In Washington, everybody lives in a great nest of snipes. They roost in every corner of the Executive branch. They even roost in the White House and in the homes of the people who work there. They are everywhere in the Intelligence Community. Everywhere inside the Beltway echoes with their winnowing. The snipes might overrun the Nation's Capital if it weren't for the brave and bold snipe hunters who work in the House of Representatives. From Politico:

The search for a fresh line of attack has had a scattershot feel to it, including what Republicans say is the administration’s failure to aggressively combat the Chinese Communist Party; the origins of Covid-19; the approach to liquified natural gas exports and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; and whether the administration sidestepped the Senate confirmation process in naming John Podesta the new climate envoy.
All told, House Republican Committee chairs sent nearly 50 oversight requests from several different committees to a variety of agencies, from the Justice to the Energy department, in the last month, according to a person familiar with the requests who was granted anonymity to discuss them. The barrage makes clear that House Republicans remain eager to inflict a modicum of pain on the White House as the president and his team gear up for the Democratic National Convention and, after that, the election. They just are just settling on the right topic — or topics — first.

How about...and I'm just spitballing here...governing as a topic worth settling on? You know, doing the nation's business? Legislating? Earning your damn government paychecks?

Sorry. Don't know what I was thinking.

“Since January 2023, we’ve launched investigations into President Biden’s border crisis, energy crisis, federal pandemic spending, federal agency telework policies, abuse of power at the FTC, the Bidens’ corrupt influence peddling schemes, the federal government’s efforts to combat CCP influence, and more,” House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement to POLITICO. He promised the ongoing investigations “will culminate in reports with our findings and recommended solutions to prevent government waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.”

Voting to flip the House is worth doing just to make sure this porcine hayshaker doesn't ever get his hands on a gavel again.

Republicans don’t view the new oversight inquiries as a replacement for impeachment, according to a GOP aide who spoke about them on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But there is significant political pressure on the party to produce results after months of promising it would uncover evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors involving Biden.

The snipes are wily. They flit elusively in the great empty sky between James Comer's ears.

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Charles P. Pierce

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.