Sunday Four-Play: The fake Biden impeachment rolls along, and J.D. Vance forgets Mike Johnson exists

With the ouster of George Santos and the abrupt resignation of ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, congressional Republicans have begun dropping like flies off Mike Pence’s head. In fact, Mike Pence himself recently dropped like a fly off Mike Pence’s head, precipitating an infinite, M.C. Escher-like regression of flies and Pence heads that goes on as far as the eye can see, like funhouse mirror images in Louie Gohmert’s Carlsbad Caverns of a cranium. In other words, when it comes to the state of the GOP these days, it’s dead flies and Pence heads all the way down. And, frankly, that’s a charitable appraisal.

So will the semi-sentient suzerains of the Sunday shows see it? Or will they find some way to argue that spiraling Republican dysfunction and the party’s abject obeisance to a dyspeptic, four-times-indicted yam golem who can’t stop complimenting Adolf Hitler is somehow bad for Joe Biden?

We’ll see now, won’t we? And you won’t have to wait very long. Let’s get this party started!

1.

Republicans’ fake impeachment effort received a boost this week with the seismic revelation that President Biden’s son repaid his dad—in three increasingly suspicious $1,380 monthly installments—the money he’d borrowed to buy a Ford Raptor truck. Which should be a signal to concerned Americans that either Biden isn’t corrupt at all or is really bad at this corruption stuff. 

I’m skeptical that there’s anything here at all, because they’ve been looking for years and still have bupkis. Meanwhile, over that same period, Donald Trump was passing secret government documents around like all-you-can-eat buffet fliers in Vegas—when he wasn’t trying, and failing, to defend himself against rape accusations.

But that’s the genius of Biden’s Chinese money-laundering scheme. It’s a magnificent, under-the-radar long con. Step 1: Wait for your son to get in bed with the Chinese Communist Party. Step 2: When they finally have their hooks in him, loan that same son nearly $4,200 to buy a truck. (And this part is key: Make sure you do it while you hold no public office.) Step 3: Open a secret bank account in the Caymans and deposit that ill-gotten $4,200 windfall, where it will accrue 0.46% interest for the next decade until you’re ready to retire. Step 4: Become president. Step 5: Hand Taiwan to China. (This one is still pending. Biden might have to wait until his second term, because House Oversight Chair Jim Comer is fully onto him now.)

Of course, as we learned this week, even Fox News is starting to wonder where the fire—or the smoke, for that matter—is.

Fox reporter Peter Doocy, who likely fantasizes about clinging to the bottom of Biden’s bike on weekends like Robert De Niro in “Cape Fear,” was forced to admit on Friday that Republicans have come up empty-headed again.

Peter Doocy: "The House Oversight Committee has been at this for years, and they have so far not been able to provide any concrete evidence that Joe Biden personally profited from his son Hunter's overseas business." pic.twitter.com/a5N44hIRrQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2023

But hey, they’re not going to give up, no matter how big a waste of time this is. Because wasting time is what the American people sent Republicans to Congress to do.

Of course, none of that sits well with Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, who joined Jonathan Capehart on the “Saturday/Sunday Show.”

"They're moving to a government shutdown...they're going to leave town for the holidays without doing anything to avoid it while voting on an impeachment inquiry that has no basis in reality" @IanSams46 on the GOP pushing forward with a Biden impeachment #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/CCivAfdsZ5

— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) December 10, 2023

CAPEHART: “The White House said the president’s going to push back very, very hard. How? What’s that going to look like?”

