Cheat Sheet
First Joe Biden, then Hillary. Now President Obama himself will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Fox News says. Netanyahu will be in the U.S. for a meeting with AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobby, and since Obama has postponed his trip to Asia until June, he will be free to meet with the prime minister. Tensions between the United States and Israel have been raised ever since Israel announced plans to expand settlements in the West Bank while Biden was visiting the country.
As House Democrats scramble to gather votes for their hotly-debated health-care bill, a few detractors are saying they could now be persuaded to change their votes. Some anti-abortion House Democrats like Michigan’s Bart Stupak are saying they would be open to reconsidering the legislation, but only if it is amended in the Senate so that it will block federal funding for abortion. “A lot of promises are made around this town,” Stupak cautioned on Good Morning America Friday. “You got to lock them down, and there has been no lock-down yet. We're still negotiating.” Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur also said she could be swayed if the position on abortion changes.
The U.S.-Israel dispute might soon be smoothed over. Israeli Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday with proposals on how to begin a resolution with Palestine. Clinton also agreed to meet Netanyahu in Washington for face-to-face talks. Israel's recent announcement of new construction in disputed parts of Jerusalem embarrassed Vice President Joe Biden on his goodwill visit to Israel. While the details of the proposals have not been disclosed, they were enough to prompt the Obama administration to send special envoy George Mitchell to the region this Sunday to begin indirect talks. According to a State Department spokesman, "They discussed the specific actions that might be taken to improve the atmosphere for progress toward peace."
Ben Smith says it's "the clearest sign yet that Nancy Pelosi has the votes," but Kate Pickert points out that personal interventions in Massachusetts and Copenhagen didn't do much good: Either way, President Obama has delayed his trip to Indonesia and Australia, scheduled for Sunday, until June. But it’s the second time he’s pushed it back; originally, he was supposed to depart on Thursday. Press secretary Robert Gibbs said the trip was delayed because Obama wanted to be in Washington when Congress votes on Sunday.
A few dozen congressional Democrats have massive targets on their backs thanks to their public wavering on the health-care overhaul. Some indecisive representatives are worried about abortion, others costs or polls, but by delaying their commitment to vote yea or nay, many are feeling intense pressure as the bill enters crunch time. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) has met with the president twice this month, received a phone call from him on Air Force One, had his district circled by planes carrying anti-health-care reform banners, and has been confronted by Tea Partiers in his office, The Washington Post reports. Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) had a long meeting with the president Tuesday, the first in his 12 years in office. Meanwhile, Democratic strategists are increasingly frustrated with representatives who are facing no serious electoral threat yet are threatening to vote no. If no Republicans vote for the bill, Democrats can lose only 37 of their members, and they want those no slots to go to people in highly competitive districts. But right now, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), for example, says he’ll vote no, despite winning his seat by 70 points in 2008.
House Democrats are inching slowly toward the majority they need to pass the health-care bill, but believe they could be ready for a vote by Sunday. Working frantically to court the roughly three dozen Democrats whose votes are still believed to be in play, House Dems locked in two more on Wednesday from Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Dale Kildee of Michigan—both had expressed serious reservations. Actually passing the bill could require employing several procedural technicalities like budget reconciliation to avoid a filibuster in the Senate. But President Obama said he is not worried. “What I can tell you is that the vote that’s taken in the House will be a vote for health-care reform,” he said. “And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health-care reform.”
The Democratic National Committee’s biggest donors are peeved at the White House because they haven’t been getting enough love, Politico reports. In fact, though the most obvious reason for Desiree Rogers’ departure as White House social secretary was the infamous gatecrashers incident, another reason for her ousting was grumbling from fundraisers. See, some donors did not even get a Christmas card this year (an offense that is clearly worth risking the loss of a congressional majority). A mere 10 percent of the 150 top donors maxed out last year, giving $30,400 in donations. The DNC is still raising money at a rapid rate, pulling in $30 million more than during the last midterm season in 2005, and has a rare cash advantage over its Republican counterpart. Under George W. Bush, the Republican National Committee was able to raise much more for midterms, but under current Chairman Michael Steele, it’s not doing as well.
