By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Time flies when you’re having fun, and evidently, even if you’re not. (I’ve wrestled a bit of flu this holiday season. Bah humbug!) Lately time is behaving like a shooting star, any given moment gone in an eye blink. I put my trash cans out yesterday but they’re still there this morning, which means I’ve already forgotten we’re on “holiday schedule.” Good grief, was it only the beginning of this week that 2013 started, with its countdown ball in Times Square, fireworks and bell-ringing in the Pea Patch? Feels a lot longer than a few days, but you know what? 2013 feels pretty good, for some reason. Feels like a big log-jam has been eased, like something pressing has been uncorked. Feels a little more breathable, slightly more workable. Feels ‘new.’
Oh, the hijinks in DC are still evident. Just watch the news, listen to the tantrums, enjoy the squirming. Note the grim faces of those who think they’ve “lost” ground over the fiscal negotiations, or witness a teary-eyed John Boehner who squeaked through Thursday’s re-election as House Speaker by the skin of his big white veneers. Smirk a bit upon learning that John, after suffering Harry Reid’s assessment that he was running the House like a dictatorship, met Harry in the hall outside the Oval Office and told him to go fuck himself. As a clever pundit mentioned in Huffy this week, Congress is America’s most dysfunctional reality show EVER!
Indeed, the tantrums have been worth watching. Enjoy this breakthrough moment of sanity as New York’s infamously-Islamophobic Representative, Peter King, rails against Boehner’s dismissal of the 60-billion-dollar aid bill for victims of Hurricane Sandy. Sigh as, a day later, he backtracked on his pledge to act independently of party line. To his credit, Jersey’s Governor Chris Christy, who also has a stake in the needed funds, did not soften his disapproval. Good news is that a scaled-down version of the relief bill passed today, giving Sandy victims and little towns strewn up and down the East Coast a reason to be hopeful they’ll survive the winter. More will be considered later in the month.