October 24, 25

Good morning. Just getting some light outside. Not much planned today though that often has a way of changing. We had to pay rent--the end of the month comes so quickly. I also spent some time at the bank yesterday. The new phone was frustrating me and I couldn't get into my account on line. Well a very patient cashier worked with me for half an hour to get my phone set up. I finished the process this morning and easily did everything I needed to do. I will have to spend some time learning how the damned thing works.

25**********************************************************************

Cloudy and rainy today so we decided to finish our laundry. We have an errand to our local dairy on the schedule for tomorrow morning. The forecast is for rain later tomorrow so we hope to be home again before that.

The House Republicans have another Speaker candidate. An unknown from Louisiana who is known for supporting the Big Lie and opposing funding Ukraine. I don't know how he voted on the budget or spending bills. Earlier I thought of the title of one of Christie's books: And Then There Were None. All of the nine prospective candidates fell like bowling pins. The Former Guy wasn't able to get his chosen one but he certainly threw a strike at the rest of the hopefuls.

While I was reading some other material the Republicans got their crap together and put up a nominee for Speaker that was able to actually get elected. The new Speaker Mike Johnson from Louisiana. He is a "social conservative" which means he is in favor of abortion bans and other measures to restrict the rights of marginal people. He was a supporter of the big lies and efforts to challenge the votes Biden won. Early accounts reported that he is a fiscal conservative who may not want to support Ukraine or Israel and wants "pay fors" for new appropriations without specifying what programs would pay for the measures. We'll see what happens since to get measures passed he will need more mainstream Republicans AND Democrats.