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In his radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama said many people he met during his five-state tour after his State of the Union address were optimistic but remained unsure “that the right thing will get done in Washington this year, or next year, or the year after that.”

“And frankly, when you look at some of the things that go on in this town, who could blame them for being a little cynical?” Obama said.

The president reiterated his calls for government reform made in Tuesday’s address, saying he wants the Senate to pass a rule that requires a yes-or-no vote for judicial and public service nominations after 90 days. Many of the nominees, he said, carry bipartisan support but get held up in Congress for political reasons.

Obama noted that “a senator from Utah” said he would hold up nominations because he opposed the recess appointment of the head of the new consumer protection agency and three members of the National Labor Relations Board. Obama put the officials in their post during the Senate’s holiday break; many Republicans have called that move unconstitutional. Obama said the American people deserve “better than gridlock and games.”

“One senator gumming up the works for the whole country is certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned,” the president said.

While Obama did not name the lawmaker, Utah GOP. Sen Mike Lee said Thursday that because of the president’s “blatant and egregious disregard both for proper constitutional procedures and the Senate’s unquestioned role in such appointments, I find myself duty-bound to resist the consideration and approval of additional nominations until the president takes steps to remedy the situation.”

Obama said he also wants Congress to pass legislation to ban insider trading by lawmakers and prohibit lawmakers from owning securities in companies that have business before their committees.

In addition, the president is seeking to prohibit people who “bundle” campaign contributions from other donors for members of Congress from lobbying Congress. Obama urged the public to contact their member of Congress and tell them “that it’s time to end the gridlock and start tackling the issues that really matter.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., delivering the GOP address, said Obama’s address to Congress lacked much discussion of the president’s achievements “because there isn’t much.”

“This president didn’t talk about his record for one simple reason,” Rubio said. “He doesn’t want you to know about it. But you do know about it, because your feel the failure of his leadership every single day of the week.”

Rubio accused the president of driving up the national debt, failing to reduce high unemployment across the country and offering divisive economic policies.

The Florida senator said there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor but the best way to solve the problem is by embracing the American free enterprise system. Rubio said he hopes 2012 “will be the beginning of our work toward a new and prosperous American century.”

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said he was postponing a procedural vote set for Tuesday “in light of recent events.” Those events included a petition drive by Google that attracted more than 7 million participants and a one-day blackout by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, a Republican, quickly followed suit, saying consideration of a similar House bill would be postponed “until there is wider agreement on a solution.”

The Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act and the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act have strong support from the entertainment industry and other businesses that lose billions of dollars annually to intellectual property theft and online sales of counterfeit products. But they also have strong opposition from Internet-related companies that argue the bill would lead to over-regulation and censorship of the Internet.

Reid has also seen at least a half-dozen senators who sponsored the bill announce they now oppose it.

Reid said counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars every year and “there is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved.” He said he was optimistic about reaching a compromise in the coming weeks.

The main Senate sponsor, Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said he respected Reid’s decision to postpone the vote but lamented the Senate’s unwillingness to debate the bill.

“The day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem,” he said.

Criminals in China, Russia and other countries “who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided” it was not worth debating the bill.

The Senate bill would allow the Justice Department, and copyright holders, to seek court orders against foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. It would bar online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as credit card companies from doing business with an alleged violator. It also would forbid search engines from linking to such sites.

The Tuesday vote was on whether to move the legislation to the Senate floor for debate. With the recent desertions and a statement Thursday by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell that it is too early to consider the bill, it appeared supporters lacked the 60 votes needed to advance the measure in the 100-member chamber.

McConnell on Friday applauded Reid’s decision, saying it would “prevent a counterproductive rush toward flawed legislation.”

In the House, Smith said he had “heard from the critics” and resolved that it was “clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.” Smith had planned on holding further committee votes on his bill next month.

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Behind Obama’s Poll Numbers

The vote was 93-7 for the bill authorizing money for military personnel, weapons systems, national security programs in the Energy Department, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Reflecting a period of austerity and a winding down of decade-old conflicts, the bill is $27 billion less than what President Barack Obama requested and $43 billion less than what Congress gave the Pentagon this year.

Shortly before final passage, the Senate unanimously backed crippling sanctions on Iran as fears about Tehran developing a nuclear weapon outweighed concerns about driving up oil prices that would hit economically strapped Americans at the gas pump. The vote was 100-0.

“Iran’s actions are unacceptable and pose a danger to the United States and the entire world,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. “Iran supports terrorist groups, arms the killers of American soldiers, lies about its nuclear program, violates its citizens’ basic rights and threatens Israel’s security.”

The Senate’s version of the defense bill still must be reconciled with the House-passed measure in the final weeks of the congressional session.

In an escalating fight with the White House, the bill would ramp up the role of the military in handling terror suspects. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and FBI Director Robert Mueller both oppose the provisions as does the White House, which said it cannot accept any legislation that “challenges or constrains the president’s authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the nation.”

Late Thursday, a White House official said the veto threat still stands.

The bill would require military custody of a suspect deemed to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates and involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States. American citizens would be exempt. The bill does allow the executive branch to waive the authority based on national security and hold a suspect in civilian custody.

The legislation also would deny suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens seized within the nation’s borders, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., had sought an exception to the provision for U.S. citizens, but her effort failed, 55-45.

Lengthy negotiations produced a face-saving move that the Senate backed 99-1, a measure that said nothing in the bill changes current law relating to the detention of U.S. citizens and legal aliens. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., repeatedly pointed out that the June 2004 Supreme Court decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld said U.S. citizens can be detained indefinitely.

The series of detention provisions challenges citizens’ rights under the Constitution, tests the boundaries of executive and legislative branch authority and sets up a showdown with the Democratic commander in chief. Civil rights groups fiercely oppose the bill.

“Since the bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent, American citizens and others are at greater risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial if this bill becomes law,” said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The bill reflects the politically charged dispute over whether to treat suspected terrorists as prisoners of war or criminals. The administration insists that the military, law enforcement and intelligence agents need flexibility in prosecuting the war on terror after they’ve succeeded in killing Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki. Republicans counter that their efforts are necessary to respond to an evolving, post-Sept. 11 threat, and that Obama has failed to produce a consistent policy on handling terror suspects.

The Senate rejected an effort by Feinstein to limit a military custody requirement for suspects to those captured outside the United States. The vote was 55-45. Feinstein said her goal was to ensure “the military won’t be roaming our streets looking for suspected terrorists.”

The issue divided Democrats, with nine senators, many facing re-election next year, breaking with their leadership and administration to vote against the amendment. Republicans held firm, with only Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Mike Lee of Utah backing Feinstein’s effort.

“We need the authority to hold those individuals in military custody so we aren’t reading them Miranda rights,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said in defense of the legislation.

Last week, the administration announced a new set of penalties against Iran, including identifying for the first time Iran’s entire banking sector as a “primary money laundering concern.” This requires increased monitoring by U.S. banks to ensure that they and their foreign affiliates avoid dealing with Iranian financial institutions.

But lawmakers pressed ahead with even tougher penalties despite reservations by the administration.

Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Kirk had widespread bipartisan support for their amendment that would target foreign financial institutions that do business with the Central Bank of Iran, barring them from opening or maintaining correspondent operations in the United States. It would apply to foreign central banks only for transactions that involve the sale or purchase of petroleum or petroleum products.

The sanctions on petroleum would only apply if the president determines there is a sufficient alternative supply and if the country with jurisdiction over the financial institution has not significantly reduced its purchases of Iranian oil.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, David Cohen, a senior Treasury Department official, and Wendy Sherman, an undersecretary of state, warned that the amendment could force up oil prices — a financial boon for Iran.

“There is absolutely a risk that in fact the price of oil would go up, which would mean that Iran would in fact have more money to fuel its nuclear ambitions, not less,” Sherman said. “And our real objective here is to cut off the economic means that Iran has for its nuclear program.”

Cohen said the amendment would tell foreign banks and companies “that if they continue to process oil transactions with the Central Bank of Iran their access to the United States can be terminated.”

“It is a very, very powerful threat,” Cohen warned. “It is a threat for the commercial banks to end their ability to transact in the dollar and their ability really to function as major international financial institutions,” and one that could push allies away from contributing to a coordinated effort against Iran.

___

They’re likely to do both as they seek to produce results sought by a discontented public while also drawing bright political lines for voters as the 2012 campaign heats up.

Dead On Arrival! Republicans Set To Kill Obama’s Jobs Bill

Get It Done! Obama Urges For Passage Of Jobs Bill

Obama’s plan died at the hands of Senate Republicans on Tuesday, even though the president had been campaigning for it across the country for weeks. The $447 billion plan died on a 50-49 tally in the 100-member Senate, falling well short of the 60 votes needed to crack a filibuster by Republicans opposed to its stimulus-style spending and tax surcharge for the very wealthy.

The tally had been 51-48 but Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., switched his vote to “nay” to reserve the right to force a re-vote. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is recovering from surgery and did not vote.

Now, the White House and leaders in Congress are already moving on to alternative ways to address the nation’s painful 9.1 percent unemployment, including breaking the legislation into smaller, more digestible pieces. And on Wednesday, both the House and Senate are poised to approve long-stalled trade pacts with Korea, Panama and Colombia.

“Tonight’s vote is by no means the end of this fight,” Obama said in a statement after the vote. “Because with so many Americans out of work and so many families struggling, we can’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

In the weeks and months ahead, Democrats promise further votes on jobs. But it remains to be seen how much of that effort will involve more campaign-stoked battles with Republicans and how much will include seeking common ground in hopes of passing legislation. Further complicating matters is a deficit “supercommittee” that is supposed to come up with $1.2 trillion or more in deficit savings — some of which Democrats may want to claim for jobs initiatives.

Tuesday’s tally also shows that Republicans believe they have little to fear by tangling with Obama.