Maybe some of the viewers will hang around after Glenn Beck’s 5 p.m. show: President Obama will sit down with Fox News on Wednesday for an exclusive interview. He’ll appear on Brett Baier’s 6 p.m. newscast to discuss “the upcoming House vote on health-care reform and what to expect in Washington in the weeks ahead.” Things have cooled off a bit between the White House and Fox News since former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said Fox was not a legitimate news organization. Since then, Obama has also sat down once with Fox News’ Major Garrett.
What’s up after health-care reform for the Obama administration? It depends on whom you ask. Different news outlets are reporting different things: immigration, climate change, and campaign-finance reform, to name a few. The Daily Beast’s Richard Wolffe says it could be climate change, while the Los Angeles Times puts immigration reform near the top of the list. The Washington Post, however, says it will be two issues that will sit better with voters in November: financial reform, which is no surprise, and campaign-finance reform to help undo the Supreme Court’s ruling that will allow corporations to spend directly on behalf of candidates. “Such an agenda will give the rest of the legislative calendar, compressed by the midterm election season, a distinctly political cast,” The Washington Post says. “It will also push energy and immigration reform, two of Obama's most far-reaching campaign pledges, into the next Congress, which is likely to be more influenced by the Republican opposition.”
House Democrats don’t appear to have the vote for health-care reform—“"We don't have them as of this morning,” House Whip James Clyburn said on Sunday—but they plan on pushing forward anyway. President Obama is heading to Ohio on Monday amid predictions from David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs that health-care reform will pass this week. While at The Daily Beast's Women in the World summit this weekend, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said she was "very confident" the vote would happen this week. Democrats will also get a final cost estimate of the package on Monday afternoon when the House Budget Committee votes on the reconciliation package. The final vote could come as soon as Thursday, though Friday or Saturday is more likely.
Once again, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is showing no signs of easing up in his country’s tough rhetorical stance against the United States. After riding out the financial crisis with some success, Wen made it clear that he would ignore the United States’ request to allow the yuan to appreciate against the dollar. President Obama had asked that China adopt “a more market-oriented exchange rate”—letting the yuan appreciate would theoretically make American exports more accessible in China. But Wen shot back that he does not believe the yuan to be undervalued and said the U.S. was using a protectionist tactic by seeking to grow its exports by modifying exchange rates.
The drug war that has consumed Mexico claimed the lives of three people with ties to the American consulate there Sunday. It added to the already grisly tally of nearly 50 people killed in apparent gang violence over the weekend in Mexico. American citizens Lesley A. Enriquez, 35, and her husband, Arthur H. Redelf, 34, were two of the people murdered on Sunday, while their baby survived in the back seat of their car on the bridge between violence-wracked Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. Enriquez worked for the U.S. consulate, while Redelf was a detention officer at an El Paso jail. The third person killed was the husband of a Mexican citizen employee of the consulate. Their two young children were wounded. President Barack Obama was "deeply saddened and outraged," according to the White House and Mexican President Felipe Calderon has promised an investigation.
In a rare interview with Justice John Paul Stevens, New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin asks, “What will the Supreme Court be like without its liberal leader?” Stevens, the Supreme Court’s senior justice, has served 11 years longer than the next most experienced judge and is 13 years older than his closest colleague. He’s considering retirement now that President Obama is in office and could pick a successor. “I have a great admiration for [Obama] and certainly think he’s capable of picking successfully, you know, doing a good job of filling vacancies,” Stevens said, adding he will make up his mind in about a month: “You can say I will retire within the next three years. I’m sure of that.” Stevens also mentioned his aversion to State of the Union addresses, saying he will not, under any circumstances, be seen at another one. “First, they are political occasions, where I don’t think our attendance is required. But also, it comes when I am on break in Florida. To be honest with you, I’d rather be in Florida than in Washington.”
