💣 The Disastrous 118th Congress - MAGA Mike Johnson Saved by Shadow Speaker Hakeem Jeffries

[Dr. Ken]

McCarthy again marches to Trump’s tune by invoking Biden impeachment inquiry
“How do you get to the bottom of the truth? The only way Congress can do that is go to an impeachment inquiry,” the California Republican told reporters Tuesday, although he did not formally announce such a probe.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/26/politics ... index.html

Thus the Overton Window moves from impeachment being "we accuse the President of this specific thing and we believe we can prove it" to "we accuse the President of some inspecific and inchoate harm and we're going to root around until we find something."

So basically the Bill Clinton impeachment

[raison de arizona]

https://twitter.com/MZanona/status/1683 ... 00993?s=20

NEW: GOP leaders discussed the difference between an impeachment inquiry & impeachment during a private meeting this evening, per a source in the room — a sign leadership is looking to get on the same messaging page as they inch closer toward opening a formal inquiry into Biden.

The point McCarthy made to his leadership team: an impeachment inquiry is just a way to launch a formal probe and get more information, and isn’t the same thing as impeachment. That messaging could be key to convincing mods who are skeptical of impeachment to back an inquiry.

[Flatpoint High]

https://www.businessinsider.com/kevin-m ... eak-2023-7

Speaker Kevin McCarthy reportedly threatened to beat up Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell.
According to The Daily Beast, the stunning exchange came as the two men cursed each other out.
Swalwell reportedly responded by calling McCarthy "a pussy."
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell nearly came to blows last month as the pair of Californians cursed at each other on the House floor, according to The Daily Beast.

The Daily Beast's Matt Fuller cited two Democratic lawmakers who claim the brief fracas is the talk of the Capitol. In particular, the report claimed some lawmakers are tickled over the fact that Swalwell faced off with the speaker, even if they may not be thrilled that his chosen insult was to call McCarthy "a pussy."

[Gregg]

Kevin isn't The Speaker of the House.

Kevin is a hostage.

[RTH10260]

UFOs back in spotlight as ‘surreal’ Washington hearing buoys believers
A whistleblower has accused the US of a vast cover-up – and claims of ‘non-human’ life suggest the unexplained aerial phenomena issue is not going away

Adam Gabbatt
Sat 29 Jul 2023 12.00 BST

As the world heard tales of recovered alien bodies, crashed extraterrestrial spaceships, and an apparently violent plot to conceal both, not everyone was immediately willing to believe.

The Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, inadvertently swept up in this week’s remarkable UFO congressional hearing in Washington through her role on the House of Representatives oversight committee, seemed determined to not get too carried away by a surge of interest in UFOs that is transfixing much of the US.

Speaking afterwards, the leftwing New York congresswoman instead sought to characterize her colleagues’ quest to uncover the government’s alleged alien cover-up as an investigation into national security and military furtiveness – not hiding little green men.

Ryan Graves, the executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, and David Grusch, the former intelligence official who made the whistleblowing claims, on Wednesday.

“This committee has encountered instances before where either defense activity has not been forthright, whether that be from a contracting space or from the DoD space,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Guardian.

“I do believe that there is a very large and looming question about what is being disclosed, what is being properly stewarded, and we have a responsibility across all subject matters to pursue that truth.”

It was a commendably bland take on a two-hour-plus hearing which was unlike anything Congress had ever seen before.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... -aoc-gaetz

[RTH10260]

White House: McCarthy ‘lying’ to cave to far-right in ‘impeachment stunt’

Alex Gangitano
Tue, August 8, 2023 at 7:04 PM GMT+2

The White House on Tuesday accused Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) of lying in order to cave to the far-right members of the House Republican Conference and their push for an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, dug into McCarthy’s Fox News appearance Monday evening, saying he “continued lying about President Biden — making a series of plainly false, widely debunked attacks in order to promote the extreme far right’s baseless impeachment stunt that even some members of McCarthy’s own caucus are expressing concerns about pursuing.”

McCarthy on Fox News compared the Biden administration to the Nixon administration, arguing that they both used the federal government to obstruct congressional investigations. Sams called that comparison “bizarre” and “demonstrably false,” highlighting that the Biden administration’s Treasury Department and the FBI provided the now GOP-led House Oversight Committee with records and access.

McCarthy on Fox News echoed what House Republicans have characterized as bribes involving then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Sams referred to the testimony released last week of Hunter Biden’s old business associate Devon Archer. In the testimony, Archer couldn’t corroborate allegations that Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky made two $5 million payments to Hunter Biden and his father. Archer also said he would disagree with the conclusion that then-Vice President Biden was bribed by Zlochevsky.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house- ... 30808.html
(original: The Hill)

[Kendra]

CNN says McCarthy is going to make a statement any minute now. In the next hour, Matt Gaetz is going to make a statement.

[RTH10260]

will Hunter Biden's laptop get a honorouble mentioning

[raison de arizona]

(Shawn Farash is a MAGA tool, FYI.)

Kevin McCarthy OFFICIALLY announces an IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY of President Joe Biden.

REMEMBER: The conviction in the SENATE is not the goal. The aim is to CONVICT in the COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION.

Who thinks the Dems will call this "ELECTION INTERFERENCE?"

[Flatpoint High]

I sure hope they do.

[Gregg]

(Shawn Farash is a MAGA tool, FYI.)