SAMS: “Well, you see things like, you showed the clip of Peter Doocy, even Fox News hosts, Fox News anchors are expressing skepticism about this. And it’s because we’re continuing to push the facts out every single day. When they make allegations that turn out to be examples of the president being a good dad or a good family member as somehow nefarious evidence of wrongdoing, we’re going to point out the facts, immediately and swiftly. We’re going to come and sell our message on TV and things like this conversation today. But we’re also going to push really hard about what’s happening here. What’s happening here is that the House Republicans have shown that they don’t actually care about any issues that the American people are trying—to try to make their lives better. Instead, they’re focusing on these political stunts to try to get themselves on Newsmax and talk about these things in the right-wing media ecosystem, even though they’re baseless and false. And so, you know, I think that when you see the president every day, you see him talking about things like Ukraine aid, and the need to make sure that they have the resources to push back on Putin. You see him talking about the need to get funding to the WIC program, women and infants, low income, who need food as we head into winter. And these are things that the House needs to pass, they need to pass these funding supplementals, and they refuse to do it. And it’s only going to get more intense over the next month. As you mentioned earlier in the show, they’re moving to a government shutdown in just a few weeks, and they're going to leave town for the holidays without doing anything to avoid it, while voting on an impeachment inquiry that has no basis in fact and reality.”

Ah, whatevs. Babies can starve and Ukraine can kick rocks, so long as President Biden is adequately punished for unconditionally loving his son. It’s the Republican way.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Biden delivers results, Christie swats at Trump, and Musk tanks Twitter

2.

Kristen Welker can both-sides anything, can’t she? The next time a tanker runs aground in Alaska, I hope she has the president of the Sierra Club on so she can grill her about all the ducks and sea otters who keep keep running off into the woods with ExxonMobil’s oil.

For some reason, Welker has to pretend that the Republicans’ fake Biden smears are somehow legitimate. She thinks that’s part of her job. If Jim Comer said he’s seen an unredacted whistleblower report about Joe Biden flushing leprechauns down Air Force One’s toilet for fun, she’d likely be all over it.

Welker interviewed Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy on “Meet the Press,” and she was super-curious what he thought about private citizen Hunter Biden’s business activities.

Chris Murphy: "When I look at the Trump family, it seems they have made an industry out of profiting off of Donald Trump's presidency. In fact, as soon as Trump was out of the White House, what did his son-in-law do? Go and raise billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia." pic.twitter.com/YLWFsy7HBP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2023

WELKER: “Mitt Romney was here and he expressed outrage over the broader issue of Hunter Biden profiting off of his last name. Do you think, Senator, that it is inappropriate for a politician’s family member to profit off of their last name?”

MURPHY: “I do—in any case. And, frankly, when I look at the Trump family, it seems that they have made an industry out of profiting off of Donald Trump’s presidency. In fact, as soon as Donald Trump was out of the White House, what did his son-in-law do? Go and raise billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia. And so I think the American public are going to be very concerned about what has happened inside the Trump family since Donald Trump left the White House.”

WELKER: “Senator, respectfully, I asked you about the Biden family. Hunter Biden—do you think it’s inappropriate that he has apparently profited off his last name, and could that hurt the president’s reelection chances?”

MURPHY: “I think Hunter Biden is going to be held accountable in court for any violations of the law that he’s committed, and the American public are going to get a chance to watch that play out in real time. But what I’m absolutely certain of is that the American public are going to see a distinct contrast between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and are not going to be interested in a Trump presidency that’s going to criminalize abortion, that’s going to give more handouts to billionaires and the wealthy. They’re going to see President Biden, who has invested in the middle class, who’s helped this economy recover. That will be the contrast that will matter to the American people.”

Okay, here’s the clear difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats think the rule of law should apply to everyone, and if Hunter Biden is legitimately guilty of something, he should face the consequences. And so Murphy answered in that vein, while also pointing out that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—who actually worked in the White House, unlike Hunter Biden—got $2 billion from the Saudis after Trump was expectorated from the Oval Office. And Trump himself profited handsomely off his presidency—and did so out in the open—for four years.

So after Murphy answered that, yes, it was inappropriate for Hunter Biden to profit off his last name, maybe Welker should have moved on to more important matters instead of, say, asking him again

But hey, we have to be fair, don't we? Maybe she’ll have Kushner on next week and ask him what Prince Bone Saws bought with his 2 bill. Because if it was a Ford Raptor, Little Lord Fauntleroy will be well and truly fucked. 

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: DeSantis-bot glitches out, and ex-Trump aide says the former guy is 'slowing down'

3.