The Obama administration plans to make big changes to the No Child Left Behind law as part of an overhaul of national education policy. The White House revealed its plan Saturday, immediately sparking debate, in part because major changes will be made to the core policies in the 2002 law enacted under George W. Bush. The plan is “tight on goals, loose on means,” according to administration officials, with tough standards for success but relaxed punishment for lagging schools. Many teachers and critics feel that the Bush law allowed states to set very low standards to boost the appearance of progress and overemphasized test scores. The plan would ease federal control of school districts’ policies. "We don't think we should micromanage the schools from Washington," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday. "We want to hold educators accountable but let them be creative."
The Government Accountability Office has come up with the perfect icebreaker topic for Tea Parties across the country: An audit released Friday found that USAspending.gov, a Web site endorsed by President Obama for tracking government spending, has major gaps in its information. “Not everything that should have been reported was reported, and that which was reported was not always accurate,” said a GAO official of information from June 2009 to March 2010, during which time nine federal agencies left 15 government contracts out of reports, according to the audit. The site was part of a law meant to aid transparency, pushed through by Obama when he was a senator and currently run by his Office of Management and Budget. According to the report, the OMB does not have a “plan or process in place” for correcting the site’s problems.
Though Desirée Rogers didn't resign until February 2010, the first signs of her split with the White House came in spring 2009, when the social secretary was dressed down by David Axelrod for a variety of perceived offenses, among them posing for glossy magazines in expensive clothing and jewelry—not exactly the kind of image the White House wanted to be presenting during a recession. Despite Rogers' skill at planning events, her relationship with the rest of the Obama administration and with Washington society became too strained in the wake of the party-crashing Salahis, whose uninvited appearance at a State Dinner provoked a congressional investigation. According to anonymous sources quoted by The New York Times, Rogers feels she was hung out to dry by the White House. But Rahm Emanuel, of all people, had kind words: "She did a good job of projecting a White House that was open, family-friendly and classy."
All $1.4 million awarded to President Obama in conjunction with his Nobel Peace Prize is going to 10 charities, including the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund and the United Negro College Fund. The money comes in tandem with the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded last October for his work toward global peace. At $250,000, the most money went to Fisher House, which "provides housing for families of patients being cared for at major military and VA medical centers." The next highest recipient was the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, which received $200,000. "These organizations do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students, veterans, and countless others in need," President Obama said in a statement. "I'm proud to support their work."
President Obama's populist crusade for health care continued on three fronts Wednesday. Obama took his traveling campaign to Missouri, while Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius addressed the annual conference of insurance lobbyists, America's Health Insurance Plans. And, outside the conference, Vermont Governor Howard Dean led a 1,000-person protest. "Are you for the insurance companies or are you for the American people?" Dean asked, boiling down the issue. At this point, Obama and Co. are still trying to woo the Democrats on the fence, since no Republicans are expecteed to vote for the $1 trillion health-care package. Republicans say that with only 25 percent of people believing Congress should pass the bill according to one recent poll, Democrats are trying too hard. They want to "shove this government takeover of the health-care system down the throats of the American people," House Minority Leader John Boehner said.
Leaving behind the ways of President Bush is sometimes easier said than done: President Obama’s expected decision to try the September 11 planners in a military tribunal violates the strict separation he tried to create between the Justice Department and the rest of government. Now, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero is making the most unfavorable of comparisons in The Wall Street Journal, comparing Holder to Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was at the center of the U.S. attorney-firing scandal. Holder appears willing to go along with Obama’s decision: He has declared himself equally open to civilian or military trials.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts can tell when he’s unwelcome: Roberts criticized the atmosphere of the president’s annual State of the Union address to Congress, calling it a “political pep rally.” Speaking to University of Alabama law students, Roberts said Obama’s speech in January was “very troubling” because the president knocked the court for its overturning of limits on corporate spending on campaign ads. "To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we're there," Roberts said. Though anyone is free to criticize the Court, "there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court—according the requirements of protocol—has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling." He also said senators ask inappropriately political questions, which they know nominees can’t answer, at confirmation hearings. Obama’s press secretary defended the speech by further criticizing the decision in question.
