The Obama campaign sent out an email today asking supporters to urge Congress to at least vote on the president’s jobs bill almost immediately after Democratic majority leader Harry Reid blocked a voteon the bill in the Senate.

On the Senate floor today, Republican leader Mitch McConnell asked for unanimous consent to proceed on voting on the bill. Reid, who has struggled to find enough votes for the bill in the Democratic caucus, objected to the motion and killed the opportunity for a vote. 

About ten minutes later, Jim Messina, Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, emailed this message to supporters:

President Obama is in Dallas today urging Americans who support the American Jobs Act to demand that Congress pass it already.

Though it's been nearly a month since he laid out this plan, House Republicans haven't acted to pass it. And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is out there actually bragging that they won't even put the jobs package up for a vote -- ever.

It's not clear which part of the bill they now object to: building roads, hiring teachers, getting veterans back to work. They're willing to block the American Jobs Act -- and they think you won't do anything about it.

But here's something you can do: Find Republican members of Congress on Twitter, call them out, and demand they pass this bill.

So will the Obama campaign be asking its supporters to "call out" Harry Reid and "demand" he and Senate Democrats pass the bill?

As we noted last week, Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins has published an excellent analysis of the financial condition of the United States.

It's several hundred pages long, so we've been highlighting parts of it in shorter form.

Here's the big story...

If you listen to Republicans and Democrats (and even the Tea Party) bellyache about what's wrong with the US, you can be forgiven for thinking that the problem is that we spend too much on, say, Education. Or Defense.

Well, that's a crock of sh#$.

We spend a LOT of Education and Defense, of course, but we arguably don't spend too much on these things, at least as a percentage of GDP. (We certainly spend too much on them relative to what we can afford).

What really busts our budget are the mind-boggling amounts we spend on our entitlement programs--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (especially Medicare and Medicaid). These programs are wildly more expensive than any other budget items, and they're also growing like weeds.

As the United States slowly faces up to the fact that it's spending way beyond its means, both sides are shouting back and forth about what the problem is.

Here's what the problem is:

The problem is that our entitlement spending is out of control.

But folks who benefit from our out-of-control entitlement spending cast lots of votes, so neither side has the balls to admit that.

http://www.businessinsider.com/defense-spending-2011-3#first-the-big-picture-the-pie-on-the-left-is-what-the-us-government-took-in-last-year-the-pie-on-the-right-is-what-it-spent-defense-spending-green-is-a-big-slice-of-the-expense-pie-but-its-tiny-relative-to-entitlements-spending-1

The federal government has accumulated more new debt--$3.22 trillion ($3,220,103,625,307.29)—during the tenure of the 111th Congress than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to official debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury.

That equals $10,429.64 in new debt for each and every one of the 308,745,538 people counted in the United States by the 2010 Census.

Did you know that the iPhone is made in China for a mere $6.50? It's false but true:

[T]wo academic researchers estimate that Apple Inc.'s iPhone—one of the best-selling U.S. technology products—actually added $1.9 billion to the U.S. trade deficit with China last year.

How is this possible? The researchers say traditional ways of measuring global trade produce the number but fail to reflect the complexities of global commerce where the design, manufacturing and assembly of products often involve several countries.

Democrats lose the House - but retain control of Senate
Boehner: We have mandate to repeal Obamacare

Sarah Palin calls results 'an earthquake'
Harry Reid re-elected in huge boost for Democrats

Christine O'Donnell loses her bid for Senate
A bloodied Barack Obama today admitted he needed to do a better job as he faced up to a landslide Democrat defeat in the mid-term elections.
In a desperate bid to keep his ambitious legislative programme alive, the President held out an olive branch to a resurgent Republican party who have wrested control of the House.
Obama looked noticeably chastened as he stressed he was prepared to work with political opponents to revitalise the economy and push through reform.

With two weeks remaining until Election Day, the political map has expanded to put Democrats on the run across the country – with 99 Democratic-held House seats now in play, according to a POLITICO analysis, and Republicans well in reach of retaking the House.

It's a dramatic departure from the outlook one year ago – and a broader landscape than even just prior to the summer congressional recess. As recently as early September, many Republicans were hesitant to talk about winning a majority for fear of overreaching.

