Major Malfunctions

Congratulations. You’ve been stimulated. Feel any different?

Congressional Republicans spent Sunday morning rounding the talk show circuit trying to convince America that President Obama failed miserably in his first legislative battle. A battle over the passage of an economic stimulus package, which he then signed into law two days later in Denver. Now I was under the impression that getting Congress to pass a bill you wanted passed would be considered a victory. After all, that’s how legislative victory has been defined for at least the past eight years. But apparently I lost something in translation. According to Senators Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell and John McCain, the new measure of success and failure is how many Republicans sing on to an article of legislation. I don’t know how this bogus determination was made, but this is national politics, not college football. A win is a win – even if you don’t run up the score.

When they weren’t busy trying to label victory as defeat and complaining about not having time to read a bill they never intended to vote for anyway, GOP leaders were pushing the talking point that since the President promised a new era of bipartisanship, and because Congressional Republicans failed to unclench their fists to accept the outstretched hand, Obama did not deliver on his promise. It’s sort of like a shopkeeper closing his store, and then complaining he can’t sell any goods. Bipartisanship requires the co-operation of two parties, hence the term bipartisan, “bi” meaning two and “partisan” meaning parties. If one party demands concessions from the other, yet refuses to concede anything of its own, there is never going to be a workable agreement – which was the intention of the Republican Party all along. As if to prove this point, on Monday afternoon, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor informed reporters that House Republicans intend to oppose the President’s foreclosure prevention plan. Only the President has yet to inform anyone of what that plan is. They don’t even know what it is they plan to oppose. Cantor and company will obstruct anything coming out of the White House, regardless of what it is. If Republicans want someone to blame for the failure of bipartisanship, they need only look in the mirror.

If no budget compromise is reached this week, the State of California will issue lay-off notices to 20,000 state employees, to take effect at the end of the month. Somehow, California has managed to dig itself a $42 billion deficit, and for the past year have been unable to agree on how to remedy the problem. The sticking point now is a budget proposal containing $15 billion in spending cuts and $14 billion in tax increases. California law requires both a balanced budget and a supermajority to pass any budget and/or tax increase. I’m sure that seemed like a good idea at the time that law was passed, but it sure looks like a royal pain in the ass now. Republicans in the Statehouse refuse to approve the tax increase, and Democrats refuse to cut spending any further. And so the stalemate continues. California has already issued I.O.Us in lieu of income tax refunds, and if no solution is reached by the end of the month, state government will essentially be shut down and California will be forced to issue I.O.Us for all their debt obligations. The sad part about this is that 20,000 public employees, and exponentially more in the private sector are being held hostage by ideologues in the Statehouse who can’t seem to understand that this is not some academic exercise in some classroom somewhere, isolated from reality. Real live human beings are going to be damaged by their gamesmanship.

Ditto for Kansas. Although the Kansas state budget deficit of $186 million seems laughable next to that of California.

Former presidential candidate and would-be Revlon spokesman Mitt Romney has placed two of his four houses on the market - including his Utah ski resort (described as a 9,500 square foot cabin) for which he is asking $5.25 million. I’m almost an architect. I don’t think a 9,500 square foot residence qualifies as a “cabin,” even if it is made out of logs. Lodge, maybe. Cabin, no. But at least Romney knows how many houses he has.

British and French military officials admitted this week that two of their nuclear submarines suffered significant damage when they collided with each other while submerged in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month. I’m sorry, what? Do you realize how vast the Atlantic Ocean is? How do you collide with another ship in the ocean? Don’t you have sonar to prevent crap like that from happening? That’s like two bumblebees flying into each other over Texas! If you can’t avoid hitting another submarine in the Atlantic, maybe you shouldn’t be piloting a submarine.

The lead-in for a story appearing today on CNN.com: “The founder of an upstate New York TV station aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes has been arrested on suspicion of killing his wife, who was beheaded, authorities say.” Sometimes the irony writes itself.

In an interview with U.S. News and World Report, televangelist Pat Robertson was asked if he subscribed to the Rush Limbaugh, “I hope (Obama) fails,” school of thought with regard to the new administration. In a stunning moment of clarity, Robertson responded with the following: That was a terrible thing to say. I mean, he’s the president of all the country. If he succees, the country succeeds. And if he doesn’t, it hurts us all. Anybody who would pull against our president is not exactly thinking rationally.” Note to Rush: if Pat Robertson thinks you’re crazy, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate

Bristol Palin told Fox News that although she wishes she had waited ten years to have a baby, simply telling young people to be abstinent and expecting that to work is “not realistic at all.” I guess she would know.

Finally, in case you missed it, last Friday at 6:31 p.m. marked 1234567890 o’clock in Unix time. For those of us without pocket protectors and coke-bottle glasses, that means 1,234,567,890 seconds since the computer operating system Unix was created. Apparently that’s important.