Now, this is a plan by Congress that might actually be worthwhile from those brilliant “reporters” at The Onion:Congress To Raise Alpacas To Aid Struggling Economy. Yep - this sounds like a real winner. If only they had implemented this back in January when they first crafted it:

Members of Congress assured Americans that they have a definitive plan for reviving the slumping economy when they unveiled on Monday a bold new fiscal stimulus package that calls for the purchase of a pair of alpacas.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the proposal, which is expected to solve the sub-prime mortgage crisis, boost consumer confidence, and pump much-needed liquid capital into the market, will be put into motion as soon as the first issue of Alpaca World magazine arrives and Congress has a chance to go through the catalog and select the perfect mating pair.

“We’re confident that breeding alpacas will jump-start the economy and lift this nation out of debt once we get the start-up money,” said McConnell, who insists the exotic livestock require very little maintenance and are of a gentler temperament than their cousin the llama. “All you need is a fertile male and a female in heat, and nature takes it course. Before you know it, the money is rolling in and there’s alpacas everywhere.”

See? Isn’t that brilliant?? Not only would it help the economy, but LOOK how cute they are!!! One of the best parts about this venture? Bringing people together:

After weeks of debate, a bipartisan commission finally chose the alpaca initiative over a number of other proposals, including handcrafting turquoise jewelry, an extensive job-training program in the nation’s most impoverished regions, and opening a U.S. Congress seller’s account on Ebay. McConnell said the group was swayed toward the idea of mating alpacas and also shearing them for their valuable fleece because it required the fewest resources and was a “super-easy” way to rake in cash.

“It is time to stop bickering and take real steps to revive the U.S. dollar—which is why we’re sending a fact-finding delegation out to the alpaca farm in Hagerstown [MD] next weekend,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said. “Senator Chuck Hagel’s brother-in-law said we could borrow his truck to pick up the alpacas from the National Zoological Society on Saturday.”

“I can’t believe we ever wasted our time with tariffs, raising interest rates, and tax hikes,” Pelosi added. “This is such a no-brainer.”

True that - no brainer indeed! I mean, it’s as obvious as the nose on your face! It’s practically the WPA of the 21st century:

Under the new proposal, a Senate subcommittee will be formed to attend to the day-to-day care of the alpacas, providing food and water, cleaning up their communal dung pile, and securing the animals in their pen inside the Senate chamber at night. In addition, Congressman Robert Andrews (D-NJ) made his office available for storing buckets and shovels, saying the space is usually empty anyway since he prefers to work from home.

“A special committee was sent to a nearby alpaca farm to scout mating pairs and pet some alpacas.”

Another bonus is the opportunity to use, um, historic names:

A Senate majority has already voted to name the alpacas Jefferson and Bongo.

Advocates also claimed that using the alpacas’ fleece for knitted and woven items would energize the textile industry and eliminate the nation’s dependence on foreign- produced ponchos.

“If we are truly committed and learn to spin our own fibers, we can cut out the middleman and sell socks, hats, and gloves directly to the American public,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. “People don’t realize how much softer alpaca wool is because they’ve never had a chance to try it. Once they do, though—let’s just say this war could be paid for in no time.”

But you know how Congress is. There are always a few grousers in the bunch:

While initial reaction has been positive, critics of the plan have pointed out that Congress has still not paid back the money it borrowed from the American public to start that silk-screen T-shirt business it was so excited about in 2004, and many were concerned that this will just be a repeat of the Bedazzling the Economy Act of 2000.

The bill’s sponsors, however, claimed that they had thought it all through, and that this economic stimulus package “can’t miss.”

“If for some reason it doesn’t work out—which it will—we can always allocate some additional spending for a goat and convert the venture into an executive petting zoo,” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) said. “Those other projects required too much overhead. With alpacas, it’s just grass, and we already have the whole National Mall right across the street.”

Exactly. What a bonus! They have all of that real estate at their disposal!

Still, not everyone is on board with the concept of alpacas:

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), a well-known fiscal conservative, remained one of the sole voices against the proposal.

“This harebrained scheme is shortsighted, ill conceived, and an absolute waste of time and effort,” Martinez said. “Which is why from the beginning I said, let’s raise emus. Not only do you have meat and eggs, but you can probably get some money for those feathers too.”

Yeah, yeah - raise your own emus, Martinez (side note - there are emus across the street - read gravel road - from where my horse is stabled!). Leave those alpacas alone!!! Besides, I think this guy might know just a little bit more about the economy than YOU do:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday called the new plan “intriguing,” but stressed that the nation’s economic policy should continue to center around Sen. Robert Byrd’s (D-WV) practice of selling soda and candy bars out of his office, which accounted for almost 30 percent of last year’s gross domestic product.

Huh - I don’t know why the other senators weren’t as enterprising as Senator Byrd, but maybe this idea will get them off their duffs…

And that is just ONE of the benefits of raising alpacas! It will get people outside! It will get them exercising! It will reduce stress by rubbing their furry little heads! AND, you get those nice ponchos. I’m all for it, myself. I’m thinking maybe I’ll name mine George and Martha. Or maybe Thelma and Louise. I dunno - I’m working on it, but I can’t wait to get working on the bailout plan for the US economy!

And compare it to the results of this poll Rasmussen released today on Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) reelection prospects:

Not only can Hillary win Kentucky, a state former President Bill Clinton won both in 1992 and in 1996; she can generate the coattails required to catapult Democrat Bruce Lunsford to victory over Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in what will be one of the most competitive US Senate races this election cycle. Because McCain outperforms Obama by a staggering 25 points in KY, one can assume Obama will complicate and even undermine Lunsford’s election bid. Some would say Obama is a drag for Lunsford.

