Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) just indicated that the Senate might take up the unemployment benefits extension on Tuesday. The federally extended benefits, covered in detail here , lapsed at the end of May — leaving approximately 300,000 families per week, living in states with unemployment rates over 8 percent, without checks. The bill will retroactively approve benefits, and re-up funds until the end of November.

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For 2.1 Million Unemployed, Benefits Extension Will Have to Wait Until Tuesday

Nigeria: Senate Uncovers N80 Billion Scam AllAfrica.com Describing activities of the PIC as shrouded in fraud and under-declarations, the panel also named Transnational Corporation (TRANSCORP), wife of a serving … and more

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) today is accusing Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate majority leader, of playing politics with the federal extension of unemployment benefits. He says Reid rejected a compromise, offsetting half the cost of the bill with stimulus money, to keep the blocked unemployment extension as a cudgel against the GOP. Here is Voinovich’s full statement : I have supported tens-of-billions of dollars in assistance for unemployed families in Ohio thus far and last week supported another unemployment insurance extension which was paid for. Unfortunately my Democratic colleagues blocked that amendment offered by Senator John Thune which also would have paid for tax extenders and FMAP without borrowing money on the credit card of our children and grandchildren. In order to move forward, yesterday I told Leader Reid that I would support extending unemployment insurance if Democrats would be willing to use some of the estimated $40 billion in unspent stimulus monies to help offset at least half of the stand-alone unemployment insurance extension. He flatly rejected this request even though Democratic Leadership was going to take $10 billion from the stimulus to help pay for business tax breaks just last week. My concern is that the Democrats are more interested in having this issue to demagogue for political gamesmanship than they are in simply passing the benefits extension. I came to the table with a fair compromise and the ball is in their court. Voinovich might have been and still might be the decisive 60th and final vote for cloture on the bill, stalled out for a month now, costing 1.2 million Americans extended benefits. He has voted for earlier incarnations of the extension. Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine are a likely yes for the bill; Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is a likely no — leaving Democrats one short .

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Voinovich: Reid More Interested in Bashing GOP Than Passing Unemployment Extension Bill

The House is currently voting to move a standalone unemployment insurance bill, and I’ll update when they are done. But encouraging news from the Senate side as well for unemployed Americans looking for a benefits extension. A Senate Democratic leadership aide says Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is working with members of the Republican caucus and hopes to move a standalone bill this week, possibly Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s (D-Mich.) or possibly another provision — before the July 4 recess.

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Reid Working With Republican Caucus to Move UI Bill

The jobs bill, which includes an extension to unemployment benefits among other provisions, could be passed if Democrats would be willing to pay for it with stimulus money and offset other spending, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in an interview with TWI sister site The Iowa Independent . Last week the bill failed to garner the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. “Ninety percent of the bill isn’t controversial,” Grassley said, concluding that the big problem is that he and many other lawmakers don’t want to add to the federal deficit. He chided Democrats for refusing to pay fully for the legislation with offsetting savings, revenue increases or the remaining federal stimulus funds. Even though Democrats repeatedly cut the bill in an effort to win Republican backing, the latest version would have added $55 billion to the nation’s $1.4 trillion deficit over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Grassley said he’s heard from his constituents that they are tired of the government running up huge debt, and that the message is starting to get through to Democrats as well. “It wasn’t just Republicans who voted against the bill in the U.S. House,” he said. “There were plenty of Blue Dog Democrats who don’t agree with this type of spending either.” He added that in February, he and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) put forth a bill that would have extended unemployment benefits and other important items in the jobs bill, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) killed the measure. “It was paid for,” Grassley said. “We could have passed that in three days instead of wasting three weeks.” Reid said at the time that the Baucus-Grassley bill wouldn’t do enough to show voters that the Senate was serious about addressing the unemployment problem, focusing too much on tax cuts and not enough on job creation. Critics also pointed out that extensions of both unemployment and COBRA benefits would have run only three months in Grassley’s legislation.

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Grassley: Unemployment Extension Will Pass If Dems Can Pay for It

Pulling the Medicare provision out of the stalled jobs bill and voting on it separately, the Senate unanimously agreed this afternoon to delay a 21 percent cut to doctors’ Medicare reimbursement rates until December. Due to the weeks it has taken the Senate to get to voting on the jobs bill — also known as the extenders’ package or H.R. 4213 — a fix would have lapsed and the cut to doctors’ payments would have gone into effect for procedures from June 1 forward. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have stalled on processing the payments, to give Congress time to get its act together. The House now needs to vote to approve the “ doc-fix ” provision. It is expected to do so first thing next week.

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Senate Delays Medicare Reimbursement Cut Until December

Democrats have been trimming and cutting and adding measures to the jobs bill — also known as the extenders’ bill or H.R. 4213 — that stalled out in the Senate. Yesterday, to appease deficit hawks and the 12 Democrats who voted against authorizing emergency deficit spending on the bill , they trimmed back unemployment benefits and reimbursements to doctors, saving around $20 billion. The new version takes away a $25-a-week supplement to federally extended unemployment insurance payments, authorized last November, saving $5.8 billion. Anyone receiving the $25 will continue to get it until the expiry of their benefits or Dec. 7, whichever is sooner. New claimants will not receive the benefit. And, trimming $16.4 billion, the bill will stave off a 21 percent cut to Medicare reimbursements to doctors just until November, rather than next year. The negotiations also revised upward the amount of money investment managers need to declare open to income taxes, rather than capital gains taxes, and hiked a tax on oil. The initial bill that failed in the Senate spent $140 billion, $80 billion of which would have added to the deficit. The House had to trim its bill twice to appease deficit-wary “Blue Dog” Democrats — including dropping $24 billion in Medicaid funding for states. That provision remains in the Senate bill.

