This is, obviously, the Washington version of a "rumor." The New York phrase for it is "some speculative shit someone said while drunk, probably at a terrible party."

The New York media version would be, like, some drunk blogger at Tom & Jerry's saying, "I bet Michael Wolff is going to buy the New York Press and turn it into a glossy wedding magazine." Not something with much of a chance of happening, but, you know, it's not outside the realm of possibility, if you are the sort of person who spends a lot of time thinking about these people.

Anyway. Hillary Clinton is not going to replace Smilin' Joe Biden on the ticket.

The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church and King of Peace, owns the Washington Times, along with the UPI wire service, the New Yorker Hotel, a gun manufacturer, a large segment of the American sushi industry, and a couple members of congress.

Moon has always treasured the attention of American politicians, and he spent a lot of the '80s sucking up to Republicans. The Times was kinda like his New York Post, only if Rupert Murdoch literally thought he was Jesus.

But now, Moon is very old. And so he is handing over various bits of his church and his businesses to his many children. Apparently, a war between Moon's Harvard-educated sons Hyung-jin Moon (whom Moon appointed to run the church) and Hyun-jin "Preston" Moon (who controls the Times) led to Preston firing a bunch of Times executives (including the publisher) last Sunday, because they refused to back him in his fight with his brother.

The paper loses millions of dollars a year, but Moon never minded, as long as it fought communism and homosexuality in American society. But now Moon seems to think that maybe it is not serving its purpose:

That vision is of, among other things, an assertively right-wing newspaper that would stand up for family values — and remarks made in September by Rev. Moon, known simply as "Father" to church members, shows he thought the paper wasn't living up to its brief.

"The Washington Times has to take responsibility for people going to hell in America," he declared, referring to, among other sins, "homosexuality and lesbianism." And yet, at the same event at the church's East Garden estate in Westchester County, NY, Rev. Moon appeared to come back to his belief that the newspaper was a worthwhile endeavor.

The sermon, titled "Western People Are Different From Eastern People," is not entirely coherent. At one point Rev. Moon boasted that he is the "original ancestor" of the Times, asking "Did the CIA help with making the Washington Times? Did George Bush help with making the Washington Times?"

Times employees have no idea what is going on. There were armed guards at the offices the day the firings happened. The editor is expected to be fired any minute now. And soon there might not be a money-losing ultra-conservative crazy-person second daily newspaper in America's Capital, which would be a real shame.

After causing a ruckus in Rome, and stirring up chaos in Nashville, the Church of Scientology came down on D.C. today to reveal their new "Ideal Org" building, which is apparently like Scientology's version of the special McDonalds that serve all the new special things that the rest of America has to wait for first, or something: it's a special super-awesome Scientology outpost.

To help assist the citizens of D.C. welcome it, they shut down a huge street, hung giant sheets, and tried to scatter and rid themselves of protesters. Via DCist:

Police are out in full force around the humongous 50,000-square foot building, and security is tight — a ten-foot tall white temporary barricade is blocking off 16th Street; there are huge draping banners reading "SCIENTOLOGY" and "DIANETICS", though, in case those walking by on their Saturday jaunts to the 14th and P retail corridor were wondering what the hell was going on with this big white thing in the middle of the street.

Ohhhh. That's why those people are creepily going through that gigantic white sheet. Wonder what's on the other side of it? I know! It's a small man with scary eyes named David Miscavage. He's the head of Scientology and he talked to his Scientology followers today.

There're way fun things in this picture! See if you can spot the guy in the anti-psychology jacket. And important Scientologists! And the guy in the peach-colored shirt who looks like he's missing his head. And here're more people ready for Miscavage to rock their faces:

There're also the people waving French flags outside this joint in honor of France's recent ruling against Scientology "fleecing" followers. Fleecing, indeed.

Looks like they keep on keepin' on after the awful week they just had, between Tommy Davis' freakouts and Paul Haggis' resignation from the church. So, basically, your typical Scientology shitshow. If you have any reports from what was said on the inside, let's hear 'em.

Well, that will probably be their interpretation of local news. Because all the rest of it is poverty, development, crime, gentrification, and other stuff involving the poors and Black People and none of that shit Wins The Afternoon.

Anyway. Everyone is totally excited about this "hyperlocal" new Politico news thing. They hired Jim Brady, who used to run washingtonpost.com. He is a good hire. Jack Shafer thinks it will be a very good website that Politico invents, about the Redskins.

But only the local alt-weekly, the City Paper, notes that it will almost certainly lose a lot of money, like Politico does.

