HANNITY: And tonight’s “Meltdown” is brought to you by the D.C. snow storm, you know, the storm that dumped about two feet of snow on the Washington area over the weekend causing thousands of power outages and keeping many people home from work today. And it’s the most severe winter storm in years, which would seem to contradict Al Gore’s hysterical global warming theories. [...]

Pretty unbelievable. I bet the snow even kept Al Gore’s jet from taking off.

Watch it:

Because of the recent snow storms in the Northeast, many conservatives like Hannity have taken the opportunity to take cheap shots at Gore. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and his family mocked the former Vice President by building an igloo on the National Mall and calling it “Al Gore’s new home.” And Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) joined in as well, tweeting today that, “It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle.’”

As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has explained, “winter snows do not invalidate the reality that the planet just experienced the hottest decade on record. Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming would increase the severity of winter storms.” And a recent National Wildlife Federation report has found that winter storms are getting fiercer even as the season gets warmer.

Climate expert Dr. Jeff Masters notes, “It’s not hard at all to get temperatures cold enough for snow in a world experiencing global warming. … Global warming theory predicts that global precipitation will increase, and that heavy precipitation events…will also increase,” he said, adding that this “occurs because as the climate warms, evaporation of moisture from the oceans increases, resulting in more water vapor in the air.” Indeed, the IPCC has said that atmospheric moisture has increased 5 percent over the last century.

Before the storm hit, the Virginia GOP launched a web ad mocking “12 inches of global warming,” attacking Democrats who had voted in favor of climate and clean energy legislation. Now, after hundreds of thousands of people lost power, several people have been killed, and states of emergency declared in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, Sen. Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) family has joined in the mockery, building an igloo on the National Mall and calling it “Al Gore’s New Home“:

The Oklahoma Republican’s daughter, Molly Rapert; her husband, Jimmy; and their four children built an igloo — roomy enough to fit several people inside — at Third Street and Independence Avenue Southeast. They officially dedicated the humble abode in honor of global-warming crusader Gore, even posting a cardboard sign on the igloo’s roof reading “AL GORE’S NEW HOME” on one side and “HONK IF YOU [HEART] GLOBAL WARMING” on the other. Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is famously one of Congress’ most vocal critics of global warming. And he told HOH that he found his family’s ironic tribute to Gore — which came during one of Washington’s snowiest winters on record — “really humorous.”

In reality, winter snows do not invalidate the reality that the planet just experienced the hottest decade on record. Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming would increase the severity of winter storms.

This past January was the warmest January on record for the planet. And as National Wildlife Federation climate scientist Amanda Staudt notes, winter storms are getting fiercer even as the season gets warmer. “The last few years have brought several unusually heavy snowstorms as warmer and moister air over southern states has penetrated further north, colliding with bitter cold air masses,” she explains.

In response, the Virginia Republican Party has ads that mock Rep. Rick Boucher and Rep. Tom Periello — both Democrats in conservative districts who support climate legislation — because they “think global warming is a serious problem for Virginia…so serious they voted to kill tens of thousands of Virginia jobs just to stop it.” The ad “features images of falling snow, stuck cars, and weathermen,” and urges viewers to call the congressmen “and tell them how much global warming you get this weekend”:

Call Boucher and Perriello and tell them how much global warming you get this weekend. Maybe they’ll come help you shovel.

Watch it:

In reality, catastrophic “snowpocalypse” and “snowmageddon” events are exactly what scientists have been warning would hit Virginians because of global warming, in part because warmer air can hold more water. As National Wildlife Federation climate scientist Amanda Staudt notes, winter storms are getting fiercer even as the season gets warmer:

– Wintertime temperatures have been increasing across the northern United States. Since the 1970s, December-February temperature increases have ranged from 1 to 2 degrees in the Pacific Northwest to about 4 degrees in the Northeast to more than 6 degrees in Alaska.

– Winters are getting shorter, too. Spring arrives 10-14 days earlier than it did just 20 years ago.

– Global warming is bringing a clear trend toward heavier precipitation events. Many areas are seeing bigger and more intense snowstorms, especially in the upper Midwest and Northeast.

