Think of the most extreme, most vitriolic, least responsible members of the GOP caucus in the House of Representatives. Think of the ones who defended the insurrection. Think of those who encouraged the effort to overturn our government. Speaker Kevin McCarthy just put them on the most important committee in the House, the one that will conduct investigations for the next two years.
Hunter Biden’s laptop! Hunter Biden’s Laptop! Jewish space lasers! QAnon! Pedophiles! The entire Biden family (unlike the Trump family) enriching themselves on your dime (please don’t bring up the $2 billion that the Saudis gave Jared Kushner after Biden took office!) Hunter Biden’s laptop! The hundreds of classified documents that Trump fought to hold onto for over a year, first claiming they were planted by the FBI, then claiming they were his personal property, and the small number of documents that Biden immediately turned over! Trump good, Biden bad! Laptop!
WASHINGTON — They were deeply involved in President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. They have come to the defense of people being prosecuted for participating in the deadly storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Some have called for violence against their political enemies online, embraced conspiracy theories or associated with white supremacists.
Several of the most extreme Republicans in Congress and those most closely allied with Mr. Trump have landed seats on the Oversight and Accountability Committee, the main investigative organ in the House. From that perch, they are poised to shape inquiries into the Biden administration and to serve as agents of Mr. Trump in litigating his grievances as he plots his re-election campaign.
Their appointments are the latest evidence that the new Republican majority is driven by a hard-right faction that has modeled itself in Mr. Trump’s image, shares his penchant for dealing in incendiary statements and misinformation, and is bent on using its newfound power to exact revenge on Democrats and President Biden.
Many of the panel’s new Republican members — including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania — are among Mr. Trump’s most devoted allies in Congress. Their appointments underscore that, while the former president may be a shrunken presence in the current political landscape, he still exerts much control over the base of his party.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’ll keep you plenty busy…
Revenge laced with hypocrisy. If they can’t find substance to their investigations, they will make it up – like the Jewish space lasers.
I don’t think TFG has control. They got a taste of being in the limelight and want it all. TFG is trying to get back to the camera lights and failing biggly to the point of ranting about more wrongs done to him and who is not showing loyalty to him.
When the German parliament met for the first time after the March 1933 elections, Social Democratic members were banned from attending and Communist Party members had all been thrown into jail or worse. So I guess, theoretically speaking, it could be worse? But republicans can dream, can’t they?
I am making popcorn now because this is going to be great theater. Rather than opposing these GOP crazies, I say stand back and give them an Obamaesque “Proceed.” I am betting on the fact that people are getting tired of meaningless distractions and want to see real actions taken against things like inflation, climate change, you know, real problems.
I can’t wait for them to bring up Hunter Biden’s laptop! Mafia Don’s FBI had a copy of the supposed hard drive from the supposed laptop for years and couldn’t squeeze anything out of it, so I say “have at it!” Oh, and be sure to detail the chain of evidence that proves it is Hunter Biden’s laptop and not just some prop. I can’t wait to see these incompetent buffoons try to convince anybody but a QAnon Internet audience of anything.
Rightwing circles have had the contents of the drive in Hunter Biden’s laptop for over two years. One rumor on Twitter is that there are “dick pix.”
See, real theater! A Congressional investigation into dick pix! Love it! There is a maxim that one should never interrupt someone when they are telling you who they really are. I think it applies here.
Possibly Kevin McCarthy is making a mistake thinking he can keep the crazies busy this way while he is trying to do actual business while they are consumed with righteous indignation.
I was thinking . . . maybe Kevin McCarthy should set up a recruitment desk over at the D.C. Jail. CBK
“So buckle your seatbelt, America. It looks like we’re in for a bumpy ride. Unless Speaker Kevin McCarthy can find his decency before our national plane crashes. Or pilot Biden can work a miracle.” from my column entitled, “America Faces a New McCarthyism,” appearing Sunday in the Chillicothe Gazette.
“Their appointments are the latest evidence that the new Republican majority is driven by a hard-right faction that has modeled itself in Mr. Trump’s image, shares his penchant…”
Nothing new here. I’ll say it again–this is what America is. Over 70 million voted for this, ENABLED by all the NON-voters who are supposedly opposed to this fascism and treason but can’t be bothered to vote, speak, or attend.
What republicans have done to the House Oversight Committee (who knows what it’s called now) is a lesson for what they want to do to the country. It started as a relatively obscure committee tasked to look at specific government programs’ expenditures, kind of like forensic accountants. The goal was to play “gotcha” but to address how money was being spent for what purposes, exactly what government should do.
When Jack Brooks joined the committee in the 1950s, he led the expansion of its mandate from specific programs to all executive branch operations. But with the same task: make government work more efficiently on behalf of citizens and taxpayers. During his time in senior leadership and as committee chair from 1975-1989 Brooks’s work helped the federal government transition to computer-based operations to streamline work, saving hundreds of millions of dollars and making the mechanisms of government work better. It was not sexy work, but essential.
When Newt Gingrich took charge in 1995, he put Dan Burton in charge of the committee. Back then he was arguably the furthest right of House republicans and it probably best remembered for his committee research of shooting a melon in his backyard to “replicate” the death of Vince Foster. Burton made a serious committee a partisan attack joke. We saw Elijah Cummings try to right the committee ship, but by then, the merciless partisanship and tribalism of republicans made it impossible to return to the committee’s roots.
Now it’s become a committee to give legal standing to the whitewash of treasonous behavior by appointing traitors to allow them to judge (absolve) themselves. It is so far from its roots of making government work on behalf of Americans that it would be worth disbanding if republicans don’t disband Congress first. Making the committee ineffective is part of a strategy to make governing ineffective and exhaust voters from caring.