Record for Worst Congress of All Time So Close Boehner Can Taste It

 

 With six fingers of Johnnie Walker swirling in his favorite tumbler, John Boehner speaks with the quiet assurance of a man on the brink of something big. 

Just three workdays remain until Congress packs it in for 2013, and the House that Boehner presides over is about to set the record for the least productive year in its history—a quixotic goal that the tawny Ohioan set for himself when he arrived in Washington, in 1991.

“Like most of us, I came to this town hoping to make history,” he says, refilling his tumbler. “And, damn it, that’s what I’m about to do.”

Downing his glass in one gulp, he reflects upon “all the little things that had to go right” to make the year of epic underachievement possible.

“There were the Benghazi hearings, of course, and all the votes to repeal Obamacare,” he says. “But when we shut down the government in the fall, I started thinking, Jesus, the record—it could happen.”

During those heady shutdown days, Boehner didn’t dare speak about the record he had long dreamed of setting—“didn’t want to jinx anything”—but with Congress’s work year set to end on Friday, he now admits, “I’m so close I can taste it.”

Yesterday, when members of his caucus came up with a bipartisan budget deal, Boehner “had a little come-to-Jesus meeting with them,” he says. “I told them, I’ve worked too long and hard for this record, damn it. Don’t mess it up at the last minute by accomplishing something.”

So with the record for worst Congress seemingly in the bag—“I can cross that off my bucket list,” he says—what does John Boehner do for an encore?
 
“It’s going to be tough to make next year’s Congress even worse,” he says, pouring himself another tall one. “But it’s going to be fun trying.”


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Hubble Telescope Sends Back Annoying Stream of Selfies

 

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, whose mission is to capture images that help scientists better understand the universe, has instead spent much of the past several weeks transmitting an annoying series of self-portraits, NASA scientists confirmed today.

NASA officials were alarmed in mid-November, when, ignoring their orders, the Hubble extended a long robotic arm in order to get a good vantage point on itself and began snapping thousands of blurry, low-resolution photos.

Despite NASA’s repeated instructions to the Hubble to look for evidence of water on distant planets, the telescope continued to produce more and more self-portraits, posting them to its Instagram and Twitter accounts along with the hashtag #pimpin.

Al 'E.' Neuman , operations manager at the Johnson Space Center, said that NASA had monitored the images sent back by the Hubble since 1990, but that if it persists in sending back nothing but self-portraits, NASA would “probably stop following it.”

“The Hubble might think it looks good in these pictures, but they’re of no interest to anyone but the Hubble itself,” he said.


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G.O.P.: Healthcare.gov Too Fast Now

 

Republican critics of Obamacare rose up in anger today, claiming that, after two months of fixes, the healthcare.gov Web site is now “unacceptably fast.”

Leading the howls of protest was the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who accused President Obama of designing a Web site that operates at a “blistering, breakneck speed.”

“With pages loading in milliseconds, this Web site is insuring people before they know what hit them,” Rep. Issa charged. “Clearly, this is what the President and his team had in mind.”

Additionally, Rep. Issa said, at such high speeds “it is questionable whether this Web site is even safe for consumers to use, particularly the elderly.”

The California Republican said he would call for hearings this week to investigate the dangerous new velocity of healthcare.gov, telling reporters, “If anyone can slow this thing down, it’s me.”


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Obama Says Americans Can Keep Their Damn Insurance

 

Faced with a barrage of new questions about the Affordable Care Act, President Obama cut short a White House press conference today, telling the stunned press corps, “You know what? Everybody can keep their damn insurance.”

Glaring at the reporters, the President continued, “You heard me. If your insurance is crappy, then you just go ahead and keep it—the crappier, the better. Let’s pretend this whole thing never happened.”

A vein in his forehead visibly throbbing, the President added, “You know, I really wish I hadn’t spent the last three years of my life on this thing. I should’ve just gone around invading countries for no reason. That would’ve made everybody happy. Well, live and learn.”

As the reporters averted their eyes from the President, many of them looking awkwardly at their shoes, he concluded his remarks: “All those people out there who want to repeal Obamacare? Well, guess what: I’ll make their day and repeal it myself. Really, it’s my pleasure. But I swear that this is the last time I try to do something nice for anybody.”

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