Rep. Victoria Spartz was hopping mad.
“We cannot have these kangaroo courts — it’s unacceptable,” the Indiana Republican declared this week. Her criticism was all the more biting because she directed it at the Chief Marsupial of this particular tribunal, Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
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Why such indignation aimed at her fellow Republican? It turns out Spartz possesses that rarest of attributes among her colleagues: intellectual consistency.
Two years ago, when the Democratic House ousted two Republicans from committees for glorifying violence against their colleagues, McCarthy (Calif.) railed against the removals as evidence of a “broken Congress.” Now, voters have given McCarthy the majority — and he is doing exactly that which he decried: He has already removed two Democrats from committees without due process, and he plans to evict a third.
“Speaker McCarthy needs to stop ‘bread and circuses’ in Congress and start governing for a change,” Spartz said in a statement objecting to the “charade” of kicking members off their committees.
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It was an apt invocation of the Roman writer Juvenal’s lament 2,000 years ago that the people had abdicated their duties as citizens of the Republic in favor of “bread and circuses” provided by their imperial rulers.
Emperor McCarthy grinned when Spartz’s words were read to him this week. Asked how he would respond, he replied, “Not at all.”
In truth, the new majority doesn’t have much bread to dole out (aside from the free doughnuts and Chick-fil-A that Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) offered reporters this week in lieu of answers about his fabricated life story). But it has more clown acts than could fill the Circus Maximus.
In a column earlier this month, I referred to the growing number of “bomb throwers” in the House GOP caucus. It was more accurate than I knew.
Freshman Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) this week celebrated his appointment on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees by handing out grenades to members of Congress. He wrote in a note accompanying the munitions that “it is my pleasure to give you a 40mm grenade, made for a MK19 grenade launcher” (not included), as the Daily Mail’s Morgan Phillips first reported. Only at the bottom of the page would recipients find an asterisk labeling the weapon “inert.”
This is not Mills’s first stint as arms dealer: He previously claimed to have “sold tear gas used on Black Lives Matter protesters.”
When it comes to productivity, though, the new majority is so far unarmed. McCarthy berated the previous Congress for failing to deal with the “chaos on the southern border,” “out-of-control crime” and the economy. So what is he doing about those issues now?
As for crime, the new majority had to pull two pro-police bills from the floor over internal Republican disagreements.
As for the economy, Republicans are squabbling over a bill imposing a national sales tax, which McCarthy promised the far right he would bring to the floor.
And their plan to address “chaos on the southern border” has itself devolved into chaos.
Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio) announced that the House Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing next week on “The Biden Border Crisis.” In case that’s too subtle, seven immigration hard-liners assembled in the House TV studio this week and alleged that President Biden is running “narco-slavery support programs.” Hopefully, Biden will tell us more about these exciting initiatives in his State of the Union address!
But the new majority isn’t actually doing anything about the border. The GOP border bill, which McCarthy promised to bring to the floor as a condition for securing the speakership, is now bogged down in intraparty disagreements. When the seven hard-liners were asked about the endangered legislation, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) acknowledged: “I’m not sure where negotiations stand.”
Greg Sargent: Biden just outmaneuvered MAGA Republicans — and they barely noticed
Allow me to bring her up to speed.
Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, co-chair of the Republicans’ Congressional Hispanic Conference, complains that the GOP bill is “not Christian” and “very anti-American,” and he worries the party is being “hijacked” by those who would block all asylum seekers, who include unaccompanied children and victims of torture and human trafficking.
The bill’s author, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), retorted that the current system is what’s “un-Christian” and that “I’m tired of Republicans using rhetoric that is actually not addressing the problem.”
While Republicans have so far stalled on crime, the economy and the border, they are moving ahead rapidly with more pressing matters — such as Hunter Biden’s artwork.
Chairman James Comer (Ky.) of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee fired off a letter Wednesday demanding information from the Georges Bergès Gallery about paintings done by the president’s son — what the Wall Street Journal called a “mixture of ink and acrylic on metal, depicting abstract flowers and trees.”
