor Charles. ‘This has both a political purpose and a legal purpose,’ Charles said. ‘The political purpose is to try to maintain some support for the Coleman camp as it's taking on some negative legal rulings.’ The legal purpose is to ‘send a message to the court that's involved, the Minnesota Supreme Court and perhaps the federal courts that, “Look, there are serious problems here and if we appeal to you, you are going to have to take our case very seriously.”’”
Given the Coleman camp’s legal setbacks, Politico says Coleman is in need of a miracle to beat Franken. “Does Coleman have any real chance of retaining his Senate seat? The answer, according to state political and legal analysts, is that it would take a miracle. Miracles do happen in politics — but four weeks into a court case that will decide the winner of Minnesota’s tortured Senate race, the GOP incumbent is facing just-about-insurmountable hurdles to overcome the 225-vote deficit he was saddled with at the end of the official recount.”
MISSOURI :
CongressDaily reports that Rep. Roy Blunt (R) -- the former House minority whip -- will announce today that he’s running for the seat Sen. Kit Bond (R) is vacating. “Democratic state Treasurer Robin Carnahan has already announced she will run and has been backed by Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez… Blunt has press events scheduled throughout the weekend.”
From NBC's Athena Jones
MESA, Ariz. -- Calling the steep rise in home foreclosures a “crisis unlike any we’ve ever known” that threatened to unravel the American Dream,
President Obama today rolled out a multi-pronged plan to help millions of people who are struggling to pay their mortgages.
In a roughly 20-minute speech, Obama laid out the key elements of his $75 billion Homeowner Affordability and Stability plan he said was necessary to help the economy. The collapse of the housing market, the president argued, has been a root cause of the credit crunch that has made it hard for families to get loans and for businesses to operate, expand, and create jobs.
Video: Obama says the crisis is unraveling the middle class. “In the end, all of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis,” he told the crowd gathered at a high school here. “And all of us will pay an even steeper price if we allow this crisis to continue to deepen -- a crisis which is unraveling homeownership, the middle class, and the American Dream itself. But if we act boldly and swiftly to arrest this downward spiral, every American will benefit.”
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mike Viqueira
House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi , traveling in Europe with a congressional delegation comprised of several members of her inner circle and their spouses, had an audience earlier today with
Pope Benedict .
The speaker has come under fire from church officials for her position on abortion, which she believes should remain legal and safe. Her comments on Meet the Press concerning the church's position on the issue were especially controversial.
Here are two statements issued at the conclusion of the meeting. The first is from the Vatican, the other from the speaker's office"
Vatican: "His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."
From NBC's Mike Kosnar Eric Holder -- said the United States is a "nation of cowards" when it comes to racial issues.
Holder said average Americans "simply do not talk enough with each other about race."
Video: Watch Holder's speech at a Black History Month program. "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Ken Strickland Roland Burris' speech today in Chicago at 1:30 pm ET, his office says the senator WILL NOT take questions at the event.
The release says, "At today's luncheon, Sen.. Burris will not take questions from the media. Senator Burris wishes to refrain from commenting any further during the current review by Sangamon County State's Attorney General John Schmidt, and is committed to cooperating with state agencies and the Senate Ethics Committee."
The speech is before the City Club of Chicago, where Burris is suppose to discuss his first month in the U.S. Senate.
From NBC's Ken Strickland
Today, New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg -- whom President Obama had nominated to serve as Commerce secretary -- announced that the president has invited him to participate in the White House's Fiscal Responsibility Summit next week. The summit will address long-term entitlement spending on things such as Social Security and Medicare.
"I've been asked by the President, along with a number of other Members of Congress, to join him next Monday," Gregg said in a written statement. "My goal for the summit will be to address the long-term fiscal tsunami that is headed our way as a result of the cost of making payments to the Baby Boom Generation through health and retirement entitlement programs."
Gregg is the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee and was one of the key negotiators when Congress drafted the original financial bailout legislation (also know as the Trouble Assets Relief Program or TARP). Gregg, while not officially part of the Senate Republican leadership team, is considered a member of Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's "kitchen cabinet."
