I’d like a rebate, please, on however much of my money goes to pay the salary of Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin. This is because he seems to not be doing very much to earn a paycheck, as members of the United States Senate learned to their dismay on Thursday. From The New York Times:

The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were behind the leak of private text messages between the Senate panel’s top Democrat and a Russian-connected lawyer, according to two congressional officials briefed on the matter. Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said. To the senators, who are overseeing what is effectively the last bipartisan investigation on Capitol Hill into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the leak was a serious breach of protocol and a partisan attack by one intelligence committee against the other.

So, Warner and Burr, the latter of whom is becoming a very interesting fellow, go to see the Speaker only to discover that he’s really nothing more than a feather in the wind.

In his meeting with the senators, Mr. Ryan made clear that he heard their complaints but noted that he did not run the committee himself, the officials briefed on the encounter said.

Lord, what a charlatan the man is. Somewhere in the Beyond, Uncle Joe Cannon is furious and Tip O’Neill is chuckling merrily out on the porch. If the Senate committee is right, this episode is a window into everything that’s gone wrong with conservative politics over the last 30 years. First of all, the House of Representatives. Second, the complete disregard for personal privacy and political etiquette. Third, a win-at-all-costs vandalism that completely disregards the national interest. And, finally, the Fox News Channel. It’s a complete circle of complete jerks.

How Warner and Burr kept from hitting Ryan with a pie is a stone mystery. Of course, there are things that Ryan could do. He could strip Nunes of his chairmanship, which Ryan should have done a year ago. He could denounce the whole matter from the well of the House. He could have told Warner and Burr that he was launching an ethics committee investigation into what is truly an unconscionable breach of trust and congressional etiquette. He could do…something. But then, he wouldn’t be Paul Ryan, would he?

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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