Defense Spending

Defense Budget Hawks To Super Committee: Not In My Backyard

Susan Crabtree | October 14, 2011, 5:59PM

The Republican and Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate defense committees are pleading with the deficit-reduction super committee to spare the Pentagon when it's looking for places to slash spending.

Both Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), who heads the Senate counterpart, sent letters to the super committee Friday urging, if not downright begging, the 12 deficit deciders not to touch the Pentagon's discretionary budget, although Levin suggested the panel propose a commission to look into finding savings in the military retirement and health care systems.

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2011 Elections

Ohio Great-Grandma Fires Back In New Ad: 'They Must Be Desperate' (VIDEO)

Eric Kleefeld | October 14, 2011, 5:44PM

We Are Ohio, the progressive group leading the campaign in the referendum on whether to sustain or repeal Gov. John Kasich's new law SB 5 -- getting rid of most collective bargaining rights for public unions -- has a new ad that once again stars senior citizen Marlene Quinn. This new ad comes in response to a spot from a conservative group -- which sampled Quinn's previous ad, and twisted things to make it sound like she should (or actually did) support the anti-union law.

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Occupy Wall Street

Legal Observer Under Arrest After Being Injured By Police Scooter In Occupy Wall Street Protests

Jillian Rayfield | October 14, 2011, 2:54PM

The National Lawyers Guild confirms to TPM that one of its legal observers was injured and arrested in an incident involving a NYPD motor scooter that was captured on video Friday morning during the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Gideon Oliver, who is on the executive committee of the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, confirmed to TPM that the man in the video is one of their legal observers. Oliver wouldn't give the man's name or confirm the extent of his injuries, but he did say the man is currently in the emergency room receiving medical attention -- and that he is under arrest.

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Barack Obama

What Is The Lord's Resistance Army?

Thomas Lane | October 14, 2011, 2:41PM

News that the Obama administration is sending combat troops to Uganda hit many in the US as a surprise. The soldiers are heading there with the Ugandan government's approval in order to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army.

That fact will make it less of a shock to Africans hearing this news. They know the LRA as a feared and brutal insurgency.

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Barack Obama

Obama Sends 100 Troops To Central Africa To Help Fight LRA

Susan Crabtree | October 14, 2011, 2:25PM

President Obama is sending a total of 100 troops into central Africa to help a resistance movement fight the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group known for committing atrocities across the continent.

The first troops left Wednesday and in the next month additional forces are set to deploy, including a second combat-equipped team, as well as communications and logistics personnel, Obama informed Congressional leaders in a letter sent Friday afternoon. The mission's goal is to remove LRA leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield, according to the letter.

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John Boehner

White House To Boehner On Jobs Plan: Did We Hit A Nerve?

Susan Crabtree | October 14, 2011, 1:47PM

The White House is holding fast to its claim that Republicans are running a do-nothing Congress, and, unlike President Obama, have yet to put forth a jobs bill -- or at least a real one.

Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) press office Thursday evening pointedly released a summary of a private phone call he and Obama had earlier that day, in which Boehner took serious issue with Obama's claims during that morning's press conference that he has yet to see a GOP plan for job creation. (Obama had called Boehner to congratulate him on the passage of trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama).

Boehner reminded Obama that House Republicans put forth a "Plan for America's Job Creators" in May, and noted that he and other members of the GOP leadership team have spoken with the President and his staff about the plan and referenced it on numerous occasions, in letters and elsewhere.

The GOP plan consists of repealing government regulations on businesses, reducing taxes on individuals to 25 percent, allowing businesses to reinvest their overseas profits in the U.S. without having to pay a tax penalty, passing the three trade agreements, maximizing U.S. energy production and paying down the debt by slashing government spending.

But the White House argues that most of those policies -- minus the trade agreements (which he strongly supported) -- won't do anything to create jobs immediately, and so Obama and his team don't consider the proposal a real Jobs plan and they haven't been shy about saying so.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Friday was asked whether Obama was miffed by Boehner's decision to release the contents of his private conversation with the President. Carney's response: we must have hit a nerve.

"What I think it points out [is] that Republicans are coming under pressure from their constituents to do something on jobs and the economy, because again, one of the reasons they're coming under pressure, we're not just saying this is essential, their constituents are saying it," Carney said.

"The Republicans' so-called plan for jobs creators, while it might have some good ideas in it, free trade agreements, passage of patent reform and some other issues, those same outside analysts are saying will have no significant impact on the economy or jobs in the near term," he continued.

