Here are some of the other items making news today.

The Senate approved $10 billion to states and local school districts to prevent teacher layoffs and an additional $16 billion in Federal aid to cash-strapped states. The procedural vote in the Senate was 61 to 38, with the Maine Republicans, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, joining all Democrats in support of cutting off a filibuster. Louisiana Senator David Vitter did not vote. Speaker Pelosi is to summon House back from its summer recess to grant final approval to the bill. The full story in the New York Times.

With President Obama is headed to fundraisers in Austin and Dallas, Texas junior senator, Republican John Cornyn accuses the President of "using Texas as an ATM." This will be the President's third visit to the Lone Star state. The fundraisers are on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. However among the Democratic political establishment in Texas, Obama's visit is proving to be as toxic as Gulf Coast oil spill. Former Houston Mayor Bill White, the Democratic nominee for governor, has said he'll be elsewhere during Obama's visit. Ditto for Barbara Radnofsky, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General.

Up in the Big Sky country, $90 million in Federal stimulus funding to expand high-speed Internet is coming Montana's way, for projects on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and rural Gallatin County, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today. The story in the Billings Gazette.

New York state lawmakers finalized a $136 billion budget for fiscal 2011 late Tuesday, approving a final piece of legislation that will raise about $1 billion through a mix of tax hikes and other measures. More from Reuters.

Divorced from reality, Tim Geithner seems married to indifference. The Secretary of the Treasury has an op-ed in the New York Times entitled Welcome to the Recovery.

In another New York Times op-ed, Rep. Anthony Weiner of the New York Ninth Congressional District explains that anger that led to his outburst on the House floor.

Mayor Ron Dellums of Oakland announced Wednesday that he won't seek re-election in November. Dellums, 74, was elected mayor in June 2006 and took office in January 2007. His term expires next January. Dellums served 13 terms in the House before becoming mayor of Oakland. More from CBS-5 San Francisco.

The birther madness will not die. CNN has a poll showing the 27 percent of Americans do not believe the President Obama was born in Honolulu or anywhere else in the United States. Twenty-seven percent of Republicans say he was probably not born here, and another 14 percent of Republicans say he was definitely not born in the US. In other words, 41 percent of Republicans view the President as a Constitutional usurper. Today, by the way, is the President's 49th birthday which is spending at home alone in Chicago.

Since becoming Governor of the Garden State, Chris Christie has garnered the praise of conservatives for his "blunt" talk that included calling New Jersey "a failed state." His pledges to bring about ""smaller government that lives within its means" in Trenton-- and to do so without tax increases, declaring "I was not sent here to approve tax increases, I was sent here to veto them" led to laudatory reviews beginning back in April by Bill McGurn in the Wall Street Journal who went so far that Christie was reviving "Reagan Republicanism -- Jersey style." And John Fund also in the Wall Street Journal noted back in May that conservatives "were impressed by a rare chief executive willing to tackle his state intractable problems in an unapologetic manner." Fund was especially pleased that Christie was taking on the "malign influence of the New Jersey Education Association" which Christie has described as "an absolutely out-of-control union that is used to getting everything it wants." And bonus points were awarded for comparing New Jersey to debt-ridden Greece. Others who have written celebratory pieces include George Will and Marc Thiessen.

Still it is McGurn's original piece from back in April in the Journal that perhaps best captures the "blunt talk" from Christie that has conservatives aglow over the New Jersey Governor. Here are a few examples that McGurn had culled from Governor Christie's budget address, public meetings and radio appearances:

The children will be the ones to suffer from your education cuts. "The real question is, who's for the kids, and who's for their raises? This isn't about the kids. Let's dispense with that portion of the argument. Don't let them tell you that ever again while they are reaching into your pockets."

Your policies favor the rich. "We have the worst unemployment in the region and the highest taxes in America, and that's no coincidence."

Why not renew the 'millionaire's tax'? "The top 1% of taxpayers in New Jersey pay 40% of the income tax. In addition, we've got a situation where that tax applies to small businesses. I'm simply not going to put my foot on the back of the neck of small business while I want them to try to grow jobs by giving more revenue to New Jersey."

Budget cuts are unfair. "The special interests have already begun to scream their favorite word—which, coincidentally, is my 9-year-old son's favorite word when we are making him do something he knows is right but does not want to do—'unfair.' . . . One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life, and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits—a total of $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?"

State budget cuts only shift the pain to our towns. "[L]et's remember this, in 2009 the private sector in New Jersey lost 121,000 jobs. In 2009, municipalities and school boards added 11,300 jobs. Now that's just outrageous. And they're going to have to start to lay some people off, not continue to hire at the pace they hired in 2009 in the middle of a recession."

Isn't your talk of 'stopping the tax madness' just another 'Read My Lips' promise? "[Mine is] much better than 'Read my lips.' I'm sorry, it's just much better. Much stronger. . . . It's gonna be how my governorship will rise or fall. I'm not signing a tax increase."