The White House appears most confident that it will be able to continue a 2-percentage-point Social Security payroll tax cut through 2012 and to extend emergency unemployment benefits to millions of people — if only because, in the White House view, Republicans won’t want to accept the political harm of letting those provisions expire.

White House officials also are hopeful of ultimately garnering votes for the approval of infrastructure spending and tax credits for businesses that hire unemployed veterans.

Obama’s plan would have combined Social Security payroll tax cuts for workers and businesses and other tax relief totaling about $270 billion with $175 billion in new spending on roads, school repairs and other infrastructure, as well as unemployment assistance and help to local governments to avoid layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police officers.

Obama said the plan — more than half the size of his 2009 economic stimulus measure — would be an insurance policy against a double-dip recession and that continued economic intervention was essential given slower-than-hoped job growth.

Unlike the 2009 legislation, the current plan would be paid for with a 5.6 percent surcharge on income exceeding $1 million. That would be expected to raise about $450 billion over the coming decade.

“Democrats’ sole proposal is to keep doing what hasn’t worked — along with a massive tax hike that we know won’t create jobs,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday, adding that there are 1.5 million fewer jobs than when Obama’s 2009 economic package became law. “Why on earth would you support an approach that we already know won’t work?” McConnell said.

Leaders of the GOP-controlled House have signaled they support tax cuts for small businesses and changes to jobless insurance to allow states to use unemployment funds for on-the-job training. And they’ve indicated they’ll be willing to accept an extension of cuts to the Social Security payroll tax. But stimulus-style spending is a nonstarter with the tea party-infused chamber.

“Now it’s time for both parties to work together and find common ground on removing government barriers to private-sector job growth,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said after the vote.

WASHINGTON — The Democratic-led Senate on Wednesday emphatically rejected a budget-slashing House spending bill as too draconian. It then immediately killed a rival Democratic plan that was derided by moderate Democrats as too timid in its drive to cut day-to-day agency budgets.

The votes to scuttle the competing measures were designed, ironically, to prompt progress. The idea was to show tea party-backed GOP conservatives in the House that they need to pare back their budget-cutting ambitions while at the same time demonstrating to Democratic liberals that they need to budge, too.

White House budget director Jacob Lew said the votes should turn a page and that talks between the administration and Republicans are likely to become more productive. The negotiators are unlikely to meet a March 18 deadline, which means another stopgap budget extension would be required to keep the government from shutting down.

“We want to come to a reasonable outcome,” Lew said in an interview. “We’ve made it clear that that’s not the end, that there are more savings. But we’ve also said that there’s a line beyond which we can’t go.”

Top Senate Democrats visited with Obama on Wednesday afternoon to plot strategy. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a participant, declined to comment afterward, other than to say he recognizes his party will have to move in the GOP’s direction.

One reason is that Democratic moderates are agitating for further cuts to spending.

“I still think there are way too many people in denial around here about the nature of the problem and how serious it is,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who contended that the Democratic plan didn’t go far enough. But she said the GOP measure cut too indiscriminately in its funding for infrastructure programs, education and research.

The GOP plan mustered 44 aye votes; the Democratic measure received just 42 votes, with 10 party members and liberal independent Bernard Sanders in opposition. Moderates Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and McCaskill – each face potentially difficult re-election bids next year – were among those opposed to the Democratic version.

At issue was legislation to fund the day-to-day operating budgets of every federal agency through the Sept. 30 end of the budget year and provide a $158 billion infusion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Republicans dominating the House, driven by a campaign promise to bring return domestic agency budgets to 2008, drove through last month a measure cutting more than $60 billion, imposing cuts of 13 percent, on average, to domestic agencies.

The 87-person freshman class forced Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to back away from an earlier plan cutting $35 billion over the second half of the budget year that took into account the fact that the budget year is nearly half over. As a result, over the coming six months, the House measure would actually impose day-to-day cuts far steeper than promised in the campaign. Targets grew to include Head Start, special education and Pell Grants for low-income college students.

Senate Democrats had been slow to respond. Their alternative, unveiled just last Friday by Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, cuts about $12 billion below levels enacted for 2010. It’s also $30 billion below a Senate omnibus spending measure that Republicans sidetracked in December.

Inouye said his bill represented months of labor by panel members and their aides and “makes real cuts to real programs.”

“But the cuts … are based on hearings, testimony and a thorough analysis of the current needs of every agency and department,” Inouye said. “By contrast, the Republicans in the House have thrown together a proposal … based on the campaign promise to reduce spending by $100 billion.”

Inouye was referring to a GOP campaign promise to cut nonsecurity spending by $100 billion below President Barack Obama’s budget request. By that measuring stick, the Democratic alternative represents $50 billion in savings.

Lew said the president is willing to go further. “We can agree to additional savings and we want to look and find the savings that we can all agree on,” he said. “It won’t add up to $100 billion. … It’s going to be somewhere in the middle.”

Republicans derided the Democratic bill as simply endorsing the status quo.

“There is plenty of fat to be cut in the discretionary budget,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. “And yet Democrats can’t find it in themselves to cut an additional $50 billion from a bill that spends over $1 trillion.”

Inouye’s current plan might have won bipartisan support last year, but it was overtaken by events. GOP moderates queasy about cuts to education, health research and college aid nonetheless rallied behind the slashing House measure despite their reservations.

“I have a lot of concerns about some of the cuts,” said moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. But, she added, “it may be necessary to send a strong message to the White House.”

The near-universal GOP support for the House plan belied significant qualms about it among many Republicans.

“While I can support the spirit in which the House made its cuts, I do not endorse each and every reduction in the House measure,” said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., top Republican on the Appropriations panel. “In fact, I oppose some of the cuts to important programs and believe that alternative reductions must be considered.”

There were GOP defections from the right, however, as tea party-favorites Rand Paul, R-Ky., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Jim DeMint, R-S.C., voted against the House GOP measure.

“The cuts are more significant, but they also pale in comparison to the problem,” Paul said. “I think both (Democratic and Republican) approaches do not significantly alter or delay the crisis that’s coming.”

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Roland Martin appears on JKUSA with Erick Erickson, Dana Bash and host John King to discuss Sen. Jim Webb decision not to run for office in 2012 plus the Tea Party’s desire to obtain the vacant seat.

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Washington — The tax bill that extends the Bush tax cuts and slashes the estate tax while extending unemployment benefits has passed the House House by a vote of 277-148 and is heading for the President to sign, according to The Huffington Post

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House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina is saying that he will not be voting for his party’s nominee for U.S. Senate because the candidate has been indicted on a felony charge.

Clyburn said Wednesday that a vote for fellow Democrat Alvin Greene would be an insult to his three daughters and granddaughter. Greene is accused of showing pornographic images to a female University of South Carolina student.

Greene is a political unknown and unemployed military veteran who unexpectedly won the nomination. He faces Republican incumbent Jim DeMint and Green Party candidate Tom Clements in November.

Clyburn plans to vote for write-in candidate Mazie Ferguson, a longtime Democratic Party activist from Sumter.

Phones messages left for Greene were not returned.

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Pics Of The Week: 08.23.10

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Linda McMahon, the GOP Senate Candidate from Connecticut and wife of World Wrestling Entertainment head, Vince McMahon is being criticized for her past as a WWE performer and her propensity for kicking men in the crotch. The DNC released a statement saying

Today the party of Bob Dole, Jack Kemp and Dick Lugar nominated a candidate who kicks men in the crotch…”

In this video Republican Peter Schiff criticizes her for siding with Obama by using footage of her kicking men in the crotch.

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WASHINGTON – Summoned back from summer break, the House on Tuesday pushed through an emergency $26 billion jobs bill that Democrats said would save 300,000 teachers, police and others from election-year layoffs. President Barack Obama immediately signed it into law.

Lawmakers streamed back to Washington for a one-day session as Democrats declared a need to act before children return to classrooms minus teachers laid off because of budgetary crises in states that have been hard-hit by the recession.

Republicans saw it differently, calling the bill a giveaway to teachers’ unions and an example of wasteful Washington spending that voters will punish the Democrats for in this fall’s elections. The legislation was approved mainly along party lines by a vote of 247-161.

The aid for the states is to be paid for mostly by closing a tax loophole used by multinational corporations and by reducing food stamp benefits for the poor.

Obama, joined by teachers at a Rose Garden ceremony earlier in the day, said, “We can’t stand by and do nothing while pink slips are given to the men and women who educate our children or keep our communities safe.”

The Senate narrowly passed the measure last Thursday, after the House had begun its August break.

The legislation provides $10 billion to school districts to rehire laid-off teachers or to ensure that more teachers won’t be let go before the new school year begins. The Education Department estimates that could save 160,000 jobs.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said his department would streamline the application process to get the money to local school districts quickly. He said three-fourths of the nation’s districts have said they would be opening the school year with fewer teachers and “we wanted to avert a crisis for this year.”

An additional $16 billion would extend for six months increased Medicaid payments to the states. That would free money for states to meet other budget priorities, including keeping more than 150,000 police officers and other public workers on the payroll.

Some three-fifths of states have already factored in the federal money in drawing up their budgets for the current fiscal year. The National Governors Association, in a letter to congressional leaders, said the states’ estimated budget shortfall for the 2010-12 period is $116 billion, and the extended Medicaid payments are “the best way to help states bridge the gap between their worst fiscal year and the beginning of recovery.”

Not all governors were on board. Mississippi Republican Haley Barbour said his state would have to rewrite its budget and would have to spend $50 million to $100 million to get its additional $98 million in education grants.

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The $26 billion package is small compared to previous efforts to right the flailing economy through federal spending. But with the election approaching, the political stakes were high.

“Teachers, nurses and cops should not be used as pawns in a cynical political game” resulting from “the Democratic majority’s failure to govern responsibly,” said Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif.

“Where do the bailouts end?” asked Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio. “Are we going to bail out states next year and the year after that, too? At some point we’ve got to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”

But Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee said his state of Washington would get funds to keep 3,000 teachers. Republicans, he said, “think those billions of dollars for those corporate loopholes is simply more important than almost 3,000 teachers and classrooms in the state of Washington.”

