--*Washington, D.C. Stripper Blasted for Incompetence

Sally Jessie Rose, a 52-year-old stripper who works at the Bare Elegance Lounge in Washington, D.C., was blasted yesterday by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike for her horrible dance routine and shocking disregard for quality adult cabaret entertainment.

"This stripper is just terrible," said Rep. Jackson Peyton (D-Idaho). "I mean, it's OK to tease, but it's not a tease anymore if it lasts for, like, four hours. At what point does she just take it off?"

"There is no inspiration in her moves at all," said Jefferson Potlach, a Republican representative from Wisconsin. "It's like she can barely be bothered to take off her clothes in front of us."

Rose did her strip routine some four hours after the Senate agreed to pass a bipartisan bill extending unemployment compensation, legislation that passed in a highly polarized political atmosphere in which gridlock has become the order of the day. However, the jobs bill and Sally Jessie Rose's horrible and chafing lap dance were encouraging areas of bipartisan consensus, said President Barack Obama.

Though we have differences about execution, both Republicans and Democrats agree that unemployment is a top priority, and that Sally Jessie Rose's feather boa routine was lackluster and hostile, just the sort of negative, 'I don't care' attitude that brings us all down."

Senator Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, had threatened to hold up the jobs bill because he thought it would add to the deficit.

"This is a free market economy," said Rep. Jim McAllen of Utah. "At some point, the market must sustain itself, and the market will take care of those who are responsible and those who are irresponsible. This Sally Jessie Rose person, for instance, is not getting any sort of tip from me. The market knows what to do with her drag-ass, low burlesque routine."

--*What New Bills Are Wending Their Way Through Congress?

--*The Carrie Bradshaw Affordable Footwear Act of 2009

--*The Henry Hyde Memorial Early Pullout Birth Control Law

--*A Thank You To Libertarians For Getting No Acts Passed Act

--*The Cleanup of Inactive Mines and Requirement that Lindsay Lohan Wear Underwear Act

--*The Enhancement of Ability to Fight Methamphetamine Act

--*The Enhancement of Methamphetamine to Make It More Kick Ass Act

--*The Let's Build A Wall Around Pamela Anderson and Her Hepatitis Act

--*The Boosting Workplace Morale by Firing Spanish Speakers Act

--*The Credit Default Swap Prohibition Act

--*The Derivatives Prohibition Act

--*The Automobile Prohibition Act

--*The Bell Bottoms Prohibition Act

--*The Let's Let the Credit Card Companies Just Fuck Over Anybody They Want To Act

--*The Thank You To Metrosexuals for Their Service to Their  Country Act

--*The Let's Reconcile With Cuba Act

--*The It's Not Too Late To Invade Cuba Act

--*The Tax Incentive to Sell Your House and Buy a New One Every Year Act

--*The Economic Stimulus Through Building Unnecessary Bridges In the Middle of the Desert Act

--*An Act To Repeal All Income and Payroll Taxes, Abolish The Internal Revenue Service and Create a National Sales Tax, Otherwise Known as the "Let's Set Poor People On Fire" Act

--*Obama's Health Care Speech to Congress

What were some of the highlights of President Barack Obama's address to Congress Wednesday night?

8:15 p.m. Obama thanks the health insurance industry for making the 111th Congress possible.

8:20 p.m. Obama name checks a distinguished pantheon of Americans who have so far totally failed to bring you decent health care, including Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy Kennedy, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, George Bush and Alan Alda.

8:25 p.m. Obama stops and smokes a cigarette.

8:30 p.m. Obama excoriates those who have tried to kill reform altogether by spreading lies about the health care bill. Though he doesn't name them personally, those people pretty much admit their guilt by sitting down and not clapping for this statement. We thank those people for telling us who they are.

8:40 p.m. Obama stops briefly while the field crew sweeps the floor and dances to "YMCA"

8:45 p.m. Obama stops to remind people that the Bratz dolls still dress like sluts

8:50 p.m. Obama suddenly inserts orders for American children to kill their parents according to plans laid out in his Tuesday speech to classrooms. "You know where the forks are. Like we talked about. On three!"

9:00 p.m. Obama is heckled by South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson for the "take her home like a six pack" joke.

9:01 p.m. Wilson yells "You lie!" after Obama says that illegal immigrants are not covered by the health care bill, after Obama says Teddy Roosevelt was president, and after Obama reads the list of specials in the Congressional cafeteria

9:10 p.m. Joe Biden still has something in his eye

9:15 p.m. Obama says that amid the health care debate, America has seen Congress at its worst (when it does nothing) and at its best (when it does nothing).

9:16 p.m. Rahm Emanuel eats a severed human hand.

9:18 p.m. Wow, after three beers ... Nancy Pelosi man ... I'm just sayin'.

