Obama's Political Minefield

President Barack Obama plans an all-out push for health care reform legislation after Labor Day — but he is likely to find Congress and the media distracted by a series of thorny national security problems, including Guantanamo and Iran, which are set to come roaring back onto the national agenda.

The collection of issues present a political minefield where a false step could send the right or the left into an uproar just as Obama is trying to cobble together a coalition to make a deal on health care reform that has eluded several of his predecessors.

A misstep on Guantanamo, or an announcement of the appointment of a special prosecutor to probe interrogation abuses, and conservatives are likely to strike up such a din that Obama’s health care message could be drowned out. A move to boost troops in Afghanistan or establish new rules for an elite interrogation unit and liberals already steamed at signs of compromise on health care could go into revolt.

Speaking at a summit meeting in Mexico last week, Obama seemed to acknowledge the delicate timing of his legislative agenda this fall, though he made no mention of the national security issues certain to intrude.

“I've got a lot on my plate, and it's very important for us to sequence these big initiatives in a way where they don't all just crash at the same time,” Obama said. - Politico Story

Democrats Go After Insurance Companies

House Democrats are probing the nation’s largest insurance companies for lavish spending, demanding reams of compensation data and schedules of retreats and conferences.

Letters sent to 52 insurance companies by Democratic leaders demand extensive documents for an examination of ‘extensive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry.” The letters set a deadline of Sept. 14 for the documents.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, signed the three-page letter dated Monday.

An industry source replied when asked for comment: “This is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition designed to silence health plans."

By Sept. 4, the firms are supposed to supply detailed compensation data for board members and top executives, as well as a “table listing all conferences, retreats, or other events held outside company facilities from January 1, 2007, to the present that were paid for, reimbursed, or subsidized in whole or in part by your company.”

For employees or officers making $500,000 or more, the committee wants information on salary, bonus, options and pension.

And by Sept. 14, the firms are supposed to provide copies of reports from compensation consultants, plus board drafts of compensation plans and information about market share. - Politico

Is this payback to force their hand in the Health Care Reform Bill? Regardless of what you may hear, You Bet it Is!!!!

Brett Favre Now Reporting Expected to Sign with Vikings

A source close to Brett Favre said the quarterback, pending a physical, will sign a contract with the Minnesota Vikings for between $10 million to $12 million, according to ESPN senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen.

Vikings coach Brad Childress confirmed in an e-mail to The Associated Press Tuesday morning that Favre was traveling from Mississippi to meet with the team.

Asked if the plan was to sign Favre on Tuesday, Childress replied: "In a perfect world."

The Herd with Colin Cowherd

Chris Mortensen tells Colin Cowherd that Brett Favre is headed to Minnesota today and will sign with the Vikings pending a physical.

More Podcasts »

Favre, a longtime star in Green Bay, came out of retirement last season to play for the Jets. He retired again, only to then entertain the idea of joining the Vikings. Last month, Childress said the quarterback would stay retired.

The pronouncement now appears to be premature.

According to Mortensen, the Vikings had sent their private plane to Hattiesburg, Miss., and left with Favre on it at 10 a.m. ET. The plane is expected to land in Minneapolis at about noon ET; Favre is expected to take a physical later Tuesday.

Two television stations reported that Favre was seen boarding a plane Tuesday morning that was headed to Minneapolis.

Sources told Hattiesburg television station WDAM, which initially broke the story, that Favre had said: "We may know something by dinner."

A high-level source first told Minneapolis TV station WCCO that Favre was expected to sign a deal with the Vikings on Tuesday. - ESPN News Story

Chris Matthews Man Crush with Pres. Obama?

Minnesota GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty joked Monday night that MSNBC host Chris Matthews is looking for some “bromance” with President Barack Obama.

Asked to follow up on a comment he made Friday night during a speech at the second annual GOPAC conference in Chicago in which he said the “Hardball” host had a “man crush” on the president, Pawlenty explained to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that he “jokingly said that the only thing rising faster than the debt and deficit of the government is Chris Matthews's man crush on Barack Obama.”

“I was going to use the term, Greta, ‘bromance,’ but I thought that was a little too nuanced,” Pawlenty said.

Picking up a theme from his speech denouncing the president’s planned health care overhaul, Pawlenty said, “Americans are figuring out [the Democratic plan] is bad for the country and bad for them.”

