Tag: republicans
Joe Biden

As Impeachment Fizzles, Republicans Struggle For Effective Attack

Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing with special counsel Robert Hur showcased Republican desperation to find some way to attack President Joe Biden.

Despite the release of a full transcript of the interview between Hur and Biden that showed complaints about the president’s memory to be exaggerated, if not outright lies, many Republicans continued to pursue the Biden-so-old route. Texas Rep. Nathaniel Moran went so far as to suggest that Biden should be placed under guardianship for diminished mental capabilities.

At the same time, committee Chair Jim Jordan was one of multiple Republican members who asked Hur to envision fantasy scenarios in which the president was 15 or 20 years younger. That was part of an extended, and sometimes laughably desperate, effort by Republicans to get Hur to say that somehow, somewhen, somewhere in the multiverse, he might have considered charging Biden. They did not succeed.

But the biggest reason for the Hur hearing wasn’t just to give a chance to alternate between asking whether Biden should be in a care facility or if he’s a criminal mastermind. The reason that the Republicans called in Hur is that their big impeachment scheme has fallen apart. Now they are madly searching for something, anything, that they can throw against the walls of the White House.

As Politico reported on Wednesday, the Republican plan to impeach Biden appears to be all but dead. That effort began as soon as Republicans had their hands on the machinery of the House, with Rep. James Comer chairing the House Oversight Committee running a parallel “investigation” with Jordan on the Judiciary Committee and Chairman Jason Smith on the Ways and Means Committee. It reached its ludicrous peak on Sep. 12, 2023, when then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy announced a formal impeachment inquiry in a blatant effort to hang onto his big office. That didn’t work.

By the time Hunter Biden made his way to a closed-door meeting of the inquiry on Feb. 28, 2024, it seemed clear Republicans were only spinning their wheels. Despite hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents, Republicans had produced nothing more than some truck payments, family loans, and a heavily debunked claim from an indicted foreign agent.

However, as the Politico article notes, Republicans see it as a high priority to “antagonize the White House.”

It might seem that getting some legislation passed after a session in which Republican infighting resulted in just 27 bills escaping the House (that includes renaming some Veterans Affairs clinics and issuing a commemorative coin). But Republicans are convinced that demonstrating competence in governing doesn’t matter to their voters.

So they are just going to throw crap against the walls of the Capitol in the hopes that some of it might stick.

Among the Republican Plan Bs under consideration are:

  • Sending criminal referrals for Hunter Biden to the Justice Department.
  • Keep investigating, but save any announcements for closer to Election Day.
  • Just keep investigating and making false claims—because that’s worked so well so far.

There’s also a plan to sue the Department of Justice, though it’s not clear why.

There’s even a suggestion that Republicans might do something that seems anathema to them so far—draft legislation. In this case, it would be legislation to tighten rules for financial reporting and foreign lobbying.

However, not only would this require them to break out a pencil stub and do the work they’ve resisted since taking control of the House in 2023, it would also mean drafting something that would pass the Senate. It could be exceedingly difficult to craft a bill on financial reporting that didn’t have a much bigger impact on Donald Trump than Biden. Ditto on issues of foreign lobbying.

The problem for Republicans is that Trump and his family did all the things they’ve been attributing to Biden and his family. Which would seem to make the legislative route difficult without netting the wrong fish.

Other options, like the idea of making a criminal referral on Hunter Biden, would be an obvious exercise in toothless grandstanding. But that hasn’t seemed to bother Republicans so far, so this is likely what they’ll do.

Republicans are reportedly so far away from mustering enough support for a Biden impeachment that even Speaker of the House Mike Johnson can see that such a move would fail. But they’re unwilling—and possibly incapable—of trying to dig their way back to respectability by passing legislation that addresses the nation’s needs.

So they’re going to sit among the ashes of their very fine impeachment inquiry and try to find something else ugly enough to please MAGA voters. So far, they’ve got nothing.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Donald Trump

Nadler Airs Video Of Trump Howlers During House Committee Hearing

During former Department of Justice special counsel Robert Hur's Tuesday testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, the top Democrat on the committee used some of his time to broadcast a video montage of former President Donald Trump's numerous gaffes and verbal blunders on the campaign stump.

Judiciary committee ranking member Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) began his opening statement by commenting on a video Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who chairs the committee, played to the audience, showing President Joe Biden talking in an effort to suggest the octogenarian president was growing senile. Nadler remarked that Jordan must have "admiration" for Biden since he allowed him "to take the first 10 minutes of this hearing."

Hur — who resigned from the DOJ last week — appeared before the committee to testify about his report that ultimately exonerated Biden for allegedly mishandling classified documents from his time as vice president between 2009 and 2017. Despite Hur not charging Biden with crimes, he made several assessments of Biden's mental fitness, and once referred to him in the report as an "elderly man with a poor memory." To prove his argument that Trump's cognitive state was worse than Biden's, Nadler played a video of his own, which showed Trump making repeated verbal slip-ups and sometimes unintelligible statements during various campaign speeches.

"Viktor Orban, did anyone hear from him? He's the leader of Turkey," Trump said in one clip referring to the Hungarian prime minister.

"I don't like mosquitoes!" Trump hollered from the lectern at another rally in Ohio.

"Saudi Arabia and Russia, will re...pa...aahhh," said the former president at a Greensboro, North Carolina rally.