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., said Republicans ignore the fact that the law would not add to the federal deficit. “They want to do everything in their power to make certain that President Obama can’t get this country going again. I think in November they are going to find it was a dumb policy.”

The means of paying for the bill, a result of difficult negotiations in the Senate, were contentious.

Republicans objected to raising some $10 billion by raising taxes on some U.S.-based multinational companies. Advocates for the poor protested a provision to accelerate the phasing out of an increase in food stamp payments implemented in last year’s economic recovery bill. Under the measure, payments would return to pre-stimulus rates in 2014, saving almost $12 billion.

James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, said that would be cutting benefits for some 40 million people now receiving food stamps. “Those families will be hungrier and less able to buy healthy diets,” he said.

Weill’s group estimated that a family of four that may now receive about $464 a month in food stamps stood to lose about $59. Democrats gave assurances that they would look for other ways to pay for the law before the payment cuts go into effect in four years.

“The cutbacks in food stamps in the bill are plain wrong,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee rejected GOP arguments that the Democrats’ primary purpose with the legislation was to reward their friends in organized labor. “We’re in tough shape out there with these incredible holes in these state budgets. To the American people it’s tremendously important and will give a little lift to the economy,” he said of the legislation.

The House on Tuesday also passed a $600 million measure to boost security on the U.S.-Mexican border by hiring more enforcement officers and making greater use of unmanned surveillance drones. That bill still has to go back to the Senate.

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House Passes Bill Saving 161,000 Teaching Jobs

Senate Prevents 100,000 Teachers From Being Laid Off

ATLANTA – Dave Ebersbach lost his job as a math teacher this summer, and he spends each day hoping that his poverty-stricken school in Ohio will call up and offer him his position back.

He and thousands of other teachers around the country could get their jobs back now that the Senate has approved an emergency stimulus package designed to keep educators and other public employees out of the unemployment line.

“My biggest thing is I want to go back to the school I was at for the students,” said Ebersbach, 43, one of 14 math teachers in the Toledo school district to receive notice a few weeks ago that their jobs were cut. “We’re in a high-poverty school and one thing the students need more than anything else is consistency. And they’re not going to get that.”

The $26 billion measure passed Thursday is less than was initially proposed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, but will provide $16 billion to help states balance their Medicaid budgets and $10 billion for grants to school districts to forestall layoffs.

Republicans strenuously opposed the measure, denouncing it as yet another federal bailout the government cannot afford and calling it a giveaway to public employee unions.

For educators across the country, it’s been a bewildering summer as money to save thousands of jobs stalled in Congress and unions and administrators sparred over ways to rehire laid-off teachers.

The result has been what is referred to in education circles as the “yo-yo effect.” School budgets, facing severe reductions in state funding, are cut. Layoffs are made. And some or even all of the teachers are hired back over the summer as officials scramble for money.

The money coming from Congress could help fill some of that void. But until districts actually have the money in hand, thousands of teachers must wait in limbo not knowing whether they’ll have jobs when school starts in a few weeks.

Data provided by the U.S. Department of Education on how many jobs the bill is expected to fund reads like the medical chart of a battered patient: 16,500 in California. In Texas, 14,500. More than 9,000 in Florida. Some 161,000 education jobs across the country in all.

“The Senate amendment will go a long way to protecting these jobs and ensuring that America’s educators are working to educate our way to a better economy,” Duncan said. “It’s the right thing to do for America’s students and America’s teachers.”

Throughout the summer, many districts had despaired that Congress would deliver any money, and scrambled to find other ways to bring back the teachers, offering early-retirement incentives and negotiating furlough days.

In Iowa, where 1,500 layoffs were announced earlier this year, the Des Moines district has called back all but 30 of the 173 teachers who were laid off. Twyla Woods, the district’s chief of staff, said they opened an early retirement option and hope to have enough attrition overall to bring back the remaining teachers.

In Santa Cruz, Calif., 82 teachers were laid-off this spring and rehired again this summer, also largely due to a negotiated retirement incentive that 41 workers opted into. Teachers also agreed to take furlough days. The entry level salary in the district is $40,000.

The efforts all saved jobs, but are not considered long-term solutions.

In other districts, no solution was reached at all, leaving hundreds unemployed and hoping for federal money.

Gretchen Marfisi in Florida was laid off in each of the last two summers, only to be rehired by the Broward County School District.

This year she canceled her family vacation and put her life on hold before being called back Thursday.

“Why are they firing all of us?” Marfisi said, her voice ringing with frustration. “Besides giving us all more gray hair and wrinkles, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of logic involved.”

Marfisi is now preparing to unpack all her boxes of teaching materials once again.

“It’s a relief to get a paycheck,” Marfisi said. “It’s just very weird and bizarre emotionally. It just in the process makes you feel like garbage.”

Mike Langyel, president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, worries about the long-term effects these series of layoffs will have on the teaching career.

“We don’t need to turn this into a Wal-Mart employment where you’re in for a while and you’re out,” Langyel said.

Teachers say the effect on morale has been overwhelming.

“Somebody said to me, ‘Teacher: I thought that was one field that was recession-proof,’” Ebersbach said. “I’m at a 50-50 shot.”

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In a surprise move, the U.S. Senate did something good Wednesday—it moved to prevent more than 100,000 teachers from being laid off this fall and restored funds for President Obama’s signature Race to the Top education program.

The House, led by retiring Rep. David Obey, chose the wrong way to pay for the $10 billion needed to prevent the teacher layoffs. It cut $800 billion from the president’s prize program, which incentivizes accountability for performance and charter schools. Obama reacted firmly, threatening to veto a Democratic bill for the first time since he became president.

Meanwhile, Republicans in both chambers were happy to let all those teachers lose their jobs. The results would have been devastating not just for schools but for the country. Just what we need when we’re trying to compete with China and India—four-day school weeks and teachers with 35 kids in a class.

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WASHINGTON — After a take-it-or-leave-it vote by the Senate, House Democrats face little choice but to drop billions in aid for schools, college students and others that they had hoped could ride on legislation paying for President Barack Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan.

The Senate rejected the House measure, passed earlier this month, by a 46-51 vote that fell short of a majority, much less the 60 votes required to defeat a filibuster.

Instead, the Senate on Thursday stripped out the $20 billion in House add-ons and returned to the House an almost $60 billion measure passed by a bipartisan vote in May. The Senate measure is limited chiefly to war funding, foreign aid, medical care for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange, and replenishing almost empty disaster aid accounts.

It would bring the amount of money appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan above $1 trillion.

Eleven Senate Democrats and Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut voted against the House version of the bill. Not a single Republican supported it.

The moves repel a long-shot bid by House Democrats earlier this month to resurrect their faltering jobs agenda with $10 billion in grants to school districts to avoid teacher layoffs, $5 billion for Pell Grants to low-income college students, $1 billion for a summer jobs program and $700 million to improve security along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Senate measure is likely to be grudgingly accepted by House Democrats next week despite opposition from liberals who oppose the war in Afghanistan, which many of them view as unwinnable.

A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wouldn’t comment on whether the House will simply approve the Senate measure and send it on to Obama for his signature.

But the pressure to do so is intense, especially after Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned lawmakers this week that unless the measure is enacted into law before Congress leaves for its August recess, the Pentagon could have to furlough thousands of employees.

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House Dems Pressured To Drop Funding For Schools, Students To Pay For Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan

ANDREW TAYLOR | 07/23/10 11:14 AM | AP
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WASHINGTON — After a take-it-or-leave-it vote by the Senate, House Democrats face little choice but to drop billions in aid for schools, college students and others that they had hoped could ride on legislation paying for President Barack Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan.

The Senate rejected the House measure, passed earlier this month, by a 46-51 vote that fell short of a majority, much less the 60 votes required to defeat a filibuster.

Instead, the Senate on Thursday stripped out the $20 billion in House add-ons and returned to the House an almost $60 billion measure passed by a bipartisan vote in May. The Senate measure is limited chiefly to war funding, foreign aid, medical care for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange, and replenishing almost empty disaster aid accounts.

It would bring the amount of money appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan above $1 trillion.

Eleven Senate Democrats and Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut voted against the House version of the bill. Not a single Republican supported it.

The moves repel a long-shot bid by House Democrats earlier this month to resurrect their faltering jobs agenda with $10 billion in grants to school districts to avoid teacher layoffs, $5 billion for Pell Grants to low-income college students, $1 billion for a summer jobs program and $700 million to improve security along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Senate measure is likely to be grudgingly accepted by House Democrats next week despite opposition from liberals who oppose the war in Afghanistan, which many of them view as unwinnable.

A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wouldn’t comment on whether the House will simply approve the Senate measure and send it on to Obama for his signature.

But the pressure to do so is intense, especially after Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned lawmakers this week that unless the measure is enacted into law before Congress leaves for its August recess, the Pentagon could have to furlough thousands of employees.
Story continues below

The House bill also attracted a White House veto threat over $800 million in cuts to education programs to help pay for the additional domestic spending under a “pay-as-you-go” culture that the administration itself advocates.

The Senate measure blends about $30 billion for Obama’s 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan with more than $5 billion to replenish disaster aid accounts, as well as funding for Haitian earthquake relief, and a down payment on aid to flood-drenched Tennessee and Rhode Island.

The measure contains $13 billion in benefits for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange, but does not provide more than $4 billion requested by the administration to finance settlements of long-standing lawsuits against the government, including $1.2 billion to remedy discrimination by the Agriculture Department against black farmers and $3.4 billion for mismanaging Indian trust funds.

The measure contains $1.1 billion for mine-resistant vehicles, $657 million for military bases in Afghanistan and $6.2 billion in foreign aid for Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Haiti.

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WASHINGTON — Pushing toward an election-year Supreme Court confirmation vote, a polarized U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday approved Elena Kagan to be the third current female justice.

