GEE, DO YOU THINK? Congress risks criticism over luxury retreat trips. (Bumped).

IN THE STIMULUS BILL, A 2 BILLION DOLLAR EARMARK — obtained by Rod Blagojevich! You can’t make this stuff up. (Bumped).

THE KILLER QUESTION ON THE “STIMULUS:” What’s the rush? A week or two won’t make a difference. Heck, a month wouldn’t.

As reader James Burns emails: “President Obama’s act now or it will be too late shtick sounds an awful lot like the type of high-pressure sales tactic that the Eliot Spitzers of the world like to bring lawsuits over.”

“All sham, no wow.” And with that, a prediction that has come true.

UPDATE: An auto tax break: “So government is now the marketing arm of the auto companies offering discounts to entice buyers? Do these critters have any idea of how foolish they look?” Nah. If they could see that kind of thing, they’d lose the toupees.

CONGRATULATIONS: Pat Summitt’s 1000th victory.

UPDATE: More here. “She was hired at 22, she’s coached 35 years. I can’t imagine anyone doing what she has done ever again.”

I’LL BET THEY’RE NOT THE ONLY ONES: How Village Voice Media Uses Digg to Game Their Traffic Numbers. (Via Memeorandum).

DASCHLE REPLACEMENT — Phil Bredesen? We could do worse — and probably will!

More on that here.

BACON AIR FRESHENER: Because nothing smells better than bacon!

HEH:

You know what’s really funny? That term — “miserable failure” — that was pinned on Bush so relentlessly? Do you remember who started that meme?

Tom Daschle!

Karma.

Indeed.

MOVING KIND OF SLOW: “Paul Volcker has grown increasingly frustrated over delays in setting up the economic advisory group President Barack Obama picked the former Federal Reserve chairman to lead, people familiar with the matter said. Volcker, 81, blames Obama’s National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers for slowing down the effort to organize the panel of outside advisers, the people said. Summers isn’t regularly inviting Volcker to White House meetings and hasn’t shown interest in collaborating on policy or sharing potential solutions to the economic crisis, they said.”

I’m guessing they just wanted Volcker’s name. Not his ideas . . . .

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Volcker and the others on the group might not agree that the answer to the crisis is pork and lots of it. White House wants to stay on message.” Exactly.

CORKER FLIPS THE SCRIPT.

“THERAPEUTIC VENTING” on the state of drug research.

“SCARING PEOPLE is not leadership.”

UPDATE: Jacob Sullum: “President Obama’s pro-stimulus op-ed piece, which Matt Welch skewered earlier today, displays the panicky, scare-mongering rhetoric we have come to expect from a politician who entered office less than a month ago with a reputation as a calm, cool, and rational weigher of facts.”

And here’s the Welch skewering.

MORE: A reader emails:

Roosevelt: We have nothing to fear, but fear itself!

Obama: Be afraid. Very afraid!!

Heh.

STRANGE INEPTITUDE: “The news that the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension committee has postponed consideration of Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis because her husband only yesterday paid off tax liens, some of which had been pending for up to 16 years, confirms that there’s an inexplicable, widespread problem in the Obama vetting process (as if Geithner, Daschle, Richardson, Killefer, et al hadn’t already demonstrated that). . . . Either Obama and his nominees aren’t easily embarrassed, or the vetters have tin ears the size of satellite dishes.”

Related thoughts from Nathan Moore: “The problem here, at least in my view, is not so much that Solis’ husband had some rather antique tax liens hanging around, but that the Obama administration’s vetting process has revealed itself to be decidedly incompetent. Or, more accurately, arrogant, which really is just a subform of incompetence. . . . The message is clear, no matter how earnestly the president employs Newspeak rhetoric in a vain attempt to muddle it – there are two sets of rules, one for us, and one for them. If they truly believed there was one set of rules, the administration would have taken it upon itself to weed out the tax-encumbered nominees from the process, but they didn’t – and that speaks volumes.”

RAPING MEN as a terrorist recruiting tool.

U.S. SHIFTS LEFT, Russia and Germany shift right. “Is it possible that Europe and Russia, seeing a shift to the Left with Obama that will weaken America economically, are shifting to the Right to maximize any advantage coming out of the downturn?”

MEGAN MCARDLE WONDERS what’s going on with the DTV delay.

DISCREDITED LANCET STUDY gets even more discredited. “The British medical journal Lancet published a study of civilian casualties in 2006 that estimated Iraqi civilian deaths at more than 2% of Iraq’s pre-war population, around 655,000. Later studies produced numbers of less than a quarter of Lancet’s totals, and the authors of the study were largely discredited. Now a research association has publicly rebuked Gilbert Burnham for not disclosing his methodology, and Burnham may face action from his employer, Johns Hopkins.”

UPDATE: Lancet defense swatted down.

DON’T FORGET the Big Bopper. He was a law school dropout!

INDEED: One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. But maybe not $900 billion. “The so-called stimulus bill may not do much for the economy, but it’s certainly stimulating a lot of laughter, as its supporters are reduced to arguing essentially that it would be irresponsible not to waste boatloads of taxpayer money. We do not exaggerate.”

WHO TO BLAME for the Fannie and Freddie mess that started all of this.

TURNABOUT: Pro-Military Protestor Throws Shoes At Socialist Mayor. “So you have a former Weather Underground member who now is pro-military, throwing shoes at the anti-military Socialist Mayor, in a protest that would fall under the ‘community of sanctuary’ protection if the protester still was a member of the Weather Underground and protesting against the Iraq war. Only in Ithaca.”

DOING THE RIGHT THING: Obama Says He’ll Stop DEA Medical Pot Raids. Good for him, though I’d also like to see him move to change federal law, and not just the enforcement thereof.

MICKEY KAUS: “Is anybody scared of Obama? If you’re going to be an effective president, don’t people have to be at least a little scared of you? At least with Bill Clinton you’d worry that you’d be audited.”

THE “STIMULUS” BILL: The biggest wealth redistribution and money grab since the founding of the Soviet Union? Certainly in dollar terms.

GOOD GRIEF: Solis Senate Session Postponed in Wake of Husband’s Tax Lien Revelations.

Two thoughts: (1) Don’t any of these people pay their taxes? And (2) Is this, like, some kind of karmic payback for all the Joe-the-plumber tax business?

UPDATE: Reader Ernest Gudath emails: “Can’t they find anybody without tax issues? This whole scenario reminds me of the pagan cult that had to cancel their Summer Solstice ritual because they couldn’t find a virgin.” Ah, those were happy days — er, I mean, I’ve heard that story. . . .