I take a week off and the shit hits the fan. Guess that means I’d better keep churning these babies out weekly from here on out!
The news of the week centered around one man, Jeffrey Epstein. More to the point, it was centered around who he knew and what these people knew about the deceased piece of dog shit. (No offense to canine excrement.) President Donald Trump promised to release the Epstein Files, then took it back, then put it back on the table, and has now signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act ordering the Attorney General and Department of Justice to make as much of the documentation available to the public without jeopardizing the victims or any ongoing investigations.
After all the Left’s grandstanding about it, you would think they’d be happy about it. And you’d be wrong.
As much as I hate to delve into this toxic landfill of shitty people (and Jeffrey Epstein), I have to dip my toe into it. And I promise to make it not hurt that much.
Jeffrey Epstein
What the Left thinks it means – a notorious pedophile with ties to Republicans
What the Right thinks it means – a notorious pedophile with ties to Democrats
What it really means – a notorious pedophile being used as a political football to hide a much larger issue
If it wasn’t clear from my opening, I think Jeffrey Epstein was not even a passable human being, let alone good. What he was convicted of doing and suspected of doing to young girls and women is reprehensible, and anyone who even exchanged emails or text messages with him gets my side-eye.
So, why are so many Democrats and Republicans connected to him? Because he had leverage.
Politics and wealth go hand in hand more than anti-Tesla protesters making a human chain stuck together with Super Glue and industrial strength duct tape. The well-heeled and the well-dressed have walked the halls of power for as long as I’ve been alive, but it wasn’t always so blatant. Back in the old days, if you wanted to buy a politicians you had the common decency to do it under the table. Well, since that option isn’t available because of all the prostitutes doing their business under said table, it’s more overt.
That’s where Jeffrey Epstein comes into play. By being wealthy, he caught the eye of a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle. As time went on, he amassed a lot of friends…and information that he could use as a bargaining chip to sway opinions in his favor. Money is a universal language, and Epstein was a master linguist.
But remember he played with both sides, if you’ll pardon the expression, which made him useful to both sides, if only to satisfy mutual carnal sins. This is why the Left and the Right are desperately trying to push him onto the other side. With that much infamy, Epstein becomes the proverbial millstone around the necks of the party faithful in Washington, DC.
Even with that Bizarro World tug-o-war going on, we’re starting to get a glimpse into just how deep the corruption goes in the world of the rich and powerful.
And Robin Leach didn’t prepare us for any of this shit!
It’s one thing to buy off politicians, which is done with the frequency of Jasmine Crockett saying something stupid. It’s another thing to ply them with the kind of sick shit Epstein did. And then to have people so connected in politics, tech, business, and media be involved? It’s enough to break the system, nuke it from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure), burn the remains, and shoot it into the heart of the Sun.
And you know what? I’m good with that.
It was Epstein’s death that started a domino effect where the curtain got thrown open and we got to see just what the powerful do when nobody outside of their sick clique is watching. And the fact many of these cretins get to act like they’re above the rest of us while they engage in shit Caligula would say, “Whoa! Throttle back on the perversion, kids!” You know, if he weren’t dead and all.
As sickening as what we know happened is, we’re still not sure of the extent of it, and I’m not sure anybody in government wants us to find out. After all, there are a lot of DC denizens who made their way to Epstein Island for fantasies Mr. Roarke and Tattoo could never provide. At least not without rezoning the entire island.
Of course, the lack of hard facts with regards to the Epstein files is exactly what those in power want if only to hide their sins a little longer until they can no longer hide. Then, we’ll see a whole lotta mea culpas feigning ignorance as well as contrition. They won’t be sorry for what they did; they’ll be sorry they got caught, and that’s not gonna work for me, kids. What these men and women did under the veil of secrecy should be exposed and all legal avenues to sue them into oblivion should be implemented.
That means the party’s over, scumbags.
And speaking of scumbags, let’s talk about the politicians for a minute. Those who committed crimes against young girls and women should be expelled from office, don’t care which party they represent. Kick them out, make them lawyer up, and watch them get taken to the cleaners.
