Kendall Stanley: Great, now what?

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!

If you think the House GOP went a little overboard a few years back in holding hearings on the death of U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, you’ve not seen anything yet.

And yes, the same Rep. Jim Jordan will be leading the charge to what will turn into, as Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarin calls it, “angertainment.” Think faux anger wrapped up with the tidy bow of a Congressional committee hearing.

After taking over control of the House after the 2022 election, Republican leaders wasted no time in coming up with a long list of investigations they want to undertake.

If the aforementioned Benghazi hearings were held to damage the political future of Hillary Clinton these new investigations take aim at Joe Biden and his family, notably his son Hunter.

Those headed for that hearing make no bones about the fact it is about Joe Biden. The committee has requested financial reports from the treasury department on Joe Biden, his brother and son.

The new round of letters from the committee come as House Republicans are looking to flex their investigative might and make good on promises to delve into the Biden family finances and alleged political influence over technology companies after Twitter temporarily suppressed a 2020 story about Hunter Biden and his laptop, according to a recent news story.

“Now that Democrats no longer have one-party rule in Washington, oversight and accountability are coming,” Comer said of his panel’s investigation into Hunter Biden and the Biden family’s business dealings. “This investigation is a top priority for House Republicans during the 118th Congress.”

Really, a top priority? One can think of many things that are a priority and none of them involve the Biden family.

And then there is the upcoming committee that will be checking on the “weaponization” of the FBI and the Department of Justice on whether their work has gone to advance the Democratic Party agenda. Stay tuned to a lot of demagoguing in that hearing room.

At the same time the Republicans moved to eliminate the ethics committee and have failed to toss newly sworn-in representative George Santos out of the chamber for what can only be described as a made from whole cloth resume and life. If the sky is blue, don’t trust him if he says it’s purple.

It should all make for good fun going forward, especially since House Speaker Kevin McCarthy allowed a change in the House rules that allows for any one member of the House to call for the removal of the speaker. We should all be making bets as to when the first time will come that a back-bencher or one of the chamber’s flame throwers will decide to make a name for themselves by calling for the removal of the speaker.

Since it took 15 rounds of voting to get McCarthy elected to the post, it will be interesting to see how many it will take to save his hide.

For the time being it’s hearings, hearings and more hearings.

Any thought that the House would actually start to consider legislation to improve the lot of hard-working Americans is a pipedream.

What in heaven’s name?

You can be forgiven if you think that something is completely whacko with the weather we’ve been having nationally this winter.

Northern Michigan has certainly seen its share of above normal temperatures and oddball snowfall — plenty in December but not so much lately. Plus it’s been dark, with the sun being a no show.

Communities in the middle lands in what is known as Tornado Alley have seen tornadoes already this year.

Pity the Californians, who’ve seen, as of the Jan. 13, up to 26 trillion gallons of rainfall mostly in the center of the state. Of greater help to the drought conditions that are endemic to the West and Southwest is the buildup of snowpack in the mountains, in some cases more than 200 percent above normal snowpack.

We’ve had rain a couple of times this winter in Arizona and more on the way, they say, which is good for us — we’ll take all that we can get.

Governor Katie Hobbs said she’s willing to work with legislators on the state’s water issues. High on that list is controlling the state’s groundwater. When a Saudi prince is capable of drawing all the water he needs to grow alfalfa to be shipped back home for his racing horses, you know you have a problem that is in dire need of correction.

New developments need to show plans for providing water for the next 100 years, so housing growth is being slowed in some areas around Phoenix.

I’m guessing they’ll be lucky to make it 50 years.

For the time being it would be nice to have weather that can be considered a little more settled.

— Kendall P. Stanley is retired editor of the News-Review. He can be contacted at kendallstanley@charter.net. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer and not necessarily of the Petoskey News-Review or its employees.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Kendall Stanley: Great, now what?