sacred bird » congress

another one down

630 — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:28:59 +0000

republican representative mark souder of indiana resigned today to avoid a house ethics committee investigation for an affair he had with a female staffer. when are these guys going to learn?

*photo from one of souder’s better days

[reuters]

$787,000,000,000

630 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:30:12 +0000

no doubt by now you’ve heard that the $787 billion dollar stimulus bill has finally passed. about one third of it will go towards tax cuts but the reminder is to be spent on various other projects and programs meant to stimulate the economy. in the weeks since it was introduced, we’ve gotten use to hearing the term “billion” thrown around so much that it no longer seems like that much money and we can barely remember when everyone had to be careful to count off enough zeros. but the truth is, we really have no concept of what a billion dollars can buy.. that is, until the the boston globe helped us out.

what $787 billion dollars can buy:

mitt romney’s utah ski home 149,000 times over which is currently valued at 5.2 million (seems he’s downsizing from 3 to 2 homes)
more than 45 million pontiac g5s (i’m not sure why anyone would choose the g5)
cover money lost in madoff’s ponzi scheme 16 times over, currently assessed at $50 billion (when you look at it this way, madoff doesn’t seem like such a bad guy)
over 19.6 billion digital tv coverter box coupons (some of the stimulus dollars are actually going towards this cause you know, there was a shortage )
more than 222 billion big macs (yum)

what would you buy?

photo courtsey of tracy o

this is rich…

180 — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:59:00 +0000

but not in a monetary sense.

to jon stewart: congratulations, my friend.

i think sarah might object to the tights, but…

180 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:16:00 +0000

mccain is going to need a suit to go with the promise to wipe out political corruption. while the republicans have been partying it up in minnesota, here’s what’s been going on–

inspector gadget got 4 years
“broken and disgraced, lobbyist jack abramoff will spend four years in prison for his role in a corruption scandal that upended washington politics and contributed to the republicans’ loss of congress in 2006. the once powerful washington insider, at times choking back tears during his sentencing hearing thursday, appeared crestfallen as a judge handed down a longer sentence than prosecutors had sought.”

motor city mayor revs up for an extended stay in the clink
“kwame kilpatrick, the charismatic mayor of detroit who has been embroiled in legal problems stemming from a sex scandal since the beginning of the year, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and resigned his office thursday morning as part of a deal with prosecutors. he agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice and to plead no contest to a felony count of assault on a police officer; to pay restitution to the city of $1 million; to surrender his law license, forfeit his state pension to the city and be barred from elective office for five years; and to serve 120 days in the wayne county jail, followed by five years’ probation. the other charges were dismissed.”

congress’ very own donald trump forgets to report some income
congressman charlie rangel has owned a villa in the “dominican republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal taxes…he has earned more than $75,000 in rental income from a villa he has owned in the or state tax returns, according to a lawyer for the congressman and documents from the resort.”

he’s just saying…

180 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:50:00 +0000

be vewwy quiet…

180 — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:19:00 +0000

while the dems party with certified hotties like sacred bird (anderson cooper) and flying fish (bill hemmer) in the mile high…city george w. bush is trying to tiptoe around the law in washington. justice department lawyers said today that they will ask a federal appeals court not to force the w’s top advisers to comply with congressional subpoenas next month. in july, district judge john bates rejected this argument and ordered former white house counsel (and supreme court nominee) harriet miers to testify along with white house chief of staff josh bolten to turn over documents related to the firing of federal prosecutors. w. argues (or his lawyers do) that congress doesn’t have the authority to demand information from his aides.

check’s in the mail

180 — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:22:00 +0000

to sallie mae, your ex, your kids, or some combination of them all. about $1B in stimulous rebate checks were confiscated by the u.s. treasury to pay down the debts of the deadbeats on-track to receive them. of that $1B:

55% went for child support
39% went for for federal debts such as student loans or farm loans
6% went for unpaid state taxes

luckily, the money is sent directly to the payee owed the money. let’s hope the recipients didn’t hop on a plane to hawaii–the money would be gone in an instant.

hey kid, gotta smoke?

180 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:56:00 +0000

in a follow-up to the earlier story about the proposed tobacco legislation that exempts menthol because it is a cash cow for the economy. seven former federal health secretaries: tommy thompson, donna shalala, richard s. schweicker, and otis bowen, david matthews wrote a letter to congress outlining the reasons why they aren’t big fans of the legislation that really benefits phillip morris, the bill’s sponsor.

no word as to what congress will do with the letter. at time of this writing, they were out taking a smoke break.

ok, so maybe kanye was right*

180 — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:22:00 +0000

and i hate saying that because hearing “i told you so” from him would be sooooo annoying. but check this out: congress is trying to pass the first legislation regulating tobacco. the proposed legislation gives the food and drug administration the “the power to oversee tobacco products, [and] would try to reduce smoking’s allure to young people by banning most flavored cigarettes, including clove and cinnamon.” the menthol cigarette is exempt from this legislation “even though menthol masks the harsh taste of cigarettes for beginners and may make it harder for the addicted to kick the smoking habit.” menthols are exempt from the legislation because tobacco industry gets quite a bit of revenue from the sale of the tobacco (about $17.5B per annum).

for quite some time, public health authorities have worried that menthol might be a factor in high cancer rates in african-americans. “the use of menthol cigarettes is disproportionately an african-american phenomenon” (75% of cigarettes smoked are menthol) — due to decades of advertising aimed at black consumers so say the critics. the exclusion of menthol sounds ludicrous to me. i’m just saying it would be like if the gun lobby was able to prevent trigger locks (child safety locks) from being added to guns because it would cut into our rights or (omg) margins. oh…er, ah, scratch that.

* i’m referring here to kanye’s response to hurricane katrina. if you don’t remember it, be like mariah and search for it on yoouuuuutube, youuuuutube.