Everyone remembers how the coattails of Bush II enabled Republican Senator John Thune to oust Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle during the South Dakota Senate race in 2004. If superdelegates think in the interests of the Party and not in the interests of David Axelrod and other corrupting elements within the Democratic Party, we can both win the Presidency and humiliate Senate Republicans. Do we want to make it impossible for Republicans to mount filibusters in the Senate during a Hillary Presidency, or do we desire a McCain Presidency with a Democratic majority in the Senate that cannot derail Republican filibusters? The choice is that of the superdelegates and of those who are charged with determining whether or not the Michigan and Florida delegations will be seated. I hope they are listening.

Kentucky Representative Geoff Davis made a remark that I am sure you have all heard by now. He used the “boy” word in an English sentence referring to his holiness Saint Barack the Bitter. And if you read the news reports he might as well have just used the N word on national television.

Here is just a sampling of what the Obamedia has been saying. Let’s start with Mark Ambinder.

Davis Apologizes; But, Boy, What Excuse Is There?

Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) is 49 years old. Barack Obama is 46 years old. When was the last time you called someone three years younger than you a boy?

~snip~

Davis’s comments offend not because they demeaned Obama’s integrity; they’re offensive because, well, in 2008, for a white person to call a black person “boy,” is generally seen as racist no matter where you are.

So the comment was meant to be racist because like, you know, this is 2008. But what of the substance of what he said prior to this pile on to classify the remark and thus the messenger as racist? Exactly what was Davis referring to?

Republicans talk about Iraq, Obama at N. Ky. dinner

He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner that he also recently participated in a “highly classified, national security simulation” with Obama.

“I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,” Davis said. “He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.”

Oh… so it had something to do with a national security simulation and Davis was referring to Obama’s inability to take a position, to make that decision at 3am. That makes much more sense. No wonder the Obamedia is piling on and spinning this into something it’s not. Someone actually criticized their guy and exposed him for the waffler he is.

Maybe his holiness SnObama asked where the “present” button was and that’s why Davis referred to him as a “snake oil salesman.” Because that phrase means the same thing to everyone regardless of their race. It always has. It simply means that Obama is a hack liar and he is trying to peddle his particular brand of hope bullshit to hoodwink America into giving him the keys to the kingdom so he can let all his terrorist, slumlord, homophobe, racist, bigoted, elitist, snob friends into the White House.

Not to be outdone, the New York Times ups the ante and accuses the entire Republican party of using a “racially insensitive” word in describing Barack the Bitter: G.O.P. Rep. Refers to Obama as ‘That Boy’

Then Oliver Willis slightly overreacted claiming that this was a GOP Bigot Eruption.

GOP Bigot Eruption: Rep. Geoff Davis Calls Sen. Obama A “Boy”

They won’t contain themselves. No matter how much John McCain asks his party and fellow conservatives to tone down the racial rhetoric, they will not be able to stop themselves. The idea of a black man beating their Republican candidate for the presidency will be too much to bear for the party of the Southern Strategy.

This summer the GOP Bigot Eruptions are going to go nuclear.

Cue the knuckle-dragging Geoff Davis

But fortunately not everyone joined into the Cultist mid numbing mantra. Alex Knapp offered a brief pause of sanity.

A GOP ‘Bigot Eruption’?

The context of the remarks that Davis made, while not particularly dignified, weren’t racially directed. Indeed, the primary complaint that Rep. Davis made about Obama was his naivete–race wasn’t mentioned at all. Additionally, as far as I can tell from a quick Google search of Rep. Geoff Davis, he doesn’t appear to have been associated with any type of derogatory racial remarks in the past.

And please pay particular attention to the last sentence. It is incredibly important.

Now I am going to straighten this whole mess out for you. Call it an insider’s glimpse of reality right here at No Quarter. What this particular incident exposes is that SnObama and the Elitist Obamedia are completely out of touch with small town America. ANYONE that has spent ANY real time in Kentucky would know that people there OFTEN refer to men as boys. It is considered a term of familiarity. There is nothing racial about saying it. It is the common vernacular. I spent a good deal of my formative years in Kentucky. And I have relatives that use the term “boy” all the time to refer to their best friends. Men that are older than me. And I ain’t no youngin.

So please, can we please all start acting like grownups? Can we move onto the substance of what was said rather than attack the person that said it with a distorted allegation? I am no friend of Geoff Davis. And I can’t stand Bunning or that ass McConnell. But I won’t have the Obamedia mischaracterizing something that many of my relatives say as a derogatory racial comment when clearly it isn’t.

You know, I realize that this is 2008. And apparently according to the SnObama Cult and the Obamedia it is just fine in 2008 to use phases like “typical white person” because that couldn’t possibly be considered prejudiced or racist. No, couldn’t possibly be. And the guy using it just so happening to belong to a church that considers white people the root of all evil, that’s just a coincidence. And all that chatter from his spiritual mentor making noise about the garlic noses, that was another happy accident. Surely you can’t connect the dots and draw anything other than a random concurrence of totally unrelated events.

Barack the Bitter SnObama has one thing that Geoff Davis doesn’t have. And that is a HISTORY of making racially derogatory remarks and hanging out with and getting advice from racists and bigots. But don’t expect the Obamedia to point that out to you.