It all worked perfectly!

Distract us by annihilating the Gulf of Mexico, smothering it in a blanket of oil and deadly chemicals and while we’re focused on that debacle go behind our backs to pretend to reform the hubris and greed of Wall Street – while in reality setting us up for even more catastrophe!

I love it when a plan comes together! MUAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!

The big news of the day will be, “Congress agrees on financial reform; the most significant financial reform since the 1930s.”

And that may be true – but this reform is nothing like the reform following the excesses that led to the Great Depression. No one on Wall Street is out. The big banks will continue to suck money directly from taxpayers and good, decent ‘Murkins. The rich will continue to get richer and the poor (the remaining 90 percent of us) can just suck it…oh, and get poorer.

And not only that, the “reform” will do nothing – nothing, I tell ya – to prevent exactly what happened in 2008 to bring us to the brink of another Great Depression.

Is this a great country or what?

Oh sure, sure; the bank reforms pretend to make corrections to the way megabanks take our loans, bundled them into packages, break them apart again and sell them while insuring them and making huge dollars at both ends of the deal gone wrong.

The reforms will require the big firms and banks to put their derivatives trade into smaller, so-called “outside” companies. But this is merely window-dressing, a shell game to give the appearance of magic.

What the reforms did not do is to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented for nearly 50 years the financial games that brought us to the brink of ruin in 2008. Nope, neither Congress nor the Obama Administration was going to allow that – too much money and influence on the table from the big banks.

What the reforms also failed to do is to throttle back the megabanks. Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Ted Kaufman, D-Delaware, tried to do that. The Brown-Kaufman Amendment to the financial reform package would have required the six biggest banks to be broken up into smaller institutions.

“To big to fail” would have relegated to the history books. But, oh no, we couldn’t let THAT happen. We need Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to be HUGE so they next time – and some say soon – they blow up like balloons they can bring down the rest of us with them!

Like they nearly did in 2008.

So as you struggle to make your next mortgage payment or put food on your table or wonder how you will afford school next year for your kids remember this day when all of Washington was jubilant over financial reforms. We should remind them of the question asked by the great philosopher Janet “You can call me Miss” Jackson:

“What have you done for me, lately?”

“Um, yes,…um, this is a little embarrassing but we need to order some backbone, maybe with a side of cojones if you have them.”

“Oh, yes, of course. We keep well stocked in spine and cojones these days. We used to supply quite a bit for Capitol Hill but I guess the recession has lessened the demand.”

“Well…okay, we really need some now. How fast can you send it over?”

“We can fill that order today, sir. To which address?

“Um, yea…um, the Capitol if you don’t mind. The Senate.”

“Ah, yes, I see.”

“And, um, er…don’t tell anybody we called.”

Will we see a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment or will we see the jellyfish return to the nation’s grandest aquarium?

Who the heck knows?

So, let’s see if we have this straight:

The Democrats will force the Republicans to vote against reforming Wall Street if they don’t belly up to the bar and support financial reform.

The lone Senate Republican supporting climate change legislation backed off over the weekend because, he complained, the Democrats want to push immigration reform and that will make him and his fellow Republicans look like racists. (Duh!)

Following, so far?

Good, because the logic is not obvious.

Republican senators (well, Shelby of Alabama) went on the TeeVee Box this morning to say, well, they MIGHT vote to regulate the derivatives trade. Of course, they’ll have to explain to their benefactors why they could suddenly read the hand-writing on the wall and, well, while they like that direct Wall Street-to-Capitol Hill cheese pipeline they really can’t be seen in public with the pillagers.

It’s all so sorted and cynical and, let’s face it, comical if it wasn’t so serious.

As the great philosopher, Jimmy Buffett, once said, “I’d like to be a jellyfish, ‘cause jellyfish don’t pay rent.”

The planet will survive – it may be a dead rock – but it will survive.

It’s the people and animals and plants we have to worry about. And we especially have to worry about the people…’cause it appears half of ‘em are crazy.

