Below The Beltway

Given the lackluster performance of the GOP Senate class in the November elections, this isn’t entirely surprising, but Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has announced he will not run for President in 2008:
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) will not run for president in 2008, according to sources close to the politician.
Frist will put out [...]

No official announcement yet, but it certainly looks like former General Wesley Clark is seriously considering running for the 2008 Democratic nomination:
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Wesley Clark said Tuesday he wants to avoid waiting too late to make a decision on whether to run for president _ a mistake he made in his failed 2004 [...]

That’s the only conclusion I can draw from this report of his first meeting as Senator-Elect with the President of the United States:
At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia’s newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have [...]

Kim Jong Il’s Christmas wish list just got dealt a heavy blow:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration wants North Korea’s attention, so like a scolding parent it’s trying to make it tougher for that country’s eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters.
The U.S. government’s first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to [...]

As part of America’s continued need to make lists, TV Land has complied a list of the Top 100 Television catchphrases:
NEW YORK (AP) — Sometimes it takes only a word, or just a few, to become immortalized in television history.
The TV Land cable network has compiled a list of the 100 greatest catchphrases in [...]

As Christmas approaches, it appears that Berlin, Germany is facing a Santa shortage:
BERLIN ? Berlin is facing an acute shortage of Santas just a month before Christmas, the head of a Father Christmas placement agency said Monday.
The director of Berlin’s “Heinzelmaennchen” agency, which provides Santas to thousands of Berlin families every Christmas Eve, said he [...]

Following in the fine tradition of cities such as Chicago, it looks like San Diego is poised to jump on the anti Wal-Mart bandwagon:

SAN DIEGO (AP) ? The City Council here voted late Tuesday to ban certain giant retail stores, dealing a blow to Wal-Mart’s potential to expand in the nation’s eighth-largest city.
The measure, approved [...]

A Federal Judge has ordered the U.S. Treasury to redesign all U.S. paper money to make it easier for the blind to use:
A federal judge said yesterday that by keeping all U.S. currency the same size and texture, the government has denied blind people meaningful access to money.
U.S. District Judge James Robertson said the Treasury [...]

There really is no other way to describe this news out of Dayton,Ohio:
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — A mother was arrested on suspicion of killing her newborn daughter by microwaving the baby in an oven.
China Arnold, 26, was jailed Monday on a charge of aggravated murder, more than a year after she brought her dead month-old [...]

Will the Republican losses in the November election reinvigorate the fiscal conservative wing of the party ? That’s what this article in The Washington Post argues:
In Congress, the minority life is mostly talk and little action, and yet for advocates of minimal spending and low taxes, that may not turn out to be so bad. [...]