heels over another partisan battle over extending unemployment benefits. on its first day back after a two-week recess the senate will vote on the issue. democrats need at least one republican supporter to get the 60 votes needed to move forward. nbc s luke russert is on capitol hill this morning. so, luke, i cannot imagine republican senators voting to make sure that the unemployed people in their states don t get anymore benefits. reporter: it certainly is going to be an interesting political fight today and for the rest of the week. what we re talking about here is democrats saying emergency spending, $9 billion to extend unemployment benefits to people across the country. as we know the unemployment rate is around 10% so these benefits are really important to a lot of people in order to put food on the table and make certain payments towards their homes. that being said there is a huge fight in washington right now about deficit spending. republicans are trying to frame the polit
see a houston parking garage through all the smoke. firefighters say cars on the upper floors somehow caught fire. nobody was hurt. a florida man caught a wild monkey in his back yard. i mean caught on camera. the primate has captivated the tampa bay area this past year. he appeared to be hungry and was scooping food from a bird feeder. officials have been trying to capture the monkey for a year and still it evades them. in south dakota the spring flood fight is on as lake poinsett rises. there are more than 90,000 sand bags protecting the shores. so far no buildings or homes have been damaged but flooding is expected to keep on coming. local officials say it s possible the sand bags will need to stay in place for two years. this building in taiwan doesn t look so special but if you look deep ter s constructed of plastic bottles, 1.5 million of them, the contractor saying he and his team were inspired by
think they can pick off a republican who s going to retire at the end of this term, i don t know why they re not picking out somebody who is up for a tough re-election because can you imagine those campaign ads, here is the guy who voted to cut off your unemployment benefits? reporter: absolutely. that s why it s such a delicate political issue. on the other hand you can run an ad against the democrats saying senator so and so wants to continue the drunk spending here in washington. that s why it s going to be very interesting to see how the american public reacts to this fight. are they going to take the side and say people desperately need these benefits ar say you know what? it s time to take some of this tough medicine and understand we have to get spending under control. remember, democrats have been touting pay go, this pay as you go decision they passed a few months ago. republicans will take every opportunity they can in trying to get them on the record saying you got to pay
[ buzz ] no, i did it. i could have stopped but i wanted to boast about making it. time now for today s daily showdown. it s all about the state of the republican party. former presidential candidate mitt romney took first place in the straw poll taken at the southern republican leadership conference. wrapped up this weekend. romney took the top spot with 439 votes edging out texas congressman ron paul by a single vote. sarah palin and former house speaker newt gingrich round out the top four. but it was ron paul who called out his party for failing to practice what they preach. but the corporations won the fight. we as republicans over the last several decades have created a credibility gap. we talk a good game. but when we get the chance to do something we haven t done the job that we should have. well, bill press is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host and pat buchanan is an msnbc political analyst.