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Reps. Barbara Lee [D, CA-9] and Bobby Scott [D, VA-3] have been hustling on the Hill to help the long-term unemployed. Since they introduced their bill to extend unemployment insurance to the approximately 3.9 million people who have been out of work for more than two years and have exhausted their benefits -- so-called "99ers" -- they have almost doubled their list of co-sponsors. And now they've secured a meeting with the Republican House leadership to discuss ways that the bill could be offset and, presumably, moved ahead in the legislative process.

Since the mid 90s, federal death penalty statutes have been slowly but steadily expanding to include more and more offenses within their reach. With the committee-amended PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill that's headed for floor votes in the next few weeks, Congress appears ready to expand the death penalty once again. This time, they're looking at applying the death penalty to people convicted of providing material support for acts of terrorism that result in deaths.

Over the weekend the U.S. military has been participating in airstrikes against the Libyan government, bombing Libyan air defense sites in order to enforce a no-fly zone, tanks near Benghazi in order to protect rebel soldiers, and, most recently, Gadhafi's command center in Tripoli. Whether or not the attacks will directly target Libyan ground forces has yet to be seen. The attacks, known as operation Odyssey Dawn, are being carried out under the UN Security Council resolution that backs the use of military force to prevent the Libyan government from using their military to attack civilians. But some members of Congress, from both parties, see the attacks as an unlawful breach of Congress' power to declare war, and some are going as far as calling for impeachment.

Each week, we'll be going through all of the comments posted to OpenCongress over the past week and picking out a handful of particularly popular, insightful and timely ones to bump up to the OpenCongress Blog. OpenCongress users leave hundreds -- sometimes thousands -- of comments each week, creating a treasure trove of political thought from around the country and around the partisan spectrum that reflects the moods and topics of the day. This week users focused on defunding NPR, the unemployment crisis, repealing the health acre reform law, and more. Get involved by commenting on bills, articles, senators and representatives, and rate other users' comments, to influence what gets highlighted here each week.

Sunlight Foundation reports that the bill to defund NPR that the House is set to pass this afternoon violates the Republicans' pledge to make all legislation publicly available online at least 72 hours prior to being voted on. In this case, the bill was only available to the public and Congress for less than 48 hours before the vote. And, of course, it hasn't had a single committee hearing or mark-up, and it's being brought to the floor under a closed rule that limits debate to one hour and does not allow amendments.

When the farm bill comes up for renewal next year, reform-minded lawmakers will get another chance to rein in the billions in subsidies that too often flow to millionaire farm owners in Manhattan who don't need them. But even with both parties looking to support budget cuts wherever possible these days, reforming the farm bill is going to be an uphill battle.

House Republicans today are kicking off a new push to block federal funding for NPR and NPR affiliate stations. They're using the controversy stirred up by an activist's doctored "sting" video to call an emergency meeting of the Rules Committee this afternoon to bring legislation to the floor that would eliminate all federal funding for "non-commercial, educational radio," permanently. The bill, H.R.1706, hasn't received a single hearing and it has not gone through the committee mark-up process that is where most of the real work on bills typically takes place. It's been drafted in the past few days since the video broke and it's being rushed to a vote while the controversy is still hot.

Republicans in Congress have moved one step closer to taking away the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate the greenhouse gases that are responsible for climate change. This afternoon, by a vote of 34-19, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the so-called Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 that would amend the Clear Air to state that seven specific greenhouse gases, plus "any other substance subject to, or proposed to be subject to, regulation, action, or consideration under [the Clean Air Act] to address climate change," are not "air pollutants," and, therefore, can not be regulated by the EPA. The bill now goes to the full House for a vote on passage.

The open amendment process that House Republicans used to create their 2011 budget bill had its benefits. For example, it allowed a bipartisan group of rank-and-file Reps. to stand against party leadership and strip out funding for a costly alternative engine program for a fighter jet that the Air Force itself says is unnecessary. On the other hand, it gave members who were looking to fulfill promises to powerful political interests a platform to do so. The policy riders that were added to the budget bill are keeping Congress bogged down with stopgap funding to keep the government from shutting down and preventing them from engaging in serious negotiations over funding levels for the rest of the year. That in turns means there's no time to work on other important issues, like job creation and long-term debt reduction.

Another week, another scramble in Congress to pass a funding bill to keep the government from shutting down. This time, they're looking at a three-week stopgap bill that would cut about $2 billion per week from 2010 funding levels by essentially accelerating cuts that have been proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. With bipartisan support on the specifics and a general preference among all to keep the government from shutting down, the bill is expected to pass in both chambers by wide margins and be signed into law before thethe current stopgap runs out on Friday. After that, House Republicans are planning votes on eliminating federal funding for NPR and canceling more housing programs. Click through for full details and links to learn more.

Following the Senate's rejection of two long-term government funding proposals -- one from Republicans and one from Democrats -- congressional negotiators are back to working out another stopgap bill to keep the federal government from shutting down. The current stopgap bill is set to expire next Friday. According to reports, the plan now is to move a three-week funding extension that continues the same rate of cuts from the current extension -- about $2 billion per week below 2010 levels -- and gives Congress until early April to work out a longer-term solution.

Almost a year after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law, the misinformation campaign about what's in it just won't stop. The most recent example is from Rep. Michelle Bachmann [R, MN-6], who claims that the Democrats snuck more than a hundred billion dollars in the bill and passed it secretly without public review. But Bachmann's either lying or she has no idea what she's talking about because her claims are just flat-out false.

While all the attention on the Republicans' union busting agenda has been focused on the states, Republicans in Congress have been quietly moving forward with anti-union legislation on the federal level. In February, the House Transportation Committee marked up a Federal Aviation Administration authorization bill that contains an innocuous looking provision that would actually titl union formation rules further in the favor of anti-union interests. 

Yesterday I wrote about a bill scheduled for a vote this week that would eliminate a program that provides bridge loans to unemployed homeowners to help them avoid foreclosure. The program has $1 billion in total lending authority, and homeowners are required to pay the government back when they become employed again. House Republicans say they're going after the program a matter of fiscal responsibility. But here's the thing -- at the same time that they're trying to cut $1 billion in loans for the unemployed, they're fighting to protect a $100 billion program that provides tax breaks to homeowners, with benefits flowing overwhelmingly and disproportionately to the wealthy.

One of the foreclosure relief programs that House Republicans are looking to shut down this week has been a widely-recognized failure. It was supposed to provide incentives for mortgage lenders to voluntarily renegotiate loans for underwater homeowners, but it never caught on. The other program, however, hasn't gone into effect yet, but because it doesn't require the cooperation of lenders it's expected to be more successful when it does. The program, which is called Emergency Mortgage Relief, would provide government bridge loans to help unemployed homeowners avoid foreclosures. Since we can't evaluate it in action, here's a closer look at how's it's supposed to work once it starts up.