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The New, Leaner Jobs Bill

Via Matt Welch at Reason, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has proposed an amendment to the jobs bill requiring that recipients of unemployment insurance or welfare benefits get drug tested before they get their checks. From the Salt Lake Tribune : People seeking unemployment benefits or welfare would have to first pass a drug test under a proposal Sen. Orrin Hatch will try to add to legislation extending the social safety net during this time of economic turmoil. Hatch … said his idea would help battle drug addiction and could reduce the nation’s debt. He will try to get the Senate to include his amendment to a $140 billion bill extending tax breaks and social programs this week. “This amendment is a way to help people get off of drugs to become productive and healthy members of society, while ensuring that valuable taxpayer dollars aren’t wasted,” he said after announcing his amendment. “Too many Americans are locked into a life of a dangerous dependency not only on drugs, but the federal assistance that serves to enable their addiction.” Currently, about 4.4 million families receive assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. On top of that, 9.8 million people are receiving unemployment insurance in some form. Millions more get other kinds of aid. Granted, the federal government does plenty of drug testing already, but does it really want to process 15 million new urine samples? Plus pay for all the court cases the law would create? The Drug Policy Alliance notes that “a 2003 ruling by a federal appeals court that covers the states of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee ruled that states cannot drug test welfare recipients because it’s unconstitutional.” Welch writes, “This is, alas, nothing new . In addition to social-welfare recipients , lawmakers have identified several other sub-classes of people ripe for being forced by the state to urinate on command, including (but not limited to) student athletes , kids who dare take part in other extra-curricular activities ,” and others.

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Orrin Hatch: Let’s Drug Test Unemployment Insurance Recipients

Term Limits and the Citizen Legislature Scam The New American He accurately noted that this check was accomplished by giving the states equal representation in the Senate, and to the degree that certain small-state … and more

Ohio Senate works to raise awareness about scams against Ohioans Chillicothe Gazette According to the Consumer Federation of America, one in every three adults has been targeted by a fake check scam , which might involve job offers, …

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Ohio Senate works to raise awareness about scams against Ohioans – Chillicothe Gazette

This morning, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before Congress on the condition of the economy. His comments were generally positive, but he cited serious concerns with the labor market and said it will take a “significant amount of time” before the 8.5 million jobs lost in the recession return. I am particularly concerned about the fact that, in March, 44 percent of the unemployed had been without a job for six months or more. Long periods without work erode individuals’ skills and hurt future employment prospects. Younger workers may be particularly adversely affected if a weak labor market prevents them from finding a first job or from gaining important work experience. After that statement, Bernanke turned to other matters. The Fed, despite the protestations of economists such as Joe Gagnon, has signaled that it will not do more to combat unemployment. That leaves the action to Congress, where thankfully there are a number of proposals to combat high rates and long spells of joblessness, and their side-effects. A good plan is Rep. George Miller’s (D-Calif.); his Local Jobs for America Act would provide $75 billion over two years to states to boost hiring. (Several members of the House pushed for the bill today.) Another is the continued extension of unemployment benefits as a stopgap measure. Speaking against a temporary one-month bill on the Senate floor this morning, Sen. George LeMieux (R-Fla.) argued that the benefits are non-emergency and therefore should be pay-go:  “Has it been unforeseen that we were going to have to extend unemployment compensation?…Of course it is not. We knew that we were going to have to do this, but there is an unwillingness in this Congress to pay for things.” Economist Mark Zandi countered by saying that not passing benefits would be “counterproductive” and that benefits should be paid for later in the economic upswing.

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Bernanke: ‘Significant Amount of Time’ Before Jobs Return

Next week, the Senate returns from recess to a months-long battle over the extension of expiring programs providing benefits to millions of jobless Americans. In March, the House passed a $9 billion bill to prevent benefit loss. The Senate rushed to pass the House version before the congressional recess started on March 26, but faced opposition from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who demanded that Democrats find a way to pay for the extension. Senate majority and minority leaders Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) started negotiations on the issue, but failed to reach a compromise before recess. While senators were in their home states, on April 5, some Americans actually started to lose their benefits – at a rate of 200,000 a week, the National Employment Law Project estimates . Indeed, this month alone, up to 1 million people will lose aid if some extension bill does not pass. Members of Congress from both parties have stressed that the jobless benefits are not stimulus so much as necessary aid. “We will have to do things like extend unemployment benefits,” Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) told Fox News . “That’s not a job stimulator. … We will do those things to take care of the families that are suffering right now.” Thus, the pressure is on for Congress to act. According to parliamentary procedure, it will take a bare minimum of four days for the Senate to pass the benefits extension — and likely longer. To provide benefits to those who have lost them since April 5 and to those who will before the bill’s passage, Senate Democrats plan to push through a provision making the extension of benefits retroactive. Two Senate aides say that Republican senators will offer pay-go and possibly other amendments to the benefits extension. Those amendments will likely delay the passage of the bill — meaning more people will lose benefits, if only temporarily. If and when the Senate passes this month-long extension, it will need to take the exact same issue up again by May 5 — a point annoying Senate Democrats, a Senate aide says. Therefore, Democratic leadership has placed a long-term jobless benefits extension into the Tax Extender’s Act , currently in the House. But Democrats are scrambling to find additional funding sources for those benefits.

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As 200,000 Lose Jobless Benefits Each Week, Senate Plans Unemployment Insurance Extension

With unemployment still hovering near double digits, the Christian Science Monitor this week highlights a forgotten angle in the government’s efforts to help laid-off folks weather the storm: Getting part-time work could leave them in worse shape than if they’d remained jobless. “Many people who have been out of work for a year are picking up work as temps or part-timers,” the Monitor writes, “unaware that state agencies will recalculate their unemployment benefits after a year – and use their most recent work history and pay level to do it.” “What is going on for these workers is that because their most recent wages are much lower than the wages they earned in their prior fulltime job, they are facing substantial cuts in their weekly unemployment benefits,” says George Wentworth, a consultant at the National Employment Law Project (NELP) in New York. The Monitor spotlights the case of a Massachusetts worker who was receiving $540 in federal help each month, only to see that figure drop to $103. The reason? She took a temporary job that slipped her from federal to state benefits, causing the state to recalculate her benefits based on the last job she had. Not that Congress isn’t aware of the issue. A Senate bill passed earlier in the month would extend the filing deadline for emergency federal UI benefits through Dec. 31, but would also alter the underlying law so as not to penalize workers who take up part-time jobs in their search for longer-term employment. That provision, though, is not contained in a separate House-passed bill, which the Senate is expected to take up April 12.

