• For those of you expecting a week-long party to start off the Obama Administration, prepare to be disappointed. There will be one public event welcoming you to D.C. on Sunday afternoon. Monday will be a day of community service, and the Inauguration will occur on Tuesday out in the cold, followed by formal balls you're unlikely to get into without connections. But if you want to rent an apartment anyway, I have really nice towels. [Politico]
• Barack Obama plans to announce the appointment of Clinton-era EPA Administrator Carol Browner to be the White House Energy Coordinator (they hate the word "Czar" as much as we do) and Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles, to be a chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Sutley will be Obama's first openly gay Cabinet appointment. [Politico]
• In the meantime, if you need some cheap electronics or office furniture, the McCain campaign has some they'll sell you cheap. [Washington Post]

• As rumored yesterday, law enforcement sources have confirmed that Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. is Senate Candidate 5 from the Blagojevich indictment. [CNN]
• He says he's done nothing wrong. [Politico]
• Congressman Don Young, who is being investigated on corruption charges, is resigning the leadership role on the House Natural Resources Committee "for the good of the party." See, Chairman Rangel? It's actually kind of easy. [The Hill]
• That auto bailout is finally done, but it still might not pass the Senate. [Fox News]
• The Pentagon flew several of the family members of people who died in the September 11th attacks down to Gitmo to watch the tribunals and make Obama feel too guilty to shut it down and try the detainees in civilian and military courts on American soil with, like, rights and stuff. The families "marveled" at the rights the detainees do actually get in the tribunals (unlike in their holding pens). [Reuters]

MOE: Ohhhhh mann, I'm still like on Seattle time or something
MEGAN: I'm on "got home at midnight after an 8 hour drive" fog.
MOE: What should we talk about? Yikes!
MEGAN: Oh, see, I was going to suggest that we talk about how Alaskan Republican Senator Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens was indicted on 7 counts yesterday, but fetish hookers is way more prurient. Also, rumors around the courts here in D.C. is that touchy-feely ass-grabbing Congressman Don Young is next. Actually, that's just been the rumor for a while, but doesn't it sound cooler when I semi-source it?
MOE: Isn't just the fact that Alaska has two senators corruption in itself?
MEGAN: Well, they do have a whole 100,000 more people than Washington, DC, so of course they deserve 2 Senators and a Congressman and D.C. shouldn't get either.
Geek moment: Did you know that there are more people in Hawai'i than Alaska? Like, almost twice as many.
MOE: Yes. Does that surprise you? Any more than, like, this? Oh god I need coffee.
MEGAN: Back to Stevens, the most hilarious thing of all is that they couldn't charge him with bribery because sometimes he just took the lavish gifts from Veco and told them to fuck off! It's sort of like how Congressmen and Senators feel about campaign contributions only flashier (now including a Land Rover and a Viking Grill!).
As a white resident of upstate New York, I particularly like this statement of Sharpton's:

"We have all made mistakes. We have all erred, and we ought not try to sugar coat when we err."

Oh, really, Al?
MOE: The Ted Stevens thing reminds me of when I used to cover Nike for the Journal, and the guys from SLAM just couldn't figure out why I wasn't allowed to take free shoes. "Sure, it's bribery, but when EVERYONE bribes you you're still objective!"
MEGAN: "As long as you 'slam' them later," right? (Apologies for the bad but necessary pun).Speaking of apologies...
MOE: Jesus this totally makes the AMA's timing look COMPLETELY NORMAL!

In February, the Senate apologized for atrocities committed against Native Americans, and the body apologized in 2005 for standing by during a lynching campaign against African Americans throughout much of the past century. Twenty years ago, Congress apologized for interning Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II.

MEGAN: Well, you know, they're really, really worried about reparations. That's, like, a completely legitimate concern.
MOE: As I'm sure is the fact that there is a lot in those Jim Crow laws some Americans still would like to resurrect! Sorry, that's a year old, but I didn't remember it until today.
MEGAN: Luckily for Jonah and at the behest of plenty of Republican state governments, states are passing government-ID laws to make it more difficult for people to vote, especially poor people. You heard, right, that the first people fucked over by that law were a bunch of nuns and students? But it was the Democratic primary, so that was the intention, anyway, to keep Democrats from voting, so hooray Indiana for designing a law that actually works as it was intended. Sort of hooray. More like, um, FUCK YOU Mitch Daniels. Cialis was marketed under his tenure at Lilly, by the way. You knew he was a pharmaceutical company exec before he was OMB Director before he was Governor of Indiana, right?
MOE: Uh no but doesn't that just make this world make a little more sense! That and this guy. Um I just blew some of my literacy reading this. Also, is it just me or is it surprising that nuns of all people would not have their IDs ready? I know they probably don't get carded too often, but isn't it in the nun personality type?
MEGAN: But why would they need an ID? And, yes, OMG, can we please, please, please stop dumbing Michelle Obama down so that people think she's more like them? Please? It makes my brain hurty. Oh, and did you see that the International Olympics Committee negotiated a secret deal with the Chinese to limit journalists' internet access?
MOE: God everytime I think I know how full of shitheads the IOC is I am proved wrong. Who are these IOC officials anyway? Hey, maybe there's a job for Mitt Romney!
MEGAN: Someone's got to give him on eventually if McCain won't. His hair is too bulletproof to retire.
MOE: So $15,000 a month is Rielle Hunter's hush money . I feel like we should do a poll on how much you'd ask if you'd been knocked up by a filthy rich presidential candidate. I think fifteen grand is good, because there's not a whole lot an unimaginative person like myself can't do on that money, but it's not so disgusting people will question her genuine love for the bastard. But hey, where's the "real father" Andrew Young in all of this?
MEGAN:Apparently, getting paid off by the same middleman! That's $180,000 a year, or, if it continues at the same rate, $3.24 million over the next 18, not including tuition. I don't think I'll make $3 million in the next 18 years. Also, can we just discuss how exactly the Enquirer knew that Rielle was in the hotel, whose name she checked in under and when Edwards would show? Because between that and the news that she's negotiating a paid interview, I don't think the "hush" part of the money is working.

