Afghanistan for Republicans
Money in the Bank
The sounds you hear in the during the ongoing withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan are not so much the roar of jet engines evacuating frantic people of that troubled nation but rather the ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching as the Republican machinery gets into high gear, stuffing envelopes with requests for campaign contributions while capitalizing on the human tragedy in Afghanistan.
The colors so dominant will not be the color of blood shed at the end of Taliban guns but more, the color, green, as in money as the Republicans prepare a full bore media campaign to prove that trump was right all along, about everything, at all times
And how do Republicans spell Afghanistan? They will scream from the rafters that it is spelled b-e-n-g-h-a-z-i and as sure as you can bet dollars to doughnuts, dollars to buttons, dollars to cobwebs or even dollars to dumplings, the Republicans will push for a total, apolitical and utterly transparent investigation only I hope it won’t take more than two years and $7 million spent by the GOP-dominated 2014 Benghazi committee out of taxpayer funds, a probe that found nothing of substance and especially did not find that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was culpable even though the committee never even tried to make the investigation political, despite what Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., now the House minority leader but back in 2013, he was bucking for Speaker of House, when he said, “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”
BTW, I remind you that the Republicans have been dead against a congressional probe of the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol but I guess they didn’t deem that very serious or rather they know how a real investigation will bury their leader, old bone spurs and drag the GOP into purgatory in the process.
And just to illustrate how the Republicans were hell bent on patiently uncovering the truth about Benghazi, in January 2014, nearly six months before the Senate committee had even begun its investigations, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sent a fundraising email after President Obama’s State of the Union, criticizing Obama because he “failed to mention Benghazi.”
Then as now, we can be confident that none of the Republicans will jump to any conclusions, I mean, it has been almost a whole week since U.S. forces began evacuating Afghanistan. They are the usual suspects, although a few heretofore relatively unimportant and unknown politicians have gotten on the bandwagon to demand accountability and nothing short of justice (political victory).
There was that same House Republican Leader McCarthy, who after exhaustive study, tweeted over the weekend that Biden’s “lack of leadership during this pivotal moment has been shameful — it has only served to embolden our adversaries and let down our allies.” Yes, that is the same McCarthy who claimed the Benghazi probe was not a political witchhunt while most recently he has worked long and hard to block an investigation into the Jan. 5 attacks on the Capitol.
Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., in his opening remarks, slammed Biden for the situation in Afghanistan, saying it’s an “incomprehensible and utterly avoidable disaster.” He also said the “president is clearly in over his head.”
You may not recall but Johnson reached for glory during the many hours he spent in January to prove his point that Speaker Nancy Pelosi. D- Calif., committed a felony in January 2019 by tearing up President Trump’s State of the Union address.
“Her dramatic facial expressions and eye-rolling were enough to violate the rules of decorum and the traditions of civility in the House, but when she ripped up the written document on live television, she crossed a different line,” Johnson said in 2019 with typical candor and force.
Oh, and Johnson is currently against mandated COVID -19 vaccinations in his heavily infected state.
And here’s one you didn’t expect. The bone spurs, bad hair man himself, said Biden should “resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan.”
And how can we ignore the great Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., he who has tackled vital issues with not a whit of political pandering, like when he called on the Department of Commerce to investigate Ben & Jerry’s for the company’s decision to ban sales in parts of Israel, as a statement against the Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.
Scott, a staunch defender of the former mentally and otherwise totally challenged president, said it is time to “confront a serious question: Is Joe Biden capable of discharging the duties of his office or has time come to exercise the provisions of the 25th Amendment?” Crazy is as crazy does.
And let’s hear it from Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., who put on her most serious grimace in a photo in Newsmax, when she pleaded that Biden should resign following his “unilateral, reckless retreat from Afghanistan,” saying that he “is not up to the challenge” of a national security crisis.
Fox conservative talk show host Mark Levin, who after the Jan.6 attacks said it was unfair to blame the violence on trumpers, offered to his devoted followers that it’s time to either impeach or use the 25th Amendment to remove Biden, the “most disastrous president in modern American history.”
And while many Republicans have used the situation in Afghanistan as an example of Biden’s inability to govern, others have said it is part of the much feared, “replacement” program whereby Democrats are trying to flood the country with immigrants who will support the Democrats.
In October 2020, Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., voted against a bill to condemn QAnon, a far-right, pro-Trump conspiracy theory group that has dispersed misinformation about COVID-19 and believe the enemies of President Donald Trump are a “deep-state,” satan-worshiping, child-sex-trafficking cannibals that include Democrats and media. The movement has been identified by the FBI as a potential domestic terrorist threat.
This week, Tiffany had solemn, stern warnings to all Americans to be on the alert to Biden’s plan for “releasing tens of 1000’s of Afghans into our communities.”
Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont. gained some ink in June when he said he would vote against making Juneteenth a federal holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the U.S. Last week, Rosendale said the Taliban’s takeover is “not an excuse to flood our country with refugees from Afghanistan” while Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., “PRO-LIFE. PRO-2ND AMENDMENT. PRO-BORDER SECURITY, PRO-TRUMP,” according to her website, said that any refugees from Afghanistan “must be vetted. Keep America safe!”
One of Alfred Hitchcock’s most frightening films is “The Birds,” where innocent men, women and children are mercilessly attacked by thousands of birds for no apparent reason. Fire ants also can be merciless as they inflict painful stings and can kill people as thousands of fire ants live in just one fire ant nest and if the mound is disturbed, look out or better yet, run for your lives. And we’ve all seen the videos of a school of sharks going bonkers in a mad feeding frenzy after they smell the blood of a large school of smaller and relatively defenseless fish.
Fox News is kind of like the birds, fire ants and frenzied sharks as they try to pour gasoline on the fire to stir up their viewers to a frenzy because of the situation in Afghanistan. Here is a sampling of today’s Fox headlines:
* US student shares horrific photos from family in Afghanistan after Taliban takeover.
* Woman held hostage in ’01 warns of ‘dire’ situation.
* Afgans plead for faster US evacuation from Taliban rule.
* Biden says ‘no one’s being killed’ in Afghanistan
* Biden’s media ‘clout’ is slipping away.
It reminds me of birds, fire ants and sharks, but Fox is much worse.