Satire // Current TV

Congress Strikes Back: Gives Taxpayers a 4% Approval Rating

Washington -- Still stinging from the lowly 10% approval rating it received from the American public, Congress has taken revenge, bestowing a measly four percent approval rating on taxpaying citizens.

“Taxpayers are doing a terrible job of providing the House and the Senate with the resources we need to run America correctly,” said one prominent Senator who asked to remain anonymous. “You ask us: ‘where are the jobs?’ We’re asking you: ‘where is the cash?’ ”

The Senator went on to deny the public’s charge that Congress can’t get together to accomplish anything worthwhile. “Right here is an issue 96% of all Senators and Representatives agree upon. Only 4% of my colleagues believe American taxpayers are holding up their end of the bargain.”

A long-term Representative, who asked to remain anonymous, said that American taxpayers are not working as hard as they should because they are being “distracted by the details of democracy.

“They need to let their Congressmen and Senators take care of such things as liberty, justice and freedom. Most of us are lawyers so we know how to work around those issues. Just send us the money and we will make everything okey-dokey.”

Another Representative, who asked to remain anonymous, began weeping when questioned about the record low approval rating Congress received this month.

“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but those low approval numbers give me a bad case of the blues. So I’m glad my colleagues had the courage to turn the tables. You suck, taxpayers.”

Building on the anti-taxpayer momentum, one Senate leader, who asked to remain anonymous, has drafted a bill “that would make corporations more like people, so they can make up for the increasing number of taxpaying slackers.

“My bill proposes that we give all corporations friendly nicknames, like Fred and Bob. Buy them a cake on their birthdays. Take them out for lunch, even when there’s no special occasion. And if some insider stock information is discussed, there’s nothing wrong with good friends shooting the breeze.”

Also included in the proposed law is a motion that would sell the naming rights to several Washington landmarks. Reportedly, a deal already has been cut with a major bank, renaming Congress’ home “The Capital One Capitol.”

“What’s in your Constitution?“ the Senator asked.Washington -- Still stinging from the lowly 10% approval rating it received from the... more

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What a tragic wasted opportunity to present a true portrait of the Iron Lady | Stewart Lee | Comment is free | The Observer

Stewart Lee
The Observer, Sunday 15 January 2012

I have been too busy to see The Iron Lady (which I assumed was a distaff spin-off from Marvel's Iron Man), but none the less, I am now about to use it as a lead-in to discussing the critical rehabilitation of Margaret Thatcher. I did, however, find time to watch Troll Hunter last week, an enormous metaphor for Norwegian national identity, which engaged more critically with Norway's mythologised past than The Iron Lady does with ours. I expect. I haven't seen The Iron Lady, as I said.

Phyllida Lloyd's Thatcher biopic includes some daring sight gags employing the literal snatching of milk, but softens the controversial prime minister's legacy. The sympathetic figure of the ageing Maggie is played, by all accounts brilliantly, by the always excellent Glenn Close, her micro-managed Hollywood features magically transformed by hours of painstaking make-up into those of a normal-looking British woman. The old Thatcher remembers her career and divisive and unpalatable riots and strikes and wars acquire an inevitable multiplex gloss.

I have two similarly market-skewed biopics in production, both featuring Oscar-coveting actresses in disfiguring prosthetics, both factually tweaked to avoid punter alienation. In The Meat Man, the elderly Jesus (Meryl Streep) sits in Heaven remembering when lovely wise kings gave the young Jesus (Glenn Close) presents, his outrageous egalitarian teachings forgotten. In Der Fleischmensch, the elderly Hitler (Meryl Streep) sits in his Berlin bunker, recalling his struggles to be taken seriously as a young landscape artist (Glenn Close), the problematic Nazi years now merely light comic relief.

Conveniently, the appearance in the National Archives this month of secret Thatcher-era documents, revealing some surprising moments of sensitivity, has come at a good time for improving perceptions of the Iron Lady and the current Conservative party, both of which, despite undeniably strong performances from their charismatic leads, have suffered at the hands of critics, and are unlikely to spawn long-running franchises.

In the light of these documents, Thatcher has been praised for not agreeing to the "managed decline" of Liverpool, proposed by 80s colleagues. Here, we see the soft heart of Margaret the Woman, the tear-stained blouse of Maggie the Mum. I believe countries should be run like small businesses, and just as one would close down a loss-making shop or sack a sickly employee, so unprofitable towns and their unproductive citizens should be let go also. But Thatcher the maternal metal mother chose to view the feckless Liverpudlians somehow as legitimate stakeholders in their nation, deserving of the support of their own government, and she would not cast them out into the Wirral, to smelt stolen road signs, spit and form heroically self-regarding and influential neo-psychedelic groups.

There are many revelations in the released documents that appear with hindsight to show Thatcher implementing unambiguously brilliant and pragmatic strategies. Much has been made of how, despite the terrifying reality of their threats to her, she nevertheless "opened the back door for negotiations with the IRA" and initiated the peace process that Tony Blair took credit for. I went to the Public Record Office to scour the documents.