"Reform is urgently needed, especially as long-term entitlement spending threatens to strangle our economy, and action must be taken sooner rather than later," Gregg said in his statement. "I will certainly do everything I can to work with the President and others in Congress to set a course for the long-run that addresses the issue of how we pass on to our children a government they can afford."
From NBC's Mark Murray Norm Coleman’s campaign was hoping to reopen for a second look, we noted that Coleman's task to overturn Al Franken's 225-vote lead was becoming more and more difficult.
This morning, Republican lawyer Ben Ginsberg, who's working for the Coleman camp, called First Read to argue that the Republican can still prevail in the final count. Ginsberg said the ruling reduced the rejected absentee ballot pool to about 3,500 ballots -- still enough to overturn Franken's lead.
Ginsberg added that Coleman's legal team is pursuing a two-track strategy. One, it's identifying ballots that still haven't been counted. "Ballots are still being found, interestingly enough," he said. And two, it's arguing that the decision to accept some absentee ballots -- but reject others -- presents an "equal protection and elementary fairness" problem.
CONTINUED >>
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro Obama’s war? USA Today’s front page must have been quite the eye-opener for President Obama this morning, since it's the one paper he most likely read while on the road in Phoenix to deliver his home foreclosure plan. The headline: "Obama's War." Despite no presidential verbal statement about the troop increase to Afghanistan and despite the fact the president is here in Phoenix today to talk housing, it's the issue of Afghanistan that dominates America's hotel paper of record. After all, the addition of 17,000 troops by the summer is a 50% increase in the U.S. commitment. This headline is another reminder to an Obama team that may be thinking about the following question: How many times during this presidency will Afghanistan step on planned policy and political rollouts (like today's home foreclosure plan)? What’s more, the announcement of the 50% troop increase came without any presidential explanation or new policy announcement. And that's got some anti-war advocates very upset. But remember, Obama's rhetoric on Afghanistan was always as a response to Iraq questions. It was always the "right" war vs. Iraq as the "wrong" war.
Video: The Obama administration's "remissioning" of more than 10,000 troops to Afghanistan could be the first of several deployments. ***
Obama’s home loan : As we mentioned above, President Obama unveils his plan to address home foreclosures at an event in Phoenix at 12:15 pm ET. According to sources, the main goal of the plan is simple: prevent avoidable foreclosures by first helping homeowners who owe more than their house is now worth, and who currently can’t refinance. The Obama plan will allow homeowners to either refinance at a lower interest rate or extend the life of their loan. The government will subsidize mortgage companies who work with these so-called underwater homeowners. But if private lenders won’t help, the Obama plan would turn to government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The plan also tries to help homeowners who have mortgages too large for their income. The initial cost of this plan: a little more than $50 billion, taken from the second $350 billion in TARP funds. Unlike last week's bank bailout -- or even the various explanations for the just-passed stimulus plan -- housing is a much easier issue for the public to grasp. And unlike the bank bailout, the administration is using its best spokesman to unveil the plan: Obama. Some questions include: Will $50 billion be enough? How are good borrowers rewarded in this system? And can the government get in the game of re-valuing properties?
Video: The president is expected to unveil a plan today that could help homeowners. ***
The ideas race : With the stimulus now signed into law, here’s our question of the day: When will the GOP begin being an idea factory the way they've become an opposition factory? (This morning alone, the RNC has blasted out five newspaper clips that raise questions about Obama and his administration.) During the fight over the stimulus, we heard Republicans champion more tax cuts, fiscal discipline, and a laissez-faire economic philosophy. The problem: Those ideas aren’t necessarily new, and the Bush years in particular damaged the GOP brand on fiscal discipline. So what are the Republicans’ ideas moving forwards? Ironically, since becoming RNC chair, Michael Steele has scrapped a fledgling in-house think tank, the Center for Republican Renewal, that ex-chair Mike Duncan had established. The Republicans are doing a great job on the political war front, but they are going to have to offer up counter-proposals that are hyped up in the same way the party hypes up Obama missteps.