Now, for the rest of Congress. You’re playing political games with the lives of people who were truly innocent victims here. It’s a little late to start caring about them now, especially after you’ve done everything you can to discredit or diminish what steps are being taken. Democrats, you can claim Trump is going to order the Epstein Files be redacted so much stock in black Sharpie pens is going to skyrocket, but we don’t know that yet. What we do know is you gave zero fucks about this situation until you could pin it on Trump. Your “Party of Women” card has been declined. Take all the fucking seats.
And as for Republicans, you gave zero fucks about this until it could be pinned on Bill Clinton. Granted, Bill being a horndog at any given time is a sure thing, but you don’t get a pass for not fighting for the Epstein Files to be released on Day 1 of Trump’s first Presidency. You didn’t help, either, so take all the fucking seats, too. And try not to sit next to the Democrats. They’re a little touchy about being on a known pedophile’s speed dial.
And having him at fundraisers.
And having ties to one of the most popular Democrat Presidents ever.
And, you know, just generally being bitchy most of the time.
Regardless, I will not speak ill of the dead any more than I have here. Jeffrey Epstein is gone and the world is better for it. Now, comes the healing and what I hope will be a course correction on the moral side.
His victims deserve it.
Tag: congress
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
This past week had more Leftists’ heads exploding than, well, since last week. Among the numerous outrages and impotent protests against Donald Trump and his plans to remake government, it seems we found out a certain government agency has been spending money like a drunken fleet at a whorehouse in Amsterdam.
In other words, spending like they were Congresscritters.
Throughout this discussion trying to reconcile humanitarian aid with condoms for al Qaeda (and I wish I was making that up), the subject of government waste has come front and center. As a result, I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss it in some fashion, mainly because it will piss off the Left and that’s always fun!
government waste
What the Left thinks it means – a rarity in government only harped on by Republicans and Conservatives wanting to destroy the social safety net
What it really means – par for the course in Washington
Before we jump in, there are some foundational ideas we need to discuss. The concept of government waste is foreign to the Left because to them government is the sole source of all that is good and right in the world. By extension, anything government spends must be in pursuit of all that is good and right in the world. And cutting spending? You might as well say you want to drown Leftists’ cats.
You know, because they hate kids?
Anyway, the concept of government as Daddy Warbucks (one of the few wars Leftists have no problem supporting) makes addressing government waste more difficult because in order for them to address it, they would have to change their minds. And that’s tougher than you think. Leftists are notoriously stubborn and unwilling to admit they’re wrong.
How do I know this? I was one of them for a long time, and I can’t chalk up my stubborn streak completely to being part German.
That’s not to say they’ll never do it. To their credit, Leftists have been complaining about military spending, and I have to agree there is a lot of room to improve there. After all, if they spend $450 on a hammer that I can get at a local hardware store for a fraction of that price, that’s clear government waste.
Come to think of it, that could apply to Congresscritters….
Meanwhile back at the main point, the Left have a number of ways to continue the wonderful world of waste. Some of it, like with USAID, is done in plain sight because they know no one will really look at it. It’s a line item in a federal budget that gets sent over to the agency to dispense as it sees fit. Which apparently includes a transgender opera in Columbia (again, I wish I were making that up).
There are also non-government organizations (NGOs to the hip kids out there) that handle a cornucopia of issues. Which can lead to a cornucopia of waste. Because of what they are, they operate in an area where they get public funding, but don’t have the levels of oversight government agencies do, which makes it a perfect way to waste money without accountability. Nice work if you can scam it!
Then, there’s word magic, as I like to call it. This is when someone comes up with a long and complicated name for a common item, which invariably makes it sound more impressive/expensive. Imagine coming across a vertically operational transcribing tool with an internal liquid disbursement system. Sounds pretty awesome, right? You happily spend the $100 or however much it costs, and you get sent…
A fucking pen.
That’s government spending for you in a nutshell, or a nutcase if you’re dealing with Rep. Jasmine Crockett. So, how do we fix it? Well, we don’t have to worry about Leftists fucking up our plans, so there’s that.
The first step is what the Trump Administration and Elon Musk are doing now: identifying the waste. And the way they’re doing it makes it all the better. By putting it on blast, anyone who wants to do some digging can verify the information and act accordingly, which in this case would be pissed. And the cherry on the top of this government waste sundae? Leftists now have to defend spending money to promote tourism in Egypt (again, I wish I were making that up) and other silly expenditures. Sure, they’ll link it back to humanitarian efforts like fighting hunger, but they haven’t gotten around to explaining how spending $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland (you know the words, so sing along!) helps feed a starving child.
