House Votes to Keep Their Paychecks

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Washington, DC -That is all.

Mint This!

Washington, DC - In case you've been living in a cave or Dick Cheney's undisclosed location for the last week, you've missed the story of the "Trillion Dollar Coin." It's being bandied about as a possible alternate solution to the approaching Debt Ceiling crisis as Republicans in Congress gear up to wreck the economy, much like they tried to do two summers ago the last time the Debt Ceiling needed to be raised. You see, all the Debt Ceiling is is a law saying that if Congress has committed to spending more money than we have, they have to authorize the President to borrow money for the things they already said they wanted to buy. If Congress doesn't authorize the president to spend money by raising the Debt Ceiling, the United States defaults on its obligations, the economy goes into the crapper, and we all start buying cans of Fancy Feast for dinner.

A little-known 1990s law allows the US Government to make a Platinum coin in any denomination. If President Obama were to mint a Trillion Dollar coin, and deposit it in the US Treasury, it could bypass the Debt Ceiling question all together. Who knows what Obama will do, but while we're waiting to find out, here are some other coins we at Unsolicited Drivel think should be minted and how we think they should be used: 120 billion $ coin - to give each of the 12 million Americans who are out of work a hundred thousand dollars to tide them over while they look for work; 4 trillion $ coin - to give each of 40 million Americans whose homes are underwater a million dollars so they can pay off their houses and not be thrown out into the street; 800 billion $ coin - to inject directly into the economy to create jobs; 0 $ coin - to pay all of Congress's salary (change should be expected).

Posted by: GMan

Obama Changes Vacation Plans to Silence Critics

Williamsburg, VA – Is Obama headed south instead of north on his vacation today?  A source says “yes” and confirmed the president has moved the first family’s vacation to Colonial Williamsburg to silence his critics once and for all.

A White House spokesperson told Unsolicited Drivel, “Despite his predecessor George W. Bush having spent nearly two and a half years on vacation,* many Americans still have taken issue with President Obama and his family’s Martha’s Vineyard vacation plans which were to have started today.  Not only did they not want him to take any time off after the histrionic debt ceiling fight sent stocks into the crapper, they particularly didn’t want him to do it by having a clambake with Carly Simon.  So after a bit of discussion, Obama agreed that visiting a seaside playground of the rich and famous might not be in his best interest right now.  We chose Colonial Williamsburg for the first family because we couldn’t think of a more patriotic, less controversial place for them to visit. Malia and Sasha plan to learn how to sew a flag with stars and bars and Michelle will learn to load a musket while they are there too!   Even the Tea Party won’t be able to take issue with the choice of the Williamsburg vacation and now our staff is really looking forward to seeing the next batch of crazy-eyed photos of Rep. Bachmann uploaded to the web once the news breaks and she finds out.  As another positive result of Obama’s new and improved American vacation, we also fully expect that sometime before Labor Day, we see'll at least one GOP candidate on film in Philadelphia humping the Liberty Bell. We've even started a betting pool for which candidate it will be!”

*879 Days - surpassing even Ronald (I should have moved my ranch to Hidden Valley so folks didn’t notice how disinterested I was in Washington) Reagan.

Dumpster Diving Show to Be Next Reality TV Sensation?

Los Angeles – Could “freeganism,” also known as dumpster diving, be headed to your TV screen as entertainment?  If one Hollywood producer/pitchman has his way it will.  Unsolicited Drivel has learned exclusively that a new reality show, working title, So You Think You Can Dive, has almost been green-lighted as a mid-season replacement on a major TV network.

The creator of the new show, Rand Sachs, who ironically has no interest in a sustainable lifestyle told us, “I came up with the idea just last week after that botched debt ceiling deal sent a clear message that the U.S. government doesn’t give a crap about its citizens.  Also, it’s no secret that many large soulless grocery stores are throwing away edible food every day at closing that they could be giving to their janitorial staff of illegal aliens they don’t pay a living wage.  With the popularity of all of the cooking reality TV shows, it just seemed like a no-brainer.  Of course, as with any good reality show the contestants will have to have huge personality conflicts.  So we’ll mix it up with the different store dumpsters, most likely pitting the altruistic hippies laid off from non-profits who dive at Trader Joe’s against the elitist faux environmentalists/former investment bankers who dive at Whole Foods, against blue collar workers screwed out of rights and jobs by the government and anyone else screwed by this economy who dive at stores like Piggly Wiggly and the Wal-Mart.   We'll also bring in a ranting homeless guy as the Gordon Ramsey type character to berate them while they're diving.  That will make a must-see TV recipe for sure!”

