==> NEWS ITEM (per Congress Daily, $): Yesterday, "the Bush administration upped its emergency war funding request to $192.8 billion and counting." The administration's standards for emergency supplemental appropriations -- as re-stated annually in the president's federal budget proposal since he took office, "are defined as follows:"

• necessary expenditure—an essential or vital expenditure, not one that is merely useful or beneficial
• sudden—quickly coming into being, not building up over time
• urgent—pressing and compelling, requiring immediate action
• unforeseen—not predictable or seen beforehand as a coming need
• not permanent—the need is temporary in nature

==> CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSE (per Roll Call, $): House and Senate Democratic leaders insisted Wednesday that no final decision has been made on the timing of the next supplemental spending bill to fund the Iraq War... "While there has been discussion, there is no decision on that," Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said of the supplemental's timing. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said the Members were told that the bill "probably won't come up until January." Some emergency.