Rush Limbaugh says Kennedy won’t live to see health care reform

Sunday talk show lineup for March 8

Face the Nation: Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, House Min. Leader John Boehner (R-OH), Michael Fletcher & Kathleen Parker

Fox News Sunday: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) & DNC Chair/Gov. Tim Kaine (D-VA)

Meet The Press: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) & Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), then a roundtable with Erin Burnett, Mort Zuckerman, Newt Gingrich & Liaquat Ahamed

This Week: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) & President of the US Chamber of Commerce Thomas Donahue, followed by a roundtable featuring E.J. Dionne, George Will, David Brooks & Cokie Roberts

Ted Kennedy addresses health care summit

Specter to face primary challenge

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) will face a primary challenge in his bid for reelection in 2010. Pat Toomey, the head of the Club for Growth, will launch a second consecutive bid to remove Specter in the Pennsylvania GOP senate primary. Toomey originally stated that he would not challenge Specter, but reconsidered after Republicans became angry with Specter’s support of the economic stimulus package.

Gupta withdraws as surgeon general nominee

CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta has informed President Obama that he no longer wants to be nominated for the position of surgeon general. While no public reason for the withdrawal was offered, it has been reported that Gupta was concerned about the massive paycut he would be taking for the position. Dr. Gupta has a lucrative medical practice and contract with CNN and would have had to give up both in order to become surgeon general.

Dow Jones drops 4% for second time in week

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell another 281.40 points today, a total of 4.09%. This is the second time in a week that the Dow has dropped 4%.

Barbara Bush has open heart surgery

Barbara Bush, the former first lady of the United States, underwent open heart surgery earlier today. The surgery was scheduled last week after Mrs. Bush experienced shortness of breath.

British PM Brown address joint session of Congress

Coleman likely to lose court battle, proposes re-vote

In a last-ditch effort to salvage his chances of winning reelection to the Senate, Republican Norm Coleman is now proposing that there be a re-vote for the Minnesota Senate race between himself and Democrat Al Franken, who is likely to be the next senator from Minnesota.

Coleman’s lawyers are now arguing in court that the disputed votes are too difficult to decipher and that in order to fix the problem the entire state of Minnesota should hold a re-vote. However, Coleman’s campaign was the one that initiated court proceedings and after numerous rulings went against him, he and his campaign are attempting to frame the results as “uncertain” and cast as much doubt on their legitimacy as possible. In response, Franken’s attorney noted that Minnesota law does not allow re-votes.

Dow continues freefall; loses 4.24% today

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 299 points in trading today, the equivalent of 4.24%, and fell below 7,000 points for the first time since 1997. Today’s loss was spurned by a deepening lack of investor confidence as well as dismal unemployment numbers and AIG, who reported the worst quarterly loss in history. In less than a year, the Dow has lost almost 50% of its value.

Obama to name Sebelius HHS secretary tomorrow

President Obama will name Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) the next secretary of health and human services tomorrow.

Sebelius’ nomination is being met with some resistance by the Catholic right while elements of the Catholic left are pushing back hard. The two groups are using Sebelius as a battlefield over abortion rights and it is not expected to hurt Sebelius in the confirmation process. Already, Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), who is a social conservative, has announced his full support of Governor Sebelius’ nomination.

In naming Sebelius, President Obama deals a major blow to Democrats’ chances of picking up the Senate seat being vacated by Brownback, who is running for governor in 2010. The DSCC and the NRSC quietly believed that if Sebelius ran for the seat, she would easily win. Now the DSCC is scrambling to find a new candidate to run for the seat in 2010.

Sunday talk show lineup for March 1

Face the Nation: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel

Fox News Sunday: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) & Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

This Week: Office of Management & Budget Director Peter Orszag, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), follwed by a roundtable with Karl Rove, Stan Greenberg, Katrina vanden Heuvel & George Will

Meet The Press: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates then a roundatble with former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN), Mike Murphy, Dee Dee Myers & Joe Scarborough

GOP Gov. Huntsman blasts GOP leadership in Congress

In an interview with The Washington Times, Governor Jon Huntsman (R-UT) blasted the Republican leadership in Congress. From The Washington Times:

“I don’t even know the congressional leadership,” Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, shrugging off questions about top congressional Republicans, including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “I have not met them. I don’t listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential – completely.”

