What's worse than a GW student whose wealthy parents insulate him from the dark, scary real world? How about a student who cares so much about the lovely poor kids that she wants to evict them from housing? Patriot readers, meet Melanie Hoffman:

Sure, the [Martha's Marathon annual housing] auction may appeal to those students who have no problem throwing down seven grand that most likely comes from their parents’ wallet. However, for the average student, the idea of this event is incredibly unfair, especially at a school where over 60 percent of the student body receives some type of financial aid or scholarship.”

Melanie, come up with an alternative way to fund the housing scholarship or stop talking. As a non-rich student going to GW on a scholarship, I could care less what sort of "message" the University sends to rich students with Martha's Marathon. I do care, however, about having a place to live for nine months out of the year.

It may please you, Melanie, to look down your nose at the obvious, ostentatious greed on display in a GW housing auction. In an ideal world, we might agree that this event stains the good name of Our Fair University. But we don't live in an ideal world. Your moral vanity and your sympathy for my "plight" doesn't pay my bills or give me housing. The greed of GW students with $7,000 in allowance money to burn does. If you can't see that or accept it, I'm afraid you're more insulated from the real world than the wealthy students you criticize.

Greta "The Thumbscrew" Twombly has resigned her post as President Aswani's Chief of Staff. She claims that Aswani has "lost [her] friendship and respect." Whew.

Senator Dobson posted her resignation letter here. It has the tone of a jilted lover's lament, actually. Very touching:

I began this year with such hope with such a wonderful team assembled and a leader who I had the utmost faith in. I never thought failure would be an option. I have no idea what happened between then and now, but I do know one thing that changed, and that is Vishal. He is not the person whose campaign I ran nearly one year ago. He is not the friend who I sacrificed so much for and who I put a great deal of time and dedication into. I do not know why or how he changed, but he did. He has lost my friendship and my respect.

My take: this is just more flesh falling from the corpse of an administration that has been sloughing off personnel and credibility for some time. We can only hope that, in the next couple of months, Aswani will take the time to address the concerns of Twombly and her predecessors-in-resignation.

An excessive focus on the internal politics of the S.A. keeps it from doing its job. I don't mean to imply that Twombly's complaints aren't legitimate--just that it's best to focus on how to move forward in the wake of her resignation rather than spending the next few months pissing on Aswani.

P.S. - I will miss inventing creative, violent nicknames for Greta "The Crusher" Twombly. It was all in jest, really. To make one retraction, I apologize for believing that she alone was responsible for the foolish, threatening e-mail sent to S.A. officials last semester.

For those who care, after three rounds of voting, it seems to be a two man race between current RNC chairman Mike Duncan and former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele. Steele is gaining while Duncan is falling after leading the first ballot.

One thing that was odd was the only candidate to bring up "change" was Mike Duncan. I guess it's better to say that than bring up how much he sucked the past election cycle.

UPDATE (2:34pm): Mike Duncan has dropped out of the race. More to come later.

UPDATE (2:48pm): Katon Dawson, the South Carolina state Party's chair, is in the lead with 62 votes to Steele's sixty. Eighty-five are needed to win. Blackwell has 15 strategic votes. If he drops out, his votes will probably go to Dawson.

UPDATE (4:35pm): So I was texting Bill this whole time to update the blog post, but unfortunately he did not put them up here. Prior to the fourth vote, Ken Blackwell announced he was dropping out and putting his full support behind Michael Steele. This was pretty shocking as Blackwell had criticized Steele for being too moderate. The crowd in attendance let out a pretty good cheer, the crowd was mostly Duncan and Steele supporters. However, this did not mean that all the Blackwell votes automatically went to Steele. In fact, even if they all did, Steele would not have had enough votes to put him over the top. The fourth vote came with Steele needing only 6 votes to wrap it up. Prior to the fifth vote, the last remaining laggard, Saul Anuzis (head of Michigan committee), dropped out leaving the fifth ballot as the final ballot. In the end, Michael Steele came out on top with 91 votes. He gave a pretty good speech, talked a lot about engagement and getting the party excited again. All in all, it actually had a lot more drama than I thought it would have.

