Hold On To Your Seats, Here Comes The GOP Nothing Burger Brigade
The Hillary Clinton email investigation turned out to be a big nothing burger, the tens of millions spent on nailing Clinton for the Benghazi responsibility, another nothing burger.
Now get braced for yet another nothing burger with nothing on it and no fries and no soda and no nothing.
What is it about Republicans and investigative committees and why are they planning to kill a committee that is trying to get to the bottom of the worst insurrection the nation has ever seen. And why won’t one Republican lawmaker take the bold step and rebuke a freshman colleague in Congress who has lied about everything and was never a good volleyball player?
And by the way, the newest GOP House committee that will look into the truth about that other Democratic-controlled, House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising, will be led by a congressman who denies that trump lost the 2020 election and who by the way, has defied a Congressional subpoena to find out what this congressman knows abut the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by trump supporters.
The new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is the latest weaponization by the Republicans. The committee will get to the (Republican) bottom of why trump was treated so unfairly that the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago property for reams of classified White House documents that he did not return for more than a year after leaving office, as required by law.
Please, stop comparing the discovery of a dozen documents at Biden’s former office, that he quickly and voluntarily turned in to the government, to the hundreds if not thousands of documents, including top secret files, that trump stole and tried to hide from investigators. Even Karl Rove , the former George W. Bush White House official and GOP strategist, said the two situations are very different.
And the committee also will certainly get to the (Republican) truth about how the federal government encouraged Twitter to discriminate against Republicans and the treatment of conservative or right-wing protesters at school board meetings and abortion clinics. And incidentally, if they have time, the GOP committee will do whatever is necessary to interfere with any investigations into trump and top secret documents and trump and his humble request that the Georgia secretary of state find “11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.” And in an effort to leave no stone un-turned, the committee will undoubtedly target Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Biden’s former chief medical adviser, to find out if, as everyone knows, the Chinese intentionally unleashed the COVID-19 virus on the world and have been left alone because of all the illegal profits the Biden family makes from China.
“We don’t want to go after anyone. We just want it to stop,” said the congressman who will lead the latest GOP witchhunt, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. “That’s what this committee is all about, and that’s what we’re going to focus on. That’s what we are going to do.”
Jordan said that his goal was not to target Democrats or law enforcement officers who have scrutinized trump’s behavior. He said his interest was merely in “protecting the First Amendment” at a time when he said the right was being unfairly targeted.
This would be the same Jim Jordan who told Anderson Cooper in April 2018 that he had never heard trump tell a lie and that “I don’t know that [Trump has ever] said something wrong that he needs to apologize for.”
And Jordan has been clear that he plans to subpoena anyone he wants to subpoena, as long as it’s not subpoenaing himself.
BTW, from 1987 to 1995, Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach at the Ohio State University, where many athletes claim he knew about and turned a blind eye to Dr. Richard Strauss’s sexual abuse of at least 177 students. Enough for ethics.
And one Republican member of the new faux committee is none other than Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., who was active in the effort to keep trump in office and to violate the constitution and who is under investigation by federal authorities.
We are on the verge of another blast of McCarthy hearings, as in red baiting, alcoholic, disgraced Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Maybe they should call the new committee, “The Son of the House Un-American Activities Committee,” which ruined the lives of many Americans because they were suspected of being sympathetic to communism and this time they could ruin the lives of Americans suspected of being sympathetic to Biden.
And the ink hasn’t dried on the tortuous debacle that finally made Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the new speaker of the house. Immediately, Rep. Marjorie Taylor or Marjorie Greene, R-Ga., screamed as she does to impeach Biden while Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, has filed articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, claiming he has undermined “operational control” of the southern border and encouraged illegal immigration.
Rep. Taylor or Greene, it should be noted, has said that Jewish space lasers started the California wild fires. But that hasn’t stopped McCarthy from doing his dishonest best to normalize Greene or Taylor who has acknowledged that she was just engulfed and led astray by the crazy QAnon conspiracies and now doesn’t believe that the Democrats are baby-killing pedophiles although she may still believe in those Jewish space lasers.
