Day: December 23, 2006

Congressman Nick Lampson, newly elected to the seat once held by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, underwent a procedure Friday to open up a partially blocked blood vessel, his spokeswoman said.

Doctors at Christus St. John Hospital in suburban Houston performed the angioplasty on the 61-year-old Lampson and placed a stent in the vessel.

Lampson was "conscious, alert and in good spirits throughout the procedure," spokeswoman Carrie Chess said in a statement. He was expected to be discharged Saturday.

Political advertising, the postelection sequel.

As Illinois Sen. Barack Obama ponders his future while vacationing in Hawaii for the holidays, a grassroots group of fans has a present waiting.

The group, Draftobama.org, plans to run a television ad on Christmas morning on Honolulu network stations to try to persuade Obama to run for president.

The ad, called "Believe Again," is a one-minute voice clip of Obama’s keynote speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention played as a montage of photographs scrolls across the screen.

"Stay the course," the phrase dropped by the Bush administration as it searched for a new policy in Iraq, was declared the catch phrase of the year on Thursday by language use group Global Language Monitor.

"It makes number one because it was declared inoperative," said Global Language monitor President Paul JJ Payack.

It took Defense Secretary Robert Gates just five days on the job and a whirlwind trip to Iraq to get to work mapping out a new course for the war.

Robert Gates (AP Photo) Read More » Liberal lawmakers look forward to new role December 23, 2006 There’s one certainty for the Capitol’s most liberal lawmakers now that Democrats will control Congress: They won’t have to meet in the basement anymore. "One time they put us in the most obscure, smallest meeting room in the farthest corner," Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio said of life for progressive Democrats under GOP control. Now, "we should be able to score a regular and accessible meeting place." That may be the easy part. Read More » White House played politics by editing article December 23, 2006 The White House demanded the excision of material for an article on Iranian-American relations for political — not security — reasons, two former government officials allege. The debate centers on an opinion piece that former National Security Council official Flynt Leverett and former Foreign Service officer Hillary Mann sought to publish in The New York Times. Following long-standing rules for former CIA employees like Leverett, they submitted the article to the CIA’s Publication Review Board to ensure it did not contain classified information. Read More » Bloody Christmas: Five more Americans die in Iraq December 23, 2006 With nine days to go, December has become the second deadliest month of 2006 for American soldiers in Iraq as Insurgent attacks killed five more troops west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. While President George W. Bush talks of sending more troops to Iraq and acknowledges that many more Americans will die in his failed war, the death toll continues to mount. Read More »