Nancy Palosi Hands off the Gavel

Yesterday was the kick off of the 112th congress. John Boehner may be too unstable for the job. Now he is second in line to the presidency. Of course there are things people don't know about John Boehner such as he used to pass out checks from the tobacco on the floor of the house, during a debate of a tobacco bill. How blatent can you get? Of course to prove how patriotic they are they ordered the entire US Constitution to be read on the house floor. I hope they noticed that certain things are not in it. The word filibuster does not appear in the Constitution. Apparently the word derives from "piracy" or stealing the floor. I've heard two different accounts on how that got started. I heard one story that a certain senator was in another town miles from Washington when a key vote was cast and the filibuster was for him to have time to ride in on horseback to cast his vote. I heard another story that the senate used to have NO rules about cutting off debate but that they would literally go on forever. Then President Woodrow Wilson got disgusted with this and got the two-thirds requirement passed. In 1975 this was changed to the sixty percent that we know today. Of course you know they don't swear them in individually placing their hand on the Bible like all the photographs, but they are sworn in as a group merely raising their right hand taking the same oath all federal employees have to take from FBI agents to congressmen, to men joining the Service. Of course the first item on the agenda is to repeal the Health Care bill. This has taken on more of a symbolic gesture more than anything else, akin to the impeachment of President Clinton. Of course they should bear certain facts in mind. One good thing about this health care bill is that it requires insurance companies to spend 80% of their revenues on actual health care. Before the bill they would often skim off forty percent or even more as pure profit. Also people talk about these videos perporting to show unhappy Canadians who can't get needed procedures like an M R I but have to wait 120 days. In actuality, you can get an M R I immediately - if you really need one. If the doctor believes it doesn't matter when you get it you'll wait 120 days. They say Canadians are unhappy with their health care but survays seem to show that Canadians are more happy with their health care than we are, and wouldn't think of giving it up, any more than those in Europe would. But what these Republicans may not realize is that repeal of the bill will itself cost money. If they are interested in saving a buck they'll leave things as they are. Of course the same thing could be said about canceling these military contracts after billions have already been spent. Apparently they are going to make it harder to raise taxes procedurally, and are going to make it easier to cut funding, procedurally. I guess they want to turn us all into California, and you know how we love our chaos. Thom Hartman was talking about Daryl Eisa. He was singled out for note on the NBC news last night. He is the guy who will be doing a lot of investigating. Eisa and Ken Lay of ENRON fame, conspired to get rid of Governor Gray David in 2003. Daryl thought he would be the next governor but then Arnold Swartzenegger ran and the Republicans knew that he was electable and Eisa wasn’t, so that spawned the very first crying jag by a Republican. Last night I was snapping photos of the passing of the gavel and the new Republican congress and John Boehner was seen crying twice. Boehner says “This is the people’s house” and he wants to be worthy of the position and all. Daryl was on the Rush Limbaugh show and got a friendly reception. He is the man to watch.

You've seen these national debt clock web sites. I guess they have a "cost of war" web site with the numbers spinning around faster than a gas tank. Apparently there is some congressman named Allan West who wants the President to visit the troops in the theater of war right on the front, if they even have fronts any more. He's calling the president chicken. If I were God I would put his professed courage to the test to see if he's qualified to raise the issue. Republicans would love it is we had governmental chaos during war time with John Boehner one step closser to the presidency.

We don't know who will win next weeks NFL playoff games next week, but we do know who four of the survivors will be to play the following week, Atlanta, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New England. I know this because these four teams don't even play this weekend. I can confidently say that at least one of the two teams in the Superbowl will be Pittsburgh or New England. I am less confident on the National league side. Hell, Green Bay could always get lucky, and Red Forman would be right there in the sands and routing for them. But I think there is still a longing for New Orleans to get the brass ring again. You know, they all want us to know that "New Orleans is back".

In case you are wondering this photograph was not taken with my new camera, though it was modified on my software that I received Christmas of 2009. If I'm careful I can I can get a lot clearer picture than you get on a lot of web sites. Now if I want to send anything to the media I can do it with pride. It's a Cannon and I don't know if I got the $99.00 camera or whether they opted to get me one more expensive. When you have a four gigabyte memory chip in it you don't have to worry about running out of shots - at least for a really long time.