STUFF & NONSENSE

Why I would not want to be John Boehner right now.

First, he couldn't sell the Republicans he supposedly leads in the House on his bill to avoid the "fiscal cliff".  

Then the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, held a news briefing in which he essentially said Boehner was more interested in maintaining a dictatorship than in doing what's right for Americans.  Boehner reportedly responded by telling Reid "Go f--- yourself!"  In the White House!  Within a few feet of the Oval Office.  When Reid asked him what was wrong Boehner reportedly repeated his epithet.

Then Mitch McConnell, Boehner's counterpart in the Senate, cut a deal with Vice President Joe Biden to raise taxes on millionaires but with hardly a lick of spending cuts in it.  The Senate then passed the bill overwhelmingly.

When Boehner brought it to his group, they angrily rejected it.  Even Boehner's right hand man, Eric Cantor, was against it.  After a couple of meetings with Boehner telling them if they sent a heavily amended bill back to the Senate it would be dead on arrival, the House voted on the bill as it was, passed it and the President signed it before hopping on Air Force One to take him back to Hawaii.

And then!  And then!  Not only was Boehner getting heat about what the hard right was calling a disaster of a bill, he postponed a vote on a bill to provide funds to New York and New Jersey for relief of problems associated with Hurricane Sandy!  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, never one to hold back, said he tried to call Boehner four times and his calls were not answered.  Christie and other politicians from the two states were fuming, boiling over, threatening to run amok. 

Boehner was again on the hot seat and today after meeting with Republican politicians from the two states said he would schedule votes on two votes promptly to provide the millions of dollars in necessary disaster aid.

Holy cow!  What a week!  And he still has to be re-elected House Speaker!  It's enough to drive a man to drink!

So, in spite of my enjoyment at his problems, that's why I wouldn't want to be John Boehner right now.

Incidentally I spoke to an 88 year old female friend of ours the other day.  She's always been a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat.  We were talking about the mess in Washington and she insisted on referring to the House Speaker as Boner.

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SWMBO and I are getting ready to pay a visit to our good friends Tom and Lana in California shortly.  Lana is opening two art exhibits and we had planned to surprise them by arriving at the second one, just walking in unannounced.  But the woman I share living quarters with told me the other day she felt awful about that because they might have other plans, other company or whatever and we would be throwing a wrench into their situation.  So I said I'd just call them and let them know.  When I did, Lana just kept saying "You're kidding.  You're kidding."  But they are as excited about our coming as we are to go.  And it's probably just as well that we broke the surprise to them because, without going into graphic detail here, Lana said if we had just walked in unannounced she would have embarrassed herself.  'Nuff said.

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Lots of people have criticism of the Internet and how much time it takes out of people's lives.  But I'm constantly turning up things that I, at least, find interesting.  Here's one of them.

And with those weird thoughts, I'll let the Gratuitous Critters in for a second.

"Aw, c'mon, guys, you're acting like a couple of Congressmen!"