Daily Democratic Wire 1-19-2010

George Wenschhof

All eyes are on Massachusetts today - polls opened at 7:00 AM and will close at 8 PM ET for this special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy senate seat. Polling has favored the Republican challenger Scott Brown. The weather is cold and wet which hurts Democrat Martha Coakley who needs heavy Democratic voter turnout to win. It is estimated 1.6 - 2.2 million out of 4 million registered voters will cast their ballots today. The Boston Herald has more here.

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President Obama will give State of The Union address on Wednesday January 27 - perhaps he knows something the rest of us do not know as to how close Congress is to sending him a bill to sign for health care reform. He had made it known he wanted the bill for his signature prior to his speech. The Massachusetts Senate special election today may also foul up the works for the President. In addition to discussing domestic and foreign policy issues, Obama will present his 2011 budget to Congress. The speech will be televised beginning at 9:00 PM ET. TheHill.com has more here.

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Today, President Barack Obama unveils his request for an additional 1.35 billion for Education - this is for the program "Race to the Top" which states compete for funding. Unfortunately, the program which was funded for 4.3 billion under the 787 billion stimulus bill has yet to award a single state any money. Look to see this receive scrutiny when the 2011 Budget is debated. The announcement will be made at a elementary school in Virginia. Time.com has more here.

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Citigroup posts 7.6 billion 4th Quarter loss - the U.S third largest bank attributed part of the loss to the repayment of bailout funds from the government. Regardless, this is not a good sign for the economy. Watch for stocks to fall today. This report was also released after President Obama announced his intention to add a special tax to Banks to speed up the repayment of the bailout funds. Reuters.com has more here.

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Aid reaching Port-au-Prince slowly - the near total devastation of an impoverished country has made the relief efforts all that more difficult, yet the aid is beginning to get to the people of Haiti. The NY Times has more here.

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Thousands of telephone calls collected by FBI between 2002-2006 were done so illegally - they were collected under the guise of terrorism emergencies. In an article written by the Washington Post, they indicate emails they reviewed showed "counter terrorism officials did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties." The Washington Post has more here.

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