Jim Jordan Dragged Martin Estrada Away from Fighting Fentanyl To Chase Hunter Biden’s Dick Pics
Yesterday, Ohio Senator JD Vance gave a speech explaining that he is holding up the confirmation of a US Attorney candidate for his own state because Donald Trump is being prosecuted for stealing classified documents but — Vance claimed in an earlier version of this rant — “the President and his family [go] completely untouched.”
Meanwhile, yesterday’s version of Vance’s harangue claimed that “it is Joe Biden’s border policies that have invited this fentanyl into our country at record levels.”
It’s an interesting take, given that Republicans keep dragging law enforcement away from fighting the fentanyl crisis so they can explain that the conspiracy theories right wingers believe about the investigation into Hunter Biden are false.
In a July hearing where both Jim Jordan and now-Speaker Mike Johnson complained — relying on Terry Doughty’s badly misinformed opinion — that (they claimed) the FBI had prevented millions of people from sniffing Hunter Biden’s dick pics before the 2020 election, Chris Wray pointed to the impact two drug busts had had in Marion, Ohio.
Just last month, for instance, the FBI charged 31 members of two drug trafficking organizations responsible for distributing dangerous drugs like fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine throughout the area around Marion, Ohio. In that one investigation, run out of the FBI’s 2-man office in Mansfield, we worked with partners in multiple local police departments and sheriff’s offices to take kilos of fentanyl off Marion’s streets, enough lethal doses, I should add, to kill the entire population of Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, combined.
As I noted at the time, this was good staff work. Marion, Mansfield, and Lorrain are all in Jim Jordan’s district (and so all obviously constituents of Vance, as well).
Jim Jordan took time out of Chris Wray’s day so he could complain about Hunter Biden’s dick pics, while ignoring the drug problems facing his own constituents.
It’s not just Wray.
In testimony last week before Jordan’s committee, the US Attorney for Los Angeles, Martin Estrada, struggled to explain to Jordan’s staffers why his own top AUSAs didn’t think it smart to reallocate prosecutors to partner on the Hunter Biden investigation at a time his office was 40 prosecutors short of the number they’re supposed to have. As Estrada explained, instead, CDCA granted Special AUSA status to some prosecutors from Delaware and had done so even as Gary Shapley wailed that nothing was going on in LA.
Jordan’s top aide Steve Castor was incredulous that Estrada wouldn’t know specific details about what the Delaware prosecutors granted Special Assistant status to pursue a case against Hunter Biden in LA were doing.
I mean, this is a potential prosecution of the President’s son. If the lawyers from the District of Delaware were out in your district discussing the case, don’t you think you’d know about it?
When Estrada tried to get Castor to understand how different the priorities looked when you were running the country’s biggest US Attorney’s office, fentanyl was the first thing he raised.
I think a little context would be helpful. So, as I said, we have the largest district in the country. We have a Fentanyl epidemic which is one of the worst in the country’s. We’ve done more death-resulting cases than any other district in the country. We’re on pace to do more this year than we ever had before.
[snip]
There are a lot of high-profile cases, so I don’t meet with attorneys on every single high-profile case.
[snip]
We have a fentanyl epidemic. That includes not just death-resulting cases, it includes going after cartels which are distributing these pills, not just in powder form but in pill form. We routinely seize over a million pills at a time from vehicles, and we need to prosecute those cases. Each pill could be a death. And routinely now we’re finding cartels transporting fentanyl in liquid form, which is a new thing that they’re doing. So we have to do those cases.
Republicans claim to care about the fentanyl crisis. But in reality, they keep proving that they care more about Hunter Biden’s dick pics than they do about their troubled constituents in Marion, OH.
I would otherwise say that this fentanyl border obsession is a sign that they’re giving up on HBDPs but I also know that the GOP obsession with HRC hasn’t abated.
Benghazi was investigated 11 times even though the real root cause was the cutting of security budgets by House GOPs in the State Department led to the vulnerability. Because they had the gavel (and a compliant press) they could steer the search where they wanted, and that search found nothing at all. Even MyKev admitted as much before being shushed by Ryan. We’ll see if the HBDP show beats that record.
