The Federal Reserve baked you some cookies. The Federal Reserve gave you a shoulder rub. The Federal Reserve finished your assignment while you were at lunch. The Federal Reserve bought you a puppy. The Federal Reserve let you borrow its car.

The Federal Reserve stopped banks from charging you $40 or $50 in overdraft fees when you get a twenty from the ATM, not knowing there's only $19 in your account…

The Federal Reserve will begin banning banks from charging many overdraft fees unless customers sign up for the service, an unprecedented move that comes as a wave of consumer reform sweeps Washington.

The new regulations, announced Thursday, cover overdrafts from ATM withdrawals and debit card purchases, which account for roughly half of overdrawn transactions, and help to address widespread complaints that consumers who were unaware they had insufficient funds were being charged exorbitant fees for purchasing a cup of coffee, for example.

Q: If you love Ben Bernanke so much, why don't you marry him?

A: Because his wife Anna would never allow such a thing, sorry.

Ben Smith points us to a supposedly missing "Future Leaders" page on the vibrant new GOP.com website — if you click the link Ben posted (http://www.gop.com/index.php/learn/future_leaders) you get [got, see update below] a page not found message, which is comedy because there's no future in the GOP, etc., but I think this is disingenuous because the site has no "Future Leaders" page under the "Learn" dropdown menu, and you can get the same error message by typing in http://www.gop.com/index.php/learn/cute_puppies. Who knows? The internet is confusing.

One thing I do know for sure is that Michael Steele has a blog on the new GOP.com. Why yes, this blog is called "What Up"! So, Chairman Steele, what up?

Today, I want to begin to better connect with Republicans everywhere. My first blog entry, therefore, is really a couple of questions for you; use the comment button to send me replies. We will run as many questions as we can, which I will answer.

Why are you are Republican? Think about that for a minute.

Yes, everyone, please do think about that. But only for a minute, because blogs are ravenous monsters that must be fed all day long, day after day, week after week, and the comment button waits for no man. Welcome to the trenches, Chairman! (Friendly tip, re: pajamas — flannel is much softer than a cotton-poly blend.)

UPDATE: In the time it took me to type this, the GOP.com web-squirrels fixed their "Future Leaders" page and added the menu item — way to be on the ball, people! However, on the critical issue of cute puppies, the Republican Party remains silent. Maybe mention this in Michael Steele's comments section?

As apt a metaphor for struggle over health care reform as I've ever seen…

I think that Obama is the puppy. Or maybe the proposed bill is the puppy. Or is the puppy maybe the average American without health care?

All I know is that this was not just some sad excuse to throw a cute video of a puppy who can't roll over up on the site. Do you think I'm that clueless? I mean, What am I to you, just some bunch of adorable ducklings who can't figure out how to climb out of a pool? Jeeze.

(via Neatorama)

R.I.P. Liberty the Dog: 2003 – 2009…

This is sad and all, but that doesn't change the fact that Liberty was not my DoD Mascot.

I voted for Private First Class Jeffrey Bison, and I still think he was robbed.

Bo the Dog hasn't even made it past his confirmation hearings yet, and he's already ensconced in scandal!

Barack Obama and his wife Michelle… repeatedly said they wanted it to be a rescued dog such as one from a shelter… Enter Bo, a 6-month-old puppy given up by his first owner and matched with the Obamas through his breeders.

Because he was given up by his first owner as a poor fit and is now with his second owners, the Obamas, but never spent time in a shelter or with a rescue group, Bo is a "quasi-rescue dog," says Wayne Pacelle, chief executive of The Humane Society of the United States…

Conspiracy buffs might speculate that Bo was meant for the Obamas all along. Was his adoption by the Obamas engineered to look like a rescue — or at least blur the line to head off criticism that the Obamas had picked a purebred from a breeder?

"I would have to refer that one to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, referring to the Washington Post reporters of Watergate fame. "It's possible, but there's no way to prove it unless one of the principals talks, and I don't think anyone would care anyway."

Thanks Fox News!

I just knew that somebody would care!

America's three-month nightmare is over!

The good people of the United States finally have a First Dog again!

That Bo's a handsome dog, huh? And from the Kennedy lineage? That's oddly fitting. Although, it's somewhat disconcerting to know that even our pets have to come from the proper political dynasty. (I'm sure that, in 2013, President Palin's family will be given a Great Dane that was second cousins to a Reagan or something.)

Of course, in a situation like this, there's only one person whose opinion really matters. And, obviously, I'm talking about Newt Gingrich. Obviously…

"I hope that the girls love the dog," Gingrich said on ABC's This Week. "I hope the family — and all the pressure they're going to be in — finds it useful. And I think that this whole thing is fairly stupid."

The Obama girls better keep that confarned dog off Ol' Man Gingrich's lawn if they know what's good for 'em.