Not to be overdramatic, but there have been times in the last few months that the health care negotiations, as important as they are, have seemed like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic considering the looming threat of climate change. Today Senate hearings begin on Sen. Barbara Boxer’s major climate change legislation, and to coincide with that, the White House has scheduled green events for the President and Vice President. No final action is expected on climate change this year, and regrettably the United States will arrive at the Copenhagen talks in December empty-handed. But today is an important marker nonetheless.

All the news for weeks has been bad for Chris Christie. And the number differences here are small. But two polls are out today showing a 4 point spread for Christie — one from Rasmussen and one from PPP.

These are all margin of error differences. And yesterday we had a poll showing Corzine up by 9 points. But perhaps it’s the start of a late move.

For those keeping score at home, here’s the chart of all the polls of this race going back to last year.

Lobbying may be the second oldest profession. But Alan Grayson may have gotten himself in a bit of hot water calling female lobbyist Linda Robertson a “K Street whore.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters this morning that the House might unveil its health care reform bill by the end of this week — and said that a less robust form of public option would get more votes in the House than one tied to Medicare rates.

The former President made his motivational speaking debut last night in Forth Worth. What more do you need to say?

White House to Harry Reid (according to Chuck Todd): “You’re the vote counter, but don’t come crying to us when you need that last vote.”

Late Update: Chuck Todd clarifies that he was characterizing the White House line, not offering a direct quote from the White House.

House Republicans introduce resolution commemorating the 9/12 Tea Party march in DC.

In a nice touch, the resolution includes the wildly exaggerated crowd estimates were the object of such ridicule at the time. At least “hundreds of thousands” and possibly as many as “1,700,000 marchers.”

Fmr. President Bush at motivational speech: If I can pick up my dog’s poop, you can get motivated and succeed!

Justice Scalia says that had he been on the Supreme Court in the 1950s, following his originalist philosophy he probably would have dissented from Brown v. Board of Education. [Late Update: Jack Balkin at Balkinization has reviewed the video of Scalia’s appearance and finds that the local newspaper misquoted Scalia, who actually said he would have joined Justice Harlan in dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson, not in Brown.]

Quoting the local newspaper report … Read More

Lieberman: Sure, I’ll filibuster a health care reform bill I don’t agree with. And I don’t agree with it as it is now.

In other news, Sen. Blanche Lincoln today spoke out against the public option and the bill Sen. Reid (D-NV) announced yesterday. But revealingly, she did not say one way or another how she would vote on cloture (where the Dems need 60 votes), which is the key question.

I’d say it’s assumed that, if the Dems are going to win this, several of the centrist and conservative Dems will vote no on the bill itself (where they only need 50) but yes on cloture (the key vote where they need 60).

And in yet more news, asked whether he thinks it’s possible that Reid’s bill could fall apart before coming to the floor, Sen. Bayh said: “Yeah, I think that’s possible.”