Even more resonant to anyone who uses the post office (which is just about everyone) is the fact that our once-proud USPS is about to default on a $5.5-billion payment. This has been a slow-motion implosion, and the Senate got its act together to pass a bipartisan bill months ago that would help avoid default. But the House had different priorities. Instead, the chamber found time to rename 60 post-office branches and attempted to repeal the health-care law for the 33rd time.
As
Gail Collins writes, given the low approval ratings for Congress, perhaps they will figure out how to get into the negative numbers too!
Maybe Congress will pick up the ball when it comes back to town for a couple of weeks this fall before the election. But it already has a full agenda of futile, symbolic votes plus the crucial kicking the can down the road.
Maybe it’s possible to have a negative approval rating.
The presidential candidates are not keen on making it easy to like them either. With everything going on that needs to be addressed,
what is Mitt Romney's latest gripe?
The Romney campaign released a new TV ad on Sunday in which the GOP presidential candidate calls the connection between the United States and Israel “a cherished relationship” and criticizes President Obama for not visiting the country since being elected president nearly four years ago.
The 30-second ad 
also criticizes Obama for “refusing to recognize” that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
It is so tempting to say "that's right, m*f*ers," as Jon Stewart might say in such a context. We have a gazillion problems at home and around the world, and Romney wants us to ask Obama why he hasn't recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital? WTF!
Obama's surrogate, Harry Reid, goes on an all-out offensive quoting a cannot-be-named-Bain-insider that Romney didn't pay taxes for a gazillion years. Yes,
we understand the politics behind that--keeping all the attention on Romney and his taxes during the slow news of the dog days of August. But, come on, no other pressing matters on which the country has to engage in substantive discussions?
I understand, all the more now, how much my life would have been more pleasant if I had never been bitten by the political bug even when I was a kid. I could then have made use of this wonderful advice from America's Finest News Source:
: