pt daily briefing
Someone accidentally left a document detailing ongoing Congressional ethics violations investigations on a public computer network. The Word paperclip would have advised against this. [Washington Post] The deposed president of Honduras has been temporarily undeposed by the de facto government. Legitimacy has been totally restored to government there, clearly. [New York Times] The Philadelphia-based (and [...]
Last night’s baseball match went smashingly/terribly—depending on whether you were in a sports bar with mostly blue decorations or mostly red ones. [Reuters] Ahmadinejad implied that Iran would do everyone a favor and would indeed be enriching its uranium elsewhere. [New York Times] There’s not enough Tamiflu for all America’s children, which means Obama will [...]
Hamid Karzai’s brother, a prominent opium dealer (!), has been receiving CIA paychecks for eight years. He will now be fired and replaced by a teenager and an iPhone app. Recession! [New York Times] A car bomb killed 86 people in Peshawar a couple hours after Hillary Clinton left Peshawar. [AP] At least six UN-related [...]
Maurice R. Greenberg, the impossibly geriatric former head of AIG, has been quietly luring young, unsuspecting insurance execs to his new firm. [New York Times] Harry Reid promised out loud that the new health care bill will have a public option, which means it actually might! [Washington Post] Like half an hour ago, NASA sent [...]
Your 2009 World Series will feature the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies, two popular Northeast athletics organizations. USA! [New York Times] Baghdad had another suicide bombing: 132 people died, which is the most all at once since 2007. [Washington Post] The new new new health care bill will be submitted to the CBO [...]
Unpopular elected official Harry Reid is just all about including the public option on the new health care bill. [New York Times] John Kerry is so busy and fulfilled chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he totally doesn’t even have time to think about 2004. [Washington Post] A team of pilots flying a commercial [...]
Obama is demanding that the companies that received the most bailout money pay their highest-earning employees 10% of what they normally do. [New York Times] Oh here’s something new: everyone is worried about getting sick but is too lazy and/or too terrified to actually get a flu shot. [Washington Post] The weird Jett Travolta/Bahamas were [...]
Two completely random European journalists are requesting credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall. See, they were the ones who asked tuff questions about it! No one had even THOUGHT about knocking it down—that is, before the quality of their journalism alluded to it. [WSJ] Actual winner of Afghanistan’s election, Abdullah Abduallah, might team [...]
After being prodded by basically everyone on Earth, soon-to-be-former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai is ready to admit that he did not actually win the re-election. [New York Times] A new poll says that most people think the public option would be a good thing, actually. [Washington Post] Swine flu has spread to this one [...]
Big Oil and Big Natural Gas are fighting, like they always do! It’s about energy policy, like it always is! [New York Times] David Axelrod and all his friends are preemptively very offended—on behalf of America—by Wall St.’s big bonuses. [Washington Post] Pakistan soldiers cornered a bunch of Taliban people in South Waziristan, which is [...]
Bank of America lost $1 billion—and your Wonkette editor’s debit card!!—in the third quarter. [New York Times] Do not read this, keep thy heart pure: Boy in the Balloon? Likely a publicity stunt. [New York Times] A weak dollar is good news for things that are made here and exported elsewhere. This is an important [...]
Obama, to prove he does not hate New Orleans and has zero plans to willfully destroy it—as per the tradition of his predecessor—will visit this afternoon. [Los Angeles Times] Over 30 people were killed in a series of coordinated terrorist goings-on in Islamabad. [New York Times] The Arctic’s ice will be completely gone in 20 [...]
JPMorgan Chase reported $3.6 billion profits for the third quarter. This is one of those folkloric “good economic news” stories! [New York Times] Now that Obama (& Olympia Snowe!) have defeated Chuck Grassley, Baucus, etc., he must now combat Big Health Insurance Lobby. [Washington Post] There’s a second gold rush, except it’s a rare minerals [...]
In March, Obama will be sending 13,000 more mostly non-combat troops—in addition to the original plan of 21,000 combat troops—to Afghanistan. This is the stuff of surges, people! [Washington Post] Big changes afoot at your local mall, as Disney will be looking to revamp its store there, I Thought That Closed. [New York Times] Russia [...]
One of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics is some American gal, Elinor Ostrom, who is the first lady economist ever to win. Something about communities and resources, anyway it was uncontroversial! [CNN] So our government is still working out the kinks in its system of telling when foreign people who visit here [...]
