Big questions abound in these last few days for Congress in Washington DC, and all of them are pretty terrible, and none of them seem to bode well for much of anyone. Will the massive tax cut to Bob Corker pass? Will there even be a government to give Bob Corker his tax break, or will we cancel this Apprentice shit-show spin-off, wherein we didn't even get to see Omarosa dragged across the White House lawn, and just shut down the government at the same time Trump fires all the people he has to in order to get to Robert Mueller? The biggest mystery plaguing Washington DC though (besides Where in the World is Rudy Giuliani?) is said to be the looming question of whether or not there is a "major publication" working up a "bombshell" story filled with sex, lies, and potentially 20 or maybe even up to 40 or 50 different members of Congress who have already been accused of sexual misconduct, and/or paid tax money to make these sex scandals go away. Politico says maybe, and that maybe they are writing it!

Reading the news has become incredibly meta, with Politico writing articles about whether or not they, or possibly other publications, are maybe writing bombshell articles about congressional sex scandals (and at the same time some of these publications are also having to deal with writers who are also doing sex scandals themselves). So it's hard to know what articles they are writing, or who is left to write them, but in the meantime we still have conjecture, and that can be kinda fun, in an Everything is Terrible in 2017 sort of way, no? At any rate, Congress is just worrying itself to death about this potential, possibly to be released at any time bombshell article, and also constantly asking every reporter they run into if they are writing this story and if it is about them.

The idea that "WashingtonDC is Hollywood for ugly people" has become more of a challenge than a cliche this year, as the Congressional Creepers fight the Tinsel Town Touchers for supremacy in an epic battle over who will have more of their people charged with allegations of gross sex stuff happening in the work place. "Just this month, five members of Congress have been forced to resign or retire after being accused of sexual misconduct: Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev.), Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and Blake Farenthold (R-Texas)." That is FIVE people from Congress, out of a total of 535, in a month, without any bombshell articles, just stories about five guys allegedly acting like stupid pervs in various ways from one end of the country to the other.

For what it's worth, and to further the cause of Dems always yelling at other Dems right when they really need to get their shit together and focus, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV CLEAN COAL IS REAL) has gone on record as saying that what was done to Al Franken by Democrats is "atrocious" and "the most hypocritical thing" Joe Manchin "has ever seen done to a human," which makes it clear that Sen. Manchin does not follow Trump on twitter. It also raises the oft-asked question: Was deciding that Al Franken "had to go NOW" a well-thought-out plan based on necessity and credible bad acts, or was it a big way to try and force the issue on the GOP to set some kind of WE FIRED FRANKEN NOW YOU HAVE TO FIRE TRUMP precedent that was NEVER going to work, because the GOP, and Trump in particular, don't give a good goddamn about ethics, are you crazy? We do not know. But these questions and more are leading some folks like Joe Manchin to say that Al Franken should take back his resignation and follow through on an Ethics Committee investigation and hearing. It seems highly unlikely that Franken will do that at this point, and Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith has already officially been named as his replacement, but the arguments over credible accusers, due process, and what did the ubiquitous Roger Stone know and when did he know it rage on anyway, so anything is possible.

Speaking of due process though, here's Trump's favorite golfing buddy suck-up and dude who has not had a sex scandal yet (even though we've been thinking he will for years now) Lindsey Graham: “You want to have a welcome environment to report abuse — you don’t want to deter victims,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in an interview. “But you’ve got to have enough due process and scrutiny to make sure it’s accurate.” Now this sounds like he could be talking about Al Franken, but in this case Lindsey was referring to the FAKE NEWS story that was being shopped around about Chuck Schumer. Now's the time to get one of those red strings on a bulletin board map thumb-tacked to pictures of all these scandals going so as to be able to keep up accordingly.

But Lindsey Graham is correct -- no one wants for people to be accused untruthfully because that certainly doesn't help anyone -- especially not victims, and we need to listen to the accusers in a smart, thoughtful, compassionate, and reasonable way. And, while we are being thoughtful and reasonable, shouldn't the American tax payers absolutely know who in Congress has used tax money to pay for whatever form of sexual misconduct they have had to cop to? Is it not arguable that the government quietly having a general fund of sex scandal hush money should never have been a policy, much less a secret in the first place, and what the hell were we all doing in 1995 when Congress passed the damn thing and had the balls to name it the "Congressional Accountability Act" in the first place?

Congress does a lot of sneaky shit, that's for sure, so it's probably good that this rumor of a "potential bombshell article" is going around and scaring these assholes, whoever may or may not be writing it. And it would be even more helpful if an article did come along with some actionable results, like repealing the Congressional Accountability Act, and getting rid of some clearly defined sexual-mis-conduct-ors in Congress. Until then, enjoy what are clearly not at all intentional double entendres from Politico about how "members and aides from both parties in recent weeks have buttonholed reporters to try to gauge what they’re working on regarding sexual harassment — and, perhaps, to put their own minds at ease that no one is dogging them." Even though we are pretty sure everyone has been buttonholed and Congress has been dogging all kinds of people without permission or consent for quite some time now.

[Politico]