In case you haven't noticed, things have gotten a bit more insane in our nation's capital.

It didn't seem like that was possible, but apparently, it was.

The president has accused his predecessor of wiretapping him.

House committees have marked up legislation with the ridiculous name “The World's Greatest Healthcare Bill of 2017.” Based on critiques of the bill from the political right, middle and left, a better name might be “The World's Deadest Healthcare Bill of 2017.”

Republicans may be able to jam that bill through the House, although even that is in doubt. It may be another case in the Senate.

Democrats are still scratching their heads about what happened in November and why they lost.

Meanwhile, most other serious policymaking appears to have ground to a halt or at least a slow crawl. And who knows if or when it's going to resume.

That's a problem for credit unions and others pushing for an overhaul of Dodd-Frank.

Because even though it's only March, the clock is ticking. Between April 1 and Labor Day, the House is scheduled to be in session for 51 days. The Senate is scheduled to be in session for 65 days.

And there's a lot of work to get done.

Congress has not started on a budget plan. Appropriations may take a large part of the summer. Republicans want to pass their health bill and may try to take up tax reform. And what about a plan to pay for the wall between the U.S. and Mexico?

The Trump Administration still has positions to fill and some of those positions are subject to Senate confirmation. That takes time in the Senate.

Sure, the House Financial Services and Senate Banking Committees can consider Dodd-Frank-related legislation while all of this other work is going on.

But House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling hasn't given the final signals on his revised plan. New Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo hasn't expressed his preferences yet.

President Trump signed an executive order directing Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to meet with financial regulators and report back within 120 days on what a financial regulatory overhaul might look like.

In December, CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle said Congress likely would have to pass a regulatory overhaul bill in the first month of the 115th Congress or the issue could get buried by the crush of other legislation.

That's simply not going to happen.

The House will have to pass its bill or bills, the Senate will have to pass its measure, and then the two (or more) bills will have to be reconciled – a process that could take months or even slip into next year.

And to become law, the final measure is likely to be something that conservative House Republicans and progressive Senate Democrats can accept.

That's going to take even more time.

Imagine Hensarling sitting across the negotiating table from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) – you get the picture.

By the way, the issue of journalists using anonymous sources has once again reared its ugly head.

President Trump has blasted news that comes from anonymous sources as “fake news.” And then, of course, he passes on news generated from anonymous sources.

In other words, your unnamed sources stink; mine smell like roses.

Contrary to popular belief, journalists hate using unnamed sources. We know that using news provided by a source we can't quote has a tremendous impact on the credibility of our work.

But there are times when it can't be helped. It may be something extremely serious like a story affecting national security.

Or it could be something as mundane as a small story coming from Capitol Hill, because that's the way the Hill works.

Congressional aides generally are not permitted by their bosses to be quoted by name because doing so would shift attention from the member of Congress.

So some news you read from Congress may have to rely on unnamed sources.

But news organizations don't let their journalists use anonymous sources without some accountability attached. Generally, editors must approve the use of an unnamed source before it is used.

And in some cases, an editor may demand to know the name of the source.

Has the practice of using unnamed sources been abused?

Yes, by politicians and by journalists.

Former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was fired after the Times discovered he plagiarized stories and simply made up sources.

Washington Post reporter Jane Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on an unnamed eight-year-old heroin addict. The Post later returned the prize after it was discovered that the boy didn't exist.

Trump himself tweeted in 2012 that an “extremely credible source” had told him that then-President Barack Obama's birth certificate was phony.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a native of Bavaria, was constantly quoted as an anonymous source in stories and columns.

And New York Times columnist William Safire would attribute quotes about U.S. foreign policy to an “administration source with a heavy German accent,” leaving no mystery about his anonymous source.

David Baumann is a Correspondent-at-Large for CU Times. He can be reached at dbaumann@cutimes.com.

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As Washington Fiddles, the Congressional Clock Ticks

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