MEN AT WORK
The National Park Service on Wednesday announced a $300 million White House renovation plan that includes an indoor recreation center for the President. Apparently the windowless corridor was crimping Clinton's style.

TIME FUTURE
It sounds like Democrats are going to be out of the gate faster than Republicans for the 2000 presidential race. (The other Democrats need all the time they can get to catch up with Al Gore.) Sen. Bob Kerrey (D., Neb.) is scheduled to announce a decision on the 12th. Former Sen. Bill Bradley (D., N.J.), who appears to be leaning towards a run, could be close on Kerrey's heels.

STATEHOOD STAR
The San Juan Star identifies Angel "Buzo" Rodriguez, the mayor of Toa Alta, as one of the Puerto Rican Statehood Party's "best organizers when it comes to rallies and mobilizing the pro-statehood masses." No question he's aggressive. On November 24, Rodriguez was charged with demanding a $2.5 million kickback on a $17.5 million disaster-relief contract. According to an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent William E. Aponte, Rodriguez had asked for the money because he needed it for a political campaign. "The extortion and bribery charges [against Rodriguez] appear to be among the most serious leveled against a high official involving Federal Emergency Management Agency funds," wrote the Star on November 26.

Puerto Ricans will vote on statehood December 13. It currently appears that statehood will carry a majority for the first time--sure to spark a contentious debate in Congress about making the island the 51st state.

YEARS OF LABOR
Right-to-work activists have been complaining for years about the pro-union tilt of the Clinton Administration's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Their latest evidence: internal NLRB documents showing that of the twenty longest-pending bases before the board, thirteen involved employees' attempts to recover compulsory union dues spent on politics--a right recognized by the Supreme Court in the 1988 Beck decision. Seven of the eight oldest cases are such Beck cases. Some of these cases have been dormant for more than six years. To put these numbers in perspective, consider that Beck cases comprise less than two per cent of the cases filed with the NLRB. The NLRB documents, obtained by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund under the Freedom of Information Act, aren't dispositive, but they certainly suggest that the claim of bias has merit.

IMPEACHMENT AS PUNISHMENT
First, they said impeachment would "overturn an election." Leave it to Steve Roberts of the New York Daily News to go a few steps further (as reported in yesterday's Hotline): "[The Republicans] want to impose a death penalty on the president in the form of impeachment. I think that the Republicans are out of control." Someone sure is.