As the GOP House Burns, James Comer Keeps Sniffing Dick Pics
As of yesterday, the House had gone for 17 days without a Speaker. Patrick McHenry, McCarthy’s temporary replacement, says he no authority to do anything but schedule yet more futile votes (and, apparently, evict Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer).
The government has less than four weeks of funding.
It’s not clear anything set up by McCarthy before his deposition should be proceeding.
But all the while — this entire time that House Republicans have been struggling to fulfil the most basic function of government — James Comer and his staffers have been hunched in a dark room somewhere, feverishly pursuing the same delusions of dick pics and … personal loans!! … they’ve been frothing over since January.
And so it was on Friday afternoon, after Jim Jordan’s third humiliating defeat in the House, that Comer ran out, like a child discovering a dead frog in a gutter, waving a check.
It was a check that James Biden — the President’s brother — used to pay off a personal loan on March 1, 2018, over a year after Joe Biden left the Naval Observatory, years before Joe Biden entered the White House, and six weeks after his brother gave him that loan.
As Democrats explained minutes after James Comer ran out waving his dead frog, after 3 million people had already poked around at Jamey’s dead frog, Joe Biden loaned his brother $200,000 six weeks earlier.
James Biden paid it off.
As of this moment, 8 million people have excited themselves with Comer’s transparent bullshit about that check, all the while Comer and Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise have proven themselves impotent to do the most basic things Nancy Pelosi did — in heels and backward — to keep the House running for years.
While millions of fragile-minded dupes glee over a check between brothers, Republicans haven’t managed to keep the House open or fund the Government.
Some guy from Kentucky fiddling while the House burns.
In the weeks since Comer got his stash of (as Democrats described) another 1,400 records payments for, “life insurance policies, doctor visits, holiday and birthday presents, groceries, vet visits and pet care, and plumbing repairs” and Matt Gaetz deposed the Speaker, the Trump Organization fraud trial in NYC has shown:
- Eric Trump claimed he “pour[ed] concrete” rather than dealt with the appraiser who described that he had “lofty ideas” about valuation
- Trump’s retired CFO and co-defendant Allen Weisselberg,
- Professed to be unable to answer 90 questions
- Claimed his $2 million severance had nothing to do with his criminal tax penalty, to say nothing of his forgetfulness
- Was accused, by Forbes, of lying on the stand about his involvement in Trump’s three-times inflation of his penthouses square footage
- Weisselberg’s son Jack was involved in key loans pertaining to Trump Tower and another NYC property
- Mazars complained that Trump Organization, “were not getting us all the documents” they needed to do their work
Every one of these is a scandal worth a congressional hearing. Every one of these should raise questions about whether the guy engaging in so much adjudged fraud while claiming it didn’t matter because he could just find some “buyer from Saudi Arabia” to make him good should be anywhere in politics, much less in the White house.
But instead, James Comer is waving his dripping dead frog around — a personal check for a personal loan between brothers — like he just found a $2 billion bribe from Saudi Arabia.
This is … fucking insane.
Republicans can’t keep their own caucus together. They may not be able to keep government open.
And all the while, James Comer is there writhing around about about easily debunked conspiracy theories about a personal loan.
The fraud trial details in the second half of this post, plus everything else coming up there, are absolutely wild.
I was struck by this little nugget that came out:
https://nitter.net/ChaseWithorn/status/1715021355958096199
“When we were estimating Trump’s net worth for The @Forbes 400, the Trump Org held up Steve Ekovich as an independent golf expert who could back up Trump’s lofty valuations. Here he is calling us “bastards always trying to tear people down” in an email to Allen Weisselberg…”
Contrast this to the incident where Cassidy Hutchinson’s Trump-funded attorney took a call from Maggie Haberman and assured Hutchinson not to worry because “Maggie’s friendly.”
Forbes has done fantastic work on Trump’s finances without being “friendly” or helping Trump throw up smokescreens. They showed traditional access games played by political reporters are highly overrated. Which may be part of the reason political reporters are wasting so much time on Comer instead.