• There's probably some economic metaphor to be had in a story about 13 people being trampled by bulls in Pamplona, but then again it might be a cautionary tale about what the tourism industry can convince you is "fun." [Washington Post]
• Speaking of a snow job, guess who is the latest politician calling for a withdrawal timetable in Iraq sooner rather than later? Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that's who. No worries, Bush and McCain will find other reasons not to withdraw yet. [Washington Post]
• Jim Webb, though, is totally withdrawing from VP consideration, though. [HuffPo]

• In possibly the smartest logistical decision made to date, Barack Obama will accept the nomination at Invesco Field, which seats 75,000 people instead of the 20,000 they can cram into the Pepsi Center where the rest of the convention is being held. Here's to the speech being slightly less of a clusterfuck than every other acceptance speech in the history of televised party conventions. [NY Times]
• Oh, and he's kind of kicking ass at the polls right now, so maybe it won't even be his last? [CQ Politics]
• And, if we're lucky, the good corrupt politicians of Alaska might get their asses kicked both by exorbitant legal bills and at the polls this year. I'll take either one, actually, since they're using donations from lobbyists (mostly oil company types, one assumes) to pay them. In the immortal words of Nelson: Ha-ha. [HuffPo]

• Does someone have $38,001 they can loan me? Because film producer Barbara Broccoli paid $38,000 to charity to kiss Daniel Craig and, um, hell yeah. [AP]
• Speaking of bad loans, hundreds of people have been arrested for making them, including 2 Bear Sterns guys. The economic damage, well, no one knows how to fix that. [Washington Post]
• As previously mentioned, Barack Obama is foregoing federal campaign funding because he doesn't need your stinkin' money. Well, I mean, he needs your money, he just doesn't want the government to be the go-between. Who's small government now (that it benefits him)? [NY Times]
• Actually, for the record, one of the guys who wrote the law thinks it's a smart decision because Obama really, actually doesn't need the money. [HuffPo]

• The French Muslim non-virgin whose wants the annulment her husband wants because she isn't one is probably not going to get it because of the feminist uproar. One step for feminists, I guess, right in the midst of her pain. [BBC]
• Speaking of steps, Congress has come up with a system to give retroactive immunity to phone companies that illegally tapped your phones at the behest of the Administration without looking like they're giving retroactive immunity to phone companies that illegally tapped your phones at the behest of the Administration. And you thought politicians weren't creative. [Washington Post]
• And, in case you thought your job sucked, it turns out that when you work for Congressman Don Young, you also work for his wife and she's crazy. Also,
  If you’re being chased by armed police man [sic], don’t try to escape into a metro station," is part of their intern advice package. It's good advice. [The Hill]

