House GOP Drops Biden Impeachment Report (and Impeachment)
GOP report doesn't call for impeachment despite claiming that Biden did bads
Aug. 20: Biden outlives GOP impeachment drive … Biden endorses coup winner … Trump tells Harris “go back” … Walz’s non-IVF IVF …
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The long-hardly-awaited House Republican report on impeaching Pres. Joe Biden came out yesterday, coincidentally landing on a day when no one would lead with it other than The contrarian Fucking News.
Dropping on the same day Biden received a rapturous farewell, the report did not recommend impeaching him. Which means that Democrats are better than Republicans even at removing their own president from office.
And Politico reports that there’s no appetite for holding impeachment hearings, despite the GOP’s appetite for many things, and despite the pro-impeachment hectoring of the fringe GOP’s fringe.
Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH), whose committee was one of three that “wrote” the report, isn’t recommending any action be taken — a position consistent with his notorious history of inaction. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) issued a statement thanking the committees and urging Americans to read the report, which they will not and he did not.
Meaning: The effort to impeach Biden is done even before his presidency.
Like Jordan, what Johnson did not do is say they’ll hold an impeachment vote. As Politico notes, this would be only the second modern presidential impeachment inquiry to die without a vote. The first? Pres. Richard Nixon — and that was because he resigned first.
The House GOP report does say that Biden’s offenses are impeachABLE. Y’know, if someone else wants to go ahead and do that.
The report concludes that Biden is guilty of abuse of power and obstruction of power. Y’know, if someone else wants to go ahead and try him.
The abuse-of-power charge stems from Biden’s involvement with his family’s business dealings. Which was none, as the report helpfully establishes.
The report determines that Biden chatted on occasion with Hunter’s and James’s business partners and prospects…without mentioning the aforementioned business. The report also alleges that Hunter and James profited from business deals that never would have happened if their last name were, say, Kushner. Wait. Bad example.
For one thing, foreign Biden family money pales oranges in comparison to Trump family money.
House Republican “investigators” said they uncovered $27 million in payments made by foreign entities to Hunter, James, and other Bidae.
Given all the deals that then-somehow-Pres. Donald Trump and his clan made, that $27 million is a mere fraction, just one Kushnerth, of the billions reaped by the Trumps and Trump-adjacent.
As for the obstruction charge, the House GOP concluded that Biden sought to block the Justice Department probe of his son. The report cited voluminous evidence that the House GOP had insufficient evidence to support their conclusion.
The report extended the GOP’s proud legacy of doggedly exonerating one Democrat after another with their attempts at detectiving cosplay. Most notably, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was shown not to have killed U.S. diplomats in Libya with her bare hands. Most recently, Homeland [sic] Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was cleared of charges that he moonlights as a Lyft driver shuttling Mexican migrants across the border to their jobs as paid voters in Wisconsin.
Of course, if Republicans really wanted to nail Biden for breaking a law, there’s a very clear-cut, undeniable, ongoing, recidivist example out there: Supplying Israel with arms that are being used to violate human rights by killing humans.
Republicans haven’t even complained about that, though. Which, weird!
Biden, Trump Paint Contrasting Portraits of Harris
Former Pres. Donald Trump yesterday stayed on-message about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Most media have characterized Trump as being off-message by failing to discuss economic policy and focusing instead on Harris’ skin color, skin prettiness, gender, and gender attractiveness. However, as Trump is the nominee and head of the party, most media have cited exactly zero sources for their claim that he’s off-message.
In fact, as the party leader, it’s impossible for Trump to be off message. What he says is, by definition, the message. The futile wishes of his underlings can’t make that unso.
So, yesterday, on-message, Trump upped his racism ante. Referring to Harris’s father, a former Stanford economist, Trump said:
“Her father is a Marxist professor, and I believe he taught her well. You know, he's a Marxist professor.1 Can you imagine? Does anyone know that? I wonder if they knew that when they did an overthrow or a coup on Joe Biden. I wonder if they knew where she comes from, where she came from, what her ideology is.”
Where she comes from!
It’s California, my dude. And lookkk who’s talking about paternal ideology.
As the Washington Post notes, this isn’t Trump’s first godeo. In 2019 Trump called for Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) to “go back” to the “broken…places from which they came.”
Trump’s totally audible dog whistle stood in gross contrast to Biden’s remarks last night at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. The convention is expected to give Harris a significant bounce, while the only bounce Trump has managed to achieve comes from his manboobs when he hops from his golf cart.
Biden wiped his eyes last night as he took the stage, introduced by his daughter Ashley. In yet another contrast to Trump, Biden took his daughter in a warm and entirely nonsexual embrace.
Despite reports he’s still pissed at and hasn’t spoken with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other Democratic leaders who urged him to drop his campaign, Biden said he harbors no ill will and would gladly tell that to Pelosi in a dark alley sometime when she least expects it.
Of Harris, Biden said, “Her story represents the best American story.”
He called choosing her as his vice president “the best decision I made my whole career.” Although some voters might rank stepping aside higher, the love for Biden and his service was palpable.
And while grumpy critics and anti-stanning hardliners such as your humble Fucking News might be inclined to highlight at least a few of Biden’s shortcomings over the years decades, Biden smartly pre-empted that by owning or at least leasing it himself.
“I made a lot of mistakes in my career,” Biden said. “But I gave my best to you.”
