All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

The White House has announced that President Obama will hold another meeting with his so-called "war council" tonight to discuss the administration's long-awaited decision on strategy and U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan. According to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, this will be the president's ninth such meeting to review Afghanistan and Pakistan policy.

The meeting with the national security team will take place at 8 p.m. ET in the Situation Room of the White House. Below is the list of expected attendees in addition to President Obama, according to the White House:

Vice President Joe Biden
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
Ambassador Susan Rice, Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy
Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General James E. Cartwright, USMC, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
General David Petraeus, U.S. Central Command
General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Commander in Afghanistan (via videoconference)
Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (via videoconference)
Anne Patterson, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan (via videoconference)
General James Jones, National Security Advisory
Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor
John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security
Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, Special Assistant to the President for Afghanistan and Pakistan

CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan

Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics

** Now the real fight over health care reform begins...

** President Obama tackles unemployment...

** Sarah Palin rises in polls during her book tour...

HEALTH CARE: Democrats Saturday night squeaked by with 60 votes on a procedural motion to move the health care debate forward.

Still, writes Shalaigh Murray of the Washington Post, " Democrats had little time to savor their weekend Senate health-care victory, as two of the lawmakers who voted to move the debate forward Saturday night indicated Sunday that they will not vote to pass the package if it includes a government-run insurance program."

"Despite the success in the test vote, the fragile consensus in the Democratic caucus will face its greatest test yet as the health-care debate moves to the Senate floor and Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) struggles to stave off internal schisms. The cracks in the 60-member caucus are most obvious over the public insurance option.

"One member of the Democratic caucus, independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), reiterated Sunday that he will oppose any bill that contains a public option. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," he called such a government-run plan 'radical.'

"Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), another centrist who supported the move to continue debate but has made it clear he has many objections to the legislation as currently written, restated his opposition to a public plan. 'I don't want a big-government, Washington-run operation that undermines the private insurance that 200 million Americans now have,' he said on ABC's 'This Week.'"

Read full post…

In the morning, President Obama will receive the Presidential Daily Briefing and meet with senior advisers in the Oval Office. Later, he will deliver remarks at an event highlighting several initiatives designed to boost science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.

Mr. Obama and Vice President Biden will then have lunch in the Private Dining Room.

In the afternoon, Mr. Obama will hold a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room. Later, he will then meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.

In the evening, the president will deliver remarks and present the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award to Magodonga Mahlangu and her organization, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), in an East Room ceremony.

Here's the full schedule from the White House (all times Eastern):

10:20AM: President Obama receives the Presidential Daily Briefing

10:50AM: President Obama meets with senior advisers

11:40AM: President Obama delivers remarks at event highlighting several initiatives designed to boost science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education

12:35PM: President Obama and Vice President Biden have lunch

1:45PM: President Obama meets with his Cabinet

4:50PM: President Obama meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

5:50PM: President Obama delivers remarks and presents the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award

Senate Democrats managed to pull together a 60-vote majority Saturday evening to pass a key vote keeping health care reform legislation on track, despite efforts by Republicans (and a few contentious Democrats) to stall or kill the bill.

There are many issues in the 2,000+ page legislation being debated in the Senate, from insurer abuse, preconditions and spiraling health costs to abortion funding and Medicare taxes. But the most contentious issue popping up continues to be the so-called "public option" — government-backed health care coverage — similar to Medicare but available to anyone who cannot obtain or afford coverage from private insurance companies.

"You have people on one side saying 'I won't vote for a final bill if it's in it,' and you have other people saying, 'I won't vote for a final bill if it's not in it,'" said CBS News political analyst John Dickerson, "and so as Harry Reid and the president try to mollify one group, they end up making the other group angry."

Read full post…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada secured the 60 votes needed to move forward with the historic debate on President Obama’s overhaul of health care today.

Read full post…

Tina Fey reprised a tiny bit of her "Saturday Night Live" Sarah Palin impersonation last night during a presentation at the Ad Council Annual Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

During her 7:40 minute routine, Fey made some jokes about the former McCain vice-presidential candidate's best-selling book, "Going Rogue," and then said (at around 2:40 in the video below), "Mrs. Palin and I continue to have so much in common. They recently made a porn movie... this is true... about Sarah Palin and then this same adult actress, Lisa Ann, played me in a porn parody of '30 Rock' ...Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy."

Fey saved her brief impersonation for the end of her time on stage, starting out in her own voice, "We'll begin with an issue that is," and then in her Palin voice "so critical to the future opportunity."

