Iraq
war: Congress votes to leave Iraq "with all due speed"
Turns
out it was a bad idea all along, say Members of Congress
In
a special session today, April 1, the House of Representatives voted
overwhelmingly to set up a reasonable timetable to withdraw troops
from Iraq.
"I'm
so sorry, I didn't realize," said Rep. Tom Fuelery (R-AM).
"Bush just kept telling us how well things were going, and
I didn't have time to read the newspaper or listen to my constituents.
Imagine my surprise when I finally sat down during the March recess
to read my emails! My gosh, there were literally thousands
of messages from people who don't like the war!
Just
tons from this WAND organization. Apparently, they say -- and there's
a lot of data to back this up -- the war is not going well, at
all.
Who knew? It just changed my mind right away."
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Other
Representatives concurred with this opinion. "You just
get so caught up in believing in our progress," said
Rep. H.J. Res (D-AC). "But I was getting these emails,
and I sensed something wasn't right. Do you know that lots
of people are calling it a 'quagmire'? Well, these are my
constituents, and darn it, I'm willing to go out on a limb
for them. So I introduced some new legislation, and it turned
out lots of my fellow Members feel the same way!" |
In
a surprise move, the Senate rushed through a resolution to pull
out of Iraq as soon as possible, and sent the bill directly to the
President's desk.
President
Wush is reported to be surprised at the move, but he noted that
"Well, I did say we had accomplished our mission there, didn't
I? and then we didn't find any of those WMD thingies. So maybe it's
a good idea to leave already." Sec. Tumsfeld reportedly muttered,
"Not on my watch," as he was observed striding toward
the Senate with a strange black briefcase with a large red button.
Federal
budget for FY07
In
another astonishing turnaround, President Wush has issued a new proposed
budget for FY07, noting that he didn't realize exactly what was in
the first one.
"My
gosh, what a lot of numbers," noted Wush. "When I finally
got a chance to look at it, I was stunned. Do you realize we're
still pouring money into missile defense? And it looks
like it's never actually worked? What are we waiting for,
a note from my dad already? Crazy. Just crazy."
Apparently,
Wush was motivated to reexamine the budget after seeing the new
movie featuring Dave Chappelle, "Block Party." At one
point, the famed musician Wyclef Jean asks a young African American
college student what she would do if she were president. She replies
that she would stop the war; offer more scholarships; and give more
money to people who need it.
"And
I just thought to myself, geez, that's some good thinking,"
said Wush. "I mean, no one in my administration had suggested
any of those things, but when you think about it, it's a good idea.
I mean, the people who don't have money -- they should be the ones
getting from the government, right? But when I looked at the budget,
anyone can see that we're giving loads of it to defense contractors
to build new-fangled helicopters and things that don't work very
well. Where's the sense in that?"
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In
the new budget, the Pentagon share of the discretionary budget
shrinks from 53% to just under 30%. "And that's still
billions of dollars! We can buy a lot of stuff with that,
let me tell you," said Wush. "With that 23% of the
budget, you wouldn't believe what we're funding! It's amazing.
Old people will get enough to eat, all our kids will get a
good education, and we're doing all this neat stuff to protect
our ports and build up our first responders. Believe me, it's
way better than that old budget. I don't know who came up
with that thing." |
Rep.
Bud Get (U-IM), a longtime critic of the budget, appeared at the
press conference with the president. Visibly jubilant, he replied,
"Duh."
Congress
assails nuclear deal with India, decides to send all U.S. nuclear
weapons to the sun
"It's really, really hot there,
isn't it?" asks one Congressman
"Have
you seen this?" asked one irate Congressman after reading up
on the nuclear deal that President Wush recently negotiated with
India. "It violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty! Who
does that? I have kids, for Pete's sake!"
Once
they were notified about what the India deal meant, other Members
of Congress quickly fell in line, and declared that it was just
better for everyone if we got rid of the darn things once and for
all.
"These
are really really bad bombs," noted Rep. Tom Fuelery (R-AM).
"They blow up, like a lot of things. They could kill,
like, lots of people! including me! So I don't know why we don't
just all agree to throw
them away. Personally, I'm going to move that we send them into
space, toward someplace so hot they'd just incinerate."
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A
group advocating disarmament visited Congress on April 1,
and showed a movie that documented the devastation caused
by the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. |
The
House and the Senate sat in stunned silence afterward. Vice President
Cheinous said, "For gosh sake, we'd never do that
with our new nuclear bombs. We only aim for bad people." Rep.
Bud Get (U-IM) tweaked his nose.
Congress
decides to lower the debt ceiling back down to merely strastopheric
level
"Did you realize we could just
pay for stuff by not cutting taxes?" asked one Representative.
Saying
they just didn't know, the House on Saturday decided not to cut
taxes on extremely wealthy people so they could pay for vital stuff
in the federal budget -- rather than borrowing more and saddling
the economy and future generations with an enormous national debt.
"Criminy,
why didn't they tell us this before?" asked Rep. Bev Venue
(I-HO). "Goodness, I know lots of people who have money to
burn. They don't even know what more to buy! They have the nicest
cars already, and a few of them! So they do silly things like remodeling
perfectly good kitchens. I don't think they'd mind one bit pitching
in a little more. They're good Americans."
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Noting
the unusual demands on the federal budget -- from rebuilding
the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina to funding the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan -- a group of Senators proposed increasing
revenue to match the increased outlay. "It seems unorthodox
at first," said one. "But then I looked at my credit
card bill and I thought, whoa! the interest is killing me!
Is this happening to our federal budget as well?" |
The
Senate also decided to stop sending those little tax rebate checks
to everyone. "Who believes that means anything?" said
one. "It's like we're giving money to the parents, and taking
it back again from the kids -- only we'll want more. It's kinda
weird, when you think about it."
In
other news
The owners of the largest chain of
big box stores in the country to fund organizations devoted to environmental
protection, empowerment of women, and alternatives to violence and
militarism
"Oops,"
they said at a press conference on April 1. "Turns out we were
kind of making things worse around here, what with the low wages
and the environmental degradation and hurting the local businesses
and stuff. So we decided we'd just give loads of money to organizations
that want to make things better."
WAND
is at the top of the list, reportedly slated to receive several
billion dollars in large bills...
Okay,
so not so much.
So the news today isn't really like
this.
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Which
is to say: please join us.
We
really do need to change the world, and as soon as possible.
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(And
we're not really getting any money from fatcats. It's all you, baby.
Thanks!!)
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