Heather Digby Parton, writing in Salon.com, calling for House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson to put on his big boy pants and fund government operations, which are about to shut down soon:
"Here we are again looking right down the barrel of a government shutdown because one-half of one of the three branches of the federal government is completely dysfunctional under GOP leadership.
We're talking about the Republican House of Representatives of course. They are simply incapable of passing legislation. 2023 was the least productive year since the Great Depression with Congress passing just 27 pieces of legislation that became law. In 1948 President Harry Truman famously called the legislative branch the "Do Nothing Congress" because they only managed to pass 511 bills.
This is the third time in six months that the country has been on the brink of a shutdown because the hard right in the House is holding their breath until they turn blue. It's not clear what they want except perhaps to cause more chaos. The last time it cost Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., his job as Speaker of the House and the same fate may very await current Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., as well. There's nothing in his performance so far that suggests he has the skill or the desire to finesse this situation." (our emphasis)
Of course, many of the nihilistic clowns in the MAGA / Putinist caucus thrive on chaos, just like their cult leader the Malignant Loser, and won't do anything he doesn't want them to do (including shutting down the Veterans Administration, cutting food safety inspections, and a thousand other functions of government). When Johnson met with President Biden and Congressional leaders yesterday, all pressured him to let the Ukraine / Israel / Taiwan aid bill go to the floor for a vote, and true to form Johnson used the southern border situation as a counter -- a situation that the Malignant Loser wants to fester in order to use as a bogus election issue.
