Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
McCarthy Opens Biden Impeachment Inquiry
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy announced yesterday that he wanted the appropriate committees of the House to begin an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. There was no vote on the floor about this, largely because Mr. McCarthy would have lost. The announcement begs the question of just what were the three relevant committees doing for the last nine months while whining about the "Biden Crime Family." When all is said and done, this is merely proof that the divided Republican Party in the House is led by a man with no real moral compass and no real sense of leadership. Mr. McCarthy is one of the weakest Speakers ever, and he is leading his party off a political cliff from which it might not recover. This move is political suicide.
The AP reports, "The inquiry will be led by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, in coordination with Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith. They are heading across the Capitol Wednesday to brief the Senate." They have been digging for dirt on the Bidens for months and have found nothing. If they had, it would have been all over the papers.
The reason all of this is such a mess is the small majority that the GOP has in the House, 5 votes out of 435. This means that Mr. McCarthy has to take every grumble seriously. The hard right (e.g. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor-Green of Georgia) insisted on a number of things before they would elect him Speaker. The bill has now come due. They insist that Mr. Biden must have done something crooked, so they want to impeach him. The trouble is they have no proof.
That does not stop the Ultra-Maga faction of the House. They have their allegations and that is enough for them. Mr. Gaetz even threatened Mr. McCarthy from the floor of the House. "I rise today to serve notice: Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role. The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate, total compliance or remove you pursuant to a motion to vacate the chair," said Mr. Gaetz.
Now a Speaker with any sense would have embarked on a campaign to make the congressman suffer for his words. He should have stripped Mr. Gaetz of all committee assignments, and he should have ordered Mr. Gaetz\\\'s office moved in the Capitol. The latter is a simple but effective tool that causes the representatives entire staff to pack up everything and move. A new office can be assigned every week. Actively seeking a primary opponent is also an option. Coca-Cola is a major employer in his district. Lots of tax breaks and other corporate welfare can be removed from that district.
But Mr. McCarthy is a coward. He would rather grovel to keep his gavel, so he merely instructed the three committees already investigating the Biden family to step it up a notch. His thinking, according to those near him, is that he needs the votes of the Ultra-Maga mob to pass government funding bills that allow Uncle Sam to keep paying his bills after September 30.
What Mr. McCarthy fails to add into his calculations is the impact his actions will have on those 18 or so GOP members of the House who represent districts that Joe Biden won in the 2020 election. They are going to have a very tought time justifying imprachment inquiries at a time when Americans are upset about the economy that does not seem to work for the average person (it is not designed to do that anymore), crime and education.
This journal is prepared to made a few predictions. The inquiries will find nothing linking Hunter Biden and his lousy behavior while using drugs and the president. The Democrats will turn the inquiries into opportunities to raise questions about Jared Kushner and his Saudi billions and Ivanka and her Chinese trademarks. Some of the moderate GOP members will lose their seats next year, enough to make Mr. McCarthy minority leader again. It will boost the Biden re-election bid in suburbia.
The GOP is headed back to the wilderness.
© Copyright 2023 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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