The Forest

Politics at Large

Senate Majority Votes to Go Home!!

By Associate Editor-at-Large Lieno Tipe

DULLES AIRPORT, D.C. In a vote early Tuesday, Republicans in the Senate unanimously agreed to adjourn and take paid leave for the remainder of 2016.  The surprise move came as representatives in the party followed up on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s opposition to any vote, or even hearings, for a presidential nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the recent death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

"We simply thought it made sense," said Jeffry “Jeff” Flake, the junior Arizona member of the once august body. "Sound deliberation regarding a Supreme Court affirmation is perhaps our most crucial obligation of advise and consent in a vibrant democracy. Once we decided to bag that, why bother with the little stuff?"

More than one Senate worker, speaking on conditions of anonymity, suggested a number of the supposed lawmakers had lost touch with their sense of reality in many activities - or lack of such - in recent years, spurring this latest abdication of responsibility.

"On the one hand, it seems dunderheaded," said one aide. "But, viewed through a broader lens, these guys might just as well be out cleaning their bird feeders anyway."

Although the action seemed to indicate business as usual to many Americans, it was taken as a shutdown of the government in some quarters. Several legislators, attempting to get a jump on their colleagues by immediate departure for their home states, or luxury vacation spas, were stuck at airports when security personnel did not show up for work.

Senator McConnell was unavailable for comment.