Worst. Congress. Ever. By Dana Milbank

[sinkingfeeling]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/15/worst-congress-ever-house-gop-biden-impeachment/?utm_campaign=wp_week_in_ideas&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_ideas

What do House Republicans have to show the voters for their year in power? A bipartisan debt deal (on which they promptly reneged) to avoid a default crisis that they themselves created. A pair of temporary spending bills (both passed with mostly Democratic votes) to avert a government-shutdown crisis that they themselves created. The ouster of their speaker, nearly a month-long shutdown of the chamber as they sought another, and the expulsion of one of their members, who is now negotiating himself a plea deal.

Among the 22 bills in 2023 that became law as of this week was landmark legislation such as: H.R. 3672, “To designate the clinic of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Indian River, Michigan, as the ‘Pfc. Justin T. Paton Department of Veterans Affairs Clinic.’” Also, H.R. 5110, the “Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act,” which authorizes federal education funds “to purchase or use dangerous weapons” for instruction.

As the year ends, Ukraine will have to wait for more ammo. The federal government will have to wait for its 2024 funding to be settled. But there was one priority so urgent that it absolutely could not wait until after vacation, and it united every single Republican in the caucus. The day before skipping town, they voted in an entirely party-line vote of 221-212 to put the House on an all-but-inevitable course toward impeaching Biden for the high crime and misdemeanor of having a drug-addicted son.

At Tuesday’s debate on the impeachment resolution before the Rules Committee, Democrats exhausted their thesauruses in denouncing the move: sham, stunt, ludicrous, lie, pathetic joke, colossal waste of time. “We are here because Donald Trump ordered you to be here,” said the ranking Democrat, Jim McGovern (Mass.).

Democrat Eric Swalwell (Calif.) congratulated Republicans for their dogged pursuit of the president’s son. “I want to give James Comer some credit,” he told the House, “because after 50,000 pages of depositions and secret hearings and closed hearings, I think if we give him enough time, he is going to prove that Hunter Biden is Joe Biden’s son.”

After the do-nothingest congressional session in U.S. history, that might go down as their most notable achievement.

[calimary]

1. We need LOTS of these. LOTS of editorials and commentaries on this.

Pound the messaging in!

Let’s make sure this will set back the GOP for YEARS to come.

[Sneederbunk]

2. Truman ran on a "do nothing Congress" and won.

[BOSSHOG]

3. Is a do nothing gop congress

Better then one which would have done any fucking thing they wanted to do? I appreciate their efforts in putting themselves in a horrible light. While doing nothing. And minimal harm to date. It’s like a Moms for liberty gala threesome until the Republican is accused of rape. And the leader of the accused rapists party starts channeling hitler. And Lindsay graham lies on a Sunday show. And running boy Hawley cowers like a whipped pup. Gosh what will they do next week.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

4. The Congress of 1860 was worse IMO

This one's maybe 1859 or so