Saturday, February 23, 2013

Statement by the President on Senator Harkin

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For Immediate Release January 26, 2013 Statement by the President on Senator Harkin By the time Senator Harkin finishes his fifth term, he will have represented the people of Iowa in the United States Congress for an incredible 40 years. He has served in the U.S. Senate longer than any Democrat in Iowa's history. During his tenure, he has fought passionately to improve quality of life for Americans with disabilities and their families, to reform our education system and ensure that every American has access to affordable health care. Senator Harkin will be missed, and Michelle and I join Iowans in thanking him for his long-standing service and wish him and his wife, Ruth, all the best in the future.

Blog posts on this issue January 26, 2013 5:30 AM ESTWeekly Address: Two Nominees Who Will Fight for the American People

President Obama discusses his nomination of Mary Jo White to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and Richard Cordray to continue as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

January 25, 2013 5:12 PM ESTWeekly Wrap Up: Our People, Our Future

Here’s a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov.

January 25, 2013 3:01 PM ESTMeet the Next White House Chief of StaffMeet the Next White House Chief of Staff

President Obama taps Denis McDonough to serve as his chief of staff and lead the team at the White House.

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Open Thread And Cartoon Of The Week

Opine away.

For more Jen Sorensen gems, click here.

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Before Calling 911, Sheriff Tells Residents To Get ‘In The Game’ With A Gun

Wisconsin County Sheriff David Clarke is facing backlash for telling Milwaukee, Wisconsin residents to get a gun for emergencies, rather than call 911. In a radio ad, Clarke claims personal and public safety is no longer a “spectator sport,” and urges civilians to “get in the game” before police arrive to a scene:

I’m Sheriff David Clarke, and I want to talk to you about something personal…your safety. It’s no longer a spectator sport; I need you in the game, but are you ready?

With officers laid-off and furloughed, simply calling 9-1-1 and waiting is no longer your best option. You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back; but are you prepared? Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there. You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We’re partners now. Can I count on you?

Clarke told the Associated Press he chose to get “creative” about facing “fewer and fewer resources” in his department. “After sitting down and thinking about this, I’m thinking ‘Hey, I’ve got an untapped reserve over here, and it’s the public,’” he said.

While it is true police departments have thinned — thanks to Republican public sector budget cuts — Clarke has an absurd expectation that citizens could act as interim police officers, with minimal firearm training. Armed citizens usually do not stop violent crime, and their intervention only increases the danger and bloodshed, “given that civilian shooters are less likely to hit their targets than police in these circumstances.”


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Earnings Preview: Pfizer to focus on new drug OKs

Pfizer Inc. will tout a surge of new drug approvals, and an acquisition that's brought the world's biggest drugmaker another new medicine, when it reports fourth-quarter results Tuesday morning.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR: CEO Ian Read will note the key approvals, led by Eliquis, a potential blockbuster that's part of a new generation of blood thinners.

Read likely will update investors on efforts to boost revenue and streamline Pfizer by shedding noncore businesses, including the pending $11.5 billion sale of its nutrition business to Nestle SA and the planned spinoff of the $4.2 billion-a-year animal health business. Last week, Pfizer disclosed plans to sell 86.1 million stock shares in the new company, Zoetis, for $22 to $25 each.

Company executives should discuss early sales trends for the newest drugs and one approved in September: Bosulif for treating the blood cancer chronic myeloid leukemia in patients with a specific genetic variation.

The New York-based company really needs the drugs. Generic rivals are wiping out sales of roughly two-thirds of its medicines. While its rivals also face generic competition, Pfizer has a particularly daunting job: trying to make up for billions lost since cholesterol fighter Lipitor got U.S. generic competition in December 2011.

Lipitor had reigned for about a decade as the world's best-selling drug, with peak sales around $13 billion. It still brought Pfizer more than $10 billion annually when the generics hit. Patent protection also has ended in many other big markets.

Lipitor sales plunged 71 percent to $749 million in the third quarter, cutting net income 14 percent. None of the new drugs can replace those billions, but together they'll help.

Pfizer and partner Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. plan to launch Eliquis, a twice-a-day pill, with lots of fanfare in early February. It was approved the last week of December in the U.S. and Japan, the two biggest prescription drug markets, after getting European Union approval in 2011.

