Sorry I Stepped Out They're Impeaching Biden For What Now?

Good luck making all that noise stick.

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Hello. As Jack mentioned the other day, I am currently on a reporting trip and a bit busy, but this morning I have some downtime and would like to take everyone on a journey that is “me catching up on U.S. news from the past few days.” Shall we?

Great. From what I can gather here, Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has decided to unilaterally announce an impeachment inquiry—not actual proceedings or charges, mind you, just like… research—into President Joe Biden over something something Hunter Biden business dealings corruption. Ok.

“House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct,” Mr. McCarthy said in his announcement. “Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption.”

Per the NYT:

Mr. McCarthy said he would task three committees — Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means — with carrying out the inquiry into the president and his family as Republicans hunt for evidence of financial wrongdoing or corruption. After months of digging, Republicans have found no such proof, though they argue they have enough information to warrant more investigation.

The weird stuff here is that usually the entire House would vote on opening an impeachment inquiry, which basically gives a handful of GOP committee guys the power to request documents—including subpoenaing financial records from Biden and his family—in order to try to find some dirt that’ll stick well enough to bring charges against the President. Great, good luck.

The only particularly interesting bit of the current McCarthy thing that I’m seeing is that the entire operation is basically him capitulating to the same uber-far-right pressure campaign that the Matt Gaetz lobby used to make McCarthy the most miserable Speaker-elect in history. The rabid Florida-core fascists in Congress have been making McCarthy pound sand for months at this point, and now he’s basically beholden to do whatever crackpot schemes they think up until he manages to claw back some sort of power in the House (unlikely) or until he gives up entirely (slightly more likely).

We all know how this ends, of course. The inquiry will find just enough spurious bullshit that they’ll try to bring some charges, which might not even pass a Republican-controlled House, and certainly won’t pass in the Senate. The Democrats successfully impeached Trump and it’s honestly shocking that the GOP has waited this long to take their shot at Biden as well. We can basically expect impeachment attempts for every president elected in the next few decades — this is just how politics works now. Fun! Anyway, I’ll tune back into this bullshit when I’m home in a week or two! If Biden actually gets coup-d or something let me know, ok? Thanks.