“When the House revamped its rules in the early days of the pandemic to allow lawmakers to vote remotely,” Nicholas Fandos reports at the New York Times, “Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina was among 161 Republicans who sued to block the arrangement, arguing that it ‘subverts’ the Constitution.”

He was right, but times have changed. Formerly a critic, Norman’s now a fan. On June 29th, he notified the Clerk of the US House of Representatives that he was “unable to attend proceedings in the House Chamber due to the ongoing public health emergency,” designating a proxy (fellow South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson) to vote in his stead.

Oddly, the “public health emergency” which prevented Norman from traveling the 400 miles or so  from his home in Rock Hill, South Carolina to Washington, DC, proved no obstacle to a 1,400-mile trip from Rock Hill to Weslaco, Texas.

That’s where Norman turned up during his “inability” to attend House proceedings. It seems that “public health emergency” is Normanese for “too busy attending a Donald Trump whinefest to be bothered with irritating distractions like, you know, showing up for work.”

Until well in to the 19th century, members of Congress spent days, even weeks, traveling between their homes and Washington on foot, by horse, or by slow boat or ship. And Washington itself was an unpleasant, pestilential town.

Rail, steamboat, and the automobile cut travel time considerably, while the ever-increasing size and wealth of the federal government turned the city into, all things considered, a veritable pleasure garden.

For more than 200 years, if a member of Congress wasn’t present at the Capitol — in time of peace, in time of war, and yes, in time of pandemic — his or her vote was neither cast or counted.

The increasing reach of commercial air travel has reduced travel times between Washington anywhere else in the United States to hours, at most a day or so. Members of Congress have fewer, and less convincing, excuses for playing hooky than ever before.

For his “service,” Ralph Norman receives a salary of $174,000 per year, plus fantastic fringe benefits and a posh potential pension.

If Norman worked at Arby’s assembling French Dip sandwiches (a far more worthwhile and productive activity than anything Congress does), he’d make a lot less money. And if he got caught calling in with a “public health emergency” so he could attend a Tool concert, he’d almost certainly find himself looking for other work.

“Serving” in Congress should be harder, not easier, than the jobs of the people Congress lords it over. And those who don’t want to actually do the job should find themselves real work in the private sector instead of leeching off the taxpayers.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Toward the end of his otherwise tumultuous term, former President Donald Trump leaned into his role as Whiner In Chief to do something nice for all of us. Something minor and, in a sane world, completely non-controversial, but nice nonetheless.

“Showerheads —  you take a shower, the water doesn’t come out,” he complained. “You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair — I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect.”

The reason: US Department of Energy “conservation rules” that limit how much water (2.5 gallons per minute) a shower head is allowed to pour over you.

And by golly, he did something about it (the water flow, not his hair):

He directed the US Department of Energy to roll back its restrictions to the glory days of 1992, when showers could still rain down cleanliness on you such that it was possible to get wet, washed, dry, and dressed during the last segment of “Unsolved Mysteries” and not miss the opening scene of “Seinfeld.” Or, unfortunately, the entirety of “Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After.”

It was a minor change,  however lovely, and not yet implemented by shower head manufacturers when the Biden Administration nixed it on July 16.

The excuse is “water conservation.” The real reason, one has to assume, is “because it was a Trump thing, and all Trump things must be undone.” The rule reversion probably won’t save an ounce of water.

For one thing, if you have to spend twice as long in the shower to get clean, using half as much water per minute doesn’t save any. It just wastes your time.

For another, weak showers drive many people back to an old-fashioned and much more water-wasteful alternative, the bath.

And, finally, a little secret: Anyone with a pair of needle-nose pliers and access to YouTube can quickly and easily build a time machine that re-locates your shower to the pre-1992 era!

Millions of Americans  have pulled the “flow restrictors” out of their shower heads, hopefully wagging their middle fingers in the direction of Washington, DC as they did so. Manufacturers are required to put those flow restrictors in the shower heads they sell, but you’re not required to leave them there. Yet.

If the Biden administration is serious about water conversation, it should look into options like reducing water-wasteful methanol subsidies instead of dirty tricks like mandating inferior shower experiences.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“We stand with the Cuban people,” US President Joe Biden says in an official White House statement, responding to protests across the Caribbean island country, “and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime.”

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel disagrees as to the nature of the protests. “All this discontent, these feelings of dissatisfaction, what is the ultimate cause of all that?” he asks. “It’s the blockade. This is part of the U.S. playbook to destabilize us, to generate chaos, to break our will and spirit.”

Diaz-Canel has a point.

There’s no actual “blockade,” but there is an embargo, now yearly 60 years long, under which most trade with Cuba is forbidden to American businesses (and foreign business which operate the US).

The supposed purpose of the embargo has been, simply put, to make life hard enough on the Cuban people that they rise up and overthrow the communist regime. So when Diaz-Canel blames the embargo for popular discomfort and dissatisfaction, a US claim that he’s wrong is essentially an admission that the embargo serves no worthwhile purpose whatsoever.

Which seems to be the case. Six decades of failure to achieve its purpose kind of speaks for itself, don’t you think?

If Biden really wants to “stand with the Cuban people,” there are two easy steps he can take to do so in an honest way.

First, he can ask Congress to lift the embargo and declare a policy of unilateral free trade with Cuba. If Cubans aren’t going to be permitted to trade with Americans, let the Cuban regime, not the US regime, be the ones to say so — and to pay any price in popularity that comes with the decision.

Second, he can ask Congress to end all restrictions on travel and migration between Cuba and the US. If you’re a Cuban who wants to visit or live in America, or vice versa, and if you can can find a way to make the journey, the US government won’t stand in your way (again, if the Cuban government does, that’s on them).

Will those two things happen? Not likely. Florida’s a swing presidential state with a strong lobby and associated Cuban-American voting bloc that favors economic protectionism in the name of an “anti-communism” that aims to keep Cuba’s Communist Party in charge at all costs.

But if he dares risk it, Biden can actually stand up for freedom — in a way that invites the Cuban people to reveal and act on their true preferences, whatever those preferences may be — instead of just mouthing dishonest platitudes.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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