You would think that the GQP would celebrate every seizure of fentanyl at the border, but instead they point at those as “failures”. What they think “success” looks like is something they have yet to explain.
Don’t ask for rational thought from these guys, recall how everything was ‘good news for McCain’ in 2008 when it was apparent early on how much people hated Shrub and were taking it out on John McCain?
Fentanyl is a tool to hit Biden with. It’s not otherwise important to these Republicans who makes or uses it, or what the social costs are of its abuse. If JD Vance cared about those things, he wouldn’t divert resources from the fight over illegal access to fentanyl in his state, in order to score political points against a political opponent.
Whether Vance or any other GOP cares or not, they’re terrified of their constituents. And now because the threats are worse than just being voted out.
Maybe Ohoians with family who die from overdoses in Jordan’s district should file a class action suit against him and Vance for diverting law enforcement’s attention away from going after the drug dealers and cartels. Some of those people might still have living family members if more attention was given to these cases. Or would this be thrown out because of the Speech and Debate clause protection Jordan and Vance have?
Sitting members of Congress are unlikely to ever be successfully sued for things they say in public during Committee hearings; there’s a very high bar to get around the Speech and Debate clause in the US Constitution first.
When people die of fentanyl MAGAs blame fentanyl and Biden.
When unvaxxed people die of covid MAGAs blame Biden and Fauci.
When people die of guns MAGAs blame everything but guns.
“16 million people died of covid. That’s worse than a nuclear bomb. We need to prevent this from happening again.”
-MAGA antivax senator Rand Paul without a trace of self-awareness on his anti-Fauci book tour
MAGA pro life logic is always fascinating.
It’s DARVO writ to scale: Deny the Abuse, Reverse Victim-Offender.
It’s never their fault but that of those who are trying to stop whatever is harming people, and whatever is harming people is what the abuser is doing by active malignance or overt neglect.
As long as no fetuses are harmed then all is well! Every sperm is sacred. Praise Jesus and Trump!
You mean Monty Python then…
https://youtu.be/71ebrJILTv4
Then religious males ought to stop being like Onan.
Indeed, but for the case of fentanyl deaths there is a significant minority who were victims of adulterated meds so they never knew what hit them.
Also, there’s been a big increase of ODs linked to adulterated street drugs.
justice.gov/opioidawareness/opioid-facts
When people die of guns
Mike [ethical game of Twister] JOHNSON, Preacher of the House:
That should be Mike [game of ethical Twister] JOHNSON
“When people die of guns MAGAs blame everything but guns.”
Indeed. Trying to explain to that group that guns facilitate murder is why guns are linked to murders. Utilizing fingernail clippers simply does not facilitate the same large-scale affect as using an AR-15 does when attempting to mass murder.
Perhaps using the word facilitate is too complex of an idea for some to grasp.
As the great Eddie Izzard once said: “they say that guns don’t kill people, people do, but I think the gun helps”.
Oops moderators I fat fingered my name above it should be JonathanW! Sorry. On my iPad so it didn’t auto fill.
Thank you for the advisory, no worries.
Does the Republicans not really caring about fentanyl really surprise anybody? It’s like everything else; Republicans only care about a particular topic as far as they can use it as a political weapon against the Dems. The only time you’ll hear Republicans mention fentanyl is when they scream about the “wide open border”, just like how the only time you’ll hear about mental health is when they scream about guns not being the cause of shootings, or how the only time you’ll hear about the deficit is when a Dem President is in place and they’re screaming about how it’s the Dem President’s fault…
Agreed that any positive policy can be used as a weapon. One of the reasons the right is essentially policy-free; there’s zero policy record to critique. There’s a record, but no record of accomplishment.
I also think there’s a new element to what’s happening now. It used to be as you say that any crisis could be blamed on Dems’ policy. Covid is an example where “failed liberal policy” is not just to blame, but the serious remedy is rejected as well.
And as far as crises go, there is still a sentiment among the right that cops, covid, fentanyl and lead pipes are killing the correct people. Their base demands to be disassociated from the serious solution, and GOP pols are driven by that sentiment.
As a multiplier effect, the right now doesn’t need to win with policy, so the elected members can be hammers instead of brains.
