signs of life, signs of lunacy

Second day in a row of cold windy overcast Saturday. I'm a warm blooded creature. When it's cold, when there's no sun, my activity levels plummet. At least I'm not falling out of trees.

I did take a little stroll around the yard to see what was putting out new growth. It wasn't as cold out as it looked from inside. The porterweed, the confederate roses, the altheas, the night blooming jasmine, the firespike, the leopard plant, the gingers, the azaleas, the crinum lilies, the mock dogwood, the holly ferns all putting out fronds, stalks, or little green leaves on branches or from roots. Not showing any new growth so far are the gardenia, the camellia, the bougainvillea, the beauty berry, the hummingbird bush, the shrimp plants, the yellow bells. I might have lost the big yellow angel trumpet even though I covered it. It's frozen all the way to the ground and hasn't shown any signs of life yet but the cuttings I took just in case are sprouting roots.

Yesterday it cleared up and with the sun shining it was tolerable outside and after two days of inactivity I got out there and finally cut back the dead shell ginger and hauled it over to the burn pile which is getting too damn big. Since I was over there, I finally used the FlexSeal paste and gooped up the collar with the crack. I'll let it set for a few days before I try turning the water back on.

I've finally cut back everything in the home yard so now I've started on the shop yard.

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And now from the Republican Bizarro World Three Ring Circus Department:

McCarthy appointed Jim Jordan Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. What a joke. The guy who turned his back on the sexual abuse of athletes, the guy that ignored a subpoena from the J6 Committee, the guy implicated in the planning of the J6 insurrection, this guy, in a fishing expedition, demanded that the DOJ turn over information on the FBI, the DOJ, and the investigation into J6 which the DOJ has refused to do without specifics of what Jordan hoped to find. Jordan, of course, accused the DOJ of 'stonewalling'.

McCarthy appointed election denier, Qanon believer, white nationalist, Putin supporter, J6 conspirator, and all round wacko Marjorie Taylor Greene, who plans to file retaliatory impeachment papers against Biden for just existing I guess since she hasn't said what the charge of wrongdoing is, to the Homeland Security Committee. What could possibly go wrong.

George Santos, the man who tells one lie after another about himself and his family, is on the House Science Committee. A report surfaced that he was a drag queen in Brazil which he denied but turned out he posted the info and picture himself on Wikipedia so as HCR wrote in her newsletter, “the party that has spent months grabbing headlines by attacking drag queens is now represented by one in Congress”.

Georgia Representative Earl Carter introduced the 'Fair Tax Act' which is anything but fair. The bill would repeal all current income, payroll, estate, and gift taxes replacing them with a flat national 30% sales tax on all 'purchased goods, rents, and services' and would abolish the IRS and make the states responsible for levying and collecting it. They claim this will bring 'freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity' but as usual with republican policies the only people who will benefit from this are the 2% who will pay even less in taxes than they already do while the poor and the working poor who are barely making it will be slammed, the middle class will pay more, and without payroll taxes there will be no Social Security or Medicare.

And still not a single bill put forward to combat all the things they have been yammering on about, blaming Biden's policies for...inflation, crime, the price of gas, the border. It's as if they really didn't care about those after all. Go figure.