Analysts rate Eliquis the best of three new anticlotting drugs. However, Pradaxa, from German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim, and Xarelto from partners Johnson & Johnson and Bayer Healthcare, have been on the U.S. market for at least 18 months. It could be tough to persuade patients and doctors satisfied with Xarelto or Pradaxa to try Eliquis.

Meanwhile, Xeljanz, or tofacitinib, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in November to slow progression of rheumatoid arthritis. It's the first drug in a promising new class called JAK inhibitors.

Pfizer's blockbuster vaccine against meningitis and other pneumococcal infections, Prevnar 13, got EU approval on Jan. 8 for children aged 6 to 17. It was already approved for younger children and adults 50 and older, and is approved in the U.S.

In October, Pfizer won conditional EU approval for Xalkori, for lung cancer patients with a particular genetic mutation. Pfizer must submit data from a recently completed study to get full marketing approval.

And in late November, Pfizer bought NextWave Pharmaceuticals Inc., gaining its recently approved long-acting liquid medicine for attention deficit disorder, Quillivant XR. It was launched in the U.S. on Jan. 14. NextWave is also developing an extended-release chewable version.

Pfizer executives likely will note recent results from two studies of its smoking cessation pill Chantix, particularly one that found it safe for patients with depression. It's been on sale since 2006, but EU regulators requested the study because of concerns over side effects, including depression and suicidal thoughts. The results will help Pfizer fight more than 2,000 lawsuits blaming the drug for psychiatric side effects.

The company also should give a 2013 profit forecast.

WHY IT MATTERS: Pfizer's top-selling drugmaker crown is threatened by all the generic competition to its drugs for the masses. It's been cutting costs by slashing jobs and selling factories and office buildings since its $68 billion acquisition of Wyeth in 2009. Now it needs to rebuild its revenue base, and the recent spike in medicine approvals helps.

Before those approvals, Pfizer had been frustrated by numerous failures of experimental drugs late in expensive patient testing. Read has narrowed the fields in which Pfizer is developing new drugs as it focuses more on expensive cancer and other targeted drugs.

WHAT'S EXPECTED: Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect, on average, earnings of 44 cents per share and sales of $14.35 billion.

LAST YEAR'S QUARTER: Pfizer posted net income of $1.44 billion, or 19 cents per share, on revenue of $16.75 billion.

___

Linda A. Johnson can be followed at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma


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World Bank President On Climate Crisis: ‘If There Is No Action Soon, The Future Will Become Bleak’

Jim Yong Kim Promises To Factor In Global Warming “With Every Investment We Make And Every Action We Take.”

You may recall the shocking World Bank Climate Report from November that concluded: “A 4°C [7°F] world can, and must, be avoided” to avert “devastating” impacts.

What impacts? The must-read report warns that “we’re on track for a 4°C warmer world marked by extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life-threatening sea level rise.”

Now World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has a strong WashPost op-ed that warns “we need to get serious fast” to avoid the looming “climate catastrophe.” He explains:

The signs of global warming are becoming more obvious and more frequent. A glut of extreme weather conditions is appearing globally. And the average temperature in the United States last year was the highest ever recorded….

If there is no action soon, the future will become bleak. The World Bank Group released a reportin November that concluded that the world could warm by 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) by the end of this century if concerted action is not taken now.

A world that warm means seas would rise 1.5 to 3 feet, putting at risk hundreds of millions of city dwellers globally. It would mean that storms once dubbed “once in a century” would become common, perhaps occurring every year. And it would mean that much of the United States, from Los Angeles to Kansas to the nation’s capital, would feel like an unbearable oven in the summer.

What does the physician and anthropologist recommend we do?

The world’s top priority must be to get finance flowing and get prices right on all aspects of energy costs to support low-carbon growth. Achieving a predictable price on carbon that accurately reflects real environmental costs is key to delivering emission reductions at scale. Correct energy pricing can also provide incentives for investments in energy efficiency and cleaner energy technologies.

A second immediate step is to end harmful fuel subsidies globally, which could lead to a 5?percent fall in emissions by 2020. Countries spend more than $500?billion annually in fossil-fuel subsidies and an additional $500?billion in other subsidies, often related to agriculture and water, that are, ultimately, environmentally harmful. That trillion dollars could be put to better use for the jobs of the future, social safety nets or vaccines.