In Boehner's account of the phone call, he told Obama that Republicans have given his jobs plan serious consideration and even released a detailed memo outlining specific areas where they believe common ground can be found.

Boehner also pointed out that the House has already acted on several items in the White House jobs package, including a veterans hiring bill, trade agreements, and a 3 percent withholding bill, which the Ways & Means Committee approved Thursday and will be voted on the House floor this month.

"They also discussed transportation and infrastructure, and the Speaker expressed his desire to do something on the issue, but to do it in a fiscally-responsible way," Boehner's release noted.

Correction: original report misquoted Carney as saying NAFTA reform, instead of patent reform.

Iran

Pols Want Obama To Hit Iran Harder, Make Its Bank 'Radioactive'

Susan Crabtree | October 14, 2011, 1:03PM

Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Shahab 3 missile and Pres. Obama

Republicans and even some Democrats are coming down hard on President Obama's policy toward Iran and Syria just three days after the Justice Department released information about a foiled Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S.

A Friday House hearing devoted to examining the threats posed by Iran and Syria quickly devolved into attacks on Obama's record toward the two Middle Eastern dictatorships.

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) lambasted the administration's execution of Iran human rights protections passed into law last year, calling its record "truly pathetic and inadequate" and arguing that "a pack of Iranian boy scouts could do better by far."

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Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street Showdown That Only Went Down A Little Bit

Jillian Rayfield | October 14, 2011, 11:23AM

Occupy Wall Street protesters had been gearing up for a confrontation with law enforcement over a planned clean-up in lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park on Friday morning that amounted to an eviction notice. But though there were some arrests made and a few fights with the cops, in the end the protesters were allowed to stay.

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Recession

CHART: U.S. Birth Rate Drops As Economy Falters

Igor Bobic | October 14, 2011, 11:12AM

A new Pew report details a sharp decline in fertility rates across the United States that appears closely tied to the economic recession that hit the country in approximately 2007.

The correlation between a faltering economy and the national birth rate is nothing new. What is astounding, however, is that the birth rate for almost every state has dropped dramatically. In 2007, the country experienced a record number of births, 4,316,233. Since then, following one of the worst recessions the U.S. has ever seen, Pew's provisional data shows that the number of births in 2010 was just 4,007,000.

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Wisconsin Recalls

Wis. Dems To Launch New Round Of State Senate Recalls

Eric Kleefeld | October 14, 2011, 10:43AM

Wisconsin Democrats just recently announced their official campaign to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker, following their near-miss earlier this year to recall their way to a majority in the state Senate. But that's not all: The recall-Walker campaign will also include another bite at recalls for the state Senate.

Under Wisconsin's recall law, elected officials must have served at least one year of their current term before being recalled -- thus exempting earlier this year the half of the Senate that was just elected in 2010. With half of the state Senate up for election every two years, this meant that only those senators who were last elected in 2008 could be targeted for recalls during this past year (and also that the attempt to recall Walker would have to wait). But now, headed into 2012, that ceiling has been lifted.

"There is an opportunity here, given the large-scale effort under way, to target some of the senators who stood by Walker," state Dem spokesman Graeme Zielinski told the Wisconsin State Journal. "You will know in time who we're targeting."

On the other side, Republicans are in turn eyeing recall counter-efforts against Dems. "At this point, no decisions have been made, but all options are on the table. We will wait and see what the Democrats decide to do, and then weigh our options and move forward," said Dan Romportl, executive director of the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate.

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Occupy Wall Street

Dems Press Eric Holder To Investigate Banks For Colluding Over ATM Fees

Brian Beutler | October 14, 2011, 5:50AM

Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT)

If you're a member of Congress trying to rein in Wall Street, now's your moment, and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) is seizing it.

Welch helped lead the effort in 2010 to limit the "swipe fees" banks can charge retailers for each debit card transaction -- fees retailers passed on to consumers. Those rules went into effect earlier this year and, as if to serve as recruiters for the anti-Wall Street protests spreading across the country, Bank of America and other financial firms decided to recoup the lost profits by imposing an ATM fee on their customers -- a penalty of sorts for having automated access to your own money.

In a functioning market this practice might have ended before it began, as disgruntled customers took their business to firms that didn't attempt to bilk their customers.

That's not happening. So Welch wants Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate these banks for collusive behavior.