Today, however, the non-partisan Cook Political Report predicts a GOP net gain of at least 40 House seats, with 90 Democratic seats in total rated as competitive or likely Republican.

Congress adjourns this week for the July Fourth recess without having passed a bill to extend unemployment insurance benefits to 1.3 million people who started losing them this month.

Democrats have been painting Republicans as unsympathetic to the long-term unemployed who will be unable to collect benefits, but Democratic leaders have rejected several offers by the GOP to vote for the bill if at least some of it is paid for.

"My concern is that the Democrats are more interested in having this issue to demagogue for political gamesmanship than they are in simply passing the benefits extension," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who offered a deal that was rejected by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

US Senator Scott Brown, who only months ago was a little-known figure even within the tiny band of Republicans in the state Senate, not only catapulted to national stature with his upset US Senate victory, but is today the most popular officeholder in Massachusetts, according to a Boston Globe poll.

After less than five months in Washington, Brown outpolls such Democratic stalwarts as President Obama and US Senator John F. Kerry in popularity, the poll indicates. He gets high marks not only from Republicans, but even a plurality of Democrats views him favorably.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the conservative firebrand whose specialty is lobbing corruption allegations at the Obama White House, is making plans to hire dozens of subpoena-wielding investigators if Republicans win the House this fall.

The California Republican's daily denunciations draw cheers from partisans and bookings from cable TV producers. He even bought his own earphone for live shots. But his bombastic style and attention-seeking investigations draw eye rolls from other quarters. Now, he's making clear he won't be so easy to shrug off if he becomes chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in 2011.

The U.S. debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015, according to a Treasury Department report to Congress.

The report that was sent to lawmakers Friday night with no fanfare said the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product would rise to 102 percent by 2015 from 93 percent this year.

"The president's economic experts say a 1 percent increase in GDP can create almost 1 million jobs, and that 1 percent is what experts think we are losing because of the debt's massive drag on our economy," said Republican Representative Dave Camp, who publicized the report.

Republican voters in California sent two former Silicon Valley chief executives, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, into the races for governor and U.S. Senate against establishment Democrats.

The contest will highlight a sharp partisan split in the state as the candidates tout sharply different solutions to the state's economic problems.

Ms. Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO, beat former Rep. Tom Campbell 57% to 22% with 17% of the Senate votes counted. The AP declared her the winner.

President Barack Obama is trying to ride the wave of anti-incumbency by taking on an unpopular politician steeped in the partisan ways of Washington.

It doesn't matter that George W. Bush left office 16 months ago.

The White House's mid-term election strategy is becoming clear – pit the Democrats of 2010 against the Republicans circa 2006, 2008 and 2009, including Bush.

It's a lot to ask an angry, finicky electorate to sort out. And even if Obama can rightfully make the case that the economy took a turn for the worse under Bush's watch, he's already made it - in 2008 and repeatedly in 2009.

Even if Democrats drop by the dozens in the midterm elections, Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hold on power will be as safe as ever if Democrats retain a thin majority in the House.

In a smaller majority, Pelosi will be even more surrounded by loyalists, because most of the losers on the Democratic side of the ballot would likely be moderates and conservatives who have been the least reliable Pelosi supporters.

In interviews with more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers, none suggested Pelosi should be replaced, and nobody predicted a serious challenge to Pelosi's authority, provided Democrats hold onto power.

Senate Democrats Refuse Bi-partisan Meeting With Parliamentarian Until After House Votes

WASHINGTON DC – Senate Democrats have balked at a bi-partisan meeting with the Senate Parliamentarian to discuss a rule violation that could doom the entire House reconciliation proposal.

DON STEWART, McCONNELL SPOKESMAN: "Republicans have been trying to set up a meeting with Senate Democrats since yesterday to discuss this fatal point of order but have been met with nothing but silence. We suspect Democrats are slow walking us so as to have the House vote first. Since Senate Democrats refuse to meet with us and the Parliamentarian, we've informed our colleagues in the House that we believe the bill they're now considering violates the clear language of Section 310g of the Congressional Budget Act, and the entire reconciliation bill is subject to a point of order and rejection in the Senate should it pass the House."

