WASHINGTON -- Trent Lott within the next week plans to decide between seeking a fourth term in the U.S. Senate from Mississippi or retiring from public life. That could determine whether Republicans keep control of the Senate in next year's elections. For the longer range, Lott's retirement and replacement could signal that Southern political realignment has peaked and now is receding
But in Mississippi, prominent Republicans are worried sick. They believe Lott will probably retire. If so, they expect the new senator will be a Democrat, former State Attorney General Mike Moore. Republican politicians in Mississippi believe Rep. Chip Pickering, the likely Republican nominee if Lott does not run, cannot defeat Moore
Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman pleaded with Lott last week to run again. The senator was as blunt with this emissary from President Bush as he was with me. "Where is our vision and our agenda?" he asked. The malaise afflicting the Bush administration not only threatens a Senate seat in Mississippi but impacts Lott's decision whether to retire.
Republicans pressing Lott to run say that if he retires, he will have to live the rest of his life under the burden of giving the Democrats a Senate seat and perhaps control of the Senate out of personal pique that he no longer was majority leader
His personal financial condition has deteriorated since then with the loss of half his net worth when Hurricane Katrina swept away his home at Pascagoula, Miss.
 

Atlanta, a suspicious package left on Peachtree. Bomb Squad is in attendance. 

Many retailers hoping for a big finish to the holiday season instead had lighter-than-expected crowds over the long Christmas weekend, according to anecdotal reports, leaving stores to rely heavily on the next few days to pump up December sales.
Explanations for the lackluster finish varied: an unusually warm winter hurt cold-weather clothing sales, greater gift card use delayed purchases and higher energy costs discouraged splurges
C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, dispatched researchers to stores in five cities yesterday - Boston, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas and Orlando, Fla. - where they found relatively few shoppers, considering that it was a federal holiday.
"All of us thought that these stores would be packed early and often but it never materialized," he said.
But crowds remained relatively thin at many stores yesterday - an employee at a Lowe's in Atlanta called it "a normal day" - and analysts agreed that, to a greater degree than any year in recent memory, the fate of the season would rest on the post-holiday spending of shoppers like Robert Ragusano, who was shopping yesterday in Walnut Creek, Calif., 25 miles east of San Francisco. Mr. Ragusano bought a sports jacket, spending all of a $300 Nordstrom gift card from his wife, Penny.
(Folks had better save their money. Bush is going to send the country into a depression on this illadvised, illplanned, illconducted war. Yes, I thought the war was necessary based on the information( lies) I as well as the other citizens of the USA were given. I have changed my mind. Bush is staying because now he has to make himself RIGHT at any costs. The man is hinging on MANIACAL. 

Jeff Reardon: Throw the book at him like any common criminal which he is. 

BAGHDAD, Iraq , Dec. 26 - An analysis of preliminary voting results released Monday from the Dec. 15 parliamentary election suggests that in contrast to the remarkable surge in Sunni Arab participation in the political process, the Sunnis still have comparatively little representation in the Iraqi security forces.
The indication is troubling because Sunni Arabs, who are about 20 percent of Iraq's population, came out in greater numbers largely as a response to the recent domination of the government by Shiites and Kurds. In particular, Sunni Arabs say they fear that the security forces will be used against them.
American military commanders say that it is crucial to build an Iraqi Army representative of Iraq's ethnicity, and that the alternative is to risk the consequences of Shiite and Kurdish forces' trying on their own to pacify insurgent hotbeds dominated by Sunni Arab militants
(Isn't it funny when those who used to be in charge aren't anymore, fear retribution from those who are. Seems if fairness was done years agos noone would have fears of lack of fairness now.) 

Bill Frist: The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership. They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas.

I was astounded to the extent of Senator Bill Frist's arrogance and hypocrisy. The real 'slap in the face' to the Senate is Frist's personal behavior over the past few years, comprising of an ongoing investigation into his recent stock sales after subsequent inaction and allegedly lies about his conflict of interest; his politically calculated flip-flop on stem cell research; and, his pandering to the religious right in his shameful pronouncements about Terri Schiavo's condition based on videos.

Could the investigated Senator be relating his true feelings since the flames of scandal are rapidly spreading wider within the Republican Party and upward towards the White House? Hopefully the supercilious, right-wing, reactionary regime that is currently monopolizing Washington will undergo severe, if not fatal, political damage.

The fundamental truth is Bush and the Radical Right Republicans who are running this troubled country to involuntary bankruptcy are so drunk with power they would do anything necessary to establish their perfect control over their universe.

It is ironic that in the recent days right after their house of cards immediately began to collapse, they successfully developed a case of selective amnesia of their own malfeasance that is currently running ramped in their party.

The lavish corruption and the underhanded methods of the greedy mob-like politicians and their corporate profiteers that fund them must be exposed in our struggle to regain our democracy.

FRIST'S TRUST: Was never blind"