GOP=George Orwell's Playbook

     If it hasn't been enshrined in political orthodoxy, it ought to be: That when Republicans go full bore investigating something or someone, you can bet they're trying to keep inconvenient truths from coming out.

     Take Jim Jordan's so-called Weaponization subcommittee.

     Jordan's apparatus is just another Republican Salem Witch Hunt, not very dissimilar from the ridiculous Benghazi subcommittee that turned up bupkis except that the years just before Benghazi, Republicans slashed the US embassy security budget by $459,000,000. They grilled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for 11 straight hours and she never wavered, never waffled and never invoked the 5th. And they never got any dirt to stick to her.

     But that wasn't the overarching rationale behind those witch hunts. The rationale was to call into question her fitness for the presidency if she ever got elected. How do we know this? Kevin McCarthy, eight years ago.

     And when investigators are themselves investigated after the balance of power tips in one chamber or the other, especially when Republicans are in power, you can bet they're trying to discredit certain people. And/or they're trying to keep narratives from catching fire and having the press run with it.

     What makes Jordan's subcommittee so ridiculous in real time is that they're investigating the January 6 investigators. January 6 2021 was over two years ago. The DOJ has just arrested their 1000th suspect and expect to arrest hundreds more. The January 6 select committee and witnesses such as Cassidy Hutchinson had long since inflicted untold amounts of damage to Trump's already dented reputation.

     Today, Jordan tried to hide his hypocrisy by yelling about witnesses who'd defied subpoenas when Jordan himself had defied a subpoena from the very same January 6 select committee on which McCarthy wanted to place him. Eric Swalwell today called bullshit on his hypocrisy. Also today, Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands called out Jordan for the GOP's "playbook of lies".

     One of Jordan's overarching aims is to throw cold water on a historical fact that's already ossified into history. In Jordan's adopted worldview, the January 6 riot wasn't really a riot, it was just a tour group consisting of several thousand patriots that just got a little boisterous. Paralleling Jordan's witch hunt was, again, Kevin McCarthy taking the audacious and unprecedented step of turning over 40,000+ hours of January 6 security footage to Tucker Carlson, of all people.The American people haven't even seen the vast majority of that footage.

     And McCarthy gave it to Carlson because he knew exactly what Carlson would do with it- Like a Dollar Store Winston Smith, show brief cherry-picked little clips of people who weren't momentarily engaged in ultra violence against cops who were getting bear-sprayed and getting bones broken. And that deceptively-selected footage is already leaking into January 6 court cases.

     And that's the goal of Jordan's own little witch hunt- To wrest back control of the narrative about January 6. And this was why Nancy Pelosi didn't want him on the January 6 committee because what Jordan's doing now, he would have done if he's been allowed on that committee- swing verbal brickbats and throw bombs in his unique staccato-style.

     And evading accountability has been the overarching rationale for Republicans getting control of the US Congress and retaining it at the Georgia state house in Atlanta. Yes, they hit the campaign trail mealy-mouthing platitudes about the economy, inflation, job growth, kitchen table issues they know the rubes care about but it was really about escaping justice.

     A little over a week ago, the Georgia Senate passed a bill (the House would follow suit days later) that would give lawmakers oversight over the state's district attorneys and solicitor generals under the transparently risible rubric of reigning in "rogue" DAs. One of them is Fulton County's top cop, Fani Willis. Willis, I'm sure I don't have to remind you, is the DA who's about to decide whether to charge Donald Trump with interfering in Georgia's role in the 2020 election, most infamously delineated in Trump's call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger in which he said he needed, meaning Raffensberger needed, to "find 11,780 votes", one more than he needed to flip Georgia.

     One of the Republican proponents of this Orwellian bill was Burt Jones, current Lt. Governor of Georgia, who'd been targeted by Willis in connection to her investigation until he was rescued by a friendly, right wing judge last year before he was even elected. Jones, in case, you don't know, was one of the fake electors that had tried to supplant the real ones to throw the state's election results back in Trump's favor. And what was the judge's rationale for shielding Jones from scrutiny?

     Willis had (OMG!, clutch pearls here, please) attended a fundraiser for Jones' Democratic opponent, something that wouldn't raise an eyebrow in Republican circles. Because heaven forbid Democrats should show any partisan leanings like, for instance, trying to invalidate real, duly-elected electors and replace them with Republican pod people.

     So, that's why we're afflicted with the ridiculous sight of a former college wrestling coach chairing an important committee and a silly, pointless subcommittee. They didn't gerrymander their brains out and eke out a tiny, razor-thin majority in the House out of any maniacal desire to create jobs, combat inflation or lower the debt and deficit- It was so the American people don't realize between now and 2024 that the vast majority of them are criminals who should be sharing cells with the rioters at the DC lockup for whom Jordan is trying to provide cover.