×
- The president is giving what amounts to a State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress tonight, where he will detail his road map for the United States' economy, health care and energy policies over the next few years. In the practical but macabre tradition of anticipating the worst, AG Eric Holder will be the chosen official in the line of presidential succession who gets out of town in case the bulk of the federal government gets wiped out. Earlier the president hosted Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso at the White House and lunched with top news anchors.
- The Senate is debating whether to grant the District of Columbia full voting representation, after passing a procedural vote to open the bill to floor debate, 62-34. The compromise legislation would grant D.C. and Utah each one seat. The Senate also confirmed Hilda Solis as labor secretary in an 80-17 vote. Meanwhile the U.S. House took up legislation that would initiate an ethics investigation concerning the one hundred members of Congress involved with a defense lobbying firm.
- Two new polls indicate that the the public believe it is Republicans who ought to be making concessions to the president rather than the other way around, with the ABC News/Washington Post poll finding that Americans trust the president over Congressional Republicans to handle the economy by a margin of 61-26. You think it has something to do with the flat-earth economic proposals of jokers like Newt Gingrich and the House GOP? I couldn't agree more with Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R), who remarked yesterday that "I don't even know the congressional leadership. I have not met them. I don't listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential - completely."
- Speaking of the powerless, RNC Chair Michael Steele -- last seen categorically rejecting even "consideration" of gay civil unions as "crazy" -- issued a largely empty threat against the three Republican Senators who voted for the economic stimulus package, claiming the RNC might consider withholding support for their next reelection campaign. Well let's see. Olympia Snowe isn't up for reelection for four years and Susan Collins just won reelection last year, meaning that by the time she could be fighting for party support, the RNC could potentially have a new chairman. That leaves Arlen Specter in 2010 but is the RNC really going to a gamble a GOP-held seat -- even if he is a RINO in their eyes -- just for ideological purity? Just ask Lincoln Chafee. (Indeed, it appears that Steele has already lowered the threat level.)
- Chuck Schumer has issued a letter urging the Obama administration to gently remind GOP governors grandstanding over "rejecting" part of the stimulus money that they do not have line-item veto power: "As you know, Section 1607(a) of the economic recovery legislation provides that the Governor of each state must certify a request for stimulus funds before any money can flow. No language in this provision, however, permits the governor to selectively adopt some components of the bill while rejecting others. To allow such picking and choosing would, in effect, empower the governors with a line-item veto authority that President Obama himself did not possess at the time he signed the legislation." Perhaps Bobby Jindal could elaborate on his own flip-flopping over accepting federal funds during his SOTU rebuttal.
- Spencer Ackerman has been looking at the proposed McCain-Levin defense procurement restriction legislation and concludes that the bill has "some real teeth when it comes to curbing cost overruns on Pentagon procurement."
- Remainders: liberal advocacy groups urge Eric Holder "to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation" to investigate the crimes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their underlings; the Obama administration is working towards enacting tough national emissions standards for vehicles; Rick Santelli claims the White House is threatening his children; and prostitute-solicitor David Vitter lectures Roland Burris on ethics.
--Mori Dinauer
