No, we're not kidding and yes, Mother's Day is this Sunday.

As reported in The Washington Post:

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Tiahrt then joined 177 of his Republican friends and voted against their mothers, and ate up 28 minutes of their day in doing so.

Which - of course - was the point. While Kansans struggle to afford skyrocketing gas prices, food prices and mortgage payments, Republicans are bringing Congress to a standstill.

As House Democrats tried to pass legislation to ease the mortgage crisis on Wednesday, Republicans served up hours of procedural delays, demanding a score of roll call votes: 10 motions to adjourn, half a dozen motions to reconsider, various and sundry amendments, a motion to approve the daily journal, a motion to instruct and a "motion to rise."

The high point came just after 6 p.m., when, after one of the motions to adjourn, 61 members lined up to change their votes, one by one. Forty-six went from aye to no, while 15 changed from no to aye. The maneuver ate up 28 minutes in all -- and caused an eruption by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who accused the minority of a "filibuster by vote changing."

A Tiahrt spokesman later assured everyone that Todd in fact does love his mother. But, does he care at all about the thousands of Kansans who are in danger of losing their homes or the thousands more who are struggling to afford gas, food or prescription drugs?

Apparently not.

Who thinks Tiahrt owes his mother and the people of the 4th District a BIG bouquet of flowers this Sunday?

Watch as Todd Tiahrt works to prevent Congress from addressing the mortgage crisis. (And if you're wondering why he's speaking in support of mothers in this clip - well, he voted for it before he voted against it. Let's just call it the mother of all flip-flops!)

John McCain's own home-state paper has called his bluff:

In tight Senate votes, McCain not a maverick
When it matters the most, he seldom bucks his own party

Ronald J. Hansen
The Arizona Republic
May. 7, 2008 12:00 AM

Over the years, Sen. John McCain has publicly condemned Republican Party leaders and occasionally voted against the GOP on selected issues.

But an Arizona Republic analysis of his Senate votes on the most divided issues in the past decade shows that McCain almost never thwarted his party's objectives.

The voting pattern seems at odds with the popular narrative that McCain's maverick tendencies make him an unreliable conservative.

"He is a conservative who votes conservative on most issues," said Keith Poole, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego. "By no means is he a liberal or even a moderate."

Poole, who compiles a widely respected analysis of all Senate votes, ranks McCain as slightly less conservative than most Republicans throughout his career and near the far edge of the right while running for president.

A Washington Post analysis notes McCain voted with the GOP this term 88.3 percent of the time, the same as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., whose conservative credentials are seldom questioned. McCain ranked ahead of 29 other Republicans, including Arizona's Jon Kyl, who holds the No. 2 spot in party leadership.

Congressional Quarterly gave McCain a 90 percent score for "party unity" voting last year and said he supported the president's position on legislation 95 percent of the time. During the Bush years, McCain's poorest totals from CQ were 67 percent party-unity voting in 2001 and 77 percent support for the Bush agenda in 2005.

Looks like protecting Kansas jobs isn't the only thing Pat Roberts can't seem to get off the ground...

BREAKING: Sen. Pat "Repo" Roberts Doesn't Believe In Helping Families Impacted By The Mortgage Crisis

Republican US Senator Pat "Repo" Roberts (R-KS) has gone on record stating he is AGAINST helping the millions of Americans nationwide on the verge of losing their homes in this mortgage crisis. Despite the fact that over 1 million families, including 23,000 Kansas families, are on the verge of losing their homes, the Republican Senator feels the item should be put "on the back burner".

KS Sen Pat Roberts Wants To Put Foreclosure Relief Bill “On The Back Burner”

Kansas Senator, Pat Roberts, is in for a tough fight to hold on to his seat this year and his rhetoric and lack of interest in helping the hundreds of thousands of American families caught up in the foreclosure crisis isn’t going to win many hearts and minds in his home state...

Pat Roberts was outraged following the Air Force's decision to award the largest military defense contract in history to a French company. He knows the bidding process unfairly favored Airbus over Boeing, costing Kansas 4,000 jobs.

Today he told us exactly what he's going to do to make sure this outrageous decision gets reversed:

There are several options, he said. But first, he said, "Let's let the system work."

Pretty weak coming from someone who just last week smugly claimed, he'd "be the pilot" on the Boeing issue. Well, Pat, your piloting skills are about to make us crash...again.

This consistent "do nothing" attitude is the reason we're in this mess. Pat should have spoken up for Kansas workers the day Sen. John McCain began meddling in the bidding process to make sure his buddies at Airbus would win the bid.

Roberts still won't acknowledge McCain's role in the fiasco, saying things like:

It was a "shoddy, if not shaded" procurement process

"I detect a very unpleasant smell of politics here."

The decision was "skewed in favor of one bidder, and that is wrong."

Nope, he alludes to McCain's dirty work but his loyalty to the Bush administration prevents him from calling it like it is.

And all he can muster for his home state is a plan to "let the system work."

Not surprising from a guy who's been out of Kansas for 40 years.

