Cheney’s new book is a devastating indictment of Republican efforts to overturn 2020

Posted on November 29, 2023 by Kerry Eleveld

In her new book, former Rep. Liz Cheney unloads on her former colleagues in the Republican Party, and to no one's surprise, her disgust is seething and deep.

"Oath and Honor," which was obtained by CNN, serves as an overarching indictment of the many Republicans Cheney deems most responsible for gifting the GOP to the twice-impeached, four-time criminally indicted Donald Trump, whom she calls “the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office.”

“As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our Constitution," writes Cheney, who served as the number three House Republican before being ousted from leadership over her vote to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol.

According to the book, then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Cheney following the 2020 election that Trump knew he had lost. “He knows it’s over,” McCarthy reportedly said at the time. “He needs to go through all the stages of grief.”

Yet that same day, Cheney reveals, McCarthy fanned the election-denial flames on Fox News, telling viewers, "President Trump won this election."

Cheney writes, "McCarthy knew that what he was saying was not true.” So much for virtue.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a pro-Trump MAGA stalwart, derided the legal avenues for challenging the election results, saying, “The only thing that matters is winning,” according to Cheney. So much for honor.

Cheney also shredded Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana in the book, which she finished writing before he was elevated to speaker. Johnson, she said, pressured his Republican colleagues to sign on to an amicus brief supporting his legal challenge to 2020 results.

“When I confronted him with the flaws in his legal arguments," Cheney writes, "Johnson would often concede, or say something to the effect of, ‘We just need to do this one last thing for Trump.'" So much for the rule of law.

Fast-forward to Nov. 29, 2023, and Johnson contrasting Republicans' ham-handed effort to impeach President Joe Biden with what he framed as Democrats' "brazenly political" impeachment of Trump for springing a violent coup attempt on the U.S. Capitol.

"What you are seeing here is exactly the opposite. We are the rule-of-law team—the Republican Party stands for the rule of law," Johnson told reporters Wednesday, touting his work to defend Trump against Democrats’ "meritless" impeachment proceedings.

Speaker Mike Johnson claims that both of Donald Trump's impeachments were “brazenly political” and “meritless,” but says the GOP's efforts to impeach Joe Biden are “just the opposite” because “the Republican Party stands for the rule of law.” pic.twitter.com/vqpjqbPnbk
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 29, 2023

Just a quick trip to Republicans' present day house-of-mirrors routine as the majority party in the House. Now, back to the book.

Perhaps the most chilling part of CNN's write-up was Cheney's recollection of House Republicans' methodical efforts to reject the will of the people in 2020. Here’s CNN:

On Jan. 6, before the attack on the Capitol, Cheney describes a scene in the GOP cloakroom, where members were encouraged to sign their names on electoral vote objection sheets, lined up on a table, one for each of the states Republicans were contesting. Cheney writes most members knew “it was a farce” and “another public display of fealty to Donald Trump.”
“Among them was Republican Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee,” Cheney writes. “As he moved down the line, signing his name to the pieces of paper, Green said sheepishly to no one in particular, ‘The things we do for the Orange Jesus.’”

So much for fealty to the Constitution.

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Fox News explains why America shouldn’t hear from Hunter Biden after Comer chickens out

Posted on November 28, 2023 by Hunter

House Republicans are still all-in on their plan to impeach President Joe Biden for Something Something Hunter Biden, even if they still haven't been able to work out the pesky details. But Hunter threw a wrench in the gears Tuesday morning with an offer to testify, in person, to the House Oversight Committee investigating him—but only if his testimony is public.

Crack Republican investigator and committee chair James Comer immediately shot that idea down, because at no point in the process did Republicans intend for Hunter Biden to actually respond to any of this. No, Republicans absolutely do not want Hunter to come in and testify publicly about their speculations and accusations.

Now Fox News and other Republican disinformation factories have to come up with some spin on why the House committee is right to not want the American public to hear Hunter's willing testimony. Acyn has the clip, so here's your shit show:

Fox News hosts trying to convince their viewers that a closed door deposition of Hunter Biden is better than a public hearing pic.twitter.com/KPxznk5NUK
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 28, 2023

Michele Tafoya: But I agree, I prefer hearings to be done behind closed doors, because I think they actually get to the heart of the matter, and they get some truth, and they can ask questions without preening for the camera, without all the grandstanding.

