Look Out, Here Comes Truth, Justice and The Republican Smear
The odious and odorous Republican smear machine is gearing up for its main dish for 2023 and beyond and that would be the president’s son, Hunter Biden. I hope they come up with a new slogan, “Lock Him Up” is so yesterday; how about, “Beat Him Up.”
The caluminated Hunter Biden campaign is so out of the GOP playbook, just like the big lie of the 2020 presidential election where any serious Republican ho wants to be elected or re-elected must pass the smell test and testify that the presidential election of course was rigged and that bone spurs is the legitimate president.
And no doubt, COVID-19 will again be the Republican bogey man, evidenced by the latest brilliance from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who said that the virus may just cause AIDS. And finally, yes, Joe Arpaio, the 89-year-old, disgraced, former Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff, who was pardoned by bone spurs is back and running for mayor in a Phoenix suburb.
Regarding Hunter Biden, there has been lots of Republican smoke but no fire. And trump’s big lie has triggered numerous examinations of alleged voting irregularities and alleged fraud and nothing has turned up, nothing.
Hopefully, most Americans will understand that the only proof of a link between COVID-19 and AIDS is a tiny space between Johnson’s ears and finally, don’t count out America’s sheriff just yet.
Let’s start with Hunter Biden and his dad. Since early 2019, both have been the subjects of unsupported claims of corrupt activities in a Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory pushed by ex-president trump and his allies, concerning Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and Joe Biden’s anti-corruption efforts there on behalf of the United States during the time he was vice president. Hunter Biden is reportedly under federal investigation but he has not been charged with anything.
So, hold on to your hats because 12 Republican members of the poorly-named Congressional Committee on Oversight and Reform have signed on to a request that the White House turn over reams of information and investigate Hunter Biden ‘s alleged dealings with Russian and Ukraine. If you say something enough times, people will believe that something had to have happened.
Republican led investigations into then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s role in the 2012 terrorist attacks against U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Lybia, cost millions and took years but failed to show that Clinton was culpable. Still millions of people believe something had to have happened.
And now we have trump’s big lie about voter fraud and millions of Americans are convinced that something had to have happened.
The Committee on Oversight and Reform is the principal oversight committee of the House but with the Republicans in the minority it won’t go anywhere. But if the Republicans regain House control, a real possibility, look out for the Hunter Biden “investigation” to take center stage, killing any more probes over Republican links to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Congress.
Rather than give air and life to the details of the specious Republican demands, I’ll note a bit about each esteemed, justice-seeking lawmaker. Not coincidentally, they are all from hard core red states and all hard core trumpers.
Rep. Glenn S. Grothman, 67, has represented Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District since 2014. Axios awarded Grothman the highest “Trump Loyalty Index” of any other member of Congress.
While previously a state representative, he said then-Gov. Scott Walker should defund the state’s kindergarten program for 4-year-olds, because any academic benefits disappear by fourth grade, something that bears no basis in fact.
Grothman opposed a bill to increase funding for anti-smoking programs from $10 million to $30 million, because “Everybody knows you’re not supposed to smoke!”
Rep. Michael Cloud, 47, has been representing Texas’s 27th Congressional District since 2018. In December 2020, Cloud was one of 126 Republican members of the House to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, The court declined to hear the case.
Cloud was one of 12 House Republicans to vote not to award Congressional Gold Medals to U.S. Capitol Police who protected the Capitol during the uprising by trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.
Ralph Norman, 69, was elected in 2017 to represent South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District. Norman won a special election after Mick Mulvaney vacated his seat in Congress after trump named him director of the Office of Management and Budget. As of 2018, Norman had a net worth of $18.3 million, making him the 17th wealthiest member of Congress.
On Sept. 20, 2018, at an election debate for the Republican nomination, Norman joked about sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. “Did y’all hear this latest late-breaking news on the Kavanaugh hearings? …Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln,” Norman joked.
At a public meeting for constituents on April 6, 2018, Norman was speaking with representatives from the gun control group, “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America,” when he placed his .38-caliber handgun on the table to underscore his belief that “gun violence is a spiritual, mental or people issue, not a gun issue.”
In 2019, Norman joined a small group of House Republicans, including Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who sought to reinstate then-Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, on House committees. King was stripped of his committee positions after making a series of racist and white nationalist remarks. King was not reinstated and in 2020, lost a reelection bid.
After Biden was elected president, Norman called for an investigation into voter fraud. In December 2020, he signed on to the amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania. In June 2021, Norman was one of 21 House Republicans to vote against honoring the U.S. Capitol police.
Virginia Foxx, 79, represents North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District. In September 2005, Foxx was one of 11 members of Congress to vote against the $51 billion aid package to victims of Hurricane Katrina. In April 2009, she voted against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, claiming that Shepard’s murder was not a hate crime and that he was killed “in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay.”
Shepard was a student who was tortured and murdered in 1998 near Laramie, Wyo., because he was gay. Byrd was an African American man who was tied to a truck by three white supremacists, dragged behind it, and decapitated in Jasper, Texas, in 1998.
In May 2021, Foxx became the fifth Republican representative to be fined for evading metal detectors put in place outside the chamber after the Jan. 2021 storming of the Capitol. On Jan. 6, 2021, she objected to the certification of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.
Robert Gibbs, 68, is a farmer who represents Ohio’s 7th Congressional District. On March 4, 2013, Gibbs introduced the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2013, a bill that would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from requiring farmers and others to get a permit for discharges of pesticides authorized for use under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.