The Kansas Democratic Party released a radio ad today questioning why Pat Roberts launched his 2008 campaign with a bitter, personal attack ad. After decades of taking money from big oil and drug companies and then doing nothing to lower gas and prescription drug prices, a negative campaign is all Pat Roberts has to offer the voters in Kansas. Here are some of the facts about Pat's record.

• Roberts Has Taken Over $302,000 From the Oil and Gas Industry During His Career. 
• Roberts Voted for $5 Billion Tax Break for Big Oil in 2006. In May 2006, Roberts voted to provide $5 billion in tax breaks to big oil companies over five years. This money could have been used to provide tax cuts to the middle class that were instead eliminated.
• Roberts Provided More than $9 Billion in Tax Breaks to Big Oil in 2005. In July 2005, Roberts voted for a pork-riddled energy bill that gave billions to the oil and gas industries, which were already making more than enough money as gas prices were rising. Oil and utility companies such spent at least $367 million pushing Congress to pass the energy bill, which the St. Louis Post-Dispatch criticized as "unlikely to affect prices now."
• Roberts Has Taken Over $143,000 From the Pharmaceutical Industry During His Career. 
• Roberts Has Voted Four Times Against Negotiating Lower Drug Prices for Seniors. In 2007, Roberts voted against a bipartisan proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for millions of older Americans. A 2005 report found that the drug prices offered by the Medicare prescription drug plan are over 80% higher than prices that could be achieved if the federal government could negotiate with drug companies for lower prices. This was at least the fourth time that Roberts voted against allowing the federal government to negotiate for lower drug prices.

The latest from Kansas bloggers!

Thoughts from Kansas - Does Pat Roberts remember what he's supposed to be doing?: As former Kansas congressman Jim Slattery kicks off his campaign to replace Senator Pat "Memory Pills" Roberts, Roberts is already having trouble keeping his facts straight. Sean Tevis explains...

Mike Kuykendall - Standard anti-Bush fare, Kansas edition: ...in response to the local GOP's typically misleading campaigning in defense of incumbent Bushite Pat Roberts (who seems as though he may very well have a fight on his hands this fall against Jim Slattery.) Here are some more relevant facts about this election...

Blue Tide Rising - Potomac Pat Roberts and the art of political deflection: Pat Roberts knows he could lose his Senate seat for the same reason Jim Ryun lost his House seat in 2006. Over the last decade both Roberts and Ryun grew increasingly entrenched and comfortable in their seats and grew less and less interested in the folks back home.

Left Brain Kansas - Record prices at the pump = Record profts for Big Oil: Big Oil has been announcing staggering first-quarter oil profits this week. And while these record profits help to line the pockets of Big Oil CEO's, those same CEO's line the pockets of rotten politicians like Pat Roberts and Todd Tiahrt. And what are our pockets lined with? Well, mine feel about $50.00 lighter every time I fill up my gas tank. How about yours?

WE Blog - Sebelius right to reject weak coal compromise: As expected, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius today rejected the “compromise” coal plant proposed by legislative leaders.

Everyday Citizen - Pat Roberts vs. Jim Slattery gets ugly fast: Senator Pat Roberts might do well to take some of his memory pills. For whatever reason, he and the Kansas Republican Party have decided to go down a path that certainly didn't work very well for Jim Ryun in 2006 as they threw up a barrage of negative radio ads and ad hominem attacks against former Congressman Jim Slattery on the day Slattery made his run for the United States Senate official.

The Wichita Eagle reports:

“Congressional oversight committees have failed miserably to exercise prompt oversight. They’re at the root of the politicization of the intelligence apparatus. I would assert that Sen. Pat Roberts is the root of the problem,” Valerie Plame Wilson, the outed CIA operative, said during a recent visit to the University of Kansas. She blames the inaccurate intelligence that led to the Iraq war on the Bush administration but also on the Kansas Republican senator, who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time.

In response, a spokeswoman for Roberts told the Lawrence Journal-World that Wilson “is not a credible source. Valerie Plame is hawking a book and appears willing to say anything to get media attention.”

That's a pretty nasty personal attack from Sen. Roberts, especially targeted toward a woman who worked to serve her country. (Of course, when you've committed the last seven years of your life to the single purpose of protecting George W. Bush, those Kansas values have to be left behind.)

John McCain was in New Orleans today, working to distance himself from the Bush administration's catastrophic policy of inaction and incompetence following Hurricane Katrina.

What he didn't talk about, however, is why he voted against emergency funding to the area and against giving victims of Katrina access to Medicaid and unemployment benefits.

Or why he refuses to denounce his supporter John Hagee's views that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment on sinners in New Orleans.

John McCain has made weak attempts to distance himself from Hagee, but in fact - he's happy to have his endorsement. Listen here:

Yesterday on CNN...

President Bush denied Tuesday that the United States' economy is in recession, calling it instead a "slowdown."

However...

The United States has not been in recession since 2001, but many economists expect a recession this year. Some economists have said the United States is already experiencing one, and surveys suggest much of the public agrees.

I guess that explains why John McCain also doesn't believe the country is in a recession. After all, he takes all of his economic notes from George W.

"Fill my eyes with that douuuble viiiisiooooonnnn..."