Why, it’s almost as if…Leftists don’t want to discuss government waste because a lot of the shit they promote is government waste. Funny how that works out isn’t it?
Now, to my friends on the Right, I have to advise you government waste isn’t just a Leftist thing. If we’re going to be serious about reducing waste, we have to be willing to look at things we want/need that can be less expensive to obtain. Providing for the common defense is in the Preamble of the Constitution, but that doesn’t give us the government’s black diamond American Express card to spend on whatever we want regardless of the price. We have to be willing to take a scalpel and a chainsaw to the waste so we get rid of the fat without getting rid of those things that actually do good.
So, I guess my suggestion is to be somewhere between a sensible budget hawk and Ron Swanson. Just don’t touch Ron’s bacon, or mine for that matter.
Meanwhile, to my Leftist friends, understand this is a necessary process. We can’t keep running up the national debt and having other countries own a significant chunk of it without making a change. And, yes, that means some of your sacred cows are going to have to become hamburger (or if you prefer, impossible meat) to make progress. After all, you can’t fund your transgender comic in Peru (one more time!) with government funds if your country is bankrupt.
But I can’t leave you Leftists without an option. If you really feel passionate about funding a project…fund it your own damn self! Don’t rely on government to pick up your tab, especially when that tab is using tax dollars of people who might not share your passion. Leave the tax dollars for shit we actually need, like national defense, infrastructure, and stuff that is more universally accepted. So, start your GoFundMe for your pet projects and Go Fuck Yourself if you can’t get it done without Uncle Sam.
Government waste affects us all one one level or another, and we have to rein it in somehow. Say what you will about Trump and Musk (and I know you will), they’re at least trying to do just that. And if you’re screaming about cutting government waste, think about the reason why. It may not be because essential services are getting slashed, but because your shit is about to be exposed.
So, good luck with that.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
With the Republicans taking control the House of Representatives at the beginning of this year, there were bound to be some changes, not the least of which to committee positions. Well, let’s just say the same folks who complained about Donald Trump not accepting the results of an election have their collectivist panties in a bunch over who is being removed from some committees.
Enter Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat who just happens to be black, Muslim, and a member of the Squad. For those of you unfamiliar with the Squad, they’re like the women on “The View” but with the power to spend your money and make new laws they’ll exempt themselves from at their earliest convenience. Prior to the Red Ripple this past November, Omar was a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but was kicked out by Speaker of the House Kevin “No Relation to Joe” McCarthy.
Let’s just say she and her fellow Leftists didn’t take this well, even by Leftist standards. Several colleagues, including fellow ousted Democrat Eric “Fang Fang’s Bitch” Swalwell and fellow Squad member Rashida “Not Cool Enough to Have a Nickname” Tlaib took to the floor of the House to protest Omar’s removal. And by “protest” I mean “bitching and moaning.” But the pièce de résistance (which is French for “We surrender! Do not burn the Louvre!”) was when Omar’s media supporters (but I repeat myself) called the decision to yank her from the Foreign Affairs Committee Islamophoba.
Hoo boy. Get ready for a trip into the stupid.
Islamophobia
What the Left thinks it means – the irrational fear and/or hatred of Muslims
What it really means – the modern ideological equivalent of the word “literally”
It pains me to say this in 2023 when we were supposed to have flying cars and were building towards a future that would make “Star Trek” look like a Rob Zombie hellscape, but to be perfectly clear, I have nothing against most Muslims. This is because the ones I’ve met personally have been nice, hard-working people with the same needs, wants, and hang-ups as the rest of us. They only difference is their faith. And I’m willing to bet most of the Muslims you meet are the same way.
Having said that, there are some fucking nutjobs out there who just happen to be Muslim. Granted, there are some fucking nutjobs out there who just happen to be Christian, but there’s a big difference in how Muslims and Christians are treated. If you call out a Christian extremist (real or imagined), you’re “speaking truth to power.” If you call out a Muslim extremist (real or blown up), you’re branded as Islamophobic regardless of whether said extremist is literally saying “I want to kill all Americans.”