Polls Show Most Americans Would Not Have Tea with the Tea Party

According to a recent poll conducted among people that like to take polls, the American public’s general opinion on the Tea Party political movement can now be described as “less favorable than the thought of having to have a boil lanced off of their asses with a dirty X-Acto knife.”

The recent debt ceiling debate has given people a more concrete view of the Tea Party and its objectives and has also made many people want to encase them physically in concrete.  Specifically, 40% of Americans said they would rather have root canal than listen Grover Norquist explain how we can maintain infrastructure without taxes, which was a substantial rise from 18% last year.  Additionally, 46% said they would rather gnaw their own arms off than have to sit at a table at a Michele Bachmann for president fundraiser.  Democrats were most likely to hold the most negative views of the Tea Party, but it is believed that's only because they read the newspaper.  Independents also shared a negative view of the Tea Party, but were also most definitely in agreement that our two controlling political parties in America and all of their subsets should just go f**k themselves.

Stock Market Plunges on Speculation That the U.S. is Going Back to Being a Big A-Hole

New York – Stocks plunged yesterday with the biggest one-day drop since Wall Street took revenge on Main Street by demanding a bailout over two years ago, leaving many analysts fearing the U.S. is most likely headed for a double-dip recession.

The Dow Jones and Standard & Poors both had index drops of over 4%, a sign that investors have no confidence in the American economy growing, and that many even believe that it’s going in reverse.  Plus there’s lots of crazy stuff going on in Europe too with whatever they’ve done to f**ck up their economies without even declaring wars for no reason.

One financial expert told Unsolicited Drivel, “It was an unusual day for many speculators, but I can’t say I’m surprised after the way the U.S. government handled the debt ceiling crisis.  Over 70% of Americans feel it was handled very badly indeed, as in previous instances we never even heard the words ‘debt ceiling’ on the news, making us all long wistfully for the usual summer stories about tornadoes, shark attacks and babies falling into wells.  Investors showed their distaste by sending a message that they thought America was going to stop being a big A-hole after the ‘too big to fail’ bank bailout in 2008, but clearly we are back to being a big A-hole again by exhibiting such childish behavior on Capitol Hill.  This one-day drop on Wall Street is going to make it all that much more difficult for economic spin doctors to sell the word ‘recession’ when we have actually been in a depression for quite some time.  Hopefully for the White House, the pre-fix ‘double-dip’ will distract Americans because it reminds them of ice cream.”

('toon via Go Comics)

Uncle Sam Announces Huge Yard Sale to Make Up for Crappy Debt Agreement

Washington, DC – The historically bad debt-ceiling agreement reached last night between the President and House and Senate leaders still has to be voted into law, but one iconic American figure, Uncle Sam, isn’t counting on it having any positive effect. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The country’s grizzled mascot complained, “I don’t know what part of the words ‘revenue increase’ this government doesn’t understand.  Save a dime, lose a dollar.  Didn’t one of the founding fathers say that?  I've never seen a business that tried to do things on the cheap succeed.  This deal is complete bunk and if it passes, will not get the country out of the crapper. We’re never going to be able to pay off this debt merely by spending cuts, so I figured I better chip in.  Much to my dismay, I’ve got those folks from Antiques Roadshow coming to appraise the Statue of Liberty and all of the stuff in the Smithsonian to put up for auction.   Mount Rushmore will open up for rock climbing expeditions and I’m also putting up all of the land in the other national parks for sale.  Wait a minute…didn’t the GOP already sell those parcels?  It’s really getting hard to keep track of which parts of the American dream they have already sold out.”

