links for 2009-01-29

Here's the list of President Obama's invited guests to the White House cocktail party tonight — essentially the bipartisan bicameral leadership of the House and Senate.

Six House Democrats, six House Republicans, six Senate Democrats, six Senate Republicans. Their spouses are invited as well.

Hors d'Å“uvres — chicken curry, wagyu steak — will be served in addition to drinks.

With no Republican support, the House approved an $819 billion stimulus plan that will serve as the cornerstone of President Obama's efforts to resuscitate the economy, an early victory for the new president but still a disappointment because of the lack of Republican votes.

The measure passed 244 to 188, with 11 Democrats and 177 Republicans voting against it.

Jake Tapper of ABC—quickly becoming the toughest questioner in the White House press pool—pointed out that Obama managed to get Rep. Henry Waxman to remove $200 million in the bill set aside for family-planning services; he asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs why the president can't do it for other porky items, like the funds set aside for "smoking cessation" efforts. (Some portion of $500 million, by my reading.)

"Let's focus on the larger picture" is Gibbs' mantra. "If we get focused on this number and that number, and two-one-hundreths of one percent of the spending . . . while we're discussing this, in the past forty-eight [hours], 70,000 people have gotten a pink slip."

Tapper: "Why not take the money marked for 'smoking cessation' and give it to people who are out of work?"

Gibbs: "The vast majority of this bill does that . . . We can't afford to wait. We have to act."

Bucking the Obama administration, House Republicans on Wednesday defeated a bill to postpone the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting to June 12 — leaving the current Feb. 17 deadline intact for now.

The 258-168 vote failed to clear the two-thirds threshold needed for passage. It's a victory for the GOP members, who warn that postponing the transition would confuse consumers.

But Clinton aide Ann Lewis just emailed her list with the announcement of a new Hillary-ite group, NoLimits.org, which at the moment appears to be a group blog with entries from Lewis and a few others.

"Inspired by Hillary's speech in Denver, when she said 'With our ingenuity, innovative spirit and creativity, there are no limits to what is possible in America,' we formed NoLimits.org so that we can continue working together on the issues that are important to us," Lewis writes.

The group describes itself as non-partisan and as an online "community." Lewis told me it's a 501(c)3, which means it can't engage in politics at all.

"We want a way to stay in touch," Lewis said, describing a sentiment she said she and other Clinton supporters shared after the convention. "We want to stay in touch with what's going on."

It's appears also to be a way to keep Hillary's substantial email list — a political lifeline — up and running, and could also house Clinton political staffers ..

Postmaster General John Potter says the massive deficits facing the post office could force the agency to cut out one day of mail delivery per week.

In testimony for a congressional panel Wednesday, Potter asked for an end to the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week.

Faced with dwindling mail volume and rising costs, the post office was $2.8 billion in the red last year.

Just talked to a very clued-in Republican on the Hill. This person wouldn't predict a unanimous Republican vote against the Democratic stimulus package, but said there would be "minimal" GOP support of the bill. "I don't know if it will be unanimous, but Democrats are not going to have the kind of bipartisan support the president was trying to get," he told me. An "overwhelming" number of Republicans will vote no, he predicted.

The official suggested that Mr Obama's White House had made clear it would not prioritise executing the Bush administration's plan to install a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

An unnamed official in the Russian military's general staff said: "The implementation of these plans has been halted in connection with the fact that the new US administration is not rushing through plans to deploy" elements of its missile defence shield in eastern Europe, according to the Interfax news agency.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, had warned that the US shield – which the Bush White House said was necessary to defend against potential attacks from the Middle East – would be interpreted by Moscow as a direct provocation.

When Republicans take a look around, why would they vote for the 647-page stimulus bill? The House GOP leadership is opposed. The Club for Growth and Freedom Works are scoring the vote. Several other groups have chimed in against it, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Tax Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Taxpayers' Union, Citizens Against Government Waste, and the American Conservative Union. The Cato Institute has taken out a full page ad against it, signed by dozens of respected economists. The conservative campaign to "melt the phone lines" has had the phones busy at the congressional switchboard all day.

There are so few incentives to vote for this, and so many reasons to vote against it that go well beyond partisanship. Just imagine what happens next year when the government runs back-to-back trillion-dollar deficits for the first time in history. Would you want this vote on your record then?

