Finally Friday Reads: National Public Chaos

“I think Kash Patel opened the barn door on this one, I suspect the FBI Social Media Cleanup Squad is gonna be busy trying to close it.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

There are so many people appointed to public office without qualifications, temperament, or even basic knowledge that many state, federal, and local agencies and functions are beyond dysfunctional. Political appointments have always been a touchy process, but the system of checks and balances and the presence of officials who take their jobs seriously and sanely are obviously lacking these days.  The Trump appointments are stand-outs. They’re like an army against rational thought. The problem is that they hold positions where they can spread ignorance, sow disarray, and cause extremely harmful outcomes.

We have people needlessly dying of diseases that have been curable for a long time because of the insane RFK jr. We have Pete Hegseth, who eliminates any qualified person who isn’t a white male and simply has no knowledge of battle command or war strategies. In fact, some congress critters were ready to impeach him, so Trump toady Speaker of the House Mike Johnson simply sent the House of Representatives on a long vacation until after the November Elections.

Let me start with a review of this insanity that endangers our service members and our country’s national safety and standing among enemies and allies alike. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie organized a movement to impeach the ineffective and inept Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth. This move came to the forefront last week. This is from The Hill. “Massie: GOP leaders found ‘other Republicans’ who would join Hegseth impeachment push.” Max Rego reports the story.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) argued Wednesday that House GOP leaders sent the lower chamber home early because they found other Republicans in support of his push to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“The fact that they didn’t vote on it tells me that they did a whip check, and they probably found that there were some other Republicans, besides me, that were going to vote for this, or at least didn’t want to be on the record supporting Hegseth,” he told host Kaitlan Collins on CNN’s “The Source.”

The outgoing Kentucky libertarian, a frequent critic of President Trump, introduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth on Tuesday.

Massie accused Hegseth of violating his “oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” citing his handling of the Iran war and operations to kill alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

The GOP lawmaker, who lost his primary in May to Trump-backed Ed Gallrein, also made his impeachment resolution privileged.

Mike Johnson’s tenure as the Speaker has been anything but illustrious. This move basically obstructs the basic functions of the House.  There were even enough Republicans to get the hearing which is how the system is supposed to work. This is clearly obstruction of some kind but undoubtedly so outrageous and obvious there’s little the Congress can do.  This is analysis from MS NOW’s  Michael A. Cohen. “Mike Johnson’s do-nothing House goes home with a whimper. It is a fitting step for what has been, undoubtedly, the least effective Congress in American history.”  Consider we’ve had 250 of dubious congressional actions for that to be the headline.

On Wednesday afternoon, Speaker Mike Johnson adjourned the House and sent the 433 current members back to their districts. They won’t return until after the midterm elections.

It is a fitting end to what has been, undoubtedly, the most ineffective, underperforming and borderline useless Congress in American history.

This might seem like a harsh judgment, but the numbers bear it out. Since convening in January 2025, the 119th Congress has passed 108 major laws — and only 36 this year. Up to this point on the calendar, no Congress has passed fewer laws in modern American political history — except for the last Congress, which was also led by Johnson.

The 119th is on pace to pass fewer laws than any Congress since the Civil War. Even the infamous Do-Nothing Congress of 1947-1948 enacted more than 900 laws. Johnson has canceled 63 scheduled voting days. Through Aug. 31, the House was in session for 383 hours — an average of 48 hours per month. By comparison, the onerous Medicaid work requirements Republicans enacted in 2025 asked recipients to work 80 hours per month.

And this isn’t just an issue of quantity; it’s also one of quality. The only major bill the 119th enacted was H.R. 1, widely known as the “big beautiful bill,” which cut taxes, slashed Medicaid and remains deeply unpopular with Americans.

Beyond that, the 119th’s legislative accomplishments were the Laken Riley Act, which tightens immigration enforcement; the Genius Act, which regulates the crypto industry; the Take It Down Act, which addresses artificial intelligence-produced imagery; and a bill to release the so-called Epstein files.

Doing the job well or using established law, reality, and precedence has nothing to do with any recent Republican appointments to key positions. Take Justice Samuel Alito, please.  This analysis is from Balls and Strikes. It’s authored by Madiba K. Dennie. “A Brief History of Sam Alito’s Delusional Obsession With Voter Fraud. His conduct in several recent cases suggests that Alito is deep in the right-wing conspiracy theory weeds.”

Against Justice Samuel Alito’s most fervent wishes, a federal district court order that prohibits the U.S. Postal Service from implementing a rule overhauling mail-in voting will remain in place during the 2026 midterm elections. Earlier this month, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to temporarily lift the order, which would have allowed it to immediately disenfranchise millions of Americans who vote by mail. But in an unsigned opinion on Monday, the Court in Postal Service v. California denied that request.

