Is someone in the Senate trying to sneak funding for the “clean-coal,” “near zero emissions” FutureGen project in Illinois into the stimulus package?

So what is Tom Daschle accused of doing? We break down the individual items here.

The upshot of this weekend’s provincial elections in Iraq is that support swung toward parties of secular nationalism, who support centralized power, at the expense of sectarian and/or more regionally minded parties favoring a weak central government. Juan Cole has a good run-down of the particulars.

Some problems staffing out Treasury?

More seriously, it’s not so much who’s confirmed: Geithner just got confirmed himself. But my sense is that Treasury’s significantly behind other departments in having top appointees nominated.

Fmr. Sen. Coleman’s lawyer appears to be laying the groundwork for arguing that Al Franken’s margin of victory is smaller than the inherent margin of error in the election contest itself. Ergo, the margin’s so close they need to scrap Al’s win and hold a completely new election.

Obama, Biden, Schiliro working the phones for Daschle.

“Not a Stimulus bill. It’s just a spending bill.” That was Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) just a few moments ago on Fox.

There are obviously very basic disagreements between Democrats and Republicans on this issue, which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I think of all the Republicans I’ve heard making nonsensical points about this bill, Sen. DeMint (R-SC) is running way ahead of every other competitor, certainly ahead of any other senator.

A short DeMint wish-list.

Can someone point out to me any case where an interviewer presses DeMint on the point that stimulus bills are by definition spending bills. Please someone send me this link or a time when it happens on TV. You’re trying to counter the drop off in the demand that is causing the recession.

I’m told DeMint isn’t a dolt, which is hard to tell from recent TV appearances, just an anti-government radical who thinks the government shouldn’t take any role in trying to cushion the effects of economic downturns or having any policy response to possible economic catastrophes. But really, he’s getting a crazy free ride here.

It gets better. The latest from RNC Chair Michael Steele: “Not in the history of mankind has the

government ever created a job.”

This is such transparent nonsense it’s hard to know where to start; but I guess it builds on the DeMint nonsense. Has Steele ever heard of government road building? Defense spending? NASA? We don’t even need to get into the many ways that government spending on many things has spin-off effects in terms of heightened economic productivity either because of technological innovation or transportation efficiencies, or whatever. How we doing on the spending on research and initial deployment that created the Internet?

Wolf Blitzer was doing the interview. I guess he didn’t realize this is a false statement? I’m worried about Wolf. He needs some help.

CBO says 78% of the Stimulus Bill will hit the economy over two years.