Latest from Coffee House

Need a hit on Capitol Hill? Take your pick. Members and staffers alike are addicted to Twitter, where they log on for their daily stims of outrage. Cable news has also become a kind of drug, as congressmen stampede to the Fox News and CNN green rooms rather than go about the irritating business of legislating. But if we're looking for a way out of the present congressional gridlock, I think we need to turn to an older and wiser substance. "Alcoholism is as much of an occupational disease among politicians as black lung is among coal miners," Herman Talmadge once wrote. Talmadge, who served as a Georgia senator from 1957 to 1981, would know: he once took a month off from his senatorial responsibilities to get treated for alcoholism.

House Republicans are engaged in what military analysts call a "war of attrition." The winner is the side that can hold out the longest, or convince its opponent that it can. The reason the balloting for speaker has continued for so long is that both sides are trying to convince the other that they won't give in. In wars of attrition, firm resolve wins, but you have to convince your opponent that your resolve is stronger. That is exactly what is happening on ballot after ballot. The whole process is damaging the Republican Party, obviously, but that won't sway individual votes. What will sway them the prospect of members losing support within their own districts, or ending up on the losing side because their compatriots are losing support in their’s and cave.

If there was any question as to how tenuous would-be Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s grasp would be on the gavel, then what happened on New Year’s Day should remove all doubt. On Sunday, the House Republican leadership team unveiled significant changes to the House rules in advance of the official swearing-in and start of the 118th Congress. Many of the changes are aimed at improving transparency and governance. But one rule change that could be far more significant was the restoration of the “motion to vacate the chair.” Under the proposed rules package, five members of the majority conference can band together and force a vote of no confidence in the speaker.

2022 was another landmark year for DC’s most disheveled correspondent. He was outside the courthouse when Johnny Depp won his defamation suit, and outside the Supreme Court when Roe fell. He observed mourners for Queen Elizabeth in London, went to Congress with an NBA star, lifted the lid on the "toxic" work culture at the startup where Prince Harry "works," listened to too many episodes of his wife's podcast and debunked a flimsy hoax about Lauren Boebert. He quaffed his way through several Christmas parties, think-tank mixers, campaign fundraisers and conferences with national conservatives, Texas conservatives, libertarians and sexual deviants.

On Christmas Eve 1941, in Washington on a diplomatic mission to organize the support of Britain's American allies in the efforts to stop the Nazi menace, Winston Churchill was offered the opportunity to address the American people from the south portico of the White House. America as a nation had been attacked like never before just weeks earlier; the horrors of Pearl Harbor were on the minds of every patriot. It was rumored the annual Christmas Tree lighting would be canceled. Instead, 20,000 people came to see it, seeking some light in a very dark world. Just two days later, Churchill would deliver a historic political address in the US Senate chambers to a packed audience.

Who says Democrats and Republicans can’t find common ground? According to the Senate’s recent approval of the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, bipartisanship is still possible after all. There’s just something about dumping debt on the American people that brings both sides of the Swamp together. Chalk it up to holiday magic. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 68-29 and was met with a round of applause from antsy lawmakers determined to get out of DC before the incoming storm. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer heaped praise on soon-to-be retiring Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont for his work on the bill. “What a capstone to a brilliant career,” he gushed.