Just one Republican joined Democrats to approve Kagan’s nomination and send it to the full Senate, where she is expected to win confirmation within weeks.

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If confirmed, Kagan would be the fourth woman to serve on the court and her swearing-in would mark the first time that three women have served together on the nine-member Supreme Court. Justices often serve for life so their influence can extend well beyond the president who nominates them.

The debate over her nomination has unfolded against a highly partisan backdrop, at a time when Republicans are focused on making sharp distinctions between themselves and Obama, who approval ratings are sagging little more than 100 days out from November elections.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, broke with his party to cast the sole Republican “yes” vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. The vote was 13-6.

“What’s in Elena Kagan’s heart is that of a good person who adopts a philosophy I disagree with,” Graham said. “She will serve this nation honorably, and it would not have been someone I would have chosen, but the person who did choose, President Obama, I think chose wisely.”

A few more Republicans are expected likely to back Kagan in the full Senate, where Democrats have more than enough votes to confirm her.

But most Republcian senators are against her, arguing that she would put her political views ahead of the law. They point to what they call her liberal agenda and on such issues as abortion and gun rights, and have chastised her for the decision as dean of Harvard Law School to bar military recruiters from the campus career services office because of the policy against openly gay soldiers.

“Ms. Kagan’s record shows that she supports an activist judicial philosophy, and that her personal and political views drive her legal views,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican.

Democrats praised Kagan, the 50-year-old who has served as the Obama administration’s solicitor general, calling her a highly qualified glass ceiling-shattering nominee who could bring consensus to an ideologically divided court.

“It becomes more and more apparent that we need a return to the center and a justice who will urge moderation and who will push for consensus. Elena Kagan’s record gives me confidence that she could be just such a voice,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat.

Republicans have been quicker to announce their opposition to Kagan than they were last year to Obama’s first high court nominee, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Graham is the only Republican so far to say he’ll vote “yes.”

Democrats attributed the difference to political considerations by the Republicans.

“Sadly, it appears election-year politics may deprive her of the vote total that her nomination deserves,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, a leading Democrat.

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WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday passed the stiffest restrictions on banks and Wall Street since the Great Depression, clamping down on lending practices and expanding consumer protections to prevent a repeat of the 2008 meltdown that knocked the economy to its knees.

A year in the making and 22 months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered a worldwide panic in credit and other markets, the bill cleared its final hurdle with a 60-39 Senate vote and goes to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature.

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The law will give the government new powers to break up companies that threaten the economy, create a new agency to guard consumers in their financial transactions and shine a light into shadow financial markets that escaped the oversight of regulators.

Large, failing financial institutions would be liquidated and the costs assessed on their surviving peers. The Federal Reserve is getting new powers while falling under greater congressional scrutiny.

From storefront payday lenders to the biggest banking and investment houses on Wall Street, few players in the financial world are immune to the bill’s reach. Consumer and investor transactions, whether simple debit card swipes or the most complex securities trades, face new safeguards or restrictions.

“When this earthquake hit, there wasn’t nearly enough oversight, transparency or accountability to shield us from the fallout,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. “This law will strengthen all three.”

Republicans said it is a vast federal overreach that will drive financial-sector jobs overseas.

At a thud-inducing 2,300 pages, the legislation doesn’t offer a quick remedy, however. Rather, it lays down prescriptions for regulators to act. In many cases, the real impact won’t be felt for years.

The Senate’s final passage of the bill, two weeks after the House approved it, is a welcome achievement for a president and congressional Democrats, both increasingly unpopular with voters four months from midterm elections that threaten to put Republicans in charge of Congress. Only three Republicans voted for it — Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who has said the bill is not tough enough, voted with most Republicans against it.

The law has been a priority for Obama, ranking just behind his health car overhaul enacted in March. In its final form, the package hews closely to the plan unwrapped a year ago by the White House and in some ways is even tougher. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs promptly cast the vote in political terms for a highly competitive midterm election.

“This will be a vote that Democrats will talk about through November as a way of highlighting the choice that people will get to make in 2010,” he said.

The political benefits, however, stand to be overshadowed by lingering high unemployment. And Republicans were betting that public antipathy toward big government and worries over jobs would trump their anger at Wall Street.

“We’re going to be driving jobs and business overseas with this massive piece of legislation,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-ala., who worked with Dodd on certain aspects of the bill, denounced it as a “legislative monster.”

Named after Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd and Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, the Democratic committee chairmen who steered it to passage, the legislation ends a trend to ease regulations that peaked in 1999 with the elimination of Depression-era walls separating commercial banking from riskier investment banking.

And though it calls for the biggest changes in generations, it does not approach the scope of the New Deal banking rules enacted under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That era saw the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., to protect consumer deposits, and the Securities and Exchange Commission to oversee the markets.

The Dodd-Frank bill’s major creation is a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency will have power to write and enforce new regulations covering lending and other consumer transactions.

Lenders face new restrictions on the type of mortgages they write and could not be rewarded for steering borrowers to higher cost loans. Borrowers also will have to provide evidence that they can repay their loans, thus halting the no-document loans that had flooded the markets.

The vote Thursday capped a year of partisan struggles and cross-party courtship. Any remaining uncertainty about the bill’s fate vanished earlier this week when it became clear three Republican senators would vote for it, thus assuring 60 votes to overcome procedural obstacles.

Industry lobbyists fought against a number of restrictions in the bill, ultimately winning some concessions. In the end, the final bill was tougher than they wanted but not as restrictive as they feared.

“Core elements of the bill will contribute to a stronger, more secure financial system,” Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable, a banking group, said in a speech Thursday. “Some items in the legislation we did not support and we expressed our views accordingly. Nevertheless, we are committed to making those items work as well as possible.”

The American Bankers Association was not as conciliatory.

“The result will be over 5,000 pages of new regulations on traditional banks and years of uncertainty as to what the massive new rules will mean,” said Edward Yingling, president and CEO of the group.

Republican opponents also criticized the bill for not addressing mortgage financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose questionable lending helped start a collapse in the housing market.

Some supporters of the bill also voiced reservations, claiming the bill did not give regulators specific direction on how to implement and enforce new rules.

“Congress largely has decided instead to punt decisions to the regulators, saddling them with a mountain of rule-makings and studies,” said Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del.

For all its ambition and reach, the legislation is dotted with exceptions.

Community banks won’t have to be examined by the new consumer bureau and would get a break on higher insurance premiums. Despite calls to end proprietary trading by large banks, the law will let them put up to 3 percent of their capital in hedge funds or private equity funds. Auto dealers won’t be covered by the rules of the consumer bureau.

“It is not a perfect bill, I will be the first to admit that,” Dodd said. “It will take the next economic crisis, as certainly it will come, to determine whether or not the provisions of this bill will actually provide this generation or the next generation of regulators with the tools necessary to minimize the effects of that crisis.”

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — An unemployed military veteran will face no state charges over the $10,440 filing fee for his successful bid to win South Carolina’s Democratic nomination to run for U.S. Senate, the state’s top police official said Friday.

The State Law Enforcement Division also opted not to charge Alvin Greene with misrepresenting his finances to a court, SLED Chief Reggie Lloyd told The Associated Press.

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Greene cooperated with agents and Lloyd said he hoped the findings will put questions about Greene’s finances to rest.

Greene, who did no fundraising, won an unexpected victory over former state lawmaker Vic Rawl in the June 8 Democratic primary to face GOP U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint.

Greene had reported just over $1,000 in monthly income on court paperwork and was appointed a public defender to represent him on a pending obscenity charge. His meager finances raised questions about how he paid the required $10,440 fee to run as a U.S. Senate candidate.

But when state agents reviewed Greene’s bank accounts, they found an October deposit of nearly $6,000, which was Greene’s military exit pay, and about $3,000 deposited early this year from state and federal tax refunds, Lloyd said.

The records matched Greene’s story that the 32-year-old candidate, who has been collecting unemployment benefits since he left the military in August, was able to afford the fee because he saved his money and lived frugally.

“He clearly does not have someone paying him. He just decided to take his money and run for U.S. Senate. There’s no big conspiracy,” Lloyd said.

Greene said Friday that SLED’s findings vindicated him.

“It was just as I said: It came from the Army,” Greene said Friday. “I’m happy.”

Lloyd also wanted to look into whether Greene had misrepresented his financial situation in court. In November, a court-appointed attorney was named to represent Greene on a felony charge of showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student.

Court records show Greene reported just over $1,000 in monthly income. Last month, Greene notified the court he had retained a private attorney to represent him.

Greene says he didn’t ask for a court-appointed attorney or intend to mislead anyone about his financial situation.

“They just gave me one,” he said Friday.

SLED agents listened to a recording of Greene’s testimony at a hearing and felt he was honest and didn’t try to deceive anyone, Lloyd said.

Rep. Chip Limehouse, the state lawmaker who asked state police to investigate, says he’s not satisfied with their probe and will continue to ask questions about where Greene got the money for his filing fee.

“Did the $10,400 fall out of the sky?” the Republican from Charleston asked Friday. “This doesn’t clear it up for me.”

Democratic Party leaders were stunned by Greene’s 18-point primary victory. After The Associated Press reported Greene’s arrest, they called for him to withdraw from the race.

Greene has declined to comment on the charge in a series of awkward, often terse news interviews. He has not entered a plea or been indicted.

Greene’s victory prompted some to accuse Republicans of having a hand in the election, a charge GOP leaders have repeatedly brushed aside. A Washington-based watchdog group suggested that South Carolina’s top prosecutor should look into whether someone gave money to Greene. Attorney General Henry McMaster, however, says his office has received no evidence supporting that claim.

Greene insists he’s done nothing wrong and is staying in the race.

Multiple theories have surfaced about Greene’s success, including the possibility that voters simply picked the first name on the ballot.

The state Democratic Party’s executive committee has upheld Greene’s victory, nixing a protest that could have required a new vote.