Yes, that's what the Republicans investigating the Something Something Hunter Biden conspiracy hate more than anything else: grandstanding. Comer and Jim Jordan are known nationwide for their unwillingness to do anything that looks like grandstanding. Republicans specifically selected lawmakers who would be least likely to tolerate grandstanding, which is why Comer and Jordan are joined on the committee by such level heads as—taking a deep breath here—Virginia Foxx, Glenn Grothman, Pete Sessions, Clay Higgins, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Anna Paulina Luna, Paul Gosar, and Marjorie Taylor “Absolutely No Grandstanding Here” Greene.

The House hearings on Hunter Biden are likely the most dignified and least showboating hearings to ever have occurred in any Congress anywhere, in fact. They ooze decorum like Jordan oozes concern for college athletes’ welfare.

Hmm. The chyron identifies Tafoya as a "former NFL sideline reporter." During her many years on the field, I wonder if she ever discovered a football game going on.

“That is my preference, and for Abby Lowell, for his attorney to say, ‘well you all use that to misinform, and to distort the facts,’ well you know what? You can do that too. After he comes out of his closed door session, you feel free to knock yourself out and you can distort too.”

Ah, and there we have the perfect encapsulation of the Fox News mindset: The truth isn't important! Nobody wants to see the truth for themselves! What's important is how partisans want to "distort" the facts, and the other side can distort the facts too, and then Fox will broadcast the distorted facts that it thinks are best and those are what you, loyal couch potato, should then base your entire mushy worldview around. That's how America is supposed to work.

It seems like just last week House Republicans were loudly crowing about how America needed to see all of the Capitol security camera footage from the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection—absolutely needed to see every bit of it (except for the bits they're going to withhold because of reasons and the bits where they're going to blur out faces so that nasty, nasty law-abiding Americans can't snitch on any more rioters than they've already snitched on). Now we're hearing that cameras and public broadcasts are bad and what Americans really want to know is what the loudest conspiracy freaks in Congress think they should know.

I mean, you can't say she's wrong here. Roger Ailes built a whole network around that idea and he died rich and only mildly discredited, shunned, and a social pariah.

“I mean, it's a silly argument and Comer has said, ‘fine, sit before us publicly, a public hearing, we will do that later. We want the closed door one first.’”

And if you can't trust Comer and Jordan to keep their word, who can you trust? Ask Jordan's old wrestling team: This is a man who's never told a lie.

“And I think it's totally, totally appropriate. Hunter Biden would love nothing more than to sit, have cameras pointed at him, and try to generate the narrative that he wants to form.”

That darn grandstanding Hunter Biden. He tricked Rudy Giuliani into possessing his criminally hacked computer files. He tricked the least grandstand-y group of House Republicans to ever exist into displaying his hacked, private nude photos during a public hearing. He tricked them into focusing obsessively on all of the lowest moments of his life, using all of his worst failures as tabloid fodder for the sake of discrediting his father. Now he's trying to trick them into allowing him to tell his side of the story, after years of Republicans broadcasting their own version?

The absolute gall.

Looks like Jared Moskowitz seriously got under James Comer's skin

Hunter Biden condemns Republican hoax-promoters: A ‘real threat’ to others ‘desperate to get sober’

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Hunter Biden condemns Republican hoax-promoters: A ‘real threat’ to others ‘desperate to get sober’

Posted on November 5, 2023 by Hunter

President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden has been the center of uncountably many Republican-crafted conspiracy theories, all of them after Donald Trump came to believe that Biden would be his 2020 general election opponent.

Hunter himself has mostly chosen to remain silent, but this past Thursday, he published an opinion column in USA Today condemning the effects the omnipresent Republican hoaxes might have on other substance abusers fighting to recover.

What troubles me is the demonization of addiction, of human frailty, using me as its avatar and the devastating consequences it has for the millions struggling with addiction, desperate for a way out and being bombarded by the denigrating and near-constant coverage of me and my addiction on Fox News (more airtime than GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis) and in The New York Post (an average of two stories a day over the past year).

The New York Post running two Hunter Biden stories a day for an entire year is evidence of a different sort of addiction. It's not clear why one is considered more disgraceful than the other.

