Hoyer Beats Pelosi's Pick in Race for No. 2 House Post  —  House Democrats chose Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland as their majority leader today after a bruising fight that cast a cloud over the party's post-election celebration.  —  The election of Mr. Hoyer over Representative John P. Murtha …

Murtha Loses... But It's Still a Victory for Pelosi  —  The votes are in and Steny Hoyer is the new House majority leaders, winning out over Jack Murtha 149-86.  —  For all the reasons I've made abundantly clear, I would've loved to see Murtha as Majority Leader.

Hoyer humiliates Pelosi, defeats Murtha, 149-86  —  Just in at Fox.  Soak it in.  Updates coming.  —  Update: Unless there was some eleventh-hour shift to Hoyer — which is unlikely, considering that 90 Democrats had already publicly committed to him yesterday — then Murtha lied to Matthews's face on Hardball yesterday.

Why Murtha Lost  —  "Talk is cheap," Jack Murtha wrote in a letter declaring his candidacy for House Majority Leader, "which is why, up until Iraq forced me to, I didn't do a lot of it."  The sixteen-term Congressman and former Marine from rural, blue-collar Western Pennsylvania preferred …

Pelosi Stumbles Out of the Blocks  —  Political Wire guest contributor Stuart Rothenberg reflects on incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's first big loss.  —  Yes, I know.  Leadership fights on Capitol Hill are the ultimate political insider contests.  Voters don't care about them, and once they are over, they are quickly forgotten.

Nobel economist Milton Friedman dead at 94  —  Advocate of deregulation whose influence soared after Ronald Reagan became president.  —  NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Milton Friedman, the Nobel-prize winning economist who helped shape and define free-market economic theory, died Thursday at the age of 94 in San Francisco.

Milton Friedman, economist, dies aged 94  —  Milton Friedman, who has died aged 94, was the last of the great economists to combine possession of a household name with the highest professional credentials.  In this respect he was often compared to John Maynard Keynes, whose work he always respected …

A third incident, a new video  —  A cellphone camera captures UCLA police using a Taser on a student who allegedly refused to leave the library Tuesday night.  —  The latest in a recent spate of cellphone videos documenting questionable arrest tactics surfaced Wednesday …