In 2015, Gibbs cosponsored a resolution to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage. In December 2020, he he signed on to the amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania. On Jan. 7, 2021, Gibbs objected to the certification of the 2020 presidential election results in Congress based on false claims of voter fraud.
Clay Higgins, 61, is a representative for Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District.
In 2004 Higgins became a patrol officer for the Opelousas City Police Department but three years later, Police Chief Perry Gallow prepared to take major disciplinary action against Higgins for having hit a suspect who was in handcuffs, using “unnecessary force” during the execution of a warrant and later “gave false statements during an internal investigation.”
Higgins resigned before disciplinary action could be imposed. Higgins next worked for the Port Barre Police Department through 2010. In 2011, he joined the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office where he was named the office’s public information officer. He created videos in which he appealed to suspects to surrender and sometimes threatening them by name. Higgins also made a video for the state police, with a script that prompted protests from suspects’ families and the ACLU. He resigned from the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office in February 2016, after using disrespectful and demeaning language about suspects. A year later, Higgins was sworn into a seat in Congress.
Higgins is anti-abortion and has compared women choosing to terminate their pregnancy to the Holocaust. He is a staunch opponent of gun restrictions and said that “throughout our history, prior to just 50 years ago, a child could purchase a gun from any seller, if Daddy sent him with the money.”
In 2018, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote an op-ed in the N.Y. Times calling for repeal of the Second Amendment. Higgins responded, “Judge John Paul Stevens, Your Honor, whatever… put together any badass socialists you can muster. As their attorney, make sure they have their affairs in order.” He signed it “Molon Labe,” from the Greek for “come and take them,” a slogan used to express defiance by gun-rights advocates.
Higgins has promoted himself and spoken at rallies by anti-government militia groups. When informed that a Black militia group protesting police brutality might show up at a protest, he suggested on Facebook in September 2020 that he would “drop any 10 of you where you stand.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Higgins said that the Chinese Communist Party had created the disease as biological warfare.
Pete Sessions, 67, is in his 12 term, representing Texas’s 17th Congressional District. His father is the former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) William S. Sessions.
In 2008, Sessions added a $1.6 million earmark for dirigible research to an appropriations bill, benefiting a Chicago company, Jim G. Ferguson & Associates, that had no experience in government contracting or dirigible research. Former Sessions aide and convicted felon Adrian Plesha was a lobbyist for the firm.
In March 2016, Sessions introduced a House resolution to “recognize magic as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure.” In 2012, Sessions voted against disaster relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, although in August 2017, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which devastated parts of Texas, he called for disaster relief for Texas hurricane victims.
Sessions made controversial comments about the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) giving money to and supporting “African Americans like Sanford Bishop.” Bishop is a Democratic member of Congress from Georgia.
Sessions came under scrutiny for his personal ties to disgraced banker Allen Stanford, who in 2012 was convicted of orchestrating a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Sessions received more than $44,000 in political contributions from Stanford and his associates.
In July 2018, Sessions opposed an increase in federal funding for election security, even though the U.S. intelligence community had concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and that it was continuing to interfere in election systems as of July 2018.
Andy Biggs, 64, was elected in 2016 to represent Arizona’s 5th Congressional District. In 1993, he won $10 million in the American Family Publishers sweepstakes. In 2020, Biggs joined Gosar in a video falsely claiming that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Later, Biggs falsely claimed that 10,000 Maricopa County voters were “disenfranchised” without giving evidence. Biggs spoke at rallies promoting the “Stop the Steal” election conspiracy movement, and has claimed antifa was behind the storming of the Capitol. Biggs voted against awarding Congressional Gold Medals to the Capitol Police who protected the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Andrew S. Clyde, 58, is a private gun dealer who was elected in 2021 to represent Georgia’s 9th Congressional District.
In 2020, Clyde sued Athens, Ga., over its shelter-in-place COVID-19 restrictions. As a representative, Clyde voted against certifying Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election results. He described the 2021 Capitol attack as “no insurrection” and said the incident resembled a “normal tourist visit,” even though he previously acknowledged that he had helped to barricade the House chamber “from the mob who tried to enter.” Clyde claimed that Trump supporters behaved “in an orderly fashion, staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures.”
He opposed legislation to establish June 19, or Juneteenth, as a federal holiday; voted against making lynching a federal hate crime; and stopped an effort to name a federal building in Florida after Joseph W. Hatchett, the first Black State Supreme Court judge in Florida and south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Scott Franklin, 57, represents Florida’s 15th congressional district.
Yvette Herrill, 58, is the representative for New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District. She is the first Republican Native American woman elected to Congress.
In 2021, Herrell called for the National Guard to be deployed at the United States-Mexico border. She was the primary sponsor of a 2022 bill to give temporary political asylum to Canadian truckers who were arrested for protesting vaccine mandates. Herrell also objected to certifying Biden as winner of the 2020 election.
Byron Donalds, 43, is an African American elected in 2021 to represent Florida’s 19th Congressional District.
In 2000, he pleaded guilty to a felony bribery charge as part of a scheme to defraud a bank but the charge was expunged after he entered the Florida House. Before entering politics, Donalds worked in the finance, insurance, and banking industries.
In late 2020, Donalds was identified as a participant in the “Freedom Force”, a group of incoming House Republicans who “say they’re fighting against socialism in America.”
In January 2021, Donalds voted against certifying the electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania in the 2020 presidential election. He was blocked from joining the Congressional Black Caucus and became a Christian at age 21.