Biden Kinda Acknowledges Gaza Bloodbath
Pres. Joe Biden used his non-acceptance speech to at least partially accept the message of protesters both outside and inside the convention hall..
“Those protesters out in the street have a point,” Biden wisely said, before adding unwisely, “A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.”
Of course, Biden was eliding the fact that protesters aren’t just mourning the dead, they’re calling for the U.S. to stop adding to their number and end arms shipments to Israel.
And, yes, innocent people are being killed on both sides. Yes, a lot were killed on both sides in October. But a lot of innocent people are not being killed on both sides today.
Biden’s phrasing — reminiscent of Donald Trump’s “both sides” rhetoric about the 2017 hate rally that inspired Biden to run for president — was a painful lapse in an otherwise laudable effort to give legitimacy to the voices of dissent and protest. Which are a necessary part of democratic politics.
Sadly, some delegates — at a convention dedicated to preserving democracy — forcibly took a banner reading “STOP ARMING ISRAEL” from other delegates, who had a right to be there and to express their views on signs just like hundreds of others were doing.
This is the reason for the TFN No Stanning policy: Protecting the stanned too often leads to abandoning principle.
And this is why no event is off-limits for criticism. No event or moment or constituency or anything should be free of critique. And I’ll tell you why, thanks for asking.
The moment a movement assigns sanctity to anything — Jesus™, 9/11™, The Troops™, whatever — it creates a no-criticism zone. And the moment we recognize No-Criticism Zones, you can fucking bet the Armies of Mordor will seek quarter there.
And then the expansion begins, with annexes everywhere you look. If ever we establish a context in which dissent or critique is non grata, then everyone now has motive to make that context permanent and ubiquitous.
If Joe Biden, defender of democracy, can not only allow but introduce that critique into the defining moment of his half-century career of public service, then everyone is capable of honoring that and perpetuating it.
Hell, earlier in the night, the convention paid poignant tribute to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has Parkinson’s and appeared only briefly — but happily — in a wheelchair. In decades past, Jackson was constantly critiquing the party. Today’s protesters are tomorrow’s leaders. Both are essential. Both deserve respect.
The Walz Fact-Check the GOP Will Never Do
So, y’know how Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and his wife used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to conceive one of their children? Well, dear Newsfucker, they did not.
The Harris-Walz campaign tells the New York Times that was a falsehood deception lie folksy shorthand for a different kind of conception tech.
In fact, the Walzes used intrauterine insemination (IUI). Which is exactly what it sounds like.
They said they used IVF, as recently as an April fundraising mailer. But a campaign spokesperson tells the Times that Walz “was using commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments.” Which actually has some truth to it, but could prove problematic if there’s a continued pattern of shorthanding facts.
In Walz’s defense, it’s not like calling it IVF helped him politically. IVF is much more controversial due to all the frozen Dippin’ Dots™ that get murdered in the process so that Moms don’t accidentally give birth to 28 kids.
So it’s not too likely Republicans will use this literally microscopic, literally white (ew) lie against Walz — especially when they don’t want to remind tens of millions of voters that the same radical Republicans who killed abortion rights are now coming (ew) for IVF.
DNC Lineup
Tonight: Former Pres. Barack Obama; second gentleman Doug Emhoff; Govs. Wes Moore (D-MD) and JB Pritzker (D-IL); and a bunch of dudes who are apparently still capable of campaigning despite not being the vice-presidential nominee: Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Wednesday: Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), former Pres. Bill Clinton, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Thursday: Vice Pres. Kamala Harris accepts the Democratic presidential nomination as the final step of her coup which for some reason still includes elections in November.
Two Quickies
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this morning that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) successfully rescued six hostages…’s bodies. Netanyahu did not say whether the hostages, seized in the Oct. 7 massacre, were killed on purpose by Hamas or less on purpose by the IDF, which does everything possible to never kill innocent people.
Democratic megadonor Ron Conway just got scammed by a massive cryptocurrency political action committee (PAC), which is weird given crypto’s hard-fought reputation for being super above-board. Conway gave the PAC half a mill…and then the PAC turned around and said they’re spending $12 million to get Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) out. So now Conway’s out of the PAC. This one goes in your Rich People Are Dumb Actually file.
Wow, You Hated Yesterday’s TFN!
Never got more cancellations than yesterday! I think some now-ex-Newsfuckers may have thought the headline indicated I actually consider Pres. Joe Biden’s departure from the race a coup. I do not. The headline — Coup Victim Gets Prime Speaking Slot — was sarcastic.
My other sin was griping about Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) dipping excessively, I thought, into the toxic wells of division — geographic, academic, and cultural. If you’re still with TFN, I trust that means you know how important it is to let our voices and critiques be guardrails for democracy, especially when our leaders are riding high. Which they are!
In other words, savor the critiques, my sensitive Newsfuckers — it means they’re winning! Now, how could we possibly celebrate that…
TCB
The Nicole Sandler Show was all-DNC last night, so no newsfucking from me, alas. You can catch me next Monday at 5pm eastern, or check out old episodes of me and Nicole Sandler right here.
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Go get ‘em, kids!
I read two of these lines out loud to Dok and Shy as we all sit here in our airbnb stanning the DNC in Chicago, and they laughed appropriately. They were very good lines.
Sorry to hear some folks unsubbed because satire. Funny, that’s precisely why I subscribe. Emphasis on the funny. Keep up the good work, JL.