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An Unfortunate Disincentive for the Unemployed to Take Part-Time Jobs

Reuters Experts' Biggest Fear: New Dodd Bill Won't Stop Another Meltdown, “Epidemic … truthout L. Randall Ray says there will be even more fallout for yet another underreported accounting scam , the federal government's own EZ “stress tests” for banks, … Factsheet: Senate Financial-Regulation Bill Wall Street Journal (blog) Dodd: Consumer Watchdog to have 'Autonomous' Rule Authority eCreditDaily.com all 1,797 news articles

New Law Aims to Protect Consumers from Check -triggered Contracts WBAY The Check Scam Protection Act passed the Assembly and Senate with broad support and was signed into law by Governor Doyle on Wednesday. …

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New Law Aims to Protect Consumers from Check-triggered Contracts – WBAY

New York Daily News Madoff Victims Join Stanford Investors to Lobby for Payback BusinessWeek The scam funneled money from new clients to pay returns to earlier investors. Both groups of victims want the Senate measure to require brokerage firms, … Bogus site targets Madoff victims, agency says Reuters SEC charges Madoff's director of operations with falsifying accounting records … Lexology (registration) Faux website looks to scam Madoff victims Daily Caller all 229 news articles

It's official: Marshall enters Senate primary News & Observer In the campaign, Marshall has put a spotlight on the responsibilities of her office, including investigation of investment scams and trademark infringement. … and more

While Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has stripped out most provisions of the $85 billion jobs bill proposed yesterday by Finance Committee leaders, the majority leader is reportedly interested in keeping the 2010 Social Security tax exemption for businesses that hire unemployed workers this year. That provision also includes an additional $1,000 business tax credit (in 2011) if companies keep those workers employed for a year. The White House says the credits will entice new hires. Some economists say: not so much. Roberton Williams, tax policy expert at the Urban Institute, points out the obvious, telling the Christian Science Monitor today that no struggling company is going to bring on a new worker — an obligation of tens of thousands of dollars — just for the 6.2 percent tax exemption on that salary. Generally, companies only hire more workers if they think demand for their products is going to increase, notes [Williams]. A tax credit now might drive some hiring on the margins, says Williams. It might push companies that were thinking of taking on new worker to move more quickly than they might have otherwise. “But the real winners will be firms who were going to hire anyway,” he says. Huh. Where have we heard that before? (Surely not here , or here .)

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Doubting the Powers of Tax Credits to Create Jobs

That’s the question being asked around the country today in response to the $85 billion proposal presented Thursday by Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the leaders of the Finance Committee. Although immediately rejected by Democratic leadership, the draft bill provides a sense of what conservatives are willing to accept if the package is to be bipartisan (which it must be in order to win the 60 votes that are the new norm for passing bills in the Senate.) Trouble is, as The New York Times points out today , “about half of the proposal had nothing to do with new jobs.” The single largest chunk, about $31 billion, went to renew expiring tax breaks that are generally useful but unrelated to jobs. Another $10 billion would renew an expiring Medicare payment formula so doctors wouldn’t face a pay cut. Politically, those things make sense. No one wants to take the blame for a tax hike in an election year, and they certainly don’t want to be seen sitting idle while doctors suffer a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments. But those things will get done anyway. The question remains: why stick them in a bill that’s supposed to create jobs? What effect could they have on the nation’s grave unemployment situation except to crowd out real job-creating measures? Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, issued a statement yesterday warning what could happen if Congress doesn’t step in with more targeted, bang-for-your buck spending. He’s particularly worried that there’s not nearly enough money directed to help states survive their worst budget troubles in recent history. “If Congress does not act — and act quickly — to provide more fiscal relief, states will have to take steps to close their budget gaps that could cost the economy up to 900,000 jobs,” Greenstein said. They will likely cut education, leading to teacher lay-offs; cut Medicaid, throwing more working-class people into the ranks of the uninsured, and cut aid to local governments, leading to cutbacks in local services like police and fire protection.  All of these actions will mean less money for families and small businesses to spend in their communities, further depressing economic growth. The good news is that Senate lawmakers will have some time to rework the bill. The recent snowstorm that slammed Washington left Democratic leaders with no choice but to postpone any votes on the legislation this week. And next week lawmakers are out of town for President’s Day recess, meaning the first votes on the bill won’t take place anytime before Feb. 22.

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Why Not Write a Jobs Bill That Would Create Jobs?

Republicans have done a pretty fantastic job of working the refs and making a political issue out of when Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-Mass.) will be seated. Before the election, they raised the possibilit y of delays to gin up conservative support. And before the polls even closed in Massachusetts, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) recorded a video demanding that Democrats seat Brown immediately. Right now, Brown is demanding that he be seated as soon as he is certified as the winner of the election tomorrow — sending him to the Senate a full week earlier than had been scheduled. The reason, according to his counsel Daniel Winslow, is that “there are a number of votes scheduled prior to that date.” Because Brown is going to fill a seat left vacant by the death of another senator, there’s not a ton of direct precedent here. But the last man elected to the Senate (we’re not counting interim Sen. Paul Kirk) did not get this speedy treatment. Last year, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) won a lengthy legal battle that certified his victory on June 30. Later that day, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) signed Franken’s certificate of election. It took one full week for Franken to be sworn in , on July 7, more than seven months after he won the first recount of the election. Brown’s argument that Democrats are moving ahead with votes on nominees — breaking filibusters with the help of Kirk — is compelling. But for those seven months between Franken’s recount win and his certification, the Senate simply operated with 99 senators, and the 41- (then 40-) member Republican caucus was free to filibuster Democratic bills and nominees. Again, the circumstances of the races are so different — Franken’s slim victory, Brown’s special election — that parallels are going to be imperfect. But this sets up a no-win situation for Democrats. Either they stick to their plan and get excoriated for blocking Brown’s right to serve in the Senate — something Republicans have been ready to argue for a month — or they cave to Brown and seat him, infuriating Democrats who watched Franken sit in limbo for seven months while Republicans blocked vote after vote after vote.

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What’s the Franken Precedent for Seating Scott Brown?

