Since 2000, this bloated body of long-winded legislators has allowed the executive branch of government to break laws at will, has passed tax laws that have crippled the working and lower classes, championed a bankruptcy law favoring banks and credit card companies, knocked down environmental standards, shredded civil liberties, backed and funded an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, gang-banged the FCC, rubber-stamped political appointees who wouldn't make the final cut of the Special Olympics, stacked the Supreme Court, displayed the personal morals of three-strike felons, used the brain-dead as a political platform for perverted patriotism, pursued more pork than the extended family of The Big Bad Wolf, rewarded mega-corporations with tax-breaks and no-bid contracts, allowed the American worker to be added to the endangered species list and applied countless pounds of ChapStick to better kiss our President's ass 24/7.

Saying that members of Congress are concerned about the welfare of the American people is like saying pedophiles are concerned about the welfare of children. Technically, they are...just not in a good way.

But, maybe that's just me.

For the record, I like clowns as much as the next guy. I just don't enjoy my tax dollars paying for their pratfalls. Last week, for instance, when it became clear that House Democrats were going to pass contempt resolutions against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton and former White House Schoolmarm Harriet Miers as well as letting the oxymoronically named Protect America Act (read: Protect Telecom Tools) lapse into limbo, House Republicans, led by braying John Boehner, staged a pre-planned walk-out - in the middle of a tribute to the late California Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos. They then passed verbal gas en masse in front of microphones saying, basically, that Democrats were evil for attempting a stab at checks and balances.

The House Republicans' well-timed retreat moved MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to comment, in an address aimed at President Bushed, "And your minions like John Boehner, your Republican congressional crash dummies who just happen to decide to walk out of Congress when a podium-full of microphones await them, should just keep walking - out of Congress and, if possible, out of the country.

"For they and you, sir, have no place in a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

"The lot of you are the symbolic descendants of the despotic middle managers of some banana republic to whom 'freedom' is an ironic brand name, a word you reach for when you want to get away with its opposite."

Okay. Maybe it's not just me.

Bush, reading the writing on the wall (probably phonetically), launched a verbal assault on all the House members who, seemingly, were coming to the conclusion that illegal wiretapping by major Telecom companies just might actually be illegal and open to law suits.

Donning the Rudy Giuliani cap of fear, Bush attempted to cow House Democrats and the American people with his unique take on Grand Guignol Theater. (After all, it worked on the Senate.) For an entire week, he couldn't even say "howdy" without inserting "boo!" Give the Telecom giants immunity or die.

"Good morning," he chirped, one fine day. "At this moment, somewhere in the world, the terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is (to) bring destruction to our shores that will make September the 11th pale by comparison."

Gee. Remember when folks would say "good morning" and, then, ask how you wanted your eggs?

At various times leading up to the House majority turning its back on the Telecoms, Bush intoned:

"The American people have got to know that what we did in the past gained information that prevented an attack. And for those who criticize what we did in the past, I ask them, which attack would they rather have not permitted -- stopped? Which attack on America did they -- would they have said, well, you know, maybe it wasn't all that important that we stop those attacks."

Uh, which attacks are you talking about, there, Chief? The ones in your head?

"We're having a debate in America on whether or not we ought to be listening to terrorists making phone calls in the United States. And the answer is darn right we ought to be."

Only if the terrorists call collect.

"America is going to respect law. But, it's gonna take actions necessary to protect ourselves and find information that may protect others. Unless, of course, people say, 'Well, there's no threat. They're just making up the threat. These people aren't problematic.'"

The "people" Dubya talks to are an interesting lot. Political discourse among the institutionalized always yields surprising trains of thought.

"The lives of countless Americans depend on our ability to monitor terrorist communications. Our intelligence professionals are working day and night to keep us safe, and they're waiting to see whether Congress will give them the tools they need to succeed or tie their hands by failing to act. The American people are watching this debate, as well. They expect Congress to meet its responsibilities before they leave town on a recess."

Uh, I'm pretty sure nobody expects that, anymore.

"People are wondering why companies need liability protection. Well, if you cooperate with the government and then get sued for billions of dollars because of the cooperation, you're less likely to cooperate. And obviously we're going to need people working with us to find out what the enemy is saying and thinking and plotting and planning.

"And so it's a -- to me it's a -- I guess one way to look at it is, some may not feel that same sense of urgency I do. I heard somebody say, well, this is just pure politics. No, this is what is necessary to protect the American people from harm. And I recognize there hasn't been an attack on our country, but that does not mean that there's not still an enemy that lurks, plans and plots."

Clearly, the biggest threat to America is lurking above Bush's eyebrows.

Members of Bush's choir of calamity were quick to chime in, linking abandoning big business buttinskies with giving the green light to jittery Jihadists.

White House Ice Queen Dana Perino declared: "The House Democrats are basically doing the bidding of the trial lawyers, who are licking their chops, hoping that they could get a piece of a big class-action lawsuit against these telecommunications companies, which did their patriotic duty to help America in the immediacy following 9/11 when we weren't sure if there would be another attack."