Forbes ripped him several new ones and laid out a pretty good case for several perjuries in the Trumpco testamonies that the article covered.
The NY Times investigations desk did fantastic work uncovering Trump’s history of fraud, and if the top editors had made it a permanent assignment, they could have rivalled Forbes on the story. It’s a rare combination of great reading and important too. And it’s literally in their own backyard.
The Times clearly had the expertise at the reporting level to turn out coverage that would have made up for their weak sauce Clinton investigations under Raines and then Baquet.
Their top editors clearly dropped the ball. They’re in permanent follow-the-leader mode on this, when they even bother to cover the story.
I often have to look up names no doubt familiar to US readers. I note that Steve Ekovich is a golf-focused commercial real estate broker. My search also threw up the following:
Professor Steven Ekovich, American University of Paris. One of his papers is Listening to Donald Trump.
“Who really listens to Donald Trump? In many instances, his rambling verbiage makes him impossible to understand. But even when he is relatively clear his bombast and fulminations take away any credence that can be given to his voice.”
To be fair, Marcy, Comer and the GOP cannot imagine that anyone who managed to persuade their brother into giving them a $200K “loan” would dream of paying it back. It must be a fraudulent cover story!
/s
Never thought I’d be able to point out an errant comma in peterr’s comments, being a great comma-tator myself. I think that comma after “Marcy” actually adds her to the list of those that can’t imagine. I may be way off base, so I’ll eat, shoot, and leave.
Shoots are tastier, if you are a grammatical Panda.
Oh but Peterr is vindicated by the comma BEFORE Marcy (along with the comma after).
We may all need to eat shoots and leaves.
I agree about the vindication. But we should all leave, before bmaz shoots a spike.
I agree that, taken out of context, Peterr’s sentence could be read equally as either addressing ‘Marcy’ or including ‘Marcy’ in a list of those who “cannot imagine …”. Fortunately, we have the context of knowing that Peterr is posting a response to a blog post, writtten by ‘Marcy’. Ah, English.
I’m not clear, however, how removing the comma after ‘Marcy’ would alleviate any potential confusion. It would then read that “Marcy Comer and the GOP cannot imagine …” No idea who ‘Marcy Comer’ is…
Tough call on this one, but the comma after Marcy is justified. Without it, the sentence reads as if there is someone named Marcy Comer who “cannot imagine….”
This is also a case of the value of the Oxford comma. There is no comma here after Comer, which links Comer and the GOP (appropriately) as those lacking imagination. That’s why using the Oxford comma almost invariably makes sense.
IANAL but I am an old English teacher (IAAOET). The sentence is confirmed as written. First and ten, Peterr.
I, too, identify as AAOET. It’s an appositive; the Oxford comma plays no part. All good, Peterr.
To be fair, LaMissy!, Peterr refers to Marcy once in that construction; he’s not renaming a prior reference to her.
Hey, Marcy: to be fair, Comer and the GOP…
…. and thus began commagate,
Which the republicans/MSM will push with all their might to take the focus off the even enlarging clusterfuck they and their party have become.
The comma debate could run all day, but bear in mind that a unused/stray comma could easily be sharpened into a shiv!!
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That’s an “appositive”. From Scribbr, that’s a “noun phrase that comes after another noun phrase (its antecedent) to provide extra information about it”.
Oops, my bad. Disregard.
Too bad WordPress removed the edit function.
Peterr’s construction is fine. It’s an interjection, folks, that specifies the person to whom he is speaking about what “Comer and the GOP” cannot imagine. Adding the Oxford comma after “Comer” would make no sense. But, hey, to be fair, rephrasing the statement and adding a colon seems forced, too formal, and inelegant.
I think an em-dash works: To be fair, Marcy – Comer and the GOP… Possibly it’s best to leave out the appositive “Marcy” altogether, though.
Agree that Peter is correct. And yes, no call for a comma after Comer as it isn’t a list of multiple items, but only two items.
Come ‘ere, Comer, come. A comma!
