“Minority Leader” on The Daily Caller

CPAC speakers led by former Speaker Newt Gingrich sought to blow holes in the recent liberal narrative comparing Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan Thursday. (more)

Facebook was home to Congress at noon on Wednesday, January 5th, for the swearing in of the 112th session. A tab on the Republicans’ “Pledge to America” Facebook page hosted an embedded video player provided by Livestream. It showed that Congress still can’t seem to run on time — by the time the clock ran out, more than 25 members were yet to vote. (more)

Top Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, spoke out Tuesday against what Alexander called the “brazenness” of proposed changes by Democrats to the filibuster. (more)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appealed to the press Wednesday to defend him from prosecution for leaking thousands of US documents and secrets, claiming that publishers who advanced WikiLeaks’ data were likely to be targeted also. “We have seen these statements, that The New York Times is, you know, also being looked at in terms of whether they have engaged in what they call ‘conspiracy to commit espionage,’” he said. (more)

Midway through Philip Rucker and Paul Kane’s story about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s transition to minority leader comes an interesting bit of news. The California Democrat, vilified by Republicans in the last election, has turned to director Steven Spielberg for help rebranding House Democrats. (more)

1.) Establishment Republicans conflicted over whose back to pat for busted omnibus bill — Majority Leader Harry Reid folded during last night’s high-stakes po(r)ker game. Now Beltway types are racing to cement a narrative for exactly what made the GOP so bold. “The defeat of a pork-laden $1.1 trillion ‘omnibus’ spending bill in the Senate Thursday night was the first serious indication after the Nov. 2 election that the Tea Party movement has staying power and will be a force into 2011,” writes The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. “Some Republicans on Capitol Hill said Thursday night that GOP leadership played a pivotal role as well. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was said to have pressured key GOP lawmakers to stand firm against the legislation, though some in leadership said the conference was fairly united against it from the beginning.” Less, uh, established folks, like Sen. Tom Coburn’s beard, were more willing to give all credit to the Tea Party: “It was 100 percent grassroots…The American people took it down,” said Coburn spokesman John Hart. Also, bitter Democrats, one of whom dejectedly chalked up the broke-down omnibus to Congressional Republicans being “a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tea Party.” (more)

House Republican leaders appear to be headed for a clash with some of the chamber’s newly elected members on a vote early next year to increase the amount the government can borrow. (more)

Heath Shuler doesn’t even bother with political artifice. He candidly admits he doesn’t have a prayer of defeating Nancy Pelosi Wednesday for the post of minority leader. (more)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took Capitol Hill by surprise Monday when he endorsed a two-year timeout from earmarks. McConnell, who originally opposed a moratorium, switched his stance after hearing from constituents fed up with the earmark favor factory. (more)

ASHEVILLE — Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) continued to side step questions on CNN Sunday morning about his potential bid to challenge Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for minority leader, but admitted the he wouldn’t have the numbers to win if he did. (more)

Nancy Pelosi’s insistence on remaining the leader of Democrats in the House of Representatives has made clear how shockingly out of touch Pelosi is with the rest of the country. Pelosi and Obama are upper-crust versions of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne. They are bumbling around, clueless to what is going on around them, but forever confidently reassuring themselves that “someday we’ll get our break too, we’ve got to keep our eyes open.”  For everyone else, unfortunately, this misadventure is not quite as funny as the Farrelly brothers’ slapstick classic. In fact it is incredibly somber. The consequence of their odyssey is a tab of I.O.U.s that will take more than one briefcase to fill and more than one generation to pay back. (more)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going to have to be dynamited out of the leadership of her party. (more)

In what could become a showdown for the No. 2 spot in Democratic House leadership, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer announced Friday that he would consider a run for Minority Whip, a position South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn says he intends to keep in 2011.  (more)

Facing widespread criticism for saying that Republicans’ top priority is to remove President Obama from the White House, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reaffirmed that if the party wants to implement its agenda, Obama must change course or exit the picture completely. (more)

Trent Lott, the former senate majority leader from Mississippi, made news last summer when he said this of incoming tea party-backed senators: “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” Lott’s words have since been held up as evidence that the Republican establishment in Washington is corrupt and out of touch – as case made most recently by Sen. Jim DeMint, in a widely-read op-ed that ran in Wednesday’s Wall St. Journal. (more)

Republicans are supposed to be focusing on the election every minute, every second. (more)

Democrats on Capitol Hill and K Street are increasingly convinced that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have little interest in being Minority Leader — and may start preparing to leave Congress altogether — if Republicans win the House next week. (more)

House Democrats barely won a 210-209 vote to adjourn the House without extending the Bush tax cuts. (more)

While Republican senators fume over the inclusion of two amendments added to the annual defense bill that would authorize military funding, Democrats say they’re not doing anything unusual. (more)

While Nancy Pelosi can probably pass whatever she wants in the House—she’s already written the Blue Dogs off as losers in November—the real tax action this fall will be in the Senate. That’s where Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is working to gather enough votes to block a tax increase on capital gains, dividends and anyone making more than $200,000 a year. (more)