I know I just started them back up, but I am going to be gone all day at the RNC chairmanship elections.

A College Democrat decided to do some interior decorating of the CD/CR office...by desecrating crosses. Real S-M-R-T, man.

The College Republicans were in possession of a number of crucifixes used in a University-sanctioned Right To Life display. When the display was taken down, they were stored in the College Repulicans’ side of their shared but divided office space with the College Democrats. When the last College Republican members left the offices this last Friday, January 23, the crucifixes were safely stored on their side of the suite.

This Monday afternoon, January 27, when the first College Republicans to re-enter the offices did so, they discovered some of the horrifically desecrated crucifixes, stolen from the private property confines of their storage containers, and proudly displayed on the College Democrats’ bulletin board, and other areas, including a bowl, laid out as if they were candy for any member of the public who visited the office to take home and enjoy. One crucifix featured the College Democrats’ version of Christ: a large penis with an actual condom pulled over the top, in lieu of His crown of thorns.

Pictures can be found at the above link. Excuse the ridiculousness of the website, but apparently this story hasn't hit the "mainstream liberal media" yet, because of systemic bias or lag-time or whatever explanation your particular partisan tilt finds more acceptable.

I'm not a Christian, so I'm not...uh...spiritually offended. (In fact, the crosses seem like such an over-the-top parody of militant anti-Christianism that I originally thought they were plants. I was offended by the implied suggestion that I was dumb enough to fall for morality-baiting that transparent.)

With that said...really, dude? You thought it would be a good idea to decorate the office with vandalized religious paraphernalia stolen from a pro-life public display? Really? You thought this would be a funny joke? Oh man, it's Christ...on the cross...UPSIDE DOWN. Lawdy! Or another one, with "PWNED" written on top. LAWL. Wait, wait, put a condom on that one! Priceless!

Next time, let's post some blood libel paintings and have another good chuckle.

And all of this after your Fearless Leader told WRGW that he wanted to "marginalize [conservatives and Republicans at GW] as much as possible"? Do you crave ridicule that much? Is your newly-earned political capital burning a hole in your pocket so quickly that you just have to toss some of it away on a frivolous, unfunny joke?

Blind fools! Be gone from our sight!

(CR and CD reactions to Christgate.)

UPDATE: The Hatchet's coverage (thusfar) of this incident.

• Stimulus Package Passes The House, Republicans United In Opposition
• Economic Stimulus Or Opportunism?
• Only The Market Can Save Us From This Crisis
• Why A Big, Bad Bank Might Be Good
• The Recession's Silent Victim: Gold Diggers
• The Most Remote Place On Earth

In a EBKian exercise of not being able to give it up I am officially announcing my candidacy for one of the Student Association Senate Seats for the Elliott School of International Affairs. For those of you keeping score at home I have already ran and lost twice going for a Senate seat (First time for a Freshmen seat, the second time for ESIA in '07). Since next year is my fourth and final year at GW I realize I have nothing to lose (except this election) and figure it won't hurt one more time to try and represent my fellow IAFFers.

My Platform is simple, its only two (er..three) things:
1)Open the Elliott School's countless classrooms for extended hours during finals week
2) Do everything I can to usurp any and all financial capability away from the Student Association and into the hands of Student Org leaders and students themselves.

3. Get rid of J-Street mandatory spending (Hey, every other candidate will say it and not mean it... why not me?)

If I am elected, I intend to stay on here at the Patriot, but will instead focus my commentary elsewhere (like BSG, part two coming soon!) so as not to steal any of Logan's "I hate the SA" thunder.

Will I go 0-3? Probably.
Will I have a lot of fun bashing the SA for the next month, you bet.

