I’ve been happily Tweeting and retweeting expecting the tweets to show up on Facebook and I just found out a little while ago, that Facebook changed its Operating System and part of that change stopped Twitter from automatically posting to Facebook. So now they are not being posted and I’m not sure that there is a manual override. I’m not as worried about my stuff as I am about a series of retweets from Rashida Tlaib @RashidaTlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @Ocasio2018, and Ilhan Omar @IlhanMN, all of which amount to a fascinating class on what Congress is really like. Here are a couple of samples without my retweet comments.
Each member of Congress gets around $1.2 million (give or take a bit) for their entire operating budget. That’s supposed to cover all salaries (DC and district), rents for district offices, travel home, tech devices, services, contracts, etc. Members decide how it’s all spent. @Ocasio2018
Right now Freshman members of Congress are at a “Bipartisan” orientation w/ briefings on issues. Invited panelists offer insights to inform new Congressmembers‘ views as they prepare to legislate. # of Corporate CEOs we’ve listened to here: 4 # of Labor leaders: 0 @Ocasio2018
Gary Cohen, former CEO Goldman Sachs addressing new members of Congress today: “You guys are way over your head, you don’t know how the game is played.” No Gary, YOU don’t know what’s coming – a revolutionary Congress that puts people over profits. @RashidaTlaib
One tweet thread that I’m having a hard time finding is a thread on how poorly the Congressional worker bees are paid. The result is that there are two kinds of people who are hired – and, yeah, I know, there are exceptions – people who are not very good and people who are good and are only taking the job to get experience that they can spin into a job as a Lobbyist. Another thing I was surprised to find out is that most interns don’t get paid, in the house only eight Republicans and four Democrats pay their interns – how much I don’t know – but it does raise the question of how much can we trust a pro-labor Congressperson who doesn’t pay a living wage. This means that only interns who can afford to do the job are people whose parents are rich enough to support them while they aren’t getting paid thus reinforcing the inbred ruling class. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after a post that said something along the lines of Time to walk the walk is going to pay her interns $15 per hour.
And is $15 an hour a living wage in DC? I wonder how far from Capital Hill someone earning $15 an hour has to live to have a decent roof over their heads. West Virginia? Two hour commutes are becoming the norm in some parts of California. I understand many that people who work the lower paid jobs in the Tahoe area can no longer afford to live in Reno, some are driving up from Colfax. The guy at Wheel Works, where I got my wheels balanced the other day, said when he left at 7pm he got home at 9 and had to be back by 7am; doing the math, that means leaving home again at 5am. They are so short staffed because of people calling in sick (lack of sleep perhaps?) he is working many extra hours, didn’t even have time for lunch. He seemed to be the store manager, so he probably got paid a salary, which means no overtime. I think there’s a song in here somewhere: “Ways to Screw Your Workers.”
It is frightening and amazing how pervasive screwing your workers is.