WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday voted unanimously to postpone the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting by four months to June 12 — setting the stage for Congress to pass the proposal as early as Tuesday.

Monday’s Senate vote is a big victory for the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress, who have been pushing for a delay amid growing concerns that too many Americans won’t be ready for the currently scheduled Feb. 17 changeover.

The Nielsen Co. estimates that more than 6.5 million U.S. households that rely on analog television sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals could see their TV sets go dark next month if the transition is not postponed.

“Delaying the upcoming DTV switch is the right thing to do,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., author of the bill to push back the deadline. “I firmly believe that our nation is not yet ready to make this transition at this time.”

The issue now goes to the House, where Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has vowed to work with House leaders to bring Rockefeller’s bill up for a floor vote on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama earlier this month called for the transition date to be postponed after the Commerce Department hit a $1.34 billion funding limit for government coupons that consumers may use to help pay for digital TV converter boxes. The boxes, which generally cost between $40 and $80 each and can be purchased without a coupon, translate digital signals back into analog ones for older TVs.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the arm of the Commerce Department administering the program, is now sending out new coupons only as older, unredeemed ones expire and free up more money. The NTIA had nearly 2.6 million coupon requests on a waiting list as of last Wednesday.

Jonathan Collegio, vice president for the digital television transition for the National Association of Broadcasters, argues that the Nielsen numbers may overstate the number of viewers who are not ready for the digital transition. He noted that the numbers exclude consumers who have already purchased a converter box but not yet installed it, as well as those who have requested coupons but not yet received them.

What’s more, consumers who subscribe to cable or satellite TV service or who own a TV with a digital tuner will not lose reception.

Still Gene Kimmelman, vice president for federal policy at Consumers Union, argues that millions of Americans — particularly low-income and elderly viewers — will pay the price because “the government has failed to deliver the converter boxes these people deserve just to keep watching free, over-the-air broadcast signals.”

In 2005, Congress required broadcasters to switch from analog to digital signals, which are more efficient, to free up valuable chunks of wireless spectrum to be used for commercial wireless services and interoperable emergency-response networks.

Republicans in both the House and Senate have raised concerns that a delay would confuse consumers, burden wireless companies and public safety agencies waiting for the airwaves that will be vacated and create added costs for television stations that would have to continue broadcasting both analog and digital signals.

Paula Kerger, president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service, estimates that delaying the digital TV transition to June 12 would cost public broadcasters $22 million.

But Rockefeller managed to ease some of these concerns by allowing broadcast stations to make the switch from analog to digital signals sooner than the June deadline if they choose and by permitting public safety agencies to take over vacant spectrum that has been promised to them as soon as it becomes available.

There recently was the death of a 98-year-old lady named Irena Sendler.
During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an ulterior motive …

She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews, (being German). Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she also carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

She was caught, and the Nazi’s broke both her legs and arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family.

Most, of course, had been gassed.

Those kids she helped were placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize …

She LOST.

Al Gore won for doing a slide show on Global Warming.

An demonstrator shouts at a group of Jews to 'go back to the oven' at a Gaza protest in Fort Lauderdale. Protest organizers accused supporters of Israel of being 'barbaric' terrorists.

Like many other protests of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, this one ended badly — police had to cool an ugly fight between supporters of Israel and Gaza, breaking up the warring sides as their screaming and chanting threatened to turn into something worse.

But some protesters at this rally in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., took their rhetoric a step further, calling for the extermination of Israel — and of Jews.

Separated by battle lines and a stream of rush-hour traffic outside a federal courthouse last week, at least 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators faced off against a smaller crowd of Israel supporters.

Most of the chants were run-of-the-mill; men and women waving Palestinian flags called Israel’s invasion of Gaza a “crime,” while the pro-Israel group carried signs calling the Hamas-run territory a “terror state.”

But as the protest continued and crowds grew, one woman in a hijab began to shout curses and slurs that shocked Jewish activists in the city, which has a sizable Jewish population.

“Go back to the oven,” she shouted, calling for the counter-protesters to die in the manner that the Nazis used to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.

“You need a big oven, that’s what you need,” she yelled.

• Click here to see video from the protest.

Millions of Jews were gassed and burned in crematoria throughout Europe during Adolf Hitler’s rule of Germany. The protest organizers, asked to comment on the woman’s overt call for Jewish extermination, said she was “insensitive” but refused to condemn her statement.

“She does not represent the opinions of the vast majority of people who were there,” said Emmanuel Lopez, who helped plan the event, one of many sponsored nationwide on Dec. 30 by the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism ) Coalition.

Lopez, a state coordinator for ANSWER, admitted there is a problem with anti-Semitism within his organization’s ranks. But then he went on to call the supporters of Israel across the street “barbaric, racist” Zionist terrorists.

“Zionism in general is a barbaric, racist movement that really is the cause of the situation in the entire Middle East,” Lopez said.

The unidentified woman, who protest organizers said was a Muslim, wasn’t the only protester who raised hackles that day. Other demonstrators held signs that said “Nuke Israel,” and a number made comparisons to the Holocaust, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

More than 670 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, have been killed in the 12 days of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. At least 30 were killed Tuesday by Israeli shelling of a U.N. school that had been housing refugees. (Israel said its forces fired at militants who launched mortars from that location.)

“This is absolutely inhumane,” said Ahmed Suid, who attended the demonstration, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “This is a modern-day Holocaust.”

The comparisons of the Israelis to the Nazis has Jewish organizations concerned about a “growing trend” at protests in America, where they say hatred of Israel and Jews is being increasingly preached.

“We’re worried about hate speech. We’re worried because hate speech eventually leads to pain and suffering and death,” said Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, which has been tracking Gaza protests.

“Comparisons of Israel to the Nazis are a deeply cynical perversion of history, an attempt to turn the tragedy that befell the Jewish people into a bludgeon against Israel,” he said.

Even though police had to intercede and break up a potentially violent confrontation between the two factions at the Fort Lauderdale protest, organizers called it a success, saying it drew crowds of new activists.

“It was not just an academic exercise . . . not just a protest,” Lopez told FOXNews.com. “It’s a material force.”