Sen. J.D. Vance was on CNN’s “State of the Union” pretending to be a man of the people—instead of a manservant to a circus peanut. He wants people to know—or at least believe—that the GOP is a pro-family party, really and for true. Never mind that they slap the hot lunches out of hungry kids’ mouths every chance they get. They really want you to believe that they support families, along with all the kids they’re forcing those families to have against their will.

And how are they doing that? Oh, just listen to J.D. He’s got it all figured out.

JD Vance on CNN on birth control: "I don't think that I know any Republican, at least not a Republican with a brain, that's trying to take those rights again from people." Jake Tapper replies, "I mean, I could provide a list for you if you want it." pic.twitter.com/s0KuDJlICL

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2023

VANCE: “I want to protect as many unborn babies as possible. I also think we have to win the trust back of the American people. And one of the ways to do that is to be the truly pro-family party—I think we are, we’ve got to carry that message forward and actually enact some public policies to that effect.”

TAPPER: “Is birth control part of that policy? Empowering women to be able to make those decisions before they get pregnant?”

VANCE: “Obviously people need to be able to make those decisions. I don’t think I know any Republican—at least not a Republican with a brain—that’s trying to take those rights away from people. But I think it goes deeper than that.”

TAPPER: “I mean, I could provide a list for you if you want.”

VANCE: “Well, okay, not anybody I talk to, Jake. But look, I think the more important question is—I talk to a lot of people, a lot of young families who want to have babies. They can’t afford mortgages, they’re terrified about health care expenses. We’ve got to answer those questions for people. We’ve got to have a role to play, because, look, we have a real problem in this country. Not enough Americans families that want to have children are able to do it. That’s how you destroy a nation.”

Well it’s nice to know that Vance thinks the Republican speaker of the House is brainless, because that dude’s done his darndest to keep people from accessing birth control. In fact, last year, 195 House Republicans voted against the Right to Contraception Act, which passed only because all 220 Democrats were onboard. 

Of course, another way you destroy a nation—aside from kowtowing to a Hitler-stanning documents thief whose latest EEG reading is about what you’d get if you tossed a hair dryer into a bathtub full of ferrets—is refusing to let people immigrate here because they’re brown. After all, if Vance were really interested in keeping this nation of immigrants prosperous and vital, he’d propose a viable immigration reform plan. But that will never happen. Not in this climate. Which naturally puts an undue burden on American citizens’ often-unwilling uteri.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Republicans are completely screwed on abortion, and Trump (hearts) fascism

4. 

Ever wonder what the world might look like now if Palm Beach County, Florida, hadn’t run with that butterfly ballot in 2000 and tricked all those elderly Jewish women into voting for Pat Buchanan? Al Gore would have been president, and we might have actually done something on the climate while we still had plenty of time. And we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq. And it’s even possible 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. And maybe the GOP’s cavalcade of increasingly risible presidential candidates would have ended at George W. Bush, instead of finding its terminus in Donald Trump. (This assumes Trump is the last glitching brain stem the GOP will place in the White House and not America’s first dictator. Though if things keep going the way they are, the 2028 Republican presidential nominee is liable to be a bowl of Grape-Nuts.)

Gore joined Tapper on “State of the Union,” where he was asked about Trump’s totally-not-secret plans for authoritarian rule.  

Al Gore on CNN on Trump: "Well, I saw the other day where he pledged to be a dictator on day one. And you kind of wonder what it will take for people to believe him when he tells us what he is" pic.twitter.com/SIO3lbYHjX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2023

TAPPER: “It does look like the 2024 election will come down to President Biden versus former President Trump. And I’m wondering what you think the world would look like under President Trump being reelected, which is certainly a possibility, not only when it comes to the climate but also when it comes to democracy.”

GORE: “Well, I saw the other day where he pledged to be a dictator on day one, and you’ve got to wonder what it will take for people to believe him when he tells us who he is. And, you know, the solution to political despair is political action, and for those in the Republican Party and the Democratic Party and independents who love American democracy and who want to preserve our capacity to govern ourselves and solve our problems, now’s the time to get active.”

