#blameAdam | #thehashtag
If trying to explain everything amiss, askew, or awry about this panel seems an agonizing prospect, we can most certainly blame Adam.
Any other day I might have gone with panel two, but something about this makes me wonder at the four-panel comic strip version of The Aristocrats.
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Image note: Detail of Bug Martini, by Adam Huber, 23 May 2018.
Peter Elkind, for ProPublica:
FBI director James Comey generated national headlines last week with his dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, explaining his “incredibly painful” decision to go public about the Hillary Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.
Perhaps Comey’s most surprising revelation was that Huma Abedin—Weiner’s wife and a top Clinton deputy—had made “a regular practice” of forwarding “hundreds and thousands” of Clinton messages to her husband, “some of which contain classified information.” Comey testified that Abedin had done this so that the disgraced former congressman could print them out for her boss ....
.... The problem: Much of what Comey said about this was inaccurate. Now the FBI is trying to figure out what to do about it.
FBI officials have privately acknowledged that Comey misstated what Abedin did and what the FBI investigators found. On Monday, the FBI was said to be preparing to correct the record by sending a letter to Congress later this week. But that plan now appears on hold, with the bureau undecided about what to do.
Take some time. Let that sink in.
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Image note: FBI Director James Comey. (Photo: Gary Cameron/Reuters)
Elkind, Peter. “Comey’s Testimony on Huma Abedin Forwarding Emails Was Inaccurate”. ProPublica. 9 May 2017.
We get a glimpse into the Beltway moneygoround; Curtis Tate looks into Congressional PAC spending:
The leadership political action committee affiliated with Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois has splurged on Napa Valley wine tours, Miami Beach luxury hotels and Washington Nationals baseball tickets worth tens of thousands of dollars over the past four years, federal campaign disclosures show.
The nine-term Republican represents a coal-producing region of southern Illinois and frequently speaks in defense of fossil fuels as a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. But earlier this year, his John S Fund PAC put down a deposit for a fundraising event at a California spa hotel that’s powered by solar panels.
PACs are lightly regulated entities that members of Congress typically use as fundraising tools for their party, but not for their own campaigns.
The McClatchy report notes Rep. Shimkus (R-IL15) is not uncommon: “Most senior lawmakers with PACs spend at least some of the money on perks their salaries don’t cover”, Tate explains. Viveca Novak of the Center for Responsive Politics calls the PACs “a nice little piggybank to have”, explaining, “There are so few restrictions on how you can use it.”
The thing is that the story really is just a glimpse; the whole thing sounds sordid but in this framework it is a matter of aesthetics versus law, and the question of how to make these things work just right is pretty much as complicated as any other question of freedom versus civilized society as a suicide pact. That is to say, good luck electing a Congress that will get rid of the things; the Supreme Court is pretty much a wildcard, though we can easily guess it would be something of a stretch to imagine the judiciary banning these practices outright. And, really, just how badly will society and its political institutions fail at not being undignified if we hold a big sit-down in the public discourse and parse out the details of what is or isn’t acceptable?
And why not?
Some Republican House members are looking for a few good members — who don’t want to get nuked.
Republican Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona and Doug Lamborn of Colorado, leaders of the Missile Defense Caucus, sent a “Dear Colleague” note with this message: “If your boss is fine with being nuked by Iran and North Korea, ignore this e-mail.”
Alright, before we go setting our hair on fire over this little Beltway vignette from Roll Call, it would behoove us to recall one simple point.
That is to say, this is Trent Franks and Doug Lamborn.
Arizona Eight and Colorado Five, in case it matters, and especially with that latter, it kind of does. Mr. Franks is hawkish near to paranoid, and Mr. Lamborn stupid to the point of infamy. Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District is similarly notorious. In its context, tinfoil missile shield advocacy probably isn’t the worst these two could come up with.
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Image note: The U.S. Capitol building stands surrounded by scaffolding in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, 28 October 2015. (Detail of photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Gangitano, Alex. “Calling All Members Who Don’t Want to Get Nuked”. Heard on the Hill. Roll Call. 3 March 2016.
“For politicians, the life of a federal judge isn’t viewed as being as attractive as it used to be. The confirmation process is excruciating and caseloads are up. Members realize that it’s just lore these days that the bench is a form of easy living, and besides they can make much more money becoming lobbyists.”
This is not a random question: Can you imagine how contentious would be the filibuster of and confirmation hearing for federal judicial nominee Trey Gowdy?
No, really, just stop and think about that for a moment. U.S. District Court Judge Trey Gowdy.
Perhaps the question might occur to wonder why we might propose consideration of such an infamy visited upon the proposition of American justice. David Hawkings of Roll Call offers some thoughts at the intersection of Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC04) and Justice.
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Image note: Rep Trey Gowdy (R-SC04), chair of the House Select Committee on Benghazi Conspiracy Theories. (Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP).
Benen, Steve. “When even ‘definitive’ isn’t good enough for the House GOP”. 25 November 2014.
Hawkings, David. “House Conservative Favorite Eyes Unusual Career Switch”. Hawkings Here. Roll Call. 15 November 2015.
As gifts go, I’ll take a Wire show, but I really won’t complain about the Frothy Clown akwardly probing for his seat in the 2016 GOP Clown Car. Trip Gabriel drew the short straw over at the New York Times:
Rick Santorum, the runner-up in the Republican nomination race four years ago, announced his second presidential bid on Wednesday, pledging to restore a middle class “hollowed out” by government policies.
A former United States senator from rural western Pennsylvania, he appealed primarily to social conservatives four years ago. But he has donned a new mantle of economic populism, one he calls “blue-collar conservatism.”
“Working families don’t need another president tied to big government or big money,” he said, criticizing Hillary Rodham Clinton and “big business” for pro-immigration policies he said had undercut American workers.
Mr. Santorum, 57, was the surprise winner of the Iowa caucuses in 2012, thanks to evangelical Christian voters, and he went on to win 10 other states, dragging out Mitt Romney’s quest for the nomination.
Still, he has struggled to catch on this time around. He is in danger of not making the 10-candidate cutoff for the first Republican debate on Aug. 6, which will be determined by standings in national polls.
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