Dana Milbank

As the new Congress (aka "The Crackpot 114th") opens, we could laugh or we could weep

Miss Mitch, er, beamed at Tuesday's swearing in in the Old Senate Chamber"After so many years of sluggish growth, we're finally starting to see some economic data that can provide a glimmer of hope. The uptick appears to coincide with the biggest political change of the Obama administration's long tenure in Washington: the expectation of a new Republican Congress."-- silver-tongued "Miss Mitch" McConnell,taking over the helm of the U.S. Senate yesterdayby KenThat's right.

"For Republicans, the hard part is about to begin" (Dana Milbank). Plus, the Borowitz Report reads the exit polls

"Isn't this political ad wonderfully false and misleading?"" 'I really think it's time for a change,' said Carol Foyler, a memory-loss sufferer who cast her vote this morning in Iowa City. 'I just feel in my gut that if these people were in charge they'd do a really amazing job with the economy.' "Harland Dorrinson, who voted in Akron, Ohio, and who has no memory of anything that happened before 2013, said his main concern was a terrorist attack on American soil.

Dementedly truth-free right-wingers double down on their bottom line: "We can't (or just don't wanna) handle the truth!"

This hilarious photo of Chairman Trey -- master of the House's select committee on Benghazi Made-Up Stuff -- was posted with Dana Milbank's column. It looks like the chairman is wearing the suit (and tie) his mommy bought for him the day he first went out selling snake oil."The Republican Party has finally admitted what has been fairly obvious for much of the past six years: It produces fake news.

So, freeloading House GOP junketeers really do have some sense of . . . well, not shame exactly, but something sort of related

House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Conaway (R-TX) -- a fine ethicist who grasps the evil of "duplicative paperwork""These kinds of backroom deals and changing of the rules in the middle of the night is exactly why Congress has a lower approval rating than cockroaches and traffic jams."-- Rep.