Yes. Yes, it is. Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Vice President. Here’s one way to get started. And, of course, campaigns always need cash. We’ve got our work cut out for us going into 2024, so let’s all keep our eye on the ball. And please—no voting for Pat Buchanan this time around. That was a frickin’ disaster.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for now. See you next week, and happy holidays to all!

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

GOP impeachment resolution: A circus without substance

House Republicans released the text of their resolution authorizing their impeachment probe on Thursday, then left for the weekend. Note that the resolution doesn’t state why they intend to impeach President Joe Biden. Because there is no reason. This just formalizes the circus in the Judiciary, Oversight, and Ways and Means committees.

Speaker Mike Johnson gave the green light to this, justifying it by saying that the White House is “stonewalling” the committee’s efforts to concoct high crimes and misdemeanors out of thin air, making this “a necessary constitutional step.” The House Rules Committee is taking the resolution up next Tuesday, and the House as a whole will probably vote on it before leaving that Thursday or Friday for the rest of the year.

Today in Congress: Johnson’s inexperience showing; Ukraine stalemate continues

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on a major defense and national security policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, on Wednesday. It’s likely to be the only legislative accomplishment they achieve before leaving for the the end of the year, if it does indeed pass. The bill authorizes nearly $900 billion in defense and national security, though it doesn’t include funding—it just directs where the eventual funding bill will be spent. What the new House-Senate conference report doesn’t do is overturn the Pentagon’s abortion policy or strip health care from transgender troops.

That’s enough to have members of the hard-right House, which loaded their version of the bill up with all those toxic provisions, howling and vowing to vote against the bill. The bigger problem in the House, though, is Speaker Mike Johnson’s bungling of another provision in the NDAA. The conference committee decided to add a short-term extension of the nation’s warrantless surveillance powers in the bill, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, after several misfires on the issue from Johnson.

In the course of the last week or so, Johnson has taken three different positions on getting that done. On Nov. 29, he said he wanted to include an extension of it until Feb. 2. Then on Tuesday of this week, he told the GOP conference that he would put two competing reauthorization bills—one from House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan and another from House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner—on the floor in a head-to-head matchup. Whichever bill got the most votes would be sent to the Senate. Punchbowl News reported that he had instructed the members of the defense authorization conference to keep the FISA extension out of the bill, and “got cheers from conservatives for this statement.” Then on Wednesday, he made a complete about-face, agreeing to include an extension of the surveillance powers until April.

That same day, Jordan’s committee passed his bipartisan overhaul of FISA in committee by a 35-2 margin. Jordan had every expectation of his bill passing and wanted it to go to the floor next week, as he thought Johnson had promised. That’s precisely the kind of indecision and flip-flopping that already has Johnson in trouble with his fractious caucus, and since they are all unappeasable, it’s not going to get any better for him.

The Senate took up the defense authorization on Thursday with the initial procedural vote, which gives Johnson the weekend to try to smooth ruffled feathers and get the bill done on their side next week, likely the last substantive thing that will happen before they leave for Christmas.

That’s the worry for Ukraine and other countries in need of aid: that the House will leave town before the Senate passes its $110.5 billion supplemental foreign assistance package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. There’s been no advance in the stalemate on that issue since GOP senators threw their border security tantrum Tuesday. It’s looking likelier by the day that the urgently needed aid for Ukraine is not going to be passed before the end of the year.

And when Congress returns in January, as Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington reminds everyone, they’re going to have to get serious about passing government funding. Her concern is that Johnson’s supposed fallback proposal—to just extend current funding until the end of the fiscal year—will end up being the default. "It’s dangerous and a non-starter," the Senate Appropriations Committee chair told Politico Wednesday. "Everybody needs to understand that it’s dangerous, and we can’t go there."

She’s right to be worried. The budget agreement that President Joe Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy made back in May tried to avert just that eventuality by levying cuts if lawmakers extended funding with continuing resolutions. The $777 billion now budgeted for non-defense programs would plummet to $704 billion if regular funding bills aren’t passed.

Murray is also right to be worried that it’s Johnson in charge of figuring this out for the House. His combination of inexperience and arrogance makes him an unpredictable and dangerous negotiating partner.