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Taxes

CHART OF THE DAY: These Are The 47 Percent

Brian Beutler | October 14, 2011, 5:45AM

1971yes / Shutterstock

If the left and the right are proxies in a class war, then they're currently fighting to win a battle of public perception. Each side wants the public to see them as on the side of the beleaguered many against the powerful few.

Democrats are vying for victory by supporting tax increases on millionaires and the "Buffett Rule," which posits that all millionaires should pay at least the same effective tax rates as the middle class. The Occupy Wall Street protesters have turned "We Are The 99 Percent" into a rallying cry.

How do you argue against that? By obscuring what the fight's really about, and perpetuating the sense that hundreds of millions of people are gaming the system. To do this, conservatives and Republican elected officials are citing recent data to create the impression that a small majority of people in the country pay all the taxes, and nearly half (a large minority) pay nothing at all. It's a false impression, and when you break down who comprises this now-famous "47 percent" -- the poor, the disabled, and the elderly -- it makes you wonder why anybody thought it was a good idea to pick a public fight with them.

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Super Committee

McCain Says He Might Just Ignore Super Committee Defense Cuts

Brian Fung | October 13, 2011, 5:55PM

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he's so committed to defense spending, he'd overturn key provisions of the debt ceiling deal to protect it.

In a Capitol press conference Thursday, McCain told reporters he'd be "among the first" to suggest ignoring any cuts to defense that would take place if the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction (the so-called "Super Committee") fails to produce a plan by Nov. 23.

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Jobs

Big, Bold And Balanced vs. Tiny, Tepid, Tilted -- Dems, GOP Do Battle Over Deficits, Jobs

Brian Beutler | October 13, 2011, 3:21PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Listening to Congressional leaders these days, it's easy to forget that over a year ago Republicans put the budget at the top of the legislative agenda, and swamped Democrats at the polls with a simple question: "Where are the jobs?!"

For better or worse those issues are now inextricably linked. By consensus, job creation measures will have to be paid for, and doing anything substantial to help the economy now will require passing a larger and more equitable package of deficit-reducing policies than Republicans ever wanted.

Thus, the imperatives of the moment are issues Democrats want to tackle -- both for ideological reasons and out of political necessity. Their roles have flipped, in other words, with Democrats demanding swift action on the economy and deficits, and Republicans slinking into the background on both issues.

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New York

Four Republicans Who Supported NY Gay Marriage Getting A Big Fundraiser

Jillian Rayfield | October 13, 2011, 1:42PM

The four Republican lawmakers in New York who supported the gay marriage law are getting a big cash infusion Thursday night, with a fundraiser in Manhattan that is expected to raise $1.25 million.

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Iran

Obama Predicts Other Middle Eastern Countries Will Punish Iran

Susan Crabtree | October 13, 2011, 1:11PM

President Barack Obama

President Obama said Iran will pay a price for a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, arguing that the Iranian regime has increasingly alienated other countries in the Middle East.

"I have to emphasize that this plot is not simply directed at the United States of America," Obama said at a press conference with the South Korean president. "This is a plot directed at the Saudi ambassador...You're going to see folks throughout the Middle East region questioning their ability to work with Iran."

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Abortion

Dems Slam GOP For Pushing Abortion Bill Instead Of Job Creation

Susan Crabtree | October 13, 2011, 12:32PM

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Democrats are condemning a House GOP attempt to prevent President Obama's health care law from paying for abortions as an assault on women and a waste of precious legislative time when Americans are demanding action on the economy and job creation.

"First of all, it's not a jobs bill. What are we doing but wasting time?" Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters Thursday. "Every woman in America should be concerned about this assault on women's health."

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John McCain

Senate Republicans Plan To Unveil A 'Real' American Jobs Bill

Brian Fung | October 13, 2011, 11:07AM

In an apparent answer to the White House's jobs proposal, Senate Republicans are planning to unveil what they call the "Real American Jobs Act."

The bill lays out a distinctly conservative vision for the U.S. economy that would lower tax rates for individuals and businesses, pursue free trade, and roll back environmental regulations while expanding domestic energy production. To top it off, Republicans would seek to pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, Politico reports.

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Barack Obama

Many Dems Defect As Obama Passes Trade Deals With GOP Help

Susan Crabtree | October 13, 2011, 10:29AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama

President Obama is offering an especially warm welcome to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and First Lady Kim Yoon-ok Thursday after the House and Senate approved three free-trade agreements last night, the South Korea deal being the largest and packing the most economic punch.

