It has been twenty years since that Year of the Woman thing.  No one would ever tell who she was.  And they announced it in late June, so it wasn’t even a full year. At only three months into the year, I propose we name this year The Year of the Woman Legislator (YOWL).  I nominate four women for the formerly anonymous position of the Woman: Nina Turner, Ohio State Senator, for introducing a bill that would require men to undergo psychological testing before acquiring drugs for erectile dysfunction (ED). Janet Howell, Virginia State Senator, for a bill requiring a man to undergo a rectal exam and cardio stress testing to qualify for ED drugs. Kelly Cassidy, Illinois State Representative, for a bill requiring men to view a video of the medical treatment of erections lasting more than four hours. Yasmin Neal, Georgia State Representative, for a bill that would outlaw vasectomies, because to quote Monty Python, “Every sperm is sacred.” Each woman has said that the constituent reaction has been mostly positive and evenly divided between women and men. The YOWL home office is soliciting your ideas for bills. We will forward them on to the appropriate legislator.  Send to kateclinton.com.  (Please nothing involving blood sport or references to bobbitizing.)

It’s Half-Time in America! Let’s bring to the field our half-time show! It’s not the Madonna. It’s the Whore and her Marching Taliband led by that aspermative action majorette Rick “the P is silent” Sanctimoron. He’s from Old Dominion. Because of a dwindling supply of white people, the white wing of the Republican Party wants no sex education in schools, no choice for women and no contraceptives. The Catholic Bishoprics have not a moral leg to stand on since the pedo scandal. Retired Cardinal Egan just said they did nothing wrong and he never should have apologized. The Clothmen are trying to get the gov’t to enforce the laws they cannot make their own parishioners follow.  And somehow THEY are the victims! Neat trick.  Why not go hide in the catacombs again?  Since unfair is unfair, I suggest – no insurance coverage for St. Viagra; prescription drug counter clerks can refuse to fill Ciallis prescriptions; every woman gets a can of mace and a gun.   Just a reminder: the most reliable contraceptive is lesbianism.

Used to be if you were a comic one of the guaran-dam-teed high-larious things you could do was run for president. Pat Paulsen, Lily Tomlin of the “Stop It Party” and Ron Paul have all done it. Now, thanks to Stephen Colbert, you can’t just run for president. No, now you have to have your own money- belching anonymous Super PAC. And me? I’m still trying to figure how to get my Kindle Fire books out of the goddam cloud. Sidebar: never fire up your Kindle Fire lying in bed. It’s like an over the bed porn mirror, not that I know anything about that, the point being, just don’t. But after doing the math on; Mitt Romney’s How Dare That Black Man Be President PAC; Rick Sanscrotum’s No Man on Dog Sex PAC; Jon Huntsman’s It’s My Daddy’s Money PAC; Chuckie Gingrich’s I’ve Changed With Callista PAC; Rick Perry’s I Walk Like This Because of My Penis PAC, I have decided to join them. I like Sarah Palin’s business plan: take the money and don’t run. As always, the big challenge is coming up with a PAC name. Here’s what my crack team of consultants has come up with: Embrace Your Extinction PAC; Just Send Money to Tammy Baldwin PAC; America, We Won’t Be Your Wedge Issue This Time PAC; What is Your Damn Problem With Gay Marriage PAC. My crack team, emphasis on the crack, doesn’t get the brevity soul of wit thing. So I’ve decided to crowd-source, as the kids call it. What shall I call my PAC?

One Saturday afternoon when I was maybe five or six, my Dad was reading the paper and I was watching some grim Dickens-ish movie on little our black and white GE console. A tattered, beaten down family was sent to a huge dark, foreboding end-of-the-line-for-you Debtors Prison. Under the big white wig, the judge who sent them resembled Newt Gingrich. It was an ineffably sad story.

As the credits rolled, I asked my Dad, “But how will they make money in prison?  If they can’t work, how will they ever pay their debts?”  My Dad looked over his paper at me.  Not like I was some junior Josephine Stiglitz.  I don’t think he said anything.  I got what I think was a “you got that right” nod.

This Trumped-up maniacal, medieval drive to reduce deficits by enacting pound-of-flesh, down-to-the-bone austerity measures is creating a worldwide open-air Debtor’s Prison. It is shameful and it is the poor who are shamed.  The age old pre-occupation of punishing the poor for the extra vagrancies of the wealthy is ineffably sad and infuriating. I can’t read Paul Krugman if there are sharp knives present.

The cruel collective debt guilt trip is so chickenshit. If I were in charge I would act boldly. I would declare the collective hunch of the debt crisis over, print more money right now and double down my bets on education, invention, infrastructure, healthcare and peace. Jobs would come.

Basta, no mas, enough!  And viva Elizabeth Warren!