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Disarray alert: House Republicans struggle with slim majority and chaos

With the exit of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the ejection of George Santos, and the impending resignation of Rep. Bill Johnson, House Republicans' bare majority is getting delectably precarious.

Daily Kos Elections political director David Nir games it all out, concluding that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson will likely end up having a two-vote margin of error on any given measure.

Wherever the numbers end up, Republicans' exceedingly thin majority throughout the 118th Congress has proven to be a blessing in disguise, despite Democrats' failure to keep the majority last cycle. Rarely, if ever, has America seen a more pathetic display of governance than that offered by House Republicans this Congress. The chaos of multiple leadership battles amid the daily display of internecine warfare within the GOP caucus has been both instructive for voters and good for America heading into, yet again, the most consequential election of our lifetimes.

As former Rep. Liz Cheney bluntly noted this week, “A vote for Donald Trump may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in. ... People have to recognize that a vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the Constitution.”

Liz Cheney: “A vote for Donald Trump may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in...People have to recognize that a vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the Constitution.” pic.twitter.com/ryynyn3kE7

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) December 4, 2023

Cheney also called the prospect of Mike Johnson still being speaker in 2025 "terrifying" in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

One of the reasons the race for control of the House is so critical is because it's the 119th Congress that will certify the 2024 election, and House Democrats can serve as a backstop to any Republican election-stealing efforts if Democrats control the chamber.

To the benefit of the pro-democracy side, House Republicans have revealed themselves as completely incapable of leading anything. The message appears to be sinking in, based on Navigator Research polling of roughly 60 battleground districts that will decide control of the House in next year's elections, with nearly 7 in 10 respondents recently saying Republicans have prioritized "the wrong things."

Last month, pro-Trump Rep. Chip Roy of Texas summed up House Republican rule nicely.

“Explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done," Roy said during a floor speech.

Last week, Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries happily riffed off Roy's rant in a press conference during the debate over expelling Santos from his seat.

"House Republicans have now been in the majority for a little under a year—they have nothing to show the American people that they have accomplished.," Jeffries said, mentioning Roy's assertion. "Nothing to meet the needs of the American people," he continued.

“House Republicans have now been in the majority for a little under a year. They have nothing to show the American people that they have accomplished … Don’t take my word for it. Just ask Chip Roy.” — Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slams House GOP pic.twitter.com/sZqRmt6Cj6

— The Recount (@therecount) November 30, 2023

Fortunately for Democrats, that dynamic won't be changing anytime soon. House Republicans’ next debacle is already in process, with Johnson preparing to hold a vote as soon as next week on initiating a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

Not only will it not be popular with voters, it's the perfect way for House Republicans to kick off 2024

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White House has things to say as Speaker Johnson reverses course on impeachment inquiry

House Republicans are moving toward a vote on a formal impeachment inquiry as they continue to allege, without evidence, serious corruption on the part of President Joe Biden. The evidence has not gotten stronger since mid-November, when House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly told so-called Republican moderates that there was “insufficient evidence” to move forward. The politics, however, have changed. Johnson’s move to keep the government from shutting down angered some extremist Republicans, and the expulsion of George Santos just after Johnson declared his opposition to expulsion did not make Johnson look any stronger. Giving the extremists a vote on an impeachment inquiry is an easy way for Johnson to try to shore up support.

The White House is vigorously pointing out the political calculations behind a vote on an impeachment inquiry. "Under fire for expelling George Santos, Speaker Johnson is throwing red meat to Marjorie Taylor Greene and the far right flank of the House GOP by pushing a full House vote on this illegitimate impeachment stunt," White House spokesperson Ian Sams told The Messenger.

"He admitted there is no evidence to justify it three weeks ago, but he’s doing it anyway — further proof that this whole exercise is an extreme political stunt, rather than a legitimate pursuit of the truth," Sams told The Messenger, excoriating Johnson and his flock for a "baseless smear campaign" that he said is "solely intended to satisfy their most extreme members."

Johnson has been consistent in publicly claiming that Republicans have a strong case against Biden, even as he admitted to members of his conference that there was “insufficient evidence.” Now, House Republicans are preparing to escalate their baseless inquiry and thereby escalate their harassment of Biden—leading into an election year.

