When the going gets tough, Congress gets going!
On vacation, that is. They’re taking off this entire month and much of September and October. Having howled about a host of huge issues – including the humanitarian crisis of immigrant children crossing the US-Mexico border and the growing crisis of our nation’s crumbling infrastructure – Congress did nothing, then bolted off the job.
Okay, they did do one thing. They filed a frivolous lawsuit against President Obama, charging that he’s been governing unilaterally by issuing executive orders. But there are a least three big problems with their suit.
One, Obama has issued far fewer executive orders than did George W., his GOP predecessor. Two, their suit claims the president defied Congress by inadequately implementing the Obamacare health reform – but, hello, Republicans fought that reform tooth and nail and are still trying to stop it from being implemented, meaning they’re suing him for not doing something they don’t want done. And three, as they departed for vacation, howling House leaders said that, in their absence, Obama should deport the suffering, terrorized migrant children who fled to the US this summer. Incredibly, they demanded that – get this – the president should act unilaterally, by issuing an executive order.
These GOP Congress critters are nutty, ideological zealots, but luckily they’re also incompetent. Nonetheless, they are clogging the roadway, preventing any of the progress that America desperately needs. As a result, not only is the public fed up with them, but voter turnout is plummeting this year as people see that the “hell no” faction has turned democratic participation into a farce – so why bother?
It’s okay that these right-wingers are killing themselves, but it’s not okay that they’re also snuffing out America’s democracy.

“Congress Set to Make Exit, But Few Cheer,” The New York Times, August 2, 2014.
“Congress, Unhinged on Immigration,” The New York Times, August 2, 2014.
“Federal Register: Executive Orders,” www.federalregister.gov, June 2014.

The race to be the goofiest politico of all

I thought that, surely, the Texas lineup of Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. Rick Perry, and a carnival sideshow of far-right congress critters assured our state of being the hands-down winner of the 2014 blue-ribbon prize for “Goofiest Politicos in America.” But now, a former winner has surged from obscurity to become the front runner. Hallelujah, folks, Sarah Palin is back!
She’s been awarded a reality TV show about (what else?) herself. You can find it on SPC. That is the brand new Sarah Palin Channel. Yes, not merely a show, but a whole channel that’s all Palin, all the time. Don’t look for it in your TV listings, for it’s an internet show. Only, you can’t just click onto it – you have to pay $99.95 for a yearly subscription, allowing you to enter the deep rabbit hole that is Sarah’s Wonderland, where she opinionates expertly on everything from “the war on Christmas” to the moral imperative of our country waterboarding our enemies, saying that water torture is “how we baptize terrorists.”
Of course, a recurring theme is her hilariously-hysterical demands that Congress impeach Barack Obama. She lectures that among other impeachable acts, the President has opened the US-Mexico border “to a flood of illegal immigrants,” explaining darkly that this “is deliberate,” fulfilling his diabolical goal for the “fundamental transformation of America.” This is not her first attempt to remove the president – last year she wanted him impeached because he and Congress were going to raise our nation’s debt limit, as previous presidents’ have done. This time though, Palin upped her game, declaring that any member of Congress “who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment” should also be removed.
Wow, even Ted Cruz hasn’t topped that – but you can bet he’ll try. Go Ted! Texas is counting on you.

“The Sarah Palin Channel: $99.95 a Year, Comes With Salad,” www.time.com, July 28, 2014.
“Low bar for success with Palin’s ‘rogue’ streaming venture,” www.nypost.com, July 28, 2014.
“Sarah Palin Calls for Obama’s Impeachment,” www.huffingtonpost.com, July 8, 2014.
“Sarah Palin to her patriots: ‘Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists,’” www.dailykos.com, April 28, 2014.
“Sarah Palin: Barack Obama flirts with impeachment,” www.politico.com, October 14, 2014.

Standing up to post office privatizers

“Boss,” spelled backwards, is double-S-O-B, and that’s how most of the employees of the US Postal Service feel about their top boss.

America’s postal employees –from mail clerks to letter carriers – take great pride in moving millions of pieces of mail to us every day, whether we live in inner cities or way down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, where mail is delivered by mule-riding letter carriers to a Native American tribe living there. But USPS bossman, Postmaster General Pat Donahoe, definitely does not make postal workers proud, for he’s been deliberately monkeywrenching our mail system by slowing delivery, reducing staff and hours of service, closing neighborhood and historic post offices, shutting processing centers, trying to end Saturday delivery, badmouthing his own agency’s performance, steadily corporatizing public functions, and transforming decent, union-scale jobs into the low-wage retail economy.
One portentous example of Donahoe’s determination to bust the wages and undermine the performance of USPS is the sweetheart privatization scam he’s set up with Staples. He’s letting this big box retailer place official postal kiosks in its 1,500 stores – only they’re not being staffed by highly trained, publically-accountable postal workers, but by Staple’s own poverty-wage, high-turnover floor staff. In at least one case, Donahoe even cut the hours of service at post offices around a Staples store, then put up a sign directing postal customers to the Staples outlet.
Mark Dimondstein – the feisty president of the American Postal Workers Union – calls Donahoe “Wall Street’s Trojan Horse, the privatizer from within.” But, says Dimondstein, “We intend to stop him.” His union has launched a Dump Donahoe campaign as well as a national boycott of Staples stores.

For information and support, go to www.apwu.org.