The pair, who targeted Levin because of his role as chair of the Armed Services Committee, wanted to criticize U.S. war operations and support for Israel. They faced a possible sentence of up to one year in prison.

The Grand Rapids Press reports that Kantar told U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell that he hoped that the pie would serve as an “exclamation point” to the speech he delivered at Levin’s event.

Reuters reports:

Republicans, who were able to block a climate and energy bill last year, hoped to pick up support from Democrats in energy-dependent states facing tight elections next year on the measure sponsored by Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
But it got only 50 votes in the Democratic-led 100-member chamber, short of the 60 votes needed to pass.

The Senate also rejected three EPA-limiting amendments offered by Democrats, the Washington Post reports.

One, sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would have provided exemptions for agriculture and smaller greenhouse gas emitters from the EPA’s permitting process; another, sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), would delay EPA rules for two years; and a third, sponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), would have delayed the rules for two years, exempted agriculture and provided a tax credit to clean energy technology manufacturers.

Sen. Stabenow voted in favor of her own amendment and Carl Levin (D-MI) voted in favor of the Baucus amendment.

Sierra Club Michigan Chapter Director Anne Woiwode called the defeat of the four bills a “short-term victory for Americans who want clean air and safe drinking water” and called on Michigan’s senators to explain their support for measures that would benefit polluters.

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) — a strong backer of funding for the Afghan war — is among the politicians that were illegally targeted by a U.S. Army psy-ops unit at Camp Eggers in Kabul last year, according to a new report.

Rolling Stone reports that three-star general Lt. Gen. William Caldwell directed the “information operations” unit at Camp Eggers to compile detailed dossiers on the attitudes and preferences of visiting politicians as part of an effort to spin civilians into supporting the war.

The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts.

According to [whistle blower and IO unit leader Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes], the general wanted the IO team to provide a “deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds.” The general’s chief of staff also asked Holmes how Caldwell could secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge. “How do we get these guys to give us more people?” he demanded. “What do I have to plant inside their heads?”

MLive points out that Levin has responded to the report by reiterating his support for the war and calling on the Pentagon to investigate allegations of Army propaganda violations.

“For years, I have strongly and repeatedly advocated for building up Afghan military capability because I believe only the Afghans can truly secure their nation’s future,” Levin told the Washington Post. “I have never needed any convincing on this point. Quite the opposite, my efforts have been aimed at convincing others of the need for larger, more capable Afghan security forces, and that we and NATO should send more trainers to Afghanistan, rather than more combat troops.”

Last month the Army asked Congress for an additional $2 billion to train Afghan troops.

The move required special arrangements with Canadian regulators because the generators are so large that no International Atomic Energy Agency approved container can hold them and because the amount of radiation they contain exceeds the limits for shipments under international law.

Because the shipment would pass through U.S. territories in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway en route to Sweden, U.S. approval is necessary.

The agency responsible for oversight of nuclear shipments in the U.S. is DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, an agency that has come under criticism recently for its failure to prevent oil and gas pipeline ruptures.

In the final days of his tenure as a U.S. Senator, Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin spearheaded an effort to ensure that the agency doesn’t simply rubber stamp the plan.

Feingold, together with Sens. Robert Casey Jr.(D-PA), Kirsten Gellibrand (D-NY), Carl Levin (D-MI), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Shumer (D-NY), asked PHMSA to explain how it would handle the request to move the nuclear waste through U.S. waters.

In a Nov. 8, 2010 response PHMSA Director Cynthia Quarterman said the agency would begin considering Bruce Power’s application for a “special arrangement” once the shipping plan was approved by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Over the past two decades the agency has made special arrangements for the shipping of approximately 40 large nuclear power plant components, she said, but “almost all of the prior U.S. consignments had a lesser radioactive hazard than the proposed Canadian steam generator transport.”

All but one of the previous nuclear shipments appear to involve ocean shipping rather than transport over the Great Lakes.

Quarterman said that PHMSA would solicit input from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before granting Bruce Power an exemption from safety regulations.