From The Associated Press : Scott Brown says he has already told Senate Republican leaders they won’t always be able to count on his vote. “I already told them, you know, ‘I got here with the help of a close group of friends and very little help from anyone down there, so there’ll be issues when I’ll be with you and there are issues when I won’t be with you,’” Brown said Thursday during the half-hour interview. “So, I just need to look at each vote and then make a proper analysis and then decide.” A radical idea in polarized Washington.

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Scott Brown to GOP Leaders: I’m No Rubber Stamp

The Senate just voted 77-23 to end debate and move to a final vote on the confirmation of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke for a second term. The final confirmation vote is now underway.

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Bernanke Confirmation Clears Cloture Vote

Greg Sargent hears something similar to what I’m hearing about Republican plans for a possible Democratic push to pass elements of health care reform through reconciliation. [A senior GOP aide] said the leadership — Senators Mitch McConnell , Jon Kyl , Lamar Alexander , etc. — are discussing how to exploit the fact that the reconciliation process allows for an “open-ended amendment process.” That means there’s no limit on the number of amendments GOPers can offer, the aide said, or on their subject matter. A senior Democratic aide confirmed that this is the case — and that it’s a concern weighing on Dems. “If you bring a reconciliation bill to the Senate, it’s a free for all of amendments,” the GOP aide said, cautioning that this was only part of the overall strategy. “There is no way to limit the number of amendments that are voted on. You can’t close debate. Democrats will have to vote on every politically perilous amendment that you can possibly think of.” There’s a consensus that reconciliation is too politically thorny for Democrats to use right now. Earlier today, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) shook his head when I asked him if Democrats could use the process — it was “tradition,” he said, only to use it for budget issues, which was why reconciliation was fine for deep tax code changes but not fine for health care reforms.

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The Drama of Reconciliation

Senate Democrats are piecing together another stimulus bill designed to tackle the ongoing unemployment crisis, but if the reports coming out of Capitol Hill today are any indication, the package is likely to be much smaller than the jobs bill passed by the House last month. Indeed, The Washington Post indicates that upper-chamber Democrats are eyeing a proposal in the $80-billion range — roughly half of the spending in the House version. The Senate bill, the Post notes, “will be heavy on tax breaks designed to spur businesses to make new hires.” Also of note: Unlike the House bill, the Senate proposal excludes an extension of unemployment benefits. Instead, the UI extension “may move” separately, the Post reports.

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Report: No Unemployment Benefits Extension in Senate Jobs Bill

The National Republican Congressional Committee  is up on the air in South Carolina with an ad not-so-secretly aimed at getting Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.) to reconsider his career options. But the striking thing about the ad is its claim that “Spratt’s the architect of legislation Democrats may use to ram through a government takeover of health care.” What does that mean? The NRCC spells it out in the press release that was sent to reporters. They’re knocking Spratt “for his authorship of a budget plan that would allow Pelosi and Congressional Democrats to ram government-run healthcare through Congress using an arcane procedure known as reconciliation.” They explain: The budget that Spratt designed allows Democrats to strong-arm the government takeover of healthcare through the Senate with only 51 votes necessary to advance the bill, instead of the 60 votes required in the upper chamber. So whether or not Democrats use the tools available to them and pass the health care bill, they’re going to get hammered on it. This has been obvious for weeks.

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Running Against Reconciliation

Late last week, it seemed as if the tide of Democratic support was shifting away from Ben Bernanke’s bid to serve a second term atop the Federal Reserve. Just a few days later, he’s not looking so bad. Over the weekend, Bernanke won the endorsement of Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who chairs the Banking Committee, and Judd Gregg (N.H.), senior Republican on the Budget Committee. That was on top of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) approval announced a few days earlier. And this morning, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who heads the Finance Committee, added his name to the list of supporters, arguing that, faced with the greatest economic turmoil in generations, Bernanke’s decision-making “brought us back from the brink of economic disaster.” I have full faith he will continue to use his post as Chairman of the Federal Reserve to create jobs, help middle class families and continue to get our economy back on track.  These past two years have revealed flaws in our regulatory system that must be addressed with strong and comprehensive regulatory reform.   It is clear that we face many serious challenges moving forward which is why I will vote to confirm Chairman Bernanke for another term. Bernanke’s term expires at the end of the month.

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Baucus to Support Bernanke

With unemployment still hovering in double digits and no real relief in sight, a group of 30 Senate Democrats today is urging party leaders to extend emergency unemployment benefits through the end of 2010 — 10 months longer than current law dictates. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the lawmakers argue that shorter extensions might be cheaper, but they leave state budgeters in a state of constant uncertainty. Short term extensions, while still helpful to families, only add strain to state agencies that must constantly re-tool their computer systems, and at the same time, continue to assist the millions still searching for work. As our economy continues on a path to recovery, we need a robust extension of safety net programs that have provided a lifeline to families since the recession began. Signing the letter were Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin (Iowa), Bob Casey (Pa.), Jack Reed (R.I.),
 Sherrod Brown (Ohio)
, Chris Dodd (Conn.),
 Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.),
 Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.),
 Al Franken (Minn.), Carl Levin (Mich.),
 Frank  Lautenberg (N.J.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), 
Roland Burris (Ill.), Arlen Specter (Pa.),
 John Kerry (Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.),
 Ron Wyden (Ore.), Edward Kaufman (Del.),
 Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.),
 Patrick Leahy (Vt.),
 Robert Menendez (N.J.),
 Herb Kohl (Wis.),
 Tom Udall (N.M.), Ben Cardin (Md.),
 Robert Byrd (W.Va.),
 Daniel Akaka (Hawaii),
 Jeff Merkley (Ore.),
 Barbara Mikulski (Md.),
 Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Michael Bennet (Colo.), as well as Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.). Democratic leaders are working on legislation to tackle the continuing problems related to the economic downturn. The package is widely expected to include an extension of unemployment insurance, COBRA health benefits, food stamps and help for states faced with budget crises. They’d hoped to have health care reform out of the way first. Now, that’s looking unlikely.