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MANNING, S.C. – Alvin Greene earned the nickname “turtle” in high school – a quiet, withdrawn boy who was smart when he applied himself but rarely took a chance and tried to put himself in comfortable situations.

Nearly four weeks ago, the 32-year-old unemployed military veteran turned South Carolina’s political scene upside down when he won the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat. And unlike that high school student, he’s taking a big chance: running against powerhouse Republican Sen. Jim DeMint.

He is remembered as painfully shy by those who knew him in high school, where Greene was the only black person on the tennis team. His mother died of cancer when he was a boy; a brother died of cystic fibrosis. The few people who know him say the man with a political science degree from the University of South Carolina is smarter than his national image suggests.

But much remains murky about him. He spends his days in the home he shares with his ailing father on the two-lane backroad to South Carolina’s beaches, about four miles outside Manning.

He says he campaigned across the state but doesn’t remember where. He has no staff. He touts his service in the Army and Air Force, but won’t specify what he did or why he was “involuntarily” discharged. He says he decided two years ago to run for Senate but appears to have done little except pay the $10,440 filing fee with a hand-written, hand-delivered check to party headquarters.

At the small businesses surrounding his hometown about 50 miles southeast of Columbia, plenty of people have heard of Greene. But from the post office to the small diners to the shop that sells CDs and other merchandise, few know much about him.

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A trip to his home doesn’t provide much more illumination. The days after Greene won the Democratic primary by a 30,000-vote landslide, he welcomed reporters into his home. He spoke to The Associated Press for the better part of an hour. A Washington Post reporter wrote he spent more than three hours with Greene, his father and brother.

But Greene didn’t say much, repeating talking points and deflecting any questions about his past, like his “involuntary” discharge from the military after 13 years of service or who was backing his campaign.

After dozens of interviews, the candidate has begun to shun reporters, wearily asking what the story is going to be about and sometimes refusing to talk.

Two weeks ago, Greene asked the same AP reporter he’d welcomed into his home to leave, saying he was “a busy man” and repeating “Go! Go! Go! Go!” while avoiding eye contact. A phone call to arrange an interview later that day was met with a gruff request to return a week later at 1:30. When the appointment arrived, Greene wasn’t there. Greene answered another request for a long interview Monday by telling the reporter to call back in a couple of weeks.

Greene’s older brother said a national television crew recently spent a couple of days in Manning doing a story. They wanted to get video of Greene at church on a Sunday, basking in the attention from his congregation. Greene told them he needed to stay home and answer the phone.

“I’ve told him he needs to get people to do that kind of stuff. But he’s hardheaded and doesn’t listen,” said James Jr., 12 years older than his brother.

James Jr. beams with pride when he talks about how his little brother shook up politics, comparing Greene winning the primary to the U.S. moon landing.

“Your dreams can come true,” James Jr. said.

Publicly, though, Greene doesn’t seem to be enjoying the harsh spotlight.

The day after his victory, the AP reported he had been arrested in November and charged with a felony for allegedly showing pornography to a teenage college student. Greene has refused to comment.

RELATED: OPINION: 5 Reasons Why I’m Rooting For Mystery Candidate, Alvin Greene

U.S. Senate, state and federal officials have called for investigations into his finances after he initially was granted a public defender to fight the charge and still had money to pay the filing fee about four months later. Greene said he saved his military pay for two years.

Officials say Greene entered the South Carolina Air National Guard in 1995 when he was 17. He briefly served in Texas in 1996, then served the next years as an intelligence specialist. He was honorably discharged in 2002 and was free to enlist in another military branch.

Greene’s records are blank until 2006, when he re-enlisted for nearly a year with the South Carolina Army National Guard. Again, Greene was discharged and allowed to enter another branch. The next year he signed up with the U.S. Army, serving more than two years before his discharge last August.

Everywhere else, Greene faded to the background.

Tennis coach Kay Young said she remembers just about every one of her players over her nearly two decades leading the team. But she barely recalls Greene, who she said was a smart boy who earned the “turtle” nickname because he was so introverted.

“I do remember he wasn’t outgoing and he was picked on unmercifully,” said Young, who had no idea her former player was running until she saw her ballot on primary day.

When Greene was 10, his mom died of cancer. He suffered another blow about a decade later when his brother Timmy died from cystic fibrosis while Greene was doing ROTC training in Texas, James Jr. said.

One of the few places in Manning where Greene is often seen is Spencer and Tom’s Barber Shop downtown. He and his father come in about once a month, said his barber, Spencer Tindal.

Political opinions and other small talk bounce off the walls of the tiny shop, but Tindal said Greene doesn’t talk much. He did tape a green campaign flyer to the wall – one of the few tangible signs of Greene’s candidacy. It stayed up only until he won the primary.

There is one thing that perks Greene up – taking on DeMint. Greene said he decided South Carolina deserved a better senator about two years ago when he was stationed in South Korea.

“I want a debate. A September debate,” Greene said the day after his win, a smile twinkling on the edge of his lips. “A good September debate, just compare and contrast the issues.”

From TheGrio.com:

By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

Once again RNC Chairman Michael Steele has taken his rhetoric a bit too far. Last Thursday while speaking at a Republican fundraiser Steele said he found the dismissal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal “comical.” Steele went on to say “Keep in mind … this was a war of Obama’s choosing, ….This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in … the one thing you don’t do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan …Everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed, …”

As a result of these comments Chairman Steele has come under heavy fire from within the Republican Party. Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol among others has called for Steele’s resignation. “I ask you to consider, over this July 4 weekend, doing an act of service for the country you love: Resign as chairman of the Republican Party.” Sometimes, as with Steele, the problem is the messenger and the message.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Just about everyone likes Charlie Rangel.

Republicans pump his hand, Democrats put their arms around his shoulders and women of all political persuasions give him pecks on the cheek.

Spend some time with the 80-year-old congressman from New York City who’s been striding the Capitol’s halls for four decades on behalf of residents of Harlem, and there’s little evidence he’s become someone to avoid because of an ethics cloud that’s more likely than not going to darken in days to come.

RELATED: RAP SESSIONS: Conrad Tillard On Charlie Rangel’s Fight For Senate Seat

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Colleagues in both parties still gravitate to the gravelly voiced, outgoing, backslapping Rangel four months after fellow Democrats persuaded — and Republicans hounded — him to relinquish one of the most powerful jobs in Washington, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

“Amiga,” he shouts in the Capitol subway to Cuban-born, Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, using the Spanish word for female friend.

“Amigo,” she belts out in return.

“Hey Ritchie,” Rangel booms as he passes Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., who’s seen by many as a Ways and Means chairman in the future.

Behind the scenes, it’s a different story. A few Democrats have returned money that Rangel raised for them. His influence is sapped.

His wife, Alma, warns him not to be naive about the glad-handling.

“You know,” she tells him, “they’re putting you on.”

How did it come to this?

___

Rangel follows in a tradition of Ways and Means chairmen such as Reps. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., and Wilbur Mills, D-Ark., who waited decades to become congressional titans, then lost that perch through ethical lapses.

“Some members are old school,” said Stanley Brand, a former House counsel and a defense lawyer for many politicians in trouble. “As they rise in seniority … they think less about (rules) changes that occur under their nose.”

RELATED: Rep. Charles Rangel Faces Cash Investigation

Rangel lost his post because his conduct gave Republicans an ethics issue that’s ripe for exploitation, just as Democrats in 2006 and 2008 successfully seized on GOP ethical lapses.

Nervous about losing House seats this year, Democrats persuaded Rangel to step down after the House ethics committee concluded in February in a relatively minor case that Rangel violated the chamber’s rules on gifts. The committee said Rangel should have known that corporate money paid for two trips to Caribbean conferences. Rangel insists he didn’t know. There was no punishment.

More ominous is an investigation into activities far more likely to touch the nerve of voters: Rangel’s failure to pay taxes on income from a Dominican Republic vacation villa; his rent-subsidized apartments in New York; using official stationery to raise money for a college center bearing his name; and his belated disclosure of assets revealing he was far richer than people thought.

___

Rangel joined the Ways and Means Committee in 1974 and ascended to chairman more than three decades later. He says the pain of having his integrity questioned is terrible, but he tries hard not to show it.

He dresses immaculately, his gray hair neatly combed back, the color matching his mustache, and his pocket handkerchief matching his suit. He walks with a spry step.

He remains a workaholic, sometimes forgetting breakfast even though he scoops oatmeal into a cardboard cup at a House cafeteria each morning and carries it back to the office. Some busy days, he warms it in the microwave for lunch.

“There’s been a force out there. People feel they have to say something supportive,” Rangel says as he walks through the Capitol’s underground subway.

“She says it’s unseemly,” Rangel says of his wife’s advice. “I say, ‘Suppose it’s not real. As long as they keep saying these things until I die, what difference does it make?’”

But he admits, “It’s still painful. It’s times like this when I have to reinforce the facts: I’m alive, I’m well, and 60 years ago I could have died when I was surrounded by hundreds of Chinese” in the Korean War.

Rangel came back from that war a Harlem hero with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He says he’s constantly measuring his current troubles against the 20-degree below zero days of Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, 1950, when he was wounded, but survived while fellow soldiers died all around him.

He always falls back on the title of his autobiographical book, which comes from his wartime experience: “And I Haven’t Had A Bad Day Since.”

RELATED: Rangel Says Obama Should Be Careful When He Visits Harlem

___

Long before he was chairman, Rangel took care of his Harlem constituents, many of them poor. He sponsored empowerment zones with tax credits for businesses moving into economically depressed areas and developers of low income housing.

As chairman, he pushed bills with tax relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina, tax breaks for small business and stronger environmental and labor rules in trade agreements, tax rebates for consumers and an increase in the minimum wage. He was a major player in passage of President Barack Obama’s $862 billion stimulus program, one-third of it tax cuts.

But Rangel lacked the power of some of his predecessors.

He was a longtime advocate of health care reform, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., passed him over for guiding Obama’s overhaul to passage. An important part of the House’s climate change legislation was given to another committee, when it could have gone primarily to Ways and Means.