The approval of all three deals - with South Korea, Columbia and Panama -- ends a years-long impasse and hands President Obama an impressive victory and some nice timing for the South Korean President's visit.

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Occupy Wall Street

Pew: More Americans Interested In Amanda Knox Than Occupy Wall Street

Kyle Leighton | October 13, 2011, 5:55AM

Every week the Pew Research Center tracks what news topics Americans are interested in. This past week, the stories ranged from the economy to the passing of Steve Jobs to the 2012 elections. But Pew also found that interest in the return of Amanda Knox, the American acquitted of murder in Italy, attracted more attention than the Occupy Wall Street protests, despite the same amount of news coverage.

Pew's "News Interest Index" showed that seven percent of respondents said they were interested in news on Occupy Wall Street, and ten said they wanted to know more about Knox. Both were dwarfed by interest in the economy and somewhat by Mr. Jobs, who was of interest to 14 percent. An equal seven percent of coverage was afforded to both Knox and Occupy Wall Street.

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Tea Party

White House: Tea Party Is Wagging The GOP Dog

Susan Crabtree | October 12, 2011, 4:57PM

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Wednesday trained his fire on the Tea Party, blaming "one element" of the Republican party for Standard and Poor's mid-August downgrade of U.S. credit worthiness.

In response to a a question about why support for President Obama is slipping among Latino voters, Carney readily acknowledged that approval ratings for both Obama and Congress have fallen sharply this year as Americans have grown increasingly disgusted by the brinksmanship between the two parties, which was on vivid display during the mid-summer debt crisis.

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Chuck Schumer

Schumer Brands GOP Agenda 'Tea Party Economics'

Brian Beutler | October 12, 2011, 3:37PM

Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Democrats' efforts to pass jobs legislation before the end of the year don't just rest on President Obama's bully pulpit and the hope that Republicans will demonstrate good will. They're actively trying to dismantle what's left of public support for the Republican economic agenda.

In a memo to party members and the media, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) -- the Dems' top strategist in the Senate -- argues that the GOP is intentionally blocking all measures that could improve the economy for political gain.

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Harry Reid

Reid: Individual Jobs Bills To Be Paid For With Taxes On Millionaires

Brian Beutler | October 12, 2011, 2:14PM

Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Harry Reid (D-NV)

Now that Republicans have successfully blocked debate on President Obama's full jobs bill, Senate Dems plan to break it into pieces -- force tough votes for Republicans on issues they've supported in the past like infrastructure spending and payroll tax cuts. But all those things cost money or deplete revenues, and in this austerity-obsessed Congress, nothing will pass unless its paid for. So Dems will present the GOP with a stark choice: side with the unemployed or side with rich people.

At his weekly Capitol press briefing Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid explained that the cost of each jobs proposal will be offset "with the tax that the vast majority of the American people support. That is, taxing just a little bit people making more than a million dollars a year."

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FEMA

FEMA In GOP Crosshairs For...Avoiding A Shutdown?

Brian Beutler | October 12, 2011, 2:07PM

Representative Hal Rogers (R-KY)

Congressional Republicans haven't gotten over the last government shutdown fight -- perhaps because it wasn't a clear win. They're probing FEMA's accounting practices in the last week of September, suggesting the agency manipulated its disaster relief fund to help Democrats avoid a political fight with Republicans. But FEMA officials were on the record, both publicly and in private briefings with members of both parties, about the tools they were using to keep themselves in the black through the fiscal year. So what's this really all about?

Recall that the September government shutdown fight centered on the GOP's demand that there should be matching budget cuts to make up for funneling emergency money to FEMA's disaster relief fund.

FEMA originally expected the account to be drained a few days before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. To keep its operations across the country in motion Congress was prepared to appropriate the agency $1 billion in bridge money to carry it into October...except for that pesky disagreement about offsets! Republicans insisted on paying for it by nixing a popular and effective hybrid vehicle incentive. Democrats refused, both on principle and because the specific manufacturing program on the chopping block was a successful one. Neither party was prepared to cave. But with the deadline only days away, FEMA moved aggressively to shore up its fund and announced it could get by without any emergency help from Congress and the shutdown was averted.

Republicans say something fishy was going on.

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Jennifer Granholm

Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm To Host Show On Current TV

David Taintor | October 12, 2011, 1:04PM

Former Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-MI)

Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm will host a new prime-time show starting January 2012 on the expanding Current TV network.

