This from a Mr. M. Gaye, formerly of Washington DC with paternal roots in Lexington, who asks the eternal question, “What’s Going On?”
Well, Marvin, nothing good. In the formerly sane state of Tennessee earlier this year, the House of Representatives, with a Republican super majority, expelled two Democrats, who just coincidently happened to be African-Americans, for suggesting that lawmakers might want to consider doing something about the plethora of guns that are leaving people dead in the streets. The two gents had to run in special elections to regain their seats.
Meanwhile, the nitwit in Florida, no, not the Mar-a-Lago nitwit, the other nitwit who jokes he’s going to be president, that being Gov. Ron DeSantis, has dismissed two duly-elected state attorneys, otherwise known as prosecutors, who coincidently happen to be Democrats, because he personally finds them too “woke,” whatever that means, despite their popularity with the voting public.
And in Wisconsin, which in the past has produced the likes of Fighting Bob LaFollette, Paul Soglin, the former mayor of Madison who once presented the key to the city to Fidel Castro, and the current mayor, Satya Rhodes-Conway, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Republican majority in the state House and Senate are loading up to impeach liberal Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz because they’re afraid she’s going to find the unconstitutional redistricting maps they’ve devised, well, unconstitutional. This all began before Justice Protasiewicz had even heard her first case.
What’s going on then, Mr. Gaye, is an attack on democracy itself as authoritarian Republicans in various districts across the sweet land of liberty seek to usurp the expressed choice of voters. It’s being undertaken in a fairly modest way to this point, but power-hungry Republicans will likely follow suit if initial efforts like this produce what they consider positive results.
The anti-democratic march is being conducted in other, more subtle, ways as well, generally through redistricting in states already maintaining a solid partisan advantage that seek to run up the score. In Kentucky, the so-called “Comer Hook,” which refers to the ridiculous borders of the First Congressional District, which somehow now runs from McCracken County to Franklin County, a distance of some 255 miles, is meant to enhance the electoral potential of two Kentucky GOP congressmen, including the aforementioned Rep. Jamie Comer, R-Whereverhehangshishatishishome. And it should be noted the redrawn state House and Senate maps divide counties in a number of districts to dilute the influence of Democratic voters and strengthen GOP majorities.
But all of this is a game of beanbag when compared to what Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to get away with. Under the direction of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, the Republican majority is launching the grandaddy of all anti-democracy ventures, an official inquiry that likely will lead to the impeachment of President Biden.
For doing nothing wrong.
It bears repeating that Biden defeated the incumbent Republican, one Donald James Trump, by 7 million votes, give or take, in November 2020 and won the electoral vote, something his direct predecessor as the Democratic presidential candidate, Hilary Clinton, failed to do, even though she outpaced Trump by about 3 million votes.
The 2020 results didn’t go over very well with many Republicans, most particularly with Trump, the loser, who is now under indictment for seeking to overturn the election. And they’ve been looking for ways to thwart the almost 66 million American citizens who threw their support behind Biden. Now they’re throwing garbage on the wall and they really don’t care if it sticks.
The House panels conducting this ersatz impeachment probe, which held its initial, chaotic meeting on Thursday, is being led by the same Jamie Comer who benefits from Kentucky redistricting. Apparently, Inspector Clouseau wasn’t available.
Comer, as chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has been relentlessly dogging Biden since assuming control of the panel in January. The ensuing nine-month span is equivalent to the usual gestation period but it has become obvious the incompetent fool ain’t gonna be birthin’ no babies. He has utterly failed to come up with anything like the high crimes and misdemeanors prescribed by the Constitution. But he won’t let that stand in the way of his ultimate mortification.
Consider:
Comer made a big deal out of an FBI internal report, never substantiated, that Biden took a $5 million bribe as vice president under President Barak Obama to help dump a prosecutor in Ukraine who, it was said, wasn’t doing enough to address corruption.
It never passed the smell test and the only evidence produced in the matter comes from two people — the former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, and the head of an energy company that appointed Biden’s son, Hunter, to its board of directors — who have essentially cleared the president of any wrongdoing, that Biden was following policy when he acted to give the prosecutor the much-needed heave-ho, that Biden didn’t act in any fashion in his son’s behalf. In other words, there was no pay-off.
On Thursday, at the hearing, Comer repeated claims that “For years, President Biden has lied to the American people about his knowledge of and participation in his family’s corrupt business schemes.”
There’s nothing to back that up, which means his claim is, well, a lie. The reference is to business conducted with foreign companies involving Hunter Biden that maintained ties to governments in places like China and Russia. No one has stepped forward to claim the president had any knowledge of his son’s activities. In fact, one of Hunter Biden’s associates, Devon Archer, has testified that Biden and his son never discussed business.
On occasion, Biden would call his son while Hunter was in a business meeting and he would offer salutations and what-not to whomever was in the room. And on a couple other times he attended dinners with various folks, including some who conducted business with Hunter. So far, that’s the extend of Biden’s knowledge of his son’s dealings. There is no evidence, either from testimony or subpoenaed records, showing Biden himself profited in any way.
That’s what Comer’s hanging his hat on. As Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-MD, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, remarked, “Republicans are launching an impeachment drive based on a long debunked and discredited lie.”
And things didn’t seem to go to Jamie’s liking at the hearing. Witnesses who Comer hoped would back him up, well, they fell a little short. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and a frequent guest on the conservative Fox News channel, let it be known, “”I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment… But I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry.”
As noted by Raskin, “I’m struck by the fact that of the four expert witnesses brought together today, not a single one of them argued that a sufficient quantum of evidence exists to justify the impeachment of President Biden.”
So, the walking, talking, crawls on its belly like a reptile humiliation that has bitten our boy Jamie is about to gnaw on him again, with a vengeance.
But there’s a pattern developing here, which includes the phony-baloney impeachment effort, that the public needs to be aware of. Republicans are skirting around normal political gamesmanship and seeking to undermine elections to further their aims.
That’s not what democracy is about.