SAY WHAT? - In case you missed it, dimwitted, thin-skinned, uber-Trumpy "treasonous cowpoke" Devin Nunes officially resigned from Congress on Monday to take a "job" as CEO of Trump's new media "company," leaving behind an illustrious legacy of renaming a post office, undermining Congressional oversight, pushing bogus conspiracy theories, trying to erect a wall in House Intelligence offices to keep Democrats separate, and suing imaginary livestock for mean tweets "that no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life," because he's, like, 12. In Congress since 2003, Nunes managed to achieve staggeringly little - aptly, for the guy about whom it was once said, "No one is asking him to bring the potato salad to the Mensa picnic." There was his 2017 rush to tell the Trump White House he had proof Obama put "wire tapps" on them during "the very sacred election process," except it was Trump who said that. There were the breathless scandals - FBI misdeeds, Carter Page, Steele Dossier - that fell flat. There were frantic errands to Putin, rumors he had Mad Cow Disease, whispers that, alongside Greene and Boebert, he'd no longer take top prize for dullest tool in the shed. There were ignoble hashtags that trailed after him like tin cans strung on a sorry dog's tail -
- and ceaseless, stupid lawsuits against Rachel Maddow,Twitter, WaPo and his constituents when they hurt his feelings. Most notoriously, there was his $250 million lawsuit against an Internet cow for making fun of him, after which the newly famous cow swiftly garnered over 700,000 Twitter followers, because we are all the cow.
#DevinNunesCow was set up after the 2018 revelation that, despite Nunes' many boasts of his farming bona fides in California, his family had moved their dairy farm to Iowa - a pretty basic, scummy lie. After the cow began mocking him, Nunes sued for "a defamation campaign of stunning breadth and scope" that affected his election bids; he won his seat in CA's 22nd District in 2018 by "a much narrow margin" than 2016, which def wasn't about his having morphed into a perfidious sycophant. In 2020, a judge ruled against him, noting social media isn't liable for what people post on it - a well-known fact also applying to multiple parody accounts like #DevinNunesMom and #NunesAlt. But Nunes has kept fighting the cow, even trying to use the DOJ to uncover her identity. Stephen Colbert: "All we know is it's someone smarter than Devin Nunes. So probably a cow." Many cite the irony of a guy so prickly about online criticism now leaving a cushy spot in Congress for "the hellscape" of social media and a grifter's company facing a possible SEC investigation - albeit one that guarantees a safe space from haters. Still, the cow giddily celebrated his departure: "It's so beautiful. #DevinNunesIsAnIdiot has officially left our building...Was it something we said, Milk Dud?... Anybody up for an epic party?” Many chimed in: "May the name Devin Nunes be perpetually etched in piles of bovine excrement from sea to shining sea," "Awarded for bravery in the face of hostile Internet cow," "It's rare a rat jumps on a sinking ship, but here we are." Meanwhile, Nunes babbled about America making "the dream of the Internet a reality" and how it's time "to reopen the Internet and allow for the free flow of ideas," unless they expose lying, insurrectionist buffoons. We're kinda sad we won't have Nunes to kick around any more, but the cow will: Unlike him, she's not quitting.
(Abby Zimet has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. This story was featured in Common Dreams.)