Because, come on, a staff of 50 people writing local news? For the internet? The people who read Politico do not care about local news. Maybe they care about some new fancy beer bar in Logan Circle, or something. But a website with a paid staff of three or four could pretty much take care of that.

Once this stupid thing launches and everyone talks about how it is a new and exciting model for local news or something, just remember that it will not be making any money, because Politico is a rich person's vanity project.

The Lost Symbol (the book is named for the archaic graphemes found throughout the book—when decoded these "alphabetic letters" make up the "text" of the novel) is expected to be the only book America buys this year, which sounds bad, but last year America didn't buy any book (the last Harry Potter apparently came out in 2007). In addition to the publishing industry, the book is expected to save big box retailers, all of whom are suffering now because no one has enough income to buy shit anymore (thanks to NOBAMA's massive tax hikes).

Barnes & Noble and Borders and Amazon are all going to sell the book for almost half off its retail price, and you can buy the electric Amazon Game Boy version of the book for a mere ten dollars!

In England, Asda, which is a grocery store (grocery stores are where English people buy their books and albums, which is why Vera Lynn is still the hottest recording artist in the UK), is selling Brown's book for five pounds, which is like eight bucks, give or take. Britishers are expected to ride double-decker buses driving down the wrong side of the street to buy the books in droves, as soon as the copies are unloaded from "lorries."

Everyone acknowledges that the book isn't actually any good, but everyone also agrees that that doesn't matter.

And the book takes place, as we said, in Washington, which means it will be impossible to visit the following places for a couple years: The Library of Congress, the National Gallery, the Capitol Rotunda and the Smithsonian. And probably a bunch of other places! It will be kind of like what Sex & The City did to the West Village, except the people being inconvenienced will be even more annoying.

Also: Masons are totally thrilled to have a new book all about them, because maybe that will get the kids interested in Masonry again, like in the '50s, the golden age of being a Mason.

There were pap pictures of the Obamas vacationing in Hawaii and transitioning in Chicago, but the mean streets of Capitol Hill have probably never been the scene of a shot sold to People or stolen by Perez. Not because DC and Capitol Hill are off-limits to the paparazzi, but because they're boring. DC pictures don't sell. Why would they? Do you care where Representative Peter DeFazio's LAs are drinking tonight? No. (They're drinking at the Hawk & Dove, btw.)

But, you know, the Obamas are celebrities! And so John McCain's shitty summer 2008 campaign strategy has finally sort of come to pass. Barack Obama is not Paris Hilton, but his wife and kids are Kate + 8.

(Though one imagines Secret Service presence will continue to make these shots something of a rarity.)

Even more fun: when the set initially went up on INF's site, one of the shots was a close-up of the first lady's stomach. BABY BUMP??? (It has since been deleted.)

[Pictures: INFphoto.com]

Quinn, wife of former Washington Post editor (and abundant life-liver) Ben Bradlee, divides the world into two groups: those who have attended one of her garden parties, who are good and honest people (like Ken Starr), and those who have not, who are outsiders, not to be trusted (like Hillary Clinton).

At some point, perhaps recently or perhaps in the distant past, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. turned down a party invitation from Sally Quinn. Or so we are forced to assume, from this vague account:

What nobody will say publicly, for fear of being called a racist, is that he is notorious, especially among many of his colleagues (black and white) at Harvard, for being short-tempered and arrogant. I have had personal dealings with him in which his behavior was not honorable.

Yes. We all know how terrified people are of calling black academics "short-tempered" and "arrogant," adjectives we feel like we've heard applied to every single nationally prominent black intellectual in the nation besides Skip Gates.

But Sally Quinn, she knows the important thing is that discrimination goes both ways. Gates may have been wrongfully arrested, but Quinn was once yelled at by a black cop. Quinn, though, was scared of the yelling black man, with the gun, and so she did not Talk Back to him. She is, indeed, wiser and more honorable than Professor Gates.

My friend had a similar incident that night and was not so prudent. She was arrested, handcuffed and hauled off to jail. Were we singled out because we were white? Who knows. But if we had been black and the police white, would it have been a story about racial profiling? Probably. As I sat there seething with my child in his car seat in back, the first thing I thought of was: this is how most black people must feel every day when confronting the police.

Don't laugh at that last bit: Quinn, like black people across the nation, lives in a racially segregated ghetto ruled and policed by the ethnic majority. It is called Georgetown.

Here is a sentence both staggering and hilarious in its unselfawareness: "I mentioned on National Public Radio this week that in response to the Gates & Crowley incident, many of my white friends and colleagues have been discussing reverse discrimination."

