This morning, at a special swearing-in ceremony for the Congressional Black Caucus, outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi offered the GOP an olive branch and the promise of cooperation:

“We extend the hand of friendship to create jobs, grow the middle class and reduce the deficit. We look for common ground to solve the problems of the American people: their health, their housing, their jobs, their savings, their children’s education.”

But, just hours later, and about a minute after the House elected John Boehner as the new Speaker, Pelosi blasted out a fundraising email to supporters. Big Government was forwarded a copy:

This is our first test of how grassroots Democrats will respond to the Republicans’ disgraceful attempt to roll back our progress for America’s middle class families. We must hold House Republicans’ feet to the fire for taking government funded health care for themselves while voting to deny it to American families.

That is why we urgently need your support to raise $100,000 in grassroots contributions to hold Republicans accountable before their shameful vote on Wednesday.

Contribute $5, $10 or more today to help us respond to the Republicans’ shameful vote to take away quality, affordable health care from the American people and put insurance companies back in charge.

Classy.

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No matter what happens on November 2^nd, 2010 will be the year that conservatives won.  Patriotic conservatives of all flavors, have risen up in extraordinary ways, in every corner of the country.  It appears all but certain that Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be dethroned. Dick Morris even predicts as many as 100 new Republican Congressmen giving many people really high expectations for the new Congress.

Others fear that for all their trouble from organizing, holding rallies and knocking on doors, they will only replace the leftist Democrats with RINO Republicans who will squander the victory.  Will we get Speaker Boehner, or a fresh new conservative leader who will truly take a big stick to big government.   A closer look at the numbers should give conservatives reason to be really excited and also a cause for continued resolve.

If you want a conservative Congress, you have to ask yourself just what kind of conservative are you after.  Drew Kurlowski, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Missouri who studies voting behavior and partisanship, referred me to a dataset popular with political science academics called DW-Nominate.  It is a tremendous resource that meticulously compiles the voting records of the Congress going back to the 1st Congress.  If you want to know who George Washington’s favorite conservative was, this is your site.  Moreover, they settled on a definition of “conservative” that is tremendously useful.  Move over “fiscal conservative” and “social conservative” and make room for (limited) “government intervention in the economy”.  Let’s call it L’GIE.  So who are the liggies?

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The Senate earmarks $500,000 for itself; Money will be spent to promote Senators’ appearances

House of Representative’s expense reports now online

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent $2,993 in taxpayer money on flowers in just a few months and House Majority Whip James Clyburn spent hundreds of dollars on donuts

Congress steers millions of taxpayer dollars to campaign donors’ pet projects including an earmark for “mammal awareness”

The Justice Department has instructed federal agencies to honor contracts with ACORN despite ban on funding passed by Congress and signed by the President

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