the Shackle Report

Wanting to clarify a past article written by Elena Kagan which called Supreme Court confirmation hearings “a hollow, vapid charade”, several senators went on the attack on the first day of her own hearings, gesticulating wildly, pulling on their ears, and pointing at their eyes as they desperately tried to convey their meaning.

Senator Orrin Hatch brought out a dusty old dictionary and laboriously gestured through the definitions of “hollow”, demanding to know which she meant: “having a cavity” (he cupped his hands)“having a depression” (looked very unhappy) “without worth” (pretended to have no job and inject drugs) “having an empty feeling” (pretended to disembowel himself – faint cheers from the gallery), or “a valley” (He never managed to convey this. Everyone agreed it was a very hard one)

Ms Kagan gestured back that she meant “without worth”, by mimicking the Senator’s shooting drugs move, which brought frowns to the faces of everyone in the room, both because she was saying the hearings were worthless, and because even faked drug use in the Capitol made people uneasy. When Ms. Kagan tried to convey that the comment had been taken out of context, no one quite got it despite her balletic contortions, though there were some who motioned that they thought people were being willfully ignorant.

Patrick Leahy then took the floor to demonstrate the meaning of “vapid” – “without liveliness or spirit” – and everyone got it before he made a move. Ms. Kagan signaled that this was indeed the meaning she meant to convey with the comment, bringing another round of exaggerated frowns to everyone in the room.

Joe Barton had considerable difficulty signaling the word “charade”, for which difficulty he mimed an expression of apology, but he was much helped by people already knowing the word charade was coming, though some made crazy, disdainful expressions that suggested that people were feigning not getting it for a while just to punish him for his excessive and somewhat gay affection for BP while everyone else wants to pointlessly vilify them.

Having confirmed what Ms Kagan meant by her comment – what she said – an intermission was called for by signaling eating chex mix and talking about their pets, their lawns, and their children who have handcuffed themselves to their beds to avoid looking for a job.

Scot Crawford

Senator Orrin Hatch has raised some controversy in Washington over his proposal to force people receiving unemployment to submit to drug tests, and if found positive, to withhold benefits and then put those people into treatment. Then, all that money saved from withholding money from those people could be used to pay the new people required to administer the tests. Mr. Hatch has gone himself one better and suggested that the states hire the people who fail the drug tests to administer the drug tests, adding an important element of job training to the formula, and tying the whole thing up in a neat bow, like a gift from the GOP.

The move is part of Mr. Hatch comprehensive plan to alleviate the unemployment problem the nation faces, which plan includes not extending benefits for those whose allotted time has run out, since they should have planned for the future and set some of those benefits aside for this moment. This will lower the unemployment rate because many of those people will simply kill themselves, and the rest can be hired to carry the corpses to a Potter’s ground. Some will sit down somewhere and get high until they’ve sold all they own, then recover with a bout of entreprenurial spirit arising from the power of soul shattering desperation.

He also has suggested reducing the amount of time people qualify for benefits to three days. Also, since the drug testing proposal does away with any search and seizure concerns, he has suggested subjecting them to waterboarding to determine if they have committed a crime, had thought about it, were a terrorist trying to finance an operation with the hard-earned money of American what-used-to-be workers, or if they had really spent every single day looking for a job for eight hours with a half hour lunch and two fifteen minute breaks in an economy where there are no jobs.

When some question the wisdom of taking the only source of income away from people who in theory have a drug problem, Mr. Hatch said; “I have been to those drug treatment centers, and I will tell you, there are none who are more true to the American ethos of rugged individualism than those broke and broken people sitting there in a cloud of despair. They will pick themselves up, beat the odds with God at their side, and be back in the saddle rustlin’ doggies before you can pull your pistol. Anyway, they don’t have to pay to sit in an AA meeting, unless you count those donations, but I think those are voluntary.”

Mr. Hatch also offered to submit to drug testing himself, to show solidarity with the unemployed and under the notion that the economy crashed on his watch, but the pharmaceutical industry objected, saying Mr. Hatch and all three tablespoons of his blood was proprietary and testing him would bring up intellectual property issues.

Mr. Hatch also noted that is important to always have the citizenry terrified that the tiny but wildly efficient government is going to show up at the door with needles looking for blood.  “Keeps ‘em on their knees…I mean toes…”

Scot Crawford

After Tony Hayward’s latest gaffe, in which he claimed the Gulf Coast brown pelicans weren’t bothered by the oil because they’re already brown, BP has offered huge incentives to anyone who will deal with the oil spill, including giving them Ireland.

No one immediately started clamoring for the job, but there are reports that the Israel Defense Forces have expressed interest.  Some have speculated that Israel wants Ireland as a potential first colony, thinking that the shared history of persecution would be fertile ground for a new infinite conflict.

Benjamin Netanyahu said that his elite forces were perhaps the only ones capable of stopping the oil, by rappelling into the pipe and overreacting as hard as they can out of irritatingly justifiable sanctimony and a rightful suspicion that the oil is anti-Semitic. That, plus the pressure of uncontrollably gushing international condemnation from anti-Semites with short memories and no taste for history could very well overwhelm the oil coming out at 5,000 psi, and blow it out the other side of the globe. There, Israel could then sequester the oil for its own uses, freeing it from the need to buy anti-Semitic oil from anyone and everyone who has any, including Hamas when one of their IDF tanks runs out of gas in Gaza.

BP is weighing it’s options, including appointing Helen Thomas new spokesperson.

Scot Crawford