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Citing personal reasons, billionaire real estate magnate and publisher Morton Zuckerman, owner of the tabloid New York Daily News, has decided against running for the US Senate seat currently held by Senator Kristen Gillibrand.

From the New York Daily News:

Mr. Zuckerman, chairman and publisher of the Daily News, said personal and professional reasons were behind his decision not to challenge Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

"I was encouraged by many major political figures in New York to look closely at running for Senate," Mr. Zuckerman said.

"However, at this time, it is very difficult to see how I can devote the necessary time to either a campaign, or to working in Washington, if I were to win."

Mr. Zuckerman pointed out that he has a young family, which is the most important focus in his life.

In addition, he has assumed the position of CEO of Boston Properties Inc., the real estate company he co-founded with Ed Linde, who recently passed away.

"Ed and I were partners for more than 45 years, and with him no longer a part of our company, I owe it to all the loyal people who have worked with me for so many years to contribute to our continuing success," he said.

Mr. Zuckerman added that he had been extremely flattered that a possible run for Senate had brought widespread, bipartisan support from many corners of the state.

"I believe that there is a great deal that needs to be achieved in Washington, not only on behalf of the people of New York, but in trying to break some of the paralyzing deadlock that has gripped the political decision-making process," he said.

"However, it demands unhindered attention, which I am unable to give at this time."

These are unsettled times in New York State politics but at the very least the path to re-election for Senator Gillibrand, never really in doubt, now seems clearer.

In other news, embattled Governor David Paterson who last week was forced out of his bid for reelection as allegations surfaced that his office had intervened in an assault case against out of his top aides ruled out resigning before the end of his term. The unfolding scandal today claimed the head of the New York State Police,  Superintendent Harry Corbitt, who has chosen to take early retirement. Corbitt had acknowledged last month that a State Police official had contact with a woman who had accused a top Paterson aide of assaulting her on Halloween in the Bronx.

Lastly, House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel who represents the New York Fifteen Congressional District that encompasses Harlem in Manhattan is reportedly set to relinquish his gavel and take a "leave of absence" from his chairmanship according to MSNBC. If Congressman Rangel does step aside the chairmanship of the powerful committee will temporarily pass to Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan according to leadership sources, or to Rep. Pete Stark of California, the committee's second-ranking Democrat.

New York Governor David Paterson will drop his bid for election to a full term. Governor Paterson had come under increasing pressure after the New York Times revealed that the Governor had interfered with a domestic-violence case involving David Johnson, one of his of top aides.

The story in the New York Times:

Gov. David A. Paterson is set to announce that he will not seek election in the wake of reports that he and the State Police intervened in a domestic-assault case against a senior aide, according to a person told about the plans.

He is expected to make the announcement this afternoon.

It would follow a tumultuous Thursday in which, following revelations about the governor’s involvement in the abuse case, many of his political allies suggested he stand down form his bid to be elected. In a brief press availability late in the day, the governor said he would stay in the race, but that he would also seek counsel from other Democrats about how to proceed with his political future.

The state awoke on Friday to calls for the governor’s resignation from newspaper editorial writers, which only added to the increasing belief that it would be impossible for him to run the state and a campaign while the abuse case, and its handling by both he and the state police, is under investigation. He has asked the state’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, an assumed political rival for the governorship, to investigate the case.

The end of Mr. Paterson’s campaign came less than a week after he formally began it, with a defiant speech at Hofstra University in Hempstead in which he cast himself as an underdog who would fight for ordinary New Yorkers against Albany special interests.

The New York Daily News in its editorial today called for Paterson to step down immediately.

Accountable America, the liberal advocacy group headed by Tom Matzzie, is to beginning running the above 30 second spot exposing the Wall Street agenda of Doug Hoffman, the Tea Party candidate up in the New York 23rd Congressional District.

The policies Doug Hoffman supports created America's financial crisis. That's the message of Accountable America's new TV ad on the air starting this week in the 23rd district of New York.

Hoffman is the darling of the Club for Growth, the right-wing group funded by some of Wall Street's biggest fat cats. The Club for Growth's agenda boils down to one idea: stop consumer protections in the name of "deregulation."

They don't want to see the Financial Truth Commission "name names" and hold people accountable like the 9/11 Commission. That is why many of the Club for Growth's biggest supporters voted against setting up the Commission.

Doug Hoffman has yet to call for tough investigations into the banks who created the financial crisis. Nor has he called for new regulations to protect consumers and end corporate greed. Hoffman doesn't want to upset his Wall Street friends, so, he's singing their tune by supporting Bush-style tax cuts and deregulation designed to help the richest banks.

How people can vote against their own economic self-interest is something I have yet to fully comprehend. I suspect that many are drawn in by Hoffman's social views but it is incomprehensible to me that so many cannot see the connection between the tax the poor but spare the rich policies of the GOP and our current state of affairs.

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