Wednesday morning, and a busy one here, as the Senator John Kerry and Senator Joe Lieberman will finally introduce the American Power Act this afternoon. You'll notice Senator Lindsey Graham was not mentioned, something I'll have more on in a minute.

First, a little redux from West Virginia last night. It reads like this: Incumbents Beware. Alan Mollohan, a 14-term congressman who ran unchallenged two years ago, was unseated in the Democratic primary last night, by State Senator Mike Oliverio. This is the first time since 1967 that the 1st seat will be held by someone outside the Mollohan family.

There were some external factors, such as ethics allegations and the fact that Oliverio ran to the incumbent's right, but the numbers don't lie: less than one in three people say they would vote to re-elect their congressman right now. Mollahan just became the first House victim.

That led to this post, by The Fix, entitled "Danger, Incumbents, Danger." Despite the fact that there were factors specific to the two races we've seen - every race has those - it is clear that incumbents are not safe. The key evidence is in the other, unknown challengers.

Last Tuesday, Indiana Republican Rep. Dan Burton won his party's nod with less than 30 percent of the vote while unknown and unfunded challengers to North Carolina Democratic Reps. Larry Kissell and Heath Shuler took more than a third of the vote.

Next Tuesday should be even more fun, when both Senator Arlen Specter and Senator Blanche Lincoln face serious primary challenges. Specter has been running ads featuring President Obama, in an attempt to show voters he is loyal to the Democratic party. Remember, when switched parties last year, he made no secret that he knew he couldn't get re-elected as a Republican.

Take a look at some of the more recent polls available and you'll see that Specter and opponent Joe Sestak are within the margins. Scroll down to May 5 to see that Patty Murray is above 50 percent against everyone but Dino Rossi, who she is finally leading consistently. Washington state voters don't go to the polls until August 17, but filing date for Rossi is next month.

Want some more on elections? How about taking a trip across the Atlantic, to London, where the conservative party missed a majority by 20 seats. One of the more fascinating things to watch is how the British parliament has to remake itself when this happens, although it's been some time. For the first time since World War II, the country will be run by a coalition government, albeit an awkward one between conservatives and liberal democrats. What a novel idea.

David Cameron, head of the conservative party, was installed as Prime Minister, after Gordon Brown sped the process up by resigning. This literally all happened yesterday. Considering the immediate work that must be done, that is a good thing for a government that is trying to prevent the demise of the pound.

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Speaking of demise, honor and civility took a pretty big hit yesterday, at Senate hearings looking into the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Representatives from British Petroleum, Transocean, and Haliburton testified before two committees yesterday, almost immediately following a story suggesting Haliburton may really be to blame.

The executives raised their right hands to be sworn in, right before passing off all responsibility to someone else. Have you ever laughed at a situation where two kids are standing next to each other and when you ask them who did someone, they both point at the other one? I watched that for five hours yesterday. Grown men. BP said they didn't operate the machines that screwed up. Transocean said they thought the well was cemented (a way to seal the well, which would prevent a blowout). And both Transocean and Haliburton said, ultimately, the fault lies with the rig owner/lesser, BP.

There were no solutions. At one point, after the BP rep. had said about 25 times that the company would, "pay all legitimate claims" (without ever defining "legitimate"), Senator Maria Cantwell just went down a list of effects of the Exxon Valdez spill, asking after each one if BP would pay for it. The rep. caved and said he couldn't comment on specific cases.

And you know you've screwed up when Senator Jeff Sessions, whose Alabama accent is so thick I can rarely understand him, is chewing you out. And Sessions was relentless. He basically asked the Transocean rep. directly, "what do you know about what happened?" The rep. had nothing for him. He said it was BP's job to answer that type of question. Transocean operates the rig.

Quote of the day had to come from Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey. Menendez pointed out that the hearing room they were in was the same one used to investigate the Titanic sinking, get this, almost 100 years ago (wow!). Both the Titanic and this rig were considered so technologically advanced as to be immune to failure. Actually watched the beginning of the James Cameron movie the other day and saw the line, "God himself could not sink this ship." Both failed. Both sank.

Said Menendez: "I don't get the sense that you were truly prepared. I get the sense that you are making things up as you go along."

Obviously this is a big deal. Today, however, it takes on a whole new meaning, as Kerry and Lieberman prepare to introduce their bill. A CBS News poll just showed up in my inbox, showing that more the 4-in-5 Americans have seen, heard or read about the oil spill. Only 46 percent favor new offshore drilling, while 41 percent see it as too great a risk. The former is a 16 percent decrease from previous polls, the latter a 13 percent increase.

