The Last Shamble of Zombie John

 

     Trump once called him, "Bull Durham".

     John Durham's nearly four year-long probe into... something... was like watching a four year-long zombie show that promised much yet never seemed to deliver anything. If anything, John Durham was supposed to be the last magnificent zombie still walking (if you exempt the 300+ lunatics put on the federal bench between 2017-2021) after the Trump administration ended 28 months ago.

     Republicans have been bloviating about this all this time like walking convection ovens. "You just wait'll Daddy gets home! Then people will be put in handcuffs!"

     Except the John 3:16 we were promised turned out to be John's 316 page report that turned out to be the Big Bun Burger in that old Wendy's commercial.

     It consisted largely of material and facts that had long since passed into the public domain, and is notable only in that it brought two charges that were swiftly dismissed and one dog shit conviction that resulted in 400 hours of community service and no jail time.

     In short, it was supposed to be Donald Trump's long-delayed backlash from his saurean tail of his political death throes.

     It barked, it yipped, it made weak and non-binding policy recommendations but, in the end, it turned up no criminal wrong-doing on the part of the DOJ or the FBI. So, how did Republicans spin it?

     As you can expect, as if it was a great victory! This time, the 300 Spartans won at Thermopylae, Custer's men won at the Little Big Horn, the Red Sox won the 1986 World Series. And John Durham exposed corruption in the Department of Justice... that will never result in any charges. Cue the sad, fat man tuba music.

     While it came out to much right wing fanfare, its timing couldn't have been worse. Because it was just a couple of days ago that James Comer, chairman of the Oversight committee, admitted to Maria Bartiromo on Fox that he somehow lost his informant that, like Durham's report, was supposed to have exposed massive amounts of corruption of the Biden crime family.

     Until it didn't.

     We knew the 118th Congress was going to do this, especially when it became apparent the Neo Nazis were going to take over the House. We knew we were going to see a bunch of Big Bun investigations that would go bust.

     But even the most cynical of us, and I certainly count myself among that number, never anticipated they would be so fucking incompetent about it. Yes, even after Benghazi, after Whitewater, after the Monica impeachment, after all the countless, well, witch hunts on which the GOP had wasted countless millions of US tax dollars, after all that, even we didn't realize they'd turn up so little.

     Let's just look at today's examples of right wing projection:

     In the House, they had a Committee on Homeland Security's subcommittee meeting on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability hearing that was entitled, I kid you not, “‘Mostly Peaceful’: Countering Left-Wing Organized Violence.” The right wing brought out these so-called experts on violent left wing extremism such as Scott G. Erickson, a former deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security.

      Erickson tried to play the misdirection game by blaming, in his opening remarks, Antifa for left wing violence despite the fact that Antifa organizationally doesn't exist. He got a new one torn by Rep. Dan Goldman, who said,

     “You're trying to gaslight us up here as if Antifa, which Mr. Rosas, apparently the expert now in organized terrorist activity, has overruled the FBI director who says Antifa is an ideology not an organization. No, no, no. Let's not listen to the FBI director. Let's listen to the senior writer at Townhall, who is going to tell us that the FBI director is wrong.”

      Elsewhere during the hearing, there was the debacle between MTG and executive director of Integrity First for America Amy Spitalnick, whom Greene called "Spittleneck". At one point, Spitalnick openly began laughing at Greene because, really, who of any appreciable intelligence can resist laughing at her?

     Elsewhere on the Hill, there was a hearing on violence at the Capitol. No, not that violence that's resulted in over 550 convictions but violence committed by those people. Lauren Boebert got into it with Muriel Bowser, the mayor of DC, and wouldn't let her answer even one question without interrupting her.

     Yeah, I mentioned right wingers taking a victory lap around the dead carcass of the Durham Report. That's what Gym Jordan did in crowing about, oh projection, the politicization in government today, during a Weaponization hearing on federal law enforcement.

     That was all just today and I haven't even mentioned the right wing shenanigans in the Senate.

     If you want two more years of this sick, silly shit after 2024, then by all means, let the rodeo clowns keep the House. Just don't come crying to us about BLM or antifa when your party of choice has to admit they did absolutely nothing about getting back your job or your house or combating inflation for the last two years.