The House of Representatives has opened up an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. I am suddenly reminded of an old episode of the “Dukes of Hazzard” where Boss Hogg quipped that they would throw the Duke boys in jail. When asked the charge he just said they would come up with something later. Jurisprudence was set back a few centuries that day. Thank God it was just poorly written fiction.

Fiction has become reality as the Republicans in the House have no idea what crimes Biden committed. They just assume he has done something. His brother repaid a loan. His son repaid a loan. He was on the speaker phone once with someone his son worked with to say hello. These are all horrible crimes and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The trouble is that there isn’t a law against any of those things. I suppose the House could pass such a law on the fly to make it illegal, but they couldn’t pass gas at a family function. They’ve been the second least productive Congress in the nation’s history. They passed 22 bills in the last calendar year. The Congress between 1931 and 1932 passed the least with 21. Congratulations Kevin, er Mike er who is in charge now?

This is how things are going in Washington. Donald Trump was impeached twice and had a majority vote for conviction both times. Only two other presidents had been impeached previously. None have been convicted. The general idea is that Trump can then go on the campaign trail and argue that Biden was also impeached, so they really are just the same at the end of the day. Nihilism is defined as “the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.” In other words, there are no rules and there is no discernable moral code. It is an old Soviet mind trick. Essentially, if everyone is evil then my evil really doesn’t matter. Sure, there are degrees of evil, but that is just a thought experiment. We then can compare Edwin Edwards to Ted Bundy and put them on the same pedestal of evil.

The folks in the House GOP are hoping that you don’t notice the difference. You won’t notice the difference between a man charged 91 different times in four different jurisdictions and a guy where criminal plots are being thrown out like a pitch meeting at the WB Network. The ever-relevant Hunter Biden offered to testify at a public hearing and James Comer made it sound like Biden had kicked his dog. How dare you expose our bullshit in front of God and everyone?

The sad thing is that this actually works on some people. Thankfully, it won’t work on enough to make a big difference. Most of his voters know Biden isn’t really a crook. They know their guy is. They just don’t care. He is a crook fighting for them. At least he’s fighting the same people they fight with on a regular basis. Well, maybe he’s just using a bunch of fighting words.

It’s going to be entertaining though. Forget about anything getting done. We have another budget crunch coming in February and this particular Congress seems incapable of focusing on two things at once. Do we focus on the fake impeachment and manufacturing evidence of a crime that isn’t really a crime? Do we focus on actually funding the government and making sure essential services are met? Damn this is hard.

Lacking enough votes to open an impeachment “inquiry” by multiple House committees, Kevin McCarthy opened it by fiat today, under mutinous pressure from the Crazy MAGA wing of what’s left of the GOP.  I actually burst out laughing at his reasoning when he said,

“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.”

“Allegations.”  “A culture of corruption.” Right now all the red Irony Lights are flashing and Hypocrisy Sirens are howling.  Without a vote, McCarthy is trying to keep his job by feeding the alligators that are threatening to devour him if he doesn’t do TFG’s bidding.  Remember that TFG is the guy impeached twice for extortion of a foreign government and insurrection, under indictment for 91 felonies, liable for sexual assault and defamation, being sued for massive financial fraud in New York, and who had his “charitable” foundation shut down for fraud.  Add that to his history of screwing investors and contractors, friendship with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, lusting after young girls, and stuffing his pockets with other people’s money, and you have the actual walking, talking textbook example of corruption.

But, hey, let’s go after Biden after a 5 year full on effort to dig dirt on him without unearthing one credible shred of evidence, just to placate the actual criminal.

I say, bring it on.  The shit show will be epic.

Amidst all the chaos and chicanery, real life continues unabated. This morning my daughter and I awoke to a crackling sound. It sounded a lot like a kid playing with those poppers that make firecracker sounds. That image was dashed when I saw the fire suburban pull into the cul-de-sac and park on the common ground. They were followed immediately by two fire trucks. The entire cul-de-sac was engulfed with onlookers from the neighborhood.

Apparently, one of our neighbors (obviously we want to maintain a tiny bit of anonymity on their behalf) had some trouble with one of their cars. It somehow had some electrical issues and started to spark. The sparks caught and somehow reached the walls of the garage. One thing led to another and the garage was engulfed in flames. Luckily, it was one of those detached garages. That fact probably spared their lives and the lives of their animals. So, luckily the whole spectacle only created property damage. The car was destroyed and the garage is completely gone.

What’s the point? The point is that while all of the malarkey happening in Austin, Washington, and anywhere else government does it’s dirty business real life is occurring. People are going through things. Any one of us could have something like this morning happen. Any one of us could have a spark occur in a household appliance and see everything engulfed in flames. Any one of us could get a sudden cancer diagnosis or experience some kind of health emergency not related to cancer. Any one of us could be the victim of a violent crime. It’s all just too sobering.

Granted, no one in Washington, Austin, or any other statehouse can possibly prevent every disaster. No one expects them to. They couldn’t have prevented that fire anymore than we could a matter of feet from it. What they can do is make sure that emergency services are there to help as quickly as possible. They can pass laws and provide funding and oversight to mitigate all of the other things that I’ve mentioned in passing. We can find ways to curb the amount of gun violence. We could pass reforms to the health insurance industry and health care field to make sure that a cancer diagnosis doesn’t result in bankruptcy. We could safeguard women, people of color, and those in the LGTBQ+ community. We could safeguard our democracy.

