What, in Speaker Kevin McCarthy's opinion, is "a little chaos"? A Republican House so inexpressibly, ahem, fouled up; so divided and angry; so self-gridlocked and resentful and pissed at Kevin, yesterday it had to shut down for the week's remainder — and Monday is questionable.
Yes, "There’s a little chaos going on," said McCarthy, who otherwise admitted that he was "blindsided" by his own members in the Freedom Caucus, which has all other House members in an uproar, too.
If the speaker believed his leadership troubles were over after passing the debt-limit bill by a surprise supermajority, he was wickedly mistaken. The Freedom Caucusers are throwing the grandaddy of all temper tantrums; they're voting en masse against a rule that would permit the House to proceed with any other bill.
The enduring rift has caused the lower chamber to be "effectively frozen," reports The Washington Post. Doubts abound about the possibility of any legislation passing "for the foreseeable future."
To be gratuitously clear, this is not a bad news kind of reporting. At least for a while, America is safe from House Republicans exercising their very unique brand of governance, which is always the equivalent of a monstrous foreign attack.
We thank the Freedom Caucusers, heroes all.
These gentlemen of assbackward chivalry are particularly cranked that Speaker McCarthy violated, or so they say, his job-seeking pledge to reject any bill that lacks unanimous Republican support on the Rules Committee. The debt-ceiling bill met that disqualifying condition, and now the Freedom Caucus is itself seeking revenge — by doing America a huge favor.
The beleaguered speaker of the House is vexed beyond words, except for saying the disgruntled members "don’t know what to ask for." That's a rather McCarthy-muddled way of saying, as the Post does, that "different members want different things," and this "mak[es] it more difficult to address their concerns."
Some, led by Georgia's Andrew Clyde, want to urinate on the ATF's new rule that regulates pistol braces, which convert handguns into shoulder-held firearms. A little something for Lauren Boebert's kids for Christmas. Others want the Hyde Amendment codified in perpetuity, so that the Boeberts of the world will keep procreating generations of imbeciles, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it in a related instance.
Yet other Republicans, the soi-disant "moderates," are demanding to know what in hell is happening. They're wanting to go crazy and perhaps pass a bill that has something to do with, oh, maybe average voters' concerns? Said one, Rep. Steve Womack: "This is, in my opinion, political incontinence on our part. We are wetting ourselves and can’t do anything about it. This is insane."
He added that "This is not the way a governing majority is expected to behave. And frankly, I think there’ll be a political cost to it." A lot of pundits always agree, but voters fool them every time.
For a few days, though, we can rest easy. Thanks to the Freedom Caucus, the Republican House is blessedly paralyzed, divided against itself.