The politics on an impeachment inquiry vote are clear, as former Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged, saying on “Fox & Friends,” “If you’re a Republican, do you really want to guarantee a primary opponent by voting against it?” Gingrich went on to offer up the regular Republican talking points, claiming that Biden is corrupt, but that sentence right there is going to be the basis for at least a few Republican votes on an impeachment inquiry—and with the razor-thin margin Republicans have in the House, that could be the decisive factor.

Republicans are set to move toward impeachment. But their evidence remains even thinner than their House majority, and many of them know it. Partisanship reigns above everything for them.

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The honeymoon is ending for Mike Johnson

House Republicans got rid of one speaker (with Democratic help) and then ran through most of their available candidates before successfully replacing him. They probably don’t want to do that again, at least until the memory fades a little, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop being fractured, ego-driven monsters whose go-to strategy is legislative vandalism. All of which is to say, current Speaker Mike Johnson came in with a warm glow of giddy Republican approval around him, but he’s already taking some pretty harsh criticism.

“He continues to play games,” Rep. Max Miller told Politico. “We are talking about a man [who] 30 days ago said that he was an anti-CR guy. We are talking about a man 30 days ago that was anti-Ukraine funding. ... It shows me he was never really morally convicted in his positions to begin with.”

Miller was an ally of ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, so he may not have been inclined to give Johnson as much benefit of the doubt as some. But going on the record to call a speaker from your own party a “joke” whose strategic decisions and shifting positions have been “disgusting,” “fucking dumb,” and “a slap in the face to every Jew” is an unusual move. It suggests that Miller isn’t worried about retaliation.

Rep. Andy Biggs was one of the eight Republicans who voted to boot McCarthy. He is, like Johnson, on the far right of the House Republican conference. Talking to Politico, he rated Johnson in grade-school report card terms as “needing improvement” and “unsatisfactory results.”

Rep. Chip Roy, also on the far right, rated Johnson’s performance as “plummeting.”

Johnson continues to have allies, and many on the far right of House Republicans continue to see him as one of their own. There’s no talk (yet) of replacing him, and he’s shoring himself up through his continuing support for impeaching President Joe Biden. But it’s significant that the biggest thing Johnson did to anger his fellow Republicans is … try to keep the government open for a few more months. The Freedom Caucus has grudgingly conceded they need to go along with the basic effort to keep the government from shutting down, but that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it, or with the guy who got them here.

Right now, Johnson is trying to walk the line between extreme enough to keep the Freedom Caucus and its ilk happy but not so overtly extreme that he completely blows up Republican chances next November. He’s getting away with it, but like every other recent Republican speaker, it’s clear that he’s not leading his party so much as trying to thread one needle after another without stumbling into a full-on rebellion. And many members of his party continue on unchanged by the experience of McCarthy’s ouster and the ensuing chaos. Their egos and determination to get attention by causing trouble will never take a rest.

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House Republicans continue wasting time instead of governing

The Republican House of Representatives is spinning its wheels Thursday over minor legislation that’s going nowhere, including yet another racist bill to deny housing for immigrants on federal lands. House Speaker Mike Johnson is instead focused on fundraising with big-money people in Washington, D.C., and New York. The fundraising is necessary for House Republicans since it’s been lagging since they toppled former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, their money juggernaut.

That fundraising Johnson's doing in New York includes ”the annual Bright Lights on Broadway fundraiser for the National Republican Congressional Committee, [and] … two events for the New York delegation and three receptions for embattled New York Republicans in their districts: freshman Reps. Nick LaLota, Anthony D’Esposito and Mike Lawler,” according to The Washington Post. That might be why some of those particular Republicans representing districts that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 are just fine with moving ahead on an historically specious impeachment inquiry. Because they are moving fast on impeachment.

While Republicans don’t have any evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, they’ve got a new website to track all the stuff they’ve made up in the various committees. And they’re talking about moving on it formally before the Christmas break. They might not have enough Republican votes to authorize it, but so far that doesn’t seem to be slowing them down.

