The Daily Background

2008
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is expected to endorse Senator Hillary Clinton in her bid to replace President Bush today in a press conference at 12:30 EST.

In other 2008 news, Bill Richardson will appear on The Daily Show tonight.

That Iraq bill
The supplemental budget bill that passed through the Senate yesterday worth 122 billion dollars in “emergency” war funding that the President has requested (along with some domestic funding) will not go into conference committee until after Congress gets back from April break. I’m not 100% on this, but I think that may be in mid-April (16th? 17th?).

The final bill will pass through the Senate either today or Thursday. More on what happens next and the political impacts here. (And you can expect more of this until the President vetoes it.)

Foley
Brian Ross stayed up until 5AM last night finishing a Blotter item about how the state of Florida is considering filing criminal charges against ex-Congressman Mark Foley for engaging in explicit conversation online with former House pages.

Iraq
3,243 (3,242 yesterday). Also, Senators Webb and Hagel will introduce an Iraq bill either today or tomorrow which they are hyping and keeping super secret. Informed speculation suggests it may be similar to legislation Congressman Murtha has pushed in the House recently, related to training and equipping US troops. Webb also says he’s readying a bill related to Iran.

Also, also, CNN’s Michael Ware (probably one of the top 5 regular day-to-day journalists ever to cover Iraq in the past 4 years) has no idea what John McCain was talking about when he suggested it was safe to stroll around some neighborhoods of Baghdad.

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