Daily Democratic Wire 9-8-2009

George Wenschhof

Today, President Barack Obama will address children in schools across the nation - he will stress the responsibility each has for their own education. The speech will be delivered from Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia where he and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will first meet with group of students. ThePage.Time.com has the full text of the speech here.

The silliness of the right wing Republican wackos was shown to be just that when former First Lady Laura Bush praised President Obama for his speech to the children in school. CNN.com has more here.

Later this afternoon, the president will meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calf.) to discuss health care reform prior to his speech to Congress tomorrow. Yesterday, in a speech at a AFL-CIO picnic, the president expressed his belief a public option would bring down the cost of health care insurance. MSNBC.com has more here.

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Supreme Court Investiture of Sonia Sotomayor today - at 2:00 PM ET, the formal ceremony will be attended by President Obama and Vice President Biden. Sotomayor was already sworn into office, as is the common practice, so she could begin working on upcoming cases to be heard. USAToday.com has more here.

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Joe Kennedy will not run for open Massachusetts Senate seat - the nephew of the late Senator Ted Kennedy and a former Representative (D.Mass.) announced his decision yesterday. He will stay in his current position with Citizens Energy Commission. TheHill.com has more here.

State Attorney General Martha Coakley has already announced she is running for the seat in the January 19, 2010 special election. State representatives Michael Capuno, John Tiemey, and Stephen Lynch are other Democrats rumored to be considering a run for the seat.

Expect the Governor to be granted authority to appoint an interim Senator this week by the state legislature. A leading contender for the appointment is Michael Dukakis.

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U.N. Commission orders Afghanistan vote recount - not a good sign stability is returning to the country. This comes as President Hamid Karzai is near the 50% needed to avoid a mandated run-off election. The Electoral Complaints Commission has ordered recounts in polling locations where votes exceeded 600 (the most votes that were expected by polling location) and where one candidate received more than 96% of the vote. This action comes after hundreds of complaints of voter fraud in the election. Reuters.com has more here.

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Senate poised to raise National Debt ceiling to over 12 Trillion - earlier the House passed legislation to raise the ceiling to 13 Trillion and the Senate is expected to follow suit. Republican naysayers will use this to again divide the country while bashing President Obama. TheHill .com has more here.

What Republicans will fail to say is the national debt doubled under the George W. Bush administration, rising from 5.4 Trillion when he took office to 11.3 Trillion when he left office.

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