The audience laughed, and she said, "I'm gonna be doing that 'till I'm dead."





Daniel Farber is editor-in-chief of CBSNews.com.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin (right), a Democrat and the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is arguing that wealthy taxpayers should perhaps shoulder the cost of sending additional troops in Afghanistan.

In an interview for Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital With Al Hunt," the senator suggests funding additional troops with an "additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000."

"They have done incredibly well, and I think that it's important that we pay for it if we possibly can," Levin said, according to Bloomberg. He also called for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to provide half of the new soldiers sent to Afghanistan.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has put the cost of each additional troop at $1 million.

Read full post…

With the first critical vote for the Senate health care bill slated for Saturday night, both advocates and opponents of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill are putting pressure on the few key Democratic senators who may or may not hold up the measure.

On Saturday at 8 p.m., the Senate will vote on whether or not to even begin debate on the measure. Reid needs at least 60 senators to vote in favor of debate, and Republicans plan on uniformly voting against moving forward. A handful of conservative Democrats have expressed reservations about supporting the bill, for various reasons, and two have not yet disclosed whether they will vote in favor of moving the debate forward on Saturday: Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

However, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), another conservative Democrat whose vote was in play, announced today he would vote in favor of beginning debate. He maintained, though, that he will vote with Republicans to filibuster the bill after debating it, if it is not altered to his liking.

"The Senate should start trying to fix a health care system that costs too much and delivers too little for Nebraskans," Nelson said in a statement. Saturday's vote, he said, "is only to begin debate and an opportunity to make improvements. If you don't like a bill why block your own opportunity to amend it?"

Nelson and his fellow centrist Democrats have been feeling the heat from all sides. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) e-mailed his supporters this morning, Politico reports, urging them to call Nelson's office and ask him to vote against the health care debate tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee sent out an e-mail with the subject "Your Call Can Make the Difference," also urging people to call Nelson and Lincoln and ask them to vote against Saturday's motion.

Read full post…

A few notes on the spotlighted players in the Senate's health care vote, in the context of the 2010 elections and their electorates back home. As Majority Leader, Harry Reid (at left) is at center stage and is up in Nevada next year. The focus is also on some Democrats with doubts, notably Louisiana's Mary Landrieu and Nebraska's Ben Nelson, who aren't up but do represent very red states, and Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln, who is, and could face a tough test in 2010.

Nelson Will Vote to Begin Health Debate; What Will Landrieu, Lincoln Do?
Key Provisions of the Senate Health Care Bill
Washington Unplugged: Reid Seeks Momentum in Health Debate
CBSNews.com Special Report: Health Care

Lincoln (at left) not only represents a red state, but one that got even more Republican in 2008 from 2004 (one of the few that did). She needs to be mindful of those Republican voters: one in five of her backers in 2004 had also backed then-President Bush's reelection. To win that race, Lincoln outraised and outspent her opponent by six million dollars, but her Republican challenger still got 44 percent So Lincoln doesn't appear to have a lot of electoral margin for error with Arkansas voters.

On one hand, the state has an uninsured rate higher than the national average. But Lincoln (at left) will also need to make older voters happy, which so far has looked like a daunting task with this bill, at least nationwide.

Read full post…

The final day of President Obama's Asia trip turned into a once in a lifetime experience for a small group of reporters and White House staffers who were taken on a tour of the DMZ, the demilitarized zone between South Korea and its mysterious neighbor to the north, North Korea.

The ride out of Seoul, the South Korean Capital of 12 million people, took about an hour. As we drove along the Han River, we noticed South Korean guard posts every few hundred feet and barbed wire rolling down the banks.

It was an eerie feeling approaching the DMZ as we came up a few checkpoints with anti-vehicle spikes and roadblocks making for delicate driving. Seeing a U.S. soldier salute our van as we drove through made us feel that we had arrived at Camp Bonifas, the United Nations Joint Security Area that comprises the border and is run by the U.S.

Once we got through the first gate, a public affairs officer and a security officer got on board and gave us some basic ground rules, like where we could and could not take pictures. We were all given purple "press" armbands to wear, so we were seen as noncombatants. Our security officer was wearing a yellow one, meaning that he was armed.

We drove past the first few gates and were told not to take any pictures for a while. We passed through security areas, an anti-tank wall and minefield and drove through rice fields before arriving at a large, modern looking, grey stone and glass building. We entered the building and went up an escalator and out another door. We were instructed to stand outside, atop a small set of stairs.

Read full post…