The Democrats in the Senate are considering sweeping legislation that will provide new benefits for many more Americans.   The Americans With No Abilities Act is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.
>
> "Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive
> necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society," said
> California Sen. Barbara Boxer.    "We can no longer stand by and allow
> People of Inability (POI) to be ridiculed and passed over.  With this
> legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a
> small group of workers, simply because they have some idea of what they are
> doing."
>
> In a Capitol Hill press conference Nancy Pelosi pointed to the success of
> the U.S. Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing
> opportunity without regard to performance.  At the state government level,
> the Department of Motor Vehicles also has an excellent record of hiring
> Persons with No Ability (63 percent).
>
> Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million mid-level
> positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real
> responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.
> Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given to
> guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees.  The
> legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a
> significant number of Persons of Inability (POI) into middle-management
> positions, and give a tax credit to small and medium-sized businesses that
> agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.
>
> Finally, the Americans With No Abilities Act contains tough new measures to
> make it more difficult to discriminate against the non-abled, banning for
> example discriminatory interview questions such as, "Do you have any skills
> or experience that relate to this job?"
>
> "As a non-abled person, I can't be expected to keep up with people who have
> something going for them," said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a
> lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, Mich., due to her inability to
> remember "righty tighty, lefty loosey".   "This new law should be real good
> for people like me. I'll finally have job security."
>
> With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.
>
> Said Sen. Dick Durbin:   "As a Senator with no abilities, I believe the
> same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every
> American with no abilities.   It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each
> and every American citizen, regardless of his or her inadequacy, with some
> sort of space to take up in this great nation and a good salary for doing
> so."
>
> This message was approved by Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Diane Feinstein,
> Barbara Boxer & Nancy Pelosi

TRUMP THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
By John Andrews

President Donald Trump, the Bronx Bazooka, won’t complete his first 100 days till the end of April.  But he has already hit his first 80, and the operative word is “hit.”  What a roaring ride.

So never mind the official milestone. Here’s my assessment of his impact so far.

The whole “hundred days” thing, originating with the tyrant Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 and brought here by progressive autocrats FDR and LBJ, jars with American values anyway.

If we’re going to borrow from the French, better the whimsy of Jules Verne, who sent a brilliant amateur of unsinkable buoyancy and irresistible persuasion around the world in 80 days. Merveilleux — Donald Trump as Phileas Fogg.  How about it?

Presidential leadership is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s the work of years, with effects sometimes not fully seen for decades.

And governance is a team sport.  By constitutional design, no amount of energy in the executive can by itself see the political landscape transformed (Obama’s hubristic intention, mercifully unachieved).

But twelve weeks in, allowing for those limitations, Trump has made a strong start on giving Americans exactly what they voted for: a decisive, determined, outspoken, optimistic turn toward new policies in a nation most people last year said was on the wrong track.

On issue after issue, it’s been promises made, promises kept. 

There will be a wall to secure our southern border. There will be extreme vetting for visa applicants from high-risk countries.  There will be no more coddling of immigrant felons and no more money for mayors who coddle them.

There will be pipelines to facilitate America’s energy independence from overseas enemies.  There will be a fair shake for coal and other fossil fuels. 

There will be hard conversations with nations resisting trade reciprocity and corporations tempted to hollow out our economy.  There will be regulatory reasonableness so job growth can boom again.  (And have you noticed, the stock market loves it.)

The most important promise Trump has kept so far, the one with the longest horizon in decades, was to replace the late Antonin Scalia with a Supreme Court justice who adheres to the founders’ original Constitution, not the left’s “living” counterfeit. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch, sworn in on the new president’s 80th day exactly, will be just that.  And by playing shrewd poker on his confirmation, the White House along with GOP senators (many of whom are no great Trump fans) improved their odds for the next court battle as well.

As for the world in these 80 days, one of those non-fan senators, Lindsey Graham, put it best right after Trump rained missiles on a Syrian airfield: “There’s a new sheriff in town.”

Do we have clarity yet on US policy toward Syria?  No, and we need that — along with policy clarity on Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

But the missile strike made very clear that with Donald Trump in the White House, the United States won’t tiptoe in responding to aggression or cheating by any of them.  Which could not be said when Barack Obama was there or if Hillary Clinton were there now.

The president is still finding his way.  Rescuing us from Obama's health care debacle remains a work in progress. His staff and family dynamics, ditto.  His Twitter weapon, effective overall, sometimes misfires.  He has yet to fill many key appointments.

The latter, however, results partly from the venomous obstructionism Trump has had to face from enraged Democrats and their media accomplices.  You have to go back a century and a half to Lincoln, to find comparable fury directed at a duly elected president taking charge. 

There’s even secession talk in California. Granted, that’s a joke. But President Trump’s ordeal in these early weeks has been deadly serious. The fact he’s still standing, as one desperate attack after another fizzles out, is all to his credit — and to America’s benefit. 

A friend of mine who abhors the man said he hopes “les cent jours” for Trump end as they did for Bonaparte: with a Waterloo. Could still happen.  Phileas Fogg’s 80 days, on the other hand, climaxed with doubters dashed and the adventurer ascendant.  My money’s on the Donald.