Yesterday, Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-CA, called on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Republican chairman, Darrell Issa, to “install an above-ground pool” to aid the GOP chairman’s investigations into a wide range of controversies, according to WPRO News Talk. Cardenas wants the swimming pool to be installed in the chambers of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee so he can facilitate a medieval litmus test, contending that using methods from the Salem witch trial era would be more streamlined and less costly to taxpayers, streamlining Issa’s investigative process. This would be especially beneficial to Issa especially since Congressional investigations have become such a large part of his job in Congress.
“We are picking winners and losers, when it is clearly obvious that witches can only be found by dunking them in water,” Cardenas wrote. “If they float they’re a witch. If they don’t, installing a pool will allow us to retrieve the non-witch before he or she drowns.”
Cardenas says that the committee’s prospective pool could be named the “Senator Joseph R. McCarthy Memorial Truth Pond.”
Cardenas’ request comes on the heels of a committee vote last Friday to reject White House assertions of “absolute immunity” of David Simas, a senior adviser to President Obama and the director of the new White House Office of Political Strategy. Simas has refused to testify in the ongoing IRS investigations.