– Global warming is shifting storm tracks northward. Areas from the Dakotas eastward to northern Michigan have seen a trend toward more heavy snowfall season.

In other news, this past month of January was the warmest on record for the planet.

But Noel defended the “conspiracy” wording, pointing to an out-of-print textbook, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment , written in the 1970s by biologist Paul Ehrlich, Ehrlich’s wife, Anne, and physicist John Holdren about the potential hazards of unchecked population.

The Kanab Republican, referring to Holdren as the Obama administration’s “energy czar,” read from passages of the 1,000-plus-page tome about population-control alternatives that included abortion and forced sterilization. He did not share the authors’ conclusion: that voluntary population-limiting methods are “a far better choice.”

“Now, if you can’t see a connection [of a conspiracy] to that,” the legislator said, “you’re absolutely blind to what is going on. This is absolutely — in my mind, this is in fact a conspiracy to limit population not only in this country but across the globe.”

Discussing the resolution yesterday, Noel said that “sometimes when we don’t have all the answers, we need to have the courage to do nothing.”

President Obama will unveil a $3.8 trillion budget for 2011 today, that will add “billions of dollars in new spending to combat persistently high unemployment and bolster a battered middle class,” increase war spending, “raise taxes on banks and the wealthy to help rein in soaring budget deficits,” cut spending on some discretionary domestic programs, and help rein in the deficit.

The “Obama administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul” of the No Child Left Behind initiative. Although details are sparse, education experts briefed by the administration say that one of the changes will be granting funds based on academic progress instead of apportioning the money to districts according to the number of students.

“The Pentagon will for the first time rank global warming as a destabilising force” in a strategy review that will be presented to Congress today. “While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict,” said an excerpt of the review.

In his new budget, President Obama “wants to end NASA’s moon program, turn over space transportation to commercial companies” and stop development of the space shuttle follow-on vehicle. NASA currently spends “more than half” of its $18 billion budget on human spaceflight.

Senior White House adviser David Axelrod said yesterday that Obama would continue to push for a health-care overhaul. “We are still inside the five-yard line,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs added. “We’re one vote away in the House of Representatives from making…health care reform a reality.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Republicans and Democrats would work together in a bipartisan fashion to “cut off the cash that the Obama administration will need to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.”

The Justice Department is investigating whether officials at the private security company Xe (formery Blackwater Worldwide) “tried to bribe Iraqi government officials in hopes of retaining the firm’s security work in Iraq after a deadly shooting episode in 2007.” Federal law bans U.S. corporations from paying bribes to foreign officials.

Officials said this weekend that the Obama administration “has increased the U.S. military presence near Iran and is accelerating installation of antimissile systems in nearby countries.” The White House is trying to reassure Gulf countries that they will be protected from a possible Iranian offensive as the U.S. pushes for new sanctions on Tehran.

“In a six-day span just before the US Senate election,” Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) collected “nearly $450,000 from donors who work at financial companies, a sign the industry is prepared to spend heavily in the upcoming midterm elections to beat back new controls and taxes President Obama wants to impose.”

And finally: Rush Limbaugh gets down at the Miss America pageant.

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I want you to go out there and start knocking on doors and talking to people and telling people this has to happen. You know, if the Tea Party folks can go out there and get angry because they think their taxes are too high, for God’s sake, a lot of citizens ought to get angry about the fact that they’re being killed and our planet is being injured by what’s happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel and the old practices that we have. That’s something worth getting angry about.

Watch it:

Even if the mortal threat of global warming is not considered, coal and oil pollution kills 20,000 Americans every year — health costs that far outweigh the price of carbon caps. With unprecedented corporate lobbying having stalled energy reform in the Senate, it’s time for climate activists to start brewing up batches of green tea.