9:20 p.m. Obama thanks the pharmaceutical companies for making Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh possible.

9:25 p.m. Obama wonders aloud why such strident political ideology is hindering progress. He just can't imagine why influential Republican swing voter Sen. Charles Grassley, for example, would be so ideological about this health care bill.

9:30 p.m. Obama makes some controversial statements about how much his health care plan would cost, saying a lot of it was money already being spent anyway. This rankles Republicans who insist that only they be allowed to run up crippling deficits, because they do it for good reasons, after all.

9:31 p.m. Katie Couric says Obama shouldn't kiss so many people what with swine flu running rampant.

9:31 p.m. Actually, kissing up to pigs happens a lot in this business.

9:32 p.m. Republicans several times fail to get up to clap, showing that, as an abrasive and loud minority, they are not afraid to use their thumb-sucking petulance as a weapon.

9:35 p.m. In response to Obama's remarks, several Republicans hold up copies of a booklet which, given their complete lack of interest in reforming health care, is probably a copy of the new "Harry Potter."

--*What Ended Our Marriage and/or Health-Care Reform?

What factors led to the end of our marriage and/or the end of health care reform legislation in Congress?

--*We failed to articulate our goals to each other.

--*We kept fighting over money.

--*There was a lot of mutual suspicion about what the other side wanted.

--*We turned to outsiders for help and they turned out to have their own selfish interests.

--*One side didn't know how to think for him or herself unless Glenn Beck told him or her first.

--*...or Oprah.

--*We weren't sure how to handle the necessary abortion issue.

--*Every time we tried to talk about things reasonably it deteriorated into shouting matches.

--*Each of us accused the other of patronizing and sabotaging the other in public.

--*There was a lot of increasingly nonsensical, paranoid and loony right-wing talk coming from one side.

--*"I don't need another mother."

--*"I don't need another father."

--*Turns out one of us was a racist.

--*Congressional Republicans Push Legislation To Fight The Antichrist

Washington, D.C. (API) A growing number of citizens and lawmakers have grown restive as the Congress fails to take up important legislation this year calling for a large-scale war against the anti-Christ.

“I’m not sure why this effort has been sitting in committee,” says Michelle Olaf, a Republican Congresswoman from North Carolina. “America has long needed strong legislation to defeat the anti-Christ, and the fact that we haven’t shows that we just don’t have the moral resolve to fight evil.

“Even as we speak, poor innocent children are being victimized, buggered and tongue-kissed by evil every second, and blue flames of hell are searing their pristine pink flesh. How can we let this happen in America? These are our children!”

Olaf has held several conference calls on the legislation with parent groups, teachers, community organizers and Fox News. She says the law would strengthen the ability of law enforcement, the FBI, the CIA, the ATF and the clergy, to stamp out evil wherever it resides, whereas now they are hampered by “antiquated laws” like habeas corpus and the Sixth Amendment. It would also give federal authorities more room to pursue investigations against the antichrist that local authorities choose not to. And it would give millions in funding to local authorities to purchase the equipment to find evil and remove it root and branch.

“You can see the pernicious influence of the Beast everywhere in our country,” says Olaf. “He is particularly fond of promising power and redistribution of wealth, most significantly through promises of free health care and childhood welfare programs and other self-aggrandizing measures. He is a self-exalting king. It says quite clearly in the Bible that he will be a sophisticated gentleman and a name dropper.”

Olaf then got on the floor and began praying while speaking in tongues.

“Bozzle bozzle bozzle.”

Among the new items listed in the bill, H.R. 999, are the legalizing of certain forensic testing for seeking out the anti-Christ in all his forms, whether it be through finger-printing, black lighting, DNA testing or a “Sulfur Alert.” Likenesses of the antichrist would show up in every U.S. post office as Jesus depicted him in Chapter 13 of Revelations: a creature likely having seven heads and ten horns, each with a crown.

A special coordinated effort between law enforcement, seminarians and cryptozoologists would furthermore be deployed around the country to seek out any hybrid creatures such as bears with lion feet and dragon heads. Also, anybody who questions that Jesus was God made flesh is likely to be under suspicion of having antichrist-like qualities.

Democrats in Congress gave a measured response.

“What the fuck is this fucking woman ranting about?” asked Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. “Shouldn’t she be wearing a crash helmet or something? Am I actually having a debate about this with grown-ups? Are you people just an Angel Dust fantasy I’m having? What the fuck?”

Olaf said, “We’re wasting our time in Congress on things like the health care bill, TARP money to shore up the financial system and the Matthew Shepard Act. Nobody has any real priorities here. It’s just a lot of heedless self-interest confounding the efforts of good people to fight evil. Bozzle bozzle bozzle....”