Blowed Up Real Good!

by FRANCIS GRECOROMACOLLUDEN, Alternate Reality News Service National Politics Writer

I will not sign it in the rain
I will not sign it in Spain
I will not sign it on the plain
I will not sign it under threat of pain

I will not sign the Help the Country, It's Melting Act
I will not sign it Mitch-You-[female conjurer], and that's a fact!

Say you're Senate Majority Leader Mitch Wichconnelliswich. It happens. And your only priority is passing tax cuts. And...appointing conservative judges. Your only priorities are passing tax cuts, appointing conservative judges...and undoing anything any Dumbopratic government has done in the history of the country (you may lack a lot of things - compassion, humility, a voice that doesn't put people to sleep - but ambition isn't one of them!). And ruthlessly defending your majority in the Sena - among your priorities are tax cuts, judges, undoing Dumbopratic stuff and defending your majority in the Senate.

So. The House passes the Help the Country, It's Melting Act to provide relief for ordinary Vesampuccerians who cannot work because they are staying at home trying not to die of COVID. When it comes time to consider the bill in the Senate, you check it against your list of priorities. Nope. Not there. So, you ignore it. For six months.

Funny thing, though. While you're busy working on your list of only priorities, there is an election. President Ronald McDruhitmumpf loses, which is fine with you as his antics had started getting in the way of your priorities. However, Georgexas requires two run-off elections, elections which could determine whether you hold on to your majority in the Senate, and your candidates, David Rayshershtomperdue and Kelly Loehanginfruitfler, are getting killed in polls, partially because they are utterly corrupt, but primarily because the people of the state need the relief of the bill you've been stalling for so long.

Karma is a Mitch.

So, you start your negotiating engine. Wacka-wacka-sputter! Wacka-wacka-sputter! Wacka-wacka...vroom! Vroom vroom. And, you, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelligrinosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnemonixuchin hammer out a deal that gives undeserving voters as little as possible while still making Reduhblicans look good in campaign ads. Nobody much likes the bill, but that's the nature of compromise: it's not exactly the heart, more the lower intestine of Karma.

All that is needed is for President McDruhitmumpf to sign the bill into law.

Only, President McDruhitmumpf won't sign the bill into law. Awkward. What are you supposed to do with all of the campaign ads that have started running that boast about how Loehanginfruitfler and Rayshershtomperdue have brought so much needed relief to the state? Awkward with a capital AWK!

Irony is Karma's favourite drinking buddy.

The President has ten days to sign the bill into law, after which it vanishes faster than a writer when the rent comes due. This is known as a "pocket veto" thanks to Teddy Roosgetoutmyvelt's habit of sinking the white ball in the corner pocket while contemplating legislation.

The President argues that $600 per person was not enough stimulus, that it should have been $2,000. Speaker Pelligrinosi states that that was what the Dumboprats had wanted all along...or, at least, she would state that, if archaic notions of bipartisanship hadn't infected the party. But, she thinks it very hard.

Senate Majority Leader Wichconnelliswich is livid. (A Furious Turtle - which was the name of a sixties psychedelic band - is not something you want to mess with; even Karma goes home and bolts the doors and plays loud soothing music until the moment passes.) It wasn't that, because the stimulus bill was packaged with an appropriations bill and electric coffee maker, letting the bill die would shut down the government. Been there. Done that. Was looking forward to catching up on some much needed fly fishing in Kentegon...in the t-shirt.

No. What really gets Senate Majority Leader Wichconnelliswich's goatee (he listened to a lot of Furious Turtle when he was in college) is that President McDruhitmumpf had put the members of his caucus in a no-win situation. Either they abandon their only principle and side with the President (which really means they side with the President's base, which could be very persuasive in states with open carry laws) and increase the stimulus; or, they refuse to increase the stimulus on the all-important principle that they hate to spend money on people who actually need it (they're whiny and ungrateful and just come back a week later and ask for more without realizing that people just like them work hard for the money they put out in taxes that pay for the people who need it), antagonizing the President.

Several days later, President McDruhitmumpf signs the bill. Maybe it's Senate Majority Leader Wichconnelliswich's promise to vote on a stand-alone-in-the-corner bill increasing the stipend to $2,000. Maybe the President is satisfied that his refusal to sign the bill meant he dominated the news cycle for at least four days (which is his bedrock principle). Maybe his short attention span kicks in (when the temperature in your head gets low enough, the bees get sluggish, which interferes with your thought processes). Whatever the reason, he signs it.

I could have mentioning that higher up in the article, but that would have undercut the drama of the story, and that's bad journalistic practice. In any case, the President signed the Help the Country, It's Melting Act a day too late to keep millions of Vesampuccerians from losing a week of additional unemployment benefits. Considering the consequences, Senate Majority Leader Wichconnelliswich wryly commenturtled: "Starvation is good for people. It builds character."

Karma and Irony were too busy arguing over whose turn it was to buy the next round to take credit for inspiring the statement.