• Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) calls in at 6:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform and the GOP’s attack against his proposals.
• Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform.
• Jennifer Palmieri, Senior Vice President for Communications at the Center for American Progress, calls in at 8:05am Pacific to talk about health care reform, the economy, and today’s “Beer Summit” at the White House.
• Two of the three Senate GOPers negotiating a bipartisan deal on health care reform said late yesterday they consider an agreement out of reach before the Senate goes on its August recess. In the House, an agreement between 4 Blue Dog Dems and the House leadership allowed committee debate to resume, but put off a vote by the full House until after the August recess.
• In a new NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll, 42 percent now say the president’s health care plan is a bad idea, a 10 point increase since last month. The poll also finds that Obama’s overall job-approval rating has dropped to 53 percent.
• President Obama will have to set aside health care reform to revisit the racially charged issue that stole the spotlight from his health care push last week – the arrest of his Harvard professor friend. Obama will meet with Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at the White House today, each one chugging his favorite beer, in a public attempt to move past the emotional event.