That brings us back to the real definition of Islamophobia, literally. It seems the term gets tossed around with the frequency of Vox posting something stupid. In some cases, it’s appropriate, but in most cases…it’s less appropriate than letting Hunter Biden guard your crack cocaine stash. Yet, if we call out the inappropriate use of Islamophobia, we get called Islamophobic. And if we don’t obey what the Left tells us is acceptable behavior towards Muslims…you guessed it, we’re Islamophobes!
Welcome to the Kobiashi Maru of Salem Witch Trials. You’re guilty until proven guiltier. And there’s no way to beat it.
The reason for this is because people aren’t conditioned to try to offend or push away people. Well, except for my Uncle Jim-Bob who smelled of old cheese curds, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and skunk, but that’s not important right now. Psychologically, humans have a need to be socially accepted, which can be used to condition us to act, speak, and think a certain way.
Now, who do we know that would use our psychological needs to obtain political and personal power? I mean, aside from Disney. I’m speaking of Leftists, of course! They will play with our emotions to get what they want, but unlike Disney, we don’t get much entertainment out of it.
Islamophobia is one of those emotionally-charged terms that is designed to get us to adopt a position we may not necessarily agree with just to go along with the crowd. What started with homophobia (another term that’s been overused like a Kardashian) has become a cottage industry specializing in outrage and offense. And business is booming.
And our current salesperson of the year is Ilhan Omar. But much like her attempts to explain away her previous statements against Israel, her use of Islamophobia to complain about getting kicked off the Foreign Affairs Committee is weak. I’m Sheldon Cooper handshake weak here.
Omar has a bit of a history with making inflammatory statements about Israel. Considering the US and Israel have pretty close ties, having someone like Omar dealing with foreign affairs is a recipe for disaster. Even though the President sets the foreign policy agenda, a loudmouth with a penchant for pissing people off makes that job a lot harder.
Oh, and openly criticizing the guy who hands out committee positions? Fastest way to get kicked off any major committee and busted down to the Get the Speaker of the House’s Coffee Committee. Or in former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s case, vodka.
Now for the really fun part. Pelosi’s actions with the previous session of Congress kicking off Republican committee members and rejecting McCarthy’s suggestions for members of the January 6th Commission made Omar’s rejection a thing. She was warned this was a bad idea, and she went ahead with it anyway.
Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it, Leftists?
If anything, Pelosi’s actions had more to do with Omar getting the boot than any ill will McCarthy had against Omar’s religion. It’s true he hasn’t exactly been a friend to Muslims, but with the mitigating factors I’ve mentioned, it’s hard to say Islamophobia is as much of a factor as Leftists want us to believe.
In this way, Leftists use Muslims like they use any minority on their side: like bunting on a parade float. The sole purpose Leftists trot out people like Omar is to tell the world “Look at how diverse and caring we are!” Yet, what exactly have Leftists done for Muslims that help them in any meaningful way?
If you guessed nothing, you’d be right. And if you bet the under, go see the cashier to pick up your winnings.
Minorities of all stripes within Leftist ranks are treated equally…bad. (But, hey, at least it’s equally bad!) By adopting the “do what we say or you’re an Islamophobe” approach, Leftists make it harder for Muslims to be treated as anything other than a mystery, an “other” if you will. Even if you won’t, it’s a recipe for disaster to continue thinking that way.
Even though I don’t fancy being killed by Muslims who hate my guts, I’ve found it’s easier to build bridges when you treat people different than you the way you would want to be treated. (Offer void for anyone who are really into the Marquis de Sade.) By ignoring our differences and seeing each other as human beings, it gets a lot harder to “otherize” each other since we have an established relationship, i.e. we know the people behind what we see.
So, Representative Omar, I reject your assertion of Islamophobia and insert a reality of my own. Namely, the reality the bullshit you’re pushing to explain away why you were kicked to the Congressional curb for being a loudmouth asshat doesn’t hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. But since you’re a reliable Leftist who checks off a number of spaces on the Oppression Bingo Card, nobody on your side will call you out, and everybody on your side will call me Islamophobic. See if I give a fuck.
Oh, wait, I lost all my fucks investing in cryptocurrency. Now what? You’re gonna call me an Islamophobe again? Still no fucks to be given.
