What Does Tom Coburn Have Against Rotating Pastel Lights?
And zero-gravity chairs, for that matter?
What follows is the entire text of an amendment that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), that stalwart foe of earmarks, has proposed to add to the stimulus bill. (emphasis mine)
None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available under this act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, arts center, or highway beautification project, including renovation, remodeling, construction, salaries, furniture, zero-gravity chairs, big-screen televisions, beautification, rotating pastel lights, and dry heat saunas.
Late Vindication Update: As a commenter alerts us, Coburn actually has nothing against pastel lights -- it's the Centers for Disease Control's use of pastel lights that's got him down. Coburn's oversight subcommittee uncovered evidence in 2007 that the CDC spent $35,000 to add zero-gravity chairs, lights, and a sauna to its Atlanta employee gym.
The moral of the story is, do not piss off Sen. Coburn. So on that note, we apologize for insinuating any anti-pastel light vendetta.
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Josh
Matt
Eric
My bet? He probably has both rotating pastel lights AND zero gravity chairs stashed somewhere. How else would he know to exclude them?
February 4, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
He definitely sounds like he would be no fun at a party.
February 4, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it was anyone else I'd be like "WTF?"...but, you know, it's Tom Coburn. The guy's just nuts.
February 4, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is plain silly. These buffoons really are absurd. This amendment should be voted down or not allowed to get to the floor. It gives the impression that money in the past has gone to renovating gambling casinos or that was contemplated in the package, same with the other bs that is "being excluded."
By the way, what exactly are rotating pastel lights and zero gravity chairs? I never heard of either one.
February 4, 2009 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the bigger issue:
By throwing museums and arts centers into the mix, Coburn makes it likely that senators who support the arts would have to vote against the amendment. But if they do, they set themselves up for opposition campaign commercials claiming that they voted against an amendment that would have stopped taxpayer dollars from going to casinos and gambling operations. (Or golf courses — you might as well be voting to give out extra bonus money at Goldman Sachs.)
He's not crazy. President Obama? Look very carefully at this and realize Republicans really really really don't give a shit about your attempts to govern in a grown-up manner. They don't.
February 4, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
True. You can add aquariums and museums and zoos to the list as well as highway maintenance. It is a horseshit amendment and should not be allowed to go to the floor. The same thing applies to his bs what can't be included. Big screen tv's? Dry heat saunas? It is patently a disgusting amendment. It should not be allowed to the floor. There is no reason or basis for it. These fools are really pissing me off. My kids love the zoo and museums and aquariums and they are great learning experiences for children. There should be more of them. What's so wrong with that? Pathetic
February 4, 2009 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a demonic amendment that should be defeated, but as the blockquote says, you can practically hear the campaign commercial: Why did Senator X think it was ok to send money to casinos?
February 4, 2009 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about this for a response: Why does senator y hate children?
February 4, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even better. Maybe Senator X could make that the question before getting blasted by Senator Y.
February 4, 2009 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
You betcha. If it weren't so childish I would suggest that someone offer an amendment that prohibits use of these funds for sex in airport bathroom stalls during layovers. It would just be bringing it down to their level.
With all due respect, the Dems should make the bill as tight as possible then stand by it while ignoring the Republican commentary. Clearly the gloves are off and the wait-and-see period is over.
February 4, 2009 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sweet avatar!
Are the gloves off?
February 4, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, so those senaters vote Coburn's amendment down, and place another amendment that is identically phrased which bars money for gambling/casinos, golf courses, zero-gravity chairs, big-screen televisions, beautification, rotating pastel lights, and dry heat saunas. Throw in something else good to make it even better amendment, like corporate bonuses, ski equipment, concert tickets and lava lamps. There, problem solved.
February 4, 2009 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lava lamps!
I'd just add: shag carpets and heart-shaped beds and especially shag carpets under heart-shaped beds.
February 4, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget guitar-shaped swimming pools.
February 4, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
You two are cracking me up!
February 4, 2009 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. Congressional Republicans don't give a shit about his efforts to govern like a grown-up. He knows that. But if the congressional Republicans' conduct is the last straw with the one third to one half of self-identified Republicans who are actually sane, then what he's doing makes sense.
February 4, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate your optimism.
