The Speaker of the House has called an early recess for the Thanksgiving break because his Republicans members were so punchy from all the infighting and name-calling that they allowed a continuing budget resolution with no budget cuts to pass, mostly with Democratic votes, and couldn’t even work up a good old-fashioned cry. There are a few die hards who are still shaking their fists on the Capitol steps vowing never to let it happen again but nobody has the energy to cheer them on at this point:
Their obsession with “individual spending bills” instead of omnibus legislation doesn’t really seem like the greatest idea at the moment since they can’t even get their own draconian spending bills to the floor much less pass them. So I’m not sure why they thought a government shutdown was going to shake anything loose. Not that it really matters. They have not done any actual legislating since this congress convened nearly a year ago so why start now?
America is tired too — tired of their inane, infantile, behavior. And people are no doubt grateful to be spared any more of it for the next week or so. Unfortunately, these Republicans are ready to hit the ground running when they come back with the only thing they know how to do: put on a circus sideshow to own the libs.
The new Speaker, Mike Johnson, issued a statement this week that he thinks they’ve got the goods on Joe Biden and it’s time to put the finishing touched on that impeachment inquiry:
At this stage, our impeachment inquiry has already shown the corrupt conduct of the President’s family, and that he and White House officials have repeatedly lied about his knowledge and involvement in his family’s business activities,It has also exposed the tens of millions of dollars from foreign adversaries being paid to shell companies controlled by the president’s son, brother, and their business associates. Now, the appropriate step is to place key witnesses under oath and question them under the penalty of perjury, to fill gaps in the record
Actually, the impeachment inquiry has been a total bust. Most of what they say has been “exposed” were things that were already known before they started and they didn’t show corrupt behavior then and they don’t show corruption now. This business about “shell companies” has been debunked over and over again. The companies the Republicans list as shady money laundering entities which Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., describe as “fake” companies “don’t make anything…don’t produce anything …don’t provide a good or service” are actual businesses with employees and everything. It may sounds impressive to sling those important sounding words around on Hannity guest spots but that doesn’t make them true.
Comer’s committee has already subpoenaed thousands of documents and bank records which have, as far as we know, only turned up the copy of a $200,000 check from James Biden paying back a loan to his brother, who was out of office at the time, which they claim without evidence was some sort of money laundering scheme. Apparently, Comer and company forgot to mention that the same bank documents show that the loans were made and paid back in a matter of weeks, putting the lie to the claim that they represented some kind scheme concocted years before when Biden was in office. (It turns out that Comer himself has a checkered history of six figure transactions between he and his own brother with some very shady tax implications and it infuriated him to have that pointed out in a hearing on Tuesday.)
Last week the committee sent voluntary interview requests to several members of Biden’s family, including James’ wife, Biden’s late son Beau’s widow Hallie, Elizabeth Secundy, Hallie Biden’s sister, Hunter Biden’s wife and Tony Bobulinski a nefarious character who used to work with Hunter Biden. (He’s the man who former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson described in her book as wearing a ski mask when clandestinely meeting with then Chief of Staff Mark Meadows at the behest of “the boss.”) It’s unknown when or if they might appear.
And Comer also authorized the subpoenas of Hunter Biden, James Biden, the president’s brother, as well as Rob Walker, one of their business associates. They are demanding that Walker appears on November 29th, James Biden on December 4th and Hunter a week after that (as an early Christmas present to Donald Trump.)
If this testimony goes as badly for them as the first and only hearing they have held, I won’t be surprised if we end up with another brawl in the committee room. One Republican staffer called it “an unmitigated disaster” and another said they had “botched this bad.”
Even their biggest fans were unimpressed:
Just to recap what happened, the Democrats ran circles around their so-called expert witnesses who ended up admitting that there wasn’t enough evidence to impeach and once again made all the tiresome recitations of exonerating facts about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine. It was so bad that Comer later said the didn’t think there’s be a need for any more public hearings.
And Speaker Johnson said recently in a closed door meeting that he wasn’t sure it was necessary to continue with the inquiry at all since Joe Biden’s popularity was already low, proving that this is a partisan exercise to damage the president’s re-election chances. (Coincidentally, you may recall that Kevin McCarthy lost his first bid for the speakership back in 2014 for saying the same thing about the Benghazi hearings and Hillary Clinton.)
But Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio wants the chance to browbeat Hunter and James Biden on TV so they’re going to try it again. And I would expect it will be no more convincing than the first although it will get huge ratings and the Fox News hosts will be frothing at the mouth. And that, in the end, is what these people believe is their job description.
It is almost assured that when all is said and done, Joe Biden is going to be impeached. It’s possible that a few GOP members who are in danger of losing their seats in the next election might balk and the vote will fail, but I wouldn’t count on it:
They may not be able to perform the most basic functions of governing but they know that their leader, Donald Trump, demands his retribution. And they will do his bidding if they possibly can.