Good afternoon, Daily Kos readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
Two programming notes. First Congress Matters will be hosting an open thread discussion of the President's State of the Union Address. We expect it to be a little slower than the Daily Kos open threads.
Second, diarist Ministry of Truth will host a live discussion/interview with Joe Sestak who is mounting a primary challenge against Arlen Specter for the Democratic nomination for a Senate seat representing Pennsylvania. The discussion will be at Progressive Electorate.
All the Hill news that fit to blog is over the fold...
State of the Union
Tonight is President Obama's first official State of the Union Address. Everyone gets dressed in their finest duds and comes over to the House to hear the Constitutionally mandated message and clap a lot. The Vice President and Speaker of the House sit behind the President and thus have to make sure they don't pick their noses or something. We also hide a low-level Cabinet member safely away. If something awful were to happen and everyone in the chamber were to die, that person would be president.
Article II, Section 3
He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.
Before the development of radio and television, the president usually just quietly submitted report and that was the end of it. The power of the media, coupled with the rise of the public presidency has created a situation in which the State of the Union has become an important opportunity for the president to lay out his/her agenda for the year.
The rise of the media has also created a situation in which we need to feed the beast, man! That means endless speculation about what the president will say. So I guess we should get to that.
Washington Post: Obama to reframe his domestic agenda around nation's economic problems
President Obama will use his State of the Union address Wednesday night to try to rebuild enthusiasm for his sweeping domestic agenda by reframing it around the nation's pressing economic problems, while acknowledging "mistakes" he made during his first year in office, aides said.
MSNBC: Obama's test: Win back a nation's confidence
WASHINGTON - One year and one week ago, Barack Obama stood on the steps of the Capitol to give his inaugural address. His challenge then was to re-inspire Americans’ confidence in themselves. Tonight, inside that building, his challenge is to re-inspire their confidence in him.
Boston Globe: Obama's goal: Get agenda moving, people believing
WASHINGTON—His presidency at a crossroads, President Barack Obama is promising in his first State of the Union address to solve the economic worries foremost on Americans' minds and become the transformative leader they thought they were getting.
CNN: State of the Union speech preparations under way
Washington (CNN) -- Hours away from what is arguably the most important address of his short presidency, President Obama will huddle with his top speechwriters to go over the latest revisions to his State of the Union address, according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
The Nation: Obama at One
President Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009, ignited the hopes of millions of Americans seeking real change. One year later, many progressives are worried that the Obama administration's commitment to change is not as strong as it should be. Some of his stalwart supporters feel anguish at what they see as a betrayal or delay of his campaign's promises, while many of his longtime critics feel vindicated in their initial skepticism. Other progressives, however, take stock of the advances that have been made in Washington and urge the left against making definitive pronouncements on his presidency so soon.
ESPN: Source: Warner announcement Friday
Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner will announce Friday at a news conference whether he plans to retire, according to a Cardinals source.
The widespread assumption -- one that hasn't changed for weeks -- is that the 38-year-old Warner will step away from the game.
Of course, you can also look at the Washington Post Opinion page to see what the Very Serious Opinion Makers would say if they were president. Of note is the burning debate between Ditching and Keeping Clintonism.
You get the idea.
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell will give the Republican response.
Republicans are eager to hold up McDonnell, inaugurated just last week, as the new model of Republican candidate: a moderate problem-solver who can appeal to Democrats and independents by talking about jobs, the economy and other kitchen-table issues.
Unlike past GOP candidates in Virginia and elsewhere, McDonnell stayed mostly silent in his campaign on almost every bedrock conservative issue -- abortion, guns, the sanctity of marriage, school choice -- that had served as the foundation for his political career.
Maybe he'll do better than Bobby Jindal.
Joe Wilson has promised to keep his trap shut this time. Instead, he's going to yell at Facebook. You still have a few hours to add him.
Finally, the rules for the 2010 State of the Union Address drinking game have been posted.
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Timothy Geithner
This can't be good for the Treasury Secretary.
Some call on Geithner to step down at testy hearing on AIG bailout role
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner came under fierce bipartisan criticism on Wednesday, with some House Republicans calling on him to resign.