The Rebuild the Dream Rally-Washington, DC 7-28-11

Washington, DC, always a city of unremarkable sandwiches that leave me starving on the way home and nearly ready to faint on the train, was the location yesterday for the first ever press conference and rally of The American Dream movement led by Van Jones, senior fellow at the Center For American Progress, and co-founder of numerous progressive non-profit organizations, including this current "rebuilding" movement. I had attended a house meeting for this group about two weeks ago and it was the first time I didn’t feel quite so alone in my struggles in this economy in years, so I was looking forward to seeing Van speak in person on the current stalemate in the debt ceiling crisis.

I arrived at the Capitol about an hour beforehand, fantasizing about having an opportunity to douse Speaker Boehner with my bottled water – as if I would ever have a chance to get close enough to him without having any interest in playing golf!   And speaking of water, while our country is hurling toward the biggest economic calamity in my lifetime, I noticed we are paying workers to power-wash the sidewalks outside of the building. Aren’t we nearing a drought, too? *GROWL*

People slowly started to arrive. Liberals never seem to show up as early as the Tea Party at these events (perhaps because they have lives?), but show up they did and likely numbered over 300…although you may hear more like 500. Attendance is ALWAYS exaggerated no matter which party is hosting the event. I don’t think that’s a bad turnout on only 24 hours notice. Even better news is that the Tea Party rally the day before only had 40 attendees!

I overheard Rep. Keith Ellison (D. MN) being interviewed on camera. Ellison is the first Muslim member of congress and an African American - the Tea Party’s worst nightmare. Lex Luthor to their delusional Superman. Ellison didn't use the word "treason," but he indicated the way the Tea Party is unwilling to work to find a compromise with any other lawmakers who have a differing opinion is just that. He stated that they are “in violation of their duty to the American people.” Absolutely. I cannot remember a time when our government behaved so childishly and I admire that Ellison can sit in legislative session with them without his head exploding. You’re a better person that I am, sir!

Jones with his young grassroots activists.

Van Jones opened the press conference and announced that congress people and reps from labor unions, civil rights organizations, among others would speak. Planned Parenthood, dependent on Medicaid, had a large presence. 70 Organizations are affiliated with the Rebuild the Dream movement.

You can see their complete listing of speakers yesterday in their blog post here.

Tiffany Mellers.  She fought our wars and only got a lousy t-shirt.

This is Tiffany Mellers. She’s a war veteran our country is “thanking” for her service by driving her into poverty. Like so many of us, she cannot find work and has children at home to feed. Not taking care of our troops is perhaps, in my opinion, our country’s greatest shame.

I also believe that another great shame that’s neck and neck with forgetting about our troops once they come home, is not taking care of our seniors. Rep. Jan Schakoswky (D. IL) was one of the several real firecracker congresswomen who spoke. She spoke on Social Security and Medicare and stated as far as the GOP was concerned we could rename Medicare “I don’t care!”

ASFCME arrives!

Both the reps from ASFCME (Ralph Randall), and AFGE (John Gage) spoke about mistreatment of government workers, from lax safety regulations at the FAA to pocket-depleting furloughs, among other atrocities while we don’t tax the rich their fair share. According to another speaker, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D.NY), currently the wealthiest Americans are paying less than 1% of GDP, while they were paying 6% in 1950!

Reverend Welton Gaddy spoke of disentangling God from politics and his colleagues were protesting inside the Capitol building as he spoke. He fully expected them to get arrested. He urged our lawmakers to practice “faith, justice and compassion” and stated, “Religion is not a theory. Quit your unpatriotic politics!”

John Gage of AFGE

Both AFGE’s John Gage and Rep. Nadler referred to the current debt ceiling crisis as “artificial” and “manufactured.” The congress people who spoke assured the crowd that they wouldn’t let us default (“not on our watch”) and would encourage President Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment - if necessary.

The basic message of the rally was that the GOP, and the Tea Party in particular, is holding the American people hostage with their extremist views - the views of the MINORITY. This country has to be run by the majority. It’s the only way to ensure democracy for all.

Naively, I fully expected to come home, flop on the sofa after a cold shower, flip on the news and hear there had been a debt ceiling vote. Later I heard the House delayed the vote last night.  I'm guessing it's because their pizza didn't arrive in 30 minutes or less - because they really do want EVERYTHING for free!

