Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the nation's first off-shore wind farm on Wednesday, giving a major boost to the ambitious alternative energy project that had stalled for years because of protest and legal challenges from Cape Cod residents.

In an announcement at the Statehouse in Boston, Salazar said that the department carefully reviewed concerns about the $1 billion Cape Wind project, which calls for 130 wind turbines anchored on the seafloor of Nantucket Sound, and found that public benefits justified the project. 

“With this decision we are beginning a new direction in our Nation’s energy future, ushering in America’s first offshore wind energy facility and opening a new chapter in the history of this region," he said in a statement.

Cape Wind Associates first proposed the project nine years ago, hailing the proposal as a major step forward for clean energy. The plan ran into powerful opposition from Cape Cod residents, including the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and luminaries such as the late CBS news anchor, Walter Cronkite. A Massachusetts Indian tribe also challenged the project, claiming that the wind towers would be placed on what was once tribal burial grounds.

Among those who protested Salazar's decision was Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. Illustrating the stark difference with his predecessor, Brown said that while he supports clean energy, "Nantucket Sound is a national treasure that should be protected from industrialization."

"“With unemployment hovering near ten percent in Massachusetts, the Cape Wind project will jeopardize industries that are vital to the Cape’s economy, such as tourism and fishing, and will also impact aviation safety and the rights of the Native American tribes in the area," he said in a statement. "I am also skeptical about the cost-savings and job number predictions we have heard from proponents of the project."

The decision, which will almost certainly be challenged, will likely buoy the wind energy industry. Denise Bode, the CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, praised the decision, calling it "forward-looking thinking" that is needed to provide pollution-free energy, as in Europe. 

"As Secretary Salazar said himself this January, there is a bright future for offshore wind in this country," she said. 

For a third time in as many days, Senate Republicans blocked a financial overhaul bill from reaching the floor for debate on Wednesday, continuing a partisan spectacle likely to provide grist for both sides in the crucial fall mid-term elections.

The tug-of-war over financial regulation has become the main arena for political combat since the passage of health care legislation earlier this year. Both Democrats and Republicans are using the issue as ammunition, with each accusing the other of being too close to Wall Street.

Wednesday's 56-42 cloture vote, which followed failed votes on Monday and Tuesday, means Democrats were unable to whip the 60 votes needed to end the threat of filibuster and proceed to a floor debate. Republicans say that they also want a bill, but are using the procedural measure to slow the bill's progress and leverage changes. 

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans wanted to make sure that small businesses weren't ensnared in the protections against Wall Street. And he suggested that the support for the legislation from Goldman Sachs made the bill suspect.

“The supporters of this bill may have locked up the support of the folks at Goldman Sachs. But Republicans aren’t about to rush this bill just to make (Goldman CEO) Lloyd Blankfein happy — and not before there’s an ironclad protection against any taxpayer funding of Wall Street firms like his. Americans want to know that this bill will protect them too. And right now, they’ve got more questions than answers," he said.

Democrats accused the GOP of seeking to water down the bill and add loopholes. In the aftermath of the vote, Democrats again took to the floor to denounce Republicans for their votes.  Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, was the first to speak, saying, " here we go again."

"What we've just seen tells us what the Ameican people ought to know. There are fundamental questions being asked of Senators this week, and principle of those is 'whose side are you on?Who do you work for?' On Monday and Tuesday and again today, we got an asnwer from the other side of the aise, they made it clear. They stand with the big banks," he said. 

Later, Sen. Kit Bond, a Missouri Republican, answered, saying that "we all agree that we need to hold Wall Street accountable for the havoc wreaked on Main Street." 

"Where we disagree is what responsible reform looks like. I have real concerns that in its current form, the Democrats bill written with the White House is a massive government overreach that will punish Main Street, and cost jobs by stifling small businesses and entrepreneurs," he said.

The vote came after a public flaying of Goldman Sachs on Tuesday, when top company official -- including Fabrice Tourre, the one company employee named in a civil fraud lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission -- faced 11 hours of questioning and withering criticism during a committee hearing. Goldman officials, including the CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, denied wrongdoing, as did Tourre.

Two years after the near-collapse of the U.S. economy, Senate Democrats failed to muster votes to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster of proposed financial reform legislation on Monday, extending a partisan deadlock over banking regulations.

The 57-41 cloture vote means that the GOP successfully blocked the start of floor debate on the bill. That buys more time for Republicans, who continued to press for a bipartisan reboot of negotiations, but riskthe possibility of new public wrath  over Congressional inaction.

