The WonkLine: October 5, 2009

The Hill is reporting that “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), once in polite disagreement over the idea of a public option component in healthcare legislation, are approaching a breaking point over the issue.”

Lawrence O’Donnell is warning Harry Reid against merging the HELP and Senate Finance health bills. “This go ’round, O’Donnell told Pulse, Reid would be wise to largely ignore the HELP bill and push forward with the more moderate Baucus bill, which includes provisions that President Obama has endorsed.”

Gov. Bobby Jindal lays out a fresh case for conservative health care reform. Ever hear the one about tort reform?

“Record numbers of low-income people and senior citizens who can’t afford to heat their homes are applying for help,” reports USA Today, while funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program “is expected to be about $5.1 billion for fiscal year 2010 — the same as in 2009.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission “will delay a rule making it easier for investors to oust corporate directors, a step that may give banks a reprieve from shareholders seeking retribution over the financial crisis.”

“Never mind end-of-life care discussions for senior citizens. We need to have one right now about the home buyer tax credit,” writes Martha White.

“The lack of leadership from our government — including the current administration — is bothersome to me as a citizen,” the CEO of Timberland tells Politico, as dozens of major corporations from Johnson & Johnson to HP call for comprehensive climate action.

There are only ten more days of official negotiation left before the climate talks at Copenhagen begin in December — five more days in Bangkok and five days in Barcelona in November.

“Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate,” with “major disruption to the food chain” expected within ten years.

Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is currently under investigation by the DOJ, signed a new agreement with DHS that will only allow his deputies and detention officers to continue checking the immigration status of their inmates and has stripped the Sheriff of his power to enforce immigration law on the street.

After nearly 40 years of recorded increases, the number of immigrants living in the United States remained flat between 2007 and 2008, recent statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau show.

The Chicago Tribune highlights “an intriguing anomaly“: a ten-fold spike in arrests of clandestine migrants from China in the southern Arizona desert.

The Washington Post reports “A little more than a year after India and the United States signed a historic civilian agreement lifting a 30-year ban on nuclear trade, some former top nuclear scientists here are arguing that India needs to conduct another weapons test.”

Abbas Milani writes “Instead of playing the losing game,” with Iran, “the West should play the game it can win. When negotiations inevitably break down, neither military action nor partial sanctions will stop the regime’s drive for nuclear weapons. Only a democratic Iran can solve the current impasse.”

The Christian Science Monitor reports “A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the United Nations World Food Programme office in Islamabad, Pakistan, Monday, killing at least four and wounding several others. The UN temporarily shuttered its Pakistan offices after the strike.”

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