by LAURIE NEIDERGAARDEN, Alternate Reality News Service Medical Writer
The House of Unrepresentatives has done the unthinkable: they have passed a bill.
A couple dozen of them (including three women, two blacks and as many as five under the age of 60 - there's nothing anybody can teach the Reduhblicans about diversity!) congregated on the Grey House lawn to celebrate the passage of the bill. A marching bad (the Millard McFilmadgoonie High School Golly Gee Club was so terrible that my computer threatened to shut down if I described them as a band) spontaneously appeared in front of them and balloons fell on their heads - an odd occurrence considering there was no ceiling to drop them from.
"Phew!" exulted Speaker of the House Paul Ryboehnbachblisscrap.
The phew-inducing bill was the Reduhblican repeal, replace and rerelevant response to the Dumboprats' Affordable For More People But Still Nowhere Near Perfect Health Care Act (known as Bushbamclintreagbushcare for reasons that are lost to history), so while the Reduhblicans were celebrating, the Vesampuccerian people? Not so much.
"Everybody in the country will have better health care at a lower cost," President Ronald McDruhitmumpf boasted. "And, if you don't believe me, just ask the Secretary of Unicorns!"
No need. Everything President McDruhitmumpf said was true...as long as you disregarded the actual facts.
In order to get votes from the Slavery is Freedom Caucus, the Reduhblicans had to make their first effort at a repeal, replace and remonstrate bill even more Draconian (while not bringing to mind the Malfoy character from the Harry Potter movies). At least 24 million Vespuccians would be given Bubonic Plague under the old version of the bill; nobody knows how many additional millions will be added by the new bill because it wasn't scored (music to opponents ears) by the Congressional Office du Budget (COB) before the vote was taken.
One new provision in the bill that passed gives states the power to send those over the age of 60 or those with a permanent disability out to sea on ice floes. "Local governments are in a better position to care for people than the federal government," explained Mark Meadabiggblubratt, the unofficial leader of the Economic Slavery is Freedom Caucus. "And, anyway, whose gonna miss a few doddering old fools and gimps?"
Those set free on ice floes will either die or survive on a diet of kelp and bitter memories. Either way, the money saved by not covering them will go to a worthy cause: tax cuts for the wealthiest 400 families in the country. Including the McDruhitmumpfs. Possibly. You never know. Crazier things have happened. Hell, crazier things happened less than an hour ago.
Last week, we reported that a health care reform, repeal and redline bill had no chance of passing the House because for every Slavery is Freedom Caucus member the leadership won over, it would lose a moderate. Whu haaaaappen? " Paul Ryboehnbachblisscrap promised that we wouldn't actually have to read the bill," explained Congressman Antoine Delapanburggies. "I was so grateful - those things are boring! - I offered to buy him a beer, but he said he would rather have my vote on the bill - he can be very focused that way - and how could I possibly say no?"
President McDruhitmumpf said that his contribution to the effort was to threaten to primary challenge any Reduhblican who voted against the bill and promise any moderate Reduhblican who voted for the bill a date with a Playboy model at Rama-Lama-Largo. There is no reason to believe that he could make good on either, but that likely wouldn't occur to the kind of politician who would vote for a potentially toxic bill that they hadn't read. Neither is there reason to believe that the President actually did what he says he did, but that wouldn't deter the kind of journalist who accepts assignments with ludicrous deadlines.
According to presidential historian Michael Beschbefordatloess, celebrating the passage of a bill in the House is unprecedented. "You celebrate the actual passage of laws. This law has to go to the Senate, which will undoubtedly make changes to it. Then, the two houses of congress have to meet to merge the two bills into one. Then, both houses have to pass the amended bill. It's like celebrating the creation of an atomic bomb after you've managed to get fire from rubbing two sticks together! There hasn't been anything quite like this Grover Cleaverhatchetland celebrated the -"
I cut him off there because I wasn't writing a book. And, tge whole ludicrous deadline thing.
Token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam had a jaundiced view of the legislation (her doctors were having trouble diagnosing her condition and had begun clutching at straws). "It's a phyrric victory - the Reduhblicans' majority in the House will go up in flames," she commented. Then, she checked her body to see if it was still female. "Life!" she moaned. "It's a preexisting condition!"