House leaders forced him to reverse himself and manage a bill to tax away Wall Street bonuses after he told reporters that would be a misuse of tax law.

Leadership aides said those decisions were part of the strategy to pass important legislation and didn’t represent a loss of confidence in Rangel. Other committee lawmakers, however, believe Rangel was hobbled by his ethics problems — and these decisions reflected that view.

Says Rangel: “There’s no way I could have taken it personally. The speaker is more hands on in committee work than before.”

But, chatting outside a House elevator, he recalls how things used to be, how the legendary Rostenkowski, who ran the committee from 1981 to 1994, would never have stood for a loss of power. When Rangel was given a leadership post of deputy whip, Rostenkowski asked him whether he was loyal to the committee or the leadership.

“You can’t do both,” Rangel said he was warned.

___

In 1970 Rangel upset a Harlem legend, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. — a pastor, civil rights leader and a man known for his womanizing and his absence from his district.

This year, Rangel announced his re-election bid days before his birthday. One of his primary opponents is a son of Powell, Adam Clayton Powell IV.

In Harlem, Rangel ruled as one of the Gang of Four — African-American politicians who achieved top political posts: David Dinkins, a one-time New York mayor; Basil Paterson, who rose to deputy mayor and New York secretary of state; and the late Percy Sutton, Manhattan Borough president.

He marched with Martin Luther King. He was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

At a meeting of New York political leaders after the February ethics report, Dinkins spoke about his friend.

“Mayor Dinkins was very emotional,” recalled Lloyd Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce. “He said if not for Charlie Rangel, there would not have been a Mayor Dinkins.”

Dinkins declined in an interview to talk about Rangel’s troubles. “He is my brother, my friend. My interest is in his welfare,” he said.

Williams momentarily seemed worried about Rangel’s future.

“I fear these mistakes will become too much of his legacy,” he said.

Quickly, he switched to a more optimistic tone. “When the venom is out of the air, Charlie will be remembered as one of the most extraordinary political leaders in the history of this country.”

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan drew opposition Friday from Republican leader Mitch McConnell and two other GOP senators, raising the prospect of a confirmation largely along party lines.

“The American people expect a justice who will impartially apply the law, not one who will be a rubberstamp for the Obama administration or any other administration,” McConnell said in a written statement one day after Kagan, 50, wrapped up three days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary 0Committee.

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Democrats hold a 59-41 majority in the Senate, and Kagan’s confirmation is widely viewed as a certainty, barring an unexpected decision by Republicans to try and prevent a final vote. The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the appointment on July 13.

Kagan served as an aide in Bill Clinton’s White House and is currently solicitor general in President Barack Obama’s Justice Department. She testified this week she would be able to put her political views aside if confirmed to the high court, and make rulings based on the Constitution.

In a written statement, McConnell quoted Kagan as telling the Senate Judiciary Committee this week it is “difficult to take off the advocate’s hat and put on the judge’s hat.”

The statement added, “That difficulty is particularly acute for someone like Ms. Kagan, who has spent so much of her adult life practicing the art of political advocacy rather than practicing law.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a senior Republican and member of the committee that conducted confirmation hearings, also announced his opposition, as did Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who holds a leadership position.

Hatch voted last year to confirm Kagan as solicitor general, a post in which she has appeared before the Supreme Court representing the administration.

But he said a Supreme Court nominee needs “both legal experience and, more importantly, the appropriate judicial philosophy.” And he said that “General Kagan regrettably does not meet this standard.”

Murkowski said Kagan also did not give Americans any idea how she will approach “difficult cases” as a justice.

In the past five years, confirmation proceedings for Supreme Court nominees have shown a decided partisan tinge.

Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by President George W. Bush, was confirmed 78-22 in 2005, and Democrats cast all the votes in opposition. The following year, Justice Samuel Alito was approved 58-42, with all but four Democrats opposed.

Obama’s first pick for the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, was approved last year on a vote of 68-31. All of the votes in opposition were cast by Republicans.

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CHICAGO (AP) – Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich called Oprah Winfrey a kingmaker who could influence voters as he mulled naming the talk show host to President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat, according to anFBI tape played Monday at his corruption trial.

“She made Obama, she’s up there so high nobody could assail this pick,” Blagojevich is heard telling his chief of staff, John Harris, who is now a prosecution witness.

Blagojevich had mentioned in TV interviews last year that Winfrey’s name had come up in discussions about the seat. Winfrey said last year that she was “amused” by the revelation and that she was unaware at the time that she was under consideration.

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On the tape played Monday, Harris says picking Winfrey would be a mistake and he is “not sure what she stands for.” Blagojevich brushes such concerns aside, saying she was obviously a Democrat and her support in the 2008 election had “made Obama.”

But a few minutes later, Blagojevich is heard complaining that he needs more potential candidates. At one point, the governor considers trying to appoint Obama family friend Valerie Jarrett, even though she has withdrawn her name from consideration and taken a post as a White House adviser. And he erupts when Harris brings up former press secretary Cheryle Jackson.

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“There’s no (expletive) way,” he screams. He calls her an “(expletive) incompetent.”

The secretly made FBI tapes show that as time passed, Blagojevich warms to the idea of picking DemocraticU.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., someone he had been heard on tape earlier in the trial as saying was “a bad guy, a really bad guy.”

But Harris testified that Blagojevich told him that a “third party” with ties to Jackson had visited the governor and dangled the possibility of a $1.5 million campaign contribution. Harris did not address that person’s identity in testimony Monday.

Blagojevich 53, has pleaded not guilty to scheming to get a high-paying job or a massive campaign contribution in return for appointing someone to the Obama Senate seat. He also has pleaded not guilty to plotting to use the powers of the governor’s office to launch a racketeering scheme.

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His brother, Robert Blagojevich, 54, has pleaded not guilty to taking part in the alleged scheme to sell or trade the Senate seat and illegally pressuring a campaign contributor.

Judge James Zagel on Monday denied a defense motion to see documents containing Obama’s statements to investigators. Blagojevich’s attorneys had filed a motion last week asking to see the FBI’s summaries of the interviews, saying they needed them to conduct a meaningful cross-examination of Harris.

Zagel said Monday that there was nothing “even remotely relevant” to Harris’ testimony.

As the trial began its fourth full week, Harris finished his testimony for prosecutors and Blagojevich’s defense began cross-examination.

But before prosecutors finished with him, Harris told jurors that the day before Blagojevich was arrested the governor met with Jackson Jr. in the governor’s office. Jackson had come to plead his case for appointment to the Senate.

Harris, who was on hand for the meeting, testified that the two men “buried the hatchet” and exchanged reminiscences about when they served on Capitol Hill together.

“I’m glad somebody is thinking about me and how they can help me,” Harris quoted Blagojevich as saying as the meeting broke up. He did not explain further.

The following morning, on Dec. 9, 2008, FBI agents arrested both Blagojevich and Harris. The next month Blagojevich was impeached and thrown out of office. Before he left, he appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to the Senate seat.

From HuffingtonPost.com:

By Sam Stein

One of Robert Byrd’s last notable acts in a career that spanned longer than any other in Congress was his decision to endorse then Senator Barack Obama in the Democratic primary.

The West Virginia Democrat was already in bad health though it would be a full two years before he would pass away. Ostensibly, there was little to gain from offering his political support to either candidate. His state’s primary had already taken place four days prior and the result had been an overwhelming victory for Hillary Clinton.

But Byrd’s endorsement was imbued with a powerful symbolism that transcended electoral math. He was once in the Klu Klux Klan (and not in an insignificant capacity). He helped filibuster the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He was publicly embarrassed, as recently as 2001, for using the term “White N—er” during an interview with Fox News.

For all of this, he spent much of his life expressing contrition. Appropriating money for memorials to civil rights icons was a start. But backing the first black presidential candidate with a legitimate chance at victory was a far more profound act.

The two created an anachronistic pairing. But Obama’s aides understood how a Byrd endorsement could help complete the moral arc of his candidacy as well as the senator’s career. And they worked hard to ensure that voters understood its importance as well.

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WASHINGTON – Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a fiery oratorversed in the classics and a hard-charging power broker who steered billions of federal dollars to the state of his Depression-era upbringing, died Monday. He was 92.

A spokesman for the family, Jesse Jacobs, said Byrd died peacefully at about 3 a.m. at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va. He had been in the hospital since late last week.

At first Byrd was believed to be suffering from heat exhaustion and severe dehydration, but other medical conditions developed. He had been in frail health for several years.

Byrd, a Democrat, was the longest-serving senator in history, holding his seat for more than 50 years. He was the Senate’s majority leaderfor six of those years and was third in the line of succession to the presidency, behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a fellow West Virginian in the Senate, said it was his “greatest privilege” to serve with Byrd.

“I looked up to him, I fought next to him, and I am deeply saddened that he is gone,” Rockefeller said.

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Byrd “combined a devotion to the U.S. Constitution with a deep learning of history to defend the interests of his state and the traditions of the Senate.”

“We will remember him for his fighter’s spirit, his abiding faith, and for the many times he recalled the Senate to its purposes,” McConnell said.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, will appoint Byrd’s replacement. For a vacancy that occurs more than two years and six months before the expiration of a senator’s term — Byrd’s term was to end in January of 2013 — the appointee serves until an election is held to fill the rest of the term.

Byrd’s death followed less than a year after the passing of venerable Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a nationally recognizable figure who had been a most vociferous spokesman for liberal causes for years.

In comportment and style, Byrd often seemed a Senate throwback to a courtlier 19th century. He could recite poetry, quote the Bible, discuss the Constitutional Convention and detail the Peloponnesian Wars — and frequently did in Senate debates.

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Yet there was nothing particularly courtly about Byrd’s pursuit or exercise of power.

Byrd was a master of the Senate’s bewildering rules and longtime chairman of the Senate AppropriationsCommittee, which controls a third of the $3 trillion federal budget. He was willing to use both to reward friends and punish those he viewed as having slighted him.

