Senate Approves Budget Deal, Snowden Offers to Help Brazil, Paul Wants Fed Audit Vote for Yellen Nom: P.M. Links

The Senate approved the

two-year budget deal by a 67-33 vote. Twelve Senate Republicans
joined the Democrats in passing the bipartisan deal.
Edward Snowden, in an open letter to the people of Brazil,
offered to help assist the government
investigate allegations of U.S. spying on them. The media has
taken the offer to suggest that Snowden is seeking asylum in
Brazil, but Glenn Greenwald says no actual asylum has been
requested.
Critics in Congress of the extent of the National Security
Agency’s reach with its phone metadata collection are pleased with
yesterday’s court ruling declaring it a violation of the Fourth
Amendment. Meanwhile, discussion of NSA’s tactics is on the agenda
as President
Barack Obama meets with several tech company leaders
today.
The only modern president who has had approval ratings lower
than what President Obama is pulling at this point in his
presidency is
Richard Nixon.
Sen. Rand Paul is threatening to
bog down the Janet Yellen’s nomination for Federal Reserve
chair unless he can get a vote to audit the agency.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is
resisting pressure from the left to resign while Obama is still
in office so that he can choose her replacement, not some future
(possibly Republican) president.