The science of addiction and recovery has made great strides in just the past decade. However, far too few will ever experience the miracle of recovery unless we change the stigma around addiction.
For those of us who live in recovery and for those who love someone in recovery, we know how hard fought our newfound lives are in letting go of the shame and making amends.

The weaponization of my addiction by partisan and craven factions represents a real threat to those desperate to get sober but are afraid of what may await them if they do.

Notably, the younger Biden specifically names some of the worst offenders.

My recent haircut turned into a wild conspiracy to evade drug tests, tabloids steadily splash nude pictures of me on their covers, and even a member of Congress displayed revenge porn of me on national television.
My addiction doesn’t justify Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui posting altered nude photos of me with “editorial creativity over the pictures.” My addiction shouldn’t permit the likes of Rudy Giuliani or a former Peter Navarro aide to debase and dehumanize me for their own gains.

What Hunter Biden doesn't mention is that the hoaxes Republicans have imposed on him have the strong stench of criminal behavior—and not on his part. Trump's first impeachment came about because Trump withheld aid to Ukraine in order to pressure the Ukrainian president into announcing a supposed "investigation" of a Rudy Giuliani-pushed hoax targeting Hunter. The hoax was debunked before Trump ever made the move, but the extortion attempt continued anyway.

When Giuliani and other Republican operatives later announced they were in possession of stolen data they claimed came from a Hunter-owned "laptop," it became the focus of a new ecosystem of hoaxes and conspiracy claims. But it now appears far more likely that the leaked data was obtained through criminal hacking efforts—and that the "laptop" itself never existed.

There is no laptop: Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani

Fox News host did not expect his Biden conspiracy to get blown apart on live TV

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Jim Jordan’s based his career on enabling Republican crimes

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Hunter

With Donald Trump endorsing loud ally Rep. Jim Jordan for the speakership of the House, fellow Trump ally Rep. Steve Scalise's bid for the position may look futile. The whole point of Republicanism the last few years has been to purge anyone who might refuse to do what Trump says, so anyone with House Republican membership in 2023 is almost by definition there because they have promised to govern entirely from inside Trump's colon.

But Jordan's still got to make his own case. He had a go at it Friday morning, telling CNN reporter Manu Raju that the speaker's race will come down to "who can go tell the country what we're doing."

Jim Jordan trying to pitch himself as someone who can be the chief GOP messenger as he seeks to draw a contrast with Scalise. “I think this race comes down to … who can go tell the country what we're doing,” he told me Jordan weighs in on Trump endorsement pic.twitter.com/KhKGNaoTtX
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 6, 2023

The odds are nine in 10 that you've never before heard Jordan use an indoor voice, as opposed to his usual "shrieking toddler furiously demanding to know why his diaper just got heavier" voice. In terms of telling the nation what House Republicans are doing, that would become trivially easy under a Jordan speakership. Jordan has devoted his House career to one issue above all others: letting Republicans get away with crimes.

Jordan's skill in letting people get away with crimes is how he became the shrieking voice of Republicanism that he's become. In 2018, Jordan was named by multiple former Ohio State wrestlers as one of the school officials who had been aware of the sexual molestation of athletes by team doctor Richard Strauss. Faced with multiple accusers who relayed specific instances and conversations with Jordan, Jordan loudly denied everything and reportedly pressured at least one former student to lie about it. Soon, he and his office began claiming that it was his accusers who were lying, not him.

Jordan's star began to rise immediately after that. The caucus apparently went starry-eyed at the vehemence with which Jordan attacked his accusers, and Jordan soon became the angry sweating voice of every House committee, probe, and publicity stunt he could be wedged into.

It's not overstating things to say that allowing allies to get away with crimes has been Jordan's top congressional focus. Before the sexual abuse allegations surfaced in 2018, Jordan had already become a face of the Republican obstruction of the probe into 2016 Russian election interference, dismissing federal intelligence assessments with new assertions that the probe was a political ploy by Trump-hating government officials. By 2019, he had been stuffed into the House Intelligence Committee as a temporary measure to act as "attack dog" in the House impeachment hearings resulting from Trump holding up military aid to Ukraine in order to extort anti-Biden propaganda from the Ukrainian government.

