Branding Iron(y)

From THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR:

Eric Cantor, the often combative second-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, sought on Tuesday to rebrand himself and his party, voicing hope that they can work with President Barack Obama for the sake of all Americans.

While not wavering from his conservative principles and desire to tame the record U.S. debt, Cantor expressed a new eagerness to help the needy in such areas as education, health care, immigration and moving up the economic ladder.

“Over the next two years, the House (Republican) majority will pursue an agenda based on a shared vision of creating the conditions for health, happiness and prosperity for more Americans and their families,” Cantor said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

Because Widdle Ewic and his merry band of Ayn Randian teabaggers are all about health, happiness, and prosperity for everyone [insert eyeroll here].

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(From Left to right in back, top row: Paul Broun, Trent Franks, Joe Wilson. Bottom row: Louie Gohmert, Steve King)

The Date of the Union

From The Houston Chronicle:

There was U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, in her coveted State of the Union perch along the aisle. Wearing an eye-catching lime-green jacket, she got her brief moment of TV exposure and a handshake from President Barack Obama, as usual, as the president made his way into the august chamber of the House.

This time, though, instead of sitting in a bloc with her fellow Democrats, Lee sat beside a real live Republican, U.S. Rep. Pete Olson of Sugar Land.

The two Houston lawmakers were enthusiastic participants in the State of the Union “date night,” a bipartisan gesture prompted by the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., earlier this month.

The pre-speech curiosity was almost Oscar-night giddy — or maybe prom-night giddy — as lawmakers over the past several days paired off.

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Its Comical, Part 8: Clean-up Edition

This will be the last installment of the series, so let’s take a look at some of the comics and comic-related pix we haven’t seen before. One of the longest running comics is Dennis the Menace, and we have had a few different Dennises. There was Chimpy, with Deadeye Dick Cheney filling in for Mr. Wilson…
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A Woman’s Work is Sometimes Done!

From Steve Kornacki at Salon:

The seeds of Sunday night’s historic House vote were planted not by Barack Obama’s election in 2008, but by a little-noticed internal House leadership contest nearly a decade ago.

Back in the fall of 2001, two Democrats were vying for the vacant position of House minority whip. But the election wasn’t really for the caucus’ No. 2 leadership spot. It was for the top job.

Richard Gephardt, then the Democrats’ House leader, would be stepping down after the next election, so the winner of the whip’s race would be in line to replace him – and to become the House Democrats’ public face for the next decade, at least. Which is why there was trepidation – to put it mildly – among more than a few Democratic members about the race’s front-runner: Nancy Pelosi.

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Taking the Nasty Plunge

From THE HILL:

Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) said Saturday that healthcare protesters at the Capitol directed racial epithets at him and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) as they walked outside.

Carson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus along with Lewis, told The Hill that protesters called the lawmakers the N-word.

Tea Party protesters held a rally outside the Capitol on Saturday, which included speeches by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and actor Jon Voight, and then proceeded into the halls to lobby members at the 11th hour.

Lewis was one of the leaders of the civil rights movement alongside Martin Luther King. Jr.

Asked if racial epithets were yelled at him, Lewis responded, “Yes, but it’s OK. I’ve heard this before in the ’60s. A lot of this is just downright hate.”

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You Got a Beef, Stew….I mean, Stupak?

From National Review:

Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”

According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats — the “Stupak dozen” — has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”

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A Sorry Excuse For an Apology

From the Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Washington – President Obama on Sunday dismissed the uproar over Rep. Joe Wilson’s heckling during the president’s speech Wednesday to a joint session of Congress, suggesting it was only a distraction — even as some members of Obama’s party threatened to punish the South Carolina Republican.

“This is part of what happens. I mean, it becomes a big circus instead of us focusing on healthcare,” Obama said in an interview on the CBS news program “60 Minutes.”

Obama noted that Wilson later apologized, which “I appreciated.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and other senior Democrats in the chamber indicated last week that unless Wilson went to the House floor to apologize, they would advance a resolution admonishing Wilson for shouting “You lie” during Obama’s address.

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Rudeness, Rebuttal, and Royalty

From Babylon Dictionary:

magpie
Noun
1. long-tailed black-and-white bird that utters a chattering call
…snip…
3. an obnoxious and foolish and loquacious talker
(synonym) chatterer, babbler, prater, chatterbox, spouter

From Sex-Lexis:

schmekel:
1. A penis , diminutive for of the Yiddish schmuck . See penis for synonyms.

2. A stupid person.

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