Obama and his aides have hinted that they'd be looking forward, and not back,on torture, and Eric Holder just made it official, Eli Lake reports:

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, a Republican from Missouri and the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview with The Washington Times that he will support Eric H. Holder Jr.'s nomination for Attorney General because Mr. Holder assured him privately that Mr. Obama's Justice Department will not prosecute former Bush officials involved in the interrogations program.

Invitations are out: A presidential cocktail reception – for Congressional leaders only – is taking place on Wednesday evening at the White House.

One day after President Obama visited Capitol Hill, he is returning the favor by being host to about two dozen Democrats and Republicans on his turf. The event, scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m., is the first-of-a-kind gathering in the new administration and the latest sign that Mr. Obama is attempting to build relationships with Congress.

The bipartisan affair is set to come shortly after the House considers the president’s economic stimulus bill. The roll call vote could make for some interesting conversation, particularly if the bulk of Republicans oppose the proposal as planned.

The reception will take place in the Red, Blue and Green rooms of the executive mansion.
Invited:Six House Republicans, including Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the minority leader and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the whip.

The election for RNC chairman is almost upon us. For those of you following the race, after the jump I've included the latest endorsements for the Michael Steele and Katon Dawson campaigns, along with a lengthy strategy memo from the Ken Balckwell camp:

WASHINGTON — After years of preaching fiscal responsibility, middle Tennessee Democratic House members were struggling Tuesday with how to vote on an $825 billion economic stimulus plan.

Reps. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, and John Tanner, D-Union City, both members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog coalition of Democrats, said they had not decided how they will vote Wednesday on the House proposal.

Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Murfreesboro, said he planned to vote for the bill but called it “not perfect.”

Republican Reps. Marsha Blackburn of Brentwood and Zach Wamp of Chattanooga, a candidate for governor, were adamant in their opposition to the bill.

“I want to support the new president, (but) I’m worried about the pork in the bill,” Cooper said. “I think the president is trying to offer a clean stimulus bill and (Democratic) congressional leadership is practicing business as usual.”

From Paul, a reader in Massachusetts:

Just thought you'd be interested to know that Jody Dow, the National Committeewoman for Massachusetts announced last night at our State Committee meeting that she is supporting Michael Steele.

Also, our New Chairwoman, Jennifer Nassour is undecided (but in her defense, she's been Party Chair for less than 18 hours!).

She has roughly 48 hours to decide.

A private religious high school can expel students it believes are lesbians because the school isn't covered by California civil rights laws, a state appeals court has ruled.
Relying on a 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gays and atheists, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino said California Lutheran High School is a social organization entitled to follow its own principles, not a business subject to state anti-discrimination laws.

"The whole purpose of sending one's child to a religious school is to ensure that he or she learns even secular subjects within a religious framework," Justice Betty Richli said in the 3-0 ruling, issued Monday.

An RNC rules maven contacted me with the following perspective on the RNC chair race that might explain some of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering.

It has to do with, natch, the presidential primary calendar.

Republican rules for the first time give the members of the Republican National Committee, by a 2/3 vote, the option of adopting a mandatory 2012 state primary election calendar.

States whose legislatures, which may be controlled by Democrats, refuse to schedule a primary that complies with RNC rules face a draconian choice.

Either their party gives up its presidential primary and instead holds (and pays for) a presidential preference caucus — or the state suffers a loss of 1/2 of its delegates to the 2012 Convention.

Sure, there’s Rachel Maddow and that wry smile, there’s Anderson Cooper and his silver foxiness, but Andrea … she’s got something else. But what was it?

We were pretty sure it had something to do with her performance at the very end of last year’s Republican convention, when she appeared completely unfazed by the avalanche of red, white and blue balloons pouring over her as she reported from the floor. Endearing, tenacious, resilient!

We decided to take a sample of some of our friends. We sent them an IM that went something along the lines of: “Andrea Mitchell: Secretly a gay icon?”

“I do love her! She’s so sassy,” said our friend Chris.

A few short days ago, Nancy Pelosi was on "This Week" defending the inclusion of birth control in the stimulus package.

… Yesterday, Barack Obama had it yanked from the bill.

This is of special interest to me for two reasons:

1. It is a sign that conservative blogs and talk radio can influence Obama's decisions. Does anyone really believe he would have pulled this if we didn't raise a stink? Other boondoggles are sure to be found hidden in this bill as well.

2. Months ago on Cavuto, I predicted a showdown between Pelosi and Obama. It appears this has already begun.

Iran's Space Agency (ISA) announced that the first domestically-built satellite of Iran called "Omid" (Hope) would be sent to the space by March 20, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Tuesday.