He would play similar roles until January 2021, when he joined a seditious conspiracy to nullify a constitutional election on Trump's behalf so that Trump could fraudulently declare himself the winner. Jordan was one of 126 House Republicans who signed an amicus brief to a Texas-led lawsuit asking for the results of multiple Joe Biden-won states to be declared invalid.

On Jan. 5, 2021, Jordan contacted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to promote the theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally block the counting of votes from Biden-won states. He is also known to have spoken "at length" with Trump on the morning of Jan. 6.

After insurrectionists had been removed from the Capitol on Jan. 6, Jordan was among those who still voted to contest the election's results.

Jordan later refused to testify about his own role and communications during the coup attempt, going so far as to defy a congressional subpoena demanding it.

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Jordan was almost certainly aware that the acts he helped facilitate were criminal. He was named as one of seven House Republicans who had probed the White House about potential pardons for House members who had facilitated what became a violent attempted coup.

His role in the post-failed-coup Congress has further congealed around support for Trump's criminal acts. When Trump was indicted in New York over hush money payments made during his 2016 campaign, Jordan demanded prosecutors' documents in the case—while coordinating his actions with Trump himself. Jordan similarly demanded the evidence against Trump be turned over after Trump was indicted in Georgia for his attempted election tampering.

Against the two federal indictments against Trump, Jordan's threats shift into the realm of the bizarre. He has thrown his weight behind plans to block funding from the federal departments and agencies behind the indictments. If the only way to keep Trump out of jail is to disband federal law enforcement efforts wholesale, Jordan and other coup supporters are willing to consider it.

It would be brazenly close to a criminal racketeering scheme if Jordan did not have the unique protections of Congress to hide behind. And all of that stands apart from his other major new effort: to impeach Biden or indict members of his family, even with faked evidence or none at all.

Jordan's view of law and order is consistent. For at least three decades, when faced with a crime committed by an ally, Jordan has sought to ignore it, cover it up, and attack those who discovered it. Against his enemies, there seems no evidence too flimsy for Jordan to claim as proof. It's an unambiguously fascist approach, to be sure, but in starker terms, it is simply crooked as hell. Jordan is on board with whatever criminality his allies may attempt and can be counted on to sabotage justice wherever he can.

There's a very good case to be made that it's Jordan who is the crookedest politician in Washington, D.C. Not Rep. George Santos, indicted though he may be. Not Sen. Bob Menendez, hidden gold bars or no. Jordan's acts to immunize Republican criminality don't stem from schemes of self-enrichment; he appears to truly believe that Republicans ought to be able to commit crimes for the sake of the Republican "movement," and that the movement is obliged to sabotage probes and indictments of those that do.

So that's what Republicans will be "doing" under a Jordan speakership: sabotaging laws outright to allow criminality in their own ranks. It's what he's based his career on. It's the reason Trump counts him as an ally. It's why Republicans embraced him and elevated him to begin with. And if the party is bent on becoming a criminal enterprise and coup-supporting opponents of democracy itself, they would be hard pressed to find a better spokesman than an abuse-enabling, crime-defending, unabashed crook.

House Republicans swiftly act to obstruct on Trump’s behalf

It just got worse: Trump allegedly leaked classified nuclear submarine secrets to Mar-a-Lago guest

Republicans suck so bad, some mainstream media outlets are even getting McCarthy’s ouster right

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Kerry Eleveld

In a refreshing turn of events, House Republicans are putting on such a dazzling display of self-immolation that many mainstream media outlets have been forced to accurately portray the level of pandemonium these so-called lawmakers have unleashed on the institution they supposedly govern and the country they purportedly serve.

A Wednesday morning Politico piece opened with, “There’s no House speaker, Republicans are tearing each other to shreds over Kevin McCarthy’s ouster and another shutdown deadline is less than six weeks away — with no leader in a strong enough position to guide the party through.”

While the reports, analyses, and opinion pieces almost always note that a small band of Republicans "voted with Democrats" to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy from his post, they still deride Republicans and McCarthy as the root of the problem. After all, it's on the majority party to elect a speaker of the House, not the minority party.

As The Washington Post’s Paul Kane quipped about McCarthy, “There’s a price to pay for helping set fire to an institution and then asking the fire department to come save your office.”

In a piece satisfyingly titled, "Republicans cut off their own heads," The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote that the eight rogue Republicans led by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida toppled McCarthy "without a plan, a replacement, or even a policy goal in mind."

