The House of Representatives yesterday voted to formalize an impeachment inquiry on President Joe Biden.
However, the GOP leaders are at least claiming that the outcome for this is not a given:
“We’re not going to prejudge the outcome of this because we can’t,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Tuesday. “It’s not a political calculation. We’re following the law and we are the rule of law team and I’m going to hold to that.”
Not everybody was buying that, however. President Joe Biden lambasted the House vote, and suggested that it was a “baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts."
Now don't get me wrong: Joe Biden is not my favorite president. He was not my first or second pick in the last Democratic primary. In fact, I remember hearing things about him dating back to the late nineties, which made him one of the Democrats who I hoped would not ascend to the highest levels. Yet, he became president.
That said, the criticisms of him by Republicans, much like of Obama and Clinton before him, were enormously exaggerated. Claiming that he is mentally unfit to be the president, while championing Trump, is literally laughable. And this really does feel like a political stunt, an attempt at retribution for actually trying to hold Trump accountable for numerous illegal actions and for the general criminal conduct with which Trump carried out his presidency.
The House of Representatives also must know that there is absolutely no chance of actually removing Biden from office. With Trump, it felt like the allegations were serious enough that it might get some patriotic Republicans to do what was best for the country, and at least seriously listen to the allegations. Of course, they confirmed what we suspected: that they were never going to put what was best for the country over their party allegiance. This, on the other hand, is a greatly inflated "case" that is strictly being done to appease the most extreme factions of their party.
It also appears that this will be the new norm indeed. Republicans warned about it during the Trump presidency, claiming that they would seek payback. Indeed, that apparently was not an empty threat, although it should have been.
The state of American politics grows ever more ridiculous and polarized. Truly, Washington feels like a circus, although not one that very few really want to see anymore.
GOP-led House votes to formalize impeachment inquiry into President Biden by Adrienne Vogt, Elise Hammond and Tori B. Powell, CNN, December 13, 2023:
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/biden-impeachment-inquiry-12-13-23/index.html
No comments:
Post a Comment