Scott Brown meets with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Now, Brown is preparing to defeat reform by using the same deceptive charm he employed on the voters of Massachusetts. Brown has been profiled and praised as a possible “swing vote” to work with Democrats to bring a new health reform package. Speaking to the press alongside Brown last week, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) struck a conciliatory tone, asserting that Brown might work hand in hand with Democrats to move forward a reform bill on “things here that we can all agree on.” Yesterday on Meet the Press, White House advisor Valerie Jarrett said Brown is “looking forward to coming to Washington and working with the Democrats” on a health reform bill.

But Democrats who are counting on Brown seem to be deluding themselves. Brown has no intention of ensuring a new health reform bill is crafted and passed by Congress. In addition to repeated promises not to make any “Washington deals,” Brown set a criteria for health reform that would make any effort to work with him impossible:

– Brown campaigned on the explicit promise to “be the 41st vote” against Obama’s agenda, and that he would “actually stop” Obama’s domestic reforms. On health reform, he said he wants to “start over” from scratch.

– Brown promised to oppose a health reform bill with any new financing mechanism: he said he opposes any “higher fees, higher taxes.”

– Reform is currently financed in part by cutting waste out of Medicare. Brown has campaigned against such cuts.

– Brown opposes health insurance regulations, wants to deregulate even the Massachusetts system. He told WBUR that current regulations enjoyed in Massachusetts — like ending denial of preexisting conditions — are “burdensome” and “drive up the price of insurance policies.”

– Brown is opposed to subsidizing health reform in poorer states, even though the Massachusetts health reform plan he supports is financed by $385 million in annual federal Medicaid funds.

Any reform, no matter how small or incremental, would be seen as a betrayal to Brown’s suburban and tea party base.

Last year, the insurance industry and their allies in Congress successfully bogged down health reform by fooling Democrats into working with the “gang of six” to develop a bipartisan solution. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who promised to work on a solution, was later revealed to be a dishonest broker, secretly working with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and others to obstruct the process and misinform the public about the legislation. Will progressives fall into the same trap, and abandon the Senate version — which could be passed through the House and signed into law — in favor of restarting the months-long legislative process and hoping to work with Brown?

Ms. [Lisa] Murkowski (R-AK), joined by 35 Republicans and three conservative Democrats, proposed to use the Congressional Review Act to strip the agency of the power to limit emissions of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court gave the agency legal authority to regulate such emissions in a landmark 2007 ruling.

After years of suppression and interference by the George W. Bush White House, the Environmental Protection Agency finally found last month that “greenhouse gases taken in combination endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.” The Democrats co-sponsoring Senate Joint Resolution 26 to overturn the endangerment finding are Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR).

“I am considering that right now,” Landrieu said when asked whether she backed Murkowski’s plan. “I have been working with her on it.”

Landrieu, like Louisiana’s Republican governor Bobby Jindal and Senator David Vitter, has pledged allegiance to the pollution interests who have given her over $1.5 million instead of her own people. Last month, Jindal “filed objections with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson” over the proposed climate rules, claiming the standards would have “profound negative economic impacts on the state of Louisiana.” In September, Vitter submitted an amendment to block funding for centers that study and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

Landrieu’s actions are quite simply morally indefensible. The Mississippi Delta is under extraordinary threat from global warming, as seas rise and storms intensify. According to a recent analysis published in Nature, “an additional 2 degrees of global warming” — to which our business as usual commits the planet — would cause “6 to 9 meters (20 to 30 feet) of long-term sea level rise,” which would “permanently submerge New Orleans and other parts of southern Louisiana.”

This is not just a future threat. Climate change significantly intensified Hurricane Katrina, which cost this nation $80 billion, killed thousands, and displaced a million people. As hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel has explained, “Probably if Hurricane Katrina had happened in 1980, the levees would have held.”

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

TP: You said that he, his mother wasn’t married when [Obama] was born. You’re not apologizing for that video?

BROWN: Excuse me, now I wanna answer this question. I was asked whether the president’s parents were married. I said I didn’t know. That was the extent of the question.

But Brown was never asked about the marital status of Obama’s parents. During the 2008 video, Brown volunteered the assertion that Obama was born out of wedlock:

BROWN: Barack’s mom had him when she was what, 18 years old?

