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.

I was having one of those discussions with my daughter. She is at the age where I’m trying to teach her some more complex concepts. A part of it is preparing her for a complex and sometimes frightening world. Another part is simply building her vocabulary. So, I had her look up “nihilism” on her phone. Nihilism is “the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.” So, in other words there is no objective truth. There really is nothing of value and there are no moral absolutes. Dealing with people that truly believe this is a lonely and frightening existence. Leadership based on this isn’t really leadership at all. Yet, this is where we are.

The new Congress is trying to elect the new Speaker of the House. Candidates have to have 218 votes in order to be Speaker. Technically speaking it doesn’t even have to be a member of Congress. I suppose it could be a member of the minority party, but that would be theoretical at this point. In simplest terms, you simply keep voting until you find one. Kevin McCarthy is supposed to be the new Speaker of the House. He has gotten as many as 201 votes in the elections from the past two days. As I write this, there have been four separate ballots and there is no speaker. This is the first time this has happened since 1923 when it took nine ballots to elect a new speaker.

Watching the modern Republican party is a real life lesson in governing philosophy. Traditional conservatives decried what became known as moral relativism. As best explained, that would be the concept that no one person’s moral compass would be superior to someone else’s. However, that is still far different than nihilism.McCarthy’s behavior over the last few years is a perfect example. He decried the January 6th attacks until he didn’t. He opposed extremism in his own party until he didn’t. He has tried to be all things for all people and is discovering that you really can’t. Someone that will stand for nothing will fall for everything. I’m quite certain that I read that somewhere.

Ultimately there is a difference between believing there is one objective truth and believing there is one objective truth for you. There is a difference between allowing new information and life experience to change your moral compass and never having one in the first place. There is a difference between engaging other people with a different moral compass than your own and engaging someone that believes nothing.I have said this before and I’ll say it again. This is why the Republican party is dying. Conservatism isn’t dying. Major philosophical planks can’t really die. Parties die when they have nothing at their core. Power is not a core belief. Attention is not a central tenet of any governing philosophy. Politics cannot be transactional for very long. If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything. Grab the remote and pop some popcorn. The death of a major political party is something to behold.

In what truly portends as a sign that the end is nigh, reports are coming out that Greg Abbott is seriously considering a run for the presidency. I’m not kidding about this. I really wish I were.

In some respects, I guess a presidential run from the governor’s chair is just inevitable. Obviously, George W. Bush successfully made the jump. He at least won the job. How successful he was I guess depends on the eye of the beholder. Rick Perry tried a couple of times and failed miserably. There was an issue with counting that I recall that may have had an impact.

What both of them had in common is that they could at least point to signs of success. Sure, we know Bush wasn’t the brightest bulb in the batch and Perry is not much beyond the great hair, but they were savvy enough to stay out of the way and let Texans do their own thing. At least that is how many people will remember it.

As usual, when you pair down the flim flam and really look at things you would see a different picture, but most people are not accustomed to moving beyond the flim flam. They didn’t have a horribly mismanaged virus or a once in a century energy grid crisis. Most people would hide away in a broom closet after the last 14 months, but not Abbott. He is proudly considering bringing his clown show to Washington.

If it weren’t so real it would be comical. In order to appeal to the base, you have to be more flamboyant in your stupidity than the next guy or gal. If Jewish lasers only keep you in the news for a solid week you need to find something else to do.

Maybe throw out an old racist phrase while coming up with a new way to suppress the vote. Maybe count ballots with companies that don’t have a clue and hire people that would make my parents look like spring chickens. Maybe pass another bathroom bill or ban transgender kids from the lunchroom. Maybe remove background checks before a 9 year old can carry a bazooka into his STAAR test. Yup, the apocalypse is coming and it ain’t a pretty sight.