THE EARMARK

For those of you who keep letting unwatched CSPAN-2 broadcasts pile up in your DVR, we’ll now fill you in on the past week of Senate proceedings:

• Thursday: Irascible Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) stages a one-man legislative blockade, thus eliminating 400,00 people’s unemployment benefits, choking off COBRA payments, halting hundreds of federal transportation projects, cutting doctors’ Medicare payments by 21%, and furloughing 2,000 federal employees.
• Friday: Bunning tells furloughed workers “tough shit” and then names the true casualty of his blockade: His having to miss a basketball game on TV.
• Monday: Pressed by reporters, Bunning gives them the finger and gets territorial about an elevator.
• Meanwhile, the GOP’s national image takes a hit, and their “party of no” reputation is reinforced.
• Tuesday: Satisfied, Bunning drops his objection.

The way we see it, this was never about jobs.  Rather, Bunning’s main objective all along was to make the GOP squirm.

That’s because the Kentucky reactionary blames Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders for forcing him from his 2010 reelection campaign.  (Although some would say his horrible poll numbers and advanced dementia also contributed.)  And since suing the Republican Party wasn’t viable revenge for Bunning, trashing our fragile economy was the next best option.

Now McConnell and company must absorb notoriety for Bunning’s mess while trying to mount a powerful comeback in the November election.  And that’s just fine by Bunning, who has nothing left to do but relax and count the days until he leaves the Senate for greener pastures…

Specifically Green Pastures Nursing Home.

Washington’s closeted gay community is abuzz with the scandalous news that a Republican senator of the male persuasion fondled New York Times columnist David Brooks during a recent dinner encounter.  To quote Brooks directly…

“He had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time.  I was like, ‘Ugh. Get me out of here.’”

Pressed by MSNBC reporters to name his Senate paramour, Brooks declined, which was clearly his way of saying that he wanted irresponsible bloggers to speculate on this person’s identity.

Well glad you asked, David! Here are our guesses…

Name	Why It Might Be Him
Jim Risch (Idaho)	Risch’s seat is haunted by the ghost of its former occupant, Larry Craig.
“Big Bad” John Cornyn (Texas)	Every time Cornyn dresses up in that fetching leather tassel jacket, he starts doing the most fabulous things.
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)	Was not actually McConnell’s hand on Brooks’s thigh, but rather a stray chin flap that was drooping toward the floor.
John Barrasso (Wyoming)	After over two years in the Senate and not a single mention in the New York Times, this was Barraso’s last-ditch effort.
Robert C. Byrd (West Virginia)	Byrd is technically a Democrat, but Brooks also made distinct reference to a Senator that is “like a St. Bernard, drooling everywhere.”

President Obama has been accused of being a secret Socialist, a secret Muslim, even a secret Republican.