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Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., attends NCAA Wrestling Championships, March 18, 2023, in Tulsa, Okla. A Tuesday hearing in the Senate devolved into an angry confrontation between Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma and International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. Mullin challenged the Teamsters leader to “stand your butt up” and settle longstanding differences right there in the room.
If children behaved this way at school, they’d get expelled.
But even third graders are more mature than this current crop of radioactive Republicans who govern as if inspired by “The Jerry Springer Show.” Somewhere, I hope Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan are sipping hot cocoa and playing Parcheesi. I hope they are doing anything except lamenting the putrid rot of their once grand party.
On Tuesday, it was hard to differentiate between the GOP and UFC. As ABC News reported: “Several skirmishes broke out on Capitol Hill on Tuesday with tempers flaring across both chambers … Accusations of a former House speaker elbowing a member. A senator challenging a witness to a physical fight during a hearing. And that was all before two members of the House Judiciary Committee got into a shouting match.”
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by this intramural mayhem when the Republican cult leader is a twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted grifter, charlatan and ongoing threat to democracy. To blindly follow a crook is to end up crooked.
But let’s start with Tuesday’s allegation of physical assault.
It came from Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who says he was in a corridor chatting with an NPR reporter when party colleague and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy pulled a Randy Savage and launched a flying elbow into his kidneys.
McCarthy denied it, telling ABC: “I would not hit him in the kidney.”
But as any detective knows, such an ambiguous denial warrants further interrogation: “Sir, forget the kidney. Is it possible you punched him in the pancreas? Slapped his spleen? Karate chopped his gallbladder? Drop-kicked his buttocks?”
In response to this GOP-on-GOP violence, Republican Matt Gaetz filed an ethics complaint, which is like Wonder Woman calling for a ban on invisible jets. If surgeons removed every ethical bone in Mr. Gaetz’s body, they’d end up with a big bag of nothing.
That slimeball would betray his granny for a tube of hair gel.
Alas, the Senate wasn’t any more civilized on Tuesday. At one point during a hearing, Republican Markwayne Mullin stood up to threaten fisticuffs with witness Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters president. I don’t know. Something-something about past tweets.
ABC reprinted the exchange like it was trash talk before a welterweight bout.
Mullin: “Sir, this is a time, this is a place. You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults — we can finish it here.”
O’Brien: “OK, that’s fine. Perfect.”
Mullin: “You want to do it right now?”
O’Brien: “I’d love to do it right now.”
Mullin: “Well, stand your butt up then.”
Poor Bernie Sanders. He must feel like he’s trapped in a never-ending season of “Big Brother.” He banged his gavel and told Mullin to sit down. But in a media scrum later, Mullin did not seem to grasp why a beat down may be unbecoming for a Senator.
“People have been fighting for a long time,” he told reporters, his eyelids shrugging. “I mean, go back to the 1800s … it was legal to do duels.”
Yeah, and slavery was once legal. You could once transport children through the mail. This is one of 100 senators expected to help lead the free world? A guy who fancies himself a reincarnated Sam Houston? A hothead who yearns for the good old days of quickdraws, moonshine, nostrums, no indoor plumbing and bubonic plagues?
At this rate, in a few years the GOP will be reduced to a handful of QAnon holdouts who believe oxygen is a Marxist threat and all school books should be colouring bibles.
Mommy, why does Baby Jesus have an AR-15?
But I’d like to propose a fix to this broken Republican party: “Supernanny.”
Remember that reality show? The one in which a real life Mary Poppins named Jo Frost stormed dysfunctional households to bring structure and routine and discipline?
The GOP needs a Supernanny real bad.
Senior Republicans should find Ms. Frost and offer her truckloads of gold bullion until she agrees to help with child-rearing as it applies to childish politicos. If your House is in disarray, you need a fresh set of eyes and a stern taskmaster to call the BS.
When Marjorie Taylor Greene starts running her yap about stolen elections or Jewish space lasers, Supernanny will give her a timeout. Supernanny will teach Lauren Boebert about appropriate behaviour in public, which does not include heavy petting at a performance of “Beetlejuice.” Supernanny will help Tommy Tuberville understand why his blockade on military promotions amounts to a suicide mission for America.
Supernanny will potty-train Josh Hawley.
Then Supernanny will call Dear Leader into the wood-panelled basement, where she will slap that KFC Twister out of his hand and read him the riot act: “Every word out of your mouth is a lie. You are a bully. You know why you lost the election? You are a highly unpleasant imbecile. You can’t read. You can’t spell. If you could do basic math, you wouldn’t be in so such legal trouble. And where is Melania? She makes fewer public appearances than Punxsutawney Phil. Go to your room and no cable news for you!”
I didn’t even get to the part on Tuesday when a Republican called a Democrat a Smurf.
The GOP once believed they were the adults in the room. No more.
Stand your butt up, Republicans, and tell the kids to knock it off already.
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Credit belongs to : www.thestar.com