• The Stimulus: A 40-year Wish List
• Preventable Job Cuts
• Geithner's China Bashing Bodes Ill For Stocks
• The Minimum Wage And Busboys
• If Shakespeare Had Twittered
• Want One.

A feverishly-paced liveblog of the S.A.'s first Senate meeting is done and will remain posted in the application below. Give it a read, if you dare.

Here's what happened, and what we learned:

1) Our commentary degenerated into petty insults, inside jokes, and banter that would make sense only to people already inside the meeting. No surprise here: this has happened to every liveblog we've done. Haven't you been paying attention? What We Learned: Liveblogging is hard, y'all.

2) Patriot Associate Editor J.J. Gottschalk lost his bid to become the next Senator from the School of Business. He was defeated by Brendan Curran. What We Learned: The S.A. is very good at making bad decisions.

3) Christophe Hollocu (sp?) is the new S.A. Senator from the Columbian College. What We Learned: His first name sounds a lot like "Chris Dove" when spoken quickly.

4) The S.A. passed a resolution advocating the addition of gender identity to the list of categories included in GW's anti-discrimination policy. What We Learned: Sometimes, the right thing to do is so obvious that even the Senate can't avoid doing it.

5) EBK, alumnus and S.A. commentator extraordinaire, hung up his hat tonight, and will be closing down his blog and ending his S.A. commentary. Regardless of your opinion of the man, you have to admire his tenacity. Best of luck to him in the future. What We Learned: It's not easy being EBK.

6) Kevin Homiak was approved as President Aswani's new Vice President for Public Affairs, promising bi-weekly press conferences and a more open relationship with student publications, including The Patriot. This Bud's for you, Public Affairs Vice President Man. What We Learned: When the Tool Mine goes under, the S.A. does have non-tools on which it can draw for support. Homiak looks like he'll make a fine VPPA.

That's all for the S.A. beat. Good night, and good 'baggery, folks.

So tonight was a travesty, a sham, a mockery...a traveshamockery? No, in all seriousness, after witnessing for the first time at GW a whole SA meeting, I realized it might be a good thing I didn't win. Unlike the winner, I haven't spent any time in any SA staff position, so maybe he actually knows what he is doing. While I do believe I would have been a good senator, I don't think my laid back approach would have really meshed too well with some of the more serious senators (Louis Laverone I'm looking at you!). 

I think after tonight, its only fair that I try and explain exactly what we here at The Patriot are trying to do when we Liveblog SA Senate meetings.
Our goal is two-fold. We want to be both informative and funny. The truth is, the Senate takes itself way (waywaywaywayway) too seriously and as such we feel the need to poke fun at them for their over serious nature. (see Senator Lavalamp). On the other hand we understand the SA occasionally delves into important topics (library fees, transgender issues, etc) and we feel a need to keep you all abreast of what is going on.

That's all.

I got up at 8am this morning to get tickets for the Ben Folds/ Jason Mraz concert. Ticketmaster opens at nine, so of course there was a bit of line. The line went past Colonial Central, up the steps next to to the Acid-trip Washington Monument and into J Street. Well, Colonial Central opens up at 8:30 and god-forbid the Marvin Center lets a few kids get in the way of a crying freshmen who just learned her financial aid just got cut. So, in a flash of what I can only assume was pure poorly thought out planning, the Marvin Center ( a synecdoche for two old guys with walkie-talkies), decided to start moving the line up a flight of stairs that I'm sure were only put in place in case of a fire emergency, seeing as they are right beside the main doors. The lines wound all the way up 5 flights of stairs and then back down to the sub-basement. All told there were seven flights of stairs completely blocked off and inaccessible. For two hours.
I'm just glad WoW didn't catch on fire (even though thats a long held prayer of mine) engulfing the building in flames of over-priced crappy wing nasty. I just got a text from a friend and apparently (as of 11:30) there still was a line, two and a half hours later.
J-Street has officially been replaced by Marvin Center Ticketmaster line management in the "What sucks the most about the Marvin Center" column.