That’s what undercuts Leftists like Ilhan Omar. If you don’t care what they call you, they hold no power over you, and that gives you power over them. But remember, Omar isn’t representative of the average Muslim. She’s barely representative of a higher mammal. I’ve been insulted worse by better people.
So, Representative Omar, take your Islamophobia and shove it up your…turban. Which is on top of your head, which is shoved so far up your ass you can taste what you had for lunch.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
To all of you from all of, well, me, I hope you have a Merry Christmas, Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kickin’ Kwanza, Fabulous Festivus, Cool Yule, a Spectacular Solstice, or for those who don’t celebrate anything this time of year, happy Sunday.
And for a number of people who just so happen not to be us, Congress gave them a very generous holiday bonus to the tune of, oh, $1.7 trillion. It was part of an omnibus spending bill whisking its way to President Joe Biden’s desk as of this writing, where there is no doubt he will sign it. Where the doubt lies is whether he’ll sign it in pen or purple crayon.
Another issue not in doubt is your favorite blogger is going to cover it this week. And I will, too!
omnibus spending bill
What the Left thinks it means – a necessary spending bill that helps America and Americans
What it really means – a bill so full of pork Jews and Muslims can’t partake of it for religious reasons
In my lifetime, Congress has always been the home of big spenders, as the National Debt Clock continues to show. More on that later, but I wanted to give you an idea of the numbers we’re dealing with here before giving more details. Plus, it will give you a chance to get a stiff drink or fifty to steel your nerves.
First, let’s dig into the details. Thanks to Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Chip Roy, we have an idea of just what Leftists were telling us were vital expenditures necessary to keep the government from shutting down. Here are a few examples.
– $4.5 billion in COVID Economic Injury Disaster Grants to people who weren’t eligible to get them in the first place
– $1.7 billion for upkeep of federal office buildings not currently in use
– $140 million in COVID funds used to build a spa
– $31.5 million in COVID funds to buy luxury cars
– $3 million on watching ‘roided-up hamsters fight
– $2.1 million to encourage Ethiopians to wear shoes
– $1.1 million to teach mice to binge drink (could have just sent them to college)
– $69 million in overpayments to government contractors for a terminated contract
– $77 million in mismanaged and untracked fuel purchases by the State Department
And so on and so on.
Granted, you could make an argument for some of the spending ($3 million to build a Gandhi museum, almost $500 million to redevelop our hard cider industry, $200,000 for radio spots telling drivers to stop at railroad crossings), but most of it is USDA Certified Lean Bullshit. Out of all the bad financial decisions that makes Arthur Andersen look like Warren Buffett, possibly the worst was almost $120,000 going towards…and I wish I was making this up…a grant to research whether Thanos could actually snap his fingers while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet.
The short answer? No. My answer? No, because Thanos is a fucking fictional character.
Where is that stiff drink?
Okay, I’m ready to continue.
Remember when Ukrainian President and Vogue photo subject Volodymyr Zelensky recently told Puddin’ Head Joe he would need more money? Well, surprise surprise surprise, the omnibus spending bill has nearly $45 billion in aid earmarked for Ukraine. And that’s on top of the $68 billion we’ve already given them in 2022. For the math challenged out there, that will be in the neighborhood of $113 billion.
Of course Leftists and some self-described “real conservatives” tell us this money is essential and if we don’t agree, we’re anti-Ukraine and, thus, anti-American. In fact, to them it’s a no-brainer. After all, if we fund the Ukrainians well enough, they’ll beat the Russians and hinder their ability to influence the world
No. That’s really what they believe.
And if it hadn’t been for 18 Senate Republicans voting with Senate Democrats and two Independents in favor of the omnibus bill, we might not be having this conversation. As of this writing, only one of these 14 asshats, Mitt Romney of Utah, has even attempted to explain his reasoning.
Put simply, the Senate Republican support was a no-brainer because no brains went into their votes.
Bartender, hit me!
Now, for the fun part. All of this spending is being done without being in a budget. Since 1996, the federal government has been spending money through Continuing Resolutions (basically, an IOU Congress writes to itself promising to spend more money without any rhyme or reason) or…drum roll please…omnibus spending bills. The reason is simple: no budget means no budget limits. I’ve seen inebriated sailors with more restraint than Congress.
Speaking of inebriation…bartender!
