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The Rant Agenda

2014-07-11 (금) 12:00:00
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▶ GAIL COLLINS

So little time, so much bad behavior to complain about.

Congress is back! Thank heavens, because there’s a crisis at the border, and the Highway Trust Fund is about to expire. Plus, the Export-Import Bank is teetering on the brink of disaster. (Days ago, we had no idea there was an Export-Import Bank, let alone what it did. Now we’re just getting acquainted, and they want to rip it away.)And, of course, a huge pile of normal stuff has piled up: hearings, meetings, appropriations bills, plots to destroy Obamacare. It’s all a rush, given that Congress is scheduled to go on another five-week vacation beginning Aug. 1.

So the House speaker, John Boehner, wants to get cracking on the matter of suing the president.


“The legislative branch has an obligation to defend the rights and responsibilities of the American people and America’s constitutional balance of powers — before it is too late,” Boehner said, in an op-ed article posted on the CNN website.

I believe I speak for us all when I respond — say what? According to Boehner’s memo to Republican troops, the crisis that calls out for formal litigation involves “matters ranging from health care and energy to foreign policy and education.” Also, the president acting with “king-like authority.”

People, have you been hanging around this country for the past couple of years? Have you noticed any king-like chief executives? When you make a list of the things you would like to see Congress do before they go back on vacation, how many of you put “curbing the effectiveness of the White House” on the top of the list?

Feel free to rant.

“So sue me,” said the president, when news of Boehner’s alleged plan reached the White House. Remember when he first won the nomination by promising to end partisan gridlock? Do you think Hillary Clinton watches this stuff and laughs bitterly?

On Wednesday, the president arrived in Texas, the epicenter of the humanitarian crisis involving a flood of Central American children crossing the Mexican border. He was there for some previously scheduled fund-raisers. Also feel free to rant about fund-raisers.

The situation is terrible. More than 52,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the border since last fall. The administration is supposed to provide them with access to counsel and supervision by the Department of Health and Human Services while they’re taken through the required legal channels. There’s a two-year waiting list to see an immigration judge.


Part of the backlog is because of a law passed at the end of the George W. Bush administration. We are not going to complain about this law, since it was aimed at combating child sex trafficking. If you’re going to rant about George W. Bush, you should really focus on the invasion of Iraq and the ruining of the economy.

President Obama has asked for $3.7 billion to take care of the children and hire more people to process the cases. Speaker Boehner countered that the president should call out the National Guard. That should be extremely helpful in discouraging the flood of young, desperate immigrants, who almost invariably throw themselves into the arms of the first American uniform they see.

The House chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, called the president’s request for money a “slap in the face to the taxpayers of the United States.” However, he did suggest that he might be able to maybe perhaps do something about fixing the current law. This was during a brief interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, in which Goodlatte used the word “tweak” three times.

Boehner and the House Republicans do not appear to feel any compunction to revisit the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform bill. Or to take any responsibility for the current crisis. Since, you know, Obama has plenty of power and he should just use it and leave Congress alone.

In Texas, the president met with Gov. Rick Perry, who has complained about the issue of children at the border. He has also suggested that the whole thing might be an Obama plot. (“... I hate to be conspiratorial, but, I mean, how do you move that many people from Central America, across Mexico, into the United States without there being a fairly coordinated effort?”)Feel free to rant about Rick Perry.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin announced that Congress should respond to the desperate humanitarian situation by — yes! — impeaching Obama. Boehner, she said dismissively, was trying to bring a “lawsuit to a gunfight.” Always charming the way Palin brings guns into the political debate.

Actually, if the impeachment idea caught on it would be the best possible thing for the White House. Modern history suggests there is nothing the American public hates more than Congress trying to impeach the president. Except maybe a Congress trying to sue the president. And then leaves for vacation.

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