 Here is my slideshow of the event in the link below.

The Rebuild the Dream Rally-Washington, DC 7-28-11 - 116645440348080662031 - Picasa Web Albums

GOP Goes to “Town” in Debt Ceiling Crisis With Ben Affleck Movie

We're going to hurt...Americans!

Washington, DC – As the default crisis looms on August 2nd, The Washington Post is reporting that GOP leadership played a clip from the Ben Affleck movie The Town in a meeting last night to rally support for Speaker Boehner’s budget plan.

In the clip, the bank robber played by Affleck tells his accomplice, “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. And we’re going to hurt some people.”

While hurting American folks is nothing new to the Republican party (see: wars, pollution, siding with insurance companies, stripping social services, creating tax-cuts driving America into record-breaking deficits), we were still kind of surprised they would let it be known that they were using a violent movie about lawlessness as a motivator to get the job done instead of say, a Zig Zilar or Dale Carnegie tape.

Unsolicited Drivel reached out to an anonymous source on the Hill for comment who told us, “I was surprised too at their choice to reveal their plans for blatant thievery by screening The Town, but I’m sure my surprise was not nearly a great as Ben Affleck's as he's a very vocal critic of the right.  Of course, it’s not likely they will take Ben’s suggestion of using his movie The Company Men as an inspirational piece as it’s all about how they ruined the economy leading to an unprecedented number of lay-offs and Boehner’s new plan will likely create more poverty than the Great Depression and the current recession combined.  Anyhow, I’m just relieved considering some of the self-hating, sexually repressed ilk in our party that the media didn’t catch the actor’s GOP fans watching Jimmy Kimmel’s I’m F**cking Ben Affleck video instead."

Speaker Boehner Didn’t Get the Memo About Having to Work Closely With the President

Washington, DC – Speaker of the House John Boehner was overheard by a CBS News reporter last night grumbling, "I didn't sign up for going mano-a-mano with the President of the United States.”  This complaint was in regard to the “dangerous game” he’s playing according to Obama over the debt ceiling negotiations and leaves the American public wondering, “then what the F did you sign up for Mr. Boehner?”

Unsolicited Drivel asked an aide close to the Speaker to tell us in confidence just what Rep. Boehner did sign up for.  They told us, “I can't say I know for sure.  I am a little surprised that he didn’t realize that the Speaker of the House would have to work one-on-one with the President regularly.  I even had to do a MapQuest for him to find the Oval Office.   I guess when a person’s mind is consumed with perpetuating the illusion that one will create jobs* just to get elected, hosting fundraisers, playing golf, pressing the flesh with lobbyists to line one’s own pocket, figuring out the quickest way to drive every American who’s not one of your cronies into poverty, protecting the right to life of fetuses until they are born and then become voters and frying one’s brain in a tanning booth, a Speaker doesn’t have time to read their job description.  Again, I’m just guessing, mind you.  I could be wrong.  But in that case it would have to be because Boehner’s delusional, and I don’t think he’d be able to get corporate America to hand him as much money as he gets regularly on a silver platter if he was bat-shit crazy."

*200 Days in: 1.9 million jobs killed and zero jobs created.

Sarah Palin Wants to Shoot Holes in the Debt Ceiling

Speaking from somewhere in front of a green screen projected with a lakeside scene to Sean Hannity’s hair last night, former half-term Governor and gun nut, Sarah Palin, wanted to know what all the gosh darn fuss was about regarding the debt ceiling issue.

Once again, she rehashed her slogan about not retreating and “reloading” and Palin urged Congress to not back down in their negotiations over the deficit.  She further criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for essentially “waving a white flag” at Obama when he could have been typing into his Blackberry and asking his minions by hitting the “reply to all” button to help him pray for guidance. 

Despite the fact that the failure to raise the debt ceiling by August 2nd will cause the U.S. to default on loans and damage its credit rating in addition to forcing it to raise interest rates on cash strapped Americans, like many of the most conservative Republicans, Palin stated she believed the issue was overblown*.