Maybe it’s Earth Day. Maybe it’s all this talk about, maybe, soon, perhaps throttlin’ Wall Street down a notch or two.

But we got a bunch of crazy folks runnin’ ‘round, it appears, and they’re bringin’ with ‘em the politics of crazytown.

Take the Arizona Legislature – please.

These yahoos passed a law requiring police to check every brown skinned person to make sure they’re legal in the USofA. No proof of documentation? In the hooskow you go and back to Mexico. Native-born Arizonan? Forgot your driver’s license? In the hooskow you go…and back to Mexico, from which you did not come in the first place.

Needless to say, sane people are urging Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to veto the bill.

Then there’s the Virginia yahoo who painted up his Ford F-10 pick ‘em up truck with nice art and slogan reading, “Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/ll.”

Nice…and he coupled that with a coded white supremacist license: 14CV88. The tag, we’re told by soothsayers and code breakers, can be interrupted thusly: 14 translates into 14 words: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The letters, CV, stand for Confederate Veteran, which would be quite a trick. The double 8 signifies the 8^th letter of the alphabet, H, and doubled means: Heil Hitler.

Whatever…it’s just plain crazy.

But don’t it’s only redneck crazies who go after the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. Nope, it’s mainstream crazies, too.

Poor Franklin Graham, son of long-time TeeVee evangelist and celebrity prayer Billy Graham, found himself kicked out of the Pentagon Prayer Breakfast because he said some crazy things about the world’s most popular faith.

“True Islam cannot be practiced in this country,” Graham said in December to CNN. “You can’t beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they’ve committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries.”

Whew! And while we’re at it, shouldn’t we be askin’ the Pentagon, if they’re prayin’, to be prayin’ that all wars should cease and we beat swords into plowshares? Just askin’.

But Islam is not without its crazies, too. A Muslim website in New York vowed revenge on South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone after they showed the Prophet all dressed up like a stuffed bear…on their cartoon show. Website doods, lighten up. Don’t even think about killin’ Kenny.

Then there’s the anti-immigration leader who the other day asked South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham to come out of the closet and admit his homosexuality. Maybe he wants a date, I dunno. But maybe, someday, we’re gonna stop being crazy and thinkin’ there’s something wrong with being gay – maybe.

Finally, we don’t want to forget about the Republican Party of Florida, which is now being investigated by the FBI and the IRS for allegations it may have used the contributions provided by decent, upstanding Republican contributors to party on, Garth.

Included in the probe are allegations teabag darlin’ and senatorial candidate Marco…Polo…Rubio used a party-owned American Express card and spent $100,000 on good times while speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.

Maybe we don’t need Earth Day to save us. Maybe we need Sane Day.

The Legend-Before-Its-Time Summit on Health-Care-Reform-Arguing will take up six hours of time Thursday on the TeeVee Box.

The Winter Olympics will be suspended. Wall Street will shut down. Trains and airlines will grind to a halt. And Republicans will put cotton in their ears, stomp their feet and act like petulant children being dragged to the principal’s office.

Okay. None of that is true – except the last part.

The White House, in preparing for the summit to be broadcast live from Blair House, spent the better part of the past week arguing with Republicans over the size and shape of chairs, the size and shape of tables, the color of lamp shades and drapes and which incense to burn during scheduled guided meditations.

A grateful nation heaved a sigh of relief earlier today when the Republican congressional delegation finally agreed to a square, hollow table – because it suits them.

According to Politico, that thoughtful online apologist for big business, the Democrats unstated goal of the health care summit is “to make congressional Republicans look like a bunch of whiny, cynical, ideologically bankrupt crybabies who don’t have a plan of their own.”

Ha-ha-ha, congressional Republicans are doing a pretty darn good job of that all by themselves.

But don’t be fooled. Despite holding overwhelming majorities in both the Senate and the House, Democrats can’t quite seem to adopt measures to reform the nation’s health care system.

