It was bound to happen. Eventually some congressman was going to get around to reading that New York Times trend piece on GIFs, conclude that those neat multi-frame images would help him "connect" with the youngs, and tell his staffers to include them in their terrible press releases. And so it has come to pass.Fred Upton, the Republican chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has gone and published what is probably the first taxpayer-funded Buzzfeed-style GIF list. Sure, the House Republican's website already tries its best to rip off the listicle champion, and a right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation, published a GIF-filled article to the general mockery of the internet, but this might be the first time taxpayer dollars have gone directly to the creation of a GIF list.Upton called his GIF-filled release, which includes appearances by Jim Carrey, Harry Potter, and the Star Trek cast, "The Roller Coaster of Emotions on the Path to Build the Keystone XL Pipeline." And it may have the unintended effect of immediately abolishing what ever glimmer of cool GIFs had retained until now.Here is a sample of the text, which can be viewed in full at the ECC's website:
