Babbling fail-banjo and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer was all over the TV last night, telling anybody stupid enough to listen to the sweet sounds coming through the hay in his teeth that he’s at last found the whistleblower who’s gonna blow the whole top off these Biden scandals, or at least open the lid a little bit, or maybe there’s a skylight in the lid and you can see through, or maybe not, but if you squint real hard and grunt your sphincter like EEEEEEEE you got that it’s like EEEEEEEEEE you just go out in your Kentucky outhouse and you go like EEEEEEEEEE and maybe at least that’ll be the Biden smoking gun he’s been looking for all along!
Y’hear?
Sean Hannity asked, “Do you believe that this is now officially the Joe Biden bribery allegation, and do you believe that you will be able to prove that?”
Comer replied, “I sure hope so!” with all the enthusiasm of a “Hee Haw” extra sensing their All About Eve moment upon hearing that one of the main cast members has just become incapacitated in a cow-tipping accident.
“And I do believe that there’s a lot of smoke! And whar thar’s smoke, there’s fahhhhr! And we just heard testimony today that Joe Biden has lied to the American people!” Comer breathlessly tried to get every word out, like Kenneth on “30 Rock” trying to express his fears to Liz Lemon without his true hillbilly accent taking over. Hannity obviously just was trying to move on.
Had he actually heard testimony that day that Joe Biden had lied to the American people? And whar thar was smoke was thar in fact fahhhhhhr? And was that fahhhhhhr in fact just Comer trying to light a fart with a Zippo?
Yesterday, the House Oversight Committee took testimony behind closed doors from Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s business partner, AKA Comer’s whistleblower of the week. (There was an entire bullshit right-wing lie this weekend, which spread like syphilitic kudzu through the Republican media ecosystem, which accused the Biden Justice Department of trying to arrest Archer — a convict, in an unrelated matter — before his hotly anticipated testimony. It wasn’t true, but that’s OK, Republicans are liars. Philip Bump has the scoop on that one, we ain’t typin’ it.)
Archer’s testimony was … not what Republicans hoped for. So they’re just lyin’.
That’s why “RELEASE THE TRANSCRIPT” is trending on Twitter right now. Democrats are calling on Comer to release the full transcript of the Archer interview, instead of just lyin’.
Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman was reportedly one of the only members who actually stayed for the whole interview, and he told Anderson Cooper last night that anyone who read the transcript “would come away […] believing that Joe Biden had nothing to do with Hunter Biden’s business dealings, derived no benefit from it, received no money, and did not know about anything that Hunter Biden was doing, nor did he ever discuss it with Hunter Biden or the business associates.”
Indeed, the worst allegation that really comes out of this is that Hunter Biden tried to trade on his name to get really cool benefits for himself. Wow. No shit?
Read through this summary from the New York Times, as Comer lies and Goldman calls him on it:
Republicans pointed to the interview as evidence that President Biden had lied when he claimed he had no involvement in his son’s business dealings, and some said that was grounds for impeaching the elder Mr. Biden.
Nope.
Mr. Archer told lawmakers during the session that Hunter Biden had put his father on speakerphone to talk to his business partners about 20 times over a decade, according to both Republicans and Democrats in the room.
Uh huh.
[Comer] said Mr. Archer had testified that Mr. Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.” […]
“Devon Archer’s testimony today confirms Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son’s business dealings and was not involved,” Mr. Comer said in a statement.
Hmmmm. You lyin’, James?
Democrats said that Mr. Archer had described the conversations in which the elder Mr. Biden participated as short and casual — about topics like the weather — and his interactions as little more than stopping by a dinner or a hotel for a brief handshake or a few pleasantries over the phone.
“The witness was very, very consistent that none of those conversations ever had to do with any business dealings or transactions,” said Representative Dan Goldman, Democrat of New York and a member of the Oversight Committee who participated in the interview. “They were purely what he called ‘casual conversation.’”
James be lyin’.
The revelation is that Hunter would sometimes parade his famous cool dad out to make himself look famous and cool. Again, no shit?
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member on the committee, said Archer testified that Joe Biden talked to his son Hunter a bunch after the death of Joe’s son/Hunter’s brother Beau Biden, but emphasized that “President Biden was never asked to, nor did he, take any official actions in relation” to Hunter’s business.
NBC News colors in more of the picture:
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said Archer told the panel he didn't know anything about an alleged $5 million bribe to the family that a Burisma executive had mentioned to an FBI informant.
Huh. Comer’s excited “I sure hope so!” really aged well, from the top of this post to the bottom.
Biggs, however, said he still believes the president is compromised and told reporters, "I think we should do an impeachment inquiry."
Oh for fucks sake.
Goldman called that “completely absurd,” and added:
"The witness repeated over and over and over again that President Biden never discussed any business dealings of Hunter’s with Hunter or anyone else. He repeated over and over again that he never did anything in consideration, official policy or otherwise, in consideration of whatever Hunter’s business interests were. So I have a lot of respect for Congressman Biggs, but that’s just a flat out lie."
All these Republicans lying. Tells you how useless the truth is to their project.
Marjorie Taylor Greene says the Archer testimony means it’s time for IMPEACH. Meanwhile, Byron Donalds, who only has principles when a Republican candidate besides the one he’s endorsing starts telling Black Republicans to see the softer side of slavery, apparently wants to impeach Biden for answering the phone when his son calls.
Here is more video of Dan Goldman calling Republicans on their lies, and underscoring how literally every bit of this is Republicans trying to smear Biden with the same debunked Ukrainian bullshit Donald Trump tried to smear him with in 2019 when he was extorting Ukraine into helping him steal the 2020 election.
Better brush up on all the 2019 Biden Burisma garbage.
We’re going to be listening to it until the very day they bury Trump under the jail for good.
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The following is on topic only in the sense that all of this shit is connected:
The Missus belongs to our local "friends of the library" group, who are having their annual book sale next month to raise money for the library. They're swamped with donated books, including a zillion old textbooks, for which there is a surprising market among the homeschooling community. (This is Gaetz's district, btw.) Another member of the group said that she would be interested in picking up some textbooks for her homeschoolin', if she could find some that "weren't too woke." She went on to provide examples of what she meant by woke math. "Aisha has three pencils. Abdul has five cookies," she drawled derisively. The chair of the book sale committee actually brushed back gently that Aisha and Abdul needed to learn math, too.
I've been inspired by those examples to work on some anti-woke arithmetic word problems that this Karen might find helpful with her young'ns, so they could hear about hypothetical people they could relate to:
Jimmy Jack has 4 DUIs and 5 points against his license. Where is his bicycle at?
SueBeth has 7 cigarettes. Her cellmate, Betty Sue, has half a pack....
Jethro has 18 butterbeans. Cletus ain't got no butterbeans because his disability check ain't arrived yet....
Liberty Bible Freedom Church has 5 members in the Worship Band, 11 Praise Dancers, and 4 Youth Ministers. How much liability insurance does the church need to protect against sexual misconduct law suits?
[Yes, I feel badly about being nasty and petty like this. A little.]
OT: While we wait for Jack to bring down the Million Pound Shithammer, Rolling Stone is reporting that they have two sources on Team Trump who say the lawyers have spent the last year figuring out how to pin the coup on bad legal advice from Rudy, Sidney Powell and John Eastman.
This strategy of course requires the jury to squint hard enough to see Trump as a helpless naif and not a promiscuously litigious asshole who’s filed more than 3,000 lawsuits in his career.