Rant 776: Spelunkers All

Copyright ? 2024 by Richard L. Hermann

"It's time for the GOP to get their balls out of Trump's desk and vote for what you've just been yelling for for the last months,…."

--Sen. John Fetterman

There are no lengths—depths, rather—to which the Republican Party will go—sink, rather—in its fealty—servitude, rather—to Donald Trump. Its pathetic performance last week in both the Senate and House demonstrates that Senator Fetterman’s description of these duds is spot on:

Led by Caver-in-Chief, Moscow Mitch McConnell, a hollow shell of a leader whose greatest achievement these days is making it through an entire public announcement without becoming catatonic, sabotaged a border-Ukraine-Israel bill that his party demanded and got because Trump wants to use it as a campaign issue and deny President Biden a legislative victory. No surprise from the man who, nine months before a presidential election, denied a President his right to appoint a Supreme Court Justice because it was the last year of his presidency. Mitch said the vacancy should by right be filled by the new president, and then did a 180 and allowed an outgoing President to fill a court vacancy one week before the election.

So much for Republicans shouting from the rooftops for years about fixing the border problem. Their hypocrisy, which now governs their every action and pronouncement (the only governing they do), has reached mythic proportions heretofore unimaginable. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a nonentity who in other eras would have spent his political career languishing in back-bench anonymity but for the chaos that is the House Republican caucus, proclaimed the border bill “dead on arrival” and said he would not bring it to a floor vote even if the Senate passed it. Like McConnell, he too has placed what little remains of his manhood in Trump’s lockbox.

Almost lost in the Republican two-step was the embarrassing failed vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the High Crime and Misdemeanor of…doing his job. Undeterred by this fiasco, Mini-Mike Johnson announced that he will try again to rid the country of a decent public servant for carrying out immigration policies his party doesn’t like. Wait a minute! If they don’t like what’s happening on the border, why do they resist fixing it?

The Party of Putin and Trump, aided mightily by Putin poodle Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with the Stalinist avatar, is generating unconstrained delight in the Kremlin. Vlad and his Russian Mafia capos are dancing in the corridors. Donetsk Don, Moscow Mitch and Magnitogorsk Mike have delivered far beyond expectations. In other countries, giving aid and comfort to enemies would be labeled treason and dealt with accordingly.

As if that were not enough, 62 Republican House members, led by Mad Matt Gaetz and Elise Quisling Stefanik, have introduced a resolution declaring that Trump is not an insurrectionist and had nothing to do with the January 6, 2021 insurrection he provoked. One Missouri congressmaniac even said: “In Missouri we call that just a normal day.”

I am always amazed that we have come to the point where this torrent of disgraceful behavior is deemed normal. I am more amazed that voters actually elect bungling losers such as these to represent their interests.

Capstoning this weird, whacky week in Washington, the Republican National Committee, led by the most inept party chair in history (and that is really saying something!), Ronna Don’t-Call-Me-Romney McDaniel, attempted to declare the primary season over and anoint its twice-impeached, four-times-indicted deity its presidential nominee. For her work and many years of servile fealty to the Orange Menace, her reward is getting dumped by Trump.

Meanwhile way out West in Nevada, Nikki Haley got blown out in a meaningless primary by “None of the Candidates.” There is no trumping Trump, even if he is not on the ballot. How embarrassing is that?

I suppose the only good that can come out of Republican shamelessness is that its members are now exposed for the contemptible collection of scum-sucking, bottom-feeding, knuckle-dragging scoundrels that they are. If only Americans would take notice.

God help us.

Dick Hermann

February 12, 2024

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