So, what are our public servants in the U.S. House of Representatives doing? They are debating whether to impeach Joe Biden. What exactly would they impeach him for? We aren’t exactly sure. They aren’t exactly sure. You see, they don’t understand little pesky things like the rule of law. They don’t get it. They think when you charge an ex-president with multiple felonies that you need to respond in kind. Except they really can’t fathom who the you is. The you isn’t Democrats. The you isn’t Joe Biden. The you isn’t even the Attorney General. The you is a special prosecutor and a whole group of ordinary citizens that heard a ton of evidence and voted to charge the ex-president.

What’s the alternative on the other side? They have no evidence of wrongdoing. None. They keep floating sources that don’t materialize with damning evidence that never checks out. You can’t impeach a public official because you don’t like them. You can’t impeach a public official because you disagree with them. You certainly can make a public spectacle of yourself. You can snipe and shout down your former friends because they have gotten between you and the cameras. You can do all of these things, but the funny thing about seeking out that camera is that the world is watching. The world does notice. While you might have a few wingnuts and psychiatric patients applaud your efforts, the rest of country sees you aren’t doing their business. They never were. The house is on fire and some are fighting over who gets to be in front of the camera.

After yesterday’s news that Ken Paxton has been referred to the full Texas House for impeachment, my only question was, which crime was finally bad enough to finally tip the scales of justice against him?  Did Republicans finally awake from an 8 year coma?  Did they finally turn on the news?  Identifying crimes and conduct that have been obvious to normal Texans for years, the House General Investigating Committee filed 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton listing crimes and corrupt conduct such as bribery, misuse of funds, abusing employees, using the power of his office to help a friend in a private lawsuit, lying on the record, and dereliction of duty, among other acts not generally associated with a state’s top law enforcement officer.  Paxton’s defense?  It’s rich – you can’t impeach me for any crimes I committed BEFORE the last election.  His argument is that each election washes away any prior misdeeds from previous terms.  This  claim not the only issue, though.

Paxton has been under felony indictment for securities fraud, among other crimes, FOR EIGHT YEARS.  He has successfully buried that case for that extended period after the legislature passed a 2015 law at Abbott’s urging to dismantle the Public Integrity Unit run by the Travis County DA and move cases against statewide officials to the Texas Rangers and local prosecutors in officials’ home jurisdictions.  Paxton’s felony case was moved from Austin to Collin County and was buried and remains bogged down to this day.  In fact, since that law was enacted, prosecutions of state officials have virtually disappeared.  90% of investigations result in no charges, and the people who are charged are generally low level employees.  This is not a flaw in the law – it’s a feature; the legislature and Abbott successfully blunted the only tool Texas had to prosecute corruption by taking away the only independent watchdog in the state.  Paxton’s unchecked corruption and criminality is the logical (and obvious) result of dismantling the existing justice system.  And it’s not just Paxton – high level officials in Austin can pretty much do what they want as long as their local DAs protect them, and that is exactly what’s happening.

What kicked off this entire episode this session was a request by Paxton that WE, the taxpayers, pay $3.3 million to settle one of the lawsuits against him that had been filed by his former employees for abuse and retaliation.  House speaker Dade Phelan had opposed the payment and the investigation into this settlement was begun.  That investigation then turned into an impeachment inquiry as the evidence against Paxton became so mountainous that not even Republicans could ignore it.

So the question is, which crime tipped the scales of justice?  Was it one crime, or did the collective weight of them all finally do the deed?  In my view, any of these well known crimes should have resulted in Paxton’s removal and jailing years ago.  That it hasn’t happened is a direct result of Republican corruption and the Texas Rangers looking the other way while local prosecutors selectively charged other low level officials.

I’ve believed since Rick Perry that Texas was lost.  It’s still lost, but have we finally reached bottom after 30 years of decline?  I’m a long way from popping champagne and tossing babies in the air, but maybe we’ve finally gotten there.  There’s no way but up from here.

One of the constant threads that wound through Trump’s infestation of the WH was poor grammar, poor usage, and careless misspellings.  Bringing this characteristic to the end, his lawyers’ answer today to the single article of impeachment filed by the House, Trump’s lawyers, in the introductory paragraph, actually misspelled…wait for it…United States.  That’s right, folks, in the very introduction of his defense of the indefensible, United States was spelled Unites States.  These are supposedly high dollar lawyers with deep experience, and they are so careless in carrying out their responsibilities that they didn’t even bother to spellcheck.  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

ABC and CNN are reporting that Trump’s entire legal team walked yesterday leaving him unrepresented in his impeachment trial in the Senate.  The reason?  It’s probably obvious, but it’s also being reported that Trump is clinging to the “election was rigged” lie to justify inciting insurrection, and the lawyers, led by Lindsey Graham pal Butch Bowers, were having none of it.  Their strategy was to argue the constitutionality of the impeachment charge of a former president, but Trump still thinks he can overturn the world by repeating one gigantic lie after another.  Without social media to repeat the lie, he’s just another criminal awaiting trial.

You know he hates that, and that’s a good thing.