SPRING 2009

Greetings, Loyal Readership!

Throughout the halls of Congress echoes the cry, “Yes—We—Can … Totally Prove Ourselves Not Up to the Task Of Governing!” While this is likely absurd hyperbole, it’s difficult to recall a time when Washington (the capital, not the District of Columbia, the man or the state) was more dedicated to sheer inanity. Congress, which goes on break more often than flunking college students, left a week before Easter for the “Easter Recess” (must have been a lot of eggs that needed coloring). And the thing is, this is actually good! Because the more they hang around, the more sheer vainglorious vacuity they display as they strut about like peacocks confusing TV cameras for members of the opposite sex. A little less strutting and a lot more, oh, banishment throughout eternity to a distant planet would be most welcome in the case of Nancy Pelosi, who has distinguished her tiny little self by first squashing all talk of investigating the Bush administration’s many “youthful indiscretions” with the law, and now by working to squash all talk of reinstating the assault weapons ban. To paraphrase Randy Newman, “Short people got… big weapons?” With friends like these, who needs Democrats?

Thank goodness the utter craven insipidity knows no party boundaries. Republicans have taken to acting like villains in the old Bat Man TV show, always hatching wacky schemes to try to foul up Batman, aka, the president, and inevitably doomed to be thwarted mostly because they’re just, well, so … unbelievably, irredeemably, irretrievably, inexplicably, bafflingly, confoundingly, bombastically stupid. Holy god these people are stupid. To wit: Republican governors “refusing” stimulus money (while counting on their state legislatures to overrule them). Republican senators voting against the stimulus bill (then returning home bragging about how much money they’re bringing back to their districts). Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, in the tone of an alien pod person mainlining Prozac, telling the nation that monitoring volcanoes is a Democratic waste of taxpayer money (after all, what harm have volcanoes ever done humanity?). And, Republican Congress people trying to pin stimulus money mismanagement on hapless, and (pick your poison) either stupid or corrupt Timothy Geithner (when they voted for the bailout funds without attaching any conditions to prevent morons who mismanage money from mismanaging more money).

On the other hand, what would YOU do if someone took your perfectly respectable party, and, as with a body’s vital fluids, drained it of everything it stood for such as small government, limited foreign intervention, fiscal responsibility and individual rights, and replaced those fluids with simple sugars, caffeine and steroids in the form of religious wackos, rednecks, corporate man-love and wars? Our gosh, what an ugly, lurching critter you’d have created for yourself! (What do zombies always seek? Brains! Coincidence? We think not). So, now, the Republican party apparently stands for the scratch-ticket hope that Obama will stumble into a crisis of his own making (too early to tell, but looking doubtful), or that the Democrats will get fat, happy, shrill and ridiculous (absolutely certain) at which point, the big bloated thing can Franken-walk back in to the party and have the guests say, “Well, hel-LO, handsome!” Doesn’t sound like much of a plan, but then, neither was Iraq, Afghanistan, torture, domestic spying, corporate giveaways, global warming, species extinction, mountain top removal, religious nuts making national policy, and oh, we don’t have enough space in this noozletter to list it all.

This publication has oft stated that we don’t expect our elected officials to actually DO anything for us, but we absolutely insist that they entertain us, and they’re not even doing that these days. They say truth is stranger than fiction. We would add, as well, that it’s a lot stupider. For example: As everything burns right behind them, the increasingly absurdist Congress keeps saying, “Hey, watch this!” and tries to distract us with cheap magic and card tricks such as showering down “outrage” upon AIG, whose bonuses represent about .0000001% of the stimulus money paid out. (How about Congress instead read up on hedge funds and figure out how to fix the SEC, for starters? Just a thought.

The other thing about fiction is that there are usually good guys and bad guys. But in this case, everybody’s just a stupid guy! For instance, to explain the bonuses, AIG’s Edward Liddy told Congress that if AIG didn’t pay out the money, they couldn’t retain the people needed to untangle the mess … that they created in the first place. Meanwhile, AIG’s bonused executives are quitting (thanks for sticking around to bravely clean up the mess, guys!). And AIG is employing more of their big brains (and, naturally, taxpayer money) in their newest strategy—a name change! That should solve everything. Here’s some free advice for AIG: Instead, use the money to bribe the rest of the big brains to leave! Anything. Give ‘em cars, houses, golden parachutes. Like Congress, just get ‘em out of the building. And, here’s a question: Considering that the bailout funds given to AIG now represent several billion more dollars than the company is worth, how is it that AIG was “too big to fail”?. Couldn’t we have just waited and bought it at a fire sale? The government clearly doesn’t know how to bargain-hunt.