In its opinion, the Court reasoned that the Trump administration was “unlikely to succeed” on the merits of its legal claim, and the “equitable factors” didn’t support lifting the order either. This is basically the polite way of saying “this is obviously illegal” and “this is too much of a hot mess, even for us.” But in a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Alito contended that the mess was worthwhile. Although Alito claimed to take the “practical effects” of implementing the rule “very seriously,” he argued they were outweighed by the government’s “strong interest” in combating “election fraud.”

This “strong interest” is untethered from reality. Decades of research has shown that voter fraud is vanishingly rare. And one recent study that specifically examined mail voting between 2016 and 2022 found an average of four cases of fraud for every 10 million mail votes, or about 0.000043 percent.

Nevertheless, Alito has been preoccupied with voter fraud for years, and has used his unfounded fears to justify broad attacks on the right to vote. Just during the Court’s most recent term, Alito signaled his distrust of mail-ballots at least three times. First, in October 2025, the Court heard oral argument in Bost v. Illinois, a case about whether candidates for federal office have a right to sue over election rules in federal court. The Court would go on to rule that they do, reasoning that candidates have a unique stake in “the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections.” At oral argument, though, Alito suggested that the candidates left a valid argument off the table by not alleging “what most people believe to be true”—namely, that counting mail-in ballots “generally hurts Republican candidates” and “generally helps Democratic candidates.”

Second, in March 2026, the Court heard oral argument in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a case about whether states have been violating the federal laws that establish “Election Day” by counting ballots that were mailed on or before that date but arrive a short time afterwards. Alito argued that counting these ballots is a threat to election integrity, because they can “radically flip” the “apparent outcome”—language commonly used by Republican politicians to frame the process of counting votes as suspicious.

Finally, in June 2026, Alito dissented in Watson, and in his opinion went on at length about the “vulnerabilities” of mail-in ballots; the majority, he said, had issued a decision that “compounds” the democratic danger. According to Alito, not only does counting valid and timely-cast votes facilitate “charges of a rigged election,” it empowers “bad actors” to “stuff ballot boxes when early election results suggest a tight race.”

Dennie has plenty of evidence and you may read it at the link. Since I mentioned RFK, Jr. in the introduction let’s just go there, shall we? This is from the New York Times. “Kennedy Assures Vaccine Skeptics That They Have a ‘Friend at the White House’. The health secretary spoke at a conference featuring misinformation about vaccines, including a claim that the success of the polio vaccines was a “fraud.” Sure, why not drive the kill our citizens bandwagon around the country.  Christina Jewett and Teddy Rosenbluth share the lede.’

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday told members of the anti-vaccine group he founded that they had “a strong and steadfast friend at the White House” and that he would “die with my boots on” pursuing answers about the risks of vaccines.

His remarks, to a convention of Children’s Health Defense, signaled a notable shift from earlier this year when White House officials and political advisers had pushed Mr. Kennedy to sidestep the vaccine issue, given widespread support among voters for protecting children against deadly diseases. They came just one day after President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Nicole Saphier, gave a full-throated defense of the safety and efficacy of vaccines during her Senate confirmation hearing.

But Mr. Kennedy, after spending the first part of his speech on the far more politically popular topics of food safety and nutrition, plunged headlong into vaccines, in a conference riddled with misinformation and references to discredited studies.

The speaker before Mr. Kennedy was Mark Gorton, the president of the MAHA Institute, who called the success of the polio vaccine a “fraud,” priming the audience for the remarks of their former leader, who railed against vaccines for two decades. The speaker after him was Andrew Wakefield, a discredited British doctor whose retracted paper linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine with autism. Decades of research have proved that finding to be wrong.

Sure. Why not keep supporting things that have been rigorously disproven and are deadly.  So, now let’s head to Kash Patel’s crazy senate hearing that made my showboat Senator John Kennedy (R-Lousyana) look reasonable. It was the battle of the showboats. This is from The Independent. “Kash Patel’s bizarre Senate hearing somehow landed on ‘victims’ of bestiality
In one of the strangest Trump administration appearances yet, Patel made jokes about canines and had to clarify he is not ‘into’ animal sex before getting into a yelling match with a Democratic senator about the midterms, writes Holly Baxter.”

FBI director Kash Patel testified to the Senate Tuesday in a hearing that almost immediately descended into discussions about bestiality. Because that’s the world we live in now.