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Senate Dems Urge 10-Month Extension of Unemployment Benefits

So suggests Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who ushered the Democrats’ health reform bill through the Senate HELP Committee last summer. Party leaders have been scrambling for ways to pass some version of their sweeping reform proposals in the wake of Scott Brown’s astonishing Senate victory in Massachusetts Tuesday. Today, Dodd told reporters that the best course might be to “take a breather [from health care] for a month, six weeks,” The Hill reports . That would allow Democrats to move on to legislation addressing double digit unemployment. But how it would help them to pass health reform remains to be seen. In fact, it would only allow critics more time to drum up further opposition among voters — a sport at which they’ve been pretty good up to now.

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A Six-Week ‘Breather’ on Health Care Reform?

Scott Brown’s campaign for Senate made much out of some comments by Democrats that seemed to auger for a short delay in seating the winner of the Massachusetts special election. Now that he’s won by a clear margin, there is no apparent move by Democrats to delay him. That isn’t stopping Republicans from buying into the narrative and hosting their own efforts to demand Brown be seated immediately (something not actually legally possible right now). Sen. David Vitter is up with a website, “Seat Scott Now,” which intimates that Democrats are “playing games about seating Scott in the Senate.” “I’d love your support in terms of getting Scott Brown seated,” says Vitter in a short video–which was uploaded on January 19, the day of the election. It’s not clear how, but Vitter argues that signing up for his e-mail list will expedite Brown’s swearing-in. Also, Carly Fiorina’s Senate campaign in California sent this message out around 15 hours after Brown’s victory–an hour after he gave a press conference explaining the pace he’d be seated at. Dear Fellow Californian, Scott Brown ’s victory last night is not only terrific news for the people of Massachusetts; it’s also a victory for voters across the nation who are tired of Washington’s continued reliance on a failed policy platform of tax, spend and borrow. But we need your help to get Senator-elect Brown seated right away! There are reports that Democrats like Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid are trying to prevent Brown from taking office in an end run to force through their job-killing health care overhaul and other disastrous bills. Call Barbara Boxer (202-224-3553) and Harry Reid (202-224-3542) now and tell them to respect the will of our nation’s voters by seating Senator-elect Brown today. The voters of Massachusetts have made their will known loud and clear. We must do the same here in California, and we can start by calling on Washington to seat Senator-elect Brown immediately. Sincerely, Carly Fiorina P.S. Don’t let Democrats in Washington ignore us! Tell them you want Senator-elect Brown seated in the U.S. Senate today!

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‘Seat Scott Now!’

Barely two hours after Togo West and Vernon Clark finished briefing the Senate Armed Services Committee on the results of their review of systemic Army challenges to identifying extremist threats within the service, here’s a statement about further action from Army Secretary John McHugh: “I have directed Gen. Carter Ham to conduct an accountability review to identify whether any personnel were responsible for failures or deficiencies in applying Army programs, policies, and procedures to the alleged assailant. Further, he will provide a recommendation as to whether disciplinary or adverse action is warranted by each finding, and if so, the nature of such disciplinary or adverse action and the basis for such recommendation. “In addition, I have requested that Gen. Ham provide me with any general observations he may have developed as a senior leader in our Army, and as a member of the Independent Panel, that he believes may be of help to the Army in charting a way ahead. “We are an Army that is grounded on disciplined and established standards. Leaders at every level are responsible for ensuring that our policies and regulations are followed and that appropriate action is taken if they are not. “We must use this incident as an opportunity to reinforce the basics of leader involvement with soldiers. It is this fabric that binds us together in war, and we must ensure that it is continuously strengthened.”

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Army Secretary McHugh on Fort Hood Review

Togo West and Vernon Clark, the co-chairmen of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s Fort Hood commission, have been beaten up all morning in the Senate Armed Services Committee for not focusing exclusively on the threat of Islamic extremist radicalization within the military. Acrimony is all around. West tried to make the case that he and Clark have to take a comprehensive approach. “This is our one shot at it, Adm. Clark and I, to look at the indicators [of] religious extremism, whatever its source,” he said. Clark, a former chief of Naval operations, was blunter: ”Someone accused me of being politically correct. I don’t care.” Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Clark Collins (R-Maine) [sorry, long morning/fast typing] pleaded with the two of them to put out at least some specific guidelines for the military services to recognize the warning signs of Islamic extremism, noting that when West was Army secretary in the 1990s, he approved a pamphlet on precisely those signs for what was then a danger from white-supremacist infiltration. West and Clark said they took the point, but reluctantly. Enter panel chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who said such a “legitimate effort” needed to ensure that “Muslims be involved” in distinguishing the warning signs of Islamic extremism from the signs of legitimate religious expressing. “Excellent suggestion,” Lieberman replied, adding it would be a “real omission if Muslims weren’t involved.” Collins endorsed it as well. “What we are tolerant of, and proud of it, are other people’s religious views,” said Levin. And the hearing went into closed session from there.

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A Moment of Tense Consensus on Fort Hood, Islamic Extremism and Political Correctness

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) press conference at the Capitol this morning is churning dramatic headlines about how health reform is dead. But she really doesn’t say that. In fact, she says just the opposite. “We have to get a bill passed — we know that,” she said . “That’s a predicate that we all subscribe to.” She added: “I don’t see the votes for it at this time. … In every meeting that we have had, there would be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way that it is.” [Emphasis mine.] And that may be true. But remember that the same could have been said at almost any point during both the House and Senate debates last year. It required all kinds of concessions and back-room deals to get Democrats on board, which is exactly how these things work. Don’t think for a second that similar negotiations aren’t happening right now to get reluctant House Democrats behind the Senate bill, which remains the quickest way for party leaders to pass their top domestic priority and move on to the economy , which needs some addressing if they want to fare better in November than they did this week in Massachusetts. The health care bill, under this scenario, couldn’t be altered. But there’s nothing to prevent the persuasive sweeteners from showing up in some other must-pass bill further on down the line.

