President Obama Meets With GOP Leaders On Capitol Hill To Discuss Stimulus Pork

Tuesday: President Obama and Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood are escorted by House Sergeant of Arms Bill Livingood to a meeting with GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill (AP Photo).

• WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Congress on Tuesday to try to persuade reluctant Republicans to support a $825 billion package he says is essential to resuscitate a plunging economy.
  




• White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama's meetings with House of Representatives and Senate Republicans would be less a negotiating session than a chance to gather input.




• "He wants to hear their ideas. If there are good ideas, and I think he assumes there will be, that we will look at those ideas," Gibbs told reporters.
  

Stay tuned. We all saw how the last "bipartisan" meeting turned out.

"I won, I will trump you on that," the President told Republicans on Friday.

Fox News has more on Republican skepticism.

• Given the gravity of the economic situation, the stimulus measure is widely expected to pass Congress with bipartisan support. Still, Republicans insist they need changes before they can support it, and they aren't getting the sense of cooperation from Democrats.
  




• "We have yet to see one Republican proposal included in this plan," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington.
  




• "Calls of bipartisanship is hollow with House Democrats," said House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana.

Dems Drop Contraception From Stimulus, Turns Out Birth Control Really Does Not Stimulate The Economy!

Kudos to President Obama for finally showing some fiscal restraint.

Today, he is meeting with Congressional Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Fox News is reporting:

• WASHINGTON -- Democratic leaders in the House have dropped federal funding for new contraceptive services and ongoing programs to stop sexually transmitted diseases from the $825 billion economic stimulus bill due to hit the floor Tuesday.


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• The decision came after President Obama called Democratic leaders to tell them that the $200 million set-aside does not comport with the objectives of the job creation package.
  
  


• "That's clearly a step in the right direction but it's not enough," House Minority Leader John Boehner said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the spending Sunday on "This Week".

• "Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those -- one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

How does it feel to have egg on your face, Madame Speaker?

Hot Air has more.

Stop Banks From Putting Wounded GIs Out On The Street This Winter

Dear Patriotic American,

Already this January I've been flooded with frantic calls from severely wounded GIs on the brink of losing their homes this winter.

Many are paralyzed, brain-damaged, burned or blinded and they're pleading for help to prevent their family from being tossed out into the street.

Please click here to help a severely wounded - and desperate - serviceman or woman who's about to lose their home this winter.

I'm General Chip Diehl (Ret.) and I'm writing to you on behalf of the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes. The Coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded to help troops who have been severely wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I'm sure you've heard about the home foreclosure crisis sweeping the country. As the cold weather sets in, it is hitting America's severely wounded troops even harder than others because so many of their spouses have quit their jobs to take care of them.

As a result they've had to choose between putting food on their table and keeping a roof over their heads.

Today I'm hoping you'll take just a few seconds to click here and send a donation to help a severely wounded young Marine, Soldier, Sailor or Airman save his or her home this winter.

Your donation may be helping a severely wounded GI just like Frank G., who told the Coalition:

• "I sold personal belongings on E-bay and tried to find work. For the first time in my life, I had bill collectors calling me. I felt incredible shame and anger that I wasn't able to provide for my family.
  
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• "The day I called [the Coalition] was the best move I have made for my family. The Coalition has given us the chance to keep our home."
  

Please click here to help prevent a disabled GI like Frank G. from losing his home.

Over the past several months, calls for emergency financial assistance have increased by over 300 percent. To help them avoid an eviction or foreclosure this winter, the Coalition has launched the Wounded Troops Foreclosure Fund.

The Coalition is trying to raise $1 million to help as many wounded troops and their families as possible save their homes.

Thanks to patriotic Americans like you, the Coalition has been able to help every single wounded soldier who has placed an emergency call so far.

But this latest surge has completely busted our budget.

We've had to cap our emergency aid grants for foreclosures at $25,000 a week. Because that's all we can afford to send.

But for the past couple of months, we have been averaging $36,000 a week in emergency aid payouts!

So, you can see, we are facing a shortfall of $11,000 a week . . .

. . . just as a record number of disabled GIs face being thrown out into the cold.

