When President Bush announced his economic stimulus in January 2008, he bragged that his package was the “right size” and would “boost” the economy:

I am pleased that this agreement meets the criterion that I set forth last week to provide an effective, robust, and temporary set of incentives that will boost our economy and encourage job creation. This package has the right set of policies and is the right size. The incentives in this package will lead to higher consumer spending and increased business investment this year.

Bush’s package did stimulate spending…in the adult pornography industry. The Adult Internet Market Research Company reported that membership rates at many porn sites had grown 20-30 percent since mid-May, and “websites focused on adult or erotic material” saw an “upswing in sales” as Americans received their tax rebates in the mail. Many observers began wondering if porn was recession-proof.

Turns out that even this vice industry — which has weathered many other economic downturns — has gone limp under Bush. Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis and Hustler magazing publisher Larry Flynt have asked Congress for a $5 billion bailout, arguing that their industry is also one of the “nation’s most important businesses“:

[A]ccording to Flynt the recession has acted like a national cold shower. “People are too depressed to be sexually active,” Flynt says, “This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex.”

While not to the degree felt by banks and automakers, the Adult Entertainment industry has been hit by the effects of the economic downturn. DVD sales and rentals have decreased by 22 percent in the past year as viewers turn to the internet for adult entertainment.

The Bush administration has attempted to wage an aggressive fight in the War on Porn. In fact, cracking down on “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography was “one of the top priorities” of Alberto Gonzales while he was Attorney General, often coming before terrorism prosecutions. Looks like all it took to accomplish these goals was the decimation of the entire U.S. economy.

Today, in a reversal from his previous position, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) opened the door to seating Roland Burris as the successor to President-elect Obama’s Senate seat. At the end of his press conference, Reid said that Burris’s appointment with undoubtedly come to a full Senate vote:

Q: Are you suggesting that there will ultimately be a vote of the entire Senate on whether or not to seat Roland Burris?

REID: I think without any question that will be the case.

Watch it:

Softening his earlier stance that Burris should not be seated, Obama called the situation a “Senate matter,” but he added, “If he gets seated, then I’m going to work with Roland Burris just like I worked with all the other senators to make sure that the people of Illinois and the people of the country are served.”

After complaining that she was not informed in advance about Barack Obama’s choice of Leon Panetta to head the CIA, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) now says she’ll support the nomination. Feinstein previously said that she wanted “an intelligence professional in charge” of the CIA. But following a 20-minute conservation with Panetta last night, she “came away confident he’d surround himself with good personnel at the agency.”

In November 2007, when then-Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) announced his retirement from Congress, it was believed that Lott resigned at that time in order to “immunize” himself against a new lobbying law that requires Senators to wait two-years instead of one before lobbying Congress. At the time, Lott said the ban, which took effect in 2008, “didn’t have a big role” in his decision. But yesterday, after his one-year wait was over, he admitted “he had been counting the seconds” until he could lobby his friends in Congress:

“I’m free!” announced former Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi. “My year is up!”

Special interests politics are apparently still in favor with the former Republican leader, who said he had been counting the seconds — quite literally — until the expiration of a 12-month ban on lobbying that he faced throughout 2008 as a former senator.

When President-elect Obama nominated Eric Holder to be Attorney General, Karl Rove called him the “one controversial nominee,” and urged conservatives to “examine” him. Chris Matthews reported that Rove “is going to be helping lead the fight against Eric Holder,” pushing his involvement in controversial Clinton policies including the pardon of Marc Rich.

Now Senate Republicans are taking Rove’s marching orders, latching onto Holder as “the most vulnerable” of Obama’s nominees. Yesterday, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) lashed out at Holder, calling into question “issues of [Holder's] character” and suggesting Holder acquiesced to President Clinton too readily.

In a conference call this morning, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) continued the assault, saying that “it’s not going to be a smooth confirmation” for Holder. He evoked Holder’s very tenuous ties to embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich as reason to be suspicious of the nominee:

GRASSLEY: It signals that it’s not going to be a smooth confirmation. It doesn’t signal that he may not be confirmed. … [H]e was a counsel or at least Governor Blagojevich had sought to have him involved with something with race tracks in Illinois and casinos, I think. And so we’re trying to get freedom of information on that because we need to know what the relationship is with Governor Blagojevich. And I don’t say that in denigrating in any way except Governor Blagojevich’s recent troubles raises questions with anybody that’s had a relationship with him. … [I]t’s not going to be smooth sailing.

Ironically, just minutes before asserting that “anybody that’s had a relationship” with Blagojevich “raises questions,” Grassley insisted that the Senate must seat Blagojevich-appointed Roland Burris. “He’s got a perfect right to have that seat,” Grassley said.

Responding to the conservative attacks, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) — who already agreed to postpone Holder’s nomination hearing to give Republicans more time to dig into his record — said, “Any effort to question his character is unfounded. Every Republican voted for Alberto Gonzales, and felt his character merited confirmation. Certainly Eric Holder greatly exceeds that test.”