“We will rebuild, we will recover”

President Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress was not his greatest speech, but it was very strong and demonstrated his grip on the reality of the problems confronting the country. It was striking to see how uncomfortable Obama looked when he received applause and standing ovations.

President Barack Obama addresses a joint session of Congress

Full text of President Obama’s address to Congress (as prepared)

Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States:

I’ve come here tonight not only to address the distinguished men and women in this great chamber, but to speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here.

I know that for many Americans watching right now, the state of our economy is a concern that rises above all others. And rightly so. If you haven’t been personally affected by this recession, you probably know someone who has – a friend; a neighbor; a member of your family. You don’t need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis, because you live it every day. It’s the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights. It’s the job you thought you’d retire from but now have lost; the business you built your dreams upon that’s now hanging by a thread; the college acceptance letter your child had to put back in the envelope. The impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere.

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 weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. 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. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.

Now, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that for too long, we have not always met these responsibilities – as a government or as a people. I say this not to lay blame or look backwards, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we’ll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.

Excerpts from President Obama’s address to Congress

The following are some excerpts of President Obama’s speech to tonight’s joint session of Congress that have been released by the White House:

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 weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. 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. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.

…..

We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.

Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.

Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that’s what I’d like to talk to you about tonight.

…..

The recovery plan and the financial stability plan are the immediate steps we’re taking to revive our economy in the short-term. But the only way to fully restore America’s economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world. The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care; the schools that aren’t preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit. That is our responsibility.

In the next few days, I will submit a budget to Congress. So often, we have come to view these documents as simply numbers on a page or laundry lists of programs. I see this document differently. I see it as a vision for America – as a blueprint for our future.

My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we’ve inherited – a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.

Given these realities, everyone in this chamber – Democrats and Republicans – will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars. And that includes me.

But that does not mean we can afford to ignore our long-term challenges. I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves; that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity.

….

Yesterday, I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time. But we’re starting with the biggest lines. We have already identified two trillion dollars in savings over the next decade.

In this budget, we will end education programs that don’t work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them. We’ll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use. We will root out the waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.

….

I know that we haven’t agreed on every issue thus far, and there are surely times in the future when we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed. That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months, and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground.

….

But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary.

I think about Leonard Abess, the bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. He didn’t tell anyone, but when the local newspaper found out, he simply said, ”I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn’t feel right getting the money myself.

I think about Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community – how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay. “The tragedy was terrible,” said one of the men who helped them rebuild. “But the folks here know that it also provided an incredible opportunity.”

And I think about Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the young girl from that school I visited in Dillon, South Carolina – a place where the ceilings leak, the paint peels off the walls, and they have to stop teaching six times a day because the train barrels by their classroom. She has been told that her school is hopeless, but the other day after class she went to the public library and typed up a letter to the people sitting in this room. She even asked her principal for the money to buy a stamp. The letter asks us for help, and says, “We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina but also the world. We are not quitters.

President Obama to tell Congress & nation that “we will recover” from economic crisis

In his address to a joint session of Congress tonight, President Obama will tell members of the House of Representatives and the Senate that “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.” Below is an excerpt that was just released by the White House:

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 weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. 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. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.

Durbin calls on Burris to resign; Burris refuses

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) called on fellow Illinois Senator Roland Burris to resign today, after privately meeting with him. Burris refused and plans to stay in the Senate.

Locke to head commerce?

CNN is reporting that former Washington Governor Gary Locke is the likely choice to be President Obama’s commerce secretary.

Update: Other news outlets, including The Politico and The Washington Post have picked up the story.

Bunning apologizes to Ginsburg; botches apology

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) issued the following written statement apologizing to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg over the comments he made this weekend that she has nine months left to live due to her having pancreatic cancer:

I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsberg. That certainly was not my intent. It is great to see her back at the Supreme Court today and I hope she recovers quickly. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

However, the written statement misspelled Ginsburg’s name! It seems that Bunning’s press shop has some egg on their face for this one.