Washington Babylon

From Associated Press, via Andrew Sullivan: Bong water can count as a controlled substance, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a decision that raises the threat of longer sentences…

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From the Washington Post: It takes a while for most start-up companies to gain the confidence of a U.S. congressman and the promise of federal funds. But last year, a…

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In May, I wrote about how beltway lobbyists, led by Patton Boggs were cashing in big time on the war in Sri Lanka. The lobbying firm, I noted, was being…

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Martin Eisenstadt’s new memoir, One Man’s (Wildly Inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans, is essential reading for political junkies. Some readers of this blog may recall that Eisenstadt worked for…

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As Scott Horton recently noted a few months back, no country in the world but the United States “regularly hands out choice ambassadorships as a favor for campaign funding bundlers…A…

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I love when Washington political reporters inadvertently reveal that they live in a beltway bubble and talk to no one other than those inside of it. As was the case…

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An email, slightly edited, from Martha Regula of the National First Ladies’ Library complaining about a piece I wrote discussing earmarks funneled to her institution: Let me point out just…

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From ProPublica: Four years ago, a group of lawmakers and aides crafted Medicare Part D, the prescription drug program for seniors that has produced billions of dollars of profits for…

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The Washington Post reported over the weekend on the ongoing federal investigation into defense earmarks, saying that it was “increasingly focused on a former top aide to Rep. Peter J.…

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“Does any of this matter, or is it merely interesting?” Richard Cohen of the Washington Post asked about his own column in today’s paper. Since Cohen wrote it, you already…

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“Can I speak freely about the liberal whiners?” asks a well-connected Democratic strategist. “These are the same people who have never participated in, much less won, a campaign, who have…

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From Politico: At a meeting last April with corporate lobbyists, aides to President Barack Obama and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) helped set in motion a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, primarily financed…

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The story that captivated the nation ends with a whimper, not a bang. “A 6-year-old boy…thought to be inside a balloon that floated over Colorado for over two hours has…

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From IPS: A veteran Army officer who has served in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars warns in an analysis now circulating in Washington that the counterinsurgency strategy urged by…

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From Calvin Trillin: Celebrities would just be fools, To play by little people’s rules. So Roman’s banner we unfurl. He only raped one little girl.

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From TPM: [Congresswoman] Myrick and three other members of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus came to a news conference today armed with Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to…

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From The Onion: According to a report published this week in American Journalism Review, 93 percent of all newspaper sales can now be attributed to kidnappers seeking to prove the…

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From Bloomberg: Some of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides, none of whom faced Senate confirmation, earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc.…

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Fom Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post : Analysts at Goldman Sachs suggested Tuesday that, despite a 50 percent run-up in stock prices that has left the Dow Jones industrial…

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Rufus Phillips, Vietnam expert, as quoted by the New Yorker: I’m afraid the President, who seems like a supremely rational being, is trying to find the most rational policy option…

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From Associated Press: The Israeli military takes months to investigate whether its soldiers committed crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank, deliberately trying to dim chances of any prosecution, an…

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From The Awl: Harvard University and the New York Times are the high church bishoprics of the money culture’s permanent counter-reformation: elite northeastern institutions that compulsively monitor each other for…

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From Wired: It sounds like the opening scene of a B movie: A giant bug lands on a truck driver transporting intercontinental ballistic missiles. The trucker swerves off the road,…

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From Glenn Greenwald: While Obama’s popularity has surged in Western Europe, the changes in the Muslim world in terms of how the U.S. is perceived have been small to nonexistent.…

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Ted Trautman contributed reporting for this interview. Joe Berlinger is the director and producer of the new movie “Crude: The Real Price of Oil,” which tells the story of an…

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From the Washington Post: In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until…

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Imagine if the Bush Administration were helping cover up the vote farce in Afghanistan? How much bloviating would be emanating from the liberal blogosphere at this point? From Peter Galbraith:…

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From the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics: From January 2007 through June 2009, Senator Max Baucus collected contributions from 37 outside lobbyists representing PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s…

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