Dear Henry Waxman

Not to diminish the use of steroids in baseball or the unscrupulousness of spying in football but, well, um...aren't there bigger fish to fry than an athlete who cheated?  Sure Bonds and Clemens have ruined their legacies...that is enough, isn't it?  Marion Jones ruined her livelihood, her reputation and is going to spend time in prison.  Why?

I want to know why the fuck you dumb assholes in Congress and the Justice Dept think lying about steroid use is worse than say lying about WMD's in Iraq.

more ranting below

For the 04 and 06 election cycles Dems promised to clean up Washington, to hold the GOP accountable for their lies and mistakes.  Mr. Waxman, you screamed louder than most about the need for proper "oversight".  So what the fuck changed?  

Did the DNC tell you and Feingold and Frank to shut the fuck up?  To ride the wave of general discontent with the GOP to more gains in 08?  To not rock the boat?  Or were all of you just full of shit in the first place?

NOLA still needs real help, not the mismanagement the government has provided to this point.  Iraq is still a clusterfuck.  Afghanistan is becoming an increasing clusterfuck.  Sudan and Chad are continuing to devolve into unmanageable states of crisis.  Kosovo is a problem.  The environment is a problem.  The Federal Deficit is a problem.  Homelessness is a problem.  Consumer debt is a problem.  Lack of affordable insurance is a problem.

Congress has an approval rating that hovers just above or just below 20% depending on the winds of the day.  And you think that spending the time and money on perjury charges against athletes is the right way to spend said time?  Are you fucking crazy or fucking stupid or both?  Get off your fucking ass and start providing oversight for what really fucking matters.

How bout investigating those documented lies of the Bush Administration regarding the run up to..and post invasion policies, to the war in Iraq.  How bout holding hearings on Insurance companies kinda like the ones held for big tobacco?  Did any of those lying tobacco exec's get slapped with perjury charges after those hearings?  No, but some good did come out of the hearings.  The truth came out and states were able to win monstrous settlements with the purveyors of poison.  So isn't the good that came out of the use of steroids in sports enough?  Cheaters cheat.  They always have and always will.  There are thousands of would be Victor Contes littering chemist labs around the world trying to mix up the new untraceable performance enhancing drug.  HGH is undetectable despite WADA's claims to the contrary...by all accounts the tests run during the last two Olympics to detect HGH were failures.  So two of the greatest players in the history of the game are trying to protect their legacies, legacies that were already assured before they started using the drugs to prolong their dominance, by lying...so fucking what.  Yea it sends a bad message to the kids.  But they have destroyed the legacies of their youth by the mistakes of their golden years in baseball...that is enough.  Wasting twenty, thirty million of taxpayer dollars on making sure Bonds and Clemens get convicted of lying is asinine and makes you an ass for thinking it is Congress' job to police the drug use of a private companies employees.  Meanwhile, insurance companies; oil companies; etc use deceptive trade practices in collusion to make sure the consumer has to pay the maximum rather than a minimum for goods or services.  Meanwhile, the Bush tax code keeps the rich, rich.  Meanwhile, those who scraped to buy a home while the market was favorable are losing their dreams now that the market is unfavorable.  Meanwhile, America continues to lag in education standards.  Meanwhile, America continues to lag in infant mortality rates.  Meanwhile the homeless remain homeless.  Meanwhile, the environment continues to take a beating.  Meanwhile, we continue to coddle the oil and auto industries by not instituting meaningful mpg standards, meaningful alternative fuel standards.  Meanwhile, America keeps pushing bad times towards the future.  We don't address deficit spending...we raise our annual budget by half a trillion dollars while cutting taxes and then ask foreign states to pick up the difference.  We don't address the consumer debt that has led to the banks losing their asses.  We rush through "stimulus" packages that don't address the problem of debt but just delay the consequences of debt.  A few hundred extra dollars saved in taxes won't be spent on paying down a credit card, it will be spent putting food on the table or keeping the lights on.  Only the insane would think that "stimulus" is monetary.  Address the goddamn problems.  Get special interests out of government.  Work for the fucking people and not for big business.  

Ronald Reagan asked "are you better off than you were four years ago?"

That was in 1980.  I'm sure a lot of individuals are better off than they were 28 years ago.  But America itself, and its government specifically, are in a much worse state than they were 28 years ago.  We had a brief island of smarter management during the Clinton years but Bush has ensured that any gains made have since been redacted.  

It doesn't matter who the next president is if Congress continues to be so fucking stupid as to think that going after a lying sports icon is more important than going after a lying President.  

We hear Obama and McCain, the two likely candidates--and the first "damned  either way race of my lifetime"-- continually blather on about how great America is...which means neither think that that much needs changing.  America has always had the ability to be great.  But we rarely live up to that capability.  We revel in being the "superpower", ie the world bully.  

So Mr. Waxman, here's my plea to you and your cronies...DO YOUR FUCKING JOBS AND HELP MAKE AMERICA LIVE UP TO ITS PROMISE AND RISE ABOVE ITS SATISFACTION WITH THE PERCEPTION OF GREATNESS.