Let me lay my cards on the table here. I’m not a fan of omnibus spending bills, not just the ones Puddin’ Head Joe will sign. Congress has a spending problem, and omnibus spending bills are blank checks backed up with the promise of professional liars that they’ll pay it back with interest.
By the way, $475 billion of the omnibus bill is for interest on the national debt.
Yeah, we’re never going to see a balanced budget anytime soon, not when it’s so easy to pass spending bills that have no fiscal strings attached.
Even if you’re in favor of the bill, you’re going to have a hard time convincing me spending any money on Thanos research, luxury cars, or building a spa advances anything in the national interest. Personal interests, sure, but national? Give me a fucking break!
Speaking of which, I’d better take a break from drinking long enough to wrap this up.
The very fact supporters of the omnibus spending bill have to rely on faux patriotism, a backdrop of Ukraine fighting for freedom, and the idea the government has to stay open or things won’t get done should give us pause to drink…I mean think. As Americans struggle to make ends meet due to inflation being higher than Tommy Chong on Willie Nelson’s tour bus, our elected officials continue to make matters worse by making our money more worthless than an abstinence talk by Bill Clinton.
The sad thing is there’s nothing we can do about it. Aside from a wholesale house (and Senate) cleaning and starting over, we’re stuck paying for someone else getting a luxury car, thanks to Daddy Government. The sad truth is there are so many Democrats and Republicans, both elected and governed, who have no problem with the current state of affairs. After all, they’re not going to pay the tab; we are.
And with that, I bring this Lexicon entry to a close. Which is good timing because I’m about to passdkjladkahdfadjf;dajkl;
[Editor’s Note: We found Thomas slumped over his laptop after getting blackout drunk writing this piece. We cleaned up his entry and his computer as well as we could. We are giving him coffee intravenously in the hopes he’ll be awake in time for next week’s Lexicon.]
Watching the Detectives
For those who haven’t already been bored to tears by it, the 1/6 Commission will be having more hearings in September because, as they say, more evidence is coming out. The fact it’s so close to midterms is a complete coincidence, I’m sure! And with each passing day, Leftists are salivating at the findings and testimony so far. Of course, a lot of both have been utter bullshit to date, but hey…
It’s time we had a serious conversation about government-run investigations because I’m not sure we’re getting our money’s worth, and I do mean our money. Even though it helps overall because it keeps some Beltway busybodies occupied for a time and, thus, prevents them from doing real harm, it’s getting to the point where the price tag no longer justifies the results.
Now, before you Leftists get your collectivist panties in a bunch, this isn’t something I’ve just discovered because of the 1/6 Clownshow…I mean Commission. In my lifetime alone, there have been untold number of investigations into just about every conceivable political scandal from Iran/Contra to 1/6, and not one of them has resulted in any tangible benefit to us. So far, the 1/6 Clownshow…I mean Commission is following the same playbook.
The heart of the problem is these investigations aren’t honest from the jump. Oh, you’ll hear supporters say they want to “uncover the truth,” but they don’t want to uncover all of it; just the parts that will help their political allies in the near future. These investigations are designed to uncover their truth, not the truth. And there is a big difference between the two. For one, the former has two more letters.
When you start off an investigation with a bias for or against one of the involved parties, the results are going to be tainted. It’s like the old computer term GIGO, or Garbage In, Garbage Out. You can’t expect a good outcome from bad faith. And with all of the blue ribbon commissions and Congressional investigations I’ve seen, bad faith is the coin of the realm.
Take the Benghazi hearings, for example. As much time and money as we spent on trying to get to the bottom of the deaths of four Americans due to the Obama Administration’s foreign policy leaders being dumber than a bag of hammers, nobody was held accountable. Nobody got fired, arrested, or thrown in Gitmo. One of the major players, Hillary Clinton, walked away without a scratch and managed to convince enough people she would be a great President in spite of the fact she already lost once before to Barack Obama, who was George Washington compared to the Hilldog. And no matter what happened, it is still considered to be a partisan witch hunt by the Left.
Therein lies the next problem with these types of investigations and commissions: it’s near-impossible to remove the ideological bent from the process. There could be a Congressional investigation into the best flavor of snow cone and someone could turn it into a political issue. (Of course, those people are secretly working for Big Cherry or Big Grape, but you didn’t hear that from me.) A big reason for this is that in Washington, everything is political, from the shoes you wear to where you get a tuna melt on rye. When everything can be turned into a political football, truth becomes a casualty.