And then there is the imminent GOP investigation into the dealings of Biden’s son, Hunter, an issue that nobody but Republicans care about.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the freshman Republican governor of Arkansas, has hit the ground running as she took on the weighty task and ordered that the “culturally insensitive” term “Latinx” will no longer be used in official documents. Remember Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she was White House press secretary for trump from 2017 to 2019, who famously hosted fewer press conferences than any of the 13 previous White House press secretaries and just as famously lied when she said that she “heard from countless members of the FBI that are grateful and thankful for the President’s decision” to fire FBI Director James Comey.
The Republicans have been busy quickly naming leaders of the various committees.
There’s Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., the new chairman of the GOP Homeland Security Committee. Green has had some strange beliefs, to put it mildly, like arguing that being transgender is a “disease,” promoting creationism, criticizing public health care programs for interfering with Christian evangelism, and raising concerns about Victoria’s Secret catalogs. And Green (not to be confused with the equally wacky Marjorie Taylor Greene) has said that former President Obama is not a citizen and just may be a Muslim.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., will lead the Armed Services Committee that drafts the annual defense policy bill. Rogers gained notoriety and respect in some quarters after he lunged at Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., during the recent the 14th ballot for House Speaker. Rogers apparently was perturbed that Gaetz was seeking a subcommittee chairmanship in the House Armed Services Committee, of which Rogers is in line to become chair.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, will take over as chair of the Budget Committee that drafts and debates the annual budget resolution. Arrington opposed certifying the electoral vote count in the 2020 presidential election, claiming there were “millions of American voters” who felt that the election “was not conducted in an equitable or accurate manner.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., will lead the renamed House Education and the Workforce Committee. Foxx is against gay marriage and has been a member of the Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans since 2005. Her former son-in-law, Mustafa Özdemir, is a Turkish businessman.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., will head the Energy and Commerce Committee, which handles health care, energy and technology policy among other issues. In 2016, McMorris Rodgers was on trump’s shortlist to become Secretary of the Interior but the post went to Ryan Zinke, who left the post under a cloud of misconduct allegations.
At a debate, an audience member asked how old the candidates believed the earth to be; Rodgers said she believed the account in the Bible. She also rejects the theory of evolution, saying, “the account that I believe is the one in the Bible, that God created the world in seven days.”
Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., will chair the Natural Resources Committee that has jurisdiction over extractive industries such as logging and mining and environmental issues including public lands and endangered species management. During the 2021 Capitol riot, Westerman was left behind in House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s office during the evacuation by security. Westerman took a Civil War sword from a shattered display for protection and hid from rioters on a toilet.
Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas will chair the Small Business Committee. Williams was the coach of the Republican team for the Congressional Baseball Game and he was on the field on June 14, 2017, during a shooting attack. He was taken from the area on a stretcher for an ankle injury he suffered while jumping into the dugout during the attack. He played college baseball for the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs and was selected in the 25th round of the 1971 Major League Baseball draft by the Atlanta Braves, playing in the farm system and reaching the Class A Western Carolinas League.
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., will lead the Veterans Administration’s implementation of a sweeping health care and benefits law for veterans with toxic exposure. In 1986, Bost’s daughter required stitches after being bitten by a beagle after antagonizing and chasing it. Bost drove to the dog’s owner’s home and shot the dog dead with a handgun while it was in its enclosure. He was charged with criminal damage to property and reckless misconduct and was found not guilty. In 2006, authorities confronted Bost after he failed to report that his gun was stolen after it was used to threaten another man’s life. He led authorities to his gun safe, which contained a bottle of whiskey and no gun.
Could these newly emboldened Republicans please stop investigating and do something about climate change, the unfair tax system, college loans, domestic terrorism. Hopefully, the Republicans will stop being the party of opposition. Well maybe not.
“I’ve changed,” Hitler told a mythical gathering of B’Nai B’Rith. “Really I’m not the same guy anymore.”
The follow up speaker, a leopard, announced to the group, “Yes, I have changed my spots, really.”