All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska, intends to introduce an amendment to the Senate health care bill that would add controversial abortion language similar to the Stupak amendment in the House bill, CBS News Capitol Hill Producer John Nolen reports.

"I'm working on an amendment to bring Stupak language to the bill," Nelson said today, referencing an amendment added to the House health care bill by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joe Pitts (R-Penn.).

The amendment restricts health insurance coverage for abortion and has raised the ire of abortion rights groups. A coalition of those groups are launching a "day of action" on Wednesday to lobby against the amendment.

Nelson has said he may join a Republican filibuster against the health care bill unless it is changed to his liking, something that would include adding the Stupak language. Even though the Stupak amendment made it through the House, some Democratic House members are now saying they have enough votes to block any bill that comes back to the House with the language intact.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Health Care

Below, a chart showing monthly U.S. troop deaths in and around Afghanistan built off Associated Press data. 929 U.S. troops have been killed in the conflict, according to iCasualties.

At a time of economic hardship that is impacting the budgets of the government and American citizens, President Obama cannot afford to increase the troop levels in Afghanistan, liberal congressmen and activists said today.

The president will announce tonight a troop buildup of more than 30,000 in Afghanistan, a move opposed by groups like MoveOn.org, activists like Michael Moore and lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

Speaking on the House floor today, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said politicians should be focusing on "what's important here at home," CBS News Capitol Hill Producer Jill Jackson reports.

It is not worth it, he said, to send thousands of troops and billions of dollars to Afghanistan "to prop up a government which most acknowledge is indefensibly corrupt."

"Our national security will not be found by paying off contestants in Afghanistan who are with us one day and who shoot out our soldiers the next," Kucinich continued. "We can secure our borders without expanding them across the world, and we can redefine our national security by making sure that every able body person in America has a job by helping people save their homes and protect their savings and their investments and their retirement security."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with the Democrats, also said today that Washington should be focused on the economy.

"My view is that among many other things, in the middle of a severe recession with 17 percent of our nation unemployed or underemployed with one fourth of our kids living on food stamps, I'm not sympathetic to spending $100 billion a year on Afghanistan, plus what we are spending on Iraq," Sanders said, reports CBS News Capitol Hill Producer John Nolen.

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Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee called in to WABC-AM's Joe Scarborough show this morning to lash out at those who have criticized him for for commuting the sentence of Maurice Clemmons, the now-deceased suspect in the murders of four Washington police officers last weekend.

Conservative commentators have been particularly critical of then-governor Huckabee for granting clemency to Clemmons when Clemmons was a teenager. Some, including Pat Buchanan, have speculated about the possible negative impact of the story on a 2012 presidential bid by Huckabee.

Huckabee lashed out over what he suggested were misplaced priorities during the radio show.

"It really does show though how sick society has become when we're more interested in the political consequences of an election that's three years away," Huckabee told Scarborough this morning. "…It is disgusting. But people use anything for a political weapon."

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CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin cautioned that President Obama's troop increase in Afghanistan may take longer than it did in Iraq on "Washington Unplugged" Tuesday.

"In contrast to the surge in Iraq, where everything happened in five months, Afghanistan is such an undeveloped country that you can't just fly troops in. You've got to build bases for them," Martin told moderator Bob Orr.

Senior administration officials said Tuesday afternoon that President Obama chose a strategy that would get troops into Afghanistan as quickly as possible. They said they expected full deployment by next summer.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan

This morning on CBS News’ The Early Show, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is not about "nation building."

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The city council of the District of Columbia has voted to legalize same-sex marriage, putting the nation's capital on the brink of joining Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Massachusetts in making the practice legal.

Another state, New Hampshire, will begin allowing same-sex marriages on January 1st.

The 11-2 vote is not the final say on the matter. The Washington Post reports that the council will hold a second vote in two weeks. The bill, if it passes, would then go to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who supports it.

If and when Fenty signs the legislation it will face Congressional review. Congress could overrule the city council, though it is not expected to do so.

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Lawmakers in the state of Illinois are debating the economic and safety issues surrounding a potential transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a maximum security prison about 150 miles west of Chicago. In the process, they have also managed to turn the discussion into a partisan debate.