[T]he House is essentially frozen. The putative GOP majority is weaker, and its ability to gain any policy victories has been undermined. Oversight of the Biden Administration will slow or stop. Republicans in swing districts who are vulnerable in 2024 will be especially wary of trusting the Gaetz faction, and regaining any unity of purpose will be that much harder.

A Politico Magazine piece by editor John Harris declared, "The House GOP is a failed State."

McCarthy’s ouster is dramatic evidence, if redundant, about the state of the modern GOP. A party that used to have an instinctual orientation toward authority and order — Democrats fall in love, went the old chestnut, while Republicans fall in line — is now animated by something akin to nihilism. The politics of contempt so skillfully exploited by Donald Trump is turned inward on hapless would-be leaders like McCarthy with no less ferocity than it is turned outward on liberals and the media.

In a Washington Post analysis titled, "McCarthy ouster exposes the Republican Party's destructive tendencies," Dan Balz wrote that Republicans had "brought the legislative body to a halt" and "now risk being returned to minority status by voters in next year’s election."

And NBC News' First Read cut to the chase in a report titled, "Republicans struggle to govern—and McCarthy paid the price."

It all underscores a fundamental point about today’s political dysfunction in Washington: Republicans have had a difficult — if not impossible — time governing, especially when they control at least one legislative chamber but not the White House. And that difficulty has only gotten worse.

Arguably, Republicans have had a tough time governing recently, even when they had unified control of government. For instance, starting in late 2018, then-President Donald Trump presided over the longest government shutdown in history.

But quibbles aside, by and large, these mainstream pieces got it right: Republicans are a menace to good governance and should never be in charge.

Sign the petition: No to shutdowns, no to Biden impeachment, no to Republicans

House Democrats tell Republicans to pound sand

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Kerry Eleveld

The party that controls the House of Representatives is the party charged with making it work—or governing, as some might put it. And House Democrats staunchly told Republicans Tuesday they must sink or swim on their own.

The Speaker of the House is chosen by the Majority Party. In this Congress, it is the responsibility of House Republicans to choose a nominee & elect the Speaker on the Floor. At this time there is no justification for a departure from this tradition. The House will be in order.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) October 3, 2023

Specifically, as Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy faced a potential ouster by MAGA misfits in his own party, Democrats told him to pound sand. They wouldn’t bail him out—not even the moderate Democratic members of the so-called Problem Solvers Caucus.

NEW: Centrist Dems in bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, which just met, told Rs in the group they won't be saving McCarthy, per sources – McCarthy’s last potential line of defense and another sign that Democrats will be unified in their decision not to bail the speaker out.
— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) October 3, 2023

According to CNN's Melanie Zanona, centrist Democrats told Republicans in their bipartisan group early on Tuesday that they wouldn't rescue McCarthy.

McCarthy needed a total of 214 votes to save his job as speaker—meaning he couldn’t lose more than a handful of his own members, or else he would need Democrats to help make up the difference.

But instead of helping McCarthy out of the corner he negotiated himself into when he seized the gavel by putting himself one disgruntled misfit away from being vacated, Democrats called on moderate Republicans to reject the MAGA extremists who constantly threaten to sink the economy, the country, and democracy itself with stunts like allowing a catastrophic debt default and rooting for government shutdowns.

“We are ready, willing and able to work together with our Republican colleagues, but it is on them to join us,” Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Tuesday after an hours-long meeting with his caucus.

As former Republican Rep. David Jolly of Florida told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, McCarthy repeatedly proved to Democrats that he couldn’t be a trusted partner by breaking his promises, routinely demonizing Democrats, launching an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, and refusing to participate in the Jan. 6 investigation last Congress when he was the minority leader.

“He did everything to remind Democrats that Kevin McCarthy, though he walks around with a smile, is really no different than the leading hard-right Republicans like Jim Jordan,” Jolly said.

The cohesive Democratic stand against rescuing Republicans from the MAGA hostage takers who run their caucus and terrorize the country is both good politics for Democrats and good governance for the country.

First and foremost, MAGA maniacs shouldn't be in charge of any legislative chamber when they have demonstrated zero interest in doing The People’s business of governing.

