One Tough Grandma is about to say something

... about her 2006 plans.

Lots of other bloggers are reporting and speculating on this rumor/news.

Here's my take:

1. This has to chap Kay Bailey's ass. Now she has to a) announce her own intentions sooner than she planned in order to avoid being left in the starting gate, or b) continue shilly-shallying and risk looking indecisive.

2. Rick Perry's going to have his hide torn off between now and next spring. And he'll have to spend millions of dollars to try and lock down the nomination, money he could have saved for autumn, 2006.

3. It makes a Kinky candidacy either less likely or more formidable, depending on your POV. Friedman needs something like 50,000* signatures of registered voters who can't have voted in either primary next May, and he has a small window after those primaries to gather them. So if he can get on the ballot -- a tall task, considering how many people will be drawn to a GOP primary with Perry and Hutchison and Strayhorn and a Dem primary with possibly Chris Bell and maybe John Sharp -- he stands a reasonable chance of drawing off that 15 or perhaps 20% of general election votes, giving him kingmaker status.

Dammit, I've got to get to Costco for a case of Orville Redenbacher's ...

*Update: An e-mail to me corrects the numbers of signatures required for an independent candidacy to between 45,000 and 50,000. Holy shit.

Tomorrow's going to be a bad day for the Bush administration

Tomorrow morning, Rep. Walter Jones will announce, along with Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, the bipartisan legislation that will call on President Bush to "to set a plan for beginning the phase-out of US troops in Iraq." They might be joined by another conservative Republican, John Duncan of Tennessee, who yesterday called for an end to "a totally unnecessary war".

(The legislation itself sounds kinda mealy-mouthed to me, but it's a long way from where we -- that would be us as well as "Congressman Freedom Fries" -- were just a few months ago. )

Tomorrow afternoon, Cong. John Conyers will open hearings on the Downing Street Minutes, which will be carried live by several out-of-the-mainstream outlets. If you should happen to need to know more about what DSM is, then look here.

Since the so-called liberal media is finally coming off its celebrity trial intoxication, maybe it will cover some real news tomorrow. But even if it doesn't, you'll be able to find out the truth...

... if you just dig a little for it.