Wonkette

• REP. TUBBS JONES IN BAD SHAPE DEAD STILL IN BAD SHAPE HAS DIED: “Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, is reported to have suffered an aneurysm and is not expected to recover, according to CBS affiliate WOIO in Cleveland. WOIO also reported that the congresswoman is on life support at this time.” UPDATE: John Kerry has already sent out his statement, so she is deceased. UPDATE: No wait she is alive again. LAST UPDATE: Stephanie Tubbs Jones died this evening, the family and hospital have confirmed. [CBS News]

Here’s Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, posting a press release on his website which, unfortunately, is actually a mocking press release sent out earlier by his Democratic opponent, Rob Miller. It has been on the front page for many hours, highlighted by the following first paragraph: “Today, incumbent Congressman Joe Wilson began his election-year bus tour for the status quo. Wilson, who has proudly voted with the Bush administration over 95% of the time, is trying to convince voters that the country is on the right track and simply needs more of the same policies and ideas.” Maybe this is a new sort of double secret irony to which we are not attuned? OH SHIT, he literally just took it down. [Joe Wilson For Congress via Crack The Bell]

Oh now what is this idiot monster chicken up to? No good! He is an envoy from Nick Leibham, the Democratic challenger to Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray in California’s 50th Congressional District — the northern San Diego seat formerly occupied by Duke “Dick” Cunningham. Liebham made the chicken deliver a letter to Bilbray’s office that called him a chicken for agreeing to debates in San Diego. If one actual chicken calls another person a chicken, then is that really an insult? Everyone in California sucks and Brian Bilbray’s vanity daughter “Briana” is hot, the end. [San Diego Union-Tribune, Flickr]

The loser Republicans who refuse to take their vacation and are holding a Cuddle Party about energy on the House floor instead have employed, who else, Newt Gingrich, to get their message out! Gingrich heads a 527 called American Solutions for Winning the Future, or ASWF. The acronym is pronounced “Ass Whoof,” like a fart, which it is. MORE »

KARL ROVE IN CONTEMPT: “A U.S. congressional panel voted on Wednesday to find former presidential adviser Karl Rove in contempt for defying a subpoena to testify in its probe into suspected political meddling at the Justice Department.” [REUTERS]

Here’s a nice video from The Hill newspaper that shows fitness creep Richard Simmons annoying Capitol Hill for several hours yesterday. He testifies to a House committee about No Child Left Behind destroying public schools’ physical education programs, and he exercises with Hill staffers outside the building. For Republican Congressmen who could witness this from the Capitol’s bathroom windows, it was a dream come true. In this video, Simmons starts freaking out to Congress at :52, then ratchets it up at 1:15, then “climaxes” at 1:30. It is hilarious. This Hill reporter, Erica whatever, seems nice. [YouTube]

We have received another FIRST-HAND REPORT from an attendee of last night’s Congressional Baseball Game during which Congressman Chip Pickering’s metal bat hit some guy in the face and made him bleed everywhere. It is so FIRST-HAND, this report, that the source was the person who actually held a towel to the guy’s mauled head to stop the bleeding! According to this person, Chip Pickering was not trying to hurt this person when he hurt this person. Oh! MORE »

Alaskan Congressman Don Young, whose wife is a leading advocate of Capitol Hill’s chattel slavery economy, has a new pet project: the interstate slave monkey trafficking business. Now many of you are French and liberal and probably assume this harbors racial connotations. Well you keep eating that cheese, Jacques, because we’re talking about actual slave monkeys and not America’s lovely black people. Back in June, see, the House passed legislation banning the interstate sale of monkeys. How idiotic — leave it to the United States Congress to ban the economy’s most important industry in the middle of a recession. On Tuesday, however, Congressman Young introduced a new piece of legislation to amend the overreach of the previous one: it would “allow for the interstate transfer of specifically trained capuchin monkeys, who help severely disabled people with daily activities.” MORE »

Everybody in California’s 26th congressional district got this crazy-ass ALL CAPS hand-written freakout from beloved conservative bachelor David Dreier today. You can read the second page of ALL CAPS “MUST DRILL 4 OIL AT SEA WORLD OR ISLAMO FASCISTS WILL KILL KILL KILL” in the comments of basically all blogs everywhere.

Charles “Chip” Pickering is the only Mississippi Republican left in the House. He is the ultra-conservative son of famous racist/civil rights champion and retired federal judge Charles Pickering. Chip announced in August that he was quitting Congress so he could, of course, spend more time with his family, and get a lucrative lobbying job. The lobbying job will surely come, but on Friday it was announced that Chip is divorcing his wife so he can spend more time with all the various women he’s been connected with over the years. What, a Republican in Congress who commits adultery with the opposite sex? MORE »