Second, and equally as important, Americans must be allowed to witness and experience the dysfunction of a Republican Party in thrall to MAGA maniacs. This is what voters get if they put the Republican Party in charge of anything—even if they cast their vote for a supposedly sane Republican.

Remember, former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi governed the 117th Congress with a razor-thin House majority too. But Pelosi kept the lights on and passed a historic amount of legislation, directing tens of billions of dollars to bills addressing COVID relief, infrastructure improvements, American manufacturing, and battling climate change.

As former Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock of Virginia, a onetime rising GOP star, told MSNBC of the spectacle on the House floor, "This is a very sad day for the institution. This is what MAGA has done, both to the country and to the institution."

Comstock said she was sad for the Republican Party, and added, "but I'm even more sad for the institution and for the country."

Even Fox News can’t spin House Republicans’ evidence-free ‘impeachment’ hearing

Posted on September 28, 2023 by Hunter

Fox News tries very, very hard to parrot Republican talking points, but there are a few things that even they can’t make themselves say. Host Neil Cavuto drew the short straw of having to tell his viewers that the House impeachment inquiry hearings—the "breaking news" that viewers were seeing on their screen—turned out to be a Grade-A nothingburger.

"I don't know what was achieved over these last six-plus hours," he confessed.

Hat tip to Acyn for the catch:

YouTube Video

NEIL CAVUTO: All right. For the better part of six hours, I have been following these hearings, save an hour off to do my Fox Business show earlier today. I don't know what was achieved over these last six-plus hours. Welcome, everybody, I'm Neil Cavuto. I want to put in perspective here, though, and we are going to legally go through all the details, but James Comer, the Oversight Committee chairman, had said that there would be presented a mountain of evidence against Mr. Biden, he was referring to President Biden, but none of the expert witnesses today presented—yet—any proof for impeachment.

You think that's bad? He was just getting started.

Now to be clear, this was not about impeachment; this is about launching an impeachment inquiry. But it is worth pointing out that none of the witnesses today were fact witnesses. That means that none were involved in the investigation into the alleged activities in the first place. What's more, none of the witnesses testified today of direct knowledge of what Republicans have been claiming about Joe Biden.
In other words, that this—the way this was built up, where there's smoke, there would be fire. Again, I'm not a lawyer and I'm going to be talking to some darn smart ones in a moment, but where there's smoke today, we just got a lot more smoke.

We also say that the best they could say now, after this six-plus hours of testimony back and forth, is that they're going to try to get more bank records from Joe Biden and his son, says that they're needed to determine if a crime was committed. Understood. But none of that was presented today, just that they would need those records to further this investigation today, even though this occurs after months of Republican probes that failed to provide anything resembling concrete evidence.

That's Fox News’ initial reaction to Rep. James Comer's absurd and evidence-free "impeachment inquiry," as delivered by Cavuto after the hearing's close. Will Cavuto now get calls from network executives excoriating him? Will ex-host Tucker Carlson try to call in a few remaining network favors to get him fired for inappropriate truth-telling?

Honestly, it's not likely. Sean Hannity and a few of the network’s other most rabidly shameless hosts might give it a go, but there's no polishing this turd. Republicans still seem to be forgetting that at some point, in this tit-for-tat attempt at impeaching Joe Biden in retaliation for the two impeachments of Donald Trump, you do have to come up with some actual evidence for your frothing claims. Even Fox News might cut these turkeys loose at this rate.

Sign the petition: Denounce MAGA GOP's baseless impeachment inquiry against Biden

Republican impeachment inquiry gets off to a perfect start

Watch AOC perfectly get to the point in sham impeachment hearing

Senate Republicans offended by gym shorts, less so by public groping

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Hunter

To everyone’s horror, this weekend's big news revolved around video of Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert and her date vaping, taking flash photos, and groping each other in public during a performance of “Beetlejuice The Musical.” She got booted from a Denver theater for that, then ended up lying her ass off about it before she realized there was video, then shoved out a half-assed apology after the video was released and it showed much, much more than any of the rest of us wanted to see.

It’s no surprise that her colleagues on the right have responded with radio silence. In recent years, Republicans have honed an intentional strategy of “whataboutism” whenever one of their own gets caught in a scandal that would have political leaders calling for someone's resignation back when we all pretended politicians had a shred of decency. It's rote.

