• Howard Dean will be at the Holiday Inn at 72nd & Grover today for an NDP event. A grassroots celebration starts at 6 P.M., $20 ticket price, $10 for college students, and free for high school students. Hope to see everyone there. BYEAAAH!
• How’s this for a campaign commercial? Adrian Smith hates your dog! Or is that too similar to this ugliness from 2005?
• Here’s a gem: Ken Svoboda says the Republican Party doesn’t do ugly attacks, and that he runs a positive campaign. For all the evidence you need to prove that Svoboda’s a liar, see the above item.
• Don’t Forget! NYD Convention this Saturday @ Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. The convention begins at 11 am, and carpools will depart from UNO on Saturday morning, e-mail unodemocrats@yahoo.com for more details.
• Remember Dave Hergert? Well, he’s in trouble again.
• Author Kurt Vonnegut died today at age 84. R.I.P.
• The Senate passed a stem cell research bill 63-34 today.
• That’s all for now, I’ll get back to full-blown rant mode next week.
• Oh, and, for those of you who are around me in the next few days, you’re probably going to wish that I’d shut up about King Felix. If you didn’t happen to catch tonight’s Red Sox-Mariners game, you missed one hell of a performance.

• REMINDER: Yellow Dog University is Saturday, March 31. The day begins at 9 am.
• The Senate could begin voting today on H.R. 1591, which passed the House of Representatives last week. Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), realizing that a filibuster would simply prevent funding for the war, said that the Republicans would not filibuster the bill, meaning a simple majority is required to pass through the Senate. John McCain will finally show up for a vote in an attempt to kill the withdrawal provisions in the bill. Ben Nelson and Chuck Hagel are two key swing votes. Both voted against a withdrawal measure a little over a week ago, but Nelson has pledged support for the Senate bill, and Hagel is teaming with Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) to add troop readiness provisions to the bill.
• UPDATE: The Senate defeated, 50-48, an amendment that would have removed the withdrawal language from their version of the bill. The Senate bill calls for a nonbinding date of March 31, 2008, rather than the hard September 2008 date in the House version. Ben Nelson and Chuck Hagel voted against the amendment, ensuring its defeat.
• An aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Monica Goodling, will invoke the fifth amendment in Senate hearings, citing self-incrimination. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ fired chief of staff, will testify on Thursday, and his testimony may contradict previous statements made by Gonzales to Congress. Gonzales is scheduled to testify on April 17.
• Glenn Greenwald with a couple of great posts about our media. Hopelessly out of touch with reality. Atrios chimes in with the important distinction between those who report the news (mostly print journalists) and those who report on the news (mostly television pundits).
• UPDATE II: We don’t pay much attention to politics across the river, but Iowa’s 5th Congressional District is represented by a certifiable wingnut named Steve King. It appears that he has his first challenger for 2008 (assuming that he doesn’t decide to challenge Tom Harkin for Senate), a Council Bluffs Democrat named Rob Hubler. I can’t find much on him. Even the prominent Iowa blogs haven’t heard of him. From what I can gather, though, his campaign looks amateur. Joyce Schulte ran against King in 2004 and 2006, losing both times. I’ve got to think that there’s an Iowa Democrat more qualified to face off against King. Mike Gronstal, for example, is the Senate Majority Leader from Council Bluffs. Obviously, he wouldn’t want to face an entrenched incumbent like King, but it suggests to me that there are western Iowa Democrats who could run a credible campaign against King.
• UPDATE III: The death penalty debate in the legislature may get another shot. Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha has proposed an amendment requiring juries to consider aggravating circumstances before imposing the death penalty. There will be a hearing on Friday, and if the proposal comes to the floor, it may have a better chance of passing than Chambers’ original bill, which called for the complete repeal of the death penalty. No telling what Heineman would do if the bill passed, but I’m guessing he’d veto it.
• UPDATE IV: LB 405, to add 2 city council districts to Omaha, advanced to Select File by a vote of 25-16 (6 present and 2 not voting). Debate was heated and contentious. The bill still needs to go through two more rounds of voting in order to pass.
• Don’t forget YDU on Saturday. A couple of other quick reminders:
  • Nebraska Young Democrats State Convention at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska April 14.
  • Young Democrats of America Spring National Conference at the Regency Marriott in Omaha, May 18-20.

Just a few mid-week updates. I probably won’t have a whole lot to say over the weekend - March Madness and St. Patrick’s Day - but if there’s anything particularly newsworthy, I’ll update this post.

• Don Walton on the media reaction to Hagel’s non-announcement.
• Happy Birthday to the New Nebraska Network. Kyle has an interview with Chris Beutler up right now. Check it out.
• Beutler’s showing strong fundraising numbers against his Republican opponent. He even got a contribution from Tom Osborne. Ken Svoboda’s biggest donor? You guessed it. $5,000 from Pete Ricketts. If you’re really interested, you can view the filings for Beutler and Svoboda at the NADC website.
• Dwite Pederson made LB 405 his priority bill, and Gwen Howard became a cosponsor of the bill. I’m in favor of anything that makes things more democratic (small ‘d’) in Omaha, and I think the arguments about minority representation on the council can be easily overcome. I’m hopeful that this bill passes. It’s good for Omaha. It’s good for Elkhorn. It’s good for everyone involved.
• Hagel goes in front of the IAFF (Firefighter’s union) today for a bipartisan cattle call. He’s the only unannounced Presidential candidate in the group. Rudy Giuliani was not invited. The firefighters hate Rudy.
• Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is in a lot of hot water over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys - including one who prosecuted Rep. Duke Cunningham - for seemingly political reasons. Talking Points Memo has been all over this story for a while now, and now Democrats in Congress, as well as the print and television media, are ramping up the pressure. Is this what accountability looks like?
• The Senate will debate the Democratic proposal to withdraw all troops by March 31, 2008. It likely will not pass, unless a few Republicans grow a conscience (or remember that they are up for reelection in 2008).
• UPDATE: The New York Times is opening up its subscription wall to college students and professors. If you have a valid university e-mail address, you can access TimesSelect for free. (h/t Eschaton). (Just a tip: check your spam filter. UNO especially blocks just about any e-mail that comes from an outside address).
• UPDATE II: It was easy to miss this one from yesterday. The 9/11 Commission Act passed the Senate yesterday by a vote of 60-38. Chuck Hagel was among the 38 Republicans who voted against the bill.

That’s all for now. Enjoy the rest of your break, and be sure to show up Monday for Mike Fahey!