July 29, 2014

If you haven't received an email asking for donations to one group or another because impeachment is on the table, you're one of those rare birds who has your email filters set properly. For the rest of us, the inbox has been filled with appeals to donate so they won't impeach the president, or appeals from the Tea Party to donate so they can push Boehner to impeach the president.

John Boehner addressed this in his press conference this morning, calling the whole idea of impeachment a "scam" intended to raise money for Democrats.

Oh hello, pot! Meet kettle. Boehner's remarks unleashed a remarkable war of words between the White House, the Tea Party and the Republicans. Press Secretary Josh Earnest then shot back with a list of Republicans who have indeed called for impeachment.

"We've seen comments in recent months from Congressman Steve King from Iowa, Congressman Ted Yoho from Florida, Congressman Lou Barletta from Pennsylvania, the distinguished Congressman Steve Stockman from Texas; his fellow Texan Blake Farenthold has raised this prospect. We've even seen Kerry Bentivolio from Michigan call this a dream come true. I think that was about 9 or 10 months ago," Earnest said. "So that's an indication that if the case then maybe the Speaker should direct that attention and that message to members of his own conference."

That back-and-forth prompted John McCain to offer his own opinion on impeachment, which would seem to suggest that if Republicans just had enough votes in the Senate, it could happen.

"We're not gonna impeach the president of the United States. There just aren't the votes there even if we believed that it was warranted," McCain told host Mike Broomhead on Phoenix radio station KFYI.

The Arizona Republican instead encouraged electing a Republican Senate majority as a means of curbing the President's "misbehavior." He also said that impeachment talk among more conservative Republicans presents Democrats with an easy opportunity to fundraise against the GOP.

All the talk of impeachment is, of course, intended to elect that Republican Senate majority. If they're stupid enough to energize the Democratic base with their hard-right extremist wing, Democrats are going to fundraise. That's how it works.

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-CrazyandStupid) recently tweeted that the president actually wants to be impeached to avoid some kind of electoral bloodbath in November.

Impeachment talk has been fattening Teabirchers' coffers for weeks now. They're just upset because they're not the only ones playing that game.

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