GUEST: And married!

BROWN: Well, I don’t know about that. [laughing]

Watch it:

The unfounded smear that Obama was born out of wedlock emerged from the far-right birther movement, which claims that Obama was also born in Kenya, rather than Hawaii. Instead of backtracking and apologizing for his smear, Brown lied and said he was merely responding to a question about Obama’s parents.

Brown has postured as a moderate — telling the public on Saturday, “He’s my President and I agree with him I think on more issues than Martha Coakley.” But the truth is, Brown has courted the far-right tea party movement, gaining support from anti-immigrant hate groups and nativist political organizations. Brown doubts the science of global warming, and opposes health reform, energy reform, and financial reform. So far as ThinkProgress has learned, Coakley supports Obama’s agenda of reform, and has never questioned the marital status of the president’s parents.

For the past week, Fox News host Neil Cavuto has been giving a daily “Fox News global warming alert,” which consists of him telling viewers how cold it is. “It is still cold,” Cavuto said yesterday, adding that it’s “not your recent garden variety global warming.” “It’s freezing across the entire globe,” Cavuto shouted on Saturday. Former Nixon speechwriter and actor Ben Stein responded, “Maybe somebody in the government will wake up and say, ‘Hey, it’s colder. It’s not hotter.’ Maybe all this talk about global warming needs to be rethought.” Watch a compilation:

Of course, a short-term cold snap in a few isolated regions does not disprove global climate change. In fact, the cold snap appears unrelated to climate change. As the AP reported, “experts interviewed…did not connect the current frigid blast to climate change,” instead pointing to “arctic oscillation”:

In the atmosphere, large rivers of air travel roughly west to east around the globe between the Arctic and the tropics. This air flow acts like a fence to keep Arctic air confined. But recently, this air flow has become bent into a pronounced zigzag pattern, meandering north and south. If you live in a place where it brings air up from the south, you get warm weather. In fact, record highs were reported this week in Washington state and Alaska. But in the eastern United States, like some other unlucky parts of the globe, Arctic air is swooping down from the north.

Temperatures in “most places” are actually “above average for this time of year.” Record high and low temperatures are set every year, but there have been consistently more highs than lows in recent decades, as the National Center for Atmospheric Research demonstrates:

The last decade was the hottest decade on record by far, and 2009 was also one of the hottest years on record. Climate Progress’ Joe Romm notes that this decade will likely have even higher temperatures.

Southers, a counterterrorism expert, is currently working as a senior official for homeland security and intelligence for the police division of Los Angeles World Airports. He is also an associate director of the University of Southern California’s security studies program, has developed and implemented anti-terrorism measures for a variety of public institutions, and wrote a doctoral study on “Predictive Indicators of Homegrown Islamic Terror Cells.” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) said Southers is “more than qualified” to lead TSA.

Despite Southers’ impressive resume and qualifications, the right wing is intent on playing politics with his nomination. Conservative bloggers and activists have begun mounting a campaign to smear Southers with fallacious attacks. Some examples below:

Right-Wing Attack: “TSA nominee: Global Warming Deserves Parity With War on Terror.” The conservative blog Hot Air highlights Southers’ comment that terrorism “deserves to perhaps have some parity with global warming.” Blogger Ed Morrisey concludes that Southers’ view is “ludicrous.”

Reality: A Pentagon analysis concluded that the long-term security threat of global warming was greater than terrorism, and many security experts agree. The National Intelligence Council assessed the grave threat global warming poses. It could not only fuel further terrorism, but spur mass migration, refugees, poverty, environmental degradation, and pandemics. The CIA is now dedicating resources to analyzing the security implications of climate change.

Right-Wing Attack: “Obama TSA Nominee Erroll Southers Calls Pro-Life Advocates Terrorists in Video.” LifeNews attacks Southers for saying homegrown terrorist groups — particularly white supremacist groups — are “anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion, they are usually survivalist type in nature, identity oriented.” Gateway Pundit writes, “This kook rattled off every leftwing nut conspiracy in one interview.”

