It’s official. Congress has become a clown college.

In the Senate, we have one member who’s been showing up looking like a hobo in a hoodie and shorts. Another nearly comatose member was wheeled in and out for votes until she finally keeled over for good on Friday. The minority leader is prone to weird freezing spells. Another corrupt member has a house full of cash and gold bars. He says he keeps his loot at home because of his Cuban heritage.

Nothing to see here.

Over in the House, one member set off a fire alarm on Saturday to delay a vote to prevent a government shutdown, then lied and claimed he didn’t know how fire alarms worked. A couple of weeks ago another House member - a family values mother of three - was caught on camera pawing her date’s crotch in a movie theater while he diddled her nipples. 

Now this: Agent of chaos Matt Gaetz, who clearly loathes Kevin McCarthy, engineered a coup against the speaker with just seven other malcontents. They sided with Democrats to get McCarthy out of the Speaker’s chair and then seemed perplexed about what would happen next.

Naturally, Gaetz had no play beyond the removal. The ringleader and his eight-member band of malcontents had no one ready to replace McCarthy. Yet Gaetz had accomplished what he’d set out to get: his moment in the spotlight. As he walked outside, the Florida congressman was besieged by reporters who dutifully scribbled down everything he said.

There is nothing the legacy media finds more delicious than Republicans eating each other. Just ask Mitt Romney, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.

With a massive invasion underway on our southern border, with drug cartels killing hundreds of Americans every day with fentanyl, with out-of-control crime ravaging our cities, with a serious impeachment inquiry underway in the House, and with the US debt spiraling by billions a week and with the critical 2024 elections just 13 months away, Gaetz chose this perilous moment to remind the country that the Republicans are not good at governing.

Smart, huh?

Oh and he also used the occasion to fund raise. I received two pleas for money just moments after the vote was called.

I think a lot of us watched the spectacle in the House on Tuesday with weary resignation. 

With McCarthy ousted, Patrick McHenry, one of McCarthy’s staunchest allies, took over as acting Speaker of the House. 

His gavel game was strong and seemed to sum up the mood of the country.