Washington Babylon

From Andy Borowitz: President Barack Obama is mulling a controversial new tax program that would require members of his Cabinet to pay taxes owed under the Federal tax code, the…

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Check out this old Tom Daschle campaign spot (via famousdc.com). Haunting.

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The news just keeps getting worse for poor Tom Daschle: Tom Daschle backed the patron who paid him a million-dollar salary and supplied him with a free car and driver…

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From Emily Yoffe in the Washington Post. Like many Americans whose steady, reliable job has suddenly disappeared, Thomas Daschle cobbled together a bunch of gigs when he was laid off…

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Think back to the terrible old days when the Republicans ran congress, and how companies seeking to win access and favor with the GOP would make “contributions” to the DeLay…

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Jeff Berman, the national delegate director for the Obama presidential campaign, has a new job: The international law firm Bryan Cave LLP (www.bryancave.com) announced today that Jeff Berman has joined…

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Glenn Greenwald tells you everything you need to know about Tom Daschle: He embodies everything that is sleazy, sickly, and soul-less about Washington. It’s probably impossible for Obama to fill…

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From Bloomberg, via Laura Rozen: The average tax rate paid by the richest 400 Americans fell by a third to 17.2 percent through the first six years of the Bush…

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From the Associated Press: Tom Daschle collected nearly a quarter of a million dollars in fees in the last two years speaking to leaders of the industry President Barack Obama…

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Deborah Nelson is the Carnegie Visiting Professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland at College Park. She is the author of the new book, The War…

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Once inside the banquet hall, which is always off-limits to the media, the Alfalfans took turns trying to crack each other up. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) — the club’s…

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The Senate: shameless and clueless. From the Washington Post: Early reactions from the Senate have shown little need for much of a fight. No Senate Republican has stepped forward to…

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From the Washington Post: “Slumdog Millionaire” — or “Slumdog Crorepati,” as the Hindi-language version is known — received 10 Oscar nominations and has become the modern-day fairy tale of the…

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First Timothy Geithner and his lame excuses, now this: Thomas A. Daschle, nominated to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, did not pay more than $128,000…

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Michael Steele, yesterday after winning the post of RNC chairman: “We have an image problem,” Steele said. “We’ve been misidentified as party that is insensitive, a party unconcerned about the…

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Turns out that Laurie Mylroie, dubbed “The Neocons’ favorite conspiracy theorist” by Peter Bergen, was working at the Pentagon not so long ago. Justin Elliott of TPM Muckraker reports: It’s…

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From the New York Times: By almost any measure, 2008 was a complete disaster for Wall Street — except, that is, when the bonuses arrived. Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts…

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Remember last fall when Republicans claimed that they had discovered hundreds of cases of voter fraud in Ohio? A special prosecutor was even appointed to investigate. He has reported his…

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From the Washington Post: Republican criticism of the stimulus package that the House will vote on tonight has focused on its soaring price tag, but some Democrats on Capitol Hill…

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Terrific column in today’s Washington Post from Steven Pearlstein: Three things are indisputably true about the pharmaceutical industry: Over the past decade, there has been significant cross-border consolidation, involving major…

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From ABC News: Despite President Barack Obama’s pledge to limit the influence of lobbyists in his administration, a recent lobbyist for investment banking giant Goldman Sachs is in line to…

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“Let’s just say that, that, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, is brought to the United States to be tried in a federal court in the United States, under…

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From the New York Times: Housing prices are falling around the country, but this one sounds hard to believe: A seaside mansion on Jupiter Island in Florida, bought for more…

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I generally don’t trust my own reaction to political developments because my own views are too eclectic and non-representative to serve as any type of political weather vane. But I…

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The Institutional Risk Analyst looks at the “political battle building for the mind of Barack Obama on how to resolve, or not, the largest, most profoundly troubled US banks.” The…

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Check out this story on last week’s raid on properties owned by businessmen close to Congressman John Murtha: The Tribune-Democrat has learned that federal raids on the businesses and homes…

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Norm Coleman of Minnesota is no longer a senator (at least for the time being) and he’s taken a job as a consultant with the Republican Jewish Coalition. But he’s…

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From Marc Lynch: On his first day in office, Barack Obama placed calls to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdullah, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Excellent! What a perfect…

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