The big news that everybody has been talking about was John Boehner in a final last desperate gasp of the 112^th congress, refused to vote disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy.  This of course infuriated Governor Christie of New Years, a man it does not pay to tick off, given his mouth and his candor.  As you know the Right was already in trouble with the good Governor because Christie was pissed that Mitt Romney would want to cash in on Hurricane Sandy and Christie said he didn’t give a damn what Romney did, and if Romney thinks in political terms at times like this then “You don’t know me”.  So in essence the tea party is dealing with a political enemy of their own creation and all of this will come back to bite them in the ass in four years.  The Republicans are only seventeen congressmen up on the democrats meaning all the democrats have to do is peal off eighteen dissenting republicans to put a democratic speaker of the House this term.  Harry Reid so far as I know has not dealt with the filibuster rule yet.   But the tea party is down to 51 members in congress down from eighty in the previous 112^th congress.  The US Senate has twenty women, and a lot of these elections were surprises.  The bottom line is that the tea party is a whole lot weaker now, even in the House because a lot of the far right people aren’t back.  Besides this the number of “blue dog” democrats, so I’m told, is the lowest it’s been in years and years.  You will remember that in 2006 that the Right was saying that the democrats only picked up seats that year by “sounding like” Republicans, and we had a major “blue dog’ democrat problem.  The new Senators were sworn in yesterday January 3^rd under Joe Byden and the new House members were sworn in under John Boehner.  Eric Cantor’s name was not even placed in nomination for speaker of the House because the tea party caucus didn’t dare, because they are not in such a weak condition.  If this is the Blog you are reading we’ve already comented on this in greater detail.  The American people no longer support the tea party caucus in congress but have pretty much seen at last seen them for what they are, - - what they’re really all about.  Suffice it to say that in my life you can say that the new year really begins today because there was so much hangover “stuff” from the previous year that has now been successfully dealt with and won’t trouble us again. 

This is Friday January 4, 2013 and I did not type in Word either yesterday or the day before, because I’ve been so busy.  I’m like John Lennon in the 1965 Beatles Christmas message.  My mind is in neutral so I’m singing Four Tops songs and babbeling about shortwave radio stations at 9500 kilocycles.  I got up at twenty to five this morning and noticed that my cigarette lighter flame was down and I predict it will be out before the day is out because these things give so little warning.  I turned on Bill Press and the Unemployment figures are out just now.   155,000 new jobs were created in the month of December and the figure would have been 168,000 jobs were it not for government jobs being eliminated.  The unemployment figure is at 7.8% where it has been hovering for the past several months.  This is a seasonally adjusted figure accounting for the usual Christmas hiring.  Bill and his guest say that we could mint a platinum trillion dollar coin if we wanted to.  There IS no provision in the US Constitution for any “debt ceiling” anyhow, and Hartman or someone said that the Constitution expressly states that no government debt shall we questioned.   So the tea party needs to go back to constitution school. Clearly the democrats got the better of the Republicans in that budget deal that was signed into law on Newyears Day.  Judy raised a big stink over this on Wednesday because she boiled the whole thing down to “President Obama just raised taxes on the rich, and then he went back to Hawaii on vacation to spend more tax payer’s money there.  The whole idea that all you see is a bill that “raises taxes on the rich” is rather silly considering that were there no bill passed at all the “rich” would be paying even more.   Why does someone identify with an extreme minority group they’ll never be a part of and have nothing in common with.  Not only that but this group has absolutely nothing to complain about but has faired really well the past four years, advancing their cause undreamed of five years ago.  No, I’m not talking about the gays, but if the shoe fits- - - etcetra, etcetra.  The stock markets were broadly up on Wednesday after the budget deal was made with the D J I up over three hundred points.  Wall Street doesn’t care diddley about whether taxes are bumped up a little.  They just want the gravy train to continue, and that’s what I told Judy on Wednesday.  Timotny Geitner will be stepping down, which could be a bad sign if he has inside information the economy will far apart the minute he leaves.  (Selah) 