Feingold asked whether PHMSA be complying with the National Environmental Policy Act [which requires formal environmental review of federal actions with significant environmental impact] and how the agency would ensure public participation and transparency.

Quarterman stated that the agency would comply with NEPA, but offered no details on actions to engage the public.

“It should be noted that although Canada may approve the initial certificate, the U.S. is in no way bound by their approval,” she said. “The U.S. could require additional conditions or elect not to validate.”

PHMSA must conduct a formal environmental review of the plan, said Toledo-based attorney Terry Lodge, who is working with a coalition of U.S. environmental and nuclear watchdog groups intent on stopping the transport.

“This precedent-setting project, if allowed to proceed, will normalize some risky practices that have larger implications for human health and the environment,“ he said. “Bruce Power’s aim is to save money on long-term stewardship costs of radioactive waste by reducing its volume and mixing some of it into recycled metal markets.”

“We believe the proposed shipment manifests as yet unquantified threats to water, the environment and public health in the event of a seal rupture on the generators,” Lodge said. “Radionuclides could enter the Lakes and Seaway, and if so, fisheries and resort activities will be seen as contaminated.”

Lodge said that the transport plans presented by Bruce Power do not detail emergency response measures in the event of a freighter accident and do not include cleanup plans, spill remediation protocols or drinking water protection measures.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) is calling for increased security at the northern border after a Government Accountability Office report found that less than one percent of the U.S. – Canada border has an acceptable level of security.

The GAO report said that Customs and Border Patrol does not have the ability to detect illegal activity across most of the northern border because it is mostly remote and inaccessible by traditional patrol methods.

DHS reports that the terrorist threat on the northern border is higher [than on the southern border], given the large expanse of area with limited law enforcement coverage. There is also a great deal of trade and travel across this border, and while legal trade is predominant, DHS reports networks of illicit criminal activity and smuggling of drugs, currency, people, and weapons between the two countries.

DHS reported spending nearly $3 billion in its efforts to interdict and investigate illegal northern border activity in fiscal year 2010, annually making approximately 6,000 arrests and interdicting approximately 40,000 pounds of illegal drugs at and between the northern border ports of entry.

“I have serious concerns that lack of coordination between Immigration and Customs Enforcement Personnel and Border Patrol personnel is hindering border security in Detroit,” Levin said in a statement. “Any failure to coordinate efforts between agencies that weakens security on the northern border is totally unacceptable.”

Levin said that he has asked representatives from the Detroit offices of ICE and CBP to meet to meet with him in Detroit within two weeks.

Efforts to add the DREAM Act to the defense authorization bill failed Tuesday when Republicans filibustered the bill. (Mark Samala/ZUMApress.com)

Senate Republicans filibustered the defense authorization bill Tuesday afternoon, ending a push by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to pass the DREAM Act, which would provide legal status to some undocumented immigrants in exchange for school or military service, and a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as amendments to the legislation.

The defense authorization bill has been passed for the past 48 consecutive years. It failed to move to the Senate floor today in a 56-43 vote, with no “yea” votes by Republicans.

The main argument marshaled against continuing with the defense bill was that both a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal and the DREAM Act have too little relevance to defense. But both proposals have major implications for those who serve — or wish to serve — in the military. A repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, without fear their sexual orientation would lead to discharge from the military. The DREAM Act would allow illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to earn legal status by serving in the military or attending two years of college, providing what many have said would be a needed boost for military recruitment.

After the filibuster, Reid said he will continue to push for the DREAM Act, which was originally proposed in 2001 by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) — who voted against bringing the defense authorization bill to the floor today. The DREAM Act has come up several times since 2001 but only went to a vote as a standalone bill once, in 2007. Although he did not specify a timeline, Reid said today the act is not dead.

“We’re going to vote on the DREAM Act, it’s just a question of when,” Reid said after the filibuster. “This isn’t the end of this. We’re going to continue to move on.”

The vote was a major disappointment to immigration reform advocates and GLBT rights supporters. Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said in a statement the senators “who led and supported the filibuster effort should be ashamed.”

