Paul Ryan and the Failing Sickness

So the Big City Paper sez that Paul Ryan will agree to take over as House Babysitter if the Shoutycrackers Loony Caucus agree to stop shouting and being loony.

Paul Ryan Says He Would Serve as Speaker if Republicans Unite

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and EMMARIE HUETTEMAN OCT. 20, 2015

WASHINGTON — Representative Paul D. Ryan said for the first time Tuesday that he would be willing to serve as speaker if all factions of House Republicans could unite behind him.

Mr. Ryan addressed his colleagues and called for a change to the way the job is structured, saying the speaker should be more focused on communicating the message of the party and house and less on fundraising according to members in the room. He urged members to not try and change the rules “for one group.”

...

Unfortunately, whatever other dubious charms Representative Ryan may have, he has never shown any hint of having the equipment necessary to bring knuckleheads to heel.

So good luck with that.

Meanwhile, I sincerely hope that somewhere in the West Wing of the White House,  President Barack Obama is savoring the fact that, with one sentence -- "I look forward to working closely with Representative Ryan in a cooperative and bipartisan way" -- he has the power, if he chooses to exercise it, to utterly demolish the GOP's crooked house of bullshit and dynamite.

Meanwhile, Shakespeare!

CASCA:  Why, there was a crown offered him: and being

offered him, he put it by with the back of his hand,

thus; and then the people fell a-shouting.

BRUTUS: What was the second noise for?

CASCA:  Why, for that too.

CASSIUS: They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?

CASCA: Why, for that too.

BRUTUS: Was the crown offered him thrice?

CASCA: Ay, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, every

time gentler than other, and at every putting-by

mine honest neighbours shouted.

CASSIUS: Who offered him the crown?

CASCA: Why, Antony.

BRUTUS: Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

CASCA: I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it:

it was mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark

Antony offer him a crown;--yet 'twas not a crown

neither, 'twas one of these coronets;--and, as I told

you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my

thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he

offered it to him again; then he put it by again:

but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his

fingers off it. And then he offered it the third

time; he put it the third time by: and still as he

refused it, the rabblement hooted and clapped their

chapped hands and threw up their sweaty night-caps

and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because

Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked

Caesar; for he swounded and fell down at it: and

for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of

opening my lips and receiving the bad air.

CASSIUS:  But, soft, I pray you: what, did Caesar swound?

CASCA: He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at

mouth, and was speechless.

BRUTUS: 'Tis very like: he hath the failing sickness...

(Yes, I know that the "failing" or "falling" sickness was epilepsy, but the formation of Shakespeare's sentence here was too perfect to pass up.)

that went well pic.twitter.com/C70PglVPEb

— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) October 21, 2015