We should be happy when Congress feels that it can ignore the economy, health care, social security and other subjects that us mere mortals are apparently concerned with for no reason. But the events that congress was involved in last week leave me scratching my head.
The biggest item from Congress making news this week were Congressional Hearings involving Roger Clemens, one of baseball's best and most dominant pitchers of the last twenty years, and whether he told the truth regarding his taking illegal, performance enhancing drugs. Baseball is, we are told, America's Pastime, and I for one am a big baseball fan. Like many fans I am greatly disappointed at the number of players using steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). These players are cheaters. This era will forever be known as the steroids era, and we will always wonder whether the records that have been broken during this era are legitimate or not. Most of the players that have their names even remotely associated with steroids or HGH will never make it into the Hall of Fame. Baseball needs to get their house in order and get the drugs out of the game. Thank goodness Congress doesn't have any important work to do at this time so that they can waste their time and our money on something of such national importance. If they feel the need to stick their nose into this then they ought to go after the real problem and nail the owners, commissioner and the players union for knowingly allowing this to go on as long as it did. I find it darkly comical but not funny that politicians, who most people feel are liars, are trying to determine who is truthful and calling others liars.
Apparently Major League Baseball is not the only sport that Congress feels they need to spend more time investigating. The NFL, and particularly Bill Belichek and his New England Patriots are being accused of cheating by video taping opponents signals and practices. Congressmen spent time asking Commissioner Roger Goodell about why the NFL allowed the destruction of tapes that were evidence of the cheating.
Finally, congress is playing games themselves. Nancy Pelosi is playing with our national security by refusing to take action on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expired this weekend. It's great to see the Republicans stand up to Pelosi as she tries to be the bully and get her way. This game is the scariest of all and if it continues we will all lose.
Congress needs to stop playing in areas that they have no business interfering in and they need to get to work on what is important.