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🇺🇸 Inquiry Initiated

🇺🇸 Inquiry Initiated

Plus, streets of wine!

September 14, 2023

Good morning, and happy Thursday. An Arizona pup is back in the loving arms of his family 12 long years after going missing from the backyard!

Plus, the streets of a Portuguese town ran red when two vats at a local distillery burst and released nearly 600,000 gallons of wine.

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Cavalcante Captured, Romney Retiring, Boebert Bounced

US: Danelo Cavalcante has been captured, thanks to a police dog and thermal imaging (NPR)

US: Romney announces he won't seek re-election in 2024, bashes Trump and Biden (FOX News)

US: Federal judge sidesteps Trump request to view classified info at Mar-a-Lago in protective order (The Hill)

US: Lauren Boebert removed from ‘Beetlejuice’ performance in Colorado after laughing and singing loudly (FOX News)

Business: Sky-high CEO pay is in focus as workers everywhere are demanding higher wages (NPR)

World: Flood death toll in eastern Libya reaches 5,300 with many more missing, officials say (ABC News)

World: North Korea’s Kim vows full support for Moscow at a summit with Putin in Russia (AP)

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CONGRESS

Inquiry Initiated

On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy directed three Republican-controlled House committees to begin a formal impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden over suspected involvement in his son’s business dealings. The inquiry will be led by Reps. James Comer, Jim Jordan, and Jason Smith.

Reporting from the Left: McCarthy calls for formal impeachment inquiry into Biden amid pressure from conservatives (CNN)

Reporting from the Right: McCarthy directs House committees to open formal impeachment inquiry into Biden’s alleged involvement with Hunter business dealings (New York Post)

From The Flag: “This logical next step will give our committees the full power to gather all the facts and answers for the American public,” McCarthy said. McCarthy is widely reported to be under pressure from some right-wing House Republicans, who have threatened to block government funding and remove McCarthy as speaker unless their demands, including an impeachment investigation, are met. Here’s what both sides are saying.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

This Is Absurd and Purely Political

McCarthy moving forward with an inquiry is less about Biden and more about protecting himself from the “right flank of his party.”
Republicans are playing a losing game in their effort to appease Donald Trump, and voters are growing increasingly weary of their “games.”
The DOJ’s 2020 opinion around Trump’s impeachment trial could place some serious constraints on House Republicans now.

The Real Aim of McCarthy’s Impeachment Inquiry Into Joe Biden Molly Ousted, Slate: “So why move toward impeachment now? There’s an obvious political motivation: McCarthy is attempting to fend off an attack from the right flank of his party. The Freedom Caucus wants to shut down the government, and McCarthy is hoping he can tempt it to keep the government running with an impeachment inquiry. Also, the GOP more generally is trying to damage Biden’s reputation ahead of the 2024 election. There is no evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor; instead, Republicans are desperately hoping that an impeachment inquiry will turn something up. In 2019, after Nancy Pelosi announced she was launching an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, McCarthy slammed her for doing so unilaterally, without holding a vote. He said as recently as Sept. 1 that he would launch an impeachment inquiry himself through a vote. Now he’s not doing that, presumably because he doesn’t have the votes.”

The GOP's Ill-Fated Biden Impeachment Inquiry Will Cost Republicans the House Yasmin Radjy, Newsweek: “While threatening a deeply unpopular government shutdown, these extreme right-wing Republicans (or, let's be honest, these Republicans) are now willing to hold our entire government hostage just to appease Donald Trump, despite the fact that months of GOP-led committee investigations have produced no evidence of any wrongdoing by President Biden. Republicans are wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money and countless hours of time that should be devoted to addressing the real needs of the American people. And swing district voters are taking note. … This GOP sideshow stands in stark contrast to the widely supported legislation that President Biden and fellow Democrats have enacted in recent years to address the everyday, real-life concerns of families and communities. … The majority of Americans are fed up with the GOP's distractions and dangerous agenda—and recent historic conservative defeats in Wisconsin and Ohio prove that voters aren't tuning out; they're showing up to the polls to defeat the radical right.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: How Donald Trump’s DOJ gave Biden a major assist in the coming impeachment probe Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, POLITICO

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Mixed: This Is Necessary vs. This Is Risky

We shouldn’t stop at Biden, and the corrupt FBI and DOJ officials who have been hiding evidence against Biden also need to be impeached.
There are legitimate concerns about Biden that need to be addressed, but it’s risky to do that without hurting Republicans in 2024.
Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd suggested that the impeachment inquiry may unintentionally help the incumbent.

Impeaching Biden Is The Right Call, But Don’t Stop With Him John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist: “he Biden family corruption scheme goes right through the White House and out into the vast bureaucracy of the executive branch, reaching to the top echelons of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department and a totally weaponized FBI. For example, the confidential FBI informant’s claim that Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each to get rid of a top Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma was memorialized in an FBI FD-1023 report that the FBI withheld from Congress for months. That report, it seems, was buried by a select few DOJ lawyers and FBI agents, as Margot Cleveland explained in these pages last week, and hidden from the IRS investigators looking at Hunter Biden’s finances. We know, too, that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who slow-walked the Hunter Biden investigation for years, tried to sneak a sweetheart plea deal for Hunter past a federal judge — but got caught, which is why the plea agreement fell apart.”

The Impeachment Risk, The Editors at National Review: “There is no doubt that Biden’s connection to his son Hunter Biden’s shady foreign business dealings is a serious matter that deserves a serious investigation and accountability to the public. … While all of this cries out for further investigation, McCarthy’s decision to open an impeachment inquiry is risky. One immediate issue is the matter of votes. McCarthy bypassed a floor vote on opening an inquiry, deciding instead to direct the relevant committees (Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means) to pursue this inquiry. This indicates that he did not have enough support among Republicans to get the requisite votes to open the inquiry. Now that he has taken this step, if Republicans don’t end up having the votes to pursue actual articles of impeachment, it will be touted by Biden as a full exoneration. If they do manage to impeach Biden, the Democratic Senate would never vote to convict him.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Will Hurd warns impeachment inquiry may boost Biden Naomi Lim, Washington Examiner

FLAG THIS

Impeachment Could Hurt Vulnerable Republicans

Results from the Democratically aligned Public Policy Polling found that in the 18 districts that backed Biden in 2020 and a House Republican in 2022, 56 percent of voters thought that an impeachment inquiry would be more focused on damaging Biden politically versus 41 percent who thought it would be about finding the truth (Roll Call).

Do you believe an impeachment/impeachment inquiry could hurt House Republicans in their 2024 prospects?

FLAG FINDS

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WATERCOOLER

Princess Grace, Sriracha Heat, McDonald-less Island

A Douglas C-54 Skymaster dropping candy over Berlin, c. 1948/49

On This Day in 1982: Princess Grace of Monaco — the American-born former film star Grace Kelly, whose movie credits include The Country Girl and Rear Window — dies at the age of 52 from injuries suffered after her car plunged off a mountain road near Monte Carlo.

Quartz: Sriracha: The good kind of heat

GQ: Sure, You're Drinking Apple Cider Vinegar. But Is It Actually Good For You?

Smithsonian Magazine: Inside the Effort to Prevent Conflict Between Humans and Elephants in Africa

Today I learned that the Faroe Islands are one of very few countries in Europe to have no McDonald’s outlets.

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