Just watched Kerry on MSNBC say that the new bill does not allow new drilling, at least until after the cause of the the Gulf incident is known. As was pointed out in the hearing yesterday, this rig had plenty of redundancies designed specifically to prevent a blowout, including a thing called a blowout preventer. They all failed.

The Hill got a copy of the summary document on the American Power Act and released it yesterday.

Under the key provisions header are refunds to consumers to prevent increased energy costs (a central worry among opponents), a national carbon cap that would preempt any like policy unique to a state (though compensation is promised to states that would lose revenue), a specific price on carbon, financing for a transportation transformation (natural gas, highway, public transit updates), as well as giving states power to opt out of drilling within 75 miles of their shores, and more.

Yes, the bill includes carbon sequestration funding. It also only regulates the largest carbon emitters (about 7,500 factors and power plants). Here is the more detailed version. There is a press conference at 1:30 today. I'll be at it. Follow the Consequence Twitter page for my reactions.

If this bill gets an traction, prepare for a legislative fight like you've never seen before. Health care was just a warmup.

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- My favorite politician, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, was re-elected last night. He also happens to be my favorite person I follow on Twitter. He won by about a 2-1 margin, in an election that appears to have had about 100,000 voters. That would be about a third of the total population of New Jersey's largest city. Booker, who is just 41, won his second term after significantly lowering the city's crime rates, while continuing to fight gun violence.

Here is his tweet from this morning:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it's the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill - Thank you Newark! Lets continue!

Everything you need to know about this guy can be found in the documentary from his first attempt to run for mayor of the city, as a 32-year old in 2002. Booker, a Rhodes Scholar and Stanford grad, moved into one of the city's worst neighborhoods. Four years later he became mayor.

- Got a chance to pay a visit to a freezing cold, windy and wet Camden Yards last night, to see Cliff Lee and the Mariners take on the Orioles. The M's are now 4-0 against the O's, 9-19 against everyone else. It was the visit out the warehouse, however, that made the trip worth it.

Yes, for those who guessed, that is the plaque on the spot where Ken Griffey Jr. (who was awake the whole game, I promise) nailed the warehouse at the 1993 All Star Game. He was the first and last to ever do so, with a majestic 465-foot blast to straightaway right field.

Beautiful ballpark by the way, though it is still built like the older ones with the concourse back behind the stands and not in full view of the field. Also, the location, literally right in downtown, makes it feel much smaller than reality. However, the standing room and fan-friendly seating make it worth the trip. As did getting a chance to see Lee pitch for the first time.

Lastly, in case you are missing this, take a minute to read about Danielle Lawrie. The fifth-year senior is having an absolutely dominating season, on the way to quite possibly becoming the greatest athlete in University of Washington history. She is in her fifth year not because of redshirting, but because she spent 2008 playing for the Canadian Olympic team, an organization that probably wish they had used her a bit more. Lawrie beat the U.S. National Team when she was 18 - yes, you read that right, has a national championship, National Player of the Year, and this year alone has been named national player of the week three times. This weekend she will set the Pac-10 career record for strikeouts, if she even pitches as her 33-2 record has helped the Huskies (43-5, 15-3) clinch the Pac-10 Championship already.

Lawrie holds just about every UW pitching record, while also being one of the top hitters on the team this year. She hit a walk-off homerun against Stanford on Saturday. Just think about these two numbers: Lawrie has 19 shutouts and 392 strikeouts.

Ridiculous.

Have a good one y'all.

Good Tuesday morning, where eggs and smoke bombs are sold separately, at the entrance to the Ukraine Parliament.

Not sure what is wilder, that news, or Hugh Hefner chipping in $900,000 to help buy the land the "Hollywood" sign is on, in order to prevent it from being taken down. Does he get the bunny logo in places of the "l"?

Many things happened yesterday, with many more to happen today, so what is the top headline in the New York Times? This really is awesome:
Yes, apparently PowerPoint, the wildly popular Microsoft presentation program, is the bane of the US military. Thy name is no longer "woman," but "PowerPoint." Seems a little ridiculous, right? According to the story, the military uses PowerPoint just about ever chance it gets. Said one general: "It's dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable."

The irony of that statement, in a war zone no less, is not lost on me.

This apparently goes back to a slide shown in a presentation in Kabul last summer, which was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy. The article (which is headlined by the actual slide) says it, "looked more like a bowl of spaghetti." General Stanley A. McChrystal quipped, "when we understand that slide, we'll have won the war."

At which point Bill Gates will assume the throne.

