The Saga of Jim Jordan's Jacket

(audio version of this story, above.)

We can assume the people who voted for Republicans in our recent national drama were drawn to the notion that the GOP had ideas to reduce inflation and crime. They were probably excited to hear that the House of Representatives has been given over to control of the Republicans, thanks to gerrymandered congressional districts. They will be forming committees to deal with our worst problems and force President Biden to manage the border because they’ve got excellent plans to make America a more perfect union.

Hahahahahahaha. No, they don’t.

Nothing is more important than Hunter Biden’s laptop, which is why the Republican’s first order of congressional business, even before they have the gavel, is to announce they are going to investigate what’s going on with Hunter Biden’s laptop, not because there is anything to be found but because they don’t really don’t have an interest in working to fix our problems and they want to convince the public there was a crime by anybody with the name Biden. Or maybe the laptop has an economic formula on its hard drive to end inflation. The right simply wants to make the next two years miserable for the president and the Democrats, and the rest of us who must sit and act as the background chorus in a Greek tragedy.

Trump Succubus Margarine Taylor Greene has already filed a motion to impeach Biden because who needs cause or evidence? Surely, the secrets are locked in Hunter’s laptop, which is why he left it at a Wilmington, Delaware repair shop and never returned to pick it up. The president’s son was convinced that was the best way to hide evidence of the conspiracy he and his father had formed to rake in millions from the Ukrainians and the Chinese. Just drop it at a computer place and forget about it? Hunter did work for both of those countries, under contract, which has been investigated and no crime has been suspected. Hunter Biden is a private citizen and there’s no evidence his misguided commerce broke laws. If there were something on his laptop, the DoJ would have already been examining his endeavors. The FBI is looking at his tax failures, but let’s never forget that the laptop was delivered to authorities by the unimpeachable source Rudy Giuliani, whose hair dye might have dripped onto the hard drive as he interrupted the legal chain of custody of evidence.

Let’s save the House’s little majority a bit of their time. NBC News and the Washington Post both ran extensive examinations of Biden’s laptop and various documents released by two Republican Senate committees. No crime was apparent, most likely because there was none, but stupidity did abound. Hunter had jobs with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and a Chinese firm and had made about $11 million dollars, which he used to run wild on drugs and alcohol and women. He also appears to have mismanaged his taxes. Margarine Taylor Greene, though, and Gymie Jordan want to prove he was sending money to his father, the then vice-president. Didn’t happen, but that’s not the right’s point. They just want to march the American public back through the entire thing and hope to embarrass the president and suggest he was involved. Did Hunter get those jobs because of his father’s name and position? Duh? Ask the Trump kids. That’s how America works.

Maybe somewhere in that hard drive Jordan and company can find the data that shows Stepford Bride Ivanka Trump and her taxidermied husband Jared made $640 million while Daddy T was in the White House. Oh wait, they can just look in the newspapers and on the Interwebz to find that story. Guess that’s okay. Just before her father, Orange Julius became president, Ivanka managed to get two trademarks from Russia, strictly coincidental timing, we are confident. Same sort of circumstantial oddity occurred just prior to Mike Pence traveling to Japan; Ivanka got trademarks as a lovely inaugural gift from the Japanese after her father had taken office.

Jordan, the former assistant wrestling coach who couldn’t hear the wails of his athletes being sexually molested in the locker room across from his desk, will lead the investigative charge to get to the bottom of things. He’ll be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, so he’ll have the authority to issue subpoenas, you know, those pesky legal documents demanding testimony and evidence? He didn’t think much of them when they had his name on them, though, and refused to answer a single subpoena from the January 6th Committee, but I’m confident his will have more force of law. Maybe he’ll take a gander at all those patents Ivanka got issued to her in China, on a fast track, while her daddy was destroying this country.

About the same time that she got all her products legal protection in China, daddy was busy trying to save the Chinese communications company ZTE, which had a reputation for doing business with Iran and North Korea and violating U.S trade sanctions. One of the trademarks she was granted covered voting machines. What bizarre reason might motivate a president’s daughter to manufacture voting machines? Does she have contract to sell them to Kari Lake when she becomes governor of Arizona? Oooppps. Jordan doesn’t want answers, and neither will his committee. These investigations will be about as necessary as Gym Jordan’s sport coat.

