FEBRUARY 2024 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Marjorie Taylor Green R-Georgia). Green gave a doozy of an interview with right-wing podcast host Charlie Kirk to commiserate about House Republicans’ failed initial attempt vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Greene has been big mad about the failed vote and, like many of her pro-impeachment colleagues, is looking for someone—anyone—to blame, including Democrats for trying “to throw us off on the numbers.”

But Greene has plenty of disdain for the Republicans who voted against the bill too. When Kirk asked why Ken Buck of Colorado, Tom McClintock of California, and Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin voted against impeachment, Greene seemed flabbergasted—but didn’t rule out the possibility that “they’re being bribed.”

Kirk fed the Georgia congresswoman the utterly baseless idea, asking, “Do you think these people are being blackmailed by the intel agencies? They might have had relations with certain people and pictures and compromised. Do you think that they're currently being blackmailed?”

And Greene took the bait.

“You know, I have no proof of that, but again, I can't understand the vote. So, nothing surprises me in Washington, D.C. anymore, Charlie. Literally, nothing surprises me because—it doesn't make sense to anyone, right? Why would anyone vote no? Why would anyone protect Mayorkas unless they're being bribed, unless there's something going on, unless they're making a deal. You know, because you can't understand it. It makes no sense. And it's completely wrong to vote no on impeachment.

Greene also speculated that Buck, who is retiring, is “trying to get a job working for CNN like Adam Kinzinger.” She insisted that McClintock is clearly not a real “constitutionalist.” And after listing off all of Gallagher’s military intelligence and military bonafides, she concluded, “I can't understand why he made that vote. But he did.”

Greene might not understand it, but that doesn’t mean these Republican congressmen haven’t been clear and open about their reasons for voting against the impeachment stunt.

Gallagher explained his opposition in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, titled “Why I Voted Against the Alejandro Mayorkas Impeachment.”

“Creating a new, lower standard for impeachment, one without any clear limiting principle, wouldn’t secure the border or hold Mr. Biden accountable,” he wrote. “It would only pry open the Pandora’s box of perpetual impeachment.”

McClintock also explained his opposition in a speech on the House floor before Tuesday’s vote.

“Cabinet secretaries can't serve two masters. They can be impeached for committing a crime related to their office but not for carrying out presidential policy,” he said. “I'm afraid that stunts like this don't help."

On Wednesday, McClintock appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” to again defend his vote and responded to Greene saying McClintock needs to “read the room.

“I suggest she read the Constitution that she took an oath to support and defend,” he said. “That Constitution very clearly lays out the grounds for impeachment,” he said. “This dumbs down those grounds dramatically and would set a precedent that could be turned against the conservatives on the Supreme Court or a future Republican administration the moment the Democrats take control of the Congress.”

Nevertheless, Greene “can’t understand” why her Republican colleagues weren’t on board with her impeachment aspirations. It must be a conspiracy.

2. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.  On Tuesday, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz and 64 House Republicans presented a resolution to declare that Donald Trump “did not engage in insurrection or rebellion” related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Gaetz began the press conference by saying “We are here today to authoritatively express that President Trump did not commit an insurrection,”

More importantly, Gaetz made it clear that he plans to use this as a MAGA purity test. After thanking Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio for filing a companion bill in the Senate, Gaetz said, “And now it's time for members of the House and Senate to show where they stand on this question.” And just like that, Gaetz’s remarks were followed by a series of Republicans praising dear leader Trump and saying how the insurrection on Jan. 6 was a concoction by “leftists.”

“[What] we have seen is mass hysteria caused by you, the reckless leftist media,” said Rep. Andy Biggs. “That's what we've seen.”

Elise Ste-fan-ick! flanked Gaetz during the press conference, suggesting they’ve patched things up since the two spent October bickering at one another’s expense. Gaetz’s resolution reads in its entirety:

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that former President Donald J. Trump did not engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or give aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

You can flip the paper over if you don’t believe me.

The idea that after hundreds of arrests, convictions, and prison sentences—as well as a congressional investigation that left very little to the imagination about how very much Trump and his allies orchestrated the insurrection—the horrors of Jan. 6 should be forgotten with a single-sentence resolution is almost hallucinogenic! It also signals how Trump and his supporters expect the GOP to fall in line. Those who sign on to Gaetz’s resolution will be on a list that Trump can point to and threaten Republican officials with for however long he lives.