Intelligence (?) director Mike McConnell opined: "Some have claimed that the expiration of the Protect America Act would not significantly affect our operations. Such claims are not supported by the facts. We are already losing capability due to the failure to address liability protection. . . Without long-term legislation that includes liability protection, we will be delayed in gathering -- or may simply miss -- intelligence needed to protect the nation."

General Counsel of the Director of National Intelligence Ben Powell stated: "Since the enactment of the Protect America Act, we've obtained critical information. Some examples of that information include insight and understanding leading to disruption of planned terrorist attacks, efforts by terrorists to obtain guns and ammunition, efforts of an individual to become a suicide operative, terrorist facilitator plans to travel to Europe, information on terrorist money transfers, identifying information regarding foreign terrorist operatives, and plans for future terrorist attacks."

When asked for details on these thwarted plots, Powell demurred, saying, "I don't want to get that specific and verge on getting into classified material."

Rumor has it that one of the tapped phone conversations led to the downfall of the dreaded Godzilla-Mothra group of Islamo-behemoths. They were ratted out by Rodan.

Kenneth L. Wainstein, the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, tried to conjure up truly scary scenarios of untapped terrorists gone wild but admitted that, if the Protect America Act fizzled, it would mostly terrorize our government on the "more paperwork and time" battlefield.

After House Dems allowed the legislation to go limp, Bush, via his radio spiel, wailed: "At midnight, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad. This means that as terrorists change their tactics to avoid our surveillance, we may not have the tools we need to continue tracking them - and we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America."

To quote Keith Olbermann on Bush's profundity: "This is crap. And you sling it with an audacity and a speed unrivaled by even the greatest political felons of our history."

The Senate and the House have yet to agree on a compromise but Bush has already vowed to veto any bill that doesn't grant Telecoms immunity. Both Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Mike Mukasey have whined to the House that, in one single week without the Protect America Act, federal ferreters have "lost intelligence." For the record, you can't lose what you've never had.

Speaking of lack of intelligence, House Republicans have crafted a zippy 1:49 web ad encouraging Democrats to cave in to Bush's whims because if they don't...we're all gonna die. The ad is sort of a combination of the trailer from "Cloverfield" and the coming attractions from "24"...without the intelligence, of course.

While BushCo was attempting to defend its telecommunication tarts, various White House wieners were justifying another "legal" government practice: torture; specifically waterboarding.

Hot on the heels of the Senate banning harsh interrogation tactics, (a bill that Bush has vowed to veto...just because) Administration flunkies rushed forward to assure us all that the CIA's methods were the post-9/11 version of tough love.

Our version of waterboarding, for instance, was deemed legal by the Justice Department's Steven Bradbury, who insisted that it was "different" than the waterboarding used during The Spanish Inquisition and by the Japanese during WW II. The bad old versions "involved the forced consumption of a mass amount of water." The old time interrogators also stood or stomped on the victims' stomachs. Our waterboarding has "strict limitations." In fact, the "only thing in common is the use of water."

We're not barbaric. We use San Pellegrino.

Joltin' Joe Lieberman (Killjoy-CT) voted against the anti-torture bill. He couldn't understand what the fuss was about. Waterboarding, he surmised, "is not like putting burning coals on people's bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological."

To prove his point, he then donned a hood and dove on a Slip 'n Slide. See? Torture can be fun!

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who doesn't exactly exude the Wisdom of Solomon on a regular basis, apparently considers anti-torture proponents a bunch of wussies. Addressing the "so-called torture" debate in a BBC interview, he ventured:

"Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the constitution?"

"It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that."

Summing up, Scalia stated: "It would be absurd to say you couldn't, I don't know, stick something under the fingernail, smack him in the face. It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that."

Speaking of absurd, Republican Rep. Steve King (IA) tried to tamp down the anti-torture surge by theorizing, during House hearings: "I don't think there's a consensus on this committee as to what waterboarding is."

As usual, it was Bush who managed to put the ultimate delusional spin on all this. In a British interview, he smirked: "To the critics, I ask them this: When we, within the law, interrogate and get information that protects ourselves and possibly others in other nations to prevent attacks, which attack would they have hoped that we wouldn't have prevented."

Again, with the Phantom Menace defense.

In the same interview, Bush was asked if America could still claim "the moral high ground." He responded, somehow without laughing hysterically, "Absolutely. Absolutely. We believe in human rights and human dignity. We believe in the human condition. We believe in freedom. And we're willing to take the lead."

Here's Keith Olbermann, again, on Bush's view of justice: "You're a fascist - get them to print you a T-shirt with 'fascist' on it."

While all this was going down, Congress was holding hearings on the use of steroids in professional baseball in order to preserve "the purity of the game." Um, I'm pretty sure "purity" went out the window when players started to resemble Mighty Joe Young and stadiums were named after everything from credit card companies to sneaker manufacturers.

Meanwhile, Republican senator Arlen Specter, who voted against the anti-torture bill, has vowed to get to the bottom of The New England Patriots' videotaping of other teams scandal, presumably because that's easier to handle than investigating those pesky CIA "enhanced interrogation" videos that keep on disappearing.

Our government inaction, ladies and gentlemen.

Right now, I'm wondering: is there a patron saint of falling asteroids we can all pray to?