Tuesday's episode of Legislative Jackasses On Parade comes to us from the House of Representatives, where the Republican minority caucus seems to have dined on a robust breakfast of psilocybin mushrooms and locoweed. It seems like every committee hearing now turns into a farce, because the Republicans are trying to figure out how best to defend a vulgar talking yam while simultaneously getting themselves out from under the general calamity. The effort that takes could break a fella, no doubt.

Act One occurred at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee that was supposed to deal with the oil industry and the climate crisis. Instead, the Republicans insisted on moving to adjourn, ostensibly to convenience the members of the committee who also are members of the committees dealing with the impeachment probe. (This did not include Rep. Alex Mooney, Republican of West Virginia, who thought he'd bum-rush the hearing at which Alexander Vindman was being deposed. Jesus, these people.) But the attempt to adjourn, a motion from Congressman Paul Gosar, the Arizonan whose family hates him, drew fire from chairman Harley Rouda and from AOC. From Raw Story:



“We’re here to talk about the very pressing issue of cutting our carbon emissions and saving our planet,” [AOC] continued, “and we have an entire political party that’s trying to get out of their job, adjourn this hearing, and I just want to know what the reason for such a disrespect of our process would potentially be.”

“Do we have a reason for why this hearing is trying to be adjourned, or do we have just, like, a cocktail party to go to?” Ocasio-Cortez added.



The motion to adjourn failed along party lines, and committee chairman Rep. Harley Rouda (D-CA) laid into his GOP colleagues for their attempted stunt. “I have to say I’m very disappointed in these antics,” he said. “I have been in the SCIF room for many of these depositions, and many of the members that are afforded the ability from this committee to go there have not been in many of those depositions.”

Rouda was having none of it. Mario Tama Getty Images

“The fact that they seem to want to make it an issue now clearly shows they care more about process and trying to prevent the good work of this committee to do the investigative work it is obligated to do under the Constitution to protect the president at all costs, instead of doing their duty, is disappointing,” Rouda added. “The fact that we have several members here that have been to this (Environment) Subcommittee meeting for the first time ever is incredibly disappointing.”



Over at the House Veterans Affairs Committee, which, usually, is an oasis of relative peace and bipartisan comity, they were preparing to mark up the Deborah Sampson Act, a bill that would lower many of the barriers that exist for female veterans to obtain the benefits they need. But then...from the Military Times:

The dispute came as members debated a women veterans policy bill that Republicans said they generally support. But after their efforts to amend the legislation with a pair of unrelated proposals — one on VA day care credentialing issues, one on veterans firearm possession rights — were gaveled down by committee chairman Mark Takano, D-Calif., the caucus left the room mid-vote.

Chip Roy caused plenty of trouble. Congressional Quarterly Getty Images

And now, here comes a refrain to which we all better become accustomed because every Republican in the House—and, probably, every Republican in the Senate, too—is going to be using it as an alibi for the foreseeable future: the impeachment inquiry has "poisoned the atmosphere in Congress" and every Democratic chairman who tries to act like a chairman is Adam Schiff's doppelganger.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said Takano is trying to “shut down debate just like Chairman (Adam) Schiff,” the California Democrat who is leading the House Intelligence Committee’s inquiry. Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., said he is dismayed to see the veterans panel acting “like other committees.”

Oh, it's going to be a divine few months in the People's House, isn't it? Luckily, Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is fully capable of keeping order in the Wild Kingdom, especially now that the Democratic caucus has given us the outline for a public process that McCarthy has been demanding for over a month.

Well, no...From Law and Crime:

“You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. A due process starts at the beginning. It doesn’t affirm a miss, sham investigation all the way through,” McCarthy said, before broaching an even more abstruse legal doctrine known as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” The term, first coined in 1939, is a legal metaphor used to describe illegally obtained evidence that must be excluded at trial. “If you were in the legal term, it’d be the fruit from the poisonous tree; it’d be a mistrial. None of this information would go forward,” McCarthy said.

None of these people know when to shut up. It's amazing.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io