In the letter, Comer (his training is in agriculture) played art appraiser, declaring prices for the younger Biden’s work “exorbitant.” He wants answers from Hunter Biden’s dealer (art, not drugs) by Feb. 8. That is also the day Comer’s committee plans to hold a hearing on another matter of national urgency: Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“We cannot have these kangaroo courts — it’s unacceptable,” the Indiana Republican declared this week. Her criticism was all the more biting because she directed it at the Chief Marsupial of this particular tribunal, Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
Why such indignation aimed at her fellow Republican? It turns out Spartz possesses that rarest of attributes among her colleagues: intellectual consistency.
Two years ago, when the Democratic House ousted two Republicans from committees for glorifying violence against their colleagues, McCarthy (Calif.) railed against the removals as evidence of a “broken Congress.” Now, voters have given McCarthy the majority — and he is doing exactly that which he decried: He has already removed two Democrats from committees without due process, and he plans to evict a third.
“Speaker McCarthy needs to stop ‘bread and circuses’ in Congress and start governing for a change,” Spartz said in a statement objecting to the “charade” of kicking members off their committees.
Follow Dana Milbank's opinionsFollow
It was an apt invocation of the Roman writer Juvenal’s lament 2,000 years ago that the people had abdicated their duties as citizens of the Republic in favor of “bread and circuses” provided by their imperial rulers.
Emperor McCarthy grinned when Spartz’s words were read to him this week. Asked how he would respond, he replied, “Not at all.”
In truth, the new majority doesn’t have much bread to dole out (aside from the free doughnuts and Chick-fil-A that Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) offered reporters this week in lieu of answers about his fabricated life story). But it has more clown acts than could fill the Circus Maximus.
In a column earlier this month, I referred to the growing number of “bomb throwers” in the House GOP caucus. It was more accurate than I knew.
Freshman Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) this week celebrated his appointment on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees by handing out grenades to members of Congress. He wrote in a note accompanying the munitions that “it is my pleasure to give you a 40mm grenade, made for a MK19 grenade launcher” (not included), as the Daily Mail’s Morgan Phillips first reported. Only at the bottom of the page would recipients find an asterisk labeling the weapon “inert.”
This is not Mills’s first stint as arms dealer: He previously claimed to have “sold tear gas used on Black Lives Matter protesters.”
When it comes to productivity, though, the new majority is so far unarmed. McCarthy berated the previous Congress for failing to deal with the “chaos on the southern border,” “out-of-control crime” and the economy. So what is he doing about those issues now?
As for crime, the new majority had to pull two pro-police bills from the floor over internal Republican disagreements.
As for the economy, Republicans are squabbling over a bill imposing a national sales tax, which McCarthy promised the far right he would bring to the floor.
And their plan to address “chaos on the southern border” has itself devolved into chaos.
Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio) announced that the House Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing next week on “The Biden Border Crisis.” In case that’s too subtle, seven immigration hard-liners assembled in the House TV studio this week and alleged that President Biden is running “narco-slavery support programs.” Hopefully, Biden will tell us more about these exciting initiatives in his State of the Union address!
But the new majority isn’t actually doing anything about the border. The GOP border bill, which McCarthy promised to bring to the floor as a condition for securing the speakership, is now bogged down in intraparty disagreements. When the seven hard-liners were asked about the endangered legislation, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) acknowledged: “I’m not sure where negotiations stand.”
Greg Sargent: Biden just outmaneuvered MAGA Republicans — and they barely noticed
Allow me to bring her up to speed.
Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, co-chair of the Republicans’ Congressional Hispanic Conference, complains that the GOP bill is “not Christian” and “very anti-American,” and he worries the party is being “hijacked” by those who would block all asylum seekers, who include unaccompanied children and victims of torture and human trafficking.
The bill’s author, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), retorted that the current system is what’s “un-Christian” and that “I’m tired of Republicans using rhetoric that is actually not addressing the problem.”
While Republicans have so far stalled on crime, the economy and the border, they are moving ahead rapidly with more pressing matters — such as Hunter Biden’s artwork.
Chairman James Comer (Ky.) of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee fired off a letter Wednesday demanding information from the Georges Bergès Gallery about paintings done by the president’s son — what the Wall Street Journal called a “mixture of ink and acrylic on metal, depicting abstract flowers and trees.”
In the letter, Comer (his training is in agriculture) played art appraiser, declaring prices for the younger Biden’s work “exorbitant.” He wants answers from Hunter Biden’s dealer (art, not drugs) by Feb. 8. That is also the day Comer’s committee plans to hold a hearing on another matter of national urgency: Hunter Biden’s laptop.