Mary Giovagnoli, director of Immigration Policy Center, told TWI the vote showed “a lack of leadership” by Republican senators. “This was clearly putting procedural wrangling and partisan politics over social issues that are clearly something the American public wants action on,” she said.

Democrats needed at least one Republican to vote to move forward with the bill to stop a Republican filibuster. But procedural squabbles deterred Republicans from voting for the legislation, arguing that Reid was denying them the chance to amend the bill.

Reid previously said he would allow only three amendments: a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; the DREAM Act; and an amendment to ban the practice of placing “secret holds” on presidential nominees.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, repeatedly quoted a floor statement by Reid last Thursday, when Reid said he was “willing to work with Republicans on a process that will permit the Senate to consider these matters and complete the bill as soon as possible.”

But Republicans argued the short timetable before a pre-election recess would prevent them from adding enough amendments. Two moderate Republicans who Democrat leaders hoped would vote for moving forward with the bill, Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, decided to vote against cloture for this reason.

“I will defend the right of my colleagues to offer amendments on this issue and other issues that are being brought up in connection with the defense authorization bill,” Collins said this morning. “They need to have a civil, fair and open debate on the Senate floor.”

To that end, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) proposed a motion to move to debating the bill only if Democrats would agree that none of the first 20 amendments would relate to immigration — effectively killing off the chance that Reid could add the DREAM Act to the defense authorization bill. He also tried to get Reid to agree to allow Republicans and Democrats to offer amendments in an alternating order. “We should start work on this bill and tackle the unrelated issues later,” McConnell said. Reid objected and brought the bill to a vote.

Many Republicans’ arguments against moving the bill to the floor were rooted in their opposition to a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal or to the DREAM Act. Some Republicans also argued a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would be inappropriate, because the Department of Defense has not yet completed its review of how the policy would impact the military. The proposed amendment would have remained pending until review was completed and submitted to the president, secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Opponents of the DREAM Act also relied on the argument that it did not belong in the defense authorization bill to begin with. “We’ve opposed the DREAM Act on its merits and we were certainly opposed to the use of the military authorization bill as a vehicle to reward people who are in the country illegally,” Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the pro-enforcement group FAIR, told TWI after the vote.

But the DREAM Act has supporters in the defense community. The Department of Defense’s Strategic Plan for the 2010 to 2012 fiscal years recommends passage of the DREAM Act as a way to help the military “shape and maintain a mission-ready All Volunteer Force.”

Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a retired general, encouraged Republicans to vote for the DREAM Act during an appearance on Meet the Press Sunday. “We can’t be anti-immigration,” Powell said. “Immigrants are fueling this country. Without immigrants, America would be like Europe or Japan with an aging population and no young people coming in to take care of it. We have to educate our immigrants. The DREAM Act is one way to do that.”

Moving forward, immigrant rights advocates said they will continue to pressure Senators to support the DREAM Act, whether it be as a standalone bill or an amendment to another piece of legislation.

“This isn’t lost,” Juan Escalante, a spokesperson for The DREAM is Coming, told TWI. “We’re going to push Senator Reid to make sure the DREAM Act happens in another way.”

Republicans argued the two bills were unrelated to defense and had no place in the defense authorization bill. The DREAM Act would allow some illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to earn legal status through two years of college or military service. A repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

Reid previously said he would allow only three amendments before the election: a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; the DREAM Act; and an amendment to ban the practice of placing “secret holds” on presidential nominees. But Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee reiterated today that Reid has since said he would be willing to accept other amendments. Reid said last Thursday he is “willing to work with Republicans on a process that will permit the Senate to consider these matters and complete the bill as soon as possible.”

Democrats hoped some moderate Republicans, such as Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe would vote to move forward with the bill. Although both indicated they might support a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell down the line, they said they would not support Reid’s actions to limit amendments on the bill. Both voted against bringing the bill to the floor.

UPDATE: To clarify, the nay tally includes Sen. Reid’s vote, which he changed to nay in order to keep procedural options open. Reid originally voted yea.

