From NBC's Libby Leist

Secretary of State Clinton will dive into diplomacy for the first time tomorrow as British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and German Foreign Minister Steinmeier come to town for meetings.

Miliband is first on her schedule in the morning (at 10:30 a.m. ET) and then she will have lunch with Steinmeier (at 12:30 p.m. ET).

State Department officials expect Iran to be a heavy focus of the discussions.

Clinton's meetings with Miliband and Steinmeier come the day before representatives of the so-called "P5 plus one" (U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China) meet in Berlin on Wednesday. The U.S. will be represented there by William Burns, the third-ranking official at State.

The group is meeting for the first time since Obama was elected to discuss how to move forward in their efforts to stop Iran's nuclear enrichment. Until now, the carrots-and-sticks approach of economic and political incentives -- combined with UN sanctions -- has not worked.

Also on the agenda with Miliband and Steinmeier: Afghanistan. A day after Obama told NBC that there will be no "Jeffersonian democracy" there, Clinton will discuss how the U.S. and Europe can work together to stabilize the country.

From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube
The Pentagon's semi-annual report on Afghanistan, which shows a sharp increase violence in Afghanistan, will be released at 1 p.m. ET today.

The report primarily covers events through Aug. 28th of 2008, but will include some update numbers through the end of the year.

Video: A suicide bomber dressed as an officer kills 21 people at a police training facility in southern Afghanistan on Monday.

Below is the most recent report from military commanders in Afghanistan obtained by NBC News nearly two weeks ago, which may be more complete than today's formal Pentagon report.

A startling new report from U.S. and NATO forces obtained by NBC NEWS shows that overall violence in Afghanistan has not only skyrocketed but the enemy attacks have become more deadly.

U.S. and coalition deaths were up 35%; Afghan civilians deaths were up by 46%.

The report, which has not been publicly released, shows that violent attacks against all targets in Afghanistan jumped 33% in 2008. IED attacks for the year not only jumped in number but also proved to be more lethal. While IED attacks were up 27% -- the number killed by the roadside bombs went even higher, up 29%. Last July alone there were more than 400 IED attacks.

The number of attacks against Afghan government targets, police, army and government facilities was up a staggering 119%. Afghan police were the most vulnerable to attack -- 60 percent of all security forces, including Americans, killed last year were Afghan police.

Kidnappings and assassinations of government officials and civilians alike were 50% higher.

The report blames the increase in attacks on more sophisticated military operations by enemy insurgents, and the enemy's continued use of safe havens in Pakistan.

From NBC's Mark Murray
With zero House Republicans voting last week for Obama's stimulus and with attention now focused on just how Senate Republicans might support the legislation, it's worth asking if the media and political observers have misunderstood Obama's bipartisan (or post-partisan) message.

According to his words on the campaign trail, Obama's ultimate goal isn't to win over X number of Republicans -- although that would be a nice byproduct -- but rather to change the tone of the debate.

As the Washington Post notes, "To Obama ... fixing 'broken politics' is less about making concessions just for the sake of finding common ground and more about elevating the debate -- replacing cynical gamesmanship and immature name-calling with intellectually honest arguments and respect for the other side's motives."

In fact, here's what Obama said when he announced his presidential candidacy in Springfield, IL: "It was here [in Springfield] we learned to disagree without being disagreeable - that it's possible to compromise so long as you know those principles that can never be compromised; and that so long as we're willing to listen to each other, we can assume the best in people instead of the worst."

More: "What's stopped us from meeting these challenges is not the absence of sound policies and sensible plans. What's stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems."

And here's Obama at his famous Iowa Jefferson-Jackson speech: "I don't want to spend the next year or the next four years re-fighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s. I don't want to pit Red America against Blue America, I want to be the president of the United States of America."

From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** Groundhog Day? Pardon the ubiquitous movie reference, but with the Senate today beginning debate on the economic stimulus, with Obama meeting with congressional leaders this afternoon to discuss the legislation, and with Obama trying to grab as many Republican supporters as he can -- even though we all know it's going to pass anyway -- it seems like Groundhog Day, doesn't it? (Speaking of, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, which means we can expect six more weeks of winter.) In an interview before yesterday's Super Bowl, Obama told NBC's Matt Lauer that he's confident Republicans will vote for the eventual stimulus legislation. "I am confident that by the time we actually have the final package on the floor that we are gonna see substantial support," he said. "And people are gonna say this is a serious effort. It has no earmarks. We're gonna be trimming up -- things that are not relevant to putting people back to work right now." More Groundhog Day: This could be the week we hear more about what the administration is going to ask for regarding the bank rescue.