This attitude of some of these GOP leaders that the issue should not be a priority seems crazier than usual to us, so we checked in with our political analyst for comment who told us, “Sarah Palin is taking the same strategy as Michele Bachmann, although she has yet to announce her presidential run.  At least Palin said “white flag” on the air, as I’d worry if I was an advisor on Bachmann's campaign that she’d make a Freudian slip and say “white hood.”  Regardless, it’s very disappointing given this past year’s events Palin would trot out the gun rhetoric again.  Although I’m sure she’d be a better marksman when it comes to shooting holes into and murdering our economy than she was with most of the wildlife she'd gone after on reality TV to appeal to the Ted Nugent faction."


*Unlike her hair this week.  WTF?

A Message for the Senator From Kentucky

Obama Wants America to Believe That Washington Has Been Working Lately

Washington, DC – President Obama spoke this morning on the non-negotiations currently underway in Washington regarding the debt ceiling and assured America that once in a while Washington can actually do something that doesn’t involve cluelessly drinking $350 bottles of wine.

The president made it very clear that he had been working with speaker John Boehner all weekend on trying to come to a resolution to avoid America defaulting on its loans that wasn’t merely a stop-gap solution.

Boehner was not present at the press conference, but it is believed that he had indeed been in meetings with Obama all weekend as aides reported his skin was looking paler than the president’s for a change at their Monday morning prayer circle.

Obama stated that he believed the American people wanted things done and he expected to manage the deficit and stabilize the debt and do so all without raising taxes.  The president concluded his brief remarks by promising a resolution within a reasonable amount of time and then ended the press conference by pulling a live rabbit out of a top hat that had once belonged to Abraham Lincoln.

White House Insists - Still No Plans to Kill Grandma

Washington, DC – The Obama Administration was denying reports today that they were thinking of making cuts to Social Security in their plan to let Republicans continue with their delusional plans of no new taxes to avoid raising the debt ceiling, insisting instead that the President wants to strengthen the plan and not kill our elderly.

An Obama spokesperson stated, “While it’s true that the debt ceiling has been raised in the past more often than the Amish people raise barns, we’re trying to find a way around that to appear to have economic solutions this time. Social programs like Social Security definitely don’t drive up our deficit in a way that our starting wars on a regular basis with phantom menaces does, but we still need to find ways to strengthen them. Grandma will not starve under the new plan, but she may have to downgrade from Fancy Feast to Meow Mix.”

Upon hearing the news that the media had exaggerated their reporting of the President’s intentions toward the crucial social program, retailers immediately called China to cancel their huge orders of pitchforks and torches.

Yes He is, Mitch McConnell

GOP Votes Against Raising Debt Ceiling, Simultaneously Lowers “Like, Duh!” Ceiling

Washington, DC – Despite Congress having voted to raise the debt ceiling 10 times in the last decade without a public spectacle, the GOP voted last night against letting the U.S. raise its debt above $14.3 trillion, paving the way for the country to start defaulting on its loans as soon as August 2nd.

Living to contradict themselves, Republicans rejected their very own proposed $2.4 trillion debt limit increase to pay for a budget deficit that they caused during the Bush administration,  and did so very likely in favor of balancing the budget with tactics like privatizing Medicare.

The vote Tuesday night was far from the two thirds majority needed to keep investors from putting U.S. Treasury bonds into a paper shredder and/or jumping off an office building at only 97-318.

One freshman congressman from a very conservative red state who refused to be named (for obvious reasons) told Unsolicited Drivel, “Ya’ll know we can take on no more debt without balancing the budget, but I’m kind of surprised that our ideas for balancing it now include proposing to kill Grandma by kicking the shit out of the affordability of Medicare.  I thought we left killing our country’s seniors up to Democrats with their Obamacare, and we Republicans just stuck to killing foreigners who don’t like our brand of freedom.  I ain’t looking forward to those Chinese calling in our debts come August and everybody here being named Chang in the future neither.  It’s bad enough to think that with all them there illegals that we were leaning toward everybody here being named Garcia or Sanchez someday not too far down the road.  I tell ya,  I’m really getting tired of our party showing its true colors so damn easy and letting middle America know how we don’t care about nobody ‘cept the rich.  Makes it tough to get re-elected without being totally corrupt and I'm still a God fearin' man!”