Wonkette

The Hill is all a-buzz today (sorta) with the news that ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross was booted from the National Beer Wholesalers Association and Brewers Association annual holiday reception last week when he showed up with a camera crew. The Beer Wholesalers’ receptions are epic events on the Hill, since they involve higher-end beer than is generally offered by House catering and the leftovers always mysteriously end up “up for grabs” when the night winds down. The segment, designed to show the average (oblivious) American how lobbyists spend money to influence Members and their aides, reportedly airs tonight. [Roll Call, subscription required, from The Raw Story]

* Billy Clinton will tickle Mike Bloomberg’s prostrate if it gets him to run. [Passport]
* Democrats love wasting campaign money almost as much as taxpayer money. [MyDD]
* Democratic staff asses now getting ass. [The Hill]
* Sam Brownback yearns to feel a life growing in his belly. [Think Progress]
* Monica Goodling is testifying next Wednesday, so get a courier to start standing in line for you now. [The Gavel]
* Iraq problem: solved. [Dilbert Blog]

We knew all along that this “Inside Edition Sexiest D.C. Bachelor search” would end terribly. We didn’t realize it’d begin so offensively though. MORE »

Good news, corrupt House staffers: One restaurant is doing everything in its power to ensure that your free ride never ends! “Just Fresh” bakery has sent a press release to everyone in Washington assuring them that their delicious morning and lunch menus are totally compliant with new House Ethics rules.

The attached flyer and menu may not be a panacea to the sweeping House ethics reforms (sorry, we cant get you a free martini or on a G5), but it will help both lobbyists and members/staffers continue to have civilized meetings, briefings and casual receptions with food and drink of “nominal value.”

We salute Just Fresh Bakery for their hard work. As we all know, this country would grind to a halt if House staffers ever had to pay for their own sandwiches.

The full press release is after the jump.

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Nearly every sighting this week comes from the exact same place, several at the exact same time. Wonkette operatives didn’t even need to use their sharp eyes to spot these old men in a barrel. Apparently, Bistro Bis is the be-seen restaurant du jour. Or maybe it was all along — the closest we come to a power lunch is eating a burrito really fast. But John Kerry, John Bolton, Jon Tester , Jim Lehrer, and Steve Kroft have more discriminating palates. You get all of them, and one Senator too busy working on his abs to respect his elders, by indulging your Mecury-in-retrograde-moon-is-in-the-seventh-house fantasies on the other side of the worm hole.

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There are plenty of laughs in this National Journal article about the thousands of unemployed Republican staffers now begging for Bush Administration jobs, but our favorite is this part — which proves the GOP knew all along that the midterms would be a bloodbath:

The White House has told GOP lawmakers and their staffs that it froze many political slots throughout the government before Election Day just so the administration could be ready to absorb furloughed Republicans. “They were prepared,” said one senior House leadership aide, who asked not to be named.

And don’t miss the charming tale of the 23-year-old Capitool with all of nine months on the job before his MoC was defeated. We’ve collected a few gems from this turbo, after the jump.

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Welcome to this week’s installment of Last Week’s Shots, our new feature that takes you inside the invitation-only social networking site Late Night Shots. LNS is exclusive because when you’ve been given every advantage in life, you have uncommonly developed interests and problems, like cocaine. Plus, you’re just so smart that regular people are, well, embarrassing. Intern Lauren brings you her best ethnographic fieldwork on what to do if you accidentally rape your girlfriend, uglies, and UVA’s Greek Culture.

The constructivist and the relativist, after the jump.

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• Typical Hill staffer workday: Google themselves until lunch, check Yahoo! Results in the afternoon. [A Blog For The Rest of Us]

• Get your ass in character — it’s the Bush laugh that makes the costume, not the Bush mask. [Circumlocutor]
• Halloween 2006: The high water mark of wretched excess in Western Civilization. [Brunch Bird]
• Washingtonian mag unveils new website with Garret Graff’s party blog, same articles you browse in the supermarket line before putting back. [Fishbowl DC]

As we’re sure you know by now, Late Night Shots is a closed social networking site for DC’s best and whitest. We turbos have a lot to learn from them. Their message board is home to some of the best entertainment on all the internets — but because of the closed nature of the site, not everyone can join in the fun. Thankfully, Intern Lauren is a card-carrying LNS member, and she’s gathered excerpts from some of last week’s best posts on the LNS forum. See what the fuss is about, after the jump.

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• Pennsylvania Congressmen Curt Weldon has homes of friends and family raided by the FBI for shady lobbying contacts between himself, his daughter, and a massively corrupt Russian oil company. [WP, NYT]

• Former FDA chief charged with conflict of interest over stocks he held while in office, surprisingly does not blame Democrats. [WP, NYT]
• When Dick Cheney appears in second-tier backwater cities his visit is heralded “like a rock star coming to town.” He is adored by 6 year-olds, others who read at that level. [NYT]
• Barack Obama is more like an actual rock star; at least he uses drugs. [NYT]
• Mark Foley’s hill staffers are still holding their ankles. [WP]
• In Connecticut senate race, the Republican candidate polling in the single digits may be key to Lamont victory. [WP]