All Election Results

My DC-insider friend “Mick Danger” is back in town with the new Congress, and files this post-holiday post-partisan report:

The 111th Congress begins today.

Democrats in the Illinois legislature shied away from a special election for the open U.S. Senate seat, reportedly because they feared a competitive race by Republicans. Stepping up in that vacuum, Illinois’s tainted Governor legally appointed Roland Burris, a man whom Harry Reid won’t seat.

The legal authority for the Nevadan to say no? Burris suffers from a contagious disease well-known to every grade school child.

Meanwhile, Al Franken was “certified” in a process where the only certainty is that those counting the ballots are accused of fixing the outcome before it’s finished reviewing ballots from all of Minnesota’s counties.

So, you can’t get into the Senate if you have cooties but you should get in the Senate if an obviously suspect, incomplete process which is still under litigation “certifies” you.

Over in House, things are so much clearer. What says Nancy on her big day? We need less transparency and debate! Abolish political speech! Banish the bastards!

Well, true she’s not saying that, but she’s doing that. Why else remove the measly procedural rights of the shrunken House Republican minority? Some House Democrats point angrily at “abuses” last year when Boehner passed dozens of procedural votes to stop, or slow, the Democrats’ production line! Wait, since Republican amendments can’t pass without votes from moderate and conservative Democrats, whose rights are being trampled? (All but those of the most liberal voters.)

Check the numbers: Nancy now presides over 257 Democrats; last year she had 235.

While Harry dances with Stuart Smiley and dodges Bobby Rush, and Obama brushes up on Hamas and cutting taxes for non-taxpayers, Nancy is asserting control over policy in Washington. Just ask Rahm Emanuel, President-elect’s designated Chief of Staff, whom she “warned” only to cut deals with her — no going around her to cut deals with Members of the House. What does she thinks she is, a single-payer health czar?

Here’s a quote from a poorly prepared Dartmouth professor:

Linda Fowler, a political science professor at Dartmouth College, voiced a word of caution. “A Democratic majority doesn’t necessarily mean a compliant Congress,“ she said, citing problems that Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton had with legislatures held by their parties.”

Ah, no, Linda. Nancy wasn’t Speaker then. Back then, each Member of Congress was considered first a representative of their district and only secondarily a party member. The rules protected greater freedom to offer amendments and vote on them. Sure, there was “party discipline” and even real “abuse.” But neither Speaker Tip O’Neill (Carter) nor Speaker Newt Gingrich (Clinton) fixed two years of legislative process on Day One.

Ain’t “post-partisan” fun? Bottom line: Watch Nancy. She’s more Machiavellian than any other single politician in town.

Via Paul Kedrosky, thanks to our correspondent “Irrational Exuberance.”

Update… A reader tells me, yes, I need to say more. First, I put a link under “Kedrosky,” above, as I should have originally — but here’s my take. This is a Google Trends chart, showing the number of times a particular search term — in this case “Peter Schiff” and “peak oil” — show up on the web, through time. The idea is that during the last year of economic turbulence, certain ideas gained temporary dominance in the collective mind. In the summer when oil was at $147 a barrel, you got lots of people on the web raving about how we’re running out of the stuff, that we’ve passed the time of “peak oil.” Similarly, more recently, when volatility in the stock market has been more on people’s minds, we find they no longer want to talk about “peak oil” — gone! forgotten! problem solved! — and instead the want to hear the end-of-the-world sermonettes of Savonarolas like Schiff. Looks like we’ve seen “peak peak oil” and “peak Peter Schiff.” Time to move on to some other dumb thing to focus on, I guess.

Peterr at FireDogLake points to a quote by Munib Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land in which he likens the security wall Israel erected to the Berlin wall: [W]ho would have imagined that…

But no Kudlow on duty. So I’m left to have a silly debate with a soi-disant “well-established specialist in the Austrian School of economic theory.” It’s more like the Vietnamese school — destroy the economy in order to save it. Have a listen, here’ the YouTube video. Sick stuff.

Here are RWN’s top referrers for 2008. Feel free to go check a few of these blogs out. After all, it’s only fair to send them a little traffic back for helping out RWN so much. Also, as a point…

…and everybody loves him. But still, seems like a reach career-wise! The busted mortgage giant Freddie Mac announces this morning:

MCLEAN, Va., Dec. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) today named Raymond G. Romano as the company’s chief credit officer, a position that is responsible for enterprise-wide credit risk management activities.

The Washington Post has its Obama-centric glasses on, I see: Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza yesterday, in retaliation for a nonstop barrage of rocket attacks from Hamas fighters, raised the prospect of an escalation of violence that could scuttle any hopes…

Here’s the YouTube video of Wednesday’s hit: