Morning buzz

• John Edwards will announce he's running for president today.

  The New York Times , noting Edwards will be followed shortly by Gov. of Massachusetts and Sens. , and .

• The state Supreme Court this morning publicly reprimanded Ohio Gov. Bob Taft , a black mark that will stay on his permanent record as an attorney.

• Matt Campbell files in the face of Clay Chastain's light rail plan.

• Joe Lambe reports to fill the JaCo prosecutor's post.
• Mark Morris , the new head of the KC FBI office. Miscreant officeholders take note.

• In his Sunday column, Steve Kraske on civic wonders -- and blunders.
• Dave Helling points out that because the KC mayoral field is so crowded, a candidate .

• Counting on the support of the new Democratic majority in Congress, Democratic lawmakers and their Republican allies are working on measures that could place millions of illegal immigrants than would a bill that the Senate passed in the spring, The New York Times reports.

• The Times also , a novice evangelical political operative is emerging as a rising star in the party, drawing both applause and alarm for her courtship of theological conservatives in the midterm elections. Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit Vanderslice and her 2-year-old consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
• The Washington Post finds that Democrats, determined to banish their old tax-and-spend image, when they take control of Congress next week.

  But it won't be easy. The incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Budget committees said they plan to honor a campaign promise to devote billions of additional dollars a year to homeland security and education. And they reiterated a commitment not to cut off funding for U.

  S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here's what we've got under the tree...

..
But first,
Getting ready for 2008?

Why did the nation get so angry about the Supreme Court's Kelo/eminent domain case?

• Steve Kraske has a of Clay Chastain, who's feeling on top of the world after his light rail victory. Chastain attributes the victory in part to a new-found maturity and his finding God.

• Mike Casey reports that lawmakers are after The Star's series on problems the companies have with consumers.
• Kevin Murphy reports that state officials will deny or revoke licenses held by the operators of four southwest Missouri group homes, including one destroyed in a fire that killed 10 people Nov. 27.

  All four homes for the mentally ill and disabled were being run in part by Robert DuPont of Joplin, Mo., the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said.

• The New York Times says military planners and White House budget analysts have been asked to provide President Bush with options for increasing American forces in by 20,000 or more.

  The request indicates that the as part of a White House strategy review, senior administration officials said.

• Jeffrey Birnbaum of The Washington Post looks at some . Here's the start of the story: In the wee hours of the morning Dec.

  7, Senate negotiators rejected a Medicare measure pushed by outgoing House Speaker J. (R-Ill.) that would have meant big revenues for an insurance company in Hastert's home state.

  But a day later, the $100 million proposal was alive and well, paired with a plan for a major Nevada land swap backed by (D-Nev.), the incoming Senate majority leader. The leaders' dealmaking went on behind the scenes during the final, frenetic hours of the 109th Congress.

  Hastert's provision, which would give certain Medicare beneficiaries additional time to change their health-care coverage, and Reid's plan, which involves more than 900 square miles of federal land, were included in a massive tax and trade measure approved by Congress shortly before its final adjournment early last Saturday morning. Both provisions have been criticized as potentially harmful to public interests.

• Democratic Sen.

  Tim Johnson, making a widely watched recovery from brain surgery, , his party's Senate leader said after visiting the hospital.