Fill in the blanks yourself: "I mentioned on National Public Radio this week that in response to [a recent racially charged incident], many of my white friends and colleagues have been discussing [one of the occasional or perhaps even imagined inconveniences suffered by the ruling classes elevated to the status of a national issue of great concern]." (Those blanks are perhaps too specific for the passage to function as a proper Mad Lib, but we wouldn't want Quinn's essential and important point to be lost.)

(Confidential to WPNI: hope we don't put you out of business with all this stealing of your precious fucking article!)

It is a big problem! See, lots and lots of Senators and Representatives have lived or prayed or conducted business at this little C Street townhouse, where male congressmen live, dormitory-style, for well below-market rates, because this political organization is called a church for tax purposes.

Oh, did we say political organization? The family was started by an anti-Roosevelt preacher, see, who was quickly adopted by business leaders, and the group's current leader rather explicitly wants to train and plant fundamentalist Christians in all levels of the American government and military, and also their little townhouse is the scene of actual Congressional business, sometimes, as we learn in Roll Call today:

The house also serves as a venue for business - Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), for example, hosts a quarterly lunch with African ambassadors at C Street to discuss foreign policy issues.

So these congressmen all just wanted to quietly live their Christian lives, together, and not be bothered by anyone wondering what the hell they were up to, but then C Street-affiliated politicians John Ensign, Mark Sanford, and Chip Pickering all got caught cheating on their wives, and other C Street residents were said to be "counseling" them on how, exactly, Jesus Christ would pay off the family of his mistress. But what's that, Tom Coburn, why aren't we allowed to learn what you said to John Ensign?

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a C Street resident who reportedly counseled Ensign on how to handle his affair with a former staffer, has stayed mum about such conversations, citing constitutional protections for communications during religious counseling, as well as the doctor-patient confidentiality privilege. Coburn calls himself an "ordained deacon" and is an obstetrician.

Huh. So he is John Ensign's deacon and OB/GYN. Convenient!

Some members say everyone should just leave C Street alone, because it is none of our business what is going on there, and other members just think being associated with that holy cathouse is bad politics.

Asked one occasional guest of C Street: "The concept is fantastic, but if it has no credibility, what's the reason for someone to live there?"

Didn't we mention the below-market rent?

The CNN report dropped earlier this week, but video just showed up today. Here's the practice: lobbyists need to get into congressional hearings on things, but they often get packed in, and they need placeholders in line to wait it out for them.

Unfortunately, this pisses off people, for example: the ones who can't pay to have people hold places in lines for them. Like, say, the environmentalists:

Kalen Pruss, a fellow at the Internet environmental group avaaz.org, and her group of cheering green T-shirted environmentalists were shut out of the hearing. "It's very unfortunate that the people who come here to line-stand always beat us here cause they can stand here all night," Pruss said.

On one hand, this is definitely just another example of lobbyists with money - who often come from corporate interests, because corporate interests have money - buying time, space, and influence. On another hand, it's somewhat exploitative of the homeless. And on the other hand, it's putting income in the hands of people who didn't have it before someone told them to stand somewhere for eight hours, a job pretty much anybody's qualified for, so long as they show up.

Whatever. If treehuggin' Phish Phans can strap themselves to trees to save their foliage friends, they can certainly stand in line with some homeless dudes. Honestly, they need the money. We all do. And if we can take it from corporations and put it into the the pockets of people who're otherwise down on their luck in a system that's already subverted daily, it can't be that bad, can it?

Well?

Homeless stand in for lobbyists on Capitol Hill [CNN]

There is some legislation being drawn up that will hurt FedEx, but not affect UPS, and so FedEx has launched a little campaign against this legislation. One might think that the American Conservative Union, one of the most powerful voices in the conservative movement since the group's founding in the 1960s, would be opposed to this legislation on principle, because the legislation is pro-union and might hurt the ability of a successful corporation to make a profit by any means necessary.

Well, they were opposed to it. At least, they were when they sent FedEx a letter asking for $3 million in exchange for a targeted lobbying campaign on behalf of a position they theoretically already believed in. But when FedEx declined to mail them a check, suddenly the ACU was signing off on a pro-UPS letter decrying the lies and manipulations of FedEx! Funny, right?

Here's what a $3 million donation to a conservative advocacy group gets you:

"For the activist contact portion of the plan, we will contact over 150,000 people per state multiple times at a cost of $1.39 per name or $2,147,550 to implement the entire program," the letter says. "If we incorporate the targeted, senator-personalized radio effort into the plan, you can figure an additional $125,000 on average, per state" for an estimated 10 states. The total would be $3,397,550."
[...]
Under the grass-roots program ACU proposed, "Each person will be contacted a total of seven times totaling nearly 11 million contacts total in the 10 targeted states." "Within 72 hours of an agreement on the whole plan, we can have the data sets delivered and the first round of e-mail ready for delivery," the offer states. "Within seven days, the mail can be in the USPS system and the phone call delivered."

