Photo of the day: A changing of the guard

TWU Newsreel Warns Viewers on Republican Goals
Our friends at the Transport Workers (TWU) have taken a light-hearted video look at rather serious subject: how Republicans might use their new found congressional strength and powers. The black-and-white mid-century newsreel/educational film style is complete with deep voiced narrator and swelling music. “TWU Presents: The Powers of Congress” looks at various Republican lawmakers and Party Leaders and what they’ve said about vital issues from Social Security cuts to Health Care Repeal t

What Happens To Your Digital Writing When You Die?
nytimes.com: But many of us, in these worst of circumstances, would also leave behind things that exist outside of those familiar categories. Suppose you blogged or tweeted about this article, or dashed off a Facebook status update, or uploaded a few snapshots from your iPhone to Flickr, and then logged off this mortal coil. It's now taken for granted that the things we do online are reflections of who we are or announcements of who we wish to be. So what happens to this version o...

Marco Rubio Announces That He Will Forgo A Presidential Run To Remain In The Office He Assumed A Few Hours Ago
I have to say, I sort of admire the way new Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) shoots down the speculation that he might run for president: "It's a circus. You guys are part of the circus," Rubio told a half-dozen reporters in a cramped temporary office. "This is stuff (running for president) they talk about. They'll talk about somebody else next week. I'm here to be a United States senator from Florida and the best senator I can. I mean that. That's what I ran for and that's what I want to be." It is...

Global spam e-mail levels suddenly fall
The amount of junk e-mail being sent across the globe has seen a dramatic fall in recent months. The volume of spam has dropped steadily since August, but the Christmas period saw a precipitous decline. One security firm detected around 200 billion spam messages being sent each day in August, but just 50 billion in December. While the reasons for the decline are not fully understood, spam watchers warn the lull may not last. Around the Christmas holidays, three of the largest spam producer...

Analysis: Facebook ignites Bubble 2.0 chatter
San Francisco (Reuters) - Remember Webvan? The online grocer, whose initial public offering in March 2000 was among the most hotly anticipated during the dot-com boom, is now viewed as one of the greatest disasters of the era. Fast forward 11 years and the feeding frenzy around Facebook and its exponentially expanding valuations are conjuring fears of a Bubble 2.0. Goldman Sachs Bankers have offered their private wealth clients less than a week to decide whether they want to hand over $2 millio...

Teen Beat For Pretending To Be "Hard" on Facebook [VIDEO]
​A video surfaced online yesterday of a teenager being beat by an adult (either his uncle or father, the video is unclear) for pretending to be gang-affiliated and being "hard." It has gone viral very quickly, achieving about one million views, 2,000 tweets and 176,000 Facebook shares in less than 24 hours. The video reveals a heavy sympathy online towards strict and abusive parenting. Link to the video after the jump. Watch the video HERE. Most Twitterers are very sympathetic to the adu...

Lawmakers learn to cover their tweets, save face(book)
By EARL F. GLYNN – Legislators may eschew Twitter and shun Facebook at their peril because others can appropriate their names and output spurious information while blocking their use. In Kansas last week, Republican U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder sent State Rep. Kasha Kelley an e-mail telling her he was glad to see she had joined Twitter. ...

Capitol Hill rookies jettison Tea on arrival
Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, center, would not comment on Tuesday night's swanky Fundraiser for freshman Republican lawmakers. (Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images) WASHINGTON — Capitol Hill will be abuzz today with the arrival of a new class of Republican lawmakers who charged into office with a promise to shun the ways of Washington. But even as they publicly bash the capital's culture, many have quietly begun to embrace it. Several freshmen have hired Lobbyists — pre-e...

Surprise Winners Ready To Put 2010 Behind Them
A few months ago, their ascension to Congress seemed unimaginable. But for a handful of freshmen who survived razor-thin contests, weeks of uncertainty and even Legal Challenges, all were more than ready to move past the winding path of the 2010 Elections as they took the oath of office on Wednesday. North Carolina Republican Renee Ellmers was one of those implausible victors, defeating seven-term Democratic Rep. Bob Etheridge by just over 2,000 votes after a Recount that lasted two weeks after ...

Tea party members of the House turn to lobbyists and fundraisers
WASHINGTON -- Capitol Hill will be abuzz today with the arrival of a new class of Republican lawmakers who charged into office with a promise to shun the ways of Washington. But even as they publicly bash the capital's culture, many have quietly begun to embrace it. Several freshmen have hired Lobbyists -- pre-eminent Washington insiders -- to lead their congressional staffs. In the weeks leading up to today's swearing-in, dozens of the newcomers joined other lawmakers in turning to K Street f...

The Tea Party and Their Dysfunctional Families
**Written by Doug Powers And the dud frustration bombs keep being thrown: Many Democrats have blamed unfounded cases of Racism for their aversion to the growing Tea Party movement. But now, the new House Minority Whip, Steny Hoyer, D-Md., presents the latest presumption about tea partiers: they must come from dysfunctional families: There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any Compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of yo...

Harry Reid: Americans Love Government!
**Written by Doug Powers Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi must drink their lunch from the same jar of delusion: On the first day of the new Congress, the Nevada Democrat lamented in his opening remarks what he referred to as obstruction from Senate Republicans over the past few years, accusing them of using stalling tactics to score political points on some Legislation. [...] “The American People love government, but they don’t like too much politics in government,” he said. Wrong, and wrong.

Figures. Dems Attack GOP for Reading Constitution on House Floor
The Democrats are rebelling against the reading of the US Constitution on the House Florr. Michelle Malkin joined Fox And Friends with reaction. St. Louis Post-Dispatch St. Louis Globe-Democrat FOX 2 St. Louis...