Democrats in Illinois, including Gov. Pat Quinn and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, are in support of a plan the White House is considering to move Guantanamo detainees to the Thomson State Correctional facility in Northwest Illinois. On Wednesday, Durbin will hold a closed-door briefing on the issue with the state's entire congressional delegation, according to the Hill newspaper. Pentagon and Justice Department officials will be in attendance at the meeting, along with Illinois state officials, the Hill reports.

Federal officials and state lawmakers toured the nearly empty facility in November. Thomson has 1,600 cells, but it currently only holds about 200 minimum-security inmates because budget problems kept it from fully opening. Bringing the Guantanamo detainees to the prison could bring nearly 3,000 jobs to the area, according to a White House analysis. The county's unemployment rate, which was at 10.5 percent in September, could be cut by 2 to 4 percentage points by the transfer, according to the analysis.

"There are too many people out of work, there are businesses closing down because people are out of work," Durbin said reportedly said in November, explaining his support for the plan. "They need pay checks."

Nevertheless, Republican representatives from Illinois maintain the move would be a bad idea. GOP Illinois Reps. Mark Kirk, Aaron Schock, Pete Roskam, Tim Johnson, Mark Kirk, John Shimkus, Judy Biggert and Don Manzullo have introduced legislation to ban funding for the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S., the Hill notes.

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Updated at 4:55 p.m. ET with comments from Sen. Carl Levin on a war supplemental.

Anticipating the increased troop levels in Afghanistan President Obama is expected to announce tonight, lawmakers are floating various ways to pay for the ongoing war.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) today suggested the idea of selling war bonds to pay for sending troops to Afghanistan, reports CBS News Capitol Hill Producer John Nolen.

"Some people jumped right out and said you need a war tax, and I said wow, we didn't have a war tax in the Second World War," Nelson said. "The fact that we had bonds, war bonds, and people invested in their country in that fashion made a lot of sense back then. I don't know why it might not make sense today, certainly in lieu of jumping to tax."

Rep. David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat and the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has called for a tax on the rich to help pay for the troop increase, but the idea has been dismissed by some as politically infeasible.

The federal government sold war bonds during World War II, using celebrities and radio campaigns to persuade people to buy them to finance the war effort. Hundreds of millions of bonds were issued -- and in fact, many were unclaimed. The government is currently sitting on $17 billion in unclaimed war bonds, the Washington Post reports.

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President Obama is expected to announce that he will send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan during his address Tuesday night -- something just a third of the public supports.

According to the latest CBS News Poll conducted November 13-15, slightly more, 39 percent, would like to say the number of troops decreased, and 20 percent want troop levels kept the same.

As was the case with the war in Iraq, views on sending more troops are influenced by partisanship: half of Republicans support a troop increase, but just 17 percent of Democrats do. 34 percent of independents think troops should be increased.

The president will need to convince Americans that sending more troops will improve what most Americans consider to be a bad situation there. Sixty-nine percent of Americans told the CBS News Poll that things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan, and just twenty-three percent -- the lowest measured by this poll -- think things are going well.

The CBS Poll -- conducted prior to the president's address about the future course of the war in Afghanistan -- found just 36 percent think additional troops will make things better in Afghanistan, and 22 percent expect more troops to make things worse. Thirty-one percent expect no difference.

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The Northern Viriginia couple that "crashed" the White House's recent state dinner is now accused of sneaking into another event that President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attended.

Michaele and Tareq Salahi first came under scrutiny last week for gaining access to portions of the state dinner on Tuesday without proper White House or Secret Service clearance. Now, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation is reportedly saying the couple attended a September CBC Foundation awards dinner without an invitation.

"I don't want to say it's like a kid getting his hand caught in the cookie jar, but in essence, that's pretty much what it was," Lance Jones, a communications official with the CBC foundation, told WTTG-TV, the Fox affiliate in Washington. "I had a sheet in front of me that said who was sitting at what table, and they weren't on that list."

Jones said he asked the couple for their identification and tickets, but they could not produce any tickets. He escorted the couple outside and told security guards they were not to be allowed back in. WTTG-TV reports the couple gained access to the party through an entrance for bus boys and caterers. The television network Bravo, which has been filming the Salahis, requested access to the CBC dinner but were denied entry.

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