I Wonder What Else He Gave 'Em? And Will They Get It?

      As of late last night, the U. S. House of Representative has a Speaker -- if they can keep him.  And the members were finally sworn in, as opposed to being sworn at, and they can finally go to classified briefings and find out if Defense, CIA, FBI or NSA has the best coffee (my money's on NSA -- listening in on the world is sleepy work and you need the good stuff).

      Speaker McCarthy will be indebted to his party's fringe in a way that not even Speaker Pelosi was to her side's "Squad."  On the other hand, the House has not passed a rules package yet, so at this point all they've got are promises -- from a guy who has shown remarkable flexibility in recent years, changing his lukewarm allegiances with the speed and fluidity a weasel.  We may see even more drama yet to come and I wouldn't put away the popcorn just yet.

      Popcorn is all it's worth.  With a slender Democrat majority in the Senate and a slim Republican majority in the House, it's sideshow time, sword-swallowers, snake charmers and all.  What Congress can actually accomplish is likely to be bupkis.  They may get the Federal Gummint re-funded when the current budget runs out, and we'll just have to see what kind of mischief the House gets up with the debt limit, a poorly-understood, badly-explained bit of nation-state financial wizardry that does not do what it says on the label, and one which makes a dandy bloody shirt to wave for both Team Red and Team Blue.  Bear in mind as they yell and emote that all raising the debt limit does is let the Feds pay the tab they have already run up: the bottle is empty, the plates are bare, and here's the waiter with the bill. Pay it or run out the door?  Those are the options.  Maybe they shouldn't have ordered the foi gras lobster thermidor under gold foil and washed it down with $500 tumblers of whisky from a Japanese distillery that was taken apart two decades ago, but the deed is done.  The House GOP members like to posture about the debt limit, but check the votes, see who was all in favor of spending the money to begin with and the story changes: most spending bills have required some measure of bipartisan support to pass, and that was the time to get serious about fiscal restraint.

      The Republican Party has lost any claim to be "the party that wants to leave people alone."  Ask the Georgia poll workers who are still the subject of long-debunked, reality-free accusations about that; ask any of the minorities GOP pols revile in their speeches.  Oh, sure, today's Republican party will leave some people alone, but so will the Dems.  I'd say that I'm not seeing a dime's worth of difference between their actions -- but the Democrats aren't claiming some vast, shadowy conspiracy has stolen elections from them, and they've done a much better job of keeping a lid on their fools and flakes.  I don't agree that an unlimited government is an unlimited good, but at least they're upfront about it.

      Other than a few key items that must get through Congress, we're probably better off with the House and Senate closely balanced and at loggerheads with one another.  If they can't do much, they can't do much harm -- but some Senators and Representatives seem to be intent on doing every bit of harm they can manage.  If we tend to elect Congressthings who truly represent the majority in our states and our districts, then the majority of us are assholes.  And that's probably true.

      I know the Framers were intent on inventing a Federal government that didn't require noble philosopher-kings to make it work.  I hope they were clever enough to come up with one that couldn't be wrecked by everyday horse's rears -- but every election seems to give rise to new, improved office-holder assholery, no matter which party manages a majority.