Kim certainly talks to the talk when it comes to the implications of the climate crisis for the Bank itself:

Just as the Bretton Woods institutions were created to prevent a third world war, the world needs a bold global approach to help avoid the climate catastrophe it faces today. The World Bank Group is ready to work with others to meet this challenge. With every investment we make and every action we take, we should have in mind the threat of an even warmer world and the opportunity of inclusive green growth.

Let’s hope he means it. The Bank’s inconsistency on climate has been widely noted — see “Why Does the World Bank Say it Cares About Climate Change, But Continue to Aggressively Push Coal?” The Bank has kept financing large coal plants — most infamously providing a $3.75 billion loan for one of the world’s largest coal plants, located in South Africa. The Bank also pushed a 600-MW coal plant in Kosovo.

Even after the report was released, many questions were raised about whether the Bank would walk the walk:

On the basis of the report and this new op-ed, the bank must stop funding all new fossil fuel plants. I use the word “must” because that is the word the report and President Kim repeatedly use.

And it must be “all new fossil fuel plants” because the International Energy Agency has made clear this year with detailed analysis that natural gas isn’t the solution if your goal is staying far from 7°F warming — see IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change. It must be noted that even that IEA gas scenario, which results in too much warning, assumes that not only does global oil consumption peak around 2020 — but so does coal! So if one or both of those peaks don’t happen — and they wouldn’t without a high price of carbon and aggressively clean energy deployment starting now — then the Golden Age of Gas is just Hell and High Water, the  “devastating” scenario laid out in the World Bank report.

The findings of the Bank report match those of PricewaterhouseCoopers, which found that limiting warming to even 7°F requires “nearly quadrupling the current rate of decarbonisation.” That means the only rational clean-tech strategy for a non-suicidal species is “Deploy, Deploy, Deploy, R&D, Deploy, Deploy, Deploy“ [yes, not in that order].

And 4°C [7°F]  is not even the high end of projected warming for 2100 if we stay near our current emissions path (see “The IEA And Others Warn Of Some 11°F Warming by 2100).”

Kim’s ending is simple but blunt:

After the hottest year on record in the United States, a year in which Hurricane Sandy caused billions of dollars in damagerecord droughts scorched farmland in the Midwest and our organization reported that the planet could become more than 7 degrees warmer, what are we waiting for? We need to get serious fast. The planet, our home, can’t wait.

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Paul Ryan Embraces Spending Cuts He Said Would Devastate The Country

During an interview on Meet The Press on Sunday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) predicted that the sequester cuts are “going to happen” and made no concrete proposals for how to avoid the reductions. The tone represents a sharp rhetorical and policy shift for the onetime GOP vice presidential nominee, who warned during the 2012 presidential campaign that the cuts would “devastate” the country and undermine job growth.

“I think the sequester is going to happen,” Ryan said, referring to the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts to the Pentagon and other government agencies that will go into effect unless Congress approves offsets. He charged that Democrats rejected the GOP’s replacement legislation — the bill cut the food-stamp program, slashed Medicaid, undermined funding for the Affordable Care Act and disaster relief — and failed to produce their own alternatives:

RYAN: If Mitt Romney and I won the election, they would not have happened. You know why? Because we would have gone and worked with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to actually put the budget on a path to balance and would have saved defense. So where are we now? I think the sequester is going to happen because that $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, we can’t lose those spending cuts. [...] But we think these sequesters will happen because the Democrats have opposed our efforts to replace those cuts with others and they’ve offered no alternatives.

In fact, Democrats introduced offsets in the hopes of reaching a grand bargain that could turn off the sequester and avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.

Days before House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) abandoned negotiations with President Obama to advance his failed Plan B, the White House paired a tax increase on the richest Americans with spending cuts of $1.22 trillion over 10 years, including “adopting a new measure of inflation that slows the growth of government benefits, especially Social Security.” Despite Ryan’s claims, the Democrats’ plan contained: $400 billion in savings “from federal health care programs; $200 billion from other so-called mandatory programs, like farm price supports, not subject to Congress’s annual spending bills; $100 billion from military spending; and $100 billion from domestic programs under Congress’s annual discretion.”