As of now, two names are conspicuously absent from the list of sponsors of the bill: Reps. Jim Jordan and James Comer, both of whom have been doing Trump’s dirty work as chairs of House oversight committees.

Maybe they are too busy not finding evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden to sign on to a bill as ludicrous as this one. Still it’s kind of mindboggling since Jordan will sign on to anything pretending that Jan. 6 never happened.

3. Senator Tom Cotton. At a Senate hearing on child safety in social media, Cotton jumped at the opportunity to display the depths of his pea brain, which should make him a perfect candidate for Trump’s VP. When it became his turn to ask questions, he blew past the part of the program where this hearing was supposed to be concerned with children. Instead, he went straight after TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew with a series of odd questions about Chew’s personal connections to “the Chinese Communist Party.”

When Chew tried repeatedly to make it clear that he was not from China, but Singapore, a small nation off the coast of Malaysia, some 1,200 miles from the nearest point in China, Cotton was not having it. Or, at least, not allowing Chew not being Chinese to keep him from asking questions that assumed Chew was Chinese.

Cotton didn’t quite get to “All Asians Look Like Commies To Me,” but he came close.

Cotton: You said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore. Of what nation are you a citizen?

Chew: Singapore.

Cotton: Are you a citizen of any other nation?

Chew: No, senator.

Cotton: Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship?

Chew: Senator, I served my nation of Singapore. No. I did not.

Cotton: Do you have a Singaporean passport?

Chew: Yes, and I served my military for two and a half years.

Cotton: Do you have any other passports?

Chew: No, senator.

[…]

Cotton: Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?

Chew: Senator, I’m Singaporean. No.

Cotton: Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?

Chew: No, senator. Again, I’m Singaporean.

Undaunted by Chew’s responses, Cotton later went on Fox News to claim that “Singapore, unfortunately, is one of the places in the world that has the highest degree of infiltration and influence by the Chinese Communist Party. So, Mr. Chew has a lot to answer for, for what his app is doing in America and why it’s doing it.”

Apparently, what Chew has to answer for is that he’s from Singapore. Unfortunately, Tom Cotton is from America.

4. Arizona Senate Candidate Kari Lake. For Lake, whose brand is bonkers—as in, bonkers is her brand—stepping back from the brink takes a level of skill and aplomb she simply doesn’t have.

The erstwhile news-reader, onetime gubernatorial candidate, and perpetual whiny loser is running to replace Kyrsten Sinema in the U.S. Senate. It appears Lake now wants Arizonans to ignore her conspiracy-peddling past—a past that suggests the chip George Soros implanted in her head eventually synced with her Dell desktop and has been alternately running Frogger and Flying Toasters for decades now.

In a Monday interview with Phoenix radio station KTAR, Lake claimed she doesn’t know who stole the election that she’s confidentially stated innumerable times was definitely stolen. She also insisted that she prefers to look forward, even though her previous backward-looking—to Donald Trump’s 2020 loss and her own in 2022—has consistently sown chaos and undermined faith in our elections.

The interview shifted to Lake’s ongoing efforts to overturn her loss in the 2022 gubernatorial race. Lake was asked who stole the election from her and how they did it. She noted that she wasn’t the one raising the issue, then conceded she lacked the details of the “rigged” election she has widely discussed.

“I don’t want to sit and look backwards,” Lake said. “These lawsuits are meant to make sure that going forward our elections are strong.”

Pressed again on her baseless allegation of theft, Lake said the elections “are run very poorly.”

“I don’t know who exactly stole the election, but there are a lot of people who are running elections poorly and we’ve seen the result,” Lake said. She noted that elections have featured long lines and Election Day tabulation problems.

Really? Long lines? Do tell. Of course, if every election featuring long lines were automatically presumed to have been stolen, America would have a hellaofalot of mulligans to mete out. But that seems unlikely now, doesn’t it?

A little more than a year ago, Lake was quite confident about who’d stolen the election from her. It was … everyone! Not just the Democrats but also crooked members of her own party as well

__________________________

And the February winner is:

I have to go with Senator Tom Cotton. The question I’m asking myself is whether Cotton purposely dumbs himself down to appeal to the ignoramuses in the Trump base or is the highly education army veteran really that dumb? Either way, he’s certainly worthy of an IGGY.