Senate restores $18 billion in jobless benefits

By GottaLaff

Via an L.A. Times e-mail alert:

The Senate passed an $18 billion bill on Thursday to restore unemployment benefits for people who have been out of a job for months and resume Medicare payments to doctors about to absorb a 21 percent cut.

The 59-38 vote sends the measure back to the House, which was expected to vote and send it for President Barack Obama's signature Thursday night.

The vote comes as welcome relief to hundreds of thousands of people who have been ineligible to reapply for additional weeks of benefits after exhausting their state-paid benefits. They will be able to receive those checks retroactively under the legislation.

How do you spell relief? C-H-E-C-K-S.

How do you spell pain in the hiney? G-O-P.

Extension of jobless benefits clears GOP roadblock

By GottaLaff

I just love winning skirmishes. Skirmish-winning is my favorite pastime. Especially when it's against the Rushpublics. Especially when it provides badly needed benefits to jobless Americans.

Especially when it means another Democratic victory:

Democrats in the Senate won an initial skirmish Monday to restore unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of jobless people despite Republican criticism that it would add $9 billion to the nation's debt.

The 60-34 vote killed a GOP filibuster against debating the measure, which would extend jobless benefits through May 5 along with short-term extensions of several other lapsed programs.

Hmm, I wonder if anyone from the right side of the aisle voted with the Dems.

Uh-oh. Scott "Pink Leather Shorts" Brown did. Again. What will the Tea Tantrumers say?

Collins and three other Republicans - Olympia Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and George Voinovich of Ohio - voted Monday to advance the short-term measure.

What mavericks. Maybe that's where John McCain's nickname went.

As for all the GOP whining about deficits:

"Unemployment extensions have always been considered emergency spending, and there's a reason for that," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "Unemployment insurance is a form of stimulus, but offsetting the extension of this program would negate the stimulative impact. It would be robbing Peter to pay Paul."

Kill the fil!

Pregnant? Want paid leave in the U.S.? Fuggetaboutit

By GottaLaff

Pfft! Come on. Who needs money when you're pregnant?

(click on image to enlarge)

Michael Steele hits the Republican G-Spot

By GottaLaff

Equality starts with an E. That clearly disqualifies it from the rightie vocablulary. First Guns, now Gays. Seems Steele thinks he's hit the Rushpublic G-spot:

Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday.

[...] Steele said he used the argument weeks ago while chatting on a flight with a college student who described herself as fiscally conservative but socially liberal on issues like gay marriage.

"Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. "So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money."

As Steele talked about ways the party could position itself, he also poked fun at his previous pledge to give the GOP a "hip-hop makeover."

"You don't have to wear your pants cut down here or the big bling," he said.

Vermont and Iowa have legalized gay marriage in recent weeks, and a Quinnipiac University poll released in April found that 57 percent of people questioned support civil unions that provide marriage-like rights. Although 55 percent said they opposed gay marriage, the poll indicated a shift toward more acceptance.

The last thing I want to think about is Michael Steele's pants.

H/t: Ellen

Bush signs law protecting retirement savings for gay couples

By GottaLaff

From the Department of Wha-a-a-a?

Yesterday, Bush signed into law the Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 (WRERA), requiring employers to allow employees to roll their retirement plans over to nonspouse partners. The Human Rights Campaign hailed the bill for allowing gay couples to share benefits:

PPA [Pension Protection Act of 2006] made it possible for employers to allow any nonspouse beneficiary of an employee’s retirement plan—including an employee’s same-sex partner—to roll inherited retirement benefits directly to an individual retirement account (IRA) and avoid immediate taxation. WRERA requires that all employers provide this rollover opportunity to nonspouse beneficiaries.

Did he just show up P.E. Obama?

Kenya feel Obama's magic?

By GottaLaff

Obama is having a positive effect all over the world. Now Kenya is benefiting from Obama's election:

Ripple effects of Barack Obama's election are already being felt in Kenya, where the beleaguered tourism industry is preparing for an inaugural-season surge of visitors eager to trace the President-elect's African roots.

Tour operators are starting to offer packages to Kenya with trips to Kogelo, the rural village in western Kenya just north of the Equator where Mr. Obama's father was born and raised and where some of his relatives -- including Sarah Onyango Obama, his grandfather's wife, whom he calls "Granny Sarah" -- still live.

The election "will have a big effect," predicts Jonathan Sloan, a Kenya Tourist Board official in London. "Americans might not be knowledgeable about Kenya, but with Obama's election it has been thrust into their imagination." [...]

Kenya tourism officials are hoping to ride the Obama coattails to global visibility for their industry and their country. "The Obama election results became known on Wednesday, and on Thursday Kenya took a national holiday to celebrate," says Mr. Sloan. "It's an amazing thing for them. They're going to promote this massively. Kenya feels that it has been put on the world map." [...]

"It's highly unlikely they'd meet the relatives," says Louise Newton, a spokeswoman for Somak Holidays, a sister company of Somak Safaris in London that is offering its own Obama tours. "Initially the relatives were very available to the press," she adds, "but now we're getting reports of security being stepped up."

Paying it forward.