A testament to how the new Washington operates. Lawmakers in both houses of Congress have passed an FAA authorization bill. The particulars are in the range of 90% the same. While they work something out on the last 10%, they could pass an extension of the old authorization, the way they have 20 times since 2007. But House Republicans want to make it harder for Delta’s workers to unionize. They want to mandate that any absent voter in a union election is a vote against the union. They haven’t yet applied this to their own elections, but that’s how they want unions to operate. The NLRB passed regulations that would ban this practice, and Delta simply won’t allow votes for its workers under the new rules. And Republicans have hijacked the FAA on behalf of Delta.

Because we didn’t have enough to worry about, the Federal Aviation Administration could shut down Friday, if Republicans insist on including certain controversial provisions into a short-term extension.

Sen. John McCain paints himself as an all-American hero. So why has he opposed “Buy American,” the law for government and military contracts?

In fact, not only has he opposed the law, he also says he “firmly objects” to it and has called it “ludicrous.”

This week, he ducked a campaign visit to a Harley-Davidson plant in York, Pa., because—ooops—those Buy American provisions would have required the government to purchase American-made motorcycles.