ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos": Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and a round table with ABC's Donna Brazile,
Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, George Will and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.
Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt": Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and
Bloomberg's Hans Nichols, Mike Tackett, Heidi Przybyla and former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber.
CBS' "Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer": Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and a round table with Kevin Merida and Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post.
CNN's "GPS with Fareed Zakaria": Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, at left.
CNN's "State of the Union with John King": Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius, Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.),
Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Rep. Patrick Murphy
(D-Penn.) and CNN's Mary Matalin.
"Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace": Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), John Cornyn (R-Texas)
and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and a round table with Fox News'
contributors Laura Ingraham, NPR's Mara Liasson and Juan Williams and the
Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol.
NBC's "Meet the Press with David Gregory": Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and a round table with NBC's Andrea Mitchell, Democratic strategist Bob Shrum and Politico's Roger Simon.
Remember all that talk last winter about the historic awfulness of the inherited economy and how urgently the new Obama administration needed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's economic stimulus bill to get through Congress and the presidentflew all the way out to Denver to sign the $787-billion bill because, well, because they didn't have an Air Force One photo shoot for New York that day?
And how it was absolutely, really, essentially important to start spending all that money ASAP so that it would create good, solid, strong, patriotic American jobs right here in America? And keep the jobless rate maybe somewhere around 8-8.5%?
Which seems really pretty good today now that it's already at 9.5% and predicted to exceed 10% for much of the next year, which takes us right up close to -- oh, oh, look out! -- the 2010 midterm elections.
In fact, back in April at one $3.4-billion spending ceremony for the media, Vice President Joe Biden, who's got a lot of private meetings to attend but was still assigned to drive the stimulus spending hard, said: "This is jobs -- jobs!" Creating or saving a gazillion-point-five jobs used to be the main goal.
Not anymore.
More change. That was April. This is July. And the spending sujet du jour has moved on to....
When it comes to the time being a sensitive subject, there’s arguably no one who watches the clock more closely than Indiana Hoosiers.
This is the state where people fought – and ultimately lost – the right to have different counties be on different time zones. (Though there still are a few spots in the northwest corner of the state where, while standing on the shore, you can technically land a fish an hour before you caught it.)
So in some ways, it’s fitting that lawmakers here in the Indianapolis state house are counting down the minutes as they fight over the state budget. As of this morning, there's no budget. Inside the state Assembly chambers, there’s a rumble that lawmakers will have something to vote on when they reconvene just about now, at 1 p.m. EST. By then, legislators will have 10 hours and 59 minutes to get something passed. Otherwise, government services will begin to shut down.
The last time lawmakers in this Rust Belt-meets-agriculture state blew past its June 30 deadline was during the Civil War. Back then, when the state general assembly adjourned without passing a budget, Gov. Oliver Perry Morton simply didn’t recall the legislators – and for a year or so, he ran the state government on his own. (Lawmakers later forgave Morton: There’s a statue of him standing at the entrance of the state house here in Indianapolis.)
Since then, say locals, meeting that midnight budgetary deadline has been a point of Hoosier pride. That’s not to say folks haven’t bent the rules a bit. Inside the state general assembly’s chambers, there is a wooden clock mounted onto the balcony just above the lawmakers' seats. At one point, many years ago, there was a switch, tucked next to the House speaker’s podium, which would turn off the clock.
When the fiscal budget debates dragged a bit too close to midnight, “they’d stop the clock and battle it out,” said Alan January, director of patron services for the Indiana State Archives. “It’d buy them a few minutes, a few hours, maybe longer.”
As legislators race from meeting to meeting today, quite a few have cast a longing glance toward that podium. The switch is gone. It was removed years ago. The clock, though, remains and is still ticking down. To read more about state lawmakers across the country racing to beat the clock, check out this story.
Most of today's news attention will focus on the White House Rose Garden and President Obama's news conference (live blogging starts here, latimes.com/ticket, at 9:30 a.m. Pacific, 12:30 p.m. Eastern, 4:30 p.m. GMT).
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden flies way out West to Ohio today to talk about helping the middle class and the nation's economy.
But just a few months after congressional passage of the administration's whopping $787-billion economic stimulus plan, a new national poll shows Americans' confidence in its efficacy fading, especially in the Midwest, where Biden is heading.
Just about half (52%) believe the much-touted stimulus plan will or has had any impact restoring the economy, down from 59% in April. The Washington Post-ABC Poll found Obama's personal popularity remains high, in part because his Republican opposition remains in such disarray unable to offer a coherent political alternative.
The shift in public assessments of the stimulus package has clear political ramifications: At the 100-day mark of Obama's presidency, 63 percent of people in states that were decided by fewer than 10 percentage points in November said the stimulus act had or would boost the economy.
Today, in the telephone poll of 1,001 Americans conducted Thursday through Sunday, the number has plummeted to 50 percent in those closely contested states, with nearly as many now saying the stimulus program will not help the national economy.
The new poll confirms other surveys showing the president's popularity dipping slightly, his disapproval rating jumping about 5% and particular unhappiness focused on his handling of the automobile manufacturing crisis and the federal deficit. They add up to a serious warning signal, with unemployment lines (see photo) expected to increase even further.
