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Biden inquiry: waste of time … and money

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Congressional Republicans approved the President Biden impeachment inquiry a few months ago.

Their aim — and, yes, their desire — is to find something on which to impeach the president. They have come up empty. There’s no “there, there,” to borrow a phrase from the late Gertrude Stein.

It just appears to me that there never will be evidence of a “high crime” or a “misdemeanor” on which to impeach the president.

If ever we are witnessing a vendetta, this is it. Republicans still are steaming over the House’s impeachment — twice, in fact — of the president who most recently wore the GOP label. (Be advised that I won’t mention the moron’s name on this blog). 

Yeah, I know the Senate acquitted him but only because the GOP majority in the upper chamber lacked the guts to convict him of (a) soliciting a political favor from a foreign head of state and (b) inciting the mob to storm the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. I point out, too, that on the second impeachment, the Senate recorded 57 votes to convict the POTUS of inciting the mob, but the constitutional standard required the Senate to find 67 votes to boot the president from office.

In both cases, you had actual high crimes on which to convict, but it didn’t happen.

Republicans are launching their own inquiry into whether to impeach Joe Biden. I am still scratching my noggin and wondering: What in the name of vengeance is the crime? What has Joe Biden done, specifically, to merit this phony inquiry? 

Has anyone produced anything resembling a crime, or an allegation of a crime? No! They have not! Instead, we now hear that a key witness who was supposed to produce the goods has been indicted for lying to the FBI. Pretty damn credible, eh?

This matter will produce the same result that the GOP witch hunt into “Benghazi” produced. Not a damn thing!

It is a monumental waste of time. Indeed, it is a waste of money that Republicans keep telling us we cannot afford to spend on important issues that matter.

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Where’s the … beef?

My patience with congressional Republicans is wearing thin, so thin in fact that I feel the need to call them out on all that so-called “evidence” they purport to have on President Biden’s alleged corruption.

Where is it? What is it? From whom are they getting it?

The U.S. House is embarking on that impeachment inquiry sought by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, at the behest of the MAGA morons to pull his strings. The usual gang of loudmouths say the House must actually impeach the president before they act on things such as, oh, a federal budget.

Good grief, man!

Evidence? An actual “high crime or misdemeanor”? Have they developed a pattern? Hell no!

They have concocted a conclusion. Now the House Republican caucus is looking for a trail that will lead them to the conclusion they already have approved.

We hear a lot these days about the “rule of law,” yes? This isn’t how the rules work. They work when you come up with sufficient evidence to investigate; then you investigate and then you reach whatever conclusion your probe leads you … not the other way around!

What we see in this inquiry is more akin to the “rite of revenge.” House Democrats impeached Donald Trump twice after the then-POTUS sought a political favor from a foreign head of state and then exhorted the mob of traitors to storm the Capitol Building on 1/6.

Republicans won’t stand for that, so they’re seeking something to hang round a Democratic president’s neck.

I hear a glimmer of good news out there, which is that many non-MAGA moron Republicans are joining their Democratic colleagues in Congress and warning of the folly of impeaching a president who — if I may be blunt — does not deserve it.

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What am I missing?

What in the world am I not getting as I watch the MAGA Moron Caucus within the House Republican Party clear the decks for an impeachment inquiry into President Biden?

Four years ago, the House GOP caucus resisted impeaching Donald Trump despite irrefutable evidence he had violated the U.S. Constitution by asking a foreign head of state for a political favor in exchange for weapons to defend itself against an aggressor nation. The House impeached Trump, but he avoided conviction in the Senate.

Then came the assault on the Capitol Building that Trump provoked. It was all done in broad daylight. The House impeached him a second time over the objections of MAGA morons. Again, Trump escaped conviction.

Here we are now. The GOP caucus is full of revenge, having taken back control of the House. They want an impeachment now. The charges? The high crimes and misdemeanors?

Hmm. We don’t know. They haven’t spelled anything out. Why not? Because — in my view — there is nothing to spell out! They’re going to look for “widespread corruption.” They’ll seek to find something the president did to qualify as an impeachable offense.

Absent any actionable evidence, though, the MAGA loudmouths keep blathering about impeaching Joe Biden. They want his head on a proverbial platter … no matter what!

They are hectoring Speaker Kevin McCarthy into launching an impeachment inquiry, even without a vote in the House — which well could fail were it to be taken. McCarthy is caving to the MAGA crowd, to which he likely owes the speakership.