Democrats and Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform grilled Geithner about his role in the bailout of American International Group (AIG) and whether he was involved in decisions about the lack of public disclosure about complicated derivatives payments. Geithner faced repeated criticisms about his role in the government paying out $62 billion to AIG's financial counterparties that represented the full value they were owed.
It seems like the only thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on is "Geithner Sucks."
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Climate Change Supporters
John Kerry says that supporters of meaningful climate change legislation need to operate with the same level of intensity (but a much higher level of maturity) that we are seeing from the Tea Party brigade.
"I want you to go out there and to start knocking on doors, and talking to people and telling people, ‘This has to happen,' " Kerry said in a speech at a climate and energy forum hosted by labor, farm and environmental groups.
"If tea party folks can go out there and get angry because they think their taxes are too high, for God's sakes a lot of citizens ought to get angry about the fact that they are being killed and our planet is being injured on a daily basis by the way that we provide our power and our fuel and the old practices," Kerry added.
He's right. We do need to get energized about this. Climate change is real. It's happening right now. It could destroy the planet. And it's too easy to ignore the problem and hope it goes away.
My question to Senator Kerry, though, is this: Where was that passion back in 2004?
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Pat Robertson's Pact with the Devil
I might have to donate some more money to Alan Grayson.
Grayson: Pat Robertson and his followers have their own 'pact with the Devil'
An outspoken Florida Democrat is taking on Pat Robertson and the Christian right.
In what he characterized as "a post-mortem of the post-mortem," Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) attacked Robertson on the House floor Tuesday for his controversial comment following the massive earthquake in Haiti.
This is a good lesson for all of us. Just because someone claims to be a man/woman of God, we don't have to give them a pass on whatever idiocy comes out of the hole in toward the bottom of their heads.
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Health Care Reform Redux
This story seems a bit too familiar.
Democrats woo Snowe, Collins in hope of saving health reform legislation
Centrist Democratic senators have circumvented party leadership to approach Maine GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins about reviving healthcare talks.
Democrats such as Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Max Baucus (Mont.) have approached Snowe within the past week to discuss her potential support for various healthcare proposals.
We're currently taking bets on what kind of sweetheart deal Mainers will get out of this one.
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Leaked!
Politico has leaked Michele Bachmann's Declaration of Health Care Independence.
Here's a handy window into the incestuous relationship between the D.C. press corps and Capitol Hill: Someone in Michele Bachmann's office recently passed along a copy of her "Declaration of Health Care Independence" to Politico's Glenn Thrush, along with the oddly contradictory and irony-free request that it not be shared with anyone. Being the good journalist that he is, Thrush went right ahead and made it public anyway.
Thrush's take on it is here.
A GOP source passes along an embargoed copy of Michele Bachmann's "Declaration of Health Care Independence" — an alternative blueprint for health care that is supposed to shed the party of its "party of no" label by giving voters an option.
The declaration was circulated to GOP staffers with the prohibition, "PLEASE DO NOT SEND THIS TO ANYONE. The document is to be embargoed until after the press conference on Wednesday. Let me know if you any questions!"
The document turns out to be less than specific — mostly a litany of Bachmann's favorite pledges to fight socialized medicine and uphold the Constitution.
And yes, the "Declaration" is more of the same old crap with no new ideas.
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Angry genitals
In The Most Important News of the Day™ Stan Dai, one of the young men arrested for trying to tap Senator Mary Landrieu's phones, seems to have an obsession with male genitalia. Anyone who has even been in the same county as a liberal arts college has heard of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues. I can also guarantee that at least one moron on each of those campuses has fantasized about writing The Penis Monologues.
Well, young Mr. Dai did just that.
MY PENIS IS ANGRY!!!!!!! You want to know what happened to my penis? Joan happened to my penis! There I was, sleeping peacefully when Joan stormed in and dragged me out for "an educational program." I thought was going to see Mr. Rogers! But nooooooo! It turned out to be the "Whine-gina Monologues!"
Of course Dai also fancied himself to be just like Bond. James Bond.
And remember. That hashtag is #teabugger