Boehner's New Houseland Security gambit

As Speaker John Boehner played chicken against  President Obama  in the Homeland Security showdown,  it occurred to me that a new term was needed to describe the action.  How about Houseland Security,  which is really what he's had in mind from the beginning? That, after all, is what Speaker B was doing to protect his job  - and the title and  limo-class   perks - from the Tea Partiers in his House even it  meant putting the entire nation at risk in an age of heightened terrror.  Hardly a hint of a profile in courage from the Southwest Ohio pol.

Even as reporters questioned him about this next move,   Boehner created lasting video clips  by defiantly puckering his lips in kisses (fortunately, nobody was close enough to physically suffer his hapless advances.) He did seem a tad tipsy. D'ya think?

Folks, this is disgraceful. Particularly so soon after his aberrant invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress in which he lied to the Israeli insiders that the Democrats were on board with his decision.

As the guy who allegedly is in charge of the House he has become the emperor in a new suit of clothes that only he could see.

Not to be outdone by  the Republicans on the right, Wisconsin Gov.Scott
Walker  and trending candidate for the presidency exploded the myth of his own competence by breezily  asserting that he would have no problem taming ISIS.  As he put it in a terrible way:  "If I can take on 100,000 [union] protesters, I can do the same around the world."

And as he said  in the wake of Rudy Giuliani's melody of love:  "I 'll tell you.   I love America".   Problem still not solved.

As a footnote: Missing in the media action on Friday was the Beacon Journal, which carried not a word of the looming shutdown, doubtless the biggest story of the day!    
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Goodell could start by pointing Browns to QB

Put this in the file of "don't bite the hand that feeds you".   I mean, when  NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was asked at the Canton Memorial Civic
Center what he would do to make the Browns more competitive, he gave Browns owner a big vote of confidence, saying:

"I'm a big fan of Jimmy Haslam,"   adding: "He's learned a great deal.  He's making smart decisions for the long term.  I think this community - and I know this is
Browns country -  I  think they're fortunate to have Jimmy Haslam as an owner and we're   fortunate to have him."

Don't you think they would be more fortunate to have a quarterback?

Browns new logo should have been more dramatic

Did you notice the  subtle changes in the new Browns logo?  Yeah, me neither.  I had hoped for something more fetching to capture  the moment and the legacy.  So in the interest of game-changing progress, I humbly offer this one.

Kasich state of state speech: A ramblin' wreck

OK, I did survive it.  Gov. Kasich's hour-long lecture on Tax Cuts 101, I mean, in his State of the State address to an audience of  more than a thousand  mostly white guys in black suits in Wilmington. I hung around to watch the live transmission on TV because that's what I do in my never-spare time. The follow-up of the PBS documentary The Italians made viewing worthwhile again.

About the speech:  with the governor's defiantly protruding lower lip pointed at the seated following, he repeatedly rambled through  his version of the evils of taxation.  And when he mentioned that Ohio businesses are moving to a friendly economic climate in Florida,  I wondered whether he couldn't solve the problem by lining I-71 with palm trees.

The crowd was  courteous with muted applause and nobody shouting,"You lie!"

He said nothing about the environment, climate change,  and other current matters that impact so many people's lives. But he defended consumption (sales)  taxes, an idea that has been dismissed widely  since he was a blue-collar kid as the most regressive of taxes.

 He boasted that his tax reforms would be a model for the country.And he declared his support of charter schools, a billion-dollar industry that is siphoning taxpayer money from public schools,  and   isn't working. He pleadingly glanced often at a couple of stone-faced gremlins  seated  nearby - Ohio Sen. President Keith Faber and House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger,  both hard-core conservatives from southwest Ohio districts that for all that I know extend farther west to below Evansville. Ind.

He desperately needs their help in the legislature and there's a good chance he won't get it.  Rosenberger is but 33 years of age and hails from Clarksville  (Pop 548), collects toy soldiers  and has soaring support from the gun, pro-life and other right-wing lobbies.   Faber is a fellow from Celina (pop. 10,400) which tells you that northern Ohio won't have a snicker of a chance in this legislative session.

