Chaos in DC: Tweets from the Republican Congress Mess

Greetings to our blog readers in Serbia, Finland, and Scotland.........


Yes, it has been a full two weeks since I last posted. In the mean time, actor James Woods has reverted back to being a progressive and Susan Sarandon has become a tea partier......well, of course, neither of those things has happened, but we are still here, and we still maintain a center-left point of view.

The images pictured here are of: 1) Cong. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who is one of 46 Republicans trying to become House Speaker since Cong. Kevin McCarthy stunned the nation by dropping out of the race (in actuality, there are 10 candidates who might be speaker), 2) Bao Bao the National Zoo panda who doesn't get to vote for House Speaker, and 3) Turkish ambassador Serdar Kilic posing with President Barack Obama, the man who has replaced Thomas Jefferson on the two dollar bill. (I think we lost some conservatives in the audience with that quip).........we refer to Kilic because Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was mentioned in a tweet (see below).......

Here are 11 tweets, one for each member of the D.C. United soccer team regarding the predicament over which Republican will prevail as House Speaker in the wake of Cong. John Boehner's (R-Ohio) stunning resignation.

1)  Donna Brazile: #TheSpeakerofTheHouse is second in line after the Vice President to accede to the Presidency. This is serious.

2) The Hill: Amid chaos, Dems catch GOP off guard with Planned Parenthood vote.

3) Roll Call: One member* stomped into an elevator away from reporters with an emphatic "no!" when asked if running for speaker (*-Cong. Trey Gowdy R-SC).

4) Slate: Ted Cruz ambushed the Sierra Club's president** on climate change (**-Aaron Nair). 

5) Gawker: Dr. Ben Carson just won't quit it with the Hitler talk.

6) Cong. Jared Polis (D-Colo.): "#chaosintheHouse who will be speaker?"

7) Politico: Leading Republicans to GOP conference: keep calm

8) Jonathan Chait: Biden seen ordering ice cream cone.

9) Ken Rudin: Newt Gingrich says he wouldn't rule being temp House Speaker.

10) New York Post: Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich won this year's Nobel Prize in literature.

11) The Economist: Turkey's Erdogan once visited Brussels begging for favours. The tables have turned.

Now, that we're done, we should head to the Turkish restaurant Meze http://www.mezedc.com though it is late and we don't actually live close to the nation's capital.

Saturday Afternoon Tweets: Big Ben to Bao Bao the Panda

This afternoon on Twitter, we found out that, much to our horror, there are actually some crazy people who think the murders of WDBJ (CBS. Roanoke, Va.) reporter Alison Jones and photojournalist Adam Ward which occurred last week in the Smith Mountain Lake town of Moneta, Va., was a staged hoax. The incident is still a shock to those of us in southwest Virginia, though we saw this amusing sign in the Roanoke County community of Bent Mountain: "Prayers for WDBJ. Lopes. Tomatoes."

This week, there has also been considerable discourse over the drowning death of Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian Kurdish refugee, after he fell from a raft and drowned en route from Bodrum, Turkey, and the Greek island of Kos, some three miles apart (both are resort areas). Today, we learned of another tragic infant death off the coast of the Greek island of Samos, near Kusadasi, Turkey. Refugees have also been stuck in Budapest, Hungary, and today the prime minister of Finland offered his residency to refugees in his country.

Today, the National Festival of the Book is also underway in Washington, DC.

Here are ten tweets from this afternoon, between 1:00-2:00 eastern United States time (6:00pm in London, 7:00pm in Amsterdam, and 8:00pm in Istanbul):

1) Big Ben: BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

2) The Hill: Hillary Clinton raised up to $500k in Puerto Rico.

3) Des Moines Register (Des Moines, Iowa, newspaper): Several roads have already been closed ahead of Des Moines Triathlon.

4) VICE: Some rich a--hole in the UK used children's gravestones to decorate his mansion.

5) GlobalPost: Greek Coastguard say newborn infant found dead (near Samos island)

6) Jon Winkaur: I don't have to live in the real world_ I'm a fiction writer, Aaron Sorkin (Tv's "West Wing," "A Few Good Men" screenplay)

7) Talking Points Memo: Scared of ISIS attacks? For $525, Vickers Tactical will teach you to kill terrorists.

8) The Guardian (English newspaper): "To end the refugee crisis, we need more than grief. We need to see we're broken," Sabrina Hersi Issa.

9) Frederike Geerdink: Note to self, always, always, take a toothbrush.

10) Bao Bao (National Zoo panda, pict. bottom): Whoa. I just realized that two of my favorite things are very different but have similar sounding names: trees and treats.

http://www.twitter.com