Reality: A Homeland Security report published last August warned right-wing extremists, “specifically the white supremacist and militia movements,” may “include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion.” Subsequently, the report was vindicated by acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists and anti-abortion crusaders.

Right-Wing Attack: “TSA nominee in 2008: Alliances with Israel, France make us subject to terror attack.” The Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso takes issue with Southers’ observation the U.S. alliance with “countries that are seen by groups, by al Qaeda, as infidels” may subject us to greater risk of attack. “So Southers is a hack leftist and a fool,” the conservative blog Powerline writes.

Reality: Consider the words of Osama bin Laden. In 1996, the terrorist leader complained of the “iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance” and called for raising “the banner of Jihad against the American-Zionist alliance occupying the sanctities of Islam.” In 2008, he reiterated his hateful screed: “We shall continue the fight, Allah willing, against the Israelis and their allies.”

In their desperation to smear Southers, the right is grasping at straws.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele, active in drama in his college years.

In December, ThinkProgress reported that ten GOP incumbents were being challenged by tea party activists in Republican primaries. In the interim weeks, many more tea party activists have stepped up to challenge both top Republican recruits and more Republican incumbents, denouncing the hand-picked candidates as too moderate and current lawmakers as divorced from conservative governance:

– Despite his recent conversion to the GOP, Rep. Parker Griffith (R-AL) is facing a serious challenge from tea party activist Les Phillip in the Republican primary. Local conservative radioshow host Dale Jackson said both Michael Steele and the NRCC should be “ashamed” to support Griffith. “He was unacceptable a year ago and he’s acceptable now? A year ago, they were saying this guy was a murderer.”

– Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) has drawn several tea party challengers in his primary election. Jerry Ray Hall – no relation – even submitted his ballot application with the word “Tea” after his middle name.

– Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-TX) faces developer and tea party supporter Frank Roszell in a primary. “No one will jerk my chain but my wife,” he promises on his campaign Web site.

– Chris Younts is challenging Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) for the Republican nomination. “Contrary to opinions on both sides, the Tea Party movement was never intended to play the role of an infatuated, doting cheerleader of all players with an ‘R’ on their jersey, regardless of past indiscretions,” noted Younts.

– The National Republican Campaign Committee has placed its support behind State Sen. Robert Hurt (R-VA) to run against Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). However, Hurt has been eviscerated by his tea party opponents for voting to raise taxes and recently, for refusing to participate in the tea party-organized debates.

– Former Rep. Mike Sodrel (R-IN), in a coup for the NRCC, announced that he intends to run against Rep. Baron Hill (D-IN). However, tea party activists Todd Young and Travis Hankins have been campaigning for this seat for months, and it remains to be seen if Sodrel can surpass them in the GOP primary.

The emergence of the tea parties as the opposition movement says more about Republicans than it does the agenda of the Obama administration. The Republican Party has not articulated coherent plans to deal with the health care crisis, poverty, global warming, dependence on foreign oil, financial industry abuses, or any other major national issue. Perhaps that is why so many tea party-goers are now challenging the Republican status quo.

There is no doubt this change will certainly have profound negative economic impacts on the state of Louisiana, as well as the entire country.

In reality, regulations to limit greenhouse gases would reward business investment in labor instead of pollution, in new technology and development instead of reliance on 19th-century fuel sources. An analysis by the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute found that strong regulation and standards would create billions in revenue and tens of thousands of new jobs:

Louisiana could see a net increase of about $2.2 billion in investment revenue and 29,000 jobs based on its share of a total of $150 billion in clean-energy investments annually across the country. This is even after assuming a reduction in fossil fuel spending equivalent to the increase in clean-energy investments.

Whereas regulation of pollution will likely benefit Louisiana’s economy, there is actually “no doubt” that unmitigated climate change “will certainly have profound negative economic impacts” on the state of Louisiana. “The letters say nothing about the cost of inaction,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune notes, “as Louisiana’s coastline is ravaged by rising sea levels, jeopardizing business investment in the state’s most populated areas”:

In 2005, the global-warming-fueled Hurricane Katrina devastated Jindal’s state, costing this nation $80 billion, killing thousands, and displacing a million people. Katrina and Rita caused $1.6 billion in agriculture damage in Louisiana alone.