The funniest part of these investigations to me is how the people behind them go out of their way to try to appear bipartisan by getting people allegedly from both sides of the aisle to participate. Think of it like Affirmative Action, but for less qualified people. It doesn’t matter if the participants hang with the Donkeys or ride with the Elephants if they all have a vested interest in achieving a common goal, which usually is to deflect blame from institutional fuck-ups and find acceptable scapegoats. This results in findings that are more watered down than mixed drinks in Amish strip clubs.
Anyone remember the 9/11 Commission? If you don’t, it’s no big deal. Their findings so laughable and obvious, they were akin to “Don’t stick your fork in the toaster.” And it was done precisely to avoid dealing with the real problems, such as the FBI and CIA not talking to each other on important matters like, oh I don’t know, international terrorists plotting to take over airplanes and crash them into government buildings. In fact, I think one of the 9/11 Commission’s findings was “Don’t let terrorists take over planes and crash them into buildings.”
Yet, with all of their sage advice, are we any safer flying? Sure, the TSA can still give us complementary rectal exams with each flight, but aside from finding the occasional polyp, the answer is a resounding no. So, this begs the question of why we spent all this money and time on what was a waste of both. And the answer is simple: because Congress wanted to give some political buddies the cushiest temp job ever. No results expected, no quality checks provided. Just show up, rustle around some papers, hold a hearing or two, and collect a fat paycheck in between media appearances to talk about how important the work of the commission is and how hard the members are working.
This does a disservice to all Americans. We trust our leaders to represent our best interests, and that trust gets abused more than Ike abused Tina. Yet, whenever there’s a new scandal that gains enough momentum to inspire politicians to do something, we play the same game over and over again and get the same results.
I know Leftists really want the 1/6 Commission to be different, but it won’t be. They’re already a laughingstock in a country that helped make Rebecca Black a music star, and it’s safe to say their results are going to be vastly disappointing to the hardcore “Arrest Trump” crowd. Nothing of significance will come of it because it’s not supposed to happen. All it does is give people with more axes to grind than a lumber camp a chance to get time in the spotlight, collect a paycheck, and look good to people who are already on their side in the first place.
Then, when the inevitable happens, people who put so much faith in the outcome will be pissed off and rant about how the guilty are going unpunished because [insert partisan squawking point here]. That makes for great Twitter engagement, but it’s piss-poor when it comes to actually accomplishing something.
Going forward, I would love to see Congressional investigations outsourced to independent investigators. Maybe someone like Columbo or Sam Spade with no real agenda aside from figuring out the guilty parties and bringing them to justice. Sure, they’re both fictional characters, but after seeing how real Congresscritters do things, we could do a hell of a lot worse than letting fictional characters run things.
The President or someone else?
There seems to be a lot of confusion when it comes to the job qualifications and description of the President of the United States. So let’s get this cleared up.
Our nation’s founders were brilliant men. And they wrote out the qualifications needed to be President and what the job description was. So we don’t need to guess or make it up as we go.
All of the details can be found in the Constitution. Anything else added or taken away is your own personal preferences. So your opinion is logged and noted. But irrelevant when it comes to the facts.
Article II, Section 1 is where it lists the qualifications to become President of the United States. You must win the election through the Electors, that is the Electoral College and take the oath of office.
But before you can win the election and take the oath of office you must also have these qualifications: One must be a Natural born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years of age, and lived within the United States for at least 14 years immediately prior to being elected.
That is it for qualifications to be President. No lengthy resume of public service. No skill in oratory. No tests of morality or divulging ones tax history.
As for the job description and duties of the President, again the Constitution clearly tells us that too. The President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The President proposes bills to Congress, this is so his agenda can move forward. And since the President is the executive power, it is his job to enforce the laws.
Another part of the President’s job is to give a state of the union report from time to time to Congress.
Many of the duties of the President require the US Senate to consent. This is used for the enactment of any Treaty and the appointment of officers of the United States government.
That is it. That is the end of the job qualifications and the job description for the President of the United States. Anything else is opinion or tradition. These are the facts written in the Constitution.