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11:20 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. Please have a seat. Well, on this beautiful morning, we are here to mark the passage of a welcome piece of legislation for our fellow Americans who are seeking work in this difficult economy. But first, let me say a few words about the latest development in the debate over health insurance reform. I don't know if you guys have been hearing, but there's been a big debate going on here. This morning, a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office concludes that the reform we seek would bring $1.3 trillion in deficit...

FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (In Russian.) SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Sergey. Thank you for hosting me and my delegation today in Moscow and thanks to the Russian Government for hosting the Quartet meeting that we will be attending. Since our first meeting in Geneva, a little more than a year ago, Minister Lavrov and I, along with our respective governments under the leadership of both President Medvedev and President Obama, have worked toward a new beginning in the relationship between the United States and Russia. We believe that this reset of the relationship has led to much...

BRET BAIER, "SPECIAL REPORT" HOST: Welcome to Washington. I'm Bret Baier, and this is a special edition of "Special Report", beginning tonight in the Blue Room in the White House, mid-way through what many people are calling the most pivotal week of his presidency so far. We are interviewing President Barack Obama. Mr. President, thank you for the time. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Thank you for having me, Bret. BAIER: You have said at least four times in the past two weeks: "the United States Congress owes the American people a final up or down vote on health...

COOPER: "Raw Politics" tonight, and the raw numbers of health care reform, in human terms, 30-some million Americans who would get access to insurance under the bill. In political terms, we're talking about 216 votes in the House, 51 in the Senate, to get it done. Our next guest, a liberal Democrat from Cleveland, counted himself as a no-vote until today. Quickly, here's the quick before and after picture. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CAMPBELL BROWN," MARCH 4, 2010) REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D), OHIO: The bill is a terribly flawed bill that will lock in the privatization of...

MATTHEWS: Congressman Gerry Connolly‘s a Democrat from Virginia who voted yes back in November for health care and now says he‘s not- Congressman, everybody respects you and your thinking on this. What is it? Where are you on health care right now as the vote comes up on Saturday? REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D), VIRGINIA: Well, first of all, let me wish you a happy St. Patrick‘s Day, Chris. MATTHEWS: Thank you, sir. Same to you... CONNOLLY: The holiest day of the year for (INAUDIBLE) MATTHEWS: With the name Connolly, it‘s...

BLITZER: It's a St. Patrick's Day tradition here in Washington. The Irish prime minister pays a visit and meets with the president. Brian Cowen also had lunch with Mr. Obama and members of Congress. They noted it was first St. Patrick's Day without the late Senator Ted Kennedy. The president went on to pay a light-hearted tribute to people of Irish descent and their contributions to politics. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The truth is they weren't always welcome. There were times where the Irish were caricatured and stereotyped and cursed at and blamed for...

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Senator, nice to see you again. SEN. JUDD GREGG, R - N.H.: Great to see you, Greta, thanks for having me on. VAN SUSTEREN: Senator, the vote in the House looks like it is going to happen soon. GREGG: Is there going to be a vote in the House? I thought they were going to deem this. VAN SUSTEREN: Well, whatever is going to happen, something is going to happen in the House, and it is going to come back to be an issue in the United States Senate. What's the GOP plan? GREGG: First, I think you're sent here to vote, to do your job. The American people...

Barack Obama said 3,341 words before he advocated health care reform during his State of the Union address. It was indicative of the White House pledge to pivot to jobs in 2010. As early as last Thanksgiving, the president declared, "I will not rest until businesses are investing again and businesses are hiring again and people have work again." Nearly four months later, Obama continues to spend most of his waking hours attempting to pass a health care bill. No legislation has so engulfed Washington in decades. What's intriguing today is the thunderclap unheard. It's the...

WASHINGTON -- Doubling down on dubious bets is characteristic of compulsive gamblers and federal education policy. The nation was essentially without such policy for grades K through 12, and better off for that, until 1965. In that year of liberals living exuberantly, they produced the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Now yet another president has announced yet another plan to fix education. His aspiration has a discouraging pedigree. In 1983, three years after Jimmy Carter paid his debt to teachers' unions by creating the Education Department, a national commission declared...

Another funny thing happened in what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised would be "the most ethical Congress in history." Monica Conyers, the wife of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, pleaded guilty last year to a federal charge of conspiracy to commit bribery that prompted her to resign from the Detroit City Council last year. This month, she was sentenced to 37 months in prison. One could argue that his wife's felony conviction should not reflect on Conyers' chairmanship of the committee that has jurisdiction over federal courts, in that U.S. Attorney...