Video: Obama discusses his views on Republican support (or lack thereof) for his stimulus plan.

*** Driving Mr. Daschle: Here's even more Groundhog Day: We have yet another Obama cabinet member facing tax problems. Today, Tom Daschle, who is Obama's pick to lead HHS and serve as the administration's health-care czar, heads to Capitol Hill to meet with senators to discuss his failure to pay taxes, including $128,000 for a car and driver that he was given. Daschle has sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee apologizing for his tax issues, NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports. "I am deeply embarrassed and disappointed by the errors that required me to amend my tax returns. I apologize for the errors and profoundly regret that you have had to devote time to them." A few other things worth pointing out here:
-- Daschle played a key role for Obama in the Democratic primary, especially in helping Obama secure crucial superdelegate endorsements, so expect the Obama administration to give Daschle plenty of running room. Obama will never force Daschle to withdraw his nomination, but is Obama putting loyalty above his stated principles?
-- Because he's a former senator, Daschle probably gets confirmed by his ex-colleagues. If he weren't an ex-senator, his nomination would probably be dead right now.
-- This will bring more attention -- see today's New York Times -- to the ridiculous amounts of money that ex-members of Congress make, even if they don't TECHNICALLY register to lobby. We're curious: Why else was a law firm paying Daschle $2 million if it wasn't to influence Congress or at least advise folks on HOW to influence Congress?
-- The Rule of Three will now kick in: No other Obama appointee who has a tax problem will survive, period.

Video: Chuck Todd discusses the potential hit that reports of Tom Daschle's unpaid taxes may have on the Obama administration's image.

*** Say goodbye to 60? Within the next couple of days (though we hear it probably WON'T be today), Obama is expected to name New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg (R) to be his Commerce secretary.

 Not only would Gregg become the third Republican to serve in Obama's cabinet, it more importantly could also put Democrats one step closer to achieving a filibuster-proof 60 Senate seats, given that Democratic Gov. John Lynch gets to appoint Gregg's replacement. Well, not so fast on that 60 number... Two sources in the know tell First Read that J. Bonnie Newman, a centrist Republican with ties to Gregg, is the leading candidate to replace the GOP senator. Our understanding is that she'd serve as a placeholder until Gregg's term expires next year. This news has to infuriate Democrats, who might have seen Obama's courtship of Gregg as the ultimate way to get even with recalcitrant Republicans -- pluck one of their own to get to 60. By picking Newman, Lynch will certainly receive plenty of pressure from the left. But this is probably about him not having to take sides early in a Dem primary; it's actually (secretly) what many a governor wants in these situations.

*** The most exclusive club in the world -- that fewer want to belong to: If Gregg becomes Obama's Commerce secretary, he would become the ninth U.S. senator in the last couple of months to leave the Senate. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are now president and vice president; Hillary Clinton and Ken Salazar have joined Obama's cabinet; and Kit Bond, Sam Brownback, Mel Martinez, and George Voinovich have announced they won't be seeking another term in 2010. And that list doesn't count other potential retirees like Jim Bunning, Chuck Grassley, and Kay Bailey Hutchison. What's going on here? Well, some of the exodus has to do with a brand-new administration, plus the fact that some Republicans simply don't want to run for re-election in what might be a challenging environment for them. But it also reflects that some of its members with past executive experience -- Martinez and Salazar are two names that come to mind -- don't find working in legislative body as fulfilling as they thought it would be. That's probably the reason why former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush decided not to run for the Senate. 

*** The carrot and the stick: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee says it will be running radio ads in 28 GOP districts to hit Republicans for not supporting the stimulus last week. One of the ads: "Did you know Congressman Christopher Lee voted against economic recovery to immediately create and save over 390,000 New York jobs? Times are tough, tell Christopher Lee to put families before politics." But what took the DCCC so long to begin ramping up pressure on House Republicans who voted against the economic stimulus? Did the White House ask them not to, or did the White House (whose chief of staff is you-know-who) wonder himself why it was taking the House Dems so long to use everything in their arsenal?

*** Hold(er) on now: It's a busy day in the Senate. In addition to the work on the stimulus and the meeting with Daschle, the Senate today will vote on Eric Holder's nomination to be attorney general. Besides Holder, the remaining Obama cabinet picks yet to be confirmed: Daschle (HHS), Solis (Labor), Kirk (USTR).

*** Super Bowl tidbits: Per NBC's Savannah Guthrie, Obama called Steelers owner Dan Rooney, coach Mike Tomlin, and QB Ben Roethlisberger after the Steelers' victory last night. Obama invited the team to the White House at some future undetermined date. Also at his Super Bowl party hot dogs and pizza were served, and Obama had friends over (Marty Nesbitt, for example), in addition to the members of Congress who were in attendance.

