Are you among the 1 million with 'trouble thinking'? You might be one of the lucky ones

A new survey from the U.S. Census says that an additional 1 million working-age Americans report that they have “trouble thinking.”

As if that’s news.

The government’s Current Population Survey indicates that after many years of generally diminishing disabilities, they have spiked since 2020, driven by younger people who have “serious difficulty” thinking, concentrating or remembering.

Researchers blame long COVID, but I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me if all 1 million of these problem thinkers live in Washington, D.C.

For example, just this week members of the U.S. Supreme Court came out with a code of ethical conduct, not because they need one, you understand, but just to put to rest any absurd notions that the millions of dollars worth of gifts lavished on its two most conservative jurists could in any way affect the way they vote.

In a statement announcing the code the court wrote, “The absence of a code has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the justices of this court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,” the statement said.

Crazy how these misunderstandings get out of hand, isn’t it?

But just so we’re clear, we now have a written document — totally unnecessary, mind you — setting down some tough new rules of conduct for members of the highest court of the land, including:

• A justice of the U.S. Supreme Court should under no circumstances park his $267,000 Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon recreational vehicle that’s been financed by a health-care executive in the handicapped space at Walmart.

• When flying on a private jet for a free Alaskan vacation paid for by two wealthy Republican campaign donors, a Supreme Court justice should never remove his shoes and socks.

Of course the Supreme Court looks good this week because, unlike those guys just across the street in the U.S. Capitol, it has not as yet resorted to physical violence to settle its differences.

In one side of the venerable building, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, dragged a social-media beef into a committee room where he challenged Teamsters president Sean O’Brien to a smackdown right there in the middle of the hearing, pronouncing these historic words: “You stand your butt up, then.”

That has to go down as one of the great speeches in American history. Give me liberty or give me death. I regret that I only have one life to give to my country. You stand your butt up, then. Classic. Danial Webster only wishes he'd come up with that one.

The really sad part was the two had to be separated by Sen. Bernie Sanders, age 170, who by the looks of him never in a million years dreamed the job description of Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Chair included breaking up playground scraps.

But wait, there’s more! Former House Speaker Kevin “The Gavel” McCarthy got in an elbowed kidney shot to his adversary Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who then followed the Californian down the hall plaintively hollering “Why’d you elbow me in the back Kevin?! Hey Kevin, you got any guts!?”

McCarthy brushed it off, saying it never happened and that if he’d really delivered an elbow, Burchett would have been writhing on the floor in pain begging the former speaker for mercy. Yeah buddy!

(Sorry, back up. I’m still stuck on the name Markwayne. Is this a new thing in the south? Like, would it now be Jimbob or Tammyfaye? I guess when Wal-Mart became Walmart it set all sorts of cultural wheels in motion.)

And then of course we had Rep. Mike D. Rogers trying to rip Rep. Matt Gaetz’s lungs out of his throat, and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert routinely showing up on the House floor clutching recently uprooted hanks of each others’ hair.

Those 1 million with cognitive problems might be grateful they can‘t remember what’s happened this year.

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Trouble thinking? You might just be a member of Congress