This is a disgraceful display of vengeance politics … at its worst!

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MAGA cabal calls the shots

Kevin McCarthy made it official: He has instructed the relevant U.S. House of Representatives committee chairs to rev up an inquiry into whether to impeach President Biden.

Which begs this question: Is there a clearer demonstration than this of just who is calling the shots within the People’s House? It ain’t the speaker of the body, but rather it’s the MAGA moron cabal that forced him to act in this irresponsible manner.

Speaker McCarthy is in charge by the slimmest of margins in the House. He owes the speakership to the concessions he made to the MAGA cabal that wants this impeachment inquiry.

What are the charges? What high crime and misdemeanor has the president allegedly committed? Where will this inquiry go and how long will it last?

The MAGA morons want it to go through the next election cycle, keeping the heat on the president for as long as humanly possible.

We are about to witness a staggering abuse of power within the House of Representatives that could rival any such abuses we already have witnessed.

And why? For what reason? I believe I know.

It’s revenge for the twin impeachments leveled against Donald Trump … and it is disgraceful.

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Impeach POTUS? For what?

I am still scratching my noggin over Republican efforts to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

My curiosity comes from this simple question: What are the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the president allegedly committed?

My quick answer: There aren’t any. My more complicated examination: The GOP is paying Democrats back for impeaching their guy, Donald Trump, twice for crimes he clearly committed while sitting in the office of the presidency.

Republicans want their retribution — if I can borrow that term from Trumps’ own glossary.

Trump infamously got Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the phone and asked him for a political favor in exchange for weaponry to use against a possible Russian invasion. Trump wanted Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. The Constitution forbids such a thing. So, the House impeached Trump,

Then came the 1/6 assault on our government by the traitorous mob that acted at the behest of Trump. The House impeached him a second time.

You know how those impeachments turned out.

So now the House is pondering an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. It is looking for something, anything, to hang on Joe Biden.

Oh, is this where I mention that the president is seeking re-election in 2024? Is there any correlation between that and this phony impeachment inquiry? Looks like it to me.

One of the GOP zealots happens to be the Republican who represents the Third Congressional District in North Texas, Keith Self. He told a Farmersville gathering this week that he wants an inquiry but didn’t specify the charges that should be examined.

An impeachment inquiry against a president who has spent his entire professional life in public service looks like an exercise in revenge. This is what we get when we send zealous ideologues — rather than dedicated public servants — to Congress.

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Impeachment inquiry … of what?

Congressional Republicans are getting ready to launch what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy calls the next logical step toward an impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s conduct.

Which begs the question: What in the hell are they seeking to learn?

President Biden’s conduct as president, as VP and as a senator has been investigated beyond all that is reasonable. The man’s been at or near the political center stage almost from the day he assumed his Senate office in January 1973. That’s 50 years worth of digging and scratching for dirt on the guy.

Have they come up with anything? No! They haven’t!

Now he’s president of the United States and is running for re-election. The GOP is desperate to find something — anything! — they can hang round POTUS’s neck.

An impeachment inquiry is going to end up in the trash bin along with the other allegations of wrongdoing that have been the subject of social media chatter. However, it won’t stop the MAGA clowns who populate House committee chairs from continuing their futile search.

And so … much of the rest of the work that Congress must tend to will remain undone.

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Impeachment takes dramatic turn

Now we know what the U.S. House Intelligence Committee has compiled.

It says the president of the United States, Donald Trump, abused the immense power of his office to seek a political favor from a foreign government. It speaks to extended phone conversations between the president’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, with Ukrainian government officials. It offers evidence that Giuliani was conducting a covert foreign policy operation.

Some talking heads are suggesting there might be more evidence to gather. They are saying the impeachment process might take even longer than planned.

I am one American who is beginning to suffer from a bit of impeachment fatigue. I do not need to be persuaded any further of the president’s culpability. I want the Intelligence Committee to hand this off to the Judiciary Committee; I want the Judiciary Committee to conduct its hearings. I want Judiciary to approve articles of impeachment. I want the Senate to put Trump on trial. I want enough senators to vote to convict Trump and remove him from office post haste.

I am confident that all but the last event will occur.

No minds are likely to be changed. Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party is unlike anything I’ve seen while witnessing these impeachment proceedings. We went through this in 1973-74 and again in 1998-1999. Some Republicans voted to approve articles of impeachment against President Nixon in 1974. Some Democrats did the same when the House impeached President Clinton in 1998.

This time, it’s strictly partisan. By “strictly partisan” I mean precisely that: Republicans and Democrats are dug in. They aren’t moving. Republicans are standing by their man; Democrats want him kicked out of office.

So, let’s get on with this, shall we?

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Still waiting to hear from my congressman

Gosh, it’s been about a month since I wrote my congressman a letter. I asked him directly for a response to a question that had been nagging at me. He hasn’t delivered his answer.

Van Taylor is a Plano Republican representing the Third Congressional District of Texas. He’s been in office only since this past January. Maybe he’s been too busy trying to find his way around the massive U.S. Capitol Building.

I asked him why he voted “no” on sending the impeachment inquiry into the public domain. He and other Republican lawmakers had yapped about so-called “secrecy” regarding the closed-door testimony the House Intelligence Committee was receiving from witnesses.

Taylor said “no” to taking it to the public. How come? I want to know.

OK, I’ve been a little busy the past couple of weeks. I still intend to phone his office. I have a couple of business cards from key staffers. I plan to call his Plano district office, the one closest to his constituents. I happen to one of them.

Van Taylor, who I have described as — and still believe him to be — an earnest young man. He’s a Marine Corps veteran who saw duty during the Iraq War. I certainly salute his veteran status.

I do not salute his recalcitrance over this issue of taking the Trump impeachment inquiry into the public. I need to know why he voted against bringing it into the open.

I’m his boss. He answers to me, not to Donald Trump.

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Trying to understand why it’s different now … with Trump

I don’t understand many things. They fly over my head and I am left just to scratch it and say, “Huh?”

One of those items concerns the pending impeachment of Donald Trump. Congressional Republicans are digging in against the impeachment; congressional Democrats are just as fervent in their belief that Trump has committed an impeachable act … or three.

I keep circling back to the most recent presidential impeachment, which occurred in 1998. Bill Clinton got impeached by the House of Representatives, which then was led by the GOP. Republicans had been looking for a reason to file articles of impeachment against the Democratic president almost from the moment he took office in 1993.

Then they found that reason: He lied to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. The president took an oath to tell the truth; he violated that oath; the GOP said “aha!” … there’s your impeachable offense.

So the House impeached him. Why? Because he was too embarrassed to admit to messing around with a much-younger woman.

It had not a thing to do with his governance. It affected not a single policy decision. There were no matters of state or statecraft involved. He allowed a young woman to, um, pleasure him and then lied about it before a duly constituted grand jury.

One of the House impeachment “managers,” a young congressman named Lindsey Graham, bellowed righteously that an impeachment was necessary to restore the dignity of the office, which the president had besmirched with his conduct.

That congressman is now a senator and will be one of 100 jurors who will decide the fate of a fellow Republican, Donald Trump. His attitude now? He’s not interested in seeing any of the classified testimony from the witnesses who talked to the House Intelligence Committee. He’s made up his mind. The impeachment inquiry is a “joke,” he said.

Case closed. He don’t need to hear no stinking evidence. 

Therein rests the source of my confusion. Republicans who wanted to pry into the nitty gritty of a president’s personal life now sound as if they are disinterested in knowing the details into how another president might have compromised national security over a political favor he sought from a foreign government.

Which is the worse allegation? I would place my money on the possibility that my president offered a bribe to a foreign leader, which the U.S. Constitution spells out — by name — as a crime against the state.

I just don’t get it.

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Trump decides to forgo offer to defend himself at Judiciary hearing

Who would’ve thought this might happen? Well, I guess I would have thought it.

Donald Trump and the White House legal team has informed the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and its chairman, Jerrold Nadler (pictured) that the president won’t participate in the panel’s hearing Wednesday over whether to impeach him. They’re going to rely exclusively on Trump’s defenders on the committee.

Well, this ought to be just special.

Judiciary Committee Democrats have given the president the opportunity to defend himself against allegations that he has abused the power of his office by soliciting a foreign government for personal political help; that charge lies at the heart of the pending impeachment of the president.

Did the president want to take part? Nope. He’s going to stand behind the deflecting shields held by the likes of Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Jim Jordan of Ohio. I’m sure both of them, among others will do their best to change the focus away from the president’s conduct to other matters, such as impugning the motives of those who have leveled the accusations.

Do you know what that means? It means a repeat of what we heard from GOP defenders on the House Intelligence Committee, which launched the impeachment inquiry before handing off to the Judiciary Committee.

And the president will accuse House Democrats of refusing to grant him a fair hearing.

Amazing.