Need to teach tolerance at your workplace? Try Diversity Beans! What the hell are those, you ask? We’ll let Jelly the Pan-African Bean explain:

What kind of horrible corporate hell of a workplace would order a bunch of gelatinous orbs to impart an idiotic lesson in dimestore multiculturalism? Why, your Department of the Interior, of course, who (according to an adamantly intolerant source close to a DoI employee) will soon be foisting the Diversity Bean upon employees at your expense ($6/lb of beans, $10/lesson plan, $17.50/candy jar, etc.). MORE »

• Bush, “in an unusual admission,” says he regrets using the phrases “bring it on” and “dead or alive”; joint press conference with Blair has “contrite tone” because “both leaders have reached the lowest point of their careers.” [WP, WP, NYT, NYT]
• Bush orders documents seized in raid of Rep. William Jefferson’s office to be sealed for 45 days. [WP, NYT, W$J, LAT, USAT]
• Senate approves immigration legislation by vote of 62 to 36 but the next steps are “enormously difficult.” [WP, NYT, W$J, LAT, USAT]
• John Snow has told the White House he is resigning; Don Evans and Carlos Gutierrez are among those mentioned as replacements. [WP, NYT, W$J]
• Military investigation reportedly concludes that a group of marines “carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians” in Iraq. [NYT]
• ABC News stands by its story about Speaker Hastert. Reporter Brian Ross: “There may be a semantics issue here as to what constitutes being under investigation.” [WP]

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* Help out New Orleans without the promise of beads, booze, or breasts. [DailyKos]
* Futility, by any other name, would smell just as promising. [QandO]
* Amnesty International USA kicks off its annual conference today in Portland. All races and religions welcome; must appear overworked, underpaid, and fantastically smug. [HuffPo]
* The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is pretty [ripe for some drillin']. [skippy]
* Let’s just privatize the whole war in Iraq and be done with it. [Pacific Views]

Here’s what our Anonymous Hill Staffer had to say when he sent this one in: “I’d just like to point out that I started these sober, but finished them drunk (as we’ve been drinking in the office for the last two hours).” Looks like someone stopped by Schneider

Despite our fervent hopes, a day of Senate showdowns ended last night without any casualties being reported. While bereft of the trappings of parliamentary authority, the Senate Democrats successfully deployed one of their rhyming couplets to earn barely-bipartisan support for a filibuster, later reaching a compromise with Majority Leader Bill Frist by agreeing to “extend it, not end it” for six months rather than three. Proving once again, no one can kick the cans of national importance down the road quite like your elected officials.

Both sides, naturally, claimed victory. And why shouldn’t they? After all, the six month extension all but guarantees that the Patriot Act can be used for its primary purpose as an election year attack-ad bludgeon.

The Patriot Act originally passed the Senate on a 99-1 vote at a moment in American History where politicians were jockeying for an opportunity to sodomize the Statue of Liberty to better prove their undying patriotism.

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• Senate votes to extend the Patriot Act for six months. [WP, NYT]
• Senate approves $40b in budget cuts with Cheney casting tie-breaking vote; two Republicans and 42 Democrats block plan for drilling in ANWR with filibuster. Sen. John Kerry: “I’m confident we will see another debate on ANWR.” [WP, WP, WP, WP, NYT, LAT, USAT]
• FISA judges request briefing on eavesdropping program. [WP]
• Jack Abramoff inches closer to a plea deal. [NYT, LAT]
• Bush reaches out to black critics, suggesting “that the White House has not abandoned its political goal of trying to draw black voters from Democratic ranks”; Donna Brazile speaks highly of the president’s efforts. [NYT]
• Eavesdropping program is unlikely to be challenged in court because of its secrecy. [USAT]

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• FISA judge resigns to protest warrant-less eavesdropping. [WP]
• Eavesdropping program accidentally captured purely domestic calls, officials admit. [NYT]
• Secretly briefing 14 lawmakers about the eavesdropping program may not have been enough legally, officials contend. [NYT, LAT]
• Congressional inquiries “blamed interagency communication breakdowns