The S.A. Senate meeting tomorrow--the first of the semester--will be liveblogged at the usual time (9pm, unless I'm mistaken).

Senator Dobson's blog (which is currently recovering from a slew of anonymous comments ostensibly made by angry fraternity brothers and scorned S.A. officials) tells us that Kevin Homiak is likely to be confirmed as President Aswani's new Vice President for Public Affairs, and that the Senate is close to appointing the new Senators for the Columbian College and School of Business. 'Bag-tastic!

In non-GW news, our counterparts at the Georgetown Voice have channeled our hypercritical, watchdoggin' spirit by monitoring their own Student Association's meetings with a "weekly run-down." It's "sass-meets-CSPAN." Witty! Keep up the good work, ladies and gents.

May the vigilant eye of the independent student press remain forever...uh...vigilant and independent!

UPDATE: Uh, scratch that. The first S.A. Senate meeting of the semester is tomorrow, Tuesday. See you then.

Do you hear that sucking sound? It's not outsourcing. It's the sound of two million tourists fleeing our Federal City like it's 1814, now that the Inaugural Madness has passed.

Just like all the other cool kids, (fellow Patriot editor) Will Frey and I will be appearing on WRGW tonight from 11pm-12pm, to talk about said Madness. Tune in here, and check it out.

That is, if you have nothing better to do, which I hope to God you do at 11pm on a Friday night. Loser.

It's made the Post. New details, other than the gender of the student, are still unfortunately scarce. The police think that the death was natural:

The student was a female undergraduate, university spokeswoman Tracy Schario said. Her roommates made the discovery this morning about 8:30 a.m. and called 911, Schario said. The student's identity was not released.

Sgt. Kenny Bryson, a D.C. police spokesman, said authorities responded to the 600 block of 23rd Street NW. Bryson said preliminary information indicates that the investigators from the department's natural death squad, not the violent crimes branch, which investigates homicides, are looking into the incident.

UPDATE: A name and a face to go with a story. The student was sophomore Laura Treanor, a contributing editor at The GW Hatchet. Condolences to her family and friends.

From the GW Alert system:

This is an alert for the GW community. UPD & MPD are investigating the death of a student in Ivory Tower. Please avoid Ivory Tower and check the campus advisory for updates.

I don't think this is the time for speculation, so please no comments on what you think might have happened, any information that you would like to share feel free to email me or one of the other editors.

I think now our thoughts and prayers should be with who ever lost their life as well as the friends and family of that person.

HT: 4-Block World

While you're waiting for Barack Obama to deliver his (no doubt cookie-cutter, focus group-tested) inaugural address on Tuesday, I offer you the best first inaugural address evar, given at a moment of such importance as to make our present "crisis" situation look...pretty mundane.

Take it away, Abraham:

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

His second inaugural address was even better.

Bill recently commented on the small debate going on about proposed changes to the library "donation" that appears on student's bills every semester. Although Bill presented a compelling explanation of libertarian paternalism, the actual question of the library fee, which is arguably more significant an issue than the student fee, was left unanswered... Why is the "donation" an opt-out instead of an opt-in? Why is it necessary to, in a back-handed way, trick students (or, more appropriately, their parents) into making a donation most don't know exists? Couldn't the library budget be determined in the way every other university budget is?

Real library fee reform would not be transforming a fee that conscientious parents educate themselves on and opt-out of into a mandatory "donation" (which is as much an oxymoron as "mandatory community service"), but turning the library donation fee into an actual donation, requiring an opt-in. If not that, than an elimination of the donation in the first place. The university should be able to craft the library a budget from the 50,000 dollars we pay a year to attend this school. The library donation, though small, is an immoral and disingenuous way of nickle-and-diming families that already pay an arm and a leg for a school perpetually unable to break the top 50.

