I CERTAINLY HOPE THIS IS RIGHT: The Most Intense Period Of The Recession Is Behind Us. I’m not so sure, though. Seems more likely that the recession is just getting started. The “stimulus” seems mostly good for padding the wallets of the well-connected, so I don’t see a lot of benefit there. But maybe I’m overly pessimistic.

UPDATE: Reader Phil Manhard thinks I am, and explains why:

Of course the most intense period of the recession is behind us – tomorrow is 20 January. Just read any of the so-called mainstream media – the same data will look tremendously different when illuminated by hope and change.

Good point!

DOUBLE STANDARDS?

Timothy Geithner, nominated by Barack Obama to be secretary of the treasury, seems to have a little problem with taxes and domestic help.

Questions regarding taxes and other unpleasantries have dogged Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means — the panel responsible for tax policy.

Allegations of crony loans from Countrywide (the lender that came to symbolize subprime excess) have been raised against Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.

The rules, it seems, do not apply to the lofty.

Indeed. Plus, hypocrisy on transparency, on Capitol Hill.

CHRISTMAS IN JANUARY: “Washington has become one huge party this week—you can’t catch a cab, and don’t even think about bringing your car downtown. In the spirit of the celebration, Congress will soon pass an $825 billion package that funds museums and waterslides and does little for the businesses that make the economy work. I cannot pretend I’m not enjoying the crowds or the debauchery, but I already fear the hangover.”

The party is Obama’s, but I’m guessing the hangover will be Bush’s fault.

UPDATE: Video.

TRACKING OBAMA’S PROMISES AND PERFORMANCE at Politifact.com. (Via Michael Silence.)

A BAD WEEK FOR Rachel Maddow. I’ve heard of her.

IN THE MAIL: Roger Simon’s Blacklisting Myself: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror. I actually read it as soon as it came in. What’s interesting is how many people Roger knew in the 1960s were people I knew through my father — or, as in the case of Kathleen Cleaver, later in law school.

THEY’VE ANNOUNCED THIS YEAR’S “FISKIE AWARD” and it’s hard to argue with the winner.

OBAMA’S NOT EVEN SWORN IN, and people are already proposing a U.S. “minister of culture.”

THE OTHER DAY, JONAH GOLDBERG responded to my New York Post column on the Herring case:

One answer—really the only answer—you hear about why we should treat criminals with more respect is that it’s the only way to make government respect the rights of the innocent. I’m all for respecting the rights of the innocent, and I think police should be required to follow strict rules, have warrants, and all the rest. But I don’t see why cops who break the rules intentionally or unintentionally should be “punished” by having objectively guilty criminals let loose on society.

Well, this is the classic argument against the exclusionary rule, and it’s a pretty good one. The other classic argument against the exclusionary rule is that if you’re actually innocent — if the police search you unreasonably and don’t find anything — the rule does you no good because you’ve got nothing to exclude anyway.

These are good arguments and I’d be happy to scrap the exclusionary rule and return to the framing-era approach that put the constable at risk for personal liability whenever there was an unreasonable search or arrest, unless he had a warrant, in which case the magistrate who issued the warrant might be at risk if the warrant was improperly issued. But modern doctrines of official immunity — which are basically judge-made, and a result of “judicial activism” of the first order — make that impossible. There’s no constitutional basis for immunity on the part of police or their supervisors; it’s just something judges think is a good idea. Nonetheless, it’s not going anywhere — as part of my efforts to get something done about no-knock raids, I was recently told that, even in the Democratic Congress, it’s not going to be possible to do anything about official immunity.

Meanwhile, if you reward negligence, by letting cops who are negligent arrest people they’d otherwise be unable to, the cops — and, more importantly, their superiors, who might otherwise look bad if a guilty person is allowed to go free — wind up incentivized to be negligent. That increases the risk that innocent people will be subjected to unreasonable searches. In this imperfect world, the exclusionary rule is pretty much all we’ve got. But hey, if Jonah wants to join me in a campaign to get official immunity abolished or cut back, I’m ready. (Bumped).

UPDATE: Jonah responds.

HEH: If only the world of business was like the world of sports.

In the NBA, teams are even quicker to pull the trigger. Six coaches were fired before Christmas – ho, ho, ho.

But, in the business world, the corporate fat cats, coddled by their obsequious boards of directors, continue to collect big bucks while their companies lose large amounts of money.

Look at the likes of Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial, whose unbridled lending excesses helped trigger the mortgage meltdown; former Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal, and Charles Prince, the former CEO who paved the way for Citigroup’s precipitous tumble.

Those three corporate titans testified before Congress last year, attempting to justify their outrageously oversized compensation packages. Although their companies lost billions in the housing markets, Mozilo received $75 million when his firm, with all its bad loans, was bought by Bank of America; Prince pocketed $68 million; and O’Neal received more than $160 million.

“The obvious question,” Senator Henry Waxman of California asked, “is how can a few execs do so well when their companies are doing so poorly?”

Good question, Senator.

You might want to pose it to your esteemed Democratic colleague in the Senate, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who, despite being chairman of the Banking Committee, accepted loans at special rates from Countrywide as a “friend of Angelo.”

Indeed.

UPDATE: Various readers react to Henry Waxman’s dubious promotion to the Senate in the story above. Neil Sorens writes: “On the one hand, he’s not someone I’d want in the Senate. On the other, neither are Feinstein or Boxer.” Or Chris Dodd!

And reader Greg Marquez emails: “Henry Waxman, Senator from California? It must be the pomposity that confused them.” It’s an understandable mistake, in that light . . . .

ORIN KERR: “I don’t see this speculation as revealing anything about Roberts, but it does seem to help explain the worldview of Greenhouse.”

SAVING ENERGY with ground-source heat pumps.

REALITY SINKS IN: ‘Everyone Was Dreaming a Little. Now People are More Realistic’.

Somewhat related thoughts, here. And other folks are trying to lower expectations.

THE WORK OF DECADES, FULFILLED: “More than two-thirds of African-Americans believe Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision for race relations has been fulfilled, a CNN poll found — a figure up sharply from a survey in early 2008.” Weirdly, white people are less positive — but, then, feeling guilty about race is Stuff White People Like.

KENNETH ANDERSON: “I wonder if the time has come for the United States to offer political asylum to the Jews of Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe?” Hmm. Possibly.

ON MLK DAY, remembering what used to be.

ILYA SOMIN: “In the course of a New Republic article analogizing George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover, historian Alan Brinkley perpetuates the long-discredited myth that Hoover failed to stop the Great Depression because he pursued laissez-faire policies. . . . After Hoover left office, New Dealers used the myth of his supposed adherence to laissez-faire as a justification for discrediting free market policies. Today, we are seeing the creation of a similar myth about Bush. The truth, however, is almost the exact opposite of the myth.”

SEX STILL SELLS. Well, duh.

MCCAIN ON OBAMA APPOINTMENTS: “Many of these appointments he would have made himself.”

Plus this: “Mr. Obama took a notably different tone toward Iraq than he had during the campaign.”

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: State employees stunned by request for $250 million in concessions. Plus, Changes sought in funding system for Wisconsin state employee pensions. “The two funds that feed public employee pensions lost more than $26 billion over the past year, falling to a total market value of $61.8 billion, according to preliminary results announced by the state. That means tens of thousands of retirees will be stung by cuts ranging from 2.5 percent to 20 percent or more in their pension checks this spring.”

WONDERING what the RIAA is thinking in its litigation strategy. I’ve been wondering that for years.

TRIBALISM IN POLITICS: “To trash Bush was to belong.”