Heavy with heat this late afternoon as all the ‘cool and nice‘ of this morning is way-gone — just now out in the backyard doing a B&M (Wine-Wood-tip) while it being 105-degrees with the air stroked-dense like a dry watercolor.

Back inside at the laptop with the AC blasting — so also in the news right now is another heavy item that will get much heavier as time goes on:

Yikes, no https://t.co/0HMFQoJ4VU

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) July 19, 2021

Nancy Pelosi late last month led a move to establish a House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 insurrection/riot at the US Capitol, a backup plan after Senate Republicans shot-down the formation of a bipartisan, independent 9/11-style commission on the attack. Rules of the committee sitting the 13 members: Pelosi would name eight, Keven McCarthy would select five.
A couple of days later, Pelosi named her group, which also included Liz Cheney, the only Republican.

So far — McCarthy always acts the whiny asshole, and with the committee, he’s been seemingly put-off by it, reportedly at one point threatening Republican members if they agreed to Pelosi’s selection. He says he was bullshitting, or something.
Today McCarthy made a move, naming his five selections, one being the mega-asshole Gym Jordan.

Seemingly, along with Jordan, it’ll be these guys (via Forbes late this afternoon):

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a GOP rising star and the leader of the powerful Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservatives that includes the majority of House Republicans, has been tapped as the ranking member.
…
Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), the chair of the House Administration Committee and a relative moderate in his caucus who was one of 35 House Republicans to vote to create a bipartisan commission to probe the attack, which was blocked by Senate Republicans.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), one of seven House Republicans who signed a letter criticizing objections to President Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, which a majority of House Republicans voted for even after the Jan. 6 attack.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), the only freshman on the list and a former county sheriff who, like Banks and Jordan, voted for objections to Biden’s victory.

Banks, Jordan and Nehls are part of the 139 House Republicans who voted to overturn the election last November in Arizona and Pennsylvania; Davis and Armstrong voted to certify it. Banks and Jordan also signed onto the huge Texas lawsuit seeking to throw-out millions of ballots in four battleground states — itself quickly thrown-out by the Supreme Court.
What a bunch. Although supposedly Pelosi has final okay on McCarthy’s crew, it’ll most-likely stay — and with Jordan on the panel, nasty, real-dumb shit will crank. McCarthy is a dick — some background on the announcement via The Washington Post, also this afternoon:

The lawmakers met with McCarthy in his office at the Capitol Monday evening.
Afterward, Banks said in a statement that he has accepted McCarthy’s invitation to serve as the top Republican on the panel “because we need leaders who will force the Democrats and the media to answer questions so far ignored.”

McCarthy traveled to Bedminister, N.J., last week to talk about the midterm elections with former president Donald Trump.
But he told reporters at the Capitol Monday night that his picks for the committee were not a point of discussion.
“I’ve never talked to Donald Trump about this,” McCarthy said.

Yet full-frontal T-Rumpism came on display fairly fast — further from the Post:

McCarthy’s choice for lead Republican on the panel, however, came out swinging against Democrats Monday night.

In his statement, Banks criticized Pelosi by name, arguing that the speaker “created this committee solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left’s authoritarian agenda.”
He also suggested the committee should focus not just on Jan. 6 but also on “the hundreds of violent political riots last summer,” a proposal that Democrats earlier rejected.

“I will not allow this committee to be turned into a forum for condemning millions of Americans because of their political beliefs,” Banks said.

Oh, shut the fuck-up…

Action today is just eight days away from the Select Committee’s first hearing, which is to feature testimony from law enforcement officers who were subject to some of the worst of violence during the insurrection.

(Image out front by illustrator and portrait painter, Tim O’Brien, and can be found here).