In 2008, Hurricane Gustav “was the largest agricultural disaster in Louisiana history,” according to Jindal, as he announced the distribution of $54.8 million in federal taxpayer aid this month.

In 2009, this summer’s “record-setting heat wave and simultaneous dry spell,” followed by extreme “late-season rains,” buckled roads and further damaged crops, driving even more farmers into bankruptcy.

According to a recent analysis published in Nature, “an additional 2 degrees of global warming could commit the planet to 6 to 9 meters (20 to 30 feet) of long-term sea level rise,” which would “permanently submerge New Orleans and other parts of southern Louisiana.”

Our goal is to entertain and engage the imagination of children with our stuffed animals, our store environment, and online. Our intention with the Polar Bear story was to inspire children, through the voices of our animal characters, to make a difference in their own individual ways. We did not intend to politicize the topic of global climate change or offend anyone in any way. The webisodes concluded this week with Santa successfully leaving on his journey to deliver gifts around the world. The webisodes will no longer be available on the site.

The scientific consensus remains as strong as ever that manmade global warming is real. In the past, conservatives have also attacked the popular movie “Wall-E,” saying that it was filled with “leftist propaganda” and taught children that “human beings are bad for planet earth.”

Even CNN’s Ed Henry piled on, saying “DC snowstorm chills Pelosi’s global warming trip,” calling it a “strange twist.” Drudge, of course, linked to the story.

In reality, intense winter storms of this type are an observed result of climate change. As the Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States report issued by the federal government describes, warmer oceans and shifting atmospheric circulation are bringing “stronger and more frequent” winter storms to the United States:

– “Cold-season storm tracks are shifting northward and the strongest storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent.”

– “In winter and spring, northern areas are expected to receive significantly more precipitation than they do now, because the interaction of warm and moist air coming from the south with colder air from the north is projected to occur farther north than it did on average in the last century. The more northward incursions of warmer and moister air masses are expected to be particularly noticeable in northern regions that will change from very cold and dry atmospheric conditions to warmer but moister conditions. Alaska, the Great Plains, the upper Midwest, and the Northeast are beginning to experience such changes for at least part of the year, with the likelihood of these changes increasing over time.”

– “There is also evidence of an increase in the intensity of storms in both the mid- and high- latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere, with greater confidence in the increases occurring in high latitudes. The northward shift is projected to continue, and strong cold season storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent, with greater wind speeds and more extreme wave heights.”

Most significantly, the accord — which has been recognized but not fully accepted by all nations — will launch a new Copenhagen Green Climate Fund next year, providing international financing to reduce deforestation and global warming impacts in vulnerable nations. The accord also marks the first time that the major polluters in the developing world, like India and China, have formally recognized they must commit to reducing global warming emissions.

Although this marks the first progress in the right direction on the international stage after eight long years of inaction under President Bush, much more must be done to stem the harm climate change has already done and to reduce the risk of catastrophic impacts in the future with a “fair, ambitious and legally binding deal,” starting with passage of strong climate legislation by the U.S. Congress. International environmental and human rights organizations agree that we’re “not done yet“:

Millions around the world look to the future and see hope, justice, and opportunity. It is up to each of us to make our voices heard and to get the real deal that the world needs. The world’s leaders still have a chance to get it right. They must realize that we expect, and will not accept, anything less. They’re not done yet. Neither are we.

Read the Wonk Room’s full coverage from Copenhagen here.

But MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow noted last night that Inhofe’s mission of wreaking havoc on the summit fell flat:

MADDOW: When Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton and all the bigwigs arrived in Denmark, the Inhofe truth squad was nowhere to be found.

We confirmed with the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that truth squad, denialist, congressional delegation with Senators Barrasso and Wicker – that has ended up getting canceled.

