The GOP Congress voted to reverse their earlier secret vote to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) after being surprised that the public was incredibly unhappy with the idea that the political party that now controls all three branches of government seemed to want to do away with any ethical oversight, especially in light of the many ethical questions being raised regarding the incoming president.

Many people are crediting the president-elect for shaming Republican lawmakers into rejecting their desire to eliminate ethical review, but we should not be so quick to give the president-elect credit for the decision.

Here is what president-elect trump had to say about it: “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!”

Note two things. 1) trump’s message came via—you guessed it—Twitter, and 2) trump didn’t actually criticize them for wanting to gut the OCE; he criticized their timing. Did you notice how trump called the OCE “unfair” in his tweet?

He’s gaming the system for a later evisceration by making it known to his party’s lawmakers that he doesn’t like the OCE, either, but warned the GOP to wait until such time as the public won’t be paying so much attention to things like this.

Keep your eyes on the OCE.

 

Meanwhile, in news that doesn’t matter…

For a brief few moments on Tuesday, January 3, 2017, Kim Kardashian-West dropped the “West” name from some of her social media accounts, and the Internet lost its collective shit immediately and universally. Ms K-W quickly realized that her desire to be seen at every waking moment results in her being seen at every waking moment and added the “West” back to her accounts, causing social media to stare at its own navel for hours, wondering if they saw what they think they saw.