And can you guess which party outnumbers the other on the list?

Hint: Think Thurston and Lovey.

The 50 wealthiest lawmakers were worth almost $1.4 billion in 2009, about $85.1 million more than 12 months earlier, according to The Hill's annual review of lawmakers' financial disclosure forms.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) tops the list for the second year in a row. His minimum net worth was $188.6 million at the end of 2009, up by more than $20 million from 2008, according to his financial disclosure form.

…There were a few other new faces in the Top 50, including Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), who received an inheritance after his late father, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), died in 2009. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) also made the list.

Twenty-seven Democrats along with 23 Republicans make up the 50 richest in Congress; 30 House members and 20 senators are on the list. . . .

So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.

This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office.

Well thank you candidate Obama, you will soon be back in your comfort zone running for re-election. Too bad you couldn't find some time to actually command the troops in the interim.

He also managed to bring up the monetary cost of the war as one of its downsides.

We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home…..We have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas.

Perhaps that also helps to explain why nearly all of them are liberals. When all that one hears all day long is left-wing claptrap - and especially when future employment demands acquiescence to the prevailing tenets - it's easy to understand the half-baked inanities these wienies so arrogantly espouse. They speak of tolerance as if it's something they copyrighted, but they despise everyone who isn't in lockstep with them. Although they make their living with words, when it comes to debating the opposition, they rely on a mantra of "racist," "fascist," "bigot" and "homophobe."

This isolation from large segments of the population, relying strictly on other members of the industry for one's social and intellectual life, might also explain why even major stars subscribe to the blathering of someone like Barack Obama, who carries on very much like a movie star.

It occurred to me that even without make-up, stars don't seem to age at the same rate as the rest of us. It's not all thanks to Botox and plastic surgery, hairpieces and stomach stapling. When you're a movie star, as rich as Midas, as pampered as Madame Pompadour, you are spared all the day-to-day travails that wear down the rest of us. Stars have drivers, managers, secretaries, gofers and nannies, to take care of all their needs - everything from picking up his dry cleaning to raising the kids.

A tragedy in a star's life is getting a smaller trailer than the female lead. A hardship in that world is having to get up early in the morning so that some guy who had to wake up even earlier can chauffeur him to the studio, where someone else will dress him and apply his makeup, so that a third person can then guide him safely around the scenery and tell him how to say his lines. Except that he may have less time for golf and vacations, it's a lot like being the president. One main difference is that the star has to pay for his own bodyguards, while the rest of us have to pay for the president's.

Mr. Beck is a television host and radio broadcaster with a checkered past and a penchant for incendiary remarks. But if he's judged by the quality of people of all colors that he attracted to the Lincoln Memorial, his stock can't help but rise.

One would not be able to find a more polite crowd at a political convention, certainly not at a professional sporting event, probably not even at an opera. In fact, judging by the behavior of the attendees following the event, you'd have a tough time finding churches in which people display more patience as others make their way to the exits.

This army of well-mannered folks that marched into Washington seemed comprised mainly of people who had once marched in the U.S. Army or other military branch, or at least had a family member who had. Perhaps that's not surprising, given that the event was a fund-raiser for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides scholarships to the children of elite troops killed in the performance of their duty. The day was largely devoted to expressions of gratitude for the sacrifices of U.S. soldiers, for great men of American history like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and for God.

But it didn't end there. Dave Roever, a Vietnam veteran, offered a closing prayer in which he thanked the Lord for the president and for the Congress. Despite the unpopularity of the latter two, no booing or catcalls could be heard.

It will take more than a couple of key strokes to reset the agenda for one of the world's most enduring conflicts. But when I accompanied some Google executives on a trip to Gaza and the West Bank this summer, I saw how the Web can have a positive impact there. Internet use is increasingly linking young Palestinians to economic opportunities and information, transcending borders and blockades.

In Ramallah, we attended a group meeting of computer programmers attended by more than 130 young Palestinians. In an airy cafe with palm trees and flat screen televisions, the American execs challenged the programmers to compete against each other in a "code jam," basically a computer-hacking contest to develop code using open-source platforms. The World Cup was on, but the Palestinians were glued to their computers. When not diligently programming, they were pitching startup ideas to technology executives on hand to observe.

While the West Bank and Gaza have suffered from wars, political instability and limited access to resources, the Web has proliferated. Internet penetration-the percentage of the population that uses the Web-is estimated at 40% in the West Bank and as high as 60% in Gaza. Both figures are higher than those in many other Arab nations.

With a Sorosian Barack Obama running the United States, a Sorosian Vladimir Putin running the neo Soviet Union of Third Millennium Russia, and that earliest of Sorosian visionaries, Dr. Henry Kissinger of Harvard, running an eternally Sorosian dialogue with the Tweedledees and Tweedledums of Red China, we have an entirely Sorosian New World Order.

The old euphemism for Marxist, the eternally resurrected treasonous lie called Progressive, has once again, as with Henry A. Wallace failed the smell test.

Therefore the new word for Progressive must be Sorosian.

HOLLYWOOD Sorosified: Oh, those rumored "splits" in the Democratic Party?

George and Media Matters will fix that … unless, of course, George is so disappointed with his Oval Office Mini-Me's that he's given the order for his Wolfhound to bite!

Republicans could still blow it, but as they head toward a likely victory in the midterm election they should consider what it would mean to regain control of the House of Representatives. The perks are great. Several other aspects of power are less enjoyable.