Ryan also reiterated that Republicans won’t support additional revenues to turn off the sequester, noting that the American Taxpayer Relief Act — the last minute law that averted the fiscal cliff — included an increase in taxes on couples making more than $450,000 annually and singles making more than $400,000. “The point is, though, the president got his additional revenues. So that’s behind us,” Ryan said on Sunday.

The comments represent another retreat for Ryan, who backed Mitt Romney’s proposal to raise revenues by eliminating tax loopholes and deductions for the wealthiest Americans. Those reforms were not included in the American Taxpayer Relief Act and could be part of a package that reforms tax breaks for high-income individuals and corporations, generating “$1 trillion in potential savings over 10 years” — more than enough to replace the sequester.


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McCain: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Must Include Path To Citizenship

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) confirmed on Sunday morning that he that he and a bipartisan group of senators will roll out a comprehensive immigration reform effort in Congress. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain, who has previously fluctuated on his support of a full path to citizenship, stressed that any reform bill must include such a measure, and that the effort must be done in one piece of all-encompassing legislation.

His support for the bill is a pivot from earlier comments that citizenship for undocumented immigrants would be “amnesty.” But McCain defended his shift by pointing out how citizenship for Latinos would benefit the Republican party, and by questioning what would otherwise happen to those undocumented people “living in the shadows”:

MARTHA RADDATZ (HOST): Citizenship is obviously the most controversial aspect for some of your Republican colleagues, and you’ve gone back and forth. In 2005 you were for it. By 2010 you wanted border security first and, quote, certainly no amnesty, so you’re solidly behind a pathway to citizenship. How do you convince some of those Republicans who are not behind it?

MCCAIN: Well, first of all, I’ve always been for border security. I mean, there are citizens in my state who do not live in a secure environment.[...]

RADDATZ: So how do you convince Republicans about the path to citizenship?

MCCAIN: Well, look, I’ll give you a little straight talk. Look at the last election. Look at the last election. We are losing dramatically the Hispanic vote, which we think should be ours for a variety of reasons, and we’ve got to understand that. Second of all, we can’t go on forever with 11 million people living in this country in the shadows in an illegal status. We cannot forever have children who were brought here by their parents when they were small children to live in the shadows, as well. So I think the time is right.

McCain said that Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and others will be working on the legislation. The exact outline of what will be in the bill is unclear, but McCain said the Senators will announce its key “principles” this week.

President Obama, for his part, will be traveling to Las Vegas on Tuesday to announce his own push for immigration reform. His plan will follow an immigration reform blueprint the administration released last year. It includes a path to citizenship, and Obama has stressed that a comprehensive immigration bill will be “a top priority” in his second term.


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Durbin: Senate immigration plan will be comprehensive, include citizenship path

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) on Sunday revealed key details about a bipartisan immigration-reform plan, saying the legislation would be comprehensive and would include a pathway to citizenship.

Durbin said the group of six senators was working on a comprehensive approach to the issue, as opposed to moving individual elements piecemeal and was optimistic they were close to their goal.

“Sitting in these meetings with three Democrats and three Republicans, working on this immigration issue has been as encouraging as the rules vote on Thursday night,” Durbin said on “Fox News Sunday”, referencing a bipartisan agreement in the Senate last week to tweak the filibuster rules.

“We are trying to work our way through some very difficult issues but we are committed to working on a comprehensive approach to finally in this country have an immigration law we can live with,” he added.

Durbin's group is expected to outline their proposals later this week.

His comments are the latest encouraging news for advocates of immigration reform.

Last week, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) voiced confidence in the prospects for immigration reform in the House, saying that a bipartisan group of lawmakers “basically [has] an agreement” after more than three years of secret talks.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is working in the group on immigration reform, has also been quietly building conservative support on the issue.

Rubio in the past supported a piecemeal approach, however. And while Rubio has openly discussed a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, he has included strict caveats.

Rubio would grant temporary legal status to those who passed background checks, underwent fingerprinting, demonstrated English skills, and could prove having an extended residence in the country. These newly legalized immigrants could apply for permanent residency leading to citizenship but would not receive any expedited consideration. They would have to apply through the same channels as aspiring immigrants outside the nation’s borders.