My disappointment in Mr. Dobson is obvious. His concern has been transferred from the students and parents paying to attend, to the university hoping to find an easier way to write up a budget. The library donation is a type of fee that Dobson pledged to fight in the first place. I hope further consideration leads Dobson to rethink his stance.

Mad Libs. Obama Style.

...by taking up smoking!

It seems the bill looking to expand SCHIP passed in the House of Representatives yesterday. This expansion will be funded with an increase of the federal cigarette tax to $1 per pack.

Student Association EVP Kyle Boyer has proposed making it mandatory. (Did you even know that it was voluntary?) In this post and its comments section, SA Senator and Patriot compatriot Logan Dobson calls this a "good idea," which he "tepidly" supports. Patriot Editor-in-Chief Pat Ford disagrees:

Another forfeiture of principle from Logan Dobson.

Turning a voluntary fee into a mandatory fee so we can be continually nickled and dimed. Thanks, Logan.

Sell out.

I have a few thoughts. First, the voluntary library fee (a flat rate of $50 each semester, automatically billed but declinable at the student's request) is Cass Sunstein's wet-dream: the perfect example of libertarian paternalism. It allows you to make your own choices, but structures the architecture of those choices in a way that encourages lazy people to pick consistently a particular socially or individually beneficial path. Move the Jell-O to the end of the buffet line. Hide the cigarettes behind the convenience store counter. Pull small amounts of money from paychecks and automatically funnel it into a retirement account. Basically, do everything you want to do to people, but give them the opportunity for a low-cost "opt out" or the option to go a little further out of their way to do something harmful to themselves.

The proposal to make our donation mandatory--that is, to make it no longer a donation, to take the "libertarian" out of "libertarian paternalism"--doesn't surprise me. It's an unfortunate example of paternalism creep: libertarian paternalists are unafraid to take off the kid-gloves if you don't consistently make the "right" decision, which exposes the shallowness of their commitment to choice. (This is no secret: Sunstein advocates the manipulation of choice architecture instead of straight paternalism because he believes that the former will be cheaper and have a very Obamesque "post-partisan" appeal.) The emphasis will always be on paternalism: they want you to behave in a way beneficial to society, themselves, or yourself. Did you think they cared deeply about your right to choose? Oops.

I sometimes prefer open paternalists. At least they're straightforward. In the interest of straightforwardness, then, I'll ask Our Fair University and Mr. Boyer some questions: How many students routinely opt-out of the gift? Is that number so high as to imperil the library's funding? If so--and if this funding is the only way to keep the library functioning--why was the library donation made a donation in the first place? If there is a reason that you once supported our right to choice but you do no longer, we deserve to know what it is. And if you never did support it in the first place, we deserve also to know that.

As the clock ticks down on the Bush Administration with unmerciful sloth, here's the run-down on what will happen when a theoretical "transition" finally becomes disconcertingly concrete:

President and Mrs. Bush fly to Camp David Friday afternoon for a final weekend in the rustic seclusion of "the Camp." Over the next 36 hours, White House staffers will go through the behind-the-scenes business of turning in their hard passes, coded lapel pins, "flip-top" fancy White House IDs in leather folders, blackberries, cellphones, and security clearances.

The West Wing will be running on a skeleton crew over the weekend, and the Obamas will begin moving in before noon on Tuesday.

(H/T Andrew Hussein Sullivan)

Here is a list of 10 actual quotes/excerpts from actual Daily Kos staff writers.

"You Americans Aren't Selfish Enough 

"You pay all these taxes but you don't want anything in return for it. You don't want free health care. You don't want time off of work. You don't want anything. You're not selfish enough.

You get mad when someone is taking welfare and sitting on their *ss. What have you got against sitting on your *ss? The whole point behind having a government and paying taxes is to have more time to sit on your *ss. That's what technology is for. You Americans work longer than anyone, pay all these taxes, make all these robots, and then not only don't you sit on your *ss, but you get mad when anyone else does. You're f*cking crazy.