“Bob is a living encyclopedia, and legislative graveyards are filled with the bones of those who underestimated him,” former House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, once said in remarks Byrd later displayed in his office.

In 1971, Byrd ousted Kennedy, the Massachusetts senator, as the Democrats’ second in command. He was elected majority leader in 1976 and held the post until Democrats lost control of the Senate four years later. He remained his party’s leader through six years in the minority, then spent another two years as majority leader.

“I have tangled with him. He usually wins,” former Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., once recalled.

DeConcini supported Byrd’s bid for majority leader. “He reciprocated by helping me get on the Appropriations Committee,” DeConcini said. Years later, DeConcini said, he displeased Byrd on another issue. “I didn’t get on the Intelligence Committee when I thought I was up to get on it.”

Byrd stepped aside as majority leader in 1989 when Democrats sought a more contemporary television spokesman. “I ran the Senate like a stern parent,” Byrd wrote in his memoir, “Child of the AppalachianCoalfields.” His consolation price was the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee, with control over almost limitless federal spending.

Within two years, he surpassed his announced five-year goal of making sure more than $1 billion in federal funds was sent back to West Virginia, money used to build highways, bridges, buildings and other facilities, some named after him.

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In 2006 and with 64 percent of the vote, Byrd won an unprecedented ninth term in the Senate just months after surpassing South Carolinian Strom Thurmond’s record as its longest-serving member. His more than 18,500 roll call votes were another record.

But Byrd also seemed to slow after the death of Erma, his wife of almost 69 years, in 2006. Frail and at times wistful, he used two canes to walk haltingly and needed help from aides to make his way about the Senate. He often hesitated at unscripted moments. By 2009, aides were bringing him to and from the Senate floor in a wheelchair.

Though his hands trembled in later years, Byrd only recently lost his grip on power. Last November he surrendered his chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee.

Byrd’s lodestar was protecting the Constitution. He frequently pulled out a dog-eared copy of it from a pocket in one of his trademark three-piece suits. He also defended the Senate in its age-old rivalry with the executive branch, no matter which party held the White House.

Unlike other prominent Senate Democrats such as 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry of Massachusetts, who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, Byrd stood firm in opposition — and felt gratified when public opinion swung behind him.

“The people are becoming more and more aware that we were hoodwinked, that the leaders of this country misrepresented or exaggerated the necessity for invading Iraq,” Byrd said.

He cited Iraq when he endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination in May 2008, calling Obama “a shining young statesman, who possesses the personal temperament and courage necessary to extricate our country from this costly misadventure.”

Byrd’s accomplishments followed a childhood of poverty in West Virginia, and his success on the national stage came despite a complicated history on racial matters. As a young man, we was a member of the Ku Klux Klan for a brief period, and he joined Southern Democrats in an unsuccessful filibuster against the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act.

He later apologized for both actions, saying intolerance has no place in America. While supporting later civil rights bills, he opposed busing to integrate schools.

Byrd briefly sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976 and later told associates he had once been approached by President Richard M. Nixon, a Republican, about accepting an appointment to the Supreme Court.

But he was a creature — and defender — of Congress across a career that began in 1952 with his election to the House. He served three terms there before winning his Senate seat in 1958, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House.

He clashed with presidents in both parties and was implacably against proposed balanced budgetamendments to the Constitution.

“He is a fierce defender of the Senate and its prerogatives in ways that I think the founding fathers really intended the Senate to be,” said one-time rival Kennedy.

In a measure of his tenacity, Byrd took a decade of night courses to earn a law degree in 1963, and completed his long-delayed bachelor’s degree at West Virginia’s Marshall University in 1994 with correspondence classes.

Byrd was a near-deity in economically struggling West Virginia, to which he delivered countless federally financed projects. Entire government bureaus opened there, including the FBI’s repository for computerized fingerprint records. Even the Coast Guard had a facility in the landlocked state. Critics portrayed him as the personification of Congress’ thirst for wasteful “pork” spending projects.

Robert Carlyle Byrd was born Nov. 20, 1917, in North Wilkesboro, N.C., as Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr., the youngest of five children.

Before he was 1, his mother died and his father sent him to live with an aunt and uncle, Vlurma and Titus Byrd, who renamed him and moved to the coal-mining town of Stotesbury, W.Va. He didn’t learn his original name until he was 16 and his real birthday until he was 54.

Byrd’s foster father was a miner who frequently changed jobs, and Byrd recalled that the family’s house was “without electricity, … no running water, no telephone, a little wooden outhouse.”

He graduated from high school but could not afford college. Married in 1936 to high school sweetheart Erma Ora James — with whom he had two daughters — he pumped gas, cut meat and during World War II was a shipyard welder.

Returning to meat cutting in West Virginia, he became popular for his fundamentalist Bible lectures. A grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan suggested he run for office.

He won his first race — for the state’s House of Delegates — in 1946, distinguishing himself from 12 rivals by singing and fiddling mountain tunes. His fiddle became a fixture; he later played it on the television show “Hee Haw” and recorded an album. He abandoned it only after a grandson’s traumatic death in 1982 and when his shaky hands left him unable to play.

At his 90th birthday party in 2007, however, Byrd joined bluegrass band Lonesome Highway in singing a few tunes and topped off the night with a rendition of “Old Joe Clark.”

After six years in the West Virginia legislature, Byrd was elected to the U.S. House in 1952 in a race in which his brief Klan membership became an issue. He said he joined because of its anti-communism.

Byrd entered Congress as one of its most conservative Democrats. He was an early supporter of the Vietnam War, and his 14-hour, 13-minute filibuster against the 1964 civil rights bill remains one of the longest ever. His views gradually moderated, particularly on economic issues, but he always sided with his state’s coal interests in confrontations with environmentalists.

His love of Senate traditions inspired him to write a four-volume history of the chamber. It also led him to oppose laptops on the Senate floor and to object when a blind aide tried bringing her seeing-eye dog into the chamber. In 2004, Byrd got Congress to require schools and colleges to teach about the Constitution every Sept. 17, the day the document was adopted in 1787.

Since the news broke that Alvin Greene won the South Carolina Democratic Party Primary Election for US Senate, countless media and political elites, have filled several rounds of the news cycle looking down their noses at the unlikely winner. But more important than questioning where he got the $10,400 filing fee and feigning outrage in response to the obscenity charge, those who claim to love democracy should be asking this: “why are freedom-loving political insiders asking Greene to step aside?”

The same folks leading the charge against Greene, in part suggesting that he’s not smart enough to have really won, are the same public servants unable to protect us from banks smart enough to rip us off, but too dumb to fail, and oversized multinational corporations smart enough to drill, but clueless about how to stop the greatest oil spill in American history.

So until said elected officials have figured out a solution to these pressing issues, alongside the unemployment crisis, the budget crises, and recurring voting irregularities in national elections that nurture a climate for more of the same, I’m rooting for Alvin Greene.

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Here are five reasons why:

First, if Alvin Greene is the legitimate winner, and I think politicians should find that out with a fair investigation before asking him to step aside (as Congressman James Clyburn and Democratic Party State leader Carol Fowler have done), his win reinforces the notion that grassroots everyday people can still win elections in America—that the country, imagine this, still actually belongs to the people. Political elites reveal how far removed they are from this idea when central to their criticism of Greene is the notion that Senate primary wins are impossible without big bucks and establishment support.

I’m also rooting for Alvin Greene because he’s an underdog, the quintessential outsider, so much so, his own party claims they never heard of him. That plus the fact that any non-millionaire deserves our support when he proves he can ruffle the feathers of the mainstream political establishment—those same politicians who get sent to Washington to represent the interest of the people back at home, but fail to support the majority will on pressing issues of the day.

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Third, Green deserves our support because he is a candidate who went for broke and did the unthinkable: he put his money where his mouth is. If indeed his filing fee was his own money—which is as plausible to me as his win—then it’s a compelling story about the will of everyday people in search of democracy. This is the type of inspirational narrative all Americans should be embracing—not imaginary populous movements that run politically connected candidates (Rand Paul are u listening?) and pass them off as a revolution.

Greene wants to do something to save the country sans name-calling, racial slurs or spitting on politicians he disagrees with. Instead, the 32-year-old college grad truly believes in public service—if his military record is any indication.

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Which leads me to my final two points: Greene’s a military veteran and a post baby-boomer, two groups underrepresented in the Senate. Sure, Washington insiders spend a lot of time giving lip service to the troops when it’s politically expedient. However, when a 13-year military veteran runs for office, these “support the troops” cheerleaders are focused on discrediting him.

According to the Department of Defense, over 75 percent of the armed forces is comprised of Americans under 30 years old. Likewise, young voters 18-29 years old in the last three national elections have been steadily increasing their engagement. It’s time their numbers are more significantly represented in Washington.

It may be revealed in the days ahead that Alvin Greene’s win was no win at all. If so, the culprit will likely be something far more plausible than a “Republican plant.” Although an electronic voting machine glitch, diabolical voting machine tampering, or massive crossover voting lead my list, I’m hoping that won’t be the case.

But whether Alvin Greene is manufactured, an accident or for real, those crying foul should see his entry on the political scene as an opportunity to re-evaluate their commitment to the nation’s ideals—rather than to continue to dismantle them.

Bakari Kitwana is senior media fellow at the Harvard Law based think tank The Jamestown Project and the author of the forthcoming Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era (Third World Press, 2010).

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina‘s Democratic Party has asked its own Senate nominee to withdraw after learning the man has been charged with a felony. But the candidate says he won’t budge.

Party chairwoman Carol Fowler says she asked Alvin Greene to withdraw from the campaign against U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint Wednesday after The Associated Press reported Greene had been charged with a felony.

Court records show Greene was arrested in November and charged with showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student. The felony charge carries up to five years in prison.

Greene told AP he’s the people’s choice and will not step aside.