The fight over financial reform and the regulation of complex investment instruments that nearly caused the economy's collapse in 2008 has become the singular focus on Capitol Hill in the aftermath of the health care reform fight, temporarily pushing other pressing issues, such as immigration reform and climate change legislation, to the side. 

Just before 9 p.m., the bill's sponsor, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, took to the floor, saying that "if for some reason, Lord forbid, that a major financial institution were to begin to fail this evening, we are in no better shape that we were in fall of 2008," he said. 

"I don't know of a single member here who would want that to occur. That issue alone ought to cause every one of us to move to get to this debate," he said.

President Obama, in a statement, said he was "deeply disappointed" that Republicans blocked debate on the bill, saying that some GOP senators may use the delay to "take this debate behind closed doors where financial industry lobbyists can water down reform or kill it altogether."

"But the American people can’t afford that.  A lack of consumer protections and a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly brought our economy to its knees, and helped cause the pain that has left millions of Americans without jobs and without homes.  The reform that both parties have been working on for a year would prevent a crisis like this from happening again,” he said.

The Democrat's failure to advance the bill was not completely unexpected. On Sunday, Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, said Republicans and Democrats were "conceptually very, very close" and predicted that there would be a bill. But he said that Republicans were not ready to proceed on Monday. 

There was at least one surprise vote. Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, voted with Republicans to delay debate, saying in a statement that "I cannot support proceeding on a bill I haven't seen." In the same statement, he denounced Wall Street, saying his resistance stemmed from concerns that the bill would adversely affect "Main Street businesses."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, before the vote, insisted that Republicans want to "protect the taxpayer from those who would put them and our nation’s financial system at risk through recklessness, stupidity, greed, or some combination of the three." But he said the bill was rushed.

"It’s just this kind of rush that gets us a $13 trillion debt, a trillion dollars for turtle tunnels and sidewalks to nowhere, and a so-called health care reform bill, the primary effect of which, so far as I can tell, is higher taxes, higher premiums, and higher costs. Americans have been rushed by this Congress before. They’ve seen the results. They’re not going to be rushed again," he said.

Democrats took to the Senate floor in the aftermath of the vote, one after another delivering blistering denunciations of Republicans, accusing them blocking reform and backing Wall Street. "A vote against opening debate on holding Wall Street accountable is a vote to protect Wall Street," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat. "Unbelievable!" thundered Sen. Roland Burris of Illinois.

The vote stalling the bill will likely turn up the heat even higher on Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who was already expected to face withering criticism when he testifies on Tuesday in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Exhibit one at Tuesday's hearing will the SEC's civil complaint against Goldman Sachs alleging that the company misled investors by failing to disclosure the composition of one of its investment vehicles, called Abacus, which one major hedge fund had bet against -- in essence betting on the decline of the fund. 

Subcommittee Chairman Carl Levin released e-mail over the weekend that suggested that Goldman Sachs profited from the failure of the housing industry. Goldman forcefully denied that it had done so alleging, that the subcommittee "cherry-picked" e-mail to release from among millions of documents. 

In his  testimony prepared for Tuesday's hearing, Blankfein said that the day of the SEC complaint "was one of the worst days in my professional life," and denied that the firm profited from the collapse of the housing market.

"Goldman Sachs lost approximately $1.2 billion from our activities in the residential housing market," he wrote. "We didn’t have a massive short against the housing market and we certainly did not bet against our clients. Rather, we believe that we managed our risk as our shareholders and our regulators would expect."

Monday marks Patriots' Day, the anniversary of the shot heard round the world that commenced the Revolutionary War. It's also the anniversary of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a home-grown bomb plot that killed 168 people and was, until 2001, the nation's worst terrorist attack.

Events around the country commemorate the first, including the elaborate annual re-enactments  in Concord and Lexington. Few, if any, will celebrate the latter. Yet the two events, one an outbreak of violence that helped forge our country and the second a violent attack that helped unite it, come amid unprecedented distrust of the federal government, as well as competing notions of patriotism and federalism. 

 
 
 In Concord and Lexington, Minutemen and Red Coat re-enactors unleash volleys of thundering muskets fire along Battle Road.  There will also be plenty of firearms at a "Restore the Constitution" rally on the banks of the Potomac in Alexandria, Virginia, the closest spot to Washington where gun owners can openly carry guns. That event will follow rhetorical salvos from a gunless rally on the National Mall, not far from the Washington Monument.

Columnists and pundits have made much of the twin anniversaries, most notably MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who chose Monday to air McVeigh's jailhouse interviews. Much speculation, including from former President Bill Clinton, revolves around anxiety that the current anti-government rhetoric will spawn new Timothy McVeighs, whose views motivated his attack in Oklahoma City, and whose defense attorney noted in his opening statement of the trial that the attack took place on Patriots' Day.

