From the Washington Post today:

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, flanked by fellow House leaders Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi, says Democrats are trying to repair the image of Congress.  

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to.

"I have bad news for you," Hoyer told reporters. "Those trips you had planned in January, forget 'em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th."
(snip)
For lawmakers, it is awful, compared with what they have come to expect. For much of this election year, the legislative week started late Tuesday and ended by Thursday afternoon -- and that was during the relatively few weeks the House wasn't in recess.

Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.

Browsing the news stories this morning I found the following headline on the front page of CNN.com.  

The headline, "Dems ready to work with GOP on 'middle class squeeze." clearly makes it sound as if the GOP is the party that wants to work on the "Middle Class Squeeze".  And the headline makes it sound as if the always congenial Democrats have agreed to work with the GOP on this issue.

Today, I get up and see headlines about a tornado touching down in North Carolina...and I can't help but wonder what those baptists would say if our situations were reversed.

Whether the Dixie Chicks recover their sales luster or not, the choice of single has turned their album release into a referendum. Taking the Long Way's existence is designed to thumb its nose at country's intolerance for ideological hell raising, and buying it or cursing it reveals something about you and your politics--or at least your ability to put a grudge above your listening pleasure. And however you vote, it's tough to deny that by gambling their careers, three Texas women have the biggest balls in American music.

This week the Chicks kick off a media 'blitz'.  They have a blogger travelling with them, and a special website on MSN.

Today the Sunday Edition of the LA Times has a good article beginning on the front page of the Calendar section.  

A few quotes from the LA Times article:

Some people have taken great exception when I have made a stand, while others have expressed appreciation.

One tactic used from time to time to try to quiet me has been to troll-rate 'batches' of comments I make.

But I can't freaking believe what I read on the front page of CNN.com just now...and really, little they say can surprise me anymore.  

Coretta Scott King, a hero of mine, stood up again and again and again and again for the rights of gays and lesbians.

From 1994:

I support this legislation because lesbian and gay people are a permanent part of the American workforce, who currently have no protection from the arbitrary abue of their rights on the job. For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law.

Those scheduled to attend include Marcos Barron, Julie Bergman Sender, Jeremy Bernard, David Bohnett, T Bone Burnett, John Duran, Alison Friedman, Rufus Gifford, Scott Hitt, Alan Gleitsman & Cheri Roche, Victoria Hopper, Callie Khouri, Lyn & Norman Lear, David Mixner, Sara Nichols, Alex De Ocampo, Skip Paul, Chris Price, Michele & Rob Reiner, Lynne Wasserman.  

It would be nice to see and chat with some attendees from Daily Kos!  

Guardsman wrote his obit before going to war.

It is an unwelcome, sorrowful number: 2,000. That is the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq. One of the faces behind that number is James Kinlow. During his 18 years in the Georgia National Guard, Kinlow settled into a peaceful, small-town life focused more on being a citizen than a soldier. Before he deployed to Iraq, he wrote his own obituary.

Evelyn Turner's partner died because he had lung cancer and they ran out of electricity and oxygen.  As if that wasn't enough, she was determined not to leave his body, and she had a hard time getting help in taking her husband to the hospital morgue.  

From the story:

Today, at the top of his page, is a link to one of Drudge's "gossipy" bits that he wrote himself.

The story is about Bush making reference to an annual party that is held in Galveston (near Houston) and in Austin, Texas.  

And if you were to make a few substitutions to the following, you might think you had read the following on KOS, written as a critique of our current administration:

What is it with this lady (and the media for that matter), that she can work up so many emotions for one brain-dead lady, while all of the other death and killing is going on in the world?  

Why isn't she at the pentagon protesting all of the soldiers being killed?  Why isn't she protesting all of the iraqis that have been and continue to be killed?  Why hasn't she protested our government actively torturing and killing people they have "in custody"?

And the tape on her mouth...wouldn't that more appropriately represent the Bush administrations' attempts to silence its critics?

Why isn't she protesting each and every time the death penalty is carried out and funded by the tax dollars she pays?

These creeps just won't stop amazing me at the audacity with which they manipulate their followers.

Get this from MSNBC today:

And this is a bit forboding:

The most pathetic thing about it is that you know that the idiots who voted for him will fall for his marketing of death.