RECESSION HITS CLOSE TO HOME: Law Faculty Furloughs, Pay Cuts, Pay Freezes, and Hiring Freezes.

THE 111TH CONGRESS shall live in infamy.

A STRONG REVIEW for a new book of slow-cooker recipes.

HOPE AND CHANGE — well, hoping for change, anyway: Afghan President Karzai hopes Obama will “settle down,” show “better judgment.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: Time to Short Jenny Craig? “Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that consumer spending on food registered the steepest drop we’ve seen since the government started collecting statistics 62 years ago. That’s not just restaurant spending, although that did fall sharply, but a series of shifts towards eating at home, preparing cheaper foods, and buying cheaper brands of the same foods. Cheap staples like milk and eggs rose slightly, while meat, sweets, and alcohol all fell.”

Hope, change, and (store-brand!) mac’n’cheese. None of that fancy stuff.

PJTV: Radley Balko on S.W.A.T. Culture.

RASMUSSEN: Specter Vote For Stimulus Hurts Him Back Home.

MURTHA UPDATE: PHONY DONORS?

Marvin Hoffman is listed in campaign finance records as one of the many lobbyists with the powerful PMA Group donating money to lawmakers. But Hoffman is a soon-to-retire information technology manager in Marina del Rey, Calif., who has never heard of the Arlington lobbying firm or the Indiana congressman to whom he supposedly gave $2,000.

“It’s alarming that someone is stealing my identity somewhere,” Hoffman, 75, said in an interview. “I’ve never heard of this company.”

Another contributor listed as a PMA lobbyist is, in fact, a sales manager for an inflatable boat manufacturer in New Jersey. John Hendricksen said he did make campaign donations but never worked at PMA and does not know how he ended up listed in records that way.

These errors, along with other unusual donations linked to the firm, come as the Justice Department examines allegations that PMA may have violated campaign finance laws. The offices of PMA, which ranked last year as the tenth biggest-earning lobby firm in Washington, were raided in November by FBI agents and Department of Defense investigators.

Plus this: “Federal investigators are focused on allegations that PMA founder Paul Magliocchetti, a former appropriations staffer close to Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), may have reimbursed some of his staff to cover contributions made in their names to Murtha and other lawmakers, according to two sources familiar with the investigation. . . . PMA, founded in 1989 by Magliocchetti, a former Murtha aide to the House Appropriations Committee, has enjoyed a high success rate in winning earmarks for its clients.”

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: “The final stimulus package is the final insult to taxpayers.”

INDEED: Gregg’s Withdrawal Stirs Speculation Over Obama’s Census Plan.

A reader suggests that this is Obama’s court-packing plan. Well, if so he got there a lot quicker than Roosevelt did.

NOT ONE MEMBER HAS READ THIS.

LES JONES: This would be a good weekend to shut down banks.

NO LOVE FOR THE STIMULUS FROM LAMAR ALEXANDER: “This bill will give American workers $8 a week in their paychecks in exchange for passing along a $1 trillion debt to our grandchildren. The entire New Deal in today’s dollars cost only half of what this bill costs.” To be fair, it’ll be $13 a week until next January.

ROGER KIMBALL: The most depressing thing I have heard in a long time.

“STIMULUS” BILL passes the Senate and goes to Obama. Oink.

UPDATE: Friday the 13th.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Scorching the Earth.

WHO WOULD HILLARY RATHER KISS? Bill, or Barack? Video at the link.

SO I FINALLY READ TOBY BUCKELL’S Sly Mongoose — it got buried under a bunch of other books, as happens all too often here — and I got all the way to the acknowledgments at the end and saw that he thanked me, along with John Scalzi, for the web-promotion of his previous books. Thanks, Toby! Great book.

A BEHEADING IN New York State.

PUTTING solar mirrors in the Mojave.

MARKDOWNS ON blenders, mixers and food processors. Everyone should have a blender.

BUT I THOUGHT DISSENT WAS THE HIGHEST FORM OF PATRIOTISM! Dems Target Right-Wing Talk Radio.

DAN CLEARY: Kos is Krazy. I disagree. I think that Kos knows exactly what he is doing.

NOW I’VE BEEN WATCHING THE “STIMULUS” BILL AND THINKING IT WAS A PORKBUSTERS DEFEAT, but Matt Yglesias says I’m wrong about that.

IS IT THE END OF “LIBERALTARIANISM?” “During the ‘long boom’ unleashed by the Reagan revolution, it was possible for libertarian intellectuals to believe that the arguments for economic freedom were now so blindingly vindicated that even their progressive peers must admit the obvious truth.” The coming years will be a test of intellectual honesty vs. class solidarity.

THE OBAMA YEARS: Carter on Speed?