The organizers of the Virginia "Restore the Constitution" rally, who posted Thomas Paine's words from Common Sense on the rally's Web site, angrily reject the notion that their event commemorates anything other than the original Patriots' Day, and complain of a "smear campaign" to discredit conservatives and link them to Oklahoma City.

"Maddow knows perfectly well that the horrendous mass murder by McVeigh fifteen years ago has nothing to do with why the organizers of either of these events picked that date, " Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, wrote. 

All the fulmination over Patriots' Day, stirred by the rising tide of the Tea Party, the open carry movement, and caustic critics of the Obama administration, probably won't yield much common ground about the meaning of anti-government sentiments. But there's certainly agreement that the country is aboil with frustration as well as anger.

On the eve of Patriots' Day, the Pew Center for People and the Press released a report illustrating unprecedented levels of dissatisfaction with the federal government, with just 22 percent saying that they trust the government. And perhaps most notably, the report found that among the most critical, anger and not simple frustration is at a high, with 43 percent of Republicans saying the federal government represents a "major threat" to their personal freedom and 57 percent of Tea Party sympathizers.

"We are at one of the all-time low points in the percentage of people saying you can trust government all or most of the time," Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut told NPR. The levels of displeasure were so high, Kohut said, that the center delayed their findings and conducted additional surveys to make sure their methodology wasn't flawed.

Amid a volatile clash of ideology over federalism, patriotism and the meaning of April 19, it's difficult to imagine that there will be many instructive lessons. But an upcoming political debate may be more informative: the battle over financial reform.

On its face, there's little resemblance between the emotion-laden rhetoric around the American Revolution and the upcoming battle over the arcana of reforming banks. But what's said in the heat of the enfolding fight on Capitol Hill, which may come to a climax this week with the introduction of financial reform legislation, will likely speak volumes about regulation and the role of the federal government.

First, a brief primer. At the root of the so-called Great Recession was an unregulated marketplace of securities based on mortgages. Banks bought and sold residential and commercial mortgages, bundled them up into securities, divided them into different slices, called "tranches" based on risk, and then marketed these financial instruments to investors. The entire system was predicated on the solidity of the housing market, with risk spread widely. 

But at the same time, mortgages themselves were becoming riskier and riskier, as banks gave mortgages to buyers with no money down and woefully inadequate incomes to support the payments. As mortgage holders began to default, investors began to lose their money, and the entire system collapsed, resulting in near-paralysis of the entire economy.

While perhaps not as vitriolic as the health care debate, the financial reform fight has been bruising, particularly over the question of whether taxpayers will be on the hook for future bailouts. Another major question is how to pay for failing institutions in the future: with a ready fund that critics say will encourage risky behavior, or with a rear-guard action after institutions fail?

As Democrats, Republicans and everyone else on Capitol Hill gear up for the looming fight, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges last week against Goldman Sachs, alleging that the company marketed an investment instrument called Abacus that was secretly set up to fail. A hedge fund that allegedly helped create the Abacus portfolio eventually made over a billion dollars while investors lost a billion, according to the complaint. Goldman Sachs calls the allegations "completely unfounded in law and fact."

The case provides ammunition for Democrats, including President Obama. He used his Saturday address to make the case for reform and warned of a repeat meltdown if Congress didn't act. He also pointedly criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the bill's most vociferous critics, essentially saying he was in the pocket of Wall Street exectuives. McConnell returned fire on Sunday, saying on CNN that the legislation was partisan and would result in perpetual bailouts -- a potent complaint among those who believe that the state is swallowing the public sector.

So as Patriots' Day starts the week with overheated questions about gun rights, federalism and overreaching government,  by week's end the public may be weighing a more measured question: what's the government's role in preventing another financial meltdown? Is it socialism or good governance to oversee reckless behavior in an unregulated trillion-dollar marketplace?

That's likely to be the real battle ahead. A word of advice for latter day Minutemen, on whatever side: Don't press send until you see the whites of their eyes.

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HOT TYPE Note: In hot metal typesetting, the "pig" was a long ingot of lead that hung into the vat of melted-down typeset called the hellbox. As new typeset was made, the level of molten lead in the hellbox fell, and the typesetter lowered the pig into the vat to bring the level back up. In my evolving Hot Type blog, the Monday Pig arrives at the beginning of the week, and the Friday Hellbox at the end. Out of heat and fire, the old becomes new.