If you’re one of the fortunate souls who remains unfamiliar with Patel, let me fill you in: Trump’s FBI guy has, in the past, floated the idea that Jan. 6 was a Deep State setup, purged thousands of FBI workers after taking up the job, used polygraphs to test the loyalty of officials to the Trump administration, and overseen the detainment and deportation of thousands, the majority of whom have no criminal record. He believes that no media can be trusted, and is currently suing The Atlantic for publishing a highly critical article about him.

Oh, and he removed the requirement for FBI recruits that they had never had sex with animals.

As with most people connected to this hall-of-mirrors version of an administration, Patel is a mixture of scary, sarcastic and bizarre. He opened today with the usual MAGA stuff about how he’s changed the FBI to “let cops be cops” and how he’s been busy “capturing literally the worst of the worst.” He listed off a few data points about child abusers and “gangbangers” who have been imprisoned under his watch.

And then the questioning began.

You’ve removed the requirement for people joining the FBI not to have criminal convictions for stealing, soliciting sex, or engaging in bestiality, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Ohio noted to Patel. Does that make your standards higher? (Patel had recently monologued about how historically high the FBI’s standards are now, because of changes like asking potential recruits to do a single pull-up.)

“Our standards have never been higher,” Patel replied. Pushed on that, he added that he wouldn’t have wanted to exclude “victims of bestiality” from applying for FBI jobs. Which all sounds very woke and lovely, until you consider that the victims of bestiality are animals.

“You’ve turned that upside-down,” said Durbin, dismissively, as he wrapped up his time.

Another senator wasn’t going to let it go so easily — and this was, in fact, a Republican: Sen. John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana. Kennedy began by demanding that Patel “pull that mic closer to you,” before diving into why anyone would remove the three requirements for anyone applying to the FBI.

It’s to protect victims, Patel responded; to which Kennedy clarified, “So it’s not if you frequented a prostitute, it’s because you were a prostitute?” Patel nodded. Kennedy paused, considered, seemed to find that reasonable, then leaned forward again and asked, slowly, “What about the bestiality?”

This is where things began to descend again. Patel again said he was protecting victims, to which Kennedy asked the obvious question: “So you don’t disqualify the animal?” At this point, Patel should probably have launched into some pre-prepared spiel about abuse, but instead he let out a nervous laugh and said, “We have great canines but we’re not going to disqualify animals.”

Kennedy didn’t find this acceptable. Do you realize, he asked Patel, that removing requirements like this makes everybody here look bad? This has hurt the FBI, having people hear that they seemingly don’t think bestiality is a big deal. With a perplexed look on his face, he finished with: “Why would you even get into bestiality?”

Read the rest if you can or dare or can stomach creepiness. But, wait, this entire post is about creepy Republican appointees!  I could probably write an Encyclopedia on it! Lost your lunch yet?

So, there’s one piece of good news about the Creep-in-Chief’s active blocking of release of the Epstein Files that yet again, links to Congressman Massie and will be put-off until after the election by the creepy Speaker of the House. This is from MTN (MeidasTouch News).  “Massie, Khanna Say They Have Secured 218 Signatures for New Epstein Files Vote. The announcement comes hours after MeidasTouch reported the discharge petition was just two signatures short of the threshold needed to force a House vote.” It’s reported by Brett Meiselas.

Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., announced Thursday that they have secured commitments for the 218 signatures needed to force a House vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act II.

The announcement comes just hours after MeidasTouch reported that the discharge petition had reached 216 signatures, leaving Massie and Khanna just two short of the 218-member threshold. At the time, every House Democrat except Reps. John Garamendi of California and Adam Smith of Washington had signed.

According to Khanna, those final two signatures are now accounted for.

“Thomas Massie and I have defied history for a second time, securing 218 signatures on Epstein 2.0,” Khanna said in a video Thursday. Khanna said four Republicans had joined the effort and that the two remaining Democrats had been sick and would sign when Speaker Mike Johnson calls the House back into session.

Massie made the same announcement, saying the four Republicans backing the petition are himself and Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Nancy Mace of South Carolina.

“Four Republicans have signed the Epstein Files II discharge petition!” Massie wrote. “When we return from recess that Speaker Johnson imposed until the election, Rep. Ro Khanna & I will have 218 names required to force a vote!”

Justice delayed, is justice denied.  Right?  Evidently Speaker Mike Johnson’s only job is to placate Orange Caligula.

So, I’ll stop right here because, again, I could write a huge, long book about all the injustices and surreal bandwagons rolling forward within the Beltway because some damn people just had to vote for the Maggots. I’m still lighting incense and wearing down my mala hoping the midterms bring in more reasonable people although I’m afraid we’ll just get more feckless or Fettermanish Dems. Reasonable Republicans are severely endangered species.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?