“Health care is too expensive for hardworking American families and small businesses and others, but having this go to Washington, D.C., is not the answer,” he said. “We need to bring it back to the consumer, empower individuals, give them resources if they need help, but let them be in the driver’s seat.”

Asked if the raucous recent town hall meetings have helped the GOP, Pawlenty described the protesters as the “sights and sounds of democracy.”

“This is a grass-roots groundswell of people who are ticked off,” he said. “They have questions and they’re expressing themselves, and that’s why we have a democracy.”

“I’m not sure it’s so much a part of a grand strategy as an awakening or a reawakening of the country,” he added. - Politico

Obama Supporters Not So Happy With the Pres

When you’re Barack Obama and you’ve lost Jon Stewart, you’ve got a problem.

“Mr. President,” the “Daily Show” host said Monday night, “I can’t tell if you’re a Jedi — 10 steps ahead of everything — or if this whole health-care thing is kickin’ your [rear.]”

White House officials, by acknowledging that a public option (or government plan) is not essential to achieving health care reform, may have improved their chances of ultimately getting a bill.

In the meantime, though, they have touched off the most ferocious backlash among liberal talking heads since President Obama took office.

The president and his team insist they focus on big, long-term goals — and don’t obsess about cable chatter or newspaper chin-stroking. If they did, they’d be worried to watch reliable allies turn on them in the midst of battle.

In The New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert scolded the president under the withering headline, “This Is Reform? Why the insurers and the drug industry are smiling”: “[I]f we manage to get health care ‘reform’ this time around it will be the kind of reform that benefits the very people who have given us a failed system, and thus made reform so necessary. … If the oldest and sickest are on Medicare, and the poorest are on Medicaid, and the young and the healthy are required to purchase private insurance without the option of a competing government-run plan — well, that’s reform the insurance companies can believe in. … If the drug companies and the insurance industry

are smiling, it can only mean that the public interest is being left behind.”

And so it went, on the air and online, with the Huffington Post bannering a backlash story: “CODE BLUE: Rockefeller, Feingold, Pelosi Call Public Option Essential.” - Politico Story

Are We Just Numbers to Legislatures?

(CNN) -- The biggest political story of the month so far is clearly the populist rage on display at town halls across the country. Democrats say this rage is manufactured; Republicans say it is real.

What can't be debated is that it is drawing a lot of attention, perhaps none more so than the town hall that Sen. Arlen Specter held in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday of this past week.

I know something about that part of the state. I used to work for Bob Walker, who represented that area for 20 years in the House of Representatives. In 1988, I was a member of the advance team that coordinated a Bush-Quayle bus caravan that traveled throughout the region.

To this day, I still have vivid memories of Dan Quayle throwing a perfect spiral in the gymnasium of Lebanon High School. The ball was caught, no words were misspelled, and all was right in that little corner of the Republican world.

The other thing I remember from that time were the people of Lebanon. They were, and I assume they still are, like the other Pennsylvanians I met and got to know -- decent, hardworking Americans who loved their families, cared about their communities and believed in the future of our nation.

In the few years I spent working on Bob Walker's staff, I have to admit that I never saw anything like the anger that was directed at Specter the other day. That said, I can't say that I'm all that surprised at the level of intensity. Lebanon is a very conservative town, and its residents are clearly concerned about some of the plans being proposed by Specter and his newfound Democratic allies in Washington, D.C.

Still, what surprised me the most was not the attitude that area residents displayed toward Specter. It was, rather, the attitude he displayed toward them.

I've been to many political events over the years -- from rallies in Pennsylvania to town halls in Texas. But I've never been to one where a politician addressed people by a number and not their name. And yet that is exactly what Specter did. People had to take a number if they wanted to ask a question. When their turn was up, he called out the number instead of recognizing them by name.

At a time when many Americans are concerned that the federal government is going to take over the nation's health care system and turn it into one big DMV where people have to stand in line to see a doctor, Specter unwittingly played right into their fears. In doing so, he also gave his Democratic opponent a ready-made tag line in the primary next year: "I'm Joe Sestak -- you'll never be a number to me." - CNN News Story

Liberal Democrats - Our Plan or No Plan!

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A liberal Democrat in Congress told CNN Monday that President Obama will have a difficult time pushing his health care plan through the House if a government-run insurance program isn't included in the legislation.

