Washington Babylon

From the Daily News: A former banker who blew the whistle on thousands of secret bank accounts rich Americans held at Swiss giant UBS claimed Thursday some U.S. politicians also…

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Interesting story from the Washington Post: Last fall, the blue-chip law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips signed a $400,000 contract to lobby on behalf of the government of Jamaica,…

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I did an item awhile back about a fundraiser for Congressman Ed Towns that was hosted by the Entertainment Software Association and held at the Verizon Center during a show…

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ProPublica talks with Charles S. Faddis, a former top operative for the CIA and author of a new book about “likely terror targets in the U.S.: dams, rail lines, military…

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From Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, on yesterday’s nuclear summit: In the middle of it all was Obama — occupant of an office once informally known as “leader of…

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From the Washington Post: Just three months after Eric Massa was elected to Congress, his young male employees on Capitol Hill began complaining to supervisors that the lawmaker was making…

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From Saharareporters.com: Saharareporters has come into possession of a document which shows that several former Nigerian Heads of State, and in some cases their wives, were beneficiaries of Halliburton bribe…

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The Associated Press reported a fairly amazing story over the weekend. It began: As secretary of state, Henry Kissinger canceled a U.S. warning against carrying out international political assassinations that…

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As recently reported here, the U.S. government has been investigating Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, son of the dictator of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, for money laundering and corruption. Obiang, who earns…

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I’ve written in the past on various occasions about Morris Dees, head of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the bogus “civil rights organization” whose chief (and wildly successful) mission…

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Looks like former Senators Bob Dole and Bennett Johnston are on the board of a Kyrgyz bank called AsiaUniversalBank (AUB). During its final weeks in power, the Kurmanbek Bakiyev regime…

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From Eli Lake at Reason: When it comes to the legal framework for confronting terrorism, President Obama is acting in no meaningful sense any different than President Bush after 2006,…

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From the Washington Examiner: The Apple clientele is not homogenous — it’s got a few different species of hip. But watch closely the current iPad commercial and you’ll see Apple’s…

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Mac McClelland writes “The Rights Stuff” blog for Mother Jones magazine and her work has also appeared in The Nation, GQ South Africa, Hustler, and other publications. She is the…

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And it’s covered by your insurance company. Check him out.

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In Alabama the hottest political issue is not deficits or job creation. It’s a computerized gambling machine called electronic bingo. Governor Bob Riley has launched a major effort to put…

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Ken Silverstein is traveling. Washington Babylon will return next week.

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Should the Pentagon be cutting deals with a company apparently controlled by the powerful daughter of Uzbekistan’s dissident-boiling dictator, Islam Karimov? As previously noted here, Gulnara Karimova has amassed a…

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If you missed this yesterday, from the Boston Globe, via National Review Online: Traditional Wall Street investors have taken note. Iraq is now considered a safer bet than Argentina, Venezuela,…

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A few months back I attended a panel on Afghanistan sponsored by the the Middle East Policy Council, which is headed by Frank Anderson, a former senior CIA official. The…

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The inestimable Jeff Stein is now writing for the Washington Post, and his debut “SpyTalk” column looks at the Khost bombing last December 30th, which killed seven CIA officers and…

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Emira Woods of the Institute for Policy Studies sent along this article from the Wall Street Journal: Lockheed Martin Corp. became the nation’s No. 1 military contractor by selling cutting-edge…

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“Legislation hailed by supporters as the most significant change to college student lending in a generation passed the House on Sunday night,” reports the Washington Post. “The student aid initiative,…

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I spoke at a panel last week sponsored by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a conservative group, about its new report on the Southern Poverty Law Center. The report…

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Initially, I had no problem with the sting pulled on ACORN by the conservative activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles. “It’s a serious matter when at least three different ACORN…

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On balance, and for reasons not necessarily related to its contents, I suppose it’s better that the health care bill passed than not. But the Democrats, advocates, and (worst of…

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“U.S. tax authorities are expected to ‘very shortly’ launch another prosecution against a foreign bank similar to the tax evasion case they pressed against Switzerland’s UBS,” an Internal Revenue Service…

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Richard Posner has been a judge on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals since Ronald Reagan appointed him to that position in 1981. He is also a senior lecturer…

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