Comer, Comer, Comer, Come on conman Comer,
Yeah, you’re fallin’ flat
Comer, Comer, Comer, Comeon conman Comer
You just don’t wanna see-ee-ee-ee…
Here is the main thing I wanna say
Your head is stuck where there’s no light of the day
You can’t take the truth and your brain is fryin’ in a pan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXI43zGeyu4
The responses here are hilarious. Thank you, one and all.
Oh, and the Oxford comma rules.
Speaking of shivs, Rayne makes a pointed observation here:
https://mstdn.social/@raynetoday/111279830236147253
I shared the image above in this thread. LOL
LOL.
A 23-comment thread (so far) about punctuation. Hmmm.
I think it’s called threadjacking.
Not “thread-jacking?”
25
I meant what I said. And, yeah, when you are suddenly responding to everything all the time, it really is kind of thread jacking. There are only a couple of us here curating all the comments. Many of yours are quite unnecessary. Think brevity and where your response actually adds something.
No lo puntendere. I’m OK on brevity but do have a certain penchant for the occaisonal hijack-causing comment.
Lol, you will be fine.
IWAETFTYBS
I was an English teacher for three years but survived. Without a comma.
I’ve got $200,000, Pat. Can I buy a comma?
Or write “Marcy, to be fair, …”
While I am sure the check story is making hearts quiver in Buffoonistan, I knew about it (before this post) only because it happened to be on during my daily 15-second temperature check at Newsmax.
Otherwise, although I watch C-SPAN, CNN and MSNBC, listen to Bloomberg and NPR and read six newspapers, I missed it in all those places, either because it wasn’t there or was buried.
Republicans in Congress seem to be satisfied, sometimes even gleeful about Comer’s work, but I don’t think it’s getting nearly the traction they think. It almost never gets a mention on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal call-ins.
We drove past a breakfast place through lockdown, it survived, and we finally decided to try it. Walked in, one big screen that everyone could see. It was Newsmax. We walked out, checked our temperatures, and left a review on Google. Bellingham, MA as it happens.
Parts of MA are redder than it’s comfortable to think about.
Same with ME.
Especially, in ME 2. Thankfully, I live in ME-1 in York, but it’s a much more purple state than Mass.
If we didn’t have a hide bound Gov and Dem leadership, we might consider leftward gerrymandering that could spare us having an R elector every 4 years, and maybe get someone bluer than Golden in the House.
Why there isn’t a concerted Dem gerrymandering movement going on in all blue legislatures, given that the SCOTUS has deemed it the law of the land, blows my mind.
4907 “wrongs” don’t make a “right”, but can mark a “Right”.
Especially, in ME 2. Thankfully, I live in York (ME-1), but it’s a much more purple state than Mass.
Took wife to doctor. Newsmax magazines in waiting room. Did not inspire my confidence in him. See, this is the thing with MAGA: it’s not just about a difference of opinion on political matters, it’s about facts vs. fantasy.
If I saw that in my doc’s office, in my idealistic version of myself, I would take it up to the receptionist and say “This is why I’m asking you right now to cancel my appt and begin assembling my charts and history to be sent to another practitioner as soon as I can identify one for you. Please tell your boss I can’t trust my health to someone who has trouble facing reality.” And I would say it loud enough for the waiting room to hear it.
Then I would go online, like David above did, and let the ether know what that doc was about.
That’s not a slam on your visit with your wife; that’s her call obviously and maybe waiting to find and schedule with a new doc was not in the cards — and whether I myself would be able to do what I just described on the spur of the blindsided moment is definitely subject to question, But that’s what I hope I could pull off.
In the interests of honesty, there was a situation last year where I was blindsided by FOX being on the overhead screen behind the counter at my plumbing supply house, and I didn’t have the balls to call them on it. I did decide to do it on my next visit, but when that came about a few months later, there was hunting programing on. Maybe someone else (or several someones) had read them their riot act(s) (we live on the cusp of District 2). Then, I went again about a month ago and the screens had been taken down. Maybe their MAGA customers climbed on them for not showing FOX? It was altogether a great change, in any event.