Asked if he would vote against a final House bill that doesn't include a so-called public option, Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that House Democrats "wouldn't even bring it to the floor."

"In the House of Representatives, without a strong public plan, even stronger than the one we reported out of committee, I think it would have a very difficult time getting 218 votes," Weiner said.

"Look, the president has to lead on this, and he has to say very clearly a public option is important," Weiner said. "That we hold these insurance companies accountable and provide some competition. I would love to be the one carrying the ball for him, but unless he says a public option is the way to go, I'm going to be a No [vote], and so are a lot of people."

Weiner maintained that the "best" health care option would be "a single-payer plan, like Medicare for all Americans." - CNN

Health Care Reform - Scrap it all and Start Over?

PERRY, Florida (CNN) – Acknowledging his amazement at the crowds gathered to debate health care at his town halls, Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Florida, faced three large gatherings on Monday with many questioners voicing skepticism about the proposals being debated in Washington.

"Never have I had this attendance … that is a good thing," Boyd said as he started his third event of the day.

Boyd, in his seventh term, represents a conservative area in northern Florida. A fiscal conservative, he is part of the group of House Democrats known as the Blue Dogs.

At the first event of the day in Cross City, he held up a copy of the bill passed by the Energy and Commerce Committee and embraced by the congressional leadership.

"I cannot support this bill in the version it is in now," he said. "We can do better. We can make it better."

He emphasized to the skeptical crowds that he will work to reduce quickly-rising medical costs; that any bill must not add to the deficit; and that Blue Dogs like himself fought to delay consideration by the full House of Representatives to allow members to hear directly from constituents during the August recess.

When a questioner, Ray Evans, said he believed the President wants to do too much at once and asked whether Boyd would "be willing to scrap everything" and start over to do pursue reform more incrementally, the congressman responded: "I think that is an excellent idea … we may end up there."

In a later interview with CNN, he said the idea had been been floated with the congressional leadership. He said that with the strong emotions and heated opposition he is seeing, the idea of doing health reform in a more piecemeal fashion is something he is strongly considering. - CNN

AARP Members Dropping Out by the Thousands due to Health Care Stance

(CBS) CBS News has learned that up to 60,000 people have cancelled their AARP memberships since July 1, angered over the group's position on health care.

Elaine Guardiani has been with AARP for 14 years, and said, "I'm extremely disappointed in AARP."

Retired nurse Dale Anderson has 12 years with AARP and said, "I don't wanna be connected with AARP."

Many are switching to the American Seniors Association, a group that calls itself the conservative alternative as CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

Watch Extended AARP Interview Here

Last week alone, they added more than 5,000 new members. Our camera was there Friday when the mail came.

Letters were filled with cut-up AARP cards.

"I think that probably the seniors are most upset with cuts in Medicare," said ASA President Stuart Barton.

The American Seniors Association is flat-out against President Obama's plan, which calls for $313 billion dollars in Medicare cuts over ten years. The AARP is widely viewed as supporting the President.

Last week, Obama told a town meeting in Portsmouth, NH, "We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors."

The AARP called the President's statements "inaccurate," saying it hasn't endorsed any plan or bill.

Some were left with the feeling that AARP was waffling.

"I feel they're supporting it through the backdoor, and telling members that they're not through the front door," said Guardiani.

"AARP has not endorsed any plan at this point," said Cheryl Matheis, AARP VP for Social Impact. - CBS News Story

Stimulus a Waste of Your Money?

Republicans seized on recent polling Monday by USA Today that shows a majority of Americans think the Democrats' nearly $800 billion fiscal stimulus package "has cost too much and done to little to end of the recession."

“By any objective standard, the Democrats’ trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ isn’t working," said House Republican Leader John Boehner in a statement released by his office. "The administration promised the ‘stimulus’ would provide a ‘jolt’ to our economy and create jobs immediately, but 2.8 million more Americans have lost their jobs since the ‘stimulus’ became law."

“Six months ago today, President Obama signed a stimulus bill with the promise that government spending would put Americans back to work," said Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, the third-ranking Republican in the House. "Congress was told that borrowing another $1 trillion would prevent unemployment from rising over 8% nationwide. With the loss of more than two million jobs since the stimulus was signed and unemployment at 9.4%, the results are in: the stimulus isn't working."