Rubio’s purported plan received an important endorsement from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) last week.

President Obama is also preparing to launch a major push for comprehensive immigration reform with a speech in Las Vegas next week, where he is expected to outline his proposals.

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Secret Service dog dies after fall from roof at Biden event

A Secret Service dog died in New Orleans Saturday night when it fell from a parking garage during a sweep for an event featuring Vice President Biden, the Secret Service said Sunday.

The dog fell from a parking garage at the New Orleans Ritz-Carlton, where Biden was speaking at a fundraiser for Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) Saturday night.

“It was a tragic accident,” Secret Service spokesman Max Milien told The Hill Sunday.

Milien said the Secret Service was not releasing the name and age of the dog, a Belgian Malinois.

The Secret Service has a K-9 division created in the 1970s, the Canine Explosives Detection Unit, which pairs bomb-sniffing dogs with handlers to search for drugs, explosives and firearms.

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Sen. Feinstein: Passing gun-control legislation is ‘hardest’ challenge

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Sunday that she will push her assault-weapons ban as an amendment if it doesn’t get into the package that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) allows on the floor.

Reid has said he will allow an open amendment process for gun-control legislation on the Senate floor — which gun-control proponents fear could weaken a final bill — but Feinstein said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that she would also force a vote on renewing the assault-weapons ban.

She said that’s how it happened in 1993, when the ban was first passed.

“This has always been an uphill fight,” Feinstein said. “This has never been easy — this is the hardest of the hard.”

Feinstein introduced legislation this week to ban assault weapons at a press conference flanked by a group of Democratic senators and the guns they want to ban displayed behind them.

The ban faces a difficult fight in the Senate, as Republicans and a handful of Democrats have said they are opposed to banning assault weapons again.

Feinstein said Sunday that the Newtown, Conn. shootings was an “epiphany” for her, and that the country has reached the point where “enough is enough.”

She accused the National Rifle Association (NRA) of being “an institution of gun manufacturers” and said they their tactics had targeted lawmakers eager for compromise.

“They come after you — they put together large amounts of money to defeat you,” Feinstein said. “They did this in 1993,” when the first assault-weapons ban passed.

The NRA’s CEO Wayne LaPierre will be testifying at Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing on gun control.

Feinstein, who sits on the Judiciary panel, wouldn’t disclose Sunday what she would ask him, only saying: “You can be sure I will have some questions for him.”

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Corker: Court ruling could invalidate recent NLRB, consumer bureau actions

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Sunday a recent court ruling “could well” invalidate a year’s worth of actions made by President Obama’s appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

On Friday, a federal appeals court ruled that Obama's controversial appointments of a trio of members to head the NLRB were unconstitutional. Those appointments were made the same day Obama named Richard Cordray as the first director of the CFPB, leading many to question whether Cordray's appointment could be the next to be struck down.

Corker was asked directly if the ruling invalidates the “more than 300 rulings made by the NLRB over the last year,” and anything accomplished under Cordray at the CFPB, during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Could well do it,” Corker responded. “In each case someone might have to challenge those rulings to make them invalid, but certainly that’s what we said at the time – these people were going to be working in vain and the rulings that they come forth with were going to be challenged. That’s turned out to be the case.”

Corker added that the court ruling “was a huge victory for anybody that believes in balance of power and the Constitution,” and called the appointments “the most abusive cases ever” of presidential overreach.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D), appearing on the same show, shot back that the administration made the appointments out of “frustration” that Republicans in the Senate refused to give Obama appointees a fair hearing.

“Why did we reach this point? Why did the president believe these recess appointments were so critical,” Durbin asked. “I think you can see we reached that point because we couldn’t go through the orderly process of reviewing nominees and literally voting on them. It was a question about how often they would be brought to the floor, how long they would languish on the calendar, what secret hold would apply, whether or not there would ever be a vote. And in its frustration this administration said we were elected to govern… they wanted to put people in place to govern.”

A filibuster-proof number of Republicans blocked Cordray's nomination at the end of 2011. They warned that they would oppose any nominee to head the bureau until its structure was changed so it was run by a bipartisan commission instead of a lone director.