Millions of Americans have been forced to rely on unemployment payments for extended periods as the nation struggles through its longest period of high joblessness in a generation, and critics are taking aim, saying that the Depression-era program created as a temporary bridge for laid-off workers is turning into an expensive entitlement.

About 11.4 million out-of-work people now collect unemployment compensation, at a cost of $10 billion a month. Half of them have been receiving payments for more than six months, the usual insurance limit. But under multiple extensions enacted by the federal government in response to the downturn, workers can collect the payments for as long as 99 weeks in states with the highest unemployment rates -- the longest period since the program's inception.

The unemployed say extensions help to tide them over in unusually difficult times when jobs are hard to come by. Although unemployment held steady at 9.7 percent in February, millions of jobs have been lost in the downturn, particularly in the hardest-hit sectors including real estate, construction, manufacturing and financial services. Those jobs are unlikely to return even when the economy recovers, many experts say.

But complaints that extending unemployment payments discourages job-seeking have begun to bubble into the political debate. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) recently single-handedly held up the latest extension, a bill to keep unemployment benefits in place for 30 more days, saying Congress should find other cuts to cover its $10 billion price tag.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) did not join Bunning's effort, but he defended his colleague's point of view. Kyl told the Senate he questioned why anyone would see unemployment benefits as helpful to the economy, or to the job market.

President Barack Obama argued Thursday that a sweeping overhaul of the nation's broken health care system is imperative for the nation's future economic vitality, setting off an immediate clash in an extraordinary live-on-TV summit with Republicans who want far more modest changes. "We believe we have a better idea," retorted GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander.

Obama lamented the partisan bickering that has resulted in a stalemate over Democratic legislation to extend coverage to more than 30 million people who are now uninsured. "Politics I think ended up trumping practical common sense," he said.

And yet, even as he pleaded for cooperation — and "actually a discussion, and not just us trading talking points" — he acknowledged agreement may not be possible. "I don't know that those gaps can be bridged," Obama said. "If not, at least we will have better clarified for the American people what the debate is all about."

His skepticism was vindicated as soon as the first Republican spoke — in opposition to the mammoth bills that passed the House and Senate. Alexander said Congress and the administration should start over with small steps including medical malpractice reform, allowing Americans to purchase insurance across state lines and expanding health savings accounts.

Voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports as 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job.

That's up ten points from the previous high of 61% reached a month ago.

Only 10% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Nearly half of Democratic voters (48%) now give Congress a poor rating, up 17 points since January. The vast majority of Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party also give Congress poor ratings.

Democratic governors said Sunday they worry about President Barack Obama's track record on fighting Republican political attacks and urged him to better connect with anxious voters. Some allies pleaded for a new election-year strategy focused on the economy.

"It's got to be better thought out," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said. "It's got to be more proactive." And, he said, Democrats must hit back just as hard as they are hit by Republicans.

Eight months before the first midterm elections of Obama's presidency, most Americans are frustrated with - even angered by - persistent unemployment and gridlock in Washington. Democrats fear voters will punish the party in power.

The titular head of his party, Obama has watched his own popularity drop over the past year. He will bear at least some responsibility for the outcome in November, and Democrats are looking to him for political fixes.

House Republicans are taking a page from the president's playbook by challenging Democrats to a televised debate about job creation.

The top two Republicans in the House sent a letter Wednesday daring their counterparts — Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — to engage in a public discussion over ways Congress can provide a boost to the economy.

Their call comes as Democrats struggle to find consensus on a job creation package and in advance of the Feb. 25 bipartisan health care summit.

"Clearly, we need a different approach to developing legislation that will get Americans back to work," Republican leader John Boehner and party Whip Eric Cantor wrote to Pelosi and Hoyer. "Therefore, in the interest of complete transparency on the single most important issue of the day for most Americans, we ask that you join us for an open discussion so that we can begin to change a process that has not only polarized this Capitol building but this country as well."

Democrats didn't outright dismiss the Republican idea, but they didn't exactly embrace it.