During a floor speech today, Collins said she is in a tough position: She supports a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but opposes Reid’s decision to allow only two amendments to the defense authorization bill. Reid said he would limit amendments to three: a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; the DREAM Act; and an amendment to ban the practice of placing “secret holds” on presidential nominees.

“I will defend the right of my colleagues to offer amendments on this issue and other issues that are being brought up in connection with the defense authorization bill,” Collins said. “They need to have a civil, fair and open debate on the Senate floor.”

Snowe released a statement yesterday with a similar message:

It is therefore imperative that Senate deliberations on the defense bill be conducted without limitations and in a manner that allows for the consideration of all related amendments that Senators may wish to offer.

There is one crucial difference between the two senators: While Collins said she would likely support a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell amendment if the bill proceeds, Snowe said she thinks the Senate should wait until a military review of the policy has been completed.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) indicated today that Reid is willing to listen, quoting Reid’s statement on the Senate floor last week that he is “willing to work with Republicans on a process that will permit the Senate to consider these matters and complete the bill as soon as possible.”

Levin argued Republicans should approve cloture, then can vote down any amendments they oppose after the Senate has debated them.

“That ability to stop the completion of this bill is there, but first we have to get to the bill,” he said.

The vote on whether to move forward will take place at 2:30 p.m. EST.

For the average worker who has lost her job since May 31, the cost of COBRA has tripled. (Flickr, Steve Rhodes)

In the first week of July, Andie Davis’ husband, who worked in manufacturing, lost his job, as hundreds of thousands of Michiganders have since the onset of the recession. Soon after, he started collecting unemployment insurance benefits that might last the family of four as long as 99 weeks. Davis hopes that the benefits will keep the family afloat — the mortgage paid, school lunches made, the electricity on — without forcing her to tap into the family’s savings.

[Economy1] But to keep the family financially stable while both she and her husband look for work, she has decided to forgo health insurance. The Davis family looked at how much COBRA would cost them, thinking the government would help pay for it. Had her husband lost his job just six weeks earlier, Washington would have footed about two-thirds of the premium bill. But since Davis’ husband lost his job after May 31, the young couple is on their own.

The change has gone little-noticed, both by the press and by the laid-off persons impacted by it. But a popular stimulus provision, the federal subsidy of COBRA benefits, expired for newly unemployed workers as of the first day of June. That means, for the average worker who has lost her job since May 31, the cost of COBRA has tripled.

COBRA — a provision created in the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 — gives workers the option of buying into their old health-care plan when they lose their job. Before the recession, COBRA let workers who lost their job through no fault of their own pay the entire health-care premium plus a two-percent administrative fee to keep coverage, about $8,800 per year for the average enrollee. (Generally, COBRA lasted 18 months.)  As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or the 2009 stimulus, Congress subsidized this coverage, given the massive number and economic hardship of laid-off workers. The subsidy paid for 65 percent of health-care premiums for up to 15 months, meaning an average enrollee paid less than $3,000 a year.

For the Davises, under COBRA, coverage might have been a manageable $400 a month. When Davis looked into enrolling her husband and herself, she found it would cost more than $1,100 a month — leaving the family just a few hundred dollars for the mortgage, utilities, gas and food. She sought information on other private plans, but considered all of them too expensive. For now, the Davises are purchasing barebones coverage that will help pay hospital bills in case they are in an accident.

She rationalizes: “Me and the husband, we’re young enough that we can go without visits to the dentist and the [gynecologist] for a year,” and she argues, “I just do not see how it would be worth paying that much money for coverage, when we’re looking at a lot of other problems.” She argues that if the choice is between routine care and paying the electric bill, she will choose the latter. In the meantime, she is praying that her husband’s asthma does not flare up in the fall and hoping that they find jobs soon.

The Davises are one of hundreds of thousands of families doing the same. According to a study of 200 very large employers by Hewitt Associates, the COBRA provision doubled the proportion of laid-off workers enrolling in the program. In the fall of 2008, before the subsidy, about 19 percent of laid-off employees enrolled in COBRA. During the first six months of the subsidy, 38 percent of laid-off workers chose to. Now, with the subsidy’s end, enrollment rates are plummeting.