The jury is still out for me on the wisdom of this approach.
February 4, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zero Gravity Chairs
http://sitincomfort.com/zerrec.html
February 4, 2009 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
it probably would have just been easier if he said what the money COULD be used for...
and what the hell is a zero gravity chair anyway?
February 4, 2009 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is everyone here blind to the real story? Can't you see that Coburn's list intentionally omits Illudium Q-36 Space Modulators?!?
February 4, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, home with a bug today and your post just cracked me up.
February 4, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
They say humor is healing.
February 4, 2009 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coburn has a history with zero gravity chairs and pastel lights. Apparently, this is a shot at previous governent spending by the Center for Disease Control and Cobruns stafer just cut and pasted into this amendment.
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?FuseAction=LegislativeFloorAction.View&ContentRecord_id=409b4171-802a-23ad-4ce1-507938270727
February 4, 2009 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is an inadvertently hilarious description.
Does he like gladiator movies, too?
February 4, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
ROTFLOL....
February 4, 2009 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clearly he picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.
February 5, 2009 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Coburn is a philistine and an arse. Let's add an amendment to ensure that no money goes towards supporting religious charities and rampant lesbianism in high schools, and see how he votes.
February 4, 2009 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is all about making a circus out of this process. The more ridiculous people see this, the worse President Obama comes off. It's muddying the waters, distractions and anything to make the stimulus a failure.
All of the things being focused on and ridiculed makes up less than 1% of the cost of the bill.
If I were working in the administration I would have done a retail store job. Raise the margin to the sky with crap and pork above what you really need. Then trim off that same junk and call it a concession.
Easy.
February 4, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look past the obviously whacky shit and focus on the meat this asshat is proposing to bar spending on:
no renovation, remodeling, construction, salaries for aquariums, zoos, community parks, museums, theaters, arts centers, or highway beautification projects.
Why?
Those renovation and construction jobs not real jobs? Don't help build and improve the communities they are located in? Huh?
February 4, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
What makes Coburn wake up in a cold sweat?
Lesbians cavorting with box-turtles in zero-gravity chairs while being lit with rotating pastel lights.
Oh wait, that was the other Senator whack-a-doddle next door, John Cornyn of Texas.
It's hard to keep "straight" these lunatic rantings.
February 4, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, what makes him wake up in a cold sweat is somebody discovering that he gets off watching lesbians cavorting with box-turtles in zero-gravity chairs while being lit with rotating pastel lights, and you forgot, and being showered in whipped cream.
They are all flaming, pathetic hypocrits. Discovering the hypocrisy and bringing it to the light of day is what they fear the most. I wish larry flynt would tail this bozo. I bet he hangs out in strip joints at least.
February 4, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
hangs out in strip joints
Not that there's anything wrong with that...
February 4, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lesbianism and breast implants.
'nuff said.
February 4, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, the education that is available at TPM!
February 4, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
So is the repugs agenda gonna be to end abortion in our liftime and require all women to have breast implants?
February 5, 2009 6:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.house.gov/ryan/press_releases/2007pressreleases/cdc_off_center.pdf
The cited items, recycled from the above 2007 subcmte report, are examples of some minor expenditures CDC reported in constructing a fitness facility for employees.
Pastel lights and zero-gravity chairs are the sort of thing Coburn hopes will sound most gratuitously effeminate and New-Age-y to his sober, salt-of-the earth, liberal claptrap-eschewing constituents, who rise before dawn to milk the cows in a blizzard and enjoy dentistry sans anaesthesia and stir their Jack Daniels with a rusty nail...
February 4, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
"OK, Senator Coburn, whatever you say. Now can we move on to something more substantial or would you like to add more nits to your list? Cause if you want to fiddle while Rome burns, it might better for all of us if you stand a little closer to the flames. You don't want to miss it do you?"
February 4, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why not respond in kind with an amendment barring any funding of 'houses of prostitution for men wearing diapers and tax cuts for persons with over $200,00 income'?
February 4, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please.... my stomach muscles can't take much more laughter on this thread!