Vice President Joe Biden says "Washington right now is broken" and the country is in "deep trouble" unless it attacks ballooning federal deficits.

Asked about the political climate across the country, Biden said in a nationally broadcast interview that "we understand why they're angry. ... We get it."

Speaking of intense partisanship in the capital, Biden said on CBS's "The Early Show" that "I've never seen it this dysfunctional." He said the message coming from the stunning Republican upset in the recent Massachusetts election was, 'Hey guys, get your act together. Get something going.'"

The report released yesterday said Obama joined the likes of Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; Attorney General Eric Holder; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.; and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., on the list.

"Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's scheme to sell the president's former Senate seat to the highest bidder," the report said.

"Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability," the report said.

Democrats and Republicans alike pummeled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday over his role in the $180 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG Inc., venting public anger over Wall Street's return to prosperity while 10 percent of Americans are still jobless.
Geithner, one of the original architects of the government's 2008 response to the financial crisis as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, defended the use of taxpayer money as necessary to head off "potentially catastrophic damage to the economy."

But members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hammered away at why regulators allowed American International Group to pass on billions of the bailout money to big Wall Street banks that were business partners.

What does the Massachusetts election mean? It means America is in play again. The 2008 election settled nothing, not even for a while. Our national politics are reflecting what appears to be going on geologically, on the bottom of the oceans and beneath the crust of the Earth: the tectonic plates are moving.

America never stops moving now.

Massachusetts said, "Yes, we want change, but the change we want is not the change that has been delivered by the Democratic administration and the Democratic Congress. So we will turn elsewhere."

President Obama carried Massachusetts by 26 points on Nov. 4, 2008. Fifteen months later, on Jan. 19, 2010, the eve of the first anniversary of his inauguration, his party's candidate lost Massachusetts by five points. That's a 31-point shift. Mr. Obama won Virginia by six points in 2008. A year later, on Nov. 2, 2009, his party's candidate for governor lost by 18 points—a 25 point shift. Mr. Obama won New Jersey in 2008 by 16 points. In 2009 his party's incumbent governor lost re-election by four points—a 20-point shift.

In each race, the president's party lost independent voters, who in 2008 voted like Democrats and in 2010 voted like Republicans.

If Republicans will study the returns from Massachusetts, then review the returns from Virginia and New Jersey, light will fall upon the path to victory over Barack Obama in 2012.

Obama defeated John McCain by winning the black vote 24 to 1, the Hispanic vote 2 to 1 and taking a larger share of the white vote, 44 percent, than did John Kerry or Al Gore. As the white vote was three-fourths of the national turnout, Obama coasted to victory.

Now consider Massachusetts. In the 2008 election, no less than 79 percent of the voters were white, and Obama carried them by 20 points, winning the state 62 to 36.

How did Scott Brown turn that 26-point deficit into a 6-point victory? By winning the white vote as massively as did Obama. While there are no exit polls to prove it, we do have exit polls from Virginia and New Jersey, which tend to corroborate it.

Republicans in Washington and around the country yesterday said Scott Brown's victorious Senate campaign in Massachusetts is a harbinger of a broader party surge, calling it a repudiation of President Obama's agenda that gives them renewed confidence for the 2010 midterm elections.

Senate race coverage The race between Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley has provided an extraordinary boost to the national Republican Party, with GOP officials pointing to an increase in fund-raising, the recruitment of strong candidates, and renewed enthusiasm among the party faithful.

At the Washington headquarters of several Republican Party organizations yesterday, much of the talk was about recruiting candidates to run competitively for US House seats this fall in Massachusetts, and in helping to bolster financing of many House and Senate races across the country.

Despite their claims to the contrary, the way that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have handled the healthcare bill has been anything but transparent. And, if the left-wing blogosphere is to be believed, the two congressional leaders intend to keep the deliberations secret as they try to merge the House and Senate
versions of the legislation into something that will pass both chambers.

The Talking Points Memo website reported Monday that Democrats in both the House and Senate are saying the process will likely follow the path of the House taking up the Senate-passed legislation, amending it and sending it back to the Senate, which will have to pass it again. "This process cuts out the Republicans," a House Democratic aide told TPM, indicating the congressional majority intended to make sure the Republican minority would "not have a motion to recommit opportunity."

The White House nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration gave Congress misleading information about incidents in which he inappropriately accessed a federal database, possibly in violation of privacy laws, documents obtained by The Washington Post show.

The disclosure comes as pressure builds from Democrats on Capitol Hill for quick January confirmation of Erroll Southers, whose nomination has been held up by GOP opponents. In the aftermath of an attempted airline bombing on Christmas Day, calls have intensified for lawmakers to install permanent leadership at the TSA, a critical agency in enforcing airline security.

Southers, a former FBI agent, has described inconsistencies in his accounts to Congress as "inadvertent" and the result of poor memory of an incident that dates back 20 years. He said in a Nov. 20 letter to key senators obtained by The Post that he had accepted full responsibility long ago for a "grave error in judgment" in accessing confidential criminal records about his then-estranged wife's new boyfriend.

Republicans have seized on the Christmas day attempted terrorist attack as evidence that Democrats are weak on national security issues, as they seek to bolster their credentials ahead of next year's congressional elections.

As the Obama administration's investigation into how a 23-year-old Nigerian was able to carry explosives on to a US-bound aircraft gathers pace, a slew of Republicans have criticised everything from the timing of the president's first public comments to his plans to close the Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

Yesterday, Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs took shots at Howard Dean and his opposition to ObamaCare, suggesting the good doctor didn't know what he was talking about.

It was payback time this morning, as Dean announced that he would "not vigorously" back Pres. Obama's re-election bid.

The former DNC Chairman expressed his tepid support for Obama, Part Deux on today's Morning Joe in response to new poll data indicating Pres. Obama's popularity, and public support for ObamaCare, have fallen to all-time lows.

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday regarding the importance of getting it right on health care reform:

"Senators on both sides acknowledge that the health care bill we're considering is among the most significant pieces of legislation any of us will ever consider.

"So it stands to reason that we'd devote significant time and attention to it.

"Indeed, some would argue that we should spend more time and attention on this bill than most — if not every — previous bill we've considered.

"The Majority disagrees.

"Why? Because this bill has become a political nightmare for them.

"They know Americans overwhelmingly oppose it, so they want to get it over with.

"Americans are already outraged at the fact that Democrat leaders took their eyes off the ball. Rushing the process on a partisan line makes the situation even worse.

"Americans were told the purpose of reform was to reduce the cost of health care.

"Instead, Democrat leaders produced a $2.5 trillion, 2,074-page monstrosity that vastly expands government, raises taxes, raises premiums, and wrecks Medicare.

A part-time U.S. Census worker found dead near a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a murder, authorities have concluded.

Bill Sparkman, 51, of London, apparently was trying to preserve payments under life insurance policies he had taken out, one as recently as May, which paid benefits if he died as a result of murder or accident, but not suicide or natural causes, police said.

Sparkman had survived a bout with cancer a few years ago, but he told a friend he believed the cancer had returned and that he would die, police said.

While the White House and party leaders are urging calm, Democratic incumbents from red states and Republican-leaning districts are anything but; Tuesday's statehouse defeats have left them acutely aware that their votes on health care reform and other major Obama initiatives could be career-enders in 2010 or beyond.

"I should be nervous," said Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Huntsville, Ala.

Griffith said the Democratic rank and file is "very, very sensitive" to the fact that issues being pushed by party leaders "have the potential to cost some of our front-line members their seats."

House Democrats, forced to take a tough vote on a controversial cap-and-trade climate change bill in June, may have to vote as earlier as this weekend on the even more controversial health care bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team have struggled to get moderates on board for that vote, and Tuesday's results won't make the task any easier.

That will set up a Democratic argument that Senate leaders have been forced to use a partisan budget tool known as reconciliation to pass a health bill through the Senate by a simple majority, instead of 60 votes. Under the budget plan they passed earlier this year, Democrats could invoke the reconciliation process on Oct. 15.

Republicans contend that the use of reconciliation would be at odds with Obama's call for bipartisanship during his 2008 presidential campaign. But Obama has countered that argument in recent days by forcefully resurrecting the anti-Washington rhetoric that got him elected.