So please click here to make a generous, tax-deductible donation to the Coalition's Wounded Troops Foreclosure Fund.

A little extra help may be all many of these wounded heroes need to turn their financial situation around. So please click here to make a special tax-deductible donation right now.

You can also send a special THANK YOU and GET WELL card to a disabled hero.

Your greeting card will be hand-delivered to a severely wounded hero who needs some cheering up during the cold, bleak winter months. You can even type in a personal greeting if you like!

These wounded heroes have protected our freedom, our families and our homes. Now it's our turn to protect theirs.

Thank you,

Brigadier Gen. Arthur F. "Chip" DiehlU.S. Air Force (Ret.)

P.S. As I mentioned in my letter, calls from disabled servicemen and women facing foreclosure or eviction have skyrocketed as the winter weather arrives.
So instead of enjoying this winter season warm and safe like you and I will, they'll be worrying about getting thrown out into the ice and snow. Remember many of these troops are unable to work because they've been severely burned, blinded, paralyzed or brain-damaged ? and they need help to avoid losing their homes.
P

lease click here to make an emergency donation to the Coalition's Wounded Troops Foreclosure Fund. And don't forget to send a special THANK YOU and GET WELL card to a severely wounded GI.

Karl Rove Issued Subpoena, This Is Moving Forward?

From the AP via Yahoo:

• WASHINGTON – The House Judiciary Committee chairman subpoenaed former White House adviser Karl Rove on Monday to testify about the Bush administration's firing of nine U.S. attorneys and its prosecution of a former Democratic governor.
  
• Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said the ongoing legal battle to get Rove and other former Bush administration aides to testify may have success with a new president in the White House.
  
• Former President George W. Bush upheld Rove and two other senior aides who asserted they did not have to testify before Congress about their actions in the White House.
  
• The legal dispute between the executive and legislative branches of government is before a federal appeals court.
  
• Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, did not return phone messages seeking comment. The subpoena commanded Rove to appear on Feb. 2 for a deposition on the U.S. attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, a Democrat.

So much for moving forward.

President Obama Gives First Official Interview Not In America, But Speaks to Muslim World, Says He Is "Willing to Talk to Iran"

From WaPo:

• President Obama expressed optimism yesterday about the prospect of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but he said a peace accord will take time and require new thinking about the problems of the Middle East as a whole.
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• Obama's comments came during his first formal television interview as president, with a correspondent from al-Arabiya, the Dubai-based satellite network that is one of the largest English-language TV outlets aimed at Arab audiences.
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• The president sat for the interview, at the White House, moments after officially dispatching George J. Mitchell, his special envoy for Middle East peace, to the region last evening.
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• "All too often the United States starts by dictating -- in the past on some of these issues -- and we don't always know all the factors that are involved," Obama told al-Arabiya. "So let's listen. He's going to be speaking to all the major parties involved. And he will then report back to me. From there we will formulate a specific response."
• Obama went out of his way to say that if America is "ready to initiate a new partnership [with the Muslim world] based on mutual respect and mutual interest, then I think that we can make significant progress."
• "Now, my job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries," Obama said in the interview.
  
• He said that the United States must be "willing to talk to Iran" and that he would lay out a "framework" for those discussions over the next several months.

Al Arabiya reported after the election that the Arab world views Obama's Change as more of the same.

Al Arabiya reported this week that Libya's Gaddafi wants President Obama to be open to engage Osama Bin Laden in open dialogue.

• Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi advised U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday to give Osama bin Laden a chance to reform, telling the new president that America's most wanted man was looking for "dialogue".
• "Terrorism is a dwarf not a giant. Osama bin laden is a person who can be given a chance to reform," Gaddafi said
• "Maybe we can have a dialogue with him and find out the reason that led him in this direction," he added.

It's funny that Gaddafi is being sympathetic to Obama now that George Bush is gone. After George Bush threatened to blow the crap out of Libya, Gaddafi became more cooperative and nicer.

But "meeting without preconditions" will work better than strong, swift military action on the radical Islamic killers.

Hopenchange you can engage in open dialogue with terrorists.

It's okay if you feel the need to scream at the top of your lungs; we're screwed.