The Kevin McCarthy led House also plans to investigate the origins of the January 6th Committee. Did they even turn on their TVs that day? Anyone ask Josh Hawley about why he was running away from the capitol like he was Usain Bolt’s distant cousin? The investigation began because for the first time in this nation’s history the capitol building was attacked by some of its own citizens, which was prompted by their mentally unstable leader, a spray-tanned demagogue who holds secret sway over the intellectually challenged. Does no one on the right understand that dragging the country back through an investigation of the investigation will do nothing but harm the draggers, who are all Republicans? The GOP was demonstrably complicit in the January 6th attack, and any new investigation will inevitably put an exclamation point on their culpability.

Even a cursory glance at the GOP agenda leaves the impression they will not be happy until America and their Republican party are set to flame and burned to the ground for a rebuild. Because they don’t like the investigations presently being conducted on Trump and his minions, McCarthy’s house wants to defund the Department of Justice and the FBI. Yeah, those zany madcaps of “law and order,” the Republicans, who fretted about the crime rate in every campaign ad they funded, intend to get rid of the country’s largest law enforcement agency. That’s how ya “back the blue,” eh gang? Simple rule for the right is that if you don’t like the investigations being conducted by the FBI, take away their budget, a concept brilliantly conceived after Mar a Lago was raided because evidence emerged Trump was coloring on top secret classified U.S. government documents.

The primary theme for the new GOP teeny tiny minority in the house will be impeachment, which will, of course, go nowhere. There may be sane Republican moderates who want no part of it while their flesh is being torn at by the weasels of the Freedom Caucus, demanding Biden be drawn and quartered on live TV. They want to use impeachment proceedings to take down the president, Vice President Harris, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, Alejandro Mayorkas, who heads up Homeland Security, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Their only impeachable crimes are being Democrats who hold national office and who do not bend the knee to Trump. These histrionics can go nowhere because the Senate will certainly never entertain such entreaties, but let the Republicans self-immolate, accomplish nothing for the country, and set up a significant sweep for Democrats in 2024.

In the fevered dreams of Gymie Jordan, he will lead a righteous troop of strong young men to investigate the withdrawal from Afghanistan under Biden and manage to ignore the fact that Donald Trump ordered the pullout. In fact, the former guy issued his mandate shortly after he lost the election to Biden, and it was such a monumentally stupid move that his own military commanders quietly ignored it because of the dangers that were consequent to the action. Hardly seemed to matter, in any case, since the Trump administration had already negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, terms that did not include the Afghan government we had sacrificed American blood and treasure to defend. Trump agreed to the release of 5000 imprisoned Taliban soldiers, who, no doubt, were handy when the Biden administration executed against the signed commitment to leave. Trump and the right might as well have been standing outside the walls of Al Udeid Air Base cheering on the Taliban so they could make Biden look bad.

Now they want to block aid to Ukraine, which, of course, makes great sense. Let Putin know the country club set is tired of their cocktail money going to protect the innocent. This will never happen unless every single simpleton in the GOP votes in lockstep with the soulless MGT, and if that doesn’t work, by God, they will vote to not fund the U.S. government, which will likely happen every time they don’t get what they want. There will be a lot of unmoving governance the next two years based upon what they want, which are hopeless items like a 15-week national abortion ban. Even if it clears a House vote the Senate will never give such nuttiness consideration. That will provide the GOP chamber more time to concentrate on cutting Medicare and Social Security, which the Senate will laugh at while the public becomes inflamed over even the slightest discussion in Congress. A “Don’t Say Gay” bill is almost certain to fill the hearts of Republicans with joy, and won’t get through the house, either, but they can console themselves with criminalizing gender-affirming care for trans children and prove just how much they hate people whose sexuality doesn’t fit into a Norman Rockwell painting of America.

This will be an entertaining Congress for sane citizens to watch because there will be much howling and clawing at reality, but nothing will be accomplished. When it’s over, though, some screenwriter should have enough material to sell a Netflix series on Gym Jordan’s jacket.