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Pelosi: House Can’t Pass Senate Health Bill ‘At This Time’

BOSTON — At his morning press conference, Senator-elect Scott Brown (R-Mass.) seemed more miffed than flattered by a question about whether he had “presidential timber.” He apologized for being tired, and meant no disrespect, but it was a “silly question.” Nonetheless, Max Fisher is collating the Brown-for-president talk on the web, which starts with Matt Drudge, who has had a “will he run for president” headline leading his site for around 15 hours. From my vantage point, it’s cute but ridiculous. If voter anger at the Democrats has taught us anything, it’s that a superstar can fall very fast, and Brown has perhaps the least-examined record of anyone elected to the Senate in modern times. How many Republicans are aware, as he reminded reporters today, that Brown voted for the Massachusetts health care plan? Still Brown’s rise as a positively adored GOP superstar is going to scramble the alignment of power and influence in the party. It’s not yet clear how it will happen. But watching Fox News’ re-runs of election coverage last night, and watching Sarah Palin literally phone in comments about a campaign she had nothing to do with, seemed significant.

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The Brown-for-President Boomlet

BOSTON — At his first press conference as senator-elect from Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown hued pretty closely to the rhetoric of his campaign and welcomed questions about what his win meant for the future of the GOP. And asked what parts of health care reform he wanted to pass this year, Brown spoke vaguely about the value of expanded coverage while saying it should be left to the states. “Let the states tell the federal government, hey, this is what we’d like to do,” said Brown. “Just so we’re past campaign mode, I think it’s important for everyone to get some form of health care, so to offer a basic plan for everybody I think is important.” He pointed out that he’d voted for this state’s health care mandate, but he saw his role “as the 41st senator” to bring the reform bill “back to the drawing board.” After Fox News’s Carl Cameron asked what side of the GOP’s ideological tussle he’d take as the party’s “poster boy,” Brown mused about working between party lines and blowing off Washington chatter. “Maybe there’s a new breed of Republican coming to Washington,” Brown said. “I hear all these discussions about someone who said this, or someone who wrote this in their book. My response is: Who cares? We have terrorists trying to blow us up in Afghanistan.” Brown quickly dealt with, and brushed aside, questions about when he might be seated. He’d filed the requisite paperwork with the secretary of state, was confident that absentee ballots would not diminish the margin of victory to the point where it was in question, and would pay a courtesy call to senators tomorrow. Brown was vague on what he’d do when he got to the Senate, suggesting that he could “offer guidance as to what we’ve done here in Massachusetts” and work across party lines. The only clear sign he gave of his other intentions was a warning about some expiring Bush tax cuts–he wanted to save them.

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Brown: ‘It’s Important for Everyone to Get Some Form of Health Care’

Josh Kraushaar , Mike Allen, and Jim Vandehei get the rumor mill churning with their report that Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), considered a dark horse 2012 candidate for president, is now looking at a 2010 run against Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.). None of them have quotes from Pence that point more to 2010 than 2012 (”American people are telling Washington, DC enough is enough”), or more than this assertion: Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who now might draw a challenge from Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said the party needs to rethink its entire approach to governing. Whether or not Pence runs, this is the sort of thing the GOP needs — credible threats against incumbent Democrats to scare them into voting down their party’s agenda. Bayh, who’s never lacking for a platform to trash his party for not governing in a “moderate” enough way, is a good target for this.

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Mike Pence for Senate?

For Democrats left dumbfounded over Republican Scott Brown’s shocking Senate win in Massachusetts yesterday, the short response statement from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) probably won’t offer much solace. “Regardless of the size of their minority caucus, Senate Republicans have always had an obligation to join us in governing our nation through these difficult times,” Reid said. “Today’s election doesn’t change that; in fact it is now more important than before for Republicans to work with us rather than against us if we are to find common ground that improves Americans’ lives.” Translation: “Republicans, please cooperate and help us pass our legislative agenda before the mid-terms.” To which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is already saying, “Think again!” There has, of course, been no indication that Senate Republicans are interested in anything at all outside of stalling the legislative process this Congress — to the point that it took weeks of procedural maneuvering last year for Democrats to pass even the most popular and uncontroversial measures (think: unemployment insurance ). And that was in a non-election year. Much of that was the Democrats fault for biting on claims that Republicans were ever interested in compromise. Remember that it was Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) who agreed to take the Finance Committee’s health care negotiations into the August recess, as if the Republicans’ idea of give-and-take was ever something other than to demand that Democrats accept a GOP bill. (It wasn’t.) “A president with an activist agenda met a Senate all but incapable of action,” Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson wrote today. The string of delays meant that Democrats couldn’t focus on the economy to the degree that the Great Recession demanded. Meanwhile, unemployment skyrocketed and foreclosures soared. Health reform might be vital, but the results of the months-long debate haven’t been tangible — a message screamed by the voters in Massachusetts Tuesday. For Democrats, the troubling thing about Reid’s statement is that it pretends that Republicans will now change their strategy for some reason — as if McConnell wasn’t rooting for Brown yesterday. For Republicans, this is a win-win situation. Not only have they been successful in blocking the Democrats’ legislative wish-list, but they’ve reaped the political rewards of the inaction they’ve caused. If Reid and the Democrats now think that GOP leadership will suddenly become cooperative in the run-up to the mid-terms, they should prepare for the worst.

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Did Reid Get the Message?

BOSTON — At 9:20, the first rumors of Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate race started to work around the room. A moment later, Doug Flutie turned around from a TV interview to face the crowded Park Plaza Hotel ballroom, give a thumb’s up, and say “won!” But nothing was official until 9:25 p.m., when Scott Brown’s daughter Ayla announced that Democratic candidate Martha Coakley had conceded the Senate race. The roaring applause lasted for two minutes before Ayla–a former American Idol contestant–serenaded the crowd with “Dancin’ in the Streets.” There’s no overstating the enthusiasm in the room. After the song, the crowd began chanting “Seat him now!”–a reference to rumors that Democrats will see how long they can hold onto the seat before Brown is sworn in. Then: “John Kerry’s next!” And then, most bitterly for Democrats: “Yes we did!”