Oddly, the idea of opening the back door for negotiations with the IRA never appears in the body of any of the cabinet transcripts themselves, but only in the margins of Thatcher's personal parliamentary briefings. Here, the phrase "open the back door for negotiations with the IRA" is written in Thatcher's own hand, often underlined, or followed by mass exclamation marks, as if to remind the femme ferrous that she must follow up the idea later. And yet there never seems to be any obvious relationship between the idea of opening the back door for negotiations with the IRA and the content of the printed texts the handwritten recommendations append.

I checked the dates. Thatcher writes "open the back door for negotiations with the IRA" on documents dated 31 March 1982, 2 May 1982, 9 February 1985, 3 March 1985, 19 July 1987, 24 May 1988, and every 10 May, or the Friday nearest to it, throughout. On the first six dates, respectively, terrorist Nelson Mandela was moved out of sight to Pollsmoor prison; the Argentinian warship the General Belgrano was torpedoed outside the Falklands exclusion zone with the loss of 323 lives; Russ Abbott's haunting pop single "Atmosphere" peaked at number 7 in the UK chart; the miners' strike ended; Nick Faldo claimed victory in the Open; and the anti-gay Section 28 legislation was passed. All these events would have been causes for celebration either for Margaret Thatcher herself (Russ Abbott fan), for her husband Denis (left-handed golfer) or for both Thatchers (known rightwingers).

The significance of 10 May was more confusing, until good old Wikipedia revealed it to be the date of Denis Thatcher's birthday. Despite the attempts of oxymoronic contemporary Tory feminists to appropriate her, Margaret Thatcher was a traditionally dutiful and obedient wife. Was "opening the back door for negotiations with the IRA" a code for some kind of treat for Denis, who attended a nonconformist public school, or did it really refer to clandestine attempts to lubricate republican relations? And did it explain Thatcher's intermittently unusual walk, which her biographer, Charles Moore, famously described as a "dignified scuttle"?

The implication that these "back-door negotiations with the IRA" occurred on days of celebration for the two happy Thatchers, humanises Maggie in a way that Glenn Close's, admittedly uncannily accurate, impersonation of the woman simply does not. Lloyd draws a discreet sheet over Thatcher's back-door negotiations and concentrates instead on visual puns about milk. Sadly, in hindsight, Lloyd must realise that The Iron Lady would surely have earned more than its usual two- or three-star reviews if only she and Glenn Close had shown the courage to bring Thatcher's back-door negotiations to the silver screen in detail, perhaps in 3D. But in preserving untarnished the cast-iron enigma of Margaret Thatcher, this stainless-steel sister, this un-fatigued metal maiden, Lloyd ensures the legend of this particular Iron Lady will never rust.Stewart Lee The Observer, Sunday 15 January 2012 I have been too busy to see The... more

TheInquiringOne
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Frenchmen's AAA Romance Rating Downgraded To C-

Paris -- The EU Division of Standard & Poor’s has notched down France’s world-leading AAA Romance Rating, relegating the “land of love” to the bottom of the hotness heap when it comes to “lust, thrust, and overall mojo.”

“France’s sexual score has gone from being the firmest mankind has ever seen to shrinking down to a flaccid embarrassment,” an S&P spokeswoman said, citing her agency’s recently released report, which gave France a score of C-.

The S&P analysis pointed the finger at French males, emphasizing that French women are still among the most appealing in the world.

“It is the men who are having trouble holding their own,” the report said. “Or perhaps the trouble is that they’re holding their own too often.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy blamed his nation’s financial crisis for the decline in its sexual prowess. “Frenchman no longer have access to the training opportunities they need to excel in this area. An encounter with an experienced Parisian prostitute costs upwards of €250, and that’s not including the mouthwash. Who can afford that?

“I myself have been setting an example for the nation even before I took office,” Sarkozy added. “In fact, this is the endeavor in which I have the most skill and expertise.”

But the S&P report stated that Sarkozy’s well known ability to screw the public is not an effective counterpoint to the country’s declining libido. Rather, it recommended that France look to China for a solution.

“The Chinese government has been restricting the collective sex drive of its citizens for years, under the guise of birth control,” the report said. “The pent-up result is straining many a zipper. Perhaps the French should order some Chinese takeout.”

Critics of the analysis, which included every French male over the age of 10, pointed out that Standard & Poor’s has absolutely no expertise in the field of human relationships. “That makes its ratings and recommendations in this area meaningless,” one dissatisfied customer said.

But the S&P spokeswoman disagreed: “We’ve been in bed with the world’s banking and financial leaders from the beginning. They’ve taught us a lot more than just fiscal intercourse.”Paris -- The EU Division of Standard & Poor’s has notched down... more

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27 days ago
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