Countdown to NJ GOP primary: 120 days
Countdown to VA Dem primary: 127 days
Countdown to Election Day 2009: 274 days
Countdown to Election Day 2010: 638 days

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Just how could the package change, beginning today in the Senate? The Washington Post: "[S]enators in both parties hope to alter the legislation, focusing on easing the housing crisis, increasing infrastructure spending and cutting taxes on corporations. If many of these changes are accepted in the Senate, which hopes to finish voting on the plan by Friday, it could complicate the effort to work out differences between the two bills. It could also drive the overall cost of the legislation, which was $819 billion in the House version and is $887 billion in the Senate plan, much closer to the politically shaky $1 trillion mark."

More: "The largest difference between the two measures is the Senate's inclusion of a tax break to prevent upper-middle-income families from slipping into the alternative minimum tax, which was created 40 years ago to make sure that the nation's wealthiest families were not able to shield their earnings from the Internal Revenue Service. That tax break added $70 billion to the Senate price tag, and House leaders are likely to accept it in the final draft despite conservative Democrats' concerns about the cost of a provision that lawmakers patch up every fiscal year without addressing the long-term consequences."

The New York Times covers NBC's pre-Super Bowl interview with Obama and notes how the president won't deal with the details publicly of how he'd like the package to change. "The president was not specific about what provisions he might remove from the stimulus package to entice Republicans to sign on. He prodded House Democrats to remove $200 million to spruce up the Mall in Washington and millions of dollars for family planning programs that Republicans said would finance contraceptives, but those moves did not result in bipartisan support when the House voted on the plan last week."

In its write-up of the DCCC radio ads, The Hill says the Democratic committee "is going after 28 Republicans who voted against the House stimulus package with an advertising and grassroots campaign. The 'Families First' campaign accuses Republicans of putting the needs of banks before the needs of struggling families. It also goes after a handful of Republicans for voting against the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill."

As for Tom Daschle… He's "expected to answer questions Monday from members of the Senate Finance Committee, which has reported that Daschle recently filed amended tax returns to reflect $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest. Also, the financial disclosure form Daschle filed about a week ago shows that he made more than $200,000 in the past two years speaking to members of the industry that President Barack Obama wants him to reform."

The New York Times adds that the discovery about Daschle "offers a new window into how Washington works. It shows how in just four years an influential former senator was able to make $5 million and live a lavish lifestyle by dint of his name, connections and knowledge of the town's inner workings."

And this is what could catch fire with the electorate if senators decide not to protect one of their own and begin to show exactly how easy it is for ex-lawmakers to make money when they leave office.

The New York Times takes a look at the difficulty of valuing the bad assets. "Administration and Congressional officials say it will give the government flexibility to buy some bad assets and guarantee others in an effort to have a broad impact but still tailor the aid for different institutions. But getting this right will not be easy. The wild variations on the value of many bad bank assets can be seen by looking at one mortgage-backed bond recently analyzed by a division of Standard & Poor's, the credit rating agency."

"The financial institution that owns the bond calculates the value at 97 cents on the dollar, or a mere 3 percent loss. But S.& P. estimates it is  worth 87 cents, based on the current loan-default rate, and could be worth 53 cents under a bleaker situation that contemplates a doubling of  defaults. But even that might be optimistic, because the bond traded recently for just 38 cents on the dollar, reflecting the even gloomier outlook of investors."

In his interview on TODAY, Obama stopped short of unveiling a so-called "bad bank," but he hinted that something is going to happen that includes both buying up some toxic assets, as well as making banks write down some of those bad assets.

The Wall Street Journal has a good piece about the staffing of the TARP at the Treasury Department, and how the staffers are coming from some of the failed institutions.

Another bailout PR problem? "Even as the economy collapsed last year and many financial workers found themselves unemployed, the dozen U.S. banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages requested visas for tens of thousands of foreign workers to fill high-paying jobs, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications. The major banks, which have received $150 billion in bailout funds, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households."

Do folks realize that in the midst of this new financial bailout package, as well as the stimulus, that the Obama administration is also working on a new budget?

The Washington Post writes, "After a week of legislative successes for President Obama, Republicans seized on one asterisk: his inability to line up support from their ranks. As he heads into his second full week in office, members of both parties are waiting to see whether he will regard this as the failure that some have made it out to be -- and how much he is willing to alter his approach if he does."

