A couple weeks into Elon Musk's rampage through the federal bureaucracy, we finally have an answer to whether congressional Republicans mind that he's usurped their main source of authority, the power of the purse: No, they do not care. If anything, accepting Musk's self-appointed role frees up their time from troublesome decision-making tasks, allowing them more time to go on TV and make excuses for letting a private citizen conduct what looks very much like a coup. Still, while lying to cable news hosts is a pleasurable way for congressional Republicans to spend their time, it hardly amounts to a full-time job. Senate Republicans, at least, still have Donald Trump's Cabinet appointees to rubber-stamp. But how else will Republican representatives in the lower chamber spend their days, now that they've handed their main job duties over to an unelected megalomaniac?
Readers will be unsurprised to learn that the answer is thuddingly stupid. On Tuesday, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., announced that he's forming a "Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets." That sounds very official and important, but, as with anything Comer does, it's a clown show. Reading beyond headlines, one quickly realizes the only purpose of this "task force" is to give an unjustified air of legitimacy to various conspiracy theories that have warped American minds at an increasing rate over the past few decades. The task force will allegedly reveal information on "the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK," Comer declared. They'll also pretend to unearth information about UFOs, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, whether 9/11 was an inside job, and, of course, Jeffrey Epstein's client list — no doubt sans anyone currently in GOP leadership or is, like Epstein when he was alive, a friend of Donald Trump's.