Inhofe did travel to Copenhagen however — with a single staffer and when he got there, all he could muster was an “impromptu” press conference and spent a grand total of two hours in the Danish capital. But even during the press conference, few reporters showed up and the Oklahoma senator wasn’t very well received by the ones who did:

A reporter asked: “If there’s a hoax, then who’s putting on this hoax, and what’s the motive?”

“It started in the United Nations,” Inhofe said, “and the ones in the United States who really grab ahold of this is the Hollywood elite.”

One reporter asked Inhofe if he was referring to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Another reporter — this one from Der Spiegel — told the senator: “You’re ridiculous.”

Politco notes that when Inhofe arrived at the summit “the halls were half-deserted” and that he “walked quickly, brushing off an aide who suggested that he slow down and take a breath.” “I don’t want to breathe — I want to get something done,” he said.

Today, protesters from the environmental justice group Greenpeace declared the Chamber headquarters in Washington, D.C. a “climate crime scene.” As protesters scaled the Chamber’s building, draping it in yellow crime scene tape, Greenpeace vehicles designed to look like police units and ambulances marked “Climate Crime Unit” surrounded the building and blared their sirens. Watch a video of the event:

“We welcome constructive discourse on the serious challenge of climate change,” Tita Freeman, the Chamber’s vice president for communication, told Politics Daily. “Now is the time to stop absurd stunts that are a distraction from real solutions and diminish the importance of this issue.” Of course, if that is the Chamber’s goal, it could stop funding global warming denier groups and accep the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is a very real and serious problem that must be addressed through government regulation of carbon emissions.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll finds growing public skepticism over health reform. While a bare majority of Americans still believe government action is needed to control health care costs, “there is minimal public enthusiasm for the kind of comprehensive changes in health care now under consideration.” More than six in 10 Americans favored the Medicare buy-in proposal, however.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) told The Hill yesterday that he would “have liked to have a stronger healthcare reform bill than the current reform draft.” When asked if he plans to support the Senate bill, he responded, “”I am not making a judgment until I see the CBO numbers and that’s only the beginning.”

B a vote of 412-12, the House yesterday overwhelmingly approved “sanctions legislation aimed at forcing Iran to freeze its nuclear program by depriving the Islamic republic of gasoline.” As The Wonk Room’s Matt Duss has noted, there are few analysts — on the left or the right — who believe these sanctions will be effective.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin responded to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “dismissal of her views on global warming by blaming his environmental policies for his state’s economic woes.” On her Facebook Page, Palin suggested Schwarzenegger had hamstrung business in order to “act ‘greener than thou‘ when talking to reporters.”

A group of House Democrats, led by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), introduced a comprehensive immigration reform proposal that “would offer a path to legalization for the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is taking a different approach in the Senate, “quietly trying to build a bipartisan coalition for a measure.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “has privately told her politically vulnerable Democratic members that they will not vote on controversial bills in 2010 unless the Senate acts first.” After a “bruising” year, Pelosi is “shifting gears” ahead of the 2010 election, saying a vote on immigration reform is not looming.

The D.C. City Council gave its final approval to the legalization of marriage equality yesterday, and Mayor Adrian Fenty plans to sign the bill by the end of the week. The Williams Institute estimates that same-sex marriages will boost D.C.’s economy by $52.2 million over three years. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who sits on a House subcommittee that oversees D.C., will introduce a bill to fight the measure in January.

Former Colorado Lt. Governor Jane Norton, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, reportedly told a tea party group in Colorado that she wants to eliminate the federal Department of the Education. “It was her opinion that individual states should be responsible for education in the state and the federal government should stay out of it,” one tea partier explained.

The Internal Revenue Service has granted Citigroup a massive tax exemption, allowing it to “retain billions of dollars worth of tax breaks that otherwise would decline in value when the government sells its stake to private investors.” The government agreed to forgo the funds as part of a deal “to wean the company from the massive taxpayer bailout that helped it survive the financial crisis.”

And finally: On Friday, Fox News producer Griff Jenkins took a break from ambushing people and joined the cast of The Nutcracker performed by the Washington Ballet.

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