Yet the paper makes this important point: "To Obama … fixing 'broken politics' is less about making concessions just for the sake of finding common ground and more about elevating the debate -- replacing cynical gamesmanship and immature name-calling with intellectually honest arguments and respect for the other side's motives. In his book 'The Audacity of Hope,' Obama waxes nostalgic about the fellowship and vigorous debate of Congress's halcyon days in the mid-20th century more than about the centrist deals the era produced."

More: "Obama's bipartisanship 'was as much about style, collegiality and civilness as it was actual movement on issues,' said state Sen. Kirk W. Dillard, who was Obama's closest Republican ally in the Illinois legislature. Obama did compromise on major bills on ethics and the death penalty as a state senator, but there were limits, Dillard said: 'He always listened to the other side and would move to some degree, but his bipartisanship was clearly about the tone and the way you treat one another . . . and trying to understand the other side -- and not necessarily all about caving in.'" 

E.J. Dionne says that Obama's "quest for a new tone in Washington also has a practical motive. He believes that economic recovery is about psychology as well as money and that Americans will have more confidence in the future if they see the nation's politicians cooperating to resolve the crisis. This may be true, but it creates a problem. If achieving bipartisanship takes priority over the actual content of policy, Republicans are handed a powerful weapon. In theory, they can keep moving the bipartisan bar indefinitely. And each concession to their sensibilities threatens the solidarity in the president's own camp."

Meanwhile, Judd Gregg as Commerce secretary looks like a done deal, but the formal announcement could come tomorrow, not today.

Gregg "has assured Senate colleagues that he would be replaced by a person aligned with Republicans even though the appointment would be made by the state's Democratic governor, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday."

The leading candidate to replace Gregg: J. Bonnie Newman, a Republican who was once Gregg's chief of staff.

CALIFORNIA: Or is it Back to the Future? Jerry Brown could be running his 12th campaign for office in 2010 -- and his third for governor. 

FLORIDA: So who leaves a job as a congressman to seek a state agriculture commissioner job? Someone who wants to be governor perhaps… "Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.) will not seek reelection in 2010 and is poised to launch a bid for Florida agriculture commissioner, a move that a GOP official said is a precursor to a run for governor… A Republican official with close ties to Putnam said that, in Florida, the agriculture commissioner is a highly coveted job and is often seen as a stepping-stone to the governor's office. 'It's the equivalent of what on a national stage would be a Secretary of State position,' the official said."
 
NEW YORK: "Democratic leaders in upstate New York have selected venture capitalist Scott Murphy as their nominee to replace newly appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in the upcoming special election." He will "square off against state Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R) in what is likely to be a highly competitive race." 
 
"The House Democratic leadership is prepared to let Gov. Paterson take the fall if newly minted Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's former upstate district winds up back in Republican hands," the New York Daily News reports. Republicans have a 70,000-voter registration advantage in NY-20. " 'Nobody in Washington is pleased we have to fight a special election in New York,' a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee official said. 'They presented us with a huge problem: a special in one of the worst Democratic-performing districts in America teed up three days after Barack Obama is inaugurated… There is a sense that the New York Democrats created the mess -- they need to clean it up and pay for the cleaning.'"

From NBC's Abby Livingston
Times have changed for former Sen. Tom Daschle.

Daschle has been thrown into the second fight for his political life with the revelation that he has unpaid taxes -- totaling more than $100,000 -- including those on a driver who chauffeured the Health and Human Services nominee for personal business.

His image, however, was very different a generation ago. According to Jon K. Lauck's 2007 book "Daschle vs. Thune," when Daschle was a member of the House of Representatives, his media advisor, Karl Struble was quoted, discussing an ad campaign when Daschle was a member of the House.

"Daschle driving around Washington in his old, smoke-belching Pontiac," Struble said. "No BMW for Daschle; he was an ordinary guy."

From NBC's Chuck Todd and Domenico Montanaro
J. Bonnie Newman, a Republican with ties to current Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), is the "leading candidate" to replace Gregg as U.S. Senator from New Hampshire -- if Gregg is named Commerce Secretary, according to two sources in the know.

The word is that she may pledge not to run again.

Newman bio info:
-- Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

-- The Boston Globe: "Newman served as assistant secretary of Commerce for economic development in the Reagan administration. She was in charge of administrative operations for the George H.W. Bush White House. She was chief of staff to Gregg when he was a congressman in the 1980s, and she was one of the first Republicans to publicly endorse Lynch in his 2004 challenge of then-Republican Governor Craig Benson, and co-chaired Republicans for Lynch. She has held a number of high-profile positions in higher education, including several important posts at the University of New Hampshire (including interim president) and executive dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She has also led the New Hampshire Business and Industry Association."

-- Announcement when named interim president of the University of New Hampshire in 2006.