Go visit potato country at the tippy-top of Maine. There, struggling farmers can look across the St. John River at equally hard-pressed potato growers in New Brunswick, Canada. The big difference between them is that if one of the Mainers falls grievously ill, the family may have to sell the farm to pay medical bills. The Canadian family doesn't. This in-your-face gap in health care security is most keenly felt along the border with Canada. That makes the determination by Maine's two "moderate" Republican senators to oppose health care reform all the more extraordinary....

Surprise, surprise. Sen. Chris Dodd's financial-regulation proposal raises the possibility of substantial progress on the road to ending "too big to fail" and bailout nation for banks and other financial institutions. How the Dodd bill will play out in the final details remains to be seen. But when you read the Dodd fact sheet, there are a few key items to like. First, under the Dodd scheme, large complex companies will have to submit plans for rapid and orderly shutdowns should they go under. These are called "funeral plans." Then, in terms of these orderly...

Demagogues often prosper under the rules of democracy, intimidating the moderate and preying on the weak-minded. But in a healthy society, such figures cannot cross a final threshold of decency without jeopardizing their own status -- and today's right-wing nihilists seem to be on the verge of doing just that. When Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president, questions the loyalty of anyone who stands up for the human rights of prisoners in the "war on terror," she is treading very close to that line. Operating behind a front group called Keep America Safe,...

When I heard about the proposal to replace Ulysses S. Grant with Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill, I had two thoughts. The first: Grant is on the $50 bill? The second: Jimmy Carter is going to be furious. Not that there's anything wrong with that! I'm in favor of the idea, partly because it would give us a break from the bitter partisan warfare over the problems of the 21st century, allowing us to enjoy bitter partisan warfare over the problems of the 1980s. But there is something else to be said for the proposal. Americans are enamored of change, in cars, clothing, communication, you...

The Democratic leadership's struggle to pass the Senate health care bill in the House looks like a great case study for political scientists. They have many examples of the leaders of a party majority trying to push controversial legislation through a balky chamber. But seldom have the political incentives of the party leadership and the party's members been so differently aligned. There is always some misalignment. Even when the party's president and policies are widely popular, some of its House members will be representing districts where that is not so, where they win...

Seeing Rielle Hunter sprawled like an aging model on the pages of GQ raises once again the question: Should there be a legal right to commit adultery? The ACLU says yes, and so does much of the family law bar that seeks to strip the law of all vestiges of "judgmentalism" (at least when it comes to sex). But what do the rest of us think? Here's what I think: There's something wrong with a society that permits adultery to become a pathway to commercial success. Adultery involves twin offenses: (1) the violation by a married person of his or her vows; and (2) a third...

WASHINGTON -- One of the tragedies of the viciously politicized battle over health care reform is the defection of the nation's Roman Catholic bishops from a cause they have championed for decades. Indifferent to political fashions, the bishops were the strongest voices in support of universal health coverage, a position rooted in Catholic social thought that calls for a special solicitude toward the poor. Yet on the make-or-break roll call that will determine the fate of health care reform, bishops are urging that the bill be voted down. They are doing so on the basis of a highly...

Candidate Barack Obama promised immigration activists, "I think it's time for a president who won't walk away from something as important as comprehensive reform when it becomes politically unpopular." Now pressure groups are demanding Obama come through on his pledges. In response, the administration may trump the health-care debate with another divisive issue -- "comprehensive reform" on immigration -- that is surely just as "politically unpopular." After the failure of the polarizing cap-and-trade bill, and the current blood-on-the-floor fight over...

Washington, D.C. is consumed with talk of healthcare reform. This is not popular with the rest of the country, if polls are anything like a reliable indicator. Yet everybody here keeps jawing about it because President Barack Obama is determined that a bill simply must pass. He speechifies about it endlessly and he and his surrogates are busy twisting arms until enough members of his own party cry "Uncle!" In a telling phrase, the AP reported that Obama was "turning up pressure as only presidents can" in search of those final votes. He met privately with several members of...

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Frank, Ranking Member Bachus, and other members of the Committee, I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the Federal Reserve's role in bank supervision and the actions that we are taking to strengthen our supervisory oversight. The Federal Reserve's Role in Supervision Like many central banks around the world, the Federal Reserve cooperates with other agencies in regulating and supervising the banking system.1 Our specific responsibilities include the oversight of about 5,000 bank holding companies, including the umbrella...