• NOW WE WILL ALL DRIVE TREES! Whoa hey they managed to do it, the Democrats did, passing the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and SECURITY Act, 219-212 — eight Republicans voting Yea, 44 Democrats voting Naw. This sure is a “big victory” for Barack Obama! Except that it has to go to the Senate now and requires 60 votes, for being big, meaning 99% of it will be stripped out an hour before voting just to get one of those Maine ladies on board, resulting in just enough funding to give 5-7 Americans surgical masks, for the End Times… Ha ha, the future of Earth could rest on comedian Al Franken’s ability to cast a U.S. Senate vote. [AP]

Iowa Rep. Steve King, easily one of the top five House wingnuts and perhaps the most overtly evil and sneering one, has this to say about why we shouldn’t close Guantanamo Bay (where we could still keep the innocent Uighurs, whose imminent release was ordered by a federal court in 2008): MORE »

America’s favorite doctor, Ron Paul, is struggling with demons we cannot even begin to comprehend. Here he is whining to an empty House of Representatives last night, about the night terrors he suffers and the horrifying intrusion of interdimensional orcs into his waking life. [YouTube]

• CREDIT CARD BILL AWAITS NOBAMA: “The House today gave final approval to a bill that would prohibit credit card companies from arbritarily raising interest rates on existing balances and charging certain fees. With a 367-61 vote, the House ensured that President Obama will be able to sign the bill into law by Memorial Day, as he requested.” What is wrong with Congress, making such quick work of an overwhelmingly popular bill? [Washington Post]

Opossum-eyed Jesus geologist Joe Barton, Republican Congressman from Texas, signaled his intent last month to stop the liberal Waxman-Markey energy bill — the one with cap-and-trade, which is about hamburgers — with traditional adult methods of opposition: “I’m going to be the sneaky little guy that pops up from behind the bush and fights the guerrilla. But guerrilla warfare does succeed sometimes.” (Fortunately for him this world has professional transcribers, because he definitely was saying he wanted to fight a gorilla.) And now he is popping up from behind the bush with a reasonable plan to block the legislation by proposing 450 comical amendments — four-hundred-and-fifty — that will simply be rejected, one by one, during an exhausting process that will embarrass the United States around the world and in Heaven. HAW HAW HAW. MORE »

INFAMOUS MINNESOTA FOREST SPRITE RETURNS FROM SPACE TO CHALLENGE BACHMANN AGAIN: He’s in baby, HE’S IN IT 2 WIN IT. The greatest elf in Minnesota history, Elwyn Tinklenberg, has THROW’D his hat in the ring for Michele Bachmann’s House seat in 2010 after narrowly losing to her in last year’s stolen election. It was only close last year because Michele Bachmann said we should have Witch Trials for members of Congress. Since inauguration she has said things far worse than that literally every day, so the delightful hobbit should uhh win. (PLEASE DON’T WIN THOUGH! WE NEED COMEDY.) [MN Progressive Project]

Do you own some terrible old car? Probably not! But you might be making payments on some terrible old car. Communist Premier Nobama and his Duma-Politburo (the House and Senate) have got a great deal for you: Just trade in your gas-guzzling sticker-covered crapmobilie full of McDonald’s bags for a shiny new better-mileage-getting Automobile of the Future, and you’ll get $4,500. That is, what, equal to about a year’s worth of unemployment? MORE »

America’s joke, Congresslady and full-time lunatic Michele Bachmann, woke this morning from her barbiturate-wine cooler stupor, crawled on her hands and bloodied knees to the AM-only radio permanently tuned to the local wingnut talk station, and happened to catch the national news bulletin: An influenza pandemic! It sounded pretty serious, whatever “pandemic” meant. Michele Bachmann needed to craft a response — you know, something that would, uh, blame a swine/bird/human flu virus on, uhm, LIBERALS, right? MORE »

Jim Tedisco, Republican of New York, has apparently lost New York’s 20th congressional district special election to Scott Murphy. But, as it was pretty close, Tedisco and the Republicans contested some ballots and blah blah, the usual thing, and today — after such embarrassments as challenging the residency of Air America liberal radio host Sam Seder, who not only has his permanent residence in the district but served as a jury foreman there the week of the election — Tedisco is probably going to concede. MORE »

House Republicans now want Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano fired after her department released that memo warning of the “fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists” that America has become due to the loss of all national wealth, the black president, shitty immigration policy, and the general idiocy of many American citizens. While the memo was initiated during the Bush administration and followed the release of another memo in January warning about left-wing extremists, Republicans are claiming that Napolitano wants to arrest them all — the entire conservative wing of the country — for some petty partisan non-issue grounded in no factual evidence whatsoever. As Tex Rep. John Carter says above, dadgummit, FAHHR DAT WOMAN. And after the jump, a familiar Congresswoman gets her say as well… MORE »

A Hill staffer informs us that the Congressional Mail Room Security People are starting to go Code Mango on all tea bag anthrax letters, which is a tragedy, because now staffers can’t send us comical photos of the tea bags (unless they’re faxes!) And no more free treats for these poor worker bees! There’s always Nestle chocolate milk to steal, though. MORE »