Russia boosted Trump's 2016 election with a bit of strategic hack-and-dump; Rudy Giuliani comes back with a new theory that Russia's enemy Ukraine was behind it all. Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner scores $2 billion in "investments" from Saudi royals immediately after departing the White House; suddenly House lawmakers are frothing with impeachment-level rage over the thought that President Joe Biden's son might have gotten a board position years ago based more on his name than his qualifications. Some Republican gets caught in a sex scandal, and that's enough for another two weeks of every other Republican in politics calling some other subset of Americans "groomers."

I'm not one who has much patience for "this thing is meant to be a distraction from that other news" claims, but a new Republican outrage at somebody not following The Esteemed Senate Dress Code came on conspicuously close to the weekend's video-assisted news of Boebert getting tossed from a theater for acts of public indecency that she would likely be prosecuted for if she wasn't a state big shot.

That's right: The latest Republican push is expressing public horror over a Democrat not meeting Senate dress code standards. Engaging in mammalian rutting behavior while the adults and children around you are trying to enjoy a high-priced musical production might count as a bit uncouth, in the same way that ransacking the Capitol might count as an ordinary tourist visit in Republican minds. But the sheer indecency of not following the dress code? Well, I never.

Police. Firefighters. Judges. Pilots. They all have uniforms. Ours is a suit and tie. We shouldn’t abandon it because it’s more comfortable to wear sweats. https://t.co/Ij9KOETPJk pic.twitter.com/9z8hP76cUX
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) September 18, 2023

Thank you for chiming in, well known Etiquette Master and Respecter of Our Institutionshttps://t.co/11LANAKdJH
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) September 18, 2023

Axios reported that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has told the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms not to enforce the dress code anymore. This led to thinly veiled as well as direct jabs at Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who is known to favor hoodies and gym shorts. The Pennsylvania senator was not particularly in the mood to take etiquette lessons from the House Revenge Porn Caucus.

Thankfully, the nation's lower chamber lives by a higher code of conduct: displaying ding-a-ling pics in public hearings. https://t.co/a4sLQ7nSBL
— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) September 18, 2023

Yeah, this is the thing that will bring America down: not wearing formal attire when you're gleefully showing off stolen pictures of the president's son's penis on C-SPAN. Or wearing sweats when you're getting publicly mauled by your date in a manner that would get you fired as a strip club lap dancer, just after vaping in a pregnant woman's face, rather than wearing something classy.

This is the hill Republicans will die on rather than comment on the video that just 10 years ago would have resulted in the immediate resignation of any politician anywhere. Pay no attention to the humping couple in the theater: This guy over here doesn't have his tie on!

Sign the petition: Denounce MAGA GOP's baseless impeachment inquiry against Biden

Divorce is hard, new places are too: Read Boebert's BS apology for 'Beetlejuice' behavior

Lauren Boebert’s claims go up in smoke as new video emerges

What do you do if you're associated with one of the biggest election fraud scandals in recent memory? If you're Republican Mark Harris, you try running for office again! On this week's episode of "The Downballot," we revisit the absolutely wild story of Harris' 2018 campaign for Congress, when one of his consultants orchestrated a conspiracy to illegally collect blank absentee ballots from voters and then had his team fill them out before "casting" them. Officials wound up tossing the results of this almost-stolen election, but now Harris is back with a new bid for the House—and he won't shut up about his last race, even blaming Democrats for the debacle.

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Poll shows how misguided House Republicans are about a government shutdown

Posted on September 15, 2023 by Kerry Eleveld

Fresh off their crackerjack idea of launching an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, House Republicans are greasing the skids for a government shutdown. In their view, it's both righteous and popular. Not kidding.

“We’re going to have a shutdown, it’s just a matter of how long,” Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina said Thursday. “We believe in what we are doing. The jury will be the country. And the jury is fed up with reckless spending.”

On Friday, the progressive consortium Navigator Research released fresh polling on voters' views of a government shutdown and the government's spending priorities.

Seventy-seven percent of voters believe a government shutdown this fall would hurt the economy either a lot (45%) or somewhat (32%). A measly 13% of voters said it would not hurt the economy.