*** Dead pol walking? Meanwhile, it now seems like Roland Burris’ decision whether or not he'll run in 2010 has become the least of his worries. The Senate Ethics Committee has opened a preliminary investigation into Burris’ changing stories about his contacts and conversations with Blagojevich associates, and a downstate Illinois prosecutor is investigating whether the U.S. senator committed perjury. What’s more, Burris’ hometown paper -- the Chicago Tribune -- is now calling for resignation (“There's only one honorable action for Burris: resign”). As is the Washington Post (“The people of Illinois have suffered enough. Mr. Burris should resign”). Harry Reid has to be muttering, "I told you so.” Who will be the first senator to threaten expulsion?
Video: Burris is being asked to step down after admitting to fundraising efforts for Blagojevich. ***
Paging Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton : Here's an idea that will catch like WILDFIRE with members of Congress. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon
is calling for a 9/11-style commission to investigate Wall Street and the financial mess. Now here's a fun game this morning: Try and come up with a competent list of panelists who don't have potential conflicts of interest?
*** What happened to that fastest transition in history? Here's also a story the GOP might jump on today: the lack of staff at various administration departments to implement the stimulus bill. "The once efficient Obama transition has ground to a near standstill after tax problems bedeviled several of his nominees, leaving the top echelon of his government largely unassembled. Three cabinet jobs remain unfilled, only 2 of the 15 cabinet departments have deputy secretaries confirmed, and the vast majority of lower-level political jobs remain vacant."
***
Sarah smile?
It isn’t easy running for president after being your party’s defeated VP nominee. (See: John Edwards and Joe Lieberman.) And, for Sarah Palin, it doesn’t become any easier when you find that your day job in Alaska isn’t the same as it was before you became your party’s running mate. Under the headline, “Back Home in Alaska, Palin Finds Cold Comfort,” today’s
Washington Post writes: “A number of factors seem to have contributed to the bumpy homecoming: a residual anger among Democrats for the attack-dog role Palin assumed in the McCain campaign, lingering resentment from Republicans for the part she may have played in McCain's defeat, and a suspicion crossing party lines that the concerns of Alaska, at a time of economic crisis, will now be secondary to her future in national politics. Nearly every move that Palin makes or does not make, acknowledges Joe Balash, one of her closest aides, is analyzed through a new political prism, scrutinized for its effect on a possible 2012 presidential candidacy. ‘There's nothing we can do to stop it,’ he said. ‘People wonder why she's doing something or not doing something.’”
*** The NHL has some work to do with the First Fan : And speaking of America’s most famous hockey mom, did anyone else catch Obama’s revelation to the CBC that he’s never attended a hockey game? He never attended a Blackhawks game?
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President Obama today turns his attention to what may be the biggest drag on the American economy: housing. The goal of the administration's plan is simple, according to sources familiar with it: prevent avoidable foreclosures. So who gets help first? Homeowners who owe more than their house is now worth. Currently, they can't refinance. This plan will allow them to either refinance at a lower interest rate, extend the life of the loan, or both. The government will subsidize mortgage companies who work with these eligible, yet vulnerable, homeowners. So instead of a borrower trying to "buy down" an interest rate by a couple of points themselves, the government will do the buying down of the interest rate. If a lender won't help a qualifying homeowner, the government will ask Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to step in.
Also at the top of the list for help in this plan: homeowners who have a very poor debt-to-income ratio, meaning their current income won't support the amount of debt they have acquired. What the exact cut-off line is for this group of homeowners is not yet clear, but the goal is getting the cost of staying in one's home no more than 30% of their monthly income.
One thing the plan won't do is allow borrowers to get their entire loan amount reduced.
There is still plenty we don't know yet about the plan, including:
CONTINUED >>
“Barack Obama, whose presidential ambitions were launched by his opposition to one war, moved Tuesday to expand the U.S. deployment in another,” USA Today writes. “In his first such action as president, Obama ordered an additional 17,000 combat troops to Afghanistan. His administration cast the move as an interim step to battle the resurgent Taliban, secure Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, increase security for summer elections and stem the decline in a war that the United States now risks losing.”
