Of USPS, Congress, and Conclave

There are times in our lives where the motives of those around us are obscured.  Moments where you think that the actions taken by others are driven by malevolence, when they are actually well-intentioned attempts to help alleviate pain.  Moments where confusion takes on a life of its own, relationships are tested, and, after a few beers and laughs, the true nature of what just happened is put on full display like an evening sit-com.  Nancy Pelosi has none of that subtlety, guise, or miscommunication surrounding her actions.

Just an hour ago, Nancy Pelosi called the House back into session.  Not to help the millions of unemployed Americans hit by COVID-19.  Not to work through a compromise bill to assist states struggling with the current wave of evening riots.  Not even to address the ongoing crisis in Belarus where Putin has been given the green light to invade that nation by the sitting President of that nation.  No, the Speaker of the House of the United States of America has called the House back into session to address a manufactured political crisis involving the United States Post Service (USPS). 

Nancy Pelosi, and by extension lil’ brother Schumer and Uncle Joe, have created mass confusion around a wish-list item from the far-left playbook: universal mail-in ballots.  Nancy Pelosi wants ballots sent to every man, woman, and adult-child, who is registered to vote.  Listening to them, you would think that sending ballots to someone’s home was the Eleventh Commandment brought onto the Hebrews by Moses, with ballot harvesting, universal health care, universal basic income, and the Green New Deal rounding out the top 15.

Once again, for clarification… there is a substantial difference between absentee ballots where people take the overt step of requesting an absentee ballot, and the government blindly sending out millions of ballots to all registered voters. Additionally, the Pelosi wish list also includes ballot harvesting and a relaxation of signature verification laws, same as was done by Nevada in Assembly Bill 4 of the most recent Special Session (The Sagebrush Wire, Assembly Bill 4: The End of the World as we Know It).

You heard it right… millions can go jobless and without relief.  We can burn down Seattle and Portland.  We can even have hundreds killed in Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New York… but don’t you dare step on Nancy’s narrative that Trump is evil and must be deposed by a national up-ending of election law.  The USPS narrative is nothing but a continuation of this convenient smoke screen allowing the Speaker to pretend having lofty goals while playing politics with the lives and livelihood of Americans who have been hit hardest by COVID.

For weeks, Nancy Pelosi and lil’ brother Schumer have held fast, not negotiating for COVID in good faith relief with the Republicans in Congress or the White House.  Their starting positions and negotiating “red lines” have been a joke.  Items such as a $25 million dollar emergency injection of funds into the USPS is just one example of how laughably unhinged the Democrat positions are.  Money allocated, in the absence of an implementation plan, is a cruel and craven act of theft.  We now stand at less than 90 days from the election, two weeks away from the beginning of early voting… Ms. Pelosi what exactly do you expect the USPS to do at this stage of the game?  You have been Speaker of the House for a longer collective period of time than my youngest daughter has been on this planet.  During this entire period of time, the USPS has been hemorrhaging money and widely panned as one of the most ineffectively run organizations in this country… and now you care?  Now your answer is, as always: borrow money from our grandkids, point fingers, and don’t you dare question me (the Speaker)? To quote Uncle Biden: Oh, c’mon man!

This USPS mess and the narrative surrounding, in all fairness, is not the problem but rather a symptom of the real problem in Washington: Congress’s unwillingness to perform their Constitutional duties.  Congress has withdrawn from the normal budgetary processes, normal legislative processes, and normal hearing processes which were the heartbeat of DC as recently as the Bush “43” administration.  Since the days of “sequestration”, and arguably earlier, Congress has preferred to have “leadership” take the lead in all actions.  The individual member has taken less and less importance.  The act of “legislating” has taken a back seat to climbing the leadership ladder.  To make matters worse, Congress has been willing to cede power to the Executive and Judicial branches, adding to the confusion and overlap of organizations and responsibilities.

Talk shows and pressers have replaced negotiations.  Tantrums and virtue signaling have replaced leadership. The consequence: gridlock, lack of trust, and stalemate.  The victims: you and me.

So, how about this as a novel solution set:

First, all members of Congress must meet in DC for all hearings and votes.  If essential employees can go to work, so can our elected representatives… unless they are of course willing to concede that they are non-essential. 

Second, at the beginning of each legislative year the Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate publish a calendar of all major Constitutional obligations for Congress, and when they will be completed… most specifically, the budget.

Third, the strict adherence to that calendar by penalty of law.  If a deadline is missed, US Marshalls are to enforce all members of Congress remaining on Capitol Hill until the required bill is passed.  In other words, a “conclave” (for our Catholic friends) is called until such a time as the bill is passed by both houses of Congress.  If nothing else, this will be a huge boon to the pizza shops around the Capitol for those midnight hearings during any conclave!

Here is the reality.  For those of us in “the real world”, businesses can never focus on only one matter or crisis.  Successful organizations and executive teams learn to walk and chew gum at the same time.  Congress, for far too long, has been allowed to punt on their duties, often skipping town with their obligations left unattended.  Time to right the ship, get to work, and stop the games.