Editor’s Note: Marlow chimes in this morning about the extraordinary events in Your Nation’s Capital. He manages his usual comprehensive approach. With the discussion of COP26 at the heart of this morning’s meeting, Marlow sets the stage for the events which will transpire in the Virginia Governor’s Race, the conference in Glasgow, and another dozen issues. Enjoy!

– Vic

Early today PresBid walked into Capitol Hill’s front door.

PresBid: “Good Morning.”

House Speaker: “Good morning, Mr. President. Welcome to the US House of Representatives’ Legislation Emporium!”

PresBid: “Ah, thankyou my good Madame Speaker.”

House Speaker: “What can I do for you?”

PB: “Well, I was, uh, sitting at the Resolute Desk in the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue just now preparing for my COP26 do-nothing boondoggle, skimming through the first IPCC studies on mankind’s gaseous frying of the world, and I suddenly was overcome by a certain peckishness.”

HS: “Peckish, Mr. President?”

PB: “In a quite greedy way.”

HS: (Oh lord.)

PB: “I’m all hungry-like.”

HS: “Ah, hungry!”

PB: “In a nutshell — I thought to myself, some barely fermented, curdly, unexamined legislating will do the trick, so, I curtailed my climating activities, sallied forth, and infiltrated your halls of confusion to negotiate the passing of some cheesy social legislation.” (whispered off to the side behind his raised hand – “I’d settle for even a frame work of such.”)

HS: “Come again?”

PB: “I want you to get something done here for me.”

HS: “Oh, I thought you were complaining about your VP” (off to the side also behind her raised hand, “We call her Giggles up here, you know.” To which PB snorts a barely stifled chortle.)

PB: “Oh, heaven forbid. I want some delights for our countrymen and women and those who remain uncertain as to their gender(s) and assorted pronouns.”

HS: “Sorry?”

PB: “Ooo, I’d like a nice bill!”

HS: “Most certainly!”

PB: “Now then, some legislation, please, my good woman.”

HS: (lustily) “Certainly, Mr. President. What would you like?”

PB: “Well, eh, how about two years of free college?”

HS: “I’m, a-fraid we’re fresh out of that, Sir.”

PS: “Oh, never mind, how are you on three months of family leave?”

HS: “I’m afraid we’ll never have that by the end of this week, sir, we might get some of it in fresh on some Monday in mid-2025.”

PB: “Rats. No matter. Well, my steadfast unwrinkly woman, four years of free dental, vision and hearing care, if you please.”

HS: “Ah! No can do, sir. It’s beeeen on back order for decades by that Vermont Bolshie. Was expecting it this morning. Once again, not here.”

PB: “Not my lucky day, is it? Aah, CO2 taxes?”

HS: “Sorry, sir.”

PB: “Coal phase out?”

HS: “Normally, Sir, yes. Last week that broke down.”

PB: “Ah. Nationwide EV charge stations?”

HS: “Sorry.”

PB: “SALT limit repeal?”

HS: “No.”

PB: “Billionaire tax?”

HS: “YGTBSM, Sir.”

(PB goes on to ask about another two dozen items with the HS repeatedly saying: “uh uh.”)

PB: “Roads, bridges, rails, airports, perhaps?”

HS: “Ah! We have them, Yessir.”

PB: (surprised as always) “You do! Excellent.”

HS: “Yessir. It’s ah… it’s a bit dicey that our your party’s members don’t want them unless all the other off-the-books and unconstitutional things come along with them.”

PB: (hopping about, clapping his hands while wildly smiling) “Oh, I’d like them too.”

HS: “Well, . . . that’s not very funny, actually, sir.”

PB: “No matter. Fetch hither those tasty roads, bridges, rails and air and sea ports that all of us desire! Mmmwah!”

HS: “I . . . think our members don’t find them entertaining or like them without the others one bit, Sir.”

PB: “I don’t care how f*cking unfunny they think they are. Vote those things and hand them over to me with all deliberate speed, Madame Speaker.”

HS: “Oooooooooohhh……..”

PB: “What now?”

HS: “Someone with a name I can’t pronounce has hidden them away.”

PB: (pause) “Has he? She? It?”

HS: “She, Sir.”

(pause)

(PB lists another seven desired tax and spend items to which HS responds “No.”

PB: “You . . . do have something for me, don’t you?”

HS: (brightly) “Of course, Sir. We’re a legislature shop, sir. We’ve got…”

PB: “No, no . . . don’t tell me. I wanna guess. I love being right.”

HS: “Fair enough.”

PB: “Uuuuuh, Cap-n-Trade?”

HS: “Yes?”

PB: “Ah, well, I’ll have that!”

HS: “Oh! I thought you were talking to me, Sir. Captain Horse Trade, that’s my secret Hill nickname.”

(pause)

(After another dozen asks and “No” responses.)

PB: “I see. Uh . . . A CR, eh?”

HS: “Right, Sir.”

PB: “All right. Okay. Have you got one?” (He asks, expecting the answer ‘no’.)

HS: “I’ll have a look, sir. . . nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno.”

PB: “It’s not much of a legislature, is it?”

HS: “Finest on the Hill, Sir!”

PB: (annoyed) “Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please.”

HS: “Well, name me one piece that has your name on it from the other hallway, Sir?”

PB: “It was certainly a place uncontaminated by original thoughts during my time there.”

HS: (brightly) “You haven’t asked me about the Defense Department bills, Sir.”

PB: “Would it be worth it?”

HS: “Could be.”

PB: “Have you?”

HS: “Thought I warned you Sir . . .”

PB: (slowly) “Have you got any appropriation bills?”

HS: “No.”

PB: “Figures. Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place . . . . . . . Tell me.”

HS: “Yessir?”

PB: (deliberately) “Have you in fact got any passed bills here at all?”

HS: “Yes, sir.”

PB: “Really?”

(pause)

HS: “No. Not really, Sir.”

PB: “You haven’t.”

HS: “No sir. Not a one. I wasn’t deliberately wasting your time, Sir.”

PB: “Well, I’m sorry. What a senseless waste of time and human life.”

PresBid and the House Speaker abruptly and stiffly turn and exit via opposite stage directions.

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