The Washington Post : “The new deployments, to begin in May, will increase the U.S. force in Afghanistan by nearly 50 percent, bringing it to 55,000 by mid-summer, along with 32,000 non-U.S. NATO troops. In a statement issued by the White House, Obama said that ‘urgent attention and swift action’ were required because ‘the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda . . . threatens America from its safe-haven along the Pakistani border.’”
The New York Times says the Afghanistan decision “also carries political risk for a president who will be sending more troops to Afghanistan before he has begun to fulfill a promised rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Many experts worry that Afghanistan presents an even more formidable challenge for the United States than Iraq does, particularly with neighboring Pakistan providing sanctuary for insurgents of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.”
The New York Times on the spin war over the stimulus: "The division between the two parties over the bill’s political repercussions was almost as stark as that over its substance. Leaders of the Democratic Senate and House campaign committees said in interviews that they would try to ensure that Republicans paid a price in 2010 for having opposed the measure. Not a single Republican in the House voted for the bill, and only three Republicans backed it in the Senate. Over the next few days, 30 first-term House Democrats will hold events in their districts highlighting how spending there can protect and create jobs and otherwise benefit those harmed by the downturn."
CONTINUED >>
Per NBC’s Ken Strickland, a source on the Senate Ethics Committee said it was opening a preliminary investigation into the Burris matter. MSNBC’s Adam Verdugo got this quote from a spokeswoman for Ethics Committee Chair Sen. Barbara Boxer: "Whenever allegations of improper conduct are brought to the attention of the Senate Ethics Committee, we open a preliminary inquiry."
The Chicago Sun-Times says the move by the Senate Ethics Committee, “which ultimately could lead to sanctions or Burris' expulsion from the Senate, followed a Downstate prosecutor's decision earlier Tuesday to open a perjury investigation against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's choice to succeed President Obama in the Senate.”
Burris’ hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune , has called for the senator to resign. “There's only one honorable action for Burris: resign. Strip this whole wretched process out of the hands of the politicians and give it back to the people.”
The Washington Post does the same: “From the moment that Mr. Burris was selected, he strove to portray himself as a blameless public servant. The sad pictures of Mr. Burris being cast out into the rain by the Democratic leadership of the Senate, which initially refused to seat him, turned public opinion in his favor. Mr. Burris got his seat. But this latest revelation makes a mockery of his professions of no quid pro quo. It is a violation of the public trust. The people of Illinois have suffered enough. Mr. Burris should resign.”
CONTINUED >>
The Minneapolis Star Tribune on what happened on Day 16 of the recount trial: “In questioning of election officials from Wright, Carver and Scott counties, the Coleman campaign sought to highlight differences in how counties processed absentee ballots. The campaign has argued that there have been ‘equal protection’ problems in the election and aftermath -- that is, that not all voters have been treated equally, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The Franken campaign responds that Minnesota's standards are clear and the trial is only about which candidate received the most legal votes under those standards.” AP : "For Democrats, the absence of Franken's vote has already made passing legislation more of a challenge… The vote also underscored, for Senate Republicans, the importance of holding onto the seat. Coleman traveled to Washington last week to raise thousands of dollars to help fund his recount efforts. That included maximum $10,000 donations from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio." More: "The longer the recount lasts in St. Paul, the more difficult things are for congressional Democrats. Some said Republicans are more intent on a drawn-out battle than holding out a realistic hope of victory."
KANSAS : In the Kansas Senate Republican primary , "Discerning any major differences between Kansas GOP Reps. Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt requires a microscope, but as the Senate primary between them builds steam, wedges are beginning to be laid."
NEW YORK : Kirsten Gillibrand loses a Senate Democratic primary to Carolyn McCarthy, 34%-24% in a new Quinnipiac poll . If Gillibrand can hold on in the primary, she would beat Rep. Peter King in the race for Senate, the poll shows. (CORRECTION: We earlier incorrectly noted here and in the headline, Carolyn Maloney.)
Meanwhile, per the Washington Post’s Cillizza , the RNC “is going up on television with ads in support of New York state Assemblyman Jim Tedisco in his special election bid in the state's 20th district, an early sign that newly elected chairman Michael Steele plans to wade into downballot races to reassert the party's competitiveness across the country and in the Northeast in particular. The ad, which was produced by Tedisco's campaign but funded -- to the tune of roughly $80,000 -- by the RNC, will be on Albany broadcast television, which reaches 80 percent of the district's voters, starting this evening.”