Currently, 90% of Americans are worried to some degree about the exploding federal spending deficit, a galactic number certain to gain politicians' attention on both sides. And yet to come is the final bill for Obama's healthcare legislation.
ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos: Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and a round table with ABC's Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts and George Will and ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
Bloomberg's Political Capital with Al Hunt: House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).
CBS' Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
CNN's GPS with Fareed Zakaria: Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes, New America Foundation's Afshin Molavi, Newsweek's Christopher Dickey, Columbia University's Sree Sreenivasan and "Here Comes Everybody" author Clay Shirky.
CNN's State of the Union with John King: Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace: Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Reps. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Karim Sadjadpour and a panel with Fox News and Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, NPR's Mara Liasson and Juan Williams and Washington Examiner's Byron York.
NBC's Meet the Press: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), Nina Easton of Fortune and Chuck Todd of NBC. (UPDATE: NBC warns that normal program broadcast times may change in some U.S. markets due to coverage of the U.S. Open Golf Tournament.)
So what is an appropriate gift to give to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – just before you step into a throw-down, closed-door city budget meeting?
Eggs.
It turns out that LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl (below) is known among City Hall staff as being a bit of an urban homesteader. Since the mid-1990s, he’s raised chickens in his backyard and handed out eggs to friends and grousing neighbors, who aren’t as thrilled at the thought of clucking hens running around their Mar Vista streets. (Urban chickens -- like the handsome ones above -- are a nationwide trend, as we'll explain in just a bit.)
“Once they taste the eggs, they stop complaining,” said Rosendahl, who has a dozen hens at home, along with his rabbits and an aviary collection of finches and canaries. It’s a lot of birds -- and a lot of eggs – for any person to consume: The hens lay an average of 72 eggs a week.
So every few days, eager to spread the joys of backyard farming, Rosendahl stops by different City Council members’ offices with a dozen eggs and a grin.
Last week, it was the mayor’s turn for a delivery from City Hall’s Egg Man. Rosendahl said he handed six eggs to Villaraigosa and, tongue firmly in cheek, said, “Sorry about only bringing a half-dozen, Mayor. But these are austere times.”
Villaraigosa had the eggs with him while they were debating how to balance the budget, Rosendahl said. “The eggs are kind of soothing. He kept looking at them, and turning them over, while we were talking about all these very serious items,” Rosendahl said.
Maybe the mayor was wondering how far he could throw them? Nah. ...
Top photo: Dennis Harrison-Noonan and some of his chickens in Madison, Wis. Credit: John Hart / For TheTimes. Bottom photo: Bill Rosendahl. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana was on CNN's "State of the Union" today, talking with John King about President Obama'sdemand that healthcare reform include the government as a provider to keep private insurance companies honest in the insurance marketplace.
Pence, who also gave this week's weekly GOP remarks here, fears instead the government option would drive many employers and insurance companies to simply opt out and leave the whole costly business to government.
The Indiana congressman replied:
"The government competes in the private sector the way an alligator competes with a duck."
ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos": Sec. of Health and Human Services Kathleen
Sebelius, Former Gov. Mitt Romney and a roundtable with Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel and columnist George Will to
discuss the battle over a public health insurance plan, the opposition from
Congress over key provisions and how the president plans to rally
public support for reform.
Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt": Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on the
Middle East peace process, Bloomberg's Lizzie O'Leary and Christine
Harper report on executive pay issues, Hans Nichols on healthcare
reform and Kate O'Beirne discusses Sonia Sotomayor's
Supreme Court confirmation process, former Speaker Newt Gingrich and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
CBS' "Face the Nation": Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) discuss healthcare, Guantanamo Bay, Sotomayor and the state of the Republican Party.
CNN's "State of the Union with John King": Sebelius, Sens. Ben Nelson
(D-Neb.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) discuss the healthcare debate and the latest on swine flu.
CNN "GPS with Fareed Zakaria": Guest list not made available at publication.
"Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace": Sens. Christopher J. Dodd, (D-Conn.), Charles E. Grassley, (R-Iowa), plus Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
NBC's "Meet the Press with David Gregory": Biden and a roundtable
with Republican strategist Mike Murphy and former GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough
of MSNBC. .
After a very busy, short week of breaking ground for the cameras in several states, Vice President Joe Biden is taking the entire weekend off. Sort of. Here's his official White House schedule:
WEEKEND GUIDANCE FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT Saturday June 13, 2009 and Sunday June 14, 2009
Vice President Biden will be in Wilmington, Delaware on Saturday June 13th and Sunday June 14th. No public events are scheduled.
In two busy days this week, the VP was in three states, shoveling dirt at groundbreakings to call public attention to the hundreds of construction projects the administration says are now underway to stimulate the economy.
The last event was in Kalamazoo, Mich., of all places, for some widening of I-94 so people can flee that Michigan community quicker in these difficult economic times. (Word also has it that through the magic of videotape, Biden will talk on "Meet the Press" on Sunday.)
Besides the vice president and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the K-zoo event also attracted the Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. Each said they were happy to be there and delighted at the wonderful work President Obama's economic program is performing.
Someday someone should add up the afternoons'-worth of salaries and travel and security expenses of public officials at such publicity events. That money could count as significant economic stimulation too as well as part of the next generation's debt load.
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Our Bloggers
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the Countdown to Crawford blog here at The Times.
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