“Enrollment rates will likely decline over time as workers can’t, or aren’t willing to, afford the high premiums associated with COBRA coverage,” Hewitt’s Karen Frost said in a statement. “It’s possible these laid off workers are simply seeking coverage with a new employer or through their spouse’s employer. Unfortunately, it’s also likely that some are just foregoing health insurance altogether.” The National Employment Law Project estimates that 144,000 individuals and families per month have lost out on the subsidy.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but the extension of the COBRA subsidy became caught up in the tax extenders bill — also known as the jobs bill or H.R. 4213 — a large package of popular stimulus provisions that eventually died at the hands of a Republican filibuster. Senate Democrats managed to move unemployment insurance benefits, but few other portions of the popular bill made it through a Senate allergic to deficit spending.

The COBRA subsidy is highly popular: Hart Research found that 70 percent of Americans support extending it.  And many on the Hill fought to keep it in the tax extenders bill or to push it through other provisions. “Millions of Americans have been hard hit by the recession and lost their jobs through no fault of their own,” Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) argued. “If Congress turns its back on them, they will have an even more difficult time making ends meet. With no premium assistance, COBRA health care benefits would consume 75 percent of the monthly unemployment payment for a Pennsylvania family.”

He offered an amendment to keep the subsidy within the jobs packages, and along with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has offered it as a standalone bill. The Extend COBRA Premium Assistance Program Act of 2010 provides a six-month subsidy for workers laid off between May 31 and Nov. 30. The provision is entirely deficit-neutral, eliminating a tax break on annuity trusts as a pay-for. (The bill is one of many that would extend COBRA. On the House side, Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), for instance, introduced a bill doing so until relevant portions of Obama’s health care bill come into effect in 2014.)

Casey and Brown’s bill is popular — cosigned by Democratic Senators John Kerry (Mass.), Carl Levin (Mich.),  Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Christopher Dodd (Ct.), Al Franken (Minn.), Roland Burris (Il.) and Daniel Akaka (Hi.) and supported by a slew of others. But it is caught in committee, and its likelihood of passage any time soon is small.

That means that the popular provision is likely dead, and for families like the Davises, health care coverage will remain an unaffordable luxury.

Trying to clarify after yesterday’s initial back-and-forth with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a critic of setting any date, Gen. Petraeus read a prepared statement expressing support for the date. During the administration’s debate over Afghanistan strategy last fall, “I did believe there is value of sending a message of urgency” to the Afghan government, Petraeus said. “But it is important that July 2011 be seen for what it is: a date a process begins, determined by conditions” on the ground, “not the end” of a U.S. commitment to Afghanistan.

Flournoy reiterated that the date is “an inflection point,” marking the end of the deployment of the surge brigades being sent to Afghanistan now, and the pace of additional drawdowns will be “conditions based.” The president “believes in a conditions-based process,” Flournoy said, adding that May’s visit by the Afghan government provided an opportunity to clarify the U.S.’s “long-term commitment” to Afghanistan.

That said, Petraeus left himself some wiggle room to change his perspective when July 2011 approaches. His support for setting the date in the fall debate — a date he said was “etched in stone” — was “based on projections of conditions by July 2011.” Left unsaid, but hanging in the air, is the prospect that Petraeus would support a rather slow troop drawdown if those conditions don’t materialize. That said, he expressed great confidence that they would. “The trajectory, in my view, has generally been upward” in Afghanistan, Petraeus said, “despite the losses despite the setbacks.”

That may sound like parsing, but parsing July 2011 is the order of the morning. No matter how often Petraeus and Flournoy described July 2011 as marking the beginning of a conditions-based transition to Afghan security responsibilities, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) characterized it as “a goal.”

Evincing an apparent understanding about the political stakes of parsing July 2011, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, passed to reporters a statement reading: “I am glad to hear Gen. Petraeus express his support for the decision to begin U.S. troop reductions in Afghanistan in July 2011. I strongly believe it is essential for success in Afghanistan that everyone understand the urgency with which the Afghans need to take responsibility for their own security.”