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- The daily well-known news update obviously comes from the financial reform bill, which hit the expected hurdle in the Senate yesterday. The body held a cloture vote yesterday, which is technically a vote to start debate, but amounts to voting to vote. Every present Republican voted against it, joined by Nebraska's own Ben Nelson.

In an interesting piece of procedural action, and something I understand from a class I took at UW, Majority Leader Harry Reid switched his vote at the last minute, to vote against the measure. Why? If you are on the winning side of a vote, whether it be yes or no, you can call for a repeat vote on the measure, something expected as soon as today. Had he voted yes, the issue would technically have been settled. I stress, technically. As one congressman said recently, "there ain't no rules around here. We just make 'em up as we go along."

- There is an interesting look at South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham in today's Times. Maybe the best quote came from Senator Joe Lieberman, in response to Graham being called a "Mini-John McCain." "He's a maxi-Lindsey. He's not a mini anybody."

The Senator is obviously working with Lieberman, or was, as well as John Kerry, on energy legislation. More on that later.

- Or right now. Graham met with his two counterparts last night, in an effort to continue pushing the stalled energy legislation forward. Kerry continues to be positive, in public at least, while Graham has made his stance pretty clear: scrap immigration or I'm outta here.

I explained yesterday just why immigration has even come up. It isn't going anywhere. But Graham, who made it clear this was about a promise made to him, not his ability to do more than one thing at a time, may have a point. Energy may be the toughest bill any congress passes. Tougher than health care, immigration, even Social Security. There are just too many competing interests. The fact that an oil rig can explode in the Gulf, spilling 42,000 gallons of oil a day into the ocean and killing 11 people (and the fact I said it in that order), just weeks after a coal mine exploded, killing 29 (yet an executive at Massey is quoted today as saying the air in the mine was normal just 10 minutes before the explosion) and not cause an immediate outcry for energy reform, should be enough to get this point across. If not, realize that only 6,000 people are employed by the coal industry, yet the number one issue with the legislation is the loss of coal jobs.

I came up with an idea yesterday: let's re-employ these people. I can't wait for my Republican friend's responses here, but hear me out. The fact is that these 6,000 jobs are going to go the way of the more than 25,000 that came before them. The coal industry employs 1/5th of the workforce it did 70 years ago, despite producing the exact same amount of coal. Mechanization, as I keep saying, has changed the industry, for the better, unless you're a worker.

So let's move them. It's only 6,000 people. We will take our investments in clean energy, train these workers to work at wind farms or manufacturers, and help them stay just as financially stable as they are right now, if not better. If they need to move to do it, fine, we'll move them. It's 6,000 people. We aren't talking about moving Boeing here. The US government once made a living displacing populations larger than that. This time we'll just pay for it. Think we won't get a return? Oh yes we will. We'll have qualified, trained workers, building wind turbines and installing a smart grid. They will be in cleaner, healthy conditions, meaning less liability for government health care programs and, unfortunately at this point, mine regulation. We will do it phases, sure. But it needs to be done. And it should start with Massey workers.

If you're actually interested in that, I'll flush it out more in another post. Let me know.

Anyway, check out the Graham piece. He's an interesting guy, but by far my favorite Republican in congress. Yes, more than nuclear-charged Lamar Alexander. Here's a quote from Graham: "I'm in the mid- to high 60s [polling], and my negatives are in the 20s," he said. "Now, what I've done is, I used to be in the 80s. But what's the use of being here if you can't move the ball forward."

Think that's rhetoric? He voted for Justice Sonia Sotomeyor, has been censured three times in his own state, has a legislator (I think) in his home state calling for him to "come out," and was once lumped in with President Obama in a treason charge by a constituent. But there he is, humming along with John Kerry, one of the most liberal members of congress, trying to "move the ball forward."

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- You have absolutely no reason to care about this whatsoever, but I do. As I was searching for the orgin of the quote the Times parodied in the headline above (it was Hamlet I think, but I first heard it spoken by Sam Seaborn in West Wing), I came across this 2001 profile of Aaron Sorkin, the creator of my favorite television show, written right after he rewrote season three to coincide with September 11.

- When it comes to business, gender aside, Maria Cantwell is not someone I would want as an enemy, period. When you can finance your own campaign against an entrenched Republican and unseat him, you've done some things right in your life financially. Just sayin'.

- In the Fix morning notes there is a look at a new poll on just how uninterested youth are in the upcoming election. In a shocking development, 18-29 year olds really don't care. Sarcasm aside, the Fix points out that the actual percentage of young voters hasn't actually changed much, only the party they voted for did. Obama won the 18-29 vote 2-1.

- Finally, this is the University of Oregon. Painful.