House of Representatives

Do Republicans Want to Lose?

Featured image Several decades ago, a Washington Democrat said, “Republicans hate the government, so they let us run it for them.” I think there was some truth to that, in the bad old pre-Reagan days. And maybe it is still true now. Byron York, one of the capital’s most astute observers, writes: Watching House Republicans it's hard to avoid the conclusion that, as a whole, they don't really *want* to run the »

Gaetz of Eden

Featured image I turn to the oracular Bob Dylan writing in William Blake’s prophetic mode for commentary on the deposition of Speaker Kevin McCarthy by Matt Gaetz and a few Republican colleagues joined by every House Democrat: All and all can only fall With a crashing but meaningless blow No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden Well, we hear the sound coming from the Gaetz of Eden. There’s no avoiding »

Suicide of the House

Featured image Who was it who said of the Palestinians that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity? You could say the same of the Republican Party. Then there is the adage, attributed to Napoleon, that you should never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake. The Republicans violated that one today, too. By rights, the Democrats should be in disarray. The Biden administration has been a disaster, »

House Opens Impeachment Investigation

Featured image This morning, Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that the House is launching an investigation that may lead to the impeachment of President Biden. Here is McCarthy making the announcement; text is below: Welcome back, everyone. You know, in the months that we were gone, in the weeks, House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct. Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption. »

$20 million and counting

Featured image The House Oversight Committee has released a third Biden bank memo “detailing new information obtained in the Committee’s investigation into the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes.” The committee has now identified over $20 million in payments from foreign sources to the Biden family and their business associates. That’s $20 million and counting. The press release summarizes the bank records memo: The memorandum outlines how the Bidens and their business associates »

The innocent explanation

Featured image Let’s not jump to impeachment — inquiry or otherwise — just because we now have testimony contradicting President Biden’s long-standing line that he never spoke with Hunter Biden about his “business,” whatever it was. Now that Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer has testified to Joe Biden’s participation in phone calls with Hunter’s “clients” or “customers” over dinners for whatever it is that Hunter was selling — Archer testified Biden’s »

What Did Devon Archer Say?

Featured image Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, testified to a House committee behind closed doors today for around four hours. Republicans and Democrats took turns questioning him. Representatives from both parties emerged to spin Archer’s testimony for reporters. The Wall Street Journal’s account is probably as fair as we are going to get: A former business associate of Hunter Biden testified on Monday to Congress that President Biden and his »

DoJ lawyers working overtime

Featured image Politico has just posted the first straight news story on the Department of Justice’s letter to the judge in Devon Archer’s fraud case. Having been convicted of fraud and lost his appeal, Archer is subject to execution of the sentence imposed on him following trial. Department lawyers were at work on Saturday seeking an order setting a date for Archer to report to prison: On Saturday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office »

If Devon Archer says what he’s expected to say, it’s lights out for Biden

Featured image As House Republicans close in on the truth about the Biden family’s overseas influence peddling business, Democrats are growing more and more desperate. As well they should.  At last week’s House Oversight Committee meeting, ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who is rapidly becoming the “Adam Schiff” of the GOP’s investigation into the Bidens, tried mightily to separate President Joe Biden from his son. He told colleagues, “Like other addicts, »

This week in Biden probe

Featured image Devon Archer is one of Hunter Biden’s former business partners. He is now facing jail for his role in a $60 million bond fraud, but is scheduled to testify this week before the House Oversight Committee. Miranda Devine reports that Archer will testify about meetings he witnessed that were attended by Joe Biden either in person or via speakerphone when Hunter would call the gentleman we have come to know »

Would voters really reelect the ‘senescent, sticky-fingered … spavined’ Biden?

Featured image In a recent interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo, former President Donald Trump recounted a long ago conversation he’d had with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. He claimed he asked Kennedy whom he considered to be the smartest senator. Trump told Maria: “I won’t tell you the answer because I don’t particularly like the guy. I said, ‘Who’s the dumbest?’ He said, ‘Probably Joe [Biden].’” According to Trump, Kennedy replied, »

A Dan Goldman footnote

Featured image Professor Jonathan Turley captured a key moment in yesterday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on the farcical investigation of Hunter Biden. Turley’s column was published in the New York Post as “Joe Biden hit hard in whistleblower hearing — by Democrat Dan Goldman.” Professor Turley has also posted the column at his own site as “Friendly fire: Dan Goldman demolishes the Biden defense in whistleblower hearing.” Professor Turley noted Goldman’s misfire »

Don’t shoot Matt Taibbi either

Featured image Matt Taibbi writes from the perspective of the ever shrinking political left supportive of civil liberties and, well, the truth. I turned to him on a regular basis for his unerring commentary on the Russia hoax. More recently, he has been a key contributor to the Twitter Files. In his subscribers-only post “The McCarthy reboot” at his Racket News site, Taibbi reviewed the performance of the Democrats at the House »

Don’t shoot me, I’m only the whistleblower

Featured image House Republicans convened a hearing on FBI whistleblowers yesterday. The name of the committee is a mouthful — the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Rep. Jim Jordan is chair of both the House Judiciary Committee and this House subcommittee and chaired the hearing. The hearing was a companion to the interim staff report released yesterday. The subcommittee heard testimony from three FBI whistleblowers and »

Julio goes for the Gold(man)

Featured image Miranda Devine celebrates the beatdown of the repulsive Rep. Dan Goldman by reporter Julio Rosas at the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday. Devine’s column is headlined “Taking down loathsome lefty pol Dan Goldman.” Goldman cuts a ridiculous figure as he appeals to the authority of the FBI. His timing of the appeal to authority is a bit off in this case. Goldman’s histrionic appeal to authority comes in »

McCarthy’s good deed

Featured image We are obviously crushed by the voluminous bad news. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy provides what must count as today’s good news. He has foiled Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s attempt to host an event at the Capitol Building with anti-Israel groups decrying the founding of Israel as a “catastrophe.” “This event in the US Capitol is canceled,” McCarthy announced in a tweet on Tuesday (below). “Instead, I will host a bipartisan discussion »

A Twitter Files footnote (14)

Featured image Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger are two of the journalists who have participated in the Twitter Files project. They testified at the Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on the Twitter Files conducted by the House Judiciary this week. I posted the text of Taibbi’s statement here yesterday. The New York Post has adapted Shellenberger’s statement in “‘Censorship-industrial complex’ uses gov’t power to threaten democracy.” Shellenberger testified: The »