Cheers—

The Editirs

Media Finally Achieve Goal of Destroying Economy

Every morning, no matter what news outlet they choose, Americans wake up to the same story line: America’s economy is wretched and we’re terribly screwed (except on Fox, where the story is that America’s economy is wretched and we’re terribly screwed and it is somehow the fault of the Clinton Administration.) After months of daily water-torture repetition, news media representatives jubilantly reported that they’d finally achieved the historic victory over common sense which they so desperately sought: Depressing the living hell out of everybody.

“This is an historic victory,” said a representative from a major TV network. “We’ve driven the world economy into the toilet.”

Representatives of the world’s biggest news outlets, including CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, CNN, the New York Times and others gathered recently to toast their historic victory over the forces of reason. In a joint statement, they claimed, “It’s been a long, hard fight, but we felt that if we just kept our message consistent, eventually we could bring the world economy to its knees.”

The latest economic figures confirmed the victory. “After two years of talking about whether the US was in a recession, the media finally made it come true. Unemployment is up, lending is down, and credit is increasingly hard to obtain. What an amazing day this is,” said an NPR executive.

The victory represented coordination of an “unprecedented level,” said the unnamed TV network executive. “We all had to either stick to the story or the story wouldn’t stick.”

Against all logic, contrary to simple observation, and despite the fact that Americans are better off than at any time in human history, with over nine in ten Americans still employed, the media have managed to persuade the world that Americans are all apparently all going to be shuffling in rags on their way to a soup kitchen, even though the route to that soup kitchen is likely to be a busy highway jammed with expensive SUV’s on their way to work or shopping.

Asked just why the news media had an interest in taking out the world’s economy, another executive said, “Well, it’s all about ratings. 9/11 worked for a while, but people got tired of that always-on-the-edge-of-your-seat thing. Iraq just got on people’s nerves after awhile. It’s really too much to ask Britney Spears to carry the load—I mean, how many problems can one woman have? And, even though it was a great four years, the presidential campaign had to end some time. But comparing minor economic woes to the Great Depression, now that was a story with legs. It seems that people just can’t get enough of misery. Our ratings are through the roof!”

The conference ended on a jubilant note, with a CBS vice president exulting, “Internet, Shminternet. I think we’ve put to rest the rumors about the decline of old media. Let’s see a bunch of bloggers in bathrobes take down the entire world economy!”

Republican Party Supports Affirmative Action for Republican Party

In a policy turnaround, over the last several months, the Republican party has enthusiastically embraced affirmative action—for the Republican party. Despite a long history of decrying the purported excesses of a system that allegedly awards jobs or slots in college based on race or gender versus talent, the GOP has changed course “If women and minorities are to compete on an equal footing with Anglo-Saxon men in the Republican party, they need a hand up,” said party spokesman Chad Smith. Smith vigorously denied that the sudden elevation of previously unknown figures such as Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal and Michael Steele had anything to do with the fact that the Democrats now feature such prominent figures as Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. Smith further claimed, “This is nothing like, say, the comics where you have, like a bad Spider-Man taking on the good version, or the anti-Wonder Woman who dresses in black and a little slutty.” Despite the fact that the RNC apparently sprung Alan Keyes from the crazy house to run against Obama for the Illinois Senate seat in 2004, Smith said, “I categorically deny that Alan had his own cape made for the campaign. And yes, it certainly IS the widlest coincidence that the very best Republican candidate in all of Illinois (pop. 12,852,548) just happened to be another black man.”

While he vigorously disputed the notion that the new Republican affirmative action initiative was really racial quotas in disguise, Smith did say, “If you have dark skin and a foreign-sounding name, basically you’re in like Flynn—or should I say, “Semooch Vijay Abdallah Chang Flynn” he added, laughing. Smith also called, “unfounded” the rumor that, if Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal wasn’t available to deliver the opposing viewpoint to the president’s first major speech, the next Republican minority anyone could find was an assistant county representative to the Nebraska state Republican party named Chet Wang.

However, in what may be a setback for the Republican party, national census polling data show that, in the wake of national exposure surrounding Jindal, Steele, and Palin, apparently, fewer Americans are identifying themselves as Indian, black or female.