EPISODE NUMBER: 9109 (June 3, 2013)
GUESTS: Rep. John Dingell
SEGMENTS: Stephen’s Week Off | Better Know a District - Wisconsin’s 2nd - Mark Pocan | TrackingPoint Rifle | Sign Off - Goodnight
SUIT REPORT: Grey Suit | Light blue shirt | Yellow tie w/ dark blue stripes
VIDEOS: Monday, June 3, 2013

Indeed, welcome back, Stephen! Comment strong.

Episode Round-Up

Stephen eased back into work with another nice BKAD with some great digs at Wisconsin, this time with Rep. Mark “Pokey” Pocan (WI-D). Pocan was a good sport while Stephen needled Pocan on his gay marriage stance (and gay marriage.) It’s been great to see the BKADs slowly trickle back into the show; we were all truly deprived when the entire series was put on moratorium.

The tracking rifle, complete with its wifi and automatic facebook-updating capability, is truly terrifying. I don’t know who is willing to plunk down $22,000.00 for such a sophisticated firearm, but I suppose there are some 2nd Amendmenters who are placing orders now.

Finally, Rep. John Dingell regaled us all with stories of a less acrimonious time in the Congress. I can’t help but feel that campaign money and the constant presence of special interest groups (corporate and non-corporate) are playing a role in paralyzing any spirit of bipartisanship in the Congress. Are people somehow less disposed to want to work together in 2013 than in 1955? I would think not, but back in those days Congressmen didn’t spend have their day on the phone begging for donations, instead of doing the legislative work they were elected to do. Now it’s all a rush to fill coffers to pay for TV ads vilifying their opponents every two years. Just my 2 cents.

What did you think of the ep? More screen caps and quotes will follow.

Stephen’s Week Off

• I finally had time to watch my favorite show The Colbert Report. Though I’ve got to say as usual it was all re-runs. Happens every time I am on break. What are the odds?

• And of course while I was away big news happened. One imagines, I don’t know. And we will have more on those stories as soon as I care.

Better Know a District - Wisconsin’s 2nd - Mark Pocan

• Oh hai! I was just reading a book called Fun Facts About Wisconsin. A book that, let’s say, exists.

• Madison, Wisconsin is famously one of the most liberal cities in America, trailing only San Francisco, CA, Austin, TX, and Meat-Is-Murder, Oregon.

• [Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey Circus] known as “The Greatest Show on Earth,” by people who have never left Wisconsin.

• Now the District contains the beautiful Wisconsin Dells, where you’ll find “Noah’s Ark,” officially America’s largest water park, and unofficially America’s largest open port-a-potty. (audience groans, Stephen laughs) It’s true. Anyone for a staph infection? Step right up.

• Stephen: What is it about my God-sanctioned marriage that you most want to destroy?

• Stephen: Now you suggest I get divorced, and you say you are not ruining my marriage.

• Stephen: As a freshman congressman, you don’t have much of a record for me to attack yet.

• Rep. Pocan: That’s great.

• Stephen: What are some of the things you would like to accomplish so I can attack it?

• Rep. Pocan: I paid for college doing magic shows and bar tending.

• Stephen: How long were you turning tricks?

TrackingPoint Rifle

Nation, you know if you watch this show that I will defend our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms from all who would attack it, and that includes guns. For too long they have demanded that in order to use them, you have to know how to use them. Get this:aim and pull the trigger at the same time?! How is my hand supposed to know what my eye is seeing? It’s tyranny.

• Wow! It’s like you are a fighter pilot taking out Osama Bin Antelope.

• Finally, a solution to the age-old problem: sometimes the animal stands a chance.

• So when you shoot a wildebeest and then have to cross a timezone to pick it up, you’ll know whether to pack an umbrella.

• And, that internet connectivity finally fulfills the true promise of the Second Amendment: letting your gun make Facebook friends.

• Now, you can post a picture of you making a duck face, while your gun posts a picture of you blowing off a duck’s face.

Interview

• Stephen: What’s the biggest change you have seen in 80 years in Washington?

• Rep. John Dingell: I think it’s the loss of collegiality…good will, good humor. Willingness to work together, friendliness.

• Stephen: But a “willingness to work together” implies to me that you don’t believe in your positions. If you have a position and I oppose your position…if I want something else to happen, if I give you an inch, I am totally wrong. If you’re right at all, I’m totally wrong, and the proof of my rightness is your complete wrongness.

• Rep. Dingell: I disagree.

• Stephen: You’re totally wrong for disagreeing with me.

• Rep. John Dingell: There are 435 of us under the Constitution who are sent to Washington, and we are told to work out and to solve great problems of the Nation and to work for the people we serve, and at some point, in the middle, or somewhere, there is a point where we can come to an honorable agreement. Compromise is an honorable word. (audience erupts in applause)

• Stephen: What are the bills that you passed that you are most proud of?

• Rep. Dingell: The single one of which I am most proud of is the 1964 Civil Rights Act. (audience cheers) We stopped the nation from being torn apart. And just a few years later we can see in the White House we have an African-American who wouldn’t have been able to vote in many states before we passed that law.