"If no problem hinders the process, the all-Iranian-made satellite will join the orbit by the end of the current Iranian year (ending on March 20)," ISA President Reza Taqipour said, adding that "Technical experts are trying to finalize the project according to the schedule."

In November, Iran successfully launched a space rocket "Kavosh 2" (Explorer 2), which after completing its mission, has returned to the earth.

Early in this decade, California's labor union leaders trumpeted a sharp uptick in membership after years of relative decline.

It turned out, however, that virtually all of the union growth stemmed from legislation signed by then-Gov. Gray Davis, converting those who helped the aged and infirm with household chores from independent contractors into public employees, thus allowing them to be unionized.

Almost overnight, tens of thousands of what are called "In-Home Supportive Services" (IHSS) workers became eligible for union membership, a bonanza for the Service Employees International Union.

The legislation itself was a case study in hide-the-pea lawmaking. In just one day, it was written and passed overwhelmingly as one of many "trailer bills" to the 1999-2000 state budget with no public hearings or even a clear explanation of what it did.

President Obama's executive order closing CIA "black sites" contains a little-noticed exception that allows the spy agency to continue to operate temporary detention facilities abroad.

The provision illustrates that the president's order to shutter foreign-based prisons, known as black sites, is not airtight and that the Central Intelligence Agency still has options if it wants to hold terrorist suspects for several days at a time.

Current and former U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition that they aren't identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said such temporary facilities around the world will remain open, giving the administration the opportunity to seize and hold assumed terrorists.

The NRCC is banging the good old culture wars drum today, sending out a raft of press releases asking if rookie Dems from conservative districts back the inclusion of anti-sexually transmitted disease programs (read: condoms and needle exchanges).

The title of the release: Do Freshmen Dems Support $335 Million for STD Prevention in "Stimulus"?

The targets: John Adler (NJ-03); John Boccieri (OH-16); Bobby Bright (AL-02); Gerry Connolly (VA-11); Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03); Steve Driehaus (OH-01); Alan Grayson (FL-08); Parker Griffith (AL-05); Debbie Halvorson (IL-11); Martin Heinrich (NM-01); Jim Himes (CT-04); Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01); Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15); Larry Kissell (NC-08); Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24); Frank Kratovil (MD-01); Dan Maffei (NY-25); Betsy Markey (CO-04); Eric Massa (NY-29); Michael McMahon (NY-13); Walt Minnick (ID-01); Gary Peters (MI-09); Chellie Pingree (ME-01); Glenn Nye (VA-02); Tom Perriello (VA-05); Mark Schauer (MI-07); Kurt Schrader (OR-05); Harry Teague (NM-02)

The biggest single change Tuesday came when the Senate Finance panel adopted a $69.8 billion amendment by the top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, to protect often upper-middle-income families from the alternative minimum tax. But many of the smaller adjustments were colorful tales in themselves as Democrats and the new White House team struggled to make peace with Republicans — and sometimes with one another.

Obama and his often stormy Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel interceded in the House to strike a provision related to the purchase of contraceptives with Medicaid funds. A $200 million appropriation in the House bill to improve the National Mall in Washington was dropped after pressure from Blue Dog fiscal conservatives. At the same time, the Senate Appropriations Committee leadership stepped in to dramatically scale back an Obama-backed proposal to devote as much as $2.6 billion for the purchase of new energy-efficient vehicles for the government’s fleet.

On whether House Republicans should accept the stimulus bill:

There might be a tax cut that the Democrats or the president could throw in that would attract enough Republicans to give him a broad base of support, but I think that would be a mistake on the part of Republicans.

I think they ought to oppose the bill on a matter of principle. And the principle is that this is the largest and the most rapidly run through stimulus spending package in American history, and a lot of it is simply not stimulus.

The president has talked about having three-quarters of it spent in the first two years. Well, if it's not spent in the first two years, it's not stimulus. It shouldn't be in the bill. It should be in the regular appropriations.

Rep. Tom Price, who heads the conservative Republican Study Committee, did not take kindly to this assessment in an interview with Politico Tuesday.

“I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach,” Price said. “I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party. You know you’re just on these talk shows and you’re living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn’t be or wouldn’t be good leaders, they’re not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell.

Timothy Carney is joining the Washington Examiner as the paper's new K Street columnist, and will continue writing a weekly op-ed for the paper.