"The War Room will be a nightly show for political junkies like me and anyone who cares about the future of our country, focusing on the 2012 election from all angles," Granholm said in a statement on Wednesday. "We will actively engage viewers with a blend of smart analysis and relevant commentary from guests on the cutting edge of politics, business and entertainment."

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Ohio

Pro-Union Group Blasts 'Deceitful' Campaign Vid In Ohio Referendum

Eric Kleefeld | October 12, 2011, 12:50PM

The campaign in Ohio for this November's referendum, on whether to sustain or repeal Gov. John Kasich's new law SB 5 -- getting rid of most collective bargaining rights for public unions -- just got a lot uglier.

Now, the Dayton Daily News reports, some TV stations are pulling an ad from the pro-bill campaign -- and splicing it into an ad for the anti-bill campaign, and making it look like the woman in the earlier spot favored the bill.

Last week, the progressive group We Are Ohio released an ad starring a senior citizen, Marlene Quinn, talking about how firefighters saved the life of her grand-daughter.

"I don't want the politicians in Columbus making decisions for the firefighters, the police, teachers, nurses, or any organization that's helping people," Quinn declares in the ad. "Fewer firefighters could mean the different between life or death -- and that's why I'm voting 'No' on Issue 2."

In response, the pro-SB 5 group Building A Better Ohio has a new spot up, sampling from We Are Ohio.

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Occupy Wall Street

Conservatives To Occupy Wall Street Protesters: Get A Job

Jillian Rayfield | October 12, 2011, 10:16AM

Conservatives love saying that Occupy Wall Street has no coherent idea of what it wants. But it is pretty clear that though demonstrators may disagree on the details, the protests are driven by a bad economy, growing income inequality and the fact that a lot of people can't get jobs.

So how have Republicans, tea partiers and Fox News hosts responded? By telling demonstrators to stop complaining and get a job...

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Jobs

Dems Win Jobs Bill Fight -- But Expose Major Strategic Weakness Ahead Of 2012

Brian Beutler | October 12, 2011, 5:50AM

After an agonizing week of arm-twisting, and a vote that had to be held open for hours, Senate Democrats got their act together. But only barely.

A full 51 of them voted as a bloc Tuesday, not to pass President Obama's jobs plan or even to break a GOP filibuster of the bill, but simply for the proposition that the Senate should publicly debate the most pressing issue in the country.

That wasn't enough to prevail. Under the Senate's obscure rules, simply debating a piece of legislation often requires 60 votes. And two Dems -- Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and John Tester (D-MT) -- voted with all 46 present Republicans to block the debate from happening altogether. (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) also switched his vote to "no" at the last moment, but only as a procedural trick that allows him to bring the jobs bill up for another vote in the future.) But it was enough for the Dems to claim a partisan GOP minority is blocking meaningful action on the economy.

Indeed, that the vote failed was entirely expected. The point of Tuesdays vote was to allow Dems take a message to voters: With unemployment over 9 percent, Republicans unanimously snuffed out the the only bill on the docket that promises to significantly boost the economy -- without even allowing a debate on it.

"Republicans unanimously voted against our nation's economic health to advance their narrow political interests," charged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in a blunt official statement. "Republicans blocked a bill that would put nearly two million Americans back to work. And they voted against this job-creating bill despite previously supporting many of the ideas it contains, such as tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses."

But the outcome wasn't an unambiguous victory for Democrats. Though politically useful it exposed, in tortured fashion, the fundamental strategic incoherence that has defined the party since President Obama took office in 2009. Despite the simple nature of the proposition -- Should we debate a jobs bill? -- it took Democrats until the 11th hour to round up a bare majority support and avoid shooting the entire party in the foot. And that difficulty bodes poorly for the real, substantive fights -- over taxes, entitlements, the very shape of the country -- that lay ahead between now and the 2012 elections.

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White House

Two Dems Vote With GOP To Kill Obama Jobs Package In Senate

Susan Crabtree | October 11, 2011, 7:50PM

Update: 8:56 p.m. Eastern -- At the last moment, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid switched his vote to "no" after Sen. Shaheen cast a yes vote. Reid altered his position in order to be able to bring the measure to a vote again. The final tally came to 50-49.

Senate Democrats lost a procedural hurdle on President Obama's jobs bill Thursday night, scuttling any progress on passage of the entire package.

