Badlands

 Last week I flippantly suggested that Tulsi Gabbard has evidence connecting Barack Obama to The Teapot Dome Scandal. I made this little jape at the expense of the Director of National Intelligence after she did her very best to obscure the train wreck her boss is currently experiencing in real time. Director Tulsi would like us all to believe that President Obama committed treason back in 2016. The challenge currently is just how much attention we should all give Tulsi's sideshow. Any sort of comment just gives more oxygen to a wildfire of falsehood.

One that should be extinguished on its own, but unfortunately there are far too many bitter and mistreated MAGAts who need fresh meat. So why not go ahead and dangle Teapot Dome in front of them to see who bites first?

If you're not up on your 1920's government corruption, it was a scandal that occurred during Warren G. Harding's administration. It seems that his Interior Secretary, Albert Fall, leased a number of oil reserves at very low rates without any sort of competitive bidding. Two of these locations were in California, but the third was in the nefariously named Wyoming locale of Teapot Dome. Investigated by the Senate, it turned out that Secretary Albert accepted bribes from the oil companies. Fall went to prison. Nobody who gave him the bribes was convicted of any crimes. 

It wasn't until Watergate that our country had anything like it to compare. In what might be considered a stroke of luck on his behalf, Warren G. Harding died before all of the evidence came to light. His successor, Calvin Coolidge managed to keep his nose clean of all this mess and went on to be elected to his own term as President. Calvin managed to squeak on out just ahead of the Crash of 1929. All the money Albert Fall had made was gone after serving a year in prison. Harding is the guy who gets all the blame for The Great Depression. 

All of these guys, it should be noted, were Republicans. 

Which is probably why Tulsi hasn't bothered to spread the rumor I helped create. Oh, and Watergate? That was theirs too. Interesting, since Tulsi wasn't always a Republican. She chose to move on over to the Dark Side. Director of Intelligence? That's kind of an ironic title, right?