Washington Babylon

A few weeks ago, I reported here on a plan by Congressman John Murtha’s friends and campaign donors to obtain up to $1 billion for a controversial project to build…

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A Frito-Lay spokeswoman, quoted in the Washington Post: For Frito-Lay, a focus on real ingredients is a new way to help consumers overcome their guilt about eating snack chips. Last…

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The New York Times had a story over the weekend reporting that the feds are exploring links between Congressman Pete Visclosky of Indiana and the PMA lobby shop: Mr. Visclosky,…

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From the Washington Times: The top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee operates a tax-exempt foundation that has raised donations from the industries his committee oversees, while giving…

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This is an important story from Investors Business Daily: Accounting rule-makers on Thursday did all they could to make the nation’s credit nightmare go away — or at least go…

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Sorry for the late notice, but I’ll be appearing on an investigative reporting panel today at Berkeley. Details below: Investigative Reporting Seminar with Professor Lowell Bergman When: April 3, 2009,…

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From Politico: Even if Norm Coleman pulls off a long-shot legal victory in the extended Minnesota Senate race, Democrats are vowing to make him wish that he hadn’t. Separate and…

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The guy is a yacht broker from Florida, which somehow comes as no surprise: Steven Michael Rubinstein, of Boca Raton, Fla., has been charged, via criminal complaint, with filing a…

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Great story from ProPublica: Geithner, who maintained ties to senior bank executives and others in the financial world, had a particularly close relationship with former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin,…

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From POGO: On March 4, 2009, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that Jason R. McNamara will serve as the Chief of Staff for the Federal Emergency Management…

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From the lows of mid-day March 6th through the close of trading yesterday, the Dow Jones is up 23%, the NASDAQ 100 is up 24% and the Russell 2000 is…

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The Daily Show nails Judd Gregg. Nancy Pelosi too, though the Gregg clip is the highlight.

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From Conor Clarke : I’m still reading the Republicans’ alternative budget (pdf), but I did want to highlight this graph from Republican Paul Ryan’s Wall Street Journal op-ed on the…

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From the Sunlight Foundation: Lobbying firms and special interests have filed nearly 1,700 new registration forms so far in the first quarter of 2009, a review of lobbying disclosure forms…

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From Wired: Over the past two years, the U.S. military has paid $241 million to supply the Iraqi government with Russian helicopters – and received exactly none of those copters.…

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From Glenn Greenwald: In his just-released cover story on Paul Krugman’s status as Obama critic, Newsweek’s Evan Thomas includes these observations: “By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing…

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From the Washington Post: In the end…not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed…

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Libya’s exiled opposition (there is no domestic opposition allowed) got its hands on the lobbying strategy of Col. Moammar Qadaffi’s Washington lobbying firm, the Livingston Group. As reported by O’Dwyer’s:…

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Remember all those stories last fall about various and sundry campaign donors to then-Senator Norm Coleman? Those donors, including a man named Nasser Kazeminy, seemed to take very good care…

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From the Chicago Tribune: Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led…

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Worth reviewing this story from the New York Times, November 5, 1999: Congress approved landmark legislation today that opens the door for a new era on Wall Street in which…

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From Reuters: The U.S. government plan to rid banks of toxic assets will rob American taxpayers by exposing them to too much risk and is unlikely to work as long…

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“The Obama administration, after months of criticizing Wall Street, has been scrambling to woo top bankers and financiers to back its latest bailout plan,” the Wall Street Journal reported today.…

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From a Rasmussen poll yesterday: America’s Political Class gives Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner rave reviews: 76% have a favorable opinion of him. Two-thirds (66%) of the Political Class say Geithner’s…

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One… Treasury Details Plan to Buy Risky Assets The Obama administration formally presented the latest step in its financial rescue package on Monday, an attempt to draw private investors into…

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I reported back in February on the case of Gary Gensler, the former Goldman Sachs employee and derivatives cheerleader who President Obama nominated to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission…

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There’s already much debate about the merits of the administration’s plan to clean up toxic assets, but one person I spoke with – a well-connected Democrat representing a big investment…

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From Associated Press: While Dodd, 64, has only recently found himself in the nation’s political hot seat because of his role in the AIG bonus debacle, it has become clear…

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