Posted on 10/01/2013 10:45:26 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
In a Tuesday interview, Rep. Alan Grayson charged that Republican House members have been literally intoxicated while casting votes on the continuing resolutions that set the stage for today’s government shutdown. Noting “a number of public reports that you can smell alcohol on their breath as they’re voting gleefully to shut down the government and create chaos,” Grayson said that he had personally witnessed GOP colleagues smelling like alcohol. “Many of them seem loaded,” said Grayson. The Florida congressman declined to name names, saying, “it’s the usual suspects,” but that he didn’t “really feel like getting that personal with people.”
A spokesperson for Speaker John Boehner did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Politico reporter Ginger Gibson tweeted Saturday that she could “smell the booze wafting from members as they walk off the floor.”
Grayson said he thinks on-the-job alcohol consumption by GOP House members has “been a problem all year long.”
“It’s a fact we all have to live with,” Grayson told Salon, “and it’s making them violent and abusive towards America.”
Grayson also blamed today’s shutdown on Republicans’ “anarchist ideology” and “blind hatred of government,” saying they’ve become “the Captain Ahabs of 21st century American politics. Grayson had particularly harsh words for Speaker Boehner, who he said refused to allow a vote on a “clean CR” to avert a shutdown because “he enjoys his golf games with the president, and he doesn’t want to lose that perk, and so he’s desperate to maintain his relevance, and that means maintaining his position at all costs – even the kind of costs we’re seeing now for the country.” Grayson predicted that the shutdown, given its impact on veterans benefit applications, National Institutes of Health research, and Federal Drug Administration drug approvals, would lead “over time” to deaths.
The congressman said it seems President Obama “has learned from experience” about how to deal with the GOP, “and that’s what needed to happen.” But he panned the president’s decision to bring JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, whose company is reportedly in negotiations on a legal settlement of up to $11 billion, to the White House Wednesday. “I think it would be more constructive to invite in the pope, or perhaps Putin,” said Grayson.
A source told the Wall Street Journal that Dimon and other bank executives would be discussing their debt ceiling concerns.
“It’s true in general that Wall Street dictates our economic policy,” said Grayson, “but in this case neither Jamie Dimon nor anybody else from Wall Street seems to have been able to get the Republicans to understand the obvious resulting difficulties that would come from the largest debtor in the entire world suddenly defaulting on its debt.” He told Salon that “many Republicans in the House still regard the United States defaulting on its debt as a good thing, despite the fact that they’ve had one presentation after another in their own caucus from Wall Street bigwigs explaining the utter chaos” that would result.
Grayson argued that while “reasonable people can disagree” about the merits of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, Republicans are using it “as an excuse to attack the ACA as a whole.”
“When you talk to them privately,” Grayson told Salon, “what you find is that if they could repeal Medicare they would. If they could repeal Medicaid they would,” along with the requirement that emergency rooms treat patients who can’t pay for care.
“They are literally offended by the idea that people would get the care they need to stay healthy or alive even though they can’t afford it,” charged Grayson. “They regard it as some kind of crime against nature.”
Lighten up, Al! Have some more Jello.
A little JD in your Slurpee really takes the edge off.
Grayson puts the capitol A in asshole
Now would he have said the same thing about Teddy “no pants” Kennedy?
Numbnuts Grayson’s still around?
That’s what I wondered. I thought this moron was gone? I remember the Dump moaning about it.
He says that, but I hear congress needs to drink more
… apparently that's what it takes for them to do the slightest modicum of their job.
He did lose reelection in 2010. The voters of FL approved a so-called “Fair Districts” piece of legislative garbage, which forced the FL GOP legislative majority to give Democrats favorable lines, and resulted in a comeback for this odious abomination (and the loss, combined with voter fraud, of people like Allen West) in 2012. The Dems gained 3 seats as a result (and a 4th, because of a corrupt GOP incumbent). The good news is, we’ll probably get 2 of them back in 2014, but likely not Grayson’s. :-(
I’m with you. Let’s send the sob’s a barrel at least they fight when drinking, to sorta quote Lincoln referring to Grant’s habit.
Thanks. Good news and bad news, but I’ll take the two seats for sure until we can rid of Grayson’s retarded azz.
Al and Ginger need to stop guzzling...one should sniff and swirl.
The Democrats are using the word "anarchists" regularly in reference to "Tea Party Republicans". A belief in limited government, taken to a violent, criminal extreme, well beyond libertarianism, could be viewed as anarchism. The Democrat meme is that conservatives are dangerous criminals. To the average person, this is obviously untrue. I hope the Democrats continue to use this kind of overstated terminology. They marginalize themselves.
Wow that’s a lame one. I liked the other invectives the Dems came up with. So hillarious.
Drink vodka. You can’t smell it. Then chase it with peppermint snops. Geez, do I have to teach those kids everything. And pot, by the way, is the best way to go. You can straiten up when you really need to be sharp.
The Democrat senate shut down the government. I wonder if he received any reports about their breath.
Yes he got defeated, then ran under a different district. He is in Orange county Florida.
It is my understanding the district he is in is very liberal and he will be hard to get rid of.
He is insane. . . .
Politicians really are like cockroaches.
If it took a few snorts to do the right thing, I’ll buy the next round.
Yep most are. . . . .
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