“We have seen this president denied the opportunity to make appointments over and over and over again because one senator happens to hate a particular agency or person,” Durbin said. “For goodness sakes, give them a hearing, give them a vote.”

At the time of the move, Congress had been holding brief "pro forma sessions," lasting just a few minutes, in an effort to keep Congress in session over longer breaks, thereby blocking recess appointments. The White House argued after it made the appointments that these brief sessions do not constitute legitimate sessions of Congress.

The NLRB court ruling came one day after Obama had re-nominated Cordray as CFPB director. His recess appointment, if it is not struck down, would expire at the end of 2013.

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Daily Guidance for the Vice President

Daily Guidance for the Vice President | The White House Skip to main content | Skip to footer site map The White House. President Barack Obama The White House Emblem Get Email UpdatesContact Us Go to homepage. The White House Blog Photos & Videos Photo Galleries Video Performances Live Streams Podcasts 2012: A Year in Photos

A unique view of 2012

2012: A Year in Photos

Briefing Room Your Weekly Address Speeches & Remarks Press Briefings Statements & Releases White House Schedule Presidential Actions Executive Orders Presidential Memoranda Proclamations Legislation Pending Legislation Signed Legislation Vetoed Legislation Nominations & Appointments Disclosures Visitor Access Records Financial Disclosures 2012 Annual Report to Congress 2011 Annual Report to Congress 2010 Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff A Commitment to Transparency

Browse White House visitor logs

President Obama greets White House visitors

Issues Civil Rights It Gets Better Defense End of Iraq War Disabilities Economy Jobs Reform and Fiscal Responsibility Strengthening the Middle Class A Plan for Refinancing Support for Business Education Energy & Environment Ethics Foreign Policy Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Taxes Tax Receipt The Buffett Rule Rural Urban Policy Veterans Joining Forces Technology Seniors & Social Security Service Snapshots Creating Jobs Health Care Small Business PreK-12 Education Women Violence Prevention Now Is The Time

To do something about gun violence

Now Is The Time

7 Things You Need to Know

About the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012

Explore the President's Plan

The Administration We the People

Create and Sign Petitions Now

We the People

President Barack Obama Vice President Joe Biden First Lady Michelle Obama Dr. Jill Biden The Cabinet 2010 Video Reports White House Staff Chief of Staff Jack Lew Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann DeParle Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco Counselor to the President Peter Rouse Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett Executive Office of the President Other Advisory Boards About the White House White House On the Go

Download our mobile apps

Download our mobile apps

2012: A Year in Photos

A unique view of 2012

2012: A Year in Photos

Inside the White House Interactive Tour West Wing Tour Video Series Décor and Art Holidays Presidents First Ladies The Oval Office The Vice President's Residence & Office Eisenhower Executive Office Building Camp David Air Force One White House Fellows President’s Commission About the Fellowship Current Class Staff Bios News and Newsletters White House Internships About Program Presidential Department Descriptions Selection Process Internship Timeline & FAQs Tours & Events 2012 Easter Egg Roll Kitchen Garden Tours Mobile Apps Our Government The Executive Branch The Legislative Branch The Judicial Branch The Constitution Federal Agencies & Commissions Elections & Voting State & Local Government Resources /* Maximize height of menu features. */if(typeof(jQuery)!='undefined')jQuery.each($('#topnav'),function(i,v){var o=$(v),oh=o.height(),sh=o.siblings().height();if(oh HomeBriefing Room • Statements & Releases   The White House

Office of the Vice President

For Immediate Release January 27, 2013 Daily Guidance for the Vice President

Monday, January 28, 2013

In the morning, the Vice President will attend the Presidential Daily Briefing in the Oval Office.

In the afternoon, the President and the Vice President will meet for lunch in the Private Dining Room.

Blog posts on this issue January 26, 2013 5:30 AM ESTWeekly Address: Two Nominees Who Will Fight for the American People

President Obama discusses his nomination of Mary Jo White to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and Richard Cordray to continue as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

January 25, 2013 5:12 PM ESTWeekly Wrap Up: Our People, Our Future

Here’s a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov.

January 25, 2013 3:01 PM ESTMeet the Next White House Chief of StaffMeet the Next White House Chief of Staff

President Obama taps Denis McDonough to serve as his chief of staff and lead the team at the White House.

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