Bruce F. Cole,
Yes, I thought about leaving that doctor but we didn’t have an alternative at the time. He was recommended by her primary dr. Fortunately the issue she was having resolved without needing to see him again.
I haven’t watched much Newsmax but from the little I’ve seen it’s even worse than Fox.
I traveled a lot for work from 2016 up until COVID hit. One Hampton Inn I frequented in Ohio had TVs that auto-tuned to Faux Newz instead of guide when you turned them on. I complained to the front desk to no avail and I chose a different hotel the next time I was in town.
I guess, since I am a violinist, I am the only reader who noticed that the violin pictured above has no bridge, and therefore would make no sound at all if someone attempted to play it. Perhaps Marcy is trying to say that even though there are strings attached, Comer’s conspiracy theory is a bridge too far.
As ever, this is a great post and a most informative and satisfying read.
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I thought it was a ref to Nero fiddling while Rome burned? Didn’t notice that the bridge was missing. That actually enhances the reference, though.
Not that smart, though I went through some things trying to figure out what kind of fiddle I wanted to use to illustrate it.
Well an unplayable one certainly fit the bill.
Comer is like a drug addict who ran out of drugs. He ransacked the medicine cabinet and now is ingesting the the cleaning supplies for his next fix.
The comments about the comma are right on point, although it is not a question of “grammar” (in its broader sense). Remember that right now a case is pending in the Supreme Court to decide whether “and” in its context means “and” or, perhaps, “or”. Commas are correctly used to separate phrases, items in lists, and similar parts of sentences, just as conjunctions are used to make lists. But when you have multiple points of separation, or complicated lists, correct usage doesn’t necessarily lead to clarity. That is why in contracts or logical discussions it is sometimes best to use a variety of means of grouping or separation — things like dashes, parentheses, semicolons, colons, and the like — to show the larger structure of the sentence. So a somewhat playful, somewhat picky comment reveals a sometimes crucial point.
Short sentences and action verbs are your friends.
10/19/23 [approx.] 7:00 PM ET Jack Smith [emphasis added]:
10/20/23 2:30 PM ET COMER waves his dripping dead frog around like he just found a $2 billion bribe from Saudi Arabia. – Marcy
Maybe COMER and the REProbates are beginning to realize they may BE the frogs.
Perhaps Comer is auditioning for the Speaker’s position in the House.
You know how Trump & Republicans love performative art.
I remember years ago standing in the Kroger checkout, commenting to a nice older lady just ahead about a National Enquirer headline, “You know. This birth certificate thing is just ridiculous. Obama was born in Hawaii” and she said, “Well, if there’s nothing to it, why are so many people talking about it?”
The correct rejoinder to that would be “Because they are idiots.”
I’ve been depressed to gradually realize over the last ~8 years how most people will believe vacuous nonsense, just because they want to. Its like they never learned to think critically, or to consider the source of info before they accept it and integrate it into their beliefs about the world. When people don’t make an effort to actually understand the world they live in, they’re at the mercy of whatever charlatan or grifter tells them whatever they want to hear, and thats a problem for all of us. It leads to Trump riding down a golden escalator saying Mexico is sending lots of criminals and rapists to the US and the rest is history.
I think Wetzel’s observation is actually the correct one. Average people didn’t start following birtherism out of the blue — there was a dedicated PR campaign to make it happen and create the idea that it was valid.
And it was enabled not only by the tabloids and Fox, but by a lot of the establishment press back when it launched that was happy to treat it as a contoversy open for debate rather than a flat out smear campaign. It was a subject for evenhanded both sides thinking and horse race analysis, rather than a warning sign of how rotten the GOP had become.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/business/media/25birther.html
For many, it’s just entertainment.
Once I wnt to a fundie church to hear Henry Morris lecture about evolution, which if you read my newspaper you would think was a hot issue.
After Morris concluded, hte preacher asked” ‘What are you going to do about it’
The answer was, nothing.
It can get dicey when nitwits are given an easy chance to cast a vote, but for most of these issues for most people, it’s not deeply engaged. Just recreation.