Here’s the ad .
OHIO : The AP and Roll Call preview the Democratic Senate primary between Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher.
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
The president said Canadians shouldn't "be too concerned" about the "Buy America" clause. "I think that if you look at history one of the most important things during a worldwide recession of the sort that we're seeing now is that each country does not resort to 'beggar thy neighbor' policies, protectionist policies, they can end up further contracting world trade," Obama said.
But, "[M]y expectation is, is that where you have strong U.S. competitors who can sell products and services, that a lot of governors and mayors are going to want to try to find U.S. equipment or services, but that we are going to abide by our World Trade Organization and NAFTA obligations just as we always have," the president added.
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Doug Adams Roland Burris said he has "nothing to hide" and offered to answer questions before "any and all investigative bodies," including the Senate Ethics Committee.
Burris said his testimony about contacts with impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagovich , are "truthful and consistent." He added that "there were never any inappropriate conversations between me or anyone else."
Burris did not take any questions, and quickly left the room. Reporters are eager to question him after reports that last night he admitted he tried to arrange a fundraiser for the governor last fall, but was unable to persuade friends to contribute.
NBC's Lee Cowan reported on MSNBC that though Burris may have admitted to trying to raise money for Blagojevich, essentially, there were no takers. Therefore, he is technically, standing by his statement that he did not raise money for or donate to Blagojevich.
Here's a rough log of Burris' statement, per NBC's Mark Hudspeth :
CONTINUED >>
From NBC's Mark Murray Jennifer Brunner (D) today announced that she will run for Sen. George Voinovich's (R) vacant Senate seat in 2010.
As it stands now, Brunner would compete in a Democratic primary against Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher (D), who also has said he's running for the seat.
Former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman (R) -- who served as George W. Bush's budget director -- is the sole Republican so far vying for the seat.
From NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube
The troop deployment to Afghanistan will be announced as a "remissioning," meaning many, if not most, of the forces were already scheduled to deploy to Iraq but will now be diverted to Afghanistan.
That will reportedly include two Marine combat battalions and one Army combat brigade. According to one Pentagon official, because this "remissioning" will, in fact, redirect troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, it will be politically characterized as a "drawdown" of U.S. military forces in Iraq, permitting the White House to claim in this one announcement that President Obama is making good on two campaign promises -- withdrawing forces from Iraq and sending additional forces to Afghanistan.
If he hasn't already, Defense Secretary Gates is expected to sign the deployment order today to send the more than 10,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers to Afghanistan in the spring.
*** UPDATE ***
The deployment order for the additional 4,000, most support personnel, will be signed at a later date when those individual units and troops are identified. The 17,000 number was in one of the earlier orders that was sent up chain of command then back down again a couple weeks ago.
From NBC's Savannah Guthrie and Domenico Montanaro The administration's Web site showing how stimulus money is spent, state-by-state, is up and running today, per the White House.
"Today, the White House launched www.recovery.gov -- an unprecedented step to increase transparency in government," the White House said in a press release. "The website features a searchable database, allowing Americans to see how and where their tax dollars are being spent. Following the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the website will include a state-by-state report on the impact of law as well a breakdown of spending in the bill by sector.
From NBC's Mark Murray Jon Corzine's (D) re-election prospects this year. According to a review by the Newark Star-Ledger , Corzine "spent all or part of 105 days outside of New Jersey in 2008... That is more absences than in either of his first two years as governor, and appears to be the most since Republican Christie Whitman was governor in the 1990s."
More: "When Corzine leaves the state, he must formally transfer power to Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex), who serves as acting governor. Copies of those transfer letters enabled The Star-Ledger to count Corzine's absences. The counts do not include some of Corzine's visits to Manhattan, where his girlfriend Sharon Elghanayan lives. Early in his term, the attorney general's office said such visits would not trigger gubernatorial succession."