On Tuesday, Greene stunned state Democratic Party leaders by defeating a former state lawmaker, despite having no organized campaign.

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WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. (AP) — African-American voters couldn’t help the man who became the nation’s first black president win Arkansas in 2008. But the Democratic candidates for the Senate here, incumbent Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, believe black voters could decide their race, and both are waging an unusually intense campaign in the black community in the final days before the election.

Scores of union workers supporting Halter are going door to door in predominantly black cities in east Arkansas trying to sway any undecided voters remaining. Meanwhile, Lincoln and her allies are blanketing the airwaves ahead of Tuesday’s election with ads reminding voters of President Barack Obama’s support of the incumbent senator. In predominantly black towns such as West Memphis, union organizers were handing out Halter literature at African-Americans’ homes as Obama’s voice endorsing Lincoln was blaring from the radio.

The campaign isn’t intense only in this community. It’s a pitched battle on multiple fronts that has drawn millions of dollars in outside groups’ money. The race, which remains neck-and-neck, is seen as an important test of what kind of Democrat can prevail in conservative states such as Arkansas.

The special focus on black voters is unusual for Arkansas, where African-Americans account for only about 16 percent of the population and in recent history have not been the deciding factor in many statewide elections. But they suddenly represent an attractive target because of the tightness of this contest and the allure of uncommitted voters.

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In Crittenden County, where West Memphis is located and the campaign is especially fierce, turnout jumped 12 percent in 2008 with Obama on the ballot, suggesting there are more votes to be had for candidates who can motivate the community. Lincoln, who represented east Arkansas for four years in Congress, won the county in the May 18 Senate primary.

“We firmly believe African-Americans are going to be the ones who decide this election,” said Ben Needham, a political action representative with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees who is helping coordinate the labor union’s efforts for Halter in West Memphis.

In this election, “it looks close enough that this bloc could be the determining factor,” said Janine Parry, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The campaigns also trying to target seniors, rural voters and women.

AFSCME has spent $1.4 million during the runoff campaign, with no small amount directed at black voter turnout.

Besides West Memphis, the union has sent paid workers into Blytheville and Forrest City, predominantly black cities in east Arkansas.

Lincoln and Halter both are trying to rely on two of the Democratic Party’s superstars for help: Lincoln has the endorsement of both Clinton and Obama, but Halter and his allies often invoke their names in advertising in African-American markets. “Just like President Obama, Halter is running to change Washington, not be changed by Washington,” an announcer says in one spot.

One of Lincoln’s mailers features a photo of Lincoln standing side-by-side with Obama. Lincoln also chose Philander Smith College, a historically black school near downtown Little Rock, for a campaign appearance with Clinton last month.

Lincoln also is promoting her vote for the health care overhaul in appealing for blacks’ support. She says she’ll work with Obama on improving the nation’s economy.

Lincoln’s stature among the black community has been mixed. The NAACP gave her an “A” rating in February for her votes on civil rights legislation, but the organization’s Arkansas chapter faulted Lincoln and Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor for recommending only one black judicial candidate for a federal judgeship.

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Also, she’s the more conservative candidate. Halter, with his strong union support, has argued that he’ll be a better friend to the working class and has promised to try at the federal level to make college more affordable. Liberal groups have faulted Lincoln for opposing a government-run option as part of the health legislation, while Halter has criticized her for voting against a companion measure to the health overhaul that was eventually signed into law.

Complicating the choice for Democrats is the question of which one — the conservative or the progressive — would make a strong candidate in November against the Republican nominee, John Boozman. A pronounced anti-incumbent mood in the nation could also be a factor.

Black voters supporting Halter say they’re not swayed by Lincoln’s high-profile endorsements, and are ready to switch.

“She’s taken us for granted,” said Gary Champ of Little Rock, who works at a wood treatment plant and is a union leader. “President Obama’s support doesn’t change that. I don’t blame him. He has to deal with her for the next seven months.”

Some voters are reeling from the competing claims.

In West Memphis, teachers Rodrick and Kimberly Crutchfield tried to explain to a union worker why they’re supporting Lincoln, a farmer’s daughter who grew up in nearby Helena, as the Obama ad played in the background on their radio. “This has been a tough run for everyone, and you can’t expect everything to go your way,” Kimberly Crutchfield says. “We’re going to give her another chance to do some good.”

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WASHINGTON — The Senate easily passed an almost $60 billion war funding bill Thursday, but anxiety over out-of-control budget deficits led House leaders to drop tens of billions of dollars in spending from a separate catchall bill anchored by an extension of jobless benefits.

Confronted with a rebellion by Democratic moderates, House leaders planned to dump overboard $24 billion in aid to states and allow generous health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers to expire. The changes were an effort to round up votes to extend unemployment benefits and renew more than 50 popular tax breaks that expired last year.

Help for doctors facing a big cut in Medicare reimbursements would also be dropped from the measure, aides and lobbyists said, and is unlikely to be resurrected by a vote on Friday.

Democrats will miss their self-imposed deadline of passing the jobless benefits measure before Memorial Day, even if the House passes the bill Friday. The Senate announced Thursday that it will not hold any more votes until senators return from their holiday break June 7.

The steps by House leaders could reduce the deficit impact of the bill to as little as $30 billion or so in hopes of winning over moderate “Blue Dog” Democrats unhappy about adding to the deficit as the national debt is on the verge of topping $13 trillion. A version circulated last week would have added $134 billion to the deficit.

One Blue Dog, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said he would probably vote for a slimmed down version of the bill.

“The bigness issue and the deficit issue has been addressed,” Cuellar said.

Across the Capitol, Senate Democrats had far better success in advancing the war funding bill, which would pay for President Barack Obama’s 30,000 troop increase in Afghanistan.

A dozen Republicans, including GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, joined Democrats in a 67-28 vote to pass the bill. Two anti-war Democrats, Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, opposed it.

Thousands of people are set to begin losing jobless benefits when an extension of unemployment insurance expires next week. A 65 percent subsidy for health insurance benefits for the unemployed under the COBRA program also expires.

The benefits extensions are part of a sweeping package of unfinished business that lawmakers had hope to complete before their Memorial Day recess to avoid the embarrassment of letting them lapse before going on vacation. Efforts to pass short-term extensions to buy time were doomed to fail since they would require the agreement of all 100 senators.

From TheRoot.com:

The national struggle for the soul of the Republican Party has now moved to Florida’s Senate race. And the battleground reveals with great clarity the mounting conflict between party loyalty, ideology and ambition.

This April, Florida’s Republican governor, Charlie Crist, found himself unexpectedly trailing former Republican House Speaker Marco Rubio for his party’s nomination as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. So Crist quit the Republican primary and announced that he would seek the Senate seat as an independent. His decision turned the November general election into a three-man race involving Crist; Rubio, a Cuban-American; and Rep. Kendrick Meek, widely thought to have a lock on the Democratic Party nomination.

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POLL: Obama More Popular Than Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supporters said Wednesday the Senate Armed Services Committee has enough votes to approve a bill overturning the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

The prediction came after several lawmakers on the panel signaled their support, including Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska who had been considered a holdout.

“In a military which values honesty and integrity, this policy encourages deceit,” Nelson said of the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” law.

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The bill would still face scrutiny by the full Senate, where 60 votes are usually needed to overcome Republican objections.

But an endorsement by the Senate Armed Services Committee, led by Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, was considered a crucial first step by gay rights’ groups.

The measure is more likely to survive because it was being tucked into a broader defense policy bill that typically includes popular provisions like a pay raise for the troops.

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The committee planned to vote on Thursday.

“We are increasingly confident about the (bill) and that this could very well be a historic week in the United States Congress,” said Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who is co-sponsoring the legislation.

Gay rights groups were cautiously optimistic.

“This one will go down to the wire, and it won’t be over until the vote,” said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for Human Rights Campaign.

The legislation was a compromise between the White House and a small group of Democrats — including Levin and Lieberman — who fear that repeal efforts will be doomed if Republicans regain control of one or both houses of Congress after fall elections.

RELATED: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Repeal Vote Expected Soon

The plan would overturn the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law but still allow the military to decide when and how to implement any changes to accommodate the new policy.

Nelson said this caveat was key to his support because it “removes politics from the process” and ensures repeal is “consistent with military readiness and effectiveness.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he supports repeal but would prefer that Congress wait to vote until he can talk to the troops and chart a path forward. A study ordered by Gates is due on Dec. 1.

Some lawmakers, including Democrats, took a similar stand this week and cast doubt that the measure might pass.

“I see no reason for the political process to pre-empt it,” Sen. Jim Webb, a conservative Democrat from Virginia, said of the military study.

At least one Republican — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — has said she will support the measure.

The House planned to consider an identical bill on Thursday. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., was expected to introduce the legislation as a floor amendment to the 2011 defense authorization bill.

From TheRoot.com:

Barack Obama took the oath of office as a United States senator on January 4, 2005, and promptly began running for president. Very quickly, he began using the peculiar kind of celebrity that comes with being a senator to introduce himself to Washington, to a new generation of political power brokers, and, more broadly, to the American people.

”He was running for president even as he was still getting lost in the Capitol’s corridors,” the New York Times noted.

Obama pointedly bypassed the Democratic Party power structure, in defiance of the norms of behavior for a junior senator. Obama did not worry about getting better committee assignments, and he did not defer to more senior members when trying to diagnose his party’s problems or in offering prescriptions to fix them. By the fall of 2006, to the surprise of even the most dedicated admirers of his vast political gifts, he was admitting publicly that he was thinking about the White House.

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”With an eye on his next goal, Obama treated the Senate as a bridge to be crossed–a place to learn the conventions of Washington, win powerful friends and shape what advisers referred to as his ‘political brand,”’ the Washington Post reported. ”Despite meager legislative accomplishments, Obama built a reputation among many Democrats as a hard worker, a reformer, an eager learner, a smart politician.” He came to see the Senate not as a place to do things, but a place to be someone.

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