Time to toss this week in the wood chipper and move on to better things. But first, I join all of you in asking: What the (BLEEP) just happened?
White House officials think it’s A-OK to do crimes
The White House wrapped up “Laws are Stupid” Week by seemingly disregarding a recommendation from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel that Kellyanne Conway, one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers, be fired.
Conway, whose primary job is to lie every time her mouth opens, repeatedly violated the Hatch Act, according to the federal watchdog agency. The act prohibits members of the executive branch, except for the president and vice president, from engaging in political activity on government time.
Conway has committed a series of obvious Hatch Act violations, regularly criticizing Democratic presidential candidates while on television as a representative of the administration.
The letter from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel read in part: “Ms. Conway’s violations, if left unpunished, would send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions. Her actions thus erode the principal foundation of our democratic system — the rule of law.”
The White House shrugged off such talk of “laws” as being “deeply flawed” and made it clear it would do nothing to punish Conway.
That makes sense when you consider that earlier in the week, Trump himself, in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, said that if a foreign government offered him dirt on a political opponent, he would take it and might not bother to contact the FBI.
“I think I’d want to hear it. There’s nothing wrong with listening,” said Trump, who seems to struggle with the very concept of laws.
Trump’s own FBI director, Christopher Wray, told congressional lawmakers that the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., should have reported to the FBI his 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian attorney offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.
President Trump told Stephanopoulos: “The FBI director is wrong. Life doesn’t work like that.”
Republican lawmakers responded to the president of the United States punching democracy in the face by saying, “I didn’t see him punch anything. If anybody punched anything it was the liberals. And since when is punching democracy in the face even a bad thing? Maybe we need more democracy face-punching.”
Democrats responded by continuing to not impeach the president.
Judge says Obama Presidential Center can proceed. Do we really know where this judge was born?
Construction of the Obama Presidential Center — you know, the one your Rush-Limbaugh-addicted uncle suspects will be “one of them madrassas for Mooslems” — should proceed without delay, according to a federal judge who on Tuesday dismissed a case against the project.
A group called Protect Our Parks, which I assume was started to counteract the wanton destruction of a group called Deforest Our Parks and Kill All the Squirrels, wanted the center built on private land and not on publicly owned property in Jackson Park.
Protect our Parks officials argued that the presidential center would not be an asset to the public and thus shouldn’t be built on public land.
U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey should have responded by saying, “Who are you calling an asset?!?” Instead, he took the more judicial route by saying the center will provide “a multitude of benefits to the public” including “cultural, artistic, and recreational opportunities.”
Protect Our Parks is likely to appeal the decision. The group could also follow the path of others who have been unhappy with Barack Obama winning and demand to see Judge Blakey’s birth certificate.
Jessica Biel isn’t an anti-vaxxer, she’s just OK with parents not vaccinating!
Actress Jessica Biel was accused this week of being opposed to childhood vaccines, just because she joined a bunch of people opposed to childhood vaccines to protest a California bill that would make it harder for people to not have their children vaccinated.
Totally innocent mistake!
After Biel was savaged on social media for seemingly joining the ranks of noted dummies like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is part of the “anti-vaxx” movement responsible for the return of fun American traditions like measles, she took to Instagram on Thursday and defended herself:
“I support children getting vaccinations and I also support families having the right to make educated medical decisions for their children alongside their physicians.”
Biel wrote that she has friends who “have a child with a medical condition that warrants an exemption from vaccinations, and should this bill pass, it would greatly affect their family’s ability to care for their child in this state.”
Except that’s not really the case. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the bill is meant to weed out “unscrupulous” doctors giving unmerited reasons to not vaccinate, and under the law “the California Department of Public Health would decide whether the underlying condition cited by a doctor in a medical exemption meets criteria set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
So Ms. Biel isn’t anti-vaccination. She’s just pro-parents-being-able-to-find-excuses-not-to-vaccinate.
Celebrities — they’re just like us! (Except they don’t care who gets measles.)
Congress holds the attorney general and commerce secretary in contempt. Wednesdays, amirite?!?
In the alternate universe we used to inhabit, the one where things at least occasionally made sense, news that a U.S. House panel voted to hold the attorney general and the commerce secretary in contempt of Congress would be a pretty big deal.
In our present universe, that’s just called “Wednesday.”
The House Oversight Committee voted 24-15 to pass a contempt resolution for both Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for failing to turn over subpoenaed documents relating to why Ross added a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
It’s part of an overall Trump administration approach to congressional investigations that I like to call “hiding all the evidence you claim exonerates you, because that’s what innocent people usually do.”
Chicago Bears waive kicker Chris Blewitt. Who’s next, John Missedit?
Chicago Bears fans might remember some kicking-related issues that ended last season’s playoff run with a double-doink.
Finding a replacement for said doinker, the departed Cody Parker, has been something of an offseason drama, and it continued as such this week as Bears officials decided they must first get rid of all kicking candidates whose last names sound like a bad omen.
On Wednesday morning, the Bears cut kicker Chris Blewitt.
That does not bode well for aspiring candidates like Phil Iscrewedup, Cayden Oopsitripped and Don Tripledoink.
rhuppke@chicagotribune.com