I thought Vance was intelligent. By keeping prosecutors from being confirmed means fewer prosecutions and more crime unpunished. So, he is generating a personal stance that hurts his community to spite Biden.
Yes.
In other news, even Republican senators are getting fed up with Tuberville’s ongoing blockade of over 400 military promotions.
I’ve long wondered what Tuberville’s endgame was for this. It has been obvious for a long time that his position will become untenable, if it isn’t already.
The only possible end-game would seem to be waiting until the 2024 election. Then, supposing Trump does win, the military candidates will be vetted for their Trump/MAGA affiliation.
Yet they continue to enable it for the most part. Basically, some GOP senators have started whining about it while doing not much to get enough votes to override his pigheaded powerplay. The hope on their part is that if something crappy happens to the US military, they can claim they were for being more prepared when really they were enabling Tuberville’s idiocy.
This reminds me of a David Letterman joke: “The National Enquirer is reporting that a new diet makes people smarter. Is this something the National Enquirer really wants to have happen?”
Yes, and sadly, that’s standard priority for a Republican.
Some of those Republicans do look a little slimy, to me. Perhaps they are more interested in seeing Hunter Biden’s dick than saving the lives of the people in their districts. Fent. kills. Jordan and the new speaker come across as christian nutbars. Every faith has extremists and those two come across as religious extremists. It has been my experience christian religious extremists are usually more interested in people’s genitals and what they are doing with them than dealing with poverty, lack of health care, the increasing rate of Black women’s mortality while pregnant and giving birth, drug addiction, homelessness, the list goes on.
OMG, these people out of touch. Its Joe Biden’s fault there is fent. coming across their borders????? Note to Republicans. It can easily be manufactured in any garage or shed in your country. I know this because from time to time the RCMP in Canada will raid a rural farm and find extensive manufacturing of fent. Sometimes in an abandoned building. My point is, fent is a home grown product. its just less expensive for it to be imported. It can be brought in from anywhere in the world in a container, easy. Customs doesn’t even check all containers, so its a free pass for all smugglers. Why aren’t they checked? Big business objected some years ago when it was suggested it might curb the importing of drugs. It would cost business too much. Decision made. save money not lives. So back to Jordon and the new speaker wanting to see pictures of Hunter Biden’s penis, well that is the conclusion I’ve come to. Gentlemen please take my word for it, there won’t be anything interesting about Hunter Biden’s penis. I’m sure its no different from yours.
Can the Republicans in the House of Representatives now get back to something important, like child poverty, passing budgets, homelessness, lack of health care, etc.
Come to think of it i ca’t remember any politician in Canada wanting to see a “dick pic” of the sons of other politicians. Perhaps some one could check the bottled water Jordan and the speaker are drinking.
Do you have a point, or naw?
The head line is about fent. and dick pics, Some of those republicans ought to get back to business. the whole business about the computer and pictures is such a waste of time and comedic at times.
Reminds me of James Pogue’s April 2022 Vanity Fair piece, THAT PREDATES EVERY SINGLE JONATHAN SWAN-INVOLVED NEWS ARTICLE ON THE SUBJECT, quoting Vance’s advice he’ll give Trump when he wins in 2024, fondly invoking Pres. Andrew Jackson: “Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, . . .stand before the country, and say. . .the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”
Among the things necessary to accomplish in this upcoming ‘extra-constitutional’ era, things that were essential to prevent our entire system of government from imploding, in Vance’s view, were to “seize the institutions of the left. . .And turn them against the left. . . like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program” . . .and to challenge “the entire constitutional order. . . to push back against it.”
. . .like Rome awaiting its Caesar, Pogue pontificates.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets
A long read, but essential to understanding the driving philosophy behind this ‘New Right’ movement. And to realize that what we know of these New Right takeover plans at this point, might equate to what we knew of the immensity and scope of the plans by conspirators who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, and the confidence we had gained by the year 2000 or so, that no matter the tactics any malevolent forces might try to employ, we had already proven that nothing could pose a serious threat to the structural integrity of those exceptionally strong steel towers. We understood the threat we faced, and said to ourselves “no problem, we got this.”