It was October 15th and President Joe Biden was pissed, fuming, from the soles of his shiny brogans to the tips of his little white mullet. He looked around the White House Situation Room at his gathered political team and growled: “We have an issue, people.”
“Yes sir, several,” said press secretary Jen Psaki, brightly, “and we’re tackling all of them today, as you’ll see. First, of course, we need to figure out what the heck to do about Joe Manchin …”
“Eff Joe Manchin,” said the president.
“Well, yes sir. Sure. We can come back to that. And we have to determine what concessions we can get on climate change from …”
“Eff climate change.”
“What? Sir, please … What about your trip to Europe in two weeks? You’re meeting the pope.”
“JEN, you’re not understanding me. There is only one issue we need to deal with right now … and that’s Brian Kelsey.”
“Who?”
“Brian Kelsey, the Tennessee state senator who lives in Nashville and represents Germantown. He’s the key to everything. If we can bring down Brian Kelsey, it all falls into place! We’ll be able to get full socialism, at last — gun bans, knife bans, in-utero vaccinations, $50-an-hour minimum wage for Black people, forced healthcare for the sick, the teaching of facts and science in public schools, required face masks for pets, all of it.”
“I had no idea,” said Psaki.
“Oh yeah,” said the president. “Kelsey’s the head of the snake. That’s why I’m announcing today the launch of a top-secret federal plan to take him out. It’s called ‘Operation Let’s Go, Brian.’ That little rat bastard’s going down like the Titanic.”
I may have made up some of the above material. Or all of it. But after seeing Brian Kelsey’s overwrought, self-righteous reaction to the announcement that he’d been indicted on five federal felony counts of campaign fraud last week, it’s clear he’d love us to believe it.
“Look, this is nothing but a political witch hunt,” Kelsey said when the indictments were announced. “The Biden administration is trying to take me out because I’m conservative and I’m the number-one target of the Tennessee Democratic Party.”
Really? This presumes that a) Joe Biden has actually ever heard of Tennessee state senator Brian Kelsey, which is doubtful; and b) that even if he had heard of him, he would have been able to launch an investigation in 2017, when the FBI began looking into Kelsey’s case and when a certain orange-haired former president was in charge of the Justice Department. In short, Kelsey is spewing horse puckey.
His case stems from 2016, when Kelsey was making a run for Congress and attempted to switch funds he’d raised for his state races to an account for his federal race, which is a federal crime. The grand jury that indicted Kelsey alleges that he laundered the money by using state campaign funds to “buy” a membership into a Nashville supper club, which then conveniently made a like donation to Kelsey’s Congressional campaign fund. Slick, if true. And I’m guessing it is, since a number of Republicans are facing similar allegations regarding this “supper club.”
And, as is usual for Republicans these days, Kelsey immediately played the victim card, claiming persecution by the current GOP whipping boy, President Biden. Let’s go, Brandon!
It’s really bad timing for Kelsey. He’ll be distracted from the “Right to Get Sick” special session currently going on in Nashville, in which Republicans are attempting to pass every possible measure they can think of to stop local health departments, private businesses, and government officials from mandating any precautions against any pandemics, current and future.
I can’t imagine anything stupider, but then again, I could have never imagined a major U.S. political party intentionally linking itself to the Dark Ages, eschewing science and reason and spreading ignorance and divisiveness — from the top of the party to obscure state senators from Tennessee.
Brian Kelsey says he’s innocent, and that President Joe Biden is out to get him. We know the latter statement is a lie. The jury is still out on the former.