Kevin McCarthy OFFICIALLY announces an IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY of President Joe Biden.

REMEMBER: The conviction in the SENATE is not the goal. The aim is to CONVICT in the COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION.

Who thinks the Dems will call this "ELECTION INTERFERENCE?"

Well, it ain't exaclty what James Madison had in mind either....

[RTH10260]

opinion piece

The Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Biden is laughably cynical
This is a cudgel to try to create the false impression that Biden’s misdeeds, if any, are equal to Donald Trump’s

Moira Donegan
Wed 13 Sep 2023 19.58 BST

When the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden on Tuesday, he subverted the normal procedures for doing so. Typically, the House would have to vote on whether to open an informal impeachment investigation: McCarthy just announced it, unilaterally, calling a press conference to say he was “instructing” the House to open such an inquiry.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ly-cynical

[Slim Cognito]

Because losing said vote would guarantee My Kevin losing the speakership.

[Suranis]

Yep, the fact he is forced to do it this way shows that he does not have the votes in his own caucus to get it through the House. Otherwise he would he showing everyone how united the Republicans are against this egregious Biden Blah blah blah.

This is just so they can yell about the fact that there is an impeachment inquiry when there is the inevitable Trump fuck up and scandal. This is so the Press can do "Butter Emails!" all over again, only this time it will be "buttis Impeachment!" And of course the Librul Press [/snark] will be instructed to ignore that the other guy has been successfully impeached twice.

[Kriselda Gray]

And of course the Librul Press [/snark] will be instructed to ignore that the other guy has been successfully impeached twice.

They sure don't ignore it now. I've heard several anchors who FREQUENTLY bring up his impeachments and indictments, and some who even generally refer to him as the "Twice-impeached, four-times-indicted, ex-president".

[pipistrelle]

[June bug]

I’m no supporter of Ken Buck, but good for him in this instance…and that’s a great quote!

[sugar magnolia]

Only a Republican would say something is an "accurate fact." Wouldn't an inaccurate fact be a lie?

[raison de arizona]

Only a Republican would say something is an "accurate fact." Wouldn't an inaccurate fact be a lie?

I believe the correct term is alternative facts .

[RTH10260]

ohhhh noooo - the WH has risked to react to the impeachment inquiry

White House Urges Press To Suppress Coverage of GOP Charges Against Biden
The White House efforts to direct coverage of the upcoming impeachment comes just days after an appeals court chastised the Biden administration for attempting to suppress speech on social media platforms.

SCOTT NORVELL
Wednesday, September 13, 2023 12:07:22 pm

The same White House that was slapped down last week by a federal appeals court for meddling in the content moderation policies of social media networks sent a letter Wednesday to the heads of most major American press outlets demanding that they subject Republican charges of corruption within the Biden family with the “appropriate scrutiny” during their coverage of the upcoming impeachment hearings in Congress.

In a memo directed at the editorial leadership of America’s news organizations, a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, Ian Sams, says “It’s time for the media to do more to scrutinize House Republicans’ demonstrably false claims that they’re basing impeachment stunt on.” Describing impeachment as “grave, rare, and historic,” he urges the outlets to avoid reporting on the process of impeachment and instead focus on the substance of the allegations against President Biden.

“Covering impeachment as a process story — Republicans say X, but the White House says Y — is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable,” Mr. Sams says. “In the modern media environment, where every day liars and hucksters peddle disinformation and lies everywhere from Facebook to Fox, process stories that fail to unpack the illegitimacy of the claims on which House Republicans are basing all their actions only serve to generate confusion, put false premises in people’s feeds, and obscure the truth.”

Mr. Sams’ memo is accompanied by a 14-page dossier aimed at debunking the claims against the president leveled by Republicans in Congress. “At every turn, their allegations about wrongdoing by Joe Biden have been debunked and refuted by their own witnesses’ testimony, the financial records they have obtained, independent public reporting, and more,” Mr. Sams says. “It’s clear that this ‘investigation’ is all politics and no evidence.”

The White House efforts to direct coverage of the upcoming impeachment comes just days after an appeals court at New Orleans chastised the Biden administration for attempting to suppress anti-vaccine and other content critical of the government’s response to the coronavirus during the Covid pandemic as well as news articles about election interference and Hunter Biden’s laptop.



https://www.nysun.com/article/white-hou ... inst-biden

[raison de arizona]

From Larry Kudlow’s “MUST READ NEWSPAPER” no less!

[tek]

ohhhh noooo - the WH has risked to react to the impeachment inquiry

White House Urges Press To Suppress Coverage of GOP Charges Against Biden

In a memo directed at the editorial leadership of America’s news organizations, a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, Ian Sams, says “It’s time for the media to do more to scrutinize House Republicans’ demonstrably false claims that they’re basing impeachment stunt on.” Describing impeachment as “grave, rare, and historic,” he urges the outlets to avoid reporting on the process of impeachment and instead focus on the substance of the allegations against President Biden.

This is pretty bush-league public relations .. I'm not sure what they hoped the effect of such a letter would be..

[p0rtia]

I have no problem with the WH calling out the press. Somebody has to (besides me).

[Slim Cognito]

Yeah, I have to agree. It's a shame it's necessary and, yes, there will be blowback but what's new? I'm sick to death of: On today's show we'll discuss Nazis. Evil or just misunderstood?

[Gregg]

Only a Republican would say something is an "accurate fact." Wouldn't an inaccurate fact be a lie?