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MA-Sen: Brown Wins

BOSTON — The Republican National Committee’s well-timed poll of what Massachusetts voters want after the ballots are counted tonight provides a roadmap to the party’s strategy if Scott Brown wins tonight. The key bit: Should the winner of this special election be seated in the U.S. Senate immediately or should the Democrat leaders in Washington be allowed to delay seating the winner until after the health care reform bill has been voted on? 79%     Seated Immediately 10%     Allow Democrat Leaders To Delay Seating 9%       DK/Refused Wording aside, there are the seeds of an aggressive campaign to make any delay in a Brown seating politically impossible. Past examples to look at–scandalized Sen. Roland Burris’s (D-Ill.) rain-soaked trip to the Senate to demand that he be seated, and the series of anti-health care reform rallies outside of Congress, put together on incredibly short notice. RNC MA Statewide Pre-Election Survey 1-10 – Final With Results

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MA-Sen: The RNC’s Scene-Setting Memo

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who’s done plenty in recent months to alienate Democrats, won’t improve his standing with his comments today to Fox News. Asked by Neil Cavuto if he would switch to the Republican Party if the GOP somehow took over the Senate in this year’s elections, Lieberman declared that he has “no idea.” “That’s a big hypothetical a long away from now,” he said. “I was elected as an Independent but I remained a registered Democrat, so I’m with the Democratic Caucus.” Today’s tight Senate contest in Massachusetts, Lieberman added, is indication that Capitol Hill has grown too partisan — and voters are fed up. “The independents are speaking loudly around the country today and they’re telling us, one, to get together here in Washington,” he said. “The second thing really is to do something about the economy and move to the center and worry about things that [independents] are worried about.” That’s no music to the ears of liberals who were hoping that the pendulum swing away from the Bush administration might arc longer than just a year.

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Lieberman Calls for ‘Move to the Center,’ Doesn’t Rule Out Switch to GOP

From a rental car in Massachusetts, TWI’s intrepid David Weigel sat down with The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein yesterday for a Bloggingheads.tv session to talk about — what else? — the Senate special election in the Bay State and its potential implications for health care reform. Watch after the jump.

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David Weigel vs. Ezra Klein on Bloggingheads.tv

With all eyes on the outcome of today’s shockingly close special Senate election in Massachusetts, Washington’s prognosticators are wondering what the Democrats will do on health care reform should GOP candidate Scott Brown steal the seat. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) offered two possibilities today, telling reporters that if Brown wins, Democrats could still get the bill to the White House before he’s sworn in — in which case Senate Democrats would still control the 60 seats needed to defeat a GOP filibuster. If that plan falls through, Hoyer added, House leaders are ready to rally the lower-chamber Democrats behind the Senate bill, which passed on Christmas Eve. “The Senate bill,” Hoyer said, “clearly is better than nothing.”

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Hoyer: Senate Health Bill Is ‘Clearly Better Than Nothing’

The anti-GOP activists who used to be called “Billionaires for Bush” showed up at Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown’s “People’s Rally” in Worcester, Mass., yesterday and chanted ironic slogans and staged loud, “funny” arguments for Brown — “I support Scott Brown because I can’t afford the payments on my yacht!” After a point, Brown’s staff had enough of them, and tried to block their signs. The video below the jump shows what happened next, as Brown supporters jeered and called for them to be left along because, hey, they were going to lose in three days anyway.

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MA-Sen Video: No Love for ‘Billionaires for Brown’

Josh Rogin has a great piece about the differences between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the independence and responsibilities of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Clinton wants to integrate USAID’s development missions with diplomatic and defense efforts, particularly in failing states or conflict areas. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the leaders of the Senate committee, worry that Clinton’s approach misunderstands the long-term nature of development work: It is also important to consider whether USAID’s growing national security mission is compatible with its development aims. For example, can USAID participate effectively in counterinsurgency and stabilization operations while maintaining a credible humanitarian presence, or do these functions demand a new approach altogether? There is justification for aid programs that have both short-term strategic value and long-term development objectives, but the line between these two goals is often blurred. At a minimum, foreign aid accounts need to be rationalized so that they support U.S. priorities and the missions of the agencies in which they are located. How to square the circle? Stuart Bowen’s proposal for a U.S. Office of Contingency Operations is one way. Bowen’s so-called USOCO would create an operational structure in crisis situations for integrating defense, diplomacy and development efforts, along with humanitarian relief, reconstruction, rule-of-law advisory and other elements of national power as necessary. That’s what Clinton wants. But it would leave USAID alone to focus on long-term development projects, as Kerry and Lugar want. Whether Bowen’s proposal will gain traction is a different story. He’s expected to present the USOCO idea to Congress in the coming weeks — probably on Jan. 30, when he presents his next quarterly report on Iraq reconstruction to lawmakers. (The idea recently won support from the respected diplomat Ryan Crocker .) Before he does, however, the various foreign-policy departments are expected to send Bowen their formal perspectives on the merits of USOCO in the next few days — including, naturally, State and USAID.

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Clinton v. Kerry on USAID — With Bowen to the Rescue?

In the final stretch of the Massachusetts special election for Senate, Republican candidate Scott Brown has focused on “restoring balance” to Washington. He’ll be the “41st vote” to filibuster legislation; the Democrats’ hold on 60 votes has let liberals run the country into the ground. “That’s not what the founders intended,” he said Monday during the final debate. The irony is that if Democrats lose the seat, they will have had a working 60-seat majority for all of four months — much of which was spent with the Senate in recess. They opened the Congress in January with 58 votes, counting the ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), not counting Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), whose razor-thin victory was held up by lawsuits from former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). On April 28, 2009, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) switched to the Democratic Party , bringing the Democrats to 59 votes without Franken. When Franken was finally sworn in on into the Senate on July 7, 2009, the badly ailing Kennedy was unable to vote and break filibusters. Kennedy died on Aug.25, 2009, but it took Massachusetts Democrats — who run every aspect of their state government — a full month to pass legislation seating a replacement, Sen. Paul Kirk (D-Mass.). He took office on Sept. 24, 2009. Only then, and only depending on whether Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) was well, did the Democrats have a supermajority. Whatever happens in Massachusetts, I’d expect the clamor on liberal blogs and op-ed pages for filibuster reform to increase in volume. Right now the Democrats have the worst of both worlds — the appearance, but not the reality, of total control of Congress.