But wait:  "We're on the move!  We're rising! Creating jobs!   Nobody is left out!" Kasich asserted.     Don't you wish that  as the governor that lags so many others  in job creation would give the Obama Administration a little credit for an economic recovery that   has slowly but surely turned the nation - and Ohio - around?

Wasn't he the same guy who opposed the stimulus that saved a mountain of jobs but later said he was glad it worked out?

I've left out a lot of numbers that desperately arrived from the governor's podium with the authority of someone who once was an advisor to a Wall Street firm that  went belly-up-down-and sideways.

It might have helped if Kasich had brought along Joe the Plumber.

When will the governing party govern itself?

When  Republicans stormed into both houses of Congress from the November election they wanted to prove they could...um...govern.  Still,  with all of the dissent and gridlock  within the party, the real test will be whether they can even govern themselves.

Freedom of press not one of Kasich strengths

Open note to John Michael  Spinelli, a contributor to Plunderbund who has been critical of Gov. Kasich:

John:  I  saw the  short piece in  Plunderbund that you have been barred from covering Sunny Kasich's State of the State speech in Wilmington. As a political writer in our state and now a blogger, you apparently have succeeded in ruffling the governor from his comfort zone as he prepares to run for president as a caring Republican do-gooder  (Matthew25), surging breed apart from the right-wing crazies, and a thunderous reelection winner in a swing state against a guy who dropped out of the race weeks before the election.

I know how disappointed you must be because several years ago the Summit County Republican chairman, Alex Arshinkoff,  banned me from covering the party's annual fund-raiser,  breaking a long tradition that was courteously nurtured by Ray Bliss, an earlier chairman.  And as one of  Jim Rhodes' biggest critics, I was always accorded the finest hospitality by the four-term governor, who even wrote a light-hearted newspaper column about me from a national GOP convention.

So you will have to listen to Kasich's speech on radio, if you dare. And you may end up quoting mobster  Marlon Brando  from "The Freshman"  who,  upon  scanning a young  student's college room, was clearly unimpressed,  muttering:

 "I didn't miss nuttin'." 

Abe

Leftovers from the cave

The past week's leftovers:

With so many hawkish wingers who won't shave a budgetary dime in protecting the lives of Americans from terrorists overseas, it does seem odd that the very same hawkish wingers on the right  continue to hack at Obamacare that protects the lives of millions of uninsured Americans at home.

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That was another of Gov.Kasich's sunny performances in his CNN interview by Gloria Borger.  It could have ended quickly after he said that all of his options were on the table, or at least after he again mentioned  Matthew 25 (the part about feeding the poor!). He also shrugged off any interest in the vice presidency , cheerily saying he's been on the veep list since he was 35. He also called for an unspecified "battle plan"against ISIS and claimed to be  "worried about America".  He dismissed any thoughts about  conservative opposition  if he decides to run for the presidency (which at this very moment is an idea that controls every lobe of his brain) because right-wingers do not represent the culture of Ohio. You'd be better off if you didn't allow any of the above Kasichisms burden your lobes.

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Re Matthew 25,  do you think the guv might start showing up with John 3:16 on a placard in his public appearances - the way they do it at baseball games?

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Hope you saw the angry letter in Monday's Beacon Journal from Brian Williams defending Common Pleas Judge Tammy O'Brien   for recusing herself from more than 60 cases after her bailiff threatened to quit because the bailiff didn't like the assistant county procesutor assigned to the court.  "Mercilessly vilified," Williams complained.  But it does seem that a judge at the common pleas level should have weighed  the consequences of her behavior.  Indeed, she finally did by saying she would now preside over all of the cases from now on.

If you do crossword puzzles (as I do) Rep. Darrell Issa, the toothy mega-millionaire Republican from California, is manning the battlements against the army of Giuliani  critics by asking us to thank the New York City mayor.  But he also tests all of us to know the difference between "believe" and 'wasn't".