🚨 NEW POLL: 77% of Americans believe a government shutdown this fall would hurt the economy, including… 🔵 84% of Democrats 🟢 74% of independents 🔴 71% of Republicans … as well as 83% of those who rate the economy negatively, but support Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. pic.twitter.com/8FLPOMJtIn
— Navigator Research (@NavigatorSurvey) September 15, 2023

And while Republicans think shutting down the government in an attempt to slash spending is a righteous cause, the spending cuts they are proposing are deeply unpopular.

At least 3 in 4 voters oppose cuts to the following: Social Security, nutrition assistance for children and vulnerable families, K-12 education, funding to provide safe and clean drinking water, and investments in life-saving medical research for children, cancer patients, and maternal health.

Bottom line: The more righteous House Republicans feel about their shutdown and their rationale for it, the better it is for Democrats. No one wants a shutdown but House Republicans, and they seem more than happy to own it.

Sign and send the petition: Pass a clean funding bill. No GOP hostage taking.

Kerry talks with Drew Linzer, director of the online polling company Civiqs. Drew tells us what the polls say about voters’ feelings toward President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and what the results would be if the two men were to, say … run against each other for president in 2024. Oh yeah, Drew polled to find out who thinks Donald Trump is guilty of the crimes he’s been indicted for, and whether or not he should see the inside of a jail cell.

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McCarthy is sealing the fate of both House and Senate Republicans

Posted on September 13, 2023 by Kerry Eleveld

Several months ago, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy began floating impeachment trial balloons, taking the midsummer pulse of his conference in closed-door meetings about exactly which Democrat they would prefer to launch an inquiry into: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, or President Joe Biden.

By late July, when McCarthy cracked open the door on a potential Biden inquiry, Politico wrote:

Speaker Kevin McCarthy raised impeachment during a closed-door GOP meeting on Wednesday, cautioning his members that Republicans would launch a probe only when — and if — they secured the evidence to justify one, according to three lawmakers in the room who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But after months of searching for Biden wrongdoing to no avail, it was apparently time to move. As The New York Times observed, far from launching the inquiry based on evidence, McCarthy simply bowed to pressure from his right-wingers who are threatening to oust him and shut down the government.

Don't look now, but NYT got it right... pic.twitter.com/2Tmfh7SBqQ
— Kerry Eleveld (@kerryeleveld) September 12, 2023

McCarthy may have survived the day, but Senate Republicans and some House GOP moderates are freaking out.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who holds one of the 18 Republican seats Biden won in 2020, stated a novel concept: “I think an inquiry should be based on evidence of a crime that points directly to President Biden," he said.

"[W]hat crime has the president committed?" Bacon wondered. "[W]e should dig that stuff up before we go down this path,” he added.

Other “Biden 18”members struck a more optimistic note on the question of due diligence.

“I think we’ve got enough substantiation for it to move forward, we’ve got critical mass,” said Rep. Mike Garcia of California, who represents a district Biden carried by double digits in 2020. “What I tell my constituents is we seek clarity, right, I think that’s what most Americans want is clarity. So let’s go get all the facts and data behind it."

Polling of voters in the 18 Biden districts suggests Garcia's rationale is going to be a tough sell. A Public Policy Polling survey of Biden 18 voters conducted last month found 56% thought opening an impeachment inquiry into Biden would be a "partisan political stunt," while just 41% said it would be a serious effort to investigate important problems. Fifty-six percent also said they thought opening such an inquiry would be more about damaging Biden politically than finding the truth, compared with 41% who said the opposite. In both instances, that yawning 15-point chasm should be a flashing warning sign to a Republican in enemy territory.

While some House Republicans, including the speaker, don't seem particularly concerned about risking their majority next year over a baseless inquiry, Senate Republicans spent the day breathing into a bag.

“It is frustrating, obviously,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia told The Hill. “I don’t know what the evidence is, where they’re going with this. I’m going to default to the position that the House is going to do what the House is going to do, and we’ll have to react to that.”

And one GOP senator who was granted anonymity to speak on the matter gave The Hill an earful. “Maybe this is just Kevin giving people their binkie to get through the shutdown,” the Senate Republican said.

Calling the inquiry "a fool's errand," the Republican senator added, “It seems like we’re spending a lot of time on things that matter to them that don’t matter to the people I want to have a positive opinion of Republicans next November."

The GOP senator concluded, "It doesn’t do anything to help us with our campaigns next year."

Nope, it sure doesn't.

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