Fifty-seven percent of the respondents to the USA Today/Gallup poll believe the stimulus isn't having any impact on the economy or is making things worse. Sixty percent of those polled don't think the $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts will have any impact in the future. And perhaps the worst news for Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue is that only 18 percent of respondents think the package has improved their personal situation.

The poll also showed that 54 percent of Americans think the economy will still be in a recession a year from now, and 78 percent of the respondents are either "very worried" (46 percent) or "somewhat worried" (32 percent) that the stimulus money "is being wasted."

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have worked hard this summer to sell communities on the impact of the stimulus, holding press events in cities and towns across the country to make the case that the stimulus helped soften the impact of a global economic contraction.

— Patrick O'Connor

Politico

Perscription Drug Agency gets a Big "I Told Ya So"

The prescription-drug industry started turning its back on congressional Republicans shortly after the GOP lost its hold on Congress in 2006, spending time and money in the interim to woo Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. That lovefest culminated a few months ago when PhRMA agreed to back the president's health care push in exchange for industry protections under the resulting overhaul.

On Monday, House Republican Leader John Boehner delivered his former GOP colleague - and now PhRMA CEO - Billy Tauzin a big "I-told-ya'-so."

In a scathing, borderline condescending, "dear colleague," Boehner urged Tauzin to unwind PhRMA's deal with President Barack Obama and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to support health care legislation in exchange for profit protection under rules established in the controversial 2003 precription-drug bill.

"Appeasment rarely works in conflict resolution," Boehner said in the letter. "This is as true in the arena of policymaking as it is in schoolyards across America. When a bully asks for your lunch money, you may have no choice but to fork it over. But cutting a deal with the bully is a different story, particularly if the 'deal' means helping him steal others' money as the price of protecting your own."

Drugmakers agreed to find tens of billions in savings in order to trim the federal government's precription-drug tab under Medicare in exchange for other protections, like allowing the industry to preserve a lucrative rebate structure under Medicare Part D and the White House's agreement to oppose any move to force the government import lower-priced drugs from Canada. The industry also committed to spend $150 million to advertise in support of health care reform - although it has not yet endorsed any of the four bills to pass out of committee. - Politico Story

Obama's Chief of Staff No Longer Israels Favorite Son

As the Obama administration presses Israel to cease settlement expansion as part of a renewed push for a Middle East peace deal — a course of action that many Israelis have interpreted as evidence of the president’s favoritism towards Palestinians — Israelis have increasingly focused their disappointment not on Obama, but rather on his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

An observant Jew with deep ties to Israel, Emanuel is viewed as something of a native son, his rise through the ranks of American politics celebrated by Israelis who reveled in details such as his childhood summers spent in Israel and his volunteer stint during the first Gulf War in an Israeli military program for civilians.

When Emanuel was tapped to be Obama’s chief of staff, a headline in the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz kvelled “Obama's first pick: Israeli Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff,” while the Jewish news service JTA went with “Rahm Emanuel: attack dog, policy wonk, committed Jew.”

But in a dramatic emotional shift, Israelis have become increasingly disenchanted with Emanuel, and the disappointment is especially intense on the Israeli right, which supports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his opposition to Obama’s call for ceasing settlement activity.

Israelis across the political spectrum were skeptical of Obama’s commitment to the Jewish homeland during the presidential campaign but many viewed Emanuel as a guarantor of their interests, the best hope for continuing the U.S. government’s favorable treatment of the Jewish state.

Today, however, widespread unhappiness with their treatment at the hands of the Obama administration has led to feelings of betrayal—and Emanuel is bearing the brunt of it. - Politico Story

Majority of Americans Believe Stimulus Plan Did Nothing

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Six months after the $787 billion economic stimulus package became law, a new poll indicates a majority of Americans don't think it's working.

Fifty-seven percent of those questioned in a USA Today/Gallup survey released Monday say the federal stimulus has had no effect on the economy so far, or has made things worse. Just over four in 10 say the stimulus has made things better.

The poll also suggests that six in 10 doubt that the stimulus package will make things better in the future, with 38 percent saying the infusion of money from Washington will have a positive effect on the nation's economy.

"Support for the stimulus package dropped significantly even before it was passed, and six months ago the public was evenly divided over whether it would help the economy," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Americans have never supported the idea of a second stimulus bill — back in March, two-thirds opposed that idea." - CNN

Health Care Revolt - An American Revolt, Not a Republican Revolt

(CNN) -- Having grown up in one of the most conservative and Republican places in the country -- East Tennessee -- I understand why many of the people who are showing up at town hall meetings this month are reacting, sometimes violently, when members of Congress try to explain the need for an expanded government role in our health care system.

