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Fake News: The Toole Shed

The content of this article is satirical and represents a work of fiction, or Fake News. The characters within are fictitious.

It’s eight o’clock here in New York and you’re in The Toole Shed. I’m your host, Ryan Toole, and tonight we’ll be talking about the biggest breaking stories in American and world politics. The top of the order today concerns Republican Senator from Kentucky Stanley Sheppard, who voted yesterday to pass S. 622, or the Helping Heroes Act of 2023, a bill which would expand assistive services from the Department of Veteran Affairs for the families of veterans. As innocent as that may seem to be, his vote not only comes after his public disapproval of the bill earlier in the deliberations, but also after voting “no” on two previous bills in 2022 that sought similar ends, being S. 2432, the Expanding Access to Veteran Aid Act, and S. 990, the Veteran Continuity of Care Act.

If we choose to focus solely on the titles of these bills, one might think that Senator Sheppard is somehow simultaneously interested in helping our heroes and disinterested in continuing to care for them. “Well, which one is it?” you might ask. “You can’t possibly be both!” But let’s table that question for a moment. As you know, here in The Toole Shed we tend to dive a bit deeper into political affairs than the titles assigned to legislation, although it doesn’t take too deep a dive to identify some of the more pertinent issues stemming from Senator Sheppard’s characteristic indecisiveness. Well, Toole, what do you mean? Well, this Toole will tell you.

Since the inception of the 118th Congress, Senator Sheppard has been seen both in public and on the Senate floor wearing a whopping ten different watches. Mind you, the 118th Congress has been in session for less than four months. Four months! How many timepieces do you suppose we’ll have seen the senator wear by the end of the year? Our team here at the program crunched the numbers and found that, on average, United States Congressmen wear just two watches throughout a calendar year. Sheppard’s shameless extravagance, then, begs a question: is this what we want from someone elected to make decisions and stick to them?

To make matters worse, the inconsistent buck might not stop here. On Monday, Senator Sheppard tweeted out a picture of his eight-month-old son in a “Future President” onesie. If the apple indeed fails to fall too far from the tree, then he’ll certainly be no president of mine. For all we know, his son might’ve selected that onesie himself and will have ditched it for good a week from now. There you go, sport—just like Dad!

I want to clarify that I mean no harm or disrespect to Senator Sheppard’s family whatsoever, but really, who does this kid think he is? A child is in his prime when he’s five, ten, or fifteen. Should he really be making such bold claims at so young an age?