And: "Among Corzine's out-of-state trips in 2008 were the Democratic National Convention in Denver, campaign stops for Clinton in Nevada and Obama in Florida, a trade mission to Israel followed by a few days of vacation there, and visits to his family in California and Illinois. The governor was out of state for all or part of 17 days in each of the months of July, August and December, the records show. But in September and October, when panic over the economy began to peak, Corzine spent all but five days in New Jersey."
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro Another busy week : Congress might be on recess, and many other Americans might be easing back to work after a long holiday weekend. But for the Obama White House, there is no rest for the weary -- even after the president’s quick Chicago getaway. Today, beginning at 2:40 pm ET in Denver, President Obama signs the stimulus into law, around the same time as his administration receives restructuring plans from the auto industry. On Wednesday, he travels to Phoenix to unveil his plan to reduce home foreclosures (per the New York Times , it will “include a mix of government inducements and new pressure on lenders to reduce monthly payments for borrowers”). And on Thursday, Obama heads to Canada for his first international trip as president. This week's road trip isn’t by accident; Obama and his team are trying their best to avoid Washington’s echo chamber. They are clearly frustrated that, despite solid poll ratings for both the president and the stimulus plan, they are not winning the inside-the-Beltway message war. So what do you do? You leave the Beltway. Don't be surprised to start hearing the phrase "Washington Republicans" vs. "Florida Republicans" or "Colorado Republicans," etc. The White House likes to brag how it successfully ignored the Washington echo chamber during the presidential campaign. Well, that was easy working from Chicago; it's much harder when actually living in DC.
Video: President Obama heads to Denver to sign the $787 billion economic stimulus bill. NBC's Savannah Guthrie reports. ***
28 days later: With yet another fast and furious week, it's still a bit jarring that today begins just the fifth week in the fledgling Obama administration. That's right: In less than a month, we've seen their highs (the inauguration, the impressive East Room news conference, the stimulus' passage), their lows (the Daschle and Gregg withdrawals, zero House GOPers supporting the stimulus), and something in between (the tepid reaction to Geithner's financial stability plan). That the past month could seem more active than the Bush White House's last two years is a challenge for Obama, as well as the 24-7, live-blogging, always-Twittering media that covers him. For the administration, how do you convince the public that are no easy fixes to all the challenges -- the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan -- even as you’re racing to take on so much at once? For the press, how do we find the time to evaluate, assess, and provide perspective given that we’ve never given a new administration such close scrutiny?
*** Stuck in the middle with you: In these first few weeks, we're noticing a pattern on decisions the administration wants to put off, but doesn't want to look like they are putting off. So they’re trying to find some sort of middle ground. For instance, on the auto bailout, the president created a task force to begin looking at the situation. It looks responsive, but doesn't give away where the administration really is on the issue of, say, the idea of a GM or Chrysler bankruptcy. Then there's the Afghanistan decision; the troop approval that's coming is not a large number for now. So it puts off a policy announcement, but appeases folks for now. Ditto on GITMO.
*** Who’s attending and who’s not: Going back to the stimulus, notice how few (if any) actual members of Congress are traveling to Colorado to attend today’s bill signing. Rather, the attendees will be Vice President Biden, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D). Of course, had the president wanted congressional presence, he would have asked for it. Read into THAT what you will… It seems like another opportunity to show Obama as non-Washington, no?
*** Mr. Bipartisan: Meanwhile, John McCain has conducted yet another interview in which he argues that Obama has failed to live up to his promise of bipartisanship. You’ve got to give McCain credit; the guy knows how to continue to grab headlines. During the Bush years, he was the go-to Republican for Democrats who were looking to prove they could work with a Republican and find middle ground. Now, he's serving as the one-man judge and jury on whether something's bipartisan or not, despite running a hyper-partisan presidential campaign (remember that fellow Bill Ayers?). It's going to make the Obama White House crazy, but McCain’s got enough of a following to pull this off for a few months. He still will have to actually work with Obama on some legislation to keep his bipartisan mojo for the long term.
