Maybe We Need a "No Congressman Left Behind" Act

You may have heard that there was a Tea Party-type protest on the steps of the Capitol today. Organized by Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, quite a few Republican Representatives were not only in attendance but had vital speaking roles.

First up, Congressman Todd Akin (MO-10) led everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance:



He was obviously pretty excited about getting to the God part.

Contrary to what Congressman Akin believes, this bleeding-heart liberal doesn't go crazy when people say the Pledge, I go crazy when they don't know the words.

Next House Minority Leader John Boehner (OH-8) motivated the masses by quoting the Preamble to the Constitution.



Now I'm certainly no Constitutional Scholar, but I did pass 8th Grade Social Studies and my teacher, Ms. Peterson, would be very happy to know that I can still tell the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the United States Constitution (I scored a 100% on that test, but you knew that). I also still have the Schoolhouse Rock song in my head.



And here's the Declaration of Independence:



It sure would be nice if our elected officials knew what every 8th grader knows.

This Never Happened When It Was Marshall Field's

So much for the 50% sales they were running. If you're charged twice, that discount is out the window.

These sorts of things never happened when Macy's was Marshall Field's. I'm just sayin.

Macy's owns up to debit card glitch on Saturday before Christmas
08:35 AM CST on Tuesday, December 30, 2008
By PAMELA YIP / The Dallas Morning News

If you shopped at Macy's on the Saturday before Christmas – one of the season's busiest shopping days – and paid with a debit card, carefully check your bank statement because a computer glitch may have caused your account to be debited twice.

Macy's Inc. spokesman Ed Smith said a "very small number" of customers were affected, but he didn't know exact figures.

"Macy's had a system issue on Saturday, Dec. 20, from 1 to 2:45 p.m. at stores in Macy's Central and East divisions, which may have caused multiple debits to some customers' checking accounts," he said. "The problem has been identified and corrected."

Macy's Central division, which includes Texas, has 236 stores in 18 states in the South and Midwest. The East division operates 253 stores in 20 states and the District of Columbia.

Mr. Smith said Macy's "has communicated with customers' banks. The banks will credit customers' checking accounts."

The glitch affected only debit cards and not credit cards, Mr. Smith said.

A Highland Village woman said her son bought her a set of knives for Christmas at Macy's at Vista Ridge Mall in Lewisville. She said he spent $78 for the gift, then later discovered that another $78 had been debited from his checking account.

He was eventually charged $50 in bounced-check fees, said the woman, who didn't want to be identified.

While she understood that mistakes happen, she wasn't too happy about being told to fax her son's checking account statements.

"It's going to take them up to 10 days to refund everybody's money," the woman said.

Mr. Smith said Macy's needs the bank statements to verify that the computer system glitch caused the bank accounts to be overdrawn.

"We will have the charges removed," he said.

Consumers affected by the glitch should send a fax of their bank statements to 513-573-2433 and label it "Attention: Third Party Credit."

Consumers should closely monitor their bank accounts to ensure that other checks they've written didn't bounce, said attorney Mary Spector, who teaches consumer law at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law.

"Monitor the checks and recipients of any checks or other payments that they might have paid in the interim to make sure that there are no problems caused by checks and debits attempted to be made in the period before Macy's discovered the problem," she said.

Barack Can Call Me Anytime And I Won't Hang Up On Him

This is hysterical to me. I love the fact that President-elect Obama had a sense of humor about being hung up on twice.

And it reminds me of an awesome scene from The American President. President Shepard and Sydney Ellen Wade have met earlier in the day and he's quite taken with her, so he attempts to call her up and invite her to attend a State Dinner as his date. She hangs up on him a couple of times, insisting it's a prank call. If I could have found a YouTube clip of it, I would have posted.


Fla. [GOP] congresswoman accidentally hangs up on Obama [twice]
by the Associated Press in the Daily Herald, December 4, 2008

MIAMI -- When a man sounding remarkably like President-elect Barack Obama called a Florida congresswoman Wednesday, she assumed it was a crank call.

So Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen hung up. But, the Miami Herald reports, this was no prank.

"I thought it was one of the radio stations in South Florida playing an incredible, elaborate, terrific prank on me," Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper. "They got Fidel Castro to go along. They've gotten Hugo Chavez and others to fall for their tricks. I said, 'Oh, no, I won't be punked.'"

The call came about 1 p.m. Obama congratulated her on her re-election, saying he was looking forward to working with her as the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper.

The conversation lasted about a minute when she cut Obama off, telling him she wasn't falling for the hoax and that he was a better impersonator than the guy on Saturday Night Live, she said.

Then Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, called the congresswoman to tell her it wasn't a joke. But she hung up on him, too. It took a call from Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, to persuade Ros-Lehtinen that Obama really did want to talk to her.
When the two finally talked, Ros-Lehtinen said she and Obama had a good conversation and she congratulated him for his victory despite how hard she campaigned for his opponent, Sen. John McCain.

He didn't even blame her for mistaking him for a radio-station prank, she said.

"He laughed a lot, saying in Chicago they do it all the time," Ros-Lehtinen said. "He said, 'I don't blame you for being skeptical.'"

Repeated calls by The Associated Press to two office numbers for the congresswoman rang unanswered after hours Wednesday. An e-mail message to an Obama spokeswoman after hours wasn't immediately returned.

Hockey Mom Gets Booed at Hockey Game

Ouch. This must suck.

Sarah Palin LOVES to talk about how she's a "hockey mom" to make herself likeable. How's that workin' for ya, Sarah?



Clearly they tried to drown out the boos with the music, but it didn't quite work. My favorite part on this video is the folks immediately behind her giving her the thumbs down and holding up Obama signs.

Here are two more videos that make it very clear just how much Philadelphia fans disapproved of her . . . .