Unfortunately for them, the House GOP is also having to figure out how to deal with Rep. George Santos, who is almost certainly going to be expelled in a vote Friday, after debate Thursday. Johnson doesn’t want to have this vote, but Santos has given his colleagues no choice. He refuses to leave of his own volition and he’s refusing as messily as possible.

Over on the Senate side Thursday, the Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on advancing a handful of judicial nominees and on issuing subpoenas to Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow, the fixer and the mega-donor, respectively, who are tied up with the corruption scandals surrounding Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. That committee is where all the worst people in the GOP Senate have congregated, and they were in full, obnoxious form Thursday to fight those subpoenas and stand up for conservative corruption, including bringing 177 amendments.

Before they could even get to the subpoenas, Republicans tried to shout down Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois, when he tried to advance the first nominee. All of the nominees have had hearings and debate, giving every senator two previous chances to talk about the nominees. Durbin pointed this out as he tried to limit debate. The performative outrage then commenced.

“Mr. Chairman, you just destroyed one of the most important committees in the United States Senate,” Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn yelled. “Congratulations on destroying the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.” Tennessee’s dimmest Senate bulb, Marsha Blackburn, shouted, “You want us to shut up?” Arkansas’ Tom Cotton jumped in with, “I guess Durbin isn’t going to allow women to speak, I thought that was sacrosanct in your party.”

In other words, it’s business as usual for congressional Republicans.

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There has been a ton of coverage in recent weeks over a streak of poor 2024 polling for Democrats and Target Smart’s Tom Bonier joins us to help us separate the wheat from the chaff. We talk about what to take from these polls and how to balance them against the much more positive election results we’ve seen this year. We also discuss how early voting data continues to evolve and how Sen. Sherrod Brown’s campaign will use Ohio’s recent abortion and marijuana referendums to find new persuadable voters next year.

ICYMI: Media sleeps as Trump blatantly disregards constitutional norms

Why is the media ignoring Trump's direct threats to our Constitution?

Donald Trump keeps threatening our nation’s democracy in no uncertain terms, and yet the nation’s media insists on treating his proclamations as spectacle, when they’re not outright ignoring him.

Take Trump’s fascist declaration that his potential next administration would “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” Historians have noted the alarming similarities to Adolf Hitler’s and Benito Mussolini’s eliminationist rhetoric, yet a Media Matters for America analysis found that our media could barely be bothered to care. Indeed, comparing the media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment to Trump’s “vermin” comment is … just go look for yourself.

Well, now he’s threatening the media, promising in a social media post to “come down hard” on MSNBC for its “constant attacks” on him. Clearly, Trump has no use for the First Amendment or the Constitution in general. Yet, can we expect the media to rally around its freedoms by calling out such outrageous threats? Don’t hold your breath. The media has a history of ignoring his threats, after all. If only his name were Hillary Clinton, perhaps then they’d be more suitably outraged.

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Senate Republicans do Trump's bidding on Ukraine, immigration

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Comic:

More comics.

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

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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Mike Johnson gives the game away in Biden impeachment: It’s revenge

House Speaker Mike Johnson pretended Wednesday that Republicans have any basis at all for moving forward on impeaching President Joe Biden, and that this is a serious inquiry. Johnson soberly intoned that the Republicans understand “impeachment requires time … You don’t rush something like this.”

Meanwhile, House Republican leadership told members that they’ll be taking a formal vote on impeachment in the next few weeks, possibly in January. That’s even while their plans for a hearing with their primary witness, Hunter Biden, are crumbling around them. Johnson laughably praised the committee chairs for conducting their circus “methodically and transparently,” when right now they’re trying to force Hunter Biden’s testimony to happen behind closed doors.

Johnson really gave the game away, though, in a statement that could have come straight from “1984”’s Ministry of Truth. He claimed that both of Donald Trump's impeachments—in which he was on the Trump defense team—were “brazenly political” and “meritless.” The GOP's efforts to impeach President Joe Biden, however, are “just the opposite” because “the Republican Party stands for the rule of law.”

That’s the whole game, right there. It’s not about the rule of law. It’s about revenge for Trump. Period.

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