- HHS Nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently paid nearly $8,000 in back taxes due to accounting errors, which was what tripped up Tom Daschle‘s nomination but luckily Republicans have other things to attack now. [Politico]
- Side note: if there isn’t a god damn politician in the country that can successfully negotiate the tax code, maybe the politicians of this country should use their power as the politicians of this country to simplify it so that it’s not such a tremendous burden on the rest of us. I mean, for fuck’s sake.
- President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have agreed to start talking about nuclear weapons. Former Russian President Vladimir Putin will be under Medvedev’s chair so that he can successfully continue his ventriloquism. [Politico]
- The special election to fill newly-minted New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand‘s former conservative Congressional seat in upstate New York that she barely managed to win in 2006 is too close to call and my former state Assemblyman Jim Tedisco — who once patted me on the head when I was lobbying him because I’m so fucking cute dontcha know — might squeak out a win for the Republicans and sexists, which is yet another reason New York Governor David Paterson should have thought twice before nominating Gillibrand. [The Hill]
- In other recount news, the Minnesota courts have ruled in favor of Al Franken in the Neverending Recount From Hell. The official recount will end April 7th, and then the appeals will begin. The many, many appeals. [Politico]
- By the way, the U.S. dollar is pretty well fucked, so start preparing now for hyperinflation because it’s easier and cheaper to do than just bombing us. [Politico]
- Since they couldn’t have her, they don’t want nobody baby! Which is why the GOP is having former Speaker and future Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich speak at their fundraiser. [Huffington Post]
- Attorney General Eric Holder is dismissing the corruption case against former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (a Republican) to warn his prosecutors not to engage in misconduct any more. Ted probably wishes that Holder’s Republican predecessors had felt the same way. [NPR]
- We’re not going to be storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, according to John McCain who is apparently operating under the mistaken assumption that he won that election thingie. [NY Times]
- He’s also writing his own budget. [Huffington Post]
- We’re about to have the FDA start regulating tobacco, and Phillip Morris is all for it. No, really, not an April Fool’s joke. They wrote the bill, practically. [NY Times]
- Um, apparently Congress has agreed on the broad outlines of a health care reform plan? Whoa. I mean, they’ll still get mired in the details and fuck it all up in the end, but they’ve got a consensus on stuff for now. [NY Times]
- South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford thinks that it’s child abuse to spend the stimulus money to educate the children of his state, because they’ll have a huge deficit to pay later. He’d rather we get mired in a Depression and have a generation of stupid people to run the country, so that he’ll look really smart in retrospect. [ThinkProgress]
- Helping Sanford out in his efforts to look smart by comparison is Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has accused the U.S. of a deep conspiracy to undermine his government by forcing them to use Daylight Savings Time. No, really. [The Democracy Center]
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