Also, Carney's new job marks the end of a Washington institution. Carney had succeeded Bob Novak as editor of the Eagle Publishing's "Evans-Novak Political Report," and with his departure, will cease publication after 41 years.
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Flap enjoyed the publication for years…..

This is a sort of a live blog from a member and aide inside the room with President Obama, via e-mail:

"President Obama is speaking to House Republicans right now on Democratic stimulus bill," wrote Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) on Twitter. "Good sales man, bad product."

The Twittering lawmakers still took shots at the House Democratic leadership, drawing contrasts between Obama and fellow lawmakers.

"His speech doesn't match the process that Pelosi and Reid are implementing," Hoekstra wrote.

"At least Obama has talked about the stimulus for an hour. Which is about an hour longer than Dem leadership has spe nt with us on this," Burgess said.

I like Sarah Palin, I think she was a very attractive candidate, but I think she made a lot of mistakes. But so did Biden.

I am not convinced that Sarah Palin hurt the campaign. People think that this decision was made in some kind of vacuum. I’m not convinced that a McCain/Romney ticket would have outperformed a McCain/Palin. Well, maybe if we’d done Lieberman we would have been down fifteen points after the convention instead of up four. I’m not convinced that Palin, even with all her weaknesses, wasn’t the most plausible ticket you could have put forward this year.

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to limit the influence of lobbyists in his administration, a recent lobbyist for investment banking giant Goldman Sachs is in line to serve as chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Mark Patterson was a registered lobbyist for Goldman until April 11, 2008, according to public filings.

Patterson first began lobbying for Goldman Sachs in 2005, after working as policy director for then-Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. According to publicly filed lobbying disclosure records, he worked on issues related to the banking committee, climate change and carbon trading and immigration reform, among others.

Patterson's lobbying was first noted by the National Journal magazine.

Patterson is one of over a dozen recent lobbyists in line for important posts in the Obama administration, despite a presidential order severely restricting the role of lobbyists in his administration, the magazine reported.
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Well, there are exceptions…

Iran said on Wednesday it would welcome President Barack Obama's offer of a change in U.S. policy provided it involved a withdrawal of U.S. troops from abroad and an apology for past "crimes" against Tehran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was speaking after Obama offered to extend a hand of peace if Iran "unclenched its fist."
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How can anyone take this ASSHAT clown seriously? Yet, Obama wants to negotiate with him directly?

Gov. Paterson yesterday insisted he had no idea who did the slime job on Caroline Kennedy – although the source of the information is about as close to him during the day as his wife is at night.
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The Kennedys strike back at David Paterson

He's a liar.

The person responsible for the smear was an individual whose identity is well known to the press, whose full-time job is to do the governor's bidding, and who is intelligent enough not to call reporters to damage Kennedy's reputation without approval from the top – and that means Paterson.

President Barack Obama is coming to the Capitol later today in a bid to curry favor with congressional Republicans. But it appears GOP leaders have already made up their minds to oppose his $825 billion stimulus plan.

House Republican Leader John A. Boehner and his No. 2, Whip Eric Cantor, told their rank-and-file members Tuesday morning during a closed-door meeting to oppose the bill when it comes to the floor Wednesday, according to an aide familiar with the discussion.

This should dampen the mood for an early afternoon meeting with the president, who is making the trek to hear Republicans’ input on the legislation before Wednesday's vote.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy may be threatening a primary challenge to newly named New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand over her pro-gun stand, but records show McCarthy donated $1,500 to Gillibrand's two successful races for an upstate House seat.

McCarthy's leadership PAC gave Gillibrand a $500 contribution for her first run for Congress in 2006, and doubled it to $1,000 for her re-election bid last June, according to federal campaign finance records.

McCarthy made the second donation on June 5, months after Gillibrand had publicly signed on to a legal brief that drew attacks from McCarthy's friends among gun-control advocates because it urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Washington, D.C.'s, gun ban.
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Going to be hard to live down if she challenges her in a Dem primary election

Far from rolling over, House Republican leaders are trying to win concessions from President Obama over the massive economic stimulus package and have proffered a bill of their own to put on the negotiating table.

The counter-package would shift focus entirely from spending to tax relief. Though a full House vote on the Democratic package is expected in a matter of hours and passage seems likely, GOP lawmakers are hoping their substitute proposal at least influences the final product.

In a brief session with reporters Wednesday, Republicans panned the $825 billion proposal under consideration as a "non-stimulus" bill chock full of gift-wrapped spending items.