...Growing up means understanding self-regard. And you got none. You think anything for you must be bad. You're like a kid whose hand has been slapped above the cookie jar. Thing is, you made the cookies, idiot. This is your country, your government, and your taxes . . . you get to say what is done with it. And here's a clue: you want to sit on your *ss more. You want free health care."

I think this writer has never worked a day in his or her life. If they did, they would understand why it peeves so many that there are people who are taking welfare and sitting on their ass.

OMGZZZ! The talent lineup for the Obama Inauguration celebration has been released. Your resident music elitist would like to share:

The special will be executive produced by George Stevens, Jr. (The Kennedy Center Honors), and produced by Don Mischer (Olympic Ceremonies) who will also direct the special, and Michael Stevens (The American Film Institute Salutes) who is also writing the special, and will be a production of The Stevens Company in association with Don Mischer Productions.

Musical performers scheduled for the event include Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher Raymond IV, Shakira, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am, and Stevie Wonder. Among those reading historical passages will be Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington. The Rt. Reverend V. Gene Robinson will give the invocation. Rob Mathes will be the music director and arranger for the backing band, which will support all of the artists. Additional performers will be announced as they are confirmed.

Get used to it, folks. Obamania is here.

Abandon all hope, ye who re-enter here for spring semester.

To get your Hilary Term started right, read some of the priceless Yelp reviews of the Watergate Safeway (full of wonderful descriptions of "inches of bloody water" in the meat display and other scenes that "will remind you of the Soviet Union") while pretending to pay attention in your morning classes. Then, watch Joe the Reporter's first dispatch from the Holy Land to stay awake in your afternoon classes.

(Spoiler: Joe the Reporter/Plumber is as good at reporting as the Watergate Safeway is at being a clean, friendly, non-scary grocery store.)

"Mad Money's" Jim Cramer, no foe of the Democrats, had some harsh criticism of Obama the other day.

Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Obama's Chilling Impact on the Markets http://www.thestreet.com/story/10456530/1/cramers-mad-money-recap-obamas-chilling-impact-on-the-markets.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN

With the rise of the Dow for most of the first week of '09, all gains have been wiped out over the past two days as Obama's negative outlook for the economy shows more interest in spreading blame to the current administration for an economic condition inherited, than speaking optimistically about how to resolve the current situation.

Cramer ridicules Obama for focusing on stimulus that lacks much stimulating. In his view, Obama's emphasis to making payments to keep state governments afloat and and jobless claims paid out, sends a poor message to investors.

Indeed, this is very much is the case. Obama's message has essentially been that it is Groundhog Day and the groundhog did not see it shadow, signaling a long winter. That is not the message investors want to hear from a national leader and is no way to heal an economy. As Cramer accurately asserts, Obama should move its emphasis away from all the jobless claims it will be acting to prop up, and seek ways to create jobs.

Anyhow, thanks Obama for guaranteeing this graduating senior a promise for jobless claims rather than a revitalized economy with a job market!!

Nothing excites me more than hearing that Joe the Plumber is going to become a war correspondent.

...and get your prostate checked annually, guys.

(H/T to Deadspin, and a hearty thanks for letting us know what Karl Hobbs is up to while he's not crushing the dreams of GW hoops fans everywhere.)

Today the Colonials men's basketball team lost to the Longwood Lancers. Before you ask "Who is Longwood?". Let me tell you that they are a Division 1 Independent team, meaning they suck so much that they can't even be in a conference. This extends the Colonial's losing streak to four, with losses to Hawaii and the previously 1-10 Coppin St. Conference play starts next week, and I'm not confident. I blame all of this on Karl Hobbs. His lack of both recruiting and general coaching skills mixed with his penchant to stomp up and down the court like a little girl are doing nothing to make our basketball team at least remotely acceptable.

Thankfully, the Fire Hobbs site is up and running.