MASTERFUL PERFORMANCE

I would like to take a moment to congratulate the members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on their masterful performance during yesterday’s hearings on the crisis in Flint, Michigan.

Bravo!

The faux anger and indignation put on display by the committee members was truly an Oscar worthy performance.  The manner in which Democratic members savaged incompetent Republican Michigan Governor Rick Snyder was magnificently orchestrated with the pillaring Republican members meted out against woebegone EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.  The constant back and forth of these partisan attacks had Governor Snyder and Administrator McCarthy back on their heels wondering from which direction the next salvo would come.  The effect was to make the two public servants look ineffective and small while enhancing the image of the honorable and righteous members of the committee.

And that is what this was all about….wasn’t it?

This hearing wasn’t about getting to the truth or helping the 100,000 residents of Flint who after two years still do not have clean drinking water flowing from their taps.  This was about politicians creating a self-serving partisan video to show their constituents how tough they are in doing the people’s business.

How do I know?

I know because after the committee finished with their faux ravaging of these two incompetent public servants…they left Washington for a two week recess. 

Congress could have stayed in Washington and hammered out a piece of legislation that would have sent drastically needed emergency funds to 100,000 taxpaying citizens who were poisoned by their own government.  They could have stayed in Washington and set up a fund to pay for the medical bills of the 8,000+ Flint children who will suffer developmental problems because they drank and bathed and brushed their teeth with hazardous waste while their government stood by silently and watched.  Congress could have sent in the Army Corps of Engineers to help expedite the replacement of the lead pipes in 30,000 Flint homes that will have to be replaced if the citizens of Flint are to ever have clean water flowing into their homes again.

They could have done all of these things.  But instead they went on a two week recess.

To be fair…two weeks ago a small bi-partisan group of senators cobbled together a piece of legislation that would have sent the necessary emergency funds to the people of Flint.  But Republican Senator Mike Lee refused to allow the measure to come to the floor for a vote because he said Governor Snyder already had state funds that he could use for the crisis.  Governor Snyder disagrees.  While these two clowns argue over what amounts to peanuts in relation to the money our government throws away daily…the people of Flint struggle to get by.   

This is how government works in the self-proclaimed greatest country in the world.  Grandstanding is considered governing; bombast, bluster and BS the congressional native tongue.

When congress returns in two weeks I expect we will see yet another masterful performance. 

There will be the righteous yet hypocritical defense of the constitution as the senate refuses to grant the president’s Supreme Court nominee even the basic courtesy of a meeting.

 There will be the comical narrative for public consumption as the Republican Party elites try to frag the “outsider” presidential nominee chosen by the people in order to replace him with one of their own.

What story will the Democratic members spin when the Obama Administration Justice Department starts officially raining on the parade of their presumptive presidential nominee?  

And let us not forget the crisis in Flint.  Two years and counting and nothing has been done.  How will the three ring circus in Washington spin the continued delays?  And what will happen when the nation learns that Flint is but the tip of the iceberg?   What will they do when the news recently reported in the USA Today spreads and the nation learns that there are 2,000 other communities like Flint suffering from polluted water sources?

They’ll probably go on another recess.