Roadblock in Senate

So the federal government is shut down again. Well, isn’t that special, as the Church Lady used to say on Saturday Night Live. It’s no laughing matter to those who work for said government or depend on those who do. Despite the declarations of our so-called president, he has no idea what it’s like to do without a paycheck. Not everyone can call up their father and get a fresh infusion of funds, after all.

But now the Democrats control the House of Representatives and promise to do the right thing. And in the Senate, a few GOP folks might go along, so there’s the chance of both houses of Congress doing the right thing. But wait! The Senate’s leader, Mitch McConnell, says he won’t even allow a vote. What’s up with that?

Look into McConnell’s bio and you will learn that his spouse, Elaine Chao, is Trump’s secretary of Transportation, for what that’s worth. Not that she needs her paycheck, if Wikipedia can be believed. She brought millions of dollars to the marriage, meaning that, like Trump, she was lucky in inheriting the parents that she did. (Her dad donated $40 million to Harvard, for example.) She has had a series of important jobs whenever Republicans hold the nation’s highest office. One of them, I read, was director of the Peace Corps, as appointed by the first President Bush. I was in the Peace Corps, back in the 1960s, and tried to keep up afterwards with that worthy organization, but I never heard of her and her tenure, which apparently was relatively brief. She then went on to spend all eight years of the second President Bush’s tenure as his secretary of Labor.

What does it all mean? One never knows, do one? Maybe she likes working for Republicans so she can tell her husband what to do and when to do it?

And since Mitch is more than likely to also forbid a Senate vote on impeachment, the road to removal of you-know-who will have to be via indictment. JACK W. HILL Bismarck