As of early evening, Senate Democrats were still holding the vote open for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who had a scheduling conflict and was still in flight when the vote began. With Shaheen's yes vote, Senate Democrats could show a majority of support, 51 votes, for the President's $447m plan to spur economic growth.

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Democratic Governors Association

16 Dem Govs. Pressure Dem Senators Ahead Of Jobs Vote

Susan Crabtree | October 11, 2011, 5:29PM

Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-MD)

With President Obama's jobs package facing a handful of Democratic defections in the Senate, the White House released a letter from 16 Democratic governors who are standing squarely behind the bill in a last-ditch lobbying blitz before the Tuesday night vote.

The jobs bill faces almost certain defeat Tuesday night on a procedural motion requiring 60 votes to stop a GOP filibuster. All Republicans are expected to oppose it-- and even a handful of Democratic senators are poised to vote no.

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Occupy D.C.

Anti-War Protesters Storm Senate's Hart Office Building (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | October 11, 2011, 12:55PM

Members of the anti-war Stop the Machine and October 2011 movement attempted to take over the atrium of the Senate Hart Office Building on Tuesday, chanting "we are the 99 percent" and "end all wars" before Capitol Police cleared the area and made a handful of arrests.

Stop the Machine and October 2011 protesters were the chief organizers, but were joined by people who said they came to town for the Occupy D.C. protest. Some of the chants also took on the branding of the "Occupy" movement, including chants about taxing the rich.

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Occupy D.C.

Protesters Plan To Try To Shut Down Senate Hart Building At 11:30

Ryan J. Reilly | October 11, 2011, 11:25AM

Protesters with the Occupy D.C. and Stop The Machine movements will try to shut down the Senate Hart Building at 11:30 a.m today.

Protesters were gathering in the atrium of the building as Capitol police officers loomed nearby and as other demonstrators in anti-war gear set themselves up in the lobbies of floors overlooking the lobby.

The protestors made their way from Freedom Plaza, where they've set up camp, to Capitol Hill in small groups, trying to avoid a "march" down Pennsylvania Ave.

"Is the Hart building, how do I get to the Hart building? Am I in it?" one protester asked a a Hill staffer.

We'll have updates as the situation develops.

Late update: There were a handful of arrests during the demonstration, which was organized by Stop The Machine and October 2011 protestors but was joined by people who said they were affiliated with the Occupy D.C. movement.

Barack Obama

White House: Unanimous Dem Support For Jobs Bill Is Not The Right Test

Susan Crabtree | October 11, 2011, 1:28AM

President Barack Obama

The White House is rejecting the notion -- even among senior Democrats -- that the President's jobs bill needs to get unanimous Democratic support when it hits the Senate floor tonight or face criticism that Obama is having a tough time convincing members of his own party about its viability.

"The test is not unanimous support among Democrats," a senior White House official told reporters Tuesday morning, noting that rarely does the entire Democratic caucus vote in lockstep on any bill.

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Wisconsin

Wisconsin Dems Announce Timeline For Effort To Recall Gov. Scott Walker

Eric Kleefeld | October 10, 2011, 8:59PM

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI)

Wisconsin Democrats have announced the date at which they will begin attempting to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker, whose anti-public employee union legislation polarized the state and made it a center of national attention and activism: The petitions will begin being gathered November 15.

State chairman Mike Tate will go on the Ed Schultz show on MSNBC Monday night, and formally roll out the date. But first, Tate sent out a message to supporters with a fundraising request: "In fewer than 37 days, we will need to organize, train and fund an army of grassroots volunteers who will need to collect more than 540,206 valid recall signatures. Before I go on the air, can I count on you to make a donation of $11.15 towards our goal of raising $540,206 by Nov. 15th?"

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Karl Rove

Karl Rove: Occupy Wall Street Is 'Left Wing Nuts Whose Goal It Is To Violate The Law'

Evan McMorris-Santoro | October 10, 2011, 5:34PM

Karl Rove

Add Karl Rove's name to the list of pundits and pols weighing in how to compare Occupy Wall Street to the tea party.

The short version: he's not seeing the connection.

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Ben Bernanke

Congressional Dysfunction Begins To Spook Old Pros

Brian Beutler | October 10, 2011, 5:05AM

U.S. Capitol building

Congress has always been Washington's whipping boy, particularly near election time. The antics get sillier, the pace shifts from glacial to gridlock, and the frustrated public gets daily reminders that lawmakers are often too mired in politics to function in the national interest.

That's not news.

What is news is that this time it's starting to scare the pros.

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