February 4, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Better yet, funding for patrons of same. Watch him vote to strip Vitter of his paycheck, or defend diaper wearing johns of hookers on the tax-payer dime. (evil grin)
February 4, 2009 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm thinking, maybe we should be looking into zero-gravity chairs and pastel lights. Those guys at the CDC, they're not stupid, maybe these things are actually good for you. What color pastels, for example? I've heard (from an unreliable source, natch) that blueish light is good for Seasonal Affective Disorder. I've heard, from an actual academic article, that blue light of certain wavelengths (not in the UV range, that as important) can hinder bad nasties, including MRSA. (http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/pho.2008.2413 if you care)
Is Senator Coburn pro-SAD? and pro-MRSA? I think the American people need to hear about this.
:-)
February 4, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real story here is all the other stuff. No museums, no art of any kind, no cleaning up of our highways and parks--Senator Coburn, I'm sorry you're from such a shithole state but some of us actually think learning things and appreciating art is a *good* thing.
February 4, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is a zero gravity chair and why don't I have one?
February 4, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
You probably lack the proper lighting!
February 4, 2009 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
They look darn comfortable, with or without the rotating pastel lighting.
Or should that be pastel rotating lighting?
February 4, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I move that it be renamed the Silly Ammendment and passed unanimously.
February 4, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't he collaborate with Obama on some Senate bills a couple of years ago?
This is wackadoo grandstanding, similar to Thune and his Stack 'o Bens reaching into space.
The GOP can only win by making Obama fail. If it takes destroying the economy to do it, well, that's a price they're willing to make us pay.
Barack Obama is being schooled on GOP hardball. They are not the get-along gang. They only bite the hands of Democrats extended to them. Bipartisanship GOP-style means their way or the highway. A privatized highway, preferably.
February 4, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coburn has got his skeletons, like sterilization of a woman without her consent and Medicaid fraud. He also thought that the nudity in the televised Shindler's list was outrageous. I'd love it if Larry Flint could dig up some dirt on the guy.
www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Tom_Coburn
Coburn performed on a 20-year-old woman in 1990 became what was called "the most incendiary issue" of his Senate campaign. Coburn performed the sterilization on the woman during an emergency surgery to treat a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. The woman sued Coburn, alleging that he did not have consent to sterilize her, while Coburn claimed he had her oral consent. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed with no finding of liability on Coburn's part.
The state attorney general claimed that Coburn committed Medicaid fraud by not reporting the sterilization when he filed a claim for the emergency surgery. Medicaid did not reimburse doctors for sterilization procedures for patients under 21, and according to the attorney general, Coburn would not have been reimbursed at all had he not withheld this information. Coburn says since he did not file a claim for the sterilization, no fraud was committed. No charges were filed against Coburn for this claim.
Schindler's List is an Academy Award-winning 1993 movie based on the book Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, publis...
during prime time. Coburn stated that, in airing the movie without editing it for television, TV had been taken "to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity.
." He also said the TV broadcast should outrage parents and decent-minded individuals everywhere. Coburn described the airing of Schindler's List on television as "...irresponsible sexual behavior...I cringe when I realize that there were children all across this nation watching this program."
Since the film deals mainly with the Holocaust, many people showed disgust with this statement, including a number of fellow Republican Congressmen who criticized Coburn in their speeches. Coburn apologized after heavy criticisms "to all those I have offended" and clarified that he agreed with the movie being aired on television, but stated that it should have been on later in the evening. In apologizing, Coburn said that at that time of the evening there are still large numbers of children watching without parental supervision, and stated that he stood by his message of protecting children from violence, but had expressed it poorly. He also said, "my intentions were good, but I've obviously made an error in judgment in how I've gone about saying what I wanted to say."
February 4, 2009 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, you all see the reaction of Goldman Sachs at Obama's decision to limit CEO pay.
Looks like the U.S. might hit paydirt here shortly.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUKN0428223120090204
February 4, 2009 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not too hard to read between the lines. Excluding dry-heat saunas is just more evidence that Coburn is in the pocket of Big Wet-Heat Sauna.
And oh, what's this? It seems that careless gentleman representing the Motionless Primary-Colored Light industry has misplaced another unmarked envelope full of cash in Sen. Coburn's office. How absent-minded of him!
February 5, 2009 2:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shit! He's onto my ear marks.
Signed
Dennis
February 5, 2009 3:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was sure a slew of dry heat saunas were coming to my home town. Drat.
February 5, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink