Ousting Honest Competence and Dissing Valor

...and one very little man doing a favor for another very little man

"Concerns from Mar-a-Lago" led to Intelligence Chair ouster

When Republicans won control of Congress in 2022, Ohio’s Mike Turner — who had served as Ranking Member when Democrats held the majority, became Chair of the Intelligence Committee.

He is a staunch supporter of NATO, and for supporting Ukraine.

Among his other sins was being one of the few of Republicans in Congress who voted to certify the 2020 election results. Want more evidence of his perfidy? He was one of 46 Republican representatives who voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify the right to same-sex marriage in federal law.

So, with Trump about to be inaugurated, Turner had to go. Little Mike Johnson did the deed, at the bidding of “Mar-a-Lago.” CBS’s Margaret Brennan posted on Twitter:

I spoke with House intel chair Mike Turner (R-OH) who told me that Speaker Johnson has fired him as chair of the committee overseeing the intelligence community. Johnson cited "concerns from Mar a Lago" as justification for the removal. Rep Jim Himes (D-CT) tells CBS that this "just sends a shiver down my spine."

Mr. Turner, who emerged from a meeting with the speaker on Wednesday afternoon looking furious, has told people that Mr. Johnson informed him his ouster was the result of a request from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, according to a person familiar with those conversations.

This was not the first depredation visited on the Intelligence Committee; Johnson earlier appointed lead congressional seditionist Scott Perry, and lead congressional pill-pusher and clown Ronny Jackson to that committee. Turner will no longer have a seat on the Intelligence panel.

Thus continues the purge of the honest, capable, and honorable and the empowerment of the weak, gutless, and imcompetents.

Hold off on getting too giddy over the “peaceful transfer of power”

I was born in 1950. Early on I discovered what was to be a lifelong passion for history and current events. But never – until 2020 – had I heard the phrase “peaceful transfer of power” uttered or written about the United States. That phrase was reserved for the countries that required folks from the Carter Center or other independent election monitors, like Afghanistan, the Philippines or Iraq.

So it was weird to see and hear all of the self-congratulatory hoopla about Congress certifying Trump’s (narrow 49.9% to 48.4%) win without anyone trying to overturn it.

But despite that, what do you think would have happened had the count been reversed? Peaceful transfer of power?

My ass.

Jamelle Bouie discusses it much more eloquently here:

…“Today, America’s democracy stood,” Vice President Kamala Harris declared, after she presided over the session that certifed her defeat by Donald Trump in November. The previous vice president, Mike Pence, said, similarly, that he welcomed “the return of order and civility to these historic proceedings.” Trump, of course, said it was “A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY.”

But we don’t actually know if we have restored the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power. The catalyst for Jan. 6, 2021, was that Trump lost the presidential election. If he had won, there would have been no rally, no mob, no riot, no attempt to overturn the foundations of constitutional government in the United States.

Imagine if Trump had lost the 2024 presidential election. Having laid the groundwork for it throughout the presidential race, he would have immediately accused Democrats of fraud. We all know that his allies in the Republican Party (which is to say, the Republican Party) would have immediately moved to try to question, undermine and even invalidate the results. And we all know that a raging, vengeful Trump would have tried, again, to overturn the results after the fact.

In fact, Republicans are even now trying to steal a Supreme Court seat they lost in November in NC — a state that in many ways has been theri lead laboratory in suppressing the will of voters and stealing elections. (The gravity of a GOP election challenge in N.C.: ‘Invites incredible mischief’.)

It’s their playbook…if voter suppression doesn’t work…go on to other means.

Little Mike humors Trump and Disses officers who saved his little ass

In accordance with the U.S. flag code, President Biden ordered flags to be lowered through the end of January out of respect for former President Jimmy Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100. This would leave them at half-mast during Trump’s inauguration. This made DJT unhappy, "Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let's see how it plays out," he wrote on Jan. 3.

So the Speaker ordered the flags at the Capitol to fly at full mast on January 20. One very little man doing a favor for another very little man.

Meanwhile, four years after the Capitol Police saved him and his colleagues from the Trump J-6 mob, Johnson continues to block installation of a plaque honoring the heroism of those officers. This foot-dragging is perhaps because of his central role in fomenting that violence.

Michael Fanone, a DC Police Officer who rushed to the aid of the overwhelmed Capitol Police on 1/6/21: “I’m most concerned about the potential for violence and acts of violence that will continue not just against me but members of my family.My concern is that people are going to believe that if they attack me or members of my family physically that Donald Trump will absolve them of their acts, and who is to say he wouldn’t.” — NY Times . Photo by Kenny Holston/The New York Times

…And dontcha know the J-6 “hostages” will be romping free before that plaque is put in place.