{"id":24250,"date":"2016-09-17T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T19:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=24250"},"modified":"2016-09-17T12:00:12","modified_gmt":"2016-09-17T19:00:12","slug":"presidential-weekly-address-its-time-for-republicans-in-congress-to-do-their-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=24250","title":{"rendered":"Presidential Weekly Address: It\u2019s Time for Republicans in Congress To Do Their Jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hi, everybody.  I\u2019ve delivered a few hundred of these weekly addresses over the years.  And you may have noticed a theme that pops up pretty often: The Republicans who run this Congress aren\u2019t doing their jobs.  Well, guess what?  Congress recently returned from a seven-week vacation.  They\u2019ve only got two weeks left until their next one.  But there\u2019s a lot of business they need to get done first.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/68QuYW3Cr6g\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>First \u2013 even as we\u2019re seeing more and more Zika cases inside the United States, they\u2019ve refused to fund our efforts to protect women and children by fighting Zika in a serious way.<\/p>\n<p>Second \u2013 they still need to provide resources to help the people of Louisiana recover from last month\u2019s terrible floods, and to help communities like Flint recover from their own challenges.<\/p>\n<p>Third \u2013 they have made Merrick Garland, a Supreme Court nominee with more federal judicial experience than any other in history, wait longer than any other in history for the simple courtesy of a hearing, let alone a vote.  All because they want their nominee for President to fill that seat.<\/p>\n<p>There are plenty other bipartisan priorities they should finish this year, too.  Passing criminal justice reform.  Attacking the opioids epidemic.  Funding Joe Biden\u2019s cancer moonshot.  Finishing a Trans-Pacific trade agreement that will support American jobs and boost American wages.  And passing a budget that will make sure all of America\u2019s priorities are funded without resorting to shutdown threats and last-minute gimmicks. <\/p>\n<p>By the way, it\u2019s been almost a decade since Congress voted to raise the minimum wage.  I\u2019m just saying.<\/p>\n<p>None of this should be controversial.  All of it is within our reach.  This is America \u2013 we can do anything.  We just need a Congress that works as hard as you do.  At the very least, we should expect that they do their jobs \u2013 and protect us from disease, help us recover from disaster, keep the Supreme Court above politics, and help our businesses grow and hire.<\/p>\n<p>So if any of these priorities matter to you, let your Congressperson know.  And if they still refuse to do their jobs \u2013 well, you know what to do in November. <\/p>\n<p>Our government only works as well as the people we elect.  And that\u2019s entirely up to you.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks, and have a great weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hi, everybody. I\u2019ve delivered a few hundred of these weekly addresses over the years. And you may have noticed a theme that pops up pretty often: The Republicans who run this Congress aren\u2019t doing their jobs. Well, guess what? Congress recently returned from a seven-week vacation. They\u2019ve only got two weeks left until their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Fullscreen-capture-9172016-114603-AM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}