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The Four-Month Supermajority

The first number is how much Democrats say their Senate candidate in Massachusetts has raised since sending out an email appeal yesterday from Vicki Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). The second number is how much MoveOn.org says it’s raised with its own appeal. By comparison, Republican candidate Scott Brown raised around $1.2 million with a “Red Invades Blue moneybomb” on Tuesday. There’s no longer any doubt that Democrats have engaged with the race — Vicki Kennedy is also cutting a TV ad for Coakley — but the candidate can’t quite catch a break. Today’s micro-controversy centers around her comment to a Boston Globe reporter that she considered racking up more endorsements better for her campaign than “shaking hands outside Fenway in the cold,” a remark that’s drawn the ire of Republican former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.

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$700,000 + $600,000 for Coakley

California Republican Chuck DeVore’s aggressive strategy to be seen by conservative activists as a RINO-slaying hero seemed to get a boost today when former Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Calif.), whose run for governor had been flagging, switched over to the Senate primary . It was certainly a vote of no-confidence in Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and GOP Senate candidate who announced this week that she had $2.7 million in the bank for her first-ever electoral bid. But I’d expect the Fiorina camp to try and box out both candidates by attacking the 2005 California budget. DeVore, a California assemblyman, voted for it . As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R-Calif.) finance director, Campbell helped muscle it through . So the events of today make Fiorina the only female candidate in the race, the best-funded, and the only one not tainted by GOP decisions of the past–probably a better position than she had on Monday.

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A Fiorina Opportunity in California?

The big, Drudge-approved video from last night’s Massachusetts Senate debate is this one , in which GOP candidate Scott Brown says the seat he’s running for is “not the Kennedy seat and it’s not the Democrat’s seat — it’s the people’s seat.” I’ve been following the race for a while and this struck me as odd for two reasons. Reason No. 1: Democrats have fretted for a while now that Martha Coakley’s sleepy campaign hasn’t sold Democrats on the necessity of voting on Jan. 19 to preserve Ted Kennedy’s legacy. And here’s a viral video of the GOP candidate dismissing the idea that voters should preserve Kennedy’s legacy. A fist-pump moment to Kennedy-haters, but there are far fewer of them in Massachusetts than Kennedy-lovers. Reason No. 2: Back on December 29, Brown launched his general election ad campaign with a commercial called “Different People, Same Message.” It began with President John F. Kennedy — who held this seat from 1953 to 1961 — talking about his 1962 tax cuts, and continued by fading into Brown finishing Kennedy’s speech, in his words. Not only did it give away the fact that the Kennedy name remains very, very popular in Massachusetts, it gave Democrats an opening to thwack Brown when he turned around and said, as he did in this debate, that it was unfair to compare him to George W. Bush (”I’m Scott Brown!”) and unfair to call this the Kennedy seat. Coakley, who’s missed a lot of opportunities, missed that one too. Brown then: Brown now:

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It’s Not the Kennedy Seat, Except When It Is

A prominent children’s healthcare advocate in Montana is putting pressure on Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, to fight for a provision of the Senate’s health reform bill that would preserve the Children’s Health Insurance Program. House Democrats are pushing to terminate CHIP in 2014, but John Morrison, former state auditor and now head of Healthy Montana Kids, writes today that such a repeal would reduce the number of insured kids in the state. From Morrison’s op-ed in today’s Billings Gazette: There are about 9 million American children covered by CHIP. The number is expected to grow to 14 million by 2013 when the House bill would eliminate CHIP. The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that many of the children already covered by CHIP will wind up uninsured because their families will not be able to afford the insurance exchange. Baucus, to this point in the debate, has been all over the board on whether to salvage CHIP. Recall that when he first introduced his reform bill in the Finance Committee, he proposed a CHIP repeal similar to that found in the House bill. Just days later though, it was Baucus’ decision to bring up an amendment to reauthorize CHIP through 2019, in effect overturning his own proposal. He then voted for that provision, which was adopted as part of the Senate bill. Even more recently, Baucus  told Montana’s Great Falls Tribune that the Democrats’ successful 2008 push to expand CHIP was the single most significant legislative accomplishment of the last decade. Tough to make such claims and then advocate a full repeal of the program. In Washington, though, stranger things have happened.

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Pressure on Baucus to Fight for CHIP

Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, was one of the more successful negotiators during last summer’s climate change debate, winning enormous concessions for some of the nation’s largest polluters in the name of protecting Big Ag. To win Peterson’s vote, for example, House leaders were forced to exempt agriculture from a proposed emissions cap. In another concession, the bill sponsors had to scrap a provision that would have required regulators to consider foreign deforestation when calculating the environment impacts of domestic biofuel production. Peterson, at the time, seemed pleased. “We have reached an agreement that works for agriculture and contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States,” he said in a statement announcing the deal. Just days later, Peterson voted in favor of the bill. But that was then, and this is now. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported over the weekend that Peterson would no longer vote for the climate change bill — even if the concessions remain. The Agriculture Committee chairman said he was “stuck voting” for the bill (which awaits Senate action) in June because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi granted his requests for broad agriculture concessions, but he won’t support it again if it remains unchanged…. “First of all, this isn’t going anyplace in the Senate,” Peterson said. “But if it did and we ended up with a bill that was similar to what came out of the House and that was going to become law, I would vote no.” In an election year, with unemployment still hovering in double digits, it’ll be hard enough for Democratic leaders to pass legislation addressing global warming. Peterson’s defection — should it be indicative of a trend among moderate Democrats — only adds to the party’s headaches.

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Peterson Flips, Would Now Vote Against Climate Bill

Supporters of Massachusetts GOP Senate Candidate Scott Brown are holding a Ron Paul-style “moneybomb” today at the site RedInvadesBlue . The money, according to a video of Brown posted at the site, is for a final push and “getting ready in case any negative ads hit, which are already starting.” That’s a little much — Democratic candidate Martha Coakley hasn’t run any negative ads against Brown, and it’s one of the reasons why national Democrats are angry that her sleepy campaign has allowed the race to get close. But Coakley is bringing Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan to the state , which some hope is the start of a quick effort to bring down the favorable numbers of the pretty much unexamined Brown.

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A Scott Brown Moneybomb