A Terrible Day for the GOP

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The US House of Representatives, a group that has passed nothing of substance since Republicans took control of the chamber over a year ago, had an even worse day than usual yesterday.  For months now they have been doggedly harassing the Biden family in an attempt to find something that would merit the impeachment of the President, but to no avail.  The GOP House members, working under the almost direct supervision of Donald Trump, want to get some payback for the two impeachment votes that the House passed against Donald Trump back during his glory days.

Most recently the Republicans in the House have turned their attention on a Biden cabinet secretary, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, accusing him (as a proxy for the Biden administration) of failing to secure the border.  Their goal all along has been to keep the border "crisis" front-and-center in the public eye as a campaign cudgel to use against the Biden administration in the fall elections.

Impeaching Mayorkas was going to be a very close vote because the Republicans had a bare majority in the House and all Democrats were expected to vote against the politically-inspired impeachment, but Speaker Johnson thought he had the votes to succeed.  The tide turned when one Democratic House member, Al Green of Texas, who was in the hospital recovering from abdominal surgery and not expected to be present for the vote, showed up on the House floor in a wheelchair and wearing hospiital scrubs and voted against the impeachment.  Three Republicans also voted against the measure.

Green showing up was an eventuality that the political geniuses in the House GOP had apparently not factored into their calculations, and the impeachment failed by that one vote.

But that wasn't the only torpedo that hit the House GOP paddleboat yesterday.  The Republican members of the House, after abandoning a border security bill that they had helped to inspire, still wanted to get some stand-alone military funding to Israel.  The border bill that they had requested contained military aid to Israel, humanitarian aid for Gaza, and military aid to Ukraine.  They had no desire to help with Gaza or the war against Russian aggression in Ukraine, but the Republican House members did want to get more military funding to Israel, and they put up a bill that would have done that.  President Biden vowed to veto the stand-alone bill for Israel war funding if it reached his desk, but he was saved the bother when House Republicans couldn't even pass their own bill.

Another big GOP failure.

Add to all of that the fact that the GOP leadership in the Senate appears to be unwinding and Mitch McConnell may be on his way out as the Republican leader with the party rabble in the Senate just itching to replace him with one of their own - and Donald Trump is running up and down the sidelines (as fast as an elderly, diapered, obese man who's worried about protecting his combover can run) trying to manage the business of both the House and the Senate, and it's a wonder they can even pass a motion for adjournment, much less get anything substantive done for the good of the country.

And now Trump, who has been sucking up all of the available money from GOP supporters - both ordinary and corporate - and has spent $55 million in money donated for campaign purposes to pay down his many legal fees, is angry at the GOP chairwoman, Ronna Romney McDaniel because the party coffers are not as stuffed as he would like - and he is strongly hinting that she will soon be replaced.

It would be hard to imagine a major political party in such disarray, but Republicans seem to have achieved a level of chaos that was once the exclusive domain of Democrats.    The best strategy for some Democratic candidates this year might be to just stay out of the way while the Moral Majority, or the Freedom Caucus, or God's Army, or whatever the hell they are calling themselves during the most recent news cycle, brandish their knives and begin taking on each other.

The 2024 circus is unpacking and getting set up - and the Republicans obviously have too many clowns running around trying to please and appease their self-absorbed ringmaster - and the chances of something actually getting done for the good of the nation diminish by the day.