Congress not broken!

Following the non-nailbiter of a Senate vote to hand over all of the money to the GOP muggers in exchange for raising the debt ceiling and allowing summer vacation to begin, the always optimistic Harry Reed revealed some really encouraging news - Congress is not broken! Booyah!   "What we have gone through has been extremely difficult, but there was never any consideration the Republic would fall," Reid explained, demonstrating that he had a pretty high threshold on the not-broken standard. "Now, taking the long view, you can look back at 1856. Boy, that was one fucked up Congress. In 1856, there was a congressman from South Carolina by the name of  Preston Smith Brooks, and truth be told, he was a bit of a redneck. Probably in modern times he would be affiliated with the Tea Party, but that's just speculation on my part. Anyway, like most southern congressmen of the time, he was pro-slavery."   "At the time, there was a Massachusetts senator by the name of Charles Sumner, and as you might guess from the geography involved here, he was anti-slavery, staunchly so. Well one day, he was giving a little speech and he mentioned Brooks by name, saying that he had taken "a mistress who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight - I mean, the harlot, slavery." This made Brooks pig-bitin' mad, because if there's one thing that he took great pride in it was never going out with ugly chicks, and he vowed he would avenge this wrong."   "He did. Brooks found Sumner writing at a desk in an almost empty Senate chamber, and confronted him. Harsh words were spoken, but really, not all that many, because after just a few he commenced knocking Sumner upside the head with a gold tipped gutta-percha cane. I don't know how many of you have seen one of those, but take my word, it's not something you would want to be assaulted with. Absolutely not. Well, Sumner fell down and got his head trapped under a desk, but Brooks kept beating him with the cane, everything but his head. Brooks finally got up, only to pass out in a pool of his own blood. He never did really recover from the attack, and even when he was able to return to the Senate three years later he was always extremely skittish."   "Now I know what you're thinking, why didn't anyone try and stop this brutal beating. Several did try, but they were stopped by a friend of Brooks, another redneck South Caroling congressman named Lawrence Keitt who kept them at bay with a pistol. And what action did Congress take against Brooks for his egregious actions? Not expulsion, not censure, but a measly little three hundred dollar fine."   "Then, of course, a few short years later, Congress broke down completely and we had a war that was anything but civil. I think that's a very instructive bit of history. As polarized as Congress my seem now, you need to remember that it could always be even worse."

break time

"Oh my God, I can't believe how much this thing stinks."   "I know, Harry, I'm about to gag."   "The sad thing is, my own bill doesn't smell a whole lot better."   "You're being too hard on yourself. I mean, granted that your legislation is an exceedingly generous concession for a Democrat, but it's not foul like this piece of shit."   "Well, that's nice of you to say, Mitch."   "I know, but don't get used to it. This is likely the only concession you'll get from me any time soon."   "I'm sure that's true.. At least I have the satisfaction of knowing it's you and Kyl that have to whip for it."   "I'm not going to twist any arms to wrangle votes for this bull crap. Kyl, maybe, but I... I guess I'll have to, a little... Do me a favor, Harry. Get it to a vote as quickly as you can. Make the suffering as short as possible. I'll owe you."   "Will you owe me enough to support my crappy bill?"   "I don't know, Harry. You know that I've got a crappy bill of my own in play."   "The problem is, Mitch, even if your crappy bill clears the Senate, it's not crappy enough to have a chance in the House."   "You're probably right, Harry. But then I don't know if anything without a balanced budget amendment would be approved."   "Do these morons in the House have any understanding of the fact that while a balanced budget amendment makes a certain amount of sense for a state, it's ludicrous for the nation."   "No they do not, and if you tried to explain it to them, they'd just start bitching and moaning about entrenched bureaucracies."   "It's sad... Well, you ready to get back on the floor and debate some more meaningless bullshit?"   "No, but let's do it."

Reid concedes

Speaking solemnly, Majority Leader Harry Reid gaveled close another exciting week in the Senate (one not unusual in the fact that nothing was done) with a dramatic conclusion unique in modern congressional history - the decision to work on the week after a national holiday.   "Okay, I give up, you win. You win, Mister President. Don't shoot me - See, I've got my hands up. Your remarks yesterday really hurt, comparing us unfavorably to Malia and Sasha. True, we haven't gotten a lot of bills passed this year... just eighteen, if you're counting, and I'm sure you are... And fifteen of those were naming a building or extending an existing law, although we did get that one guy appointed to the board of the Smithsonian. Everybody loves Jimbo... And let's see, there's the Patriot Act, which was also an extension, but still, it was a significant one... And there was something else... "   "But I'll read what you said because you were right, we do have a heck of a lot of work to do. Not that we'll be able to really accomplish anything but what the heck, you've got the gun, rhetorically speaking. You know, Mr. President, you might have hear it said that with liberty comes responsibility. We should take that responsibility seriously. I’m confident we do. That’s why the Senate will reconvene on Tuesday, the day after the Fourth. We’ll do that because we have work to do. We’ll be in session that week - that’s next week - with our first vote on July 5, which as I indicated earlier, is the day after the fourth. There. You happy? Now everybody get on out of here and enjoy what you've got left of the weekend."

