Hilarity in the House

Let’s take a moment to thank the humor gods for sending us last month’s C-SPAN coverage of all the tomfoolery in the House of Representatives. Only during the election of the House Speaker is C-SPAN allowed to let the cameras show us everything going on in that big room we’re paying for, filled with all those people we’re paying to raise our taxes—which we also pay for.

Normally, C-SPAN is prohibited from showing us the House floor during those long, boring speeches that congress-critters love to give. That’s because the vast majority of them are speaking to a completely empty room. Of course, they don’t want you to know the room is empty because it makes them look even sillier than usual.

Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama, is the lovesick Kevin McCarthy admirer who wears a toupee that looks like he runs it through his dishwasher. C-SPAN showed him on the teevee lunging for fellow Republican Matt Gaetz after Gaetz helped sink McCarthy’s 14th attempt to be elected as the House Speaker.

After Rogers lunged at Gaetz, North Carolina Republican Richard Hudson pulled Rogers out of the confrontation (which we call a bayou brawl down here in the swamps). What words were spoken between the two are nunaya business, but we can assume they stank like fried gym socks. But that wasn’t enough embarrassment for the Republicans. Oh, no.

Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett later told a CNN reporter, “People shouldn’t be drinking, especially when you’re a redneck, on the House floor.”

Tennessee Republicans are a refined bunch, ain’t they? You gotta wonder if Burchett’s quote was inspired by Jack Daniels or Jim Beam.

My friend Juanita Jean at the beauty salon has some good advice for these characters. Juanita’s Rule states that rednecks should not be drinking, period. You give them fellas some hooch, and the next thing you know they’re dressed up in jackbooted Daniel Boone outfits whipping up a Capitol insurrection.

Darlin’, let’s be honest about this thing. We’ve got about as much chance as a wax cat in hell once these folks start drinking. Marjorie Taylor Green is about two beers away from demanding neon lighting for the House chamber, and two beers might get our own Rep. Chip Roy from West Texas to put mechanical bulls on the protected species list.

But there’s more to the story: Rep. Burchett then told that CNN reporter, “I would drop Rogers like a bag of dirt. Nobody’s gonna put their hands on me. Nobody’s gonna threaten me!” Burchett seems oblivious to the fact that nobody even wants to touch him. And he was the sober one in this episode?

But let’s admit it—we depend on the Republican Party to supply a few bozos in each legislative session who can distract us from the sorry state of the world.

It was a sad day when Rep. Madison Cawthorn lost his North Carolina re-election bid. Cawthorn thrilled us all with allegations of congressional insider trading and sexual hanky panky—and he even brought a loaded handgun to the airport and appeared in a buckass nekkid video.

We’ve also lost Louie Gohmert, the East Texas congress-critter who did not believe in science, but did believe the 2022 election was stolen. He’s the one who seriously asked if we could alter the orbit of the earth or the moon to reduce climate change. Damn, we’re gonna miss him.

But nature abhors a vacuum, as they say, so the Republicans have come through again and given us that lying congressvarmint George Santos of New York.

Mere moments after pretty much every Republican official in his home district called for his resignation, Santos decided to pick a fight with fellow Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger. When Kinzinger tweeted that Santos should resign, Santos replied: “Go on CNN and cry about it.”

Well, that’s just real damn friendly, and very helpful. Welcome, George, we’ve been waiting for you!

Susan Bankston lives in Richmond, Texas, where she writes about her hairdresser at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., at juanitajean.com.

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