I also have a lot of conservative friends, including one former co-worker who was laid off by CIGNA several years ago but who nonetheless worries about a "government takeover" of health care.

The most vocal folks at the town hall meetings seem to share the same ideology as my kinfolks in East Tennessee and my former CIGNA buddy: the less government involvement in our lives, the better.

That point couldn't have been made clearer than by the man standing in line to get free care at Remote Area Medical's recent health care "expedition" at the Wise County, Virginia, fairgrounds, who told a reporter he was dead set against President Obama's reform proposal.

Even though he didn't have health insurance, and could see the desperation in the faces of thousands of others all around him who were in similar straits, he was more worried about the possibility of having to pay more taxes than he was eager to make sure he and his neighbors wouldn't have to wait in line to get care provided by volunteer doctors in animal stalls. Watch Potter interview with Sanjay Gupta »

Friday morning my former CIGNA buddy sent me an e-mail challenging something he said his wife heard me say in a radio report about my press conference in the Capitol on Wednesday with Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-New York, chairwoman of the House Rules Committee.

"She heard you say that these protestors are funded by the insurance companies. Frankly, nothing would surprise me, but certainly not each and every person," he wrote. "If there was a meeting near me, I certainly would tell my local representative how I feel about this entire subject (and it wouldn't be pretty), and I certainly am not funded by anyone. So I am ultimately wondering what proof there is that seemingly ordinary Americans are finally protesting what is going in Washington and there are all of these suggestions of a greater conspiracy." - CNN Story

American Anger is forcing Changes in Health Care Reform

President Barack Obama will address the Veterans of Foreign Wars' national convention in Phoenix today, as his allies in Washington assess how much the White House raised the white flag on some key provisions of the health care bill in order to get it passed when Congress reconvenes in a few weeks.

While the president toured the Grand Canyon with his family Sunday, members of his administration made rounds addressing the chasm between what they want in the proposed health care overhaul and what they can get passed. Facing false charges of a death panel rationing life-saving care and killing off seniors, the administration says the end-of-life care provisions in the bill may be eliminated.

Responding to critics who say they're uneasy about end-of-life care being discussed within the context of cost, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius insisted "it isn't about cost-cutting." - ABC News Story

Some Democrats are starting to get it. They were believing their own BS for too long. The anger at town halls they thought they could blame on Republicans, but their falling polling numbers, the continued outrage, has made some sit up and figure it out.

You can go along with Pelosi, Reid and Obama, or protect your own Political Future and do the right thing.

Canada's Universal Health Care needs reform - Private Health Insurance Welcomed?

Dr. Anne Doig, the incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association, said her country’s health care system is “sick” and “imploding,” the Canadian Press reported.

“We know there must be change,” Doig said in a recent interview. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”

Canada’s universal health care system is not giving patients optimal care, Doig added. When her colleagues from across the country gather at the CMA conference in Saskatoon Sunday, they will discuss changes that need to be made, she said.

“We all agree the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” she said.

Current president of the CMA, Dr. Robert Ouellet, will make a presentation at the conference about his findings when he toured Europe in January, and met with health groups in several countries.

Ouellet has said that “competition should be welcomed, not feared,” meaning private health insurance should have a role in the public health system.

Doig said she isn’t sure what kind of changes will be proposed when the conference wraps up, but she does know that changes have to come – and fast. She said she understands that universal health care, while good in some ways, has not always been helpful for sick people or their families.

"(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now — if it keeps on going without change — is not sustainable," Doig said. - FOX News Story

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle will not Run for 3rd Term

Speculation has been all weekend that the Governor of Wisconsin would not seek re-election in 2010. Today he made it official.

The Governor has seen his polling numbers go into the tank and he would have faced a tough bid for a third term and many in the know don't think that he would have had a chance.

That leaves the door open for a big shake up in the Political Landscape for Wisconsin. Wisconsin has been a Blue state and with a Democratic Governor and Legislature they have seen taxes raised and jobs leaving by the droves.

There are many in Wisconsin who believe that a shift to the middle if not even to the Red is in the 2010 future, not only for Wisconsin, but for many historically blue states.