But, you know, if you don't pay up, the ACU will lobby against you, free market capitalism be damned.

The ACU puts on the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the most important gathering of conservative leaders of the year and a necessary stop for all would-be Republican presidential candidates. Their Directors list is a who's who of conservative thought leaders past and present. And this is all pretty embarrassing!

(And Paul Krugman notes that this sort of behavior by right-wing think tanks has been suggested before, though, as we said, it has never been revealed so explicitly.)

Update: UPS responds: "UPS has not paid or contracted with any signers of the letter, including the American Conservative Union, to obtain their support on this issue. Any suggestion that UPS has done so is false." And, you know, the ACU could've just signed on to the anti-FedEx letter out of spite, and not for cash!

City Paper editor Eric Wemple, a veteran Post Kremlinologist, has a lengthy reported story on the firing of Froomkin. It is very good! But it has its flaws. Wemple really, really wants to trash both the Post and the idiot liberals who trash the Post, so he quickly dispenses with the "it's because Froomkin was too liberal" theory, mocking the bloggers who've made that argument.

But, well, Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald are both terribly excitable and prone to hyperbole, demonization, and over-simplification—but they are sure as hell not idiots.

Still, we accept that ideology was not the reason! It was traffic! "'His traffic had gone way down,' says Fred Hiatt, the paper's editorial page editor. Froomkin himself uses the same talking point: 'Traffic definitely did go down.'" And why is that?

"'A chronic problem had been promotion of the column on the homepage. My readers complained that it was harder and harder to find all the time,' says Froomkin." But that might be because of the ideology thing we dismissed earlier! So we hedge: "Zero: The amount of sympathy Froomkin will get from other Posties on how visible and navigable his stories have been on washingtonpost.com-that's a common affliction at the paper."

And, meanwhile, the Greenwald/Sullivan argument that Froomkin bugged the shit out of everyone else at the paper by having bigger balls and calling them on their bullshit (this is what they mean by "liberal" btw)? Well it's true that they refused to let him print anything that too much resembled "media criticism," which was a lot of his work.

"Marisa Katz, the paper's Web opinions editor, says the dinner story 'read more like a Howie Kurtz media column, or one of Dan's Nieman Watchdog items, than a post focused on the Obama White House.'"

God, the day Howie writes anything as perceptive about the media as Froomkin we'll send him flowers.

But in the end, yes, we believe the "traffic" thing. We also happen to believe that "traffic" is a shitty reason for a newspaper to fire a reporter, and further we are pretty sure that his traffic would've been better if he'd been promoted better, and the reason he wasn't promoted better was maybe because he bugged people on the print side, and of course, at the end of the day, "traffic" is not actually a standard they'd apply to a print columnist. And most of their print columnists fucking suck.

So yeah, $100,000 a year is a lot for a struggling paper to pay a guy with falling page views, but how much do they pay Dana Milbank? Or Richard Cohen? And what's the ROI on those guys? (Actually, the traffic for those two is probably pretty good, because everyone on the internet fucking hates them.)

Nick has Type I Diabetes, and he packed a Senate Homeland Security (?) and Governmental Affairs Committee briefing today with girls and their moms as he said some things about helping sick kids, or something, no one really payed much attention to what he said so much. A girl even fainted!

Politico's Pat Gavin got pictures of the crowd and the kids! And videos!

And he depressed Washington Times videographer and Yoga studio owner Liz Glover!

Yesterday, Nick met New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg (WHOOO!!!) at his office, where, according to the AP, "roughly a dozen Capitol Hill interns waited quietly across the hall from Lautenberg's office for a glimpse of Jonas."

And then he sprayed the entire subcommittee with a fire hose. Meanwhile the Senate will probably enter the July recess with the health care bill still in committee.

[Top photo: AP]

Update 3: DC's ABC-7 reports six dead at the scene, still possibly seven deaths, and two still in critical condition at the hospital.

Update 2: One train was stopped on the tracks, waiting for clearance into the Fort Totten station. The second one "plowed right into the tail end of the first train without slowing down," according to a reporter at WJLA. The driver of the second train is among the confirmed dead. 70 have been transported to hospitals, with two in critical condition. Four officially dead, up to seven may be dead altogether (meaning, probably, that there are still three people trapped in the wreckage).

(Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn is taking photos of the wreckage with his iPhone.)

Update: Three people possibly still trapped in a train car. More news photos here, eyewitness reports here. A train operator is one of the dead, and while the logistics of the crash are still unclear to us, the eyewitnesses seem to be saying that a speeding train ran into a stopped one. In addition: the Metro may have been single-tracking on the Red Line this afternoon due to "mechanical problems." If you're wondering if a family member was on one of the trains, you can reach the DC police at 202-727-9099.

The Red Line is the busiest line on the Metro, and this crash—reportedly initially caused by a six-car train derailing and colliding with an oncoming train—happened around 5 pm, at the height of rush hour.

D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Alan Etter tells WTOP rescue crews are setting up for the "possibility of mass casualties."

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There's full, live coverage available via streaming video here. (It pops up.) DC police and fire are still rescuing people from trains. The Red Line is elevated at the site of the crash, and ambulances are unable to reach the tracks.

Top photo: MyFoxDC. Additional photos: Inside transit.

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The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Earlier this week, some poor woman who got reamed by Liz, repeatedly, in very unprofessional and unnecessarily mean emails, leaked those emails to Politico. Justice! And, plus side for Liz, now everyone knows that she prefers "Elizabeth" (and is a psycho). And now, more Liz emails, from Wonkette!

Last year, some mildly amusing and incredibly harmless emails from House schedulers were leaked to Wonkette. There was mild ribbing, from the famous Wonkette blogstress lady, about how it was kind of funny that no one knows where a grocery store is. Leaking these emails is, like, mild rebuke stuff, right?

Or is it "YOU ARE A POOR EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING" stuff? Liz?

From: Becton, Elizabeth
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 9:55 AM
To: XXX; XXX; Democratic Schedulers
Subject: RE: We Have a Mole Amongst Us

What kind of nasty, petty, poorly written (Did these people graduate from middle school to high school?) site is www.wonkette.com? And what a base, narcissistic, illiterate group of readers they have! I will never venture to that site again. It was a total waste of my time. However, this email is for the mole among us. You are a poor excuse for a human being. You are not a team player. If I ever find out who you are, I will gladly advertise that it was you who forwarded the emails to the low-rent wonkette site. I will further inform the Speaker's Office, Standards on Official Conduct, and all the other appropriate offices of what you did. And if you got paid for it, my lowly, putrid, little wonkette reader, you have committed a crime and you will be punished for it when you are found. I have contacted Telecom and I have informed them of what has happened and since it's a quiet day, they are checking all the forwarded emails from this list serve.

And to my team players and fellow schedulers, I apologize that I had to include you on this email. This email was intended for the lowly loser among us.

Have a nice day!

Elizabeth Becton
Executive Assistant/Office Manager
Office of Congressman Jim McDermott

Hah! The other ones about getting the lunch lady's name wrong, are also instant classics. This woman is a treat.

There's still totally a game room and confessional room (used mostly for masturbating, if Real World lore of old is to be believed) and the producers' control bunker, and all that. Because the show is set in DC and everyone is Politics these days, we expect this to be the drafting for a beautiful new political salon for concerned young Beltwayers. Hence, no hot tub!

One thing that the producers maybe should have reconsidered: Stairs. There have been stairs in many a Real World house. They are rarely a good idea. Lawsuits, folks. Injuries. Think about it.

[Washington City Paper]

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Michelle Obama fired her chief of staff Jackie Norris, who's been with Michelle since the Iowa caucuses, and replaced her with White House lawyer Susan Sher. Scandal! Sort of! Except Norris is getting a new job as senior adviser to the Corporation for National and Community Service, a key, grant-giving part of the big Obama volunteering initiative. So it's not really so much of a firing.

But still: shake-up! The real news here, actually, is that newish Post publisher Katharine Weymouth forcing Givhan to actually move to DC after years of writing about fashion from here in New York, where it actually exists, has paid off!

Sigh. Yep. A press release went out today, describing the horrible lady reality show as such:

A place for power and politics, Bravo is scouting the D.C. area to identify the city's alluring and discriminating residents, those women who have their pulse on the most important cultural events, political galas, gallery openings and fundraisers in Washington society. These leading members of D.C. society are in the know and comfortable discussing everything from the economy to high fashion. They are the talk of the town in the most powerful city in the world.

So basically politics are hot right now, and, with Obama, sort of slightly unruined from all the ruining years past, but now reality TV wants in to ruin it all over again, this time for good. The Housewives will destroy and take over, and what can you do.

We, for one, welcome our new Botox'd overlords.