Unemployed D.C. Duck Forced Her Newly-Born Children To Protest Sequester At Department of Interior!

Michael Matthew Bloomer, March 2, 2013

March 1, 2013. Putative Interim Acting Interior Department Secretary Madge Blanche outlines the looming sequester cuts to an already underfunded No Bird Left Behind program as she escorts her visitors to her office.(Slideshow at Huffington Post)

Make Way for Ducklings!

Yesterday at noon in Washington, DC,  a disgruntled unemployed Mother of nine newborns took matters into her own webbed feet and marched her trembling brood to the doors of the United States Department of the Interior.¹ With the sequester looming twelve hours later, they assembled peaceably at the Interior Department, ducks in full First Amendment freedom, to protest the forthcoming automatic budget cuts to programs that American ducks rely upon.

The duck brigade had already proved its determination. The group walked through busy downtown D.C. from Farragut Square where they had assembled before their march. The more than one-mile march passed just a block west of the American landmarks, Lafayette Square, the west wing of the White House, and the Ellipse. For a human, scientists on scene report, their amazing journey was equal to 239 human miles. Nonetheless,  with beaks held high, the speedily waddling assemblage eschewed all offers of help from human and avian supporters. [See march route below left]

The Long March

News spread quickly during their unlikely trek as the Interior Department made ready for their arrival. Though the department had already been stripped of billions in budgetary authority due to last year’s Interior budget, Madge Blanche, who just the previous day had been the HQ building’s Physical Plant & Maintenance Director, greeted the duck contingent with obvious delight.

Meet the Putative Acting Interim Secretary of the Interior.

Ms. Blanche, the highest ranking of the 133 remaining D.C. Interior Department headquarters employees is to be tapped by President Obama as Acting Interim Secretary of the Interior at the very moment the sequester became official later in the day. No stuffed-shirt was she, when as Putative Acting Interim Secretary of the Interior, she welcomed the protesters outside the imposing building (see picture, above right). Off they went to her office for a confab with the Putative Secretary in the lead there to discuss the sequester and how it might affect Interior Department duck programs and interests.

Two hours later, Ms. Blanche’s newly-minted Press Secretary, Marvis Blanche, who earlier that day had been the Director of the department’s National Furry Woodland Creatures Education Initiative, issued this description of the meeting:

Putative Director Blanche wants you to know how delighted she was to meet with duck shareholders. The meeting was productive and useful. Both parties agreed all issues they discussed were important. The group parted as friends, and the Putative Director returned to her other duties. Mother and her nine children walked a short distance south to cross Constitution Avenus and enjoy a swim in nearby Constitution Gardens Pond.

Later on, the agency released an even more detailed written description of the meeting:

Issues taken up at the conference included:

The status of appropriations for various programs that impact American duck stakeholders, including

• the North American Waterfowl Management Plan,
• Partners in Flight, and
• the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan, Waterbird Conservation for the Americas,

Mother duck in particular expressed concerns about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s  Avian Health and Disease Program (AHDP). Interior’s own 2013 budget request would reduce its already small budget by nearly one-third and cut its personnel by 40% (-$980,000/-5 FTE). The meeting provided Putative Interim Acting Secretary Blanche a chance to correct the ducks’ belief that AHDP was an “offshoot of Obamacare” and designed to deliver cradle-to-dinner-table health care to the duck community at lower cost than presently. However, Ms. Blanche promised she would champion the ducks’ demand for a health program equivalent of the Affordable Care Act after resolution of the present budget crisis.

Ms. Blanche assured her guests that she would consider their demand that all appropriated funds that support Interior’s Federal Duck Stamp Program would be moved to the Avian Health and Disease Program which would nearly close AHDP’s expected 2013 budget gap. The duck stakeholders asserted the department’s stamp effort “is stupid,” and “was a stupid idea” from the stamp program’s inception in 1934.

Other topics considered included

• objections to so-called “birders,” (bird watchers) whom duck stakeholders label as “socially awkward ferdrayt schmucks“;
• the No Bird Left Behind Act which duck stakeholders considered underfunded. The Putative Secretary, however, corrected their misconception that the program was a federally funded educational program for ducks, akin to the Head Start program in place for humans;
• duck objections to the portrayal of ducks on television, although they applaud the presently hospitalized Aflac Duck’s achievements but consider him “annoying,” nonetheless. Ms. Blanche agreed;
• the status of Duck Traffic Controllers during the sequester; and
• a dark warning to duck hunters that ducks too have 2nd Amendment rights.

As the need arises, we will update this story.

Make Way for Emily
Leah Allman, Peabody

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