Your Drug Enforcement Agency

Let us face a simple fact: There are plenty of reasons to disdain the Drug Enforcement Agency.

For some, reading through the latest list of scandals to rock the DEA is a perplexing exercise. The War Against Drugs in general has been an ill-conceived disaster, and after all the infamous zeal and excess it is, in fact, another sort of excess that brings the Drug Enforcement Agency to infamy. You know the sort: “sex parties”, suggestions of bribery, beating prostitutes bloody, that sort of thing.

Still, though, Joe Davidson’s reflection on last week’s House Oversight Committee hearing includes a striking consideration:

The lack of authority cited by the Oversight Committee holds ramifications that go beyond the DEA. For a Congress that seems increasingly uncomfortable with the sometimes lengthy due process that must be followed to fire federal employees, the light punishments for DEA agents and Leonhart’s inability to discipline them is reason for Congress to act.

“I can’t fire,” Leonhart said. “I can’t recommend a penalty .... I don’t have the authority to intervene in the disciplinary process.”

To some extent, the members of Congress seemed to hold her responsible for not exercising authority that Congress has not given her. Don’t be surprised if Congress moves to make it easier to fire not just DEA employees but also other federal employees, as it did last year with Department of Veterans Affairs Senior Executive Service members.

So why is the first thought to mind a shrugging sense of, “Sounds about right”?

And then, you know, something about how unequivocal support of law enforcement is required.

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Image note: DEA administrator Michele Leonhart testifies before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a hearing on sexual harassment and misconduct allegations at the DEA and FBI in Washington April 14, 2015. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

Davidson, Joe. “DEA agents had the fun, now boss pays the price”. The Washington Post. 17 April 2015.

The Future, Revealed?

We might for a moment pause to recall 2010. Republicans achieved a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, but the real story was in the state houses, where the GOP made astounding gains by hammering away at the economic instability their Congressional partners worked so hard to create.

And then they tacked away from jobs. As Rachel Maddow memorably put it, “Jobs, jobs jobs … j’abortion”. State-level Republicans passed record numbers of anti-abortion bills, knowing that most of them were unconstitutional. And it is certainly an old conservative scheme, to tilt windmills, lose, and then bawl that the sky is falling because the Constitution is Sauron and Democrats and liberals the armies of Mordor.

With many predicting a Republican blowout in the 2014 midterms, some are looking ahead to figure out just what that will means in terms of policy and governance. And some of those are Republicans.

Yet there is a week left; perhaps this isn’t the best time to be telegraphing the Hell they intend to call down upon the Earth.

Or, as Lauren French and Anna Palmer of Politico explain:

Conservatives in Congress are drawing up their wish list for a Republican Senate, including “pure” bills, like a full repeal of Obamacare, border security and approval of the Keystone XL pipeline — unlikely to win over many Democrats and sure to torment GOP leaders looking to prove they can govern.

Interviews with more than a dozen conservative lawmakers and senior aides found a consensus among the right wing of the Republican Party: If Republicans take the Senate, they want to push an agenda they believe was hamstrung by the Democratic-controlled chamber, even if their bills end up getting vetoed by President Barack Obama.

Their vision could create problems for congressional leaders who want to show they aren’t just the party of “hell no.” And while conservatives say they agree with that goal, their early priorities will test how well John Boehner and Mitch McConnell can keep the party united.

Two points: Swing voters can’t say they weren’t warned. And conservative voters complaining about gridlock should admit that’s what they’re after.

Stupid: The Kentucky Come-Hither

As photographs go, this otherwise unremarkable example from Timothy D. Easley offers two brief amusements. To the first—

Kentucky Senators Mitch McConnell, left, and Rand Paul address the media during a press conference, May 23, 2014, in Louisville, Ky. (Timothy D. Easley/AP Photo)

—someone botched the caption; that is, of course, Sen. McConnell on the right, although one might understand how, compared to his junior colleague from Kentucky, the Senate Minority Leader might be seen as being to the left.

To the second, though, is a simple evaluation of the aesthetics. Sens. Paul and McConnell are wearing those weird matching expressions, like a May-September couple that simultaneously spied a dashing young potential third for the evening’s enjoyment.

Seriously: Kentucky come-hither.

Yet Another Republican Disaster

“I’m sort of holding my nose for two years because what we’re doing here is going to be a big benefit to Rand in ’16, so that’s my long vision.”

―Jesse Benton

Okay, this is what you need to know about the above quote: Jesse Benton is married to Ron Paul’s granddaughter, worked on the former Texas congressman’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, and left the service of Rand Paul in order to work for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

A former Iowa state senator, Kent Sorenson, has pled guilty to charges that he accepted a bribe to abandon his endorsement of and services as state campaign manager to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN06), in order to endorse and work for the Ron Paul campaign.

Mr. Sorenson has named Mr. Benton as a participant in arranging the bribes.

It would seem that what he did for McConnell that will help the junior senator from Kentucky in his 2016 presidential quest is be running the campaign for the senior senator from Kentucky’s re-election when the bribery scandal finally catches up to him.

After a while, it’s kind of like the stories about how everyone else but Dr. Paul wrote those racist newsletters with his name on them. What is it with this family, its political ambition, its willingness to rile people over the traditional corruption of politics, and apparently astounding accidental associations among anfractuous allies?

Y’know. As the saying goes, just sayin’.

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Weigel, David. “Mitch McConnell’s Campaign Manager Resigns After Being Ensnared in Iowa Ron Paul Scandal”. Slate. 29 August 2014.