Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, scrapped plans late Thursday to turn the Senate's attention to an amendment that would ban federal funds from being used for abortions after the author told Reid he was not yet finished crafting it.

The decision to delay action on the controversial amendment from Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, came after Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who is co-sponsoring the amendment, complained that Reid was rushing debate on it.

"He (Nelson) is being pushed very hard by his side to bring it up before it's ready to be brought up," Hatch said. "To do really good legislation around here, you need to make sure people who agree with you are on board and the outside groups feel good about it. There's a lot of work I need to do and he needs to do."

Nelson said he did not feel rushed by Reid and blamed the delay on the complexities of writing the highly technical abortion language.

The defeat of his amendment would be politically significant because Nelson has pledged to vote with Republicans to filibuster the health bill if it did not include the Stupak language.

“I’ve said at the end of the day if it doesn’t have Stupak language on abortion in it I won’t vote to move it off the floor,” Nelson told reporters.

Stupak’s measure would restrict women who receive federal subsidies from buying abortion coverage on insurance exchanges set up by the government.

Without Nelson, Democrats would need to pick up a Republican — most likely Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine) or Susan Collins (Maine) — to pass the landmark bill through the Senate.

Democrats have been cheering the recent AARP endorsement of health reform legislation, with good reason. The group represents roughly 40 million Americans, granting it plenty of lobbying clout and power around election time. But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) isn’t impressed. Branding AARP as “that liberal, Democratic group,” McCain today urged members to quit the association, arguing that its support for the scaled-back Medicare spending in the Democrats’ bill is a stab in the back to seniors.

“Take your AARP card, cut it in half and send it back,” he said. “They’ve betrayed you.”

It's looking less likely that California voters will take up the issue of gay marriage in 2010.

Some gay rights activists planned to ask voters next year to repeal Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage that voters approved last year. But this week, a key organization backing the 2010 effort said it needed more time to develop a successful campaign.

A Los Angeles Times/USC poll released in November found a small majority of California voters supports the right of gay couples to marry, but a much larger portion of voters opposes efforts to place the issue on the ballot in 2010.

The state's largest doctors group is opposing healthcare legislation being debated in the U.S. Senate this week, saying it would increase local healthcare costs and restrict access to care for elderly and low-income patients.

The California Medical Assn. represents more than 35,000 physicians, making it the second-largest state medical group in the country after Texas.

Its executive committee met last week to discuss the Senate legislation proposed last month by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Association leaders plan to announce their opposition later this week before a vote is taken in the Senate, spokesman Andrew LaMar told The Times.

They join a handful of other state medical associations that have opposed the bill in recent weeks, including those in Florida, Georgia and Texas.

Your humble correspondent has been checking the Huffington Post Green section every day since the ClimateGate scandal exploded. After all, that Green section is pretty much predicated on the theory that the earth is warming dangerously and that Man is the cause of it. At first, the Green section had a few relatively minor stories attempting to dispute the revelations of the ClimateGate scandal. However, today the Huffington Post went into a complete panic mode on this topic. Bigtime.

The Green section now features a huge story at the top of the page by Katherine Goldstein which features a slideshow supposedly exposing "The 7 Biggest Lies About the Supposed 'Global Warming Hoax'." However, even many of their own readers aren't buying the lame excuses presented as you will see here.

The Washington Times, which gained a strong foothold in a politically obsessed city as a conservative alternative to much of the mainstream media, is about to become a drastically smaller newspaper.

Nearly three decades after its founding by officials of the Unification Church, the Times said Wednesday it is laying off at least 40 percent of its staff and shifting mainly to free distribution.

In what amounts to a bid for survival, the company said the print edition will focus on its core strengths: politics, national security, investigative reporting and "cultural coverage based on traditional values." That means the Times will end its run as a full-service newspaper, slashing its coverage of local news, sports and features.

The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week's Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse.
[download]
James Hansen talks to Suzanne Goldenberg Link to this audio

In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world's pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.

"I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it's a disaster track," said Hansen, who heads the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

Leaked e-mails allegedly undermining climate change science should be treated as a criminal matter, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Wednesday afternoon.

Boxer, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that the recently released e-mails, showing scientists allegedly overstating the case for climate change, should be treated as a crime.

"You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate,'" she said during a committee meeting. "Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I'm looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public."