"We have to, we have to win in November, or we're not gonna have — Pennsylvania? They'll change the name," Trump said during a February speech to National Rifle Association activists in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. "They're gonna change the name of Pennsylvania."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'Trump's Mussolini': Orban's Mar-A-Lago Visit Signals Fascist Alliance

'Trump's Mussolini': Orban's Mar-A-Lago Visit Signals Fascist Alliance

This weekend, while President Biden championed the merits of democracy during various campaign stops in swing states, former President Donald Trump hosted far-right Hungarian autocratic president Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago and even took him to a concert.

Trump's friendliness with the Hungarian prime minister is likely due to the fact that Orbán's central guiding philosophy and preferred method of governing are similar to Trump's, and could provide insight as to what a second Trump presidency would look like. Like Trump, Orbán is hostile toward immigrants, and notably built a massive border fence in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis to keep asylum-seekers out of Hungary. His political party, Fidesz, has cracked down on press freedom and has sought to revise textbooks to exclude mentions of the LGBTQ+ community. And most revealingly, Orbán has made changes to Hungary's government that allow him to stay in power for an extended period of time.

While addressing a crowd at Mar-a-Lago, Trump extolled his leadership style publicly, saying "there’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán, he's fantastic... He says, 'This is the way it's gonna be,' and that’s the end of it. He's the boss."

Trump's comments caused significant alarm on social media, with journalists, commentators and elected officials urging voters to pay attention to the former president's praise of an "autocrat."

"How many different ways does Trump need to tell you he's going to rule as a dictator before you believe him?" Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will bunch tweeted.

Former federal prosecutor Richard Signorelli wrote on X/Twitter that Orbán was "Trump's Mussolini," suggesting the former president and the Hungarian leader could be the "new Axis powers' alliance."

"History is repeating itself but outcome not inevitable if we defeat our modern day Hitler & his deranged MAGA/Nazi cult at [the] ballot box," Signorelli tweeted. "Unfortunately, I do not see law enforcement timely addressing the menace so it's left to us again."

Others viewed the video as an illuminating preview of what Trump hopes to do if he retakes the White House. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) called the former president "the leader of a global fascist movement" and added his role as the catalyst for the global far-right should be seen as the "central historical context of the coming campaign." Journalist and lawyer Daniel Miller called on the New York Times in particular to publish a "massive headline about Trump wanting to be a dictator" every day until the election. And Sarah Longwell, who is publisher of anti-Trump conservative website The Bulwark, urged news outlets to not hold back in calling out Trump's affinity for far-right dictators.

"Just because it’s old news that Donald Trump loves autocrats doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve wall-to-wall coverage when he does things like this," she wrote. "Because it’s insane."

Columnist and podcaster Charles Adler tweeted about his firsthand experience with Orbán's brand of governing, writing that he "destroyed democracy in Hungary - land of my birth."

"Hungarians of my generation fled for the US and Canada to get the hell away from authoritarianism," Adler said. "Now this decaying Mar-A-Lago conman is huckstering Hungarian authoritarianism. It's as if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is producing this s---show."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Todd Young

Todd Young Becomes Third GOP Senator To Reject Trump In 2024

There are now three Senate Republicans who are declining to endorse former President Donald Trump's candidacy in the 2024 election, and that number may grow larger over the next eight months.

MSNBC columnist Steve Benen wrote that despite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) endorsement of the 45th president of the United States earlier this week, not all members of his caucus are as eager. On Friday, Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) — who represents a state Trump won by 16 points in 2020 — declined to get behind Trump's 2024 campaign for the White House while speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill.

When asked what his other issues with Trump were, Young said, "Where do I begin?" He elaborated that his chief complaint with Trump was with his indifference toward Russian President Vladimir Putin's conquest of Ukraine.

"I think President Trump's judgment is wrong in this case, Young said. "President Putin and his government have engaged in war crimes."

At one point, CNN's Manu Raju asked Young, "does it worry you that he's your party's leading presidential candidate?"

"Of course it does," Young quipped. "That's why I don't intend to support him for the Republican nomination."

"Who do you plan to support?" A reporter asked.

"I haven't decided yet," the senator responded. "But it won't be him."

While Young noted that his lack of support for Trump is for the Republican presidential primary, the 45th president is the only Republican still in the running for the GOP's nomination after former UN ambassador Nikki Haley exited the race earlier this week. The former South Carolina governor had been Trump's final opponent following the New Hampshire primary, but she suspended her campaign after losing nearly every Super Tuesday contest with the exception of Vermont. Haley did not endorse Trump in her announcement ending her campaign, and said the ex-president would have to "earn" the votes of her supporters.

Todd Young is the third Senate Republican to publicly distance himself from Trump's third bid for the White House. Previously, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) have said they also would not be supporting the ex-president in 2024. If Trump is convicted of felonies in any of his four upcoming criminal trials this year, it's likely other Republican elected officials may join those three in declining to support Trump.

The former president will face his first trial in Manhattan on March 25, where District Attorney Alvin Bragg has indicted him on 34 felony counts relating to hush money payments he allegedly orchestrated in 2016. His former lawyer and "fixer" Michael Cohen, who was already sentenced to three years in federal prison for facilitating those payments among other crimes, will be Bragg's star witness.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.