*** An Em-Burris-ing omission? If Sen. Roland Burris was thinking about running for his Senate seat next year, does the news over the weekend -- that he filed an affidavit to amend what now seems like incorrect testimony about his contacts with Blagojevich associates -- put an end to that idea? Maybe, maybe not. After all, this is the same person who ACCEPTED a Senate appointment from a governor who was damaged by corruption charges, who was about to be impeached, and who eventually became a political laughingstock. In the long run, this is a break for Democrats, who can now begin recruiting publicly for a primary challenger. Remember that in addition to being tainted by Blago, Burris has lost several past attempts for statewide office, including one for governor in 2002. Senate Democrats hardly gave the Illinois senator a vote of confidence regarding his omission. “Clearly, it would have been better if Sen. Burris had provided this information when he first testified,” said the top spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Ouch.
*** Coleman suffers blow: Norm Coleman’s tall hurdle to overturn Al Franken’s 225-vote lead got even taller on Friday, when a three-judge panel threw out most of the categories of rejected absentee ballots that Coleman’s folks were hoping to reopen for a second look. The ruling essentially reduces the pool of ballots from which Coleman needs to net at least 226 votes to beat Franken. Folks, the writing is on the wall here. But Republicans are more than content to see this trial go on and on and on because 1) it temporarily denies Democrats a 59th Senate vote, and 2) it creates the slim possibility that the legal wrangling could somehow force a do-over election.
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The Denver Post previews today’s bill signing. “So is Colorado the ‘before’ picture, or the ‘after’ picture? President Barack Obama will sign the $787 billion stimulus package at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, at a time when Colorado represents a little of both. Home prices have shrunk and unemployment is up; Colorado-based companies have seen their stock prices plummet, and falling sales tax revenues plague local governments. Conversation on the street tends to turn to joblessness, fears of salary cuts, investment losses and health care costs.”
“But Obama will be making his grand national gesture in a state where two of his pet industries of the future are thriving on new ideas and ambition, and which are ready to spend money as soon as he caps his pen. The stimulus includes billions in credits and grants meant to promote green energy production and independence from Middle East oil, and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, has long made those ideas key to his vision of creating Western jobs.”
The Washington Post notes some liberal misgivings about the stimulus. “Liberal Democrats recognize the package's scale and accomplishment, and they have defended it against Republican attacks. But they also wonder whether Obama could have used the opportunity of a large congressional majority and a moment of economic emergency to pass a bigger package, with a better chance of boosting the economy and with more of his priorities intact. As Obama moves on to issues such as health care and energy, liberals are debating how to ensure that the stimulus outcome does not define the outer boundaries of his agenda, so that future legislation is not limited, as the stimulus was, by the demands of centrist senators such as Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).”
CONTINUED >>
The New York Times previews the plan Obama will unveil tomorrow in Arizona to reduce home foreclosures. It will “include a mix of government inducements and new pressure on lenders to reduce monthly payments for borrowers at risk of losing their houses, according to people knowledgeable about the administration’s thinking. The plan … is expected to include government subsidies for reducing a borrower’s interest rate, which a lender would have to match with its own money.”
The Washington Post : “General Motors and Chrysler raced to save their place in the American auto industry yesterday, putting the final touches on plans to curb production, cut jobs and pare brands in hopes of securing billions of dollars in additional federal aid. The plans they are scheduled to submit today to the Obama administration call for a broad restructuring of their operations at a time the industry is suffering one of its steepest declines in decades. But as detailed as the plans are, they are more of a starting point than an end.”
The New York Times has more: “G.M. will file what is expected to be the largest restructuring plan of its 100-year history on Tuesday, a step it must take to justify its use of a $13.4 billion loan package from the federal government. The plan will outline in considerable detail, over as many as 900 pages, how G.M. will further cut its work force, shutter more factories in North America and reduce its lineup of brands to just four, from eight, according to executives knowledgeable about its contents. The remaining core brands will be Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick.”
In Japan, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell sat down with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
CONTINUED >>
Speaker Nancy Pelosi meets with the Pope tomorrow in Rome.
The Hill calls it "a move likely to stoke more controversy about whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights are in line with the church...."
Sen. Carl Levin is showing he's
not going to be a fall-in-line Democrat . (Do those ac
