Anyone who has ever been on an Amtrak train—especially during rush hour or the onset of holiday weekends—knows how much better things would be aboard that train if passengers were allowed to bring guns on it. Any and all conflicts would be basically pre-solved, because whoever wins is just whoever has a gun, see? Anyway, Congress is all for it, and they are willing to withhold $1.5 billion in funding from Amtrak—or shoot Amtrak with a gun concealed in its messenger bag—unless this is allowed by April. MORE »

The DC police are putting together a book with the 60 most notorious youth offenders so that people in-the-know will be kept abreast of these kids in the rosy-fingered dawn of their careers or something. It too has tenuous privacy implications, just like actual Facebook. [Washington Post] MORE »

The fiendishly clever President-elect will be taking a train to Washington the week before his inauguration because he caught a whiff of the shit-storm that greets any well-known figure who dares to ride an airplane into our nation’s capital. Barry said, “No thanks, I will just kick it on the train with my good friend the Amtrak whore Joe Biden,” and VOILA, our nation’s railways were saved forever from bankruptcy and neglect. MORE »

Joe Biden used to have a nice life. He did his work at the Senate, and then he took a relaxing train ride back to his nice house and family in Delaware. Thanks to the sinister schemes of your new president, Barack Obama, the happy times of Joe Biden will all end forever in January, when he will be forced by Secret Service gunpoint to leave his beloved home and take residence in the creepy abandoned lair of Dick Cheney. MORE »

Only seven years after terrorists didn’t hijack passenger trains, Amtrak is finally getting the post-9/11 security it so desperately needs to continue pointlessly delaying trains and ruining the lives of Americans who stupidly rely upon the industrialized world’s lamest national rail service. MORE »

• Approval of Bush slips to 37%, a new low in WSJ/NBC polling; 79% believe the leak investigation is “a serious matter” and a majority say Bush “deliberately misled people” to war. [WSJ]
• House Republicans scrap ANWR drilling to ensure passage of budget. Schumer: “If you are a moderate Republican, you are starting to say, ‘I am not going to follow George Bush over the cliff.’” [WP, NYT]
• Republicans fear implications of Tuesday’s elections; Democrats have their own lessons to learn. Pollster: “The waning of enthusiasm for Bush and his presidency is national.” [LAT, WP, WT]
• Senators press top oil executives about their profits; “if the hearing had an air of the theater, the public resentment articulated by the senators was real.” Milbank: “[I]nstead of calling oil executives on the carpet yesterday, senators gave them the red-carpet treatment.” [WP, NYT, WSJ, USAT, WT]
• Bush splits with Republicans over ban of abusive treatment of detainees. [USAT]
• Judith Miller leaves The New York Times. [WP, WP, NYT]
• Chalabi denies misleading the U.S. and offers to testify before Congress. [USAT, WP]
• Senate Judiciary Committee considers televising Supreme Court proceedings. [LAT]

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• Judith Miller recalls June 23, 2003 conversation with “Scooter” Libby about Joseph Wilson during her last day of testimony in the leak investigation; contempt-of-court threat is lifted. Attorneys believe Patrick Fitzgerald “is looking into a broad conspiracy charge against a group of administration officials or into charging one or more officials with easier-to-prove crimes such as disclosing classified material, making false statements or perjury.” [WP, WSJ, NYT]
• NBC/WSJ poll: 27% support Miers while 51% don’t know enough to venture an opinion; approval of Bush rests at 39% and only 28% of Americans believe the country is heading in the right direction — a ten year low. [WSJ]
• SEC subpoenas Frist for personal documents related to sale of health care stock; he is expected to testify under oath. [WP, NYT, WSJ]
• Bush defends use of religion to sell Miers: “[P]art of Harriet Miers’s life is her religion.” Alberto Gonzales: “I believe that she is pro-life.” [WP, NYT, WT, USAT]
• Democrats are hopeful about their political opportunities in 2006. Charlie Cook: “Right now, if I had to bet would the Democrats take the House and Senate back, I’d say no. But are the odds a heck of a lot better than they were three months ago or six months ago? Heck, yes.” [NYT]

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