Here's Issa:

"Rudy Giuliani said he didn't 'believe'  [that Obama doesn't love America]  He didn't say the president 'wasn't'."

Yeah.  Me, too.

It's not silly when Wolfie says it

The madcap conservative assault on President Obama is beginning look like a reunion of the crazy uncles in the attic.  From Rudy Giuliani to Paul Wolfowitz , the tarnished oldies  have returned to addle  the narrative still more.

 You' ve experienced the reports of the former New York City mayor who has reincarnated to the extent that even his old friends remorsefully remember the good old days when he was  called America's Mayor.  And now, of all people, George W. Bush's hawkish former deputy defense secretary,  Paul Wolfowitz,  turned up on CNN Sunday to reassure us that Bush's cause was right and Obama's is not.

Addressing Obama's view of  Muslims, Wolfie huffed:

"His word choice makes him look silly."

Let me tell you about silly word choices.  As a member of the Bush pack that steered the U.S.into the invasion of Iraq, Wolfie had this to say on March 27, 2003:

"There's a lot of money to pay for this...the oil revenue  of that country could bring between $50- and $100 billion  over the next two or three years...We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

But as Seinfeld's George Costanza has told us: "It's not a lie if you believe it."

Giuliani:Even cranks can only stoop so low

Allow me, dear reader, this moment of harsh criticism of Rudy Giuliani before I  dismiss him forever to the dead file of babbling cranks.

Ever since the ex-New York City mayor enjoyed his moment of glory in the debris of 9/11, he's been trying to regain relevance without much success.  When he ran for president in 2008. his campaign spent $40 million and won him a single delegate. He's also the guy who, as a married man, paraded his mistress around City Hall.  And
who in the annals of criminality can forget that he appointed his friend Bernard Kerik as police commissioner, the fellow who was later convicted  of corruption  and went to prison? The Los Angeles Times noted the case was a good fit for a Sopranos episode.

And now, he has reemerged, to the delight of Fox News, as the deranged fringe biographer of President Obama's alleged enmity toward  America.  At a right-wing fundraiser for Wisconsin  governor  Scott Walker in New York City, Giuliani  frothed  that Obama hates America, adding:

"He doesn't love you.  And he doesn't love me.  He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up  through love of America."  Yuckety yuck.yuck.

When the ca-ca hit the fan, he was off to an honored  perch at Fox News to say,  Hey, nothing personal. "I didn't question the President's patriotism." Nor did he think  his screed was  an example of racism because, as he told the New York Times,  Obama learned it all  from white folks.

The president was "brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools and most of this he learned from white people".

Was this ex-mayor the same person who was called America's Mayor  and who was Time's "person of the year" in 2001?

In the wake of  his startling eruption of incendiary remarks, I would advise Rudy to quit when you are  behind. We heard you the first time. You don't need the money nor merit badges from the extreme right.

Scott Walker,the probable Republican presidential candidate du jour,  sat near the podium and found nothing amiss in Giuliani's words.  He felt only mildly uncomfortable with Rudy's  inelegance of expression, explaining,"Maybe he should have chosen a different phraseology for his remarks."

But it offered an opportunity to Walker to get in a plug for himself afterward for his own red-white-and-blueness, saying only that Rudy "speaks for himself...I'll tell you, I love America."   With that much now settled, governor, onward with the campaign!

Weather a matter of wind-chilled degrees, plus or minus

With so much time without yard work or neighborhood strolls, I've started a new hobby of watching TV weather reports.  Endless videos of hooded people digging tunnels through eight feet of snow, the horrific views of spinning cars and semis, courageous bundled reporters with mikes numbly warning me of the hazards that I just saw with my own eyes.  Oh, and a doctor who turned up with the news that depression was normal for all of us.

Among the mysteries of the huge ice cave in which we're all trying to survive are  the temperature reports on the screen that tell us, say, it is minus 2.4 degrees outside our door but the good news is that it feels like minus 2.3 degrees! Don't know the point of the fractional difference, but I want to scream that I'll be the one to decide what it feels like as I reach for another sweater.