Blue Christmas

Tis the season to be jolly, unless you're Senator Jon Kyl. Because there's a frightening chance that there will be no visions of sugarplums dancing in his head this year, no sound of reindeer hoofs clickety-clicking on his roof.   Jon Kyl loves Christmas, absolutely adores it, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is doing his darnedest to ruin his yuletide spirit by holding out the awful prospect that he might force the Senate to work through the holidays.   "It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out," Kyl moaned, his bottom lip quivering, "without doing - frankly, without disrespecting the institution and without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff."   But Harry Reid doesn't care about Jon Kyl's longing to once again gaze with awe at his hometown's live nativity scene, and Harry Reid isn't concerned about the disturbing possibility that Jon Kyl's stocking may not be hung by the chimney with care. Because Harry Reid is a miserable son of a bitch.   "He is, he is," Kyl agrees. "I remember last year, he made us stay in school... I mean in the Senate, he made us stay in session until almost Christmas Eve, and then I had to get all the way home to Arizona and I was so tired, but... but at least I did get home, and enjoyed a little of the holidays. But this year he says he may make us work the week after Christmas, too. What am I supposed to do? Vote on his stupid legislation? What?"   "I think Harry Reid is a pagan, I really do. That's the only rationale I can think of. I mean, he came out on the Senate floor yesterday and said 'Christmas is a week from Saturday', and I'm saying 'Oh boy! Oh Boy!', but then he tells us we're going to have to work. He said it was because we had stalled and stalled and stalled. You know what he was saying, don't you? He was saying that we had been naughty. Who does he think he is? Harry Reid is the Anti-Clause."   "I guess if worst comes to worst, I'll try to make the best of it," Kyl says bravely. "I hear there are a couple decent eggnog bars in Georgetown, and uh... a few of the guys were talking about doing a little caroling on Capitol Hill... Last night I went down to see the National Christmas Tree, and... It... It looked like some kind of weird tricked-out rocket ship. God, I want to go home for the holidays."

Justice Thomas recuses himself from home

"Look at her, will you? Just take a long hard look. Grown woman with a damn piece of foam rubber on top of her head. That's quite a glamorous outfit for the wife of a Supreme Court justice, don't you think?"   Clarence Thomas is not in one of his upbeat moods. Not that he ever is, but still. Today he has taken up temporary residence at Washington's Ritz Carlton, the hotel recommended to him by his old adversary Harry Reid.   "Harry doesn't really understand the needs of the country, but he does understand what makes for a fine hotel," Thomas says with a moribund chuckle. "And he has better taste in wives than some people I could mention. Do you know what Harry Reid's wife does for a living? She keeps his damn house clean. And do you know what Harry Reid's wife's political opinions are? Me neither. She keep her damn mouth shut. She's not out there shooting her mouth off about the Tea party, or about how we've got to end Obama's tyranny. I don't know, call me crazy, but I was just thinking, here I am, the only black Supreme Court justice, and hey, we've elected a black president, maybe the two of us could have a cordial relationship. Of course that would be impossible to imagine were you to have a wife talking smack about him."   "You know what else Harry Reid's wife doesn't do?" asks Thomas, sitting down on the edge of his king-size bed and opening a Diet Coke. "Harry Reid's wife doesn't go around whacking hornets' nests by calling up his old employees and rekindling past unpleasantness. That means that Harry Reid doesn't have to worry about those nearly forgotten incidents resurfacing in a way that creates opportunities for new ugliness. I'd be willing to bet that Harry Reid has never been totally mortified by his wife's behavior."   "Harry Reid," Thomas sighs. "That lucky son of a bitch."

Angle gets restraining order

Nevada senate hopeful Sharron Angle has been granted a temporary restraining order against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as police try to confirm her claims that he was 'trying to hit the girl'. "Right now we're sorting things out," said Sergeant Ben Hurley of the Reno police department. "Even though Ms. Angle is well past her girlish years, if the charges are true it would certainly be a low blow to Nevada politics. At first we thought she was saying that Senator Reid was trying to hit on the girl, but after talking to her for just a few moments, I'd have to say that's pretty damn unlikely." Far from backing off the charges, Angle has ramped them up. Appearing this morning on a Los Vegas radio talk show, she went on to say that Reid had pulled her hair and made numerous attempts to look up her dress. She also claimed that he had shot her with a rubber band, but later backed off somewhat, saying that she had only seen him playing with a rubber band but had not seen him fire it. "All I know is that it gave me an ouchie," Angle admitted, adding that the incident had so angered her that she destroyed the evidence by throwing the weapon into the bramble bushes.