Good Morning FishbowlDC Readers
“Oh boy….he’s not going to make it. #Boehnertears” — WaPo‘s Jonathan Capehart in a Wednesday tweet. “Got thru reference to missing brother-who runs a restaurant-without crying. #firstaccomplishments” — Mother Jones D.C. Bureau Chief and Politics Daily Columnist David Corn in a Wednesday tweet. (Pssst…incidentally, Corn, your Hairstyle may be starting to resemble that of the Founding Fathers. Hint. Hint.) “Remember that...

What Will These Fan Favorites Be in Their Next Lives?
Leading off our procession is our new House Speaker. Has that Skin Tone ever existed anywhere in nature? by Noah I’ve always been interested in the Hindu concept of karma. Having been brought up by severely Christian parents with their quaint notion that God punishes, the idea of karmic payback has a special place in what passes for my soul. So this morning, for some reason that shrinks get paid to uncover for a hefty fee but I can uncover for zippo, I started to muse on what might be the fa...

Adieu, Northern Alliance
Alas, the noble Radio Show has gone the way of the Afghan warlords' union: As John Hinderaker reported earlier on Power Line, the six year run of our volunteer participation at The Patriot has come to an end. I won't go into all of the details behind the move, John does a good job of that in his summary. I will say that it did come as a surprise when we were informed earlier this week that our time slot was going to be immediately turned over to more, shall we say, revenue generating friendly ...

Its official: Speaker Boehner, Weaker Pelosi
If you missed C-SPAN the past half hour, you missed some high drama and comedy. As expected, of course, GOP House Leader John Boehner is now Speaker Boehner with 241 votes. Outgoing Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now Weaker Pelosi, with 173 votes in her favor — and 19 notable Protest votes against her by fellow Democrats. There were so many different alternatives, the race started looking like an Alaska Senate primary. Democrat Heath Shuler took 11 votes. Democrat John Lewis scor...

Dede Scozzafava goes to workfor Andrew Cuomo
I hope Newt Gingrich and all the GOP Beltway groups that dumped millions of grass-roots dollars into the radical Big Labor, ACORN-friendly, Margaret Sanger Award-winning tax & spender’s appalling NY-23 campaign are proud. From NY Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Press Release today: Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the following appointments and nominations to senior positions within the State Government. …Dede Scozzafava will serve as Deputy Secretary for Local Gove...

Detroit porkulus dump: $49 million for laptops
Criminey. The Detroit Public Schools are overrun by Corruption, violence, and incompetence. Test Scores are rock-bottom. The teachers’ union sabotaged classroom instruction and denied schoolchildren an education through an apparent illegal work stoppage. Yet, Washington went ahead and forked over $530 million in federal Porkulus funds to reward yet more Detroit government school failure and bail out the reckless-spending boobs who mismanaged the DPS Budget and engineered a fiscal crisi...

Obamacare repeal document drop: Waiver-mania for all!
The House Republicans have announced their plans to put the ObamaCare Repeal up for a vote during the week of January 10, 2011. This evening they posted the text of the proposed Legislation to the GOP House Committee on Rules website. Here it is: HR__-Repeal Finally: ObamaCare Waiver-mania for the rest of us. ...

Day One, 112th Congress: 10 Simple Rules for the GOP
1. Manage expectations. 2. Serve the people, not the press. 3. Neutralize the grievance-mongers: Confront the Race Card early and often. 4. Neutralize Alinsky’s avenging angels: Counter the human shield strategy early and often. 5. Don’t fall prey to Chicken Little Syndrome again. Don’t. 6. Never forget: Government does not “create jobs.” Politicians don’t create jobs. You are there to stop government from killing jobs in the name of “reform,” th...

Chicago on the Potomac (Michelle Malkin)
Creators Syndicate – No matter how you rearrange President Obama's inner circle, it still looks, smells and tastes like a rotten Chicago deep-dish pizza. Ready for the latest topping on this moldy old pie? It's a possible Chief of Staff slot for Wall Street Banker/lawyer/wheeler-dealer William Daley, brother of outgoing Chicago mayor/machine politics mastermind Richard M. Daley (also the former boss of White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and First Lady Michelle Obama), who...

Chicago on the Potomac
Photoshop credit: No Sheeples Here Chicago on the Potomac by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2010 No matter how you rearrange President Obama’s inner circle, it still looks, smells and tastes like a rotten Chicago deep-dish pizza. Ready for the latest topping on this moldy old pie? It’s a possible Chief of Staff slot for Wall Street Banker/lawyer/wheeler-dealer William Daley, brother of outgoing Chicago mayor/machine politics mastermind Richard M. Daley (also the forme...

The Gibbs shuffle: A lateral move, not a step down
Don’t rejoice. He’s not “quitting.” He’s not “stepping down.” It’s a lateral move — from inside the Obama bus to an outside escort car. Same duties, different seat. It means we’ll see more of him, not less. It means more pro-Obama spin disseminated through the MSM abettors, not less. And it means less accountability for White House Propaganda, spin, and nonsense, not more. I’d say DLTDHYOTWO. But it doesn’t apply to revolv...

Classless Nancy Pelosi finally gives John Boehner the gavel after babbling on about herself
Classless Nancy Pelosi finally gives John Boehner the gavel after babbling on about herself After babbling on longer than any outgoing House Speaker in recent memory and talking about all the crap and bs that Democrats jammed down America’s throats over the last four years, Nancy Pelosi proved yet again what a low class pile of pond scum she really is. Basically taking over the entire moment of the transfer for power, she even mocked Boehner’s “size of gavel” at one poi...