So, given study released in late 2009 by the Harvard Medical School which suggested 45,000 Americans are dying each year because of our flawed for-profit health care system we can expect 30.8 people to die during the six-hour health care summit…and another 30.8 will die each six hours the Congress fails to adopt needed reforms.

We don’t mean to say Congress isn’t doing ANYTHING.

The Senate actually managed to adopt key measures toward a jobs bill…and five Republicans voted with the Democrats!

But Downtown Scotty Brown, the newly-elected nekkid truck driver who is now sitting in Ted Kennedy’s seat, found out just how mean his teabagger buds can be.

The angry malcontents spanked Brown’s nekkid truck drivin’ butt loud and hard on the Facebook thingy and Magic Twitter Machine after he voted with the Democrats on the jobs bill.

“LYING LOW LIFE SCUM HYPOCRITE,” was, I believe, a representative post.

“BROWN, YOU JUST REMEMBER DOUCHEBAG…WE ARE WATCHING YOU!!!!,” was, I believe, another. Both in all caps.

Ha! Fun, ain’t it, Scotty? That’s a really nice crowd you hang with. This will also probably mean less interest in his daughters.

“Madam Speaker, Vice-President Biden, Members of Congress, Distinguished Guests, fellow citizens:

“My name is Barack Hussein Obama and I am President of the United States. Get over it!

“And let me say, first, if any y’all want to holler back at me during this speech, you go right ahead…show your ass because I’ll come down there and loft it from beyond the three-point arc and leave your butt hangin’ in the net. Got that?

“I’ve been in office just over a year and I’ve tried to be a nice guy; tried to work with Republicans and Democrats alike; tried to listen to your concerns and tried to incorporate some of your ideas…as bad and pitiful as they are…into the very serious issues and problems facing our nation.

“Y’all don’t seem to care about that. You just want to grand stand and pontificate, obfuscate and obstruct.

“You’ve done your best to turn the Audacity of Hope into the Audacity of Nope and I’ve had it with you nattering negative nabob nincompoops.

“To our GOP members…and I use that term pointedly…you sat around and gave George Bush and Dick Cheney everything they wanted for 8 years and look where it got us: the worst shape this country has been in since the 1930s. Y’all need to sit down and shut up if you’re not going to be constructive.

“To members of my own party, looky here, do the math. We’re in charge of this Congress folks. We have majorities in both houses! Act like it, for God’s sake!

“The people of this great land voted us in because they wanted change. Grow a pair and give them the change they want.

“First thing: pass healthcare reform, dammit! I mean, really, what are y’all waiting for? Over 70 percent of the American people want this change give it to ‘em!

“If you don’t pass healthcare reform next week, I will sign an executive order expanding Medicare to everyone in the United States! How do you like THAT? We will simply give everyone health care and you morons can work yourselves all up into a froth trying to figure out how to undo it. That’ll look good as you’re campaigning for re-election.

“Second, pass a jobs bill…get people working again. Rebuild this country, its infrastructure, its power grid; build a new Internet infrastructure that will bring genuine 3-G broadband to everyone.

“Third, take down these arrogant and greedy bankers on Wall Street. Regulate them to within an inch of their financial futures. Bring back Glass-Steagall. If you don’t I will and leave you to defend them and their practices.

“How do like THAT, GOP? Want to go into the 2010 elections saying you like greedy Wall Street bankers and that big bad Obama wants to hurt them? Go ahead; let me know how that works out for you.

“Fourth, pass climate change laws that will immediately reduce our carbon output. I can’t help it if everyone at Copenhagen woosed out on saving the planet. We are the world’s biggest contributor to CO2 over the years and we need to cut it out and, then, we’ll make the Chinese and Indians cut it out.

“In short, I expect you, members of Congress, to be bold, be brave, act like leaders and lead; help the American people for once in your lives!

“This is not about politics. This is about digging our nation out of a terrible hole and if you’ll grow a spine we can do this.

“Yes we can!”