They don’t really accept that garlic and vinegar is a universal panacea either.
“When Republicans are in power in 2023, we will use every tool at our disposal to get answers for the American people and hold accountable those who have shielded the truth.”
James Comer – FOX News 1 year ago
Well, you gotta hand it to him: he’s definitely a tool.
They’ve definitely gone after many who attempted to shield the truth from their attacks.
Laptop Comer
Pilfer, grab, snatch and plunder,
With the stress Matt Schlapp is under,
Is it really a damn wonder
you may rip more lives asunder?
From Durham to something dumber,
With this next up and comer,
As Nixon might say to Trump’s plumber,
What’s in store for this summer?
Getting down to the nitty-gritty,
Digging dirt, the Dim-Sight Committee,
Like Stone’s “but it ain’t pretty,”
hits rock bottom, what a pity.
I wouldn’t want to speculate
who were the ones to peculate,
That might only germinate
something in the fourth estate.
With frothers & their master foamer,
Will this Mr. Laptop Comer,
such a rich and fertile loamer,
be remembered like a Teapot Domer?
Pluck, pinch, swipe and pillage,
How will this impact our millage?
Don’t you know it takes a village
to contain your sleazy spillage?
2/4/23
Woah! Brilliant!
So regarding the title photo:
Comer is to Nero as __________ is to ____________?
Nero wasn’t even in Rome for the fire. Contemporary documents show he was at his ocean front villa. That slander was by the Comers of that time, and carry the narrative to this day
Did Nero have to be in Rome, while he ignored its peril and metaphorically, at least, played the fiddle? It would seem safer for the emperor to have been elsewhere.
Shakespeare also got it wrong in Henry VI, where he has Talbot proclaiming that he, like Nero, will “Play on the lute, beholding the (French) towns burn.” Not the only mistake Bill made, for sure. He at least he got the instrument right, (Nero being a player of a proto-lute which is itself a proto-guitar).
But it’s just a saying, it’s not a fact/ so let’s not worry that it’s not exact.
How would Commer aquire a cheque which was between brothers? Aren’t there banking and privacy laws which prohibit that sort of thing?
Why would anyone be interested in a cheque between two brothers or siblings of any sort, unless one was paying the other to murder some one or was blackmailing some one.
It boggles the mind that the GOP is spending so much time doing nothing but participating in the political equivilant of a “circle jerk”.
It doesn’t make any sense to have a game rule which stipulates you have to have a speaker before you can do the business of the country. Its time there is a change to the game rules.
Preventing your country from doing the business of the country and potentially defunding the government sounds more like an act of treason than doing business.
The history books could end up with “how did the U.S.A. end” It ended because a group of people decided to not pay the countries bills and the group could not/would not, elect a speaker , without whom that arm of government could not function.
Its obvious to me, these GOPers are not ready for prime time. They wouldn’t even graduate from pre school. They all seemed so pleased with kicking Pelosi out of her office. How does that make the country more secure, improve infrastructure, defend the country, pay government workers their salary, or keep the lights and computers on?
Doubt that a court would issue a subpoena/warrant for those personal records with no cause. Only Congress on a wild goose chase- ten years in 1,400 pages. The kicker isn’t just that Comer didn’t admit to the outgoing check (the loan), but that the repayment is on personal account of James & wife. (And there was a similar set of transactions in 2017). Another nothing burger but making a lot of noise. Compared to his other shenanigans, this one easily shows Comer’s perfidy.
Republicans seem to fatuously believe that when a Democrat becomes president, every financial transaction in their past is open to Congressional scrutiny. Bill and Hillary Clinton invested less than $75,000 in the Whitewater Development Co. with James McDougal in 1978. Fourteen years later, it was front page news in the NYT and spurred years of investigation and the first formal impeachment since Andrew Johnson. 14 years! Most people don’t realize the time lag involved. Biden is going to be subjected to the same or worse nit-picking. I hope Biden sues Comer into bankruptcy after this witchhunt is over,
Comer is constantly coming after dick picks.