For Desperate Republicans In DC And In Wisconsin, The Stench Of Impeachment Is In The Fetid Air

Biden is a mediocre, run of the mill American president, just like every one of them in my lifetime— and I’m old. Trump was the exception. He’s easily the worst president in American history, worse than the unfit leaders involved with the Civil War— James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson (the first to be impeached), Franklin Pierce and John Tyler (who actually joined the Confederacy) and worse than Warren Harding (the most corrupt before Trump came around). Because Trump is generally and widely considered the most corrupt president in history, his allies routinely— gratuitously and without substantiation— accuse Biden of being the most corrupt. The GOP has become— like it’s leader— a party of projection. While we're on the subject, 10 highlights of Trump’s corruption:

1. Instead of draining the swamp, he’s made it much dirtier

2. He’s personally pocketed millions in taxpayer, lobbyist, donor, and foreign dollars

3. He’s corrupted the tax system and fudged his own taxes

4. He’s gutted health care

5. In the pandemic, he’s sacrificed American lives to a failed re-election strategy

6. He has sought to undermine the integrity of our elections

7. He has shown devotion to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin

8. He’s engaged in repeated obstruction of justice

9. He has tried to make the Justice Department do his corrupt bidding

10. He has driven racism and racist violence

So he can muddy the water about his two impeachments and his and his family's grotesque corruption, Trump has repeatedly demanded that his congressional allies indict and impeach Biden. Suddenly we were hearing not about the Trump Crime Family but about the Biden Crime Family.

Yesterday, far right propaganda outlet, Breitbart, was going on about the mechanics of impeaching Biden. McCarthy seems determined to pacify Trump— and his own psycho-wing— by holding out hope for an impeachment, while leaving it up to the mainstream conservatives in his conference to derail it. “[I]f House Republicans move forward with an impeachment inquiry into Democrat President Joe Biden,” reported Matthew Boyle, “the move would come not as an announcement from him or anyone else, but from a formal vote on the floor of the House. ‘To open an impeachment inquiry is a serious matter, and House Republicans would not take it lightly or use it for political purposes. The American people deserve to be heard on this matter through their elected representatives,’ McCarthy told Breitbart News. ‘That’s why, if we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person.’ Doing so would require a majority— at least 218 votes, assuming the House is at full attendance for such a vote— of members of the House to vote for such a move. While opening a formal impeachment inquiry is not a vote to impeach the president, it is a massive escalation by the lower chamber of Congress towards doing so— and it would also provide the House with extraordinary new investigative and law enforcement powers in terms of compelling testimony, enforcing subpoenas, and digging into Biden’s behavior and the culture of corruption surrounding the president.”

If Republicans are going to reach that 218 number to move forward, they’re not just going to need Trump sycophants like Marjorie Traitor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert and Gym Jordan, but members who represent swing districts— Mike Lawler (R-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), John James (R-MI), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), Tom Kean (R-NJ), David Valadao (R-CA), Jen Kiggans (R-VA), Mike Garcia (R-CA), Marc Molinaro (R-NY), Young Kim (R-CA), David Schweikert (R-AZ), John Duarte (R-CA), Brandon Williams (R-NY), Zach Nunn (R-IA), Bryan Steil (R-WI), Don Bacon (R-NE), Young Kim (R-CA), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Scott Perry (R-PA), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA)… For many of those members, voting to start an unfounded, vindictive impeachment process against Biden, would be like signing their own political death sentences.

Breitbart admits that “if this whole impeachment inquiry and eventual possible impeachment process play out as it could with Biden, it’s possible that the bigger story in 2024 will be the corruption of the sitting president, Democrat Joe Biden, and the efforts of Congress to hold Biden accountable up to and including a trial in the United States Senate. Whether or not Biden is eventually convicted in the Democrat-controlled Senate on any Articles of Impeachment the House may pass after an impeachment inquiry may also be irrelevant because the real jury Biden would face would be the American voting public at the polls in November 2024— if it all plays out like that.” McCarthy most be praying that mollifies Trump. It won’t.

Nor is that the only gratuitous GOP impeachment nonsense playing out right now. In Wisconsin, the Republicans in the legislature are petrified their little game is up and that the gerrymandering that has kept them in power is about to end. A few days ago, the Associated Press noted that “Even before the newly elected justice who gave liberals a one-seat majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has heard a case, Republican lawmakers are talking about taking the unprecedented step of impeaching and removing her from office. And they have the votes to do it. Republicans worry that the legislative districts they drew in 2011, which are widely viewed as among the most gerrymandered in the country, will be undone in one of the court’s first actions under liberal control. It’s a legitimate concern, as Democratic-friendly groups brought two lawsuits in the first week of newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s term asking the new liberal-controlled court to toss the maps. They waited to bring the challenges until after Protasiewicz started her 10-year term the the court Aug. 1, flipping majority control to 4-3 liberals for the first time in 15 years.”

The election wasn’t close:

But the legislative Republicans feel safe doing whatever they want in their carefully-crafted little districts. They’re demanding Protasiewicz recuse herself from the gerrymandering case, threatening to overturn the will of the voters, many of whom voted for her precisely to end rigged gerrymandered districts, if she doesn't.