 By way of comic relief Moe Kelly returned to the airwaves yesterday.  And he is all upset about this new proposed TV program on the oxygen network on cable.  There is a new show that is scheduled to premier soon called “All of my Baby’s Mamas”.  There is this rapper that has fathered eleven children by ten different women.  To my way of thinking I’m surprised that anyone regards this as news.  Moe Kelly was acting as if the Black community at heard of anything so scandalous.  Magic Johnson has had sex with at least two hundred different women, as well as a considerable number of anal sex male encounters judging by the fact that he got AIDS over twenty years ago.  You don’t get AIDS from toilet seats.  I bet you there are probably twenty women or ten percent who are pregnant with Magic’s spawn.  But Magic Johnson is a beloved figure in the media and so they cant make a villain out of him the way they can out of this particular Rap Star.  They played a clip of the program and I found the thing “informative” and- - it’s like that “neighbors” sitcom.  It’s life on a different planet.  It isn’t my world, where men don’t father eleven children by ten different women, but it is a reality in some worlds, and I see nothing wrong with “letting us look inside this world”.  But it’s not really my ox that’s being gored since I am not a part of the Black ghetto scene.  I’m like some captive alien behind the Orange curtain.  But I understand that the home boys are trying to clean up their image and perhaps this show is just a painful reminder to some that African Americans are more plagued than Whites - - by out of wedlock pregnancies.  Still White people can’t claim the entire concept is alien to them.  Remember that most of the people on AFDC are white women.  (Selah)  The funny thing is in the south they call SSI payments “mad money” and there are a lot of poor people who get it in the South.  It’s actually we rich people on the Coasts that will be most affected by the new, higher tax rates.  I will say this.  The tea party has to get off their high horse and stop making sex a racial issue and lamenting how back in the slave days, they claim that Black families were a lot more intact than they are now.  They claim this- - I don’t know how.

Here are more obvious pitfalls to the advice you get from certain Christian "counselors" or pastors or what have you.  I call them "overseers", which is the word Jethro Tull uses on the album "Passion Play" of, "I am the overseer over you".  They will stress how mental rationalization of apparent problem can magically eliminate a lot of problems just by pronouncing them "Solved" the way Rush Limbaugh mockingly suggest that liberals tackle problems.  They will speak of "moving into a new mindset".  Let's pursue this more to see if it pans out.  Fred Price has said that "You should not observe things as they ARE and declare them as though they WEREN'T".  Fred Price said that.  It means "Denial is a river in Egypt but it won't fix what's wrong".  This amazing capacity for Denial of "the elephant in the room" is something that has always - - "impressed" me - about Christians.  It makes little sense for God to saddle a "newborn Baby Christian" with perhaps the biggest Faith problem he'll ever face in his entire life, moments after he is Born.  Yet when I was saddled with all the problems with my Brother that I STILL haven't gotten a handle on after over 35 years, I submit it was unrealistic for God to force me to rationalize "Well - - I guess this thing with my brother is my first Faith Test".  Think about it.  Abraham was not asked to sacrifice his son - - an hour after he first met God, or after Jehovah God first made himself known to him.  Indeed had God made such a demand for such a living Burnt Offering right off Abraham could rightly say "but- - I have no son.  Eleasar is the rightful heir now to all of my property when I die.  Do you want me to sacrifice Eleazer as a living burnt offering".  After all the name "Eleazor means - - the Lord will Provide".  There are certain "faith challenges" for lack of a better euphamisum, that logically cannot and should be "solved" by a person utterly unequipped with the tools necessary to solve them.  (Selah)

The Washington Redskins play the Sea Hawks, and everyone is slating the Sea Hawks to win, but I am routing for Washington.  People are predicting a GB Packers victory over the Vikings, but I am hoping against hope that the Vikings do it two weeks in a row.  They said that the Colts are playing the Ravens and that the Texans are playing the Bengals.  I hope that's right.  Normally they pit the strongest and weakest together in a game, and the two middle teams duke it out in the other game.  I saw this picture the other day and thought, "that one merits an encore presentation".