• Bush defends eavesdropping program but offers no details: “This is a different era, a different war.” [WP, WP, NYT, USAT, USAT]
• House approves $39.7b in cuts and drilling of ANWR; showdown expected in the Senate. Sen. Kerry: “Let’s be very clear about what’s happening here. Republicans — Senator Stevens in particular — are putting oil companies ahead of our troops.” [WP, WP, WP, NYT, USAT, LAT]
• Approval of Bush rebounds to 47% in WP-ABC poll: “His approval rating on Iraq jumped 10 percentage points since early November, to 46 percent, while his rating on the economy rose 11 points, to 47 percent. A clear majority, 56 percent, said they approve of the way Bush is handling the fight against terrorism.” [WP]
• Bush ” apparently decided that a passionate offense was his best defense”; his mood “was casual and crisp.” [WP]
• ACLU claims the FBI has wrongly monitored antiwar, environmental, and civil rights groups; FBI used secret informants to track PETA for years. [NYT, WP]
• Sen. Rockefeller penned hand-written note to Cheney about civil liberties concerns over eavesdropping. [WP]
• Force reductions expected in Iraq, Afghanistan. [WP, NYT]

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• House votes 308 to 122 on symbolic measure to ban torture and limit interrogation measures. [WP, NYT, LAT]
• Bush’s recent speeches on Iraq show “a determined effort to reshape the angry debate at home over the war” by “presenting a more sober picture of the situation while highlighting the progress”; the wording is “carefully calibrated” to provide “maximum flexibility in determining ultimately just what will constitute victory.” Senior official: “It’s not as if we have a secret ersatz timetable and we just won’t say what it is.”
[WP, NYT, NYT, WSJ, USAT]
• House approves renewal of the Patriot Act by vote of 251 to 174; Democrats may filibuster in the Senate. [WP, NYT, LAT, WT, USAT]
• Republicans losing ground among key senior citizen voting bloc. NBC/WSJ poll: “By a 65%-19% margin, Americans age 65 and above disapprove of the performance of Congress” and “say by 47%-37% that they want Democrats rather than Republicans to win control of Capitol Hill.” [WSJ]
• Senate expected to require the administration to reveal specifics about secret overseas prisons. [NYT]
• Robert Novak: “I’m confident the president knows who the source is. I’d be amazed if he doesn’t.” [WP]

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• Supreme Court agrees to review Texas redistricting; Justices may want to impose new guidelines. [WP, LAT, NYT, WSJ, USAT]
• Bush says 30,000 Iraqis have died in the war. Bush: “Knowing what I know today, I’d make the decision again. . . The long run in this war is going to require a change in governments in parts of the world.” [WP, NYT, USAT, WT]
• Bush is “confident” that a deal can be reached with Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) regarding the treatment of detainees. [NYT]
• Bush says race was not a determining factor in the government’s response to Katrina. [NYT]
• Federal budget deficit hit a record-high for November, up 43% from last year. [WSJ]

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• Approval of Bush slips to 37%, a new low in WSJ/NBC polling; 79% believe the leak investigation is “a serious matter” and a majority say Bush “deliberately misled people” to war. [WSJ]
• House Republicans scrap ANWR drilling to ensure passage of budget. Schumer: “If you are a moderate Republican, you are starting to say, ‘I am not going to follow George Bush over the cliff.’” [WP, NYT]
• Republicans fear implications of Tuesday’s elections; Democrats have their own lessons to learn. Pollster: “The waning of enthusiasm for Bush and his presidency is national.” [LAT, WP, WT]
• Senators press top oil executives about their profits; “if the hearing had an air of the theater, the public resentment articulated by the senators was real.” Milbank: “[I]nstead of calling oil executives on the carpet yesterday, senators gave them the red-carpet treatment.” [WP, NYT, WSJ, USAT, WT]
• Bush splits with Republicans over ban of abusive treatment of detainees. [USAT]
• Judith Miller leaves The New York Times. [WP, WP, NYT]
• Chalabi denies misleading the U.S. and offers to testify before Congress. [USAT, WP]
• Senate Judiciary Committee considers televising Supreme Court proceedings. [LAT]

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