MOE: Hi I IM you today from Brooklyn! I got locked out of my house.
ME: Oh, dude, no way! So, does being in Brooklyn change your perspective on politics? Do you feel more yuppified, or is that just Park Slope?
MOE: Um…primarily it changes the quantity of uppers I can access at this time. There is a coffee shop a few blocks down (I am not in Park Slope) but as for ADD drugs I am fuuuucked. Actually I should go check if there's like some coke somewhere or something. Even though a coke has less than one tenth the caffeine as a Starbucks, as I learned from the week's New York.
ME: Usually about halfway through Crappy Hour (except when I'm as hung over as I was yesterday), I'll get a craving for coffee and yet I am so committed to finishing that I never do anything about it until it's over.
MOE: Oh god Noonan today …can't disagree with her, am sure as hell not going to stir shit up by blockquoting her. Anyway she calls Hillary a bullet dodged.
ME: But at least she uses a nice picture!
MOE: Which is more than we can say for Peggy's publication!
ME: True. Also, I love that her basis for claiming that Hillary is a bullet dodged is that she's "drama."
Way to not play into any stereotypes about women that drive me crazy, Peggy.
MOE: Hahaa they just drive you crazy because you're a woman. So did you pay attention to this Air Force resignation thing? Because I keep forgetting to. What happened? (With apologies to Scott McClellan)
ME: Ha, ok, so, like this is a good but long piece. I'm pretty sure we discussed a while back how we mistakenly shipped some classified nuclear components to Taiwan? When they'd ordered, like, batteries. And then they opened the boxes and were all, dude, these aren't batteries! And we were all like, oh fuuuuuck.
Well, so, then, obviously we investigated. And it turns out that the one dude that got fired was also in the middle of some Thunderbird contracting scandal and, oh, that's right, at the same time, he was in charge when we "mistakenly" sent 2 nukes to Louisiana so the two top guys are both out on their asses and some more people will be in trouble later. But, yeah. Nukulr sekurti, we can haz it?
MOE: Okay, 1. How idiotic is this? I mean, what does a nuclear fuse actually look like? How big is it? How tough is this sort of thing to fuck up?
ME: They look like this, only with more nuclear-ness.
MOE: Oh, and that one dude = Chief of Staff Michael Moseley. God what an idiot.
ME: And it should be tough, but it apparently wasn't. And, yes. I think he is a whole toolbox.
MOE: Well, to be fair, you don't necessarily look at that and think, "wow, a nuke." Although i don't know what I would say it was. I would probably check before sending it to Louisiana. I have more trust for Taiwan.
ME: Especially when they'd ordered batteries.
I've never gone to the store to get batteries for my vibrator and mistakenly ended up with fuses of any variety. Counterfeit batteries that go dead in a day, sure, but never fuses.
MOE: Ooooh, oooooh, some good nuke news. Some international agency based in France just called for the construction of 1400 nuclear power plants over the next few decades. Pretty soon misguided fuses are just going to be part of everyday life. God I need coffee.
ME: 1400?? Where are they going to put 1400? Also, by the way, almost all of France's nuclear power plants are on the German border. Gotta love those prevailing Westerlies.
Oh, damn, Angry Johnny has reportedly definitively rules out running for VP.
MOE: I love how all these VP candidates act like it's their choice, they're the ones with some hard thinking to do. And…speaking of hard thinking, I'm…not sure what this David Brooks column about Abraham Lincoln taking mercury pills to ward off syphilis is trying to say to me.
Ah! We should have voted for Hillary.

All this suggests a maxim for us voters: Don’t only look to see which candidate has the most talent. Look for the one most emotionally gripped by his own failings.

ME: Wait, so, how did Lincoln supposedly get the dreaded syph? I find the whole thing confusing, but at least Brooks got this right:

Candidates get elected by telling people what they want to hear, leading them by using the sugar of their own fantasies.

MOE: Is he writing a book on Lincoln or something? Because, like, Obama and McCain have struggled refreshingly publicly, according to the books anyway, with their failings, what with McCain being like "Yeah I was an asshole to my first wife and I need to read more about the economy" and Obama being all "I was a bad husband and I smoked too much weed." I think we should just vote for the candidate who does, you know, not want to continue spying on us without a warrant or that sort of thing.
ME: Dude, Attackerman just made me watch this video of California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher ((R-Crazytown) talking about how putting women's underwear on Gitmo detainees heads isn't torture. Only he just keeps repeating the word "panties" well past the point of cringe-worthiness and into the realm of us wondering what exactly the Gentleman from California was wearing under his suit that day.
MOE: oooooh he's got an ambigunisex name too.
ME: I'll bet he has ambiguous sex, too. We already know he owns at least one wetsuit.
MOE: Do you love reading about Alaska? Do you sometimes forget it's a state? Can you tell me why a state would propose a $223 million bridge to between a town with a population of eight thousand and a town with a population of fifty when they don't even have a road connecting the state with its cultural and population center. Was Alaska in on the construction of the federal highway system? Was it even a state then? Have you ever been there? I had a boyfriend who grew up there once who had never heard of Three's Company. Aren't we so lucky to live in the era of the omnipresent wifi connection?
ME: Actually, I totally loved Alaska, I had to go on a business trip there a couple of years ago and my now-ex-bf came with and we took our only actual long vacation after it was over. They have a road to Juneau, it's just Juneau doesn't, like, have a road to Canada (i.e., "the rest of North America") but during the winter months I've heard the road between Anchorage and Juneau is pretty treacherous.
Anyway, Don Young is also an ass-grabber. He grabbed the ass of a junior colleague of a close friend during a fly-in while she and the folks she was with were all posing for pictures. He named the new highway bill after his wife (TEA-LU) because he could. And the bridge will apparently also incidentally financially benefit some people in his family and totally score him the 50 votes on that island.
MOE: What's the population of Juneau anyway?
ME: I appreciate that some Republicans, even if it is only the Club for Growth (now headed by former Congressman Pat Toomey of PA), are bothering to stand up to him. It's not standing up to Teddie Stevens, but it's close.
Population: just over 30,000.
MOE: jesus christ.
dude
ME: Hey, that's only slightly less than 4 times the size of the village I grew up in.
MOE: So… what do you make of the whole "takes a village" aphorism?
Oh also those French people say global warming is going to cost us 45 trillion dollars.
Just putting that out there
ME: Took a village to convince me I needed to get the fuck out of upstate NY.
MOE: the "Bridge To Nowhere" thing looks like a few grains of rice in comparison.