It蘑菇视频 a know-nothing do-nothing Congress
Has anybody seen Congress lately?
I’m wondering if it’s growing cobwebs since there have been so few activities up there on Capitol Hill.
That’s part of the reason the 118th Congress ranks just above scurvy in popularity.
The American public (according to the last Gallup polling) gives Congress only a paltry 15% job approval.
Republicans in the U.S. House have managed to gum up the legislative works since the day they took control (on Jan. 3, 2023).
First, with their new majority, it took them four days and 15 ballots to select, and then seat a new speaker – Kevin McCarthy.
Of course that didn’t stick. McCarthy got sent packing nearly 10 months later, in one of the nastiest inter-party coups in memory.
(Oh, how I long for the days, when Speaker, ah, Mr. McCarthy would hold court and dazzle us with his mealy-mouthed, nonspecific, incoherent rhetoric)
What happened between the time McCarthy bargained his way into the speakership – and the time he was jettisoned from it? Hardly anything.
Sure, there were those nearly mandatory continuing appropriations bills that needed to be passed to keep the government up and running. But there was also a lot of, er, nonsense.
Republicans have since narrowly voted to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. That was a complete waste of time because that impeachment will never find favor in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
No matter how hard they try, Republicans won’t be able to have Mayorkas removed from his job.
Mayorkas will serve until he decides to step away. Or, until President Biden tells him to take a hike.
Earlier this month, the Senate proudly announced it had cobbled together a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill that also contained much-needed aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
That didn’t meet with approval from the Republican’s sideline president (Emeritus) – Donald Trump who didn’t like the bill because it might make Joe Biden look good.
He didn’t say that.
But we all know that Trump doesn’t like anything that doesn’t make himself look really good.
So, the Republican’s newly crowned Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, came out forcefully against a bipartisan piece of legislation that he hadn’t yet even seen.
Johnson is now in control of a Republican caucus that requires he stay in line, lest it’ll send him packing the same way they did Kevin McCarthy.
That means he’ll gladly continue the unfinished work of those committees that are hoping to find that Joe Biden has committed some high crimes and misdemeanors.
Back on Sept. 12, as if the house Republicans didn’t have better things to do, they opened up an impeachment inquiry that’s designed to uncover the sordid details of the so-called “Biden Crime Family” – with their Mafia-styled criminal syndicate.
HOLD FOR A SECOND: How is it that Biden is supposedly so old, and decrepit, while at the same time, he’s so adroit at pulling off such intricate crimes – that have fooled law enforcement for years?
What this country truly doesn’t need is an important legislative body that only busies itself with unimportant issues.
So when that impeachment inquiry into the “Biden Crime Family” hit a speedbump – Republicans ran for cover.
The key person who had been at the heart of the Republican case against Biden in the U.S. House has now been found to have been telling a bunch of falsehoods all along.
Three committees have been investigating the supposed illegal activities of Biden when he was vice president, along with his son, Hunter.
Unfortunately for the Republicans holding those hearings, federal investigators have confirmed that the source of the information, Alexander Smirnov, had been fibbing about the Bidens.
Smirnov has been charged with lying about the Bidens’ activities. And he’s added that he was fed information from Russian intelligence officials.
Republicans are members of a political party that has a penchant for pointing fingers at those sloven ne’er do wells who sit on their hands while collecting money from the government. It appears they’re pretty good at that sort of thing themselves.
Al Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.